My ABC's

I was inspired to do this after seeing it in a blog I found.  Check out her post.  LOVE her blog!  

A - Age: 29

B - Bed size: Queen

C - Chore you hate: Loading and Unloading the dishwasher...it feels like this is ALL I EVER do....

D - Dad's Name: James

E - Essential start your day item: To Do List

F - Favorite tv show?: Summertime Show: 90210 (the new one)

G - Gold or Silver: Silver/White Gold/Platinum

H - Height: 5' 1" but I lie and say 5' 2" :0/

I - Instruments you play(ed):  None.  I wanted to play the flute in Junior High but the band teacher told me my teeth were too crooked (this was pre-braces)

J - Job title: Wife, Stepmommy and Technical Specialist

K - Kid(s): 1 Stepson, 1 Dog and 1 Cat.  Oh, and a husband

L- Living arrangement: Home Sweet Home

M - Mom's name: Doris

N - Nicknames: Lopsided Stepmom

O - Overnight hospital stays other than birth: Various ailments growing up

P - Pet Peeve: Liars and people who use incorrect grammar 

Q - Quotes you like: "Whatever!"

R - Right or left handed: Right handed

S - Siblings: 2 half sisters and a half brother 

T - Time you wake up: Between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m. 

U- Ultimate Dessert: Plain Cheesecake...and cheesecake icecream.  I know, very boring

V - Vegetable you dislike: Turnip Greens

W - Ways you run late: Having to get little mand and hubby ready to go somewhere.  Oh, and Facebook

X - X-rays you've had: Back, I've been having back issues lately

Y - Yummy food you make: Shrimp Primavera

Z - Zoo Animal: Monkeys 

Lunch

Little man made my lunch today.  Everything had it's own Ziploc baggie.  Awesomeness.  <3

Courage

"Courage doesn't always roar.  Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow'".  ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Food + Face = Watch Out

Wondering how many carbs I can stuff into my face at one time...if you have a cupcake, watch out.  I'm liable to tear it away from your hands and shove it into my mouth whole.

This Pretty Much Sums It Up

What a Fabulous Idea

http://www.kauzbots.com/

You Know What's Weird??

Walking around with one contact in and contact out.  Yeah....very strange....

Better

Although still not 100%. I'm sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office waiting to be seen. It's funny. Somehow I always seems to have a complete and total melt down the day before I have this appointment. Every month, like clockwork. Now, I had forgotten about this appointment until about 2 hours ago so I don't think the two are related. Just a coincidence perhaps. I've had a really, really rough week and it seems a lot of other people are having horrible weeks as well which is odd. Almost like the universe is out of balance or something cosmic-y is going on. A friend of mine from work has been in and out of the hospital the past week with her father in law who keeps falling and breaking his hip. This last time the doctor has decided he is not going to operate so we have to hope and pray it heals on its own.


It made me start thinking about my soon to be father in law, who passed away in September. It breaks my heart that he won't be at our wedding. Some days I almost get mad at him for not taking care of himself so he could be there. When we were going through all of the paperwork after he passed we ran across a physical he had gotten from a doctor that had recommended a trip to the doctor asap. It was from 4 years ago. We wonder if he kind of knew his end was near...


This of course makes me think of my own father and what I am going to do when his time comes. I worry that he won't make it to see his grandkids grow up, kind of like my aunt and uncle on his side didn't get to see their grandkids grow up. I guess that is one disadvantage to having children later in life.


Hubs wants to have children right away, however, I want to wait a year or so. He's already been married once and has a child with his ex-wife. I sometimes feel like I'm being short changed because he's already been there done that. Whereas I want to get married and bask in the married-ness and travel etc etc he wants to jump right into having kids. I guess I should just be thankful he even wants children.


Trying to keep my head above water this week which has been extremely difficult. Too much stress along with not enough sleep is apparently making me an unbearable person to live with. Hopefully after my melt down last night things will only start to look up! Headed in to see the doc now! :0) <3

Loving

I am LOVING what Reese has going on here:

You go girl.

Be a better spouse challenge Day 1: Let bygones be bygones

Be a better spouse challenge Day 1: Let bygones be bygones


Wondering how difficult this will be.


Totally up for the challenge though.

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." ~ Douglas Adams

Yeah, soooooooo, I've had a serious case of Cranker McCrankerpants the last few days.  It seems like all of a sudden the wedding vendors all want to be arseholes.  With only 11 days to go until the Big Day I'm in total freak the freaking a out mode.  Which, in terms of hubs, does not bode well, poor thing.  He gets to endure my rath, which, for the last two days has been unbearable even to me.


Saturday started off with a phone call from the venue who kindly informed me that the rehearsal dinner that we had already had to change due to their scheduling conflicts was going to have to change again.  Because the VP of the restaurant decided that they were going to change their plans from the next Monday to the Thursday before.  The.Day.Of.Our.Rehearsal.Dinner.  And the restaurant was going to be closed.  Even though I already had plans to have dinner there....


THEN, we followed that up with trip to the florist....who was running late...and hubs and I waited for at least thirty minutes.  While we were standing there waiting I received a phone call from the photographer who informed me that OH YEAH!  BY THE WAY!  The person who filled out and signed your contract did it WRONG and we are going to have to charge you MORE!  THAN!  THE!  SIGNED!  CONTRACT!  Good times...good times....


After I get off of the phone with the photographer the florist shows up and proceeds to tell me that yeah, he's not going to be able to have my flowers delivered on the day of the wedding.  That someone is going to have to pick up the flowers.  On the day of the wedding.  Because we don't have enough to do right now or the day of.....really????


So, yeah, a little stressed out at the moment.....grrrrrrrr......11 more days....11 more days......11 more days.....11 more days......

Etiquette Schmetiquette

I don't understand why people do not send thank you notes anymore.  I know I sound very old fashioned saying that.  Now don't get me wrong, I understand that sending out a thank you note for every.little.thing. would become extremely obnoxious and tedious.  I mean, sending out thank you notes for the big stuff.


Like for the gifts you receive when you get married.


Or when someone goes out of their way to do something nice for you.


I have girlfriends that have been married for months and even years and still have not sent out their thank you notes.  I just don't get it.


Also, how come no one RSVP's anymore?  Seriously, the card has a stamp on it already, more than likely is already addressed with the name and address of the person it needs to be returned to and yet people do not send them back.  People have spend their hard earned money to buy those stamps, dangit use them!


Now, I understand that if a friend throws you a party or something that maybe not everyone knows your friend, but at least let SOMEONE know you are either coming or not coming.


So, the point of my ramblings and such?  If someone sends you an RSVP, please send it back.  It saves a lot of OMG stress.  Besides, we LOVE getting them in the mail, it's fun! ;0)

Wedding Invitations

We ordered our wedding invitations through Alfred Angelo from a book that we borrowed from Al's Formal Wear.  The book was called "Exclusive Collection 2, Beyond the Invitation".  If you are looking for fun and "different" invitations, I highly recommend that you peruse this book.


Because how awesomely adorable are these???!!!

Have To Say

I am LOVING Jennifer Aniston's new haircut!

Operation Declutter # 1

So one of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to get better organized.  So far, it's a work in progress.  A very slow work in progress.


I have a confession: I am a coupon clipper.  I am that obnoxious person that everyone dreads to be standing behind in line at the checkout in the grocery store.  I love saving money.  I've been carrying around a little book that I had purchased from Hobby Lobby that was like a miniature accordion file with a little note pad stuck to one side of it.  Let me tell you, going to the grocery store with that thing was a complete nightmare.


I could never seem to get the coupons organized in that thing.  It always took me three times as long to go grocery shopping because I could never find the coupon I was looking for.


Well.  That was all about to change.  Last weekend a friend of mine posted a Facebook comment stating that she has a coupon BINDER.  An entire binder dedicated to nothing but coupons with dividers and everything.


O.M.G.  My prayers had been answered.  I couldn't wait to try this out so I immediately headed over to Staples to see about purchasing a new binder for my coupons.


I ended up buying a small purple binder with write on tabs.  I labeled the tabs by sections as follows:


Dairy
Meat
Produce
Breakfast
Beverages
Canned Goods
Grains
Sides
Condiments
Snacks
Frozen Foods
Medication
Paper/Plastic
Personal Hygeine
Cleaning Supplies
Pets
Home Goods (Air Freshner, etc)
Miscellaneous


Jennifer also suggested adding store specific tabs which will hold those coupons you get when you checkout.


I added:
Krogers
Target
Walgreens
Bed Bath and Beyond


I will say, this new binder made grocery shopping with coupons sooooooooooo much easier and faster.


Here is what mine looks like:

 This binder has saved me so much time!


I use the inside pocket of the binder to hold my grocery list so that it stays put until I go to the grocery store.


No more 3 hour trips to the grocery store yay!!  Thank you Jennifer!!

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways

I treated myself yesterday to a trip to the library.  I love, love, love the library, especially the one by our house.  I could spend months, weeks, days, hours in one.  You can find anything in the library.  I went there with the notion of getting this book.


A month or so ago I had gone into the library and checked out this book along with about 10 others that I had intended on reading.  Of course, with work, school, planning the wedding and spending time with the little man and hubs when he's not working, I didn't have enough time and knew I would never get through all of those books.


Well, yesterday someone posted on Facebook that she had read this book and absolutely loved it.  So, of course I had to go and get it.


I ended up with these books:
The Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom 


It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather B. Armstrong


There was another book but I can't remember the name offhand...


Anyway, I've started reading The Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom and I have to say, it's a fantastic read thus far.  I'm very picky when it comes to books.  It has to keep me interested from page one, I can't read a book if it can't keep my attention.


I am an avid reader of Heather Armstrong's website and I can't wait to read her book.  I've had her book on my MUST BUY list ever since it came out.


I didn't realize how hard it is to find books on step-parenting.  When you go into Borders or Barnes and Noble they don't have much of a selection.  I've found a few on Amazon.com, I will have to start looking there from now on.  Once I read all of the books in the library of course...


We had a very productive yet extremely busy weekend.  Hubs had to work on Saturday so it was just me and the little man all day.  He's going through his only wants to play video games phase and it's hard to not just let him sit there for hours at a time.  The video games are good babysitters I'm not going to lie.  So, instead, he got to go with me while I drove all over town running errands.  Poor thing, he probably thinks all we ever do is shop.


I had wanted to take him to the Children's Museum but there were several toys he had gotten for Christmas that he still hadn't opened so I compromised.  We could stay home but he had to play with his toys that he hadn't opened yet.  Come to find out he had some pretty cool stuff and he didn't even know it.  My mom bought him a Nerf Gun for Christmas, turns out it's "automatic", shoots like 10 rounds at a time.  Hubs and the little man had a field day when he got home from work.  Running around the house shooting at each other.  We went for a walk around the neighborhood, hubs and I walking while the little man rode his scooter he got for Christmas.  It was such a gorgeous day outside.  After that we had to get ready to take the little man back home to his Mom's :0( and then we went and took hubs' mom out for dinner for her birthday (which is today).  Happy Birthday Mom!!


Well, it's about three weeks until the wedding and there is still so much that needs to be done.  Getting out the first round of thank you notes from our wedding shower last weekend.  It feels good to get them sent out.  Slowly but surely getting things done.  School has been rough starting, for some reason the classes this semester are very "teams" oriented and no one is acting very "team" like.  Procrastination doesn't even begin to describe it.


Here's to hoping the rest of the week is as productive as yesterday was!!  :0)

10 Things

Things that are making me twitchy:
* Can't seem to find my camera ANYWHERE
* Motivation....where did it go??
* My cell phone grrrrrrrrr
* Facebook....what is up with all of the drama?
* The News


Things that are making me not-so-twitchy:
* Recipes
* Chocolate with icing (of course)
* Organizing
* The thought of using my new mixer
* Kitties and puppies....yes...I know...