Happy Heart Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've talked before about how I don't need a special day to tell my husband that I love him and that this holiday is so commerical it's crazy and we don't make a big deal out of it and things like that. But in the last couple of years we've compromised and said no gifts, but instead we treat ourselves to a nice dinner (usually followed with a super nice bottle of scotch that we both enjoy). This year is no exception and I refuse to feel guilty about it.

I've seen a lot of negative posts on the subject of Valentine's Day and such today, but I'm just not letting them get to me. With the week we just had and really, the last oh I don't know, 8 or so months Nate just had dealing with being the solo Mac guy at work, we more than deserve a special treat today and I intend to enjoy it! Besides, it can serve as part celebration - Nate finally has a teammate at work again. The 2nd Mac tech started last Monday and it's my hope that things will finally even out for him again. I've already seen the change, he's a lot more relaxed than he's been in quite some time.

So what are we doing for our special outing? We're trying out a restaurant in NE Mpls called "The Butcher Block" - it's Italian. We discovered it when we were researching meat markets online and decided to give it a try. I'm mildly nervous as I read a few reviews today (yeah I know, way to procrastinate) and it's kind of a mixed bag - but I'm feeling hopeful because the postive reviews were extremely so and there were several very recent postive reviews, like in the last few days. I figure you have to take what you read on the internet with such a grain of salt. Some people complain for the sake of complaining.

If anything I'm looking forward to some quality one on one time with my most favorite person in the entire world. I would not have it any other way!

Another year gone by

Man, I know it's something that happens with age, but I swear with each passing year I find myself saying this line from the musical Rent "I can't believe a year went by so fast." I know it gets worse when you have children, so sometimes I'm thankful that we don't. Still, it is hard to believe 2011 is almost over already. Yet, as I sit here to start writing our recap of the year, I also can't believe how much we crammed into one year - maybe that is how it flew by. Let's rewind a bit.

January - The quietest month of the year. I decided to bite the bullet and take advantage of the free consultation at a client of Nate's to see if I'd be a candidate for Lasik. I was thrilled to learn that I was and set up my surgery for February.

February - We attended Winterfest as a belated Christmas gift to Nate and had a blast trying out all the best local beers MN has to offer. We enjoyed it so much we're going again this year. We had a most wonderful meal for Valentine's Day at Erte in NE Minneapolis. I had my Lasik surgery on February 18th and my life was forever changed. It is still the best thing I have ever done for myself. We participated in our first ever Praise Project benefit concert. We continued digging out from SO.MUCH.SNOW.

March - I had an eye opening and interesting experience filling in as a front desk person in another part of Fairview for one week. We got back on the running train as the snow started melting a bit towards the end of the month.

April - We celebrated my mom's birthday and Easter. We continued on with our running and were pleased with the progress we made. My mom and I took a fun spring arts sampler class at the park near my house and made some fun projects. Would like to go back there and do more.

May - Big month for us, celebrating five years of marriage over Memorial Day weekend. We opted to stay in town for the big day and visited a fantastic winery in Delano and then had a wonderful dinner at The Melting Pot downtown. I had my ears doubled pierced. Held our breath as a tornado tore through North Minneapolis and parts of Fridley, sparing my parents house by only a few blocks.

June - Nate decided to take his turn to see if he would be a candidate for Lasik and we were beyond shocked when he was! He had his surgery in the middle of June and also was super pleased with the results. We had a soggy time at this year's Rock the Garden, but I was still excited to see Neko Case, one of my favorite singers of all time, live in concert even if it wasn't quite the right venue for her. We hit a huge milestone in our running, able to do 30 minutes at one go. I ended up with a severely infected ear piercing and had one earring removed. The other one remains however. Started a fashion blog and have enjoyed the journey so far with that.

July - Celebrated the 4th with some Praise Project friends. Saw the Black Keys in concert over that weekend as well. Mom and I saw Josh Groban in concert too and hands down, he is the best live concert I have ever been to. We sweated through some extreme heat and took a week to go down and visit with our Kondrick relatives in St. Louis where we suffered through some REALLY extreme heat. We still had a good time there, visiting the Budweiser brewery and the Arch and all those fun tourist type things. While we were gone my awesome dad replaced our laundry room washtub and finally my basement doesn't smell musty anymore!

August - A quieter month again, we had a family reunion with Nate's family out in Wisconsin. We completed the delayed Torchlight 5K even if we couldn't quite run the entire thing. We brewed a bunch of beer so we'd have it ready for October and Oktoberfest. I came over an almost 30 year fear of loud noises by taking a gun safety class with Nate and for the first time ever, firing an actual gun.

September - We had another weekend up north with the Praise Project gang. We visited some wineries down south over Labor Day weekend. We decided to take a step back from the running for a bit so Nate could work through some stress issues he was having. We started getting the house in shape for Oktoberfest.

October - Oktoberfest celebration commenced. Another successful year and much fun was had by all. Put myself on a self imposed shopping ban to save up money for a Smartphone. Had a low key Halloween and did not dress up this year.

November - Returned to a place that caused a lot of pain in the past and were able to comfortably be there and close the door to the past (the old church), Did my annual trek for the Cities Sampler with Gina, celebrated my Muppets triumphant return to the big screen, enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving with Nate's family, and celebrated our big 3-0 and found that 30 is not as bad as I once feared. So far it's not really much worse than 29! Bought my iPhone and have loved it ever since.

December - Suffered through a pretty nasty cold, prepared to celebrate Christmas and had a wonderful holiday.

The end of the year has been calmer than other parts of the year. And I'm ok with that! Looking back through my review of the year it feels kind of nice to have things slowing down a bit! For the most part I would say 2011 was good. There were up and down moments as there are with any year, but we got through the not so great stuff and enjoyed the wonderful stuff. I don't know what 2012 holds, but I am looking forward to it.

Happy New Year one and all!

Merry Christmas!

For unto us is born this day in the City of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord
And this shall be a sign unto you.

A very blessed and Merry Christmas to all of you! Be safe if you are traveling and take time to enjoy the little moments of this glorious holiday.

Let it snow?

Snapped these photos real quick when I got home last night. Here's our white Christmas!

See the leaves below the snow? Yeah, we're one of those people who didn't rake. I was hoping it'd all end up totally buried like it did last year. What a difference one year makes, eh?

I will say, I haven't missed shoveling or cleaning off my car or dealing with the large snow piles at the end of the driveway this year. But, I am bummed we won't have just a pretty little coating of snow to enjoy for Christmas. So it goes!

In other news, it is my Friday. I do not work again until "next year" after today! I'm really glad it worked out for me to get an entire week off again for the holidays. Even with very little planned, it's fun playing "stay at home wife" and just chilling!

I'm so relaxed about the holidays this year. Everything is ready and even getting sick in the midst of December this year, I'm on track and I'm oddly calm. I'll take it. Perhaps with age comes wisdom. I still love this holiday, but I think I appreciate it on a different level now and that is helping with the "not freaking out" and just enjoying it for what it is. At any rate, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Unless the gift he is holding is like a million dollars or something. He he.

Hope you are all surviving in these final days of Christmas preparation!

Fabulous Friday 12/2/11

Well it's the return of Fabulous Friday! I don't know if I can keep up with it weekly again, but I wanted to bring it back today because of things I'm finding fabulous!

1. Gingerbread Pop Tarts - They're back! I discovered these last year and fell in love and I saw them at the store on Sunday and said I need to have these in my life again! Yum. And as I said when I mentioned I also liked the Pumpkin Pie ones - yes I am a 7 year old child.

2. My new iPhone! - You knew this would be on the list right? I am having a lot of fun learning how it works and playing with apps - most of which I have gotten free so far! That makes me very happy.

3. The Muppets - Yes, I've been raving for days but I'll do it again. Best movie ever. You just need to see it. End of story.

4. Christmas decorations - My house is all decked out and I love the new white lights I put on my tree this year!

5. My new red purse - my parents (really it was my mom who picked it out) got me a red purse for my birthday (yes I know, do I need another purse?) and let me tell you, I love this one. It's a great size and it has fun compartments for things. I adore it and I hope to carry it through most of December.

There you go! The sun is out and I'm smiling. What are you finding fabulous today?

Whirlwind weekend

Whew. What a wonderful long holiday weekend I just had! I don't want to brag, but it was pretty freaking awesome. Now that it's over I feel like it flew by, but really, I enjoyed every moment and felt very present in each moment, so I feel pretty good about that.

So I mentioned previously that I saw The Muppets twice. In addition to that, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Nate's side of the family and it was nice to see all of them. We went to the gun range on Friday morning to do a little recreational shooting. I still can't believe I can do this now, I have come so far. It helps that I have outstanding hearing protection. Anyway, we had some fun there and had lunch out at my favorite deli (Nelson's Cheese Shop in Spring Lake Park). Friday was one of the days we saw the movie then in the afternoon and after that we had dinner at Punch Pizza with my parents and Nate's parents. Then we met up with Ali back at my parents house and had dessert and opened presents.

Saturday we were a little bit lazier but that was ok because the weather was totally crappy. We did venture out in the afternoon to find a beer store we've been hearing about and it's like total Nate and Beth's ultimate candy store - The Four Firkins in St. Louis Park. Holy beer Batman! I have never seen such a huge selection of craft brews. And they do "create your own six pack." Total win. The store is organized so well too as to the different types of beers. I'm mildly embarrassed to admit we spent close to an hour in there. After that we picked up Five Guys burgers and brought them home and settled in with some movies.

Sunday I got down to business and after breakfast finally set about getting my Christmas decorations up. I had done a little bit of it on Saturday, but hadn't gotten the tree up and all that jazz. Nate was even teasing me that I was "running behind" on that, but with all the birthday hoopla, just hadn't had the time to work on it until Sunday. I got all the lights strung on the tree and discovered that one whole set was burned out. Crud. So I planned a trip to Target and Nate said he'd go with because he needed a birthday card for his dad. And somehow said trip to Target involved a slight detour to the Verizon store so I could buy myself an iPhone. No big.

Oh back up a bit here....I GOT AN IPHONE! Yes I am excited. So that was pretty big news for yesterday. We did go get the lights and stuff too. Returned home and I finished up the tree, we met up with my in-laws for a short walk in the cold air, came home and made shepherd's pie and tried to unwind a bit more before getting ready to face the week and come back to reality.

All in all a great weekend. I have no complaints!!

Awesomesauce

You know what is awesome? Short work weeks. I gave myself a gift and decided to use some of the massive amount of time off I have saved up (not kidding here) and only work Monday and Tuesday this week. Granted, Wednesday I might still be doing some "work" helping my in-laws get ready for Thanksgiving, but that is different.

Another thing that was awesome was our early birthday celebration on Saturday. We knew that this week was going to get crazy with family and what not, so we decided to go out just the two of us a little early and it was lovely. We had dinner at Moscow on the Hill in St. Paul, brought home dessert and watched one of our all time favorite movies. A very low key, but very nice evening. I have no complaints. Moments like that are some of my favorites.

I'm also kind of finding the snow a little awesome. Yes I said it. I know. I was whining and complaining so much at the end of last winter and I know I was still complaining about last winter into the summer. I can even probably find you all the blog posts and FB posts I made declaring war on snow. But the small amount we got on Saturday just stirred something inside of me deep down and I went all Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls TV show reference) and was just kind of...giddy? I don't know. I am glad we weren't hit with the 11 or 12 inches they got up north, but a small amount to start is kind of fun. And just makes me so ready for this time of year. I was already looking forward to it and feeling excited about it, but now I'm truly like ready for the holiday season. This is my most favorite time of year and I am welcoming it with open arms.

Thanksgiving? Bring it. Birthdays? Let's rock em. Christmas? Let's deck the halls. I even have two presents already bought. Just need to figure out our Christmas card for this year and I'm ready to roll.

So here we go! I am feeling awesome and I'm ready to make all these upcoming things just as awesome!