So it was kind of a blah, depressing weather situation this weekend, but we made the most of it anyway!
Saturday we pretty much vegged around the house doing very little, but it felt so good to do that! We've had a pretty hectic schedule even though it is now very much post holiday craziness! We did venture out on Saturday evening to what has become a new favorite restaurant, True Thai in Minneapolis. I've been craving Thai food ever since the Sawatdee fiasco, and we had sort of forgotten about this place we first visited back this fall, so we headed down there even though it was wet and miserable outside. We were very much rewarded for our efforts to get there, the food (and service) was amazing.
Sunday was a little more full of activity, we met my in-laws at Sarna's for brunch. After we were satisfied and stuffed we headed home where Nate messed around with his drums for a bit and I went down to my parents and started another decopage project with my mom. This one will be much nicer than our first attempt. If it turns out well enough, it will be a gift for an upcoming baby shower. After I was decopaged out, I returned home and Nate and I went and sold some books at Half Price Books and then visited the reincarnated Cheapo! If you recall in this post I was very depressed when the Cheapo music store near us closed down last summer. A new location has opened up a little further away from home, but not terribly far. I picked up three CD's for a very reasonable price so I was pleased.
Today I awoke to a snow covered car with frozen locks, so I am hoping that is not an omen for the week. I am trying to keep the positive vibes flowing even when the weather is trying to convince me otherwise!
1/25/10
1/20/10
Celebrating the small victories
As of today, I have hit the nine month mark for no longer picking at the skin on my fingers. It is becoming less and less of a battle with each passing day, but I still celebrate the small victories as they come. I'm inching closer to a whole year and that is still just amazing to me. Especially considering all of the failed past attempts I had made at this over the years.
So even though 9 months is not a full year yet, it's still an accomplishment in my eyes and I just felt it was worth mentioning. I'm excited for coming back here in a few months and announcing that it's been a full year.
So even though 9 months is not a full year yet, it's still an accomplishment in my eyes and I just felt it was worth mentioning. I'm excited for coming back here in a few months and announcing that it's been a full year.
1/18/10
Gettin' Crafty in 2010
So apparently this year is the year I get off my duff and do things with my hands. Ok, now get your minds out of the gutters - I mean create things, you know, artistically? I've not been much of a crafter in the past and have always been extremely jealous of those who are quite good at it. I'm kind of all thumbs when it comes to detailed work. Or maybe I just lack patience. At any rate, I'm aiming to change that!
So my two new crafty hobbies are crochet and decopage. Crochet was my decision to attempt, decopage was actually my mom's idea and I'm just along for the ride I guess! Either way, both things I hope will be things I can learn to do and hopefully do well as time goes along.
I started projects in both of these areas over the weekend. My very patient and awesome sister-in-law Ali is assisting me with my crochet and gave me the advice of just "diving in on making something." So I have started what is supposed to become a dishcloth. It's been a bit of a challenge, mostly in that you need to use cotton yarn for a dishcloth and cotton yarn is not the greatest for someone who's just learning! But it's good practice and it's not like I'm giving this to someone. I'd like to move on to a scarf next, although I'm going to guess winter will be over before I can finish one!
Then my mom and I dove into the world of decopage yesterday. The beauty of decopage is there is no right or wrong way to really do it and it's up to you to make the thing you're decopaging unique. We both picked out small boxes from Micheals and set to covering them with some artsy tissues and papers we'd picked up. For a first time attempt, I think what we each did looks pretty good. I'll have to take a picture and post it here. We're hoping to do plaques, picture frames and other decoration type things as time goes on. It is a little putzy and messy with glue and water, but I think it will be a fun new hobby to have.
So there you go, I'm discovering my creative side and it turns out I really do have one! I just have to poke it a bit more than I do with some of my other talents.
So my two new crafty hobbies are crochet and decopage. Crochet was my decision to attempt, decopage was actually my mom's idea and I'm just along for the ride I guess! Either way, both things I hope will be things I can learn to do and hopefully do well as time goes along.
I started projects in both of these areas over the weekend. My very patient and awesome sister-in-law Ali is assisting me with my crochet and gave me the advice of just "diving in on making something." So I have started what is supposed to become a dishcloth. It's been a bit of a challenge, mostly in that you need to use cotton yarn for a dishcloth and cotton yarn is not the greatest for someone who's just learning! But it's good practice and it's not like I'm giving this to someone. I'd like to move on to a scarf next, although I'm going to guess winter will be over before I can finish one!
Then my mom and I dove into the world of decopage yesterday. The beauty of decopage is there is no right or wrong way to really do it and it's up to you to make the thing you're decopaging unique. We both picked out small boxes from Micheals and set to covering them with some artsy tissues and papers we'd picked up. For a first time attempt, I think what we each did looks pretty good. I'll have to take a picture and post it here. We're hoping to do plaques, picture frames and other decoration type things as time goes on. It is a little putzy and messy with glue and water, but I think it will be a fun new hobby to have.
So there you go, I'm discovering my creative side and it turns out I really do have one! I just have to poke it a bit more than I do with some of my other talents.
1/14/10
It's Ok...
In Glamour magazine there's usually a one page article that starts it with "Hey It's Ok to..." and lists a bunch of things you shouldn't feel bad about if you have done or want to do or things like that. This post is sort of in the spirit of that. I haven't been having the greatest of weeks, which just happens sometimes as life ebbs and flows. So right now, as a little pick-me up, these are things I think are ok.
It's ok...
-That most nights this week I haven't done much beyond get dinner on the table and cleaned up before pretty much crashing in front of the TV for the entire evening.
-That there are piles of laundry not getting done in my laundry room at the moment. We both are managing to still have enough clean work clothes, underwear and socks, so I'd say we're in fine shape
-To be celebrating the fact that it's getting up into the 30's outside, in MN we have that right, it's a heat wave!
-To be secretly wishing (or in my case not so secretly wishing) American Idol would just die a fast death.
-To be excited for a birthday party for my aunt this weekend simply for the fact that it's a dinner at Jax Cafe if nothing else
-To feel guilty that I'm more vested in this Conan verses Leno stuff instead of the devestation in Haiti, I should really change my thinking on that one
-That I really just want to spend my entire paycheck from this week on Lush products (I am not going to just because I want to though)
-To allow myself a treat from Caribou tomorrow just because it's Friday
-That I kind of want Nate's car to just die so he can get a different one already, tonight he gets to replace break pads on it...
-That some of the Twitter feeds I follow (media type ones anyway) were listed on Wired's Top 150 Geekiest Twtter accounts, which leads me to the conclusion that I am a geek
-That Facebook and Twitter are an insane distraction for me and provide me with alot of entertainment
Whew. Kind of a long list. But hey, that's OK.
It's ok...
-That most nights this week I haven't done much beyond get dinner on the table and cleaned up before pretty much crashing in front of the TV for the entire evening.
-That there are piles of laundry not getting done in my laundry room at the moment. We both are managing to still have enough clean work clothes, underwear and socks, so I'd say we're in fine shape
-To be celebrating the fact that it's getting up into the 30's outside, in MN we have that right, it's a heat wave!
-To be secretly wishing (or in my case not so secretly wishing) American Idol would just die a fast death.
-To be excited for a birthday party for my aunt this weekend simply for the fact that it's a dinner at Jax Cafe if nothing else
-To feel guilty that I'm more vested in this Conan verses Leno stuff instead of the devestation in Haiti, I should really change my thinking on that one
-That I really just want to spend my entire paycheck from this week on Lush products (I am not going to just because I want to though)
-To allow myself a treat from Caribou tomorrow just because it's Friday
-That I kind of want Nate's car to just die so he can get a different one already, tonight he gets to replace break pads on it...
-That some of the Twitter feeds I follow (media type ones anyway) were listed on Wired's Top 150 Geekiest Twtter accounts, which leads me to the conclusion that I am a geek
-That Facebook and Twitter are an insane distraction for me and provide me with alot of entertainment
Whew. Kind of a long list. But hey, that's OK.
1/13/10
Saying goodbye
She was friendly and welcoming to me from the first time I met her. Since she was a member of Nate's family, it was important to me that she liked me. Especially because he was one of her favorite people in the entire world, they had a very special bond. I've been told that when he used to go to camp for the summer she would sit and cry at his door for hours on end, wondering where he was. He was the one that got her to swallow some medicine to try and get her to throw up when she swallowed a needle and thread once after other family members had made several attempts.
I'm sure you're curious now as to who I am speaking of. I'm talking about the family cat, Missy. She was a beautiful multi-colored kitty who had a purr that could shake the entire room. Yesterday was a sad day, for unfortunately her health had deteriorated to a point where there was nothing that could be done to save her, so the decision was made to let her go. She was 18 years old, not bad for a cat, but still, it was tough news to hear.
Missy came into their lives when Nate was about 10 years old, so she was around for more than half of his life. She was truly a member of their family. She was already well into her older adulthood by the time I met her, but she still had quite a bit of spunk at that time. I remember it was a race to get into the front door at times before she'd try to sneak out. She was never shy about letting you know when she was hungry, which happened often when we'd be having family dinners on a Sunday night. She absolutely loved to be brushed, which is still something I wish my two girls liked as much as she did. The men were clearly her favorite people, she always found her way into Nate's or his dad's laps. We have a running joke of "I can't do this right now, I have COL (cat on lap)" which is something Nate's dad started saying when Missy would be more or less glued to him.
I had opportunities to spend time with her on many occasions as I started being the cat-sitter when Nate's family would go out of town shortly after we started dating. We had fun together, she was more playful then. I can remember Nate's grandparents would sometimes help out with watering flowers and such and would give her a little food. I had to tell them, please do not feed the kitty, I've been given specific instructions on feeding her. Because Missy loved to eat and would eat as many times as someone would give her food, but eventually would overeat and usually throw up someplace. Overall though, she was a good kitty.
I'm glad she suffers no longer, but she will be very much missed. We'll never forget you Missy.
I'm sure you're curious now as to who I am speaking of. I'm talking about the family cat, Missy. She was a beautiful multi-colored kitty who had a purr that could shake the entire room. Yesterday was a sad day, for unfortunately her health had deteriorated to a point where there was nothing that could be done to save her, so the decision was made to let her go. She was 18 years old, not bad for a cat, but still, it was tough news to hear.
Missy came into their lives when Nate was about 10 years old, so she was around for more than half of his life. She was truly a member of their family. She was already well into her older adulthood by the time I met her, but she still had quite a bit of spunk at that time. I remember it was a race to get into the front door at times before she'd try to sneak out. She was never shy about letting you know when she was hungry, which happened often when we'd be having family dinners on a Sunday night. She absolutely loved to be brushed, which is still something I wish my two girls liked as much as she did. The men were clearly her favorite people, she always found her way into Nate's or his dad's laps. We have a running joke of "I can't do this right now, I have COL (cat on lap)" which is something Nate's dad started saying when Missy would be more or less glued to him.
I had opportunities to spend time with her on many occasions as I started being the cat-sitter when Nate's family would go out of town shortly after we started dating. We had fun together, she was more playful then. I can remember Nate's grandparents would sometimes help out with watering flowers and such and would give her a little food. I had to tell them, please do not feed the kitty, I've been given specific instructions on feeding her. Because Missy loved to eat and would eat as many times as someone would give her food, but eventually would overeat and usually throw up someplace. Overall though, she was a good kitty.
I'm glad she suffers no longer, but she will be very much missed. We'll never forget you Missy.
1/11/10
If you've never been here before
I realized after posting a link to my blog here on Facebook I may have gained some new readers and thought now might be a good time to just re-introduce the old blog here to those who may not have been reading this entire time and don't want to scroll through the last year and a half's worth of posts! To my regular readers, bear with me for this one. :)
This is basically my outlet to ramble on my life and to keep friends and family updated on the various things that my husband Nate and I are involved in. Most of it is positive, however there is the occasional rant post, such as the one prior to this one. I pretty much just love to write, so this gives me an outlet to do that. We have two sub-blogs as well that Nate sort of helps me write when we have the time - Nate and Beth Eat Stuff (a restaurant review blog) and The Fun Couple's Guide to the Twin Cities (reviews of activities in the Metro area).
We've been married three and a half years and right now our only children are our two cats Taylor and Pippin. We enjoy spending time with family and friends and both participate in a traveling Catholic music group. Nate enjoys homebrewing beer and I'm trying a couple of new hobbies this year - crochet with my sister-in-law and decoupage with my mom. Other than that we take life a day at a time and it's always a new adventure.
So, if you are a new reader, you are now caught up and I hope you'll keep coming back here and also check out the links to some of my friend's blogs on the sidebar as well as some blogs I find entertaining (yes several of them are Muppet related - I'm a rather large fan). And always feel free to leave a comment in the comment area, I love hearing from readers!
This is basically my outlet to ramble on my life and to keep friends and family updated on the various things that my husband Nate and I are involved in. Most of it is positive, however there is the occasional rant post, such as the one prior to this one. I pretty much just love to write, so this gives me an outlet to do that. We have two sub-blogs as well that Nate sort of helps me write when we have the time - Nate and Beth Eat Stuff (a restaurant review blog) and The Fun Couple's Guide to the Twin Cities (reviews of activities in the Metro area).
We've been married three and a half years and right now our only children are our two cats Taylor and Pippin. We enjoy spending time with family and friends and both participate in a traveling Catholic music group. Nate enjoys homebrewing beer and I'm trying a couple of new hobbies this year - crochet with my sister-in-law and decoupage with my mom. Other than that we take life a day at a time and it's always a new adventure.
So, if you are a new reader, you are now caught up and I hope you'll keep coming back here and also check out the links to some of my friend's blogs on the sidebar as well as some blogs I find entertaining (yes several of them are Muppet related - I'm a rather large fan). And always feel free to leave a comment in the comment area, I love hearing from readers!
1/9/10
From one extreme to another
So Nate and I were looking forward to a nice date night last evening. Praise Project and the holidays have prevented us from getting alot of couple time, so I told him to pick whatever he wanted and then we'd come home and watch a movie together.
He decided Thai food sounded good and said that he and his co-workers really like Sawatdee in Minneapolis but didn't really want to go into the city. He looked it up on the web and found that they have a location in Maple Grove and that the menu was more or less the same, so asked if I minded if we went there. I said as long as he was driving I didn't mind!
So we headed out around 6:00, still hit a little traffic to get there, but managed to pull in by about 6:30 or so. It took us a little bit to find it as it's kind of tucked back on this one street near some other larger restaurants. We finally found both it and a parking spot and headed inside. We were seated right away. But then things went way down hill.
The dining room is large and wasn't terribly full. One large group to one side, otherwise a handful of couples throughout. A waitress walked by our table a couple of times and I am pretty sure she saw us, but never really stopped. Instead she continued clearing people's dishes from other tables. At first I didn't think anything of this, I figured there was probably another waitress or something. But time kept ticking by. We figured out what we wanted and everything and were more or less making small talk waiting for someone, anyone to come up to us. A busboy finally came out and gave us some water at least and said our server would be right with us.
Another five minutes went by. In those five minutes, two women were seated right behind us. They were given water right way. At this point I determined that we'd been sitting waiting almost 15 minutes and I could tell Nate was getting a little cranky about it. The kicker comes next though.
The waitress who had in these 15 minutes walked by our table countless times goes to the women behind us "oh I'll be right with you" and then instead of helping us went back to another table, then goes to the women to take their order completely ignoring us! Nate said he attempted eye contact with her and she looked the other way! We both realized this at about the same time and I finally said "those women came in way after us" and Nate was now furious and said "We're out of here, get your coat."
The hostess was not at the front otherwise we would have complained to her. Instead we were back out into the frigid night and now faced with "where do we go now?" Nate was just fuming, he said "I've never done that before, never walked out of a restaurant" and I am pretty sure I hadn't ever done it either. Maybe with my parents when I was little, I can't recall.
Across the street was Clauddaugh, the Irish Pub. Nate said "how does the Irish pub sound?" It sounded kind of heavy to me but I'm like, you know what, it's food and they'll have beer. Let's do it.
I have to say, we had an AWESOME experience there. Our waiter was so friendly and attentive. We had beers after sitting barely two minutes. Our food came out in a timely fashion. He remembered us by name after just glancing at our i.d's. Needless to say he got a very generous tip from us. My food was decent, not the best I'd ever had, but just the pleasant experience of our waiter and really the whole staff there made it so worthwhile.
I'll be writing two letters this weekend. One to the manager at Sawatdee expressing my extreme anger with the situation we were in and letting them know we will never be back. The other will be to the manager of Clauddaugh applauding them for being so wonderful to us from the minute we walked in the door. Because I believe good things need to be recognized and acknowledged just as much as bad ones.
He decided Thai food sounded good and said that he and his co-workers really like Sawatdee in Minneapolis but didn't really want to go into the city. He looked it up on the web and found that they have a location in Maple Grove and that the menu was more or less the same, so asked if I minded if we went there. I said as long as he was driving I didn't mind!
So we headed out around 6:00, still hit a little traffic to get there, but managed to pull in by about 6:30 or so. It took us a little bit to find it as it's kind of tucked back on this one street near some other larger restaurants. We finally found both it and a parking spot and headed inside. We were seated right away. But then things went way down hill.
The dining room is large and wasn't terribly full. One large group to one side, otherwise a handful of couples throughout. A waitress walked by our table a couple of times and I am pretty sure she saw us, but never really stopped. Instead she continued clearing people's dishes from other tables. At first I didn't think anything of this, I figured there was probably another waitress or something. But time kept ticking by. We figured out what we wanted and everything and were more or less making small talk waiting for someone, anyone to come up to us. A busboy finally came out and gave us some water at least and said our server would be right with us.
Another five minutes went by. In those five minutes, two women were seated right behind us. They were given water right way. At this point I determined that we'd been sitting waiting almost 15 minutes and I could tell Nate was getting a little cranky about it. The kicker comes next though.
The waitress who had in these 15 minutes walked by our table countless times goes to the women behind us "oh I'll be right with you" and then instead of helping us went back to another table, then goes to the women to take their order completely ignoring us! Nate said he attempted eye contact with her and she looked the other way! We both realized this at about the same time and I finally said "those women came in way after us" and Nate was now furious and said "We're out of here, get your coat."
The hostess was not at the front otherwise we would have complained to her. Instead we were back out into the frigid night and now faced with "where do we go now?" Nate was just fuming, he said "I've never done that before, never walked out of a restaurant" and I am pretty sure I hadn't ever done it either. Maybe with my parents when I was little, I can't recall.
Across the street was Clauddaugh, the Irish Pub. Nate said "how does the Irish pub sound?" It sounded kind of heavy to me but I'm like, you know what, it's food and they'll have beer. Let's do it.
I have to say, we had an AWESOME experience there. Our waiter was so friendly and attentive. We had beers after sitting barely two minutes. Our food came out in a timely fashion. He remembered us by name after just glancing at our i.d's. Needless to say he got a very generous tip from us. My food was decent, not the best I'd ever had, but just the pleasant experience of our waiter and really the whole staff there made it so worthwhile.
I'll be writing two letters this weekend. One to the manager at Sawatdee expressing my extreme anger with the situation we were in and letting them know we will never be back. The other will be to the manager of Clauddaugh applauding them for being so wonderful to us from the minute we walked in the door. Because I believe good things need to be recognized and acknowledged just as much as bad ones.
1/6/10
My newest obsession/addiction
So it's time for me to blog about the new love in my life. No it's not coffee, no it's not a purse (although I did get myself a nice Coach as a Christmas gift and got a GREAT deal on it but we'll talk about that another day). It is related to bath products and skin care though!
LUSH Cosmetics. Oh my gosh, I am head over heels. My sister-in-law introduced me to it, a friend of hers had introduced her awhile back and I kept saying "oh I should give that a try, I should give that a try". Well over the holidays I finally did after I got a bath melt as a gift. Then I ended up on a little shopping spree at the store.
You can buy Lush products at select Macy's around the metro area. Unfortunately, it's only in Macy's that are not super close to me, but so it goes. They have a pretty awesome website too (www.lushusa.com).
The pros:
-They have really awesome bath products and I love baths. Bath bombs, bath melts, bubble bars and soaps - awesome. They all smell really good, leave my skin feeling amazing after a bath and really help me unwind and relax when I use them!
-Their skin care products seem to be really helping my face kind of clear up.
-All of their products are made with natural and organic ingrediants
-They will let you try samples of anything you'd like
-The smells and fragrances are amazing! My favorites are Olive Branch, Vanillary and Rock Star (yes there is a scent called Rock Star!)
The Cons:
-It's kind of a spendy habit!
That's the only real "con" I have found so far. I am trying to pace myself so I'm not broke! I must say I really do appreciate that they let you try samples though especially on the skin care related items. And if you go when they have good sales, it's totally worth it. The after holiday sale was crazy - buy one holiday related item, get two for free? TWO for FREE? Um, sign me up please!
Anyway, that's my newest obsession. Even Nate gets to get in on the action a little bit - his sister got a soap from there as a gift that is kind of a little masculine smelling so she gave it to him to try! Everyone is benefiting, he he!
LUSH Cosmetics. Oh my gosh, I am head over heels. My sister-in-law introduced me to it, a friend of hers had introduced her awhile back and I kept saying "oh I should give that a try, I should give that a try". Well over the holidays I finally did after I got a bath melt as a gift. Then I ended up on a little shopping spree at the store.
You can buy Lush products at select Macy's around the metro area. Unfortunately, it's only in Macy's that are not super close to me, but so it goes. They have a pretty awesome website too (www.lushusa.com).
The pros:
-They have really awesome bath products and I love baths. Bath bombs, bath melts, bubble bars and soaps - awesome. They all smell really good, leave my skin feeling amazing after a bath and really help me unwind and relax when I use them!
-Their skin care products seem to be really helping my face kind of clear up.
-All of their products are made with natural and organic ingrediants
-They will let you try samples of anything you'd like
-The smells and fragrances are amazing! My favorites are Olive Branch, Vanillary and Rock Star (yes there is a scent called Rock Star!)
The Cons:
-It's kind of a spendy habit!
That's the only real "con" I have found so far. I am trying to pace myself so I'm not broke! I must say I really do appreciate that they let you try samples though especially on the skin care related items. And if you go when they have good sales, it's totally worth it. The after holiday sale was crazy - buy one holiday related item, get two for free? TWO for FREE? Um, sign me up please!
Anyway, that's my newest obsession. Even Nate gets to get in on the action a little bit - his sister got a soap from there as a gift that is kind of a little masculine smelling so she gave it to him to try! Everyone is benefiting, he he!
1/4/10
First post of 2010
So how are you all choosing to say 2010? Are you saying Twenty Ten? Or Two Thousand Ten? Or Two Zero One Zero? Just curious. I think I'm saying Twenty Ten. It's shortest and easiest.
Ok, now that I've got that out of the way, welcome to Twenty Ten on this blog! Nothing terribly exciting or new to report here, just wanted to thank all who read and follow along with my ramblings on life and hope that you'll continue to join me on the ride this year.
Our holiday weekend flew by too quickly, much like Christmas weekend did. We had a good balance of time with family, time with friends and time with just each other. I have zero complaints!
Now we get back into the normal groove of our regular activities, but you know what? That doesn't bother me so much! On we go!
Ok, now that I've got that out of the way, welcome to Twenty Ten on this blog! Nothing terribly exciting or new to report here, just wanted to thank all who read and follow along with my ramblings on life and hope that you'll continue to join me on the ride this year.
Our holiday weekend flew by too quickly, much like Christmas weekend did. We had a good balance of time with family, time with friends and time with just each other. I have zero complaints!
Now we get back into the normal groove of our regular activities, but you know what? That doesn't bother me so much! On we go!
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