Weekend Update

It wasn’t a terribly exciting weekend for us but we did get out and do a few things. Friday night was spent at home watching tv and then on Saturday I had a massage which was absolutely wonderful. For the past week, I had a headache that just would not go away and so I knew that something had to be going on with my neck/shoulders/back. It turned out I had an adhesion in my neck (explained here) that once she got out, my headache was gone within 30 minutes. We went to see a basketball game on Saturday night and had a pretty good time with that. It was a college women’s game and I know that sounds a little crazy, but we had really good seats and they actually are fun to go to. We went out to a nice dinner too before the game. It was a fun evening and a good way to celebrate our one-year anniversary since we got engaged. Rob had been feeling sick for a couple of days and it really hit him on Saturday night while we were out. We kept it low key after that so he could rest and I tried to stay away from him as much as I could. Sunday morning we did run a few errands, checked out an open house in our neighborhood just for fun and went out for some lunch. After that, we went back home and Rob rested while I caught up on some laundry, dishes and made dinner. We didn’t even rent any movies or anything like that over the weekend- we watched several CSI:Miami episodes though that I had recorded on A&E. I am addicted to that show like crack! I never used to watch it because I thought David Caruso was too much for me to handle but he is just so over the top that it is entertaining. With the lack of new programming these days, I gave it a try and am loving it. Anyhow, that’s about it for us- I warned you it wasn’t very exciting!

All the Things I've Been Meaning to Say

I’ve had plenty of material to blog about lately but have been so busy that I haven’t found the time to do it yet. Now that Christmas is over, I finally have some time. And speaking of Christmas, ours was quite wonderful. Although we missed our family terribly (no more Christmases away from them- ever!), it was fun to get all the packages in the mail and get moms' and dads' Christmas cookies and treats out here in Iowa. My husband got me a gift certificate to a day spa here in town for not just one but TWO massages. I will be calling later today to make an appointment to enjoy one of them as soon as possible. He also got me an “Our First Christmas” tree ornament that has our names engraved and has the year on it and has a place to put a picture of us in it. We found a wedding picture that we could use in it and hung it on the tree Christmas Eve. It is a close second for my favorite gift, maybe even a tie for favorite. The other favorite would have to be Mordecai, my new gnome for the yard. I had been wanting one for soooo long but couldn’t fine one I liked but my mom found me one and he’s perfect.



I also got some fake Uggs but in a different color than this (I didn’t want real ones until I could see if I liked them), a movie night basket (for both of us), slippers, fleece vest, a jello cookbook like I wanted and gift cards to Old Navy and Olive Garden. I did really good this year!

Rob did really good too- he got a trip to Florida to see the Daytona 500 in February from his wife. I was able to use our airline miles for free tickets to Florida and my parents let us use their timeshare so we don’t have to pay for lodging and I bought tickets from Ebay to see the race. Even though the tickets were a bit of a rip-off, not having to spend money for flights or lodging makes it seem a lot better. He got some other nice gifts too including new slippers, a beanie, gift cards to Old Navy and Lowes, a shirt, and The Bourne Ultimatum movie.



I made a roast that I added carrots and potatoes to and then we had peas and rolls with it. It turned out pretty darn good and it was super easy.



Last weekend, I made a TON of cookies (about 14 dozen) to make up plates of goodies to take to the neighbors, coworkers and friends. We still had a lot left and received some too from our parents so we’re going to have to store some in the freezer so they don’t go bad. And we’ll be able to have cookies until June this way- not bad!



Rob has been busy working some in the basement because our plan is for that to be our next project and we would like to start right after the first of the year. We set up one bedroom as our temporary media room and office but it is ridiculously crowded in there and we desperately need more space. We don’t know what to do about the flooring situation there and that is what has held us up. There are two issues that make just about every type of flooring impossible. The first issue is the existing asbestos tile that we can’t remove. If that were gone, I would love to just have concrete floors in the basement and then use rugs to warm it up. The second issue is moisture coming up through the ground and that makes everything else (carpet, tile, laminate, vinyl, etc) a bad choice. There is one product I found that I think would be a great choice- they are interlocking tiles that come in a variety of styles, including bamboo, which I really like- but they are a little pricey. Really, they aren’t too bad but we have a lot of area to cover which makes it too expensive for us right now. So we’ll just leave the tile in place and put rugs down for now to make the space usable and save our money up for some different flooring later. But be expecting more stories about our basement renovations!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Iowa! I have so much to blog about but am completely out of energy today so I'm going to have to put this off for another day. That and pictures are taking forever to load right now and I have a lot of those to share. We had a wonderful Christmas and both got a lot of great presents. It was actually quite warm today, up to 45 degrees, and we were able to get outside for a while this afternoon. No snow for Christmas but there is still some on the ground so we did have a white Christmas which is a lot of fun. I made a roast for dinner and we enjoyed that and have nice, full tummies now. I hope everyone else had as great of a Christmas as we did and I promise to post more details soon!

The Office Christmas Party

Yesterday we had our Christmas party at work which was a potluck during the lunch hour. Not so impressive if you look at the Christmas party Brent and Nanette went to for Brent’s work but this is Iowa. We do jello salad, not celebrities. As a matter of fact, jello salad is exactly what I brought. I love it and would love to get a jello cookbook with all kinds of jello salad in it. Yum! I actually signed up to bring that because I can do that in my sleep and I don’t have to worry about screwing it up. But I had a second, secret dish that I wanted to make to but it was a new one and I didn’t want to advertise it in case things went poorly. It was a triple layer Lemon Raspberry Cake, the best kind of cake. For the few of you that know what Brent and Nanette’s Lemon Raspberry wedding cake tasted like, it wasn’t nearly that good. But nothing is. Still, this was a very good looking and tasting cake. The recipe seemed easy enough to make and it definitely was. The triple layer factor made it seem very impressive, as did the fresh raspberries and lemon zest curls on the top. I received several compliments on it, some even still today from people I didn’t even realize I worked with or who had eaten it. I wish I had taken some pictures of it before it had been enjoyed so much. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me so this is the only picture I did get of it and it was with my cell phone camera. Let’s just pretend it originally looked like the picture on the Betty Crocker website, okay, because that’s close enough!

Oh Tannenbaum

Rob mentioned our Christmas tree in the last post and I have been meaning to post some pictures of Christmas-y living room ever since. I just didn't want to do it until I got a tree skirt so you don't have to look at our ugly tree stand and scrap of carpet that the stand is sitting on! Every year I think, "I really need to get a tree skirt to cover everything" but I end up using an old white sheet which has worked well and been free. Somehow in all my moving around since last Christmas, I lost the white sheet. It could be in one of the boxes that are still full of stuff and sitting in the garage but it wasn't worth looking for. I finally broke down and spent $4.99 on a new red tree skirt at Target last Friday. It turned out to just be a big round piece of felt with some scalloped edges so I had to do some modifications to get a slit on one side and get the middle cut out for the tree. I also picked up a nativity scene while I was there, something I had been wanting for a while but could not find one I liked. There was a really nice that was about $50 but I bought the one for $10. It's still really nice and I didn't want to spend a fortune on it, especially since Rob wasn't with me. I tried to find links to both these items on Target's website but they were not on there. Bad Target!

So! Now we have a tree skirt, a nativity set and I am ready to share what the living room looks like, all Christmas-ed out.

Weekend at the North Pole

This is Rob for a change:

This just in...we are living in a Christmas movie. A "Hallmark Family Christmas Special" right here at the house. This past weekend, we bought a tree and hauled it home. There really is something special about decorating a tree with the snow falling outside.

After the sun came out for a while on Sunday afternoon, I took a few shots in the backyard of tracks in the snow left by some of the wildlife.

While I know that this may get old after a while, I was really having fun shoveling the sidewalks and driveway. In Iowa, shoveling snow is the wintertime equivalent to keeping your lawn in top shape during the summer. Let me elaborate on that. It is not the task at hand so much as it is an important topic of conversation in the neighborhood. So there I am, out there with John (from next door) assessing the situation like we are about to perform surgery. When to shovel, what kind of shovel to use for different conditions, salt/no salt, and how much snow you think is coming the next week. I know that this sound silly, but there is kind of an art to it. Shovel too early and you are out there twice. Too late (with the extremely cold temperatures we had last night) and you have 3" of ice that is not going anywhere for a long time. The discussion carried over at work this morning as well. "Well Rob, did you need ice skates on your front porch this morning?" I was happy to hand out a few witty (read smart ass) comments back at them when I let them know that even former Californians know how (and more importantly when) to shovel.

No need to tell them just yet about the neighborhood Snow Shoveling Forum.

Until next time