laundry

I'm so happy about laundry right now! I know that sounds insane, but let me tell you why.

Florida is famous for mildew. I know, I used to be all hung up on the bugs, but now that they are under control, I've just about had it with the mildew. Seriously, if it would ever get below like 75 degrees it would help!!!! Our shower smells like mildew all the time, but we've finally figured out that it grows on the bottom of the drain. So if we take the drain off and clean the underside of it every few days, we're good. HOWEVER - our washer has been having a mildew smell and it's been making me very upset.

For those of you who don't know, I have a VERY sensitive sense of smell. I'm seriously like a super-smeller or something. It's not good when I walk in the door and immediately smell mildew. I've cleaned and cleaned the washer, run empty loads with bleach, and done everything I can figure to do.

So I researched it online. I eventually found my way to this website called SmellyWasher.com. It was nice to know that I was not the only one dealing with mildew in their washer, and I was certainly not the only one from Florida dealing with it! Long story short, when you use liquid detergent and liquid fabric softener, the wax in them builds up on the components of your washer, and over time, fungus grows. Ick! I immediately ordered their Purewasher product and followed the instructions for running it through 3 empty loads, letting one of the loads with water sit overnight. Each time I had to add hot water once the washer finished filling, because the fungus is supposedly the worst at the high water line.

Well, guess what! Now my washer is clean, it looks beautiful, smells normal, and my clothes are getting cleaner than ever! By the way, I immediately switched back to fabric softener sheets and POWDER detergent! It has made all the difference in the world, and I'm a happy girl. Sometimes it doesn't take much! :-P

Pretty good for my first post of the new year, huh? That just goes to show that we're not up to much. I'm back to walking every single day (I had slacked off a bit during the holidays) and feeling better than ever. I've been cooking a TON and each day I find myself excited to cook dinner! We've been eating vegetables like crazy. I've been scrapping some, counting points for Scrapfest (see previous post), and just trying to be happy. That's all I've got to say right now!

reflections on 2006

It's hard to believe this year has come to an end. I'm a bit sorry to see it go, because overall, it's been a great year for Brian and I. I just counted (yes, I keep a list, of course) and I've read 68 books this year. That's a lot of reading, and I love it! I hope to read at least that many more in 2007!

I lost 40 pounds this year and got my health under control. I allowed myself some treats over Christmas, especially Giovanni's pizza, but I didn't gain a pound. :-D This week will be back to exercising full time! With it being 82 degrees here today, I don't think my walking outside will be a problem!

I scrapped over 140 pages and made over 150 cards this year! Whoa!

Brian had back surgery this year and is feeling great, despite many hours in the car over the holidays.

Brian got laid off from EA and now works for n-Space. It was a good move - he's in a job that he loves and there's nothing that can compare to that!

We paid off all of our credit card debt this year! YAAAYYYYY! I still can't believe it. I hated making payments on those cards - I couldn't even remember what most of that money had bought in the first place.

We're so happy in our church and in our home. We still miss NY. Maybe we'll get back there someday. But FL has definitely been good for us, especially health-wise. As we were driving home on Friday and crossed into Florida, it was the first time I really felt like Florida was home. :-D

Tonight we are spending some quality time together to ring in the new year. I'm already in my pajamas, we've ordered pizza, and Brian is gone to rent a movie. We're going to curl up on the couch together. I can't wait. Brian has to work tomorrow, can you believe it?? And we were so busy over Christmas, we didn't get much quality time together. So tonight we're quietly welcoming 2007 and bidding farewell to 2006.

January has a lot of things in store for us! Well, for me, anyway! Brian is working on a cool game for the Wii - he's been working on it since he started at n-Space in March, but it's nearing completion, so he's under deadline. I'm excited for Winter Scrapfest at Lifetime Moments! This time, I'm a points-counter and I'm SO EXCITED about that! I love love love Scrapfest and I was lucky enough to be one of the winners this past summer! I have like 400 pictures from Christmas and from my nephews and nieces to scrap, so I'm ready to go. Also in January, I'm hoping to get a few more piano students. Sometime this winter/spring I'm going to finish my Kindermusik training. And I still have 20 pounds to lose. :-D

As we say goodbye to 2006, I want to leave you with some lyrics from a song we sang at church this morning. We praise God for the work He has done in our lives this year, and we trust Him in the years to come.

We will remember, we will remember,
We will remember the work of Your hands.
We will stop and give You praise,
For great is Thy faithfulness!

christmas crafts

I made lots of stuff for Christmas this year! Of course, I make lots of stuff every year, but this year I was super motivated! Some of the gifts I made are for people who read this blog, so I couldn't post the pictures till after Christmas. Anyway, here's some of the stuff! (Don't forget I have major trouble with the photo option on Blogger! I'm still waiting on someone to teach me!)

All photos are clickable.

Gift tags:



Mini card set for Mom:



Cocoa caddy for Brad & Kari:
(The bottles contain white chocolate, marshmallows, caramels, and Andes mints - all for flavoring hot chocolate.)


Same gift, bottles in caddy:


Same gift, top view:



Cocoa caddy for Jason & Angela:



Altered train case for Amanda:
(This came plain white and we covered it with this really cool paper that reminded us of Amanda's style. The second pic is of the 3 trays that slide into it. It's such a cool case, I'm going to make one for myself!)

a year end poem

These past few weeks have been the craziest Christmas season I can ever remember! Time has absolutely gotten away from me, and I'm frantically trying to get things ready to go on our trip in just a few short days. Did I mention that I ordered stamps online from the USPS and they got lost in the mail? Ironic, huh? Well, they came today. Looks like my Christmas cards will be sent out before Christmas after all. I wrote a poem to enclose, but I'm sending 88 cards and there's just not time to make all the copies. So I thought I'd just post it here. This will probably be my last post before we leave, so we want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas, a happy New Year, and a safe holiday season.

------------------------------------------

This year of '06 has brought many events,
And more will arrive 'fore December is spent.
So without ado, I just want to share
Some stuff about us – and told with a flair!

We've now lived in Florida for over a year,
And we are becoming quite settled down here,
Though we still are not really used to the heat.
(We still think that New York just cannot be beat!)

We began our year with a bit of strange news:
EA laid off Brian, despite rave reviews
Of his programming skills, personality, brains -
But we know that their loss is truly our gain!

He's working for n-Space and still making games
For folks like Nintendo and others of fame.
He loves it, he says it's his favorite job yet!
Saying goodbye to EA, we do not regret!

For the spring and summer, I used some old skills
I'd developed in college, to help pay the bills.
I did freelance writing, wrote stuff for the 'net,
And it was by far my most laid back job yet.

I loved working at home and at my own pace,
And when that job ended I wore a sad face.
Since then I've been teaching piano again.
I'd missed it so much - what fun it has been!

In late March, we found my blood pressure was high.
The doctor said, “Exercise! Or you could die.”
It's amazing what that piece of news did for me.
I'm eating well, working out, being healthy.

And would you believe I've dropped 40+ pounds?
But what's even better – my BP is down!!
I've gone down three sizes and the very best part
Is knowing each day I have a healthy heart.

In October, we celebrated SIX years
Of wedded bliss, laughter, happiness, and cheer.
And then, Brian had surgery on his back!
He feels so much better - and no more ice pack!

We've finally found a church that we love -
It truly has been a gift from above.
And I get to play keys and sing in the band!
You can be quite sure that our church is not bland!

This year has brought visitors, travels, and fun,
Many trips to Disney, and days filled with sun!
Come see us, or if you're in town, let us know!
We'll meet you for lunch, dinner, or a show!

Overall, we're thankful, we're happy, we're healthy.
In family and friends, we know we're quite wealthy.
We love you, we miss you, we hope you are well.
Please call us and tell us what there is to tell!

This Christmas, take time to remember the birth
Of Jesus, God's Son, Who came down to earth
To save us, live with us, for He is the reason
We celebrate this blessed, glorious season!

Love to you all.

~Brian and Kerri

good grief!

It's been way too long since I blogged! I'm so behind on reading other people's blogs too - sorry, you guys. I'll get with it one of these days!

Christmas cards are done - whew! I made 87 this year! Now I just have to print the labels and get them mailed off. I also have to decide if I'm going to include a little letter inside - I wrote something already, but I haven't decided if I'm going to use it. We'll see. Brian is working late tonight and I'm working on things for Christmas. I'm WAY behind this year! I usually have all my shopping done and mostly wrapped and the cards mailed by now! But not this year. Christmas snuck up on me!

Well, our decorations are all up. I put up my snowman tree this year. Since we didn't put it up last year, I had forgotten about some of the ornaments. It's so fun getting them all out! And the Star Wars tree is up, in all its glory! :-D The exterminator was impressed by it when he came this morning. :-D And the music tree is up. That makes three, plus two smaller trees (I think one is like 4' and the other is about 2.5') on the front porch, a small tree in the bedroom, and a small tree on top of the armoire. Oh, and the ceramic tree, but that doesn't really count. :-D How many is that - 7? Good grief. I'm addicted to Christmas! And the craziest thing is, we didn't even put up our "family" tree this year, and that's the biggest of them all! It's 8', I think, and the snowman tree is 7' and the Star wars tree is 6'. If you lined all our trees up in a row, it would look like a tree version of the Von Trapps!!!!

OK, so we've got like 5 or 6 gifts so far. We've got so much shopping to do still! I did some shopping online this morning, though. There's way too much to do in the less-than-two-weeks we have left before we leave!! Oh my goodness, what have I been doing for the last several months????

We went to the choir program at the Presbyterian Church last night. (The church where I worked for awhile.) It was great! I'm so glad we went and heard the wonderful choir and saw everyone.

Oh, and we went to see Marc Broussard at the Hard Rock Live on Thursday night. He was as awesome as ever, but the people around us were SO RUDE!!!! They kept talking and talking - which was really YELLING, so they could be heard over the music. WHY, I ask you, do people buy tickets to a concert and then talk to their friends the whole time? They can talk to their friends for free ANYTIME! :-( But Marc was awesome. :-D

We got our first Christmas card of the season today. It was from the Herzogs, our friends from NY. I actually taught piano to their two boys, Luke and Brian, and I also taught their dad, Rob! AND, Rob was our dentist! They were some of my very favorite students ever. They still are, I guess. Now they have another adorable baby boy! I miss them. I miss all of my friends and students from NY! If I lived there, it would be about time for the Christmas recital!

Well, I better get to work on this stuff. And put some more laundry in. At least the house is in pretty good shape! Now the goal is to keep it that way so I won't have to worry about a ton of cleaning! Hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far.

'tis the season!

I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the prospect of Christmas! I'm just so excited I can hardly contain myself! Today I'm decorating. We usually decorate the weekend after Thanksgiving, but Brian and I were soooo enjoying our time together, we just didn't get around to it. He can't lift anything anyway, so I'm on my own for climbing up to the attic to get down the trees.

Right now, Christmas music is blaring from iTunes (I LOVE iTunes!) and I'm about to have some homemade hot chocolate! I'll probably sweat while drinking it, but who cares! Not me! Dinner, which is Dream Dinners' chicken pot pie, is done, just needs to be popped into the oven for about a half hour. So I have lots of time to deck the halls!

I'm nearly done making my Christmas cards. I have been having so much fun making them, I might have to make some for next year already! LOL! Can you tell I'm slightly excited about the season?? Of course, it would be nice if it wasn't 80 degrees, but that can't be helped. Anyway, I'll be posting some of my cards later. This year, instead of making them all the same like I usually do, I'm making all different ones.

Thanksgiving was a blast! We had an absolutely wonderful time! It was us, Tim & Christi, and Justin & Molly. We're so thankful for our fun friends! Here was the menu:

Turkey (marinated in Williams-Sonoma's spiced brining mix, delicious!)
Mashed Potatoes & gravy
Corn
Mac & Cheese
Green Bean Casserole
Fruit Salad
Garlic Cheese Biscuits (a la Red Lobster)

Pumpkin/Apple Butter pie
Apple Crisp
Cookies that looked like turkeys (picture to follow, so yummy and cute!)
French Silk pie

I think that's it. Brian and I have been having turkey every day since! It just keeps getting better. I need to make turkey more often! OK, back to the decorating. Just wanted to take a quick minute and write. Cheers!

a spontaneous feast

OK, so we just decided yesterday to host Thanksgiving dinner at our house and have a celebration with friends, a la New York Thanksgivings. We're so excited and I'm running around like a crazy woman! I did make it to Williams Sonoma and got some of their brine for my turkey - something new for this year. I also got some of their gravy base, which I've heard is delicious. I've tried to get the gravy several times, but they're always sold out! Must be good!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! Brian has a follow-up appt. with his surgeon today, so I'll update on that soon. Cheers!

wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Brian got his Nintendo Wii today. He's as excited as a kid on Christmas. Well, this pretty much IS his Christmas! :-) The Wii is not available to the public yet, but these are the perks of working in the game industry. (It'll be available in like 2 days, though, so it's not like he got it THAT much earlier!)

Tonight I'm going to a scrapbook thing and Brian is going to stay home and play with his Wii. Sounds a bit vulgar, doesn't it? LOL! Even funnier - next week our friends Tim and Christi are coming over and while Christi and I make Christmas cards, Brian and Tim are going to play with their Wiis together! HAHAHAHA! Seriously though, what was Nintendo thinking calling it the Wii? It was originally supposed to be the Nintendo Revolution or something like that!

Check this out: How adorable is that?? That's my Maxie. I just took this a few minutes ago. And that's the blind on the sliding glass door that looks like it's cutting him in half! He gets in the blinds and gets all comfy and rolls over, and he takes the blinds with him! I feel bad that I post more pics of Max than of Sam, but when Sam gets in cute poses and I take his picture, he's so black you can't tell which end is up! He's on the couch in my scraproom now, lemme see if I can get a good shot. There we go. There's my Sammy. Of course, as soon as I sat back down in my chair to upload the pic, he got up from his perch on the couch and got in my lap. He's such a lap cat! (Both pictures are clickable.)

Anyway, that's all I have to say today! Except I'm tired! Wonder why?!

why, oh, why?

It's 2:30 am here in O-town, cloudy and 54 degrees.

And I'm awake. For no apparent reason.

So this is my second night in a row to be an insomniac. Last night, or maybe I should say yesterday morning, I didn't go to sleep until sometime after 5:30. I got up this morning around 10:00 and spent the day doing things around here. I deep-cleaned our bedroom, moving furniture and vacuuming thoroughly around, between, under, and behind everything. I did some more organizing in the closet, washed the sheets, blankets, and bedspread from our bed. I de-cat-haired everything in our room, including the lamp shades. (Still need to do the curtains - that's for tomorrow. Or, I guess, today.)

I did tons of laundry and picked up all around the house. I cooked a big dinner and didn't do a lot of resting today. You'd think that doing all that on 4.5 hours of sleep would make me tired. But no. Oh, no. Here I am! This happens to me occasionally, and there's not much that's more frustrating to me. I'm tired. I want to sleep.

Oh well, I just took a Tylenol PM - a little late, don't you think - and now I'm going to listen to my book (Miss Julia Throws a Wedding by Ann B. Ross, love it) and stamp some cards or something. I've been very motivated to stamp lately! So here goes.

See - THIS is why I hate it when people call early in the morning. You never know what time I actually went to sleep. *sigh*

*Edited to add: I went to bed at 6:15 and still had trouble falling asleep! I got some really cute Christmas tags made though. But they're for my secret sister, so I'll have to post them later! :-)

happy birthday, meg!

Happy birthday to my spectacular friend Meg!! (It was Sunday, but everyone knows I'm never on time...) Anyway, Meg, hope you had a wonderful day.

OK, Brian went back to work yesterday and he's feeling great. He called me today and was so energetic sounding - he's SO happy to be feeling normal and virtually pain-free! He's now off all meds. He's an amazing man.

Thursday night was not an easy night. Brian was in a LOT of pain from the incision, and he was VERY sick from the anesthesia. At the hospital, every time he got up, he became nauseous and then had dry heaves (he hadn't eaten in over 24 hours at that point). It was awful - every time he heaved, it would hurt his back. The nurse and I were trying to hold him up, but he's so tall - we were afraid he was going to fall down. It was quite an ordeal, but we got through it! Oh, and of course he was walking around mooning everyone since you know how those hospital gowns are! I was trying to told him up and hold his gown closed in the back! Now that I think back about it, it was hilarious!

Once we got him in the car, he seemed okay. He had to hold this vomit bin on his lap the whole way home - about a 40 min. drive - just in case he needed it. But he was fine; he slept most of the way home. Of course, I had to stop at Walgreen's and get the drugs, and 400 people buying toilet paper and such were in line in front of me. Ugh!

So while we were waiting for the Rx to be filled, I drove through Wendy's and got B a Sprite, which he said tasted like heaven! LOL When we finally got home, I got him in bed, then I proceeded to stay up for most of the night cause I was just worried about him. Every time he woke up I would make him get up and walk around to prevent blood clots! I was worried most about blood clots!

Can I just say that the worst part of the surgery for me was seeing Brian hurt. It didn't help when the nurse went to put in his IV - he hadn't thought about that, so he was unprepared. I knew he was getting one, but I didn't want him to freak - he's not so thrilled about needles - so I didn't remind him that he was getting one. Anyway, I told him to look at me, and when she finally got it in and all taped to his arm, I looked. Big mistake. There was a PUDDLE of blood on his blanket. Not just a few drops - a puddle! Oh, it nearly killed me. Brian said he had heard her say, "Oops!" But I didn't hear that, so I was pretty shocked when I saw the puddle! I had to sit down and put my head between my knees - and then the nurse says to the other nurse, "Uh-oh...the wife's going down!" LOL! I was okay, just not prepared to see my husband losing what looked like gallons of blood! So they brought me some apple juice and that helped. Sometime during the time I was dizzy and literally seeing stars, they cleaned up his hand and whisked away the blanket, so after the apple juice, everything was all clean. Man, I'm such a wimp! I just can't stand to see my sweetster in pain, that's all!!

Anyway, now the drama is over and life goes on! A pain-free life for B! Yay! Tonight we're going to our friend Justin's house to watch a movie with our friends from n-Space. We try to see a movie about once a week with this group. It's a really fun group!

Here's my latest scrapbook page of the adorable Baby B. I cannot WAIT to see him at Christmas! He's talking up a storm now! Mom and Dad kept him for part of the week last week, and Mom said when he did something he wasn't supposed to do, he waved at her and said, "Hi." Cracks me up! Anyway, enjoy.