Sunday, November 30, 2008

December already?

OK, so not yet, but in a few hours it will be. This year has flown by, that's for sure.

Thanksgiving was great. Bonnie got in town about 8:10 on Wednesday night, then we headed to Lynchburg Thursday morning. We spent the afternoon playing basketball and watching movies, then had dinner at about 6. After dinner, we celebrated Anne's birthday with ice cream cake and gifts. On Friday, I woke up at 6 am, took a shower, then woke up Scott. We woke up Anne & Bonnie as well, and we all went out shopping.

Scott and I met the twins for breakfast about 9:30 at Panera, and we stayed and chatted for about 3 hours! It was great catching up with them. Poor girls had been up since 3:00 am.

We did a little more shopping at the mall (met up with Anne & Bonnie) then decided we'd had enough and went back to my parents house to relax. I took a nap while Scott worked on his computer. When I woke up, I headed over to Mandy's to do some scrapbooking. Then the whole family went to dinner at Watercrest that night. On Saturday, we had breakfast and Scott and I went out with Rory to do a little shopping. We relaxed some more in the afternoon, watched Superman, and had a bite to eat before making our way back to Richmond around 6:30. We made it back in time to go to the mall for a little while, then came back to the house and I fell asleep on the couch.

Today, we went to breakfast at the Silver Diner, then took Bonnie to the train station. I did some shopping this afternoon and have been relaxing all evening. I need to relax as much as possible, becuase December is going to be very stressful at work. UGH. I have 3 weeks to bring in $25M in revenue. Yuck.

I convinced Anne & Scotty to sign up for Ebates this past weekend, and they are both hooked already. Woohoo!

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Yay Thanksgiving!

I'm quite excited to have a long weekend for Thanksgiving. I'm hoping they let us go early tomorrow - I know everyone is expecting it. I could really use the time off so I can make cherry pie (completely from scratch, mind you) tomorrow night for Thanksgiving. I'm also going to make some cranberry orange bread. I have so many things to do before tomorrow night!

We still haven't put ornaments on the tree - not a big deal, I love it with just the lights. We were going to do it last night, but Scott wasn't feeling well and he needed to do some work from home. We might have to wait until the weekend if we don't get it done tonight.

We started the Nielson Ratings booklets last Thursday and we go through tomorrow night. It's really fun, but it can get annoying having to write down every single thing you watch on tv. You even have to write down if the tv is on, and nobody's watching it!

Well, so much to do in the next couple days. Hopefully I can get it all done. Leaving work an hour earlier this week will certainly help.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Christmas Decorations

So I'm putting up my Christmas decorations this weekend. I just can't wait another week! I usually wait until after Thanksgiving, but I'm too impatient. I want them up NOW.

Going shopping this afternoon for some gifts. I love this time of year, because I get to shop without feeling guilty - on the contrary, I feel GOOD about it. :)

Who has gmail? I love gmail, and for some reason I like it when the person I am emailing also has gmail. Maybe because if we get online at the same time, we can chat instead of emailing. Anyway, if you have gmail, let me know. (If I don't already know, of course).

Have a great weekend everybody!

Friday, November 14, 2008

Ebates - this is NOT Spam people.

With it being the holiday season again, I have to remind you all about Ebates. I know you probably think I'm trying to promote something so that I get rewarded for it (and you're right, if you sign up using the link above, then I get $5), but I also hate to see anyone making an online purchase without using Ebates, because you are missing out on CASH BACK. There is no trick - no catch - it doesn't cost you a single penny (except what you were going to spend anyway), and as a matter of fact you get money BACK so it SAVES you money. Think of it as an online coupon.

For example, every time you order pictures from Snapfish, Ebates will give you 10% cash back - all you have to do is go to Ebates.com and click on their link for Snapfish. That's it! Let me tell you that 10% back on photo prints adds up very quickly. Every three months, you will receive a check in the mail for the sum of all your cash back. So far, I've earned nearly $100 in cash back from Ebates. Don't make another online purchase without signing up for Ebates first - when you finally understand how it works, you will be kicking yourself for not listening to me sooner! Ebates has agreements with over 900 online stores to give you cash back, including American Eagle, Snapfish, J.Crew, Sears, Gap, etc. You could order something from Sears online, get the cash back, then go pick it up in the store. Instant savings! I know everyone will be doing online shopping this holiday season, so take advantage of this and sign up for it. I promise you won't regret it.
I gotta work on blogging more often. I'm sure people get frustrated when they come to read my blog and there's nothing new to read. I would get annoyed with such a thing.

We're heading to NJ tonight to visit Scott's family. We are hoping to leave by 5 or 6 and get to Salem by 10 or so. That will only happen if we hit zero traffic, so we'll see. We're staying with Rob & Jeanine tonight, meeting Rodger & Sam for breakfast in the morning, then heading to his mom's after breakfast. Not sure what the plan is once we get to her house, but I think we'll be going out to dinner and visiting his cousins.

I've started reading The Purpose Driven Life by Rich Warren. My dad gave it to me back in the spring, and I never got around to reading it until now. So far it is good, and I've heard great things about the book.

I'm trying to work out my Christmas vacation. I will have to work on the 30th, probably, but I might be able to take off the rest of the 2 weeks surrounding the holidays. I'm excited, because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to take off at all. We need to figure out when we'll be going to NJ and all the logistics. Every year, we've had to travel on Christmas Day, and I hope we don't have to do that this year. We'll see.

Monday, November 3, 2008

My Hubby is the BEST.

I have the best husband in the world. He spent his entire Sunday installing remote-start on my car, so that I would have it for the winter. It was my birthday gift from him. I used it this morning, and its awesome! It works from 800 feet away. My car was nice and warm when I got in it this morning. I'm so excited to have this feature for the winter time. Maybe winter won't be so bad this year!

I spent most of the day yesterday doing laundry - I think I must've done at least 6 loads. I was a little behind from being gone the past few weekends. My goal this week is to organize my craft room, because its out of hand. It's so hard to keep it organized.

I started my Christmas shopping this weekend (which also includes birthday shopping for several family members). I was really excited when I went to withdraw my Christmas Club money from the bank - I had saved a lot more than I thought! That thing is the best - on November 1st every year, I just go to the bank and all my Christmas shopping money is there waiting for me. Rory and I went to Williamsburg on Saturday (before the Palin rally) and did some shopping. We both got ourselves new coats from the Columbia store, and I absolutely LOVE mine. It's lightweight, fitted, and very warm. No more bulky winter jacket. I also got a sweater from J.Crew for Scott. OH, and I was so excited that they've opened a Coach outlet! I have never in my life seen so many people in a Coach store before, and I wanted to badly to buy myself a purse. But I'm hoping that maybe Santa will bring me one, or that I can get one after Christmas with some spending money.

Overall it was a great weekend. I'm thinking we might have some guests this weekend for the Oyster Festival. Should be fun! I hope the weather isn't too cold - I haven't checked the forecast yet.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

My First Political Event


Rory and I went to Deep Run Highschool last night to see Sarah Palin at the "Rally for Victory", her last appearance in Virginia. The highschool is about 2 miles from our house, so I couldn't justify missing it. We got there about 6:30 or so - we didn't realize that it was going to be an outdoor event (fortunately I took my coat), nor did we know we would have to stand (I was wearing heel boots). We got a good location in the crowd, pretty close to the stage.

They had music playing while we were waiting. It seemed like forever before anyone came on stage to talk - it was maybe after 8:00 before the music finally stopped and the first speaker came on. We saw a ton of Virginia polititicans (republican ones, of course). I know Jim Kilgore was there, but I can't remember all the rest. A lot of them were former politicians. We expected, after all these people came on stage to talk, that Sarah Palin would be right behind them. There must have been 5 or 6 people that made speeches, and after they were done, instead of announcing Sarah Palin, the music came back on! It was maybe 8:30 at this point, and we'd been there for 2 hours. We thought, OK well I guess its going to be another 15 minutes or so. I joked with Rory that her flight probably hadn't landed yet. At around 9:00 pm, they announced that Sarah was "on her way". So I joked with Rory again that her flight had probably just landed. By 9:45, I realized that I shouldn't joke, because it was obviously true! She finally showed up sometime after 10:00 pm. Here are a couple of the best pics of her.


We also took some video. The first one is Sarah recognizing the veterens in the crowd.





The second video is Sarah talking about Energy, and keeping Virginia Red.


Saturday, November 1, 2008

Halloween!

So Rory came up last night to help us hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. I swear we must have had twice as many this year than last year. The kids are so hilarious. One boy walked up dressed in khakis, a shirt, and a suit jacket, and carrying a "man-bag". I asked him what he was, and he said "I'm Frank Lloyd Wright!" I'm thinking, I dont even know who Frank Lloyd Wright is! Then, another boy came as Luke Skywalker. He was around 4 years old, and after I gave him candy, he came up on the porch to talk. He said "Before Luke Skywalker was a Jedi, he was a Young Paaaaaa-duh-waaaaan." You have to imagine how cute this was coming out of a 4-year-old's mouth. His dad said, "It's scary how much he knows about Star Wars already."Then we had one girl come with a black wig on and a Hello Kitty outfit, and I asked her what she was..."I'm a girl" she says. After she walked back down the steps, her dad said "If you didn't know he was a boy, you wouldn't be able to tell he was dressed up". Not long after that, a girl came with short blonde hair, earrings, lots of makeup, uggs, etc, and I said "You must be a Hollywood Star". After responding, "I guess so", I realized it was another boy dressed as a girl! Both of those boys are going to kill their parents when they get older, because you know they took pictures.