Thanksgiving

It was just Joe, me, my parents and my brothers for Thanksgiving this year. I brought my green bean casserole and among all the delicious food my mom served super yummy cordon blue appetizers she got from Market Day which I couldn’t stop eating. Is it a surprise that I gained a pound since yesterday and have a stomach ache?

We played a new game we recently acquired – Know It or Blow It. I enjoyed it even though I’m not great at trivia games. We also played our newest favorite – What’s Yours Like? In fact we didn’t have time to play our old standby, Aggravation, but I didn’t mind. And best yet we didn’t work on anyone’s computer problems. It was nice.

For future self-reference – one can of French’s fried onions is enough for the green bean casserole recipe because even though the can is only 6 oz and the recipe calls for 1 1/3 cups which is more than 6 oz, the can is sold by weight whereas the recipe goes by volume. Needless to say I didn’t need to buy three cans to make two casseroles. Lesson learned for next year.

Every day I’m shufflin’

I wish Facebook had a feature where you could unsubscribe from follow-up comments other people make on a status update that you commented on unless it’s the person who made the original update. I hate getting updates on crap that doesn’t matter to me. It’s the reason why I don’t comment as much on people’s updates as I otherwise would, especially if they are one of my more “popular” friends who tend to get 20 comments on one update.

Anyway, here’s what’s been going on around these parts since I’m a sucky blogger.

Home

Our garage door started acting funny a week or so ago where it would start to close and then halfway down it would go back up. It was doing it here and there before then but it got to the point where nothing would make it go down all the way. Joe had to open and close it manually to get our cars in at night and out in the morning which sucked since it’s been getting colder around here. Also yours truly didn’t have a nice warm car to get into when I left for work. But hey, at least I didn’t have to mess with the garage door! Joe figured out what was wrong – the plastic (yes, plastic) gear was shredded, so Sunday we went to the Sears parts store. $40 and an hour of Joe’s time later and it’s all fixed. That was our excitement for the week.

Movies

Hmm… what else? We saw Puss in Boots with Joe’s daughter last time she visited (his son couldn’t make it) and I thought it was a pretty good movie which was lucky since I had no idea what it was even about going in. I want to see The Muppets even though I’m not a muppet fan, because I like Jason Segal. Remember the Muppet Babies? I did watch that as a kid but I never liked the regular muppets. Rowlf was my favorite, but I hated Miss Piggy and always will. Someone needs to turn her into a BLT already. Oh, and we saw a 3D movie for the first time in years – A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. It was legend-… wait for it… -dary. So much better than their second movie. Possibly even better than the original.

Kids

I don’t think I wrote about the fact that we got K’s iPod Touch replaced by Apple for $150. They let us purchase a refurbished one. We took the money from K’s account since she broke it, though. Sucked to have to do that, but better than buying her a brand new one. She also broke her Kindle. Well, we aren’t sure if she broke it or if it had something wrong with it, but either way Amazon replaced it at no charge which was good. So when she was over last time it was like Christmas for her getting a new iPod Touch and Kindle.

Speaking of Christmas, I’m glad that the kids are older because instead of buying a ton of little things I only have to buy one or two things which means less time dealing with the crazy shoppers. This year we’re getting E a Kindle Fire (he already knows since he asked for it) and I don’t want to mention what we’re getting for K in case she knows about this site but I think she will find it very useful.

Holidays

We’re both off work Thursday-Monday so it will be a nice extended holiday weekend. I love Thanksgiving! What’s not to love about being encouraged to stuff one’s face? Hopefully all the exercising I’ve been doing lately will lessen the weight gain.

I have no plans on shopping on Black Friday, and didn’t want to go outside at all that day but I have to get a cat scan in the morning and then pick up the kids in the afternoon. I’m staying away from all the stores though!

I don’t even know what I want for Christmas. Nothing, really. I would like an iPad, but not the one that’s out now. I can’t justify spending $500 (and let’s face it, even if it’s a “gift” from Joe it’s all the same moolah) on a device that has a lower quality screen than my phone. Plus if I had it my way I’d prefer a 7″ tablet. Maybe next year they will introduce an iPad 3 mini. I’d be all over that.

I do like opening presents, but I’m so not into buying stuff just for the sake of it. I keep trying to get rid of stuff either by donating to Goodwill or selling on Craigslist and Facebook. I recently sold Dance Dance Revolution 2 to someone I used to work with. Joe got it for me because I asked for it but I ended up hating the game because I have no rhythm; plus the stupid dance pad took up too much space. I’m glad to see it gone. Another thing I need to get rid of already are the Disney souvenirs I bought for my coworkers on my honeymoon six years ago. I’m sure I wrote about this before but I was so pissed when I came back from my honeymoon to learn that essentially nothing was done the entire two weeks I was gone that I never handed them out. They’ve spent the last six years in a hall closet and I get angry all over again whenever I see them so it’s time to let it, and them, go already. I’m going to ask my mom if she wants to wrap them up for our annual game of Crazy Bingo this year. I really don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I often have a hard time parting with things I’ve spent money on but I’ve come to realize it’s silly to hang onto things you’re never going to use just because you feel like you wasted your money. It’s wasted either way, so you might as well get rid of it and clear some space in your house. It’s been getting easier letting go of stuff once I see how less cluttered the closet looks without it around.

Anyway, I don’t know whether Joe and I will be exchanging gifts this year. He’s a pain to buy for and I can’t think of anything I really want, so we might go small this year. Maybe I’ll have him get me a few CDs or something.

Music

Speaking of music, in case anyone cares, these are the top five songs I’ve been playing lately. Feel free to share yours in the comments. I love discovering new music.

You Make Me Feel – Cobra Starship
Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5
Hello – Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette
Party Rock Anthem – LMFAO
Pumped Up Kicks – Foster the People

4th of July

Happy Belated Independence Day to my U.S. readers! We spent ours with the kids at my parents’ home and watched the amateurs in the neighborhood set off fireworks while we messed around with sparklers, caught lightning bugs, and tried to avoid getting bit by mosquitos.

Today we slept in and then spent a couple hours at the pool. Right now the kids are with Joe at Target getting supplies for our Mexican dinner I’ll be preparing shortly.

We’re toying with the idea of going to the drive-in tonight since we’ve never been but the first movie of the double-feature is Cars 2 which we’ve already seen. The second movie is Super8 which doesn’t start until 10:30 pm. I’m already doing the math in my head regarding how much sleep I’ll be able to get since I’m working a half day tomorrow. Thanks to the fact that I have no one to cover for me, I can’t take the entire week off to spend with the kids while they are here. Bitter much? Yes. I haven’t had time off between the 6th and the 10th of any month in over five years but I’m trying to make the most of it by doing some fun things before I have to go back to work for the rest of the week while everyone else gets to have fun. Waaah-waaah.

Valentine’s Day

We both out-did ourselves for this Hallmark holiday this year because we like to mix it up a little. We don’t need an excuse to be nice to one another, but it sure is fun! I thought I had Joe topped by getting him a Kindle, which he wasn’t expecting, but of course he beat me. He always manages to do it no matter the occasion.

In the morning there was a pretty sapphire heart necklace waiting for me by my purse, but it didn’t match my outfit so I had to run upstairs to change. :)

Then later on at work there were two dozen tulips delivered with a pretty vase and a card that said “to the best wife a guy could ever have… all my love. joe”. I wasn’t expecting that since Joe hasn’t sent me flowers for years after getting burned by 1-800-Flowers six years ago when they sent browning roses. Luckily these flowers were fresh although they never quite perked up even with plenty of food and water.

Valentine's Day Flowers

I thought that was it, but then he gave me another present when we got home – a pretty sterling silver bracelet with hearts and diamonds.

We ordered Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza and hung out at home. I don’t care for the crowds on V Day, so we don’t go out to eat. It was a nice day even though work was involved.

Birthday Weekend

My birthday weekend is coming to a close. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but nice. I worked on my birthday (Friday) but got lots of well-wishes from coworkers and friends via e-mail and Facebook which was really nice, and my Director treated me and my boss to lunch.

After work it was snowing a bit and I was exhausted, so instead of going out for dinner, we hit the McDonald’s drive-thru. If you think that’s lame, then I’ll have you know I also opened my presents from Joe the night before (with his permission, of course). He got me some perfume I’ve been wanting, a skin for my Kindle, flowers, a $15 iTunes gift card, and some chocolates.

Saturday morning I had a doctor’s appointment to follow up on my visit to the emergency room on New Year’s Eve. Afterward we decided to cash in on one of my birthday coupons and had lunch at Claim Jumper and then spent a quiet evening at home watching tv. I finally finished the Freaks & Geeks marathon I had DVR’d since I never paid it any attention when it originally aired a decade ago. Wow, what a great show; even better than Undeclared.

Today we made our weekly pilgrimage to Target where I cashed in on my free birthday drink from Starbuck’s, but since I’m staying away from the caffeine, Joe really got the benefit. For lunch I got my free bowl of noodles from Noodles & Company and then worked a few hours when we got home since last week was full of meetings which got me a bit behind. I did get some pleasant news in my work e-mail – our new CEO decided to add Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to our holiday rotation, so we’ve got a three day weekend coming up, woo hoo! Joe’s company has always had the day off but in the eight years at my company it’s never been a holiday for us. So that was nice news. Next weekend is going to be even better than this past one thanks to that and because it’s my skating “party”! I’m really looking forward to it.