2011 wrap up

My goals for 2011 included:
-Logging more miles
-More time with friends
-Read more
-Hydrate
-more time in my scrapbook room
-Build savings
-Letting things go

As I thought about 2011 I could not believe how much this year included. Seems so long ago that I ran the half-marathon in Disney. I haven't logged much more miles since. I've been steady at the gym with my Body Pump class, but it's time to get back to running. Hard to believe that Disney was this year.

Then had some fun with friends on our cruise just a few months ago! I love traveling.

I did manage to spend more time in my scrapbook room, so to speak. Some of my projects I took into the living room so I could have the TV on while I did them. I have it on my list to add a small TV to my scrapbook room. But I have made a lot of projects this year. I did also manage to do a lot of reading, both books for fun and CPCU. Hydrating...well that is an ongoing goal. Along with building savings, and letting things go.

Some of my favorite things that happened in 2011-1. Completed 1/2 marathon 2. Put fence up in backyard (best money spent this year hands down) 3. Being in Shape magazine 4. Girl's cruise 5. Caylea getting motivated enough to clean her room (like seriously clean her room up to my standards) 6. Discovering Pinterest 7. Concerts-Bon Jovi, 3 Doors Down, and Darius Rucker.

Working on my goals for 2012 but I'm not making my usual New Year's statement of "This year has to be better than last year" because the year never quite lives up to my expectations. There is always things I am working on and want to accomplish and boy there never seems to be enough money for all the things I want to do or buy. But when I stop and think about it, I am in a darn good place. I love my home, I can sit in it on a Saturday night and just enjoy it. I just put a down payment on a class trip for Caylea to Paris, London, and Barcelona. I have a good job that allows me to make a little extra money sometimes even though it can burn me out. Even though I am nowhere near where I want to be financially I am able to let Caylea go on this amazing trip, have a home I love, buy the necessities and the occasional fun pair of shoes. At some point I think to really enjoy life I have to stop thinking about the "more" and just appreciate what is enough.

What is weighing me down?

First my two favorite gifts from Caylea this year, the perfume may be hard to see but it's the Coach Poppy Flower perfume. Jona got me hooked on this on our cruise. Looooove it.
My purse is great because it holds a ton. But lately I've noticed it also weighs a ton. I love the size and especially this time of year I can just toss my hat and gloves in it. My umbrella will even fit right in. So I decided to look through and figure out what I could take out and what may be causing so much weight to add up in it.

In the back pocket I always slide my State Farm calendar. This is my new one and I need to transfer some of my paperwork over but usually it's got some extra papers stuffed in with it. If I remember when I get somewhere like a store or the movie theater I will grab it from the pocket and leave it in my car.

I'd be lost without my calendar.

Then this picture is sideways...but I have my workout pocket journal and just a blank notepad journal.

In a side pocket I keep my badge, a pen, and the best $1 I ever spent on a calculator.

And in order not to have a ton of loose items floating around my purse I have them all organized. I have my pill case, camera case, coupon envelope, and my thirty one bag which has a lot of misc. items in it like a nail file, mascara, probably another misc. notepad.

My wallet, keys, and as of late I've kept some Icy Hot in my purse...just in case. Because I never know when neck pain will strike.

A pack of gum (thanks Julie!) and a small bottle of Victoria's Secret Incredible perfume. (purchased during a Bon Jovi weekend in St. Louis with Missy!) I loved the scent but didn't want to fork over the money for a full size bottle so the travel size was perfect. It's definitely larger than your typical "travel size" too.

My make up bag....

which contained two facial moisturizers, two hand lotions, one hand sanitizer, one eye shadow palette, a few hair ties, a concealer, a hair smoothing cream and hair smoothing stick, Michael Kors Very Hollywood perfume roller ball w/lipgloss combo, Burt's Bee's chapstick, and 3 MAC lipglosses.

While I was out Christmas shopping this year I picked up this little bag because I thought it was cute and I knew I could find some use for it, most likely in my purse. And I sure did. It fits lip gloss perfectly.

Here's what I had stored in that bag...a lipstick, 4 lipglosses, and 3 chapsticks.

But then of course my most often used lipglosses go in my side pocket! So here are 4 more lipglosses and 2 more lipsticks. (sidenote: I've just recently even gotten into lipstick, I typically only ever wear lipgloss but thought I'd give a few a try)

So...in my purse alone that is a whopping 12 lipglosses, 3 lipsticks, and 4 chapsticks. 19 lip products. I think I figured out what is weighing it down. I will have to take a few things out to make room for the 3 new MAC lipglosses I just ordered tonight! I have chapstick stashed all around the house, one on my nightstand, one on the table in between my living room chairs, one in my scrapbook room attached to the side of my tool holder with the rest of my tools. Caylea is now becoming addicted as well. I went into her room the other day to find she had completely organized her lip products, lotions, eye products, and turned her desk into a make up station. The other night as I reached for my chapstick in the living room I looked over and she had hers out by the couch. Looks like I broke my record of what I had in my purse earlier last year.

I am really in the mood to organize. I have neglected my scrapbook room so I think tomorrow I need to tackle it and I may try to reorganize my make up baskets. I bought a new entertainment center recently. After taking 2 weeks to finally muster up the strength to get it out of my car into my garage, it is sitting there waiting for me to put it together. I invested in a cordless drill that actually looks like a drill. Since my tiny pink one wasn't cutting it. But all the reviews said it still takes 4 hours or more to put together. So while I'm excited to get rid of my outdated TV stand, I'm not looking forward to putting the thing together. So we'll see if that happens this weekend!

Happy Holidays

Hope everyone had a nice holiday. I was happy to be feeling better after 2 weeks of being sick.

Jazzie was ready to open presents as soon as I put out the dogs gifts.

Magnus hanging out on Caylea's lap

The dogs loved all their gifts, as did Caylea.

The remnants of the dog toys. Not sure what my New Year's plans are yet but Caylea already has hers of course!

Nyquil take me away

I had every intention of posting some pictures today. I have a before picture of the cookies I made to take to a cookie swap this weekend. Then planned an after picture of all the cookies I brought home. But my head is about to explode, I've sneezed 10 times in a row (which if you have never done, is quite painful by sneeze #10), my chest hurts and I am wishing I had someone I could send off to Walgreens for some Sprite and some Nyquil that didn't expire in Dec. 2010. So tonight I guess I will stick to Advil PM. Although how bad can one year old Nyquil be? I woke up this morning planning to stop for Dayquil while I was out for my cookie swap, was so intent on getting home into bed that I forgot to make that little pit stop. I am very unprepared for a head cold. A brutal one at that. So sorry, no pics tonight. The Advil PM will hopefully get me through the night until I can make it to Walgreens tomorrow morning. Boo for colds.

Side note for Lisa: check THIS out....brought to my attention by Caylea. I must own this based on how much I love the original. I've already read reviews and checked out many blogs about it. I think it's worth having for sure.

Obsession

I have a slight obsession with make-up. Ok maybe with a lot of things, but make-up is a big one.
I'm a sucker for it.

My new Too Faced Sweet Dreams pallette

Pretty pretty

A close up of the color I love, Peach Fizz

And the In Your Dreams pallette (have had this one awhile)

Bare Escentuals new eyeshadow. Pretty sure I've bought myself enough Christmas presents now!

Latest painting project

This weekend past another CPCU, one more to go, woot! Then had to clean the house since it has taken a backseat to studying. Still have yet to get my Christmas tree up though. So much to do, so few hours in the day to get it all done in addition to sitting on the couch.

Confession

I have a confession to make. A reason why I haven't been posting as much. I have been having a secret love affair. Such a whirlwind affair. It has been amazing really. Life changing.

My new love and I spend so much time together! My love has inspired me to create new art. Actually I've probably spent too much money at Hobby Lobby and Michael's lately. That is one downside to my new love, no money or gifts have been lavished upon me. BUT we've made some delicious food together. Like any relationship I'm sure I've eaten more as we've gone on this new journey together. Together we made this delicious butterscotch dessert for Thanksgiving. Friday, made creamy italian crockpot chicken. For today, chicken tortilla soup in the crockpot. My new love makes sure I am eating well.




My new love has even inspired me to organize my life. So far this week I've organized under the kitchen sink, the hall closet, and my scrapbook room. And the romance, oh the romantic quotes that have been shared. Oh and how funny my love is! Some funny, witty things come up! My new love makes me want to try new make up tricks and buy some fun new outfits. I won't lie, there are even some ideas that have been thrown around for a future wedding. I have plenty of photos of bling that I wouldn't mind having that I've shared with my love. I took a walk this morning and as I turned back onto my street my first thought was "Oh I can't wait to get back so I can get back to my love." Ok so maybe love affair isn't the right word. Maybe it is more of an obsession. After all, I think many people are having a love affair with Pinterest. I don't think it is just me. I guess maybe it's cruel irony that my love affair/obsession with Pinterest keeps me in the house instead of actually out looking for a real love affair? Hmm...anyways, gotta get back to pinning....

Inspired

Lately I've been inspired to try some new things. Probably all due to Pinterest. I got this idea from Pinterest to make ham and swiss crescent rolls. Caylea loved them! Why have I not thought of this before? Super easy and good.

Since I've had the crockpot out lately I decided to throw in some chicken on Saturday and when it was done turn it into Buffalo chicken sandwiches. It was yummy! Again not sure why I don't use my crock pot more often. I think I would eat more protein if I did. Chicken definitely turns out yummier for me in the crock pot than in the oven. Sidenote: Blogger is killing me with stupid, weird spacing issues!

Creating new things

So today I was hit with the desire to make something so I went to my boards on pinterest to find something that had caught my eye. I recreated this button tree. Here is the original and then below is mine. I wasn't able to get the shadowing on the tree but otherwise I was pretty happy with how it turned out!

So then I decided this was pretty cute. But once I got to this point I was a little worried about trying to screw in the little hooks and ruining the frame. So I skipped that part for now.

While I was working on my projects I had soup going in the crockpot. Found the recipe on pinterest too. It was SO good! Chicken, rotel, corn, black beans, cream cheese, dry ranch dressing mix, and some chili powder. Really, really good. It had a little kick to it but not bad. I added some sour cream and it was kind of like a chicken chili. I'm now motivated to try to make some more things I found on pinterest!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Jasmine, aka, Bumblebee here. I've hijacked the blog. Don't tell mom. She put me in this ridiculous costume. I guess Caylea is too old for costumes but it doesn't matter what age I am, costumes look "cute" on me. Despite my protests of howls and barks as soon as I see that costume coming at me somehow it ends up on me anyways. Magnus always gets out of it because he eats so much they don't make costumes in his size. So he just sits back and watches as I go through the annual humiliation that is Halloween. I don't even get any candy out of the deal.



I mean honestly.

So after my costume was on I ran up to Magnus and pretended to sting him. See the look of terror in his eyes? He proceeded to chase me around the yard. I didn't mind that though because I was hoping running in circles would magically make this outfit fall off. No such luck. Meanwhile mom is off to the side laughing. Apparently running around in this bee get up is quite amusing.
Caylea was a smart girl, she went upstairs to take a shower and said she wanted no part in the torture of putting me through this. Therefore she gets a pass. Mom, however, is in for trouble. This is my "I'm going to chew your favorite pair of shoes when you aren't looking" stare. Be scared mom, be very scared.

Cruise part 2

We departed for our trip from Puerto Rico. We spent the night prior to leaving so we had a little time to explore Puerto Rico. Here is a picture of our amazing view from our room!

Crazy narrow streets. If I lived here I'd have to have a car with the auto parallel parking feature, I don't know how people did it.

Colorful buildings

Our first port was St. Thomas. Here is Jona and me with a donkey who apparently was named Monica Lewinksy.









Magen's Bay Beach-Beautiful

Beautiful water in St. Thomas. In St. Thomas we went to Magen's Bay for some relaxing on the beach and did a little shopping. Jewelry is big in St. Thomas. The locals really liked to try to convince you to go into the jewelry stores and if it wasn't that they were trying to get you to take a taxi ride.

Wednesday was our port in Barbados. I don't have many pictures because most of our pictures were taken with Lisa's waterproof camera. Barbados was a lot of fun. We took a catamaran ride and snorkeled with sea turtles.

Next up was St. Lucia. This was an incredibly beautiful island.


















We did an all day island tour and stopped at a banana plantation.

Cute baby bananas! We all had a banana and they were the most amazing bananas we had ever tasted!

We pulled up to a guy along the road with a snake and some guy in our tour group offered to pay for it if I held it. So something came over me and I did it. Nobody would get out of the van to take my picture so here is my pic taken from the van! :) There in the pic is also our tour guide who was a lot of fun. I got to be the co-pilot and ride in the passenger seat. Which was probably good since it was a lot of twisty, curvy roads. Not sure my stomach could've handled that in the back of the van.

A picture stop with a little rum punch

The Pitons

A rock shaped like a high heel!

We went to an active volcano. This is the sulphur spring, it smelled so AWFUL. Made my stomach roll.

So many pretty things to take pictures of on this island.

The beach in St. Lucia was a little rocky. So we all agreed the island didn't have the best beach but was very beautiful. We had a great time. And I discovered a side effect of the motion sickness patch is blurry vision. Good thing Lisa told me that after I started complaining my eyes were bothering me because by that time I couldn't read the side effect insert that came with the patch! :)

This weekend I worked a few hours yesterday then came home and was lazy. Watched Green Lantern with my future husband Ryan Reynolds in it. For some reason I'm having some major insomnia issues lately, so took some Advil PM and called it a night. Woke up today and cleaned the house which was a mess. Then made Jazzie a happy pup when I took her for a walk around the lake. Now just sitting here with a cup of white hot chocolate and thinking I am in the mood to hang out in my scrapbooking room...maybe I will go think up a fun project!