Soooo over 2009....

Well it's New Year's Eve and I'm ready for this year to end! And it's ending on a sour note. I got in a little riff-raff with another car last night, Cobalt vs. Hyundai, plastic crushing plastic...aka car accident (and I can't exaggerate 'accident' enough)! First off, let's state for the record that my Chevy beat that Hyndai's BUTT!! Anyway, back to the story, I guess you might want to know what happened, eh? Well, before you start blabbing about girl's being horrible drivers *ack...cough* and saying the blonde's can't drive *!!!!!!!!* I would like to say that I am indeed ....wait for it  .....a good driver.  Even if my husband questions this many times throughout his life. 

On to the story, I was headed out to meet a friend for dinner at the Clubhouse (mmmm....lounge fries). The Clubhouse sits on a 4-lane highway (aka Rt. 8) and was on the left side of the road from the direction I was coming.  As I'm approaching where I have to turn, I slow down, have my left turn signal on, and come to stop and wait for approaching traffic coming in the other direction to pass, before I can make my turn.  After a good 5 seconds, I see a clear, 'CLEAR AS DAY, nada comin' my way, not even a gust of wind passing me by' break in traffic for me to make my turn.  As I'm almost pulled into the parking lot, I hear tires SCREACHING, and then BAM WHAM KAPOW! .....it was like a japenese cartoon.... I even saw the words flash before my eyes in sparkly glittery word bubbles :)  APPARENTLY, my CLEAR AS DAY break in traffic was not so, and another guy was coming right towards me, and slammed into the back of my car near the gas tank.  I pulled into the parking lot, as so did the guy that hit me, and we traded information and yada yada yada....all that fun stuff. So now, my Cobalt is bumped and bruised and I won't drive it until it's fixed b/c something feels "off" .....for lack of better car terms.  But the other guy's Hyundai?! Not so pretty.  His front passenger side headlight completely broken, front bumper cracked and falling of the car.  It was pretty ugly. So for now, I'm waiting to here from my insurance company and see what a pretty penny this will cost, besides my insurance rates going UP! But like everyone says, at least no one got hurt....except Cobey :( aka....my car.  Yes, I named him....strange, no?!

Moral of the story - Cobalt 1, Hyundai 0   

That's right...sucka! Eat my American-made car :)

And if you care to know....it IS technically 'my fault' since I was crossing traffic. Hmph!

Merry Christmas!

I'm finally ready for Christmas (er...as soon as I finish buying Ross' stocking stuffers tonight!) after coming home from work yesterday and acting like a madwoman in order to accomplish all 100 things on my list! I had to finish a few presents, wrap them, give Ross another wrapping tutorial (hehe), run to the grocery store, make dinner, try to clean up the mess in our apt., update the check book, balance the checkbook and so on! I got to bed at a little after 10:00 pm, and I was exhausted! And of course, my wonderful husband also helped out with a few errands since he was only working a half day, and I can't say how much I appreciated it! AND if that wasn't enough, he's willingly doing some laundry today, that I need done before Christmas so that I have some clean clothes to wear. He's a pretty great husband, huh?! SO, I can finally slow down and look forward to Christmas being only 4 days away rather than stress over it. Oh, it's a love-hate relationship the week before Christmas! So Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope no one procrastinates as much as I do :)

Christmas Meltdown

Well, it's 9:34 p.m., Sunday night, and it's safe to say that the weekend is over, yet I have no idea where it went! I spent the last 3 days baking Christmas Cookies, and trying out a few more new recipes for Christmas treats.  I succeeded in baking 5 different kinds of Christmas cookies, as well as chocolate pretzels, and one last treat that didn't go quite as planned.....Homemade Turtles.  First, I had to place wax paper onto a sheet, and spray with non-stick cooking spray.  Next, I were to place 3 pecan halves in a triangle arrangement, and drop some of the homemade caramel (that you made from their recipe) onto the pecan halves.  So far, so good! :) Don't they look great?!

Progress was coming along nicely, and I had about 5 more of these cookie sheets, all set-up with the pecans and caramel.  Next, I had to place them in the fridge to let them set.  Okie Dokie! I came back about 3 hours later after a tasty dinner of white pizza :) and decided to finish these.  The recipe said to melt the semi-sweet chocolate (which I decided to use milk chocolate instead, and was a much better choice) and "frost" the pecan arrangement.  Hmmmm.... Frost?! Like, just cover the tops of these with chocolate? Wouldn't the caramel on the bottom still stick to everything?! Well, I can't see that working, so instead, I tried dipping them into the chocolate.  Well, first of all, the caramel was never going to harden, but still stayed its good-ol' caramel constitency, so it was still quite "gooey", if thats a word.  So dipping them in chocolate was quite a task.  They didn't stay the nice pretty shape that I had arranged them in, and ended up just being clusters of pecans & caramel and now chocolate.  Ok, fine.  But after about 10 of these conconctions, my chocolate looked like this:

Can you see it? It looks lumpy and gross. (And do you see all the chocolate NOT in the pan?! Yup, my kitchen was a chocolate nightmare!!) I think its safe to say most of the caramel ended up in the chocolate, and not in the turtles ....ho hum. Now what?! This chocolate really isn't quite "dippable" anymore since its lumpy.  Lumpy chocolate is probably a no-no. I'm sure there's an easier way, but I haven't figured it out yet! If you know, please pass it on :)  But for now, I ended up with about 15 finished and edible turtles.

They don't at all look like what they started as, but they are delicious! I wish all 5 baking sheets of turtles had worked out.  But for now, I'll just savor these 15 turtles :) What a great Christmas present this could have been! Who could resist homemade turtles?! I plan on trying these again in the future, and hopefully figure out a better way to dip them in chocolate, and maybe then I will succeed!

A lil' Xmas cheer...

I might've decorated 3 weeks ago, but it's taken until now to add a little more charm to our christmas decorating. Even when I get a  head-start on things, I still find a way to procrastinate on just about anything! Anyways, without further ado, I finally made my table centerpiece a little more 'christmas-y.'

I inherited 3 hurricane glasses from Michelle's wedding, that are 3 different heights, and added some silver & a select few gold bulbs to cheer them up with some christmas-y goodness! The bulbs were from the dollar store so it only set me back a few dollars.  Also, I needed some red placemats, so I bought two, because I figured I could use them in the future as well, since red is a re-occuring theme in our house, and used them with the centerpiece.  These puppies were $3 each at walmart, so another $6 was well spent. Lastly, I bought some wired ribbon that I was planning on using elsewhere, but ended up using a strand in the one hurricane glass, entwined with the bulbs, and then a piece of ribbon sitting out side the hurricane glass holding one more bulb.  I love it and my table finally looks like it belongs with the season :) Total cost = $10

Lastly, I wanted to find a cheap and cute way to display all the Christmas cards we get every year without them piling up on our TV unit, like they usually do, and instead, showcase them in a fun way. Especially when people send pictures with their cards, I would love to have them up to look at all season, rather than stashing them away somewhere.  So this is what I came up with....

Yup, either you hate it or love it.  I personally love it (Ross hates it).  I just used some thick hemp cord, and tied it to a nail on each side.  I tied it on the end like a shoelace too so that there's a cute bow on the end with the leftover string hanging down :)  I think it feels very cottage-y.  I even hung a few random words like "snow" and "brr" and "happy holidays" in a cute font to add some cheer.  And once this puppy gets filled up with some more cards, it'll look even better.

If you hate it, welp, sorry, not your apt. :)  Or let's just say, the pictures don't do it justice.  Or maybe I'm just so excited to finally not have a big blank wall staring at me anymore!! (Sadly, it's taken me 3 years to finally get something up on that wall!)  And the best thing is, that once Christmas is over, I can just hang some random pictures on it, or take it down completely, since the nails holes are so small, you probably wouldn't see them anyways. Either way, I'm excited to finally get to see all our Christmas cards at once & in one place :)

Some elf fun....

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

My Ross....what a lovely figure you have.  And those moves!! Where o where did you learn those moves?! Too bad our wedding dance wasn't quite so 'awesome.'

Tis the Season

Good thing I didn't post something yesterday like I attempted to do, b/c I was in a crabby mood after being back at work after a blissful 5-day weekend and who wants to read about my bad mood?! I sure don't.  Anyways, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, visiting with friends and family, some who I haven't seen in awhile, and one who I got to meet for the first time (*ahem* Hazel....who is absolutely adorable, to say the least!), eating great food and a lot of it(!) and sleeping in for a whole 5 days in-a-row! Whew! It's hard to be back at work but all good things must come to an end, and now that I'm back in the swing of things, it's not so bad.  Now I can finally start my countdown to Christmas.  My christmas shopping is almost finished, I was on a roll when I first started about a month ago, and now I'm struggling to get just a few people that I have left finished with, but I'm excited to still be ahead for once! I'm also starting my countdown to Ross graduating from IUP.... only 15 more days. I think he started this countdown about 6 months ago, so I know he is also excited to be done! So all in all, December is starting off on a good note, and will proably end on one too with the christmas/new year holidays :)

Thankful

That's right, I'm a copycat.  My two cousins wrote a thankfulness post, and I couldn't resist.  I always get so excited for Christmas, that I completely skip over Thanksgiving and don't take a single second to reflect about what I'm thankful for.  I have so many reasons to be thankful this year.  I'm thankful for Ross and our happy marriage, our dog that amsues us to no end, my job that has (for the most part and w/ the help of Ross working part-time) paid the bills until Ross was done with school, the health insurance my job provides me & Ross (it may sound dumb to mention, but after seeing all my friends struggle with this issue and hearing about it so much in politics these days, I certainly don't take it for granted....even IF my work doubled the rate for next year!! thanks for that, by the way), and lastly I'm thankful for Ross graduating with his master's degree in a just a few weeks and finally being done with school.  I guess it doesn't hurt that he carried a 4.0 gpa as well.  Hopefully that will help in the job hunt :)  And lastly, I'm thankful for all the family and friends we have to celebrarte with this Thanksgiving.

Christmas Materialism

I'm so excited for christmas this year, that I'm thinking of actually putting up our christmas tree this weekend.  Yup, that's right, but maybe don't mention it to Ross b/c he'll just call me crazy.  I've really gotten into the whole christmas shopping experience as well.  Usually, I hate christmas shopping...b/c I hate ALL shopping, no, really, I do, my mom & sister can vouch for me, since they usually had to bribe me with food (yup, just like a 5-year-old, but heck...it always worked! and still does!) to get me to go shopping with them.  Anyways, I always looked at it as a materialistic thing, and hated that Christmas revolved around shopping and that last minute trip to the mall on xmas eve and how much we all spend (which is a fortune!) (of course, I never minded receiving gifts! Shout-Out to my mom & dad!). But I think I finally got the hang of it this year.  So far, all the presents we've bought for people (I started xmas shopping last weekend) I can say truly have heart and thought behind them or that I know the person will really like them.  I can't wait to give presents this year! This is definitely a first.  NOW I am starting to understand the whole meaning behind Christmas (aside from that small little event that took place in Bethlehem all those years ago!!) but that it's also about being around the people you love most, sharing gifts from the heart and not about how much you spent, and truly appreciating what God has given you in life.  Sorry, that was probably a little sappy (or just insightful!), but you get my jift.  I can't wait for christmas (especially since i won't be one of those last minute shoppers!)...now that I understand it as more than just a materialistic holiday. (Sorry it took me 23 years....i'm just one big snob, what can i say?!) So Merry Christmas! I can't wait :)

Halloween Pics

Ok, so just a few cute Halloween pics I thought I'd share....

Yup...our dog looks mildly p***ed off.  At one point, the hat slid all the way down over her eyes, and she didn't even flinch...hil-ar-ious.  We didn't shell out the money to buy her the bumblebee costume I wanted to get her (not worth $30! + s&h) so we dressed her in her Mickey T-shirt and Mickey ears....courtesy of Ross' parents who were just at Disney World this past week. 

Ha! Imagine what we'll do to our kids one day if we get this carried away with just a DOG?!?! Mwahaha.

Again, she's not too happy about the get-up.  But don't feel bad, she got even with me yesterday by chewing holes through 4 pairs of my underwear!  So I'm giving her the silent treatment.  I think it's working.  ...maybe...  I haven't thrown her ball in over 24 hours. Yup...  I think she knows why.......

Blog Baby Neglect

I see that I've been neglecting my blog lately, and not keeping up-to-date on everyone elses.  My bad.  Apparently I had some of your URL's set wrong, and I didn't get the appropriate updated blog list like I had intended.  O well.  No harm done, all is fixed! 

Anyways, I have a few cute 'family' (yes, me, ross & the dog ...I consider us a family because it makes me uncharistically and uber-excited-happy (yes, i have a fondness for the word 'uber') to have a family to call my own, even if there are no lil' ross' (O MY!) or lil' kristin's (YIKES!) running around. Scary image...i know, but dont' worry, that's a super long way down the road!) (....what was i writing about?!)  o yeah, family Halloween pics I keep meaning to post, but of course, as soon as I get home from work, I forget b/c the last thing I really want to do is go on the computer, since I just finished an 8-hour day of being on the computer all day. (Which, by the way, has been freezing a LOT today, so i'm even more annoyed by technology today than I am on other days.) 

I'll post those in no time...er, maybe....if I remember.  Well, keep writing, because I love to see updated pictures and posts about what everyone else is up to!  Always good to keep in touch, via technology, with family & friends :)

One Small Step

The other day, I read a post on Young House Love about greener ways to clean.  I was intrigued, and by no means, am I "green" person, but I got excited when I read about how cheap it can be.  Basically the jift of the post was, you can clean your whole house with homemade formulas, such as vinegar and water, and save money by not buying those expensive household cleaning products.  And did you ever realize how harmful cleaning products can be?! I sure didn't.  Anyways, I haven't quite tested the waters yet (I plan too once I use up my cleaners!!), but I HAVE purchased an all natural soap that was highly recommended and has awesome reviews, called Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap (fyi, it can be bought at Target).  This soap has so many different purposes, I can't wait to see all of my 18 different cleaners that have only 1 specific purpose to be cut down to just 1! So far, Ross & I have been using it in our handsoap dispensers.  You just fill the soap dispenser a bit with the soap, then the rest with water to dilute it, (since this stuff is as pure as it comes), and voila! ...you have handsoap.  It smells awesome and even works in the foam soap dispenser's that me & Ross love, and I'm thinking it won't dry out my hand's this winter since it's all natural!  And let me tell you, come winter, my hand's are in terrible, dry, cracked condition, yuck.  So any soap to rid me of that is a winner in my book! And I can only imagine how long this stuff will last since you have to dilute it almost any time you use it.  A small bottle will go a long way :)  So far, we haven't tested it anywhere else.  You can also use it as a bodywash, pet shampoo, household cleaner, etc.  I plan to use it in these sorts of ways, but first I have to use up the other products I already have.

Anyways, I know it doesn't take a lot for me to get excited about something, but I really love this stuff! And any way to be greener (and save money!) is a plus to me ....we're slowly coming around :)

Time to Bake

It's October, and Halloween is quickly approaching. Every year, by this time, I find myself dreaming of christmas cookies, but I also don't have the patience to wait 3 more months, so I jump ahead and make my favorite cookie of all...sugar cookies! What else is more delicious than a hardy helping of icing atop a theme-shaped cookie.....and with a face to make it all the better?! Yup....I go all out....pumpkin shaped cookies with a face (candy corn for the eyes, i admit, i stole the idea from Eat'n Park) and some icing for a spooky mouth (and I added some Ghost shaped cookies this year, but half of their arms broke off, and they were too hard to icing, so no more Ghosts!).

Sugar cookies have always been my favorite, so it's no wonder I put so much time and effort into making these cookies.  Although, come December, I will be too lazy to make them again so soon, so they will again forgo my xmas cookie tray!  I took a few pictures of my hard work, before I put them away in containers and the icing gets crushed and smeared (*tear*), b/c its the best way I know how to store them.  I also finished them just in time for Ross to have one before his drive back up to IUP for the week.  And don't worry, I put 2 in a baggy for him so he wouldn't miss out on any cookies in the 2 days he is gone.  HA! And lastly, Dakota was trying to get a lick every time I turned my back! If her nose was any longer, surely she could've reached one!  Anyways, I hope they make your mouth water....b/c if ANY of you lived closer, I would be able to share and spare a few.  BUT until then, enjoy the pics.  And don't worry, they taste just as good as they look :P

Farewell Camping Season

It is officially the end of mine & Ross' camping season.  But we went off with a *bang!* this weekend with a few of my close friends, and lucked out with beautiful autumn weather (at least for Saturday & Sunday....Friday was a bit rained out!).  I am already counting down the days until next season, as I have quickly realized how much I missed camping (since I went as a kid with my family) and how much I still love it.  A few highlights of this weekend were the amazing steak and potatoes we made for dinner on Saturday (we are quite the chefs when we have a fire to cook over, as this is our only version of owning a grill!); the late night snacks of pizza moutain pies, and ham & chs melts; Ang's delicious taco dip (ok, i admit it, we're food-aholics when we go camping); our annoying camping neighbors that felt it necessary to yell "BEER" and "PARTY" at all annoying hours of the night/early morning! And then mimicking Ang when she would yell it back. HA!; and lastly, our cozy and quaint 3-person (but really only big enough for 2-people-and-a-dog) tent that i've grown quite fond of this season after seeing that it can definitely hold its own!

 Once we got home, Ross & I washed & detailed every inch of my car after the abuse & neglect it has taken since we use my car for camping.  Now it is sparkling, and i can't even remember the last time it was so clean :) All of the camping stuff has been cleaned off and put away until next season.  So for now, Farewell camping, Hello! fall sports...specifically the Penguins!  There's is always something to look forward to in every *season :)

(*except Spring, haha)

Hello New Blog :)

Well, I got my new blog up & running.  In with the new, out with the old (Xanga, that is).  It was time for a fresh start, a new blog, and a new outlook on life (right?!).  Anyways, I always love to read blogs from some of my other family members to see what's new and interesting in their lives, and to not feel so out-of-touch with people.  As for me, life is smooth sailing, as always. Ross will be finishing up his Master's @ IUP in December (yay!) and will hopefully then be working full-time.  Extra moo-lah anyone?! Nope, not us, we'll actually be working towards saving for a house one day down the road, since we are both tired of the '1-bdrm apt.' living situation.  A place to call our own is on the top of my wish list right now :)  So other than that, life hasn't changed much for us. 

Dakota is keeping us happy and keeping our lives interesting, but we love her (don't let Ross fool you when he says otherwise!). I even bought her an adorable hoodie for camping. HA! I'm NOT one of those 'i-dress-my-dog-in-ppl-clothes-b/c-i-think-its-a-human' people, but its been getting chilly out and she's been cold at night while camping, so i had to do something about it.  Anyways, the hoodie was the only appropriate choice b/c what else do you wear when you go camping?! It even has her name stenciled on the back thanks to me having too much time on my hands :) O so appropriate for D and her stylish ways.

Anyways, don't worry, this blog is NOT all about D, she just happens to be the most amusing things in our lives thus far :)