.:::Sunday Social::.

1: Top 3 favorite kinds of food:

• Pasta
• Jelly beans
• Subs

2: First 3 things you do in the morning:

• Feed the pets
• Get ready
• Eat breakfast

3: Last 3 things you do at night:

• Read my Bible chapter
• Lotion
• Chapstick

 4: 3 TV shows you NEVER miss:

• Grey's Anatomy
• Pretty Little Liars
• American Horror Story (or when its on hiatus, the Americans)

5: 3 places you want to visit:

• Greece
• Italy
• Alaska

6: 3 people you can always count on:

• Hubs
• Dad
• Susie

.::I'm still around::.

HELLO.

It's been awhile. Sad, I know. But then I see how some other people *cough* haven't posted since last year sometime and I don't feel so bad. ;)

It's crazy how fast time flies. It's not that I'm necessarily having fun either. I've been stressed--lots going on. More on that later.

I've decided I miss summer vacation. Badly. I wasn't one of those kids who just wanted to grow up and get out of school. I liked school. Not so much school itself but the act of being in school and not being out in the real world. I remember I used to read a couple of books a week. (Now I'm still reading the same book I was reading last.year.ick.) I used to dance around the lush green yard barefoot. (Now I barely get outside--of course I have a semi-grass-phobia now.) And I used to stay up until 3 in the morning and now that's closer to when I wake up in the morning than anything.

I've seen a few people post summer bucket lists. Mine isn't even a list, its one thing: relax. Anytime I can, I want to just sit somewhere and breathe deeply and relax. I want to smell the fresh cut grass, smell the air after or right before it rains, smell the grill, smell the air after the fireworks go off ('kay that's a weird one).

I've noticed lately that I've 'checked' quite a few things off of my stupidly long list of things to do. Things that have made me feel like I would never be caught up. And I've probably gotten a little better about managing my time lately. So I think I may have time to relax a little. Maybe. :)

.::Sunday Social::.

1. What is your favorite thing about Spring?

Seeing little green buds starting to peek through the ground and the birds getting so excited. 

2. Favorite kind of flowers to grow or receive?

Tulips and hyacinths and especially, peonies..love.

 

3. What is your favorite nail polish color?

Wet n Wild Megalast's I Need a Refresh-Mint

Drugstore.com

 

4. What is your favorite outdoor activity?

Walking--love the fresh spring smells as I walk. 

5. Do you have any fun Spring plans?

None at all! This is down time for me.

Sunday Social

1) What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

2) What is your favorite smell? It depends on the season or my mood. I love the smell of pumpkin spice, apples, pears, snow, leaves, the forest, rain...

3) What is your favorite TV commercial (past or present) Its funny but even before I saw Neely's answer, Neely's answer is my answer! I love those older Gap and Old Navy commercials.

4) What is your favorite day of the week? Saturdays

5) What is your favorite way to waste time? Reading, Movies, Walking through the woods

6) What is your favorite article of clothing? Shoes!!

Catch-Up

I knew it had been awhile since I had last posted, so I wasn't at all surprised to log in and see that it had been since October. I wish I could say that I've been busy doing great things, but its just been the regular run-of-the-mill fill of the days.

In November I spent Thanksgiving with my family, which isn't at all peculiar. No Black Friday shopping for me, but I did do quite a bit of online shopping on Thanksgiving and some on Cyber Monday. Honestly though I got the better deals on Thanksgiving. I guess that's sad that they do that now. We went to go get soda on Thanksgiving night at K-Mart and they wouldn't let us in because they were gearing up to open the doors at 8 or 9 that night for the start of their Black Friday deals. So sad.

December is a slower month at work, which was greatly appreciated. I've been run ragged since July at work and it was nice to have some breathing time again. I actually went to my work Christmas Party this year and it was fun. I actually have a great group of co-workers (for the most part) and it was good to see some of them that work in different offices and that I hadn't seen in awhile.

Lately this month I've been wrapping presents, reading Christmas books, watching Christmas movies and baking. LOTS of Christmas movies. Its bad...I have an addiction. I'm going to try to not be so bad next year. Today and tomorrow I will probably only watch the old stand-bys, though. By that I mean that when I was a little kid my mom would record Christmas specials on videotape and we STILL have them and watch them every year. Sure, the quality has suffered but honestly to me that adds to it. And its so funny to watch some of the commercials and see the weather alerts and how the people have changed over the years. I mean, we're talking about watching something that was recorded in 1986 and seeing that it was 14 degrees out and the weatherman was sooo much younger looking. I have some newer ones I like to watch every year, too, like The Santa Claus, Christmas with the Kranks, This Christmas, Elf, etc., but those old ones are priceless.

The weather here has been fluctuating. One day its 50 or 60 degrees and then the next its 40 or 20. Just a little bit of snow so far, but it didn't stick. We had a big wind storm the other day and that was intense (good-bye outdoor decorations). We have snow in the forecast for Christmas night/the day after (go figure). 

Well anyway, here are some photos of goodies I have been making:

Getting ready to make candy sleighs for my co-workers (found the instructions at this great blog here)

Sleigh part constructed:

And voila! So pretty and cute and well-received! And so fun and easy to make!

Chocolate truffles:

One of my specialties, Pumpkin Roll:

My other specialty, Chocolate mints:

Chocolate-dipped pretzels:

Fill in the blank FRIDAY

....A day late...better late than never? Hey, I've been busy folks. :)

1) My favorite flower is....peonies. Love them. And gerber daisies. I guess you could say I like my flowers big and beautiful.

2) You should never talk about....I want to say religion or politics, but I want to CLARIFY religion only if you are talking to someone thick-headed :)

3) My favorite discovery as of late is...almonds. I know, sad. I guess this is 'new' for me because when I first tried eating them plain the kind I got were just nasty to me and didn't taste right. But then I found Blue Diamond's Natural Whole Almonds and yum. Honestly I think what happened is the ones I tried before were seasoned or something and I prefer them without any of that. But these 'new' almonds are great and addicting---a good healthy snack for me. 

4) This fall you will probably find me wearing...boots, scarves and sweaters. I started wearing the boots and sweaters a couple of weeks ago. We got a cold front and its been perfect sweater weather. 

5) I wish I were....still on vacation and not going back to work on Monday. Eck.

6) My favorite TV show currently is...Well the Real Housewives of New Jersey is just wrapping up so I don't know if I can count that? I actually haven't been too good about watching tv lately--we've been DVR(ing) a bunch of stuff lately and  I just haven't had a chance to watch most of it. I've been DVR(ing) 2 Broke Girls, How I met your Mother, Parenthood, Gossip Girl, the Office, and have been watching Grey's Anatomy and Revenge live. 666 Park Avenue isn't too bad either, but not sure if its going to last or not since I like GCB and they cancelled that. 

7) This weekend I want to...do exactly what I'm doing now :) Ah, the perks of a late post? I slept late and lounged around watching Christmas cartoons/movies while getting a few things done around the house. Tonight, hubby and I are going out to eat for our FIVE-YEAR anniversary (woo!). And tomorrow its back to the grind, I think.
 

.::Sunday Social::.

1) What were you like in middle school/HS?

 Middle school was probably the lowest of the low for me. I had awful rat brown stringy hair and acne kicked in. Went thru of a flannel stage, too, hah. I played volleyball and was in a few clubs but I was just kind of a lonely pre-teen. In high school I made a lot of friends and was in a lot of clubs but dropped out of sports and became more of an artsy person. I accomplished a lot of, well, let's say, shock value in these years. I did pretty much everything you can with your hair--dyed it every normal color and then some weird ones (black, purple, yellow). I spaced out my pierced ear holes (smells like rotting flesh, I don't recommend it). I did a lot of crazy stuff. I can't say I really regret any of it though because I got it all out of my system fairly early and once I graduated high school and was in my first year of college I was a pretty responsible adult and got going with life--I look at what all I have now because I worked for it, and what the late bloomers and partiers have, and I'm pretty content with my life.

2) What were you favorite past times?

I think driving around is probably a big teen past time. Once one of your friends got their license you could just spend all night driving around and ending up in the craziest places. And there were always places groups of people would park at and socialize, like parks, banks, stores, etc. In high school we went to a lot of local concerts, too--like kids just like us starting bands and having kind of local punk-rawk shows. Oh yes, I did just spell that like that. 
 

3) What songs were you obsessed with?

'Bitch' by Meredith Brooks and she had another song 'What would happen if we kissed'. A lot of grungier songs and I went through a punk phase.

4) What fashion statement do you look back on and cringe?

The overly baggy clothes that I wore. I guess guys pulled it off okay, but I was a girl and should not have participated in that trend. Nor should I have worn boxers and my girly underwear at the same time.

5) Who was your celeb crush?

Skeet Ulrich--one of the murderers off the original Scream movie. And Ryan Phillippe from Cruel Intentions (of course, now I don't like him since he cheated on Reese Witherspoon). I had a big thing for Christian Slater and Christian Bale, too. Still do for Christian Bale.

6) What were your favorite TV shows/movies?

I watched a lot of WB and then the CW when it switched over. So Dawson's Creek, Gilmore Girls was a big one, One Tree Hill, loved Everwood. Home Improvement. And then of course TGIF on Friday nights was a HUGE deal---Boy Meets World, Sister Sister, Full House, Step by Step, Family Matters, Who's The Boss, Growing Pains...I could go on and on.