High Five for Friday

Lots to be grateful for/ excited about the past couple of weeks!

1. Making progress with the old knee. I’m completely off crutches now, but steps are still pretty painful. I have to hold onto a rail for dear life, but progress!

2. Presidential debates are way more fun with social media. Twitter has the best jokes and FB has good conversations. And we mostly keep it civil. Mostly.

3. Too Close by Alex Clare. Yeah, the one on the internet explorer commercials. Don’t hate.

4. Candy Corn. Candy corn is the devil. bad for my teeth. bad for my general health. awesome.

5. TV + Plex App. Might do a post on this later, or get Jason to do one. We’ve been playing with it for months on and off, but we might have it right this time *crosses fingers*

Honorable mention goes to Yankee Candle fall candles. They make the whole house smell good before I even light them.

Short and sweet this week 🙂

High Five for Friday

Teal Toes for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.

Decorating for Halloween.

Hot drinks.

Finally getting a box out to the Little Man.

This guy. Always.

Honorable mention goes to the iOS update.  (Although it’s currently wrecking havoc with my calendar synching).  But yay photo stream!

High Five for Friday

1. Apple pie. From Winn Dixie. With ice cream. The end.

2. New dishes. We’ve been wanting white square dishes for years. We always look at them and sigh and say “One day…..”. Well Saturday was the day. We found some for cheap at Costco and they’re pretty sweet. But they are huge, way bigger than our other dishes. I think we’ll eat off the dessert plates and use the regular plates as serving platters. We actually put a whole roasted chicken on one of the big plates and it fit, that’s how big these are. We also got some glass Snapware containers for lunches. I’m trying to rid our house of plastic dishes and it was really nice to get rid of our old stained ziplock plastics.

3. New Camera!!!

4. Being tech support. I rarely get the opportunity to be tech support for anyone except my mom. And Jason is actually in tech support, so of course he never needs my help. But when he tried to post about our new camera on his blog he ran into a couple of problems uploading photos. And I was actually able to help for once, so that felt kind of good.

5. Shrimp and grits. I made some last night that were so easy and so tasty!

It was a good week. The new camera and dishes inspired me to spend a lot more time in the kitchen. I tried several new recipes and I’m excited to put them up here in the next week.

Linking up with Lauren.

High Five for Friday

This week was mostly taken up by worries over Tropical Storm/ Hurricane Isaac. Other than that, it was pretty quiet. Here are a few good things…

1. Everybody’s ok. Everyone in my immediate family, at least. Isaac was not very bad for us at all. The real worry was for my Jason’s dad and brother, who live outside of New Orleans. We got a short message from him yesterday that everything was ok, but no real details. I know Slidell, that the town we stayed in when we visited them a few years ago had devastating flooding. Really terrible situation and our thoughts are with those in the Gulf region affected by the hurricane.

2. Sherlock. On a lighter note, we finished up the second season this week. I loved it, especially the first episode with the smokin’ hot Irene.

3. Presidential Knife Fight. I stumbled across this post yesterday from the Face In the Blue blog wherein he hypothesizes which president would win if there was a Hunger Games style arena knife fight to the death. Now y’all know I love me some Hunger Games. I also love me some history. So this was probably my favorite read all week.

4. Mojo is running high. I’ve lost count of the scrapbook pages I’ve made this week. It was a lot though. And I could probably sit and do a dozen more right now, but there are other things that are taking away from that… showering, job search, etc.

5. The return of John Stewart. We missed him during the little hiatus.

Linking up with Lauren.

High Five for Friday

Wow this marks my 10th High Five for Friday post! I’m not always consistent about doing them, it’s been over a month since I wrote one, but I love gathering together snippets of things that I’m excited about and grateful for. These will be fun looking back at in five years, that’s for sure.

So here are five awesome things from the last month or so…

1. Hunger Games. Oh yes. Obsessed. Read of my love of all things HG here.

2. Looking (nearly) normal again. I had my eyelid I&D a couple of weeks ago. I looked pretty gross for awhile before and after, but on the road to looking like myself again. It’s awesome not to look like the bad guy in the Green Lantern anymore. Or like I got in a bar fight.

3. My sister got her first job!!!! SO proud of her!!! She has had so many struggles these past month with the house fire and the ending of her long term relationship. I’m so glad things are looking up for her.

4. Little Man made it safely back to CA and is doing well. He started school Monday. Will post a pic as soon as him mom sends me one.

5. Fluffy shows and books. I’m tearing through the Amelia Peabody mysteries. I started reading them back in high school, but I stopped somewhere around book 12 or 13. I picked them up again after I read HG. I decided to start over again, and I’m on the 12th book. It’s kind of interesting reading them as a married lady v. reading them in high shool and in my early 20’s. I was surprised to realize how these books have influenced some of my thinking, especially about men.

Also watching a lot of Big Bang Theory reruns, and our usual House Hunters and Bitchin’ Kitchen. Can’t wait to introduce little man to Nadia G. As Jason said, “He is so going to be in love with her”. I don’t think he’s the only one 😛

Okay one more thing that I’m ridiculously stupidly excited for…

6. Holy Balls Becky Higgins! I actually said that out loud when I saw that she’s going to be doing a SMALLER VERSION OF A PROJECT LIFE ALBUM!!! I am so intimidated by her 12×12 albums. I always have everything printed in 8×8 whether it’s pages or books. That’s one of my main reasons for doing PL in digital form. And I probably still will. But I would LOVE to maybe use one of her smaller books as Little Man’s next summer book. Or to make mini books of trips. Or… oh so many possibilities there! She has a ton of new announcements up on her blog this week, including designs by Elise Blaha (!), new baby kits, and new kits for kids. Hopefully these will all be available digitally too. Can’t wait!

Linkin’ up with From My Grey Desk.

High Five for Friday

There was so much awesomeness this week!

1. Belated Father’s Day.  Super Hero Father’s Day was so much fun to put together. I’m actually sort of looking forward to doing something crafty for the 4th now. (Ignore the dirty bowl in the sink).

2. Swimming. Again. I actually hadn’t gone swimming for awhile, but we’ve already been three times since Little Man got here. We were all a little rusty at first, but we’re getting our groove back and even played some games in the pool. LM is also learning to snorkel.

3. Green Cay park. We went there last weekend and had a really fun time walking around checking out the wildlife. Even saw a couple of baby alligators!

4. The Boy’s Market. One of our favorite local Farmer’s Markets. It’s always really crowded, but so worth it. Fruits and veggies, cheese, baked goodies, and the Best onion bread and vegetable cream cheese. And all indoors so you’re not sweltering in the heat.

5. Jason and Jen keeping their s*** together with a child in the house. I’ve always been told by many people (including my mother) that nothing ruins a relationship like having children. And for the most part I believe them, lol. (Please feel free to chime in if you’re in an awesome relationship and have kids). And I know it’s only been two weeks, but it’s been really great having all of us in the house together. We are a good team. And sometimes we even get to have grown up conversations. And I know one night we’ll eventually get a full night’s sleep. Probably sometime in September.

Honorable mention this week goes to my new favorite skirt. Two things that I never thought I’d ever wear are horizontal stripes and maxi skirts. Because seriously this skirt makes me look as big as the side of a barn. But I. Do. Not. Care. I wear this thing Everywhere. It is so ridiculously comfortable.

Also Pro Tip: (Can you say that about things that aren’t tech related?) Don’t wear long skirts to the airport. They actually have a Skirt Alert. I got a Skirt Alert with No Cause, which meant I got pulled aside and patted down. And not just a friendly pat down, a serious Spread ‘Em kind of pat down. I won’t go into why I’m such an expert in pat downs, but trust me, that lady was thorough. And that’s the last time you’ll catch this girl in a maxi skirt at LAX.

I’ll be linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk.

High Five for Friday

So many things to be grateful for right now.

1. Of course the best thing is that we have a Little Man in the house now!

2. I’m ready to get to work on my summer Pinterest board. Lots of fun things to do this summer.

3. Miss Kitty and Little Man seem to be really getting along so far. I’m relieved that he doesn’t seem to be nervous around her anymore. (He had good reason. She used to randomly attack him for no apparent reason).

4. Glad to have be sticking close to home this summer. We only have one small trip planned, which is a lot less than we usually do. But it will be nice to keep it more low key after the year we’ve had so far.

5. I’ve decided how to document this summer in a really simple way- using Instagram photos and putting them into a Blurb book. So easy that I might actually finish this year! (I’m still working on Little Man’s summer book from last year). I’ve never used Blurb before, but I’ve already started the book and it’s super easy. I’m modeling it after a book that Elise Blaha Cripe did. Simplicity will be a welcome change, as I tend to overcomplicate things so much that I don’t finish.

I’ll be linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk.

High Five for Friday

I’m linking up to Lauren at From My Grey Desk for another installment of High Five for Friday.

This has been a mostly quiet week, which is nice after the past couple of months. It’s refreshing to not have 1000 things on the to-do list marked Urgent. So here’s my list of top 5 awesome things…

1. My Dad. It was his 61st birthday on Sunday. I wish I could have seen him and given him a huge hug! It’s really nice to be able to have a great dad who loves me and listens to me, not being judgey or giving unsolicited advice. Just listening. 🙂

2. IKEA shelves. We got another Billy on Sunday and it’s really making the living room look like an actual room. We’re looking into pantry solutions, and found one I’m really excited to get in a few weeks!

3. Time Out Free App. Any little bit of productivity I’ve gotten done on the computer is because of this one app. It reminds you to take breaks to relieve eye strain from prolonged computer use by graying out the screen every 10 minutes for 30 seconds. It also reminds you to take longer breaks each hour. It’s completely customizable and I just realized this week that you can turn it off by default if you have certain programs open. So I won’t get cranky if my screen grays out while I’m in PSE. Yay!

4. Nutella and strawberries. Need I say more?

5. Scrappity Doo Dah’s Birthday Celebration. It’s the last week of fun, sales, and freebies for SDD’s 3rd birthday. It’s been a whirlwind, but I’m glad I got to participate 🙂

And that wraps up another week of awesomeness!

Monday Awesomeness

Kind of like High Five for Friday… only on Monday.

1. Week in the Life. Yeah I’m doing it. I’ve attempted it a couple of times, but never with an end result in mind. Now that I found the amazing book that Nettio made last year, I’m super excited to get started today. Curious about WITL? Learn all about it on the Ali Edwards project page.

2. Jason’s new bluetooth car thingy. Jason got the Motorolla Roadster 2 for his birthday and is really enjoying listening to it on his commute.

3. Pillows from Target. I have never in my life bought decorative pillows until I saw these. And fell in love with their sappy beige-y prettiness. Unfortunately I couldn’t find them on the Target website to link.

4. This awesome Family Photo Collage from Bed Bath and Beyond. We got this last week and I’m SO excited to put it up!

5. Swimming. We went swimming for the first time in months. It was great getting in the water again. Jason is pretty insistent that I learn to doggy paddle. For some reason I feel more comfortable with swimming with my head underwater and I’ve never learned to do anything above the water. I think I’m backwards. So he’s been trying to get me to do the doggy paddle thing and I’ve been somewhat resistant. Conversations go something like this-

Me: But I look stupid! *flailing around, kicking my legs and wagging my arms in an incredibly uncoordinated way*
Jason: You don’t look stupid. Stop trying to look cool. You really won’t look cool if you drown. Cool people can goggie paddle.

So in my continuing efforts to be one of the “cool” people, I kept trying. And I flailed myself all the way to the 6 ft. deep end! Twice! Well once and a half. I kind of panicked a little the second time. But still, progress!

High Five For Friday

It’s 5 a.m. on Saturday morning, so I think it still counts as Friday…

Some weeks, like last week, it seems as if there are a hundred things to be grateful for. It’s hard to narrow it down to only five. Then there are weeks like the one we’re in now when I’m not sure if I can think of five at all. It’s been a rough week. To make a long story short, for the past month and a half we’ve been under the impression that we’re going to buy the condo we live in. Our landlord made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. He went to a lawyer and drew up paperwork. He talked to the head of the HOA. We made plans. We went window shopping at IKEA. All was awesomeness. Then word got out that he was selling, someone made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, and our offer was undercut. So we went in the space of about two minutes from potential homeowners to needing to find a new home. I’ve lived in this place for six years. Jason has lived here for almost ten. We were devastated.

But we immediately went into Plan Mode. And we planned. And we looked. And now we have a new place to live. In two weeks we will move out of the only home I’ve known here in Florida. It hasn’t sunk in yet.

So I retract my statement about not being grateful for things this week. There really are many things to be thankful for.

1. We found a place. A really really nice place. A place we could both envision as a nice home for us.

2. We are in a decent financial position to deal with all of this. Despite me being out of work for a few months. It could be so much worse.

3. We work together as a team. Team Awesome, that’s us. I won’t say we agree on every single thing, but when we set our minds to something, we get things done. It’s amazingly comforting to have a partner who you can lean on when things fall apart. It’s even better to know that you can pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off, and keep going. Hopefully in the right direction.

4. Old friends. I haven’t talked to my friend Brian in a couple of months. We worked together and when I left it was hard to keep in touch with people from the job. It was just too painful at the time. But despite that, when I called him yesterday in need of moving boxes STAT, he immediately said yes. And it gave me the opportunity to sling some medical supplies again, which I hate to admit, was kind of neat. Never thought I’d ever see insuffilation tubing and lithotomy packs again.

5. HGTV and the Paperclipping Roundtable. These two things have gone a long way to helping to distract us this week. They gave us something else to think of besides Big Life Altering Decisions.

Honorable mention goes to Elise Blaha Cripe’s blog, especially her DIY Decor section. I know I picked her as a High Five already, but it was for a completely different reason. This deserves a whole post in itself. Maybe in a couple of weeks, after things settle down a bit. But basically she has given me inspiration to know that it IS worth decorating and making your house into a home, even if it’s only going to be a temporary home.