Currently...

Currently...

Listening to: Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas Singalong

Drinking: A bottle of water

Thinking about: Christmas gifts I need to buy

Wishing: I could go on a warm vacation somewhere

Eating: Nothing at the moment, but I had a turkey wrap for lunch.

Reading: Divergent by Veronica Roth (not like this second, but it's my current book)

Waiting for: Snow (yes I said it)

Wondering: What Nate will get me for Christmas

That about catches us up.

I probably won't blog here again until my end of the year recap I'm sure.  Might be time to retire this one.  I'm not sure yet.

Thankful Monday

So I skipped my Thankful Thursday post last week.

Truth be told, I had a tough week and I was not feeling terribly thankful.  And while I could list things I was thankful for, I didn't want to sound like a broken record and list the same old things.  So I just said, I'm not going to do a post when it feels almost forced and repetitive.

Today the whole mess of ick from last week is done, over and buried.  What happened does not matter at this point, what matters is I'm feeling better.

So today I'm being thankful for a fresh start, for clarity, for understanding.  I'm thankful for the busy week to come in family celebrations.  I'm thankful for the rainbow I saw as I drove into work this morning.  I'm thankful for my birthday coming up and being able to celebrate another year of life.

I'm just overall THANKFUL.  And that's plenty enough I think.

Thankful Thursday, Week 2

It hasn't been the greatest week. Between election grumbling, Nate working a lot of long, tedious hours  this week and my own work week being kind of up and down I wasn't even sure I was in the mood to come here and do a Thankful Thursday post today.  But then I realized, no, this is exactly why I should do a Thankful Thursday post, I need a dose of gratitude.  I may steal a little of my friend Samara's blog and take a different approach to this week's Thankful Thursday too.

For example - there was a lot of election grumbling this week, but no matter the outcome, and even with the ugliness, I'm thankful to live in a country that allows freedom of speech and gives the people a say.

Nate worked a lot of long tedious hours this week - but I'm thankful he has a job.

My work week was crazy and frazzling at times - but I'm thankful I have a job.

The sunshine gave me a bit of a headache this afternoon - but I'm thankful the sun has come out to brighten things up, especially now that the hours of daylight are shorter.

I'm not super excited to have a bit of a busy Saturday on tap between singing at a wedding and doing a gig at a less than ideal place with Praise Project - but I'm thankful for the extra money from the wedding and I'm thankful for time with my second family that I love dearly and that we can face the challenge of the less than idea place together.

Facebook led to some of the above mentioned grumbling and makes me wonder why I bother with it sometimes - but I'm thankful for a way to stay connected with friends around the world, including a sorority sister who welcomed a baby girl this morning in New Zealand.

So there you go.  There were things that made me mildly cranky at times this week, but I'm just keeping it all in perspective - it could always be worse, I still know people on the East Coast who do not have power.  So I'm thankful for where I am at today, even in the yuck.

Thankful Thursday, Week 1

After a very grumbly post in my last post, I'm changing it up and offering a positive post instead.  Now that it's November (!) I thought I'd bring back my Thankful Thursday theme.  It's always good to stop and reflect on what we have.

So this week I am thankful for:

~My kitties

~Friends

~Wine

~The election is almost over

~We've had good weather this Fall

~Jobs and a roof over our head

~Chocolate

~Coffee

Simple list, but seriously, things I probably take for granted and shouldn't.

Tuesday truths

Fact - I have no right to grumble given the stuff the folks are dealing with on the East Coast, but I'm gonna do it anyway because I can.  It's my blog and I'll write what I want to.

Fact - I really, really stink at word games.  I cannot win a game of Words with Friends or Scrabble to save my life.  I guess I have been out of school wayyyy too long now.

Fact - I ordered something from an online company that was doing a "surprise sale"  You paid one price, gave your size, they send you something they want to basically get rid of.  I received the most adorable dress.  It does not fit.  Not even close.  Normally you can return stuff, but not on this sale.  Sad panda.

Fact - I'm super disappointed in myself, some already know, I have lost the battle I fought very publicly on this very blog of no longer picking my fingers.  Yeah.  We're not going to say HOW long ago I fell off the wagon, but I'm making a new resolve to quit this really gross and bad habit.  I have already bought myself the reward present - trying some reverse psychology with it, as long as I'm "clean" I can have the reward, if Nate catches me though, he gets to take it away (it may be something I am addicted to that rhymes with murse).  And once again, I'm making this public to hold myself accountable.  My goal is a manicure for Christmas.

Fact - Contrary to all the things I have said I have bought recently, I'm on another shopping ban.  Though I'm going a jewelry party tonight, anything I buy is going on the shelf and I can have it for my birthday as an "after the ban" treat.  Otherwise I'm totally on a clothing shopping ban.  This time it's not so much a budgetary thing, it's more because my birthday is in less than a month and I just don't need to buy myself more clothes right now.

Fact - My workdays are super long right now while my boss is on a medical leave.  Though I am betting by the time she comes back I'll be so used to this, I'll not enjoy it so much when she is back.

Fact - One of my favorite shows (Community) finally announced it's return date as it had been postponed indefinitely   I'm glad it's finally coming back, but I have to wait until February.  February?  Seriously?  Wow.

Fact - I'm really not as cranky as this list would have you believe today, but just needed to get that all off my chest.  There you go.

Life lately-

And yet again I have been neglecting this blog.  I want to work on changing that.  I love my fashion blog and the community of friends I have found there, but sometimes I need to come back to my simple little blog here.  I'm actually contemplating NaBloPoMo for November for this blog just because I miss writing, I think I need to get back into it more.  Creative writing, day to day writing, just writing.  My fashion blog is easy, if I don't have a witty story to share I just talk about my clothes that day.  So, I feel like I'm losing my writing skills and I just don't want that to happen.

We've been having a very busy Fall - seems to be the norm though.  I don't remember a Fall since we've been married that hasn't been full of stuff.  Oktoberfest was amazing, I am again just bowled over by how blessed we are to have so many wonderful family and friends who come out to spend an evening with us.  I am also so pleased to have so many different walks of people in the house at once who can put differences aside and mingle with one another.  I think I have an exceptional appreciation right now because of what an ugly election year this has been - both sides are just really getting bad with the negativity, so I just appreciate that I could have a house full of people of different ages, religious backgrounds, political parties, etc, and all more or less co-exist with no problems.

But of course, the highlight of the evening was the beer - again I am beyond proud of Nate and the things he has done with this little hobby.  The beer is just getting better and better and just gets more complex and interesting.  I even had non-beer drinkers such as my mother walk away with at least one or two of our brews they could say they enjoyed.  That's a pretty dang big deal.

We finished a pretty large project so far this Fall - we have re-stained and sealed our deck.  A portion of it was done before the party and then Nate finished the rest this weekend.  It's needed to be done every since my Dad and Nate rebuilt the deck, which was four years ago this last summer, so it was kind of overdue.

We've had the opportunity to do one more Living Social boat ride - this past Sunday in fact.  We were extremely lucky to get to do it on what was probably the last nice evening of 2012.  It was mild and there was a beautiful sunset as we cruised down the Mississippi.  I highly recommend Living Social Adventures - we have yet to be disappointed by any of them.  They've all been amazing, well organized and so much fun.  I think I like them best because while I could come up with these ideas on my own for us to do, it's so much easier when someone else has done all the leg work and you just have to pay and show up!

So, we haven't had much down time as of late and that may need to change soon, but I think we'll figure that out.  We always do find a balance somehow.  I think we just love this time of year so much we cram in as much as we can.  There will be a calm before the storm that is the holiday season - something I'm not even ready to start thinking about yet as much as I love them.  Going to instead concentrate on soaking up these last glorious nice days of Fall while we can!

Countdown to Oktoberfest

Well then.  Hello October.  How did you get here so fast?  I love you, but yet, I wish you weren't here already.  It has hit me that I have things coming up crazy soon that I'm semi-ready for. I suppose semi-ready is better than not-ready-at-all!  And in spite of that, I'm also excited.

Yes friends, Oktoberfest is less than two weeks away now.  And it is true that in years past at this point I've been completely panicked, so at least we're not at that point.  It's not as bad as the year the bar was being built and my living room was being painted and we got everything done literally days before the event.  Nope, not that bad at all.  But, true to form, we did take on some last minute projects this year too.

The deck was getting mildew and mossy again.  We power washed it once after moving in and then replaced some of the wood when Nate and my dad re-did the stairs and entry of the deck.  So there is new wood but there is old wood.  The old wood is where the problem is.  So since the weather has been nice and dry, this past weekend we decided to strip and wash the deck and hopefully seal/weatherproof it so it'll last much longer.  We're about halfway through this process.  If the sealing doesn't get done before the party, it won't matter, the wood will still look nice and new from the washing/stripping!

Beyond that everything else should all come together.  All of the beer is done and happily sitting in their kegs.  We've made the bar off limits to ourselves as tempting as it's been to sample some of our new brews!  We want the majority of the beer for the party, if we run out that night, great, just means we have to brew more beer.  Running out before the party would not be a good option!

Lots of cleaning to do between now and then - not that I don't ever clean my house, but for an event this big I do an UBER cleaning.  You know, down to the wiping off of the floorboards and making sure all the cobwebs are gone from corners and even cleaning windowpanes and fun stuff like that.  I know, I'm a little obsessive compulsive  but it makes me feel better, especially when we have such an old house, the little touches I can do to make it look better make me feel good.

So, like I said, we're semi to most of the way ready.  In other words, for now, Bethie is calm.  I hope that continues.  Maybe don't ask me if I still feel this way at this time next week. ;)