Pic 18

Each December, I try to read one Christmas book.  Here is this year's selection, which I have been reading each night before bed, including day 18. 

Picture 17

On this day, my Secret Santa gave me maple syrup.  Once again, I'm having issues rotating the picture so just turn your head sideways or turn your computer sideways ha ha. 

Picture 16

We did Secret Santa at work again this year. This is what I got from my Secret Santa on the first day.  It is a kitchen towel that has a recipe for cookies on it. 

Picture 15

At our annual friends' holiday party, I won this at the Yankee swap. 

Picture 14

I made the chocolately melting snowman cookies to take to Mike's friend's house on the night of Picture 14.  I also made some more and the candy things on the side for a holiday party on the next day. 

 

 

Picutre 13

I went out with two of my friends tonight (on the day of picture 13 that is) 

.  My friend Melissa made me these wine glasses as a Christmas present.  So cute! 

Picture 12

I made these for some people at work and some of the kids in the family.  They are Christmas tree lollypops. 

Picture 11

Sorry for the delay in blog posts.  I've been sick.  I hate to sound like a whiner and complain about a cold as I do get colds pretty often--comes with the job I guess--but this one hit me hard.  I actually went to bed early Friday and Saturday and with any luck will do so tonight and I spent much of yesterday in bed so the blogging did not happen.  Anyway, this pic is to show me making progress with the present wrapping on day 11.  But shh, I forgot to take it on day 11 so I may be a little off on which presents were actually wrapped then. 

Picture 10: Dec. 9th

I take a jazz dance class.  Dec. 9th was our last class until 2015.  We danced to a Christmas song.  In honor of that, one of the ladies in our class brought Christmas hats and headbands for us to wear.  It was kind of cute.  At the end of class, our teacher took pictures of all of us. 

Picture 9

Today I worked, went to a meeting, and worked out so I was struggling for a pic.  I decided to take a picture of the book I've been reading before bed each night including the night of day 9.  It's a pretty good book.  My friend gave it to me for my birthday last year. 

Picture 8

On Dec. 7th, I went out to brunch with some friends to celebrate my birthday.  Do you think I remembered to take any pictures at brunch?  NO!  Did I take a picture of the delicious cookie cake my friend Jill made me?  NO!  So here is a picture of one of my gifts, which actually comes in quite nicely because the bag I take to work is literally falling apart so this timing is fabulous.  My friend Kate gave it to me on the 7th.  I should have taken a picture of the bag because she ran out of gift bags so she put it in a Disney princess bag. 

Picture 7

I went to a Christmas party and I didn't take a single picture.  I remembered this at the end of the party so instead here is a picture of the fruit tree I made for the party.  I think I have taken a picture of this in previous years for my blog so I must be more creative in the future.  Either that or do the 30 days of pictures in a different month. 

Picture 6

Two people told me I had to watch a show called "Newsroom" so I Netflixed it on Friday and so far I am liking it. 

Picture 5

Why, you ask, do I have a picture of a watch that says 9:00? It is to symbolize my long day.  I spent the day at a rather long workshop instead of at my usual job.  Then I had a meeting for about an hour.  Following that I went to my ballet class--I was late.  :(  Then it was home to quickly inhale a bagel, change, and head off to our Homeowners' Associations' Annual Meeting.  So by the time I finally got home it was 9:00--hence the picture.  It was a rather long day.  I was glad the next day was Friday. 

Picture 4: Dec. 3rd

One of my co-workers/friends is having a baby in a month.  Her baby shower was Dec. 3rd so here is a picture of the cute cake. 

Picture 3

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a couple of baby showers to go to this week.  On Tuesday night, I made chocolate crunch bars for one of the showers.  In case you don't know what those are, basically, it's a brownie and a Rice Krispie treat combined--brownie at the bottom, Rice Krispie treat at the top.  Yep, they're GOOD.  :) 

Picture 2

Monday I worked a little late, but neglected to bring my gym clothes to work with me so I came home, changed, and then went to the gym.  After the gym, I had to go shopping at a store I don't particularly love for some gifts for two upcoming baby showers.  I also had to run an errand for work so by the time I got home and was done for the night, it was after 8:00.  Combine that with the fact that I hadn't had dinner and had stuff to do and well, let's just say it was the beginning of what would be a week filled with too many late nights.  I forgot to take a picture of any of the gifts I bought before wrapping/packaging them so here is a picture of one of the baby cards--my mom makes cards.  I think she does a nice job.  :)  I'm having issues rotating this on here so turn your head sideways and you'll see it looks better.  :)  Sorry about that. 

 

 

 

The Annual 30 Days of Pictures Posts

So I'm a bit torn as it's taken me months to write about the time leading up to my wedding, but usually, at this time of year, I like to do my 30 days of pictures so I think the wedding stuff may get interspersed with some picture blogs.  Ironic that I go for three weeks without writing anything and then you'll get a day or two with two blog posts.  Perhaps some year, I'll mix things up and do my 30 pictures during another part of the year, but for now, here it goes:  Nov. 30th is Picture 1.  I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm posting a picture of my Christmas tree since I often do that in my 30 Days posts.  Technically I put the tree up a couple of days before the 30th, but I didn't get it decorated until today (I am writing this on the 30th, but I know it won't post for a couple of days). 

Two Days to Go

The Wednesday before my wedding, I went to work as usual, but the rest of the day was certainly not typical, well, I guess it was in a sense that I was doing a lot of running around and that can be normal for me some days, much as I don't enjoy it.  But let's rewind a bit shall we?  I went from work to the bridal store to pick up my wedding dress--so exciting and thankfully, it still fit.  Actually, as I found out on Friday morning, it was a tiny bit big.  Following dress pick up--Mom and Grammy met me there--it was back home.  My mom had kindly made tags for my favors (you know the things that say thanks for coming and have a date on them.  We did a little play on words since the favors were sweet treats and in addition to the thanks they said something along the lines of it was "sweet" of you to come to join us.  Tying these on the bags took longer than I thought.  I had been telling my friend and co-worker Melissa about this and she kindly offered to come over and help me.  At first I was reluctant to accept her help, as I didn't want to bother her, but in the end I gladly accepted and thank goodness.  It went to much quicker with two people.  We tied all the tags on, made sure the candies were set--wrapped and had stickers on them, and defrosted the mini loaves of bread.  Melissa left when everything was set and I inhaled some lunch and finished writing out my thank you cards to the wedding party.  Then it was off to the gym then back here to hustle to change and go get a pedicure.  They told me the whole pedicure would take 45 minutes.  My appointment was at 6:00 and I had to meet with the priest who was marrying us at 7:30--more on that in a bit.  So I figured that gave me plenty of time even if they were running a few minutes late.  WRONG!  They were over a half hour late taking me for my appointment.  I told them I really should leave by 7:15, but could leave at 7:20 if I absolutely had to.  I didn't get out of there 'til 7:25--plus I had to walk to the car so add another 2 minutes and then drive to the church.  Thanks to all this rushing, I ruined two of my toes--the polish I mean, not my actual toe.  I had a nail polish that was fairly close to the color on my toes so I filled in the chipped spots and I don't think it was too noticeable.  I know how petty I sound, but considering pedicures aren't cheap, I wanted it to last longer than 2 minutes!  I apologized to the priest many times.  My fiancé was all ready there and I know he wasn't thrilled about me being late, but he managed to chat with the priest 'til I got there.  The actual meeting (which I was 10 minutes late for--thank goodness for no traffic) was no more than 15 minutes long.  So the meeting when well, despite me being embarrassed about being late, but the priest gave us a homework assignment--we had to write how we met and what we liked about each other.  I stopped by my parents' house to pick up a few more favor tags, talked to Mom and Gram for a few then back home to put the defrosted mini loaves of bread in the bags, do my homework assignment, do some last minute stuff for work since I was going to be away, and eat some dinner.  It was nearly midnight by the time I went to bed.  My brother arrived (he took a late evening flight) a little before 3am.  I heard him come in--my fiancé let him in and got him situated--got up said a quick hello then tried to get some sleep until the alarm went off at 6:30am.  But we'll pick up there in a future blog post.