Weekend in Review

Hey!  I'm alive.  Been in a funk.... But I'm trying to get back with the program (somewhat)!  

I have a few sponsorships/features going on and I don't want to get totally out of the habit of writing my blog, and reading everyone else!   I've been slacking at both.  Anyhow... thanks for sticking in there! :-)

Last week (the last 2 weeks actually...) we spent a lot of time taking care of our crazy stapled up dog.  He got the staples out Wednesday and we took him to "day care" at the vet all last week, since we didn't trust him not to scratch or lick at the staples/wound all day long!  He did pretty well. He likes to charm the ladies at the vet.  He's still pretty obsessive about licking at it when we take his t-shirt off.  

But... we left him home today, so hopefully he behaves himself!  

(On the way to the vet Friday morning... He likes to have his paw up on the center console thing while I am driving. Check out his cool turtle neck.  hehe)

Saturday morning we went and picked up our Christmas tree!   We ran a few other errands and did some stuff at home (cleaned up garage, installed a couple of shelves out there, took some crap to donate at thrift store, cleaned up our STILL GROWING LIKE CRAZY tomato plant).  Saturday night my BF went to a friends for a couple of hours to watch UFC and then we just watched some more TV and called it a night. 

December 8th.... dozens of tomatoes still. We pulled 2 this weekend.

Sunday we (mostly I) decorated the tree, did some grocery shopping, and made butternut squash soup (from THIS RECIPE). It was a homey, chilly, turn on the heat kind of evening.  :-)

 

 A few of my favorite ornaments...

From top left: Mickey ornament from DisneyWORLD, my beautiful swap ornament, our teddy/boxer ornament we've had for years and makes me laugh every year, and the pickle (also from DisneyWorld/Epcot, the German pavilion, it's got a story behind it). 

Other random decorations I threw on the table, nowhere else to put them!

This coming weekend I am heading to Oregon for my cousin's wedding.  I am planning to get a couple of posts in before I head up there.  

Hope everyone else had a nice weekend! 

Weekend Rewind!

Here we are. Monday again.  Luckily, it's kind of like Wednesday this week! ;-)

This is gonna have to be quick as I was feeling crappy last night, so didn't take time to prep my post!

Friday...

I bought a couple more frames at Goodwill!  

I am planning to attack the map wall project over the 4 day weekend.  haha  Wish me luck!

I also bought this wooden carved cake plate thing....?

 It's kind of funky & big...but I like it!  I'll figure out somewhere to put it eventually.  

(BF is not a big fan so...going to need to be creative. I called and texted a pic from the Goodwill but he didn't answer so...too bad!)

Saturday... 

 - My BF got up WAY TOO EARLY and went dirtbike riding.

- My MIL arrived for her Thanksgiving week off. 

(I know we did not get the whole week off when I was in school!)

- I did some tidying up of the house, a bit of laundry, all that fun stuff... to the background accompaniment of Mary Poppins.  :-)

- Saturday night we went to the horse show, Valitar! (Post coming!)  It was a good time.

Sunday...

Nothing too exciting.  We switched our dryer door!  It's been opening "the wrong way" for the past year, since we bought it.  So that was actually kind of exciting.  haha 

(Oh, home ownership.)

A bit more laundry, sweeping etc with Mamma Mia in the background.  :-)

Started feeling kind of crappy toward the afternoon.  So I kind of lazed around while my boyfriend made some salsa to stock up the fridge.  Heaven forbid he ever has less than 12 condiments to choose from. ;-)

All grilled and ready to blend up salsa ingredients!

I'll be working from home tomorrow and then one more day in the office... and THEN?  

FOUR DAYS OFF!  Woo hoo! 

Linking up my weekend with these lovely ladies!

Weekend Rewind

Hi guys!  

Sadly I am working today but here's what I did this weekend...

Friday...

I, of course, hit plenty of traffic on the way home. 

But that means I also got a decent amount of time to rock out in my car to my iPod.

I ate some left over split pea soup when I finally got home.  (Amazing  recipe here.)

I read and wrote some blogs.

I dealt with this kind of nonsense all evening... 

(How dare those people walk on the sidewalk across the street!?!)

Source: aplacetolovedogs.com via Cynthia on Pinterest

Later on I picked up my BF from his friend's house and then we had Mexican food on the way home.  And my MIL arrived for the weekend.

Saturday...

We got up pretty early, especially for me, and especially for a Saturday.  Lame.

Did some more blog maintenance and planning.  :-)
(Wrote up this post for my food blog.)

We went to Goodwill to see if there were any picture frames, and we bought this lovely thing! Just $10, holla!

We did also find another frame for my map/frame project. My idea was inspired by this Pin, but mine will be a world map and the frames are all different shapes and sizes.  

Source: screaminglobster.tumblr.com via Cynthia on Pinterest

I can't decide on whether to paint the frames or not (all white? or all reddish wood stain to match our furniture? or all different colors?) or just leave them as they are, a quirky mix.  There are one or two that I definitely bought for the size/shape, and NOT the frame texture/color, so something will probably need to be done before the map goes in the frames, just not sure what yet.

Early/mid afternoon I did laundry, swept, avoided lawn mowing clean up, and went to the store for a few things. (Ahem, blog swaps.)  

I also cleaned up one of the smaller frames I found at the thrift store a couple weeks ago, and put inside the frame THIS PRINT that I won in a giveaway over at  Hope Squared.
It's from Dragonflight Dreams Etsy shop, and she does them in almost any color combination you can imagine. 

I love it & can't wait to get it up in our bedroom!  
(The frame & print, luckily, fit just perfectly!) 

 Saturday night we watched BRAVE (2nd time for me, first time for BF and MIL)! 

We also had Thai food for dinner.  Yummm, Thai tea.  Our favorite.

Source: goo.gl via shelia on Pinterest

Sunday...

Got up too early AGAIN.

I took down Halloween decorations, did some more laundry, and a few other chores. 

(with BRAVE in the background! hehe.  Oh, Monsters University... The trailer is on the BRAVE DVD, looks cute!)

 And that's a wrap on the weekend.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Happy Veteran's Day!  If you have the day off, lucky you! I'm working. :-(

If you are a Vet or know one, thank you/them! 

(See my Military Care Package post here.  It's something small I did to show my appreciation, after reading an inspiring post from Miss Janna!) If you want to get involved, but don't know anyone personally who is serving (like me!) just visit her blog, she knows quite a few deployed people so she can provide an address.

A few notes from Neverland:
I've been tweeting about this AWESOME iPAD MINI giveaway!  
Click over to enter and check out Kelly, the lovely lady behind Messy.Dirty.Hair.

 Congratulations to Kim C. for winning the BRAVE giveaway!

Just one more... 

Have you Liked my Living In Neverland FB page yet?  
Click right there above, or you can find the link on the right, under my "about me" blurb.  
I post blog related items and Neverland related items, and... 
really anything that I think might interest you guys.  :-)

Linking up with Sami and English today!

My Weekend...

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Back to work I go...  :-( 

Weekend = Too Short.  Always

Hi guys.  What's shakin? :-) 

So this weekend was fun and too short.  Here's what went down. 

*DISCLAIMER:  My mom has been in Yellowstone (with no TV) for almost 6 months. 

I have been keeping a few shows on my DVR for her...hence all the TV watching. hehe

Friday... 

My Mom arrived!  

Friday night (before and after dinner) we watched the 4 episodes of Amazing Race that have been on so far this season. 

In between TV, we ate dinner at Lorna's. (Yummy local Italian place.)

 

Mmmmm, bruschetta. 

Saturday... 

I got my birthday tires in the morning!  

While waiting for the tires, mom and I wandered around Target.  

I managed to NOT BUY ANYTHING (at TARGET?!?) But I did find a few books I want to read. (see below!)

We watched few episodes of Food Truck Race. 

Then, we watched the World Series!  {Our tradition for my birthday.  :-) } 

We had Thai food take out and watched a few more episodes of the Truck Race. 

Anyone read any of these...??  I liked their back covers. ;-)

Sunday... 

Mom left early. :-(  

My MIL and I went to the Renaissance Faire with our black lab, Juliet. 

And then...

this happened.

Queen of the Fairy Princess Doggies. 

I'm pretty sure she loved it.   

(She couldn't sit still.  OK, she never sits still.)

Hi. I'm such a girly girl. Except when I roll in poop.

 

Linking up with the lovely ladies at Weekend Update and Be Freckled!

Weekend Rewind & 10/22

Hi guys, happy Monday (if there is such a thing?)

So, this weekend....

My car hit 30K miles on the way home from work Friday.  

I am pretty sure it just passed 20K a couple months ago...

It was cloudy and drizzly all Friday (and Saturday)

My plumeria bloomed! 

I got my hair colored and trimmed.  

(And apparently one eye was trying to go to sleep.)

My boyfriend bought a leather suit for motorcycle riding.  It made me laugh. 

We made some (Americanized) Korean BBQ at home on Saturday night.  

It was a family affair.   :-)

Sunday we spent most of the day grumbling and going to Home Depot multiple times to try to fix the ice/water dispenser on our fridge.  FUN! (haha, NOT!!)  We finally got it put back together, pumping out water, and not leaking sometime late in the afternoon.   Then we made chile rellenos for dinner!  Yummmm. 

And.... TODAY is my birthday!  :-)    Unfortunately I have to work, but I'll be having some yummy birthday dinner later. And I am getting some (decidedly unromantic, but fully necessary) tires for my car from the BF this year.  And my mom will be coming down this weekend to visit and watch the World Series.  Yay! 

Me, Age 4 ...many years ago!

Most of the time I don't think a whole lot about my age.  

Sometimes, though, I can't avoid it....

 

Recently I went with a couple of my (significantly younger) co-workers to see The Bloggess at a book signing.  On the way there I mentioned that Soleil Moon Frye would be moderating the event.  They both looked blank.  (Ok, I thought, maybe they are too young to remember her name.)  "You know, Punky Brewster?"  More blank looks.  Ouch! 

Source: google.com via hilary on Pinterest

Oh well, I'm getting old.  Nothing I can do to change it!

Hope everyone has a great week!

I may or may not be counting down to next weekend already.  :-) 

How was YOUR weekend?

Mine was not bad.  Too short, as usual, but what can ya do...

The weather was beautiful all weekend, so that was really nice. Fall weekends that feel like summer sure make me appreciate San Diego. 

Friday - 

There were some warm sprinkles on the way home.  Not so much that the freeway got crazy (as generally happens with rain around here)  but just enough to smell like rain. 

I watched some playoff baseball,  great games this post season! 

I did some Etsy browsing (and buying - see below).

We watched some Jeopardy and the last episode of Great Food Truck Race from the DVR.

 

Etsy - World on a String Necklace

Saturday - 

I woke up at 10:30!  Woo hoo for sleeping in!

I had brunch with my friend from Malawi (again!!  they were here for post surgery checkup on the cutie bambino).

The BF and I went to REI and ran a couple of other errands.

I watched some more baseball.

We watched UFC fights at a friends house Saturday night. 

Sunday - 

I went to a nearby thrift store to see if they had any picture frames for a project I am going to attempt.  (And, for the recrod, I am not a "project" girl, but I have this one idea...) Scored 4 for $10 total!  

We went to a friends for some BBQ and hanging out in the early afternoon.  They were having a KC ribs vs Virginia pork butt BBQ cook off so...we kind of had to be there. 

And then we went to dinner at Morton's for our anniversary.  I like going there because everyone wishes you a Happy Anniversary all night, and...they take your picture and give it to you in a little Morton's picture folder.  Cute!  

So, now it's Monday again...blah.  

Off to work/blog hop to see what everyone else did this weekend.  :-)

Weekend Rewind

This weekend seemed kind of long even though it was just the regular two days... 

I wish I was in Canada celebrating Thanksgiving, or had some kind of job where I got Columbus Day off, so I had a 3 day weekend!

Alas, I work at a regular old office job (non- government) and have to work today.

Source: Uploaded by user via Cynthia on Pinterest

It probably felt long, though, because we spent it doing tons of chores.  

(Or what felt like tons of chores to me.)   

So...sorry if this post seems a little bit like...well, a long list of chores. haha

Friday...

I filled up on gas before driving home from work. (it was $4.49/gallon and rising... it was actually $4.69 by my house Friday morning so I figured $4.49 was a good "deal" WTF gas companies?? Stop being so greedy!)

Watched some baseball (and read some blogs and started some drafts) when I got home.

We ate Thai food take out for dinner. #yummmy

Saturday...

I did tons and tons of laundry.

I swept about 1000 sq ft of hardwood, about three times.   

Dog hair!!  And he is not even an inside dog.  Grrr...

I did some preliminary kitchen cleaning. We (ok, I) don't do much housework during the week so the counter always has Starbucks cups, dirty dishes, empty food containers, etc. on it. I did a counter "sweep", took recycling out, trashed the trash, put the dishes in the sink, wiped crumbs off the counters. (TMI..?)

We went grocery shopping for Sunday.  We were planning to make various salsas (boyfriend's department), Caprese bites, and a pear/ricotta crostini that I found on Pinterest.  It was fun picking different peppers out. We got 4 kinds.

And...then we went to the diner for dinner.  Yes I have been there twice in one week.  He was craving pancakes!  :-)  I had Benedict.

Source: someecards.com via Cynthia on Pinterest

Sunday....

I did MORE sweeping and then vacuumed all of the area rugs and small mats by the doors.

I finished the kitchen, actually cleaned the counters & finished the dishes.

Did MORE laundry.  Put away all that laundry!  I also helped the BF do an "autumn" cleaning out of his clothes. (I need to do this, seriously.)

We (mostly he) cleaned the bathroom and the laundry closet room.  

I watered all the house plants. 

And the I prepped/gathered food for salsa/dinner making.

 Then I took a little break (while he mowed the lawn) and watched about 3 innings of baseball before we got started in the kitchen. 

My BF loves to make different kinds of salsa.  He grilled all the tomatoes, peppers and onions to make some smoky salsas this time. While he was doing that we had a tri-tip marinating, and I was working on the Caprese bites!  (Pear/ricotta crostinis are getting a rain check until tonight.) Really all I did was cute the basil leaves off their stems, rinse the grape tomatoes, and cut the little mozzarella balls in half. Stab them with toothpicks, pour some balsamic dressing for dipping, and dig in!  :-)  My favorite kind of recipe.  Quick and easy. 

Then we ate our trip-tip, watched the finale of The Great Food Truck Race (on DVR, I know it ended a couple weeks ago!) and hung out with this handsome guy for a bit. (Gunney is allowed inside in the evenings, only on the rug in the living room!  Too much hair & his nails scratch the very expensive hard wood floors.) (And we only have one dog this week, Juliet went home with my MIL for a while.)

Not a very exciting weekend, but quite productive, if I do say so myself. 

Linking up with English and Sami! 

Weekend Review... Is it really fall...??

How is it Monday already...??  Ugh.  I am not feeling work lately, so it's not easy to get up and motivated for the day.  Hopefully I will get out of this funk soon.  

My weekend was pretty mellow. It was warm, sunny, and not very "fall" like at all.  I have a few lovely phone/instagram pics to share.

It started a bit early Friday, when we had a  potluck/BBQ at work for lunch...  That always makes the day go by a little faster!   We had a pretty nice spread of food.  Burgers and dogs on the grill outside and tons of salads, chips/dips, cookies and more for dessert. (I contributed crock pot meatballs in BBQ sauce.)  One of our IT guys used to work as a chef and made a hotel-brunch-worthy fruit plate.  He even served it on a mirror!  :-)  

Needless to say, Friday afternoon was not extremely productive.  

(#foodcoma)

Friday evening I hung out at home with my MIL and watched the pilot/premiere of the TV show my little cousin works on!  (OK, she is like 23 years old but she was born when I was 12 or 13 and will always be my "baby" cousin to me.)  The show is called Made in Jersey, on CBS, and my cousin is a production assistant.  She was a film major, and it's her first job in "Hollywood".  The whole family is super excited for her.  

Saturday I went shoe shopping with my BF, which mainly consisted of me wandering the store (or the store next door) and buying a few kitchen items. (Oh, and a doggy Halloween costume! Can not wait to see how that goes down!)  

Then my MIL and I went to the Padres game Saturday night.  It was our last game of the season that we had tickets to.  Until next spring, Padres!  We'll miss you.  At least they got on a hot streak at the end of the season.  I think the last 5 games I have been to were Padres wins!  It's always more fun to go the games when they are winning.  :-) 

Sunday...It was hot around these parts!  The BF and I wandered Target in the air conditioning for an hour or so. And somehow bought close to $200 worth of random stuff...?  That place is like a black hole of money.  

But we did get some necessities, OK and maybe one or two non-necessities. 

Then we came home and changed a few light bulbs and smoke detector batteries. I did a bit of laundry, caught up on some DVR stuff, and helped the BF try to figure out a rattle on his truck.  Then we went to  Fuddruckers for dinner.  Really, you can never go wrong with Fuddruckers! The sauces, the hot cheese, the buns!  We came home stuffed and happy and went to bed pretty early.  

That was my weekend.  How was yours?      

Linking up with a few lovely ladies....

Visit w/ An Old Friend!! & Weekend Recap

 Sorry, this is a long one, and I tried to edit myself...this is what I ended up with.  I just couldn't tell the story without the details.    :-)

 Last week I had the chance to visit with one of my dearest friends from high school...not once, but twice!  This might not be unusual in many cases, but this visit was special.  This friend of mine lives in Africa!  She was a military kid and moved to our town in high school.  We became great friends and (particularly during our senior year and the summer before college) spent lots and lots of time together.  I remember so many high school dances, weekend hang outs, Christmas caroling adventures, trips to the beach, late nights working on projects... All fond memories. 

When it was time for everyone to go their own way for college, she returned to her childhood roots and went back east to Mississippi. We lost touch for a while besides the occasional email with big news. Once FB became all the rage, we reconnected quickly and have been chatting and commenting to each other since.  At the time she had 3 adorable kids and was still living in Mississippi. Although I kept my eyes open for cheap flights, I never made it to visit them there.  A few years ago, she and her husband made the life changing decision to become missionaries.   In (what seemed like!!) no time at all they had sold their home, quit their jobs, and moved their family of 5 to Malawi, on the eastern coast of Africa.  They had been there less than a year, when she became pregnant with their fourth child! 

My friends' family on the shore of Lake Malawi (it was on the Amazing Race last year! hehe)

To make what is becoming a LONG story, short... Everything went fine with the birth, despite power and water being unpredictable there!  Sadly, their baby boy was born with a cleft pallet and there are no doctors in Malawi who can fix it for him.  There is a team from California who are going to Malawi in February to perform these kinds of surgeries and my friend had been Skyping with the doctors to prepare as best they can. In the meantime, my friends Mom AND her husbands parents have experienced some serious health setbacks in the last month, and they (my friend and her husband) felt they needed to come back to the states for a few weeks to visit and help out.  On their first day back in Mississippi they got a call from the surgeon asking if they could make it to San Diego 2 days later because there was an opening for their son to have his surgery!  He had it last Saturday and I met them at the Ronald McDonald house (which is very cool!) where they were staying, for dinner.  I brought them Mexican and they were stoked!  :-)

 THEN on Wednesday- even though the surgery went well, there were some minor complications so they had to stay a few extra days - we met at the Cheesecake Factory (none of those in Malawi either) for dinner again!   Both dinners were over far too quickly.  We talked and laughed and cried.  Her baby charmed me and her husband was a really god sport when we started talking about old high school friends he had never met. 

Smiley baby makes us smile! 

So, basically, I just wanted to write about this visit, to remember it.  I kind of thought I might never see her again, to be honest.  And I am so (so, so, so, so, SO!!) glad I did.  :-)

As for this weekend...

It was pretty lazy, to be honest.  Which we need sometimes.  No mother in law, no Padres game, no guests or dinners or plans at all.  :-)

Friday evening after work (and traffic) I caught up on some blog reading, worked on a few posts, and picked my BF up from his brother's house.  We picked up dinner on the way home and went to bed pretty early.    

On Saturday we did some stuff around the house. I did a ton of laundry, we changed our water filter on fridge, watered the inside and outside plants...exciting stuff like that.  I also rented a couple of movies. We never go to the movies, and usually just wait for movies to come on HBO.  I wanted to see The Hunger Games, though.  So I tried Red Box (for the first time, very quick and easy!)

We watched it Saturday night.  I liked the movie, having read the books.  I think they did a great job with the casting, and as good of a job with the story as can be expected.  I tried not to pause it to explain things to my BF too often.  hehe

Sunday we did more "fun" stuff around the house.  (Home ownership is thrilling.)  We picked up my BF's motorcycle tire from the shop and I dropped him to watch football with his friends.  Then... I don't even know.  I know I watched some TV, put some laundry away, napped probably, played with the dogs for a little bit, and picked my BF up.  We had Thai food for dinner and watched Simpsons, Bob's Burger, and (currently) Family Guy.  Didn't even watch the 2nd rental!   We'll have to do that Monday night...

So, yep, that was our exciting weekend. (#sarcasmfont)
This is how we know we are getting old! 

Linking up with Sami and the ladies for Weekend (and my last week) Update. :-)