Glorious Chaos!

There might have been a day where I would have viewed the title of this post as an absolute oxymoron. However, today I am seriously loving how chaotic things are. Running in 100 different directions and trying to squeeze an 8-hr work day in on Christmas Eve. Having received less than 4 hours of sleep and running on empty. A 1-bedroom apartment with 6 people, 4 of them teenagers! Yet I can't stop singing Christmas carols. The morning began when I arrived at work and realized my phone wasn't where it was supposed to be. I tried calling the number and didn't hear anything so called my husband and left a message to look for my phone. Then I decided I would run out to the car to see if it might have fallen out of my purse. As I went to grab my keys, I discovered I had two sets of keys, mine and my husbands. There go the lunch plans! Now instead of running my last minute errands, I would be running home to pick up a phone and drop off the keys. I still managed to get it all done and was able to stop and get the stocking stuffers too! On a day that would normally find me cussing at all the other drivers on the road, shoppers in the stores and anyone else bold enough to get in my way, I found myself singing Christmas carols and unable to wipe the smile off my face! I am so filled with joy and happiness, even on 3 hours of sleep! Joy in looking at our beautiful Christmas tree and the pretty packages wrapped up below, joy in the 8 stocking stretched end to end on our two bookshelves, joy in the myriad of other decorations strewn throughout the apartment and joy in the faces and voices of all of my step-children, all filled with that special Christmas excitement! I feel more blessed than I deserve to be. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Guilty Pleasures

This is such an odd year for me...I'm going Christmas crazy already and it's not even Thanksgiving. I'm usually the one cussing out all the people who have their shopping done already. No, I don't have my shopping done, but I sure have been in the mood! My husband and I are doing the 'deep clean' this weekend and decorating for Christmas. I am so excited about it too! We discussed it last weekend just to see if we were both crazy or what, but we agreed that we both want to be fully decorated before Thanksgiving this year. Yesterday my husband mentioned to me that he has a new guilty, sinful pleasure. He has fallen ridiculously in love with the new Hazelnut Hot Chocolate at Starbucks. He spends a lot of time there studying since he started the School of Ministry in the fall and also meets others there for various reasons. It got me to thinking about some of my own guilty pleasures though and since I have been so seasonally minded lately, I came up with the big one right away! I have a nasty penchant for purchasing all of the holiday magazines. I think I have four at home right now waiting to be read. The bright, colorful and snazzy covers just suck me in...and they do also have a lot of great ideas and wonderful recipes within their pages! I am bound and determined to do some homemade gifts this year so hopefully I will come up with some great ideas there as well. I think the reason I am super excited for the holidays this year is that we will have three of my step-children for both Thanksgiving and Christmas! I feel so very blessed...it's fun being a newlywed!

The Derminator!

Ok, so I had an appointment with a dermatologist this morning to get another treatment of liquid nitrogen on a plantar's wart on my little toe that has, embarrassingly, been there for close to 10 years. I got more than I bargained for on my trip. For starters, 'Doc', as I will unaffectionately refer to him from here on out, was a little overly anxious to point out all of my other flaws, right after he asked me what I was 'in for'. I barely got out the nature of my visit before he was talking about the rosacea on my cheeks and checking me for abnormal moles, including looking down my shirt both front and back! Then, when I showed him my foot with the plantar's wart, he noticed my dry, scaly, nasty, calloused feet and had to comment about them as well. Hello! Is it any wonder I have never had a pedicure...I have a heart here and would NEVER subject anyone to that. Doc kind of creeped me out and then I had to wait forever for him to get back with the liquid nitrogen to zap my toe. He covered far too much area and my toe was sore for a week! He wants to see me in a couple weeks to see how things look. I think we'll just skip that whole visit. If I have any more trouble with it, I'll be seeing my regular physician whom I love and trust dearly!

It's Just a Fantasy

My husband (the king of fantasy sports) has gotten me to join my first fantasy football league this fall.  If the level of excitement generated in the draft will come anywhere close to the excitement I will feel when the season gets underway on Thursday...we could be in trouble!  Wow, was that fun!  I can see how people can get so easily addicted to this stuff.  It's also a way to understand the sport a bit more, although I am quite football savvy, and get to know the players, etc...so I am very much looking forward to the upcoming season.  Of course you don't win a darned thing except the glory of having your name in lights if you happen to win your league.  I'm not sure how well I will do in my inaugural season but according to my husband, who basically chose my team for me, my team is stacked so it should be interesting!  Are you ready for some football?!

Fair Fun!

So...we survived our day at the fair despite its' highly grease-filled start!  We went straight from the 'Miracle of Birth' building to the 'Australian Battered Potatoes' booth.  Tasty but I could almost feel the pounds adding up as I ate them.  Thankfully, my husband and I split an order, which was still more than we needed, so we only induced half of the calories!  The rest of the day, food-wise, went very well for me.  We got some more of our favorite cinnamon-flavored nuts, we shared almonds and pecans...yummy!  Then, I had an apple, a raspberry malt and a bratwurst with sauerkraut and mustard for dinner.  That was it for food...I had a couple sodas but mostly drank water throughout the day.  Overall, I was happy with the amount of willpower I was able to summon up for the day.  I really wanted cheese curds but kept thinking about all the grease in those fried potatoes and it was enough to keep me away.  Since I had the pronto pup earlier this year at the county fair, I was able to pass on that.  The one thing I didn't get that I am regretting was the mini donuts, but I also had some of those earlier this year at the racetrack, so no great loss.  I suppose I'll have to get serious about the weight loss efforts now since the fair is over!  The rest of the day went very well at the fair and we thoroughly enjoyed the concert...even sat right in front of someone I went to high school with and haven't seen for over 20 years...so that was fun!  Next stop...the Renaissance Fair in a couple weeks!  Wine and turkey legs...here I come!

State Fair Time!

The Minnesota State Fair is here.  It started one week ago today and will end on Labor Day, 12 days of fun and frolic in total.  I will admit I haven't gone to the fair every year but have certainly been there my share of days.  I actually think it should be called the Minnesota Food Fair, but that's just my opinion.  In all honesty though, it would make for an interesting survey if you were to ask say, 100 people at the fair what brought them there...I think at least 3/4 of them would say the food.  That's what the focus seems to be each year in the media, the new 'foods on a stick' and all of the local news celebrities deciding what to eat next.  Sure, they do other things as well...mostly stupid but again, just my opinion.  So, as my husband and I prepare for our day at the fair, and a grandstand concert this evening that we have been anticipating for over two months now, I must admit that I would fall in with the majority in that survey...I almost obsess about the food I want to eat at the fair.  Not that it's such a great amount of food...it's just that I have my favorites.  I always have to do the corn dog with mustard (yes, usually the foot long because the others are just tiny)...cheese curds and one other thing, which I am typically flexible on, whatever looks good.  I've been found to munch on cheese curds, french fries, funnel cakes, etc...so there's no shortage of wonderful, tasty, grease filled and artery-clogging food at the fair.  My husband and I actually went last year and did very well.  I did have my corn dog and we shared some flavored almonds.  The only other thing we did was a wine-tasting which led to us purchasing a glass and sharing a small meat/cheese tray. Overall, it was a very successful fair outing for me last year.  I could add that at the time we went we had only been dating for two short weeks so perhaps there was the element of trying to impress him with my amazing will power, but I think I was just so ridiculously happy to be there with him that he was my focus and not the sights and smells of the fair.  So, I have been praying the last few days (in between salivating over what I want to eat) that God would keep my focus on just enjoying the day at the fair with my husband, relishing the fact that I am not at work and keeping me strong in Him.  I'll let you know how I 'fare' at the fair on a later date!

Creature Comforts

I'm sick.  I have some kind of cold/sinus infection that my husband passed along.  He's feeling somewhat better, I'm just getting started.  I always marvel at what happens to people (well, me anyway...I'm working under the assumption it happens to others as well) when they are under the weather.  I will admit I am not the world's 'sick champion'...I can tend to be a bit whiny and maybe even needy at times.  It depends on the illness...if it's a migraine, turn out the light, shut the door and leave me alone, but this isn't a migraine.  This is that sinus crap that makes you feel icky but not icky enough to justify staying home from work.  I digress.  Back to what I marvel at. This evening I was feeling good and crappy and just couldn't decide what I needed, tummy was feeling yucky but also hungry so, when I finally whined my husband out of the house, I decided to head to the store to find something to eat since nothing in the house looked good (yes, we did just go grocery shopping).  After perusing the aisles, I ended up with the always faithful chicken noodle soup and spaghettios.  Now, I don't honestly think the spaghettios that I just heated up in the microwave are going to go a long way to helping me feel better but they just looked right at the time.  Which caused me to marvel on the way home about how when I am sick I tend to veer toward what I ate growing up, things that remind me of home and my mother's tender touch.  My fingers are crossed...spaghettios here I come!