Iowa was kind enough to welcome me back with humidity. I told it to go jump in a lake...or the Mississippi, I'd be okay with that

I'm "home" again

I spent so long in Utah that it was a little hard to come back

Lots of tears were shed, and lots of anxiety was felt, but in the end there was only (mostly) joy for getting to see Hubby again

I decided to fly into Chicago because the other airport is really small and was a little expensive to fly into and the flight times were all a little crazy

I'm most definitely not the type of person that likes to get up early in the morning, so anything from 6-8 is a no go

And if I had flown into Des Moines the options to fly out were either 6 am or 8 pm, putting me in Des Moines way late and it's an 1.5 hour drive for us, so that was a no go

My flight into Chicago landed at 6, and with a 3 hour drive, that put us getting home at 9, which is totally doable 

Or so we thought :)

Hubby's body was tired of being in the car, and I was tired after the travelling and not getting a lot of sleep and didn't think I could stay awake for the drive

And since I'm the primary driver in the family, we decided not to risk it so we found a decent priced hotel room and stayed in Chicago for the night

Except it wasn't really Chicago

Outskirt Chicago = cheaper than downtown Chicago

Imagine that

After we got dinner

(which, I have to say, was amazing...a little, authentic Italian restaurant that I wasn't thrilled about because pretty much everything had to do with fish [because hello...Chicago...apparently since they're near a lake that means they have access to fish or something] but our dish was amazing, especially the bruchetta we got...it was hands down the best bruchetta I've ever had)

(just so you know)

We didn't really want to dawdle cause we had this waiting for us me

Sooo nice

It was a beautiful soaking after a long monthish at work

We went to see a movie while in town 

And I insisted we go to a theater in downtown Chicago since in my head the theaters there had to be way better than our theaters

(I'm not impressed with our two theaters)

I'm not really sure what my head was thinking

The theater we found was under construction

And was in a high rise building

And was small

And I honestly don't know why I expected otherwise

Chicago and Orem, UT are very different

Either way, it was still fun

We saw X-Men which was so amazingly good

I loved it

And then, because apparently trying to drive to the theater and trying to find parking wasn't enough,  I decided we needed to brave through the streets one more time so we I could see the Sears Tower

Cause Hubby could really care less

That was nuts

And then to top it all off, I'm not a heights person...so I didn't even go in

This is as close as I got

Pretty ironic that a person who doesn't like heights was so insistent on wanting to see the tower, I know

I was kind of debating on whether or not I actually wanted to go in, but as soon as I saw the height of the tower in person...no way, Jose

And a few more pictures of our time in Chicago

(I was lucky to find this handsome guy at the airport who was nice enough to give me a ride)

(view from our hotel...beautiful!!)

(the two on the left are just for parking)

And then, stupidly, we left tried to leave downtown at 4:30

Hello rush hour traffic

An hour later, we were finally 15 minutes out of downtown, far enough away that we were finally able to drive over 5 mph

My right calf is also slightly more muscular now than my left

From all the stop and go

So that's something I'm going to have to figure out how to fix

Maybe while I'm sitting doing homework I'll just flex only my left leg

And then we saw this on the way home

I just had to stop and take a picture

It was pretty much fate

To top it all off, I came home to this

 Which was really sweet and cute

But then I looked in our fridge and saw a few interesting things...

And that's only a few of them

There's also this that happened

You know that adage "when the cat's away the mice will play"?

Apparently that's what happened with the Hubster while I was gone

This is not where our computers belong

But he decided that he wanted to his computer up to his huge TV and really enjoy life

I'm convinced the sweet note I got was to make up for the all of the "bachelor joys" I found when I arrived back at the house

Anyway...

When I got back I conceded that we could have our computers out there for a little while

Just until we caught up on all of our shows that we didn't watch while I was back home

But we moved them back into their designated homes as soon as we had a second to breathe

Which actually happened to be tonight

It'll be nice that our computer desks can actually fulfill the measure of their creation

He also informed me at some point after arriving back home that he had a missing sock

And that he had looked for it everywhere but couldn't find it

So it was stolen by the sock gremlins

He was sure of it

So he converted the lone sock into our chalkboard eraser

A few days later he was at work and I was folding laundry 

(I'm convinced there was enough laundry for 3 batches worth in our laundry tub)

And guess what I found?

The illusive missing sock

Turns out it wasn't so missing after all

Anyway, life here has mostly settled down now

Hubby just keeps getting busier at work and I keep plugging away at school

But hey, at least I can work on equaling out my calf muscles while I do homework

Between that and always having an extra sock to throw me off, I'm sure I'll stay pretty busy

Well hello there

So hi

I'm in Utah

And have been since May 4th

They called in all reinforcements at the nursery for spring

And obviously I was more than happy to oblige

The chance to come home and visit family and friends, eat at all of my favorite restaurants, see my mountains, just to be in Utah...

Yes please

I can't help it, I'm a Utah girl through and through

It's been nice to be home

I've spent time with lots of friends with more to come

I've worked about 130 hours in 2 weeks

(hence the blog got put on the back burner...for a long time)

And I have siblings that worked more than I did, so that makes me even more tired knowing that they worked over 130 hours

Miracles occurred...Papa Smurf actually helped me do dishes after one of our Sunday dinners

That pretty much never happens

I have gobbled all of the fry sauce within sight because I can't find that anywhere else

I was made an incredible monetary offer I had a super hard time turning down

My nephew (who just turned 4) had been wanting to play on my sister's iPad, but she was using it for work purposes so she told him no

Well, that incredibly generous nephew of mine offered me 2 whole quarters if I would give him her iPad to play on

It was a really tough call, but in the end I decided that it was a better choice to stay on her good side than to become independently wealthy

It's been so nice to see my family again

Especially the nieces and nephews

Especially the younger ones, cause their changes are a little more noticeable

It's been so nice to spend time with friends and caught up on each other's lives

And I'll still be able to fit in some hang outs before I leave

I ended up staying in Utah longer than I thought I would

I only bought a one-way ticket coming out here cause I wasn't sure what would need with happen at work

And then spring was here and I didn't have time or mental energy to think about buying a ticket

Plus the extension I had to buy for my medical billing class, put off  buying the ticket for a little longer so I could have the money

But I have an awesome family and it was decided that the nursery could pay for my ticket home

:)

It's nice to be surrounded by such awesome people who love me

So I'm flying home on the 12th

Hubby's a little disappointed it's not next week, but it was so much cheaper to wait one more week I figured that would be the best bet

Anyway, it's late and today was super busy and long so I'm going to go to bed

 I have a blog in edit mode that is just waiting for me to be back in Iowa

House updates and Oreo reviews await you

Speaking of which...



This is the lastest

And can I just say that I'm the MOST excited for this one?

I better find it soon otherwise I might go mad

Anyway...

My bed is calling my name, so I'm going to be nice and join it

Good night, sleep tight

And give me plenty of Oreos to bite

;)

At least I have a COUCH to lay down on now

Can I have a drum roll please?

*brbrbrbrbrbrbrbr*

Please give a warm welcome to the newest members of the Muckity Muck family!!

We are SO excited!! 

The lovely table:

This table is magic

It does special things

It's so nice!! 

We both love that the middle lifts up because it's awesome, but I love it especially because I can work on school on my laptop while watching TV

And we love that the corners have little cubbies on the corners because now we have a place to put remotes and things of that nature

The armchair:

It's a bit small, but it fits our small room perfectly, so we are okay with that

And, the most exciting piece by far, the lovely couch:

It is incredibly comfortable and it has a high back so Hubby can rest his head/neck, which is pretty much a necessity

The pillows actually came with the couch

They're not bad, but one of these days I want to make our own

When I have a little more time

And don't worry

We already broke the couch

I seriously didn't even move the couch an inch and the leg broke off

Luckily they had a replacement and it was easy to fix

But...still...it was kind of ironic

And amusing

And yet not at the same time

In the end, our living room is actually a comfortable place to spend our evenings, rather than a whole lot of nothingness with a small lovesac and a pile of blankets on the floor for Hubby to sit on

I'm kind of annoyed with myself for not taking a real before picture...I think I went through this phase of not wanting to take pictures until it was looking more like a home, but now I'm annoyed that I don't have before and after pictures

This is the closest I have

All of our movies were stacked in piles in front of those shelves over by the door, and there was a big tupperware drawer thing by the movies filled with my craft stuff

Other than that everything is pretty accurate

I always sat on the lovesac and Hubby sat on the pile of blankets next to it, cause he's a gentleman and gave me the slightly more comfortable seat

But I think it will be a LONG time before I choose to sit in the lovesac again

It gets a little flat and uncomfortable after awhile

Needless to say we're both excited to have something real to sit on

And I promise I'll post an update on our house soon cause I realize it's been awhile and it's starting to look a lot better

I don't want there to be a misconception that we're still living in a pigsty of craziness

Cause we are definitely not

Well, for the most part ;)

****

I had more plans for this post, but yesterday I woke up with a pretty nasty headache that turned into a nasty migraine

And that migraine made me stick to my stomach

It calmed down finally about 7:30 last night, but it left me pretty weak

And this morning when I got out of bed I was really dizzy and couldn't stand up straight and I almost had to hang out with my friend the toilet again

The migraine I'm, sadly, used to because I get one once a month lately, but I can't figure out what's going on today

It takes a lot for headaches to phase me anymore just because they usually visit me about once a day

But I rarely get sick to my stomach, so it always throws me off a little

Needless to say, all of the other exciting stuff is just going to have to wait for another day

I'm going to go lay down so I can avoid the toilet

Cause gross

How is it already almost April?!

I have decided that St Patrick's Day is my new favorite holiday

When it comes to holiday themed food anyway

I don't know why it never full clicked in my head that St. Patrick's Day = green and green = mint

And I just happen to LOVE mint flavored things

Mint ice cream, mint Oreos, chocolate mint....

So if you're friends with me on Pinterest, I'm sorry for inundating your page with recipes and the like

It's sure to calm down soon :)

But I only pin the most amazing things, so I'm sure it will be worth your while ;)

****

This post was supposed to say:

"Yay, I'm going on my trip!!"

We decided that it needed to happen and I needed to go, so I planned it all out

I told my friend I was coming and she was going to let me stay with her

I told my family I was going and to expect souvenirs

But I decided to wait to announce it to the rest of the world until I had my tickets

Finally the day had come, I sat down to purchase my tickets

After finally picking the airport, I found a really good deal and after telling Hubby what I found, I went to book it

I got to the point of entering my information when I had a little thought

"Self, remember how Papa Smurf told you to make sure you could travel with your passport still being in your maiden name and everything else in your married name?"

Oh yeah

I should look into that

I'm sure it will be fine, but better safe than sorry

Cause I'm really good at coming up with the worst case scenarios in everything

Called the passport people, explained the situation, and felt my heart drop when the lady told me that I couldn't travel with my passport and license in different names

If they did check more ID than my license I would be in trouble

I could risk it if I wanted, but she couldn't guarantee anything

Seriously?

I told her I had my marriage license, cause everywhere else has accepted that, but she said that wouldn't do any good

It just about broke my heart

I had already told my friend I was coming and now I would have to tell her that I couldn't

I waited a few days, trying to decide if I really was going to play it safe, or if I was going to take the risk

I read a lot of reviews online of people who had traveled in different names and had been just fine

And I was *this* close to saying "to heck with it all, I'm going!!"

Trying to be all reckless and brave

Something I'm not really good at

But then the over-thinking part of my brain took over and all I could think of was not being able to get back into the US, if I could even leave at all

It doesn't help that my passport expires on the 5th of April

What if I got stuck in England and then my passport expired?!

Then I'd be in big trouble

I could have renewed my passport, but there wasn't enough time to do it by mail and the only other option was a passport agency

The closest one is about a 2-hour drive

And even then there was no guarantee

Bother

Looks like I'm not going

And then she messaged me asking when I was going to fly in

Fine, I won't put it off any more

I pretty much cried the whole time I was writing the message

And felt this huge weight settle on my shoulders...and a rock settle in my stomach

I hate not always being able to be there for people

Or help them

Or anything

I just don't like feeling like I've let people down

And I had a hard time shutting up my anxiety until she messaged me back

Obviously she was fine with it and understood, but just hearing it made me feel a lot better

England

That's where I was going to go

London specifically

That beautiful place that I have always wanted to visit and explore

Hubby has already told me that we'll plan a trip to go soon, so at least there's that

But I'm still a little bummed

There is a good thing that came out of it though

Instead of using our taxes for the trip we were able to use them for some new furniture!!

That will be delivered today!!

(Because as always it took me a few weeks to write this post)

We're only slightly excited :)

Having a lovesac and the floor as our only seating has certainly made us grateful for couches and the like

Especially when the lovesac isn't big enough for both of us

I will be sure to take pictures when they arrive

And Hubby is taking a half day off to be here when it comes

Which makes the day even better!!

****

And our marriage has become officially inaugurated

The other night Hubby went to brush his teeth and accidentally grabbed my toothbrush

And didn't notice

And I wasn't in the room so I didn't either 

Until it was pretty much too late

Mine is the blue one

I had a little bit of a hard time with it

(I know, it's not like we don't share germs anyway....but still....)

It certainly took our marriage to a whole new level ;)

New furniture and sharing toothbrushes

That is how we do things in Iowa

I should post more often so they're not so ridiculously long

It's been way too long

Part of me has been avoiding the blog because I'm not sure what to say

And a lot of what I do have to say lately has had the potential to get me in trouble so I chose not to say it

I'm laughing at myself now for when I said that I would be writing more on my blog

Even though I'm home now all day every day it still doesn't feel like there are enough hours in the day

I don't think it ever will

I wake up when Hubby does, begrudgingly

He showers while I meander in and out of the bathroom disrupting his shower trying to wake myself up

I take him to work every morning (there is no free parking where he works...it's either meter or a "pay for the day" underground parking type thing...and while we only have one car and we don't need a second yet, it just makes more sense for me to have the car since they don't charge us to park in our driveway...luckily)

As soon as I get home I change and get on the treadmill (most mornings anyway...I usually have to gauge how bad the headache of the day is, and sometimes I forego the treadmill and just shower) (this morning I didn't get on the treadmill for multiple reasons...hence I'm taking the time to write this post)

If I do get on the treadmill, I'm making myself suffer on it for a little over an hour

But I always do a good 10 minute stretch before hand

And then I do a 10ish minute stretch afterwards

Then it comes time for breakfast

Most mornings I eat oatmeal, so I have to wait for the water to boil and then for the oatmeal to cook

Sometimes I wash dishes whilst waiting

Sometimes I just sit at the table and read (I most definitely prefer this wait to the other)

Then I have to get ready for the day which fortunately doesn't take as long as it used to since I don't wear make-up every day right now (shhh...don't tell)

Then I usually have an hour before I have to get lunch ready for Hubby and I

Take him lunch, spend an hour with him, come home usually by 2:00

Then I have 3 hoursish before I pick him up for the day

I have my class that I'm trying to finish before May, I have a gazillion projects that I'm in the middle of, and then there's the cleaning the house, and trying to make it look like we're not still living out of boxes

And that is hard to pretend since we don't even have bookshelves for the magnitude few movies and books we (I) have

After Hubby gets home, he does some things on his computer, we watch a couple of things together, make dinner, and then just have a couple of hours before we should be in bed

I know that my days are a lot more lax than they were before, but it doesn't ever feel like there's enough time to do all that I want/need to do

And I know when we start having kids the hours will keep flying by

(no, that is not an announcement)

So the blog has, once again, been put on the back burner

I am even wanting to update the look of the blog and started on that as well

(one of the gazillion projects)

But I kind of lost my momentum working on other things and I don't remember where I wanted to take it, so that's on hold until my brain decides to cooperate

****

There's a possibility that I just maybe might be going on a trip to a far away land next month

I have a very close friend from my mission who is getting married and wants me to be there

So I'm going to do my best

We got a decent refund back on our taxes, so hopefully with that...

I'm torn because we still have to buy a couch, bookshelves, coffee type table for the living room, we have some debt we could pay off...

But I really want to be there for her

And I'm not going to lie, I would love to go to this place

It's somewhere I've always wanted to go

But we're going to sit down tonight and discuss and see if we can technically afford for me to

We definitely can't afford for both of us to go and that's one of the things that's holding me back

I don't know

We'll see what happens

I'm sure it will work out for the best either way

I feel like typing the name of said far away land will jinx any possibilities of me going...so I'm not going to say it just now

I know, I am silly

****

The next time I see someone complaining about Utah drivers on FB, I am going to tell them to come drive in Iowa for a few weeks and then we'll discuss it

I am so tired of seeing people just blow through stop signs and act like they're not even there just so they don't have to wait for one more car to pass them

And don't even get me started on 4-way stops

They don't seem to understand how they work

People that get there after me seem to think that they can go before me

Not how it works, folks

Also also don't get me started on the cutting off people do

I swear it's like I'm invisible driving down the road

And then there are the typical pedestrians that act like they own the road...I think it's even more of a thing in small cities with small streets

We also live near an elementary school and drive past it every morning as I take Aaron to work

If we leave our house between 8:00 - 8:10 we get to deal with the morning drop off traffic

And it appears that the rules of driving don't apply to the parents dropping off their children

We have had to slam on our breaks so many times from being cut off

And that can get kind of scary when the roads are slippery from bad weather

You would think that people who drive in snow so often would have a little more sense and be a little more careful....

But to be fair, I would imagine that any place you go has drivers that act like the rules don't apply to them

I hear talk all the time about California drivers and New York drivers

I wouldn't be surprised if most big cities had crazy drivers

I can only speak for Utah and now Iowa

(and Brazil and Spain....)

And while Utah has some drivers that could stand to take the course again, I've seen worse here just in the 3 months (TODAY!! 3 months TODAY!!)  that I've been here

****

One last thing before I sign off

I'm about to get on a little bit of a soap box here...

(I feel like I've been on a lot of those here lately...apparently I have things that need to be said....or so I seem to think)

Hubby and I went to Wendy's the other day for lunch

We were craving some hamburgers and their's sounded good

As we were waiting in line we were talking, discussing what we were going to order, when we both noticed a commotion just in front of us

Apparently there was a customer who was unsatisfied with her order and was choosing to let it be known

Very loudly

Hubby and I have both worked customer service/retail for a VERY long time so we've had our fair share of...tough customers

So we both got quiet to watch and see what was going on

At one point the customer looked at the lady who apparently had originally helped her and said "Did you not even listen to me when I ordered?"

The poor cashier looked like she had been hit by a truck

"Yes...of course I did..."

After that point we really couldn't hear any more that happened except the random "I'm sorry" and "you wanted this?" and whatever else to fix the order

The customer left the counter just before our turn came

We ordered and we both tried to be extra friendly just to help cheer the cashier up

During the middle of our order the customer came up, yet again, to complain about something else that was wrong

The cashier, understandably, got distracted and started to listen to what was going on

All I could hear was "I'm getting really pissed off", "This is ridiculous", etc

The cashier's feathers got ruffled (can't say that I blame her) and she had a hard time remembering what she was doing

We just smiled and told her we understood and told her it seemed like she was having a rough moment

"Yeah..."

"You make one mistake..."

I just smiled and told her that no one was perfect

The look of gratitude on her face as we were leaving made me really grateful that we were there when we were and we were able to cheer her up a little

We sat near enough to the customer that I could see her complaining a little longer to whoever she was with and then watched as the manager (I think) came up and offered her a free frosty and said that she was sorry and she would talk to the cashier and find out what happened

The customer just went off again for a few minutes before the manager was able to get back to what she was doing

Now, I don't know the whole situation, obviously, and it looked like the cashier probably really did make a mistake

What bugged me was how the customer handled the situation

I get the frustration behind it all, I do, but being nasty does not do anyone any good and it doesn't get you anywhere

Seriously, cashiers aren't perfect, as much as we try to be, and sometimes we make mistakes, as not cool as that is

But yelling at us and being rude to us doesn't help at all

It just makes defenses go up and the more everyone gets angry the less listening we actually do

There are better ways to handle a situation like that

You know, get your problem fixed, whatever is wrong or messed up, or whatever, fix it

In a nice, considerate way

Bring the problem to light, that's fine

But we don't have to be rude about it

In any situation in life, being rude, nasty, loud, and mean is just not worth it

None of us are perfect and sometimes we do things we regret, but lately it feels like everywhere I turn people are choosing to be rude and loud

Given the scenarios, I think anyone would rather help the nice person

I will bend over backwards to fix whatever is wrong with whatever it is when you're nice

You turn nasty on me? And it makes me want to help you even less

*end rant*

****

ANYWAY....

I feel like I should end with something light

Hummm...I talk to myself on the treadmill

Out loud, I laugh, I tell myself I'm crazy, I carry out full blown conversations with myself

Eventually I realize what I'm doing and try to shut myself up

Sometimes it takes awhile...but I usually listen to myself and stop talking out loud

And then I become really grateful that I am alone in the house in the mornings when I get on the treadmill

****

And one more because I found it funny...

We've had some crazy wind storms since we moved here

Crazy!!

Everything gets blown away that isn't bolted down or ridiculously heavy kind of crazy

A blustery day in Winnie the Pooh land kind of crazy

We had a crazy wind storm that really had some fun throwing the snow around carving it

That was a nutso storm and made me oh so grateful for our warm home

The other day was one of those days and it just happened to be garbage/recycling day so I was a little worried that our cans would be taken away by the wind to some unknown land when they were empty because they wouldn't have any weight to hold them down

They usually come to empty them after I've taken Hubby to work, so as soon as I got off the treadmill I looked out the window to see if the trucks had come by yet

They had and this is what I saw

Our garbage can made it all the way over to our neighbor's driveway

And our recycling "can"?

All the way down the street in the middle of the road

(although, I do have to say that I like the way that picture turned out...considering it was my phone, I was cold, and in a hurry...)

So not nice

And the lid to the "can", well that was even more amusing

It decided it was bored and blew around the corner onto another street to have a party with a bunch of other lids

Now I had just finished on the treadmill and hadn't showered yet, so I was all sweaty, I was still in my basketball shorts and t-shirt...I looked like a mess

I didn't really want to go outside looking like that, especially in the freezing cold

I wanted to shower and eat breakfast first

But I was afraid if I left them out there any longer, especially the can in the middle of the road, we might never get them back

So I threw on a sweatshirt, apologizing to it for subjecting it to my nastiness, put on some crocks, and ran outside in all of my gross, sweaty glory

Man it was cold

(it certainly cooled me off after my workout)

And I'm sure all of the neighbors that were watching (cause they have nothing better to do with their time I'm sure) got a kick out of seeing me running around in my shorts with my hair all matted and freezing to my head

Especially when I stepped onto what looked like a frozen snow bank to take a picture that ended up being not so frozen and collapsed under me

Remember how I was in shorts and crocks??

Not one of my brighter moments, that's for sure

I was pretty much frozen solid by the time I got back in (because the wind picked back up again when I walked outside, obviously) that I almost skipped breakfast just so I could shower and warm up

I didn't, but let me tell I sure did enjoy that shower once I got there!!

Moral of the story? Tell the wind it's not allowed to blow so strongly on garbage day, obviously

And that is our life currently

We pretty much just stay in the house cause it's so cold/snowy outside

It'll be interesting to see this land when it's not covered in snow or fog

I have had a migraine all day

2 excedrin migraine and a can of Cherry Pepsi later and it's finally starting to fade

I hope you all have a wonderful evening

I am off to spend some time with the Hubby and nurse my head with girl scout cookies

Cause you know, they are the cure to migraines

I'll take staying inside playing the guitar any day, thank you

I have come to a very important conclusion

If I were a smoker and I lived in a city like this that's super duper cold in the winter time and I had to go outside to smoke?

It would kick me of the habit right away

Seriously, every time I see people outside smoking I feel so bad for them and I want to tell them to just go inside and put out the cigarette

I can't help but think of their fingers, and hands...their faces, all of their body parts just freezing outside while they're smoking

Don't get me wrong, I get smoking is an addiction and that addictions are hard to beat and maybe they think smoking is awesome and it's their favorite hobby in life

But it's definitely not worth standing outside in -24°

In my own so humble opinion

Speaking of smoking...

Totos, we're not in Kansas anymore

In Utah (at least around where I lived) it's not as common to see alcohol and smoking everywhere

It's around, obviously, but not like it is in other places

Iowa, for instance

They also don't believe in hot chocolate very much around here

Lots of coffee and lots of tea

But certainly not a lot of hot chocolate

And definitely not the good stuff (Stephen's)

At least not that I've found yet

In Utah the amount of hot chocolate is massive compared to what I've found here

And that includes 3 stores that I've looked through

It was just a little shock to the system the first few times I went shopping here

Especially to see a section of the store set aside specifically for alcohol

It certainly is a different world than what this Mormon girl from Utah is used to

Not that it's a bad world, mind you

Just different

*****

Our first Christmas away from home was good...hard, but good

I missed my family

I cried a little

But we had a good day

I got Hubby the new Wii U and a couple of games plus this

It's a dog from a cartoon that he LOVES

And I think he LOVES the beanie just as much, if not more

Hubby gave me a BEAUTIFUL gift

(this is me swooning)

Papa Smurf bought me guitar lessons one year for my birthday when I was in High School and I loved it

My teacher was a little weird, and the lessons didn't last too long because life got busy and I didn't have time

(and the teacher being weird thing didn't hurt)

I've always wanted to continue that education but I didn't have a guitar (I used Papa Smurf's for the lessons)

Needless to say I've been hinting to the Hubster for awhile that I wanted one

He finally got the hint and got me this beauty for Christmas

I love it!!

He wins definitely

Guitar > Wii U

And!!

When Hubby and I got married, I decided that I needed new, special jewelry for the special occasion

I looked everywhere for what I wanted and couldn't find just the right thing

The night before the wedding (I think) I decided I would have to give in and go to Wallie World

(yuck)

After looking around, I was shocked that I actually found something

It still wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was pretty

(and purple)

So I bought the set

That's the necklace, the earrings look the same

Anyway, with the move I was afraid that I had lost one of the earrings

I was sure that it had fallen in some random box while I was packing and got thrown away

I kept the one in my jewelry box...just in case...cause you just never know

I gave up trying to find the lost earring until the other day when, in a moment of desperation, I asked my sister that I lived with to keep her eyes open for them

And then this morning I was looking for one of my cookbooks and found this silly little random box nestled amongst my many packages of special Oreo's

And guess what I just happened to find in the box??

I now have both safely tucked away in my possession :)

Thank heavens for every day miracles

Off I go to study more medical terms

Inside

Away from the cold

Not outside freezing my bum off





**i have nothing against those who smoke and/or drink as long as they do so responsibly and this post was not intended to imply anything of the sort**