Weekend Summed Up

I have to say that I love Halloween. I love the traditions in brings. I love the pumpkin carvings. What I'm not loving this year is the heat. We are in a never ending summer in SoCal. It's cooled down quite a bit, but we were still sweltering over the weekend. 

Friday night was the night we had agreed on to carve our pumpkins. We bought a couple a few weeks ago when we went to the fright fair/pumpkin patch. It was a fun adventure. I hadn't carved a pumpkin in many years and only remembered how messy it was. I don't particularly love the feeling of the goo on my hands. Luckily the pumpkin I was working with had little moosh and a lot of drier strings. 

Thomas concentrating on the pumpkin. You can see my design.

We didn't have proper carving tools. We had to take a late night trip to Wal*Mart to pick up a kit. 

I was able to get the top off! Yay! 

Unfortunately we didn't have batteries for the lights, but I will fix that today! 

On Saturday morning I got a call from the LA County Registrar/Recorder's office. I've worked many elections in the last 12 years that I've been old enough to vote (wow, that made me feel old! I've vote in every election and probably worked all except 3 or 4). I had been assigned as a clerk to my local precinct this year but I had told them to place me on the list to be the "inspector" (the boss of the precinct) so on Saturday when someone cancelled they called me to see if I would do it. It's a different precinct, but it's not too far away. Besides, I like being the boss! I had to pick up the supplies that morning. 

An hour or so later I had to go to help my friend to set up her sons' 6th birthday party. It was a nice event that lasted from about noon until past 4pm (when I left). I brought my nephew Jonathan with me (Nikki had a different birthday party to go to). 

My friend and I put together a "pin the bat on the man" game during the week. It was fun. 

After that party we headed to Thomas' cousins' daughters' 1st birthday party. We stayed there for a short while because we had to head over to Red Robin's for my brothers' celebratory birthday dinner (my dad, Nikki, and I were also celebrated. Free meals for all of us and dessert!). 

The kids asked to spend the night after dinner so we brought them home and then watched a movie and stayed up way too late. 

On Sunday morning we played video games and then I headed over to the Pierce Farm Center Halloween Harvest Festival to do the corn maze with my brother and the kids. 

I finished Sunday by doing some grocery shopping and then grilling up some steaks and doing some housework. 

We got some more pumpkins so I'll help the kids carve them this week.

Have a great Monday everyone! 

A Day In My Life

Today I am guest posting over at Knock on Wood - Amanda Nicole's blog. She was the first person that I really got to know when I got back into blogging and we became really close really fast. She also happen to get married a week or so before I did!! 

So I've done more than enough of A Day In My Life posts. However the other option was to talk about music and I am not a music person and I would have nothing to say. 

I didn't take pictures at every hours, mostly because I completely forgot. However I'll go ahead and do a recap of my Sunday because it was full of activity. 

My husband is away for work for a total of 15 days and I'm totally missing him, so I'm trying to keep busy. Also I'm spending time with my family. 

On Saturday my mom helped me clear up our office so that when on Sunday we went to IKEA I would have space to put a new bookcase. 

Sunday morning my mom, Nikki, and I went to the cemetery to leave some flowers for my sister. 

My sisters' niche is the second from the left on the top row. This is the view from across the parking lot (and that's my new car). 

A close up of the niche with the pretty flowers we bought for the week. 

After putting the flowers there we walked around for a while looking at the other graves. My brother had gone to pick up a tree across town and we had to wait for him to get back. 

My mom and I dropped off my niece and picked up my brother. I had bought a Boogie Board for my niece at JoAnn's on Saturday but it had a scratch on it so I had to stop by and make an exchange. Since we were there we checked out their sales and my brother and mom picked up about $200-$300 worth of crafts and activities for about $70. 

We then headed off to IKEA. We got there nearing lunch time, so we went straight to the restaurant. Have you had the food at IKEA? It is surprisingly good! 

I'm on a mommy and me selfie kick!

After lunch we did our walk through IKEA and at first we stopped while my brother looked at some furniture and took another selfie.

The very long boxes for our new bookcase fit wonderfully inside my new car! Love it! We headed home some time around 1pm. 

When we got home my dad came over to help me put together the bookcase.

It went smoothly and I thought "wow! I've never built anything with such ease before!" I should've known it was going to backfired on me. When I was ready to add the bottom shelf I noticed I had put in two of the panels in the other's place. Which meant I had to either do a quick fix or undo what I did and re-do it again. 

I tried the latter, but it just became a mess. While I did get everything put together, it's not looking too good. I'm also missing a piece which I e-mailed IKEA about on Sunday night. 

My night also included gluing my fingers together, getting glue into one of our cereal bowls and then proceeding to glue a washer to the bottom of said bowl. It's very frustrating. 

Then I got a call from Nikki saying that the Boogie Board she got was missing the pen. Great! A third trip to JoAnn's will happen after work today.

With my husband gone and all of these things going down on Sunday afternoon - the weekend did not end on an up note. 

But today is a new day. I'm going to make the best of it and cross another day off from my wait to have my hubby back. 

On My Mind....

The following is the random things that have been rolling around my mind the last few weeks. 

...I used to, when I started my current job, try to fit in with a group of girls. It sort of worked. I ended up eating lunch with them and going out to lunch with them on Fridays. But I always got the feeling that I was the fifth wheel. So when I got engaged in November of last year it was automatic for me to spend my breaks and lunches in my cubicle so that I could plan the wedding. I only had 4.5 months to plan it after all. Apparently they were offended (or so it seemed to me).  Either way I started enjoying spending the time on my own. I began being better friends with a unit member who sits near me...and I have to say I feel better. I feel like I don't have to pretend to be someone else. And I don't have to worry about what others think about me. I'm very grateful I found it in me to realize this. I'm also thankful that it makes me feel so good every day.

... The Ice Bucket Challenge. They are awesome and that is all there is to say. I know there are tons of other things going on in the world that we should be worrying about, but that doesn't make this any less important. There have been tons of naysayers out there. I don't know what their reasoning is behind poopooing the challenge, but I say forget them. The campaign has raised nearly (or over) $50 million! That's a lot of money over a period of less than a month. Also the idea that it has contributed to the drought that we are in is stupid. When you take a long shower you are wasting an incredible amount of water, same when you leave the faucet running when brushing your teeth. In addition some of the people are saving water by doing it right before a shower, in oceans, streams, lakes, or rivers, or like me In a swimming pool. So lay off the high horse, you are not fooling anyone.

...I've had a lack of deep posts lately, which I relate to feeling overwhelmed lately. Although people say that I'm good at multitasking I can't seem to get anything taken care of without getting my office organized. I had gotten control of it but then it spiraled out of control. With the last few weekends being super busy I haven't had a chance to work on it. This weekend was no different. I spent weekend mornings doing grocery shopping and then the afternoons at game groups.

Thomas leaves for work early next month so I'm going to take advantage and use the time to finish getting the house put together.

...trainings suck. I had to be trained (along with many coworkers) in a program at work. The head of the training a section at my job gave my office a guide for us. Except the guide is designed for different offices, not a call center so it had a lot of information that we didn't need and was missing a lot of what we should know. Which made sitting through 5 days of the training mostly torture.

I hope everyone has a good Monday and a great week! My weekend included playing lots of games with strangers, grocery shopping,  and not cleaning the office. We went to dinner on Saturday night with my family and then went to see The Giver at the theater. All in all a good weekend! 

Week Long Rewind and A GIVEAWAY!

Wow, what happened to me? I reach 100 followers on BlogLovin and I start slacking off? I had a very busy weekend which made it impossible for me to get a post out for Monday, and then Monday night Thomas and I ended up going out (more on that in a moment) and that ended any hopes of getting a post out for Tuesday. My post on Wednesday was written early in the morning and was inspired by all the other posts that I had been reading. 

So here is a mixed post of last weekend and the week. 

On Saturday I was offered overtime at work (along with some 60 other people) so I worked from 8am until 2:30pm. At time and a half I didn’t mind it. It was something different than what we normally do, so it was a nice change of pace.  Thomas and I were trying to do a game night for Saturday but no one wanted to come (sad face) so we ended up going to his parent’s house for dinner (for him) and a game. 

We ended up playing Cards Against Humanity. If you’ve played this then you know that it’s a pretty inappropriate game. And we played it with his parents, uncle, and older sister. It was hilarious! I loved it! 

I took my niece to get her hair cut on Sunday morning and we then did a bunch of shopping. I had a lot of grocery shopping to do for the week. I’m still working on my meal planning and sticking to it. The good news for you guys is that I will be having a raffle for a meal planner! The planner is pretty awesome! It was my first Etsy purchase and a good one! Keep an eye out for that post in the coming couple of weeks. In the meantime check out her shop.

I ended up walking 5 miles (thank you Galaxy S 5 S Health!) throughout the day. I was beat! Still, I got up from my short nap around 5pm and made some spinach gnocchi. And by made I mean I hand made it all! They weren’t as good as in the past. 

The week started off interestingly enough. I got home from work and was taking the elevator up to the 2^nd floor when it stopped moving. I could tell it had stopped at the 1^st floor (we have a G, 1^st and 2^nd) and no matter what I pressed it wouldn’t move and the doors wouldn’t open. I finally pushed the red “STOP” button which made it go up to the 2^nd floor. Apparently this has been happening. Great. 

When I got in the condo with Thomas he decided that he didn’t want to register his Jeep and we should go looking for a new car. He called his cousin who works for GM/Chevy and after a quick steak dinner off we went to look at cars. 

As of right now we have two contenders. We first tried out the Chevy Equinox and then headed over to Toyota to look at their Venza. I’ve been admiring that car since I got mine 5 years ago. Let’s say that I’m disappointed. It’s not as pretty on the inside as I thought. Maybe it’s because we had just looked at the other car which had lots of bells and whistles. Thomas, on the other hand, actually like the Venza better. He test drove both vehicles and he said the Venza felt better, sturdier. 

The problem is that the base model of the Venza starts at about $30k, and the luxury version of the Equinox would run us under $25k (which is the maximum we wanted to spend). Thomas is agreeing to the Equinox, but I’m suggesting to go to the other Toyota dealer and seeing what deals they want to offer. While I prefer the Equinox (and I’m totally a Toyota person at heart) and would love having it, the car is for Thomas and he should decide what he wants. 

Tuesday was the first day of school for my niece and nephew. They entered 1st and 5th grades. My nephew's reaction when I asked him if he was ready was "yea, it's just 1st grade". 

Wow! My butt looks huge here

The rest of the week was pretty laid back. I have more overtime tomorrow until 2:30pm. At 3 I'm going back to help feed the homeless, and then right after that my husband and I are hosting a game night (and hopefully the people who signed up will go!). 

Have a great weekend!

I'm also participating in a giveaway that ends tonight!!! Don't forget to enter! If we reach 1000 entries we'll add $10!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Weekend Review: Where's the Wallet?

I’m a day late and a dollar short… okay a day late, but not the dollar thing – I’ve just always wanted to say that. 

I mentioned that I spent Saturday evening helping at a food pantry to give out food to those in need but I thought I would go ahead and talk about the rest of my weekend, too. 

My mom has wanted to take the kids to Chuck-E-Cheese for a while now and we have ended up being busy every weekend, so early last week I suggested we got this past Saturday. Thomas had been out of town for a few days, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t bail on the kids (especially Jonathan who was so excited about it). 

We had a very interesting start to our trip to CEC. I had purchased Cards Against Humanity online that morning and had forgotten my wallet on the bed. I didn’t realize this until I was picking my mom up. I called Thomas and asked him to bring it downstairs for me in 5 minutes. My mom got in the car and I picked up the kids and exactly 5 minutes after I called him I sent him a text to let him know I was on my way. 

I parked in front of my building and waited. I texted him. I called him. I texted again. No response. Finally I went upstairs. I walk in and everything was like when I left except that he wasn’t on the couch. I went to the bed to get the wallet but I didn’t see it. I called his name but he didn’t respond so I went back down thinking that we crossed each other. He wasn’t in the parking garage or the lobby. I was fuming at this point. I drove back to my parents (2 blocks) and then back towards my house and called him again. No response. I sent a ranty text and then we just left. 

Over the next hour I continued trying to get a hold of him by text and calls. Nothing. I was worried. My stomach was in knots. What if he was hurt? What had happened? A bit over an hour after I called him initially I called the HOA president who lives on the same floor as we do. I asked her if she could go and check on him. She said she would and that she’d call me back. It was probably only a few minutes but it felt like a lifetime before my phone rang. It was Thomas. 

Apparently in the 5 minute time span from when I asked him to bring the wallet down to the time I called/texted him he forgot I had asked this of him. When I had gone back upstairs I didn’t see him because he was in the 2^nd bedroom playing video games. The door to the hallway was closed like when I left so I didn’t think he had gone in there. 

Boys! 

That was basically the most exciting part of my weekend. Unless you count the 25 cent oil based Sharpies we got on Sunday at Office Max. That was good, too. 

Weekly Wrap Up

I'm typing this from a windows computer. I'm not a Windows person, but my husband is and he insisted I have a PC so that I can play video games with him (one of the few things that Macs aren't really good for).  I do use Windows at work, but it is for very limited things that only have to do with work (and blog writing sometimes). 

We had a nice weekend. On Friday Thomas invited me out to lunch which works for us because we work within a few blocks of each other. We went to Pizza Rev which is a fairly new pizza chain. It is amazing! Think of Subway's style of making your sandwich and apply that to pizza. I get to put as much bacon on my pizza as I want and whatever type of cheese and other ingredients I want for one price. 

While I made Thomas some Hamburger Helper for dinner I enjoyed my left over pizza! 

Saturday was our busy day. Nikki (my niece) has been planning a picnic for months. Every year she hosts one which I think is pretty cute. This year we had it at our local park which just had a water section added to it.  Now that I have the Galaxy S5 I can go into the area without being afraid of my phone being wet (Jonathan did tell me to be careful with my phone!)

My brother and me. Do we look alike?

Pretty good looking for an 80 year old, don't you think?

I treated the kids to some Snow Cones at the end of the picnic. 

That evening Thomas, the kids, and I were invited to Thomas' cousins' sons' 2nd birthday party. He's an adorable kid and we all had a really nice time!

Thomas cannot take a normal picture!

But before we could head to that party in the afternoon we had to do some cleaning up:

My brother has been helping us with some upgrades to the condo. He was fixing the sink but we kept having missing pieces to get an air gap. I had run the dishwasher once before earlier this week, but this time it decided to pop and we ended up with a kitchen full of water. Luckily the water wasn't too dirty and it was easy to clean up. 

I'm also happy that we hired a housekeeper that will start Monday afternoon. Yay to clean toilets, sinks, and floors! 

I'm tired just looking at all those pictures! Sunday was a little bit quieter. Thomas had to work all afternoon at his office so I went to Costco and Wal*Mart to run some errands and stock up on food (I cannot keep enough food in this house! He eats so much!). 

I had leftover ground beef from Friday's dinner and I needed to do something with it. I offered it to my mom who suggested I make some meatballs. GREAT IDEA! I had some more frozen ground beef and all the other ingredients that were needed. Plus Thomas loves spaghetti and meatballs! 

While Thomas does eat left overs, I think that the ones that we have he didn't like much the first time around so I don't think he's interested in eating them, so I wanted to make him something fresh Sunday anyway. 

Thomas will be out of town at the end of next week again. *sigh* At least we had a good weekend!

And hey, it's okay that I'm posting this on Tuesday...