Hello!

Well, a lot has been going on since we've installed our solar :). Our first full month's bill was $3.20 or so. Nice!! Then we moved into November and December, yeah, those months were pretty high, but they were cold months without much sunlight! Brrrr. This month and the following months should be a little better!

I flew down to FL at the end of October and early November to go to one of my niece's 6th birthday party (it's my first birthday that I was able to attend for her, I was able to be there for her older sis' 1st birthday). It was much needed time with family and I loved every minute of it (except for the minutes going to bed. I missed my hubby so I wouldn't go to bed until well after midnight. Which is saying something since I usually go to bed by 9pm).

My niece, Cera, and me

Thanksgiving was great! My parents drove up to spend the cold week with us. We did a lot of shopping! Their car was packed to the max when they left. I did offer to switch with them. I was getting use to driving their car with the backup camera!



We went to FL for Christmas, which was soooo nice to be somewhere warm! We visited hubby's parents first and then saw my family. We also took some family pictures while we were there. It was such a great time. My twin sis and I also celebrated our 30th birthday on New Year's Eve. It was a great party!

The whole fam!

Sisters :) (My oldest sis, me, twin sis, and youngest sis)

Touch the belly! Youngest sis is having a boy :)

With our beautiful mom

The girls!

The guys! (my hubby in red)

Speaking of 30th birthday.....my husband took me to Hawaii for my 30th! ahhhh! It was AH-MAZING. We got back from FL on Jan. 2nd, and then left for Hawaii on the 7th. We decided to visit the Big Island since I have only been there for a day trip. We swam with manta rays, took a helicopter ride, and did a snorkel/whale watching tour. We did see a few whales, but they were quick to dive under. We did get to see two octopi (sp?) when we were snorkeling!! It was amazing! We are always wanting to see an octopus while snorkeling, and we saw 2!!! So cool. You can check out our website: www.ididthings.com for all the vacation summary for each day. My husband works hard on it and the music is also his own creation. Can you tell I'm proud??

Manta rays come up REALLY close

We were up front!

Relaxing

an octopus!!

So, now we're back into the full swing of things. I'm still subbing and am enjoying every minute of it. My hubby is doing well at work. Life is good :)

inspection done!

Inspector came and 5 minutes later, he approved! Yay! So now is our, hopefully short, wait for our electric company to change out our meter. So exciting :)

All done with E's!

We finished the E's!

Easy A

Edge of Darkness

Elf

Elizabethtown

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eyes Wide Shut

I really enjoyed most of these movies. The only one I didn't care for is Eyes Wide Shut....not that I'm a total prude or anything, but that one is just weird. I asked my husband what this movie was even about (since it's been so long since I watched it). His answer? "Who cares! There's boobies" lol. Such a guy. 

I can't wait to go further down our list of movies! I think that when we finish our movies, we're going to go back and watch all the special features....we'll see :)

hello, world

Well, I've seen I haven't been consistent in saying what movies we have watched. We're already in the E's! (okay, today will start our second "E" movie). I can't really remember when we watched these movies, but here they are:

Babel
Bad Teacher
Batman Begins
Battle: Los Angeles
Beauty and the Beast
Before the Devil Knows you're Dead
Be Kind Rewind
Beetlejuice
Black Sheep
Blades of Glory
The Blind Side
Blood Diamond
The Book of Eli
The Boondock Saints
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Braveheart
Broken Flowers
Brooklyn's Finest
Burn After Reading
The Campaign
Cars
Casino
Casino Royale
Catch a Fire
Catch Me if you Can
Center Stage (I actually saw this movie 6 times in the theater!)
Changeling
Charlie Wilson's War
Children of Men
City of God
Cleaner
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Cloverfield
Collateral
Crank
Crash
Cry-baby (another one for me....CRRYYYY BAAABBBYYY)
The Darjeeling Limited (I have the hardest time pronouncing this one!)
The Dark Knight
The Day After Tomorrow
The Departed
Descent
Despicable Me
The Devil's Rejects (our first out of order sequel...I can't wait until we watch House of a 1000 Corpses!)
The Devil Wears Prada (another one of mine)
Die Hard (4 of them)
Dirty Dancing (hmmm, who does that one belong to?)
District 9
Donnie Darko
Down in the Valley
DreamGirls (this may belong to me, but DH was sure laughing and paying attention)
Dumb and Dumber (I like it a lot)
Eastern Promises

Holy crap that's a lot of movies, but over the summer since my husband works from home on Fridays, we have 3 day weekends to just watch movies. Not so much anymore since the school year started and I'm subbing a lot more. Goodbye free Fridays!

Okay, in other news, we are now a greener home by getting solar panels installed! Now, they're just sitting on our roof looking pretty until the county inspector can come out to, you know, inspect the panels. Once that is completed then we send the okay to our electric company. They get to drag their feet for 20 days to change out our meter, and then we'll be producing our own energy! We're still on the grid so we're not free of the electric company, but they'll buy back what we produce so that our electric bills will be practically nothing. Exciting stuff!

Movie list update

So, this past Friday, we watched a few movies and finished the A's.

Our list:
Appaloosa
Apollo 13
Assassination of Jesse James
Atonement
Audition

Best: Atonement
Worst: Audition (I can't remember why in the world we bought it, we must have been in the let's buy weird movies stage)

While watching Apollo 13, I kept thinking how much Tom Hanks and his son look so much alike! It must be because we're watching Dexter Season 6 so we see Colin a lot (yes, Colin and I are on a first names basis). I don't know why I thought it was special because father and son should look alike, but it was still neat.

I thought that was a really good list of movies until we got to Audition. But we were going through all our movies and while I thought we always made a very careful decision when we bought movies so I don't know where we went wrong. It's weird and had to read subtitles the whole time. Oh well, we watched it for a second time and probably won't watch ever again. Life goes on. 2 hours of our lives spent looking at the screen every once in awhile while browsing the internet.

Saturday was spent cleaning house and relaxing in anticipation of my twin sis and her hubby driving through! They were only here Sunday night but it was so nice to have visitors. We ended up grilling steaks and watching Bad Teacher (it was suppose to be Babel since that was next on our list, but it was too long). It was a good time.

Now back to the work week for J and housework for me. I'm so glad I changed laundry day to Mondays in the summer. That gives me something to do :).

I believe I'm out of words so bye for now :)

Back from Africa!

Ok, I'm really bad about posting.

We just recently came back from a 16 day vacation in Africa! Yes, Africa! Our first stop was to Egypt, visiting the pyramids and tombs. Pretty neat and lots of history to take in. We had an amazing guide with us the whole time. And guess what? Egypt is safe! Albeit the crazy driving techniques and children in the streets with cars zooming past. We never once felt threatened. It was awesome! After 3 days in Egypt (2 in Cairo with a day in Luxor squished inbetween...we took an overnight train...do not do that! It was awful!) we flew overnight to Johannesburg and then caught a plane to Zimbabwe. Victoria Falls was amazing! So we can check off 2 natural wonders of the WORLD (we went to the Grand Canyon 3 years ago). We're planning on going to Australia some day so the Great Barrier Reef will be seen! Anywho, after spending 3 days in Zimbabwe, we flew back to Johannesburg, stayed the night there, and then drove to Kruger National Park to spend the rest of our vacation. It was amazing!! We saw so many animals, definitely the highlight of our trip. Well, our trip was to just go to Kruger, but we added a few stops along the way.

Now back to reality. Since I do not have work over the summer, I am now a housewife. Hubby had to go back into the real world. I have started working out again, so we'll see how long that lasts ;). I'm running/walking on the treadmill for 30 min. each day and playing Just Dance 3 on the Wii...I miss dancing so much so this is a lot of fun for me. :) 

Edit: I was suppose to post this a couple of days ago, but I guess I got distracted....I have had a fever all weekend so the workouts have stopped. If I don't have a fever on Monday, I'll continue :)

Movie Madness Weekend!

My hubby and I decided that starting this weekend, we should start watching all of our movies (300+) in alphabetical order. I'm all over this! So, since J works flex time, he is usually either off work or working from home on Fridays. This is especially nice in the summer because I'm not working at all so we get our 3 day weekends together.

Friday movies:
3:10 to Yuma
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
40 Year Old Virgin

As you can see with our first day, we have quite the variety of movies. My favorite from Friday would have to be 28 Days Later. I LOVE scary movies and when I saw this movie the first time, it scared the crap out of me! Now, when we get into the movies starting with D, there will be a movie that scared me way more, but we're not there yet ;).

Saturday Movies:
300 (I had not seen this yet, and I really enjoyed watching it)
127 Hours (that ending gets me EVERY time)
2001: A Space Odyssey
2010: The Year We Made Contact
Aladdin (we made it to the A's! Oh and J really enjoyed me reciting all the lines from this movie while we were watching it)

Ok, so when I agreed to watch our movies over, I totally forgot about 2001 and 2010, these two movies bore me to tears...and then J pointed out ever so nicely that he has to sit through my movies...and there are quite a few of them. I did have a real nice nap today while we were watching 2001 and 2010. :) While writing this, I learned that J took a nap too...lol!

Sunday Movies:
Alpha Dog
American Gangster (I didn't follow this movie very well today, I felt distracted)
American History X (This is one of my favorite movies of all time)
Anastasia (My movies have started to make their appearance!)

Shockingly (okay, not really) J had never seen Anastasia. His thoughts during the movie was that they really tried to make this a Disney movie. It doesn't really matter to me, though, because I love this movie and it was a fun watch.

I don't know when we'll continue this endeavor, but it was a pretty awesome weekend.

We also recently bought Dexter Season 6 and The Wire Complete series, so we're watching a few episodes of each every night. This plus our Netflix shows (The West Wing, Arrested Development, Bob's Burgers, Malcom in the Middle, and King of the Hill...just to name a few), we have never been happier with our decision to cancel cable. As baffled as our cable company was when I called to cancel, I just think our decision was the best one. We do have an antenna so we get the free channels. I'm so glad we have CBS so we'll attempt to watch Under the Dome when it comes on next Monday. I say attempt because we usually go to bed by 9pm, sometimes even 8:30pm!

Wow, I think this was my most productive blog yet! :)

I'm back....sort of

       Ok, wow, a lot has been going on in our lives. We have suffered a couple of losses in the past couple months. The most devastating loss would be my precious niece. My twin sister and her hubby were expecting her first child. They tried so hard to become pregnant and then 2 days past my sis's due date, the nurses could not find a heartbeat. Joy had been born an angel, and she looked the part. She was the sweetest and most beautiful girl I have ever laid my eyes on. Please keep my family in your prayers as we are trying to move on, but we don't really want to.
      My other loss would be a job opportunity for teaching 3rd grade. I guess God has other plans for me and teaching is not in my future. I feel defeated and I'm tired of being disappointed. I have made the decision to just continue to substitute teach. I make pretty good money substituting and we're fine with that. I am getting the opportunity to long-term substitute teach for a 5th grade teacher starting on April 8th so I'm looking forward to being in the same classroom every day. I could have stayed until the last day of school, but my last day of substitute teaching for the school year is May 20th. The reason is because on May 21st we are leaving for.........


AFRICA!!! My hubby, mother-in-law, and father-in-law are going to be visiting Cairo, Egypt and Luxor, Egypt, and then flying down to Johannesburg to fly to Victoria Falls for a day or so, and then down to Kruger National Park to visit a few camps to see some animals. I am beyond thrilled!! We will return on June 5th. We have a website that is dedicated for our vacations, but I want to try out blogging (plus the website is for close family and friends, not complete strangers) our vacation.

Also, I am a Pinterest fan and I may start posting my trials and stuff. Should be fun! Wish me luck!

Oh and holy snow batman! This is the most snow that our area have received all season. I believe we may be up to a foot already or close to it! I'm so glad this is my spring break!

A few things to look forward to:

• Making brownies that a friend made that is from a box, but are made in such a way that it tastes heavenly
• I have some leftover frozen strawberries, so I'm going to try to make some frozen strawberry lemonade 
• I have some ranch dip packets, so I'm going to make my mom's ranch dip that includes sour cream and ranch dip, and that's it! So yummy! And I hate ranch and sour cream, but together, it's so so good, but beware of your breath! lol

I am on a Pinterest kick and who knows if I'll actually post anything, but I'll try! :)

Today marked day 12 of working out every day!! I believe this is the longest I've stuck with this, but the real test will be in two days, which will be my 2 week mark. I usually get bored and stop after 2 weeks. Since I last posted, Jeff has stopped going with me, so the harder workouts are over and I'm just doing a brisk walk around a lake (4 miles). It takes me about an hour. Well, yesterday, I decided that on Monday, I'll do two hours. So this morning, I did the two hours! Phew that was hard! Mostly because it's really hot outside. Our temp says 105, but that's in the shade. I'd hate to see what it's like in the sun! This is why I get up early and go. As I was writing this post, I received an e-mail to interview for a substitute teaching position for another school district! This one is in a better area, so I'm hoping the behaviors of students will be better and I'm also hoping for more opportunities for permanent subbing. Then maybe being offered for a teaching position...you never know!!

So today is day 3 of my workouts. The first day, I posted about it, but didn't feel sore at all. Now, yesterday's and today's workouts have made me feel it all! That's probably because I didn't push myself when I'm by myself than with my husband. Jeff decided to join me yesterday and today. Yesterday, we did the stairs 3 times (my stupid arch was killing me), did the big loop and small loop once, then did the hill just 1/2 of one (we walked down it), and then we wanted to go for another hour, so we walked around the lake (4 miles). It wasn't a leisurely stroll, I have two blisters, and his knee started bothering him.

 So, today, since my blisters were hurting and his heel was hurting as well, we decided to not do any long walking. We did the stairs for 2 times (the 2nd time, we tried trotting up them.....yeah, that was fun on my arch), and then decided to take a trail over to the hill. Once we walked down it, Jeff thought,"Hey, we could probably run up this thing." I looked at him like he was crazy....and he was because I couldn't run all the way....not even half way. It was awful, but I tried and gave it my all. It is something that I can work on and will be so happy when I actually run up it one time. We walked the hill for our 2nd time, and then the third time, running....I made it a little farther than the first time, though! I was really proud of myself for that. We decided to do the big and small loop at a leisurely pace, then Jeff started noticing the playground. He gets the idea that we could do some sit-ups/crunches and some pull-ups. I'm thinking,"Great! My own personal trainer!" lol, but once we got back to the playground after looping, we did some sets of crunches (me) and sit-ups (Jeff), Jeff tried doing pull-ups (he could only do 3, which is 3 more than me!), but there was something about looking at him while he was trying them. He looked hot! (Well, we were both dripping sweat....haha). So, I did a total of 70 crunches, a few push-ups, and then I jumped and tried to do some pull-ups that way, but had to be careful of how I landed so that was good on the arms.

We were almost out of water by the end of that, so we headed home. We have some redbox codes from Totinos pizzas that Jeff ate while I was visiting my family this past March/April, so we went to rent the movie, 21 Jump Street. Unfortunately, the code didn't work, but Redbox has a nice e-mail from me.

Meals:
Yesterday: breakfast: bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats, skim milk
                 lunch: one piece of Pizza Hut Thin Crust pizza, a tangerine, and some grapes
                 dinner: manicotti (3 pcs), garlic bread
Today: breakfast: same as above
            lunch: pepperoni totinos pizza (can you tell we like pizza)
            dinner: chicken fajitas, con quesa dip, and chips

So, yeah, not really on a diet, but I am going to try out some protein shakes next week to replace lunch. We'll see how that goes!

Something's got to give

Hello, my name is Tracey B and I am lazy. I wish that I had a better confession, but it all boils down to being lazy. It doesn't help that my husband is lazy as well. We can sit at home all weekend long and do absolutely nothing, but watch Netflix instant play. It's sad, but we just love to be in each other's company. We're not big on crowds, so going to the fair, circus, or even Six Flags is our nightmare. Although, we have been to those places (except the circus) on occasion.

Something's got to give and something's got to change. Before our 2 week vacation in the Canadian Rockies and Glacier, we started exercising. Our exercise consisted of going up 220 steps and a service road (it's a pretty steep incline), and then walking a loop that's at the top of the service road. We would be out there for about 1-3 hours (given what day it was or what time of day it was). We were up to going up the hill 11 times before vacation. Unfortunately, I did not lose any weight doing this, but I wasn't very consistent with it. We were trying to build our stamina for the long hikes we were going to be up against and not really about weight. Even though my husband lost a few pounds, that nerd.

Last night, I decided that I need to start doing our exercise again, and stay on it. I have ALL this free time. I spend some of it cleaning house, and then the rest watching tv shows on Netflix Instant Play (right now, I'm watching Dawson's Creek.....silly, I know), and taking naps. So I set the alarm for 6am and once I was up, I made Jeff's lunch, grabbed some water, and headed out the door. Jeff seemed really proud of me for going this morning, even though I would only go for an hour, but that's better than sleeping in until 8am or later! The past few nights, I have had trouble sleeping, but hopefully once I start exercising, and stop taking naps during the day, I'll be able to sleep easier at night. And Jeff and I are early birds when it comes to sleeping, we go to bed about 9pm (last night was 8:30!), but we do sit in bed and read until we fall asleep. Unfortunately, I had writing this blog on my mind, among the excitement of starting to exercise.

Now, why can't I go do other exercises, like crunches and running? Well, I have a bulging disc in my lower back that prevents putting pressure on my back (so crunches are out) and pounding my legs really hard (running is out as well). I have lots of weight in my tummy, that if I could just get rid of that, my back would feel so much better, but since my stomach muscles are lacking, it's really hard to keep motivated and keep exercising, because one little twist or a hard step will send awful pain down my leg. Now, I will say I am lucky, it's not constantly hitting the sciatic nerve so I do not have leg pain or numbness 24/7. I do thank God for that one. I could be in much worse of shape.

Today, I only did 2 sets on the stairs (going up and then down= 1 set) and one set of the hill (going up and down= 1 set), then once around the big and little loop at the top. Not much, and it wasn't a whole hour, but it was around 53 minutes. I wore my tennis shoes today, and I thought they would be okay, but going down the stairs in them, make the arch in my left foot scream in pain. So starting tomorrow, I will wear my hiking boots, which are much more comfortable.

Okay, so what about my diet? I'm such a picky eater! I do not eat vegetables, but I can tolerate cucumbers, lettuce, shaved carrots, and celery with peanut butter (but as my twin informed me, if you eat too many, it will tear up your stomach). Jeff is a picky eater as well, he refuses all vegetables so it would be hard to make two separate meals for us. I just don't know what to do about that, BUT he only eats one meal with me during the week and then lunch and dinner with me on the weekends (Fri-Sun). Jeff doesn't eat breakfast, unless we go exercise, then he'll eat a little something. For breakfast, I eat frosted mini wheats with skim milk. For lunch, at the moment it's pizza rolls, but I think today I might try a fruit medley: two tangerines, grapes, strawberries, and an apple. I need to figure out how to make my stomach smaller without starving myself. I hate feeling hungry (as do most of us). More of what I don't like: seafood! Gross me out, so eating fish is out of the question. I know that's good for you when you're dieting. We will eat potatoes (but that's a starch so it doesn't really count) and then I will eat corn (once again, a starch).

I am at my wits' end and I don't know what else I can do. I am hoping that I will at least be consistent in my exercising, and that will raise my good cholesterol (it's always 31-39....which it's suppose to be 45..I think), which is another sign that tells me I'm LAZY. If I raised my good cholesterol, it would balance out my bad cholesterol, and I could possibly get off the cholesterol medicine I'm taking. That would be a nice goal. :).

My goal weight: 120-130

Wish me luck! Any advice would be much appreciated :)

2003- I was 98lbs during my teenage years

2005- I hated this picture when it was taken, because I thought I looked really fat....boy, I had no idea how wrong I was and how much worse it could get!

2008

2010

2012 (just w few weeks ago)

Okay, I hope I didn't say that I would be consistent with this blog. I'm just not good at writing and things have been pretty quiet. In two weeks I'll be getting ready to leave for FL, and will be staying there for 5 weeks! I'm very excited about it, but I will miss Jeff a lot. Luckily, we have google video and can chat on there. I didn't want to leave him for that long, but Shana, my youngest sister, is pregnant and is due April 5th. I wanted to have plenty of time with Shana beforehand and with Shana and Addison afterwards. Before all that can happen, though, Jeff is having a "nose job"....lol. He has a mole on his nose, which hasn't started really showing until 2007, well, the doctor was concerned by the color and rapid growth. Now, this thing is not huge or anything, but it does need to have a biopsy on it and taken out just in case it's anything serious. Well, while we were at the plastic surgeon, the doctor looked inside his nose and saw that it's really crooked. He was surprised to find out that Jeff doesn't have trouble breathing at all, but it could get worse as Jeff gets older....so we decided he should get that fixed as well. Luckily, Jeff's mom will be coming up on March 7th to stay with us and help out and then go back home March 14th (the day after I leave for FL!). I'm so glad she's coming up, because let's face it, men are awful at being patients.....Jeff is no exception and when he's in pain, he is very difficult to work with. Please keep us in your prayers and hopefully he'll have a quick recovery. The "nose job" should only take 30 minutes, but I'm not sure how long the mole removal will be.

So, what's been going on with me? I've been subsituting all over the Pattonville School district. It's been wonderful. I finished my permanent sub position Feb 2, and then just continued subbing all over for the past month. I do get to go back to that 4th grade classroom tomorrow for a full day and on Thursday for a half day. I am excited to see the students and staff again.

Okay, this has been on my mind for a long time now. I want a baby. I cannot convince my husband that we should have one. It is so hard, because I don't want to push him into something and him resent me for it. This is so tough, but I know I'm going to regret not having any children...and then I'll resent Jeff for that...see my problem? Luckily, we are traveling a lot....this June we will be going to the Canadian Rockies, and then next June we will be going to Australia. Amazing!! I'm so excited, but inbetween those times, I have baby fever. Also, I'm tired of being on birth control...although, I'm on Implanon (this may be TMI for some of you) and haven't had a period since October 2010....that's the nice part, but I'm tired of being on something. I told Jeff that once Implanon expires (October 2013), I'm done. I'm just done with birth control. He can figure something out. I've been on some type of birth control for 10 years now, and I'm done for now. I want my body to have a break. I'm sure by then, we could be ready to have a child or I may not even be able to get pregnant.....we'll see what happens. I'd rather try and not succeed, than to not try at all.

Well, that's it for now! I have an afternoon of subbing for so I need to clean the house a bit before I go to work.

      Okay, it's been awhile, but I really had nothing to write about. We still have to do the crown molding (which I believe we're waiting until my dad gets up here because he wants to learn how to do it) and put our new bedspread on our bed.

    So, on Tuesday, I was substituting in a 5th grade classroom for the same school I permanent subbed for last school year and the Principal walks in. I didn't hear him walk in and all I hear is,"Tracey!" I about jumped a mile...lol. Then he asks if I was interested in a long-term subbing for a 4th grade teacher that has been out. Of course I jump at the chance! I will be in the classroom until December 19th, only 3 weeks, but I will take those three weeks and give it 100%. I just love that school because the teachers are so welcoming and treat you like you belong. It's awesome. Then I have students who know how to say my last name the right way and some who just say,"Mrs. B" saying hi to me. It's such a great feeling. Oh and the kids in this classroom are so well-behaved. There are a few that I will have to watch out for, but I'll take it! Unfortunately, I won't be able to be in this morning because I'm getting my upper braces off!! Yay!

    Well, I hope everyone has a great 1st of December! I celebrated by giving Jeff an advent calendar so he can open each one every day until Christmas. When he saw it this morning, he didn't even know what it was! Since we don't have kids, I'll have to just make do....I know my mom bought us elf in the shelf for our potential future child so maybe I should just hide it around the house for Jeff to find...haha!

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I'm not sure if that button up there will work, but here it goes. What's been going on here? Well, we finished everything in our house EXCEPT for the crown molding. I'm not sure if we'll ever get to that. I did have my best friend (for 20 years!) come visit with her husband and barely a year old son. They were so much fun! I hated to see them go. We went to the Butterfly House, Lone Elk Park, visited Main Street St. Charles, went to the Zoo, and then finally Grants Farm. What is really neat about them, is that they are vegetarians....which is the total opposite of what Jeff and I are (we can't stand veggies!). They do eat more than just veggies, but it's just funny and different. I am just awed by their lifestyle change since they did not grow up as vegetarians. I need a lifestyle change....maybe I'll start exercising. I know Jeff would be happy about that. Anyways, it was an awesome visit. I'm excited to do some subbing this week (only two days so far, but hopefully more will pop up). As much as I would LOVE my own classroom, I do love having the day already planned and ready to go. I just need to worry about time and classroom management. Which can be difficult, but I love the challenge of it. :)

so exciting!

Tomorrow, is the start of our hardwood flooring to be refinished! Yay! They'll be here around 9-9:15am (depending on traffic). We have moved into the basement until it's finished. It's almost like we're in a 5 room house....we have the basement, extra room in the basement, laundry room in the basement, our kitchen, and sunroom. Very, very cramped. I would love for Jeff to take pictures of our cramped quarters, but he can't stand the clutter. I'll try and talk him into it. I guess I can update on the shows we've been watching. We're on Season 4 of Madmen...such a good show! I highly recommend Sons of Anarchy, we're hoping Netflix will put Season 3 up soon. Season 4 on FX will start next month. The League is hilarious. We've started The Good Guys, it's so cheesy and funny. I do not recommend watching Kenny Vs. Spenny...awful, awful show (only watched the 1st episode) Oh and I have the best news!

One of my best friends, I've known her since 2nd grade, is coming to visit us with her husband and baby!! I am so excited. I just hope we finish our renovations and have everything complete before they get here. Or at least this gives us an incentive to get everything finished.

Oh and a little tip; do not put a clothespin on your cat's tail, she will go crazy! I promise we do not abuse our cats! Jeff just didn't know what kind of reaction she was going to have. Poor Miss Cleo. She seems to have gotten over it, though.

90 minutes of Heaven

Oh my gosh. That massage was amazing. I'm a little sore today, but it didn't help that we had to sleep in the theater chairs, in the basement, since our power was off from 7:50pm-3:40am. The massage therapist kept telling me that I was so tense and a hot mess. She couldn't get all the kinks out so she told me to come back in a few weeks. I'm not so sure that Jeff will be on board, but I will try :). Afterwards, I felt so relaxed, I've never felt that way before. The lady also gave me $10 off for my next session that I have to use by the 31st. My bulging disc doesn't seem to be in too much pain, but then again, pretty much all my muscles are sore and I just woke up. So, now I'm watching Twilight since I just finished reading it. Yes, I'm a twilight fan :). This movie is awful, but it doesn't feel right not watching it after reading the book. I'll do the same with the Harry Potter series after this.

No more painting walls

Our bedrooms are finished! Well, the painting part, that is, which was the biggest project we have that we're doing ourselves. We still need to put the blinds back up in each bedroom, the outlet covers need to go back on, and the vents as well. Last Monday, I could barely paint because my back was hurting me. I have not had this constant pain (at this magnitude) in a long time. It's so bad that I am going to a doctor on the 12th at 10am. I am counting down the hours and days. I also talked Jeff into letting me go get a massage. A real massage. I've never had that done before and I am excited. It's going to be at 10am tomorrow and I just can't wait! 90 minutes of pure relaxation coming up :).

Update

Yesterday, my mother-in-law called as usual on Sundays. Well, she offered to come up to help us out with the painting! Now, some of you may shudder at the thought of your mother-in-law coming to visit. I, on the other hand, am ecstatic! I get along great with my in-laws. She will arrive on Wednesday. I'm a little nervous about driving to the airport by myself, but I think I'll be okay...lol.

We didn't get a lot accomplished yesterday. I did get laundry finished (but that's every Sunday) and grocery shopping completed, but all Jeff was able to do was to move the electrical outlet up behind the tv. This is no easy task so I'm not saying that I can't believe he didn't do a lot. It just took a lot longer than we thought. So, we still need to prep the walls in our bedroom to get ready to paint. I'm not sure if Jeff is wanting to wait until his mom arrives or if we're going to get it done tonight and tomorrow night.

I am going to be busy with cleaning house and getting it ready for the visit. I also have a floor guy coming for an estimate today, and then calling the other floor girl to change that appointment since it will be at the same time that I need to head to the airport on Wednesday. Fun fun!

Holy Cow!

Well, today we had a guy come in to give us an estimate of the refinishing of our hardwood floors. It was a bit more expensive than we thought, but we still have 2 other companies coming over next week (Monday and Wednesday). We really liked the guy, though, he was really nice. I hate that Jeff is going to be at work during the other 2 estimates, though. Before the guy arrived, I was busy cleaning off the shower doors and other odd chores around the house while Jeff was putting wall putty up and sanding. Then he took off the baseboards while I took out 90% of our clothes out of the closet....It's so weird having an almost empty closet. I even had to pack up most of our shoes as well (kept a few flip flops nearby though). We then moved to the basement after dinner to clean out Jeff's music room so that we can have room to store everything from upstairs down there. Luckily, we will only stay down there for 24-36 hours before we can walk and start moving furniture back upstairs. Oh, we finally received our Roku player (it was suppose to arrive yesterday). It's pretty neat. We received a movie from Netflix, though so we didn't play with the Roku player too much. We got Rango. I'm sorry if this post is boring, I'm just way too tired to be interesting at the moment. This blog is really to let things off my chest so that I can get some decent sleep at night. This way I can get most of my thoughts of the day on here and not think about it too much later. Very therapeutic (sp?). So, once again, so sorry that this post is awful.

Amazing!

We have finally entered the world of having a flat screen tv. We could have received one for Christmas a few years ago, but decided to get a new mattress instead (which we love!). We weren't really anxious to get one at all, but now that I have one....amazing! I can't believe we didn't get one sooner. We're hoping once this renovation is done that maybe we could get one for the living room as well. I'm thinking a Black Friday sale is in my future :). Anyways, today I am cleaning the shower (after UPS arrives with our wall mount and roku player) and calling around for hardwood flooring refinishing. My life as a housewife right now is borderline boring. When I don't have anything to do (or I am just taking a break), I am watching Grey's Atanomy on Netflix instant play. I had no idea how awesome that show is! I am definitely becoming a fan. Okay, well, time to make some calls.