Monday Morning Blather

This week should be a bit more calm than last week. Monkey does have speech therapy today and tomorrow, but, after that, we don't have a lot planned. I'm looking forward to Friday and our annual Fourth of July celebration. Our usual tradition is to grill out and then go see the fireworks. It's not an amazing plan, but it's a lot of fun for us. Should be a good time with our additions this year!

We had a pretty good weekend. We didn't do a lot, but it was relaxing. I do find it difficult to post on the weekends, so I may wind up not doing that. At least I'm posting more and I'm grateful for that. I hope I can keep it up. Although, I'm kind of at a loss what to blog about. Nothing terribly interesting has happened over the last few days and I can't think of anything I've read in the news that I have comments on.

Basically, I'm a bore today, lol!

I think I'll leave it at that for now. I may post again later today if I can think of anything else. If not, I'll "see" you tomorrow!

Roadtrip Aftermath

Now that the Blogging A to Z in April Challenge is over, I figured I would give you a follow-up post to our roadtrip to Iowa for my graduation.

1. Rather than staying over in a hotel on Sunday night, we decided to drive on home. We got home around 2:45 a.m. Monday morning.
2. Our puppy (whom my mom had been coming over to feed and tend to) was insanely happy to see us. She went a little mad when we got here. It was funny.
3. I had to go back to work today. It was not my favourite part of coming home.
4. I have developed an unhealthy addiction to Skittles while we've been gone. I had to have Skittles fairly constantly while we were driving. It's insane and not at all healthy.
5. Our trip home was not a complete rush to get home. We did take a little time to have fun. In fact, we stopped in Metropolis, IL to see their giant Superman statue. The Hubs took a photo of me posing with the giant Superman.
   
6. My ankle has decided to swell up again. It's hideously painful at the moment. I've resorted to the heavy painkillers and it still isn't reducing the pain.
7. My mom is having surgery to repair a hiatal hernia on Thursday. I'm taking the day off from work to go with her. Please say a prayer or send up a thought for her that day. Thanks!

I think that's all for now! I'll give you another update later!

The Good, The Bad and The Incredibly Frustrating

Today has been a day full or ups and downs.

Work is always a down these days, so I won't actually go into that.

Huge thanks to both Mrs. Gamgee and Chrissie for sending me invites to Pinterest. This would have made me immensely happy if my computer/modem/Pinterest/something hadn't been acting up. I was completely unable to do anything with Pinterest from my home internet. Since The Hubs had to go for his play practice, I decided to go to my mom's and took my laptop with me. Surprise, surprise, but Pinterest worked at her house! I was excited and I set up my account and pinned a few things. When The Hubs' practice ended, we came home and I tried to go on Pinterest again, only to find the same problem as before. It is so incredibly frustrating!!! And I don't know what's causing the problem.

So, that's the bad and the incredibly frustrating. What's the good, you may be asking? Well, two bits of good news. First, I got an email from Thirty-One today informing me that registration for National Conference will be opening later this week! Since the conference is going to be in Atlanta, I'm really hoping I get to go. That is the plan, as long as I can scrounge enough moula away from the other things it needs to go to in order to afford the registration, etc. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The second bit of good news? I received an email from my university today telling me it was time to complete my Petition for Graduation!!! I am super excited that, barring anything happening, I will be graduating in April! I'll complete my degree, no matter, but I'd love to attend the graduation ceremony. Since my school is in Iowa, we'd have to travel to attend. We're trying to decide whether to drive 4 hours to the airport, fly 2 hours and then rent a car and drive another 3 hours to get to my school or whether we just want to take an extra few days from work and drive the 17 hours to get there. The Hubs is constantly going on about wanting to make a road trip across the States, and I know this isn't across all the states, but I think that may be the route we go. Now....anyone live in Southwestern Kentucky willing to put us up for the night in late April? Just teasing!

Anyway, it's been an extremely long day, so I think I'll head to bed now. Hope you all have a fantastic evening (well, what's left of it)!

Sunday Ramblings

Today has been exhausting. Due to our trip yesterday, I've had to cram 2 days of housework into one. And, due to my laziness, that one day actually turned into one afternoon. What this has actually meant is that I've had to recruit The Hubs' help. He has, not completely unwillingly, been my cohort in clean today! We managed to get everything we wanted to do done.

In addition to our cleaning, I made an awesome meal this evening (even if I do say so myself) and my mom came and had dinner with us. I made baby green lima beans, rice and tomatoes, roasted sirloin steak, deviled eggs and cornbread. A very Southern meal, but incredibly tasty. Both The Hubs and my mom loved it. The Pog even appreciated it because there was enough left over that she could get a little (not enough to bother saving the leftovers, but enough to give the pup a treat).

The only downside is that I had intended to make a Mars Bar (Milky Way) Cheesecake for dessert and also one for The Hubs to take to his play practice tomorrow but time got away from me and the cheesecake was not meant to be today. It'll have to wait until either later in the week or next weekend. As a treat to you readers, though, I'll share the recipe with you at the end of this post.

During my internet travels this last week, I have encountered two posts I wanted to share with you. In their own ways, they are awesome and definitely worthy of your time to read.

The first one is part of a new feature from Jjiraffe called Faces of ALI. Her inaugural post for the feature is an extremely moving, detailed profile of Courtney Cheng who blogs at Bodega Bliss. I'd be lying if I didn't tell you there were tears streaming down my face while I read this. Jjiraffe manages to capture the very essence of the ALI community in the words she uses to describe Courtney's journey. A fabulous new feature I look forward to reading more of.

The second post I read that had me returning for second and third looks was actually from April of last year. Its a post of slow cooker recipes that can be made ahead of time and put in the freezer! These recipes look awesome and I'm really looking forward to trying some of them! In fact, her whole site had me completely enthralled and I'm sure I'll be spending a little time investigating everything there is to see over the next few days.

I found the last article via Pinterest. I'd never taken a look at it before, but I think I'll really like it. That is always assuming I'm ever able to create an account. I requested an invite and got a response telling me I was on their waiting list. That was about 4 days ago. Anyone have any idea how long you generally have to wait to get your invite to join? I hope it's soon. There were a load of recipes and craft ideas on there I'd love to try out!

Anyway, I promised you a recipe, so here goes:

Mars Bar (Milky Way) Cheesecake

1 package Graham Crackers (3 packages per box)
1 stick butter – melted
¼ oz gelatin
¼ cup boiling water
½ cup super-fine sugar (not powdered)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups heavy whipping cream
9 oz cream cheese
2 Milky Way bars or 6 minis

Crush Graham crackers and mix into melted butter. Press into a pie dish (can use disposable). Refrigerate.
Dissolve gelatin in boiling water.
Beat cream into soft peaks
Beat cream cheese, vanilla, super-fine sugar and gelatin together.
Fold chopped Milky Way bars into cream and fold both into cream cheese mixture.
Pour over base and refrigerate.

Serves 8

Hope you enjoy it! And, have a great start to your week tomorrow!

The Hubs and I made a daytrip today so that I could attend the Spring Product Premiere for Thirty-One. Considering the day started with me spilling coke on the white shirt I was wearing after we had started off, I had a feeling the day wouldn't go as planned.

When I got there, The Hubs let me out (only registered Consultants were allowed to attend) and I looked around for anyone I might know. Fortunately, I did eventually find a couple of people I knew so I had someone to sit with. We had over an hour to wait before the show started and, when it finally did, we had sound, but no video (we were in a movie theatre to see the premiere). Eventually, the problem was fixed and they restarted the video. It seems the problem had been all across the country since the feed was coming in via satellite.

Sadly, the reprieve did not last long and we once again lost video. After waiting about half an hour to see if the problem was, once again, going to be fixed, it was determined that we were going to run out of time in the cinema, so we were given our gift and allowed to go. We did get a small peak at the new products and the video will be available for us to view online tomorrow, but I do wish we had been able to see the whole thing in the cinema. We also got an advance copy of the new catalog and, I have to say, there are some awesome new items!! Keep an eye out for February 1 when I'll be revealing more details about the new products and prints!

After we were released, The Hubs picked me up and we headed to find some lunch. After walking around for the longest time, we finally found the absolute best pizza I've had in a long time! (I know, I know. I've eaten a lot of pizza here lately....it'll be okay.) It was so good! It was cooked in a stone oven and my mouth still waters thinking about it. We'll definitely have to go there again.

So, that's been my day. Not a lot to report, but a taste of the day for you =D

One of Those Days

You know those days where nothing goes right and you spend most of the day wishing you'd stayed home in bed? Yeah. I've had one of those days today.

The day started off pretty promising. I got up and had my shower without a lot of trouble, but that was the extent of my good fortune for today. When I started getting dressed, I discovered that the scrub pants I intended to wear to work today had the drawstring in them torn out in the washing machine. They're too big without the drawstring, so I had to find another pair of pants. This had me running late.

The Hubs was off work today and I really wanted to stay home with him, so this contributed more time to my running late. I headed outside and discovered there was ice on my windshield. I had to scrap that off (yup, in Georgia) before I could head into work. By the time I got there, it was 7:22. I'm supposed to be at work at 7am.

The next hour seemed okay. Nothing too crazy or irksome happened. But then the calm passed. Without going into confidential details, I spent the next 2 hours trying to sort something out for a very rude patient who didn't want to do what she needed to do. She came very close to cursing me out and had me really upset. I actually had to wind up turning this over to someone else to take care of because I didn't have the authority to do what the patient wanted done.

Next, I was called into my boss' office. This was not a bad visit, but I always feel stressed around my boss. Basically, the trajectory of the day had been set already and I felt it wouldn't be turning around.

Lunchtime next, so I came home and had lunch with The Hubs. I was late leaving for lunch and had an afternoon meeting, so my lunch was cut short. And I still couldn't come home and spend the afternoon with The Hubs. Back to work I went, in time to have about 15 minutes before my meeting.

The meeting itself was only supposed to last about half an hour. Two hours after it began, we were finally getting out. I usually get off work at 3:30, but the meeting didn't end until 4pm. Then I had to discuss something with another colleague, so I didn't leave work until nearly 5pm.

I came home, did some cleaning around the house, found myself too tired to cook and sweettalked The Hubs into having a pizza for dinner. It had been such a bad day, that I even got myself a blizzard to go with my pizza.

I'm now preparing to put this long, dreadful day to rest and head myself to bed. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!I need this weekend.!

...Hello 2012!

You might notice a few changes around here. I'm updating, or trying to. Hopefully, it won't be long before all my housekeeping is done and my blog actually looks tidy again.

So, I should probably tell you my New Year's resolutions, right? Well, I've decided I'm not making any. There are things I plan to work on, but I'm not going to resolve to do them because I feel like that is setting myself up for failure. Therefore, I'll post about them as I make progress with them. That way, I'll not have to cram them all into one post, but can have something to blog about when I'm feeling boring.

It was back to work today for me. The Hubs goes back tomorrow. I wish I could take more time off, but such is life. At least today was only a half-day. Tomorrow will go back to regular hours. I'm still not feeling very happy about work but I'm getting on with it anyway.

I'm considering getting a Wii dance game (possibly Just Dance 3) to help me work on my weight. I need something fun to help me get into the swing of things again. However, the game will have to wait a couple of paychecks. Got to catch up from all my Christmas spending! Anyone have any experience using one of these games to lose weight? Would you recommend it?

I know this is a short post, but I think I'm going to end on that note for now. There's a lot more I could say, but I'm feeling really tired and The Hubs and I are watching a movie I'm very interested in (I Know Who Killed Me if you're interested), so I think I'll focus on that for now. More later!

Goodbye 2011.....

What a year of huge life changes 2011 has been! Some of them have been wonderful changes and others have been devestating, but together they've made 2011 a hugely eventful year for us. A brief month-by-month rundown of our 2011....

January

My brother came home for the first time in 5 years! We were super-excited to see him!

February

I won a giveaway over at Dragondreamer's Lair through which I got my awesome Paula Dean Cookware from CSN Stores. The Hubs and I took a Valentine's trip to Savannah. I suffered my first back spasm.

March

Vegas Baby!! The Hubs' boss took us to Sin City and we had a fabulous time. My RE nixed any further treatment until I lost at least 30 lbs. I started a new eating/exercising regime.

April

Night out in Savannah with The Hubs and a good friend (now former). I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge.

May

I lost a little bit of weight and changed my regime slightly.

June

My dad had a stroke and was admitted to the hospital. We were very worried.

July

My dad eventually is released home from the hospital. I participated in a local musical. I revealed that we had been potentially matched with an expectant mother for adoption!

August

My dad passes away after having a massive heart attack. I'm devestated.

September

I'm still shell-shocked from my dad's death and feel devestated. The Hubs and I move into a new house closer to work. Two of our dogs (one of ours and one of my mom's) died. One was hit by a car, the other was bitten by a snake. Seems like we can't catch a break from the heart-wrenching bits of life.

October

We finally make the call to start the adoption process through the State of Georgia foster care. A random ovarian cyst has me awaiting a referral to a cancer specialist. My dad's headstone is finally erected.

November

My best friend (apart from The Hubs) abandons me to go galivanting off to Afghanistan (okay, so he actually left to take a job, but I miss him!!). I participate in NaBloPoMo. The cancer specialist gives me the all clear. We attend adoption orientation. I turn 33. The Hubs and I celebrate 9 years of wedded bliss. We celebrate Birthdayversary in Savannah.

December

We celebrate our first Christmas without my dad. I spend New Year's Eve cleaning my house and taking down my Christmas decorations in order to start the year out fresh before heading to a New Year's party. We leave the party early and come home to ring in the New Year with Dick Clark, Ryan Seacrest and the city of New York on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve while devouring a bottle of the most delicious champagne I've ever had and wearing funny glasses.


Happy New Year! Wishing you a stupendous 2012!

Fruit Basket Volume Two

Looking back at yesterday's post, I realized how boring I made myself sound. The post lacked the wit and charisma I like to imagine myself having, so.....here's another post! The second in two days! I'm impressed with myself, lol!

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Today starts my Christmas break. Four whole, beautiful days away from work. Total bliss. The only bad part is that I have to go back in 4 days. See, I don't really hate my job (at least, not that much). But the work environment has been very stressful lately. There are money worries at my job and there have been layoffs because of this. In fact, two weeks ago (yes, two weeks before Christmas), there were 35 people let go. Our PTO time has been temporarily stopped - both use of and accrual of PTO time - so the time we're taking off for Christmas we will not be paid for. We don't get paid holidays or sick leave or vacation time, only our PTO time, so that's been worrying people. My department's workload has slowed down tremendously over the last few weeks. Basically, everyone is walking on pins and needles and we never know from one day to the next if our job will still be there.

So, yeah, not the greatest. And, to be honest, if we could afford it I would much rather be a housewife/stay-at-home-mom (eventually). But, right now, with plans to adopt and eventually do more treatment - not to mention paying off some bills - that can only be a pipedream. Therefore, it's very important I keep my job. Also, my insurance is with my job. Lots of important reasons to need to stay employed there despite the misery it puts me in.

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Since today is the official start of our Christmas vacation and we are headed out of town tomorrow to complete our Christmas shopping (yes, we are those people, the ones who wait until the very last minute to finish Christmas shopping and then realize one second past too late that we've forgotten something), The Hubs and I are starting our vacation by heading to the movies to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo! We both read the book earlier this year and are looking forward to seeing the film and discussing how it holds up against the book.

The Hubs is also taking me out for one of my rare guilty pleasures: fast food in the form of Zaxbys. Yum, yum. yum! Should be a good evening out!

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As I said, The Hubs and I are headed out shopping tomorrow. I still need gifts for my brother, brother-in-law and niece, as well as finishing up on The Hubs' gifts. We're also going out to eat at The Olive Garden. And that, coupled with Zaxbys and all the Christmas goodies, will mean I really have to get back to watching my food intake after the New Year. I'll admit, since my dad died, I've really fallen out of eating properly. I think I've probably gained back a lot of the weight I lost, so I'll virtually be starting back from scratch. Great. It will be okay, though. I've done it before, so I know I can do it again!

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I need to get some photos of our decorations and get them posted for you. I'm really proud of them, so I will enjoy sharing them with you. Another project for the weekend!

And, with that, I should really get going so we can make our movie! Toodles, my loves!

10 on Tuesday

It's that time of the week again! Oh, yes, it's time for 10 on Tuesday! Join in the fun!

1. I enjoyed this past weekend. It was nice to get an extra day off. The only problem was it made going back to work today waaaaayyyy harder than it would have otherwise been. Oh, well....


2. Have I mentioned lately that right at the moment I truly hate my job? Yeah...


3. For the time being, the big purchase I talked about in last week's 10 on Tuesday has been put on hold for financial reasons.


4. The Hubs and I got our eyes checked yesterday and got our new glasses ordered. The Hubs chose his normal wire-frame glasses, but I went with something a bit more geek chic, as I like to call it. I left my last pair of glasses in England five years ago, so have been without them. Time to make a change on the look of them now and, thanks to the wonderful Oleg Cossini, I will be doing just that.
   
   
   These are the frames I chose. Hopefully, they'll be ready soon!



5. The big night out we had planned for this coming weekend is now off due to our friend (who had planned the trip) backing out. Again. For, like, the third time in a row that we planned to do something. I really shouldn't be surprised but....


6. I have a new favourite quote. It's from Colin Powell. "Never make someone a priority when you are only an option for them." Very fitting, I think.


7. I have an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow. I'm trying a new style.
   
   
   What do you think?



8. I really, really have to get my butt in gear and get back to work on my crochet projects. I've got several I'm working on for Christmas gifts and, if I don't get back on them, they won't be done in time for Christmas! Must. Get. Moving!


9. I'm ready for the heat of the year to be gone. I know, I know. It only just started. Well I am tired of walking in 100+ degree South Georgia heat with the flies, gnats and humidity. It's killing me! I walk in the afternoons while The Hubs finishes work (between 3:30 pm and 5:00 pm) and, before I can even finish the first of my 3 miles, my clothes are sticking to me. It's crazy! I much prefer winter.


10. If you haven't seen The Hangover 2 yet, what the granola crumbs are you waiting on?!?! It's a fantastic movie! Really very funny. But, be forewarned, there is much bac language and some seriously risque jokes. But we enjoyed it and, I mean, who wouldn't enjoy two full hours of drooling over Bradley Cooper? Not any female with eyes!
    
    
    
    Oh my Lord! The man is pretty!

That's it for now! Hope you enjoyed your dive into the mind of a Wistfulgirl =D

10 on Tuesday

I've decided to follow Junebug's example this week and participate in the 10 on Tuesday.

1. I had my weekly weigh-in this past Friday. I had gained 1.2 lbs back. Disappointing, yes, but I'm going with the belief that it's simply fat converting to muscle and muscle weighs more. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!



2. I am increasing my walking from 2 miles per day to 3 miles per day, however, in response to the disappointing weigh-in. I'm also trying to eat more vegetables this week. Hopefully, this will make something of a difference.



3. I've seen a recent increase in my reading, which is a good thing considering I've been very slack so far this year. It seems that on weekends when I have nothing planned, I can get a solid two books completed in as many days. I'm pleased with this and hope to keep it up. The next two weekends are full, but I'll still keep striving to read, read, read!



4. Tonight was the season finale of Glee. Parts of it were just kin of blah but other bits were really, really good! I'm a huge Finn/Rachel fan. That's all I'll say. Not sure what I'm going to do over the next few months without it while waiting for fall!



5. I've been reading some in blogworld today and seeing some of the truly interested anecdotes some blog authors have presented of their day-to-day life and I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty boring. Nothing interesting really happens in my everyday life. I get up, I go to work, I get seriously stressed out, I get off work, I go walking, I come home, I have dinner, I play online and watch Glee, I go to bed, then I get up and start it all again. I need to do something to make some excitement in my life. What to do, what to do?



6. Does anyone else ever feel like an interloper in their own life? Seriously? Here lately, I've felt like I'm intruding in my own life. I feel like other people look around and, while they're looking for Lynn, it's not me. They're looking for their own version of me and, sadly, I can't be that for them. So then I feel like I'm disappointing everyone and am interfering where I'm not wanted. And that leaves me with nobody. Just feeling very alone lately.



7. I've had my meds (Adipex) changed today. Went in to see my doctor for a refill and was explaining to her how I've been losing my temper very easily and frequently lately and also how I've been feeling very stressed and anxious. She explained that Adipex can have this side-effect. Then, when we checked my blood pressure, it was 158/102! She said she wanted to try a different weight loss medication and hopefully this will help. So I'll try to keep you posted how that works out.



8. I found out recently that Cirque du Soleil's Dralion is going to be showing in Atlanta in late August. I really think The Hubs and I may go. Our friend, J, might also go with us. The three of us saw KA while in Las Vegas and really enjoyed it, so that may be something to look forward to.



9. I'm looking at making a big purchase soon. I don't want to jinx it, so I won't say a lot more on the subject, but when/if it comes through, I'll definitely post pictures and let you see what I've had up my sleeve. I'm pretty excited about it, because I've been borrowing someone else's for so long. It will be wonderful to have one of my own again. Now I'll shush on that subject!



10. I have to get back in the groove of crocheting. I started on a gift for my mother-in-law before we went to Las Vegas but haven't picked it back up since we got back. I've been really out of sorts lately, but if I don't get myself in gear, there is no way it will be ready by Christmas!. I seem to need all sorts of motivation these days to keep myself moving in the right directions.

Okay, that's it from me for now! To all those visiting from ICLW, welcome! I've enjoyed having you and I will be paying you a return visit very soon! I know there have been a few questions about why my RE is so adamant about the weight loss. Some of his reasons I agree with, others not so much. I will try to compose a post going into more detail on those sometime in the next day or so!