See ya later 2013!

I really meant to come back around here and write something in November or at least in December, but it never happened.

I didn't want the year to end without a word...

So here I am a few hours before the new year, while I watch football in my pjs (my preferred way of spending NYE) thinking about this crazy year.

 I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I thought I would (or I as much as I probably should have) but somehow I was always busy.

The healthcare changes didn't help to free up any time...

Then even without crazy long work days December is always busy: my birthday, Kuddles birthday (yes we celebrate!), Garrett's birthday and Christmas all happen in less than two weeks and no matter how prepared I feel and how much I want to just relax and soak up my favorite time of the year I'm always rushing around doing last minute things.

I did not turn my camera all month. I didn't even take my camera out of my purse at Christmas, usually I at least give it to the littles to capture some pictures.

Next year I want to take more pictures.

None of that is complaining or excuses just facts. Someday I won't be so busy - or maybe I always will because it's just in my nature.

I wrote a bunch of goals or resolutions for 2014 and my plan of attack to accomplish what needs to get done (think pass the CPA exam - not that I have failed - I am just having trouble getting the courage to even do it)

I am once again not sure what to do with this space. Do I invest more time into it? or do I just keep it as is an occasional thing? and if I do invest more into it what exactly do I want that to look like? I'm just not sure.....

oh well it's hardly a big deal it will work out one way or another! or something I have to decide and commit to before midnight :)

I hope you're spending your new year's eve just how you hoped!

because what's a post without a picture :)

Beans and Rice

Well all of the sudden it's Thursday...work has been insanely busy and then Garrett's parents came into town last night which meant we needed to make sure the house was  extra clean. But the weekend is so close I can almost feel it! This is one of my favorite quick meals when things are crazy!

 I cook a lot of crock pot or freezer meals we get home late after long days and if dinner isn't planned and ready to be eaten when we get home we are pretty much guaranteed to go out and eat. Which is super tasty! But, it's expensive and I'm not the best at going with healthy choices when we go out to eat I want what sounds tasty when I'm hungry after a long day of work. 

I do have a few go to meals when I don't have anything planned that I can make at home instead of going out. One of those is beans and rice. Do other people eat beans and rice? 

I lived in Miami for a couple of years and we had a neighbor that was Cuban and she invited me over for beans and rice one night, and I was hesitant (as a kindergartner it sounded weird!) but I was hooked and went and ate with them a couple of times a month or sometimes she would bring it over for us. It was so good! This is nothing like what she made but it's not a bad easy week night meal. 

I take a can of black or pinto beans (rinsed and drained), a can of diced tomatoes, and Lawry's put it in a pan to warm up while I cook quick brown rice (this was actually a quinoa, chia, brown rice mixture) and then top it with cheese and sour cream (which was moldy this day so it didn't get added) You can also add some sausage if you want some meat or for extra flavor!                            

                               

I can make "real" beans and rice where I soak and cook my beans but that's not a fast meal so it doesn't get made nearly as often around here :)

Happy November

 Here is the little bee in all of her Halloween glory!

Five on Friday!

*ONE* My little bee stayed in costume the whole night and was very well behaved. She got lots of treats out of the deal!      

              

*TWO* Since I have such a long commute home now days I've been listening to books on tape to pass the time. I just finished the last of Chevy Stevens books and I really like all three of them I'm sad she doesn't have any more out. Do you have any good book recommendations?

*THREE* I got lots of cute fall clothes in the mail this week! Including this Loft dress (that's much cuter in person) thanks to the wonderful Pinterest Told Me to 

*FOUR* Now that Halloween is over we can finally start the count down to Christmas and I'm so excited!

*FIVE* We have a bye this week and while I love college football (and I'm so sad when it's over) it's nice to have a weekend off every once in a while to catch up on other things that need to be done. There will still be games on just none that matter much to me :)

Halloween's Past

Kuddles loves Halloween! 

Actually she hates every part of it, except the candy. She hates that I dress her up. She hates that the door bell rings, and she hates that there are small loud children on the other side of the door...

Sadly for her I love to dress her up!

Kuddles the squirrel! Once when K was not so fat we were staying at a hotel and I took her out to potty in the morning and this lady started screeching and said "oh my goodness is that some kind of squirrel"  2012

I love hippos! so of course when I saw this I knew K had to be a hippo! 2011

The bug costume has to be my favorite! Sweet little Kuddlebug!

It was just so bright and cheery! 

And of course we have the yellow submarine! In which everyone got the added joy of listening to me sing The Beatles Yellow Submarine all day! :)

We can't leave out this shot of her Halloween pjs!

This year's costume will be up tomorrow!

It's Monday Again...

Man I needed this weekend! 

After a long day of work on Friday I was ready for a lazy weekend! The weather was cool and it was the perfect day to bust out the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate I got from World Market! 

It lived up to my expectations with a whole bunch of marshmallows it was the perfect start the weekend treat! We thought about turning on the fire but we aren't quite there yet this year!

           

Saturday was Sooner football! We woke up early so I could get ready before we headed out to tailgate. I dried my hair, put on makeup, dressed cute and we headed out. We made it to our tailgate (which is indoors!) and then the rain started falling.... 

                         

Oh man was that rain cold! I left my hair down as long as possible but it was just a mess. Thank goodness I always wear waterproof mascara or I would have been a raccoon! The game was a nail biter but we pulled out a win! and that's all that really matters. We came home I took a long hot bath and tried to warm up! 

Sunday was more football, laundry, and studying and getting ready for another week! I still need to buy Halloween candy and then I am ready to decorate for Christmas! (which is so unlike me! I used to tell my mom I didn't want a Christmas tree until after my birthday was over (on the 14th of December!)) I think we may start next weekend. I just really want to enjoy it as long as I can!

Here's to a great easy week!  

Not quite 31 days

Oops I guess I fell off the wagon!

In my defense I posted on Friday it just didn't show up? It was on my phone and I guess it never went through and I didn't notice until right now.

I started to post late Saturday night and again yesterday but my (lost) post from Friday was a total cop out and while I really wanted to post every day in October it seems to be counter productive to just post an instagram picture or a random sentence just to say I posted.

Next year I'll try really hard to think of a good 31 series and maybe I'll even start the posts ahead of time.

There are still 10 days left in the challenge and overall I think I have accomplished what I wanted to which was posting more often. I have been trying to be more intentional in thinking about blogging so that's a start. Now if I could just get someone to upload the pictures from my camera....maybe even edit them...

Oh well baby steps.

Anyway I started to post about my weekend we went to the Texas State Fair!! But, I think it will have to wait until tomorrow...

Too Tired to Make Much Sense....

So my uncle (that I work for) is moving when I took lunch to them yesterday the house still had a long long way to go before it was ready for them to be out by closing this morning. It's the little stuff that was left you know the stuff you aren't quite sure what to do with like lamps and things that don't fit into boxers very well. But man there was a lot of it. So I called after work to see if he wanted me to come over and help. He happily excepted my help and I ended up staying until after 11 which meant I got home after 12. 

                   

Normally that wouldn't be a big deal but I also volunteered to take my friend to the airport at 5 (they are going to Hawaii! so jealous! and I hope no one breaks anything!) which meant I needed to be up and out of my house by 4:30 

and I needed gas I wasn't sure which was worse getting gas at midnight or 4:30. I picked 4:30 at a well lit station with other cars there and only got 2 gallons to hopefully minimize the time someone could snatch me. 

So I can usually function on 4.5 hours of sleep (and maybe what I really mean by that is that I used to rock life on no sleep a hundred years ago in college but now I'm old and I need my sleep but I like to pretend like I don't)

The other thing is I happily said I'd take my uncle's dogs home with me for the night and bring them to work with me this morning. That way no one had to worry about them while they finished cleaning and did the closing. There were two problems with that 

1. They whined and cried until 1 (reducing my sleep time!) and maybe later than that but I moved them out of my room to where I couldn't hear them 

2. I guess when I put them in the kennel outside of my room I didn't close it right so they ended up roaming the house (and having some accidents...) all night long (or you know for 3 hours...) 

Needless to say I'm exhausted today. Twice this week I woke up at 4 something and twice this week I went to be after 1 and it's catching up with this old lady. so I wore jeans (the doors are locked and the lights off in the office because we had to store some stuff from the house here and it is a disaster!) a t-shirt, no make up, and I didn't wash my hair but I managed this sockish bun that is standing on end that is pretty impressive!

                              

I pretty much feel like Bruce. There are some pillows tucked around here I think I might bust one out and take an under the desk floor nap!

I was going to blog something else today but I hadn't gotten around to it. Then a friend shared this article on facebook and it had me in tears. I am so lucky to have the family I have and my heart breaks for this kid that wants to play football but can't because he has no one to drive him to practice.

I have no doubt that taking a practical grown up who has never had a family into your home would be hard but man I hope someone takes a chance on this kid soon.  

Soonersticious

So you know those Budweiser commercials where the guys are doing crazy things but they justify it because every time they do their team wins?

This pretty much is me if the Sooners lose I take it super personally what did I do wrong? It's never the coaches called a bad game or the offense SUCKED or the defense looked like the couldn't defend me. It's always what did I do to make them play that way... 

So we lost to texas on Saturday and of course I reviewed what went wrong....

1. I blogged about the game on Friday it's one of the things I usually don't do but I was feeling pretty confident...

2. I forgot to wear earrings. There are two pair of earrings I wear during games and I had on none. 

3. I wasn't wearing red undergarments. 

4. Garrett was grilling at the beginning of the game instead of watching with me 

5. I responded to a few text messages (I usually won't during game days) 

I tried changing clothes (even though everything had been worn to previous winning games!) it didn't work....I figured it was the blogging...

Then I found out this was the first game my Mom was able to watch all season so obviously it's her fault...

I also won't ever wear a new shirt to a game it must have been worn before...I'm sure there is more but they are such second nature I just don't even think about most of the things I won't do. 

It's only weird if it doesn't work :)

*also can we just agree that Budweiser has the best commercials?

Monday

This is how we feel about Monday....

I didn't want to miss a day but I'm in mourning over that terrible game....

I'll be back tomorrow :(

Five on Friday!

Yay it's Friday!!! 

1. Not only is it Friday but it's the Friday of OU/sɐxǝʇ!! That's a holiday around here! I am feeling pretty confident in our Belldozer and a sɐxǝʇ team that hasn't been that great this season. But, everyone knows this game isn't like any other game of the year and either team can win at the great State Fair of sɐxǝʇ :)

2. Can we have two numbers for football this weekend? Because it really is that exciting! I'm usually a uniform purist but I'm super excited to see the gold accented jerseys for this weekend. Both teams will be wearing them, which means I don't have to worry about being jinxed!

                                    

3. This week we had a different kind of stay at home date night we made all different kinds of s'mores! It was so much fun! I'll share what we made and what we liked best next week but let me give you a hint there was bacon and cookie dough!! (also I am a terrible blogger since I didn't even try to plate these or take a better picture)

                           

4. Last night I got to have dinner with one of my very best friends and my college roommate for two years! She just got back for Afghanistan (she's a nurse in the Navy reserves!) We sat at the restaurant and talked for almost 4 hours and then talked for too long in the parking lot. I'm so excited we are living in the same town again! (please excuse my poor posture, this is the only picture I have of us on my work computer...)

5. Even though I'm not a fan of fall colors or anything pumpkin (don't hate me!) I am really enjoying the cooler morning temperatures and last night we sat outside for dinner and it was perfect!

Have a Happy weekend! (Unless you're a sɐxǝʇ fan!)

#firstworldproblems

When I get overwhelmed with things in my life I tend to focus on ridiculous things that don't really matter.

For instance I need to schedule to take the rest of my CPA exams but I have a panic attack if I think about it too long.

My desk at work is shamefully messy I just can't catch up!

My car is filthy! Inside and out. It's ridiculous that it's been on my to do list for like 4 weeks straight and it's just not getting done!

My budget needs to be redone, I need to find time during the day to go to the post office, and seriously working in insurance right now is just not fun.

HOWEVER, none of those things seem to matter to me right now because when I wake up in the middle of the night my biggest questions is which planner should I get for 2014...


Erin Condren Gold Edition Life Planner....

Whitney English Gold Day Designer....

So here's what I've come up with:

Basically I think it comes down to if I want more room to write on each day since Whitney has a separate page for each day. I like the idea of that but my major concern is - I rarely finish my entire to do list in one day so will things get missed in transferring them over? For weekly on two pages it's easy for me to see what needs to be done with out a lot of page turning...

When I was in school it was helpful to be able to see what I had to do for an entire week at a time. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to part with that? But the ability to have lots of space to write things for a day is enticing too...

Ultimately I'm not really sure what my life is going to be like next year (if everything goes according to plan) I'll be starting an entirely different and more demanding career but I also won't wear as many different hats - my life will be all about work.

I just don't know. It really shouldn't be this hard.....

*I have used EC for several years (though last year I went with Lilly which isn't an option because I don't need (or like!) an August - December calendar!)

Florida! Pelicans!

Southwest is having a sale and I'm thinking about booking my tickets to Florida (but what if the prices go down!) for my Mom's birthday in February. Garrett's never been and he's coming for this trip and I'm so so so excited to show him around! You know he hates vacations but I think he'll like the slow pace of my little beach town!




I didn't go home at all in 2013 and I only went for like 52 hours in 2012, I don't even remember 2011 but with all the school I may not have gone then either. Really that's just shameful!

I really love that town and lots of days I dream of moving closer but I really do love being close to so much family in Oklahoma it's hard being pulled in two different directions.

I miss lots of Florida things.

My mom, my sister.

My friends that still live there.

My town. My favorite restaurants

My favorite road (do you have a favorite road? i love love love to drive up and down my favorite road)

Palm trees.

The beach. Sunsets over the water.

The shopping.

And the pelicans. I really love pelicans! Their beaks can hold more than their bellies can!

Really when I first moved to Oklahoma I missed all of the obvious things from home but I didn't realize how much I would miss big pretty birds, Pelicans and white Herons and Palm Trees and seeing Alligators in the wild.


* I think I actually took all of these pictures on the East coast of Florida I proudly hail form the Gulf Coast which I think is so so so much prettier :)

Scenes from our house...

               

I'm pretty sure Kuddles could pass the CPA exam with all the studying she has done :)

Weekend Recap!

On Friday G called and said let's go to the Tulsa Fair after work see if you can leave early! Never one to say no to an adventure I met up with him to head to the land of fried food!

I offered to drive on the way up so I could listen to my book on cd and this is what was going on in the passenger seat.... 

                 

Typical Garrett falls asleep as soon as he gets in the car (which I think is quite the talent I can only fall asleep in a bed) (also he's gonna kill me if he comes to my blog anytime in the near future)

As soon as we got to the fair we headed to the fried cheese curds. They were good but they were not even close to the ones at the OK State fair. We will be dreaming about those until next year. 

Every article I read about the Tulsa fair said you had to eat the Fredie's Apple Fries. They were good but I honestly don't think I would get them again. They weren't my favorite fair food. 

I was super excited to try the chocolate covered key lime pie on a stick but even though it was on the fair's website the vendor said they didn't have it. So sad!

We also had corn on the cob, s'more on a stick, and kettle corn. Nothing looked all that tasty and it was starting to get a little scary after dark so we headed back home.

I don't think I'll be making the trip to the Tulsa fair again. The Oklahoma State fair is closer and overall I think they have more (and better) food choices.

Saturday I went to my cousin's football game sadly I have no pictures because even though I took my camera I decided I was jinxing the team because the one time I went to take a picture my cousin got tackled. ha! It's only weird if it doesn't work :) and they ended up winning 28-20 so it worked! My little rockstar cousin scored 3 touchdowns and got a few amazing sacks!

Then of course it was time to watch OU (barely) beat tcu in a nail biter. A win is a win though so we'll take it!

And this week is officially OU/sɐxǝʇ week!