New Year's reflections and resolutions

I've deleted and restarted this twice. Third times the charm . . .

Let me explain, no there is not enough time, let me sum up. (Princess Bride inspired)

Ate out too much and ate poorly at that.
Started photo album project, stopped ten yards from the finish line.
Joined a gym, worked out at least 75 times but most were ten to twenty minutes.
Started writing books, I don't write often enough to keep the ideas flowing.
Got a new haircut, but haven't donated the hair that Stacey and I hacked off yet.
Started getting better products to take care of my skin (hand soap wasn't cutting it). But only wash my face everyother night. (ick, right?)

I resolve to fix these issues and to add a few bigger goals that I want to be better at next year.

My health. This year is not starting off well. I feel rundown and sick to my stomach most days. I can barely drink a cup of coffee this morning. I want to look and feel better. I will take better care of this body that I have! This will be the year of getting back on track! We're talking about adding child number two, but if I can't take care of myself, how can I expect to have a healthy pregnancy?

Taking 'me' time. Jeff has over and over again said he will take time off for me to have me time. I resolve to take him up on that this year. So far I've requested a friday night to go to a Tastefully simple party at a friends house, where I won't have to take Alaina along after her bed time.

To sew more. Nothing in life brings me such joy as creating something for someone that I love with my own two hands. I already have a pattern for some summer clothes for Alaina and I resolve that I will make at least one outfit for her this year! I will also sew a duvet cover and bedskirt for the beautiful new bedrooms we will have this next year. Alaina is also in line to get new bedding.
And now I have exhausted all of my energy that I have for today. Stay strong and I will remember that a New Years resolution is a whole year's goal. Even if I fall of the wagon this next month. I have to climb back on again and again!

Staying Busy

It was a wonderful holiday! Here I am finishing up the first day back at work after Christmas and can't stop thinking about all I have to do! I need to get everything in order for the next year at the office, which I'm planning on devoting some extra hours to it since Alaina is staying with her grandparents for the rest of the week. but noone wants to hear about work. They want to hear about Christmas! Alaina made out like a bandit! She got a huge kitchen from Nana and Papa. Uncle Scott got her a neat book and two, yes two, sleds! Aunt Stacey spoiled her by giving her a ride in one in the middle of the living room! Aunt Stacey also got her a big bag of jewelry to play with! Add in a small farm play set and several other items that I'm having trouble remembering and she's set for quite a while! Lots of clothes and other cool items, etc.
And the best item that I received this year is something so silly everyone will laugh at me. Mom and I just finished wrapping the last of the gifts and started moving them to the living room when I saw a gift package with a box in it that said "Alton Brown" now if anyone you are big food network fans you know who he is. For those of you that don't, he hosts a couple of really cool shows! I of course start squealing, "Is That Mine? Is That For ME?" Mom tells me I shouldn't be peaking, but it was wrapped in a clear wrapper, so I think I'm okay. When we hand out the gifts, I get the package so its the first thing that I open when its my turn and I start sqealing again. Because of course I got the salt cellar that I've been hoping for! Rachel Ray and Alton Brown have awesome 'salt cellars' which are basically flip top salt holders so you can grab a pinch of salt without having to pour it out first. you just flip the top and grab what you need! I've been looking for one jsut like theirs and my sister in law and brother found it! I can't believe they found the exact one I wanted! Yay!
So of course later when we are going around the table saying what we are thankful for, I pipe in "my salt cellar!" While everyone else is saying the equivalent of "world peace."
Jeff and I also ended up getting all the pieces to Guitar Hero 1,2 and 3! Awesome! Hope everyone had a great holiday too!

One down . . .

We had the Brenneman family Christmas yesterday, it was fun. Hubby's cousin got engaged so we had a lot to celebrate. Before we came back, I went to the doctor again. He thinks I'm having problems with my stomach so I'm on a schedule of maalox and famotidine antacids. If I don't feel better later today, I have a prescription to fill and try. After that, I'm suppose to call on Monday and update the doc. All I know is I need some energy.Can anyone donate me some?
Oh and surprise Nana! Would you and Papa like to keep Alaina through Thursday morning? I'l try to call you later, but I keep forgetting, plus I know you check blogs several times a day!

Christmas pic

I recieved the email previews of Alaina's pics! Here's one for a sample! What a cutie! She smiled for almost every shot.

Santa and Baby!

Here's the pic of Alaina getting her gift from Santa.



And for your amusement. I found my cat climbing my wall to peep in the mirror last night. Our wicker wall paper is just perfect for it! She tried four time to get a good look at herself and actually made it to the mirror once. Go kitty!

Tired and weary

I'm sick of being sick! I went to the doctor yesterday and found out I have a bacterial infection, where you ask? You don't really want to know the answer my friends. Anyway, I told him I've had several episodes of the same thing over the last year and he was concerned that I might have an antibiotic resistant strain. Doesn't that sound peachy? I'm not contagious, but eating has become a trial. I have no appetite and basically I wait until I can't take it anymore and shove some food down to make it through the rest of the day. And we all agreed due to timing that I'm not pregnant, so get those thoughts out of your heads!
Anyway, the doc's doing a culture to see if it is a resistant strain and we'll go from there. If he can't find anything out and I have another bout of this, he's talking about all kinds of fun stuff like x-rays and other such inspiring things. Cool, huh?
The fun news is that daycare had a small program last night in which I was told the little kids didn't sing but were invited. The had them walk up to the front of the sanctuary (daycare is in a church) and stand while the big kids sang. Alaina had fun dancing to the music. And then it got weird. Santa came out and told the story about how he came about because of Jesus. It was the first time I ever heard of Santa telling a story about a brothel and torture. Holy cow! There were kids there! I would have walked out except for the fact that Alaina was fascinated by Santa. She ran to the front of the church to get a better look at him and inched her way over to get near him. She started pointing and hollering at me to look, and I tried not to laugh. It was a fun time, I just wish it wouldn't have taken so much energy to go. I have some pics I took but seriously, don't hold your breathe. I'm having trouble puttering around here peeps, so if you're lucky, they'll be up before the holidays.
p.s. I'm not pregnant for those of you who dared to ask.

Pics!

I almost forgot to mention! Alaina pic proofs came back from Daycare last Thursday and I was so dissapointed. There were suppose to be several proofs to choose from and we got one, and she wasn't even smiling. So I immediately started calling places to get new pics and JCPenny had an opening on Sunday. Alaina had just taken a nap and was all smiles. I was so excited, there were several good pics. They are suppose to be $10 a sheet so we went for five sheets, when we got to the register, our purchase rang up at $32. She didn't tell us they had a special going for $5 a sheet. If I would have known I would have gotten a few more sheets. Oh well. I don't know if I'll post them, but I'll try! They are really cute and should hopefuly be in before we head home for the holidays.

Happy Holidays!

So, I stayed home sick today from work. After a four hour sleep in and three pain pills, I was feeling quite a bit better. Enough to brave the cold and get those last two elusive gifts. Actually they were only elusive because every time hubby and I had time to go shopping, Jack Frost decided to snow on our parade! The stinker! Anyway, all of the christmas shopping is done for our family, I jsut have to make one Christmas gift for Grams and pick up two five dollar grab bags, but I don't count them yet, because they are for the weekend after Christmas, and its best to shop the post christmas sales for that!
I've been keeping up pretty well with the wrapping too! I'm excited that I'm staying a bit ahead of the game this year, but we'll see how things go this week. Hubby, Papa and Uncle Scott along with Uncle Larry added 2x8s to the ceiling of our bedrooms to get them up to code and then added a rail to the small steps leading out of our new sliding doors. Hopefully we can get them inspected this week and start adding the insulation. Its pretty cold with no insulation in those walls! Anyway, I have some laundry to fold before I go to bed. I hope everyone had a great weekend! Blog on!

I did it!

I'm so excited! I feel like I've just run a marathon! Not because I'm so tired, but because of the sense of accomplishment! I steam cleaned the carpet in my family room! How exciting! I guess it doesn't take much for me to get excited these days. I also finished wrapping the gifts that I had. All that's left is my mother and my mother's mother to do! (Do you like hearing that I saved the best for last Nana?) I'm pretty sure I know where to get them, its just finding the time to get there! Nana and Papa are coming down on Friday and Saturday this weekend. How exciting! Jeff, Uncle Scott and Papa are coming to help work on the house and Nana, Alaina and I will get to do girly stuff. Well, at least we'll get to play, eat and nap. We'll see about the rest.
Alaina got a gold star note in daycare. She was happy and all smiles all day yesterday. This morning however was a different story. She must have had a happiness hangover because she wasn't very happy to wake up and see daddy and me. She keeps waking up earlier and earlier this month. I can't decide if its because she's going to bed too early or too late.
Alaina's present that I ordered from Avon arrived today. I ordered her a book with a little light bright peg board attached at the top. It plays music and had stories about the Disney princesses in it. I'm excited to give it to her!

Fine!!!!

I'll have you know that I posted my picture of Alaina before I saw this Stacey! For those of you wanting to know what's going on, Stacey lets me use her photobucket account to get pics ready for my blog and today when I logged into the account I found this as the last loaded picture from her. I didn't see the personalized message until after I posted my pics. ppppppppplllllllllbbbbbbbbbbbtttt! :p

If you can't read it is says, "Everytime Katie doesn't post pics of Alaina, God kills a kitten. Please think of the kittens."
HA ha. Very funny sis.

Gift for me!

And here it is! The purse I bought with my Christmas money from Grams. This might be the first purse I've ever spent more than $20 dollars on! Its my cool mommy bag!

And check out my cool woven hay wall paper? I've finally decided that my wallpaper inspired the famous hay wall on Trading Spaces.

Christmas shopping!

With the snow yesterday,Jeff decided his car wouldn't get him to work, so he stayed home with Alaina and I. This of couse meant Christmas shopping! Yay! We went to the mall until Alaina got too tired to function politely, and then Mommy got to come back and finish the job! I'm so excited to be close to done this early in the year! All that is left are my parents and the grandmothers! This is going to be great! If I get myself in gear, I'll even get the presents wrapped tonight! Jeff is incharge of getting a few things for his Dad yet and the Dangler grab bag gift. I think I'll wait for the day after Christmas sales to see what I can get for mine. Yay!
I have to ask the Mommies a question, how much do you spend on your kid when they are under the age of three at Christmas? Alaina will probably understand a little better what is going on this year (no tears hopefully). But honestly, how much does one shell out for gifts? Its tough for me to decide, because I always remember getting what seemed like a lot of gifts when I was little, Of course I can only barely remember Christmas when I was three, so only Nana and Papa can tell me for sure what I got.
p.s. regarding pictures, I'll try to get that pic of Alaina feeding bear up tonight, but no promises Nana!

Happy Hanukkah!

I don't celebrate Hanukkah, but I thought it would be a good idea to wish everyone a good one! I don't know why I like to wait until the last minute to do things. Actually, yes I do, I am the queen procrastinator. I need to work on my prep times and organization next year. I keep saying what ifs and whens to get me through the day and it has to stop. I'm getting better, but with us still being ousted from our bedrooms due to construction and Alain being sick, things only seem to be getting worse. She sleeps right below the living room and beside the laundry room. She doesn't always wake up when the floor creeks and when I run the washer, but it seems to always happen that way when she's sick. She's so tired these days. I hope she gets to feeling better soon. Meanwhile, the laundry is piling up and I really want to steam the carpets in the Living room! Oh well, maybe after the holidays.
I have a speech to deliver tomorrow. . .that I haven't written. I console myself with the fact that its only 5-7 minutes and I'm talking about how people should lose their fear of Shakespeare. I could write the speech in my sleep, the delivery on the other hand is the problem.
Then there's the workouts. Jeff and I signed up at the beginning of the year for a gym membership. both of us get paid back by work, but he gets a lump sum, I get paid per quarter, provided that I workout 25 times a quarter. I missed last quarter and waited too long this time, so now I have 20 workouts to do before the end of the month. take out the 4 days that I'll be home for the holidays and I'm pretty much stuck working out everyday til the new year. Wish me luck!
Anyway, I'm getting busy shopping for the holidays, collecting lists and getting gifts. I wanted to start wrapping presents early this year, but with a kitty and kid attrached to bright shiny things, maybe not such a good idea. I've started a daily ring around the tree tradition. I circle the tree looking for fallen ornaments and try to find their missing hooks on the floor or on the tree. Be the end of the year, I should be able to win a needle in a haystack competition! Post on ladies!

Opa!

Jeff and I could have been an add for My big fat greek christmas this weekend. Well, not really, but we went all out with the weather being bad and I got all of the holiday decor up in the house, except the kitchen. Does anyone else have that room in the house that seems to swallow up the holiday decor? And by that I mean, no matter how much holiday decor I put in the kitchen, I still can't see it! That icky goose wallpaper is just too loud! I mentioned to Jeff doing the sin of all sins and painting the wallpaper (GASP!) just so I don't have to look at ducks until we can afford to do the kitchen the right way!
The greek part of the weekend was courtesy of the Parthenon. We love the Parthenon restaurant and we decided to do curbside for lunch on Sat because I didn't want to cook, and then Jeff thought we should do it again on Sun, so we did! We got the same thing both times (We are creatures of habit) and I'm planning on trying to make the greek dips that I got for a friends party, we'll see how they turn out!
Anyway, the highlight for me was yesterday I got a call from the Chefs (for lack of better term of who they are and wanting to keep anonymity). A new vineyard was just opened on East Adams and 162nd street out in the country. It is called Deer Springs and they had an open house. The Chefs were going and invited me along! Jeff stayed behind to monitor Alaina's naptime, Thanks Honey! They had free snacks, free wine tastings and mulled wine. It was all good! Most of their wines are dry, and dry wines tend to go to my head quickly, so I had to stop drinking the mulled wine or I wouldn't have made it through the day! I bought a bottle to bring to Christmas at my parents. Its called prarie sunset and has just the right amount of sweet/dry ratio that I think everyone will enjoy it!
Oh and a quick Alaina note. We danced to Christmas music and she had fun giving her bear sips of her milk! Pic to follow!