What Would Jen Do

Archive for December, 2008

How was your Christmas? Mine was pretty good.  I can’t believe today is my LAST DAY OFF, guess I better make it count.

This morning I woke up and my wedding ring wasn’t on my finger.  I couldn’t remember taking it off. when this happens I see dollar signs and the inability to replace it since it’s an original.   I ran back upstairs to check all the places I put it when I’m not wearing it, it wasn’t in any of them.  I ran back downstairs, checked those places and nothing.  I then ran BACK upstairs and threw the covers off the bed and there it was, it must’ve fallen off in my sleep. thank god.

We started off the long long holiday weekend with a family birthday shindig.  I made cupcakes and we had other assorted various foods.

displayed in my fancy new cake stand my MIL gave me.

Icey And I celebrated our Christmas together earlier that day.  He gave me this purse (and I just have to say there was one left in the entire country and it’s mine)

the camera I took this picture with and a zombie movie and book.  He also got some Xbox gold membership or something that allows us to watch our Netflix watch instantly queue through our TV instead of on my laptop.  I started off by watching a zombie movie (of course), which was a lot better on our big tv than it would have been on my laptop screen.  I do love the shuffling zombie that you can walk past and have no need to outrun, but since they’ve taken up running and sprinting it’s a whole new ballgame and sometimes I actually forget to breathe when watching them.

anyway, my mother stayed the night that night and it wasn’t as bad as i was imagining.  I’ve never had my mom spend the night at my house as a guest before.   I think the dogs forgot that she was here and when they heard someone walking around upstairs the next morning, they sprinted up there to see what was going on.

The rest of the weekend has been spent cleaning, shopping, laying around, etc.   I’m too tired and lazy to put away all the christmas decorations, so I guess those get to hang around for another week.   Today if we are feeling adventurous we’ll go test out the new lightrail system they opened up yesterday, if all goes well Icey will be taking that to work since the station is a couple of miles from home and it would drop him off practically at his work.

This week for new years my work has graciously given us THURSDAY off and decided we needed to come to work on Friday.   I did not want to waste a vacation day so early in the year, so I’ll be working that day.  We’re not going out for NYE, as per usual, and if I can stay up long enough, which I doubt, we have a bottle of champagne to drink.

Happy Birthday to my Husband.

I took the day off work to annoy him spend his birthday with him.

Someone decided to join me on the couch this morning, and yes I get up so early it’s dark, even on a day off.  It’s hard to take pictures of mojo when it’s dark out, she’s got crazy eyes.

she left shortly after I took these.  Both dogs usually get annoyed with me and leave while I’m taking pictures of them.    Sometimes they just hide their face

Last nights dinner was fabulous.   We sat in a little back room that was probably someones bedroom 50 years ago.  There was one other couple in there who left a few minutes after we got there and we had the room to ourselves for a while.  Then a group of 4 came in and were very interested in what we were having and we were more than happy to tell them how great everything was.

We started with a 3 onion tarte that tasted like breakfast and heaven, and a plate of smoked salmon.   I think they must make it there because it was srsly the freshest and best smoked salmon I have EVER had. They were out of the filet mignon taco appetizer which is what we were planning on getting, but we obviously weren’t sad about missing out on that in the end.

The main course was Chicken stuffed with mushrooms, asparagus and Gruyere.  Icey had pork tenderloin in a pear and brandy cream sauce. We both had yukon mashed potatoes, mine came with asparagus and Iceys with hazelnut buttered green beans.   and desert was a lemon sabayon tarte that tasted like a lemon meringue pie if the meringue top was actually mixed into the pie.

The server was fantastic, she noted I was drinking champagne and said she liked to drink hers with dried cranberries in the glass and then brought me a tiny bowl of them!

I LOVE going out to dinner with my husband, it’s not something we do as often as we used to.  But when we do it’s always fun and we have tons of things to talk about.

We’re having thai food take out for dinner tonight and the dogs do understand the word thai.  after suggesting it out loud to Icey, they went apeshit and ran barking for the door. Thai food is a big fun family excursion in this house.  It’s a mile away but it’s the best thing ever to those dogs.  So I had to distract them with a doggy taquito.   The lady who took our order on the phone knew who Icey was based on his order alone.   If anything, we are predictable.

after dinner it’s beer and bath time.

You Are Flannel Pajamas

You seek comfort above everything else. You rather feel good than look good. You are a very relaxed person, especially when you’re surrounded by your favorite things and people. You are a homebody. Home is the place where you can truly be yourself. You are likely to wear pajamas a lot. In fact, you often change into your pj’s the minute you get home!

I just found the Chiller Channel on cable.  I’m not sure how long we’ve had it, but I’m dying a little happy scary death.

The garden has taken off in the past month.   Actually it’s not even been one month since I last took pictures.

this is 11/28.

and this is today 12/20.   We thought were weren’t going to get any spinach and they suddenly started sprouting.   They are in the 2nd bay from the bottom.

The last two are still empty, what we planted in the didn’t take off and we’ll have to replant something else.

this is the dress I wore that made me look pregnant, it’s a spaghetti strap and I suspect it was the wrap that threw her off.  Picture it looking much better on me.

We don’t have a tiny live tree this year, but we do have a christmas ‘nook’ in the living room.  that little tree there next to the fireplace cost me $3 at michaels, I heart that store, and the lone ornament on it says 2008, now that we’re married I’m going to get one every year, with the year on it.  I found a really great one at Things Remembered, it was a silver christmas ball that says 2008 and you can have it engraved.   I was so punny and was going to get Our First Very Married Christmas, but all said and done, with our names and everything it was $35.  I’m going to see if it goes down in price after Christmas.   I’m so cheap, I should just go order it now…… actually i think i will.

I also had the first fire of the year a couple of weeks ago.

We’re going to Coup Des Tartes tonight, we’re both VERY excited!   It’s a BYOB and tonight we’re having a little champagne.

Work from home is in my grasp. I’m all trained, everything works, all I need is for my manager to give the go ahead.  but will he?   not yet.  

I need to be getting ready to start my day, not sitting here drinking coffee and writing this.  I have so much to do today!  Normally Saturday is my errands day, but since we got home late on Friday night, I slept in and decided to take care of business on Sunday.

Icey’s Christmas party was very nice, but not nearly as much fun as last year.  This year there was nothing to occupy your time.  Last year it was a casino themed party.  We skipped out after about 3 hours.  The food was good, the drinks were free and Icey won a raffle prize again, this time it was 6 tickets to the movies.    And as soon as some good movies come out, we’ll be there.

I wore my pretty pretty dress after having to decide between 4 of them.   I don’t have any pictures, but trust me I was a stunner!   You know how when you wear empire waist shirts or dresses you are always thinking people will think you are pregnant but then you finally get over that fear and start wearing those types of things and then no one says anything so you feel pretty good and then people compliment you on how nice you look.   and then some random chick takes a look at you and goes, OMG you are pregnant, but you just got married…………………………   she’s on my list.    And then you go to your neighbor friends party still wearing that dress and all those drunk people you know who usually blurt out the truth when they drink just tell you that you look really pretty and make no mention of the non baby in your belly.  I’m not a skinny minnie pin thin girl, I’m what you may call ‘cornfed’ or perhaps average, but by no means does my stomach look PREGNANT.

This weekend I’m taking my husband out for his birthday and I’m wearing another one of my pretty pretty dresses that do not make me look pregnant.   Macys is my new favorite store for buying nice clothes, they have great sales, I got one of the dresses for $15, and it was originally like $70!   = WIN.  sometimes they have free shipping, and if you buy online, which I did buy some of those dresses on line, you can return things hassle free thru the mail or their stores.   So people, start getting married and throwing fancy parties because I finally have some nice clothes and we never go anywhere.

I had one meeting last week about work from home, I have a training class tomorrow and then a phone line will be installed into my house pretty soon.  After that, this girl is working from home 2x a week and can’t wait.    I think that if all goes according to plan, I should be working from home before year end.

Dennis turned 30 and found that the ladies love a mature man

we posed in the kitchen

Rich and Rylee came to town for Thanksgiving

We have a lot of friends

look, we found more of our friends

when no one is looking, he loves me.

I baked coconut choco chip cookies, hands down my favorite

I had today off and went to the dr. because I cannot breathe and it was getting ridiculous.   going up half a flight of stairs winded me.   I would wheeze half my day away.  I’m trying some medicine and hopefully I can start taking the stairs at work.  The good news is, I don’t appear to have the type of asthma that lands you in the hospital or causes asthma attacks.   it runs in my family and I denied that I had a problem until I realized I spent the last  3 months wheezing.  I’ve never been an excellent breather what with bouts of bronchitis as a kid and smoking for 12 years.

I also went shopping for a pretty pretty party dress and bought three.  One is going back to the store and I’m keeping the other two, they were husband approved.   I’m real excited about one of them because I get to wear my wedding shoes again!  They are a little fancier than your typical little black dress, so I’m still on the lookout for one of those.

I’m taking my husband out for a fancy french dinner for his b-day, maybe I’ll wear the other pretty pretty party dress out that night…….

someone knows how to make themselves comfy

this morning he was watching the news with me.   speaking of this morning, it was 63 degrees in our house about an hour ago.   We broke out the down comforter and are apparently going to have to turn on the heater.   I bought logs for the fireplace so if this keeps up, a fire is finally in my future.

I am NOT ready for christmas, I’m not really in the spirit this year, at least not yet.  I haven’t really bought any christmas presents yet either.   I can’t even send out christmas cards because I keep forgetting to buy stamps.

We have a christmas party for Icey’s work this weekend, that’ll be our first holiday-ish type thing.    Tomorrow I’m off work and will be on the hunt for a party dress.

the work from home project seems to be cruising right along (finally).  I’ve been getting emails updating me on the progress the IT dep’t is making.  It seems as if my laptop is being built and i’ve been given remote access.   I really think that in the next couple of weeks, this is going to finally happen.   I just need to buy a desk!

pictures of the new appliances.

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before                                                                       after

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Either I’m really tired or this is truly funny. I’ve been going thru this website about Photoshop disasters and when I got to this one (click that it’s a link) I nearly peed my pants

and then this poor half child, tough it out kid.