Where did the time go?

Once again, I went a week without blogging. I sat down wanting to update but feeling like I didn't know where to start. I decided to catch up on my blog reading first and found my inspiration. Ashley is hosting a 7 things party - so I am joining in!
7 things about Ashley - right here, right now.

1) I miss my mom. She is out of town for Spring Break with our church's middle school choir. I can't wait for Common Ground's homecoming concert on Sunday.

2) I have a seriously sick hubby right now. T rarely gets sick (unlike me!). The following might be TMI but I don't know how else to explain and document what has happened without these details. It started as gas(burping) on Thursday evening. It slowly progressed to diarrhea and last night he started throwing up on the way to his parents' house. Over the last few days his stomach has slowly swollen, obviously bloated and hard, sensitive to the touch. I went to work this morning because he insisted that the didn't need to go to the doctor. I got a text message from his mom asking me to please bring him into her clinic at 2pm so I left work early(thank goodness for a somewhat an understanding boss). They ran blood work and did a stomach x-ray but they didn't see anything unusual. He has lost almost 10 lbs from his normal average weight. So they sent us home with 3 prescriptions to be filled to treat the gas, diarrhea and vomiting. They said if the swelling doesn't go down after he has been on the medicines for a little while, then we will go from there. He is a pitiful patient and absolutely does not like the fact that he is on an all clear liquids diet. Poor T-baby. :(

3) I have serious senioritis. I am ready to get my 2 degrees and find a full-time job. This whole working 35-40 hours a week AND being in school thing is for the birds. ;)

4) It is Spring Break and I decided to throw off my work schedule. Instead of closing at work every night as per usual, I am working 11-7. Not sure if I like this(even though I was only there for 2 hours of my shift today). The morning crew is very different from the night crew and not in a good way. I am still looking forward to getting home before 11pm every night this week though.

5) We did SO good on the eat from the pantry challenge in January but I have totally gone off from that. I am determined to do better and finish March off by spending less on groceries. I desperately need to find time to catch up on all of my coupons. It's lost somewhere in my long, long to do list.

6) I was supposed to go on a Spring Break weekend trip with some of my girl friends from church to see one of my dearest friends, Savannah, at school. She goes to Pensacola Christian College in Florida. They don't get a spring break so it has worked out in years past to go visit her on the last weekend of our spring break. BUT this year their Bible Conference is that weekend. So no trip. :( Instead, I got to take the money we had put aside for my trip to go clothes shopping. It helped make the situation a little better. ;) I was SO excited to find clothes that made me feel comfortable and adult. At 22, I still want to be in style and fashionable but apparently I have a different definition of modesty than most clothes designers. When I have money to shop, I can never find clothes that I like, make me feel good about my body and are MODEST. Anyone else have this problem? I think I might dedicate a whole different post to this. ;)

7) I feel completely guilty eating food when T can't have any. So here it is 9pm and I have not eaten dinner yet. Oops. I guess I need to go fix this problem.

Sorry it is nothing in-depth or insightful right now. Too many things swirling around in my mind, I guess.
Since I am school free, hopefully I can get back into my blogging swing. Is it weird to miss blogging?

Hope everyone has a great Monday!

So much for blogging every day

I had been doing so well with blogging every day in January. But the last couple of days have been busy and quite honestly, I didn't have much to say. Rather than make a post just to do it, I decided to break my string of success. But I think that is ok. :)

I have been busy over the weekend. I worked Friday and Saturday. Saturday morning my mom and I went to CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid. We had pretty successful trips with our couponing (another post for another day because my pictures aren't uploaded yet). I am hoping in 2010 to be more consistent with using coupons and trying to save money. Hopefully now that I have Register Rewards to use at Walgreens and Extra Care Bucks for CVS I will make more trips and eventually form a habit out of saving. ;o)

I have also gotten a lot done around the apartment this weekend. I still need to tackle the storage room. Yeah. You know, the room that used to be a guest bedroom. We've always had some boxes in it but with fall and Christmas decorations taken down, they seemed to have found a home in the storage room. In piles. Shameful, I know. What can I say? I'm a work in progress (and so is our apartment). Ha

I made 50's Prime Time Cafe Meatloaf and Potato Bundles for dinner. I have never made this meatloaf before, or any meatloaf for that matter, so I hope it turns out ok. If it does, I will share the recipe! If not, we will pretend it never happened. :)

Speaking of recipes, my sister made a new blog for all of the Clegg women to post their recipes on. Hop on over to the Clegg's Kitchen. It is another work in progress. Check it out and add it to your blog list if you feel so inclined!

We are a little over 2 weeks away from going to Disney and I absolutely CANNOT wait! At this point, the first thing that I want to do when I get on Disney property is head to Sunset at H.S. and hug my friends, especially Bernela, Celianese and Viadly (my dear Haitian friends).

National Delurker Day

Yes, I am talking to you. I guess I will be following the lovely examples of many of the blogs I follow. If you are reading this, please leave a comment. I, like dear Jaci, can tell from my counter at the bottom at my blog that many others are reading and not commenting. Also, my live traffic feed lends a slight amount of information and lets me know that someone out there is reading. So humor me and leave a lovely comment. :)

Please

And

Thank you!

Day 5

DAY 5

- of 2010

- of the Eat from the Pantry Challenge

- of straight consistent blogging

- of zero out of pocket spending

I can't believe it is Day 5 of 2010. Seriously? I am still having trouble comprehending where 2009 went to and I am steadily progressing into another year. Not so sure about this. But then again, keep on trucking because in 28 days I will be going on a visit to my Happy Place/Home(Disney World)! The transmission went out on the car T has been using(his parents "extra" car), so we are down to one car again for a little while and both trying to keep our hours at work. T says we will be going to Disney even if we have to eat sandwiches for weeks. I love this man! ;o)

My Eat from the Pantry Challenge is going well so far. We actually started it mid-week last week, so we are about a week deep into it. I have had migraines the last few days so NOTHING has sounded good. I have been eating but nothing seems to be appetizing. Tonight I cooked Chicken Rice Casserole(recipe coming later in the week) and finally something hit the spot and tasted yummy. :)

I have never been consistent about blogging but I have blogged for 5 days straight! I really enjoy reading blogs and commenting on others but find myself thinking that nobody wants to read what I have to write. Well, I have come to realize that it doesn't matter if anyone wants to read what I have to write, I still need to keep my digital journal/scrapbook up. ;o) Not going to lie, those little comments at the end of blogs make my day complete but I know getting several comments on each post isn't realistic for me and I want to make sure that I continue writing for the right reasons. So I am giving it a full fledged effort.
Notice that the Christmas blog decor is gone? I resigned it this evening while I was on the phone with my dear friend Brooke. Not too bad for about 30 minutes of work, if I do say so myself.

T and I have spent no money out of pocket/unbudgeted in 2010. Let me explain. The only thing that are budgeted for us this month are rent, water, electricity, cable/internet(last big bill whoo!), health insurance, life insurance, $100 for groceries, and gas. We are trying to keep our spending on extras to a bare minimum. This is a challenge but I know that it will be rewarding, if for no other reason than not having to cancel our Disney trip because of the aforementioned car issue.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I could not wait to put up the decorations here at our apartment. But I was "good" and waited until Thanksgiving day to redesign my blog for Christmas. I kept putting it off and putting it off. I had every intention creating my background, header and tags beforehand but it is so much easier to play around with it and get the sizing right if you go ahead and do it all at once. While my casseroles were cooking this afternoon I decided I should go ahead design. So here it is.

I know it isn't marvelous and it most certainly isn't professionally or well done. But I have fun doing it. =)

T took me on a date last night. We started the night out by going to Wal-mart to buy a new kennel for Coach(the one he had was about 10 years old, literally) and a new bed for Lady. Totally romantic, I know. We stopped off at my parents to exchange a few things we needed to cook our dishes today. Then we headed back to this side of town for Olive Garden. Delicious.
After dinner we hit a late movie to see The Blind Side. Great movie! We decided to go to the smaller/older theater in our area because the tickets are cheaper there on weeknights and we wanted to steer clear of any crowds(such as crazy teenagers going to see New Moon for the 5th time. ha). The theater was so slow that they didn't even have the ticket office outside open. Before dinner we drove by and T went inside to buy the tickets. There was one girl operating the ticket computer and running the concession stand. He said that as soon as he walked in the girl said, "Mhmm, white boy!" When he got back in the car and told me, I couldn't help laughing. What was even funnier was when we came to actually watch the movie, the girl said, "Ugh. Of course the white boy is with a white girl." I almost lost it right there. Apparently they are used to white boys coming in there. Or maybe just not good looking ones. ;) 'Cause you know I'm not biased. At all. HA. Despite the fact that it is considered to be the "sketchy" theater, it wasn't all that bad. I'm all for saving money on movie tickets because then we can actually afford to go more often. :o)


I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I actually ate a lot less than I thought I would. We slept late (skipping breakfast), I ate my leftovers from Olive Garden for lunch and then only had one plate for dinner. It was a great evening of laughing, eating and spending time with many of my favorite people.

T is working tonight, 11pm-7am. :( I am home with the babies, candles lit all over the living room, Christmas tree and mantle lit and tackling the task of a homemade advent calendar. I'll have to post pictures when it gets done. Maybe I should have said IF it gets done. I am starting it so late and it is taking a lot longer to do each piece than I expected. Of course, I would be making more progress if I wasn't on the computer right now. ;)

Good luck to all of you braving the crowds for Black Friday shopping. I will be at my mom's baking away with the girls in my family until I have to go to work at 4.
Another thing I am thankful for? NOT having to open and work the breakfast shift tomorrow morning at Chickfila. In other words, not having to be there at 4:30am and working through the Black Friday shopping crowds!

My favorite Blogs =)

I started a post at home entitled "Hairdos and Homecoming" but considering the camera is at home with all of the pictures, it will have to wait until later.

For now, here are some of my favorite blogs - in no particular order.

Jennifer (Crazy Shenanigans)

This lady is a hoot and a half. She is upfront and honest, hilarious and sarcastic and she like ADORES Christmas and Hobby Lobby. We would definitely be BFFs in real life. ;)

She is hosting a giveaway for her "blogiversary", so go check it out!

Kristin (Couponing to Disney)

She is on top of it all. If there is a coupon deal out there, she will let you know about it! And her savings go toward a wonderful cause - a Disney vacation! I love it!

Bethany (Elegant Wordart)

Not only is Bethany ridiculously talented and shares her skills with lovely, daily wordart freebies - she is hilarious! I check her blog first thing every weekday. =)

Ashley (The Happily Ever After of the Lancasters)

Ashley is mom to one of the most precious babies ever, sweet Evy! I love the pictures and updates that she gives on Evy. We seem to share the same taste in music and movies. She has multiple blogs, her daily blog, her Mommy Mouseketeer blog, her recipe blog(the June Cleaver Cooking Club) and her Artistry blog.

p.s. Ashley, if you are reading this, I have several recipes to send to you (several with pictures). I will try to e-mail them to you this week.

p.s.s. I just realized this is the only blog I am mentioning where I know her in real life(though definitely more through the blog world than otherwise). :o)

Myra (Happy Housewife Living Life)

I found Myra through Kelly's Show Us Your Life posts. I love reading her posts on recipes, couponing and her little boy Ridley.

Shoshanah (From L.A. to LA)

Shoshanah and I found each other through Kelly's Show Us Your Life posts. She gives lots of great reviews on books, movies and recipes. =)

And recently this blog started following me so I decided to check them out...

It's a Wonderful CHRISTmas Movie

Their Christmas movie schedule is going to be taking over my DVR. ;) I can't wait for Christmas movies and I particularly like Hallmark Christmas movies and ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas.

59 Days until Christmas!!

Ta-Da!

Apparently I have too much time on my hands. And honestly, it was nice relaxing for the first few hours. But almost 48 hours later... I'm bored. So I have completely redone my blog. That's somewhat productive, right?
I have made my way through almost everything that we had on our DVR and it is almost empty(something that hasn't happened since we got the DVR haha). Now I can't decide between watching:
1) Christmas movies
2) Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea
or 3) My classic musical collection

If I don't get some real food soon, I might go nuts. :o)
I will do a post eventually on what helped me survive this wisdom teeth extraction experience.
For now, a nap and movies are calling my name!

P.S. I didn't even realize it is Friday. I have a 2nd interview at Yankee Candle this afternoon. AND a 2nd interview for a drafting position(what I really want since it has to do with my degree) on Wednesday afternoon. =)

New Look, New Post

I suppose it is that time again, eh?
Time to post. :)

Not a whole lot has been going on. Bear with these random ramblings
- Trevor and I are both jobless(still)
- We are both getting back into the school routine
- I LOVE Monday Bachelor nights at Honey's house
- I still don't like living with a huge snake but I am trying to get over that one
- I am slowly getting the hang of the whole coupon and saving thing
- I have been throwing away things we don't need
- I have created a HUGE "donation" stack at Trevor's parents and at my parent's storage unit. Mom has things to donate as well so we will be taking it all together
- I didn't have class today. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I only have one class. Ms. West(head of my department and teacher of 2 of my 4 classes this semester) told us yesterday that we wouldn't have class because the IT people are finally ready to set up our new computers :) So no class while they are working in our classroom.
- I am watching GIDGET =) as I type
- I have been downloading more digital scrapbooking stuff while I watch my movie and enjoy my day off.
- I found a great new site for layouts and I love the one I have. It has a nice scrapbooking look to it while remaining elegant. I like.

I think that is about all for now. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of thoughts that were not covered... but I can't seem to grasp them all right now. Oh well.