Holidays – Page 13 – Not Content to Crawl

Thanksgiving

Posted onNovember 30, 2015

Thursday we went to my parents’ and Saturday I made a turkey breast to go along with some of the sides that were leftover.

Our sides were: sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatos, gravy, corn, collard greens (for Joe), cinnamon apples, and crescent rolls.

For dessert I made a Coconut-Pecan German Chocolate Pie.

I cheated and bought a Pillsbury pie crust, but the rest was made from scratch. It was SUPER rich (and ridiculously high in calories), but good. Would I make it again? No. Too expensive and too time-consuming to be worth it. I spent at least $8 on ingredients when I could have purchased a frozen pie for half that. I’m not a big pie fan in general so I’ll stick to brownies, cupcakes, and bars in the future.

Halloween

Posted onNovember 2, 2015November 18, 2015

Our Halloween morning was more exciting than our evening because we decided to visit a local gun range. We’ve both owned a handgun for awhile but unlike Joe, I’ve never actually fired mine. We also have a rifle, so we took all three guns with us.

Joe fired a few rounds from my gun just to make sure it wouldn’t jam and then let me take over. The second shot I made with my gun caused an injury to my thumb when the hammer struck it making it bleed. Between that and being overwhelmed with the mere act of shooting a gun, plus the noise in the range, I put it down and told Joe I was done. But after I watched him for awhile I decided to try it again. I want to know how to protect myself if the need ever arises whether that be the zombie apocalypse or an intruder.

After adjusting my grip, I was able to fire my gun without any further injuries. I enjoyed firing the rifle more, though. Here’s some of my targets from both my handgun and the rifle, which are 22 caliber:

Here’s one of Joe’s from his gun which is a 9mm (I think):

He was impressed with my aim. What can I say, shooting up “ghosts” at Indiana Beach as a kid paid off. ;)

By the time we left the range I was much more comfortable with handling and shooting my gun. I also stopped jumping every time someone else fired their weapon. It was crazy crowded in the range too so I’m glad Joe booked the earliest slot.

After dropping our guns off at home we swung by Noodles & Company since we had gotten a BOGO coupon. We also stopped at Baskin Robbins for ice cream since all scoops are $1.31 on every 31st of the month.

We spent the rest of the day at home in anticipation of the trick-or-treaters. It was cold and rainy out, so we only got seven kids (three groups) which was lame. We also watched a movie Joe’s coworker recommended called Oculus. It was pretty good.

Next Halloween I’d rather be out of town. I love Halloween but it never lives up to the hype.

Fall Decor

Posted onSeptember 4, 2015September 7, 2015

I’ve got autumn fever! As soon as September hits I’m ready for the fall decorations and festivals. This morning I hauled my butt out of bed after enduring three crazy-ass dreams, each more progressively bizarre and scary than the last, to do some shopping. In two and a half hours I hit these stores, in this order:

Hobby Lobby
Michael’s
Jo-Ann Fabrics
Home Goods
Five Below
Dollar Tree
Target

And this was the end result of my “haul”:

Hobby Lobby had the best fall selection by far, but they were also the most expensive. And just because they had the most doesn’t mean it was the best. I was rather unimpressed, but check out the quantity of just one aisle (I believe they had three total, although that was between both fall and Halloween).

Michael’s is where I dropped the bulk of my money, which isn’t saying much because – spoiler alert – I only spent $20.05 total on my shopping “spree”. Anyway, I got the wall clings, which were 50% off, for $2.50 and each orange mum bunch was $4.14 before my 20% off coupon. I also spotted a cute Harvest sign at Michael’s that I was tempted to get but it was $12 which would be $7.20 with my 40% off coupon, but I wasn’t sure what else I might find so I took a picture so I can go back if I don’t find a cute sign elsewhere.

Jo-Ann Fabric’s selection was pathetic so I left empty-handed, and I only went inside Home Goods to score 150 walk-in points from my Shopkick app. They did have some cute Halloween metal houses at Home Goods but there was no way I was dropping $30 on one! Five Below had absolutely no holiday decor at all. I guess it’s too early for them.

I spent almost all of the rest of my money at Dollar Tree – basically all the stuff on the left of the photo except the two Halloween pumpkin tins which were $1 each at Target in their One Spot section. I hadn’t planned on getting any Halloween stuff today because I really don’t need any (but I sure do love it) and I’d like to focus on fall decor first, but I figured I’d better grab them now before the selection was picked over. Target doesn’t seem to sell any fall decor, at least not in their seasonal section, although they are already stocking Halloween candy and treats. I’m sure at some point they will add Halloween decor where the current back to school stuff resides, but I have a feeling it will be pretty disappointing like most years. They used to do whole themes which I loved. In 2008 it was Domo and in 2009 it was Skelanimals, but they haven’t done anything exciting in years.

I still want to check Old Time Pottery to see what they have but that will be on Monday when we *gasp* go test-driving cars. I’m not quite ready to buy yet, but I want to see what my options are since I’m not 100% sold on getting the Ford Focus 5-door, which was the car I liked the most out of my extensive test-driving back in 2012. This time around I’m looking at Mazda and Subaru. They’re a little pricier than the Ford but there’s a good chance I’ll have my next car at least ten years, if not fifteen like my Jetta, so I might as well get something I love.

4th of July

Posted onJuly 6, 2015

Friday we went to a tattoo shop because Joe wanted to get a new tattoo. But the guy who would be doing it had stepped out temporarily so we left to get lunch a nearby pizza place / bar and planned to go back. Except we didn’t end up going back because I was a little freaked out about the whole thing and Joe didn’t want to proceed until I felt more comfortable. I feel bad that my anxiety stopped him from getting the tattoo since I’m sure I’ll be fine with it once it’s said and done. I’m just weird about the placement of this one (forearm). He already has a tattoo but you can’t see it easily since it’s on his upper arm. This new one would be visible pretty much all the time unless he wears long sleeves (which is very rare) and I’m worried I won’t like seeing it constantly. I have this thing where I don’t like tattoos you can see all the time. So once I get over that I’m sure he’ll be getting it.

Saturday we watched E’s band in the 4th of July parade. Then later in the day we went to my parents to play bags, badminton, and Taboo (E didn’t come along even though it was our year to have him for the holiday because he wanted to hang out with his friends). Only my mom, dad, and Brother # 1 was there. Brother # 2 was somewhere with his girlfriend.

Yesterday we went to the pool for a little while. It was only the second time this season we had gone and the first time I actually went in the water. I would have stayed in longer had it not gotten so crowded with kids jumping in and splashing. I look forward to the day we have a house and our own private pool.

Easter & The Hunger Games

Posted onApril 6, 2015

Friday I baked a carrot cake from scratch for the first time ever and it came out amazing! I have to freeze the rest before we gorge ourselves on it.

We celebrated Easter on Saturday since E was with us. I didn’t go crazy with the menu this year – we had ham butt (the shank was sold out at Meijer) which I heated up in the crockpot (it came out nice and juicy), mashed potatoes, corn, and crescent rolls.

We made a basket for E:

Before dinner we all went to Dunkin Donuts for an iced coffee. The kid at the counter had no idea what lactose-free milk was; his reply to my inquiry was “you mean like skim milk?” Uh, no. Turns out they have almond milk, though, so I ordered my iced coffee with decaf, almond milk, sugar, vanilla swirl, and just a little cream. I’m not a fan of almond milk but in this particular case it actually made the drink even tastier than Joe’s regular milk version, plus it did NOT upset my stomach (woo hoo!), but then again I nursed that baby for two days. The ice doesn’t melt if you stick it in the fridge once you’re done sipping on it. They do charge extra for the almond milk, though. So instead of my drink costing $0.99 it was $1.74. And I’m not sure if it had been more if I had ordered a large (I originally ordered a small, then Joe pointed out from 3-6 pm it’s the same price regardless of the size so I upgraded to a large after we had already paid).

We also binge-watched the Hunger Games series since E had brought all three movies over. I never had any interest in watching it but Joe wanted to see it, so I conceded. It was… good? It wasn’t horrible by any means, but it’s not my favorite series. That being said, I do plan to see the next one when it’s released.

Sunday after E went home Joe and I exchanged Easter baskets.

Mine is/was awesome – chocolate and makeup. What else does a girl need? ;)

Sorry about the square photo. I’ve recently become obsessed with Instagram and I guess the only good photo I took of my goodies was with the app. Doh!

I’ve already tried all the makeup products except the eyeshadow primer but I plan to try it soon. It couldn’t have come at a better time, too – I got really annoyed on Friday when I put eyeshadow on before going out to lunch with a friend and when I went to use the restroom saw that it had already disappeared.

The nail polish is from Essie’s new Spring 2015 collection. It’s called Petal Pushers and it’s a cool slate color which I like, but it’s thicker/stickier than some of their other colors so it was a pain to put on. I’d like to grab one of the other new colors too – Flowerista, which is a vibrant plum with red undertones.

The leave-in product didn’t seem to do anything for my hair other than leave it smelling like the product all day and well into the next day. At the very least it could be used to make your hair smell fresh so there’s that (luckily it was free anyway).

I was iffy about opening the EOS lip balm because I’m not a fan of pomegranate but the raspberry scent makes up for it. My favorite, however, is still their Summer Fruit lip balm.

The elf facial brush is nice. I can’t believe Joe was paying attention when I was looking at it recently. He’s the best!

Here’s Joe’s basket:

I haven’t given him a basket in the past, which he didn’t seem to mind, but I decided to surprise him. His basket kinda sucks, though, because he’s so hard to buy for, and I didn’t want to go crazy with candy since he’s trying to eat healthier. I made up for that in other ways later, however. ;)