Pictures (a MEME follows)
Some overdue pictures. We have actually been taking some video as well. Daniel is very close to walking on his own.
Christmas with some cousins
After we started to pack up Christmas things, Daniel found a bell on a string. He loved it, we should have wrapped it up for
Christmas morning. Maybe next year
I think this might be New Years day, everyone had to nap with mommy on the couch. The cat got up willingly at first, but I had to reassure her it was
ok to lay next to the sleeping baby.
In an effort to bring back Mealtime Mondays. This is an
pineapple upside down cake. We forgot to pick up eggs at the store, but I remembered the diet cola trick. You replace the eggs and oil in a cake mix recipe with a diet soda (in this case 7-UP). IT tasted really really good....then I realized I didn't use diet I used regular, no wonder it was so yummy, at least it was lower in fat.
Living room before new flooring
Living room after new flooring.
I am Weird MEME
I Am Weird
I was tagged by Jamie to do the following MEME...THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the 7 weird things about you. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 7 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 7 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog. (OK I will have to break one rule, I don't think I know 7
bloggers who read this blog, so I blog anyone who wants to do it)
1. I have a foot phobia. Luckily I am married to a person who shares this, although on a different level. I don't like looking at feet, and I hate to have feet touching me. Chad mostly just doesn't like his feet, and hates to walk on a beach in bare feet. For me this also translates into sock issues, since socks touch feet, I don't always like socks (I would rather be barefoot than wear just socks). When people tell me "It will knock your socks off" I shudder. Half of the recipes
Paula Dean makes she claims will "knock your socks off", I probably wouldn't eat them. I also hate flip-flops, HATE them. Some sandals are
ok. I don't know why I hate feet and things related to feet, I just do. This may be one of the weirdest things about me.
2. I don't like clowns or people dressed up as Santa. I think its a trust issue. I don't like it when people cover up
their face, and hands. I was scared to see Santa when I was little. When I took Daniel to see him, that fear came back. Its really odd. Chad had to play Santa at work this past Christmas, and he kept sending me pictures of him dressed up until I told him to stop. At a
restaurant once the waitress kept going on and on about how we should come on Sunday so Daniel can see the clown. I had to keep myself from screaming "CLOWNS, Why in the world
would I LET ME SON SEE A
FREAKING CLOWN? ARE YOU MAD?".
3. I love Mascots. Its odd when you think about how I am scared of clowns and people dressed as Santa, but a person in a big furry mascot costume, no problem. I am sure there is some
psychological explanation.
4. I have nightmares about snakes. I had them for as long as I can remember. When I have them and wake up in the middle of the night, I refuse to get up to go to the bathroom, because I can't forget the fear and I can't convince myself a snake isn't in the room.
5. I have always had vivid dreams. Sometimes I can remember them, sometimes I can't. I tried keeping a dream journal; mostly because they can be really funny, but I forget to write them down. When I was
pregnant I didn't dream more, if anything I might have dreamed less. My dad also used to have vivid dreams. It was fun to talk about our dreams in the morning, maybe doing that when I was young is why I can remember them so easily now.
6. I used to work in a vet's office. Much of the stuff didn't gross me out at all. It was kind of fascinating. One time we had to send a cat's head to a lab to test for rabies. I picked up the head and play with it like a puppet. The tech laughed but kind of gave me that "you're really
creepy look" so I put it down. That, and not minding loading the "incinerator" I think makes me a little morbid.
7. I have an issue with smells. Mostly "food gone bad" smells. Chad is really good with keeping the fridge cleaned so I don't puke to much. I used to hate the smell of latex gloves. However
working in a lab and having to wear them all the time kind of
lessened that. Although I still don't like
balloons because of the smell. So if a Clown handed me a
balloon I think I might pass out.
Just an update
I have been in funk lately for no real reason (maybe the weather, or endless
monotonous days whatever) so I will do a bullet point update.
- Daniel starts "Infant 2" next week. He has been visiting the room this week to get used to it. He should do fine.
- I actually detected a fever on Daniel Sunday. In the past when has been sick usually no fever, or I was to sick myself to notice. It seemed to just be from teething, he is fine now.
- We bought new blinds for the house. They were faux wood. They look nice in the one room we did put them up in. The others were the wrong size (my bad). We were going to put up Roman Blinds in the bedroom, but they let to much light through and I had Chad take those back also.
- I have a silverware drawer! So for most people out there this isn't amazing, because every house HAS a silverware drawer....right? NOPE we have been living for over 5 years without one. We kept our silverware in a basket, and have been hiding that in a cabinet for showings ('cause who is dumb enough to buy a house without a silverware drawer). On a recent visit to IKEA I was able to sorta create one.
- We have pictures of the finished floors, but still have yet to get them off the camera. Someday I will actually post some pictures again. Of course this means our home listing also hasn't been updated......not that it will help at all.
- We had 2 showings scheduled last weekend, and one on Monday (during the time I normally work from home). The one on Monday didn't show, (I watched from across the street for over an hour). YES I DO understand that I don't have to leave my house. However with a spazy spaniel and an infant I would rather just get out instead of looking like a lunatic.
- The showing on Friday stayed for almost 20 minutes (yes we watched). However we received no feedback even after repeated attempts from our realtor.
- Daniel started swim classes, he still doesn't like being in the water. He did improve from week 1 to week 2. OH well at least we are trying.
- Other than above same old, same old......at least my shows are back on.
Labels: home selling, realtor
Nothing New
So, Chad and I have yet again found ourselves at square 1 with this whole house sell/move thing. There was yet another opportunity to get us "out", however that didn't pan out. Oh well, after you develop so many "plans" and they all fail it actually doesn't bother you to much.
I am keeping up with my resolutions. I forgot to include one:
- Send a birthday card out to every family member
I hate forgetting, I feel incredibly guilty when I do. Chad got me a great Christmas gift, a folder to hold everyones card in. Now I can go buy a bunch ahead of time and have them ready. A cousin created a calendar for me as well. So I hope to be all set.
We have been cooking more at home again. It seems whenever I get a new kitchen gadget I am more inclined to spend time in the kitchen. Chad's mom got us a pressure cooker for Christmas, and I think after only a few weeks of it I am ready to give up my crock pot for good. It is an electric pressure cooker, and it cleans really easily. I pretty much can do all my crock pot recipes in it, plus much more. I especially like the fact that I can brown in it, which means I can use one pot, and the stove stays really clean!
Well gotta get back to work!
....dang I really need to download some pictures and get them in here.
Toodles!
Resolutions
So I am kind of behind on some post I wanted to do, and I will get some holiday pictures up sometime.
I normally don't make resolutions, because I can't keep them. However this year I figured I can keep myself more accountable on the blog......also I have picked some easy ones.
1. Eat healthier....more specific eat like I did when we were doing the biggest looser challenge. However I am trying to do it for a few weeks on and a few weeks off. So I will eat really good, and track everything I eat for a few weeks. Then I will take a break. I have done good so far. Chad has been trying to do this as well. We hope to eventually not take so much time off in between.
2. Buy only Fair Trade Coffee. I have been reading up on how this is just better for the people in coffee growing countries. I buy coffee a lot, and it costs just as much sometimes to buy the kind that pays a fair price to farmers in poor countries. I am not to sure about Starbucks though I will have to look in them more. Their website made it sound like they buy fair trade.
3. Use more earth friendly bags while shopping. I am getting sick of the amount of plastic bags we get each time we shop. A lot of stores now offer reusable ones; for a small price. We have bought some of these already. Last night we went grocery shopping and we picked one up....then the cashier bagged it up with the rest of our items....well at least I tried.
4.Establish a nighttime ritual with Daniel. We have been bad about this, we sometimes read, but most times just put him to bed when he is cranky. This week I have been cuddling with him on the couch and I tell him all about his day, say a pray and let him go to sleep before putting him in bed. Last night he even came crawling to me right before like he wanted to go to bed.
5. Eat more legumes. I want to try and incorporate this into at least 5 days of the week. I didn't like beans much before, and I never made lentils. But now some of my best recipes have them both. This kind of goes with eating healthier. However even in my off weeks I would like to do this.
6. Sell our house.
Ok hopefully this will be the easiest one:-)
7. Better attitude. Just overall I would like to be more positive. Not even a week has gone by in this year and there is already some possible positive changes. I realize we haven't had it really bad over the past year (well 2 really). However 2005 and 2006 (with the exception of Daniel) were just crazy. In 2005 we went to Paris, which was great. But then a gas pump fell on me, which took a while for me to heal. But then it was nice to find out I was pregnant. However as soon as we start deciding to tell everyone, Chad losses his job. Then my job is in jeopardy. Then he finds a job, however it is really bad....very bad and he realizes he has to get out fast.
Then we start 2006. Daniel is born on the day he was to start his new job. Then we can't sell our house no matter how hard we work clean, paint, straighten, fix, update. To end it all I was sick all of December.....Oh I didn't even mention the other car accidents and the death of the
Prizm, and the tax issues with the house.
But there are already things possibly on the horizon for this year. Even if those don't work out, I know we will sell this year, and move. I am really looking forward to what this year brings. I really feel blessed, more relaxed, and overall happier.
By the way
congrats to Jason and Mandy....it is really nice to actually know someone who has won a big radio contest! The odd thing is a girl I work with won a trip to Greece from the History Channel. Hey do these things happen in 3s?
Holiday Summary
I guess I should give at least a quick follow up for the past few weeks.
Christmas: Sick for most of it. I had no sense of taste or smell on Christmas day itself which makes it difficult to make or enjoy anything. My family had Christmas at
Frankenmouth the Friday before. We will probably do it again. We only went for the day (everyone else went for a few days). Next year we will spend the night. That "Christmas" dinner was pizza....which was fine with me since I couldn't taste much anyways.
I had talked about a project before.....however since I had been sick most of the days leading up to it, it never got done. I did get one of my Christmas projects done, just not the super huge one. I was really disappointed about that.
By Christmas day I was exhausted and just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep the day away. Chad and I exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve. We had previously asked Santa to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house instead for Daniel. However he did get to open one present Christmas morning from my Aunt.
Altogether he wasn't to interested in opening gifts which is expected.
New Years: I was feeling much better because of all the rest I received during the week between I got a LOT of naps in. Before baby, whenever I was sick I could usually sleep it off. However that is a lot harder to do. But Chad had some time off and he let me sleep as much as I wanted. So by New Years Eve I was much better. We did our annual New Years eve trip to Meijer (what you don't?). After a massive amount of shopping (we had to make up for Flex Spending we didn't yet spend), we got home to a quivering dog. She has been so freaked out by the new flooring, and even though it is all in correctly now she had still been acting strange.
While a Meijer we had found a rug and matching runner we liked. However there wasn't enough room in the truck to take it home and since it was raining we couldn't put it in the back. So after we got everything away, Chad went back to Meijer to pick up the rug. We figured that would help Belle adjust to the flooring. She did relax once the rugs were in place. I don't know if its the echoing, or just how it feels on her paws...or the evil spirits we released......whatever. I guess Chad must really love that dog if he would make a 2nd trip to the crazy busy store on New Years eve!
Pictures to come....I promise!
Christmas with some cousins
