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30 Days of Thankfulness

I always like thinking about the things you’re thankful for this time of year. We all have so much to be thankful for and it’s a wonderful reminder to step back and take inventory. The things we worry about day to day are so small considering all we have.

I am so very thankful for:

  1. our health – this year has very much been one that reminds us how blessed we are to be 99.9% healthy!
  2. a husband who is truly my teammate – who values me and treats me as his equal – and who, after 10 years, I still truly enjoy spending time with
  3. a sweet daughter who amazes me every day with her knowledge, insight, humor and kindness
  4. a sweet son, who is everyday more articulate and thoughtful and wonderful … and hilarious
  5. a sweet puppy who loves on us and protects us from all baddies, imagined or otherwise
  6. wonderful family who are fun to be with and provide us with unparalleled support
  7. friends who make our days fun and keep us sane
  8. a lovely roof over our heads
  9. money for everything we need and a generous percentage of what we want
  10. jobs that provide us with not only money, but that we enjoy and feel useful at and fulfilled in daily
  11. good schools and caretakers for our kids
  12. my running/swimming buddies
  13. the wonderful ladies at my gym who challenge and cheer me on
  14. our amazing public library system that provides me with virtually free, virtually unlimited entertainment
  15. my treadmill!
  16. that my kids are good eaters and will eat hot lunch at their schools once a week so we only have to pack for them 4x/ week!
  17. that we have enough in the budget to pay for someone to clean the house every other week
  18. living in CO … awesome weather, amazingly beautiful
  19. my crazy awesome camera
  20. all the mundane modern conveniences we totally take for granted (cars, running water, electricity, HEAT)
  21. the interwebs (most days anyhow)
  22. my flexible work schedule
  23. citizenship in this wonderful, amazing, if slightly-flawed country
  24. date nights!
  25. girls’ nights and weekends out
  26. online shopping
  27. the opportunity to travel and the good sense to take advantage of it
  28. quiet weekends at home
  29. the time and means to create, whether on the computer at home or work, in the kitchen or the workshop
  30. this amazing life as a whole. Truly I am, we are, blessed.
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Weekend Bye Bye

We’ve been pretty lucky to have a few great weekends lately … weekends where we did a lot, but we also stayed at home a lot. I like these. They feel longer and I’m not so bummed when Sunday rolls around and I have to get my act together and get ready for the week.

Friday was my day off and Matt and I had a glorious 4 mile run. I remembered (for once) to actually use my inhaler and I felt like a real runner for the first time in a long time. I clocked some great splits and actually ENJOYED myself. Then I spent the rest of the day getting the house in order and my ducks in a row to host friends for the evening. All of our friends are the sort that I do not clean FOR THEM, but it is an excellent excuse to clean for myself.

After I picked Tabby up from school, we made the side dishes for dinner – sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole – since our friends were coming over for our Third Annual Turkey Fry. These folks are dear friends with schedules similar to ours, meaning that we only see them about once a quarter – and we always have a wonderful time. The turkey came out great, the kids played really well together and we had a fab time catching up with our friends.

Saturday I made banana pancakes for everyone. I don’t do this very often, but we had bananas that were past their prime and buttermilk and so it would have been crazy NOT to, right? After breakfast and some goofing around, we were drawn outside by our neighbors whose grandkids were over for the day. Our kids love their grandkids and they had a wonderful few hours playing outside on bikes and scooters and with sidewalk chalk. Loki gave us a bad few hours when during this time, he snuck off to have a little walk-about and we couldn’t find him. Our neighbors eventually spotted him though and we were very relieved to have him home.

After naps, we cleaned up the house again (turkey fryer makes such a mess!) and my folks came bearing Lasagna which we enjoyed very much. The kids played Wii (Mariokart) endlessly and entertained us all. We were all reluctant for the night to end.

Sunday I decided we needed to go see a movie so we skipped breakfast and went straight to the movie theatre to see Wreck it Ralph. The kids thought it was super decadent to have popcorn for breakfast and we all LOVED the movie. It is super clever, really funny and definitely worth seeing. It’s one I definitely want to own when it comes out – and I hope they make at least one full-fledged video game out of it.

After the movie, we ran an errand or two and then headed home for naps. Matt and I did some small projects while the kids napped. Then Matt oversaw cleanup of the playroom while I went for a run. When I was done I found them back in front of the Wii, battling it out on the road.

We had dinner, a little more Wii fun, showers, and off to bed. I love a good weekend with my family.

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Bad Blogging

I have been such a bad blogger lately, but I am giving myself a pass on all this bad bloggerness. It’s just been a game of picking and choosing what I can get done in a day and blogging has not often made the list.

But I have been working a lot, not skipping my workouts – I took only  ONE day off all week – and continuing to keep things together on the homefront, including  spending lots of time in the kitchen.

We have been making lots of recipes … all of our recent hits have been from Iowa Girl Eats:

I really need to do some updates on the kids too. It’s been forever. They’ve changed so much since school started. Ben has become so much more articulate. The things he says … ! And Tabby has not only shot up in height, but she’s leaped ahead in all things school. She writes and reads so well I can hardly believe she’s the same girl who started Kindergarten just a couple of months ago. It’s wonderful.

So I am going to try and remember to be a better blogger. I know blogs have mostly fallen by the wayside, but I still enjoy this as my little family’s history.

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Nashville

This was one of those trips where I could play a highlights reel that would make you think this was the worst trip ever … my 24 hours of stomach flu HELL, Tabby throwing up thrice, Ben ruining a pair of underwear on our flight out, me hauling Ben bodily from Vanderbilt’s bookstore thrashing and throwing the world’s hugest fit, etc. But the truth is that in between all of that no so fun stuff, we really had a nice time.

The trip was pretty low-key, so we had some fun doing the simple things like going to the park with Grammy Sherrie …

… and playing on the riding lawnmower.

We celebrated Miss Autumn’s birthday (that’s Ben with a cupcake) …

and baptism.

We saw some old friends, some extended family. We went to the zoo.

It was exhausting at times  and also nice. I always love spending a good block of time with my babies. The kids were, overall, excellent travelers. And on the way out of the airport, I once again noticed the London/Heathrow gate. It is starting to seem like a real possibility.

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SWAMPED

We got back from Nashville on Tuesday (late) and I fully intend to write up a nice post about it, but so far I. have. not. had. time! Since we’ve been home, I’ve put in over 20 hrs at the office and a few more on top of those at home. Tabby had climbing class last night and tonight we finally went to pick up our darling doggie. I just finally got some time tonight to pull the photos from our trip off the camera. I still need to process the photos from the weeks before we left. Whatever.

We’re having fun along the way. Matt’s got a boy’s poker night tomorrow he’s looking forward to. Tabby’s got a stranger-danger class on Saturday. We’ve got some fun Thanksgiving homework to do this weekend. And I plan on resting quite a lot. I want to cook up some tasty food.

But now it’s bedtime.

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All About the Weekend

This weekend actually seemed longer than normal – in a good way. Talking, we think what did it was the fact that my parents had the kids on Friday night (they typically take them on Sat night). I got lots of stuff done Friday and Saturday too so that we had almost all day Sunday to just be. It was very very nice.

Friday was my day off and I volunteered at Tabby’s school and mostly just did housework … other than the 3 or 4 hours I spent on a work project. It is hard for me to get away right now. After Matt got off work, we dropped the kids off at my parents’ house and grabbed some food at Qdoba and brought it home to eat with margaritas while we played video games. We’ve gotten really into an old school Final Fantasy (SNES) that we downloaded on the Wii and we had a great time playing that.

Saturday morning we went for a run and then got some errands done – we had to pick up white shirts for a photo shoot and buy a birthday gift and of course, groceries. By the time we went to get the kids from my parents’ house, it was after 12 and we too them right home for a quick lunch and a nap. We headed out right after nap to a friend’s 40th birthday party. The house was packed with people of all ages. We had a great time chatting with our friends and the kids went mad in the basement with Legos and games and eventually had a dance party with glowsticks in the darkened living room.

The kids were exhausted when we got home after 9 and no one complained even a little when we put them right to bed. Unfortunately, the night was not over since Ben woke up at midnight to puke all over his bed. After a shower, we moved him into the little toddler bed we still have in his room and he woke only once more, though happily no more puking.

He was pretty subdued all day Sunday and didn’t eat much. That worked out well because we didn’t do much all day. We had breakfast, cleaned up the house a little, lounged on the couch and played video games and watched TV. The kids had naps and in the late afternoon we ran an errand. Around 4:45 I started making dinner and it err … didn’t go well. See I tried a new recipe, Butternut Squash Gnocchi, and completely missed the step where you cook out excess moisture. So I  kept adding flour and kept adding and adding and could barely get it into dough and when I did, it tasted awful, like pure flour (pretty much was). We ended up calling for a pizza.

After dinner we suited the kids up in their costumes and headed to the community center down the street for the kids’ Halloween party. It wasn’t too well attended, but we had a nice time. Our favorite neighbor was there painting faces and she did a glittery blushy lipsticky job on our little butterfly that looked awesome. Tabby is going to go back over and have her do a repeat on the big night.

By the time we got home it was bedtime for the kids and back to the kitchen for me. I made 20 ghost-shaped rice krispie treat pops for the kids in T’s class. It was a delicate balance between melting and freezing. Sticks had to go in when soft. Candy coating had to go on when frozen. Had to be refrozen for wrapping, etc. etc. Matt helped me a while and then took off to meet the neighborhood guys for the Bronco’s game. I finished up in plenty of time, but ignored my OCD ways and left cleanup for another day.

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It has been a gorgeous fall. We had a wicked hot dry summer so no one knew what to expect with the fall and yet it’s been gorgeous. That is all quickly coming to a close though as we’ve had a few days of windy weather followed by rain and now snow. Most of the pretty leaves are gone and now we are left to clean them up.

Good news though. Pumpkin is still very much in vogue and I can make fallish things to my hearts’ content. Like …

I could go on. But instead, I think I’ll make a grocery list. Because I clearly do not have enough to do.

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To Do List

The vague future always seems like a good time to travel. The reality is that we’re always busy and no matter when I schedule a trip, I’m likely going to be manically trying to get everything done right up until we head out. I/We need to:

  • decorate the house for Halloween (Tabby is dying to do this)
  • register Tabby for another session of rock climbing
  • register Ben for something where he can run around a lot and burn off energy
  • make and package 20 bags of orange, pumpkin pie scented playdough
  • make and package 20 ghost-shaped rice krispie treats
  • load an MP3 player with Halloween music for “musical chairs”
  • return several books to the library
  • take a few phones to visit the Geniuses at the Apple Store
  • pack us up for our trip
  • pack up baby clothes to take to Nashville
  • take Loki to our friends’ house
  • figure out who/what to vote for
  • vote!
  • attend a few Halloween parties (4)
  • myriad work-related things such as taking a phone to the Apple Store, spending a whole day with our new web designers and before that getting all of my thoughts on the site into some coherent tangible form, turning in various reports on this and that, selling my soul to get a few extra iPhone 5 cables, etc.
  • pay bills, update budget and all that crap
  • clean up our house
  • buy Ben some new shoes
  • figure out an appropriately awesome b’day gift for my niece
  • get haircuts
  • make sure we have appropriate clothes for the family photo we’ll be taking on our trip
  • stop the mail
  • check in with the kids’ schools about absences
  • check in with our neighbors about minding the house
  • make a car rental reservation

Then we’ll need to buckle down and enjoy our vacation!

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iStillReallyLikeMyAndroid

I have joined the ranks of iPhone users. Well really, it’s just an i because it hasn’t been activated to mobile phone service. See last week, my company upgraded all of our blackberry users to iPhones. It was a great move for us because our employees (many of whom are away from the office regularly on jobsites) can now use handy things like maps (or maybe not) and open attachments and web browse. We’re also hoping it will allow us to purchase fewer jobsite cameras since they pretty much replace point-and-shoot cameras for most people. One of my primary functions is to support our mobile devices and it was decided therefore that I should carry one … but I am very happy with my Android. For me, it’s the best. I know that may not be a popular statement, but it just works better for me. I have many reasons, but Swype is probably the biggest since it allows me to really type on the phone in a way the iPhone’s virtual keyboard just can’t.

So we reached a compromise. I will continue to carry my Android, but I will also have an iPhone, but only for use with wi-fi. It doesn’t duplicate mobile plan fees and I get the vast majority of the user experience so I can troubleshoot and provide support for our users. On the plus side, it gives me the one thing I care about on an iPhone … the apps that I can’t yet get on Android.

So I present to you, my iOS only favorites:

  1.  Artkive – This app archives your children’s artwork using your camera phone including data on artist, date, grade and description. You can share pics digitally with friends and family and have books printed as well.
  2. Red Stamp – Nice app for sending out pretty e-cards from your phone. You can also have them send paper ones for $2.
  3. Simpsons Tapped Out – a fun social game from your favorite Springfield family. Game is free, premium content costs.
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Another Busy Weekend

Thursday, midday, we were surprised to learn that Ben’s 24 hr strep test had come back POSITIVE. So he had to come home and stay home for 24 hours until antibiotics took effect. So Friday I got to spend the day with my baby boy while he recuperated. We ran some errands, had lunch with Daddy and Grammy, had a nap and a run and went to pick up Tabby. Friday evening, I had Bunco and Matt took the kids to get Ben a haircut.

Saturday morning, I took off to the mountains for an abbreviated Girls’ Weekend with some of my besties. We relaxed, had lunch, had a walk, relaxed some more, had some cocktails, and went to dinner. That’s when the fun started. At dinner, the fire alarm went off and the Vail fire fighters showed up … the very same fire department that one Ryan Sutter is a part of. One of my girlfriends is a huge Ryan Sutter fan and she was lucky enough to have an encounter with him in the lobby of the restaurant.

After the heart-palpitation inducing event and dinner, we went out on the town for some drinks and dancing. We always have a great time burning off steam and gettin jiggy with it (am I showing my age??). We got in super late and slept really well. In the morning, we had a leisurely morning and headed home, for once avoiding I-70 traffic.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Matt took the kids birthday shopping, had an evening out with the other husbands and spent Sunday morning at a birthday party. By the time I got home, the kids had to go down for naps and we had a nap too. By the time we got up, we had just enough time to start Tabby’s school project (she gets to tell all about herself on the All About Me board this week). Then we had dinner with my parents and came back home to finish up Tabby’s project and head to bed.

Phew! Think I need another weekend to rest!