25 Days to go!

Hmm....why is my countdown to moving in going up?? Oh, that's right. Because Ross & I have been working our B-U-T-T-S off on the house and STILL can't get everything done on our to-do list in order to get the house move-in ready in 2 short weeks. We've been mentally and physically exhausted for weeks now. So pushing back the move-in date is just what we needed.

Of course, Ross has been saying all along that May 7th was too soon, but I'm stubborn and it took me awhile to realize he was right :/ (why does that happen so often?...isn't the girl always supposed to be right in relationships?!) So I finally agreed that May 21st was looking more appealing, and my back agrees :) (On to other updates, my back is slowly progressively healing, but I feel I could've been 100% weeks ago if I wasn't working so hard on the house. It's a lose-lose situation.) So anyway, we'll still be moved in before camping, which was my ultimate goal, but nothing like taking it down to the last minute since we'll be camping Memorial Day weekend with a group of friends. Of course, it's also motivating me to get my back in top-notch shape so I can go white-water rafting with friends that weekend *eye roll please* My physical therapist already suggests I can't go...but we'll see. It's too soon for me to decide that I need to completely miss out :( And here's where my stubborn-is comes into play again! I know my PT is probably right, but I don't want to face facts just yet.

Lastly..Happy Easter to everyone :) Yesterday was a great day spent with family. Lots of great food, and good times. Sorry this post is not more Easter related...I have too many other things going on in my mind!

But soon it'll all be over. Perhaps not soon enough....

Woe Is Me

I love food, I love to eat, but more importantly, I love chocolate!!! Probably more than anyone I know....

So you will never find me turning down a box of chocolates during the holiday season! I see chocolate and just gravitate towards it, and indulge :)

You can imagine my excitement when I saw a gift from my boss sitting on my desk this morning when I walked into work, and I knew from it's precise size and weight that it was certainly a box of Chocolates :) This is all a little sad, right?! You'd think that I'd have better things to do at work then shake & weigh the wrapped present.

BUT I couldn't wait an entire day to open them, knowing they were waiting for me, so I secretly unwrapped it under my desk, tore off the plastic wrap....

Only to find....

A box full of COCONUT chocolate!!

Oh nooooo...what a way to ruin all the goodness inside :( I hate coconut. More than I hate vegetables. More than I hate Walmart! Boo hoo hooo. What an awful morning. Please mourn with me....

Christmas Is Coming

The Seibert household is brimming with excitement....excitement for the upcoming holiday and excitement for the closing of our very first house in just 6 days! Now that we're back from vacation, I can get things done and am starting to feel less stressed about my to-do list. Our christmas cards have yet to be sent out (eek!) and I'm quickly working to finish our yearly christmas photo collage. Aside from that, I still have to finish christmas shopping, and as far as I'm concerned, everyone is getting gift cards if they didn't give me a list....mwahahaha. But gift cards aren't so bad, Ross & I are asking for gift cards this year to either Lowe's or Home Depot to let the home renovations begin!

Anyway....Merry Christmas. I promise our Christmas Cards will be coming soon! No worries if you didn't send us one though b/c of the temporary address change! If I were more prepared I would've sent our cards out early so everyone could have our address.... o well. There's always next year :)

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I used to hate Thanksgiving as a kid for the mere fact that I didn't like the food. I'm so happy that I've finally grown up and not as picky as I once was, so now I look foward to the big meal as much as anyone else :) But besides that, Ross & I have so much to be thankful for this year even after we felt defeated time and time again. Here is what I'm most thankful for:

- Ross, who is my best friend and more
- Dakota, she's quite amusing, she makes me laugh everyday
- Our families, for always being there
- Our amazing friends, who also support us through good times & bad
- My job
- On that note, I'm thankful for getting laid off at the beginning of the year from my old job, as hard as it was, it was a blessing in disguise
- Ross' unending determination to succeed in his field
- Ross' & my ability to live frugally, or at least try to, and not be ashamed
- The purchase of our first house!
- As much as I complain about my car not having power windows or locks, I love my car for the mere fact that it is paid off and gets me from point A to point B

Ok, so I can go on and on about what I'm thankful for. I pray everyday that God never let us take for granted for what we DO have. We try to live simply and not beyond our means, and even though we may not be rich, or have everything our heart desires, or even the money to furnish our new home, I'm so thankful for what we DO have, and that's what I focus on. That's what makes me happy. And what's more important in life than being happy?!

Alright, this is all pretty sappy. Sorry. I've always been picked on in my family for the sappy emotions, but sometimes, you need to just sit back and realize how lucky we all are. Even with the struggles we all go through.

And the struggles you get through today will teach you a good lesson for tomorrow :)

Or maybe give you something to laugh about 10 years down the road. I can just picture it now, Ross & I in our new home, with 1 ugly red sofa and 1 coffee table, and 1 tv in our huge new living room, b/c we can't afford to buy any additional furniture to furnish our new house. HA! O dear....

TGIF

O Happy Day! This week is finally over! It's just been on of those weeks that feels like it's never going to end.

Our house closing is keeping us busy. One tiny problem after another! I'll be grateful if we make it to closing :) And I can just see the dollar signs adding up, one little problem after another = a sum here & there to get it fixed! joy. I'll be happy if we have any money left in the bank when everything is said and over with!

Other than the house, I'm realizing how quickly Xmas is coming upon us! EEK! I haven't even started to THINK about christmas shopping...and for that, I blame my sister. She normally likes to brag about how she has all her shopping done before Halloween, but she is late this year! Therefore, I am extremely late b/c no one has reminded me that it is November already! I have to start my Xmas letter, buy Xmas cards, think of Xmas presents, make my own gift tags (b/c I'm a dweeb) etc. etc. etc. Christmas is stressful, as much as I love the holiday spirit, all the gift buying and preparation is just a bit too much for me to handle! Can you tell how stressed I am by all the exclamation points I've used!! What a grammatical catastrophe! sorry. PERHAPS I SHOULD JUST TALK IN ALL CAPS....ha, ha, sorry, little inside joke with the fam :)

So tell me, am I the only one who didn't realize that Christmas is only 51 days away!!! That's right! ..... I hope you also experienced a mini-heartattack much like myself :) Happy Holidays!

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 :)

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.......

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