Planning to purge

Tomorrow I plan to dig through a few crannies of our house and purge stuff. So riddle me this, blog friends, what does one do with:

• Old CDs that have been loaded into iTunes and have since been sitting untouched in an old CD folio thingy for the last 3 years?
• Old jewelry that I don't wear anymore? Think target style, not Gold-Stash-for-Cash. I wish...
• Old files that need to be shredded but our shredder doesn't work?  

Open to suggestions...

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the exercise wagon

I can barely see it. Way off in the distance there. The exercise wagon that I fell off long ago. Yeah, its still in sight...

I need to get my butt into gear and get my heart rate pumping. None of this "new years resolution" business for me though. Just straight up, realistic, totally achievable moving of my patootie on a semi-regular basis.

Oh and eating vegetables. Sometimes veggies just go into hibernation in the winter, doncha know? Gotta hate that. I need to start eating them again.

When I say things like this to my bestie he just laughs at me in that sort of I've heard THAT before kind of way. With a touch of loving-kindness tossed in. So I'm not telling him this time. I'm telling you!

Tomorrow its supposed to be 60 degrees. If we must have 60 degree weather in December I must run outside. Wish me luck...

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Christmas lyrics

Wednesday night I was out shopping with Julie at Barnes & Noble. She turns around and says "is this about to be a flash mob?" Sure enough, there was a crowd gathered that, in my claustrophobia, I had failed to see.

Turns out, they weren't flash mobers. They were just carolers. Except they were uninvited and a little sneaky, so maybe that makes it a flash mob. Anywho, they opened with the Carol of the Bells. A wonderful caroler's tune :-)

I love listening to and thinking about the lyrics of Christmas music...

Silent Night

Silent night! holy night!

Shepherds quake at the sight

glories stream from heaven afar

heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah

Christ the Saviour is born!

Silent night! holy night!

Son of God love's pure light

radiant beams from thy holy face

with the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord at thy birth.

Luke 2:8-19

Angels We Have Heard on High 

Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing,

Come on adore on bended knee
Christ, the Lord, our new born King

Joy to the world

Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King;
let every heart prepare him room,
and heaven and nature sing...
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
he comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found...
He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of his righteousness,
and wonders of his love...

Christmas. What a wonderful holiday.  

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

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Consultant specializes in being awkward

Do you ever struggle to be awkward and rude at the same time while having some water-cooler talk with people you've never met at your client site? Try this line.

"I am supposed to bring a dessert to a Christmas party tonight, but I ran out of time to make anything. My husband told me to I should just buy something. I might as well go wearing my swimsuit! There's just no way I can buy sweets at the store!"

Insert chocolate in mouth and walk away. Way to be a snob while delivering the ultimate TMI statement at work...

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The cough. Dun dun duuuunnnn....

Let's rewind to New Years of 2010. Or 2009. Anyway it was 12/31/2009 and we had people over to our house for new years. I was coming down with a cold that night and didn't want to drink wine because I was afraid the alchy would just make it worse.

Fast forward three weeks. I was coughing up a storm and getting kicked out of work cause my neighbors found it disgusting. It was. The doctor told me to drink more water. She's bright.

Fast forward three more weeks and I'm half-dead. Different doctor likes to take my blood every other day and make me take serious meds. He makes me breathe into this crazy obnoxious machine and gives me an inhaler. I have no idea which way is up. But I sit in on conference calls from home so I can put the phone on mute and cough incessantly whenever necessary.

Short story? I'm slightly melodramatic. As you can see, I turned out just fine.

But I lost a lot of my voice through that terrible bronchitis. Very very very sad. I miss it. And there is no recording of my performances anywhere. Oh well. Might be better that I continue to enjoy what I thought I sounded like in my head :-)

Fast forward two years. Whenever I get a cough (read: I currently have a cough) I get nervous. And so does my bestie. I don't like that I constantly have to clear my throat or cough every 15 minutes. I don't like that cough drops don't help and that I'm out of herbal tea. I don't like that it is December and my Gingerbread Latte intake is being seriously threatened by my throat's negative reactions to milk. Rude.

That's all. No point to that story except that I do not enjoy my current cough. The end.

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nutella sea salt [wanna-be] fudge

Fudge.

I could take it or leave it.

But when I come home from a weekend of wedding madness

and feel compelled to bring something to my work holiday party the next day

 and don't have any eggs so I give up on baking

and resolve to putting on sweats and reading my favorite blogs

and accidentally stumble on Nutella fudge...

then, my dear friends, then

in that moment fudge sounds good.

So I make it at 11:30pm

Duh.

It was raved about at my company party today

and I had to put the tray away a few hours before the party ended

 cause I knew hubs would want to try it.

Do yourself a favor and make this Nutella and Sea Salt Fudge

from Tasty Kitchen on ThePioneerWoman.com.

Oh and I make substitutions, remember?

Do yourself a favor and follow my lead:

use fat free sweetened condensed milk

1-1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips if that's what you have.

Because who has bittersweet chocolate and who has a scale? Not I.

Don't bother bringing your butter to room temp.

Except really you should cause mine struggled to melt.

And if you don't keep sea salt in your pantry use kosher.

It's not as pretty, but it tastes the same and no one will notice.

Just give them all away after you make them.

Or you'll have an upset stomach from eating too many.



And don't make Fantasy Fudge anymore.

It really doesn't stand a chance against this super simple, decadent recipe.

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Major gym failure

Wanna hear something dumb? I went to title my post "embarrassing" and saw that I already have a post titled "embarrassment."

Moving right along...

A few months ago Groupon sent me this lovely little opportunity: 6 boot camp sessions and 2 personal training sessions for only 40 buckaroos. Sign me up! I finished the boot camp sessions which were awesome and seriously really very hard and after dragging my feet finally signed up for the personal trainer sessions. I went the day before Thanksgiving. Also known as the day before our 5k. I never showed you pictures of that, did I? Oh. I'll get that to you later. Training session was also awesome. Kicked my patootie but in a friendly "I believe in you" kind of way. He also convinced me that signing up for my next session to be a 6am sounded like a good idea.

False.

I successfully made it out of bed at 5:30 and to the gym at 6:07.
You didn't expect me to be on time, did you?
I warm up and start on the first exercise. Or maybe the second. Whatever. I was dizzy and nauseous. Now we're all friends here so I know what you're thinking. I was thinking the same thing.
What's new, lady? You're slighty dizzy and nauseous? That's old news.
He is concerned that I might pass out. So I say to Mr. Wilson "I played for the Chiefs and I could dominate you" Thomas:
Oh no, no no. I wouldn't pass out. If anything I might lose my cookies. It's no big deal. Happens all the time. Just give me a minute.
He looks at me like I just dropped a bomb. His response is:
That's like going on a third date and mentioning in passing that you've got 15 kids! Why in the world didn't you tell me this before? We was gonna go get drinks, but now I'm just gonna pay for dinner and check out!
Hilarious. I say:
Sorry. Didn't occur to me.
He proceeds to insist that I drink orange juice or take a glucose tablet, I opted for the juice, and sit down for a bit. After every other set for the rest of the morning he tells me to sit down or drink more juice because I look pale.

He further proceeds to sing a song about how I should have payed more attention when we went over my meal plan.
I, on the other hand, proceed to get more and more embarrassed and frustrated. At this point I'm thinking:
A) I totally wasted my second free personal training session.
B) Got up at 5:30am for nada.
C) I feel like bleck.
D) Now I can't get Starbucks for a post-workout reward.
E) I should just eat better and this wouldn't happen.
F) Next time I go to the gym I should wear blush.
G) I want to go home and bake banana bread.

In other news, the trainer offered to do free group training sessions for me and 4 friends for 3 weeks if I can find 3 friends. Any takers?

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oh Christmas tree

My fam an I, we love our Christmas trees. It's kind of a big deal deacorating the tree every year. My bestie says it's "sacred" to us. Not us as in he and I. Him and I. Him and me. Whatever. The "us" is in reference to my ma, and pa, and sister. We love us a good tree. We used to always get real trees, but a few years ago we made the switch to fake. Let's not call it fake, let's call it artificial. Euphemism. 

Anyway, this year, pops surprised us with a new one. A big'un. 

But first let's talk about the littler one at our lovely little home. 

We don't have anywhere to store a fake artificial tree,
so each year hubs and I get a real one.
Our first year we actually went to a tree farm
and my burly man chopped it down. :-)

Yes. I wear short sleeves in December. Cut a girl some slack.

Last year and this year we got our trees from a chain store.
Please forgive us. She's cute though!

The best thing about our tree is that it's covered in ornaments that are special to us.
Each year my parents give my sister and I, and now hubs, ornaments on Christmas Eve.
Then when we got married we had plenty of ornaments to start our tree.
They are all dearly loved.

Por ejemplo:

This bear I've had since the beginning of time. So sweet :-)

This little baker angel. 

She has measuring spoons for hands and is holding a little heart cookie cutter. 

A KU basketball garden gnome ornament.
Reminds me of White Owl. Love him.

This little felt stocking is one of three my mom stitched for me last year. 

It is made with beads from her wedding dress. 

These were the same beads I used as part of my hair pin at my wedding.

Okay now think big people... 

Imagine all of those lovely little ornaments

each with a wonderful little story

on a ginormo tree. 

Insert, my dad's surprise:

It is twelve feet tall and beautiful :-)

Now there is something else to mention here. 

Christmas is beautiful. And joyful. And fun. [And stressful]

 But Christmas is mostly humble. 

It is built on the truth that God humbled himself to save us.  

Glory be to God.

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Incent, incentive, and incentivize

Did you know that incent isn't a word?

Tell me how much sense that makes, people.

Zero, you say? I agree.

Incentive is the noun. Incentivize is the standard English verb.

Silly English. It is so confused.

Get that joke? It should be confusing, but I'm using confused just to spite it all!

I'm currently having a hard time writing "incentivize" in an email
because it is a dumb word.

Oh the troubles I have on a Monday morning...

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My favorite book

Know what this is a picture of?

It is my Bible.

Correction: It was my Bible. 

Correction: It is my Bible, but it is now in 1 million pieces.

Mack is in serious trouble.

And I'm sad.

**Update 2 hours later**
Mack just consumed the hubster's Bible also.
He said it tasted sweeter than honey.

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