Looking at this picture, it tells you many things:

a) I was at the gym at 5:51 am
b) It takes me 4 minutes to get there
c) I desperately need gas (shh! don’t tell Shaun!)
d) It was 33 FREAKIN’ degrees this morning!

For the Bay Area that is COLD! I know for those of you east of me that that is nothing but for us it’s COLD.  You also lose your ability to be in cold weather pretty quickly.  The winter I was in DC I went mountain biking when it was –20* with the wind chill.  It was cold enough that our water bottles froze SOLID while we were mountain biking (the water was being jostled constantly). I also remember remarking that it was quite warm one night and the thermometer said 25*. Besides all that, this morning I felt pretty dang cold!

All I want to do is curl up in bed and read:

But instead, I get to work.  An 8 am meeting at that 🙁

I love how you can see my tree in the reflection of the table 🙂

I have a pot luck later today and I’m going to need to control myself.  I think I’ll be able to do it.  Sadly, I made pumpkin bread for the pot luck and it’s NASTY.  So I have to throw ALL of this away:

I was trying to “healthy it up” and instead I “nastied it up”.  Sometimes that happens 🙁 I’m going to get some dark chocolate and fruit and then stop by the local Beard Papa (we JUST got one in San Mateo) for some cream puffs.  I may take in some pumpkin butter but I can’t figure out what to take with the pumpkin butter that is desserty.  We shall see.

Speaking of pumpkin butter-the giveaway is still going on! You have until noon tomorrow.  In all my excitement to get the giveaway up, I forgot to mention that it’s homemade by me! My own recipe that you can try at home!  All of your comments from the giveaway are making me HUNGRY.

Okay, off to work…

Yeah, that was the only time she cried yesterday.  Santa is evidently quite scary.  Does it make me a horrible Mom that I laugh every time I see this?  Probably.

Here she is seconds later, thinking “GET ME AWAY FROM HIM”:

And here she is minutes later:

She recovered.  Here’s her new favorite thing to do-kiss HERSELF:

I’m ignoring the germs.

In other news-I got up this morning and went to the gym.  I ran on the treadmill and it sucked.  I feel great now that I’ve done it but while doing it (with no headphones to watch tv) it was PAINFUL. I got through it though.  I’m now eating my oatmeal and Barney Butter and I packed a delicious lunch for the day.  Today is going to be a GREAT day!

Yesterday I made some more pumpkin butter!  To go along with theme of this post (HAPPY HOLDIDAYS!) I’m going to do a a pumpkin butter giveaway!

Pumpkin Butter Giveaway

Since the pumpkin butter is not technically shelf stable (even though I DID can it) I’m going to need to overnight the frozen pumpkin butter to you. You’ll need to be able to receive a package from UPS on Friday, December 11th (that’s this Friday) and I’ll only be able to do U.S. Residents 🙁

If you’d like to enter, in the comments, tell me what your favorite holiday food is.  I’ll use a random integer generator to decide on the winner.  The giveaway is open until 12 noon on Wednesday, December 9th. I’ll announce the winner after that and I’ll need your address in time for my UPS stop on Thursday!

Remember that huge task that I got done on Wednesday?  You know the one that I marked off with a sharpie?  Well come to find out my computer ate the freaking thing and I had to do it OVER again yesterday.  I worked until 10:30 last night.  It sucked.

Tonight, I sat down at 7 to do a quick post and my computer wouldn’t read my SD card.  Two hours later and I finally got it figured out.  I seriously want to chuck my computer out the window.

Oh well.

Here’s something that makes me smile:

This morning I was in the middle of doing laundry for her and she didn’t have any socks…except for a white one and a purple one.  She rocked it 1991 style.

Man! I totally should have put her purple shoe on her right foot!  I was the queen of rocking different colored shoes and socks back in the day.  Don’t worry, the laundry was done by the time we went out and she had matching socks 🙂

We had our family pictures today and I cannot wait to see how they turned out.  She showed us some on her camera and I am really excited.  She’ll have them done in 2 weeks.  That feels like such a long time!  How could they not be good? They’ll have Lu in them.

Food

I made a seriously good (and easy!) dinner tonight.  I put 2 frozen pork loins from Costco into the crock pot this morning with 1 cup of Bone Suckin’ Sauce and 1/2 cup water and cooked it on low for about 7 hours.  I shredded the pork at 7 hours and then mixed in some of Trader Joe’s BBQ sauce and let it sit for another 2 hours on warm.  I served it on whole wheat buns.  Shaun had macaroni salad from the grocery store, Lu had peas and carrots (she ate her ENTIRE bowl of meat and veggies-she LOVED it), and I made myself a slaw. 

It seems that everyone around me is eating some sort of slaw right now and it inspired me.  I chopped up some cabbage, a granny smith apple, a persimmon and then mixed that with apple cider vinegar, agave, and pepper. It was good but I think it’ll be better tomorrow after it sits.

Normally when I make shredded pork Shaun complains that it’s too dry (he really is complimentary of my cooking-I make him sound so harsh-he’s not!).  He really liked this and said it was delicious and juicy.  I can’t wait to eat it for lunch tomorrow!

Alrighty, see you on the other side!

I got up today at 5:30 (GO ME!) and went to spin class.  The teacher had the same jokes, the same people were in the class-wearing the same clothes, talking about the same thing.  It was eerie-it was like stepping back in time a few years.  Even though people don’t change (much!) equipment does!  The new bikes ARE AWESOME!!!  It was a good class and I burned 400 calories in 45 minutes-can’t beat that!

Before class I ate half of this:

and had the other half after class.  It was okay.  I think it would be better as an oatmeal topping.  A little too coconutty for my taste-I didn’t think that was possible!

I had a hard time going to sleep last night and I slept like utter crud all night.  I know it has to do with the Grande latte I had yesterday.  Today it’s back to tea!

My sweet, loyal kitty got up with me but wasn’t too happy to be doing it:

She was asleep when I got back.

I am VERY happy for the weekend.  We’re having family pictures done tomorrow by my friend Natalie. I also have a little something up my sleeve.  Here’s a hint:

Oh and Sabrina would be so proud-I took her advice and folded laundry last night before I put another load in the dryer.  Shaun was speechless.  We’ll see if I can keep this up.  I hope so!

So I did it.  I got up:

and I went to the gym!  I was very blurry eyed:

But I did it!  I ate half of this beforehand:

and the other half afterwards.

I went to a boot camp class and it KICKED.MY.ASS!!!!  Holy moly. To put this in perspective when I really stopped going to the gym regularly (during my first trimester of pregnancy where the gym goers were lucky that I didn’t puke on them) I had just finished an IRONMAN.  I was one of the fittest people there.  I could go into any class (except step) and do the hardest exercises with a lot of weight and be fine.  Ummm…not today.  I know you have to start somewhere and I’m SO glad I went.  But it was SO HARD.  I had to not do some of it which was incredibly humbling.  I am going to be VERY sore tomorrow. But? It felt GREAT!  I can’t wait to wake up early tomorrow and go to spinning!  I do need to be careful that I don’t overdo though. :)  It was also nice that a lot of the same people were there and I got lots of “hi’s”.  It’ll keep me coming back :)  I know a lot of them are going to ask when I’ll start teaching again (I used to teach spin class) and I’ll have to say “We’ll see.” 🙂

After dropping Lu off at daycare this morning I debated whether I would get a Jamba Juice or Starbucks.  I decided on:

Grande Soy Sugar Free Cinnamon Dulce Latte.  That’s a huge treat for me and I thought today was a good day to give myself a treat.  Tonight I’ll prepare a smoothie to have in the morning and that way I won’t spend $4 for breakfast.

In work news, I finished a HUGE boring project that has been looming over my head for a VERY long time.  I was so excited that I crossed it off with a sharpie.

It was so nice coming into that!

Can you tell I’m amped?  I don’t know if it’s the coffee or the endorphins from the gym. I’m going to say the latter 🙂

I didn’t realize that my camera was low on batteries and I went to take pictures today and couldn’t 🙁

I do have a super cute one of Lucy and Shaun from our hike that you haven’t seen yet.

I *AM* signing up for the gym today.  I’m VERY excited.  I can’t wait!  I think I’ll go to a class tomorrow.  For sure on Friday-one of my favorite spin teachers is teaching.

To answer Cynthia’s question-I was enjoying P90X and then all of the sudden I wasn’t.  Plus-shhhh don’t tell anyone ;-)-I kinda want to start training for a triathlon again.  I miss competing, like REALLY REALLY miss competing.  So we’ll see.

Lunch is unexciting today and it makes me not want to eat-I guess that’s one way to lose weight!  HA!  I do NOT recommend Organic Bistro frozen meals.  They don’t have any junk in them but they also taste horrible.  I don’t know why I bought them (at $7.50 a pop no less!), I hate frozen meals.  I guess I thought it’d be easy and fast.  Yeah an easy and fast way to make me feel completely unsatisfied.  I like my food to taste good.  Eating healthy doesn’t need to mean eating gross.

I will leave you with one of my favorites of Lu.  She just discovered hummus-she LOVED dipping her carrot in it like Mommy.  Here she is telling me very ENTHUSIASTICALLY that she is “All Done”

She really liked it 🙂

Wow does that show my age or what?  I’ve got an 8 am meeting today so I’m working from home.  I’m not a fan of 8 am meetings but they are better than 6 am meetings (which YES I have had).  Since I’m working from home I do get to have oatmeal.

It’s cooking away:

The birdie is impatiently awaiting her portion:

(look at that CLEAN cage!)

The bowl is ready:

As is my home “office”:

I went to bed at a decent time yesterday (in bed by 9:30, asleep by 10) and when the alarm went off at 5:30 I popped out of bed and thought “I have to do that damn exercise video” and I got back into bed :(  I’m calling my old gym today to see how much they’re going to swindle charge me for a membership.  When Lu was younger it didn’t make sense to have a membership.  Now that I could get there and get home by 7 it does make sense. It’s 4 blocks away and it’d get me on the spin bike again (I used to teach there).  We’ll see.  If not, I’m going to have to get over my aversion to this video.

Oatmeal is ready! See ya!

My goal last night was to get in bed by 9:30.  That SO didn’t happen.  I got done folding laundry (I DID do it) and I wanted a pomegranate and I wanted to hang out with my hubby.  So we watched a tivo’d Survivor and then we headed to bed.  I didn’t get to bed until 10:30 and I fell asleep at 11.  When the alarm went off at 5:30 this morning I could NOT do it.  I slept in. 🙁 The plan is to go out at lunch for a walk and maybe I’ll do something tonight.  I WILL get in bed by 9:30 tonight and hopefully fall asleep by 10.

Speaking of laundry, here’s Shaun’s pile:

Lucky guy.

Last night I did decorate our tree.  It turns out our living tree from last year was half dead :(  I guess you’re supposed to plant those things, not keep them in their container and so we decided to get a tree from Home Depot.  A cut one.  It seems so wasteful but it’s not anymore wasteful than my half dead one in a container. 

Here’s Lu with our tree at the lot:

She’s much more interested in her nanner.

Our tree was so little it fit standing up in the back of the Element:

It’s so cute though!  We don’t have room in our condo for a full sized tree, so we put it up on a table.  Here she is all decorated:

Here’s Lucy’s 2009 ornament:

Her name and the year are on the back.  My Mom has a great tradition of getting us an ornament every year.  The idea is that once we have our own house we would get all the ornaments.  My Mom kinda likes to hold on to things though, so she still has all of our ornaments and still gets us one every year.  I love the idea though and it’s a tradition that I gladly started with Lucy.  Here’s her ornament from last year:

I spent a little bit more on her first ornament ever 😉

Yesterday we finally went on our Thanksgiving hike.  It was beautiful!  Shaun took us to Waterdog.  It’s where he mountain bikes when he needs a short ride.  Most week’s in the summer he goes to Waterdog at least once after work.  I had never been but it is really neat.  It’s a preserve right in the middle of a bunch of houses.  It’s about 15 minutes away and really beautiful.

Lucy LOVED it.

Here’s the start of the hike, the pavement ended very shortly:

Up on a ramp:

Views!

See the houses right in the middle of the picture. It must be hard having a preserve as your backyard!

Our car! (If you look really hard you can see it right in the middle of the pic)

Some manzanita:

Manzanita is a really cool tree/bush.  It’s one of the hardest woods in the world and it feels cool to the touch-actually kind of cold.  Our birds perches are made out of manzanita because it’s so hard. Plus it’s pretty!

Yesterday was a FABULOUS day!  In addition to the hike, folding, and tree decorating, we FINALLY got the bird’s cage clean.  That’s been on my to do list for almost a year.  We clean her cage weekly but a deep clean is needed once every few months.  Unfortunately Zulli (our bird) has had a hard time adjusting to Lucy.  She used to come out of her cage multiple times a day and now we’re lucky if she comes out once a week :(  Yesterday we were determined to get her cage clean even if it meant I needed a few bites.  She did come out and only bit me once.  We just need to force her out of her cage everyday and then make that experience fun-yesterday Mommy cuddled and preened her.  I think if we do that we’ll have our sweet birdie back.

Okay, I have a ton of work to do today.  Ciao!

Gratitude

Today is my last day!  I am thankful that I decided to post something I’m thankful about everyday in the month of November.  I did it everyday on Facebook and it was really a great experience.  I’m glad that it was one of those viral things that spread on Facebook and that I decided to partake!

We keep a very clean house (that’s not my confession).  Shaun is very neat and I’m very clean-it’s a clean house match made in heaven!  We also have cleaning people that come in once every two weeks and give the house a deep clean.  I want to spend my weekends with Lu and Shaun, not cleaning, so this is a necessary item that we budget for. If I ever get to stay home this would be the very first thing that would get cut.  ANYWAY, our house is always clean EXCEPT for my one downfall…

FOLDING LAUNDRY.  Yes that’s 2 weeks of CLEAN laundry just waiting to be folded.  I’m GREAT at doing laundry, just awful at actually folding it. And, the worst part? I won’t let Shaun fold my laundry.  He doesn’t do it right (I’ve tried to get over this and just can’t) and so I fold my laundry and all the towels-he tried to fold towels and I re-fold (I truly wish I wasn’t such a control freak-I’ve tried people, I’ve really tried!).  We’re about 50/50 on Lu’s laundry. So that pile right there? About 10% of it is Shaun’s since he folded last weekend.  I’ve promised that I will get that folded by weekend’s end.  It looks like I’d rather blog about it than fold it-HA!

I’ve always wanted to be one of those people that folds laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer and I think the only time I accomplished that was when I was on maternity leave. OH another reason for me to stay home-I’ll get folding done….maybe…

While I’ve been avoiding folding laundry I have been doing MORE laundry, cleaning up from Thanksgiving (that’s all done) and DECORATING!  I’ve only just begun but I’ve got my angels out.

Front Door:

Entryway closet doors:

We have a living tree that will come off the balcony tonight and we’ll trim it 🙂 I think we’ll have to do some ACTUAL trimming to get it to not look so Charlie Brownish!

Once Lu gets up from her nap we’re going to brave the crowds and go Christmas shopping.  We think we can get it all done this weekend.  Plus, Shaun REALLY needs some clothes so we’re going to try and take advantage of the sales-I hope all the good stuff isn’t gone.  I should also look for a Christmas outfit for Lu.

Our hike got pushed to tomorrow since Shaun is tired and sore from his epic mountain bike ride yesterday.  It will happen though.  We did go on a nice long (1.5 hour) walk this morning so I’m feeling good about that.

I hope you’re all having as nice a long weekend as I am!

Gratitude

Today I’m grateful that Shaun and I both have good jobs and that we aren’t struggling right now.  So many people are.  We have a giving tree at work and I can’t wait to take a few “wants” and go get gifts for the less fortunate!

Over 100 pictures were taken yesterday!  I sat down to write a post last night and it took almost an hour for my pictures to upload.  I have no clue why it took so long but it did so I’m posting today instead.

Yesterday was FABULOUS!  I did hit a few snags but I improvised and it turned out perfectly. 

The first snag was my table cloth.  I got a new table between last year and this year and I didn’t think that I’d need a new table cloth. I was WRONG.  I ended up using a white bed sheet as a base and my table cloth on top.  It was a TON of ironing but oh well.  I had a pretty table!  All that ironing made me late but again OH WELL!

I got to use my nice china-it’s so pretty!

For appetizers we had chips and salsa:

and guac:

I also did crudités with hummus and olives:

And, lastly, artichokes:

Elaina and I basically shared cooking responsibilities (I did appetizers, the bird, stuffing, gravy, and mashed potatoes. She did the sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry relish, and dessert).  We shared the kitchen well 🙂

While dinner cooked, Lu and Brea (Richard and Elaina’s child…I mean dog) hung out:

Love this one:

Lu then had a costume change!

The food was finally ready and waiting to be plated:

The bird:

Lu was HONGRY! (Nevermind the pound of guacamole and crudités she ate)

(My child is actually pretty well behaved but she IS 14 months old. Fits kinda come with the territory)

Brea pouted because Auntie Chelsea didn’t give her any turkey:

Dinner is served!

Lu LOVED Mommy’s cornbread stuffing (I decided to make it):

It was all DELISH!  I highly recommend the pomegranate glaze on the turkey and the coconut cardamom sweet potatoes-I think I would omit the cayenne pepper from that recipe though. I don’t know the protocol for posting recipes from magazines.  Is it a big no-no?

I stopped eating before I was full because I knew we had desserts.

Peach and Berry Cobbler (clean and SOOOOOO GOOD):

“Clean” Molten Lava Chocolate Cake that I didn’t get a picture of.

And, my “famous” Oreo Pudding Pie:

I had a bite of that.  Shaun claims that I could win a contest with that pie-I highly doubt it.  All it is is Oreo cookie crust (which they no longer sell and I have to make-Oreos crushed mixed with melted butter pressed into a pan and baked for 10 minutes), chocolate instant pudding, and Cool Whip.

Lu wanted nothing to do with it, but she did manage to get it ALL OVER (notice the back of the chair):

And, in her hair:

Lu was one tired girl by the end of the night and we couldn’t even get a smile out of her for a family picture:

Richard and Elaina took home some leftovers and we were left with the perfect amount:

The turkey carcass went right into a pot of water and I plan to make turkey soup tomorrow.

Look at all the dishes my sweet hubby did!

And finally-it’s time for Christmas!  Lu got her Christmas jammies tonight:

Gratitude

Today I’m thankful for hot showers!  Sometimes there is really nothing better!