Christmas vs. Thanksgiving

I keep reading blogs, tweets and Facebook posts proclaiming that Thanksgiving is so and so’s ‘favourite holiday of the year’ and I have to voice my opinion - and please remember that it is just that, an opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own!  That being said, Christmas totally kicks Thanksgiving’s ass.

Don’t get me wrong, Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday and I love spending it with my family and going around the table to express what we are most thankful for and stuffing our faces with delicious food – who wouldn’t love it??  But there aren’t lights decorating the inside and outside of the house, there isn’t a tree sparking with decorations, no cards from friends and family decorating the mantle.  No staff parties, no gift exchanges, no ugly sweater parties. 

For me the days leading up to Christmas are magical and in actuality, Christmas isn’t only a day but a period of time when we celebrate with everyone near and far.  I can’t wait for this weekend when we put up our tree and decorate inside and out.  My sister-in-law and I bake cookies every year to share with friends.  Hubby and have a Christmas Eve ritual.  We visit the Christmas Market with my sister and her fiancé.  I make silly crafts and watch holiday movies, search for the perfect Christmas pajamas and pray for a snow day.  Everyone who celebrates Christmas has their own special traditions and I think it’s the most special time of year.

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So I’m sorry Thanksgiving, I love you and I will always enjoy you, but you’re in 3^rd place on my podium (my birthday is my second favourite “holiday” ;).



 

Restless Nights, Exhausted Mornings



I am taking a poll - how many people out there let their dogs, or any pet, sleep on the bed?  From day one (he’s 4.5) Milo has curled his 26lb body into a little ball and found his spot between us at the very end of the bed.  I barely knew he was there.  For the last few weeks however, he has migrated over to my half  tiny portion of the bed and stretches right out.  I was dealing with it, my legs are pretty small and I even shift him over when needed.  But then the cat decided he wants to join in and it might be ok if Jinx wasn’t 19lbs. 

So basically my husband takes over 2/3 of the bed and the furbies now take up the bottom half of my tiny side:

 

 

And that my friends is my latest excuse reason why I can’t get out of bed when my alarm goes off at 6am.  And most likely also why I am exhausted when I wake up.  What do I do??  They refuse to sleep on hubby's side.  I would love a king bed and we have a large master bedroom but can't fit a king size mattress up our tiny stairs.  At this point I don't think I could even keep them off.

 

Please, anyone and everyone, (humane) suggestions are welcome!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Recap

And so another Monday is upon us… and today is even slightly more painful because the past two weeks I was only in the office Wednesday through Friday, so a full five days this week seems like forever.  I do have a lot work to do so maybe I can put my blinders on, focus on work and the week will fly by… but more likely I will get called into meetings, chat (I like to say I’m shy but I'm starting think I'm not?) but with any luck work will get done and Friday will eventually arrive.  Enough griping about Monday, below is a recap of our busy weekend!

Saturday night we had my work Christmas party at the aquarium (so weird, it’s not even December and we already had our party?!?) and everything was set up in a large viewing room beside the dolphin and whale tanks.  I still haven’t seen the movie Blackfish (likely a subconscious decision with everything I have heard about it) and it was so fun to watch them swim around.  The dolphins – I think I was actually told they are porpoises – would hang out at the viewing window and follow your hand and were just adorable. 

 

Besides the live entertainment, the food was amazing and the wine was flowing… very thankful I had my fair share because I was talked into calling the Bingo numbers when we played after dinner.  After Bingo was played and the prizes were won, everyone gathered their things and left faster than me after being told the bar was empty.  It appears my coworkers are not late night partiers… but that just meant hubby and I continued the party at our house!

Sunday morning I woke up around 8:30am and felt pretty good… I woke up again around 9:30 and had a bit of a headache… and when I finally dragged myself out of bed at 11:00 I really did not feel well.  But I had a baby shower to attend so I poured a (baileys) coffee and then broke out the Caesar fixings.  Nothing like hair of the dog to prepare you for an afternoon of baby games.  At least the hostesses stocked a ton of wine and put out a delicious spread.  It may have been my hangover but the mini quiches, sausage rolls and spinach dip went down very well.  A few times.  I may have completely fallen off the food wagon taken a slight holiday from my WW goals but today is a brand new day.

I actually won the Celebrity Baby Name contest (my celebrity gossip addiction finally pays off!) and got a $10 Starbucks gift certificate.  And then we did the activity that I was dreading.  Decorating onesies.  I’m not artistic and the mom-to-be ends up with a pile of these “decorated” onesies – does she actually use them??  It would have to be a pretty impressive piece that got me to put it on my child (I say now as a childless person who has no clue how much poop, spit up, etc. comes with these things and who also hates doing laundry).  But this party planner knew her stuff – we were given quilting fabric, stencils, drawing paper, etc. and we cut out shapes and glued them on with fabric glue!  So cool!  I had a blast making mine and they all ended up so cute, the baby will so many sweet outfits.

All the sweet gifts and activities and happiness made my uterus hurt.  I basically wanted to go home and tell hubby "let's do this NOW!" but I don't think I'm ready.  I know that the timing is never perfect and you can never know what is going to happen, and I do want to have a baby but we just got married and shouldn't we enjoy that for a few months?  I love being married and I want to savour this time, but I also don't want to wait too long.  We have decided to talk about it next year and  see how we feel in a few months.

After the shower I went home and crawled into bed… and napped until 6pm.  So I was up until midnight last night unable to fall asleep.  I really need to stop napping late on Sundays.

What did you do this weekend?  

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Real Life



The first day home after a vacation is so depressing and I always feel like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation, especially if said vacation was in Las Vegas.  And it did not disappoint: the weather was perfect, the company was amazing, the food was delicious, the drinks were cold and we had a fabulous time.  I will do a recap of the trip but today I am playing catch-up at work and my head is still on vacation time so this is proving to be a difficult task.  And I am very thankful hubby offered to cook dinner tonight and that I can get away with only doing one load of laundry before the weekend so I can crawl into bed early.

 

But before I can succumb to dreamland I have somewhere to be after work… tonight I am going to my first Weight Watchers meeting.  I am both excited and dreading it.  Dreading it because I have to step on a scale and face the number, get smarter about eating and give up reduce (who am I kidding?) my alcohol intake.  Alternatively I am so excited to feel better and fit in my clothes – I put on my favourite jeans for work and they are so uncomfortable. 

I have done WW before and it worked really well for the 6 weeks or so that I ‘dedicated’ to it but I never went to meetings, I just counted points and dropped in once a week to be weighed.  And I slowly quickly stopped following the plan, but when I was doing it I felt GREAT.  So will it be different this time?  I hope so and have actually asked my mom for help (she’s a lifetime member) so we are going to attend meetings together which hopefully means that I will attend meetings. 

I apologize in advance but my Pinterest feed will now be full of WW friendly meals, snacks, desserts, drinks, etc… and please feel free to share the following:

1.       WW friendly drinks with tequila or vodka

2.       WW friendly recipes for anything tasty (especially a treat that actually tastes/feels like a treat!!)

3.    Any tips or suggestions??

Wish me luck and cheers to wearing yoga pants for the next couple weeks until I fit into my pants again! 



 

Don't Confuse the Cows

Like so many, I am definitely not a morning person and am downright hostile not happy even waking up on the weekends (except Christmas, I adore Christmas morning but the mimosas and presents are what get me out of bed)… so when I got a text message at 4:49am I growled and turned over, ignoring hubby’s cheerful voice asking “who is your friend so early?”.  After getting myself out of bed an hour and a half later (I only pressed snooze once but then had to be pushed out of bed because I needed to get to work early in order to leave early) I checked my phone.  My sister had answered my text from the night before, no big deal but this was the brief conversation that followed:

 

 

First, apologies for the TMI on my pimple but I was not expecting what came next and never imagined I would be posting this convo on my blog, but if anyone has any 24 hour cures for pimples please let me know as I have no desire to bring a third party on vacation!

Second, the cows would get confused??  I rarely laugh in the morning, much less in the dark at 6:30am, but I found this hilarious!  It actually deserved an “LOL” because I was indeed lol’ing.  And because my sister wasn’t expanding on this revelation, I needed wanted more information.

To Google I went and I typed in ‘effects of DST on cows’ and found a few articles* claiming that cows do, indeed, get confused with time change, and after reading the articles I can see how they would indeed get confused.  As far as I got in my research, some US and Canadian cities and Queensland do not observe daylight savings.  I didn’t know that (for some places) it was for this reason. 

It might not be super exciting or even relevant to my life but I learned something today.  (Can you tell that I cannot concentrate on anything productive because I am mere hours from being on vacation??).

Did anyone else expand their knowledge of completely random subjects today?

 

*Article Links:

Dairy farmers say daylight saving throws cows for a loop, too

WTF? How Introducing Daylight Saving Into Queensland Would Effect Bovines Of The Milking Kind

Daylight-saving not good for cows

 

Happy Hump Day (for you not me!)

Yay!  It’s Wednesday, better known as Hump Day, but for this week only it’s my Thursday!  That’s because tomorrow (Thursday) is my Friday because on the actual Friday hubby and I are heading to…

 

 

Oh yes, we are escaping the cold and rain for five days of sun!  I can’t wait to indulge in drinks, yummy food, shopping, cocktails, shows, margaritas, relaxing by the pool, wine… did I say drinks?  We are meeting my sister and her fiancé there so it will be great to spend a few days with them.

And what did I do in preparation for Las Vegas?  This:

                                                           Before...                                 After!

Not a drastic change but I love it and have gotten a lot of compliments so far!

Last night I abandoned (his words) my husband and went to my SIL’s house for dinner – we live a block apart and our dogs are BFFs so it’s a match made in in-law Heaven.  We made butternut squash risotto, so simple but sooo delicious, I will post the recipe at some point.  I didn’t take any pictures though so I may have to wait until I make it at home and then I can actually illustrate how we did it. 

I’m off to do a ton of laundry and get ready for our trip – ever notice that chores are a lot easier when you’re preparing for a vacation??

Happy Hump Day Everyone!

 

Introducing... Sarahphrasing Life

I have been thinking a lot about my blog in the last week and I want to make a few changes.  Basically I want to use this space to express myself in whatever way I am feeling at that moment.  I used to love writing when I was a little girl and in my early teens but at some point I just stopped.  I’m not even sure if I was any good at it but I enjoyed doing it.  And I have always fantasized about writing a book and every so often I find myself trying to come up with some sort of plot or character that I could write about.  So far I haven't come up with anything but I’m sure my mind will continue to wander. 

So then I wanted to start a blog but I didn’t tell anyone about it.  Not even when I started it.  No one in my life knows this blog exists and for now I want to keep it that way.  Unfortunately I am self-conscious and while I’m finding my voice I want to keep this for me (and blogland J).

I had two ideas for naming my blog, the Wine Wife (because I am obsessed with wine) and another one that I really like but it reveals my name, something I was originally trying to avoid.  But why?  It's just a name and I read all these great blogs by people who are brave enough to put themselves out there and I think it's amazing.  I also think I can do it too.  So I am going to take one small step.

 

Welcome to Sarahphrasing Life.

 

 

 

Celebrating My Hubby

Today is hubby’s birthday and I am excited to spend the entire weekend with him to celebrate.  We don’t have much planned because a week from now we are headed to one of his favourite places, LAS VEGAS! 

Here is the man who captured my heart, loves me unconditionally and supports me in most things I do (he’s also pretty great at talking me out of the things I shouldn’t!).  He tells me he loves me every day and I am so thankful to have him in my life.  

 

This is my favourite photo from our wedding.  If I could choose only one picture to capture that day, this would be the one.  The looks on our faces radiate happiness (yes, I really just said that and yes it’s super cheesy but I love it) and even though the whole day was amazing and I could not have been happier, this picture captures that feeling in one moment.

 

This is the moment that led to the photo above - the day we got engaged.  He proposed outside our favourite restaurant that overlooks the lake in (our) summer holiday-land.  It was perfect.

 

I am so lucky to have married my best friend.

Have an amazing weekend everyone!

S.