2013 in One Picture

For my second time ever (one of my upcoming resolutions!) I am going to link up in blogland... not a big deal to most but still working my way into this place and I am loving the journey!  So thank you Jena from Recently Roached for my latest inspiration :-) 

So in Sum up my entire year in one picture... Needless to say this was quite the challenge.

First I need to figure out what the major highlights of 2013 were...

• Celebrating NYE 2013 as an engaged couple and toasting to our wedding and the start of our married life together 
• Our remodeled kitchen (love, love, LOVE! now to learn to cook...)
• Taking a chance and starting a new job in a new industry
• A week-long vacay with the girls to Palm Springs
• My wedding shower thrown by my amazing mom
• My amazeballs bachelorette party organized by the best sister/MOH and bestie/SIL/bridesmaid 
• The champagne tasting with my family to decide which bubbly to serve for our toast
• The different events with family and friends leading up to our big day
• Our Wedding
• All the love we were showered with before, during and after
• Looking through all the photos and seeing my hubby - who likes having his picture taken about as much as he wants needles stabbed in his eyeballs - smiling with pure joy (and me too of course!)
• Our first Halloween in the house and having trick or treaters (hubby's favorite holiday)
• The first snowfall and Milo having a blast playing in it
• Meeting my sister and her fiancé in Las Vegas for a long weekend
• Spending Christmas with our family and friends

So basically 2013 revolved around planning my wedding, celebrating my wedding and then recovering from our wedding! And with all that one would probably expect me to post one of our wedding pictures, my favorite picture, the one that if all our other pictures disappeared, I would be ok if this one survived.  

But this is my photo to sum up 2013:

This is a photo taken from the dock at the cabin the morning after we got engaged.  We used this photo as our Save the Date postcards, and a different version of this photo that shows my ring was how we announced our engagement on Facebook. 

The cabin is one of our most special places ever, and hubby loves that I want to be there as much as he does.  He grew up spending summers at the cabin, our first trip together was to the cabin, I met his family at the cabin, we count down the months to our summer trips to the cabin, we got engaged on one of our trips to the cabin and then, five months ago, we got married at the cabin.  We are the only ones to get married there and that is special to us and something we talked about early on.

The cabin is our second home and even my family has fallen in love with it and the little village that it calls home. And I am already counting down the months and days until our first trip of 2014.

So my photo doesn't actually show the cabin, my wedding, my husband, my furbies, our friends and families, the copious amounts of drink and food consumed over the past twelve months, and whatever else happened this year.  But this photo is bright and colorful and I smile every time I look at it and I am transported back to my happiest of happy places.

 

Happy New Year!

 

Sarah xxo

Thirsty Thursday

Can you believe it's only week to Christmas?!  Only two more days of work to get through then I am on holidays and plan to Christmas fun the crap out of them!  We have dinners planned, a trip to the Christmas Market, light tours, watching Frozen (my sister and I can't wait, we've heard it's amaze-balls) but the main activities will be drinking, eating and laughing on repeat.  Right now I'm focused on the drinks, mainly baileys coffee for the morning, mimosas for mid-morning, champagne throughout the day as well as wine.

I love me some champagne (sparkling wine, champagne is just so much more fun to say) and I really should just pick up a case so I don't run out next week.  Sometimes I like to add a little something to my champagne besides oj and I came across this on Pinterest:

Berry flavored Hpnotiq Harmonie - it's berry flavored and it's purple, I'm pretty sure the champagne Gods made this just for me. So when I hit up the liquor store on Friday, you better believe a bottle (or four) will end up in my cart.

Anyone out there tried this?

The Dazzler recipe on Pinterest:

2oz Hpnotiq Harmonie

2oz champagne 

My usual ratio for champagne cocktails is 1oz mix and as much champagne as I can fit in and that's probably how I will play is one.  

Wat is your favorite holiday cocktail?

Baby Fever?

Babies babies babies!  Babies consume my thoughts right now! It could be the season, everyone is posting this year's Santa visit photos and I love them.  I head straight for the baby clothes when shopping and pick up every tiny little outfit oohing and aahing until I have to put it back even though I briefly contemplate buying it and hiding it in my closet.  I could probably have outfitted a newborn to 12 months by now!  This past weekend I asked my sister-in-law to keep an adorable purple jacket my niece was wearing... She proceeded to tell me about all the things she has kept for me and my insides were doing the biggest happy dance!

But I am now taking it out on my furbies.  Oh and I call them FURBIES.

We ran out of dog food last night so after letting Milo eating cat food today (he loves it, thinks it's candy) I ran out after work to get him some kibble.

I came home with this (and his food):

And then I proceeded to do this:

Don't they look cute, embarrassed and pissed off at me all at once??

Having a baby freaks me out. I am so incredibly selfish, I love to sleep, I love to be lazy on the couch in front of tv for hours on end, I love love love drinking wine (or vodka, tequila, baileys...) and I am terrified that I would resent a baby and be a bad mom.  And the money, the stress it puts on marriages, there are so many things that run through my mind when I dare to daydream about the joy I think it must be.  But baby fever is taking over my mind and I'm not ready to voice how much I really want one yet but it helps to say it here.  Maybe (hopefully) I will be ready soon.

My Latest Self-Diagnosis





Christmas has been very much on mind this week but starting yesterday I felt a rising panic in my stomach… today is Friday the 13^th.  If it had been an option, you better believe I would have stayed in bed watching Christmas movies allll day and not left the house but as I’m sure you can tell, definitely not an option.

I’m not a hugely superstitious person but something about Friday the 13^th freaks me out.  I don’t have a crazy story as to why it freaks me out but I do know that it’s a thing with a real name and everything:

Paraskevidekatriaphobia : the (maybe slightly irrational) fear of Friday the 13^th (source)

I have a jam packed day as well, including our regular date night Friday festivities, which I guess is actually a good thing because I hopefully won’t have time to think about the date.  We shall see.

Besides wanting to curl up the fetal position until midnight, I am so excited for this weekend!!  Tomorrow starts off with massages (can a weekend start any better??), then my mom is going to help me make new Christmas stockings for me and the hubby (hopefully it goes well and if it does I will try to remember to take pictures as these aren’t your normal stockings!!), then dinner and drinks Saturday night and recuperating Christmas movie watching on Sunday! 

What are you up to this weekend?

Happy Friday all!

 



 

Your Hair Will Thank You!



When I was little my older sister had long hair and I always had short hair.  I like to think it’s because my older sister always convinced me to chop mine off and try the short hairstyles she thought were cute but never actually wanted to do to herself, but my mom probably has a different reason.  I remember her telling me that I never let her brush my hair, much less style it.  So I always had fairly short hair.

Cut to my early 20’s when I decided I wanted long hair (ignoring the time I cut it off for an ex – before he was an ex because as I read that it seems to need clarifying?) and I now have long hair.  When I get it cut, I ask for the bare minimum required and because I basically never do anything with my hair (except colour it) it’s pretty healthy so I get to keep it long which makes me happy.  And me happy is a good thing.

 

 



My lovely long wedding hair...

 

My hair now (darker)

 

The hair I wish I was brave enough to have!

 

The one thing I do deal with is an oily scalp.  I know however that it is bad to wash your hair every day, and so in order to not look like a nasty grease-head who accidentally used grease instead of mousse (I don’t even use mousse, or hairspray… do they still make mousse?), I use dry shampoo.  Not any dry shampoo though, only Batiste.

BEST DRY SHAMPOO EVER

 

I have tried all kinds, expensive ones, pretty packaging ones, name brand I recognize ones… and I always come back to Batiste.  It’s like mascara – I have one I use that works for me but whenever I see a sale every once in a while I try a new one.  Like right now Costco has a package of 3 for the price of 2 and it’s the brand I use (Cover Girl) but it’s the ‘Clump Crusher’ and I have never used it.  Do I or don’t I?  Does anyone have any feedback?

Wow I really got off topic there!  Back to Batiste dry shampoo.  I love this stuff.  And I am not being asked to do this is in any way by the company I am simply giving my opinion because if someone else out there finds an amazing product they love, I want to know about it.

What is your amazing can't-live-without product?



 

 

Allergic to Marriage?

 



I love my husband.  I love being married! I adore my husband and he truly is my other half… but I think there is a slight chance I am allergic to marriage.

From the day my engagement ring was put on my finger I never wanted to take it off.  It fit perfectly, it didn’t twist on my finger and I never had any problems.  Getting my wedding band however was a nightmare.  It’s a long story but my style was “discontinued” so when we went to order the band we were shown some other options.  We chose a simple band and wanted a row of diamonds matching the smallest size in my engagement ring, were told that was fine by email and then when we went back to the store were told they wouldn’t do it with the stone size we wanted, they had to be smaller.  So my rings wouldn’t match.  This isn't in my head, I tried on the band with the smaller stones and it looked weird.  This was my wedding ring, my forever ring, and I was devastated.  It felt like a giant road block that we couldn’t knock down and with our wedding 4 weeks away (yeah I know, we procrastinate but this had been going on for 3-4 weeks), what was I going to do??

We left that store and got into a huge fight about my (so-called lack of) driving skills.  A few hours later after dinner (and a few glasses of wine for me), about 30 minutes before stores closed, hubby asked if I wanted to go check out a mall that we knew had a couple jewelry stores because at this point what was our option? 

So we walked into a tiny jewelry store and told them what we were looking for.  The lady working there pulled out a tray of bands and we found it.  I couldn’t believe it!  We were both sooo happy!

Sorry I got a bit off topic there but now I will get back to my “allergy”…

My engagement ring was size 4.25 – TINY!  I couldn’t believe it when I found out what size it was.  When we were sizing my band, I said that I would probably need a larger size because how would the two rings together fit that small.  I was told it would be fine.  Yeah it wasn’t fine.

Ever since I have had the band (same gold, same everything) my finger got swollen and the skin irritated.  And then it got really swollen… I got my engagement ring off but my band was stuck.  So stuck that I HAD TO HAVE IT CUT OFF.

 

OUCH!

 

I then had to wait two weeks for my finger to go back to normal before I could get sized again, then wait another week for them to be changed.  I had both rings sized to 5 and I finally have them both on my finger again.  And now they twist.

LOVE!

 

My finger is still irritated and I take the rings off at night but I LOVE having them back.  And if I am allergic to marriage then I will happily suffer because I wouldn't have it any other way!

 Is anyone else allergic to marriage?

 

Weekend Recap

I have thought about linking up a weekend recap for the last few weeks but I kept thinking “oh I’ll just wait one more week” over and over and now – it’s the last link up!  Better late than never (literally)!

I had a great fairly quiet weekend that was very much needed before all the holiday chaos ramps everything up a bit J

 

1.       I baked!  I made holiday rice krispie squares (can you actually call that baking?) for what I believe is the first time (since I was 5 and made them with my mother, I actually had to look up the recipe)… I also made brown sugar oatmeal coconut chewies from a recipe I found on Pinterest and I think they are the best cookie I have ever made.  I also did a sugar cookie pinwheel from another recipe found on Pinterest, this one had a lot of steps but turned out tasty so worth it.  I brought a plate into work and everyone loved them!

2.       I tried to do a Christmas hat photo shoot with the furbies that didn’t go so well…

3.       My hubby spoiled me and even though we bought our Christmas pajamas about 20 minutes earlier, he got me these dark purple flannel pajamas with champagne and martini glasses!!!  I fell in love instantly.

4.       A lot of napping happened around me at our house yesterday… I baked.

5.       We put up the outside lights!  Four of our path lighting candy canes bit the dust so we only have six now and the lights on the stair railings are different colours but I don’t care.  I love seeing all the lights on in the neighbourhood.  (sorry my photo sucks)

6.       I did manage to get the jingle bell hat on Jinx but he did not like it.  I will try to get both of them looking at me again. 

What isn’t pictured is the wine and takeout dinner we had on Friday, Christmas shopping on Saturday (I totally went over our limit but my hubby rocks so I’m totally ok with it!), more wine Saturday night and spending Sunday in my Christmas pants from Target.

Only four more sleeps until the next one!

How was your weekend?

 

 

 

 

Friday Finds

Happy Friday Friends!  This has been a crazy busy week for me with work, travel for work, appointments, figuring out what to feed my husband for dinner and more work.  Oh and Christmas decorating, shopping and planning.  I did manage to escape for a massage yesterday which was amazeballs - definitely needed!  I even have a busy weekend coming up so I'm already looking forward to a week from now when I embark on a two days of lazy living in pjs allll weekend.

 

But I know there will be very little relaxing this weekend so I decided to cheer myself up and go to my favourite store on my lunch break.  I'm an idiot.  1) My favourite store is Target.  2) I had an hour for lunch.  3) I need at least a solid hour and a half on a normal day to thoroughly enjoy so I need about two and a half during holiday season.  Even though I missed 98% of the store because I had to drag my ass out, I managed to fall in love with a couple items.

 

 

These leggings are cute, comfy and Christmasy!! I bought the last pair they had and can't wait to cozy up in them!  Sorry (not sorry) for all the c words:-)

 

I found this similar pair online because the ones I got seem to be gone

 

Candy cane sheets and...

 

 

 

Snowflake sheets.  At $24.99 how can you not get both??

 

 

Love this pillow... everyone needs a little glitter glam in their life!

 

And of course a new stuffie for Milo that will last all of 5 minutes before he gets the squeaker out.

 

 



What are you up to this weekend?  

 

 

 

 

If I Were a Wine, What Wine Would I Be?

Instead of an animal or tree, have you ever thought “If I were a wine what wine would I be?”  No?  Well I have and the answer is always different depending on the time of year, what I’m eating, who I’m drinking it with, etc. etc.  And then when I came across this link on one of the social media sites I am obsessed with, I knew I had to check it out. 

So I googled Myers-Briggs to find out my personality type; I have taken these tests a few times but I can never remember the result because it’s always different – is that telling me something??

Click here to take the test I did

 My result… (drum roll please)…

 

Wow love this!  Pinot Noir is my go-to red wine!  And the description is pretty accurate as well…

·         I avoid conflict like the plague (and would actually choose the plague over conflict because I hear they have a cure for that now)

·         I enjoy a calm environment (of jammies, blanket, iPad and wine, try and get me to move!) and I will do whatever I can to someone out

·         My family and friends are THE most important things in my life

·         I live in the moment and it drives my husband CRAZY (especially on the weekends when I refuse to have a schedule if we don't have any dinners, etc.)

I wonder if it’s accurate for everyone?  Help me find out!  Go take the test and look up your wine type J

Click here to find out your Wino Personality!

  

Tip Tuesday

When you’re tired and it’s dark outside and you just want to get home, put on comfy pants and take off your bra, don’t succumb to temptation and hit up the golden arches drive thru.  Just don’t. 

I did.

It tasted delicious. 

And then about 20 minutes later my tummy was cursing my weakness.  So if you have the willpower to resist the temptation your body will thank you.

It was back to my protein shake this morning and veggies to snack on throughout the day.  And starting tomorrow I am going to drink warm lemon water in the morning (starting tomorrow because we don’t have lemons or lemon juice!).

I hope you all have an amazing day!



 

 

First December Weekend Recap!



It’s here, it’s finally here!!  This weekend I was finally allowed to start pulling out the Christmas decorations!!  To say that I love is an understatement; in fact I’m not sure it’s actually possible to measure except to say that I really really really LOVE Christmas!

So much so that I want to rock this shirt 24/7 for the next 24 days:

 

 source

I was having so much fun celebrating that it was finally December that I kind of forgot to take pictures… and looking through the pictures I did take, they are all kind of dark and I really need to start using my actual camera instead of my phone.  Maybe one day.

On Saturday I went to 2 craft fairs with my mom and aunt, one of which is a tradition for my mom and me and this year did not disappoint.  I found a super cute hat for my sister (forgot a photo), catnip toys for Milo (yes, our dog loves catnip and cat could take it or leave it, oh and again, no photo). 

I did manage to get a shot of some of our tree…

Yes we I have a Christmas sweater for the dog and I borrowed the hat because I obviously need pictures of Milo in a Santa hat.  The only reason he stood still (looking miserable bored) was the lure of the sausage roll I was using as a bribe.  Nailed it.  We have a jingle hat that I’m hoping to get on the cat and somehow get a photo of the two of them.  Looking at the camera.  Wish me luck.

Sunday is the day I like to stay home in pjs and be lazy while I dread Monday morning.  My husband made lunch plans for us though so we travelled about 45 minutes to his stepmom’s brother’s house.   It’s a rural area (they have cows) so it was a bit of a trek. 

My breakfast of champions was reheated pizza bread with alfredo sauce to dip it in and a Caesar sans tabasco.  I inhaled this goodness in about 5 minutes and off we went.  At the farm we saw the cows – the “baby” calf is Roxy and she was born a week ago today – and some chickens.  We left the farm with two dozen fresh eggs (as in laid that morning, can you say breakfast for dinner all week long??), a tin of chocolate chip cookies and a bag full of fresh bay leaves.  (Side story: when I was told to help myself to the ‘bay leaves’ I heard ‘Baileys’ and said yes please!! where’s the coffee??)

All in all a great weekend and I can’t wait to get even more Christmasy!  I am even going to try to a couple DIY Christmas projects that I found on Pinterest… do any of you have some fun DIY projects I should try?  I would love to hear about them!