Merry Christmas!

Whew, the holiday has passed and slowly but surely life is slowing down in preparation for the new year. I have not posted in a while, so I am going to do a recap of all the Christmas celebrations and happenings to date!

It's kind of a shame when your husband looks at you on Christmas Eve and says he is ready for Christmas to be here so we can relax and enjoy the company of our family because we have run ourselves to death in preparation for the holiday! Maybe next year we will do better! But, this year Brian had Christmas Eve off from work and it was so nice to be together all day! Of course we took the opportunity to finish up some last minute shopping but we also hit the gym on Christmas Eve which my body is thankful for after all that I indulged this holiday. (sidenote: I managed to only gain 2 pounds over Thanksgiving and Christmas and have already dropped 'em!)...

On the eve of Christmas Eve we baked Christmas Cookies at Brian's parents' house and decorated them with my niece. She loved rolling out the cookie dough but didnt care too much for decoarting the cookies... We ended the evening with a carriage ride through Starry Nights!

Christmas Eve we went to my Aunt's house for dinner and some present exchanges.This was an exceptional Christmas and we can't wait to take our family vacation this year to the Bahamas!!!

Christmas morning, Brian's parents, Katherine and Mike came over for breakfast and gift exchanges. We ended the morning by playing a very strategic board game that i can't remember the name of... but it was fun!

Then we cleaned house and headed over to my mom and dads for more gift exchanging and dinner. I crafted a few gifts this year but didnt get a picture of everything... my favorite was getting my niece's handprints on some tiles with quotes to give to my parents (hayden's grandparents) and my sister and Ray.

This Christmas Brian and I decided to seriously scale back our gift giving to one another in hopes of starting some more house projects soon (i'll keep you posted on what we do... but i'm dreaming of new kitchen counters :)

Even with all of the holiday excitement, it was hard to forget those that we were missing this Christmas... more than a few tears were shed as we remembered my grandmother who passed this February; our sweet companion, Jake who we lost this October and my Great Aunt Sylvia who died on Christmas Eve. her funeral will be Monday in Chicago. I am so grateful for the wonderfu family that I have and those that we were able to celebrate with and we were blessed beyond measure this year. Prayers out to my family in Chicago who were missing a very special lady this holiday.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and spent it with loved ones!

On my way!

I'm on my way outta this slump!

Even with this gloomy day I left work and hit the gym... And ya know what?!?!
Running on a treadmill for 3 miles isn't nearly as awful as I thought it would be! I still miss the pretty scenery from the park but it wasn't so bad!

Between my jog and coming home to a beautifully decorated house all decked out for Christmas I'm well on my way outta this slump!

Oh and to treat my self I had a dove chocolate when I got home and got some additional advice!

The Slump

So on October 20th I ran my first 10k it was long and hard but I felt so accomplished once I reached the end!

I've been in sort of a slump since we lost our beloved pup, Jake...

I continued to train for my 10K and go on like usual../ I think I have only ran once since my 10K... And with the holidays approaching my love for baking is fast approaching and I can feel the hard work that I've done slipping away and the pounds adding back on...

So this week I'm going to do my best to get back on track... It's difficult with the cold weather... I hate the idea of running on a treadmill but with the cold air and it getting dark so early I think I will have to give in and get more use out of my gym membership...

But enough with all this whining... For a post-thanksgiving rundown I am thankful for:
God, my husband who continues to keep me young and loves me no matter what, my friends who keep me sane, my job that presents new challenges and opportunities every week, my house that I have to come home to each day and my health which I have worked very hard to improve this year!

In a nutshell I am more fortunate than I deserve and need to get out of this slump!

Too early?

Is it ever too early to start crafting for Christmas?!?!

I actually have a few gifts purchased but I'm so ready to deck the halls I just can't help myself!

Pinterest just makes matters worse! At least I'm crafting and not just pinning!

It's not easy...

I sat down to write a post about jake the other day... In my last post I wrote about unexpected expenses and about how we took our beloved pup to the vet and got some bad news and a big bill... I feel so selfish now for complaining about that expense because I would give up my house to have that dog back!

Unfortunately, we had to make a tough decision last Friday and Jake is no longer with us... The 4 page post that I drafted was obviously very long and very sad and kinda depressing so I won't share that with you... But I'm feeling better lately... I don't miss him any less and it's not easy coming home and not seeing his smiling face and wagging tail but I now know we did the right thing!

I pretty much took the whole weekend to pretend like this didn't happen and then moped around the house... I didn't run, I barely cooked anything to eat... I didn't watch TV or visit friends instead I went to work with my dad in the morning and with my mom in the evening on Saturday to keep my mind off it...

Then Sunday came and Brian and I were home with nothing to do and we were forced to work through the sadness! I love my husband so much for helping us both get through that day!

Going back to work Monday helped and having my favorite TV shows (dancing with the stars and the voice) didn't hurt either!

Yesterday I decided to jump back into routine and I went for a run after work... I hadn't ran in about 10 days... And I've been training or a 10K on Oct 20th.... I haven't been able to run more than 5 miles at a time yet... So yesterday I just went for it... I ran 6 miles without stopping!!! It wasn't easy but I did it!

I have learned so much just how much taking care of yourself, being with family and prayer can get you through the days and times that aren't so easy...

Maybe later on I will be able to share a happier post about Jake and what happened to him but right now it's still not easy to talk about.

Unexpected expense

My poor pup, jake is very sick!!!

On Friday, I was getting ready to go out to my parents house ... Usually jake follows me to the door barking because he wants to go and get in the car too.... This was not the case Friday. Before I went to leave I let the dogs out one last time and jake just went and laid down in the flower bed... I figured he was just tired and with the change in the weather his old bones were just tired so I left him at home...

Fast forward to Sunday and Brian and I were gone almost all day for my dads birthday. I asked our dog sitter to stop by to play with the dogs and let them out for an hour and our dog sitter said jake wouldn't get up off the floor. Normally jake is ecstatic to see Kayla and Barks his head off! We got home Sunday night and found him the same way.

Jake is notorious for getting ear infections so I looked in his ears to see if they might be bothering him... I couldn't tell so we decided to let him sleep it off and would call the vet the next morning... Well he was pretty much completely lethargic the next day and kept falling down when he was standing up...

So we take him in to our vet... He proceeds to remind me that jake is a very old dog (12-15 years) and he might just have some bad arthritis coupled with the rainy weather and you get a lethargic dog....he decided to do some blood work and take his temp... Well after having a 102degree fever the doc asked to keep our buddy, jake over night to wait on his blood work....

He was diagnosed with a "tick-born disease" ... There are 10 differen ones (Ricky mountain spotted fever, Lymes disease, etc.) they are all treated the same! So our pup is home with lots of expensive meds and he should be getting better in a few days... Getting better means getting up on his own to do things other than eat and go outside to potty...

So far he is Doing well taking his $150 prescribed meds that we have to get refilled next week that he will be on for one month! But regardless of the expense i am so glad that he is doing ok and that what he has is treatable!!!

I don't know what I would do without my jake!!! He is pretty lazy right now but he should be back to his more mobile lazy self in a few days!!

Shadow Boxes

So now that I am blogging and posting about a few DIY things we do around the house, I’m starting to realize just how much stuff I go and raid out of my grandparents old house and transform it for my own home.

Brian already knows that a project is waiting for him if I mention that I went over to my grandparents house over the weekendJ But don’t be fooled he likes all this DIY stuff just as much as I do!

So back at the beginning of the summer, my dad had these super cool looking wooden boxes that he was storing flats of annuals flowers in to carry around the yard to plant. I recognized those old planter boxes. They were the ones my grandfather used in his greenhouse. I asked dad if he had 2 of them that he wasn’t using. Well sure enough, that ended in dad and I going over to Pa’s house to raid the old greenhouse! Well I came home with 2 really cool reclaimed wood looking plant boxes!

My dad did not understand what I was going to do with these for decorating but I assured him I would figure something out! These boxes are super cool (sorry I do not have a before picture). They look like old reclaimed wood from the old house that is still on my grandparent’s property. Pretty much they are backed with some old reclaimed beadboard from the old farmhouse and then they are framed with some wooden planks.

I had these 2 prints that I got from an antique mall in Collierville that I framed and matted myself and they looked a little bare on my walls. So I thought they would be perfect to hang within the plant boxes to make a shadow box. The only problem was… my prints in side of their frames were not symmetrical with the boxes. The plant boxes were much longer and leaner than my photo frames. So they kind of looked bare inside the boxes so I’ve had these planter boxes sitting in the floor of my living room for months trying to find a solution.

Then I got the idea that I needed to add something else to have at the bottom or top of the picture within the shadow box. I love all the metal work artwork that is so trendy right now but I needed something very small. I already have lots of metal crosses hanging in my house and I need something that hung horizontal. I saw a bunch of iron keys art at hobby lobby and decided that would be perfect for my shadow boxes! I picked up 2 iron keys for $3.99/piece at hobby lobby and went home and attached them to the shadow box.

On Sunday, the hubsters and I headed to Lowe’s to purchase the proper tools that we would need to hang the shadow boxes since they are so heavy now.  Then we picked the placement for them on the walls. It was Brian’s idea to hang them at the corner of the living room which looks way better than what I would have done! Here is how it turned out!

 I love how rustic the wood and keys look against the clean lined silver frames!
There is even something written on the side of the box in my grandpa's handwriting. But I have no clue what it says!

Hayden dropped by later that night just after we had hung them and put the TV back in place. This is her and Brian in front of the TV playing with her "baseball" which is actually a ball made of rope that is a dog toy...She's a silly girl!