Eating through the weekend!

I'm not looking forward to Weigh In Wednesday this week. Friday night Dean & I went to eat at VooDoo BBQ. Have y'all ever had BBQ Nachos? OMG soooo good!!! We had them with pulled pork & if I would've known how good they were I would've gotten them for my meal. I had a potato stuffed with BBQ chicken. Good but it had nothing on the nachos. I know what I'll order next time.

Saturday morning we were up early to go buy flagstone. No pictures because we didn't finish because we didn't buy enough. This was one of those "easy, inexpensive" projects that I came up with that wasn't inexpensive. Oh well. We're going to get the rest of it next weekend. Saturday night after Mass we met my parents at Brewbachers to eat. They were babysitting Logan. We ended up bringing our food to our house because Logan was ready to go. We played with his race track.

We watched some TV too. I've never seen Bubbles & Guppies but it was really cute & he loved it.

How is this comfortable?? We had a good time & I'm glad we got to hang out.

Sunday, I went to brunch with Allison & Wendy. It was soooo good.

 I had a a veggie omelet, potatoes & grits. Wendy had the eggs Benedict.

It was so pretty! Allison had shrimp & grits. I've never had them so I tasted hers & they were delicious! I think I'll get that next time.

YUM!!! After brunch we met Vicki at the movies to see One For The Money. We love the Janet Evanovich books & have been looking forward to the movie. I'm not a Katherine Heigl fan AT ALL but she did a good job. The movie wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. It was cute. It was a fun way to spend the day with the girls. Afterwards, I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond. I picked up a box of these.

This is the new blonde roast coffee from Starbucks. I had a cup this morning & it's definitely my favorite of all the coffee K cups. I've discovered that I don't like strong coffee. This is perfect.

The reason I went to BBB was for a new trash can for the kitchen. I love the drawer that opens that has the can inside but our kitchen doesn't have one so our trash can is in the pantry. The can we have was the one Dean got when he bought his first house which was somewhere around 20 years ago. It's plastic & has one of those swinging lids & I just don't like it. It's also hunter green. I figure after 20 years he got his money's worth. So, I bought this yesterday!

Isn't it pretty?? Well, as far as trash cans go. It's very nice & I like the foot pedal. It works well, isn't flimsy & has like a 5 year warranty. Now I just have to clean out the pantry. I didn't get around to it this weekend.

Toodles!

TGIF!!

WHOOP WHOOP!!! So excited it's Friday. No real reason, just glad that I have 2 days that don't require going to work. I forgot to do my Weigh In Wednesday post. I meant to do it yesterday but we were crazy busy at work. I lost 1 pound this week. I was only able to make it to Yoglates twice this week because of a work conflict. Yesterday was a tough class.

I've found a new love.

I've always been a "I don't eat Nese" person. You know Vietnamese, Chinese, Lebanese? I don't eat any of it. So, I've eaten hummus at my friends Cliff & Sheri's before & actually liked it. I've been looking for healthy snack options. There's only so many grapes a person can eat. I really like raw veggies, cauliflower, broccoli, bell peppers & carrots. YUM! BUT I like to dip them in something. Dip or salad dressing, something. All that stuff is so full of fat & calories & isn't the least bit good for you. Dean was going to Sam's after work yesterday so I emailed him & asked him to pick up some hummus. His response was "What kind?". Well, after a couple of emails & texts that went something like this - "the kind that's in a container that's about the size of the small Kool Whip container & the hummus is orangish colored", we determined that I wanted roasted bell pepper. They were out. Lucky for me because this classic stuff is AMAZING!!!!! I even put it on my wrap at lunch today instead of honey mustard salad dressing. For the same serving size (2 tbsp) the dressing is 130 calories & the hummus is 80. Plus the hummus has some healthy stuff in it. So, after some wikipediaing & googling with Wendy & Allison, we determined that hummus is Lebanese & not Greek so I do, in fact, eat Nese.

I'm currently sitting at my desk listening to my boss (who's great by the way) argue discuss politics. UGH!!! I'm not the least bit interested in anything affiliated with politics. Seriously, I get all info that I need from Facebook, Twitter & TMZ! Friday afternoons are a bit slow in the office so I'm going to read my book!

Toodles!

What happened??

This morning when I was putting my contacts in I discovered this.

At first I thought it was just a crease or red mark but then after I got both contacts in & could actually see I discovered it's some sort of cut/scrape. I tried to cover it with makeup but as you can see that didn't work. Surprisingly, nobody at work has asked me about it. In person it's actually more noticeable than in the picture. It stings some too. Of course I guess that's what happens when something that's full of chemicals (makeup) enters an open wound. No, I haven't jumped on the Bare Minerals bandwagon. How did this happen you ask? I have no clue. I feel sure that if it was there last night when I took my contacts out I would've noticed. The only thing I can come up with is that I scratched/scraped/jabbed myself during the night. So weird.

I'm also noticing in this picture my under eye circles/dark spots. They're more noticeable than I thought. Don't ask what's up with my eyebrows either. I KNOW they're supposed to start over by the corner of my eye. Well, not by the corner of my eye but you're supposed to draw an imaginary line from the corner of your eye straight up & that's where they should start. Clearly, mine do not. I don't know how that happened either. I don't go crazy with the  tweezers (although if you would've been cleaning out my house the last couple of weeks you'd think so because we have more tweezers than 2 people should ever need in a lifetime & I swear I've never bought a pair!). Years ago & I do mean years ago I had very thick eyebrows, I had them waxed a few times & that was that. They haven't been the same since. Again, weird. I guess this is random enough for one day.

Toodles!

A Project

Our weekend was pretty low key. We went to La Carreta for dinner Friday night. It's one of my favorite places. I love their tortilla soup. Saturday I spent the afternoon with my parents. After Mass, Dean & I decided on Mexican again. I can remember a time not so long ago when I couldn't stand Mexican food, now I'm eating it 2 days in a row! We went to Casa Maria this time & I got Chalupas. I'd never had them & they were soooo good.

Sunday, I worked on a project. More organizing. We have a desk area that's in the hall right off of our kitchen. There are cabinets above the desk too. This is another area that isn't used for its intended purpose. We use it to put stuff. Purses, keys, newspaper that we recycle. UGH! I decided that this would be the perfect spot for a bar/butler's pantry/whatever you want to call it. I cleaned out the cabinets & cubby holes. This was some of the crap.

It didn't take long to get everything out. There were light bulbs, batteries, books & other assorted crap.

That's the modem & phone base. The hubs has informed me that the modem must stay where it is. I can work with that. I'll just stick something decorative in front of it. It just occurred to me that I can move the phone base. I would like some drawers for the cubby holes. They're the perfect size for bar accessories like wine bottle stoppers, swizzle sticks, etc. I have no idea how to go about making drawers. Anyone with any ideas?? I have a china cabinet in the dining room but we also have a ton of assorted glasses that aren't "the good stuff" that I wanted to put in here. I also have some nice Waterford crystal that was still in the boxes in the china cabinet because there wasn't any other place to put them. Now they have a home.

The cabinet on the right has my Christmas crystal & a few huggies & some plastic glasses. The cubby holes are also the perfect size for bottles. In the cubby on the far left is the gate opener & Dean's keys. That's their home for now. We'll work on that later. Can't make too many changes all at once. HA! Here's another shot. One day I'd like to make the cabinets glass front. Again, I'm not sure what's involved & usually when I think something sounds easy it's not.

Keep in mind that this was really hard to photograph because it's in the hall. I just realize that I didn't take a picture of the actual desk top. Oh well, it's just a plain painted desk. When we get slab granite in the kitchen (at some point in the future that I hope is sooner rather than later) I'll have a piece put on the desk too. The desk was also home to the newspapers we recycle until we bring them outside to the big bin. This will be their new home.

I had this basket so I put it in the LSU room, which is just down the hall from the desk area.

By doing this rearranging it gave me more room in my kitchen cabinets so I rearranged some in there too. Next up is the pantry. I'm hoping to get that done next weekend. I can't attempt these things during the week after work because stuff like this takes me FOREVER! 

Toodles!

Mortified

And tired. You may remember my post from one day this week when I talked about the annoying people at Yoglates. You know, the ones that annoy me?? Welllllll, Wednesday night I was on Facebook (it will get you in trouble) & Yoglates posted about how they were "going back to their roots with no cell phones & no talking". They've been doing this since the first of the year due to people thinking it's perfectly appropriate to text & have cell phones ringing during class. Several people commented on the greatness of it, blah, blah, blah. THEN I commented "it's a shame we can't stop people from leaving early". No biggie right? Just my opinion & the opinion of others because I've discussed it with several people. Not to mention the end is the best part because you're not working anymore, it's all good stretching & breathing, but anyway. Well, I'd forgotten all about it. When I got to Yoglates yesterday I thought maybe things were getting back to normal because there were only a couple other people there & I was able to get my back row spot. So the teacher , who I like very much, is walking across the room to turn on the heat (it was 70 degrees yesterday but you know this is hot Yoglates, ugh!) when she says to me "Traci, you don't like people leaving early huh?". I respond that I don't because it's distracting. She agrees & goes on to say how the end is an important part of the routine & how after working as hard as we do our bodies need a cool down, blah, blah, blah. That's when I notice that one of the girls in the studio is one of the ones that left early the day before. Oops. HOWEVER, she wasn't who I was talking about. I was talking about the 2 sorority girls that jammed themselves in between me & this other girl & then left in the middle of class. Back to yesterday & my big mouth, so I proceeded to get my hair all pinned up (you don't realize how much hair you have until you try to get it all off your face & neck) & I notice, much to my chagrin, that the girl that heard us had moved over by the door. OMG! I guess she heard us & knew she'd be leaving early. I was thinking at least she moved by the door because that wouldn't disturb anyone. End of story?? Of course not. I look up & she's about 2 feet away from me & she proceeds to start APOLOGIZING!! OMG OMG OMG!!! SOOOO FREAKIN' EMBARRASSED. She starts saying that she doesn't like when people leave early either but her little girl is at dance & she has to be there to pick her up. I assured her that I was talking about the 2 annoying sorority girls, even though it is annoying when people leave before & during the cool down. I did think enough to leave out the term "annoying sorority girls". The way my luck was going this girl was probably one. A Sorority girl not annoying. She was very nice. She agreed with me that they were rude & she couldn't believe how they just squeezed in & then left. So, what did I learn? Think before you post crap on Facebook & keep my trap shut. Ugh!

Toodles!

Weigh In Thursday

So I realized that I skipped a weigh in last week. Easy to get out of the habit. I'm still at the 3 lbs gained from the holidays. Last week was my first week back into my Yoglates 3 times a week routine. I didn't have a good eating weekend. There was The Chimes Friday night, gumbo Saturday & Burgersmith Sunday. Today will be my 3rd day this week at Yoglates & it will also be 3 days in a row. It's not as tough as I was expecting. Last week I was incredibly sore. I missed the entire week before that. This week so far no soreness. I've also been wearing my handy dandy heart rate monitor.

It's great. It has the strap that goes around your chest so it's more accurate. I thought that it would bother me but it hasn't. Tuesday I burned 373 calories & yesterday 500. I knew yesterday would be more. It was a tough workout. Let me just say, I'm not a fan of plank runners or push press runners. I can't decide which I despise more. We started doing a lot of them last week. 4 sets of each, as many as you can do in 20 seconds with a 10 second break in between sets. It may not sound like much but you try it & see how you like it. This week it's 5 sets of each. Apparently, we're working our way up to 8 sets. Shoot me now.

I'm annoyed. Imagine that. All of these people with New Years resolutions to start working out, I'm ready for them to give up. It's cramping my style. Literally, cramping. Class is crammed full of people & there's no space to breathe. Not to mention when there are 75 people in a class the temp rises even more & it's hotter & more humid than usual. Yesterday, I couldn't get my usual back row spot because of all the people. THEN, people come to class late & squeeze in where there really isn't a spot. OK, fine, whatever. BUT, if you do that DO NOT LEAVE EARLY. I was really annoyed. Yes, sorority girls I'm talking to you! I know that exercising was my resolution last year but I started in Feb. after the initial rush was over & I didn't quit!!! YAY ME! Something else that annoyed me was the chick in full on Kim Kardashian makeup. She looked exactly the same after class as she did before class. How is that even possible??? I know I sweat like a man & most people don't BUT come on! Makeup was perfect & not a hair out of place & she was doing all the exercises. Some people are just too lucky. Happy Thursday!

I'm linking up to Liz's party.



Toodles!

You know what they say

About the best laid plans. Remember I said we had nothing planned for the weekend? It was going to be cold, it had been a week & I just wanted to wrap up in a blanket & lay on the sofa & read? Yeh that didn't happen. The neighbors called & wanted us all to go to dinner so off to The Chimes we went. If that wasn't enough they decided they wanted yogurt. Really? It's 40 degrees outside. Oh well, never let it be said I don't go with the flow. I had a delicious cup of sugar free chocolate & cheesecake combo. They even had a sugar free mocha frap flavor which was surprisingly delicious. So, now I drink coffee & like coffee flavored yogurt. So weird!

Saturday morning I got up & ran a few errands. I had a birthday gift to buy for Dean's Godchild. My MIL & FIL gave me some money for Christmas so while I was out I bought this for my Pandora braclet.

I thought the little Bible was so cute. I bought my mom the same on for Christmas. My next stop was Hobby Lobby. There were several aisles of stuff that was 66% off. I found this cross.

It's black iron. I think I'm going to paint it brown. It was $4.50. Believe it or not there were still some Christmas items left. The only thing I was interested in were some burgundy silk poinsettias. I wanted some to put in my tree & these were 90% off. What's even better is that it was a bunch of poinsettias & I paid $1.00 for each bunch. I picked up a photo album & finished putting all the photos in so that's another item checked off the to do list. I found a cute coffee cup for $5.50 too. Then it was home for a late lunch & the Saints game. What is it with Louisiana football this week?? At least this was a better game but it ended the same.

Have I mentioned that I'm a coffee drinker now?? So weird. Lydia told me this would happen. The Keurig came with a box of different coffees & teas. I've tried several of the coffee. Some I liked, others not so much. Emeril's big bold? I'll pass. French roast? yes please.

Being that I'm a new coffee drinker I've never tried any of the flavored creams but I've seen several blog peeps talk about how good they are. This one is mocha. It's really good. That's my new mug. Cute huh? It's not exactly what I was looking for but it'll do for now.

Hope y'all had a great weekend.

Googles!

The LSU Room

It's also an office of sorts. Not that we do any office work in it. We don't. I don't even sit in here to pay bills. Back when we moved into this house 6 years ago we had a desktop computer & this was its home. I've mentioned before that over the last several months this room had become a catch all room. Seriously, stuff everywhere. The before pics are here. Really, really bad. I worked on this room last weekend & it was basically finished but I had boxes to go to Goodwill & trash. I dropped all that stuff off yesterday. This is the view from the door.

I love the brick floor in this room. It's the only room in the house like this. The other side of the room is here.   

The book shelf is full of pictures, shot glasses (I collect them) & other memorabilia. I have dirt from the pitcher's mound at Rosenblatt Stadium, home of the College World Series & I have dirt from Alex Box Stadium which is LSU's home baseball field. My dirt is from the old, original Alex Box that is no longer standing which makes me sad every time I think about it or drive by. I'll never get used to it not being there. Sigh. Enough of that. The big poster is of Rosenblatt Stadium from when we were playing there in 1998. The 5 posters to the left are posters from all of the National Championships. LSU has 6 but I haven't had the 6th poster framed yet. It's on the list, along with a couple of other pictures that I have. This shelf actually has books on it & more pictures & more LSU stuff. See a trend?? The picture below is of the desk area. 

I hate am not a fan of this desk. The book shelf in the above pic matches. Dean bought this not long after we started dating when he bought his first computer. I'd thought about painting it but I've decided to not put a lot of work into it because I want something else. The desk may not look clean to y'all but this is it for the time being. I want some cute desk top organization things but I'm not buying anything until we get a new desk. Pens will be in coffee mugs for the time being. The desk doesn't look very big in this picture but it is. It's too big for what we need. I'd like something smaller but with drawers or cabinets or something. This desk has the pull out tray for the keyboard which is a waste & the printer cabinet that's next to it has 2 file drawers & a tiny little drawer. It would be nice if it were part of the desk but it's a separate piece. We'll see what I can find. I really wish we had IKEA here. This is a picture I bought Dean for our 1st or 2nd wedding anniversary. It's the old Alex Box Stadium.

Up until Saturday it wasn't framed. Pathetic, I know. Anywho, I went to Hobby Lobby Saturday & bought a frame for it. I love, love, love the frame. Of course they were half off so it was only $20. It's an 11x14.

So, I'm very excited to check something else off the 2012 to do list!! I'm linking to the party at  Cottage & Vine.

Toodles!

Organizing

I did my first little organizing project a couple of weeks ago. It's not much but it's something that needed to be done. Bathroom drawers! I didn't need to do all of them just my makeup drawer & hair/nail/misc. junk drawer. Naturally, I forgot to take before pics. Just imagine the average junk drawer with stuff stuffed in it. That was mine.

This is it now. I bought the silver mesh looking storage containers in the kitchen section at Bed, Bath & Beyond. They're not really mesh, they're metal or something. I had some little white baskets that I used but the holes were too big &stuff would creep through & make a bigger mess. The container that I have the nail polish & hair stuff in was recycled. I have no idea where it came from but it fits in the drawer perfectly. Next up is my makeup drawer. I had some baskets in this drawer but nothing was organized & half the time I had to dig to get to what I was looking for. I bought a silverware tray at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It's the same material as the containers in the other drawer. The divided compartments are great. I have all of my makeup brushes in one, mascaras & eyeliners in another, eye shadow together by color, etc. This is the makeup I use regularly. I also have one of those big things from Sephora that has shadows, lip glosses & all sorts of stuff. I have it in the cabinet under the sink because it's really too big to fit anywhere else.  

In addition to the silverware tray, I have 2 other smaller containers that fit perfectly in the drawer & still leave room for my brush & combs. So far this is working out great. It's easy to find what I'm looking for & I have no problem putting it back where it belongs. I keep all of my hair products & lotions & things in the cabinet under my sink. I'd like to get some sort of shelving system for that area because there's so much wasted space. I need to look into that.

Another minor organizing thing that was on my list is to get my pictures in order. Mission accomplished! I was behind in ordering pictures & the ones I had ordered hadn't been put in albums. I worked on that this week & last & I'm almost finished. I filled up my last album so I need to pick another one up. It may not sound like much but I'm glad it's taken care of & now I'll stay on top of it.

In other news, it's Friday. THANK GOODNESS! It's been a week. We have no plans other than watching the Saints game tomorrow. Hopefully, the outcome will be better than that other game that was played this week. I just don't want to do anything but stay home. It's cold & I don't like cold. I just want to wrap up & lay on the sofa with my Nook! Anyone have any fun plans?

Toodles! 

Thursday Randoms

- I'm still annoyed with Les Miles. For those of you not interested in Sports, he's LSU's moronic football coach.

-I went to Yoglates twice so far this week & yesterday walking & sitting was a serious issue. That's what I get for skipping a week. So freakin' sore. I'm going back today.

-People annoy me. Yes, that's right, PEOPLE annoy me. If I post something on FB it's my opinion & it's MY FACEBOOK page. If you don't like it don't read it. Snotty people I work with who don't want to talk to me on a regular basis need not say "Oh I hear you're going on a cruise I want to hear about it because we're going on the same one in April". I don't want to talk to you! People who can't be away from their phone for an hour don't come to Yoglates. They tell you no talking & no phones for a reason. It's ANNOYING! (Disclaimer: None of these annoying people read my blog so don't think I'm speaking about any of you! HA!)

-I'm officially a coffee drinker. Last night I was craving something hot & was so excited when I found a de-caf coffee in the sample pack that came with my Keurig. I want an adorable coffee mug & haven't found one. Any suggestions?

-We got my oil changed & tires rotated Tuesday & it was only $43 at the dealership. I still can't figure out why it was so cheap.

-I'm excited that Real Housewives of OC & Bethenny are starting new seasons soon.

I'm sure you can't tell but I'm a little grumpy. HA! Cold weather does that to me. It's only in the 50's today & tonight it's going to get down to something ridiculous like the teens. UGH!

Toodles!

We lost!

Actually, we got beat. We didn't show up to play. Our Coach is a moron. We did have a good time with our friends. We were 2 houses down. I had a great view of the game.

I could see this TV

I could see the projector in the sun room too. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It was HUGE! The game got ugly & I had to have more wine.

We had delicious food. Pulled pork sandwiches, cole slaw & lots of dips!! Thankfully, I went to Yoglates yesterday before the party.

We had a grand total of 12 people in class as opposed to 50 on a normal Monday. I didn't go at all last week & I'm definitely regretting that today. Can you say SORE??? I'm going back this afternoon though. Dean & I took the day off because we knew we'd be up late last night. We went & had lunch today at Roberto's. We've been there several times & everything is good. It looks like a dump from the outside. The building was a general store & is very, very old. My friends mom recently ate there for the first time & told me their shrimp poboy was one of the best she'd ever had. I LOVE shrimp poboys. I've been thinking about it ever since she told me several weeks ago. Well, it didn't disappoint.

Instead of mayo it had tartar sauce & it was delicious. The bad thing is that they only serve poboys at lunch. I guess that's also a good thing because that means I won't be able to have one very often!

Toodles!

It's Here!!!!

January 9, 2012

BCS National Championship Game

LSU vs. Alabama

AGAIN!!!!!

I'm not happy about the again part. LSU already beat Bama once this season. Think about it. If Alabama beats LSU one time they win the National Championship. LSU has to beat Alabama twice. It is what it is but I don't have to be happy about it. 

We won't be at the game. We'll be with friends watching on TV. Why, you ask? Well, first there's the $350 FACE VALUE price tag for tickets. Not that I wouldn't like to be there but there are a lot of other things I'd rather do with $700. Like spend it on the cruise!! Second, we couldn't have gotten a ticket for $350 because the demand is crazy nuts. Our friend whose wife works in the LSU Athletic Dept has hooked us up before. Not this time, she was only allowed to buy 2 tickets. We have friends that are there & they paid $1800 per ticket to sit 12 rows above LSU's bench between the 40's in October before we knew LSU would be playing. Believe it or not, that was a deal for those seats.  We were at the last National Championship game in New Orleans 4 years ago when LSU won. They also won it 4 years before that when it was in New Orleans. Bodes well huh?? LSU also beat Alabama for their 4th National Championship in Baseball in 1997. Yours truly was in the stands in Omaha for that one as well

So, to all my Alabama friends, Kerri that's you, sorry about this.......

ROLL TIDE ROLL.... AROUND THE BOWL & DOWN THE HOLE!!!!!!

 

Toodles & Geaux Tigers!!!!

The Weekend

Boy was it a snooze fest! Not literally, that would've been better. I had zero naps. Of course I was the one that said not to invite me to do anything because I needed to do some cleaning & cleaning I did. Friday night I wanted fried fish so we ate at The Chimes. It was delish! They have really good spinach & artichoke dip that is served with fried bow tie pasta. SOOOOOO GOOD! Yesterday, I started the day bright & early in the LSU room. Basically, it's an office but we don't do any office work. When we moved in we had a desktop computer & this was where it was located. We have a laptop now.  Over the last several months it's become the catch all room.

Full disclosure here, it was worse but I forgot to take pics when I started.

Some thoughts on this room - YES it's painted yellow - LSU yellow. There's not a lot of wall or shelf space that isn't filled with LSU stuff. I'm pretty sure this room will stay this way as long as we live in this house if for no other reason than the fact that we have no other place to put all of the stuff! It also wasn't cheap to have that stuff framed so it will continue to hang. I spent the majority of the day in this room. I have a couple of boxes to go to St Vincent de Paul or Goodwill & I have a HUGE garbage bag full of trash. The room isn't just LSU, I do have books on the book shelves. Speaking of books, I don't need anymore for awhile. Our printer is also in this room. I cleaned the closet out as well. It's home to the giant wreath that we hang on our gate at Christmas. The wreath is too big to go through the opening to put in the attic. It's not ideal but it works. I didn't take any after pics yet because the boxes to donate are still in there & the desk isn't organized.

We were planning to go to Mass Sat. & then come home & grill steaks while we watched the Saints game but after Church we realized the only thing we had to go with the steaks was green beans & I surely didn't want to go to Walmart so we went to Fat Cow for burgers & fries. It was really good!!

Today's project was one of the hall closets. I forgot to take before pictures. I can be so scatterbrained. This closet holds photo albums, extra picture frames, flashlights, candles - something else I don't need anymore of & assorted junk. I took everything out of it & added to the donate & trash piles. It looks like this now.

Yes, that's paint cans on the floor & they do have paint in them. They'll be moved outside later. I was tired. All the candles that were in the closet have been moved to a cabinet in one of the bathrooms. So aside from Mass & eating out a couple of times this was my weekend. Hope y'alls was better!

Toodles!

TGIF

FINALLY!! I talked about how last Thursday was a bad day & I earned my money. Well, this week hasn't been a lot better. Considering it was only a 4 day work week, it's also been the longest week ever. Thankfully, in an hour the work week will be over. We don't have big plans. Actually, the only plans we have are to go to Mass tomorrow & then home to watch the Saints. I do plan to get busy with organizing the house. I may have to drink several cups of coffee to make myself stick with it but I'm determined. Don't anyone invite me to do anything this weekend!

If you've read awhile you'll know I'm part of "The Worst Book Club Ever". For those of you not familiar basically we're a book club that's not really a book club. We started out with a goal to read 50 books in a year. After the first year we decided to each set a goal. My goal for 2011 was 100. I finished with 106. We don't read the same books. Well, sometimes we do but not at the same time. We usually end up not even discussing books when we get together. Everyone brings books & we swap. Well, that's what we used to do but several of us have Nooks or Kindles now so there's not a lot of book swapping going on. It's just fun to get together. Anyway, I set my goal at 100 again. I'm curious to see how this will go since I'm reading the Bible too. So far so good with that. I've read everyday. It's much more interesting than I expected it to be but it still takes a lot of concentration which is why I like how it's divided up by days.

So far I've finished 2 books this year. The first being After The Leaves Fall by Nicole Baart. It was a decent book but it was depressing. It didn't have a happy ending either. It was just a blah book. Not necessarily the way to start a new year.

The second book was 1st To Die by James Patterson.

This is the first in the Women's Murder Club series. I really liked it but there were a couple of times I wished I wasn't reading while I was eating lunch. It also makes you wonder about the authors of these books. Seriously, how do they come up with this stuff? I would be very leery about marrying or dating a mystery writer. I plan to read the whole series but I can't read them back to back because then I start having nightmares & I wake Dean up during the night with my screams. He's not crazy about that. This one had a sad ending too. What's up with all the sadness?? I've decided my next book is going to be this.

SURELY, it won't be sad right??

Toodles!

Weigh In Wednesday

Except I haven't weighed. It's been about a week. I'd gotten down to my lowest point & then I gained 3 lbs. I knew that with Christmas leftovers & New Years Eve the possibility of a few more pounds was highly possible. I decided to just wait until I was back on track before I weigh again. It's looking like it will be next week. I've been doing so so on the eating. Truth be known I'm tired of junk. I didn't go completely crazy over the holidays but there were a lot of dips & people, dips are my weakness. There's also a shrimp poboy in my future  (hopefully) & of course food for the National Championship game Monday night. Other than that there are no special occasions that I can think of until February when we get on the cruise ship. Which is a whole other reason to get back on track. Anywho, I made it to Yoglates twice last week. The routine was TOUGH which is why I didn't make it 3 times. I would've had to go 3 days in a row & I'm not to that point yet. Apparently, the teachers that make up the routines are on the HITT bandwagon. Have you heard of this High Intensity Interval Training?? Apparently, studies show that if you do sudden burst of exercise it burns more calories or something. I don't know the specifics. Suffice it to say it's rough!  Due to Monday being a holiday, an appt with the eye doctor (I'm still blind) & a meeting a Church, Yoglates has been a no go so far this week. If never fails I have several things in a week & then weeks with nothing. So, I'm not sure if I'll go tomorrow or just wait until Monday & start fresh. We'll see.

Yesterday, I decided that it was time to test my hip. It doesn't bother me anymore except if I wear heels for an extended period of time. Off I went. I decided to do a 5 minute warm up walk & then just see how long I could run. Well, as soon as I took the first step running I could feel the hip. Again, it didn't hurt but I knew something had been going on. I ran for 4 minutes, walked another 5 & ran another 3. Not good but of course better than nothing & much better than when I started the whole running thing in August. I think I could've done more but I didn't want to take a chance & re-injure myself & I totally underestimated what 50 degrees feels like when you're running. It's cold! I needed my ears covered. That part was awful. I may try again over the weekend. We'll see.

So, I've been referring to my resolutions as my "to do list". To me it just sounds like it's things I have to do if it's on a to do list. A resolution? Not so much. Well,  my friend Wendy says no to resolutions, only goals, which have become known as "Unresolutions". We've been referring to these almost daily which helps us all. It's always easier to do something when you have support from others with the same goals. So far, I haven't gotten much accomplished though. Mainly because I spent a good part of the weekend picking up my Christmas decorations. I realized that I do have a problem & I really need to NOT buy ANYTHING else pertaining to Christmas. Seriously. Well, I'll continue to buy ornaments when we go on vacations but that really needs to be it. Anyway, the only organization I've gotten done is my closet which wasn't bad to begin with & I went through all of my pictures & got prints ordered. It's a start right?

I decided that I wanted to read one of those read the Bible in year books. This is the one I bought, One Year Chronological Bible. So far, so good except I'm learning that when I was a kid in Sunday School, there was a lot of stuff left out! Everything wasn't so hunky dory as my teachers would've liked us to believe.  I wanted  a Catholic in a year Bible because the Catholic Bible has additional books & I'm Catholic now but they didn't have one for the Nook. Then I realized that I'll be lucky to read this one. I don't need anything additional.

Toodles!

My Favorite Gift

I'm linking up with Daphne at Flip Flops & Pearls today. I did a post here about all the wonderful gifts I received this year. Along with the material stuff we were lucky enough to spend the day with family. We are very blessed.

It's hard to pick a fave but I was very excited to get this

I'd been wanting a Pandora bracelet for a long time & Dean bought me one this year! Something else that I wanted was this

It has turned into one of my favorite things! I wanted it but I didn't think it was going to be as great as it is. Seriously, this thing is AWESOME!!! It's soooo easy! Virtually mess free too unless you forget to get a mug.......

Toodles!

 

Happy New Year!!!

We've spent a lot of time eating lately. Friday night we ran a couple of errands so while we were out we stopped for dinner. I was in the mood for Italian but we weren't anywhere near either of our favorite Italian restaurants. We stopped at Italian Pie. We've never been there before but it was good. I ordered lasagna. There was a choice of salads & you either got bread sticks or garlic bread. I chose garlic bread. This is what I got.

The garlic bread was basically a small pizza. It was delicious but good grief, I don't want to know the calorie count! I'm thoroughly enjoying my Keurig. We went to Bed, Bath & Beyond so I could get some more K cups. I bought this one.

It's my fave!! It's sooooo good!!! Love, love, love! I also got green tea but I haven't tried it yet.

How did everyone spend New Years Eve & New Years? We stayed home & hosted our neighbors New Years Eve. The weather wasn't the greatest. It rained earlier in the day & it was hot. The weather in Baton Rouge is ridiculous. Dean cooked gumbo & everyone brought stuff. We had hot onion dip, spinach & artichoke dip, an anti pasta platter, a cheese ball, cream cheese & pepper jelly. I feel like I spend a lot of time blogging about food. The guys popped some fireworks. Here's me & Dean.

 Not a great pic but at least it's something. I realized yesterday that we didn't even take a pic together at Christmas. I really need to remember to take the date off the pics too. On another note, those Christmas lights that you see behind us are purple & gold & they spell out Beat Bama on our neighbors front yard.  Here's some of the crew.

Dave, Devin, Alexandra, Allie, Anna, Aaron, Jackie, Dennis, Cliff, Kitzia, Suzy, me & Dean. We were missing a few people.

We spent New Years Day playing Santa Claus to some of our Godchildren. We visited with friends & the kids opened their gifts. Everyone seemed to like their stuff. This is me & Lane. Dean & I are Lane's Godparents.

Lane gave us a gift card to Sammy's which is one of our favorite restaurants. Once we got home I started taking my Christmas decorations down. I normally leave everything up through the Epiphany but this year I'm ready to have it all put up & get things back to normal. I'm going to leave out my nativity until next weekend but everything else is coming down. I got a lot done tonight so hopefully it won't take all day tomorrow. I basically just have the trees left to take down & the stuff outside. I still can't believe Christmas has come & gone & it's 2012. I hope y'all had a wonderful holiday & are looking forward to the new year. Are y'all doing resolutions??

Toodles!