happy thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving! It's a day of reflecting and being thankful for all of your many blessings. I have so much to be thankful for today and I want to start focusing on the "good stuff." I think many people, myself included, tend to focus on what's NOT happening or what's NOT going right. I'm know I'm completely guilty of that and I want to improve. So, in true thanksgiving tradition...

I am thankful for my husband. I am far from perfect and not always the easiest person to love and somehow he loves me more everyday. He's my rock and I love him with all my heart.

I am thankful for my dog. She tests our patience at times but she fills my heart with so much love. She is always faithful and always has lots of wet kisses and butt wags waiting for me whenever I walk in the door. She is my "first born" and "practice round" and has taught me more than she'll ever know. She is preparing us for parenthood, if and when we are ever blessed with little ones someday.

I am thankful for my family. I love my family and don't know what I would do without them. I was also blessed enough to become part of a new family this year and I couldn't ask for a better one. Family is one of the most important things in life and I know mine will always be there for me, no matter what.

I am thankful for my awesome friends. Even though some of us lives miles apart, I'm so thankful we're still able to get together a few times a year. I'm grateful that I still have my friends from both high school and college...I think that is very rare and I'm so thankful for each and every one of them. They've helped me to become who I am and where I am today and I'm forever grateful.

I am thankful we both have jobs. As much I as complain and how much it makes me crabby, I am very thankful that I'm still there. Without our jobs, we would not have many of the possessions we have. We don't have many extravagant things, go on expensive vacations, or have thousands in the bank to spend foolishily but we have a home that is worth coming home to. It's not the biggest or prettiest in the world but it's a home filled with love...and I couldn't have asked for anything better.

I am thankful for our health and the health of our family and friends. There are so many people that aren't as fortunate.

I am thankful for my renters. So far, my house has been taken care extremely well and without them, we would be facing a foreclosure on it. We can't afford two mortgages every month and can't sell it since it's unfortunately a number we don't have the money to lose.

I have so much to be thankful for, I've been truly blessed. I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving with your family and loved ones!!

christmas cards...

With all the snow starting to fall and seeing our neighbor's outside Christmas decor being lit for the past few weeks now, I'm finally allowing myself to get excited about Christmas! And if Joe lets me, I want to put the decorations out tonight! :) Another yearly tradition for us is putting together our Christmas cards to send out to our friends and families. After browsing many of the options out there...Shutterfly, hands down, has the best selection (in my humble opinion, of course :). We used them last year for our holiday cards and I was super impressed and happy with the final product. They arrived very quickly, envelopes were included and they were very high quality. They are also very reasonably priced and always have great sales/deals. I can't wait to pick out this year's design!

We used the 4x8 photo cards last year but they have some great 5x7 cards available too! They come in both flat and card styles like this adorable one:


To check out their holiday cards, go here:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/photo-christmas-cards

Calendars also make great gifts that are easy to make and are very personal and special. My sister made these last year for us for Christmas using our engagement pictures and we have one hanging in our kitchen.
http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

And with the colder weather arriving, we are drinking a lot more coffee and hot chocolate, another great gift idea for the coffee lovers in your life:
http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts/photo-mugs

Happy Shopping Friends, hope you have a blessed holiday season!!

one more thing...

I forgot to mention in my post from yesterday that we have a renter! Philip was supposed to move out by the end of October. About a week after I received his notice, he told me he might have jumped the gun in giving his notice and hoped he could stay at least another month. My new renter can't move in until Jan 1, so it's worked out perfect. November is covered and hopefully most of December will be. I told Philip he could move out mid-month or whatever day he needed to and we'd figure out the apportioned rent. Fingers crossed he stays most of December!!

updates...

I can't believe how much Christmas stuff is out already. Last week, our neighbors replaced their outside lights with green and red light bulbs, along with their other Christmas decor. I would not be surprised if their tree was up too. These are the same neighbors who continued to turn their lights on every night well into March. I "get" that they love Christmas but it's just nauseating...it's hard to put out that decor when it's still in the 50s outside. I'm just getting my thanksgiving decor out and looking forward to turkey and apple pie, Christmas does NOT come out until AFTER Thanksgiving (and I absolutely LOVE Christmas, it's my by far my favorite time of the year). I also stocked up on coke products today at Target, the Santa coke packs are already on the shelf.

Speaking of Target, I stopped by after work tonight to pick up a few groceries...as my teenage cashier started to scan my items, I asked very politely "can I have paper, please?"...he responded with "may you?" I just about died, I could NOT believe he just said that to me! I gave him the meanest glare I've given in ages and said "it's been a long day"...I wanted to go off on him and it took everything in me not to make a scene. I wanted to say I'm sorry but did some punk kid who doesn't have a high school diploma just think he had the right to correct MY grammar?? I was so FREAKING pissed...after I got in my car, I wanted to call back and talk to the manager but after cooling off, I realized it's quite petty and not worth the effort. I think he realized he was out of line after I snapped at him, he apologized and that it just came out. He wasn't really sorry but he at least made an effort to backpedal. STILL, the nerve of kids these days...if I wanted a grammar lesson, I would have asked for one. UGH!!!

I'm sure the extent of my crabbiness this week is from work. The days continue to be long and there is no end in sight. I'm still job searching with no luck. So is Joe. I've just come to realize that I'm just going to have to tough it out for longer than I had hoped...I'm not sure how I will survive another winter commute to Bloomington but I don't really have a choice at this point.

On a happier note, we carved pumpkins for Halloween and they turned out awesome. It's been quite a few years since I had carved one :) We also saved the seeds and I baked them. This was something I don't remember doing as a kid, so I was curious to see what they tasted like. They are one of Joe's favorite things...I could take or leave em. But Joe enjoyed them, so they were worth the saving and work to clean and bake them.



This past weekend, I headed to Madison to celebrate Krista and Holly's 30th birthday. I left bright and early Friday morning and got into town to have lunch with my grandparents. It was so great to see them. We went to Perkins and had a great afternoon chatting and looking at wedding pictures. My grandma also gave me a silver spoon that has been passed down from my great great grandma. She told me back in the day, when a woman was married, they would receive pieces of silver from their family/friend's collections as wedding gifts. Her mother had passed this down to her and told her she would know when the time was right for her to pass it down and told me the same, I would know when it was time to pass it down. Pretty emotional moment, it's a beautiful silver spoon that is from the early 1900's (my grandparents have a antique friend who looked at it). Now I'm on the hunt to find a nice box to store it in.

After lunch and spending the afternoon with them, I headed to Johnson Creek to meet up with Krista, Caitlen and Holly at Krista's house. We had a blast and had so much fun catching up with each other. Krista and her boyfriend, Kyle, hosted a Halloween party and we had fun dressing up and hitting the townie bar just down the road. Kyle and Krista also went ALL out with the decorations, their house was so awesome!


On Sunday, I met up with my friend Jessica and her family for breakfast on my way home. And I made it home just in time to catch the last few minutes of the Packer game, what a nail biter. I was also able to listen the whole way home too, which I was very happy about :)