Congrats & Cupcakes

Congratulations to my wicked smart husband for finishing your 2nd year (M2) of medical school on Friday. I'm proud of you for putting another year of difficult schoolwork behind you. I'm also thankful for your ability to consume mountains of information in little or no time, because of which I am able to see you and spend time with you on a regular basis. I know a lot of your classmates struggle and spend all day, every day studying, and their spouses spend most of their time alone and I'm thankful I don't have to.

I dropped by a new shop in Ann Arbor called Cake Nouveau on Saturday to pick up some cupcakes to help celebrate the end of Mike M2 year. The shop was adorable and the cake was filled with four flavors of cupcakes, all unique and tempting. I brought them home and suprised Mike with them and later that night we anxiously cut into each one to try a piece. I have one word to describe them...disgusting. The cake flavors, although ambitious (strawberry lemonade, for example) we dense, faintly moist, but unflavorful. They were decorated very cute, but the frosting all tasted the same...like a stick of butter. Now I for one like buttercream frosting, but it literally tasted like a slick of butter, a dash of sugar and food coloring. At $2.50 a piece they should have been edible. The kicker is...the nice woman who owns the shop just won a Food Network Challenge...how? Did the judges actually taste her cake or just look at them...because they are impressive to look at. Needless to say, we ended up throwing them out, and if know my husband at all, you know that there is nothing he loves to eat more in this world than cake...and it was his suggestion to throw them in the trash.

How I LOVE a deal!

It was time for a new spring coat and after my big, fat, yearly bonus finally showed up in my bank account yesterday, I decided to venture out to look for one. After an hour and a half I found two to take home and make my final decision. After trying them on at home, one was a definite no, while the other was very neutral and spring-like. It was $49.99 at T.J. Maxx, not a lot of money, but not an incredible deal either, or at least I thought so until today. I was on Bluefly.com to see what else was out there and low and behold was the exact coat I bought yesterday only listed for $135, originally $225. So now I feel much better knowing that I saved $175 off the original price. Behold..the new spring coat:

Almost Spring

Tomorrow marks the official start of Spring, which I am more than ready for. This morning on my drive into work I saw the first robin of the season, which my grandma Jensen always said was a sure sign that spring had arrived. I remember as a little girl spending lazy Saturday afternoons at her house doing a myriad of fun things while my dad and grandpa fixed t.v.'s in the basement, one of which was peering out the back windows to see if there were any robins yet after a long winter. Seeing that robin this morning made me remember my grandma, who is never far from my thoughts, and all the fun times we spent together.

Happy (Early) Spring everyone!

Jell-O

I found new grown up flavors of Jell-O last night at target. I purchased all there: Strawberry Daquari, Pina Colada and Margharita. Yum.

Ugh

Girl Scout cookies are the devil. Why are they so good, and so addicting? And why is it that everyone buys lots of extra boxes so that there is a continual fresh supply on my desk for everyone to "share". Everyone has had more than enough for this year, its time for the cookie eating to stop. Seriously.

The testicles, they're shrinking

In a city with few female friends, and lots of time on my hands, my husband unfortunately gets to partake in traditionally girly activities. He faces these "challenges" with a smile and puts up with a lot. Below are pictures from last weekends out to go paint pottery, in which Mike hand painted his mother a rather sweet spoon rest, and me, a lightswitch for our master bathroom. You can also get a glimpse of the near Justin Timberlake hairdo Mike is sporting after his over exhuberant hair stylist got a little out of hand last week.

Our new chair ans ottoman we bought and had delivered last week. The chair style is called Julep, and the fabric, Lollypop Stripe. As the furniture store is running my credit card for our big purchase, my leans over and goes "Honestly, a Julep Chair with a Lollypop Stripe, I can feel my testicles shrinking as I speak". Ah honey, yes, but the chair is lovely...and well worth the shrinkage.

And last, but certainly not least, a picture of Ballard getting his grub on. This cat eats anything and everything he can get his hands on. Below he is devouring a pink and white marshmallow from Williams Sonoma (part of my V-day gift from Mike). Strange cat, but I guess it was tasty!

Happy 29+1

Happy birthday Marisa!! By the looks of your Ozzies pictures, your b-day celebration was a huge success. I wish I could have been there to help you celebrate! May your year ahead be filled with everything wonderful. Check your mail in the next couple of days for a fun birthday package. Enjoy your b-day, I miss you!

Time for a change...

Updates

I haven't posted anything in a really long time. I don't feel that I've been up to much at all, but I guess I have to break the non-blogging cycle and post something. Here's whats been going on in my world.

- I filed our taxes. Being married is great, not because I think it helped our taxes be any better than individually, but the return is bigger, and because we "share our money", I therefore HAVE more money...although not really since we are paying off the wedding.

- It has been freezing cold here for most of this week. After having a very warm winter so far with no snow, I'd forgotten what it feels like to be cold, but now I remember, and it doesn't feel so good.

- I'm a present-sending slacker. Heather can attest to this...she just recently got her birthday present...from September. Every night I walk into my house to see a neat stack of Christmas presents for 4 different people that I've been to cold (read above), and lazy, to send out. I'm sure these people (Jane, Jerica, Meliss & kids) understand that I don't love them any less, I'm just lazy.

- I'm sick of cooking. I make dinner every night and its a long ordeal. We have this horribly small kitchen that is poorly designed and by the end of dinner I'm frustrated and strung out. This sucks because I love to cook. So last night, Michael got his very first slacker dinner, made by me...buttered egg noodles.

- I need to get my hair colored, but like every couple of months since I've moved to A2, I'm never sure what to do with my hair. No one here colors it as good as my wonderful colorist in Seattle, and because of this, I'm never fully satisfied with how it looks. I need to make a decision because it desperately need to be colored. I know this, because my husband who has no concept or interest of female grooming schedules or anything remotely related to everyday going-ons, said to me, "you're roots are showing, it's time to get your hair done". I replied "Did you have a stroke, who are you?".

- We recently switched to Comcast digital voice for our phone service. And while this will save us $540 a year, its not very clear and there is a lot of background noise. But, we dont' use the phone that much, and if I perch just so next to the doorframe leading from the hallway to our office, the sound is clear, so I can make due I guess.

Thats all for now, I'm sure theres more to come.

Cold

Winter is finally upon us here in Michigan. The weather has been so mild up until the last few days, I've hardly even noticed it is January. The last few days its turned colder and we've finally gotten some snow to cover up our grass, although I was hoping the mild weather would last through until spring. I could do without snow this year.

On a completely unrelated note I changed my car insurance to be combined with Mike under one policy and let me just say, being married is great!! Together we will now save $800 a year on our car insurance, which is amazing. I'm not sure how being married makes you a better driver, but I don't really care, I'm just happy to have the money in my pocket.

Headed to Seattle

I'm done with work and excited to head to Seattle for Heather and Jay's wedding! I bought a new dress and I walked out of the dressing room to show Michael. I asked him if I looked like a couch (as it's covered with a very vibrant pattern), and he said no. As I walked back to the dressing room a very elderly lady said "my, what a pretty dress". So Heather, I apologize in advance if I look like either a couch or an old lady.

Happy Birthday Jane!!

Happy Birthday wishes go to my Aunt Jane. She is so special to me, and I hate that I live so far away from her. When I am stressed or confused she never fails to say the right thing to put everything into place, and always knows what I need. She helped take care of me growing up and has taught me so many things over the course of my life. I hope you have a wonderful birthday, a fantastic year ahead. I love you and hope to see you soon!

Happy New Year

Well it's a few days delayed, but Happy New Year! I had a wonderful holiday season in Seattle and it was so hard to leave. I got to visit my family and friends, relax, and enjoy being in a big city again...although the traffic was worse than I remembered.

Mike wasn't planning on coming home until the 2nd, and I arrived on the 31st right at midnight. I celebrated my new years countown on the airplane taxing into the gate...it was quite an experience. After taking a car service home I woke up at 6:30 to the phone rining. It was Michael telling me not to be startled because he was about to open the door. He had driven 6 hours through the night to be with me...what a sweetheart. And what a nice way to start off the new year!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to one of my oldest and best friends, Andy, and his wife on their new baby girl Hannah, born yesterday at 4:39p.m. Weighing in at 8 lbs 12 oz. and 20.5 inches long. Welcome to the world Hannah!

An Early Christmas

After opening gifts for Mike's birthday last night he announced that he wanted to have Christmas. We had decided a few weeks ago that we would open presents on Sunday, as I am leaving for Seattle the on the 21st and knew that the few days before would be busy. After much negotiation I broke down and agreed to Christmas, as long as we could open our stockings on Sunday.

It took us almost an hour to open our gifts to one another, it was an absolute mountain of discarded wrapping paper and boxes before us after we were finished. But I have to admit, not only do I adore opening presents, but my darling husband buys the absolute best presents on the planet!

Thirty.

Happy 30th birthday Michael! What a busy year this has been for both of us. I hope the coming year brings you great experiences, lots of fun, and of course, love. I love you baby.

Quick

I drove to the mall over lunch, went into 3 stores, bought 2 Christmas presents, grabbed lunch and drove back to work, all in 55 minutes. Christmas shopping, the quick and painless method.

Excitement Level: Low

Christmas is a mere 20 days away, yet I'm not feeling my normal rush of childlike excitement about it this year. Maybe its the large string of major events and traveling the last few months that have taken the spark out of it, I'm not really sure. All I know is that I'm not enjoying Christmas shopping like I usually do, haven't felt the urge to bake Christmas cookies and haven't even thought about listening to holiday music. I wouldn't call this a funk, just a disinterest this year, which is upsetting, because it is, by far, my favorite holiday of the year!

Spending and Saving

A few weeks ago Michael and I set a very lofty goal of how much money we'd like to save by the end of 2007; however, it feels like everytime we turn around more money flies out of our pockets. Between all of the weddings, upcoming graduations, birthdays and holidays, I'm feeling that we are further behind than when we set the goal. And whereas I've always lived within my means and not carried a bunch of debt, I've also not been the worlds biggest saver and I'm hoping the next year will turn that behaviour around.

This year I've tried to be careful in my holiday shopping, although its my favorite holiday and I always go overboard, its just something that simply cannot be helped. I have been scouring stores and online looking for good deals on great gifts to try to stretch the dollar a little bit further. I've been sort of disappointed in the sales so far. I realize that after black Friday there aren't so many sales to be had for a short while, but I want to get the shopping D-O-N-E. There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a big stack of beautifully wrapped presents and knowing there are 20 days until Christmas and you don't have to go back into the crowded, crazy, overheated mall anymore before the holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving

This will be my first Thanksgiving away from members of my own family. I've not always been with my parents on Thanksgiving, but I've had aunts, uncles and cousins around if my parents weren't. This afternoon Michael and I are driving to Newberry, MI to spend Thanksgiving with his family and I'm a little homesick. Our family doesn't have many Thanksgiving traditions, but there are things that are commonplace (foods, location, etc) that won't be this year and I'm feeling a little out of sorts. I wish I could infuse some of my family traditions into his, but that isn't easy to do, so I'll just have to hold off and hope we are around my family next year.

This weekend should be very busy with Thanksgiving tomorrow, our second wedding reception on Saturday and a baby shower for one of Michael's cousins on Sunday. Between all of that and driving 6 hours each way, we should be plenty tired by the time we get back late Sunday night!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my family and friends who sometimes seem so far away in distance, but you are never far away from my heart and thoughts. I love you all!