New Year, New thoughts,

This post started because  I was cleaning up my blog list. Things I never read. Things I had no idea were there. It really showed how much my life has changed in a year and a half and more. How far and different my life is. It's funny how something so small as my blog can be a time capsule for a long ago life. I started this blog when I was planning my wedding. It's merged to be just a rambling blog of my thoughts and mini and major milestones in my life. I need to blog more.  It's interesting to see where and how my life is changing. It is a virtual diary of my happenings of things coming and going from my life. It's kinda cool.

2010 saw a lot of changes for Eric and I. It was our first solid year being married. Starting with last New Years Eve and that was quite possibly the worst. We had just been robbed and we were very miserable, we didn't like where we were living and were biding our time to move. This new years saw us in a completely different state. It was one of the best New Years I've had in a long time. We went out with some good friends as well My Brother-in-law and his Girlfriend.  We brought in the New Year at our favorite pub. It was a great way to send off the year surrounded by good people in our fantastic new city.

Hopefully 2011 will keep on being great.

Most Amazing Christmas ever

Meet my new ride, covered in snow, on the first white Christmas I've had since I was a kid. Yep. It's my new Mini Cooper convertible, with racing stripes.  It's a car I've always wanted and my amazing husband thought it was time I owned one. I'm still in shock that he wanted to give me such a tremendous gift.  When I asked him what possessed him to go over our 100 dollar budget. He said he didn't he bought me floor mats, the rest is just because. That's totally him. He's amazing. I'm so very lucky to be loved so much.
In other Christmas happiness my old ride, my Altima got a new home. My brother got into his first accident ever over Halloween and he needed some new wheels. It was a perfect oportunity to give him a pretty awesome Christmas so we gave it to him. He was so shocked and surprised. It was great.
I found some wonderful gifts for our family and received some amazing gifts myself. This Christmas was pretty astounding. Since I'm still in shock about my amazing Mini. I'll post more about the fun times we had this Christmas, the Polish Pierogi's we made and all the laughter we shared.

I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas.

It's a Christmas Miracle

It's December 7th and I'm almost done Christmas shopping. I've gotten everyone except 1 person checked off my list. This NEVER happens. I'm usually thinking away until a few days before Christmas. It feels so good to have things wrapped and placed under the tree.

Now I get to do one of my favorite parts of Christmas shopping. I'm going to go shopping for my Mom with my Dad. It's a yearly tradition and one I really look forward to. It's a day of just my Dad and I, shopping, talking and grabbing lunch. Now we just need to schedule a date.  Also in thinking about my Dad it's almost been a year since he got his hip replaced. His hip had just fallen apart and was causing him great pain. I am so happy that he doesn't hurt anymore. It was so hard to see that he was in such excruciating pain. I'm not sure how he put up with it as long as he did. He may have had to give up baseball but to see him walk pain free is one of the best things that's has happened this year. I guess it's another miracle or medical technology.

Viva Espana!

Eric and I have finally figured out our vacation! We are going back to Spain. We honeymooned there in August 2009 and have been wanting to go back since we left.  This time though we are going on a bit of a road trip. We are flying into Madrid. Staying in the city and visiting the surrounding areas for a week then  hopping into our rental car to drive to the coast. We'll hit Valencia then up the coast to Barcelona. We don't have any specific plans so if we decided to stay in certain places longer we can. I am so excited. I can't wait to check out the architecture of Madrid. To see Las Meninas, and Gurenica.  I gave Eric a huge print of Guernica when we got together. (He was born in Spain so I thought it was fitting.) Not the destructive war part mind you just Picasso and the painting.) 

I am so excited I wish we could leave tomorrow. Also my Brother-in-Law maybe coming along for the road trip part with a friend. It would be great to have him along. He's never been to Europe so it would be his first trip. I think Spain is an amazing country to make a first journey too.

Turkey Day

So because of some holiday changes. (My Dad and Brother are spending Thanksgiving in Detroit.) I am getting my very first chance to have our families over and cook Thanksgiving dinner. Well Eric's family and my Mom. I am so excited. I even Martha'd it up and made an invitation even though everyone who is coming already knows. I couldn't resist. Recipes have been checked and thought over. My Real Simple holiday issue is dog eared but I have a list of everything I want to make. 
The most important hurdle I am jumping is a turkey. I have never made one before. I have roasted plenty of chickens though. I found a recipe on Epicurious though that I tried out this week with a roasted chicken. It came out pretty good. the recipe is also from Tom Colicchio. How could it be bad. Here's the recipe for the curious.

 

It's a little bit different then the usual turkeys I've had for Thanksgiving but I think our families will like the change. Eric's dad is always playing around with new ideas and recipes for thanksgiving. He's a great cook.

Our menu for the holiday is fairly simple but with a few tweaks. This is Eric and I's first thanksgiving  so I wanted to bring some of the favorite foods from our parent's thanksgivings to our own with a few changes. Eric's Mom's sweet potato souffle is amazing and my Mom makes terrific pumpkin pies. 

I'm making some roasted vegetables, a broccoli casserole, cheesecake, raspberry gelato or chocolate I'm not sure yet. 

I can't wait for this Thanksgiving and to have our family together and give our mother's a break in the kitchen. I just hope I don't make a dry turkey. :)

Designer Fail

So sometimes we all get caught up in the excitement of something and then realize. Hey wait I don't want this or this won't work. Well that's what happened to us. We desperately needed a new sofa. I was not moving this past may with our old college sofa. Hell or high water I was getting rid of that thing.  So before we moved Eric and I headed up to the Pottery Barn outlet and found a sofa by West Elm for super cheap, a regularly 1,000 +/- sofa for $400.00. We both sat on it, thought it was fine. (It was a bit short, but we thought oh we can deal.) Well enter 7 months later. WE HATE THIS SOFA. It is just to small for us. Only one of us could get comfortable on the sofa at one time. :/ So I have been on the hunt for a new sofa, something we both could fit on, live on, compute on and just relax on. Yesterday as we were browsing around our local furniture stores. I was thinking I'll just order one through work we ended up going into West Elm again. This time we walked out with something more manageable. A sectional sofa we can both relax on. I am so excited about it. I've never wanted to go home and watch tv so much.

So lesson learned. Really think about the length of your sofa if you have a husband over 6' tall. Just because it's a fantastic deal doesn't mean it will work for you. Lastly don't get starry eyed because you desperately want a new sofa. These are all things I thought about before we bought our first sofa but I ignored because I was so excited to get something new and should have waited and bought what we wanted and needed.

Our new sofa looks something like this. :)

Music

I feel sometimes like I am in a movie. I am constantly in my own soundtrack or at least it feels like it. I listen to SiriusXM, Pandora or itunes at work, at home I blue tooth my ipod or computer to our stereo to blast out tunes, or on the rare occasion I'm in my car I've got Sirius rocking there too. Regardless I listen to music all the time. Which means I also love going to live shows when I can. Last night Eric and I went to see Mumford and Sons. OMG It was fantastic. They sounded so great live, played new stuff and seemed surprised that a bunch of Georgians could sing along to everything they had written. It was fantastic. The opening bands were great too. Cadillac Sky and King Charles really set a great tone. I had never heard of either of them but they were so good I might have to run out and get their cds too. I am hoarse from cheering and singing, my feet or sore from standing for 4+ hours. It was totally worth it.