Busy Day...

No Critics Choice to share today... if YOU have a movie, book, TV show, product, etc. etc. you'd like to share, please leave it in the comments - we'd love to hear!

I'm swamped today.  Lots of painting going on... can you tell?  : )

The next 24 hours are going to be crazy for me.  Remember how anal retentive I am about list-making?  I couldn't go to bed last night without writing my hour-by-hour list for today.  I was so scared I would forget something!

Wish me luck, and have a great weekend!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

This post is a little late, since the tree has been up for the better part of a week now, but oh well. Better late than never!

Like the lights, this year's tree has been quite the debacle! First of all it took us forever to find a place to purchase one, then ages to pick one out we actually liked. Once we got it home it wouldn't fit in the tree stand so we had to saw a bunch of low-hanging branches off. When we finally got it up it was super crooked and we were afraid it would fall! So we anchored it into the wall as an extra protective measure!

What I need to keep in my head is that it is a REAL TREE. It is not going to be perfectly straight and symmetrical. That's part of its beauty, right?

Anyhoo... we did have a lot of fun decorating it....




I love, love, LOVE unpacking the ornaments each year. Almost every one holds a special memory with it. Here are a few of my faves...

We got these two ornaments on our Honeymoon. They are hand-painted and just so pretty.

My grandmother got me this one. If you look closely you can see that the paint is starting to crack. I always put it at the top of the tree so it's safe.

This is not a good picture, but these are cherries and they jingle! It came from my parents house and was always one of my faves as a kid.

One of my oldest friends, Angela, made this for me. It has a little mini camera, scrapbook, and some other personal things inside to represent me and my hobbies.

Meg and Matt got us this last year to celebrate our first Christmas in our first home!

This one came from our trip to NYC last December with Trav's family. So much fun!

Travis' Aunt and Cousins got this for me at my bridal shower last year.

This one came from Travis' parents' house...

Cindy and I exchange ornaments at the holidays every year. This one was from 2008.

Do you have any ornaments that are especially near and dear to your heart?

(I like to go a little crazy with the lights!)

Happy Monday!

Slowly but surely, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's so ironic - I've been looking forward to the Christmas season for MONTHS - wishing school was over so I could partake in all of the decorating, shopping, baking, and merriment. Now that it's here, I'd be lying if I didn't say that so far - it's been a bit of a pain in the ass!!!

You know how sometimes nothing seems to be easy? That's how our Christmas decorating experience has been so far. It started with the lights debacle (which, might I add, turned out wonderfully in the end!) and then progressed to a crooked Christmas tree... not enough lights for said crooked Christmas tree, garland that wouldn't stay hung, cats trying to EAT said garland... you get the picture!

Anyhoo - I'm pleased to report that the tree is UP (still a little crooked, but isn't that the beauty of a live tree?! I keep telling myself that at least!) and LIT. Tonight we'll move on to putting ornaments on it... surely nothing can go wrong there?!


The garland is also up... though I need to get some glittery thingys to stick in it and spruce it up a little bit. AND - the cats don't seem to be eating it any longer... guess the novelty wore off!




We're being threatened with a HUGE snowstorm here that has yet to come to fruition... I'm getting a little panicky only because I am WAY behind on Christmas shopping and HATE driving in the snow. If this storm comes through I'll be even MORE behind on the shopping.


How are YOUR holiday plans going? Feeling rushed, hectic at all? Or are you cool as a cucumber with everything completely under control?? I think I'm going to grab a warm up on my coffee, put on the Christmas music, and just sit on the couch and admire the pretty lights for awhile. That should put things in perspective! : )

Happy Holidays! Stay Warm!

Christmas Lights 2009

And it only took...

6 strands of lights
4 extension cords
48 hours
3 trips to Target
1 electric shock
2 ladders

... to make it happen!!!


Major kudos to Travis for sticking with it - I was ready to give up two days ago and try again next year!

What a Weekend!

In the past two days...

1) Winter arrived... (yes, I took these photos out of my living room window because it was too cold to go outside!)



2) I found out I got a B in Statistics! Can you believe it?! Sooooo happy!

3) Tabitha, Napoleon, AND Buick all got adopted! (Head HERE for the full story...)

4) We (finally!) painted our living room! (I started getting some of the holiday decorations out, as you can see... and I need to hang some things on the walls... and I swear Oliver's eyes are not that creepy in real life!!!)





AND... we're going to get our Christmas tree today! Yeah! Stand by for the standard putting-up-and-decorating-of tree photos coming soon to this blog! : )

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

Happy December!

How was your first day of December? Did you get any snow? It was beautiful, sunny and mild here today, despite the snow trying with all its might to come down yesterday evening on my way home from class. I did hear that we're supposed to get REAL snow by the end of the week. We'll see what comes our way...

Last night I officially finished my semester - and I am still rejoicing in the fact that for the next five weeks I have no set schedule, no deadlines, and a whole lot of Holiday to celebrate!

It started to feel a little Christmas-y around here today. I stuffed a package of "Holiday Fun" for my brother in Texas. I'm sad I won't get to see him at all this Christmas.


I hung our wreath. It's pretty much identical to last years, and again was purchased from Costco for about $15. If I remember correctly - it lived way past the Holidays last year!


I started getting out all of the holiday dishes and servingware, and begun inventorying cups, plates, and napkins for our holiday get togethers.


Travis helped me bring all of the Christmas boxes up from downstairs. I packed up the fall stuff, and a waiting patiently to pull out all of the Christmas goodies until I get the house good and clean. It's a bit of a disaster after a busy close to the semester!


And tonight we'll open our advent calendars for the first time this year. This is an English tradition - but I'm seeing them more and more over here as the years go on. It's a kid thing really - but I'm quickly approaching 30 and still enjoy opening a door each day in December to count down to Christmas. ESPECIALLY if there's chocolate behind the doors! : )


And isn't that a big part of the holiday season? Allowing yourself to feel like a kid a little bit? I honestly felt giddy this morning when I woke up knowing that school was over and it was time to start preparing for the holidays. I've actually been ENJOYING cleaning my house - dusting, vacuuming, sorting, organizing, putting away. I love entertaining, especially at this time of year, and I enjoy making our house look as festive as possible.

Happy December, my friends! Enjoy!

Status Quo

It's been awhile since I've posted. Know why? There's not a lot to report!

Last weekend with grilled and played some cards over at the Hill's. Heather made delicious kebobs...

(this was taken BEFORE they went on the grill...)

and Lily was cute as always...

On Sunday, Trav and I tried a new recipe... beer and cheese soup! Not bad - but needs a little refining. We made homemade croutons, too!

I've been spending some QT with my big cats during the day... they are the least neediest of all the animals in my house right now and sometimes don't get all the attention they deserve.

School is... going. To say I'm not in the swing of things yet is a bit of an understatement!

And I've been struggling with mad allergies and foot problems (I sound like an old lady!) over the past few days so I've been a bit down in the dumps.

This week has been a bit of a wash really. I wish I could start it over! I have lots to do in the next few days - our friends Justin & Kristen are getting married this weekend and we'll have a house full of overnight guests. It will be a busy weekend, that's for sure!

I promise to be a better blogger - expect another update from me before the weekend for sure!

Happy Hump Day!

Weekend Wrap Up: Walking, Wizards and Weather

I have mixed feelings about the weather this past weekend. It was unseasonably cool. In fact, I don't think it hit 70 degrees until late Sunday afternoon when the sun finally came out. Crazy!

On one hand, it was great sleeping and snuggling weather. Perfect for curling up on the couch with a blanket and napping -- which I did do, by the way!

It was the first weekend in a long time that Trav and I didn't have anything going on. We didn't have big travel plans (other than our super fun drive out to Lansing Friday night to see Alison and Noah!) or any real agenda for the weekend. This made it ideal for sitting on the couch and doing not much at all!

On the other hand - living in Michigan and all - we have PLENTY of these cool days come late fall and of course into our long, drawn-out winters. Since it IS July - we really should appreciate and enjoy the summer weather that we're supposed to be having.

Regardless of how I feel about the weather - there's certainly nothing I can do about it - and we had a great weekend nonetheless.

On Saturday we walked (Bella, too!) to our local farmers market which is just over a mile from our home. We came back with a bounty of delicious locally grown veggies...

Now if those don't get me motivated to cook - I don't know what will! : )

I couldn't resist these BEAUTIFUL gladiolus! So amazing! Usually flowers are a bit of an issue in our house because the cats knock them over, but this big green vase I scored at a "going out of business" sale awhile back is heavy enough with water in it that they can't mess with it. Yay!

(Yes, that's a cat sleeping in a bed stop the fireplace in the background...)

Saturday evening we went to see Harry Potter! Yup, we're nerds. We've both read all of the books - and make a point of seeing the films in the theatre.

We're not regular movie goers by any means (we spent most of the drive there and back trying to remember the last time we went to the movies!) and I tell you - we were blown away by the movie prices. $9.25 a ticket! Since we don't go often, we splurged on popcorn, a soda, and some sour patch kids (for me - I love gummi stuff!) and I'm a little embarassed to think about the total $$$ we spent there!

Anyhow - the movie was phenomenal. I went right home and busted out book no. 7 again. It's been so long since I've read it, I've definitely forgotten some of the details, and the movie of book 6 got me all geared up about Harry's future! Go Harry!


Sunday was a relaxing day. We grocery shopped, walked the dog, and just hung out.

People are generally surprised to find out that Travis is the cook in this relationship. He makes 90% of our dinners... no joke! On Sunday night he whipped up a yummy chicken parm. Fabulous comfort food - and the perfect close to the weekend!

In a food rut...

Travis and I are in a food rut.

Actually, we're almost always in a food rut.

Although Trav loves to cook, and I don't mind it, we're almost always...

a) too busy
b) too lazy... or ...
c) completely uninspired!

It's no good at all.

We grocery shop sporadically, and eat out way more than we should. What's more - when we eat out - it's the same old stuff.

That's really the biggest problem - no matter if we're cooking in, or eating out, we're always eating the same stuff. So boring, and generally not very flavorful or healthy.

Last night, we got home late from meetings and needed to grab something relatively fast. We made a bold step and headed over to a nearby Lebanese restaurant that we'd always talked about going to, but never actually visited.

We walked in, completely ignorant, having no idea what to order. It was kind of fun in a way!

We ordered takeout, and came home with... (excuse the photos, it was dark out...)

a combination plate of chicken tawook, kafta kabob and beef shwarma and...

an order of baba ghanouge (blend of roast eggplant, tahini, garlic, and lemon)

Our meal came with a lebanese salad with homemade dressing and lots of fresh pita!

Oh my goodness was it good! The combo was plenty to share, and everything was just so fresh and flavorful. We really enjoyed it. Such a nice change from our usual blah fare.

Which brings me to cooking. We want to get better... we really do! We always have the basic meats on hand - steaks, chicken, ground beef and turkey - in the freezer, and have a great farmers market down the street to utilize. I think we just get bored of basic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti, and the likes.

We're going to plough through our cookbooks (we have a ton!) and see if we can pull out some recipes that meet the following qualifiers for our lifestyle...

a) quick (this is key!)
b) flavorful
c) light (it IS summer after all!)

How about you? What are your favorite weeknight recipes? Do share - we need inspiration!

And on a completely unrelated note... Look what sprung up outside our house!


I thought that we had just a bunch of grasses taking over everything, and almost dug them up when I weeded and mulched the beds in the front of our house (closest to the street, across the sidewalk) and am SO glad I didn't!

I realized that they must be day lilies awhile ago, and was expecting bright orange flowers. Instead, we have these beautiful dark red ones! Sooo pretty! Can't wait for them all to bloom!



Happy Hump Day to you all! Don't forget to share some recipes with me!