Ouch!

So when I got up this morning and checked my email, I was excited to see that I had TWO comments from blog readers awaiting me. I know two is not many, but who doesn't love getting even just a little blog love?!

But my happiness quickly turned to shame when I realized that BOTH of the comments were from readers correcting me on spelling/typing errors - ouch! I knew not to be offended because I was certain that neither of the comments was meant harshly, and I decided instead to take it as a compliment... my spelling/typing must usually be SO OUTSTANDING that even the slightest error is glaringly obvious... right? That's what I'm going to tell myself.

So thank you, friends, for the compliment! I will try to keep sticking errors in here and there just to keep you on your toes :)

Gobble gobble

This year Wade and I are hosting Thanksgiving at our place for the 2nd time in our married lives, and I feel like that's pretty impressive given this is only our 4th Thanksgiving to celebrate together as a married couple. 2 out of 4 ain't bad, right?

The first time we hosted was back in 2006 when we were living in our apartment in Salt Lake City, Utah. My parents and sister had made plans to come visit us for the holiday and I started planning and plotting a good 2-3 months beforehand. And since we are nothing if not over-prepared, we even did a trial run of the entire menu that October. We ate a lot of leftovers that week.

These days life is a little busier for us than it was back in 2006, so I haven't put quite as much pressure on myself to create the perfect meal. That doesn't mean I didn't create a Word document detailing the menu (complete with pictures, a grocery list, and a cooking schedule) last month though, so don't give me too much credit. And since I am so looking forward to it - and because last year I was tragically forced to eat Mexican food on Thanksgiving and I still haven't gotten over it - I thought I'd share it with all of you just to get you excited about whatever food your Turkey Day will hold.

Thanksgiving 2k9 with the Blogivers

Appetizer:
Pumpkin hummus with pitas

Entree:
Roasted turkey with gravy
Cranberry sauce
Sweet potato casserole with praline topping
Wheat rolls with butter
Cornbread stuffing (courtesy of my mom)
Green beans (courtesy of my mom, who is religiously against green bean casseroles)
Mixed green salad (courtesy of my mom)

Dessert:
Apple spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
Pumpkin/pecan pie

What are you most looking forward to eating at YOUR Thanksgiving celebration?

A rare sighting

For those of you who know my mother, behold the picture of her snapped by Pop Pop last night:


Yes, you're seeing correctly - it's a rare sighting of the Betsysaurus Rex shopping for clothing at Target! It would have been more monumental had she been shopping for clothes for herself rather than for the grandkids, but we'll take what we can get.

(For those who don't know my mother, in her opinion, the only reason to go to Target is if you are in need of toiletries or things you might need for summer camp. We think she was still high off a long day of shopping at "real" stores and that's how we were able to lure her in there.)

News

I've got good news and bad news - which do you want first? The bad news? Ok.

Bad news: I deliberately broke my frappuccino rules and got one over my lunch break yesterday. AND I LIKED IT. But don't worry, I'm not going to make it a habit. The goal is to make myself less dependent on them, and I think my boundaries are working so far.

Good news: I lost another pound and a half to bring me down to my goal weight! Hooray! Even though now it's time for me to move into "maintenance", I'm going to try to keep my head in the game with the holidays looming just around the corner. I have to give myself some guidelines to avoid my usual motto of "eat everything in sight because it's the holidays and that's what you're supposed to do". We'll see how that goes.

And now it's time for another busy day at work followed by a busy night of volunteering... yay.

Daddy's little helper

Last night Wade put on his plumber hat to install a new water filter faucet in our kitchen sink. He was hard at work for several hours, and I used the time to work on planning our upcoming trip to NYC. Our poor little pup was apparently feeling pretty neglected and lonely, as evidenced by the following picture:


Wade tried to enlist his help while he was there, but poor Rocky couldn't figure out the difference between the flat head and the Phillips head screwdrivers... or maybe that was me.

A few things

1. I got lost while on a walk by myself last weekend. Thankfully I had my cell phone with me, and when I called to tell Wade about my surroundings to try and determine where I had ended up, he informed me that I was on the access road of 183 (a major highway in Austin). Oops.

2. There is typically nothing of interest to me on non-cable t.v. outside of prime time television, but this morning as I was scrolling through cartoon after cartoon, I stumbled upon Saved by the Bell playing on one of the stations. Sadly, I felt like I had won the lottery. Is this what my life has come to?

3. I really dislike the Kay Jewelers commercial where the guy tells his sign language-speaking girlfriend that he just learned how to sign "Merry Christmas" and then he gives her a gold necklace - if he knows this chick well enough to give her a gold necklace, his sign language vocabulary had better be more extensive than that!

4. I've officially lost 8 pounds in the past month! I don't like blogging about that sort of thing because a) I'm foolishly afraid I will jinx myself and b) it sounds like bragging... and it kind of is. But I'm excited about it so I decided to share it with the blogosphere anyway!

That is all.

The votes are in

Thanks to the valuable input of everyone except "Anonymous" and my twin sister, today is a frappuccino day! Thank you, veterans, for allowing me to have that treat today. And for all the other great stuff you have done.

And because I have nothing else of importance to say, I will leave you with a cute picture of Rocky fresh out of the muddy dog park in Sugar Land, Texas: