Going Through The Motions

It's that time of year again. Time to drag out all the boxes of lights and decorations. Time to see family and friends and buy gifts and bake and be jolly. And eat. Lots and lots of eating.

Do you ever just feel like you're going through the motions of Christmastime?

My Christmas cheer seems to be coming and going this year. Right after Thanksgiving I had a few days of "Yay, it's almost CHRISTMAS!!", dragged all my decos down from the loft, started making lists for shopping and baking, all while listening to Christmas music and smelling my "Holiday Cheer" candles burning.

Then it just disappeared.

Most of December I seemed to be just going through the motions. I put up the decorations, got a tree, did some shopping, got my cards sent out. But I just wasn't feelin' it. I was feeling pretty darn Grinch-y. I just wanted Christmas to be over. I wasn't inspired to bake or wrap gifts or even finish up my shopping. But I needed to, so I just got 'er done.

I was really just ready for this year to be done and just kind of "over" Christmas.

I usually love Christmas time. I love the traditions and seeing family and giving gifts and decorating and seeing others' decorations. I love the whole spirit of this time of year.

But for whatever reason, I just wasn't feeling that spirit.

Some how, this past weekend, I got over it.

I think it was when I was wrapping every one's gifts and sticking them under the tree. For some reason, it just doesn't seem like Christmas to me until there are lots of pretty wrapped gifts patiently waiting to be given under my tree. When I finished wrapping and got them all arranged under the tree, I smiled, turned on some Christmas music, lit my "Holiday Cheer" candles and all was right with the world once again.

The pic above is our tree this year, pre-present wrapping extravaganza. Doesn't it just look naked without gifts under it?

Besides being so bright you could probably see it from space... I some how managed to get like 900 lights on it. Maybe 850 since half of one strand went out and I'm not about to try replacing it.

So what about you? What get's you in the holiday spirit?

Merry Christmas!

A little late, but...

The boyfriend and I decided to more or less ignore V-day this year. It's amazing how much money you can save when you don't buy birthday, Christmas and v-day gifts for each other!

Even though I really, honestly would have been perfectly happy ignoring the whole thing, I am still a girl and I like to get flowers. Since v-day is pretty much the only time I get flowers from the boyfriend, and because of my addiction to macro shots, I did still request flowers for v-day. I couldn't help it. I've been dying for some flowers in the house to take pictures of and just haven't been able to justify buying them for myself.

So when I came home to this bouquet of flowers and a cute/cheesy card I had to smile. Partly because it was cute and I totally appreciated the thought, but mostly because it was a very pretty bouquet with lots of different, fun flowers and colors to take pictures of. I'm sure the boyfriend realized that's why I was so excited too.

I totally went to town taking pics of all the different flowers. I did some experimenting with different settings and lighting. I just plain had fun taking pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. The ones you see here are just a few of my faves.

Happy New Year!

Wow. It's 2009 already. I think I may be in shock. I really can't figure out where the heck 2008 went! I swear it just disappeared. I guess it was a pretty darn busy and BIG year though. We bought our first house. My best friend got married. My sister bought a house (she got hers first and was probably most of our inspiration to get off our perfectly-sassified-renting-butts and go buy a house). We moved. We cleared our property. We started cutting and reining and chased buffalo. We got a new horse and a puppy. I was introduced to the world of blogging, eventually starting my own, even though it's more for my own amusement then anything. I started getting into photography. I came to know and love all things Twilight. I'm sure there is plenty more, but that's what sticks out in my mind at the moment.

It's hard to imagine (and even harder to really appreciate) how far we've come in the past year. Looking back over my list of resolutions and goals for 2008 I'm sure I didn't imagine myself in my own home, living out here in BFE with all that I have now. I really didn't do very well with my goals and resolutions in 2008, which is hard to not be disappointed with myself for, but I'm pretty sure I didn't factor in actually buying a house and all the work that being a home owner entails. I've decided to not beat myself up too badly for not accomplishing my goals and just try to set more realistic ones for myself in 2009.

So far my 2009 resolutions and goals include:
~Getting our credit cards paid all the way off
~Making a budget and savings goals and sticking to them

And a very ambitious list of home and property improvement projects like:
~Painting the rest of the interior of the house - bathroom, office, living room, bedroom and extra bedroom
~Getting our barn finished so that the ponies have real shelter next year
~Getting some sort of arena in, even if it's just footing for now
~Fencing for our perimeter and pastures
~Finish grading and seed our pastures

It's already shaping up to be a busy year, but I think it will be a good one. Hopefully we'll be a little closer to having our property functioning the way we want it to for the horses, which is a very exciting prospect. And I'm sure we should be able to accomplish more this summer because I think we were still kind of in shock that we actually bought a house last summer. The whole clearing the property with 3 days notice thing certainly didn't help that either. I'm thinking this summer we'll be a little more prepared and really be able to dig in and get things done. That's my plan anyways.

So here's to a fabulous, happy and productive 2009! Cheers!

O' Christmas tree

We got our Christmas tree this weekend! Yay! I love Christmas trees! I love real Christmas trees! It's just not Christmas for me if there isn't the smell of a fir tree filling the house.

Could someone please explain to me why it is that they always seem to grow 3 feet on the ride home? It's the most peculiar phenomenon. We had planned to go with a nice, conservative 5'-6' noble, but came home with this 7'+ monster instead. I swear it didn't look that big on the lot! We couldn't even put it in front of our bay window, like we had planned. It hit the ceiling. So we had to move it over to Plan B, in the corner under the peak of the roof.

I decided to try something a little different this year with the tree. For some reason I've been feeling really country lately. I don't know if it's this house or living in the boonies or how involved I've been with horses lately or what, but my house, atleast the main living area, is going to be country. I've got all these big, very country plans for the living room, including a cow hide rug and pillows. And a horse shoe mural/collage on the wall. Not sure when all of that will happen, but I've got the mental pictures ready whenever it does!

Anyways, back to the tree... This year I wanted to do something a bit more country with earthy colors, rusty stars, horses and cowboy boots. I was really, really excited to find these stars at the craft store. They were exactly what I had been looking for. Then I went to Fred Meyers and got a $1.99 roll of twine and used that for garland and I think the tree turned out pretty darn cute!

Sneaky little bugger!

Every single year, as much as I try and plan to not be caught off guard, Christmas and the holiday season seems to sneak up on me. I'm not sure how they always manage to do that. It's not like I don't see them coming. You'd think that stores getting their Christmas decorations up in August and September might get the pressure started. Or maybe Black Friday. But no. Here I am, two weeks away from Christmas, no cards sent and still the bulk of my shopping to go.

This year especially, I had the best of intentions. I actually bought my first Christmas present in August. I had atleast a little something for everyone on my list by October. I had planned to pay cash for everything and spread the shopping out over a few months so that I could do that. I hate credit cards. Ok, so maybe hate is too strong of a word, I do like the instant gratification of just charging it instead of waiting to have cash, but making those payments every month is very annoying. That money could be going in savings for our fence or barn or arena or tack room. Instead of paying on credit cards that I hardly remember what the charges were for. But here we are, December 9th already (holy crap!) and I've only got one person on my list done. That was the gift I bought in August and the other part is a requested re-gift, so I'm not sure it even counts.

I don't even have my Christmas decorations up yet. I'm such a slacker! I did manage to get them down from storage last week, but they've been parked in the dungeon (our extra bedroom that we never use and has turned into the "catch all" room for all the crap I don't want to deal with) since then. I suppose I do have excuses. Plenty of excuses. Though none of them are great and they don't help the fact that Christmas is getting close and I still have a ton to do. I have had some big projects that were actually productive that cut into my Chritmas prep time: I painted my kitchen, I hosted Thanksgiving, I've been riding my horse and had a couple shows. I know the main thing that has disctracted me from absolutely everything has been Twilight, but I love it too much to use that as an excuse. Plus, it's not a great excuse. It just shows that I have no self control and really screwed up priorities. And I'm ok with that.

I need to find my Christmas cd's (packed away in some random box when we moved that I figured I'd for sure have unpacked by the time Christmas rolled around, hahaha) and really get going on the Christmas spirit! I did get everything that I need to make fudge and my favorite Christmas cookies last weekend, but I ended up spending most of the weekend reading instead. D'oh!

I'm hoping to get in the Christmas spirit at some point this week. I'm looking forward to a really great date night with some friends tomorrow night that includes a Christmas craft project so I'm hoping that'll get it started! Then I can sail into the weekend humming Christmas tunes and get my decorating, shopping, cards and tree all done and some baking started! A girl can dream, right?

I survived!

Well, I survived Thanksgiving at my house. Wohoo! I officially have two turkey dinners under my belt now. And I have to say, I think I'm getting better. This year's turkey ROCKED! I got a 20 pounder, figuring we wanted lots of leftovers and boy do we have leftovers! It pretty much fed us the whole weekend and there is still plenty left. After dinner was over we still had half the bird that hadn't even been touched (see picture above). I love leftover turkey dinner!

It was a great day! The turkey was moist and delicious. I put my mom, grandma and sister to work on the potatoes, squash, pearl onions and gravy while I kicked back and watched. :-) We were sitting down to dinner at exactly 3:30, which is the time I was shooting for, but figuring it would be closer to 4 since I'm always late. Things couldn't have gone better! Well, except that I stuffed myself on appetizers so much that I couldn't even finish my first helping of dinner. And pie was out of the question. Other than that, everything was great!

Good grub, good company and good times! Can't ask for more than that!

Giving Thanks

As Thanksgiving day gets closer it seems an appropriate time to reflect on everything that I'm thankful for. I know I'm lucky in so many ways for everything that I have in my life, but it's hard sometimes to not just take it all for granted. It is nice sometimes to just sit and think about how lucky I am to have the life that I have.

I am thankful to have a roof over my head. I'm especially thankful that that roof happens to be a really great house that I absolutely love. And that it includes over 4 acres that allows us to keep our horses with us and will someday contain a barn, an arena and pasture. Someday.

I am thankful that I have a truck that I love so that my long commute is that much less annoying. It's a good truck and it's never given me problems (knocking on wood now). Love the Cummins! Lately, I've also been really thankful for the butt warmers it has! They are the best thing ever on a chilly morning!

I'm thankful for our horses. They keep me sane and provide some of the best company and entertainment a girl could ask for.

I'm thankful for Cheyanne, the cutest puppy dog ever. Even though she's a total spaz sometimes and likes to eat horse poo and then try to lick your face.

I am thankful for a job that I enjoy and makes all of the above possible.

I am thankful for an amazing group of family and friends that are supportive, encouraging, can put up with me and are just darn good people.

I am very thankful for the boyfriend who loves me no matter what. Who shares my dreams and interests. Who challenges me and keeps life interesting. Who lets me have my space and still be myself, but is always there for me. Who puts up with my random obsessions and does his best to pick up the slack around the house when I can't keep my nose out of a book long enough to do the dishes. Or fix dinner. Or pee. Though he can't really help me with that last one.

I am thankful for all of the doors that have opened for me and allowed me to get where I am today.

I am thankful for egg nog lattes. And flannel sheets. And down comforters. And the boyfriend's bbq'd flat iron steak. And the Twilight Saga. And Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother. And diesel prices coming down to less then $2.50/gal! And a good margarita. And hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. And Mexican food. And Stovetop Stuffing. And AE jeans. And fleece yoga pants. And the macro setting on my camera.

I'm sure I could go on all day, but I think I'll stop there. What are you thankful for?

I love fall!

I really love fall! I think it is my favorite season. The weather isn't always ideal, but it is just so gosh darn pretty! How can you not love fall?! I do love summer to, definately prefer summer weather. I'm very much a warm weather kinda gal, but the summers just seem to evaporate. I'm always so busy with horse shows and various other activities that seem to only happen during the summer that before I know it, it's all over and I didn't really get to enjoy it much at all. Because of that, fall is my favorite season. It is beautiful and I actually get time to enjoy it! I can relax a bit and take the time to observe and appreciate all of the pretty colors and the cool, crisp weather and the wonderful sunny days, crunching thru the fallen leaves on my horse. I could do without the frosty mornings and the 6 pm (or earlier) sunsets, but other then that, it's glorious.

I also love Halloween and pumpkins and Thanksgiving and hot (usually hard) apple cider and all the other fun things that come with fall. I still love carving pumpkins and it's just not fall for me without that tradition. I wasn't terribly impressed with my carving abilities this year though. My winking pumpkin ended up looking quite a bit retarded and lop-sided. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.

I'm a huge fan of just about anything pumpkin flavored. Sadly, I moved away from my very favorite espresso stand that served up different pumpkin flavored latte's in the fall. They used real pumpkin SAUCE, not pumpkin flavored syrups, and let me tell you, you just don't get any closer to heaven in a cup! I made the Pioneer Woman's Pumpkin Cake, though I left out the whiskey, and it is officially one of my new favorite fall recipes! I'm sure it would be really tasty with the whiskey to, and I'll probably try that soon, but the venue it was going to didn't really scream whiskey whipped cream to me.

This year in particular I'm really enjoying fall in my new house. I have been really interested to see what our property looks like in the fall and I have to find joy where ever I can in my loooong commute to and from work. The fall colors certainly have not disappointed me. They are rather spectacular on my 30 mile commute. Most of the trees around our house are evergreens, so nothing terribly interesting, but there is still enough color around the property to get me out there with my camera. I am also trying to squeeze as much yard work and garden reconfiguring in as I can before the weather turns and I'm stuck inside. I've been trying to pick small projects that I can finish up easily and quickly (and for free!) that actually make an impact. I've been doing pretty good so far, but I'll talk more about that in another post. I think.

Also, I've offered to host Thanksgiving dinner for my family again this year. I'm really excited to have everyone out to my new-ish house (how long is it really new? We've lived there for 6 months now, does it still qualify???). With the expectation of hosting turkey day though comes sooo many indoor projects that I want to finish before I have everyone over. We plan to paint the whole entire interior of the house sooner or later and because of that (mostly), I have not really decorated much at all yet. We have nothing hanging on the walls. The living room is bare and boring. The kitchen is an awful mauve color that just doesn't really go with the cupboards or floor. Or any of my kitchen stuff. I swear the people that built the house must have had a million and three things hanging on the walls. I think I have pulled out no less then 50 nails/screws. FROM EACH ROOM! Good lord, don't people realize that sometimes less is more?! So it is a huge project to get the walls ready to paint. I have prioritized my list of projects to get done before the fam comes out though. Painting my kitchen and my master bathroom needs to be done. Everything else isn't horrible, just not my choice of colors, but the kitchen and my bathroom just can't wait. I have 4 1/2 weeks to do that. I think it's reasonable. I did paint the main bathroom just after we moved in and it turned out really nice! I was very pleased with it.

While I'm anxious to get going on my painting and indoor projects, I really can't bring myself to go inside just yet. I want to soak up every last minute of sun and blue skies that I can before winter. Sometimes that means just running around with my camera, that I have been unusually inspired by lately (bordering on obsessive with the photo taking actually), and taking pictures of all the pretty fall colors. I'm sure I'll appreciate them when I'm stuck inside getting stir crazy in February.