It's November!

First Christmas movie of the season-check!

Played first Christmas cd of the season-check!

Brought first tub of decorations up from the basement-check!

It's time ladies!

My goals will be a bit different this year as my life has changed quite a bit since last year. I hurt my back and therefore I can't lift anything so I am relying on my husband more than ever to help with the holidays. So far he has brought up 3 tubs from the basement with holiday decor. I am proud of him for that.

We have Molly, who is a great dog actually, but she is only 5 months old and she is 45 pounds. She acts 5 months old and she just doesn't know how big she is. We aren't having a TN Thanksgiving at our house because we sold our dining room table (story below) and Molly might not be able to handle it just yet. We always do our TN Thanksgiving early in November anyway because everyone is so busy and so many in my family go out of town. I think this year, if I host, I will host it at the camp in the Pathway Cabin. We do this for Christmas for my side of the family so it will be normal, and easy on the parking and setup and cleanup and all that.

I sold my dining room table. I found a set I really liked on Craigslist and my husband told me I should sell ours before we bought a new one. So, like the good wifey I listed ours. I listed it for more than we paid for it being a bit ambitious, and also not wanting to really sell it until I was sure about the other set. Well, we didn't like the other set. We did sell ours first, and for full asking price! I am not buying a new set before Christmas. So, my dining room will get a larger Christmas tree and a 9ft folding table set up as a buffet for all parties. Perfect for mingling, only.

Here are a few things I have done to prepare for the holidays so I don't stress out. I refuse to have a stressful holiday!

Organize your "holiday" recipes-having these ready to go will save you the hunting time later

Address your Christmas cards-buy the Christmas stamps now and get them addressed while you still have time.

Mentally plan your decorating-I have a mental plan of what tree goes where, what room I am starting in first, and so on.

Have a great day!

A productive day! A rarity since Molly came along!

Yesterday I got a ton done! I have figured out that I can work from the kitchen or dining room as soon as I come home until dinner quite easily. Molly lays and waits until she gets to eat! So she watches me from about 4:30-6:30 in anticipation!

So I took advantage of this time yesterday! I made baked spaghetti w/chopped broccoli, lima beans, corn on the cob, cheesy rice, hashbrown casserole, and strawberry jello. We should have enough food for a few days now, LOL! Our laundry room is in the mudroom beside our kitchen so I also got all of our fall towels washed and dried, new bedding washed and dried, and a load of towels and cleaning rags. I was so excited! I felt productive again!

And yes, you read right, I washed my fall towels. I know it's a bit early, even for me, but I am having a yardsale soon and I wanted to at least get through all of my fall/halloween/thanksgiving decor before the sale.

Our home is also decorated for fall already, not the outside though, we can't be tacky! We usually decorate September 1st but we aren't having any parties between now and then so I took advantage of Molly's "waiting" on Tuesday and got everything out. Thank goodness our basement door is in the dining room. I store all holiday decor down there so this fall and winter should be easy with her!

So last week I urged all of you to make your fall/winter calendars, did you finish? We finished ours and are ready to go! All of our parties are scheduled and our decorating times are penciled in, and I am so excited! Soon I will be pulling out the Christmas cards and getting them ready, I would like to have them finished before Halloween this year. I mail them out 2 days before Thanksgiving so people usually get them the day before or after.

QuickTip: Take advantage of that stamp! Mailing costs are getting more and more expensive so think smart. When mailing a Christmas card include an invitation to your upcoming party! Don't waste 2 stamps when 1 is sufficient.

Today I would like to:

• Organize my kitchen cupboard (this always get's messed up!)
• Clean the kitchen
• Finish 1 load of laundry

I can do that in 2 hours, no problem!

I do hope the rain stays away for a little while so we go walking. Yesterday we walked in the rain-not fun!

I'm Back!!!

I took a long leave of absence from the blog world due to a busy work schedule and a very busy life. Everything should be a little slower now!

I feel like I should catch you up-we now have a puppy, little Molly. She is a great pyrenees, translation, BIG white bear! She is 10 weeks old and 17 pounds, she is growing quickly. So my life has changed a little bit. I can't get quite as much done as I would like because I have a puppy following me around everywhere. The good news is that since we got the puppy my husband has gotten into work mode! I have gotten a new back door, a new entry table, and my buffet is next! Nothing like an addition to the family to give your husband a swift kick in the rear!

Tuesday Gameplan

To Do's

1. put the sheets on the guest room beds (they have been waiting for me for a few days now)
2. start cleaning laundry/mud room (this is the room where hubby is putting in the new door and a new cat door)
3. make dinner (I buy in bulk from a local food distributor so I get a great deal. When I make chicken breasts I make at least 15 at a time-giving us both lunch for the week and dinner.)
4. Start on Fall/Winter Event Calendar (you know I'm in a family with last minute people-so I have to plan plan plan!)
   

That should do it today! I can't get near as much done with Molly, but maybe I will get in shape!

Quick Tip: Make a calendar well in advance for the holidays. You know the fall and winter are some of our most busy times. With all the parties and decorating, it can be overwhelming. Make a calendar with all of your parties and family get togethers then look and see what you have time for. Loosely schedule in your decorating, wrapping, cooking, etc. times so you can see where you have extra time and where you need to do some "trimming".

I am taking a leave of absence

As much as I love blogging and have loved getting to know you guys, I just simply don't have time. This is our busiest time of the year at work and I dropping the ball with the blog.

I will post from time to time and will definitely pick back up in the fall. Thanks everyone!

Trim A Home Tuesday #2

Welcome to Trim A Home Tuesday!

Please check the comments on this post to see who is joining us!

Today I am sharing only 1 pic! (I left my camera in my car last night and when I got it this morning to take pics-only 1 turned out-they were so so foggy from the condensation!-lets hope it clears up)

I am sharing my St. Patricks Day dining room table. It isn't finished and I have a few questions. I only have 4 placemats & 4 napkins. My table seats 6 and must seat 6. If you look at the pic I have put the placemats randomly under the chargers. (my colors will be green and gold) I have also put 2 napkins under 2 of the chargers-what do you think? I also have 4 napkin rings and I have put them here and there-can you see them? Is this tacky or cute? Do like all the little leprechauns, or is it too much?

Thanks for sharing!

Trim A Home Tuesday!

Welcome to Trim A Home Tuesday!

Please check out the comments and visit all the blogs with their beutiful decor!

I am posting the last of my Valentines Day decor, enjoy!

The final decision on Trim the Tree Thursday

After reading everyones GREAT input I have decided to

• change the name to Trim A Home Tuesday
• the date will change to Tuesday as well
• the content will change a bit-not just holiday decorating, but any decor you would like to post, now this could be a design challenge, or just simply showing us your decor
• if you want to join just post a comment stating you are joining with a link to your post, i am not going to post everyones link in the post and after trying mr. linky and hearing all of the problems, I think this will be the best way to join.

Our first Trim A Home Tuesday post will be next Tuesday, February 10th. So take pics of your Valentines Day decor or any decor for that matter and lets start sharing!

Trim the Tree Thursday

Welcome to Trim the Tree Thursday!

Please visit Cami & Terri as they have Valentines decor up too!

There has been talk about changing the name of this meme, what do you think?

One more question, what do you think about have this meme once a month and then every week in October, November, & December? Please give me some feedback!

Oh no! I just took a ton of pics of our valentines decor, the tree, the wreaths, and now only these are on my cameras card! I am so sorry! I will post the rest next week. I got a new camera for Christmas, so I am still learning how to work it.

Tuesday Recap-Wednesday Gameplan-Anyone Decorating for Valentines Day?

Tuesday Recap

Our plate is still overflowing it is so full! We still have a house guest, my boss and his wife our office manager just left town and will be gone for a couple weeks leaving me to hold down the fort, we are refinancing, etc. etc. etc.!

Yesterday I made lasagna-check out Bob's Awesome Lasagna @ allrecipes.com
My favorite lasagna-it is super easy too! Quicktip-I didn't boil the noodles-if you don't boil them just give them some extra time in the oven. This takes about 15 minutes off the prep time and makes it easier to put together.

The only other thing I got started, I can't even say got finished, was cleaning up my craft desk in the blue room. I wrapped Valentines Day gifts and St. Patricks Day gifts (yes my family loves holidays). I need to finish the projects on my desk or just pack them away-hopefully today. Quicktip-If you buy gifts in advance, make sure you don't over give. When items are on sale, I mean a great sale, I always buy more than I need for the coming year. This way I am already prepared for the next year! Just make sure you don't give them everything you bought, keep the extras you bought for the next holiday!

Wednesday Gameplan

• Clean off craft table
• Mail Valentines gifts and cards to out of towners
• 1 load of laundry
• put up dishes and clean kitchen

This would all be doable if we didn't have our pre-inspection inspection. LOL! As I have said before we are refinancing. Well, we currently have a conventional loan, but the FHA rates are so low right now that we are going with an FHA loan. Only one issue, the FHA inspection is intense and we live in an early 1900's home! So a good friend of mine and her real estate partner are coming over to give me a pre-inspection inspection. They are supposed to come over today so I still need to do a good once over of the whole house.

Anyone Decorate for Valentines Day?

Tomorrow is Trim the Tree Thursday and I will finally be posting my Valentines Day decor. Anyone else decorate? This is the one time of the year where red and pink can go together! Where you can put hearts and roses everywhere and not get yelled at! If you want to join tomorrows post just let me know!

Trim The Tree Thursday-The Cove-My Crazy Week!

Please visit Cami
She has winter decorations up and some romantic valentines day decor they are just beautiful!

I have been at The Cove-the Billy Graham Conference Center at a conference all week. My valentines decor is out-just not photographed yet. I apologize!


The Cove

You have to check it out! We stayed there last year for a conference and I fell in love, this week just deepened my love! If you are ever in the Asheville, NC area you simply must check it out. The entire downstairs walls are made to show photos of Billy Grahams ministry, life, and family. There are also thousands of gifts that he has been given from around the world. It is simply amazing the ministry that he has lived.

My Crazy Week

This starts Sunday morning-early-before we shower for church. My brother in law calls and asks if he and my father in law can come and take showers. They had been hunting in Alabama and had come in at 2am to find his new condo flooded. Being guys, they decided they could still sleep there. (not even close to what I would have done) So the main water line had frozen and busted.

So now my brother in law, whom I love dearly, is living at our house for a while. His kitchen cabinets, tile, garage ceiling, etc. have been ripped out. They are trying to dry the carpet and go from there. Thank the Lord for insurance!

Monday I had to leave for the conference at The Cove. This was refreshing. All except for the fact that a good friend of mine told me on Sunday how she was able to refinance and get a superb low rate on her mortgage. We had been thinking about this for a while now and new now was the time. The only thing, my friend said, "you better call soon, she's 3 centimeters dilated". Now, I have never had a child, so I was assured that meant she was going in at any moment. So although she was off on Monday, I called and left her a message.

Now phone reception at The Cove is quite limited. In order for me to talk with the loan officer I had to press my face against the window of the front door of Pilgrims Inn or stand outside in 10 degrees. I did go off and on-inside and outside. I did this for about an hour. She told us great news-really great news in fact-so say a little prayer it all goes according to plan. We are getting our home reappraised as well-this means a few final details are yet to be done. You know how you start a project and get almost finished, but never quite finish? Well, this is all my husband knows, and we have done quite a bit of work on this house. So I call and let him know all the details. He agrees he have some work to do.

So I get in late last night. I decided to leave a little early. Everyone else was getting back later today but I needed the time! I have a hefty list of to do's in order to be in tip top shape for the appraisal.

So here are a few hopeful to do's

• new back door & air vent
  
• we converted our back porch/mud room into a laundry room (taking the laundry out of the kitchen) and there is only a storm door there, in order to count this as new square footage we must have an exterior door and a vent from the central heat and air running to it.

• stage office as bedroom
• when we bought our home they called it a 3 bedroom with office simply because the previous owners had converted the smallest bedroom into a family closet. we converted it into an office, but in order to get top appraisal we have some staging to do.
  
• frame around dishwasher
• when we bought our home there was no dishwasher so we put one in and have yet to frame it out or secure it in-it still will tip a little if I have all the heavy things on the bottom and pull it out-not so good!

I think these are my main things. The dishwasher just needs to look finished so we get top dollar for a renovated kitchen. We need the appraisal value for 4 bedrooms and extra square footage/laundry room. Quick Tip- Keep a list of updates you have made to the house. You will be amazed at what it looks like on paper!

We need to get all of this done, have a house guest, finally take down our outdoor lights, and help some friends move. Do you think we will get it all done? Probably not! We will try!

Action Plan

• Laundry
• Work out at the gym
• Start on office de-clutter in order to stage as bedroom
• Get an estimate on an air vent in the laundry room

I think that is enough for today!

5 minutes-Make a yearly birthday action plan. Write out all of the birthdays you need to send cards for-write them in order according to the date. Decide on a budget if you are giving gifts as well and write that beside it. This will be your go to for birthdays and birthday gifts. Take this with you if you haven't bought your birthday cards for the year yet, that way you won't forget anyone!

Trim the Tree Thursday-Exterior Shots

Please visit Cami
She has winter decorations up that are just beautiful!

I know I said I had hoped to have Valentines Day up by now-but I don't. Our weekend was super fun-but no work got done. We had family in on Thursday and Friday and then we all went and visited family 3 1/2 hours away on Saturday and Sunday. We are close on the inside though. Nothing finished yet on the outside-it is just too cold. My wonderful husband said that next week it is supposed to be in the 50's what a change from the single digits we are supposed to have for the rest of this week!

The pics are of the exterior of our house and our office. We have done nothing in way of remodeling our office so please excuse the mess. This is my husbands domain. This is also his tree. Ohio State & Steelers with a little A Christmas Story too! The few pieces of the village at the bottom are his A Christmas Story village. Next year we will set the whole thing up. He got 5 new houses in the set this year-so next year! Do note the gun by the tree is a Red Rider BB gun-if you are a fan of the movie you will get it!

And do ignore my baby Sassy-she is such a ham!

Just a little quick "Go Me" I have been running! My best friend has been running with me. I feel really good after I run and really terrible the next day. My body just isn't used to all this excitement! We are going to keep it up though-a goal is a goal and I will reach mine! 4K-first of October!

Have a wonderful day everyone! I should be able to finish putting everything up tonight and possibly get started in the kitchen (a ton of dishes to pack away!). This should leave me cleaning and Valentines Day decorating by the weekend!

Trim The Tree Thursday

Welcome to Trim The Tree Thursday!

If you would like to be listed please let me know and I will add you as soon as I can. I am going to try and figure out Mr Linky and use that from now on. Thanks for your patience!

Please visit the following blog(s) and check out their decor!

Cami




Our Parlor & our hallway right outside the parlor.

Make sure and check out the pic of my gold, frankincense and myrrh. This was a Christmas gift, such a neat gift!

The secretary in our hallway was a wedding gift from my parents. They bought it at an antique shop and refinished it for us.

The star on our tree was made by my mother from material left over from one of her mother's dresses. It was used on my family tree for as long as I can remember. Now my mom lets me use it. Thanks mom!

The floral hanging on the fireplace was done by me! I aam still quite proud. I fell in love with Hobby Lobby that day!

Check out the small purse hanging from the knobs on the secretary. This was my great grandmothers. It is one of the old metal purses. Can you imagine carrying this as your purse? This wouldn't hold 1% of what's in my purse!

The couch and 2 chairs in the parlor are from my great grandmother. She used them for many years and had them reupholstered at least twice that I remember being told.

The piano was given to us by my stepdad. He got it in an old barn years ago and refinished it by hand. He even squeezed walnuts from his tree to get pure stain. It is from the early 1800's. It is one of my prized possessions.

The santa on the mantle was made by my mother. She used old coats from her mothers closet. The fur is all real.

The floral wall hanging is my wedding bouquet. We had it preserved-it was deep froze for a few months-another one of my favorite things!

I hope you enjoy our parlor!

Hopefully next week I will have some Valentines Day decor out!

Monday Recap-I actually ran!-P.S. I Love You Movie Review

Monday Recap

Yesterday was a bit of a bust on behalf of my list. Oh well, those days happen. I got a load of laundry washed and dried but didn't get it out of the dryer yet. I didn't get the upstairs bathroom cleaned. I didn't go to the YMCA, the pool is still closed for maintenance.

Tuesday GamePlan

• Meeting with my bride (I am organizing a wedding)
• Warm up dinner (still leftovers-we need to get rid of this stuff!)
• Finish load of laundry from yesterday
• Clean upstairs bathroom
• Begin cleaning out car
• Run/Walk for 30 minutes

I actually ran!
So with the pool closed and my gym buddy still in Portland I decided to not go to the gym at all. The classes I go to if the pool is closed are quite clicky. Most of the people are teachers and so they gossip the whole time since they know all the same people. I loathe going in there by myself. So as you know my goal for the year is to run in the Apple Festival 4K. Well, Emily, a blogger friend and friend through a friend suggested the couch potato to 5K training program. So I copied what they did and simplified it to fit me a little bit. So I ran a block, walked a block, and so on for 30 minutes. I was surprised I could actually do it! This morning my legs are a little sore, which is a good thing. So perhaps I will be a runner in 2009!

P.S. I Love You-Movie Review

I had seen previews for this movie a while back and thought it looked great. A total chick flick that I would watch by myself or with girlfriends. Yesterday Red Box had a free promo code so I could get a free movie. What a perfect time!

The move was about 2 hours long, and I cried for a solid 2 hours. It totally sucked me in! If you are willing to cry until your eyes are puffy you will enjoy it. The ending did make me smile.

So after watching this movie and crying the whole time and asking God to please not let this happen to my husband I realized something. I probably shouldn't watch movies or read books where the husband or wife dies, I just can't take it! After reading the Notebook and staying up all night crying and praying I told my mother not to give book like that again-she now screens them!

I will still probably continue to subject myself to these cryfest movies. I know I shouldn't. So here is your "pre-screen" on the movie-now choose for yourself!

5 Minutes-Buy the stamps for your cards for the year and put them on the envelopes. Make sure you only put the stamps on the ones you are sure you will mail. Great tip Liz!

New Year New Goals!

I'm back! Sorry for the long delay, our Christmas is long and actually we still aren't finished! There is still 1 more house to go to and 1 more Christmas party.

So I must say this Christmas was my favorite one in the last few years. We spread it out, planned ahead, and it was fantastic!

My goal for the new year-run in the 4k Apple Festival run in October. I think this is a very feasible goal. Another goal is to become a runner. I have even been dreaming about it :) This goal will be tough for me, but I want to at least give it a try!

Did you set a goal? Try following my 5 minute tips. A very small goal that can go a long way!

All of our decorations are still out and won't be put up until next week. We are having family in this weekend and they want to see everything. This weeks Trim The Tree Thursday will feature our Parlor. Next week I will hopefully have everything up from Christmas and have Valentines Day items out.

Monday Game Plan

• Finish 1 load of laundry
• Clean upstairs bathroom
• Run (slow jog really)
• Go to gym (I will slowly jog the long way there)
• Enjoy my evening! (Free rental from RedBox & leftover Ham Bone Soup from Saturday)
  

QuickTip: Take 1 day and buy all of your birthday and anniversary cards for the year. Keep them in a card organizer sorted by month. This way you will always have what you need on hand!

Only have 5 minutes? Take your 5 precious minutes and clear some clutter in a room. Each day take that same 5 minutes in a different room. You will be amazed what 5 minutes will accomplish!