I'm SUCH a bad blogger

I'm excellent at following and reading others' blogs daily. More than daily in some cases. But, I am terrible at keeping up with my own blog. I can never think of anything that I could blog about that people would want to actually read. So, I just go on reading others' blogs. It's fun. I enjoy it. I want to have blog friends. But that's really hard when I NEVER BLOG. haha

Anyway, it's Friday at work, and I am about to move to a new cube... an upgrade, if you will. It comes complete with its own window to the outside world! And some really rad new shelves that my current cube doesn't have. It's gonna be AWESOME. So yeah, like I said, it's Friday at work. There are, like, 3 people here.

Happy Friday! Maybe you'll hear from me again soon if I don't fall off the face of the earth again.

What I had for Dinner Tonight...

And some pepper jack cheese toast. Mmm mmm!

Dude, Where's My Car?

My husband and I met at work. Since then, we've both gotten other jobs, but we still work just a couple blocks apart. Because it would cost about $60-$70 for a monthly pass to park in the parking garage across the street from my office, and it only costs Jake $10 a month for a designated spot at his office, we normally carpool to work. As in, he drives me and drops me off and then comes back and picks me up at the end of the day. It's really quite lovely, actually.

But sometimes, like this entire week, he works out of town. And then I have to drive myself. And since I don't have a fancy monthly parking garage pass, I pay for it on a daily basis on those rare occasions when I do have to park there. So, I suppose a number of folks actually have that pass and so the first three or so levels of the parking garage are all reserved spaces for them. So, I usually have to drive up to the 4th level to get to the General Parking section.

After work today, I walked out to the garage and took the elevator to the 4th floor and my car was gone. Without a trace. Straight up stolen. Or so I thought. What else could have happened to it??

Unable to recall anything about the drive into work and parking this morning, and not really knowing what else to do, I decided I'd walk down to the 3rd level and just see if I hadn't been paying attention and parked on that level by mistake. My car wasn't there. So, I walked up to the 5th level thinking how unlikely it was that I would have gone up too MANY levels. And I was right, the car wasn't there.

So, then I figured I should call Jake, who had actually gotten home already so he could 1) come pick me up, and 2) help me report my car stolen. As I dialed him up, I started walking back down so I could get out of the garage.

Our conversation went something like this:
Jake: "Hey"
Me: "My car is stolen."
Jake: Silence.
Me: "Oh, wait... is that my car?"

And it was. I had apparently parked on the 2nd level. Two levels below where I was supposed to be and where I usually do. Which is reserved. In a spot with a sign on the wall in front of the car that clearly stated, "Reserved, Towing Enforced".

Now, I know I don't often park in the garage because I'm usually fortunate to have the hubs' curb service, but I do park in there frequently enough to know I have to park on the 4th level. AND, I'd been doing it all week already. And, it didn't even register this morning when I only had to take the elevator down 1 level to head across the street into work. I still can't believe it. I wonder where my brain was this morning. I was literally convinced it'd been stolen right out of the parking garage from among allllll the other cars.

Has anyone else ever done something like this?

How to Get Your Husband to Vacuum

Give him one of these:

That's the Dyson Animal 41, and it was SO generously given to us for Christmas by Jake's parents. And now, something he used to HATE is now something he finds entertaining and fun.

Anyway, the Animal is all kinds of fancy! And it really does work SOOO much better at getting up all the kitty fur these two leave behind.


And it is sooo much quieter than our old vacuum as well. Which is why Jake likes it so much better. Apparently, the reason he used to hate vacuuming so much is because he hated the noise the vacuum made. This one is also much lighter and can gets lots of different angles and whatnot.

Here's hoping the newness doesn't wear off and he will become the new designated vacuumer in this household for good!

Image found here

Word on the Street Is...

Taylor Swift has been offered the role of Eponine in the new film adaptation of Les Miserables!

And I am super excited about it! Obviously.

If you know me, or if you've read some of my other posts, you know I am the biggest Taylor Swift fan ever. I'll be 30 in 2 months, and I am not ashamed about it, either.

Anyway, she apparently beat out others like Lea Michele and Scarlett Johansson and Evan Rachel Wood. Should be pretty great if you ask me.

The film is scheduled to come out Dec. 7, 2012! Yay! I can't wait to hear Taylor sing "On My Own" just like Katie Holmes did on Dawson's Creek back in the day.

And yes, I've been a bit MIA since Christmas. Hoping to get back into the swing of things now that my vacation is up. That week off should have been great for blogging, but I was too busy doing nothing and loving it.


Image found here

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and show the picture from our Christmas card this year!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday full of food, family, and friends!

Phone Call from Santa

Yesterday at work, I was just sitting at my desk when my cell phone rang. I looked at my phone to see that it was my coworker, Carolyn, calling. Carolyn sits at a cubicle about, oh... 5 feet away.

Why was Carolyn calling you ask? Well, it wasn't actually Carolyn at all.

It was SANTA! hahahahaha It was Santa with the most hilariously awesome phone call ever. There are a surprising number of options you can select for various parts of Santa's message to really personalize the phone call.

After I got off the phone with Santa, Carolyn and I created a phone call for her boss. As the computer generated the phone call, we ran down the hall to his office to see the reaction when he answered a phone call from Santa at work.

We seriously had so much fun with this yesterday! I sent one to my boss after that, but he was not in his office, so it left him a Santa voicemail! hahahahaha We thought it would have been funny to send one to our bosses using their boss' phone number, so it would show up on their phone as being from him, and when they picked up the phone expecting to hear from the boss man, it would have actually just been Santa. We didn't do it, but it would totally have worked because it isn't like there is any notification that goes out to the "from" phone number you enter. It just shows up from that person on the receiver's caller ID.

It is definitely worth trying out. You can create a phone call and simply preview it for fun if actually sending one isn't your thing. Anyway, here is the link:

http://www.sendacallfromsanta.com/

Has anyone else already sent someone a Santa phone call? Or been on the receiving end?

A Christmas Sweater

One of my best friends, Mandy, has a sweet little baby boy named Wriston who will be a year old on February 1st, and I can hardly believe that milestone will be here so soon! But, that isn't what this post is about.

This post is about the present I made for him this year, his first Christmas. I gave it to him (though Mandy opened it up for him, obviously) last night at the annual Christmas party that Mandy's family throws at her parents' house each year.

A sweater!

Now, this is the second sweater I've ever made, the first being one for myself. But, this is most definitely the first baby sweater I've ever made. Let's take another look at it, shall we? Maybe from another angle?


I'm pretty proud of it because when my knitting patterns call for things like picking up stitches (in this case, for the underarms of the sleeves and for the hood), I usually take it to my mom for help, but this time, I did the whole thing by myself.

Except for sewing in this little nametag my mom had made for me to include in its neckline. She did that for me. Isn't it so sweet?


Once it was all finished (and photographed), I attached a gift tag I made, which said, "Made for Wriston with love by Lindsay, Merry Christmas 2011" and included washing instructions, and I boxed it up for him.


Wriston was asleep by the time we exchanged gifts last night, so I have yet to see him in it. Hopefully, it will fit okay. I may have to post an update once I see/get a picture of him in it, though.

What do you guys think of it? Not bad for my first baby sweater, eh?

My City

I live in Columbia, SC, and it was featured today on Design Sponge!

Go here and check it out!

Happy Birthday, Taylor Swift!

My favorite's birthday is today! Taylor Swift is now 22.

And since I never blogged about it, here is one of my cell phone pics from when Jake took me to her concert here in Columbia on November 18th.


It was so much fun, as always! And one of the most exciting moments of my life happened there... when Taylor brought out special guest Darius Rucker to sing his song, "Alright". I knew it was a possibility that he might show up because I knew she'd been having special guests appear at some of her shows when she performed in their hometowns/states. I thought he'd be the perfect choice for her to have as a special guest here in Columbia, since he is from Charleston, which is just a short hour and a half or so away, and since he is a fellow gamecock! He went to school here in Columbia at USC, which is where he started Hootie and the Blowfish back in the day. So, of course, I lost my mind whenever he came out in his Carolina hat!

Here is a video of their performance I found on youtube:



Happy, happy birthday, Taylor!! Love, your biggest fan!

Weekend Stuff

Over the weekend, I managed to get snag TWO of the $10 Target gift cards I previously posted about. I guess it helps that Target is less than five minutes away. And I use the term "helps" loosely.

Yesterday, I spent the day baking with my friend, Amanda. Please excuse the poor cell phone pics, and take a look at what we made:

1. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

We actually made two loaves of this. Amanda took half of this loaf home with her. I have no idea why she didn't want the whole loaf, because it is amazing!

2. Peppermint Bark (while really just following this recipe for Halloween Candy Bark)

This one is delicious, but would probably have been prettier done on white chocolate instead. And if you follow the link above for the peppermint bark, you'll see a variation using green mint chips. We looked for those when shopping for our ingredients because I loved how festive the green was, but sadly, we couldn't find any.

3. Cookie Dough Bites

Not a very pretty picture there, but I had to text pictures of everything we made to my mom. These are simply balls of cookie dough, but they are made without eggs, so they are safe for eating. And they are yummy!

4. Chocolate Chip Turtle Cookies

We have no pics of these because they turned out terribly! And we have no idea why! Into the trash they went.

5. Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows - seen here


These were soooo easy to do (and also delicious), and they were a perfect way to use up the rest of the marshmallows I had after making these melted snowman cookies last weekend:


The hubs helped decorate these little guys and gals. They were so much fun to make, and reeeeeally yummy, but I don't think they turned out half as cute as the ones I found online!

Most of the recipes we used (and more!) can be found through my Pinterest board here. Oh how I love that website! And I suppose my coworkers will be enjoying some goodies this week.

After we finished baking, Amanda went with me to Target to buy stocking stuffers for Jake. That's how I was able to get my 2nd gift card.

That's about it for me. Today was the usual... laundry, groceries, etc.

What did you do this weekend? Any baking? Any Target shopping?

$10 Target Gift Card

Earlier today, my husband told me about this Target coupon which can get you a $10 gift card for spending $50. So, today after our dentist appointments, we went by there to pick up a few things I wanted like a frame we needed for my brother's Christmas present and a few more Christmas decor items like these super cute aluminum reindeer.

Images from target.com

Aren't they cute?

Problem was, we got to the checkout and forgot to use our coupon. I didn't even remember we had it until we were sitting down for a quick bite to eat at Qdoba afterwards. I was so disappointed, so I had Jake run me back by the Target store when we finished dinner to see if I could take the coupon and the receipt to the Guest Services counter to get our gift card. Sure enough, they did it for us, and it took all of 3 seconds. Literally. Just a quick scan of the receipt and coupon and that gift card was ours. Woot! Definitely worth it to me to stop back by there.

Anyway, if you're like me, getting Target gift cards for spending money on stuff you were planning to buy anyway is super exciting news for you! So, you should use it, too! But you'll need to hurry as it expires this Saturday. Happy shopping!

Who Says Engineers Aren't Creative?

So, I'm a CPA who currently works in a finance position, but most of the people I work with are engineers. Civil engineers to be specific. And this week at work, three of them decorated the end of our "hall" with this Christmas tree made from a string of blue Christmas lights. Then, we all decorated it with whatever we could find at our cubicles. Being in a civil engineering organization means we found things like a foam dumptruck, a foam hardhat, an "Engineer Working" roadsign, and the orange cone at the top hiding behind the star.

It has actually acquired a few other "ornaments" since I took this photo yesterday, but I forgot to take an updated pic. And see the actual ornaments on it? The red and gold Christmas balls? Yeah, those are actually leftover from last year's office Christmas decor which have been hanging on each of our nameplates since then. Oh yeah, and the orange cone at the top has since been moved to the bottom to serve as the tree's stump.

This wasn't the only thing they adorned our cubicle walls with either. They spelled out their team name in those same blue Christmas lights in another section of wall, too.

Anyway, it looks pretty good if you ask me. It's definitely festive. Anyone else's office getting a holiday makeover?

Christmas Movies

So today while I have been at home on my Friday off, after wrapping some Christmas presents for Jake, I decided to take a little inventory of the Christmas movies we own. Admittedly, I was a little bored.

Anyway, here they are:

-Home Alone

-Home Alone 2

-The Family Stone

-Love Actually

-Elf

-The Holiday

Six Christmas movies. Somehow, I feel like that is not enough. I need more Christmas movies in my life. Now, granted, we have the classic Home Alone and Home Alone 2. And my favorite Christmas movie ever is Love Actually, so I've got that one covered. I love The Family Stone, too, and we all know Elf is hilarious. My owning The Holiday is actually kind of random, and I can't tell you the last time it was watched around here, but it is still a Christmas movie, so it gets counted. I may actually watch it tonight.

I love a good Christmas comedy, but my favorites are the sentimental/family ones. And then I started wondering if there are some movies out there that are set at Christmas time, but wouldn't really be considered a "Christmas movie", but I haven't been able to come up with any.

Anyway, what are your favorite Christmas movies? Which other ones are worth adding to my collection? Some that I know we need to get are Four Christmases, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and these. What else?

24 Days til Christmas!

and I am soooo excited! We've already given our kitties their Christmas present, because it came the other day, and since they don't know it isn't Christmas yet, we just went ahead with it. We got them the Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain. You see, one of them has this bad habit of wanting to get up in the bathroom sink and wait for us to turn on the faucet for him so he can drink. Naturally, we thought this pet fountain would be ideal with its adjustable stream of water. And it was for the first night and morning. Here is a picture from my cell phone of Milo drinking from it the first evening we set it up.

But, by the second evening, Milo was over it and wanted water from the sink again. Charlie (our cat who loves all things water), on the other hand, absolutely loves it. And it's already been worth the $38 we paid for it just to watch him play in it.

Oh yeah, and Charlie also loved the box.

Merry early Christmas, kitties!

Cinnamon M&M's

If you know my husband, you know how much he LOVES his plain M&M's. In fact, they were the theme of his groom's cake I got for him for our wedding.

However, he really only likes the plain ones, though I have gotten him to where he will at least eat the pretzel ones with me. Needless to say, anytime we are in Target (which is all the time, but no less than once a week), we have to take a stroll down the candy aisle. If only just to look to see if they are on sale.

So, we were doing just that the other day, and I found these:

Cinnamon M&M's! I love trying all the different types/flavors that come out from time to time, so we picked up a bag of these for me. And they are pretty good. Not too cinnamony though. The first couple of them taste cinnamony, but then the taste kinda fades and they just taste like regular M&M's, which you can't really complain about. I must say they aren't as good as these Chocolate Trio Premium M&M's we tried back around Valentine's Day. Those were AMAZING.

Anyone else tried these cinnamon M&M's? Did yours taste cinnamony the whole time? Have you ever had the Chocolate Trio? So good!

Finally got DVR!

So, my husband and I have apparently been living in the Stone Ages and just recently upgraded to digital cable with DVR. We've had it ALMOST a month now, and so far I am LOVING it. Although, I wouldn't say we are huge TV watchers. Jake definitely isn't. I used to be, but while I was studying for the CPA exam, I kinda quit watching most shows, even those that were my favorites. That pretty much continued up until we got DVR.

I'd watch my regular summer favorite, Big Brother, but I had stopped with old favorites like Grey's Anatomy and Brothers and Sisters before it went off the air. It was just too hard to keep up with the plot lines of shows that continued like those series.

So, now that the CPA exam is well behind me and now that we have DVR, I am trying to get back into TV! I just need to figure out when shows come on so I can set up the DVR to record. Two shows that are new this fall that I actually caught up with using the OnDemand feature are Up All Night and Revenge. Jake and I have been watching Up All Night periodically, but I just started watching Revenge over the weekend. We both enjoy Up All Night... it is amazing when a show can actually make Jake laugh out loud. And I am HOOKED on Revenge! I think the episodes I was able to watch are 4-6, so I need to go back and start from the beginning to find out a little more of the background, but it is SUCH a good show!

What are some other good shows, new this season or otherwise? Tell me what you're watching! Anyone else new to DVR? No? Just us then. Let me know!

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Things We're Thankful For

So, this is obviously late, but at least it's still November.

One day last week, I emailed Jake and asked for 10 things he is thankful for. Here is the list I got back:

1. You
2. Your Love
3. M&M’s
4. Computers
5. PC games
6. Working out
7. Overall general healthiness
8. Toilet paper
9. Vehicles
10. Air

So, then of course, he asked me for mine as well. This is what I came up with:

1. My sweet hubby, Jake
2. My mother for always being my best friend
3. My dad for teaching me valuable lessons and for fixing my car
4. My brother, Max
5. Blogs
6. Friends
7. KITTIES!
8. DVR
9. Smart phones
10. My job & awesome boss

11. Taylor Swift!

We had a great Thanksgiving celebrating with my side of the family on Thanksgiving and Jake's parents on Saturday and eating the most delicious food. Hope everyone else had a great holiday, too! Now, on to Christmas!

Countdown to Taylor Swift!

Today begins the countdown to see Taylor Swift's Speak Now tour this Friday night! Being the superfan that I am, I couldn't be more excited!

Fun fact: I have met every single person in the above photo except for Taylor Swift herself. Ugh.