My Post-Insanity Week Update

I feel like time is just flying by without pause lately. Before I know it I'm ready to make the new grocery list for the week. This past week was no exception, I had tons I wanted to blog about but didn't feel like I had the time. So now that I do have a moment, here's what happened that I meant to add:

We're still on our my de-cluttering mission. Last weekend it was the office so that was a nice room to get cleared out. This weekend was the bathrooms (you know, clearing out under the sink, going through hair/nail products, organizing it into what we use often and what can be put closer to the back) I also included the laundry room since that is just off one of the bathrooms. I love getting rid of crap we don't need, it makes me feel so organized and clean! Our donation pile has grown so much, so once that's gone I'm sure I'll feel like we almost have a new home :)

After last weekend's de-cluttering Larry and I decided to use up our Target gift cards and have a little shopping spree. Originally I wanted to get some sleds and a new pot for Chris Pinetree (my tree pal...yes I named him), but they had absolutely none of those so we just winged it. Larry bough A Million Ways to Die in the West (an awesome movie!) and I got the top two games and the cute little nail stencil kit (in both pictures above). I have always liked the Dream Day Wedding games (they are like an ISpy sort of game) and I love Castle, the show, and the game seemed like another spy-like game so I figured I'd give it a try. Of course, once we got home I realized my new computer doesn't have a cd drive so I wasn't able to actually play them. I did have an external drive on my Amazon Wish List, but I was waiting to buy that so I had to put a hold on playing the games. That is until...

Larry surprised me by buying the external drive for me :) I was so surprised when I came home, saw a package at our door, and opened it to see this. He's such a sweetheart, I can't believe how thoughtful he is. I'm such a lucky girl! I uploaded both games to my computer and played the  Dream Day Honeymoon game tonight after cleaning out the bathrooms (I try and reward myself when I get my cleaning done to help motivate me). I get so hooked into those games, I can't start without finishing them every time. When I got my new laptop there was a free version of one of the games, I immediately downloaded it and played it all in one night. It doesn't seem like they should take a while, but they take me a couple hours to play from start to finish.

I know technically this says it's from mid-December, but it's to represent the fact that this work week was insane! I can't believe how busy we've been, I think that's contributed to the quickness and chaos that's been my weeks lately. I love being busy, it helps me feel so productive, but it's been SO super busy I haven't had a chance to even think of anything else while there. Luckily my mom is just a quick call away, I try and call her when I have a rough day to just unwind. If it's not a call to my mom it's listening to loud music on my way home that I can yell at the top of my lungs to...that really helps a lot!

Tuesday night I got to go visit with my friend Jaynon (and Tierney was there too!). I've missed working with these girls, we always have so much fun and laugh so much. I get so jealous of Jaynon because she got to live in Italy for a couple years and now she's in California. I hope I'll be able to go visit her in her home soon. The picture above is obviously not from that night, it's from her Christmas card, but I didn't take any pictures while I was there. Her little boy had a little cough, which was so sad, but he's so adorable! I totally feel a baby vibe lately where when I hold them I never want to give them up...babies are so fun even if they are slobbering on you haha. This little guy fell asleep on me for a bit and when he woke up he gave me this look that was just so "Hey! You're not my mom!" haha. He is such a smiley boy though and it was so fun playing with him and getting him to smile as much as possible. It was fun catching up with Tierney too, she's such a laid back person and it's nice to be around people like that (she's pretty private, so I'm not going to share too much, but just know she's fun!).

This weekend Skyler had drill so he decided to stay over tonight to get away from base for a little bit (it helps that we are like 10 minutes away from it now). I think Larry likes having time to hang out with his brother, especially since he'll be leaving in a couple months for Drill and AIT. I also think Larry loves being able to share his stories from when he was in the military and have someone who can relate to them. After their stories they of course had to play the new Wii-U :)

The kitties have helped keep us grounded and remember how fun/funny life can be. We definitely like to unwind each night with them!

So that's been my crazy week, actually you could probably copy and paste most of that for the last couple of weeks and it would hold true. I'm looking forward to next month so we can do more (right now cleaning the house out is my number one priority and that's probably going to be taking up the rest of the month) and hopefully it will be a little less crazy then.

Congrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of

Guess what...

 

We've officially booked our flights for our trip to New York!

I'm so stoked for this trip, I can't even explain (though I'm sure I've said it enough on the blog already). We were going to wait a little longer to book it, but I was randomly checking prices on all flights last night (I'm also planning on visiting my mom later this year so I checked that flight information as well) and prices have never been lower from what I've seen. Larry was in class so I text him letting him know we should get this part done now, but he got home so late we went to bed and forgot. So, of course, the first thing I did this morning was remind him about it so we could book them. We'll still wait a little bit to get the hotels, but I do have the ones I want picked out and everything else should be good to go for now.

Queue my happy dance!!

Cutest site ever (Also, Number 27)

So confession time: last July-ish Larry and I talked about possibly starting to try for a baby (why does that sound so TMI to me?) and because we were pretty serious about it I started reading all my pre-pregnancy books. Well one night I was in our room watching TV when Larry randomly walks in with one of the books and opens it up. I asked what he was doing and he said he was reading the part for men and what they need to do so that he could be as prepared as I am. I thought it was too adorable not to take a picture of...

 

We've obviously put those plans on hold for now, but I just had to share this picture above and how freaking cute it was! He still makes me all giddy inside, especially when he doesn't realize I'm watching him. Anyways, there's my silly little post for the night.

A Letter to My Papa

So this past weekend we were cleaning out our extra room (I'm on a de-clutter our home mission this month), well I happened to find all my older journals (I used to keep journals all the time. I know, such a shocker since I have this blog!) and I happened upon this letter I wrote right after Papa died and wanted to share here:

To my Papa,

First off, I want you to know how much I love you. I wish I could show you since finding the right words will be tough, but I'm up to the challenge. You meant the world to me. I honestly don't even want to imagine what my life would be like without you in it. Where would I be? It's terrifying. Anyone who got even a second to meet you is a lucky person.

You had such a good heart! Such a great outlook on life! I don't think I have a single memory of you not happy or cheerful or making someone laugh. I'm so sorry you had to go through so much pain! You were such a good person and you will live on in all of our hearts that way. You didn't deserve to suffer.

I want you to know, and always remember, that you were a huge influence in my life. Because of you I'm going to college, I'm doing my best to be a good person instead of dancing for dollar bills or shooting myself up. You made it so easy to want that stuff, instead of feeling obligated to do it.

I promise to keep doing my best in any and all endeavors I take on. You inspire and motivate me and just because physically you're not around, that doesn't mean my goals have lessened. If anything they've become stronger, as has my determination.

I love you Papa, with every bone and fiber in my body. You will be missed and loved, but never forgotten.

Love you!

New Year, New Us

I'm so excited about this new year, as usual. Call it total cliché but I love the whole blank slate to start fresh with, plus the fact that this year is 2015 (15 being a good number for me) makes it better. This New Year's celebrations were a little more tame than last year, but a lot like the year before, only we learned not to sleep in the living room this time. That year we were playing a bunch of games, but ended with Monopoly (in the middle of the game Larry got really sleepy and so we called it a draw and went to bed). This year we started with Monopoly while watching the ball drop in NY on TV and for the first time ever I actually beat Larry (he always beats me at everything, so I was happy to finally have my chance to shine!)

We also played one of our other new games called Relationality and drank our cider drinks (I'm not a big drinker and I think Larry didn't want to drink alone so we settled for cider). The game turned out to be a mix of Life and Monopoly. Larry ended up with a baby and an STD, but somehow he ended up winning that one haha. It was different, but kind of a fun one (it'd probably be more fun with other couples though). And of course we had our midnight kiss and stayed up for a bit before going to bed. Like usual I'm not saying I made resolutions, but I am making a To-Do list for the year (to-do makes me feel like I'll really get to it, whereas resolution has an "I won't get to it, but at least it's there" association):

1. Be better with doing the dishes (I'm still so bad with getting this taken care of).
2. Cross off items from our bucket list (always one the list).
3. Go to New York
4. Visit Mom again
5. Eat less sweets and junk food (this isn't a permanent one, it's to get less addicted to it).
6. Stick to my workout schedules so that the holidays aren't so hard.
7. Watch less Netflix, make more time for other things (Larry still gives me crap about not doing anything with the gifts he got me last Christmas).
8. Clean out the house this month
9. Make more time for friends and family
10. Clean and stay organized more throughout the year, instead of just when people come to visit.

I think I actually did pretty good at least year's to-dos:

• Cross items off our bucket list - as mentioned this one will be on for a while so while we did cross a few off, there's always more that could be done.
• Read more. I officially finished our series and got more into reading so I think I can say I was successful with this one. My new Kindle should make this one a good one to continue.
• Have more date nights together. This one was a slow start, but we actually got more into this towards the end of the year and created a plan to keep this up this year.
• Go see mom, definitely checked off the list!
• Get better at the dishes. Since this is on my list this year you can see I didn't do so well on this.
• Gluten Free. Checked off the list in February, and I think we only messed up a few of the days, but for the most part we did really well.
• Save more than spend. Now that New York is on the list I definitely got better at saving. It's actually hard to get me to spend money a lot now.

So maybe calling it a To-Do list really makes it better and easier for me. Friends just started on Netflix so that one might be a challenge, but I think I have a good plan to make sure I keep to it. I'm very much looking forward to this new year! I hope everyone is having as good of a time as I am!