New shows!

So, it's been a while since I've linked up for Boob Tube Babble with Ashley and Neely, and I have officially taken on a couple new shows!

First up is Pan Am. I really wasn't sure I was going to like this show at first. I decided to watch the first episode during one of Chad's hunting weekends. I wasn't too impressed. Yet, I went back for the second. And third. And fourth episodes. So now, while I still think it lacks something (which I can't put my finger on), I can't handle missing an episode because I need to know how the story is going to unfold.

Next: Once Upon a Time. This is a brand spanking new show. And I LOVE it. First of all, I love Jennifer Morrison. And I love the old school fairy tales. So you put those together in a modern show, and I am very happy.

Lastly, did anybody else watch the Halloween special of Pretty Little Liars?! I can't even begin to talk about it all. But I'll try.

Jenna... WOW. She was really giving Ali a run for her money fromt he beginning, yeah?

And those scary people in the burlap costumes. Super crazy!

Picture Time!

Given the number of dishes I dirtied last night with my Halloween feast, and my penchant for procrastinating when it comes to clean up, I am going spend a majority of my evening cleaning and doing dishes.

Which means that you guys just get a couple fall pictures to tide you over until I do my Boob Tube Babble and Book Review posts (hopefully) tomorrow.

Pretty trees in my backyard

View of the street from my mailbox

Halloween Dinner and the Time I Put my Pants on Backwards

Tonight was our weekly family dinner night, and it was my turn to cook. Not coincidentally, it is also the Wednesday before Halloween, which means that I got to do a fun Halloween themed dinner!

I was really hoping to take a lot of pictures of all the excellent food that I made, however, as usual, I got distracted by the cooking and eating and forgot to take pictures as I went. So... these are what you get:

After we had finished eating... aside from Chad, who is obviously finishing his cupcake.



The candles and orange lights. Again... after dinner.

On the menu tonight was cheese dip with chips, pumpkin/potatoe soup, stuffed porkchops, and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were full of different cheeses, which I was hoping would be enough to make the lack of gravy a non-issue. However, the cheese didn't give the potatoes enough flavor, so the gravy was missed. The potatoe soup was only partly successful also, since it was very thick and somewhat rich. The porkchops were good, as was the cheese dip (how can you go wrong with 3 kinds of cheese melted together with garlic and chives?!)

But the big hit? That, my friends, was the dessert. I have learned a thing or two from Sandra Lee, and I did a semi-homemade dessert. It was an ice cream treat that was basically homemade pumpkin ice cream (vanilla ice cream with pumpkin and spices) mixed with chopped pecans, and layered with gingersnaps. SO GOOD. I paired it with pumpkin spice cupcakes (spice cake mix with pumkin puree), and here you have our dessert of the evening:

Since Chad is a mason and works with squeeze bags and mortar all day, I let him do the icing with the pastry bag.

After dinner was game time, and we played a game called Doodle Dice. Basically there are dice that have different doodle components on each side (6 dice) and 6 different colored cards, each card having a design on it that has to be made with the doodle dice you roll. The colors correspond with how hard the design is (from orange only needing 1 specific doodle component, to purple needing 6 specific doodle components to make the design up). During the game, I got up to go pee.

At which point I realized that my pants had been on backwards from the time i got home from work at 4:45.

FAIL.

Chad effed up

As you are all WELL aware, Chad has made hunting his first priority this fall. Which is okay with me, I suppose, because he gets his much needed man time, and I get some time to myself also.

Well, the hunting season over in Kittitas County (where he has been hunting the past two weekends) ended on Sunday, so Chad has been stuck hunting over here on our side of the mountains. He skipped out on my sister's birthday dinner last night to hunt (which was okay because we decided that having one less person for my mom to pay for justified us all ordering something more expensive, haha), and he went out again today after work.

As he is walking about searching for that monster buck that has been eluding him for years, Chad stumbles upon a ravine and there, in the bottom of the ravine, was a good size two point buck.

Chad hesistated for a minute, thinking he may pass him up in order to potentially get a bigger one later one. But then, realizing that there are only a few days left to hunt, he decided to go for it. He used his range finder (purchased by moi) to figure out how far it was from him (115 yards), aimed, and shot.

...And Missed.

Apparently he made the executive decision to adjust his scope before he left this afternoon, which ultimately screwed him up.

So, since the time he got home, he has been obsessing over this deer and how he hopes he didn't knick the poor thing, because he doesn't want it to be somewhere dying slowly. So he is going back out tomorrow after work (before my amazing Halloween themed family dinner) to see if he can find him again and do better this time.

That's all.

The Contenders

I promised you guys a post about the top 2 house contenders, and I am coming through for you. Now, these two houses are probably the two best we have seen since the beginning (aside from the one we fell in love with that our financing didn't cover).

House 1: North Fork House

This house is probably my favorite of the two for the following reasons:

• It is close to work. I would be taking all backroads and would be at work in about 7 minutes each morning.
• It's pretty big.
• It has a creek in the backyard.
• The downstairs bathroom has a SAUNA in it.
• Woodburning stove insert... these are my favorite!
• Good open floorplan downstairs
• Upstairs is a whole master suite... bedroom, full bath, walk in closet, and office. And balconies at both ends of the house
• It was built by my dad's childhood best friend. I didn't know that until AFTER I fell in love with the house, so it just added to my love for it.
• New windows, roof, gutters about 4 years ago.

(disclosure: some of these pictures are really blurry, and I don't know why)



Now, the potential downfalls of this house are as follows:

• Possibly flooding from the creek in the back
• Most of the property is in the front yard, not a lot of backyard
• No place to keep the horse(s)

House 2: Issaquah-Hobart House

This is the house that I know Chad will prefer. Here's the pros.

• Very private.
• Already has a designated area for horses
• Cheaper
• Harry Potter cupboard under the stairs
• 2.25 acres
• Really good kitchen with lots of counter and cupboard space.

Now for the bad parts of this house.

• Needs work. The place appears to have had renovations started on it but never finished.
• Smells badly of dogs.
• Stained carpets
• Far from work... my commute would be at least 30 minutes one way
• Slanted ceilings upstairs
• Trees would need to come down (one fell right across the back fence and came about a foot and a half from the house)

So, those are the two in the running right now, although I feel like the Issaquah-Hobart house may be counted out soon. It has too many cons to it, and I don't think Chad wants to put a bunch of work into a house when we first buy it.

Fall Activities

Let me tell you about some amazing things that I did this weekend. Actually, they were all done on one day (Saturday), but that doesn't make them any less amazing.

However, I am going to start with Friday. I worked in my old branch in Fall City for the majority of the day, which was kind of nice. I miss the people I used to see every day down there, and I feel like i am so far out of the loop with these members that I used to know everything about. Anyways, so I got off work, and went home to change and get ready to go meet my sister and friend/real estate agent to look at a house. (Yes, you notice that Chad is not involved in this house viewing... because he was hunting againt).

I would put some pictures up, however I am going to have a whole post devoted to the top house contenders at the moment.

I spent the rest of my Saturday evening hanging on the couch watching tv and movies witch Buck. I chose to re-watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 that night. It was so great. I didn't cry this time, thank god. It makes me excited for the second part to come out on DVD, even though it means that there will be no more movies and it's really over.

Saturday morning I got up, caught up on some TV shows on my DVR, and got ready for the festivities! I went to Kristine's house and we waiting for our friends Chelsea and Gary to show up. Then we headed off to Bob's Corn and Pumpkin Farm!

First off, we went into the corn maze. Everybody but me cheated and cut through non existing paths, but I carried on the non cheater path. Eventually I ended up running into Kenny, who got caught by the corn maze police and had to come back in. We were on the right track when we heard kristine yelling for us, so we cut out. She was telling us that they had been out for a very long time, which amazed me until she told us that they left at the halfway mark rather than doing the second half of the maze.

Anyways, then we decided to find our pumpkins. We found some REALLY good ones, and it was hard to decide on just one. But we did it.

After the pumpkins had been chosen, we went back up to the farmhouse area where Kristine and I indulged in some roasted corn on the cob. YUM. Then it was off to Ixtapa for dinner before returning to Kristine's house to get our carve on.

(I have all my pictures together here because it didn't want to put them in the places I wanted them... so they are in no specific order)

Gary, Chelsea, Me, Kenny, and Kristine

The first pumpkin I chose... it had those dangly things that screamed "I whip my hair back and forth, I whip my hair back and forth!"

Me, Kristine, and Chelsea driving the pumpkin truck!

Us ladies riding the hay wagon on the way to the pumpkin patch and corn maze

View from the hay wagon on the way to the corn maze

Kristine's brother Charles was my carving partner (he was VERY upset that I made the nose off center)

Our 5 pumpkins

My pumpkin!

Kenny, Gary, and Chelsea carving away

Mmmmm, roasted corn

All our pumpkins all lit up!

I'm Feelin Like a Star... You Can't Stop My Shine...

So my friends, before I get into the start of my second weekend in a row without Chad (and the house shopping I've been doing), I need to tell you that I won my first blog award!!

My BFFL Kristine at Living a Barefoot and Crazy Lifestyle awarded me the Liebster Award. Madness, right?!

The Liebster Blog Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. Liebster is a German word meaning dear, sweet, kind, nice, good, beloved, lovely, kindly, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome.

(Or so I was informed of when I found out that I got this award). It makes me feel very nice that Kristine thinks that those are words that describe me and my blog (especially since she knows me in real life and knows how I REALLY am).

Now, once you are awarded this award, you apparently have to pass it along to 5 people whose blogs deserve the same recognition.

Now, I'm fairly new to blogging, and it has taken me a while to find a great list of blogs that I can't get enough of. Especially ones that fit the qualifications to receive the Liebster blog award (you have to have less than 200 followers...)
Without further adeiu (in no particular order), these are the ladies that I am presenting the Liebster Award to!

1. Sasha at Destination... Me
2. Nicole at Sizzlin Savages
3. Nikki at Me 2 We, est 2011
4. Jill at Jill's World
5. Stephanie at Doyle's Days

Now, go out there and pass the award on to the up and coming blogs that you thing are worthy!

This May Be My First Blog Post This Week...

It's Okay... to go look at potential houses to buy without Chad, since his number 1 priority is currently hunting

It's Okay... to be scared to really have surgery on my foot after having my surgical consultation today

It's Okay... to not really plan on having kids anytime soon, but to know that your future son/daughter is going to be a boy/girl scout

It's Okay... to get upset when your boss wants to give one of your favorite daily tasks to someone who doesn't have as much to do everyday (even though the aforementioned task is just folding and mailing monthly loan statements... that's MY job).

It's Okay... to be obsessed with McDonald's Monopoly and want to go there just to buy things with game pieces so I can potentially win a million dollars. And to give any prizes you don't want/need to other people (such as any free food instant winners, My Coke Rewards, and free Redbox rentals)

It's Okay... to be very fond of your old, super mean dog. And to be sad that he is showing signs of aging.

It's Okay... to indulge daily in a tall caramel eggnog latte (cut with non fat milk) because it tastes like heaven in my freaking mouth.

Oddly Excited... for a Monday.

I have to start this post by expressing some EXTREME excitement that was just fueled by seeing a preview for the new season of Pitbulls and Parolees! I haven't heard anything at all, so I was a little worried that they might not have another season. Eeek! Love that show.

Anyways, I started this post to give you some updates on the second half of my weekend without Chad (or as I like to call it, the weekend of no sharing). After shopping with my mom on Saturday, I spent another evening just relaxing. I watched the first episode of Pan Am to see how I liked it. I must say, I didn't like it as much as other people have, but I do think it has some underlying stories that I would like to see more about. After that, I decided to watch another movie that has been collecting dust without being opened... I chose Country Strong.

I enjoyed it a lot. It was a lot darker than I was expecting. I was also a little shocked at the ending... I definitely wasn't expecting that. (For those of you who haven't seen it, I won't ruin it). When I told Chad that I chose to watch Bridesmaids and Country Strong this weekend, I was a little surprised to hear him say that he would rather watch Bridesmaids. Strange... oh well.

Sunday consisted of me going shopping and picking up a couple more things for my sister's birthday, as well as some little treats for myself, such as a new curling iron and a new nail polish shade.

(Essie Wrapped In Rubies)

That evening was Teatro Zinzanni!! Most of you may not know what that is, but the best way to sum it up is the best 5 course dinner theater EVER. It has comedy, music, dancing, and cirque. I can't say enough about how much fun it is. I went with my sister, her fiance, my mom, and our neighbor Sue. It was in celebration of my mom's birthday (we won't get into the fact that her birthday was in JUNE), and she had never been, but I think she had a blast.

(My sister, mom, and I. It's blurry because I scanned it from the framed picture...)

That pretty much ended my weekend. When we got home, Chad had just gotten back from the hunting trip. No deer for any of the boys... poor little fellas. We chatted for a bit about our weekends, and then went to bed. It was nice to have some time to myself this weekend, but I definitely missed him, and I'm glad he's back!

This is a really long post for me, but one more thing I woul like to tell you all about is that tomorrow is day 1 of the Biggest Loser challenge that Sasha over at Destination... Me is hosting. 12 weeks of weigh ins will determine who loses the biggest percentage of weight, and will therefore walk away with the grand prize of all our "buy in" money. So far I think that's about $120, which wouldn't hurt considering it will be awarded right after the holidays. It's also a great motivator to be good during all those food holidays and try to keep the weight coming off. Wish me luck!!!

2PreppyGirls Giveaway!

Hey ladies!!

So, one of my favorite blogs, Turtles and Pearls, is having a giveaway of some great monogram decals from 2PreppyGirls. If I were you, I would go check out the website, and then hop on over to Turtles and Pearls and see about entering (even though I don't want anybody else to enter because I want to win because I think one of those decals would look pretty dang good on my car).

Some of my favorite things are the cute clipboards, and the luggage tags... SO STINKIN CUTE!!

Tonight, I am hoping to have a weekend alone wrap-up from the last couple days of Chad not being home. Also, I have a big night planned out at Teatro Zinzanni here in Seattle!

Weekend of No Sharing: Day 1

Today is the first day of Chad being gone on his hunting trip (he left yesterday after work). So I am here to tell you a bit about what my first 24 hours of no Chad consisted of.

Last night, I just sat around and watching some TV before deciding to pop in a movie. The DVD of choice: Bridesmaids. Now, I'm gotten a few mixed reviews of this movie, some people weren't as amped about it as I had expected. So, when I started this movie last night, I wasn't really sure if I would be disappointed or no. I wasn't. I seriously laughed out loud A LOT. I also may have teared up a couple times. Don't judge.

After that, I went and laid in bed and read for a while. What book am I reading right now? Well, I'm glad you asked. It's called Everyone Worth Knowing. I borrowed it from my BFFL Kristine, and I am glad I did. I am really enjoying it so far. I will definitely post a full review once I finish it.

This morning, i got up an decided to watch some scary movie on Sci Fi (now known as SyFy). Then, I had an appointment to look at this house:

I know, it looks a little weird on the outside. That's because it is. My mom came with me, so we decided to stop at the outlet mall on the way home. I wanted to find a birthday present for my sister, but I accidentally bought a bunch of clothes too. Here are some of my finds:

Next was a stop at the new thrift store in the valley. They had some cute furniture and stuff, but nothing that I could afford to buy right then.

Which brings me home. Where I have once again turned the TV on and am settling in for New In Town on Lifetime.

Try not to be too jealous of my thrilling Saturday.