My Birthday Weekend

FYI: This is a really long post! So sit tight :)

Sick. I was sick all weekend!

It all began on .... last week. lol. I was coughing and headachy about Wednesday/Thursday - but then on Friday. Friday the day I look forward to all week! I didn't even make it to work. I had to call, well text, in sick! And it was payday! Needless to say I bet my uncle understood that I really must've been quite ill to miss work on payday! So I didn't really worry about feeling guilty that he maybe wouldn't believe that I was truly sick.

Anyway it is really all a head cold. Cough/congestion and snot! Gross right?

It's all still happening right now. But for now, I think the storm has passed. I'm in recovery and looking forward to being completely healed so that I can start working out! I'm seriously lagging on that. And the wedding is less than 3 months away!!!

Ok well this weekend ... I stayed home all day on Friday - sick. I lived on soup and crackers for about 4 days. lol. Thankfully, that's all done with. Especially since the serving size for Ritz crackers is only 5 crackers! And remember: "I lived on soup and crackers for about 4 days"!! Oh the calories :( We stayed in, my dad brought me some caldo de marisco from Casa de Marisco in Weslaco - delicious! And then we all attemted to watch the Bourne Ultimatum. Audrey and I were the only ones that were successful. My dad fell asleep sometime in the first 30 minutes, I'm pretty sure.

Saturday [Birthday Eve]
Woke up and took my time in the morning. Then we got ready and I tagged along with my little sister as she went to spend her mula! lol. She actually bought a laptop! A really pretty one too. Actually I'm using it to type this blog right now. Right this second. Really! And then we ventured off to Old Navy for a bit of shopping. She was successful. I on the other hand could not find anything. Anything on sale anyway. I've become quite the frugal shopper lately. You know since I've got this big 'ol wedding thing coming up. She bought a couple of shirts there and then she took me to lunch at Which-Wich! It was our first time there too. I had the Shrimp Po-Boy and it was delicious!

Then we ventured off to the mall at a second attempt for shopping. And guess what??! NOTHING! We found nothing! Nothing at all! Unbelievable right?! Well I'm not lying, we could've easily bought something, but we would've regretted it the second we paid for it. So we didn't buy anything. Just a coffee. The whole point of going to the mall was to meet up with my Danny because he wanted to buy me a birthday present. And he actually didn't believe me when I said I didn't find anything I wanted! But I was determined to find something I liked enough so that if he were to buy it, I wouldn't feel guilty. So off to scent chips! Oh the things I could be happy with here! I could find something and actually have it have it's own purpose. They have these burner things that have different themes, one in particular:

I could put this in my future kitchen, with all my fat chef stuff :)

And then we saw this one:

Which could also go in my future kitchen, with the scent of guess?? COFFEE! lol.

Well then they also have a whole section of Jim Shore items! All of which I've been turned to thanks to my older sister Christina. Yes it all started with you Tina! And since I've already got my collection going ... guess what I got?! lol.

The Hey Diddle Diddle one is from my Danny and the Little Red Riding Hood one is from Audrey. I've got the Nursrey Ryhme collection going too. With:

Bonnie thrown in.

Anyway the day ended with a trip to Vitamin World and a early birthday dinner with my mom at Chili's complete with a birthday serenade and a molten chocolate cake a'la mode. It was ok.

Sunday [The Day of]
Still sick. It began with a trip to the flea market where I was on the hunt, and very determined I might add, to find some pie plates. Glass pie plates. It seems that a few of mine have disappeared! Ok I know where they are, but I haven't gotten them back yet. And since I had seen a couple of pie plates at the flea market a few weeks back, I was set on buying them there rather than buying identical glass pie plates at say Wal-Mart for what, $8 a piece?! No thank you. I bought 5. Yep, 5 pie plates. And I've been warned, no more pie plates. I got a double serving of that from Audrey, and then Danny later. :) It's ok, I have 6 now. Well 9 if you include the original missing ones!

Then the day commenced with cleaning, dinner prep and darts. The family was here, complete with my mom. My danny, Merced, and my cousin Robert came too! It was pretty fun. Unfortunately, I was still sick and had a cough attack every so often, but I lived.

Merced actually came with a present! I joked and said he must bring a present to come, but he seriously did! He got me a very personalized card which was really sparkly :) and also a Journey CD!

I do not own one. I mean I have their greatest hits cd on my iPod, but it's not quite the same as owning the cd itself. And now I have one! Thanks Merced! That version of "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" is my new favorite!
My birthday was ok. It was nice and small. Quaint. Overall, good.

So sorry about the long post, again! But it happens, especially when you don't blog for several days. I am going to try and blog every other day or so. Promise!

Christmas Recap

So I was completely undecided if I wanted to publish a Christmas post or not. But I feel guilty – it is a perfectly good blog topic! Lol. So here it is:


Christmas Eve
The cousins and I were feeling a bit Grinch-y. Ok, ok – that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But nevertheless we were not feeling the Christmas spirit so much this year. Probably for different reasons, but I know the weather played a big factor. The days leading up to Christmas Eve/Christmas day were HOT! Ok , exaggerated there too, but they weren’t cold, and nothing near a white Christmas. Another factor, for me anyway, was the fact that we didn’t decorate at my house! Not one bit! Nothing. Not even a wreath on the front door.
So, me – being the genius that I am ;) – suggested we cousins bake and decorate sugar cookies! What’s more Christmasy than that?! [BTW that was a rhetorical question!] And so Christmas Eve morning we proceeded to bake a zillion cookies! Ha-ha – well it was quite a lot.

Can you see the cookies all stacked up in the center of the table?! Yeh, that's after we had already decorated those in the first picture!

And that was pretty much our Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day
The next morning, we did the usual – Church in the AM, and then tamales for breakfast/lunch followed by the presents, well this year we got a basket. With stuff. And snackage. The day ended with TV, Inglorious Basterds, and an interesting game of TABOO!!!


Day – after Christmas
One word: DISCOUNT! LOL. Although I probably could’ve saved a lot more if I waited even longer to buy things for next Christmas – but then there’s that chance that I wouldn’t find a darn thing. Unfortunately I didn’t find everything I was looking for. Some things that I had at the top of my list were stockings (3), a Christmas tree, a Christmas tree topper, stocking holders (3), and ornaments & wrapping paper. I did not find any good ornaments or the tree topper! I was really hoping that I would because during the regular season, pre-Christmas, I can easily spend $50 on several boxes of beautiful ornaments.

So Kohl’s was the first stop – mostly because we drove by Target just after 6 am and the doors were still locked and a few people were already lined up waiting it out. Brave people, it was a bit chilly that morning. Anyway, at Kohl’s I found the stocking holders and this candle thingy. I didn’t intentionally go for the tea light tree, but I saw it on the table as I was walking away and perhaps drawn to its shiny-ness.

 See how pretty it is and how I just had to have it? :)

After Kohl’s we drove by Target again, still not knowing what time they were gonna open. And guess what? They were still not open! So we headed for some coffee and breakfast at the Starbucks right there. Unfortunately they don’t serve breakfast there at that particular location so we had to settle for coffee. Still yummy! And then after that we drove back to the Target to see what was up. It was just after 6:30AM at that point. And guess what? It was still closed! But only this time there were several more people waiting and forming a line by the doors and way more cars out in the parking lot! So me, being the worry wart that I am, start freaking out close to 6:40AM and thinking that once we finally decide to get out and get our butts in line would be at the end of whatever line there was! And I successfully convinced Audrey to ditch the warmness of the car and get into the little line. Lol. Really by the time we got there, there weren’t more than 15 people in line. However, once we got out, it seems everyone and their mother’s also got out of their cars and got in line!

This was just after 6:50AM and close to the door opening! Lol.

And then we were in at 7AM!!! We walked really fast to the northeast corner of the store, and were astonished that they still had a crapload of really nice stockings in a whole aisle! And it didn’t even take us that long to find a couple of really pretty ones too! Danny and mine both have a snowflake pattern, but mine is way more feminine in white with a feathery type of top and gold/silver beading and Danny’s is red with a stitched on type of [material] in the snowflakes, and the top is a corduroy type of thing – material and pattern. I even bought one for Bella! It’s reversible in that if I have it on one side it says “Nice” and if I turn it over it says “Naughty”! So if she’s a good girl you know what it’ll say! And I also found a tree! Then once we successfully got through and out of Target we headed to Macy's since we had time to kill before Hobby Lobby opened - crazzies waited all the way till 9 AM to open!

I used my gift card and bought a new pair of shoes - and unfortunately I suck because I didn't get a picture of those! But they're brown with a suede fabric and quite comfortable.

Finally, we headed to Hobby Lobby and that's where I was hoping to find the most beautamous ornaments. But to my dismay I wasn't quite that lucky. I did get 5 rolls, I believe of 100 sq. ft. a roll wrapping paper and some bows!

That pretty sums up my shopping for that day. After that I was dead broke. I mean dead broke. lol. Oh well, money well spent - I don't even wanna think how much it'dve been if I waited till next year to buy it all.

Here's my loot in all it's glory:

Apologies for those pictures that didn't rotate properly!