My Ring!!

In the pictures, which totally do NOT do the ring justice, makes it look like it is in a gold setting, but it isn't.
Oh I love it so much!!!

Over Achevier: Top 10 List & Write

Back for Mama Kat's assignment! I decided to do two, although the second one isn't mine--I found some pretty funny top ten lists and had to share!

"WHY DO YOU WRITE?" That one is easy smeasy! Although I blogged before I left DC, I definitely do it more now. I had a lot of people to hang out with in DC (I know, Ms. Popular here! jk) and do not know that many people that live in Chester. Luckily, a good amount of David's family is right down the street a lot of my friends from college are about an hour & half away, and my family is about that far as well. So, I write to keep myself from cutting in the shower and crying because I have no friends. Just. Kidding. Don't freak out and call the cops on me. I seriously do think of each of you as my blogland friends and I wish you all lived closer!

~~I also picked, "You've been hired as a writer for "Late Show with David Letterman." Your first assignment is to come up with a witty, nonpolitical Top Ten list for him to read on air." I'm supposed to be creative here..but have you SEEN some of the stuff his actual writers came up with? Let me just cheat here and post some from their archives list.

Top Ten Signs You’re Not Going to Graduate From High School This Year:
10- Instead of a cap & gown, they give you a McDonald’s hairnet.
9- Your final paper in English was titled, “TV Guide: Gateway to Viewing Pleasure.”
8- Grandma starts affectionately calling you “Lil’Flunkie.”
7- Nobody believes pot in your locker was planted by those Whitewater dudes.
6- Your computer teacher discovers you getting’ it on with a laptop.
5- At oral exam, you respond to every question with, “Hey—I ain’t in Mensa, you now!”
4- Your guidance counselor gives you Dr. Kevorkian’s number.
3- You constantly neglect your studies to date Woody Allen.
2-Your name: Kenny. This year’s prom theme: “Sorry you won’t be graduating, Kenny.”
1- Your combined score on the SAT: 12.

Top Ten Messages Left of Britney Spears’ Answering Machine:
10- “It’s Bill Clinton. I hear you’re confused and vulnerable. Call Me”
9- “Hi Britney, Good News—We now have a revolving door at the rehab center”
8- “Al Gore here. You’re contributing to global warming, because your new look is hot!”
7- “It’s K-Fed. Who would’ve though I’d look like the responsible one?”
6- “It’s Melania Trump. Think you and the clippers can fix the mess on Donald’s head?”
5- “I’m calling from ‘American Idol.’ Would you like to replace Paula Abdul as our crazy judge?
4- “NASA calling – we think you might be astronaut material”
3- “Carol Channing here. I want my wig back, bitch.”
2- “Hey it’s Paris. Are we still sluttin’ it up this weekend?”
1- “This is the hair salon – you left your underwear here”

Top Ten Signs Your Baby Is Too Fat.
10- She has your eyes and Barry Bonds’ head
9- Doctor says, “It’s a……GOOD LORD!”
8- “Baby Carriage” is a Forklift.
7- The kid’s got more chins than fingers.
6-Incubator littered with baby back ribs.
5- Local news crew shoes up thinking a baby elephant has been born.
4- His pacifier is a stick of butter.
3- Nevermind a c-section, you had a d-section! I tell you, folks, that’s one FAT baby!
2- First word: Bacon
1- Twice a day, the kid gets mistaken for Rosie O’Donnell.

Guilty as Charged..

A few of my guilty pleasures...


Mmmm.. I am pretty picky about my chocolate..and Reese's and Mr. Goodbar's are always winners in my book.
I love them soooo much..and they love me too--so I take them when I can.
This is my NUMBER one guilty pleasure. I loveee this show. It's a lot like Sex in the City, but with lesbians instead of men&women relationships. I found it when I signed up for netflix about 6 months ago when I was browsing their "watch instantly" section. I watched season 1-4 in about three weeks.

What are some of your guilty pleasures??

Mmm..

I am not the best cook in the world..in fact, I wouldn't even use the word cook in describing what I do. However, I try to put together a meal every night. "A" for effort right? I haven't killed Dave yet, so I must not be doing too bad. Tonight's meal was one that I was especially proud of. And it was SO easy!

Upon my trip to Food Lion yesterday I saw that London Broil was on sale for around $2/pound as opposed to over $5/pound. I decided to buy two (for less than the price of one!) and make one today and freeze the other. I may go back to the store tomorrow and get some more because we're all about saving money, right!

And then I saw this.

Since Pot Roast is a lot like London Broil..I decided to try this out instead of using gravy. And it was SOOO good and VERY low maintenance. You just use one of the packets, which comes with the seasoning and the cooking bag. Put meat into bag, mix seasoning with 1/4 cup of water, pour over meat, close bag, poke four small holes in bag to vent, and put into oven at 350 for two hours. Take out, and Enjoy!

Cannot Wait!!

Many exciting things happened this weekend...
Take a peek!

We finally remembered to turn on our Halloween lights that are around our porch..

We carved a pumpkin.. It is supposed to be a spooky house..do you see it? I don't.

Dave & I cleaned our apartment. And when I say cleaned I mean it took me about four hours for two rooms..so we really put in some work. He had the living room & bedroom & I tackled the kitchen and bathroom (which was the harder ones!) Isn't he great to help clean? Sorry, he's all mine, but I will loan him out for money. :) When I was scrubbing away at the shower, I kept hearing something..well..it was my camera going off and that is one of the bajillion pictures Dave took. Funny how they all were when I was bending over. Freak.
Friday night we had a date night.. We fixed dinner at the house together, and then went to the mall for a VERY SPECIAL PURCHASE that I cannot WAIT to get back. Notice there is no ring on my finger..well..in about a week there will be one there! You guys know we did everything backwards. I cannot waaaaaaaait to get my ring! Should be here by November 1st! I will post a picture and give you all the details of the ring when it comes in..aaah I can't wait! It is so beautiful!

-Back to reality- After the mall, we went through a haunted forest. Worst.Thing.Ever. I get scared really easily and THIS place was a cake walk. At least it was for the fire department. After that we went and watched Saw V, and it was pretty good!

What did YOU do this weekend?

Nicknames

Here we are at Mama Kat's writers workshop again this week! I chose to do this one....

When out to lunch with co-workers, you bump into a close friend who refers to you by a nickname. Because of its unusualness, the nickname catches the interest of one of your co-workers who asks for the story behind it. Start your story with, "This may come as a surprise, but ... " and end it with, "And that's how I got the nickname (fill in the blank)."

I once again have to change it up a bit.. Do you hate me for doing that, Mama Kat? I sure hope not. See the thing is, anyone who has given me a nickname, was during childhood and usually they were not nice, and I don't really consider them close friends--I may or may not have a voodoo doll of them. (kidding) I know, I'm just blabbing on..now to the good stuff!

There were two nicknames I got when I was younger, that you could ask around and someone would be able to tell you these. Kids can be mean!
President. This one seems nice, right? Well, you may want to know what I was the President of.. They shortened it to be able to say it in front of teachers without getting in trouble. I was named the President of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
Hoover. This one came during softball. I played t-ball as a child for one year and then stopped. When I was 11 I got this bright idea to play again. Hence where I got the nickname, Hoover. When you hear the word hoover you may think of a vacuum. I thought I was given the nickname because I could suck them balls up!! However, it was just because I sucked.

What were some of your nicknames as a child?

Our family is growing!!

No, I am not pregnant.

Guess there is a new member of our family
Dave wouldn't let me throw that stupid thing away
..because it was "cute"
(shakes head) Men...

I was tagged by All things Fluffy, Fashionable, and Famous. ..so here we go!: (forgive me for not having the time to look up cute pictures!..I have charts out the wazoo to complete today!!)
Clothes: Whatever fits! My lets are too short, I have pretty big hips for such a small girl, and no boobs. So you try to find a certain brand that fits me! I love Ann Taylor & Loft for business, but now that I work from home I haven't stepped foot in those stores!
Furniture: I think I suck at this survey. We have furniture from all over in the house. My favorite are our big fluffy couches from Haynes.
City: DC BABY! DC will always hold a special place in my heart. I currently live outside of Richmond, VA.
Sweets: Anything. Seriously..i'm like a fat kid!
Drink: Diet Coke with Lemon, Sweet Tea, and because I am sooo healthy water! (yeah, right!)
Music: Everything but bluegrass and heavy metal.. I could listen to Beach Boys all day long, or Carrie Underwood.
TV Series: Depending on the day we have.... Jon & Kate Plus 8, 17 Kids & Counting, MTV Stuff, The Housewives of Atlanta, THE OFFICE, Friends, Everyone Loves Raymond, Wife Swap, NIP TUCK, 24. (Okay, Since I work from home I do have the TV on in the background, but I don't really watch it!)
Film: Ok I just realized I am either really easy going or a big pain in the as.... I can't choose just one thing! I like horror, comedy, action, everything. Excited to see Saw V this weekend!!

Workout: Cardio. Ran a little over a mile & biked two miles yesterday. Hoping to run a mile & half today and bike two & half miles!
Pastries: Do doughnuts count? I don't think I am a big pastries fan..
Coffee: Tall Vanilla Iced Coffee from Starbucks... Thank you.

Money Saving Tips

Let's face it...living in this world is expensive!! I realized last month I spent $417.44 on food and household items. For TWO people. Dave is a meat man. Meat is EXPENSIVE. I think he eats too much and I am going to make him go anorexic. When we have kids I am going to be broke. Granted right now I do have a freezer & cabinet full of food so I will not really have to go to the grocery store for two weeks except of course for meat. We don't have a budget, but after looking at the total I spent last month, we need to set one up. This month, I am doing things a little differently, so I have done research on how to save money.

Here are a few things I have been doing/have started doing:

• I wash all clothes in cold water. After the wash is done I shake each thing out before putting them into the dryer. If the clothes (especially jeans and heavy items) are in a ball it will take longer for them to completely dry. I read this somewhere and it does seem to work. I am not sure exactly how much money I am saving..but oh well :0) I also get the clothes out of the dryer as soon as they are done to prevent them getting wrinkly and me turning the dryer back on and wasting money.
• Coupons. I have bought the past few Sunday Times which include the Sunday coupons. I only clip the ones for items we currently use. I am not going to use a coupon just to use it if we are not in need of the item. I try and pair the items up at Food Lion or CVS depending on if they have certain sales that pertain to these items, thus saving MORE money.
• Have breakfast for dinner. Pancakes & Eggs are pretty cheap, so we're trying to have breakfast for dinner at once a week.
• Do holiday shopping after the holidays. Once a holiday is over, everything related to that day is marked at least 50% off! I am going to try and just get minimal Christmas decorations this year and stock up for next year after Christmas is over.
• Pay off your credit cards. The best bet is to not have ANY credit cards..but hey, we're human! I have two credit cards and currently they are both totally paid off. I am the type that would rather have money in the bank than no credit debt. I do pay it off though. Dave has one credit card that he pays his off every month as well. Oh and he has NO debt. (lucky!) He has no college debt, or car debt. Soon I will have school debt to pay off...not looking forward to that!
• Make your own laundry detergent. Found this website. I want to try it out!
• Drink water at restaurants. Restaurants typically charge between $1.50-$3.00 for a drink! That adds up!
  

What are some tips you have for saving money?

Speaking of SAVING money, Came across this giveaway that is giving away a book on saving money! Wooohooo!!

Once a year..

Dave is 25 today!

I decorated the apartment on Thursday.. I didn't want to wait until today to do it, as I am TERRIBLE at surprises & knew that I would ruin it. Friday we went out to eat-- Saturday we went to a birthday cookout for him & his brothers house.

I made signs like this and hung them all around the apartment.

There were about 100 balloons on the floor.. I tried to make it 150, but I think I died about 18 times and had to stop at 100.

Yummmmmy Ukrops cake. (Nice and manly too with the roses, right?) I know there are not 25 candles on the cake..but he didn't notice!

<3>

I wanted to take him to a Redskins game..but he is all about saving money. We are planning on buying a house in 2009 so we "need to save"..What is it about men and their lack of desire to spend money?!?

Assignment

I had so much fun with last week's assignment from Mama's Losin' It, so I decided to do another one this week!

If you could rearrange three things about your life what would they be?

I am going to contradict myself in answering this question. I believe everything happens for a reason. There is reasoning behind my cookie cutter answer.We can go back really far with my answer..to the "beginning of time." However, I will start with the event that first "changed" my life. The death of my father. I think about him every single day, and do not believe that time heals everything. Time allows you the chance to learn to deal with death. It never gets easier, and there is no specific mourning time. If my Father didn't die at his young age, my mom would have never remarried my 'stepdad' (dad from here on out.) My family was very very poor, happy, but poor as dirt. My dad was more financially stable. If it were not for that, I would have never been able to go to a private school for my highschool years. If I had never gone to the private school, I never would have met Lauren, who was my best friend throughout those years. We decided to go check out a college together, Liberty University, during their "college for a weekend." If I hadn't gone to check the school out, I would not have applied there. Attending Liberty gave me the opportunity to move to DC. If I had not gone to DC I would have never gotten a job there. I was lucky enough to get a job from the internship I completed. If I had not accepted that job, I never would have met David. If I never met David I don't think I would marry anyone else. My life would not be as complete. I would not laugh as much if it were not for him.

Although I have been through a lot of ups and downs and left out a lot of information, I can still see how everything is intertwined in getting me to where I am today.

What are some instances that you recognize how you would not be where you are today without them? (I understand it could be a long answer..it's okay—I have the time to read it!)

Did you know?

DID YOU KNOW...

The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.

The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.

Cat's urine glows under a black light.

A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

The average secretary's left hand does 56% of the typing.

If you keep a Goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.



So you MAY have known some of them...but did you know that this past weekend was spent cleaning, decluttering, and changing out summer clothes for fall/winter? No, you probably DIDN'T know that. During all of this I found an oldddd set of PJ's. I can still fit into them nicely, but they are old. ..Not to mention ugly. Doing what anyone would do I made Dave try them on....
Even though they are extremely tight..they still look like they COULD fit..as long as he doesn't bend down.
This is how we had to get the top on. It broke going over his shoulders...so, we made a new outfit. Sexy huh?? You can thank me for cropping this picture and not scarring you (women) or making you jealous (men) :0)

It is a shame the pictures were blurry.. I was laughing too hard and didn't have time to set up the camera since I knew I couldn't keep him in this too long.

He asked later, "You deleted those pictures right? You aren't going to post them on your blog are you?"
My response, "Of course I deleted them.." -That's right folks. I deleted them. But that was only after I saved them to my computer.

WINNER for GIVEAWAY

So..I decided 98 comments was enough for the giveaway..I didn't expect it to get that big. So yes, I disabled the comments...and YES I went ahead did the random number thingie. I cannot figure out how to copy & paste to show you the number that was generated.. So I will just type it in:

Enter a lower limit: 1
Enter an upper limit: 98
Random Number: 91

Joey won! His comment was, "Target is the coolest store... even I can admit that. Put me down for an entry - even though I'm doing this for Stephanie (live laugh love)..."


So...he admitted that he was doing it for his wife, Stephanie.. I guess that means Stephanie won!!

Biggest Fears

I decided to participate in Mama's Losin' It Writers Workshop.. (The prompt was to do 10, but I didn't want to add things just to add them, I think these are all of my fears)

My biggest fears:

• Dying. Before I have children, before I have a chance to experience more of life, and before I am old and wrinkly with my own grandchildren.
• Losing my mother. (not even going to put the D word here) My mother is my best friend. I talk to her at least once a day (more like at least 2-3 times) We tell each other everything. I didn't have such a good relationship with her when I was growing up, but I am so fortunate I snapped out of that, she is the best. I told her when she "is lost" I am going to stuff her. (kidding!!)
• Frogs. Yup. I said it. I used to have a really big wart (I was too scared to get it frozen off, finally I did) and had always heard warts came from touching frogs..needless to say, I am still scared of them.
• Getting too hot. When I get hot I feel like I am going to pass out, and have passed out a time or two.
  
• Being poor. We were not well off when I was growing up. At least not until my mom remarried..then--well, then we were good :) I work hard. (Except for my breaks to blog) and at times have been known to carry three jobs just to make sure I have enough money for things. (Like school..not talking about buying the latest fashions)
• Making phone calls. I really hate calling a new place. I fear I will stumble over my words. I don't even like calling to order a pizza!
• Changes. I am a scheduler and an organizer. I like to know what is happening when.
  

This really tickles my toes..

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Looking for a friend on facebook, I came across a girl that is currently attending Liberty University (where I was as a resident student but currently finishing up through the distance learning program)

(should I block her face? can I go to jail?!?)
Blogging friends, meet Shanta Clause.
I wonder when she was in grade school if the kids were excited when she was "coming down the slide" (get it, slide..not chimney!!)

Have you met any (okay I haven't met her, but whatever!) not-so-ordinary-named people? And the celebrity baby names..don't get me started on them!!

P.S. If you are here for the GIVEAWAY...
go down ONE post!!!

Giveaway!!

I realized today that I go to Target at least once a week..That store is so amazing. If I could marry a store it would be Target.

So...This is my first giveaway!

Prize: $25 gift card from Target.

Here's how to WIN:

• For one entry, simply leave a comment here
• For your second entry, blog about my giveaway and come back here (on this post) letting me know you blogged about it
  

It's That Simple.
:0)

The winner will be announced early Friday morning..

Wasting time..

Maybe tomorrow I will do an actual post... for today..I just wanted to post some things I've made. I think I am addicted!! I plan on printing them out and making a book. (I know that it is supposed to be called a scrapbook, but I did the "scrapbooking" online.. is it still called a scrapbook???)

Fall around my house..

My favorite Fall decorations...

I have pumpkin spice tealight candles, and boy do they smell good!

Dave's mom made this wreath for us..I love it.
Hopefully she makes us one for Christmas too :0)

We are going to decorate our porch for Halloween, and I will post pics of that when we're done..

Newest Addiction

Normally I have Liz make headers for me (cause she's freakin awesome!) BUT... Becky posted about how happy she was that she made her own header.. and it was freakin awesome! Becky was KIND enough to tell me how she made hers...and I tried it, and found it to be SO SO SO easy..and so much fun! (thankyousomuchbecky! yourock!) If you go to Scrapblog you can make your own to..it is pretty self explanatory. After you are done, you have to publish it to the website in order to then export it as JPEG. From there, it will be saved to your computer as a picture and then you will be able to put it in for the header.

Here are a few "headers" that I worked on after I completed my Halloween one... I foresee myself spending WAY too much time with this program...

Baby Girl..

Came across this website that will put your photos together and make a baby... I am not sure how I feel about our "baby". She kind of scares me....

God, I will be delighted with whatever bundle of joy you send my way. BUT if we can make children like Build-A-Bear...

I would like a BLONDE hair BLUE eyed baby.. With a forehead smaller than her mamas and a nose not quite as round.

b e l i e v e *

I Believe...

..we cannot look at the wonders of the world
without realizing there is in fact a Creator.

What do you believe?

Shots I Like..

Ilovephotography.

Everyone LOVES a Giveaway!

Found this contest on Mamarazzi --

Handbag Planet
is
celebrating
the
launch
of
their
website
so
they
are
giving
away
24 handbags in 24 hours.

*Click on the Handbag Planet link above to enter..