Category: Holidays

Last Weekend’s Christmas Stuff

Posted on

Last weekend we finally put up the Christmas tree. Joe and E did the heavy lifting by getting everything out of the garage, putting the tree together, and adding the lights. I added garland, and then on Monday finished it with ornaments. I really wanted to do a green, silver, and red theme this year with the ornaments I had gotten on clearance after Christmas last year, but it turned out I didn’t have enough white lights and it would look strange with multi-colored ones, so it’s a hodge-podge look again.

2014 Christmas Tree

(Target had a Cartwheel offer for 40% off holiday lights yesterday and today, however, so I got two packs of 300 white lights for next year so I’ll be prepared.)

Saturday evening we drove out to Aurora to check out their festival of lights. It was a cute display done at their local zoo that you drive through. I’m not so sure E was that thrilled with it, but he didn’t complain because he’s a good kid like that.

Thanksgiving & Black Friday

Posted on

IMG_4629.JPG

My Black Friday philosophy is simple – if I can’t buy it online, I’m not getting it.

I happened to wake up this morning just after 6 am so I logged onto Target.com and ordered $300 of Target gift cards for only $270.00. Some will be used as gifts but the majority will be used to pay for groceries and whatnot. I could have sworn the ad said all boots were buy one get one 50% off but the style I wanted weren’t on sale so I didn’t bother.

I did play Macy’s instant win game and won $10 though! And I checked Amazon’s prices on the gifts I bought Joe (already wrapped, I am on fire!) and found one item had dropped in price so I chatted with customer service and got a refund for the difference.

We did actually leave the house in the afternoon to visit the library and Joe and E headed to Target to grab some eggs and milk while I stayed at home with a monster bellyache. I really didn’t stuff myself last night so I’m not sure what didn’t agree with me (maybe the can of Pepsi I drank since I drink water 99.9% of the time?) but luckily I was feeling better by the time dinner rolled around (skipped lunch) and was able to eat two turkey sandwiches. They are so much better than warm turkey imho.

Last night was fun, as always. Brother #2’s girlfriend was in attendance and we ended up playing Buzzword and Taboo (E’s favorite). Somehow I lost track of time after dinner around 6 pm and more than four hours went by in a flash. We ended up leaving around 10:30 pm.

One thing – I’m getting a little tired of my mom commenting on how competitive I supposedly am. Sure, I want to win (who doesn’t?) but it’s not like I have a fit when I lose. I just want her to stop making commentary during game play when she should be asking the questions on the card so we can earn points before our round is over. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Joe feels the same way but doesn’t say anything so I get attacked because I get frustrated and request she stay on point. Needless to say my team lost because she was on it.

I just feel like she is always attacking my personality with the little comments she makes. Why I continued to get hurt and annoyed by it I don’t know. It just makes me miss my grandparents even more because I always felt good enough in their presence.

Sorry for the negative turn that took. It’s just (unfortunately) true. It’s not like I’m the only one she does this to, though, so I guess there’s that?

In any case, I’m thankful for my family even if they can drive me a bit nuts and be thoughtless at times. And most of all I’m thankful for Joe and his unconditional love and support.

Carol Stream Haunted Tour

Posted on

I stumbled across a list of homes in nearby Carol Stream who decorate nicely for Halloween so Saturday night we decided to check them out.

I’m only going to write about the two homes I actually liked since the others were not that impressive, but feel free to check them out in the link posted above.

1102 Idaho St, Carol Stream, IL 60188

I really enjoyed the pirate theme, especially how they used the blue rope light to represent water.

Pirate Themed Halloween House

371 Canyon Trail, Carol Stream, IL 60188

There was so much going on at this home that I didn’t know what part I liked more. Very very cool, and they have their own Facebook page. They also go all out at Christmas too!

Canyon Trail Cemetery

Canyon Trail Cemetery

I took some videos of all the action.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Creepy Skeleton Guy

4th of July Weekend

Posted on

I know, I know, I’m like 1-2 weeks behind posting about everything lately. It’s funny that I only work 3 days a week but I still feel like there’s never enough time to do everything, so this blog suffers.

Anyway, Friday the 4th we went to my parents house to celebrate the holiday. We picked up a cheap $20 combo badminton/volleyball set from Target earlier in the day and set it up after eating tacos – I know, who has tacos on the 4th of July? My mom, that’s who. Despite the cheap price, the set isn’t that bad. The stakes they give you secure the net pretty well and the rackets and birdie are nice. The set includes a volleyball and a pump to inflate it, but we only used it briefly because my parents’ yard isn’t that big and Brother # 1 was getting a bit insane with the birdies as it was so he was sure to break a window with that volleyball.

My parents live where the power lines are above ground, and one runs right down the middle of the yard so the birdie kept hitting that which would throw off where it came down which added a bit of a challenge. And Brother # 1 got the birdie on the roof of both the house and the garage multiple times.

Despite all the logistical challenges, we had a great time. Even my mom joined us at one point. I think we were out there almost two hours playing. I am looking forward to setting it up next week (the 21st) when E is here for the week so we can play.

Saturday the 5th Brother #2 ended up coming over to hang out since he wasn’t around on the 4th (he was out with his girlfriend at a fireworks show about an hour and half southwest of my parents’ house). We went to the arboretum so he could test out his new camera (a Canon Rebel) and then had tacos (leftovers) for dinner.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Brother #2 isn’t being intentionally rude by pretty much never really listening to other people and dominating the conversion. I think he has ADD. I know he had it as a kid and it seems to have gotten worse lately. It’s tough to spend time with him because he will ask questions to indicate some type of interest in your life, but as you’re responding you can see that he’s occupied thinking of what he’s going to say next and he responds in a way that makes him seem distracted. It still bothers me, but not as much as before because I don’t think he can help it. So I try to remind myself of this when for the umpteenth time I can tell he wasn’t really listening to what I said. I used to think it was because he didn’t give a shit but I think it’s the ADD.

Memorial Day Weekend

Posted on

Another fantastic weekend is over. It never lasts long enough!

We ended up making two trips to the mall within two days, as well as Bed Bath Beyond and IKEA, looking for a new mattress and some nice bathroom rugs and came up empty-handed on the mattress count. There’s just too many options and based on all the reviews I’ve read, none of them are fool-proof. I’m not even entirely convinced we need a whole new mattress as ours is only about seven years old. It has individually wrapped coils with a pillow-top so it cannot be flipped and it’s been steadily getting more and more uncomfortable. We might be fine getting a decent memory foam topper for it. I found one with excellent reviews on Amazon for only $130. If it works, we just saved well over $1000 since the two mattresses we were considering, a memory foam from Sears, or a Sleep Number Bed w/ memory foam from QVC, were $1500 & $2250 respectively. If not, we wasted only $130. At this point it seems worth the gamble.

As for the bathroom rugs, we decided to redo the master bath and chose matching towels, rugs, and a shower curtain from Target two weeks ago. We decided to go with something bright and settled on a lime green (technically guacamole according to the tags). Once we got everything home, however, I was disappointed. The towels are thin yet shed a ton, and the rugs weren’t nearly as thick as the ones we had for the past decade. We couldn’t take the towels back since they had been washed, but I ended up returning the rugs (and a really old Chefmate tea kettle after learning it had been recalled).

We hit a bunch of stores over the weekend looking for similar-colored rugs to no avail. Why is it that stores offer a ton of different towel colors but hardly any matching rugs? So annoying! Kohls had memory foam bath rugs on sale so I bought one, went back to Target and repurchased the rugs I had returned (which were now on sale, huzzah!), and put the memory foam rug underneath the rug in front of the sink so it’s more comfortable. Not the classiest solution, particularly because the memory foam rug is smaller than the Target one, but there wasn’t much choice.

We also decided that after thirteen years together we’d buy our first toaster. We’ve always used a toaster oven but it takes forever to make decent toast so we picked up a toaster at Target today. I’m looking forward to trying it out next weekend (which is the next time we plan on making toast).

Toaster

In-between all the shopping we visited my family on Sunday with E in tow. We grilled burgers and hot dogs and celebrated Memorial Day one day early. We also played a lot of Taboo since E is addicted to it. I don’t blame him, it’s a real fun game!