Invite Only!

Short version babe short version.... That's what Matt always tells me when I'm trying to tell a story.

Last weekend we were supposed to go to Matt's mom's side of the family Thanksgiving. Well, you see, Matt didn't feel too well because he played too hard the night before. He said he didn't want to go and I didn't argue. His parents weren't going to be there anyway because his mom was marching in some abortion march or something. Who knows. We skipped out.

This Saturday was his dad's side of the family Thanksgiving. We never go to that side of the family anything. Not sure why we just don't.

Well his mom called his phone Saturday and he didn't answer. He didn't even listen to the voicemail till she called both of our phones on Sunday. They wanted us to come over to their house about the time we got the message to eat lunch.

We were in the process of getting my washer and dryer from my mom and dad's. We had plans to have my parents come over and hook them up. Then later, my brother and sister and Matt's buddy from the army that lives about a half an hour away were all coming over. I planned on making homemade pizza and we were going to watch football.

On our way back to our house, washer and dryer in tow, I told him he needed to call his mom. He called and talked to his dad and his dad asked if we were going to be home that afternoon/evening. Matt told them we would. They said they would come over about 3.

I was a little irritated because we already had plans to do the pizza/football thing. They came over and were there about 2 or 3 hours. His dad got a phone call from someone wanting to go hunting with him and his mom told him that they were going to go to a restaurant in town and get some pasta and eat it at our house. Like I'm unable to cook.

This is when I piped up. I told her that we already had plans to have people come over for supper. She got all pissy and said told Matt's dad that they weren't allowed to stay. She put her shoes on right away and then sat and pouted (Matt's word not mine) for another half an hour.

At some point, she asked Matt what he wanted for Christmas. He said he didn't know. So when they left she snatched up her pie she brought over and said, "Well let us know when we can stay longer."

Excuse me, I'll let you know when we don't have plans and you are invited over.

She also said that they probably wouldn't have Christmas since Matt doesn't know what he wants.

This may all seem like I'm a royal bitch but the situation is hard to explain. I don't normally write about how nuts she is or how much she drives me crazy or how if we let her she would try to run our lives for us.

After they left my stomach was in knots because I know she thinks that I'm the reason Matt doesn't want to talk to her. Which, by the way, is her own fault and I'm not going to go there.

I try hard to be nice to her. I really do. But damn it. Sometimes enough is enough and I have to stand up to her.

Christmas Decorating

We haven't done a lot this weekend but we did manage to decorate for Christmas. Here is the tree. I like blue lights.
Matt's favorite ornament.

My favorite ornament. My brother's girlfriend gave us this last Christmas.

I like this one too.

Ozzy's favorite.

Matt hung the lights outside Saturday. They look really nice. Not too much but just enough.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I am ready to go back to work.

Entertaining the in-laws right now. They invited themselves over. It's great.

Thankful

We all know that Thanksgiving is just a few days away so I thought I would do a post about what I am thankful for.

First and foremost, I'm thankful to have my husband HOME and safe for a holiday. Last Thanksgiving we spent in a hotel together in Tacoma, WA. I microwaved our Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm also thankful for my family. Yeah they are nuts but no one has had to be committed to the loony ward yet. My mom, dad, brother, seester, and even the dogs are all nuts but they mean a lot to me.

I'm thankful that he weather has been beautiful here for the last week or so. Its been in the 50s and 60s.

I'm thankful that the semester is almost over. I'll get about a month off of school for Christmas. It will be nice not to have to worry about school for awhile.

I'm thankful that Matt and I are finally getting to enjoy the rewards of having worked so hard for so long.

I'm thankful that Matt and I both have jobs and are able to work.

I'm thankful for our house. Its cute. Its cost efficient. And its ours.

I'm thankful for Tri-Care. I don't think some people in the military know what life is like without it.

I'm thankful for having a four day weekend. :)

Last but not least, I'm thankful that Matt and I will be starting a tradition of decorating for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. (No black Friday for this gal.)

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Yay!!!

First of all, thank you all so much for telling me how smoking hot I will look in the dress I got. I really do appreciate all your kind words.

I got the call today that I had been waiting on for almost three weeks. My ring was done and I could come pick it up whenever I wanted to.

Click here to read about my ring drama.

Before

After

So excited to have it back. I love the way it looks. Thanks again honey for letting me get my bling fixed.

Hope everyone has a good weekend! I'll be busy writing a paper.

Shopping

This weekend my sister and I went shopping. I got the dress. I must have tried on 30 dresses and guess which one I got? The very first one. Grrr.

This is the dress I got. Its a bright teal. And loose. And comfortable. And on clearance. Which, was not the reasoning for getting it but that makes it even better.

Kind of a crappy picture but you get the point.

Then I got this number to wear over the top of it.

I also got some heels. Please pray that I don't break my neck.

This may be TMI but my sister was with me when I tried on wedding dresses too and you know how you need help getting some of those numbers on and off. Well, I do anyway. Well both times she has been my personal assistant I have been wearing a thong. Not even thinking about it. She told me if we ever go dress shopping again and I wear a thong she is kicking my ass butt.

We may or may not have stopped at the Coach store on the way home. Ok we did. I got a new purse for when I wear the dress. (Or at least that's what I'm telling my husband.) I really need to stay away from that place.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

School, leaves, and dresses

Last night I took a quiz online for my sociology class. I answered all the questions and I know I got them all right because I can use my book. But being the spaz I am, I forgot to hit save before I submitted my answers. So I got a 0 out of 10. I emailed my teacher and told her what happened but I have yet to hear from her. I guess worse comes to worse, I won't have a 100% in the class anymore.

Today I attempted to work on my 8-12 page research paper. I guess I had writers block or something. If I could just write it without have to cite everything I write, I would be done three times by now. I have such a big stack of crap I have read about my topic and when I go to look where I found what I am writing it takes forever. I have about 3 pages done.

Matt dealt with all the leaves that were over taking the yard today while I worked on my paper. He bought himself a leaf blower this morning. He says it blows 150 miles an hour. I'll take his word for it.

Tomorrow my seester and I are going to try to find me a dress for this Army dinner thing. Its not like the Army ball so I'm thinking I can probably wear a short dress. See the thing is, its almost winter and in a month it pretty much will be winter. I want a dress that I can wear and not freeze my ass tail off. I have seen a few shorter dresses with some sleeve action going on.

I think I may get one of those sweater dress deals also. I have a few dress type deals that I wear in the summer with tights under so maybe I could wear a sweater one to Christmas. I dunno.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!!

Award Time

Tuesday I was awarded this award by Katie at The Adventures of Katie and Josh. Check out her blog if you haven't already. She is very sweet, has great taste, and write hilarious blogs.

As per this award's regulations, I am to post it on my blog, write 10 interesting things about myself, and pass it along to 10 other blogs.

1. I always thought that I didn't like shopping. I recently came to the conclusion that 90% of the reason I don't care for shopping is the crap music they play in stores. The distinctly remember hearing that umbrella.. ella song in a clothing store for the first time and wanting to gouge my eyes out.

2. I can not stand wire hangers. I refuse to use them. Matt drags them home from work and I don't even like seeing them.

3. People at work call me "Steffi" (that's how they spell it too). I don't really care but I'm not sure why they do it either.

4. About this dress thing, its giving me anxiety. In the last ten years, I have worn a dress twice. One time was my wedding.

5. When I was 22, I was the General Manager of Denny's. It was a lot of responsibility and a lot of hours. I did that for about 2 years and realized I was too young to waste my life doing that.

6. My cousin's last band would let me play a couple songs with them whenever they had gigs. That was cool.

7. My mom and dad have been married 30 years.

8. Until a couple years ago, I hated pink. Now it is one of my favorite colors.

9. Also, until recently I couldn't stand country music. Now I will listen to country, but only Texas Country.

10. I love plants. I have a ton of them in my house since its getting too cold for them outside. I have only killed one since we bought our house.

Now on to passing it along....

Bridget from Always an Adventure

Short Mama from Family of Shorts

Christina from Sugar Sweet Thoughts

Dawn from Must Love Tots

Jennifer from Crazy Shenanigans

Tattoos and Teething Rings

Marsie at Quite Contrary

Random Musings of my Life

Tonja at Smile, You've Got French's

Lola at Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

The hubs and my hair

Matt and I are going out tonight. I'm taking my husband out to eat at a new restaurant that he's been wanting to go to. I told him that I would cook whatever he wanted or take him wherever he wanted to go for Veteran's Day.

I just want to show and remind him how much he means to me. It may seem cheesy, but he really is my hero. And so is anyone else who has ever served.

In other news.................

I got my hair cut yesterday. I've been wanting to cut it since before our wedding, which was over a year ago. Don't get me wrong, I loved having long hair but I hated it falling everywhere, clogging up the drain, and ending up in my food.

I had been growing out my hair since around 2002. It was to a point were it wasn't getting any longer or healthier.

I got around 8 inches cut off. I wanted to donate it but it wasn't long enough and their were too many layers.

Matt loves it. I'm still getting used to the new do but I think I like it.

Before....

After....

(Notice how happy I am to be at work today.)

Our weekend

Matt was gone this weekend doing his drill for the Reserves. His unit consists of 12 or 13 people right now and they can't even drill where they are supposed to because they don't have any equipment. I mean nothing. No Humvees. No helicopters. (My husband re-fuels helicopters.) No helmets. Nothing.

He got to fill out paperwork this weekend. And he got a flu shot. He already sounds like crap so I'm sure he will get sick. (I'm kinda anti-flu shot.) In December, he has some kind of Christmas party on the Sunday of his drill. He told them that I would go. Which is fine, I will go. I never got to do any of the go-to-formal-functions-while-your-husband-wears-his-class-A's things.

Problem is: I don't wear dresses. The last time I wore a dress was our wedding and before that was probably my high school graduation. I'm too short for long dresses and my legs are too chubby for short dresses. Do I care... NO. I just don't wear dresses. What's a chubby legged girl to do?

Anyway... I was all by my lonesome self this weekend. I wrote a 4 page paper, which is pretty good. I started my other paper. I studied for my test tomorrow. I cleaned our house, floors and all. I became addicted to Farmville. I napped on the couch with Ozzy, both Saturday and Sunday afternoon. I went shopping. I applied for scholarships. I caught up on my DVR. It was nice.

Happy Monday!

Little of this and a little of that

This weekend Matt has his first drill for the Reserves. His drill is over two hours away from where we live so he will be staying there in a hotel. He leaves tonight and won't be back until sometime Sunday. I'm not going to booh whoo about how much I'm going to miss him because after 14.5 months in Iraq, two days is nothing.

Yes, it will suck when I need something off the top shelf and I won't have him to get it for me. But I guess that's why we have a step stool. Sometimes when we are home together all weekend, I try to find things for him to do like outside or away from the house so maybe one weekend apart a month will be a good thing.

I don't want this to seem like I want him to go but I know he has to. And I'm going to have to get used to it.

He is taking the car to drill so I will have his new truck all weekend. I might go to the redneck bar and rev the truck up, you know cause then I'd be cool. Its more likely though that I'll just be driving it to Wal-Mart to buy toiletries. When did I become so lame?

With him gone, I'm going to take full advantage of cleaning our house and doing some homework. I have two papers that need to be finished in 2 weeks. I also have a test Tuesday night.

Speaking of school, FYI, I still have 100% in both of my classes. This is not due to lack of assignments, test, and whatnot. I can register for classes for next semester this coming Tuesday and I'm going to try to take 3 classes next semester. This is my first semester taking 2 so that could be interesting.

I also want to play my guitars this weekend. I've been so busy with taking care of our house, my husband, and my dog and going to school that I have not had time to play either of my guitars in months. I love playing because when I do its like nothing else matters and I can't think of anything else.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!

My wedding ring

I wrote about a week ago about "The Story of Us." You can read it if you haven't already. I mentioned that when we got married everything was kind of rushed and nowhere had a wedding band that matched my engagement ring.

My wedding band needed to be curved because my ring has so much going on, on the sides of it. I got a band that was curved and had round diamonds and baguettes. The diamonds on the band I bought don't go down as far on the sides as on my engagement ring. Also, the diamonds on the side of my engagement ring are channel set. The band I purchased is not channel set.


I know this picture isn't the best and its kinda hard to see exactly what's going on.

Matt cannot tell that it does not match but I can. I sent it off for an estimate at the store I bought both of my rings at about 6 months ago and nearly fell on the floor when they told me the price. I took it to another jeweler around then and they said that they could do it for almost half of what I was quoted. But my diamond protection plan and whatnot is not there so I was a little apprehensive about getting it done there.

So I went and talked to the boss lady at the place where Matt has bought all my diamonds about two weeks ago. She sent it off last week to a different custom jewelry maker. His price was less than both of the other estimates I have received.

Matt agreed to let me get it made. So my ring is in the shop. I'll have my matching custom band in about two weeks. When I get it back I will post before and after pictures. I have better pictures of the before on my computer at home.

Thanks honey. I love you. And I'm not going to look at or need any more diamonds for a long time.

My husband has a new love

We bought a truck this weekend! Matt's been wanting a truck since we've been married and I finally gave in. We both work about 15 miles away from where we live so it will be nice for the winter time when its snowing and stuff. He also needs a truck to haul his toys around on.

Their are conditions he agreed to before we agreed on getting the truck. No more looking at trucks online. Not even a little bit. He says he will only shop online if it is for me. Hey I can't argue with that. And no talking about jacking it up for at least a year.

Santa may be bring him some step thingers for the side so I can get my short self in and out of it better.

So without further ado, here is my husband's new love.

She is a dark blue and has leather, heated seats, a sunroof, and all the other good stuff he wanted his truck to have.

No need for words