Goodbye January

So since the previous blogs have been picture-less I decided I'd upload a few/send some from my i-pod. :) I decided to put away summer stuff & get out more winterish stuff recently (why, I don't know...winter is almost over for us south Texans!) But I discovered I'd collected ELEVEN scarves while in Amarillo! I guess one day I may use them again :)

 

 

 Then I FINALLY got organized, kind of! We collect the pressed pennies anywhere we go, sometimes we get more than one if there was a special meaning (IE: We have like 10 from Disney!) And we put them all in a special book made for them! It's pretty awesome & cheap souviners! Also we started collecting "pins" when we take a lot of pictures somewhere. Granted, in NOLA we didn't take THAT many pictures, but we liked the crawfish :) These pins are on our camera bag strap!

 

 

Some pretty spring-ish flowers from my wonderful husband when he came home from San Antonio a few weekends ago :)

Just ME...in a cute dress I got a Bealls for just $10! :) It's not the BEST picture, but it's a cute dress indeed. I also got 2 long dresses at Ross for $7.99 each (wore won this past weekend to my friends Pure Romance party & dinner with my family) and they will BOTH be perfect for Vegas :) OH & I also got a super cute light purple with navy overlay dress for my brother in law's wedding in April!

 

NOW....the main pictures I wanted to upload today! I didn't have to work today & I was just telling Travis last night that the next time I have all day off I'd like to decorate a cake! It's time consuming to make the cake, let it cool, make up all your icing & dye it the colors you want, decide what you want to do, ect. But this is what I came up with! I was excited because my cake stayed together and my icing was perfect consistency for EVERYTHING (IE:No crumbs in the icing that covered the cake!) 

 

The cake is white cake & the icing is buttercream. :) I think my roses & my shell border came out great, but I like my little beeeee too :)

 

Anyways...not too much else exciting going on as we leave January & enter February! February will be a FUN month! Looking forward to going to the Superbowl @ my in-laws on Sunday, San Antonio next weekend for Mardi Gras on the Riverwalk, Dierks Bentley & Justin Moore @ the San Antonio Rodeo, Valentine's Day, my hubby's 27th Birthday, and well, that's busy enough! :P

 





Ole' Accident Prone Me kinda Week!

Hello! I'm excited to say that tomorrow ends Travis' 3rd week of clinicals (YAY!) Only FIVE more weeks of being apart! WOOHOO!

Ok, so you're wondering about the title? I've been accident prone my whole life. Seriously! Busted out my 2 front teeth, horrible bloody nose...those are the 2 most mortifying as a child! LOL!

So my Right knee, for general terms I'm "knocked kneed" and my right knee has a horrible ugly curvature (valgus deformity), but it's "ME" I guess! I've had issues with patellar tracking (my kneecap likes to jump out of alignment) but I've done some strengthening to hopefully permanently correct that. HA! But anyways, I've already had 1 steroid injection a few years back in my patellar tendon (OUCH) but relief!

So now you know the history so you'd THINK I'd be more careful? Nope. Saturday night it began! We were leaving my in laws house and I shut my husbands back car door directly ON my kneecap of my right knee. Mind you, there's a mysterious bruise above my knee that was already there!

THEN at work earlier this week I ran into a machine, YEP, with my Right knee. lol.


Oh, this was the hilarious part. I decided to bathe our pups today since it was EIGHTY ONE degrees (81 in JANUARY!!!) but unfortunately the water was like ICE so the pups disliked me very much afterwards! So anyways, I'm bathing little Barkley, and I'm done so I go to get out of the pool with him (it's about 1-11/2' deep (the kind with the animals all over the side with plastic sides that pop up!) ) and I have Barkley, I go to step out and

BOOOM! On my R hip/butt I go!!! The funny thing is, my dad was in the shed right beside and he NEVER knew! haha. My hip knows now though! Barkley is okay! I told Travis that his tail did the "helicopter" all the way down! LOL!

Glad I could share my aches & pains & accident prone injuries with you all.

For now I'm just thankful for my wonderful family, my husband, and in laws, and my animals, my amazing job that's keeping me busy and I LOVE it, and most of all, God for all his great blessings he's bestowed upon us ;)
-Tara

Jewelry Holder

So after being on Pinterest for a while I saw a bunch of different ways to make jewelry holders, so I combined a few ideas, brainstormed at Hobby Lobby and this is what I came up with!

 

 

I got a red frame ($20, but it was 1/2 off, so $10) and I picked out knobs to coordinate ($3.99 ea but 1/2 off, about $1.50 ea)

 

My husband drilled the holes for me in the frame and we applied the knobs!

 

 

Here are all of my supplies before I get started on "my part" of this project!

-Hot Glue Gun

-Ribbon (whatever kind/however much you want! Watch for sales at Hobby Lobby, they usually go 1/2 off every few weeks!)

-plastic grid from the sewing/yarn section ($0.59, but was 30% off!)

 

 

I cut a piece of ribbon to go over the plastic grid, for my stud earrings to hang on with no fear of them falling/slipping through the grid.

 

Then cut the plastic grid to fit the frame, hot glue it to the frame.

 

Then my husband drilled 2 more holes in the top for my color coordinating ribbon to go so I could hang it up!

 

That's it! :)

 

 

My total cost was right at $22, it's a great easy project for a gift of just to keep for yourself to make life easier to get to your jewelry! I have mine hanging on the shelf where I keep a little dish for my wedding rings, it'll be nice to get all my jewelry on here and out of the box that it's been in! I have a vanity but it's in storage, so no place for my jewelry to go! This is the perfect solution!

 

:)

-Tara

New Years Resolution UPDATE & more :)

So how is everyone doing with their New Years Resolutions? We are now 19 days into the New 2013, can you believe it!?

We are doing GOOD with our resolutions!

We started our "eating better/less" after Christmas Day. Honestly, you should NEVER get on a scale on Christmas day after you've been on a vacation recently to New Orleans, and been at home while your Mom makes all kinds of home-made deliciousness! PLUS I took a cake decorating class in November! So anyways, neither of us liked the number we saw, the way we felt or anything so we decided to change it.

We opted to not do any "fad diets", you know...clean eating, fasting, liquid, vegtable, fruit...ect. The type of diets that are miserable, you can't enjoy foods you love, therefore it'll only last so long.

We did "Weight Watchers" in 2011, one of Travis' classmates (THANK GOD!) shared her secret with us about buying the "Complete Food List" weight watchers book, download a free food calc app on our "I-pod", and calculate how many points we're allowed on this site:
http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/calculators/ww-points-allowed/

So when you go to that site, you'll figure out how many points you're allowed in a day. Mine is 29. I don't add back points that I've eaten if I work out, it is what it is. Most all fresh fruit/vegtables are 'free' and cost 0 points. Also the way we do it, instead of having "bonus points" we "cheat" on the weekends. We still watch what we eat, but don't stick to the points. It's our cheat time! :)

When we did it in 2011 it really worked for us, we began to cook/eat less and healthier, make better options when eating out and share entrees. Then we were on the go, skiing, Vegas, New Mexico, home frequently, ect. so we lost track of it!

SO back to my New Years Resolutions...I made certain ones for 'me' and certain ones in a blog. My "me" ones include losing weight and getting much healthier before my 26th Birthday! (which is April 3rd, and so if I can lose some lbs and look better by then, I'll be excited because my brother in law is getting married the weekend after my birthday!)

Most people are ashamed of their weight, and honestly no one thinks I am this "stout" when I tell them my weight. BUT here ya go!

Christmas DAY:
Tara-211lbs
Travis-243lbs

New Years Weigh in week one:
Tara-207.6lbs
Travis-241.6lbs

I'll skip week 2, so here's our CURRENT weight as of today's weigh in:
Tara-201.4lbs
Travis-234.0lbs

We're also doing a "Squat Challenge" and "Push-Up Challenge" and we've both EACH done:
1120 SQUATS so far this year
322 PUSH UPS so far this year!

So we're doing good in that respect :)

Also I'm doing pretty good with the "Birthday remembering"! I need to get a few more immediate family members on the calendar and get busy with the Cricut making cards! :)

Travis just finished week TWO of his clinical, so only SIX more weeks of him being in San Antonio!! During that time we are going to TWO Rodeo performances; Dierks Bentley & Justin Moore! Also plan on going to the Riverwalk during "Mardi Gras"! I'm looking forward to it!

AND dun dun dunnnnnnn....BIG announcement....

WE'RE GOING TO LAS VEGAS!!! Yep! June 3-6th! I could NOT pass up this deal. We keep getting offers from the Mirage where we stayed when we went in 2011, and they sent me an offer for 3 free nights, AND $200 in comps (food, shows, anything you can charge to the room you can comp!) So all we have to pay for is our plane tickets (which, if we book SOON it'll be around $400 for BOTH of us round trip) and our gamble/fun money. And 5 months is plenty of time to re-build our "change jar" that we have been filling up annually since we started dating for our "fun trips". The most we had in there was over $1800, that was what we had saved for when we went to Vegas!

This trip will be a great graduation trip for my husband! Plus this time we'll get to check out the awesome pools at the hotel! (We went in Dec. last time!) And we've done a lot of tour-isty things so we can take in some different stuff we didn't have time for last time! My goal for Vegas: Be comfortable in a bathing suit again, AND pull an "ALL NIGHTER" to see some of the crazies on the strip! :)

Happy weekend all! :)

How Rude!

A quick blog about 2 recent occasions RECENTLY where I just want to look at the person and go "SERIOUSLY!?"

Yesterday was my amazing Mother's 66th Birthday. I did the usual, made her a pretty card, gave her a gift card to go shopping, bought her some flowers, then Dad, Mom & I went to Red Lobster in Victoria for her Birthday dinner.

We ate at Red Lobster in December with my Mom, Dad, and my Mom & Dad in law and the customer service was excellent, food was amazing, and the company was even better, but back to the service...it was GOOD!

Yesterday however, quite the opposite. When we arrived (mind you, this was mid-afternoon, 3pm-ish, so not rush hour busy) We sat down, the lady came by and introduced herself and said she'd be back briefly for our drinks.

When she brought our drinks, she had 2 Bithday desserts for the table behind us, an elderly lady and her daughter it looked like, so being me, I turned around and wished them a Happy Birthday, as did my Mom. Then I told them it was my Mom's birthday too, and at that time our waitress was right there and I told her she had a group of birthdays, that it was my Mom's birthday. She replied.

We ordered our appetizer, then she came back and took our meal order. Mom wanted soup (it was quite cold in the resturaunt & outside!), she brings our salad and NO soup. Ok, so she goes to the table beside us and spends forever just chit-chatting, I remind her of the soup. She brings something else out to another table, I remind her AGAIN. She brings it finally. Then our apps come out, and then our meals.

She sets our meals down (Mom & Dad both had stuffed flounder, I had shrimp), Mom's came with a little container of ketchup, that's it. So Mom asked her "Can we get some tartar sauce and ketchup?" and the girl replied "WELL, there's ketchup RIGHT there" (pointing to the SMALL container on Mom's plate) And I had also asked for more rolls.

We wait, she greets another table, brings to-go boxes out to the table right beside us, delivers our bread. I remind her AGAIN of the ketchup and tartar sauce. She goes to the table behind us who requested napkins, she goes to the back and comes out with napkins, I was staring her down, she noticed me goes "UGH" and turned around and went and got the sauces. By this time my Dad had already eaten one of his filets and Mom's was getting cold.

REALLY!? This girl needed a wake up call. I was TWO seconds from calling a manager, but I DID NOT want to make a scene, esp on my Mom's birthday! Then she tried to act all sweet (Uh HUH...TRY to make up so she gets that tip!) Well, she took FOR-EV-ER to bring the check. Once she did I already had the gift card and debit card ready to go.

NO birthday ice cream for my Mom. REALLY!? I wasn't going to ask for it because I had already had to remind her about EVERYTHING and I figured the ONE thing she could do right, knowing it's my Mom's birthday because she had acknowledged it earlier, was bring her ice cream. Nope. We DID leave a good tip still, I'm sure in her eyes it wasn't amazing, but in my eyes she should have paid us for the way she treated not only us with her lack of customer service but her surrounding tables as well.

On our way out the precious hostess ran to open the door for us, and as I walked out I graciously Thanked her and the Nana in me came out and said "Thanks!! That was the NICEST thing that's happened to us all night here!" :) And of course I smiled. I told Mom, that'll make her wonder. haha.


THEN. OK, so I did have a good evening, but this is my rants! SO back to TODAY.

My car needed an oil change, and when in Port Lavaca, I guess you don't have many options other than the dealership (which I may never go to again due to previous experiences) and wal mart (whom after today I vow not to go to!)

I dropped it off, and usually they have someone come out to your car to get your info, NOT today. I walked in, no big deal, I don't mind. I get in there and the lady behind the register and one of the mechanics are shooting the breeze, I stood there for at least a FULL minute-2 minutes waiting to be acknowledged!! Once I was she acted like "OH, there's someone out there who will come to your car", WELL, after waiting for 5 minutes in my car and deciding to go in I tell her, no one is out there. So with attitude she grabs some paper and a pen and writes down my info. I tell her I don't want synthetic oil, just the basic this time (I have done this before...when I don't feel like paying $50 for an oil change considering I have to get them about once every month and a half!)

THEN Dad and I were headed back to the house (he followed me so I didn't have to wait at Wal Mart) the mechanic called me, NOT from Wal Mart's number but a cell phone number, and is like "Uh, you know that we don't recommend switching from synthetic to penzoil, right?" I said "well, my car has been acting funny and the oil is the only thing different and so I figure I'll try regular good ole' oil again and see if that fixes the problem", he said "Well, it's not recommended that you do that". I say, "And it's recommended that I switch from Regular to Synthetic in the first place?" He had no response. I tell him "Just put REGULAR oil in my car, if I have issues I will go to the dealership (knowing darn good and well I won't do that either). UGH. Really people.

I'm not paying $50 for a WAL MART quality oil change. Mind you, when my husband took his car up there recently and paid for the one that they fill up your levels, they didn't even fill up his washer fluid because "their pump was broke". Really?!
Errrrr.

So far this year...

Hello 2013! So far it's been great. We rang in New Years together, watched the ball drop on TV and then went to sleep! We did play UNO Roboto with my parents on NYE, which is a FUN game!

New Years Day we went to our cousins wedding, Garrett & Julia in New Braunfels. We had a great time, a little chilly outside for the ceremony but a lovely wedding! Here's some pictures from the fun photo booth!

 

My in laws had fun with it too!

 

 

On the first weekend in the New Year, Travis, my Mom & Dad and I played Electronic Monopoly! Yep, I'm a big kid :) We had fun, Travis won...little stinker!

 

Saturday we headed to New Braunfels with my Mom & Dad in law to help my brother and soon to be sister in law move to their new apartment! I really enjoyed getting to visit with my soon to be sister in law! Can't wait to add her to our growing family officially in just a few short months! They treated us to some yummy BBQ at Rudy's, then we all had a cupcake from Gruene cupcakery, delicious! That's who is providing their cupcakes for their wedding! yum! Then on our way back home my in laws & us stopped and had supper at Clear Springs! So needless to say....my diet did NOT go good on Saturday! LOL!

 

Sunday was SO bittersweet. Travis & I headed to San Antonio with the RV and got him all set up for his THIRD clinical! I HATE that I got to have him home for a whole month, just to have to do the long-distance during the week thing AGAIN. BUT this is the LAST time, LAST time ever! YAY! I spent the night and let me tell you....it was C-O-L-D!!!! We woke up at 1am FREEZING! He turned the heat on, and the space heater and it took forever for me to warm up! He's at a very nice RV park and so far is liking his clinical! :)

 

On to some other things. As most of you know, we are the ones who pick up change if we find it on the floor (laugh all you want...but it adds up! :) AND Travis has found $5, and $1 recently on the ground!) also we would watch for good items in the dumpster. No not groceries or anything like that, but GOOD stuff that people just chunk! In Amarillo we found quite a few good deals, even an ice chest that simply needed a hinge,so Trav fixed it, and actually NOW that he had some time he made a wooden chest for it out of pallet wood! I'll post pictures next time.

 

The most RECENT and most lucrative was this...

 

My parents neighbors were THROWING this away!! It's a perfectly good gas stove. Travis worked hard to get it in clean looking shape, it works great. I listed it on craigslist & classifieds and BOOM! Sold :) $300!! Just took some time of Travis' to clean it, and mine to post it & meet with the people.

 

Also we've been doing good with weight watchers, well, the way we do it where we have so many points for the day. Also been doing the "squat challenge" and "push up challenge" :) My thighs BURN but I'm seeing a difference.

 

Also going to start the 52 wk money challenge! But I think I will do it in random order, on weeks when money is available do a larger amount and just mark it out as done  and weeks when it's tight just put one of the lower amounts! :)

 

Anyways, this is LONG enough. Sorry about the pictures being huge, it's being dumb tonight!

Later! :)