I had plans...

... plans of what I wanted to blog about, plans of what I wanted to accomplish over the weekend, plans of things to accomplish come November 1st, and plans of a birthday dinner with Greg's family.

However, the best laid plans... well, whatever that saying is... my plans got ruined... by a yucky sickness.

I caught some kind of cold or flu {I suspect some kind of flu based on the high temperature I was running} and was laid up on the couch for 3 days straight.

I turned on my computer for probably a total of less than 1 hour for those 3 days, hardly even paid attention to the TV and basically just alternated between sleeping and feeling miserable.

So the plans of blog posts were forgotten, the plans of what I wanted to accomplish over the weekend... well not one ounce of it was accomplished, the plans of what I wanted to accomplish come November 1st just didn't happen, and the birthday dinner with Greg's family was canceled {to be rescheduled... some time}.

It's a bummer but I am thankful for having the weekend to rest and only having to miss one day of work.

I am still super low on energy, my throat still feels tight, my nose is still runny, and I'm still coughing up junk but my temp is gone and I feel like I might be on the mend.

I was so worried about being healthy for my birthday and my birthday weekend when my parents will be here... well I may be semi-healthy but I think I may have passed the yuck on to my husband... that's what happens when you live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment.

Hoping it doesn't hit him too hard, hoping I can feel back in the swing of things soon, and hoping for not too much sickness during this cold and flu season.

This sickness though? Minor compared to what MckMama is going through right now. Please pray for her, Prince Charming, and baby Stellan!

Also, I just read that a woman's son is in the hospital with swine flu and in a medically induced coma... please pray for him as well.

Hoping you are all healthy!

xoxo

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!!

I {heart} Snoopy so I thought I would find a cute Halloween picture of him to put up on the blog.

Last year Greg carved Snoopy into a pumpkin! See:

(That's my haunted house from last year)

A blurry picture of Snoopy lit up.

The last two years we have gone to a pumpkin carving party but we didn't go this year so we didn't carve any. I was a little sad about it but oh well.

Greg and I aren't huge Halloween people and we get very few trick-or-treaters at our apartment so we are probably just going out tonight for dinner and a movie or something like that.

I think there are four categories when it comes to Halloween...

You are either:

a. a die hard Halloween fan... favorite holiday, go all out, dress up, the whole nine-yards.

b. a person who hates Halloween, doesn't celebrate for religious reasons, or something else to the opposite extreme of letter (a).

c. a family who doesn't necessarily love Halloween but doesn't hate it and basically celebrates because you have kids and its fun to dress up your kids or with your kids.

d. someone who doesn't love it, doesn't hate it, but really doesn't have a reason to dress up or celebrate because you don't have kids yet but plan on being more festive once kids enter the picture.

Greg and I fall into category d.... what category do you fall into?

Any fun plans to celebrate the day???

Can't wait to hear what kind of Halloween fan you are and check out your blogs to see if you dressed up/what your kid dressed up as!!

And again...

Happy Halloween!!!

Happiness is...

1. I remembered a seriously funny story about Greg this morning that happened long before I had a blog... I plan to tell it very soon... even if he hates me for it haha.

2. I *think* we are going to get to see my parents next weekend if they are able to come up to celebrate my birthday... I am so excited to see them!

3. Today marks 125 days that we have been married. I was going to do a little post today about the first 100 125 days of marriage but then I realized that for about half of that we were living separately and for all of it there really wasn't anything overly exciting {except a honeymoon which has already been blogged about... a lot!}.... I decided it might be boring so I just stuck with my happiness is... post instead.

4. Tomorrow we are having a date night... the last couple years in this apartment, we have bought candy and waited for the kids and we get like 10 or less so this year we are just going to dinner and a movie. I definitely don't need that candy sitting around my house anyway!

5. Umm did I mention that it is almost birthday? and that I just love birthdays {not just my own!}?

What are you happy about this week?

xoxo

P.S. don't forget to pray for Stellan and MckMama!

Thursday Thoughts

First and foremost, Brooke at Dinkypops No More! just lost her father-in-law and, since she usually hosts Random Ramblings {Thursday Thoughts, as I like to call it}, I wanted to mention this and encourage you to head over to her blog and pray for her and her family in this difficult time.
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Also, while we are talking about praying, Stellan is back in the hospital and things have been very rough so far so please keep him and his family in your prayers as well. And it's his first birthday today {I think it's today} so wish him a happy birthday and maybe a birthday gift of no more SVT!
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Okay so in this post I mentioned my new BPA-free water bottle and a couple people were wondering what in the world BPA-free even means!

So I thought I would explain my very limited knowledge and then send you to a website or two that could probably explain it a lot better!

So as I understand it, BPA is a chemical that is found in plastics. It is in all regular water bottles that you buy at the store {like Arrowhead, Nestle, Aquafina, etc}. It is also in some of the sturdier water bottles that we buy to refill.

When the plastic gets really cold or really hot (or maybe just a little hot? I'm not really sure) or when we continually fill up those Arrowhead bottles, the BPA starts to leak out and into your water and it has been found to cause cancer and other health problems.

It is also in a ton of other plastics like some baby bottles, the plastic containers used to store leftovers (the ones we then put in the microwave to heat up those leftovers), and apparently some canned foods (I realize this is not a plastic...).

Okay, that is what I know. Here are some links that explain a lot more:

Squidoo, Wikipedia, Our Stolen Future, and Yahoo! Answers.

Also, if you would like to know which bottle I bought, it is here {mine is hot pink :)}

I know you can order them online at Amazon but other than that, I don't know what other stores carry them... Sur La Table was the first place I actually saw them in a store.

You can also get Stainless Steel bottles... those are BPA-free but I'm just not a fan.
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I am hoping I may have a little bit of time soon to write some posts that I have been pondering for awhile now {a long while for some...}. I just haven't had time or haven't had energy and I want them to be good.

I am hoping to write the ridiculous and kind of hilarious {in its ridiculousness} story of that job interview process I went through when I was still living in Southern California.

Also, I really want to write about how God totally showed himself to me as I was stressing and praying about the job issue.

Oh and I would really like to finish the wedding posts :) - I have one in the works right now but it probably won't be posted until the weekend maybe... hopefully those will get done soon!

I am realizing right now that I probably talk too much about my new lack of time and energy... I am not complaining and I know I will get into the swing of things more and more... just mentioning that I do hope to have something of substance soon.

Hope you all have an awesome Thursday!

xoxo

Horse Racing

I have to admit I always hesitate when telling people that my husband owns a couple horses that Harness Race. Everyone has different opinions about horse racing and I hate the automatic judgment but whatever. I'm cool with horse racing as long as it is legit and they are treating the horses well.

Anyway, Greg found out that both of his horses were going to be racing Saturday night so we made a trip up to Sacramento for the day to check out some houses and see the races.

The day didn't quite go as well as we were hoping but it was still fun.

About to cross the finish line...
This is Greg's mad face after losing a bet he shoulda won... haha


{Please ignore how incredibly awful my roots are here... both the curlyness coming in and the dark... I need a hair appointment bad! Haven't had one since before the wedding! haha}

We were trying to get pictures with the horses going by in the background but they came out a little blurry.
This is Shock and Awe, one of the horses Greg owns with his boss {who also drives Shock and Awe in the races}
Hanging out by the paddock
I like taking random pictures.... of my shoes apparently.
The one in focus is Shock and Awe again and you can so Greg's boss/the driver off the right in the helmet.
We usually spend some time back in the barns hanging out with the horses before the races start but we didn't have time this trip. If you want to see pictures from past visits, check out this post. I have a ton more pictures of being back in the barns but I can't seem to find any other blog posts with them. Weird!

Anyway, hope you all have an awesome Tuesday!!

xoxo

{Not Me! Monday}

It's Monday... again... already. Can somebody please tell me how the weekends seem to go by so darn fast?!? Of course that happens when I have so dang much to do too!

I am {not} bringing work home with me. Some of it is because it just has to be done and some of it is {not} because I am a perfectionist and know that I can do better if I do it on my own computer. It did {not} kind of take over my life last weekend and that will probably {not} continue on this week. Hopefully though, it will even out a little bit soon.

I am {not} feeling a little bit stressed because I am the only one with my kids who writes lesson plans and I am not used to writing lesson plans for 4th and 5th graders. I do {not} feel like I am still winging it some days because I just feel a little outta my element still.

Getting off the topic of work, I was {not} commenting on somebody's blog this week and then wonder if I had already commented on that post and scroll through to check first. {Nope} I am not so behind and chaotic with my blog reading that I forget what I have and haven't commented on. {Not Me!}

This weekend did {not} involve more last minute plans.... and I definitely did {not} have a very bad attitude about it. {Nope}, private pep talks were certainly {not} necessary around here to shape up! (If you follow me on Twitter, you may understand a bit more about the nature of these last minute plans :)

What did you {not} do this week?
Check out MckMama's blog to read what she and everyone else have {not} been doing this week!

Happy Monday!!

xoxo

Happiness is...

1. I got a new {BPA - free} water bottle last night and I would be lying if I said I haven't been so super excited to use it ever since I had it in my hot little hands!

2. My boss kinda rocks. I was feeling really overwhelmed last night and she totally just put me at ease. Love it!

3. But I am so glad this is Friday because it has been one insane, hectic week... and next week is pretty much guaranteed to be the same!

4. Going to a favorite restaurant this weekend and so excited about it!!

5. This has been a good week for Greg and I... we spent a lot of time talking and we are working on readjusting our routines now that I am back to work. I just love how well we work together. Okay I'll stop before you vomit! :)

What are you happy about this week?!?

xoxo

Thursday Thoughts

My birthday is two weeks from today.... I {heart} birthdays!
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If you follow me on Twitter {I have been a horrible Twitterer... sorry friends!}, then you may have seen that we had a lice outbreak at work yesterday!

It was awful. The supervisor and I spent our entire morning and early afternoon cleaning, bagging, and preparing the 4 rooms we have in order to be sure that no other kids are infected.

Then when the kids arrived, we all spent 45 minutes searching every child's hair and sending home the one's who had already been infected. We sent home 3 kids which brings our total infected to 5. I really would not be surprised if a few more end up with it in the coming days/week.

Last night as soon as we were done eating dinner, I took a shower and washed my hair and then had Greg dig through mine to see if I had it. Twitter friends are telling me I should treat my hair with the shampoo but I just haven't decided yet. I mean isn't that stuff expensive? Just so I can use it one time?

Ugh....
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Last night, we kept all the electronics off and just spent time together which was nice because, thanks to my going back to work, we really don't get a lot of time together anymore and not a ton of time to talk especially.

Plus I am so behind on blog reading and I have been trying to catch up every night, I have like 10 shows on my DVR waiting to be watched, Etsy items I need to get up the guts to list, work I bring home with me to do some nights, and just general straightening up to do that we just were doing our separate things every night.

It is good to put all that aside and just spend time together every once in awhile.

Speaking of being behind on blogs, I think I am finally going to have to cut some losses and just mark all as read on some of them even though that is against every bone in my body! I hate doing that! But I just can't catch up and I would rather be able to move forward with the current stuff rather than trying to read all the old stuff and never get to the new stuff.
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I am going to my first job fair today. I have never been to a job fair looking for a job and I definitely have never been behind the table talking about my job and recruiting {which is what we will be doing today}!

I'm kind of excited for it but a little nervous too :)
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Anyway, I should be off... got a lot to do to get ready for the day {and maybe read a couple blogs if I can fit it in before I have to leave}!

Happy Thursday!

xoxo

{Almost} Wordless Wednesday

I've never done Wordless Wendesday before but everything else that I want to post requires time, energy, and coherent thoughts... none of which I am in possession of right now. I blame it on Aunt Flo.

Hopefully I will be back to regular posting tomorrow or Friday. Until then, I give you a goofy picture of my husband blowing out the candle on the gluten-free red velvet cupcakes his sister made him for his birthday {yes, a month ago... got a problem with that?}.

{Not Me! Monday}

{Not Me! Monday} time again!

Yesterday, while shopping for new energy efficient light bulbs, I did {not} tell Greg that I wanted us to get the "daylight" ones because they are whiter and I didn't like the yellowish ones.

He did {not} comply, come home and put in all new light bulbs in our family room/dining room (its all one big room). It was {not} still daylight outside at the time so we were {not} all excited about how bright it was inside.

Later that night (when it was dark out), Greg did {not} start getting a headache from the brightness/whiteness of the lights and his eyes were {not} hurting.

We did {not} decide that we are going to have to go back to Home Depot tonight to try to return the "daylight" ones and get something a little less bright like "soft white."

We did {not} take Greg's car to get it washed on Saturday only to have it rain today and he is {not} completely disappointed about this right now. My husband definitely does {not} let little things like this get to him... a lot!

I am {not} feeling ambitious right now and planning on trying to read as many blogs as a I can in the next 2 hours before I have to head back to work because I do {not} have a ton of catching up to do!

And with that, I am off!

Happy Monday!!

xoxo