Ketchup

Pin It Now! I'm not dead, I promise!

This time of year is always pretty busy.  Things should start to slow down after the new year... and panic will set in as my Quarter Century birthday approaches (46 days!!!).  Instead of a really interesting, focused post, here's a random mishmash of things that have been going on in my life recently...

1.  I spent part of the evening doing some prep work for tomorrow's baking extravaganza.  I love baking!  I'm certain that my kitchen will be a disaster and I will have forgotten some key ingredient for one of my goodies.  On the list?

-- Brownie Crackles

-- Chocolate covered pretzels

-- Oreo truffles (these were requested!)

-- Fudge

-- Sugar cookies

-- Gingerbread cookies

We'll see how it goes.  Hopefully I don't set my kitchen on fire or anything.  I'm pretty sure that won't happen, though.

2.  I'm really looking forward to Christmas!  I can't wait until everyone sees the gifts that we bought for them.  We especially enjoy watching our nephews open their gifts.  Seeing Christmas through the eyes of young children is always such an amazing thing.

3.  This Christmas we have 2.9 nephews, but next year we'll have 3!  Baby Levi is due to make his entrance into the world in 3 short weeks.  Of course, they're probably long weeks for his pregnant mama.

4.  I am returning to work full-time after the new year.  It'll be nice to have money again.  Plus, I like the majority of my co-workers, so at least I'll be spending more time with people I enjoy being around.

5.  Speaking of work, I did something Sunday at work that I find terribly disgusting.  I won't describe it to you, but I can guarantee you wouldn't be able to guess what it is without some heavy hinting.  It takes a lot to gross me out, though, so hopefully this is a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence.

6.  I finally bought new headphones!  I bought a set of Skull Candy headphones.  I'm sure they aren't the best ones, seeing as they were marked down from $9.99 to $4.99, but they're purple and they fit.  Well, they fit when I use the smallest ear covers.  I'm pretty happy with them... and the price!

7.  I've taught myself to crochet... again.  I learned to crochet when I was younger, but it didn't progress very far.  After attempting to knit socks, I decided to downgrade from five needles to one and settled on crochet.  I'm attempting to make an afghan.  It might be done this time next year.  We'll see.

Happy Anniversary!

Pin It Now! Seven years ago today, I had my first date with the guy who I would one day join in wedded bliss.

January 2004, one month after our first date

Our first date didn't go as planned thanks to Mother Nature.  A snow storm caused our first "real" date to be delayed.  Instead we watched Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory at my parents' house.  As Michael left, he got his Ford Mustang stuck in my parents' driveway.  As embarrassed as he was, he asked me out again a couple of days later.

Even now, seven years later, I still feel like the same 17 year old girl from that first date.  Every single day is a blessed adventure.

I love you, Michael!

Oh, Christmas Tree

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We finally purchased our first big tree as a married couple.  The last couple of years we had tiny 24" trees that we put on the coffee table.

Not this year, though.

I would have loved a real tree, but I love having my tree up from Thanksgiving to New Year's even more, so I caved to my husband's pressures of getting an artificial tree.

We had a wonderful time putting up our tree, even though it consumed the entire evening.  This is also the first year we decided to decorate with ribbon rather than garland, so my apologies if it's not as pretty as your tree.

 

Adventures at the Post Office

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This is a busy time of year for the post office.  I recently had the misfortune of needing to go there.  Had I simply needed stamps, I would have considered going to the grocery store.  However, I needed to mail a package, which meant going to the actual post office...

...on the other side of town.

I managed to arrive during the noon hour, so, not only were there more people in line, but someone was clearly on lunch, as only one person was working the counter.  There was a man hovering around behind the counter, but he never came up and offered to help with the dozen or so people in line.

The guy in the passport office, however, stepped in to help.  When I was next in line, I was anxiously glancing from one end to the other in order to see which would end first.  There was an older gentleman at the passport desk who had just finished buying his stamps and he motioned for me to go down there and be helped.  When I got down there, the guy from the passport desk had disappeared.

Crap.

I saw that the other attendant was finishing up with her customer.  A quick glance at the line showed another 10+ people in line.

You know exactly what I did.

You'd have done the same thing.

I ran back across the room and got back in front of the guy who was behind me and beat him to the desk.

Don't judge, I wasn't cutting.  I was simply claiming my right to purchase stamps next.

Anyway... I know the older man was just trying to be nice, but it definitely caused me a bit of anxiety, which the post office already does anyway (Are there any explosive materials in your package today? Seriously?).

Since I was already at the post office, I brought our Christmas cards to mail off.  I went into the room with tables in order to put the stamps I had just purchased on the envelopes.  As I walked up to the mail slot, I noticed the writing above it:

Domestic Mail Only.

Crud.

I had a Christmas card to send international and I had no intention of waiting in line -- again -- just to mail a card to my friend in Germany.  So I dug through 45 cards and pulled hers out.  I then mailed the other 44 and took the card bound for Germany with me and got in my car.  I drove to the big blue mail boxes in front of the facility and dropped it in.

Isn't that the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard?

Happy Thanksgiving -- Part Deux

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So Thanksgiving with my in-laws was not without pictures.  It was the first time that all five of the kids were together in one place for a holiday.  My in-laws were not about to pass up an opportunity to have a picture taken of all their children together.  

So I did what any amazing daughter-in-law would do -- I brought my tripod.  Here are the results:

Here they are, all five kids.  In the back you have Michael and his two brothers, Austin and Chris.  In the front you have his sisters, Kate (and baby Levi!) and Melanie.

Here's a big family picture, including two grandpas, a couple of nephews, and people who married into the family (that'd be me)...

That's a big crowd, right?  There were at least three non-family people there that aren't in this picture, so you can imagine that the house was pretty full.  We had a lovely time, though.

Pictures of large groups never cease to entertain me because people are always making the funniest faces.  I have one photo where my nephew, Mason, looks like Kevin from Home Alone when he's screaming.  I have another one where the dog just happened to show up in the picture (you can see her in the bottom right corner of the last picture) and chose that as the exact time she should groom her downstairs.  Lovely.

Oh, and last, but certainly not least... a picture of me and my partner in crime...