New Shoes

My new shoes came! They are the Terrain Janes by Lands End in Concord grape. They are really pretty and they have the cushiest heels ever! I finished another veteran's scarf. My black Lambie blanket arrived yesterday and it is so soft.
I went to Wal-Mart and I didn't end up using my gift card. The movies were really picked over so I am just going to wait awhile. I did end up finding the GQ Michael Phelps issue so i bought a copy of that and I discovered a new to me color of Red Heart - Black Fleck which is a heather black with flecks of color in it.
I don't have any big plans to ring in the new year. I may or may not stay up late enough to watch the crown drop. (In Charlotte, they have a light up crown that drops in honor of the Queen City). Other than that, I'm just chilling and watching Doctor Who episodes and crocheting.

Evening update:

So it's 10 pm ET. The big question is whether or not I will be able to stay up until midnight. I did already finish the scarf that I made with the new skein of Red Heart yarn. I am working on another hat with some leftover Homespun yarn from one of the prayer shawls that I made recently. I have been wearing my new Terrain Janes all evening and they are really holding up well. I am seriously impressed with the comfort level of them. I was also naughty and bought a Doctor Who book when I was at Books A Million early today. I am on a big Doctor Who kick right now and the best part of it is that there are so many episodes so it will take awhile for me to finish watching the ones that I have not seen before.

2009 Resolutions

I think my mantra for 2009 will be simple living. Now this doesn't mean quitting my job and living in a treehouse. It is more about making positive changes in my life.

1. Be healthier. I kind of started this in 2008 but it has been up and down all over the place. Old habits die hard.

2. Actually save money now that I make money. This is directly related to the healthy living thing.

3. Be green. I am green in lots of ways but I have become really lazy about recycling and taking my re-usable bags with me to the store, so I need to be diligent about those things and think about what I am purchasing which ties back into 1 and 2.

4. De-stash! I have a lot of yarn. Not near as much as most people but I have more than I have had in awhile and I need to use it up. There is a lot of scrap yarn that could become veteran's scarves or hats for Dulaan, etc.

5. Buy a couch. Sunshine is totally right about this one. I need one. Even just a little one. Ideally it would be a loveseat with a pull-out bed.

6. Take my lunch to work practically every day. This would save me $5-7 a day and it would be a lot healthier.

I think those are nice manageable goals/resolutions. We will see how well I follow these, I think 2009 will (hopefully) start off better than 2008 did.

Black Friday 2?

Apparently, the day after Christmas is the "second black Friday." This year Target did not have dvd sales like they did last year, so I think their sales sucked. My biggest deals were my strand of LED multi colored lights for my tiny tree and the Burt's bees chapstick in the snowflake packaging (normally 2.99 everywhere) were both 50% off. Burt's Bees is my go-to chapstick and I always have a tube of it in my purse. I also bought a chocolate peppermint muffin mix at Target that was 50% off and I baked them in my new muffin tin that I got for Christmas. The peppermint gives it a nice minty taste and gives the muffin a subtle shiny texture.
I finished the shawl yesterday that I made with some Blue Sky Homespun that I purchased at Jo-Anns before I drove down to my parent's house. I bought three skeins of the Windsor Homespun at Michaels today because it was on sale and I will be at my parent's house for awhile. My mom gave me some olive green and brown Bernat Berella 4 yarn so I am now halfway done with a veteran's scarf in the brown.
I also received the news today that my friend M got engaged on Christmas Eve and is getting married in either August or September. She is still debating on the date. The interesting part about this is that she wants me to be a bridesmaid. I said yes of course, but I am not looking forward to wearing a dress, being in a churchy wedding and having my hair and make-up done. I am really hoping that Sunshine can come with me for moral support but that's kind of during back-to-school time so I don't know.
It cooled off today and rained a little this evening, but it's still nicer weather than most of the country has.

The Night Before Christmas

So I woke up at 5 am and loaded up the Subaru sleigh and was on the road by 5:30 am ET. Two things made this possible: Diet Mt. Dew and Kiehl's Eye Alert cream. I was actually able to drive 70 MPH an hour the whole way down basically with out all the traffic back-ups that normally occur. I'm still a little tired but I would rather be tired then deal with gridlock.
I managed to complete 6 loads of laundry for myself and the rest of the family. I also baked a pan of Trader Joe's cornbread for my mom and hauled my sister around town so that she could finish some last minute Christmas shopping.
I am also excited because my beloved Fossil watch is out of the shop. It only cost $35 to fix it which was still cheaper than buying a new Fossil watch. It stopped working in September and I couldn't find any places in town that could fix it so I sent it home with my sister over Thanksgiving to take it to the local watch shop in Oklahoma and he put in a new battery and a couple of parts and it is good as new.
I haven't crocheted anything today but I do have enough Homespun with me to make a prayer shawl and I have enough stash yarn to make some veteran's scarves so I will probably work on those this weekend. I started downloading episodes of the original Doctor Who series this weekend so I will probably watch those while I am crocheting.

Happy Holidays!

Holiday Travels

Tomorrow morning (Christmas Eve) I am getting up as early as I can and driving down to my parent’s house. I could have left after work but I’m tired of being stuck in traffic hell in the dark, so I’m trying the morning thing. I managed to survive two very slow and dull days at work.
I am relieved to hear that my aunt D and Sunshine both made it home sans airplane disasters. My aunt D made it back home just in time for another snow pile. She stopped praying for a White Christmas last year.
Over the weekend, I bought a Listography journal at Barnes and Noble and I am hooked on it. There is also a website www.listography.com and it’s really cool and makes you think about your life and record the little things through the series of lists. I also liked the fact that they have blank pages in the back for your own lists.
I was bored tonight so I went to Target to get some road trip snacks and finally ended up buying a copy of Gorgeously Green By Sophie Uliano. This book is really awesome and I know I will get lots of use out of this book. I would also like to thank Sunshine for giving me a few of his cds that he was getting rid of, they will make my yucky drive much more bearable. I also took the rest of the two bite cupcakes from Whole Foods to work today and got lots of brownie points from my co-workers. Can you tell that I had my second call with my health coach last night? I managed to finish my leftover spaghetti from Sunday’s lunch at the Macaroni Grill and I managed to get two suppers out of the leftovers, which was great since I was trying to not buy groceries because of the holidays.
My hold at the library also came in yesterday, so I picked that up after work. I had put a hold on A Fool and His Honey, which was the only Aurora Teagarden mystery by Charlaine Harris that I hadn’t read yet. I am such a book fiend.

Shop Til You Drop

I'm not sure that I officially shopped til I dropped, but I did revive the US economy this weekend and probably increased the sales tax revenues for Wake County as well. Highlights of the weekend include:

1. Picking up Sunshine at the airport! We hadn't seen each other since June so I was really excited that he was finally able to come out here.
2. Purchase of Coach purse, affectionately known as Number 4. It's a satchel purse from their Coach Ergo collection and I even splurged a got a little purse scarf for it.
3. Driving to Greensboro and meeting up with cousin Bee and Aunt D. I haven't seen Aunt D since last Christmas and I haven't seen cousin Bee in probably close to three years. We had dinner at Chili's and they got to meet Sunshine and then we took holiday pics in front of the women's restroom door.
4. Gap jeans. I finally found a pair of jeans in my size, in the right wash, that actually fits and looks good on me. YAY! Never mind the full $60 price. It is so hard for me to find pants that fit that I could care less how much they cost.
5. Sunday morning Hot Bar at Whole Foods. Yum yum.
6. "I'm with Brad" nail polish from Sephora. They finally had a bottle in stock and it's this really nice gothy dark red.
7. Discovering the Kiehl's counter at the Crabtree Belk's. I was in heaven. I really need to find one of those jobs where all you do is test products all day long.
8. The tree stand arrived, so I was able to put up my Christmas tree just in time for Sunshine's arrival.

Two more days of work and then I am off to Charlotte Christmas Eve morning. Have a sunny holiday!

Holiday Craziness

Is it really December 13th? It seems like this month has just flown by. This coming week is going to be really busy with mega deadlines at work, and holiday shopping to finish. I am hoping that the tree stand parts that my sister mailed me come today but it would be my like that they wouldn't show up until Monday. My sister also called me this morning to inform me that Aunt D mailed her a flat rate box full of Christmas cookies so I am guessing that I will be receiving a similiar package soon. After much delay and a follow-up email this week, my member bag from the HRC is in the mail finally as well. So I'm excited about that.

I went to the library on Thursday and I was really excited because I found Last Scene Alive which is one of the Aurora Teagarden mysteries by Charlaine Harris. This book is currently out of print but the remaining Aurora books will be re-issued in 2009. That leaves me one book left in the Aurora series to finish but it hasn't shown up at the library yet. I just need to break down and put some holds on stuff. There is also a new issue of Knit.1 this week, so I will be picking up a copy on payday Monday.

I have the dept. holiday party tonight. That should be really interesting. I am also in the process of cleaning and straightening up the apartment because I have a visitor coming next weekend. It's mainly just regular cleaning and finding a place to store all the yarn that is just everywhere while I have been working on all of these charity projects.

Holiday Disasters

Friday night I finally talked myself into putting up my Christmas tree. I found the tree and my Christmas box and dumped out the ornaments. I realized I should stand the tree up and realized that the two plastic pieces making up the tree stand were not in the tree box nor were they in my Christmas box. I also realized that I don’t have a stocking hanger to hang my stocking up on the fireplace mantle. Crap. So much for being festive. I was able to set out my mini tree which is about 10 inches tall but that is all I have up.
I went to Trader Joe’s and discovered their “Oreos” that have peppermint bits inside the center. They smell and taste delicious and I absolutely love them. I love any type of food products that have peppermint in them.
I also attempted to make star shaped sugar cookies but apparently I cut them out too thick because they turned out to be deformed pentagons (but still tasty). I also made another loaf of cranberry-orange bread.
I mailed off some Christmas presents to my Mom today. They are for my cousins and if my aunt doesn’t get called back to work she is coming out here for a week. If she gets called back to work, then my Mom is going to send a big box out to them. I also sent a magazine to Sunshine (long story- but I have better access to reading material then he does). I am personally in love with the automated postage machine that they have at the big post office in town. There is hardly ever a line for it and basically if you have small packages or padded envelopes, this is the way to go.
I went to the library today and checked out four books. Apparently the Coffeehouse Mystery books that I am hooked on are very popular too because I was only able to find one of them that was checked in and didn’t have any hold requests. Here’s what I checked out:
1. Decaffeinated Corpse – Cleo Coyle (from the Coffeehouse Mystery series, you will learn a lot of useful information about coffee by reading this series – I am a wiser coffee drinker now).
2. Here If You Need Me – Kate Braestrup – I ended up reading this memoir today and I really enjoyed it, so I am not sure why it took me so long to get around to reading this book. She’s not your typical widow nor your typical chaplain.
3. Alfred & Emily – Doris Lessing (07 Nobel Prize Lit Winner)
4. Poppy Done to Death – Charlaine Harris – This is one of the books in the Aurora Teagarden series. Anything written by Ms. Harris is hard to get at the library and a lot of the Aurora Teagarden books were out of print and are in the process of being re-released.

I did finish reading Alice finally. It’s the biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Teddy’s oldest daughter and quite a character). I also read The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling and The Duggars: 20 and Counting! By Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar. Honestly, I will read practically anything, as evidenced by my double-stacked bookshelves.
Sunday is knitting group at the big mall. I am planning on getting there early so that I can score a parking spot in the garage and not get attacked by shitty drivers. The only bad part about our meetings that fall on Sunday is no Chick-Fil-A. I have no clue at all what project I am going to take because I finished the big brown veteran’s scarf the other night and I am over halfway done with my holiday scarf which I am crocheting using the sparkly white Wool-Ease. It reminds me of freshly fallen snow glistening in the winter sun. I don’t do holiday knitting or crocheting, so I can pretty much make whatever I want to.
On my ipod:
1. Uh Huh Her – especially like Dreamer and Not a Love Song from their latest cd Common Reaction, the whole cd truly rocks.
2. The Killers – Human
3. Shontelle – T-shirt (this song has a really catchy hook)
4. You Found Me – The Fray
5. Kanye West – Love Lockdown and Heartless, I am really loving his new album but all of his cds are really good
6. Gavin and Stacey - I love this show from the BBC. Why does the BBC put out all the cool shows?