NYE Fill in the blank Friday

Hey, this looks like fun..Fill in the blank Friday.

1. New Year's is (awesome/lame/other) motivational. No matter how you celebrate it the new year is always a time to reflect on the last year and make great big, brand new shiny goals for the coming year.

2. Last New Year's Eve I was at a party with my husband. I wore a smokin' hot red dress. I drank too much tequila and my Mom drove us home. I don't remember getting to bed.

3. My New Year's resolution is....um...I don't have any. Have fun? That's a good resolution to make, right?

4. The best way to spend New Year's Eve is doing whatever makes you happy, hopefully that includes some friends and/or family.

5. My prediction for an up-and-coming trend in 2011 is..royal fashion? Haven't you heard? Price Willy is getting married and already everyone is falling over themselves to dress like Kate.

6. This New Year's Eve I will be at home, hosting a WII party with some friends and their kiddo's.

7. A fresh start is just as easy to start today, as tomorrow. If you want to use New Years as a fresh start that is GREAT! But if you fall off the wagon, don't roll around in the mud for too long. Every day is a fresh start, really.

YIR Photo Collage 2010

I'm Humbled

Comment from AylaBean, left on my junk food post:

"Im new to the blogging world, but I am now following yours. Thank you for this post! It sounds like me exactly, and seeing how far you have come, makes me feel stronger. :) "

That just made my year (I teared up a little). Thank you, Ayla! Now, come back and leave me the link to your blog so I can follow you.

YIR 2010

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things. ~John Burroughs

January - The First Three Days

February - Forever

March - Crazy Ass Weekend

April - The Rest of the Story

May - The Week We Lived in a Pink House

June - Things That Make Me Smile

July - Bloggy Blog

August - What My 20s Taught Me

September - Love+Hope+Happiness=Mircle

October - How Did I Get So Stinkin' Lucky?

November - My Name Is Jinny...

December - The Best Christmas Gift

Playing Dress Up

Santa brought both my nieces a Disney princess dress up set. There were all sorts of outfits, hats, headbands, jewelry, shoes, accessories, and makeup.
There were quite a few costume changes throughout the day.
These girls swapped out outfits, shoes, accessories. You name it, they wore it on Saturday.
Especially Dolly, who went a little willy nilly with her super sparkly gel princess makeup. I'm just tucking this little gem away for her senior prom. Can't wait to share it with her date.

I got it from my Momma

This is my baby Lola. I think she has the prettiest smile. She comes by it honestly.

This is Bailey, Lola's mother. This is what Lola has to look forward to.

The Best Christmas Gift

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. ~Burton Hillis

Double the Birthday, Double the Fun

Christmas Time Randomness

1. I am getting twitchy to start opening some presents. I tried to talk Jeremy into opening our gifts to each other tonight but he hasn't even wrapped my presents yet. How can I unwrap them if they aren't wrapped yet?

2. Forget beer, buckeye balls are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

3. I haven't seen one second of 'A Christmas Story' yet, which is shocking. OOOOhhhh, fffuuuudddgggeeee.

4. Has anyone else noticed that those inflatable yard decorations are really sad looking during the day when they are NOT inflated?

5. I will be doing the Warrior Dash in March...probably..if I don't chicken out.

6. I don't think I have EVER mentioned this before but I L O V E reading romance novels.

7. Our new next door neighbor's name is Bug, well actually his name is Douglas but everyone calls him Bug.

8. I bought Jeremy's birthday present a few days ago. I cannot wait to give it to him. I love the fact that, for once, I have totally covered my tracks. He has no idea what it is!

9. The itchy puppies have finally calmed down. Thank God! I was losing sleep..mostly because Lola is very noisy when she is flopping around on the floor trying to itch her back at 2:00 in the morning.

Ugh..why did I do that?

Saying yes to the skinny jeans by saying no to the donuts. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon

I fell off the wagon yesterday. Actually it's been a gradual slide off the back of the wagon. First one foot dragging, then the other. Soon I was barely hanging on with the tips of my fingers. But on Sunday...I just let go and flopped into the dirt.

I decided that I didn't want to watch what I ate any longer. I had already started back-peddling and over-indulging and double-serving for weeks now. So, it was just a natural progression of fully letting go. And boy did I.

I had two cups of coffee, a cheeseburger, french fries, root beer, six chicken tenders, half an order of buffalo chips, two margaritas, and a big ol' bowl of ice cream.

I didn't listen to my body at all. I just ate..and ate..and ate...everything.

By the time I went to bed last night I was feeling awful. My body was not happy with me..not happy at all, and letting me know about it. As I laid there in bed, feeling miserable and a little like I might throw up, I realized that I can never go back to the way I use to eat. This is a good, although sometimes frustrating (in the way that the abused misses the abuser), thing.

Much like the child that was allowed to stink their finger in the socket, I have learned my lesson. Back on the wagon, front seat, strapped in.

Our Weekend...with photos

Saturday morning was a rocky start to our weekend, and just the beginning as I would soon find out. After spending the majority of our morning Christmas and grocery shopping we finally made it home to start our weekend cleaning routine. Part of the routine includes the overflowing laundry basket. So, Jeremy is ready to take the first load of laundry from the washing machine out to the dryer. Our dryer is located in the shed of our carport, which we keep locked up when not being used. Well, we could not find the keys to the lock. They are usually hung up over the washing machine, but not yesterday. We looked every where, checked pockets, pulled the washing machine away from the wall, looked in the car...EVERYWHERE...to no avail. The keys were gone. But we still needed in the shed. After a few tugging attempts, Jeremy finally ended up cutting the lock off with a hack saw.

There was a lot of cursing, banging, stomping, huffing. But Jeremy finally resigned himself to the fact that it HAD to be done. We would have no clean underwear for the next week otherwise. So, the laundry washing continued. Fast forward to this morning, as Jeremy was unloading the washing machine WHAT does he find IN the washing machine? The keys..to the lock that is now useless. *groan* We have a new lock. And what lesson have we learned? To not keep both keys to the lock on the same key ring. One key will be tucked safely away for future use...just in case.

If you happen to be my friend on facebook (which most of you are), you might remember these two status updates:

doh! Ceiling fan just went out. So...just to keep everyone up to date, that is one missing fork and a broken fan.

An hour later: Ceiling fan decided to start working again....might be possessed

That was last Sunday. Jeremy had removed the lighting part of the fan to fiddle with it and just got around to putting it back on today. Just to have the fan stop working..again. He has literally taken the lightening fixture apart to try and find the problem. And we DID find a wire that was completely broken and exposed for one of the arms of the light fixture. Well, THERE's the problem, right? The broken wire has shorted out the whole thing. So, off to Lowe's we go to find a new ceiling fan.

Jeremy is putting the new ceiling fan up right now. The main part is up and wires connected, he called me in to flip the switch. Guess what...it didn't work. Queue the cursing. After more fiddling with the wires he flips the switch again and...it works. Turn it off, back on...and it doesn't work again. We are starting to think that maybe it wasn't the ceiling fan at all. Looks like it might be the light switch. Oy Vey! Can anyone say 'Money Pit'? I'm living it, people.

As of right now, Jeremy has left to go to the hardware store to purchase a new light switch. Only time will tell if this will actually solve our problem. If it does, Jeremy is going to re-wire our old, perfectly functional, ceiling fan and put it back up. And that will mean we have a new pretty ceiling fan for the living room. I don't know if I should be happy, or afraid. Pray for us.

Question

What sort of nastiness has to be going on inside a house/apartment to turn the mini-blinds yellow-ish and make them bend like they are hanging on for dear life? And that's just from the outside.

The boots were meant to be mine

The day before Thanksgiving I dragged Jeremy to Target and broke one of my own rules. I bought something for myself right before Christmas. Around the end of August I start "strongly encouraging" my family to stop buying things for themselves and, instead, add it to their Christmas lists. It makes sense, right? How am I suppose to come up with something totally kick ass to get you for Christmas if you keep going out and buying everything the moment it pops in your head? Point made. But since it's the rule I made up I figure I should be the only one allowed to break it.

The Target Boots

All I wanted to do was LOOK at the boots. I know, famous last words. I found a great pair of knee-high motorcycle type boots. They didn't have a heel and they zipped up the back with a buckle around the ankle. There was black and brown. I really wanted a brown pair but I could only find my size in the black. If any of y'all have ever shopped in the Target shoe section you will know that its not always the most organized. The most common sizes go fast which often leave size 5's and size 10's and not a whole lot in between. So I thought I would just take a really good look at all the boxes in the general area of the displayed brown boots (which were a size 9) to see if I would get lucky and find a misplaced box. I got down on my knees, yes..right there in the middle of the aisle, and what did I find shoved UNDERNEATH the shoe rack? The boots...in brown...in my size. I took it as a sign. How could I possible leave the store without them? Well, I couldn't and I didn't. I actually wore them for Thanksgiving. Fast forward to yesterday. I was wearing my cute boots again while running around with my best friend, Jennifer. We popped into a new makeup store and the sales girl greeted us and then asked 'Are those Steven Madden boots?'. Um, no..they aren't..but I do LOVE Steve Madden. Then I noticed that she was wearing a pair of boots...Steve Madden's...that looked nearly identical to mine, except in black. Another sign that these boots were totally meant to be mine. Designer-like fashion on a budget...my kind of shoes.

The Steve Madden Boots