Footprints on the Moon

Am I the only one who thinks cleaning just for yourself, and cleaning for company are two separate things? For example… I spent a good deal of Saturday morning cleaning my apartment. But then I decided to invite my mom, her husband and my grandma over for lunch on Sunday so I did MORE cleaning to make it “company clean.” I actually called it Grandma clean… it was clean enough for me to have mom over cause she’s been over when there’s no room to sit on the couch, but Grandma hasn’t. Not to say that I wanted it as clean as her house… I’m not sure that’s possible!
In the end, I was happy with it, but I still closed the door to my bedroom leaving it just open enough to let Pudge go in there and hide. Not that there were bustiers laying around or anything, but the dirty laundry piled up on the floor and (if I’m being honest) the extra crap from the living room is just not something that anyone needs to see.

Hello everyone! Did you all have lovely Sundays? I’ve been crazy productive this weekend, and as soon as I post this, I’m grabbing my book and heading for bed. I did a LOT of cleaning this weekend, and my apartment was in desperate need. I currently have a clean kitchen, bathroom and living room. My bedroom needs tackled yet, but I just haven’t had time or half the motivation required to get started on that. There’s a ton of stuff to sort through, and I’m just having flashbacks to the living room sorting!
This picture was taken today after I showered, but before I finished getting ready. I was cooking dinner, and doing some extra picking up and decided to get my SPS picture taken before I forgot. I had Mom, Harold and Grandma over for lunch today and made a white chicken parmesan. Very yummy! Also got to break in my brand new card table during the meal, and then we cleared away the dishes and played cards. Not exactly fancy contemporary furniture, but it got the job done!
I got all my veggies for lunches this week ready, as well as my pretzels, while watching movies on TNT. Now I think I’m ready to turn in… with being on my feet cleaning, up and down the stairs with trash, recycling and back up with the groceries… my thighs are sore and I’m just ready to sleep it off! See you in the morning!

This is a good Saturday to be spent inside. I do need to run to the grocery store at some point, but mostly I’m just going to be in the apartment, hiding from the snowy-slushy icky-ness that’s outside. Since a royal caribbean trip is not really an option, I figured this would be a good second option. I’m cleaning off and on today… more off than on, actually and I need that to be the other way around. I’m going to get up and start working on my scary bathroom in just a minute, but I’d rather sit here and catch up on the blog stuff I’ve gotten behind on. Or play games on the internet, whichever. But Sarah’s coming over later and I need to have been productive before she arrives, so I guess I better get started.

I had every intention of going home last night and writing up at least one more post on this blog, as well as updating a couple of other ones, but just before I left work last night I got a call from my sister-in-law Ash-lee, and I had to run home and do a frantic cleaning of my living room. Why? It just so happens that I was going to have a little distraction at my house:

Little Booger is getting sick, so I pumped him full of Pedialyte and we played, and played. And chased the cats, and emptied all the DVDs off of the tv stands that we could reach, and played some more. He kept pushing the button on my Roomba because it’s lit up and he likes buttons. But then that would set the Roomba to start cleaning, and it would “come after him” and he’d shriek and crawl away just as fast as he could. I’d have to retrieve the Roomba and shut it off, and then we’d start the process all over again.
He wore me out though! I hadn’t had much sleep the night before, and left to my own devices I’d have probably been in bed by about 7:30. This little man never quits moving either, and I don’t have baby gates so when the cat would run away from him, I’d have to go chase him down too! My friends who are parents were laughing at me last night, but man… everytime I watch Killian by myself, I understand a little more why my friend Erica is always hungry and says she doesn’t have time to eat. It’s totally worth it though. Too bad Lucy wasn’t so sure that was the case…

It seems like the thing to do if you are a blogger is to share what you’ve gotten for Christmas. Since I’ve enjoyed seeing what everyone else received, and since, as Gary likes to say, a blog is every person’s ode to themselves, I thought I’d go ahead and share what I got this year.
You already know that I got a card table and chairs from my mom and Harold because I blogged about it. I still don’t have a picture of that one.

Then from my Grandma, I received a scale. I kind of get an odd look when people hear that one, but don’t worry, I wanted it and I picked it out. Had I not asked for it, I might have been kind of offended, but no worries!

(What? You didn’t think I was going to show you a picture of the scale in use, did you? You’re on the wrong blog for that!)

From Ryan and Ash-lee, I got a picture frame that fits 21 4×6″ pictures.

I have the perfect spot picked out for it, I just need to order prints to put in it and bribe someone to hang it up for me.

From Dad and Gloria, I got a Mt. Dew hooded sweatshirt, flannel PJ pants, religious jewelry, and a Smelly Bear.

Sarah made me a really pretty and soft pink scarf, and she also gave me spice holder/lazy susan type thingie. Can’t think of what it might be named, but it’s really neat. I didn’t get a picture of either one, unfortunately, but it will make a post on Jenn Cooks at some point in the relatively near future.

Merry Christmas everyone! It’s the end of a long day here, so once again, I don’t really plan on saying a whole lot. I’m in the middle of cutting up veggies, packing my lunch for tomorrow and just kind of getting things around. Think my boss would kill me if I called off the day after Christmas? Yes, I think he would… especially since HE is taking the day off! I’ll go… It’s just going to be a long day. It will probably be pretty dead, and I’m not sure how much sleep I’ll get as I haven’t been able to sleep before 11pm-midnight the last several nights. Should be interesting, that’s for sure!
Today was a pretty good day. It started off with Christmas at my dad’s with Ryan, Ash, Killian, Dad and Gloria. We had breakfast, exchanged presents, and just hung out until it was time to leave for the next gathering. Killian had a blast playing with his new presents, and playing what I like to call “Pass the Baby Express”. He LOVES to play pass the baby– unless he’s really tired, if you walk up and stick your hands out, he’ll come to you. This morning, he got out of his coat and Grandpa had him. He turned and smiled at me and reached for me… turned around and smiled and reached for his Grandpa… turned around and reached back for Aunt Jennifer… you get the idea. He was just having a blast with it!
Then it was on to Christmas with my mom’s side of the family. We always have enough food to feed an army and today was no different. I indulged, quite a bit, especially when I discovered that Grandma had made a batch of fudge. It was sooo good, and the diet resumes tomorrow morning. I also got to meet my new cousin, Lilyana. She’s completely tiny, and such a doll. Well, as far as we can tell at a week old! But she’s got good genes, obviously, being one of my cousins!
Alright, I gotta get back to packing my lunch now… I’ll get pictures up on flickr tonight or tomorrow morning, so hopefully I’ll have some pictures to share with you tomorrow. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your families (or without, if that suits you better)!

I took the picture yesterday, but didn’t get it up in time for Self-Portrait Sunday. I was at my dad’s doing laundry all day yesterday (where the picture was taken), and by the time I got home I had a raging headache. Dad and Gloria were coming back from Oklahoma yesterday and after dealing with several delays and cancellations, they were on a bus back home for me to pick up about 11:30. I slept about an hour or so, picked them up, came back and fell right back into bed. I think I had a migraine last night, but honestly I didn’t stay up long enough to find out!
Today was the second of four Christmas gatherings… not too much to say about that. Some good things, some bad things, that’s about it. Can you tell I’m about ready to go to bed again? lol Out of energy to write about it so you get no information LOL

My friend Cass has a site called Six Neat Things where she goes in and writes about cool things she’s found on the internet. This is anything from raymond weil watches to girly things like makeup. Today I stumbled across a really neat site that I wanted to share with you, so it’s my turn to share.

So what did I find? I found The Letter Project. All you have to do is provide your name and address and a gentleman named Rick will write you a personal letter. That’s it. You don’t have to include any more information if you don’t want to, no strings attached. I sent off my email because I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see a letter in my mailbox amongst the bills.
Periodically, I’ll sit down and write some friends a few letters. Mostly friends from college spread across the country. Yeah, I could email them and it would be faster, but I know how fun it is to check the mail and find a letter from a friend. When I was little, I LOVED going out to check the mail. As I get older, it gets less exciting as all I find amongst the junk mail is more bills. It shouldn’t have to be that way.

Alternatively titled: Why a Certain Orange Kitty is in BIG TROUBLE. I’ll explain it in a minute, but first I’ll just SHOW you what she did.

That’s Killian’s Christmas present. Which was a pain in the rear to wrap the first time. I now get to wrap it again because she tore it open. I can’t remember if this picture was taken before or after she broke the tape on the top of the box and burrowed inside to sit in the Elmo chair. Rotten cat!! Rotten is her nickname, by the way. I call her that all the time and for good reason! I wouldn’t doubt if there are several more presents that need rewrapped before they can be gifted. Anyone want a kitty?

… more than just covering up hickeys. Did you know that some people actually wear them too? I’m not one of them, as I really just don’t like things being up on my neck like that. I have to wear a buttoned to the top collared shirt with a “tie” for work and it took a couple weeks for me to stop tugging on it, feeling kind of panicky. Not even a mock turtleneck works for me. (And wouldn’t you know, just writing about it, the collar on my shirt just feels tighter, and tighter…)

I was asked if I might like to review a turtleneck, so I had to see if I knew someone who might like to wear one. And you know, not feel like they are choking? I called my mom and asked her if Harold wore turtlenecks, and her response was, “Unfortunately, yes.” LOL Think maybe the turtleneck has gotten a bad reputation?? Anyways, I had a taker, and as you can see from the picture below, he likes it!

When I first handed the shirt over, his response was “Ooh that’s nice!” When I returned last night to get a picture of him in the shirt, he went back to change into it. I heard him call out “This smells really good!” Now, I’m not sure that the folks at Clothing4All had anything to do with how the shirt smelled, but there you go. Maybe I’ll have to order something for MYSELF this time, and find out for sure.