What did you resolve in 2010?

10:59 pm ByFiled UnderFaith, Inspiration & Deep Thoughts, Updates, Recaps & Day to Day

The end of the year – and the day of truth – is upon us.

Wait – is that too dramatic? Just a little?

Okay, but it’s true. 2010, whether you pronounced it “two thousand ten” or “twenty ten” is almost over. If you’re still hoping to meet your goals for the year, you have less than 48 hours!

As for me, I’m pretty sure if I haven’t met my goals thus far, it’s probably not going to happen.

That’s not to say I haven’t followed through on any of my resolutions. I have. And here’s a rundown of what I resolved – or didn’t, as the case may be – in 2010.

My 2010 Resolutions and Goals – and Their Results!

Read the Bible all the way through: Well, not quite. I bought a One Year Bible and started the year reading very faithfully. Every day. Daily. And then . . . well, I got behind. Eventually I realized that some reading was better than no reading. So I spent the rest of the year catching up when I could. And I will start over again on Saturday.

Obtain and maintain a healthy weight: Ummm . . . no.

Improve our finances: This year we paid off some debt, though not as much as I’d hoped. And we put a good amount into savings – although we’ve since spent it. Going from two salaries to one has meant constant adjustments in the financial department, and I’m looking forward to getting used to our new normal this year.

Go on monthly dates with my husband: I don’t believe we managed a date every month, but we did spend time together – sans kiddo – several times this year.

Hang on to my sanity while raising a toddler: Well . . . mostly! We’ve survived potty training, the move to a big girl bed, transitioning to full-time daycare and then to preschool, and the tell-tale sign of the terrible twos (and threes): the public tantrum. And my head has only exploded two or twenty times.

Take a photography class: No. Unless you count my favorite session at Savvy Blogging Summit. And in that case, yes.

Increase blog traffic: Yes. Thank YOU.

Start a cooking club: I tried, but it didn’t work out.

Read some good books: Oh yeah! I read a lot, but here are my favorite books of 2010.

Stay caught up on my scrapbooking: Mostly. No matter how many (or few) layouts I completed, those nights spent scrapbooking with my friends and cousins were some of the most fun of my entire year!

Get a new job: Not exactly in the way I had in mind, but yes!

I also wrote about recycling, getting up early and using coupons this year. Recycling – yes! Getting up early – a few times. Which has to be better than nothing, right? And coupons – not so much. Maybe next year (with the new budget, you know)!

So, how did you do with your 2010 resolutions?

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The first weekend of the month

1:20 am ByFiled UnderMarriage, Parenting, Family & Friendship, Updates, Recaps & Day to Day

On Friday, I optimistically posted this on Facebook: “I’m is looking forward to a busy weekend! MOPS, Build-a-Bear, Christmas party, preschool program and date night with our small group!”

Really, I should have known better, what with Murphy’s Holiday Law and all.

The three days of events started off fine. I went to my second meeting of MOPS and enjoyed getting to know the ladies at my table a little better. Plus, we made fleece tie blankets for the children’s hospital, and I discovered how EASY those things are! All these years I’ve been so impressed by people who make them, and it turns out, it’s not that hard at all.

Now, don’t be judging the simplicity of this project by my table’s actual blanket. Because it may have not turned out exactly as we hoped. But I’m sure a very small child will be thrilled with our strangely circular blanket anyway!

Later that afternoon, Smitty came up to hang out with Annalyn and me. After running a couple errands, we decided – after some debate and driving in just a few circles – to eat an early dinner at Wendy’s. Since we’d eaten lunch at Chick-fil-A with a couple friends from MOPS, I opted to get a cheeseburger for Annalyn instead of her normal chicken nuggets. (And yes, that’s two fast food meals in one day, for all of you keeping track.)

Of course she wanted nothing to do with the burger, slurping down her milk and inhaling her mandarin oranges instead. As I was attempting to bribe encourage her to take just a few bites of the cheeseburger, she snitched a piece of lettuce off my tray that I’d taken off had fallen off my chicken sandwich.

That’s when it happened. Somehow, she choked on that piece of lettuce, and despite my urging to Just chew it up and swallow it! she totally gagged. And then puked. All over herself. And my coat.

It was AWFUL. She never gets sick (thank God and knock on wood!), so I didn’t even know what to do. I just kept staring at her, then at Smitty, then back to Annalyn. And without being too graphic and gross, it just kept coming.

Finally, she finished, whimpering and apologizing, poor girl. And we cleaned it up, with the help of a very nice Wendy’s employee and a tree’s worth of paper towels and wet wipes. Luckily, I had Mark’s snuggie in the back of our car, so we stripped Annalyn down and wrapped her up in that.

And then I took my Wendy’s bag full of puked-on clothes (including my coat, in case you missed that) home to wash. I bathed my poor kiddo, gave her some water and eventually put her to bed.

Where she stayed – even when she woke up at 3:30 a.m. and threw a royal fit. It was only after she’d screamed and I’d finally yelled and then texted Mark (who was working) about HIS child that I realized she was probably hungry. And, honestly, I only realized that because Mark pointed it out. And by then, she’d finally fallen asleep.

Yes, it was quite the night for this Mother of the Year candidate.

After the puking and the middle of the night fit-throwing, I didn’t think it was in anyone’s best interest for us to attend the Build-a-Bear Workshop we’d been looking forward to. (More about that later this week, though!)

Saturday night brought a Christmas party with some of my favorite friends – who weren’t actually AT the party. And then Mark and I rented a movie, which was also a disappointment (Note to self: Go with your gut. If your gut says a movie with Crazy Tom Cruise and Annoying Cameron Diaz is going to be terrible, it might just be terrible.).

Our streak continued on Sunday morning, when we attended the church were Annalyn attends preschool for her Christmas program. My showoff daughter who regularly brings her pink stepstool into the living room in order to sing and dance for us got a case of stage fright and stood with her fingers in her mouth – NOT SINGING – throughout all five songs.

Things looked much better as the week started yesterday, though. After the weekend’s disastrous firsts – puking in public and preschool program – we had a GREAT first visit to the dentist. Annalyn was her (normal, of course) charming self, and the dentist and his hygienists were amazing with her, explaining everything, letting her wear rubber gloves and a mask, and even finding an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for her to watch in the chair.

Who’d have thought I’d be glad to see Monday and a visit to the dentist?!?

How was YOUR first weekend of the month?

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The Turkey Wrap

1:12 am ByFiled UnderUpdates, Recaps & Day to Day

01 bay city diner turkey wrapphoto © 2009 Jason Lam | more info (via: Wylio)

No, I’m not going to share a recipe for an actual turkey wrap. Although, now that I think of it, that’s not a bad idea…

Instead of yet another tasty way to use a tortilla, I thought I’d do a Thanksgiving recap – or, you know, a Turkey [Day] Wrap [Up].

I can’t wait to hear more about your Thanksgiving weekends. I hope you all had plenty of family, food and fun – and no craziness or chaos. As usual, my three-day holiday had it all.

Thursday
Mark didn’t work on Wednesday night, so our Thursday morning was less stressful than expected. Annalyn did a fine job of entertaining herself while I made a green bean casserole and half-listened, half-watched the Macy’s parade.

I did forget to put Mark’s baked beans in the oven at the designated time, so I had to do the bottom rack trick and bump up the temperature a bit. Both bean dishes turned out great, although I’m sad to say that Mark’s baked beans went over much better than my green beans.

I’d like to blame the Pioneer Woman for a faulty recipe, but I think we all know how likely THAT is. Next time, I will either use fresh or canned green beans. The frozen ones are kind of gross.

As for our actual dinner, it was very nice. Mark and I both had good visits with my grandma, and I enjoyed chatting with my cousins, even if all conversations were short-lived and oft-interrupted by the dozen kiddos running around the house.

Not my cousin's actual shuffleboard table.

My cousin Jenny has a beautiful home, and I love visiting for holidays. As I looked around at all her fun fall decorations, I was inspired to use some of my stay-at-home time to gussy up our house for Christmas! More important than that, though – at least for Mark, my dad and all the other guys – was their newly finished basement (a.k.a. Man Cave) with a shuffleboard table.

In other words, when it was time to leave, I had to drag Annalyn out of the play room filled to the brim with dolls and dishes AND I had to drag Mark away from the shuffleboard game of the year!

Friday
I had such grand plans for Friday morning. I was going to cook and clean and be so very productive while Mark and Annalyn went to my father-in-law’s farm to dump our nine huge bags of leaves. I should have known better.

When we got the newspaper on Thursday and went through the sale papers, we saw that Target was selling a 40-inch TV for $298. We’ve gone back and forth about buying a new TV for a couple years now, and while we’d recently agreed to wait until after Christmas, this deal seemed too good to pass up.

Unfortunately, that meant I would be the one to get up before the crack of dawn to brave the 19-degree weather and recession-crazy crowds.

IMGP2667photo © 2007 djLicious | more info (via: Wylio)

Target opened at 4 a.m. However, I firmly believe that morning does not – and should not, EVER – begin before 5 a.m. In special cases – like a big fancy TV for less than three hundred bucks – I can force myself to consider setting the alarm for a time with a 4 in it. But before that? Um, no thanks.

So, I convinced myself that, even though this sale was the best one in the whole stack of flyers and located on the very front page of the Target ad, getting there before 5 a.m. would SURELY be sufficient.

Go ahead. Laugh! Guess how WRONG I was. And then guess how ANNOYED I was to find out that no sale items were located in their proper departments and the line of people wrapped around the store was actually the line to check out and no, there aren’t any more carts available! And then? When the Target employee who made the mistake of asking me if I needed any help informed me that, “It’s like this every year”? As if I didn’t know that? As if I’d never heard of Black Friday? As if I were an IDIOT?!

Yeah….

Here’s the thing: I am NOT a nice tired person. Or a nice morning person. So while, normally, I am overly nice to customer service representatives and fellow shoppers, no matter how stressful the shopping situation, I am not exactly MYSELF when it comes to Black Friday. Or any other day when I’m forced out of my warm bed into the cold winter for no reason other than a stupid TV that was sold out in the first six minutes the store was open!

Long story short (ha! As if!), I scrapped my shopping plans at that point. Recognizing that I was not fit for interaction with the public, I took a look at my list of four stores (including Walmart and Toys R Us), called them unnecessary and impractical, and went back home and back to bed.

Friday, part 2
After dragging myself back out of bed and lounging on the couch for some online shopping while simultaneously watching Back to the Future, I finally got a second wind. I made several cheesy, carby casseroles and felt a lot better about the world in general. I even rearranged (smushed) my green bean casserole and rebaked it for Thanksgiving Dinner #2.

Thanksgiving Dinner #2 was lovely, although my poor mom was sick. And this side of the family didn’t love my green bean casserole, either. We enjoyed a great meal and a lot of laughs, though, and we managed to snap lots of photos, draw names for gifts and make plans for Christmas before any of the kids (or adults) had a major meltdown.

I also noticed this evening that Annalyn has quite the holiday meal strategy. She isn’t normally a picky eater, although she doesn’t always eat the things that I know she likes. In general, though, she loves vegetables and is willing to eat most foods that we eat.

Not so much for Thanksgiving. At our first big meal on Thursday, she completely ignored her plate that I carefully prepared – and ate half the food on my dad’s plate! Then on Friday night, she somehow convinced my very tall brother to sit at the very small kids table and feed her the food off HIS plate!

Good thing she’s not spoiled or anything.

Saturday
The third day of our holiday marathon was, unfortunately, the most stressful one. It started with family photos before 9 a.m., complete with strained relationships and fake smiles, and ended with an annoying but brief dinner with my in-laws. It was a long day of biting my tongue and freezing my eyes in place so they wouldn’t roll out of control, and I was glad when it was over.

We actually got some great photos. Like these - how cute is she?!

In between the photos and the in-laws, we did enjoy an hour or so of making candy with my aunt and cousins. That was honestly the best part of my day, even though – believe it or not – I didn’t eat a single piece of the candy.

We also met back up with my parents and siblings for a greasy Mexican lunch, which was – believe it or not – my favorite meal of the whole weekend. And that’s saying a lot, considering my dad got sick, my mom lectured us all about our behavior earlier in the morning, and Mark decided to stay home and watch football.

If I add it all up and divide by the number of meals or the number of events or the number of relationships or relatives, the result and my conclusion is always the same. My family is certifiably crazy and we drive each other a little more nuts every year, but we do – for better or worse – love each other and often, despite ourselves, have a lot of fun together.

Especially when it involves a chili burrito.

How was YOUR Thanksgiving? Did you eat too much? Enjoy time with family? Avoid time with family? Do a little bit of everything?

Shuffleboard photo by barmano.

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Baby Shower Fail

1:00 am ByFiled UnderMarriage, Parenting, Family & Friendship, Memories & Stories, Updates, Recaps & Day to Day

This is not the actual invitation. Just so you know.

Several weeks ago, I received an invitation to a baby shower. It requested the honor of my presence (in not so many words) at a casual brunch for two girls from my church.

I’m friends with one of the girls, but I didn’t know the other girl at all. I checked the guest list (it was an e-vite), though, and saw several of my friends – so I knew it would be fun. I wrote it on my calendar and forgot about it.

Last week, Mark asked me if we had plans for the weekend. I told him that I was going to a shower for Erin F.

And then I started to think . . .

I’m Facebook friends with Erin F – and her husband – so I knew that she was scheduled for a C-section on Thursday. Thursday before the shower.

Hmm, I thought. That’s weird.

Then again, one of my baby showers took place the day after I came home from the hospital. So, I figured, sometimes things like that happen. Maybe she’ll Skype in?

Honestly. This is how my brain works. I really am a logical person, but every once in a while, I find myself arriving at the most ridiculous conclusion possible.

This was one of those times.

It wasn’t until the morning of the shower that it occurred to me that I might not be understanding the situation quite right. As I washed my hair, it dawned on me. The shower wasn’t for Erin F. It was for my good friend, Erin K.!

Or was it? I didn’t know!

Then, because once you enter panic mode the only thing to do is escalate and panic some more, I started questioning my decision to abide by the invitation’s claim that “presents are not required!”

They mean that . . . right?

Remember that nightmare where you show up at school without your clothes? I’m convinced the grown-up version is showing up at a baby shower without a gift.

You’ve probably guessed how this whole thing turned out, but I’ll tell you anyway. First of all, the shower was for my good friend, Erin K. (And Kelly, who I don’t really know but seems very sweet!)

And every other single person at that shower brought a gift. Gifts. Multiple gifts. Gifts were everywhere!

Except in my hand.

I didn’t bring a gift for EITHER Erin!

I don’t really know what happened to me. Normally, I’m a baby shower PRO. I’ve organized so many showers that I no longer need to bother searching online for baby shower games. Or baby décor ideas. Or invitation designs. Or . . . well, you get my point.

I guess everyone has an off day. Last Saturday, I had an off shower.

So – anything embarrassing happen to you lately? Please, share and make me feel better!

Image by soapylovedeb. This post will be linked to Friday Fails at My Blessed Life (in a couple weeks – it’s a monthly carnival).

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Virginia is {notsomuch} for Lovers

4:58 am ByFiled UnderUpdates, Recaps & Day to Day

When our friends John and Katie moved across the country a few years ago, I tried to be happy for them. John had finally gotten his dream job, and they bought a beautiful house in their little mountain town near his new company.

They were following their dreams and going where God led them and – oh, never mind. All that’s true, but I was SAD!

We threw them a going away party in our backyard, we had one last Bible study together and I gave Katie a little goodbye present. But it wasn’t enough.

And their occasional trips home to visit family weren’t enough, either. (Mainly because, while we are close friends, we are not, in fact, family. And apparently family has dibs on out-of-state visitors. I was not consulted.)

So, a year after they moved, Mark and I – childless and carefree at that point – hopped in our car and drove 15 hours to see them. It was then that we discovered Virginia’s bizarre state motto: Virginia is for lovers.

{That’s weird, right? Tell me I’m not the only one who finds that . . . strange.}

I don’t really know what that means. But a few years and two children (one of ours, one of theirs) later, our second trip to visit John and Katie wasn’t exactly a trip down lovers’ lane.

Mainly because we slept in two twin beds. And took turns driving while the other one slept. And split up for a bike ride and a cupcake store visit (Go ahead – guess who did what.), as well as drove separately to our last night touristy getaway.

But even though this was most definitely not a romantic couple’s adventure, it was absolutely a great family vacation. Here are my favorite parts:

1. Yinglings: Our friends are awesome. We love them and miss them. Seeing them was the whole point of our 14-hour (each way, in case you’re wondering) trip. And it was totally worth it. We laughed – and we laughed some more. We caught up and told stories and compared crazy kids and families and gave advice and shared tips and sympathized and empathized. And just had a darned good time in general.

2. Portable DVD player: Seriously. Why do we not own one of these? Oh yeah, because I know that if we did, it would be in use every single second we were in the car. We borrowed our friend’s DVD player, and for the hours Annalyn was awake in the car (we drove overnight), It Was Awesome. Love.

3. Cupcake bakery: One day, Mark decided to go to a nearby town and ride his mountain bike down a mountain. Literally. The good news is that he survived without an injury (a miracle of great proportions, and no, I’m not exaggerating one bit). The other good news is that this freed up Katie, Annalyn and me to visit Babycakes, a cupcakery. A cupcakery! Is that not the cutest word EVER?

4. Stocking up on Mary Kay: Katie is an awesome Mary Kay consultant. You know – the kind who works hard enough to get a free car? Yeah, that’s her. Mark is obsessed with learning about her business. For a while, he kept telling me that I should sell Mary Kay. Now that I’ve convinced him that makeup – while lovely – is not really my THING, I’m wondering if maybe HE should sell it! Anyway, while we were there, I saved us some shipping costs and stocked up on my favorite lipstick and mascara and tried a new toner.

5. Turkey cookies: Katie’s been a work-at-home mom for much longer than me (easy to do, considering this vacation took place the week after I quit my job). It was interesting to watch how she does things. One of my favorite observations was that planning a fun activity doesn’t have to be complicated. The first night we were at her house, Katie baked some sugar cookies. Then the next day, she got out icing and candy corn, and the kids made the cookies into turkeys. Granted, that’s more of a Thanksgiving treat than a Halloween one, but it didn’t stop any of us from eating those turkeys!

6. Mountains: I love them. No, the Smokies are not the Rockies. But I love mountains. The end. (Okay, not the end. Because I do have to say that I found it totally bizarre that at the highest scenic spot in the park or the state or the something, there was no fence. No guardrail next to the sidewalk. Just a steep drop and certain death. So I take it back. That’s not bizarre. It’s really scary. Now…the end.)

7. Aquarium: On Friday, we all drove into Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg to spend the night. After our death-defying (see above) drive into the mountains on Saturday morning, we visited the Ripley’s Aquarium. Even though it was pricey (Mark walked straight from the ticket booth to me and handed me the receipt without a word – but I’m pretty sure I know what he was saying.) and we went during Annalyn’s normal naptime, we had a blast! The aquarium was full of SO many different animals and activities. It was definitely worth the ticket price and something I’d recommend to anyone visiting the area.

8. Scrapbook store: For the second trip in a row, Katie and I planned to scrapbook and did not. But even though I didn’t put my paper cutter and tape tabs to work while we were visiting, we did manage to make it to a scrapbooking super store. Wait. Let me clarify: a scrapbooking super CLEARANCE store. Everything in the large, packed store was on sale and was then 50% off in addition to the previous markdowns! I was strategic and focused on letters. I bought about 10 packs of letter stickers, four packs of letter rub-ons and two boxes of chipboard letters for $22. No offense to Hobby Lobby, but THAT’s the kind of sale I’m talking about!

9. Swimming: The best part of our hotel in Pigeon Forge was not the breakfast buffet or the flat-screen TV. It was the indoor swimming pool! Never mind the forever long wait for Mark and John to arrive with my swimsuit and Annalyn’s floaties. Once they got there and we got in the pool, it was a blast. Annalyn had such a good time, and we had fun watching her have fun.

10. Time to relax and procrastinate: I’ve been honest about the anxiety I’ve felt about quitting my job. And so I won’t deny it: putting off this jump into the unknown for one more week was kind of nice.

After leaving our house two hours later than we’d hoped on Tuesday, we actually left Tennessee a bit early on Saturday. We pulled into our driveway around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, and I’m pretty sure we’ve never been so glad to crawl into our bed. Even Annalyn went right back to sleep and didn’t make a peep for almost five hours.

All in all, it was a great trip, and I’m glad we went. The mountains were beautiful, all the activities and adventures were fun, and most importantly, the family time and reunion with friends was amazing.

Have you taken a vacation this year? What’s the best trip you’ve taken recently?

This post will be linked to Top Ten Tuesday at OhAmanda.com.

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