Happy Holidays!

I wanted to post about my holidays.  They have been fantastic and I've enjoyed myself a ton.  Alas, why I have not posted for awhile.

I can't ever ignore how fun it is getting ready for Christmas.  As you know, I started planning early this year.  Really in September.  I was crafting in October.  So it made the prep really so much easier.  Mom helped with the tree the week before Thanksgiving.  Even Trudy (my housecleaner) came and made everything spanky and clean.  So we wrapped and shopped and were ready and waiting. 

My Tree 2013

At my house

Nola came into town on Christmas day.  It was hard to believe how early she got started to make it here by 10:00 am.  We came home and Philip had made us some White Chicken Chili.  Then we went to DeOna's for Christmas dinner with the family.  We had a great dinner at DeOna's house.  We were pleasantly surprised when Jennie was able to join us.  She is usually really busy with her Dad's side of the family but they were between parties.

 

 

Mom and Chuck came into town on Friday for a post Christmas celebration.  We pulled out a fantastic dinner and enjoyed the evening visiting.  Luckily Mom's cold and cough were much better so she was able to make it up.  It is always nice to see them.

While Nola is here, we've been going to eat and visit places she loves and remembers.  We've also been scrapbook shopping.  It is really fun to shop with Nola and see what catches her eye.  She has a great eye for paper and getting stuff that she can actually use.  I tend to focus on embellishments and stickers and some paper to go with them.  Such a different style.  I am going to try to be more creative and I'm also going to try to stop buying paper and such as I think I have enough for now.  We also went up the canyon yesterday to look at the snow.  It was great fun.



Litza's Pizza

The Soup Kitchen

Litza's Pizza

Two of my favorite people

  

Downtown fun

 

Snow fun in Millcreek canyon

So New Years is just peeking around the corner.  I've been invited to a party but I am not sure what Philip's plans are so I will wait to finalize mine until we can touch base.

I hope everyone had a great holiday too.  Now onto 2014!!

Come on Betsy

So I am slowly making progress with Betsy (the black cow laptop).  The battery didn't help her fire up.  Believe me I tried.  I've come to terms with the cost of the new laptop.  So today I took Betsy into the repair shop to have her memory copied.  Sounds space aged eh?  The guy didn't seem concerned at all about being able to get my info off.  He said they will basically take the hard drive out and put it  in another computer and copy it off.  He said my external hard drive was probably big enough to make a complete copy of the data.  I  told him I don't need diagnostics done and I decided to wait to clean off the hard drive until I can confirm I have all my files.  I was also able to return the battery for a full refund.

Now I need to learn to be okay without a computer until my new one comes.  I was secretly hoping it would come today.  I was assured it would not however,  I got my camera. It is pretty cool.  Philip is luckily going to D and D tomorrow until Sunday so I can use his during that time.

I felt very relieved the guy thought he could get all my files.  He said it should be ready after Christmas.  That works for me!  I'll still have time to get the files for Philip's Eagle program.  Still sucks but I feel a sense of relief for sure!

Technology let down

Wednesday, I went to log into my personal laptop.  Completely dead.  Won't fire up.  No lights.  No sound.  I cannot even express the amount of distress this caused me.  I got a warning for a year that the battery needed replaced.  So I just used it plugged in.  That should work right?  Tuesday night, it needed coaxing to turn on.  I told Philip we should back it up over the weekend.  In hindsight, we are both kicking ourselves that we didn't back it up that night because it is now DOA.

I did some internet search and found Battery + had a battery I could go pick up so I bit the bullet and bought the $110 battery yesterday.  The guy said he wasn't sure it would do the trick and I agree but I have to try right?  Well I plugged it and I did get lights but it would not turn on.  So I let it charge for a few hour.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure it charged.  I highly suspect it drained the reserve in the battery because there were no lights as of last night.

What really surprised me is the amount of inertia this ordeal caused.  I got to the point I couldn't make one decision and my thinking was clouded.  It was finally at 8:00 pm I decided we should go take my laptop (calling her Betsy now because she is now like a big black cow....grazing in the fields without a care in the world) to the repair shop to try to get the gems of files, photos, and music I have on my computer.  Alas, their internet page lied because they closed at 8:00, not 9:00.  I can't tell you how that pissed me off I was there at 8:05.  The employees were in there but never looked up...even with the persistent knocking on the door.  I swear I was going to just drop to my knees and cry.  I just wanted to make some progress on the issue.

Philip helped me look at new laptops online.  Did you know there are about 10,000 choices?  Operating system, screen size, hybrid, memory, DVD/no DVD, touch screen, 10 key pad, etc, etc, etc.  I find this overwhelming.  To the point I just couldn't decide.  Part of the inertia was that by the time we added in what I wanted, it was over $800.  So we comparison shopped.  Dell, HP, Microsoft, Acer, Lenovo.... I narrowed it down to the Dell or Lenovo.  But how do you pick.  Sleek and stylish or memory and DVD drive?  4 USB ports or 3?  So I did what any girl would do with a broken heart and a huge headache.  I took 600 mg Ibuprofen and went to bed.  Surprisingly, I didn't dream about it all.

This morning, I realized yesterday was free shipping day and I missed it.  So got started with work and then went out to the Dell site and ordered it up.  I went for sleek and sexy.  I'm going to be learning Windows 8.  Philip promised to help me.  Then I searched for coupons online.  I did find one more I hadn't found in my frustration stupor from the day before.  Saved $50 more.  And they still had free shipping!  So it is on it's way.

Shhhhh...don't tell anyone but one of my secrets is that Dell is a great resource for cameras.  If you buy one while buying your computer, you get a screaming deal.  My camera sucks.  So I've been using my phone but my phone runs out of memory.  So I found another deal on a camera and got the spanking new Canon point and shoot for $70!

The bonus of it all?  My work offers a 20% rebate on all computer purchases every 2 years.  Since I bought it in 2013, it will count this year.  Which is perfect because Philip is dreaming of a new computer when he goes to college.

Sucks to have to buy a new computer unexpectedly.  But I am very happy with the choice.  Hopefully they can get my files off my old computer and I can bury Betsy in the back yard corner where the retaining wall is falling over because I just blew my budget to fix it on a new computer.  Haha.

I guess I can consider it a Merry Christmas to me!

Holiday crafting

Last Tuesday evening, I went to a make up crafting class at my blogger friend's Mom's house.  Kaylyn used to own a craft store, been a home stager, and even sold real estate for awhile.  She has a real flair for decorating and crafting.  You might recall, I went to the class in June and enjoyed myself so I decided to sign up for the December class.  Truth be told, I was suppose to go to the class in November.  It was the day before my surgery.  I would have gone but it was so windy, they were advising no one drive.  I didn't want to drive to Lehi and it was probably a good idea to hold off.  So she had a make up class last week and I was excited to go.

First let me say, she collects vintage holiday stuff.  She had cute stuff all over.  She had vintage stockings, Santa face cocoa sets, and oh my gosh....SANTAS!  I love Santas and I admit I was jealous.  Here is just a portion of her buffet.



She made the best soup....had crusty warm garlic bread, and even cucumber water for dinner.  It was so delicious.  I must make this soup again...and by the way...it  had Kale in it...and I ate it!  She also gave us a bag of caramel corn drizzled with melted chocolate.

There were only 3 of us there so we got going on our crafts after we finished our soup.  I'm telling you, this woman has everything you could ever want to craft with.  Ink pads...check.  30 colors of glitter...check.  5 kinds of glue....check.  10 different options for vintage style patterned papers.....check.  Mica flakes....check.  All we brought is a glue gun and scissors. 

We made a cone tree, paper covered boxes complete with bottle brush trees and mica snow flakes, and a Joy banner.  She has everything ready for you and in kit in the metal tone you requested.  The other 2 people that came left early.  They crafted like they were on speed.  They had their tree done before I was even done covering it with paper.  They ended up taking their boxes undone.  I felt a little uncomfortable staying super late by myself so I finished my tree and boxes but brought my Joy banner home to finish.  It was 10:30 pm after all.  I admit, I cheated.  This is a photo of her banner so I can copy it.  I hope to work on it either this weekend or next week.

Although I felt hectic that day, I really enjoyed being creative and am so happy with my end products.  I bought an extra kit so I can do more.  I can't wait.

It was nice to visit with Kaylyn and learn more about her and her family.  She has such a "can do" attitude and faces challenges and barriers with optimism and determination.  She is having surgery in January but if she feels okay, she is having a Valentine's class.  I just might have to check it out.

Hope you are finding your holiday spirit in things you enjoy.

What's up buttercup?

Has it really been over a week since I posted?  Why  yes....yes it has.  So I wanted to post an update.  Mainly everything is going good.  I've been busy with general life stuff which isn't always very exciting to blog about.  But let me try.

I've been busy planning Philip's Eagle ceremony in January.  I designed some easy invitations and had them printed through Walgreens.  We also went and got a new uniform for Philip since his old one didn't fit.  Much to our surprise, the guy let us buy the badges Philip has lost without proof he earned them.  Now I would never get badges Philip didn't earn but it was nice to know we have it set now. 

I've been crafting.  I got a wild idea to make felt owl ornaments.  It was something I've had on my mind for a few years but Nola's Pintrest sparked me to jump forward.  Those were some time consuming owls but they came out so cute.  I'm noodling on adapting the pattern to make kitties out of them.  I've also been doing another online scrapbooking crop that has kept me busy.

 

Have I been doing much for Christmas?  Not since Thanksgiving as far as decorating and such.  I did get some new Polonaise ornaments on Ebay.  I'm anxious to put them on the tree.  I also got my Christmas cards out.  I decided not to do a letter because the people I would normally want to tell what we did over the year read my blog. 

Last week, Mars and John came and scooped me up and treated me to dinner and took me to see the Tech Night production of "Elf, the Musical" at Pioneer Theater.  It was excellent and I really enjoyed it.  I'm so happy we enjoy doing things together.  Plus I love to see a picture into their world at the theater.  I'm honestly fascinated by the behind the scenes of the arts.

My eye is doing pretty good.  It has healed quite well.  To the point you wouldn't really  know I had surgery if you didn't know.  The incision is healing nicely.  The bruising is gone.  But the dent remains.  I see Dr. S for a follow up on Thursday.  I'll ask him about it again then.  I'm still not wearing makeup...hopefully for another week.  I want to be sure the incision is good and healed before I pull on it getting makeup on and off.  Honestly, I like not having to fuss with makeup but I'm not sure it is acceptable in Salt Lake society.

 

Philip is finished with his ACT prep class. His big test is this Saturday.  It makes me nervous because I know how important it is he does his very best.  He is plugging away at school.  I think we are both looking forward to Christmas break.

We've been absolutely freezing cold.  Like single digits cold.  And we get snow periodically.  Philip has been a trooper and has been shoveling for me.  Today he didn't have time before school so I did some.  The driveway will be waiting for him to get home from school.  :-)  Luckily we are suppose to warm up by next weekend but they say the inversion is coming about Wednesday.  That is always so depressing

And really, that is it.  So all is good.  I can't believe Christmas is 2.5 weeks away!