Christmas Fail

We have been planning our Christmas gifts for neighbors for months. You may remember my posts of our homemade blackberry syrup. There were so many blackberries this year that we made several large batches so we could give them out to neighbors for Christmas, along with a yummy pancake mix.

We thought we better try one of the neighbor bottles before passing them out. They seemed very runny, so I thought I'd cook them again and add some thickening. I waaaaay over did it. They turned out like jelly. We had to dump them all. So bummed. Major fail. Sending gift-less love to all my neighborhood! Depending on berry harvest next summer, we may try again.

Christmas Spirit

Rick has been very busy finishing school this December, so I was on duty to put lights on the Christmas tree. I went a little nuts, but I love it. I had the bottom third done and had used all the lights that Rick usually does on the whole tree.

I found some more and kept going. I should have taken a photo without the daylight in the window behind, but you get the idea.  I also have been thinking this would be the last year we'd do the traditional family tree decor. There are some ornaments that are sentimental, but I felt a lot of them were junk. Last year the kids didn't seem too into decorating the tree, so I figured if they didn't care, then I'll buy some tree decorations after Christmas this year to do a pretty tree next year. However, the boys were excited to decorate the tree this year, and they had little stories with a lot of the ornaments, so I guess we'll keep it a few more years.  Plus, I've added some of my favorite bird ornaments so it feels like it's a good mix of traditions for all of us.

 

I cut off the top of the tree in that photo, so here is just the top. It's a little sparse on branches, but we put some little birdies up there to give it some life.

 I bought super sparkly paper for gifts under the tree this year. (House is now covered in glitter.)

I am in charge of my work Christmas party every year. We usually choose a nice restaurant, so I don't have to worry too much about decor and food. After dinner we do a gift exchange, only all the gifts are provided by the company.  Often, it's a big stress for me trying to find gifts that are nice, but generic enough that anyone in the office will enjoy them.  This year, I let go of the stress. I figured everyone is going home with $60-$130 worth of stuff they didn't come with, plus a nice dinner. If they aren't happy, it's not my fault. :)  Here's the pile of gifts for this year.

 

We have some standard gifts that I do every year- ski passes, restaurants, movie passes, every few years I throw in a spa certificate, although I try to do a few new creative things each year. I throw in some new electronic device. The big ticket item this year was a Kindle Fire. I also did a "Car Care Kit" which was a digital tire gauge, a detail car wash, and $50 gas card.  My other new one was "Lunch on the Company" and included gift certificates ranging from $10-$30 to places like Subway, Rubios, Paradise Bakery and Red Iguana. I think that went over better than the car gift. I'm always open for ideas. If you have any gender-neutral-any-one-would-like gift ideas, send them my way. I'll put them on the list for next year.

Kitchen Remodel- The Beginning

It's time for a kitchen remodel. We finally picked out granite and had it installed last weekend. We decided to start there and work the rest of the decor around the granite. Here is kitchen before.

 

And kitchen after new granite install. We originally were debating about painting or staining the cupboards, or a mixture of both, but I think we will leave them. They ended up matching the counter tops. That is something we can do later as easily as we could now.  We are going to sell our old appliances and get black ones, add hardware to the cupboards and drawers, and add a tile back splash that is yet to be decided.

Sink and bar before

Sink and counter after

We had some issues with this side of the kitchen. The granite was cut 3/4 inch too shallow so we will have to built up under the bar before adding a backsplash. The sink is much bigger than the old one and, as you can see, the hole for the faucet was cut under the bar. We are replacing old bar with a custom wood one. We will install it farther back, but still need to find a faucet that will fit this tight space. The one we purchased didn't work, even with Rick cutting some space in the old bar. We will be without running water in the kitchen for most of the week until we find time to shop for the right one. Lots of eating out.

 We thought it was funny that one of the little scrap wood pieces from Rick cutting up the bar ended up looking like Texas.(This is the only pic that wouldn't flip right side up. Tilt your head to the left and you'll get the Texas thing.)

Originally, we were going to replace the tile. We do not like wood for a kitchen floor so we were going to pick new tile. The kind we liked ended up not matching the granite. We think we'll just keep what we have because it turned out to be the right colors to go with the granite. I spent HOURS on Saturday cleaning the grout, which made a big difference. Some of the stains did not come out though. Any ideas? I saw they had a product that stains and seals grout. We have the same tile in the laundry room, so maybe I'll try it there before the kitchen. The big bummer will be if I do all this work and then we decide to tear it out anyway.

I'm excited about our home projects. In a month or so, our house should be much more what we have wanted since we moved in 3.5 years ago.

Girl's Weekend - Mom's Birthday

What do you get your mom for her birthday when she has everything? GIRLS WEEKEND!  My sisters and I sprung for a room a Little America, and we all spent the weekend downtown.

There was lots of shopping. Here we are at City Creek. The water fountain is choreographed to Christmas music.

Instead of going out to a movie we opted for a movie in the hotel room. Here we are all on one of the beds ready for a flick.

The next morning we had the brunch buffet at Little America (yum) and shopped some more. Such a fun time. I love spending time with my mom and sisters (and cutie niece, Bree, who was so good all weekend long.)

Thanksgiving Weekend

Rick and I took a road trip to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving. I did not take any photos of the big event (Thanksgiving dinner), although it was lovely. We ate outside which was a first for me with Thanksgiving. It was very enjoyable.

Between dinner and pie we walked down to the nature park. Well, some of us walked, others rode in the chariot. (This was part of Mara's Halloween costume this year.)

Here's some of the family walking around the park. We saw ducks and were attacked by a crazy goose.

Saturday we went to the beach. Here is Ava ready to play.

Danny, Cameron and Rick spent some time in the water. The waves weren't great, but they had fun. Dolphins and a seal came to play with them.

Mara was not happy to be pulled away from her book to go the beach, so she built herself a little shelter to read in.

We decided to detour on the way home and took the back way from Vegas. We stumbled upon the Extraterrestrial Highway. (I don't have photo of the sign- it's on Rick's phone.) It's the road to Area 51 and reportedly has a lot of UFO sightings. We didn't see any, but some of our things were strangely tampered with when we got home. I'm thinking our memory of it must have been erased. :)

We found a little gift shop which was closed but had fun stuff around it.

Here we are about to be abducted.

Rick breaking into the Alien Research Facility at Area 51.

We had planned to get home early, but obviously had too many distractions and did not get home until 11PM. Worth it.

It was so nice to have a weekend away with Rick, spend some time with his family, and forget about the stress of life for a bit.  Definitely a needed and refreshing trip.

November Birchbox

What's up with blogger. I can't make a draft. Annoying!

I've been so busy that I haven't had time to blog. Don't have time now so you're getting a version without too many details. Here goes....

Little bottle of hairspray. Yay. Perfect for my office drawer.

Geez. Also can't figure how to rotate. This is an oil for your face. You apply under your make up. I thought it would leave my face greasy, but it didn't, although I don't know that it did much else either.

Pomegranate soap. Nice.

Why are these all upside down! I like the separating and lengthening of this mascara, but I prefer thickening, which this doesn't have. But it does have the handy application mirror on the side. 

More perfume samples. I'm getting quite a collection!

It's People

My last two blogs are just part of what I've been thinking lately. And by lately I mean the past couple of years.

In my single life, I would leave about 7AM to walk to work. I had plans most nights and would get home just in time to go to bed an start over the next day. I had lots of amazing friends and there was always something to do. Being social has always been a big part of my life.

I remember after my freshman year in college I was thinking about all the fun people I'd met that year. My world had just been opened up from my little high school bubble. I remember saying to a friend, "I am so thankful for all of the people in the world that I don't know." What I meant was, knowing how the new people I had met during the year had enriched my life, I was excited about all the people I had yet to meet. I loved having that perspective.

One year in college, my roommates and I had the motto, "It's people." That meant that no matter what else we thought was important, it wasn't as important as the people in our lives. I remember the day we came up with it. We were going around our apartment saying, "It's not this book, it's people. It's not the lamp, or the TV, or my car. It's people." What a great perspective on life. I've lost that somewhere along the way.

I have had a hard time connecting with people since I've been married. I've also lost connection with a lot of people I love. We always say we'll get together, then don't. I think there are many reasons for this. First, I love spending time with Rick. I never get tired of it. The more I'm with him, the more I enjoy being with him. (Cheesy, huh?) But I need to remember that my life will be enriched by added diversity. I need to expand.

My peers changed drastically when I got married. I went from the single scene with a bunch of high-powered friends who traveled and went out every night, to suburbia where everyone has been married since they were in their 20s and had families. That was harder for me than I thought. They all had family life mastered and I was drowning trying to figure it out. I'm sure I could have used their help and advice, but mostly I just felt out of place and depressed.

Another reason for my social-less-ness has been my stress level. I've had a steady stream of health issues the past 3-4 years. That plus the stress of going from single girl to being a working mother has made balancing my time difficult. I'm gone most of the day at work, come home, clean the kitchen, fix dinner, clean the kitchen again, and crash. Weekends are for errands and hopefully a date with my hubby. Try to fit in exercise and extended family, and I'm pooped!

So... enough with the excuses. It seems the health issues continue. One ends, another starts. Maybe this will just be my life after 40. I'm old an falling apart. I am learning to disconnect my physical well being with my emotional/mental well being. Time to drink a bottle of suck-it-up and not let it hold me back. I'm also getting better at balancing my time, or to put it more precisely, not care that everything isn't getting done. I can have friends over for game night even if my kitchen floor hasn't been mopped. It's people, not my floor, that matter.

Rick and I set a goal to entertain at least once a month. This will be old friends as well as new people we'd like to get to know better. We made the effort this month, but friends schedules didn't work out at the last minute. Not giving up. Looking forward to it. It's people!

What I'm going to do about it

I liked my sister's comment on my last blog. She said maybe I needed to be the one to host the community event in my neighborhood. Good idea. Instead of complaining, I should do something about what I don't like. Here's the plan.

I've already talked to a neighbor who feels the same and is ready and willing to jump on the bandwagon with me. She said she and her next door neighbor have had similar discussions and they are both wanting to do something about it. So- already three of us ready to go.

Next Halloween, said neighbor will have soup potluck early in the evening, my family will do a spook alley in the garage, and then we will find someone on the street above to do hot chocolate / cider. Families can work their way through the neighborhood with fun and social stops along the way.

In the meantime, I am going to the annual HOA meeting and volunteering to plan some events during the year. I am scared to write that down and commit to it, as I had such a horrible experience on my last HOA board. I'll give it a year and see what happens.

Halloween Rant

It's been a while since I've had a nice little rant on my blog. I guess we're due for one. I never thought I'd rant about Halloween since it's my favorite holiday, but here it is.

We love Halloween. Rick and I dress up to pass our candy every year. We put giant spiders on our house, a graveyard out front, strobe light on the balcony and spooky music. Growing up, it was my goal to be the cool house with the great candy, so we give out full sized candy bars. We usually have a lot of fun.

Here we are ready for the kiddos to start coming.




We had a lot of trick-or-treaters this year, but I was very disappointed. Very few kids from our neighborhood showed up. I was looking forward seeing all the kids I know dressed up in their costumes, but I recognized very few groups of kids. I think the kids in our neighborhood go to the exclusive subdivision just above us, thinking it's better candy. Many of the people who did show up at our house were obviously hitting as many neighborhoods as they could and were trying to quickly get through ours to move on to the next one.

I couldn't believe how much candy those little kids were hauling around. There was one little girl who couldn't have been older than 6 who had an extra large shopping bag (the paper bags with handles that you get at a department store when you have an extra large purchase), it was almost half full of candy. WHAT?

I could see some kids' parents in the car ready to whisk their kid off to the next neighborhood to get more candy. It was kind of disgusting to me. We turned off our lights at 8:30, even though we weren't out of candy yet. I felt that instead of supporting a fun community holiday, we were promoting gluttony.

Do I sound like an old lady yet? Just wait....

When I was growing up, Halloween was a neighborhood celebration. We'd have neighborhood spook alleys and parties complete with a costume parade around the living room. We'd love seeing all the neighbors out trick-or-treating and socialized as we went. At the end of the night, when we were back at home divvying out the haul, we'd talk about how next year we would go to the big houses in the subdivision above us to get the awesome candy from the rich people, but we never actually did it. I'm so glad my parents never let us. They knew the holiday was more about community and less about candy. The memories and friendships we developed by everyone on the street investing in the neighborhood far outweighs any candy that would be eaten or thrown away soon after.

It's not just this holiday that I've felt like this. I often am sad that my neighborhood lacks a sense of community. Maybe it's the demographic of my specific area. We moved in when our kids and a lot of the kids on the street were a little older- tweens and teenagers, which can make it harder to find common ground for socialization. I know I come from a very unique situation that is not fair to judge all neighborhoods against. I was very blessed to have an amazing street to grow up on with lots of friends. We regularly held neighborhood talent shows, carnivals, parties, night games, and secret girl club meetings. These weren't church or community sponsored, just parents or kids planning and hosting events. I don't expect every place I live to be so social. I know I had a unique and wonderful experience. I sort of feel like I've gone from one extreme to another.

I've strayed a little off topic. My basic complaint is that, from my experience yesterday, I feel that the community aspect of Halloween has been lost to the quest for more and more candy. Am I wrong? In years past, we knew more kids who came trick-or-treating. Maybe the nice weather made it easier for people to not stay close to home this year and then stay out longer getting more and more candy. Maybe this isn't as epidemic as I'm viewing it to be, and it was merely a result of specific circumstances this year. Please someone share a more positive experience they had to give me hope that my favorite holiday hasn't turned into pure gluttony.

October Birchbox

I've had my October Birchbox for a week now. I'm slacking on the blog. Actually, this isn't so bad because I've been able to use a few of the items and can review them. I've been disappointed in the boxes since the earbud one was so awesome. I decided to adjust (lower) my expectations. This one was pretty good. Here's the rundown:


Tea. Fail. I do think there is one herbal version in the pack. Sore throat today, maybe I'll try it this evening.



Haven't tried it yet. I wish this was a month earlier. I kept bars like this in my office for some quick energy for my bike ride home.


Miracle Skin Transformer. Primer, serum and fact tint. I liked how this made my skin feel. It is just a tint and did not provide much coverage. I would have liked a larger sample.

Caudalie Vinoperfect Radiance Serum and per-fekt Beauty Lip Perfection Gel.. I keep forgetting to try these.

DDF Brightening Cleanser. Favorite item in the box. I was needing a little bottle of face cleanser for my yoga bag. (I like to shower at the studio instead of driving home all sweaty.) This is perfect. It's much larger than sample size and I like how it makes my skin feel.

Weekend Report

I'm still here. I feel like I've been blogging because I've created a bunch of blogs in my head over the past several weeks, they have just never made it to the computer.

This weekend I went back to Bikram yoga. I was worried my feet wouldn't handle it very well, but I was OK. I went both Friday and Saturday. Friday my feet didn't hurt too much, but my body had a hard time in the heat and intensity of the workout. I knew I needed to go back Saturday or I'd be too sore to walk by Sunday. Day 2 was better on my body as far as handling the heat, but my feet hurt a little more. Overall, it was very cleansing. I am excited to put it back in my weekly workout rotation.

Friday night we were invited to a dinner party at a colleague of Rick's from the U. My first thought was that I'm too old for college parties, but we went and had a wonderful time.

This is Ting. She made a traditional Chinese meal called a Hot Pot. One side had spicy broth and the other sweet. It sat on the table on a small stove. Everyone sat around the table and added meat and veggies. As the food cooked, you take out what you want and put it in your personal bowl which had a little sesame sauce in it. It was a fun and social way to eat dinner. It was also very delicious. We enjoyed trying new types of veggies, like lotus root.

After dinner we learned to play Mahjong, a traditional Chinese tile game. It was a lot of fun. Rick and I won twice.

We spent a lot of Saturday at a fencing tournament. Rick and Isaac participated and had a great time.

They did three separate tournaments. The second one was for Cadets (19 and younger). Isaac took 5th place, which was really good considering he's only been fencing about 4 months and everyone else there had been fencing at least a year and a half.

Sunday we relaxed and recovered. Another fine weekend!

September Birchbox

I haven't been feeling too "bloggity" lately so I'm glad the September Birchbox came to give me an excuse to blog. Not too thrilled with this month's selection. Here's the rundown.

The POREfessional. Face primer. Never something I've thought of using, but I'll give it a try.

This was probably the best sample in the box. Boscia Soothing Cleansing Cream. I'm always up for trying a new face cleansing product.

kate spade Twirl perfume sample. Add it to the fragrance stash.

twistband Hair tie. Eh. Nothing special.

tili bag. Basically a decorated ziplock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Color Club custom polish. I don't color my fingernails, but I'm sure I can find someone to give this to.

Weekend Report

This weekend I have both a ride report and a hiking report.

Ride Report
I rode home from work Friday. I hadn't ridden in a couple of weeks due to some ... uh.... saddle issues. It felt great to be back on my bike. Rick decided to leave from home at the same time and meet me so we could ride back together.

What he didn't realize was I was racing him. The ride is 22 miles. Rick rides faster than I do and he started going downhill so I was trying to reach mile 10 before we met.

About mile 9.5 I saw him coming. I started waving. He didn't see me. I waved my whole arm frantically and still no response. As he passed I realized it wasn't Rick, just a guy with the same color bike who thought I was a lunatic.

We met around mile 11. (I won - he was delayed leaving but it still counts.) Temps were in the mid 80s which made coming up the hill so much nicer. It was a great ride.

Hiking Report
I've been reading a book about a woman who hiked the Pacific Coast Trail. I was inspired to take the family on a hike. Saturday we headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Dog Lake Trail.

It was about 5 miles round trip and steep enough to be a good workout. We got to the lake, had a snack, and skipped rocks for a bit.

It was a nice family outing. And I'm pleased (?) that my feet didn't hurt as much as my knees. :) I'm inspired to plan some future hikes. Maybe a slot canyon or two.

 

I had to add a cute photo of Josh who, on Sunday at a family dinner, had a fork on one hand and a spoon in another. He filled both up with food and put both in his mouth at the same time. He's so cute.