Halloween marks the start of our busy season around here. After Halloween, we prepare for Thanksgiving and Brian’s birthday. Fortunately, this year they aren’t the same day! 15 days later is Alex’s birthday. His Godfather will be in town that weekend to celebrate his birthday and Christmas with the boys, which means that sometime before then we need to put our tree up. We’re looking into buying a new tree. Ours is 6 years old this year and when I put it together last year, a couple of the branches fell off. I took that as a sign that it’s time for a new one. So, we’re pricing.

Speaking of pricing Christmas trees, we went to WalMart on Saturday after taking the boys to see High School Musical 3 (good movie!). We parked and walked in through the garden center and what were we greeted with? Christmas decorations! I was not prepared for that AT ALL! It isn’t even Halloween yet, for crying out loud! I am the person who is adamant about not putting up any Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. I just can’t be in the mood before then, even if there is snow on the ground. I have to take the holidays one at a time. It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess. Besides, it’s more fun to make a mad dash for the finish line than to start 2 months early.

Anyway, 15 days after Alex’s birthday is Christmas. Then we’re leaving to head to Erie for Jen and Matt’s wedding on New Years Eve. We’ve decided from there to go back to Indiana for a couple of days so that I can see my niece for the first time. I am super excited about that! She’ll be 3 months old then, but at least I don’t have to wait until April! Then it’s my birthday, which I am NOT looking forward to this year, and my sil’s birthday. Fortunately, after that, we have nothing until April when we have sil’s wedding, our anniversary and the twins’ birthday.

In all fairness, this is my favorite time of year. I love fall (though we haven’t had much of a fall this year) and Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s such a joyous time of year. I love cooking a big dinner and celebrating with family and friends. I don’t even mind that it’s just the 5 of us. It’s a compete contrast to the frenzied Thanksgiving and Christmas days I had as a kid, hoping from one grandparent to the next, eating dinner at one and dessert at the other. It’s nice to just be able to relax and take it all in.

And speaking of relaxing, I think I’m going to do that for what’s left of the Colts game. After doing 2 blog posts for my class blog, dishes, and 3 or 4 loads of laundry, I think I’ll chill for the rest of the game and then head to bed. Night!

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Christmas, Family, Halloween, Holidays, Thanksgiving, The Inlaws, birthdays, life, the kids | No Comments »

Oh, no! We are barely halfway through October and I’ve seen the first *ahem* snow of the season. I was so totally not prepared for that. I knew there was snow last night in the higher elevations around here, but that’s different. It wasn’t here. It was there. There is not here. Well, it is now! We saw snow on the way home from dropping the van off at the shop. Oh, my. DH is happy about it, of course. He just shared with me that the average first snowfall in Rochester is Oct. 24th, so I guess it’s time. Bbbbrrrrrrr. I just want spring/summer/fall back!

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Rochester, Weather, life | 1 Comment »

Once again, it’s been far too long since I have blogged. I find it much harder to even be in the mood to blog now-a-days. It isn’t that I don’t want to, I’m just not motivated enough to think of something to blog about, lol. Not to mention that for the last two weeks, I’ve been studying for midterms. I did very well on my midterms. I have two A’s, a B and a C.

Life has been crazy around here lately. I’ve found balancing it all a very hard thing to do. I think I’ve just finally figured out how. At least most day. School is getting a bit easier and work, well, it’s work. I love working in a cafe. Reminds me of college (the first time around, lol). The extra income is very helpful, too. We’ve managed to pay off quite a bit of debt and should be pretty well set for Christmas and the start of the new year. I’m looking forward to having two and a half months off, too

We’re getting into the busy part of the year. Halloween then Thanksgiving, two birthdays, Christmas, Matt & Jennifer’s wedding, then my birthday (see my previous post for my thoughts on that) then it’s back to school and everything the spring semester brings.

We bought Halloween costumes for the boys over the weekend. Zach wanted to be Indiana Jones, but since we found no Indy costumes (which surprised me), he settled for Anakin Skywalker. Ryan decided on a skeleton. Alex wanted to be Frankenstein’s monster, but we couldn’t find anything at Target so he originally settled on being Tony Stewart. However, when we went to WalMart, they had a Frankenstein costume, so that’s what he’s going to be. It will be the first year without at least one homemade costume. But, I suppose that’s ok. Maybe next year

I have a few new pics to share, too. Here goes

First day of school for the twins:

First day of kindy for Alex:

Alex’s first bus ride:

My beautiful new niece, who is a month old now!

Alex’s first lost tooth:

Other random kidness:

Ryan playing checkers with his friend:

Ryan’s monarch butterfly painting at school:

So, if I don’t blog for the rest of the week (or month!), have a great week (or rest of October!).

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Family, Halloween, Holidays, blogging, going back to college, life, pictures, the kids | 1 Comment »

Sadly, this came in a while ago. I just have been so busy with school and work I haven’t had a chance to participate yet! I was tagged by Melissa over atMultitasking Mama to list 6 random things about me that you all may not know. So, here goes!

1. I have a fear of public restrooms. I’ll use them if I have to, I just don’t like to. They completely gross me out.
2. I am not a very good housekeeper. The house isn’t dirty, per se, it just is a bit cluttered. I guess that could be attributed to the lack of storage space, but I’ll take responsibility for it.
3. I love books. Ok, probably not that random, but I really do. I just love the look and feel of them. Even if I don’t read them. Although, I’m an avid reader, too.
4. I am dreading turning 29 in January. It’s far too close to 30, and that scares me to death!
5. I am not an organized person by nature. It drives dh CRAZY because he is organized by nature. I try, and may stay organized for a couple of weeks, but I can’t make it stick for good. I’m trying, though.
6. I love to cook and bake. I am much more likely to bake a treat or birthday cake, for the kids or anyone, than I am to buy it.

Here are the people I’m tagging. I’m supposed to tag 6 people, but sadly, I don’t have that many people in my blog arsenal…So, I did 2 instead : Heather and LeeAndra.

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blogging, fun, memes | 2 Comments »

I work at Borders Books in the cafe. One of the things we do in the cafe is save our coffee grounds. Sounds weird, right? I know. I thought so, too. Every 90 minutes when we brew a new pot of coffee, we dump the grounds into an empty coffee bean bag (a big one, too) that we save when when we’ve used all the beans. Once the bag is full, which only takes about 3 days, we seal it up and put a sticker on it and set it out for our customers to take home free. I asked about this when I first started working there. I was curious as to what it was all about. Apparently coffee grounds are great fertilizer for your garden. They have a low acidity, but still retain their nutrients. You can also use them in your compost pile, though I’m sure those of you who have one already know that.

I’ve decided to start saving my coffee grounds to do this for my plants at home. Since I brew coffee every day and only have a few plants, I shouldn’t need too much to fertilize all of my plants.

Just wanted to pass along this green tip for all of you plant lovers. If you don’t drink coffee, but have a Borders around with a cafe (maybe Starbucks does this, too, since the cafe is technically Starbucks), go pick up some free coffee grounds for your gardens

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General, Going green | 3 Comments »