Long Weekend!

I hoping everyone had a great week. Mine was busy because school starts up this week, so there is always a big rush of students who want to get enrolled in school last minute that keeps me very busy. However, I have a three day weekend so I'm really enjoying this long weekend.

I really haven't done much this weekend and that's how I like it. Here is a picture that sums up my day yesterday.

 

However, I haven't been completely lame all weekend. Friday night we had people over. It wasn't a huge group, just 6 of us total but it was a good time. Somehow we a inherited this thing...  

It pours a perfect shot and then refills itself. It's kind of fun, but could become dangerous quickly. It can hold up to four different bottles, so you can have a range of shots to pick from. Oh, I love my friends that bring us crazy things they don't want any more.

Today, we haven't done much. I went to the store to buy food for the week, and Sam is going to cook us dinner. We're having a pork roast that Sam has put into a brine.

Oh my husband and his fancy cooking. The brine helps put flavor into the meat and then he'll be roasting it in the oven to cook it.

For tomorrow, I set up a dentist appointment in the morning. It's not the best way to spend my extra day off, but it will get me out of the house. I also hope to do a little more shopping with my gift cards, and work on some projects that I have started.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  Have a good week!

Weekend Recap

I hope everyone weekend is going well. My weekend started off with a quick visit to check in on my Sammy cat. He looks a lot better without that big tumor on his face. He still needs to get the stitches out, but he's doing really good. 

 

Oh yeah, and my sister was there too. She is starting beauty school this week, so I'm excited for her and I hope this is something she really enjoys.

  

 After my visit home, I went to dinner with these lovely ladies! Most of the conversation had to do with Anna's wedding and our group cruise we'll be going on in March.

For Saturday, I did running around in the morning.  I started at the Secretary of State's office to change my car title and registration to my new last name. I think (I hope) that's the last think that really needed to get changed with my maiden name. After that I went shopping to spend some of the gift card money we got for Christmas. Little on things for the house and a little on myself.

 

Also, yesterday the Christmas decoration got put away. All and all a pretty lazy Saturday.

And my plans for today- I'm starting to feel a little under the weather so I plans are to keep warm, cuddle on my couch, and just relax. I thought it would be fun to watch our wedding video because it's been a while since I watched it.

What I thought was really funny is that Shamrock sat on the other couch and watch it too! He never pays any attention to the TV but I guess because he heard our voices that made him interested in what was goes on.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

First Things First

So I'm totally stealing this idea from Allison blog (and she took it from someone else) but I thought it would be fun to do this survey. It's like junior high/ high school all over again!

First thing you do when you get up in the morning:

• Get out of bed & go pee. (Doesn't everyone?)

First thing reach for when you open the fridge:

• First thing in the morning- the milk for cereal 

 
First thing you do when you get to the gym:

• Swipe card, go to locker room, get on cardio machine. 

First thing you do when you get home from work:

•  Head down stairs to check on cat. 

 First car:

• Oldsmobile Alero (same car I'm still driving today)

 First accident/ traffic violation:

• I was 16 and it was in the parking lot of my first job. The other car hit my front tire/ front bumper. A cop saw the whole thing, I knew it wasn't my fault, but I still cried.

First thing you wanted to be when you grew up:

•  The hula hoop girl in the circus. I thought this would the coolest job ever!

 

 Source

 First choice beverage:

• Coke-Cola

First choice breakfast:

• I used to get this all the time as a kid with my grandparents- two eggs (over easy) with white toast, and bacon. 

First choice dessert:

• Ice cream- with out question!

 First song that comes to mind:

• "I'm Bring Sexy Back"- JT. I heard it on the way home tonight.

First major purchase:

• My education. My first semester of community college was the first time I ever spent over $1,000 in one shot.

 
First job:

• Banquet serving (which turned into a 8 year gig between two different banquet places)

First time you flew on a plane:

• I'm not really sure but I'm going to guess around 3 years old going to Orlando.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

Pet Parenting

By now everyone knows that I'm a pet parent. In my more recent posts I talked a lot about Shamrock who is the newest fur baby in my life. Shamrock is the first pet for Sam and I, but he wasn't my first fur baby. There is Sammy.

Sammy cat is my first fur baby. I got him on the 4th of July in 1998 from my grandpa's farm. He was the runt of the litter, and I just loved his mild manner from day one. He's just a sweet and laid back cat. Being that he's on the older side, I figured it would be best if I let him live out the rest of his life at my mom's because he's comfortable there.

From the first picture above and from the video below, you can see that my poor baby has a tumor growing from his nose. The picture was from over a year ago and the video is from the summer. As you can see from the video he is still very active and sweet. Also at the point the video was taken the tumor didn't seem to bother him at all.

This tumor has been around for a while, but being that he's 14 years old we didn't want to put him through the trauma of being put under to get it removed. Also, the cost of getting it removed isn't cheap.  However, the tumor has gotten so big that it's getting in his way when he eats and he keeps on scratching it open which just makes it worse. So come tomorrow my mom is going to take Sammy to the vet to get it removed.

I hope that my old baby can handle the surgery and come home without any complications. My hope for 2013 is that both my fur babies start feeling/ looking better and we get to enjoy more years with them. 

Happy New Year!

Hi 2013!

It's nice to meet you. I hope you treat me and everyone I care about well. I know things can't always be perfect, but the I'm looking forward to what you may bring. Let's make this year a good one!

Love,
~Stacy

With this new year, I'm ready to get back to work. After 11 days off in a row, I'm ready to get back to work and back into a routine. I know that with school starting up in 2 1/2 weeks, I'm going to be crazy busy until the end of the month, so I'm glad that I got a nice break for a bit.

For my first day of 2013, I really didn't do much and I'm ok with that. Being that many of my friends are coming down with colds and now I'm not feeling 100%, I figured it would be good just to take it easy.

With the new year comes "New Year Resolutions". For this year, I would like to start working on improving our home. This includes just keeping up with the house chores. Even though I've been happy with the house the ways it is, there are things that still need to get done. Painting, trim work, cleaning and organizing the garage just to name a few thing. In this past I have fought with Sam because I haven't been in the mood to do much around the house and I want to try and change that.

Additionally, I would like to start budgeting our money better. I think I'm pretty good with money. However, in December we had over $1,000 in unexpected bills and I want to make sure we have an emergency fund ready just in case that happens again. Since moving into our home I have just paid the bills as they have came in, but I have given little attention to how the bills have affected our bank accounts. Currently we have a "his", "hers", and "ours" bank accounts, so its been hard to figure out a balance between who pays what bill with what money. So I think making a budget would be good for me (us).

Finally, I would like to enjoy life more. I often worry about every detail, and I realize that things often work out fine no matter how much I worry. Last year, I worried about all different things throughout my honeymoon and I could have even had a better time if I just relaxed a little more. So, come March when we go on our next trip, I hope I can relax and go with the flow a little more.

Here's to a new year and new goals! Here's to good friends and great family, and all the memories that this year will bring! Here's to 2013!

Shamrock Check In

Come tomorrow Shamrock has been part of our lives for 2 months. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a lot longer. I think it has to do with all the scares he has given us, the multiple vet trips, and gobs of money he have spent on him so far. However, so far we feel everything we done has been worth it, because he is an awesome cat.

 

As a write this post, he is hanging out with me keeping me company on this "snowy" day.

Being that we live in Chicago, this is kind of sad when this is the most snow we have seen since last winter. I'm not a huge fan of snow, but the snow makes the leafless trees look less sad. 

Since starting this post, Shamrock has decided that hiding under the blanket would more fun then just sitting nicely next to me. I shouldn't be surprised because in the last few days, sleeping under blankets seems to be his new favorite thing. Here is what I came home to the other day-

How cute is this guy!

In other cat news- I did take Shamrock to see the neurologist on Monday morning. The vet is about hour and half away, but I was impressed on how caring and knowledgeable the vet was. She said he was the first cat she's been able to cuddle with in months, and he his exam was great. She recommended we just keep him on the anti-seizure meds, and to go to our local vet to do some blood work in 2 weeks.

However, within 30 minutes of getting home, Shamrock had another seizure. This seizure didn't last as long as some of the others (that was his fourth seizure since that first ER trip), but it did wipe him out. It took him about a day to get enough energy to start eating and drinking, and then another day to start acting like himself again. We are hoping that the long car trip is what caused the attack, and the meds will continue to help him live a normal life.

Being pet parents we want to make sure we do as much as we can to help our pet. However, some of the testing the vet is recommending is thousands of dollars and that's not really an option for us at this point. So I'm just hoping that we have found the problem and we can continue to manage it with medication. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how Shamrock is doing, and any good thoughts/ prayers our way would be appreciated.

The Gift of Memories!

I know that this season is more about giving than getting gifts. However, I think it's important to be thankful for the gifts you do receive. This years I was blessed with a lot of wonderful things that I received for Christmas.

 

The husband got me this beautiful necklace. I wanted a new nice necklaces because my old "Open Heart" chain broke and now is missing completely. I'm pretty good at losing jewelry, but I'm going to do my best not the lose this one.

However, Christmas is about giving and I tried to give some gifts that were more sentimental than just another "thing". One of the hardest people to get gifts for is my grandma. She never needs anything, so I wanted to give her something you can't just buy at any store. I wanted to give her the gift of memories.

Growing up my grandma often had a video camera attached to her hand. She love taping us and we loved watching the tapes. However, VHSs are starting to become very dated technology and soon we may be unable to watch these memories anymore. So I thought it would be a good idea to convert the VHS tapes to DVDs and give them as gifts.

I brought a VHS to DVD converter at Best Buy. What I like about this converter system is that you can just do a straight conversion, or you can edit the DVD and put multiple videos on one disk. It just depends on how long the home movie is and how much of the home movie you want to edit away. Being that it takes time to record the video off the VHS, it take more time to edit and add titles to the video, then even more time burn the disk- this process wasn't quick but I think it was worth it.

I gave 4 videos/ DVDs to my grandma and 4 DVDs to my sister, so I think the money I spent on the converter and the disks was worth it. I hope to finish doing the rest of the home videos at some point, and I was told by Sam's parents that I'm going to get the honor of converting their home movies too. Exciting stuff, but I think it's going to worth having the memories saved in a more user friendly format.

This time of the year is about making memories and sharing memories with the people that you love. And because I love my readers- here is one of my favorite clips from the home movies. It's of me eating ice cream.

I can only image how nice a sticky I was. Yummy!