Holiday Whirlwind!

Phew! Christmas and Thanksgiving are all over now...that was FAST! 

We had nice holidays - I talked to my parents, and we spent Christmas with Eric's parents and his brothers family, then on Friday we drove up to Richmond and met Matt and Shan (and their two kiddos) for lunch. After lunch  we headed back to their house to hang out, and got to play a little Guitar Hero which was totally fun (although I'm awful at it!!). From there we headed over to Scott and Jenny's, to bring then dinner and meet the new baby (and see Miss Morgan too!). 

We stayed at Eric's aunts house, and then on Saturday went over to his grandparents for Christmas with them. His parents came in late Friday and had stayed over there, so we headed over there around 11. Adam and Amy and the family made it in by 1ish and we sat down for dinner and then opened presents. We had a nice time there and headed out pretty quickly after that since Eric had to work today. 

All in all we had nice holidays but we're ready to be back to normal today. I got a Quickutz Revolution  from Eric and I'm going to Archiver's later today to price alphabets/dies.  Will also run a few errands and do general cleaning today. 

Then it's back to work tomorrow, trying to gear up for January - whoo hoo!!

Who would have thought?

Who would have thought that a day that starts with taking 2 cats to the vet would end up being a really nice day???

Long-time readers may recall a trip to the vet when we lived in Texas when Lightning put up such a fight about going to the vet that I left him at home and only took Hail. That 15 pounds of cat can put up a heck of a lot of fight if he doesn't want to do something. Yesterday was a whole different story though! Eric got BOTH kitties in their carriers without incident and it took about 2 seconds. I dubbed him the cat whisperer! 

The kitties did continue their usual yowling, but other than that they were pretty good. They're both healthy, and we were all home by 10:30 am, hooray!

I made a trip to the grocery store, started dinner in the crockpot, and then later Eric and I went to buy him some new running shoes at a nearby running store - you know, one of those places where they watch you walk and then figure out the perfect shoe for you? And they really do. Eric tried on about 6 pairs, and the very first ones they brought out were the most comfortable ones for him. 

I also met my friend Amanda (and her hubby) for coffee. It was nice to catch up with her and Rob!!

Then I came home and we had dinner and chilled out - Eric watched some Fringe on DVR and I worked on a scrapbook project. 

Today I'm headed to the gym in a few minutes, then I'll clean the house. I'm going to catch up with my friend Jen from home around 1pm my time, then I'm going to meet up with Kristen to do some shopping.

fun weekend!! 

G things I love

Playing this game from Dawn's blog...

The basic idea: leave a comment on this post requesting a letter (like i did on Dawn's), and I’ll assign you one. then you write about 10 things you love that begin with your assigned letter. post it on your blog and when people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on. Sound like fun!?! 

1. Gym (ok "love" may be a strong word but after just a few weeks I'm darn close! especially that elliptical thing!!)

2. Greys Anatomy (still lovin' this show)

3. Great food (on #3 and I had to start w/the adjectives...)

4. Going shopping

5. Gmail and my iPhone

6. Goonies (ok, I don't love this one, but Eric does, and that counts, right??)

7. Gas prices these days!!

8. Garlic 

9. Giving gifts

10. Getting email

It's tougher than it sounds but don't let that deter you!!

Random Tag!

TAG! You're it! If you're not the tagging kind, just shove off with your anti-social self. No hard feelings.

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose people to be tagged.

1. I always sleep with one very flat pillow (this is always my first random thing about me)
2. I hate small paper clips (this is always my 2nd random thing about me)
3. I might need to reconsider the meaning of the word random
4. I have been good about working out since we joined the gym
5. I am ADDICTED to podcasts (and listening to them while working on #4)
6. I am a big fan of proper grammar and spelling. Some exceptions (including IM/Sametime), but in general it needs to be right.
7. I love college football
8. My dream house is large with an open floorplan, a big deck, and either a hottub or a great spot for a hottub
9. I love sushi, but all cooked. No raw stuff for me!
10. I am an expert chopstick wielder

11. I drive a 2007 Honda Civic and really really miss my 2002 Toyota Highlander
12. I love weekends! especially 3-day ones!
13. I took 3 years of French in high school, a ton of Spanish before that, but can't speak either
14. I am a HUGE fan of to-do lists!!
15. If you couldn't already tell, I spend way too much time on Facebook
16. I'm planning to buy a Mac laptop next year!

If you're reading this, you're tagged! Hook me up in comments on Blogger or FB!!

I love weekends....

....except they go by WAY too fast!!

Can you believe it's Sunday? I'm bummed - not quite ready to go to work tomorrow!!!

Let's see - what have I been up to? Work has been consumed by a big issue (seems I get one of those per week, huh?) but other than that is good. 

I won a Wii and a Wii fit my commenting on a friend's blog - how cool is that? She is a Wii enthusiast and had a Wii and Wii fit to give away from Nintendo. I'm so excited about that!! I never win anything and am excited to have won something that I really wanted!

The gym has been awesome. We took Friday as a 'rest day' and hit it back on Saturday, and then I went by myself today. We started doing the elliptical machine for cardio and I am really liking that. Yesterday I did 15 mins and then today I did 30 mins, with a little more resistance (made it to 250 calories, 4000 strides!). 

I went to a stamping party hosted by my friend Amanda, at my friend Jill's house in Knightdale, on Saturday night. My first trip to Knightdale, and it was in the dark so I couldn't see much. 

I started doing some Christmas shopping, and order our Christmas cards from Shutterfly today too. Yay holidays!

And that's about it...I haven't been doing much else besides keeping the house clean and tidy!

have a great week!! :)

General Health Update

Nothing major going on, but I've commented on this and people have asked me about it so I thought I'd post it all here....

- I've almost 100% given up caffeine. The only exception is a small cup of coffeeeach morning, and a small amt with dinner (that will be eliminated once we're out of diet coke in the house). This was not planned (so, no, we're not TTC or anything like that), it was more of an accident. And, in the past when I've given it up, I've had 4 full days of a mild headache, then it was over. Anyway....Prior to Thanksgiving I used to drink the small cup of coffee at home in the morning, then when I got to work I'd have a giant cup of the yummy flavored coffee we have there (with, of course, a ton of sugar and cream). Then I'd have a 20 oz diet coke during the day, and then diet coke in the evening when I got home. Well, with being on vacation last Weds, Thurs, Fri, the weekend and Monday, I got out of that habit (esp the giant cup of coffee at work) and by Thursday afternoon thought I had a brain tumor. I couldn't figure out where the massive headache was from. Finally at some point on Friday it hit me, duh, caffeine withdrawal headache. My next thought was, heck, I'm over 1/2 way thru the evil headache, what's another couple of days? That turned into Friday, Saturday, Sunday Monday, Tuesday...all with a lingering, heavy-duty, evil headache. So bad that a couple of nights I woke up in the middle of the night with my head pounding. At one point one of my twitter friends (shout out to awesome sa_scully!!!), gave me some tips to wean off the caffeine, which helped a bit....and FINALLY, FINALLY!!, today I woke up headache free. A solid week it took, but I feel back to normal now, thank goodness!!

- the Gym is great. The only problem is it's next to impossible to get a decent treadmill between the hours of 5pm and 7pm. Your choices during this time period are the 10 year old machine that doesn't even have a place for a water bottle, or the machine with a display that doesn't work at all (makes it tough to know how fast/slow you are going, how long you've been on it, yada yada). I also have a calf muscle issue - they just are not ready for this walking/running and really bother me. I'm contemplating trying the elliptical machine to see if that gets me in the right heartrate range and a good workout. I really like to run, tho! The plan is to do cardio daily, and then weights on Mon/Weds/Fri. Some weeks will be more challenging than others, with holiday parties and such especially, but we'll see how it goes.

And that's about all that's going on here! :)

More nothingness...

hi all! I'm eeking out the last few hours of vacation....

Today was supposed to be a really busy day at work...my Blackberry is out of batteries and I'm not eager to log in online to see what's going on, so I'm staying blissfully work-free today. Tomorrow will be a different story....  

I chatted a bit online with my friend Jen (who I hadn't spoken with for a while, we keep up by blog and FB). Then, Eric and I went to the gym, the Asian grocery store, and to Jared this morning, and now he's upstairs playing his video game. He found a group of gamers to play online with so he's been obsessed, and he doesn't work til next Sunday (hello comp days!) so I'm imagining that's what he'll be doing all week. We ventured to the Asian grocery store to get some rice for my rice cooker (I am 1/2 Japanese and grew up with rice as a staple!) and a few other things. And, my engagement ring diamond moved (and they're not supposed to do that) so we had to get that repaired. Thankfully they were able to fix it right there.  

So, in a few minutes I'm going to clean the house, and then all the Haywoods are coming over for birthday cake to celebrate Eric's b-day. Happy Monday, Happy December, and Happy B-day to my sweetie!! :)