Xmas Shopping Is Finally Finished

Well this past weekend was exhausting! Prior to this weekend I only had about 20% of my Christmas shopping done; therefore I did 80% of my Christmas shopping in a matter of two days. In prior years this wouldn’t be such a big deal because I always did my shopping online. Not just because it’s easier to get presents back to WI because I have been doing all of my Christmas shopping online for the past nine years. To me, online shopping was the best thing invented. I do not like holiday crowds, dealing with lack of parking and the long lines to pay. If I see a long line at a store the chances of my turning around and walking out are 100%. I do not find Black Friday a good time. I find it pure hell. Normally from Black Friday through New Year’s Day I avoid all stores at all cost. So, what brings me to actually shop in person like the old days before there was internet shopping? Well, I started to think that I wanted to cut back on my spending this year. I worked my numbers on an excel spreadsheet and I really couldn’t see how I could either cut anybody out of my list or cut back on presents. I like to give gifts so I don’t want to be cheap. I then figured that if I did the leg work and went out shopping I could cut back on my holiday shopping by eliminating shipping charges. Of course I had to ship a few things based on the size and not being able to get them in the car to get them back for Xmas, but other than the few gifts the rest was all done by sweat and tears. I realized that after this weekend that money I saved on shipping probably was not worth it. Come Sunday I was completely exhausted as I reflected on the weekend and came to terms that next year I will go back to my roots of online shopping!

Trying To Get In The Holiday Spirit

It’s really hard to get in the holiday spirit when you live in Phoenix. No snow, warm weather and the Christmas lights are lacking the sparkle without the snow. It might also be because we have no tree and no decorations in our house. This is not because we are scrooges, but because we are gone for 10 days over Christmas and because of two girls, Madison and Izzy. I could just see spending time putting up decorations and then those two tearing them down when we look away. This lack of Christmas spirit has put a damper on the holidays just like it has the past five Christmas’. This weekend was the first time it felt even remotely the month of December with a possible Christmas holiday coming up.

On Saturday we had two holiday parties to attend. The first one was put on by a lady that I work with and let me tell you, she puts my mom’s Christmas decorations to shame. This woman had her house completely decked out in Christmas trees, snowmen, lights and even one of those villages. Her village was so big she said it took her 30 hours to put up. These decorations were in no way tacky, but instead really neat and festive. She also had s’mores set up outside around the fire and holiday music playing throughout the house. We only could stay for an hour because we then headed over to our other friends house for holiday fondue. This would be the second annual holiday fondue party that the Campbell’s hosted. It was a very good time because it was all of our closest friends eating fondue and having plenty of drinks together. The hostess is crazy because she is nine months pregnant and still put on her fondue party. She has been a trooper throughout her whole pregnancy, but this probably tops it again. I don’t know if I could have set up a party for my friend’s just days before I am going to pop out a baby. Baby Ella was also in attendance and she was completely adorable. I brought her a little gift to open and it was actually enjoyable to watch her open it. I am thinking I have been around her enough that she doesn’t scare the crap out of me as I am finding her to be super adorable and I even held her quite a bit. It wasn’t that bad either. Her favorite part about my present was the bow…of course. I told her mom just to buy her bows for Christmas because toys are not necessary.

We didn’t leave until after 1am and didn’t get home until 2am which means the dogs were alone for nine and a half hours. On the drive home I was just imagining what we were going to walk into when we got home. Of course we couldn’t come home to two dogs who behaved themselves all night long, but instead we walked into a disaster. Remember the dog bed they tore up last month when we went for a walk up the mountain without them, well now they tore up the replacement bed. We replaced the torn up bed with an older bed that we had stored away and now they tore it apart and had the stuffing everywhere all over the kitchen. We were too tired to deal with it so we let them out to go to the bathroom and then put them to bed. We, meaning Andy, cleaned up their mess in the morning.

Well, it’s starting to get chilly here and it’s making me scared for two weeks away when we will be back in Wisconsin for the holidays. I was pretty cold this weekend, and so was Andy, which means we are going to be complete wimps when we head back. Our bodies have completely acclimated to this Arizona weather so now when there is a high of 55 degrees it feels freezing to us. Going to freeze our butts off in less than two weeks!

Recap of Thanksgiving Week

Andy and I are not big fans of Thanksgiving, so we can give or take this holiday. Since this holiday brought me a four day weekend I was a fan of that. I have just never been a fan of fussing over food for so long just to eat it and I am not a big fan of turkey either. We ended up spending Thanksgiving with Tim and Shelley because they were in town all last week. We did discuss going out to dinner instead of cooking, but we opted to make Thanksgiving at our house for the four of us. One reason is that we had no idea what would be open that didn’t have chicken fried rice on the menu and Andy wanted the leftovers. I must admit that I am a pretty lucky girl to have a man that cooked almost all of the Thanksgiving dinner. Yup, that’s right girls; he did the turkey, yams, potatoes, roles, stuffing and corn. I was in charge of the cranberries and setting the table. Ok, I will admit, the cranberries were not too tough since it entailed opening the can and dumping the contents in a bowl. Shelley brought two pies with her and made green bean casserole while Tim made the gravy. The meal was amazing. There was so much food leftover that it completely filled our refrigerator and Andy was happy about this.

The night before Thanksgiving the four of us went to a Phoenix Suns game. I am not a fan of professional basketball, but it was my first NBA game so I was looking forward to the experience. Boy, was it a disappointment. I was far from impressed. Our tickets were expensive and the seats sucked. We sat in the Lexus Club seats and the only plus about that area was the seats were comfortable. For such expensive tickets I would have thought food or booze was included in the Lexus Club, but that was extra. So, I got over the expensive (but crappy) seats and decided to enjoy the game. Yeah, that enjoyment came to an end real soon. The NBA does way too much “extra” crap to entertain the audience that I was just not interested at all. It was way too fake and childish for me. By half time I was just over the whole NBA experience. Why can’t we just watch the basketball game without all the crappy entertainment in between every time out? I walked out deciding that was my last NBA game. I would only go to another game if I absolutely had to.

The day after Thanksgiving is the day that makes some shoppers very happy. I on the other hand find it a day from hell and a day I ban all stores. I am not a morning person so no “big sales deal” can get me out of bed on my day off of work before 5am to save a few bucks. Kudos to all of those people that did and saved, but it’s just not my thing. Instead of joining all the crazies out there on Black Friday I slept in, lounged around while watching crappy daytime television and then I hiked the mountain. In the afternoon Andy and I did hit up Ryan’s Pet Warehouse to get the girls some bones and toys. Ryan’s was not banned because this did not fall in the category of Black Friday. We ended Friday with our latest Netflix film.

This was a great Thanksgiving because it was so low key. We had great weather and good company. I got to lounge around all day and then eat a fabulous meal. It turned out to be such a nice holiday.

Where Did We Go Wrong?

We started out strong because neither of us wanted to give in. Initially it wasn’t allowed, but now it is. How did we end up like this? A queen size bed with two adults and two 60 pound dogs every night equals an overstuffed bed. We never allowed the dogs to sleep on the bed and it worked for a very long time. I think it worked for so long because Izzy couldn’t get on the bed. Once she started to jump on the bed she eventually made her way on the bed sometime in the middle of the night. This of course gave Madison the invitation to join the party in the queen sized bed. Izzy started this behavior about six months ago. Before we went to bed we always made the dogs sleep on their own beds on the floor. I always awoke sometime between 2am and 5am to find 60 pounds of dog sleeping half on me. Sometimes we would get up and lift the heavy dog off our bed and onto her own bed and other times we would just ignore it because we were just too tired. This event happened on a nightly basis. Normally I didn’t mind because at least I was able to fall asleep and be sleeping for quite some time before she would get on the bed. Now our nightly routine consists of us trying to beat the dogs in the bed to claim our spots before they decide to park their butts on the bed. Oh, yes, this is true. I always have to use the bathroom before I go to bed; however, now I have to be quick and strategic while doing this. The dogs do not allow Andy to save my spot on the bed so I have to be quick and creative when getting up to make sure I don’t have to battle it out with one of the dogs when I return. I know this got so bad a couple weeks ago when Madison got sick and Andy allowed her to sleep on the bed from the get go. Madison likes to snuggle with Andy when she isn’t feeling well. If Madison was allowed to sleep with us from the get go then Izzy of course thought she could too. These last couple weeks have been rough at night sleeping with the two biggest babies ever! I have no idea how to break this habit, but where did we go wrong?

My Neti Pot Experience

*Warning* Post might be gross to some.

My friend, Jessica, introduced me to the Neti Pot this week. For those of you that don’t know what a Neti Pot is, it’s a very interesting and unique way to clean out your sinuses. I had heard of a Neti Pot years ago, but thought it sounded just wrong and disturbing so I completely forgot about it until my friend Jessica brought it up to me yesterday. This week I thought I came down with a cold. At first I thought “How can this be? I was just sick with the flu a couple weeks ago.” After talking to some friends I realized that it’s not a cold and more of a sinus problem. I have never had sinus problems in my life so that’s why I automatically assumed I had a cold. In talking with Jessica she recommended I try this unique way of cleansing out my sinuses and at first I was not going to do it, but then I woke up on Friday and my forehead and the area between my eyes were just throbbing. I was tired of this and decided to suck it up and head to Walgreen’s to purchase this miracle pot. I learned there are two forms of this sinus cleansing and one form is a pot and the other is a nasal spray. Initially I thought the spray was the way to go, but then I changed my mind as I was standing in Walgreen’s staring at both packages. The pot looks gentle and innocent while the spray looked fierce and scary. I didn’t think I was going to be able to shoot liquid straight up my nose. I think I was fearful of it going straight to my brain… HA HA! Anyway, I opted for the pot version and headed to the pharmacy to get some Sudafed so I could head back to work. I spent the afternoon agonizing over what my poor nose was going to face once I got home from work. I also was hoping this would help me and I wasn’t going to be torturing myself for shits and giggles. I got home from work and found that Andy wasn’t home so I was thrilled because I didn’t want him to watch and laugh. I got to the bathroom and opened up the package to find the Neti Pot was much bigger than I had expected which was a little scary. I opened up the directions and read carefully because I had no idea how this was going to work. I did a practice run to make sure I knew how to hold this pot. After a couple practices I finally figured it out and was ready to fill the pot with salt water. I filled up the pot put the spout in my right nostril, put my head forward and tilted a little to the left. The next thing I knew water was streaming out my left nostril. Now this was very weird and an awkward feeling. I was also trying not to laugh as I looked at myself in the mirror. It was quite the sight! Oh, the other important thing was that I needed to remember to focus on breathing through my mouth and not my nose. That was difficult as I never thought focusing on breathing so much would be so tough. This breathing was to make sure I didn’t swallow the salt water mixed with boogers! Once the pot was emptied into my right nostril, up my nose, down through my left nostril and into the sink it was onto the other side of my nose. After the first run I realized it wasn’t so bad. I worked myself up for nothing. This was a piece of cake. I just had to focus on breathing and not laugh at myself in the mirror. Onto the other side, and that turned out great too. I was a big girl and wore my big girl pants while doing the Neti Pot. I am very glad I decided to try something new and scary because it completely helped only after one cleansing. I feel much better already. I will do it again tomorrow morning and continue to do it until I am all cleansed. Who knows, maybe this will be a daily routine for me, just like showering!

Baby Shower Weekend

This weekend I learned that Babies R Us is a happening place on a Friday night. Before Andy and I went out with our friends to see the local band, The Chadwick’s, we made a pit stop at Babies R Us to get my girlfriend a baby shower gift. To be honest this was my first time ever in this store. For baby showers in the past I got out of shopping in this store by either going in on a gift with another friend who loves to baby shop or I shopped online. This time there was nobody to go in on a gift with and I waited too long so it was way too late to shop online, but at least I had Andy to share the baby shopping experience with. The first thing we learned when we pulled in is that they have the first 10 spots reserved for pregnant mommies. Well, we thought about it for a second and decided not to back out and park in a different spot that was not reserved for pregnant mommies because this was kind of dumb to have prego mommy reserved parking spots. Instead, Andy told me to act pregnant when getting out of the car and stick my belly out since the parking lot was busy. I just laughed at that request. We headed into the store and straight to the kiosk to print out the mommy-to-be wish list. I decided on a boppy with a cover and the only reason why I know what one is because at the last baby shower I attended the mommy-to-be received one. Now that I know what it is the next step was to find it. This store is pretty big and as we walked around we noticed this store had every baby thing imaginable and I had absolutely no idea where a boppy would be housed so I found the first nice employee to get assistance. As we continued to walk around we noticed that this store was completely packed on a Friday night with prego women and their men, so I guess it’s the place to be on a Friday night if you are expecting. We found the items we needed and be-lined it for the register to get out of the baby store so we could head to Old Towne with our friends to see the local band. Saturday was the baby shower and it was held at my girlfriend’s apartment in Old Towne. I am normally not a fan of these parties, but my girlfriend did a really nice job. I was pretty impressed with the spread of finger foods my girlfriend had, and if you know her you would have been impressed too. She also did a whole pumpkin theme which was quite creative. She only had two games which was awesome, because some baby showers are just flooded with game-after-game, so I was thrilled with only two. One of the games she has was baby bingo and I dominated at it and won two prizes. I didn’t even try either, but I guess I am just that good…HA HA! One of the prizes I won was pumpkin pancake mix from Trader Joe’s. Initially I thought this was a bit odd, but I will try it because my friend has good taste so I figured it was worth the try. I woke up this morning to test these pumpkin pancakes and they were pretty damn good. Not something I would eat every weekend, but definitely every once in a while. I added chocolate chips to mine and the pancakes were wonderful, so if you come across pumpkin pancake mix I would definitely give it a try if I were you as its pretty tasty!

Halloween Recap

Another year of Halloween fun has come and gone and we did have a great time this past weekend celebrating the best holiday ever! We ended up hanging out in Old Town Scottsdale as Zombie Prom King and Queen. To get costumes together we went to Savers to purchase most of the items we needed. For Andy’s costume we purchased a black suit jacket, white dress shirt and black pants. We also got him a crown and a sash which I wrote Prom King on in black letters. For myself I purchased a black dress and a black lacey/grey skirt which I got at Saver’s. I really had no idea what I was going to do with the dress and skirt, but as Tim Gun would say I had to “make it work.” I also got a tiara from the children’s aisle at Party City, a sash and zombie makeup. Of course we waited until the last minute on Saturday to turn our purchases into fabulous costumes. For Andy we shredded and cut holes in his pants, dress shirt and jacket. He also became a pyro and was burning holes into the white shirt. We finished off the clothes by tossing them into the dirt to make them look old. We put the grey makeup on him and dark circles under his eyes, spiked his hair and topped his look off with the crown and sash. My dress was a little more complicated as I was very unsure of what to do with the clothes I bought. I started to try everything on when I got the idea of using a short petticoat under the skirt to give it more volume. I dug into my box of old costumes and got out my old petticoat and that is when my creative wheels started spinning. I busted out the sewing kit my mom bought me years ago and I was able to show off my junior high home-ec talent. I started sewing the skirt so it was much shorter and puffier. I followed up with random cuts in it with the scissors. Once the skirt was complete I cut the dress so it was well above my knees and then I cut tears in the bottom all the way up to my waist. I then put that on so there was a layer over my skirt of more shredded black material. My costume was now looking way better than I could have imagined. I topped off my costume with black fishnet stockings, black knee-high boots, a tiara and grey makeup. I also ratted my hair so it was poofy and put white streaks in it with the makeup I purchased at Party City. Our friends Mike and AJ came over to celebrate Halloween with us and Mike was a lobster boil while AJ was a firewoman. The lobster boil was so funny looking that I laughed all night every time I just looked at Mike. For the last four years our friends the Smith’s had a big Halloween bash at their house which was always a great time. This year Mrs. Smith is pregnant and didn’t feel like having a big party; which by the way, I don’t blame her. I tried talking Andy into having the big bash at our house and he didn’t like that idea because all he was thinking about was the clean up, so our last resort was to head to Old Town Scottsdale. We got down there early and had a great time hanging out, people watching, checking out the costumes and then we headed to another bar where we got to see the band Rock Lobster. They are an 80’s cover band that I really like. It was kind of funny that Mike was dressed up as a lobster because I overheard a girl say that he must be a big fan of the band since he was dressed like he was. That was funny because Mike and AJ just moved here and never heard of the band. Anyway, it was another great holiday that Andy and I got to spend together and I can’t wait for Halloween 2010!!