"It surprised me when he chuckled under his breath."

I saw this on Rebecca's blog & decided to play along...

Grab the closest book (not your favorite book, just whichever one is closest). Go to page 56. Find the 5th sentence. Use it as your blog title or Facebook or MySpace status line. Copy these directions as a comment so others can play along.

Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that it's a line from Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I just finished re-reading it a few minutes ago. ;o)

If you play too, post in my comments so I make sure & see it!

Go Elf Yourself

Oh my goodness this is hysterical!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

remember when...

I was going to post every day in November.... obviously, not so much. So, what's happened in the last two weeks?

* I got a double ear infection - not fun. I have a whole new appreciation for little ones who get them.
* I saw Twilight .... twice in 24 hours (and I'm going again tomorrow night!) loved it!
* Had a pretty serious health scare with my grandfather, but he seems to be doing much better
* Spent a wonderful day at Rebecca's on Saturday making Christmas cards & watching some of our favorite Christmas movies: White Christmas, Christmas Vacation and The Holiday - it was so nice spending time just the two of us. I think it had been like 3 years since we'd done that... but we decided to make it a yearly event.

Now we begin the preparations for Thanksgiving. I can't believe it's here already. I was hoping to get the house decorated for Christmas before Thursday as everyone is coming over here, but I don't think its going to happen. Maybe I'll try again to get everyone to have a "tree trimming" party Thursday evening.

What are your plans for Thanksgiving?

wow

It's amazing (and quite sad) how little I have to say lately. I got nothin' again today, so how about a couple of shots of the boy from last year. I can't believe how much he's changed & grown.


Poor bug seems to have gotten a cold, and was kind enough to share it with Mommy. Thanks, Bubby! Hopefully it won't morph into anything too major & we can just tough it out by sticking around the house & watching Cars once or a hundred times. Whatever it takes.

apparently I stink...

at this whole "post a day" thing. I missed yesterday. Could be because there was nothing going on, therefore, nothing to post. It was a pretty lazy day around here, and that's just fine by me.

Today was fun. Jonathan & I met some friends at Discover Mills to walk, eat & play at the train table in Books A Million. We made 3 laps around the mall before we started shopping, which equals a little over 3 miles! It felt good to get out & do something active. We have plans to get together Monday morning at a nearby park & walk again.

Unfortunately I think I'm getting a cold. ;o/ I can feel it in the back of my throat. I think Jonathan may have a little something too. He's had a runny nose for a few days, but I was attributing it to his molars coming in. Now he seems to have a little cough too. I hope we don't get anything too major. Time to start downing the OJ I guess.

Okay, I'm going to watch the end of Top Chef, then I'm off to bed.

counting down...

The holidays are fast approaching. Are you ready? I'm starting to feel the urge to put up decorations (don't worry, I won't do it til the week of Thanksgiving) and listen to Christmas music. This is one of my favorite times of the year.

I have several things that I want to make this year so I thought I'd list them out. Gotta blog something, right?

* Christmas cards (really need to get on this soon)
* Alter letters J O Y to decorate the mantle (have the supplies, just need to do it)
* Christmas gifts for, well, everyone (I already have one made)
* Put up tree & decorations

It's all a bit overwhelming, but I know that once I get started it will be okay. What all do you have to do for the holidays?

zip, zilch, nada

That's what I've got for today. Sorry. ;o)

do you want to see...

my happy dance? Well, thankfully I'm not going to subject you to that torture, but I'll tell you why I'm doing it... I lost 4.6 pounds this week! Yay me! It just really drives home the point that when I'm follwing the plan, I lose weight. Pretty simple.

here's hoping

Well, tomorrow is weigh in day. I've been good all week, so I'm really hoping for a good outcome. I've used my points each day & haven't even used all of my 35 "extra" points for the week. That's unusual for me. Generally on Saturday & Sunday I don't pay as much attention to what I eat & just consider that using my "extra" points; then the rest of the week I just meet my daily points allowance. Keep your fingers crossed that I have good news tomorrow!

Jonathan is getting one of his two year molars & boy is it working him over. Throughout the day he seems okay, but once it's time for bed he kind of falls apart. He also feels like he's running a bit of a fever so we've been giving him Tylenol before bed. I hope this one pops through soon & that the other one is a little gentler on him. Poor thing.

Until tomorrow!

today

Not much to post, so how about a few bullets...

* paid $1.95 for gas today!!! Over the top excited about that!
* went shopping at Archiver's, Family Dollar, JoAnn, Hobby Lobby and KMart
* found everything I was looking for
* my feet hurt
* feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the Christmas gift projects I have/want to do

That's all I've got for now.

yeah, so much for NaBloPoMo

I already missed a day. How sad is that? I guess that's what I get for waiting until the end of the day to post. Before you know it it's after midnight & you've missed your chance.

I was up late watching Real Housewives of Atlanta, and oh yeah, the election coverage. I'm not one to talk politics, mostly because I don't really understand most of it. The candidate that I voted for didn't win, but I'm still proud of our country and the fact that so many people turned out to vote. This was no doubt a historical election and I was glad to be a part of it; no matter the outcome.

Last week I posted about my recent struggles on my weight loss journey. Well, I went back to Weight Watchers on Saturday to weigh in. The verdict? Up 12 pounds! Blech. I was completely expecting it, but it's still not something you want to hear. I'm proud to say that I've stayed on plan all week & have every intention of continuing to do so. I'm anxious to see what the scale says this week.

Well, I'm off for now...

I felt 14 all over again

Last week, Haley, her friend Brandi and I went to see New Kids on the Block in concert. Back in the day I was a HUGE fan of theirs. We're talking posters plastered all over my room, sheets & pillowcases with their pictures, obsession! Sadly, I was never able to see them in concert back then & always said that if they ever did a reunion tour I was going. Well, you can only imagine how thrilled I was when they announced earlier this year that they were doing just that! I was able to buy tickets during a pre-sale for AmEx holders & we got pretty good seats. It said on the ticket "No cameras or recording devices" and, being the rule follower that I am, I didn't bring my camera. I'm so kicking myself now because there were people with cameras all over the place. I snapped some pics with my camera phone, but they're pretty crappy.

Anyhoo.... the concert was AMAZING!!! I can't even begin to put into words how good it was. By far the best show I've ever been to. And, as we know, I've been to several (Clay Aiken 7 times, Garth Brooks twice and many more!). I have never been in a place that loud before in my life! I could barely hear when it was all said & done.

They definitely put on a great show! Of course they did a lot of old stuff, but they did a lot of new stuff too & it was really good! When they first came out... the energy in the arena was crazy! Everyone (myself included of course) was screaming and jumping up & down; I honestly don't even remember what song they opened with I was so excited. I swear I felt like I was 14 again!

By the end of the night my throat was sore from all of the screaming & singing. If I'd had the money, I would've totally driven to Charlotte to see them perform the next night.

At some point they mentioned their new found love for Waffle House & announced that they planned to go to one after the show. Soooo, Haley, Brandi & I waited around outside looking for their bus for about 45 minutes, until their former bodyguard, "Bubba", came out and said that they'd already left. So, what did we do next? Yep, we drove around to a few Waffle Houses looking for them! Yes, I'm 32 years old & I was driving around at 1:00 in the morning looking for New Kids on the Block. Sadly, we didn't find them. We drove to 3 WH's to no avail. What's worse is that the next day I went on their message board & found out that we'd only been a few exits away from where they were. ;o/ AND... Haley & Brandi drove right by it on their way home. Oh well, I guess it just wasn't meant to be. ;o)

If they go on tour again, I'll definitely be there. And I'll be more diligent in stalking them after the show!!! LOL

Here are some of my (crappy) cell phone pics:

The view of the stage from our seats:

The boys

Joe McIntyre (on the JumboTron)

Jordan with his shirt open (on the JumboTron)


I also got some video, but I haven't uploaded them on YouTube yet. Haley doesn't want me to post a couple of them because you can hear her singing. Hmmm, we'll see what happens. She got some better pictures with her phone, so hopefully she'll send them to me soon & I'll post them.

Well, I'd better get to bed. Jonathan & I have a play date tomorrow morning.

Choo Choo!

It was somewhat of a challenge deciding what Jonathan was going to be for Halloween this year. Originally I thought about attempting to make a Lightning McQueen costume, but that idea was axed pretty early on. I have no real skills when it comes to things like that. Then, we talked about mom making him a Peter Pan costume, but we had issues finding inexpensive materials that looked decent. So, while perusing the shelves at K-Mart we came across this adorable Thomas the Train costume. Jonathan is a big fan of Thomas & his friends, so it worked out perfectly. We didn't do trick-or-treating this year as our church had a festival of sorts. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed in it. Besides being rather disorganized, there just wasn't a whole lot for kids his age. We'll see what happens next year, but we may just stick with trick-or-treating. Speaking of trick-or-treating... isn't there some sort of unspoken rule that if your porch light is off that means you don't have candy? Chris unfortunately had to do some work at home that evening while we were gone & he said that the doorbell kept ringing. We had turned off the porch light & all the other lights in the house, so there was no reason for people to even think anyone was home. (Chris was back in the bedroom working.) Anyhoo, I just thought it was kind of weird.


I had kind of forgotten about it, but November is National Blog Posting Month (aka NaBloPoMo). Basically it's just a "challenge" to post every single day for an entire month. I missed yesterday, but I'm going to try and keep up with it again this year. I certainly won't promise that every day will be something interesting... but I'll do my best! Since I missed yesterday I'll post twice today... lucky you! Stay tuned!