merry belated christmas! we spent the week before christmas packing and cleaning and wrapping and finishing up last-minute shopping. and getting our shower fixed - i tried to turn it on one morning only to have water spray out from behind the handle. no good. the plumber came the next morning and had to replace the handle because some valve ring behind it was broken and he couldn't get a replacement as the handle is so old. i had to take the morning off of work to be here for that, and while i had found myself thinking that i wanted a few extra hours at home to clean and wrap, i really hadn't expected it to come in the form of a $300 plumber bill. (plus we have to have someone else out to fix the drywall and tiles where he had to cut out to access pipes.) be careful what you wish for!
all of that got taken care of, though, so we left bright and early the saturday before christmas to drive back to illinois. we stopped on the way in columbia, missouri to see our dear friends matt and alison and had a wonderful time catching up and hanging out, even though the visit was short. then on to springfield - we had five full days there, and it was relaxing and fun. we taught my parents how to play settlers of catan, saw my brother a few times, watched a few movies, and generally just had a good time. i made a lasagna for christmas eve dinner - it was a little overdone because i set the oven's timed cook feature, but the christmas service at church started 30 minutes later than we thought, whoops. still tasty, just not as gooey on top as it should have been. oh well. christmas day, i made the pioneer woman's orange marmalade rolls and some fruit salad for breakfast, we opened presents, i watched "julie & julia" on dvd with my mom in the afternoon while snacking on cheese and crackers, and then made a cranberry orange pork loin with mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed broccoli and rolls and a peach cobbler for christmas dinner! so tasty.
the drive back yesterday was mildly more dramatic than the drive out to illinois - all was going smoothly, we used my handy iphone to find a pizza hut in oakley about 20 minutes away and called in an order, and the low fuel light popped on. no biggie, we figured we could stop in oakley and fill up on our way to pick up dinner. driving, driving, then suddenly the car starts shaking and scott says, "oh crap." we were running out of gas. we put on the hazards and got onto the shoulder in case the car stopped - i could see the lights of the oakley exit, but didn't know how far away it was. i think we made it about two miles after wally started shaking, and managed to coast down to the bottom of the oakley exit ramp. thankfully the gas station was right at the opposite corner of the intersection that we landed at, and it was a big travel center that had gas cans for sale. the can was unfortunately a child-proof model that is highly frustrating to try to use when it is a) dark, b) approximately 0* with wind chill, and c) you have big gloves on, but we got it worked out in the end. it was definitely one of those moments that you recognize god's hand of protection on you - we could have run out of gas miles from an exit or a gas station, or landed at a tiny gas station that didn't have any gas cans available, etc. and we learned our lesson that highway speeds combined with high cross winds really eat gas - we didn't let wally get below a quarter tank for the rest of the trip.
for the bargain hunters out there
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labels:
bargains
i give you: coupon geek. i know there are a ton of coupon/bargain shopping blogs and sites out there, this just happens to be one that i've discovered in the past week. some of her posts are freebies, some straight coupons, but most combine coupons with current sales, so that you can get things like swiss miss hot cocoa packets at target for free (which i just printed off). have fun!
brr thru grey's
(i wrote this entry, reread it for general clarity editing and realized that it is very stream of consciousness, so i added some transitions. that's literally how my brain works. only when i'm talking, i don't usually add the transitions, and most of this would happen in my mind, so i'd be prone to tell you how cold it is today, then skip straight to grey's anatomy. scott thinks it's hilarious. oh, and speaking of mental narration, i've been listening to the sweetness at the bottom of the pie on cd book during my commute - it's set it england, thus has a british narrator. as a consequence, my mental narrator has had a bit of a british accent for the past week or so. tally ho.)
i am so glad i'm inside today - it's currently 8* (feels like -9*!) with a high of 13*. and, of course, snowy. i don't think i have ever been so grateful for my attached garage at home, or my garage-under-my-building at work. speaking of cold ...
we cut our christmas tree on sunday. we were supposed to drive up to winter park with friends, but the snow storm began late saturday night and we didn't feel like risking our lives on berthoud pass just to cut christmas trees, so we found a tree farm up near greeley and went there instead. it was cold, but fun. we all got our trees, played on the sled with kinley, and got to watch our trees be shaken and baled to tie onto the top of the car. all things considered, though - and i feel like a total grinch saying this - i think i'll be okay if next year we just go to a tree lot and make plans to go sledding with friends separately. i'll probably change my mind on that by the time next december rolls around, though, so don't hold me to it!
when we got our tree home, scott chopped a few extra inches off of the bottom to get rid of some dead branches, then we took it in to put in the stand ... and it wouldn't fit! we found a bigger tree stand at home depot, but by that point, we were running late to go back up to mike and maura's for dinner and hanging out/watching kinley decorate their tree, so we went straight there - we put our tree in the stand when we got home around 9 that evening, but have yet to decorate or light it. maybe tonight. we couldn't decorate it last night because ...
last week, scott would come home from work and say that he'd been bored all day (mainly because his coworker and boss just didn't have time to give him any training or set him up with files or data that he needed to get anything done). yesterday, they evidently got things figured out, because the poor guy was at work until 9pm! i say "poor guy", but honestly, i think he kind of liked it. in a slightly overwhelmed sort of way, but he did like it - which is good, because it's his career, and i want him to be happy in it. speaking of busy at work ...
i, on the other hand, am more or less alone in the office all week - one coworker is here, but all the executives are out at meetings this week. thus, i have a few things to do, but in the 1.5 work days i've had thus far, i've caught myself up on the last 5 episodes of grey's anatomy on hulu. i don't love the show enough to tivo it, but i do love it enough to make it my go-to show for watching at the office when it's just me here.
i am so glad i'm inside today - it's currently 8* (feels like -9*!) with a high of 13*. and, of course, snowy. i don't think i have ever been so grateful for my attached garage at home, or my garage-under-my-building at work. speaking of cold ...
we cut our christmas tree on sunday. we were supposed to drive up to winter park with friends, but the snow storm began late saturday night and we didn't feel like risking our lives on berthoud pass just to cut christmas trees, so we found a tree farm up near greeley and went there instead. it was cold, but fun. we all got our trees, played on the sled with kinley, and got to watch our trees be shaken and baled to tie onto the top of the car. all things considered, though - and i feel like a total grinch saying this - i think i'll be okay if next year we just go to a tree lot and make plans to go sledding with friends separately. i'll probably change my mind on that by the time next december rolls around, though, so don't hold me to it!
when we got our tree home, scott chopped a few extra inches off of the bottom to get rid of some dead branches, then we took it in to put in the stand ... and it wouldn't fit! we found a bigger tree stand at home depot, but by that point, we were running late to go back up to mike and maura's for dinner and hanging out/watching kinley decorate their tree, so we went straight there - we put our tree in the stand when we got home around 9 that evening, but have yet to decorate or light it. maybe tonight. we couldn't decorate it last night because ...
last week, scott would come home from work and say that he'd been bored all day (mainly because his coworker and boss just didn't have time to give him any training or set him up with files or data that he needed to get anything done). yesterday, they evidently got things figured out, because the poor guy was at work until 9pm! i say "poor guy", but honestly, i think he kind of liked it. in a slightly overwhelmed sort of way, but he did like it - which is good, because it's his career, and i want him to be happy in it. speaking of busy at work ...
i, on the other hand, am more or less alone in the office all week - one coworker is here, but all the executives are out at meetings this week. thus, i have a few things to do, but in the 1.5 work days i've had thus far, i've caught myself up on the last 5 episodes of grey's anatomy on hulu. i don't love the show enough to tivo it, but i do love it enough to make it my go-to show for watching at the office when it's just me here.
things to get excited about
1. scott started a new job on monday! he had been toying with the idea of moving on to a new job for the past few years (mostly because a larger company would provide more room to move up), of which i was generally unsupportive primarily because i don't like change. (great wife i am!) he was also toying with the idea of going back to school for an mba, of which i was more supportive because it involved less change, but it just wasn't happening at his old company. anyway, this fall came and we realized that while the job market isn't amazing, overall it's a good time to move on, so he started putting his resume out there, looking online for job postings, and got set up with a recruiter. he ended up finding this job through the recruiter - it's another financial analyst position, at a company that does i.t. infrastructure consulting. i think both of us recognize the highs and lows of the job, but we're also both excited about the opportunities that it'll provide. and yes, they do have a further education reimbursement plan, so hopefully he'll be settled in enough by next fall to start taking a class or two! oh, and also - their current office is like 5 minutes from our house!
2. i found my white scarf in the closet this morning. i misplaced it probably two weeks ago, so i was very excited when i found it in there - it's the little things.
3. we put up outside christmas lights for the first time ever this weekend. (first we spent about two hours shopping around for lights - we wanted the big bulbed multicolor led lights: target had them but we wanted to get a price comparison, so we tried walmart, home depot, lowe's, and sam's to no avail ... then we found out they were on sale at target after all, whoops. oh, and when we got home and i got out the box o' christmas decorations from the basement, i realized that i had purchased white icicle lights on clearance at walmart last year. whoops again. we put up the multicolor ones.) i took pictures but have neglected to upload them so far - it's nothing too amazing, just your basic single strand along the gutter/peak all along the front of the house, plus a string of smaller multicolor bulbs looped around the iron rail along the front porch. i think it's a good start, though. we can worry about the pretty light nets for the bushes once we actually have bushes we want to show off. i will say that having outlets on the front of our house would make this whole christmas light thing a lot easier, by the way. also, i'm very thankful for having a husband who's not afraid of heights and thus is not afraid to climb up on the roof to string lights. i climbed to the top of our 6 foot ladder to peek into a gutter to see if i could figure out why it was leaking and i got dizzy.
4. we leave to drive back to illinois for christmas in two and a half weeks! so exciting. we'll be able to stop and see our friends matt and alison from college for a night along the way - not to mention the fact that she's pregnant and will be about 21 weeks by that point, so i'll get to see her with a cute baby bump! i think we'll be back in springfield for 5 or so days before we have to drive back. i'm looking forward to it as i haven't been back to my parents' house since christmas '07, plus they've been doing a bunch of fun renovations and redecorating. (and it means that actual christmas is only three and a half weeks away!)
5. we got a new tv on friday! it's a jvc 42" lcd tv with a built in ipod dock. ooh la la. scott had been wanting a new tv for basically the past year and i finally told him this summer that we could save up for one for ourselves for christmas. with my handy dandy consumer reports online membership, i looked through the ratings, this one got great reviews, and sam's club had it on a smokin deal. we didn't upgrade to hd cable, but even without that, you can tell that it has a way better picture. as in, when scott's watching a football game, you can see that the score in fact ends in a 6 rather than an 8.
6. we got up at 4:30am on friday (yikes, right?) to get to sam's to see if they had our tv on an extra sale. they didn't, of course, but we figured we were up, so we may as well hit up the black friday sales ... and got probably 75% of our christmas shopping done with, most of it on great sales. yay! i think we came up with some good ideas of gifts for people.
2. i found my white scarf in the closet this morning. i misplaced it probably two weeks ago, so i was very excited when i found it in there - it's the little things.
3. we put up outside christmas lights for the first time ever this weekend. (first we spent about two hours shopping around for lights - we wanted the big bulbed multicolor led lights: target had them but we wanted to get a price comparison, so we tried walmart, home depot, lowe's, and sam's to no avail ... then we found out they were on sale at target after all, whoops. oh, and when we got home and i got out the box o' christmas decorations from the basement, i realized that i had purchased white icicle lights on clearance at walmart last year. whoops again. we put up the multicolor ones.) i took pictures but have neglected to upload them so far - it's nothing too amazing, just your basic single strand along the gutter/peak all along the front of the house, plus a string of smaller multicolor bulbs looped around the iron rail along the front porch. i think it's a good start, though. we can worry about the pretty light nets for the bushes once we actually have bushes we want to show off. i will say that having outlets on the front of our house would make this whole christmas light thing a lot easier, by the way. also, i'm very thankful for having a husband who's not afraid of heights and thus is not afraid to climb up on the roof to string lights. i climbed to the top of our 6 foot ladder to peek into a gutter to see if i could figure out why it was leaking and i got dizzy.
4. we leave to drive back to illinois for christmas in two and a half weeks! so exciting. we'll be able to stop and see our friends matt and alison from college for a night along the way - not to mention the fact that she's pregnant and will be about 21 weeks by that point, so i'll get to see her with a cute baby bump! i think we'll be back in springfield for 5 or so days before we have to drive back. i'm looking forward to it as i haven't been back to my parents' house since christmas '07, plus they've been doing a bunch of fun renovations and redecorating. (and it means that actual christmas is only three and a half weeks away!)
5. we got a new tv on friday! it's a jvc 42" lcd tv with a built in ipod dock. ooh la la. scott had been wanting a new tv for basically the past year and i finally told him this summer that we could save up for one for ourselves for christmas. with my handy dandy consumer reports online membership, i looked through the ratings, this one got great reviews, and sam's club had it on a smokin deal. we didn't upgrade to hd cable, but even without that, you can tell that it has a way better picture. as in, when scott's watching a football game, you can see that the score in fact ends in a 6 rather than an 8.
6. we got up at 4:30am on friday (yikes, right?) to get to sam's to see if they had our tv on an extra sale. they didn't, of course, but we figured we were up, so we may as well hit up the black friday sales ... and got probably 75% of our christmas shopping done with, most of it on great sales. yay! i think we came up with some good ideas of gifts for people.
how did i not know this?
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labels:
photography
scott's parents got us a nice digital camera a few years ago for christmas - i think i posted a few months ago that i realized that i can play with the aperature and shutter speeds and things like that.
fast forward to this morning, i was looking at flip video cameras because a tiny pocket sized camcorder sounded like a fun thing. i was checking out the video resolution, then wondered what kind of resolution we have on our current digital camera (which also takes video!) - found our camera's manual online, and it turns out that we have 640 x 480, which is the same as the non-hd flips, thus, is probably not too shabby. nix the flip from the christmas list.
as i continued to scroll through the online manual, though, i got to pages 108-109 and stopped short. could it be ... ? no ... wait, but that picture ... i can get lenses for my point-and-shoot camera! fuji sells a special lens adapter that fits around the existing lens, then it has special lenses that fit onto the adapter. i think that they only have two lenses - a wide angle and a tele angle - but still, that's better than my current nothing! i frantically googled around, and heaved a giant sigh of relief when i found that you can still buy the lenses and the adapter. i've been itching for a nice dslr, and maybe someday will get one, but in the meantime, i've got a sweet point-and-shoot with lots of pseudo-slr capabilities. i'll probably continue stalking the pioneer woman's site in hopes that she'll do a dslr giveaway again someday, though, not going to lie.
fast forward to this morning, i was looking at flip video cameras because a tiny pocket sized camcorder sounded like a fun thing. i was checking out the video resolution, then wondered what kind of resolution we have on our current digital camera (which also takes video!) - found our camera's manual online, and it turns out that we have 640 x 480, which is the same as the non-hd flips, thus, is probably not too shabby. nix the flip from the christmas list.
as i continued to scroll through the online manual, though, i got to pages 108-109 and stopped short. could it be ... ? no ... wait, but that picture ... i can get lenses for my point-and-shoot camera! fuji sells a special lens adapter that fits around the existing lens, then it has special lenses that fit onto the adapter. i think that they only have two lenses - a wide angle and a tele angle - but still, that's better than my current nothing! i frantically googled around, and heaved a giant sigh of relief when i found that you can still buy the lenses and the adapter. i've been itching for a nice dslr, and maybe someday will get one, but in the meantime, i've got a sweet point-and-shoot with lots of pseudo-slr capabilities. i'll probably continue stalking the pioneer woman's site in hopes that she'll do a dslr giveaway again someday, though, not going to lie.
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