12 Days of Christmas gift swap!

Okay, so we all LOVE presents, don't we?!  If you don't, then you haven't been getting the right ones, now have you?!  So I follow Kenz at All The Weigh, and her and her girl Janna have come up with a great idea.. to send out 12 little gifties to a fellow blogger, and open them daily in the 12 days before Christmas.. Holy cow!!  I can't wait!  I love to shop, and I just don't have enough people to buy for.. lmao, that's sad.. so I'm participating..

 

 Are you??  It's pretty simple.. but all the details are at Kenzie's blog.. so check it out.. :)

I can't wait to see who my "partner" is.. I've already got 2 presents in mind for whoever I get.. lol

Oh yeah.. I posted a page about my December goals.. check em out!  :)

Christmas time is near..

and it's about darn time I put up my tree.. I usually put it up a few days after my birthday (November 7th).. but due to some money issues and my storage unit, I couldn't get it out until today.. and due to some change in plans, I got to actually put it up today!!  YAY!!

 

as you can see, my tree being in storage for like 10 months is not a good idea.. I will prolly get a plastic tree box this year for it, as I can't close the original box I have it in.. at first, when I put it together, only the top 1/3 would light up.. then as I started to spread out the branches of the middle 1/3, some of them started to turn on (idk why, but I am glad they did.. lol).. the bottom half is still not working, but I went out and bought some strands of lights, and then got to decorating the tree..

i <3 decorating my tree every year.. even if it never gets seen by anyone but me (as it's in my bedroom).. i told my mom today that I wish I had more room to decorate.. not to live in, but to decorate.. lol

all this is just the tip of the iceberg.. but because I don't have any more space to put stuff on, this is all I could put out.. for now.. lol.. I also can't wait to put all the presents under my pretty tree.. I hope my cats don't kill the tree before Christmas though..

Birthday Weekend.. Overview and Wrap-up (Part Two)

Didn't want to totally bore people with my whole weekend in one post (because even I was kinda tired of writing about it.. lol), so I'm breaking it into two entries..  This one covers Saturday and today (Sunday)..

Saturday morning started off REALLY early (after getting in bed at 3:30am) to go shopping in Indianapolis, Greenwood and Edinburgh with my best friend, Amanda, her mom (and my second mom) Donna, and our good friend Jenni.. I woke up at 7:30 am, got on the road by 8:30, and we were on our way to shop til we dropped.. I had $160 with me to go shopping (which still didn't last very long, thanks to Victoria's Secret.. lol).. and boy, did I make out with tons of stuff..

Plus, snacks at Cinnabon (couldn't believe I've never had one of their cinnamon rolls).. And lunch at Applebee's.. including a mudslide (which was made wonderfully, aka you couldn't taste the alcohol).. that seems to take some skill.. :)

Saturday night was boring (thank goodness!).. showed my mom my loot, did some scrapbooking, and did a little cleaning.. Only bad thing was that I was getting sick.. I can't stop coughing, and it's gotten worse since Thursday.. I went to bed loaded with Mucinex, Vicks going through my mini humidifier, and one of those Breathe Right strips on my nose.. I looked gorgeous!  lol

My alarm for my race today (that I honestly was looking SO forward to doing on my actual birthday) came WAY too early, but I got up and then proceeded to go back to bed after realizing that I couldn't even go down the stairs without coughing so hard I actually peed a little (yeah, I was amazed when it happened).. I was so pissed that, of course, on the one race day that I had actually wanted to race, paid in advance for, and bought a running outfit for, I wouldn't be able to do.. 

Yeah, I can imagine once I get into running races that I will be able to figure out how I can do it with a cold, but I didn't want to run/walk my first race and either have to not finish or have to use my emergency inhaler because I pushed myself too hard.. So I signed up for another one to make up for it, on December 4th, in my hometown.. :)  Plus, I get to run with Santa!!  YAY!!  lol

Today brought my family over.. for some of my momma's AWESOME cooking.. Our tradition for me and my brother's birthday is that we get to pick what we want her to make us (or order).. This year I chose baked chicken, mashed potatoes, homemade mac'n'cheese, broccoli casserole, rolls, and instead of cake I wanted mini-cheesecakes..

Aren't they just so cute?!  And SO much healthier than cake.. because right now I can only eat one of these at a time.. ya know what I mean?  I can't eat more than one without feeling so gross.. lol.. and the sugar icing on cake makes me SO sick anymore..  But after eating food, I got to open my gifts, and was so excited to see that my brother had been able to get what I absolutely wanted in such a short time.. Wondering what it could be?  Well, wonder no longer.. :)

I asked him for this on Monday (like not even a week ago).. and he was able to get it in the color and size I wanted.. YAY!!  I can't wait to wear it when I start running outside in a few weeks (or sooner, ya never know).. :)   

Well, that's the end of my birthday weekend.. complete with TONS of birthday wishes on my FB wall.. I hope you all had a great weekend too!  :)

Before I totally sign-off and go blog hoppin, I have a question for you runners (new or not).. What brand/kind of shoes do you run in?  Are there certain ones you wouldn't recommend? 

Birthday Weekend.. Overview and Wrap-up (Part 1)

Well well well.. I have no idea what to do first, catch up on 5 days worth of blog entries (and I will read every one of them) or write my own entry to gab about my past 5 days activities.. guess I obviously decided, huh.. lol

Well, most of y'all know that I turned 27 today (technically at 10:57am.. lol).. and I took the whole weekend off work to make sure I brought it in with a bang!  Well, now that the weekend is almost over, I gotta fill y'all in.. I just gotta.. ;)

I'll start with the beginning of my 5 day (unintentional) hiatus.. Wednesday

So, in order to not have a totally crappy paycheck next Friday, I switched days with someone so I would work Wednesday at my over-nighter.. and boy did she make it the worst 24 hours ever (well, I guess not ever since they usually all are with her, sadly enough).. woman accused me of eating a whole bag of spearmint candies (WTF?!), told me not to screw up her cupboards (as they'd just been rearranged, partially by me, recently), and that I text too fast (she usually doesn't care) and the "clicking" is getting on her nerves.. OMG, I'm glad I am not a violent person..

On a brighter note, my mom text me that my dress for Friday night had came into the mail!  YAY!!  I was really worried (with my luck) that it would get here on Saturday or something.. lol.. so she sent me a text to see if it looked like I thought it would, and it looked so much better!  Here's the pic she sent me.. :)

So Thursday, I was so excited to get home, for more than one reason, and wanted to try my dress on.. This dress is labeled as a 1X (which is supposed to be a 16/18, which is my current size in most labels).. and it even has a stretch back.. and it didn't fit.. thank goodness it came with a swatch of fabric (not sure why, but hey, i'm sure not complaining.. lol), because I used it to make the dress a little bigger.. and it worked!!  I had to work at 1:30, so I went and was glad that he's one of my great clients.. he's so sweet, his girlfriend is AWESOME (more about her in tomorrow's post) and has the cutest puppy that is spoiled rotten.. lol

After that, I did some stuff and finished working on the dress.. Had to work Friday with my guy client and got off at 2pm, then went to Hobby Lobby and Micheal's.. didn't leave the Clarksville/Jeffersonville area until 3:30.. WTF?!  Where did the time go??  lol.. so I went home as fast as I (legally) could, and got ready for my Friday night dinner/dancing with my girl Cassie.. and boy did the night just kinda go to pot..  I have never eaten at The Cheesecake Factory, but I knew that it wouldn't be easy on my diet, so I made sure to take it easy the whole day up to dinner, so I wouldn't have to "miss out" on anything..

Would you believe, after driving all the way up to Greenwood (1 hour away from my friends house), there was a 40 minute wait and we couldn't wait that long?!  We chose to get the cheesecake to go, and then went to eat somewhere else.. Can you figure out where?  lol

 

Yep, we went to McDonald's in all our prom-worthy glory.. :)   and I enjoyed my McRib and medium fries.. and the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake, of course.. So we made it to her sis's house and mine in good time, and finally (after a little "stalling") got to 4th Street Live in Louisville, KY around 10:15pm.. And some of my sorority girls, including Katie from Finding the Thin Within, came and helped me celebrate.. :)

While we did have some bumps in the night.. like how we had to leave.. it was quite enjoyable.. and anyone wanting to see more pics can go to my FB photo album and have a look-see.. :) 

Decided to make this a two-post entry, as I didn't expect it to get so long.. Hope your eyes aren't burning from reading all this.. :(

Presents..

We all love them, right?! 

Well, I have found something that I am so putting into my Presents "shopping cart"..  Wanna see what it is?

Isn't this top HOT!?  I want it so bad.. and if it wasn't in sizes 0-10, I would buy it tomorrow morning (aka payday).. lol.. so it's going to be part of my "180 lbs" goal.. I still plan to buy it soon, prolly next weekend, but I plan to start a box for stuff I will be fitting into soon.. :)   I know this is probably a stupid idea, as I'm setting myself up to spend tons of money on stuff I won't ever be able to fit into.. but I'm definitely going to use this as motivation.. If I spend $60 on a shirt (yeah, I know, but it's too hot not to get), I KNOW I will do whatever it takes to get my boobs into it.. lol

OMG, it fits!! IT FITS!!

Okey dokey.. one of my presents for getting 20 lbs off was a new pair of jeans.. well, because I was in between a size 18 and 16, I decided to wait a bit until I could fit into a size 16.. Well, my wait is over!!  I went to Target (a store I used to hate, and most PS girls will understand this I'm sure), and bought a pair of their brand jeans in a size 16.. They are a little snug, but they button and I don't have a muffin top, so I'm good!  :)

I plan to post pics of me in my smaller jeans later (once they get out of the wash).. but my title is actually to do with this dress I got from a friend like a year ago.. If any of you have paid attention to my pics, you'll know I'm not exactly flat-chested (no offense intended to those who are).. This has been an issue with fitting into formal tops that are sized with #'s instead of letters.. lol.. I can deal with that, if it means that I'm still my boob-aliscious self.. ;)

So I tried this dress on, as I am keeping to my word and getting out more, for a formal sorority meeting I'm going to tonight.. and was AMAZED when it actually zipped up!!  HOLY COW!  This thing has never fit.. NEVER!!  So I took some pics.. they are on my Changing Thru Pictures page..  Hope you all had a great weekend.. I'm off to cheer on my Indianapolis Colts and eat something before getting my nails done and going to my meeting..