Category: Meanderings

Good morning!

Is anyone else getting pumped up for the New year?  I really am!  I have my first book of the year all picked out (that… is another post 😉 ) and I am ready to jump into a clean Where Are You Reading Map… but mostly I am looking forward to getting back in fighting shape and hopefully kicking a little booty in 2012.

I used to blog quite a bit about my work outs and what I was doing to keep fit.  Through emails and comments many of you let me know how much you appreciated that and how motivating you found it to be.  Of course, that just inspired me to write more.  😀

Then after I got hurt in June, I stopped two things I love – Group Power (weight lifting) and Kick Boxing.  I still had bike rides happening so I was doing a little something… but that all stopped in September and I have been pretty much stagnate since.  Not cool. 

I really want to make 2012 exceptional.  I completed a lot of bike rides (one 50 mile one in a cast) and hope to do even more this coming year.

So training for me…. starts right away. And of course, you are invited to join me.  😛  I will be updating you here each Tuesday morning going forward with calories burned, and what I did to shake it up.  I will be linking my post over at Mari’s Checkpoint meme at Bookworm With A View.  Mari is someone who inspires me so I am hoping between what I am doing here and what she is doing there will keep me on track. 

So what am I working for?  Many things…regained strength, muscle tone, and weight loss.  My big challenge will be May 19th.  Myself and three of my good friends are signed up for this:

😯

Yup.  I have work to do….

If you are interested in staying motivated to be sure to sign up over at Mari’s Bookworm With A View Checkpoint meme/  You can also leave me a comment here letting me know you are interested in keeping up with goals and posts…. I have an idea brewing but need to think it through a bit more.  😀

 I blew the 20,000 calorie challenge but am starting again in January….

Good morning!  Happy After Christmas!  (Really though… isn’t it?)  I mean the rush is over….  no more shopping for that (hopefully) perfect gift.  The parties, the gift exchanges, the food (oh – dont get me started on the food…. “Hello gym membership?”  :razz:)

I for one am happy to be basking in the aftermath… enjoying a snow free (SSQQQQUUUEEE!!!!) winter so far here in Central Minnesota, enjoying the down time of the season and some good reading time.  😀

Besides my lovely Cricut and cartridges from my hubby, I also received an assortment of gift cards to some of my favorite stores.  I have a lovely coffee mug from Caribou Coffee, a gorgeous engraved wine stopper, a beautiful friendship sign, gloves, a book safe, and of course…

books.

My College son plucked a couple titles off my wish list on this blog and under the tree I found this:

I have so much to do these last few days of 2011… my year in review post will go up with week (it has been a good reading year!)  Recap of the challenges… the good, the bad, the ugh…. the two challenges I am hosting as well as….

a fun third one too 😀  Hint… it will work well with Mari at a Bookworm With A View‘s new weekly Checkpoint.  😀

Good morning! 

*BIG gulp from COFFEE Cup*

If you have followed me down this crazy count down to Christmas through the Morning Meanderings you may have noticed a few anti- Christmas bread crumbs…

I had not purchased any gifts.  Lost in a “I don’t know what to buy” mode… I struggled with the fact that College Son wanted car tires (too big to go under a tree) and hubby has always been difficult in the gift department being more of the “just being together” family he has never fully understood my annual frenzy with gift giving.

I had not put up the tree.  Yes, for the first time in my entire life…. we were close to going treeless.  College son and I usually do this honor Thanksgiving weekend, but a hectic schedule at that time made it impossible and he returned to College and even though the tree sits in storage… I just never worked up the gumption to put it up.  Then…. I justified this thinking my gift was already on the table from hubby – The Cricut which I picked out myself, tires for College son, and Navy son will not be here until the second week of January…. why bother?  There will be nothing under it.

I am not the best Christmas person anyway.  Holidays are hard for me.  We have had a lot of loss in our family at early ages and honestly – doing the holidays without parents on either side, or siblings… can be downright depressing. 

AND then…. after many Christmas parties these last couple of weeks, and baking for our office party…. slowly (ever so slowly…) I started to feel it.  Earlier this week… I went shopping and accomplished all of it in the matter of a few hours.  Justin (College son) had lunch with me yesterday and then we went and bought our groceries for the weekend, planning out movies we want to watch, board games we wanted to play.  We actually went to Target looking for a new game but so many needed 4 or more players we started laughing and saying “stupid small family!” as there will be just the three of us and board games are not always Al (hubby’s) thing so it is usually just Justin and I.

The fact is though…. I was laughing and starting to plan.  We went back to the Christmas department and I picked up a little three foot tree… lights already on it.  We had decided this late in the game we were not going to put up the big 6 footer, decorate it to the hilt and then take it down in the next couple of days, so I went small.  And it is a tree.  😀

So all that said – in honor of Alyce’s Saturday Snapshot, here are my pictures I present today. 

Last night my friend Heidi and I went to the Last Turn and heard a local musician play some great music.

We had some time to spare in the checkout line at Wal-Mart so we decorated our tree with all our purchases while we waited.  😛

…and yes this morning I wrapped my gifts and put them under the tree which I threw on a few of our ornaments. 

In a couple of hours Justin will be here for the weekend.  SSSQQUUUEEEEE!!!!   Today we will bake and hang out…. I have forewarned him we may listen to a little of Ready Player One on audio because I think he will love it.  (I finally got him to read Hunger Games. 

I need to put the finishing touches on a review I meant to go live yesterday but it did not happen!  😀 Then I am going to take a quick run to the store (I know.. I know) and just be sure we are ready.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays Everyone!!!!!

Good morning!  😀

I woke up to a powdered sugar dusting across our lawn.  Yes, even as I type, I can look out the window and see it continuing…

yes…. snow. 

I knew it was inevitable… however, looking at the weather forecast, it will be nothing more than this and then back to the mid 30’s and sunny throughout the weekend….

As much as I am LOVING this… I know many of my friends are not as thrilled with the lack of snow…  they are itching to get outside and kids want to go sledding and make snow men… for their sake (and man… I can’t even believe I am saying this) I hope they get it soon. 

Ok that’s the snow part of this post and enough of that!  I found a few books when I was checking blogs earlier that I would say are wish list worthy!

It’s a Waverly Life has such a fun cover and Danielle’s review of it over at Chick Lit Reviews and News sealed the deal for me!

Alison’s reviews (Alison’s Book Marks) usually impress me, so I wasn’t really surprised when her review of A Monster Calls by the wonderful Patrick Ness had me adding this one to the MUST be read.  Seriously… you have to read her review. 

Honestly, I find many reads at Helen’s Book Blog.  When she reads books like these my mouth usually drops open as I wonder how she discovers these treasures!

Today I need to wrap some gifts, I am having lunch with College son, and need to pick up a few items for the weekend.  It will just be the three of us, myself Al, and Justin for Christmas but I like small gatherings.  We will make pumpkin rolls, watch movies, play board games, eat good things, and just enjoy one another.  😀

What are your Christmas weekend plans?  Any books in the mix? 

Good morning.  Still no snow here in Central Minnesota.

……………………………………

😛

Love that.

So… is just Minnesota… or is the “white elephant” gift party a big thing everywhere.  Seriously, I have been to three of these so far this year. 

If you are not familiar with the term, a White Elephant party is where you exchange gifts by rolling dice or drawing numbers, but the white elephant gift is to be one of those items you don’t want…  something odd like a plastic football shaped bowl, an old t – shirt, plastic santa, a well used board game, funky socks, etc…

Well last night, I had the ultimate White Elephant gift!  It took some maneuvering to get my hands on. 

1.First… I called the girl who I thought was the holder of said item, Sandi. 

2.  She said she did not have it, her sister Kari did.

3.  I called Kari in which I offered to buy said item from her…. she laughed and said I could have it, as she had two.  Awesome!  😛

4.  After work I drove out to Kari’s new house but could not find it house.

5.  Called Kari and left a message, tried her husband Tim, called Sandi and left message

6.  Drove back to my house.

7.  Sandi returns my call and says I did not go far enough… so back I go out to find the house

8.  Success!  I find the house and then receive the item! 

SO last night I am at the party and when my item is chosen by the unsuspecting Kelly….  I can’t wait!  It is:

So what is “Go Girl?”  It is an item for women to use to go to the bathroom with ease when they are camping… although the packaging also mentions, fishing, and concerts which concerts concerns me a bit… but I am not going to spend time on that one…LOL

There was a coveted item of the night which actually was not only a pretty sweet item for a White Elephant party, it got my mind thinking of what I could do with this… (I don’t have an actual pic of the item but here is the basic idea:)

My friend Kate, made something like this except it just said Kickasserole and it was etched in the bottom of a glass baking dish.  When  I asked her how she did this she said she used Glass Etching Cream.  Well… needless to say I was fascinated!  This cream, using vinyl letters etches the lettering into the glass.  No kidding…. my head is swimming with ideas.  😀

Finally, you may be wondering what I walked away with….

It was this:

And I am keeping them as last week I cut myself on the paper cutter and needed a band aid bad!  So this is just a smart item to have around. 😀

Do you ever do these crazy gift giving parties?  Any funny stories? 

Good morning and happy Friday!  I am super excited about this weekend because I mostly….

have no commitments 😀

Ok, yes we do have a Christmas party to go to tonight… and yes I have yet to put the tree up, and yes I still have some Christmas shopping to do…

BUT – I have no “have to do’s” and I have no time commitments.  Does that make sense?  😛

Recently one of the two bookish Secret Santa programs I signed up for this year arrived at my door.  The books were deliciously wrapped and it all looked so sweet I thought I would wait to open it until Christmas…

and then..

I stopped over to see Cass at Bonjour Cass!  and read her post on the great bookish gifts she received AND then she talked about how her Secret Santa was Amy at Amy Reads… so I went there to see her great gift and well…

I caved.

This morning along with COFFEE CUP, I opened my precious gift and…

So there it is… Suey from It’s All About Books is my Secret Book Santa!  And I have two gorgeous books to read and chocolates to enjoy and awesome book marks and chap-stick and some hand lotion.  What a great way to start the morning 😀

This morning I am going to write a couple posts, continue listening to Curious Incident Of The Dog On The Night and finish reading Life As We Knew It.  This afternoon I am going to go workout, catch up on laundry and do a little shopping. 

Whats on your agenda for the day?

Good morning! 

*Yawn*

*Stretch*

Another crazy evening last night but oh so much fun!  Our book club the Bookies gathered at Susan’s house for our annual Christmas Party and December book review.  This time, it was also a baby shower for our newest bookie , Beckett, who was born to Laura in October.

The time together of course was awesome.  We all brought something to share  for our gathering, so the food was plenty!

And Susan’s husband had made up a little holiday tree to get us in the mood:

Ok but back to the food…

Punch and wine, homemade candies, sandwiches, fettuccine, salad, shrimp and dip, and more. 

Then we gathered in the living room to eat and discuss out review of The Christmas Wedding (review up later today!).  After the review we had Laura open up baby gifts and then after the baby gifts, we had our annual party where we each have brought a gift around $10 that we roll dice to see who gets what.  I came home with some lovely Tastefully Simple products. 

All in all, it was a good time… and our January read was chosen as:

Henry’s Sisters by Cathy Lamb.

I have a big day at work today and tonight we have the student Christmas Party which all I know is I am handing tickets out for prizes and apparently helping set up a gingerbread building contest in the gym…. it sounds….

messy 😛

Good morning! 

Running a little late here (I could not get to sleep for nothing last night – toss, turn, toss, turn…. )…. BUT I had to share with you my fun findings as I traveled the blogeshpere yesterday during the Monday meme. 

First stop, my dear friend and fellow Bookie, Angie posted about a book on her blog By Book Or By Crook that I am super interested in. 

Stop by Angie’s post to read more about this book.

Then Laurel over at Rainy Days and Mondays wrote a review for a book I have been considering for awhile now…

Read more about this book on Laurel’s blog…. wow.  Seriously. 

And finally, At Quixotic Magpie, this little gem made me long to read it:

I think it was last year I remember a couple other books coming out centered around Little House On The Prairie.  Both I wanted to read, neither did I get to. 

I am off to work, but will be back with a review in just a little while today.  Any good books you have seen while traveling the blogs?

A late good morning to you!  😀

I got up this morning, putzed around a bit on Facebook, read emails, and did not have time before church to write my post.  Now home, I have shopped for dinner, started a roast with vegies in the crock pot, straightened up the kitchen, put on a pot of coffee…

AND NOW…. I get to write a bit and read a bit.  😀

Have you head of and/or used voice texting?  I love it.  Seriously I think it is my favorite part of my new phone.  I can talk into my messaging and wala, there it is in print, I hit send and off it goes!  No more trying to text quick messages at stop lights:

“I am on my way.”

“Do we need milk at home?”

“Stuck in traffic”

As much as I RAVE about voice texting, it is important to take time to proof what you have said before you hit send.  Occasionally, it hears you wrong.  😯

For instance, for mid December in Minnesota, the weather fairy has been exceptionally kind to us.  Yesterday afternoon it hit almost 30 degrees.  My friend Heidi and I decided to take a walk on the bike trail.  I text my husband this information and hit send.  What I meant to say was “going to go and take a walk with Heidi, be home later.”

What I actually sent was, “Going to go and pick a lock with Heidi, be home later.”

LOL

 My hubby Al, said nothing on my apparent confession to breaking the law.  Well, what can I say… times are tough all over.  😛

In bookish news, I am currently in Pennsylvania with Miranda and her family dealing with the aftermath of the meteor hitting the moon.  The sky is now gray from the volcano ash and things do not seem to be getting any better soon (Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer).  I am also hanging out today with Jane Lynch today in the late 70’s while she is cruising in a car with her sister and the “cool girls” (Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch). 

Oh and the walk yesterday…. added 340 calories lost to my pathetic kick off to the 20,000 calorie challenge… 😀

Current total:  1,340 calories burned