Sunday, December 30, 2012

It's a Cali Christmas

Christmas 2012!

No snow, No Christmas tree, no stockings, this year for christmas was very different for me. With recently moving into our own place, we didn't have much money to do any shopping or give gifts to other people. Other than exchanging gifts, which we were only able to do by the grace of God, and the money some our family helped us out with, the only other person we got to get a gift for was my mother.
In early November we found a ceramic painting shop, its one of those well known chains, Color Me Mine. I had been to these kind of places off and on throughout my life, so I knew how they worked, but I hadn't seen one in Cali yet, and Michael had never done it. So I thought wouldn't it be nice if we made something together, then I was like... "Hey, how about we do our designs on something?" Michael was all for that. So we were just looking through the stuff they had to paint and I saw all the plates and platters and thought, wouldn't it be great if we did something for my Mother, considering how much she has done for me all my life and how much she has done for the both of us while we have been together, and Michael thought that was a great idea as well, so we decided to do our designs on a plate/platter for my mother.
So we picked out a platter, and I started mapping our first move out on it, while Michael went to grab us some food.

All-in-all it took us five visits to the Color me Mine shop and over 30 hours of work, almost every weekend up until Christmas and we pulled it off!

For those of you who don't know, my Husband and I do work with markers for fun, we have a thick sketch pad, and we do these designs while watching movies, passing the sketch pad and markers back and forth, taking turns. (almost all of our work is in one of my blog posts, I think its the pumpkin post from October) but this time what we did was we worked on it at the same time, just different sections. so we both do out own thing, although we do touch each others up, make changes sometimes.

Anyways back to Christmas.
So my Mother loved the plate, and since we saw her and some family on Christmas eve, Christmas day was just us. For the very first time we got to do whatever we wanted, and damn it was nice :)

After we woke up, we started off the day by making cinnamon rolls and bacon, then watching Elf (probably my favorite christmas movie ever) then we decided to open our gifts.
I had gotten Michael some toys that reminded him if his childhood, and one was for the both of us, Play-dough :) he had picked them out from a trip to Toys-R-Us we had the month before. 
I also got him a sweatshirt, looks a little like a letter jacket, just with nothing on it except the colors red and black, and a really nice wood box for him to keep all his small valuables (watches, flask, cuff links, etc)

and he ended up getting me a necklace I wanted from Forever 21, it's metal but looks like lace, a brown, leather looking studded purse I had wanted, and a record player with two record :) which I had wanted a record player for years, so I was super excited! and it is so cool looking too, its bright red and looks like an old fashioned radio, which in fact it doubles as a radio. How cool right!


We ended up doing more things all day, I wont go too much into detail, but we had some pretty great food and just had fun with each other, relaxing and stuff.

We ended up making scalloped potatoes with ham, and a salad, and wine. It was really nice! Especially since we both love scalloped potatoes with ham! It may even be a tradition every christmas :)



So we ended up having a wonderful christmas, the only down side was we wasted a couple hours with Michael trying to fix something on the computer, and he had been getting sick the last couple days so it wasn't really feeling at his best.

But everything was just wonderful! It was nice having a relaxing Christmas, and even though in some ways it didn't feel like christmas at all, I'm still very thankful for my Husband and our mini christmas we had together, in our new apartment :)

P.S. I'm still going to try and put up the Christmas eve photo shoot soon.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Christmas Baking and the Party Thereafter

*sigh* I've been procrastinating... knowing I should post something, but just haven't felt up to it.

My christmas was pretty good, although the couple days before it were stressful and tiring.

The post is about the Sunday before Christmas, the 23rd, and some of Christmas Eve.

So the Sunday the 23th was set aside for baking. My husband and I thought it would be nice to make some cookies for Christmas and my aunt's Christmas party, and since it was a Sunday he could help me. BUT He had to finish up Christmas shopping and get some stuff we needed to finish up the cookie recipes.
It ended up taking way longer then intended, one thing led to another, something forgotten here, something needed there and bam its suddenly 4:00 in the afternoon and my husband is just getting home.
So we didn't start the cookies until about 4:30, but then I had already started on one of the cookies, but still needed some stuff so I couldn't get far.
Our plan was to make Red Velvet Sandwich cookies, Sugar Cookies, and Gooey Chocolate Butter cookies.
We started with the Sugar Cookie dough, and got it in the fridge, and
Since the Red Velvet cookies were the only ones that didn't need to be refrigerated prior to baking... we logically made them first.
just so everything is laid out and you all can understand our situation a bit better, you need to know a few things:

  1. The numbers on our oven dial are all worn off, so we have to guess where to put the heat at. 
  2. We always set the timer a few minutes before they say to so we remember to check on the cookies. and 
  3. Right now we only have crappy cookie sheet pans from the dollar store, so they're really small and heat up fast.

Now, back to my story.
So we put the cookies in and set the timer early, wait... and when we go to check on them, guess what we find... they were burnt to a crisp! only about 8 good cookies, and well since these are cookies sandwiches, that only makes 4 cookies, and i cant bring 4 cookies to the party. So I'm freaking out a little.


Michael calms me down saying the rest of the cookies will turn out just fine. Now it's really late in the day around 9 or 10 PM and we decide its time to start working on the sugar cookies. So I pull the dough out of the fridge and start pulling it apart, rolling it into little balls and placing them on the cookies sheets. This fills about 4 cookie sheets, so instead of putting 4 in all at the same time we put only two in, on the upper wrack (because thats where the Red Velvet cookies did ok) to make sure they don't burn and we can see if anything goes wrong.
So they're in the oven baking, and I'm checking up on them like crazy, and over the span of about 8 minutes I notice that they are not spreading out, and they smell like biscuits... and now that I think of it, they looked like biscuits, So again I'm starting to freak out a little inside, and I usher michael over so we can pull them out and try them.
and guess what, they tasted like biscuits! Little round ball biscuits, that were slightly sweeter than normal biscuits, but they had a flakey biscuit texture, and were not-at-all cookie-like. So I'm freaking out, and Michael is wracking his brain as to why this might happen. Without coming up with any logical reason for why they didn't turn out like they should, we decide to put the last two pans in the oven and make the rest of the Biscuits, while I start on the third cookies, and Michael finds a new sugar cookie recipe and starts making the batter.
at this point its around 11:30 PM and were both super tired, I'm rolling the third cookies into balls, then powdered sugar, while freaking out, not knowing if these were going to come out disasterous too. and Michael is almost done with the batter for the second sugar cookie try.
so we pop these last cookies in.

 Since we were both really tired from the really long day, we put the second sugar cookie dough in the fridge for me to bake by myself in the morning, other then try the third cookies and see how they turned out the only thing left for me to do was make the icing, which I didn't want to do without Michael because with my Neuropathy I cant always stir things real well. So Michael started on the icing, while I waited nervously by the oven, hoping with all my heart these third cookies would turn out.

and BAM they did!!! Yay! The Gooey Chocolate Butter Cookies turned out fantastic! Although we couldn't find out till the next morning because in all honesty me and my husband couldn't taste anything anymore... if you know what I mean :p (sampling lots of sugary things, sensory overload)


So the next morning, Michael is off to work, and I wake up bright and early and immediately start in on the second sugar cookies, I'm thinking to myself, "this is a completely different recipe, no way these can't turn out", so I'm all happy-go-lucky. up until the point where i pull them out of the oven and guess what I have in my little oven mitts.... BISCUITS!!!
OMG. You could not believe how frustrated and confused I was, I called Michael right away, and told what happened and neither of us could come up with answer as to why this was happening, so then I called up my Mother, and tell her this long tale of woe :p and She is just laughing her ass off at me, and then going through the list of "did you do this?" ... "yes" ... "did you do that?" ... "yes" and by the time we had gone over everything it basically came down too, we're just going to have to keep trying it and tweaking the recipe somehow.
But I'm sitting there like, what am I going to do for the party, so she tells me to just put icing on the biscuits and nobody will care, they will still be good. So I giggle off my woes and decide to do that.
When I was done icing the biscuits, I tried one... and guess what happened,
they tasted good! Now they still weren't the exact consistency of a cookie, but damn its like over night they magically changed into more of a sugar cookie.


so i guess it all worked out, especially for us since we liked them, and not a single person other then my mother tried them :( so we were stuck with them all. which is cool for us, but on the other hand I really wanted to see what people thought, I mean I did make them especially for this party. Oh well, we will definitely be making the Chocolate Butter cookies again and figuring out the sugar cookie problem.

Onto the Party!
Really the only thing to say is me and my family, and their friends, are very different, and even though it's not visible I don't really get along with them. I'm going to leave it at that.
Other than that, my aunt Marie had some stuff she didn't need anymore and gave us some extras for our new place.
which we appreciate so much because already the stuff she gave us made a big difference.
she gave us a bookshelf, a little fold up chair, a coffee machine, a crock pot, a side table and a lamp. Praise the heavens! We have a bookshelf and a side table! and oh how they have made a difference!
so that made the night, OH and i almost forgot, for christmas she gave us a pot and pan set, target gift card, and she had won a mini pie making set at an auction and didn't want it so she gave that to us as well :)


so we have been extremely blessed by that and may I add we have been extremely blessed by all the other help we have received from family, so thank you all!

Here are a couple updated pics from the apartment

I shall post another post later on, of the photo shoot my husband and I had Christmas Eve! I know its a little mixed, but I have yet to work on the photos and this post is already pretty long, I think it best to separate them. Happy New Year everyone!

Friday, December 21, 2012

Achieving the Christmas Spirit

My husband and I had been trying to think of ways to make our new apartment christmasy, since we weren't going to get a tree, it was a little bit of a hard thing to do.
I really wanted a tree, but by the time we had some money to spend on it and had moved in, we would have had it up for like a week, then had christmas, then taken it down at some point after, and with it being just so close to christmas we decided it wouldn't be worth it.

So right now the presents are on a red blanket in front of our couch, which isnt bad, it just doesnt exactly bring enough holiday spirit into our new place. well we ended up getting some things at target that i thought would help, but then the next day target put almost all their christmas stuff on sale, 50% off to be exact, so I had michael take back a couple of things (one needed to be exchanged anyways, and the other we had decided to get a different one) and pick up the things that were on sale, so I ended up getting the sweater platter i wanted for like 7 bucks, a beautiful red designed table cloth for our new (goodwill) table, and since the vase I wanted was sold out we got the rest of the money on a little gift card, so I'm going to go back Saturday and see what's on sale, since I couldn't go when Michael did.

The other day when we went shopping Kohl's, they were also having a big christmas sale and I got this bowl filling stuff that I put in a cake serving thing as a table/coffee table centerpiece. 
Please excuse all of my explanations, they are very sloppy, lol I've been at a loss for the right wording today :p

Anyways with those things we had gotten, there was at least one last thing I wanted to add. There were  these three wick candles from Bath and Body Works, that were buy 2 for $20 (they're normally $20 each) and they had this scent I absolutely love! Called "Twisted Peppermint", it smells like peppermint cupcakes. Perfect for setting a holiday spirit mood in our new place.
And that it did. With the candles, the table cloth, the centerpiece and the platter, our presents out in front of a clean living space (the rest of our box's are behind the couch) and cookies soon to be made, the place finally feels suitible to have christmas.

Because really, having no snow, or tree, or lights or stockings... it's hard to feel the christmas spirit, and its one of my favorite times of the year so im very glad we were able to achieve at least a smidgin.
now hopefully we can make cookies, and get stuff to have a nice christmas dinner too :)

all the glory goes to God though, in no way shape or form would we have been able to pull this off without his blessings and providings! To be able to get a free couch and $30 dining table the week before christmas, and get a little money from my grandparents to help out with some things we need, is all such a major blessing!
Thank you Lord!

If I dont get another blog post in before Christmas, 
I hope you all have a blessed and Merry Christmas Everyone! 

Wine Ice Cream

Well I think it's safe to say that that was the worst apocalypse EVER! lol

So now its time to talk about some other things...like....

Wine Ice Cream!
I saw a picture of ice cream up on Facebook, the other week, claiming it was wine ice cream, and at first i was like, idk... I've never heard of it before, plus as far as I've been told you can't freeze alcohol, so it sounded fake. But just to be sure I checked the internet and sure enough, THERE IS WINE ICE CREAM! Totally blew my mind! I was so excited at first, until I realized that its only sold in like 5 states, and there all in the northeast other than texas. BUT, good news, apparently (for a ton of money that I am willing to spend someday soonish) you can get it shipped. You have to buy 4-6 of them at a time, but they will then fly it to you overnight packed with dry ice.
now I know spending $8 bucks on each ice cream, then spending like $65 on shipping is a bit much, but I think it will be worth it to at least try, I mean when I was on their site looking everything over, it sounded like this wine ice cream is a sensation and everyone loves it like crazy. So I think I would be willing to spend some money on it at least once, but of course not right now, we can't really afford it, and plus it's the winter, might as well wait till the summer.... oh and wait 'til we get a fridge with a freezer :( (still hasn't happened yet)

Anyways I wanted to throw that out there, incase anyone else doesn't know about this and wants to also get some (perfect girls night) ice cream shipped to them :)
this is the companies webpage with all the info about the icecream, and where an how you can buy it :
http://www.mercersdairy.com/Wine_Ice_Cream_home_page.php
Oh and they inform you on all the media it has gotten, I would say its impressive, but hey... I haven't heard of it 'til now, and I'm not exactly sitting under a rock if you know what I mean.


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Playing House

WE HAVE OUR OWN PLACE!
Yay its finally happened, my husband and I are living on our own. In a perfect apartment, that's in a great area! We so close to a lot of things now, one of which being my husband's place of work, its only about 9 miles away :) so that's great! and were only a mile away from a huge 2-story mall, surrounded by everything we could need, including some of our favorite restaurants.
But even the apartment complex is super nice, especially for what were paying, I mean compared to MI prices, it's like we should be living in a house for this rent, but Cali prices, were doing great! 
Were in a gated apartment complex, that has a pool, Jacuzzi, pond, with tree's and greenery everywhere! 
All for under $1000/month (like I said, here in Cali for a one bedroom apartment, usually expect over $1000 a month in rent) idk how everyone survives, but hey, God is definitely providing for us! Woot!

Now it did suck at first because we don't own a fridge and it didn't come with a fridge, we are still actually working that out. Since we still don't have one, right now were ok though because my step father lent us his old mini fridge.
The other thing that kinda sucked, is that we left the couch, my lazy boy, and the bed frame (for reasons i think i talked about in either the last post or the post before that... I think)  and we didn't have a dinning room set, set before last night we have nothing to sit on except the bed. The only furniture we own and brought was the two book cases and our dressers.
Then a few days ago I told Michael we should go check out Goodwill and see if they have anything we could use, and so we looked it up and there was one 4-5 blocks down the road, so we decide to go check it out and for some reason all there furniture was weirdly over priced, all except for this one dining table. so we looked it over, and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it... in fact it was a really nice table, some nicks in it here and there, but nothing too bad... and it was only 30 bucks.
we had to leave it, because with our mini cooper we really had no way of transporting it...so we left, and all i could keep thinking over the next couple days was how amazing and cheap that table was... like it was meant for us.
So then the other day Michael comes home and says, hey my boss is getting rid of a couch and wants to know if we want it and BAM! we got a nice couch handed to us for free, Michael's bosses son John had a truck. So for Michael helped John move a couple things, and John ended up helping bring the couch over, AND was completely fine with grabbing the table while they were at it.
So last night we ended up getting a nice couch (I still want to replace it someday, but for now it's perfect) and a dining room table! All for 30 bucks! WOOT major blessings right there!

On ANOTHER high note, my aunt has some stuff for our apartment that we get to go through next monday at her christmas party, and that's always fun :) so were definitely looking forward to that!

One thing that kinda sucks, is since we can't afford much right now because the apartment and utilities kinda sucked us dry is we aren't able to get a christmas tree this year :\ but thankfully my grandparents sent us a little money so we were able to get each other some gifts for christmas :)
Thanks Grandpa and Grandpa!

But its been really nice playing house so far. Cooking, cleaning, having the place to ourselves, finally being able to do Explicit stuff freely ;) *giggle* No more walking up and down stairs to go to the bathroom or grab something to eat, which was really starting to be a problem with my knee. It's also nice being able to finally use our own dishware, and have only our own food around, i finally feel able to cook. Sure i'm still not super fond of it, but the kitchen is our domain now and its nice.


For now we're doing good, health-wise though its not so great, my doctor is finally taking action on my diabetes and I've had a huge list of problems since last I saw her so im seeing her every week to get everything taken care of and so she can monitor the new insulin I'm taking. 
I have an appointment with her tomorrow to hopefully finally address my x-rays.
Which needs to be done because my knee and neck have been in so much pain, also I need to get the diagnosis and paperwork to my lawyers because next month is my disability hearing.
So even though I'm hoping all goes well, I'm also hoping I get a diagnosis to that we have some answers before next month, and of course so I can get treatment.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

New Beginnings

So everything's worked out, and we're officially moving out tomorrow.
It's been a long time coming for sure!
It's been pretty nerve wrecking this past week, especially since I've been working with my doctor on a lot of things. So I've been dealing with health stress on top of it.
But I think were doing good, tomorrow morning I have an appointment to get a birth control implant in my arm which hopefully won't screw me over like the Depo did, and my hormones will get back on track, but I'm a little nervous for that because I actually don't know how they're going to get it in my arm or if its going to hurt :\
Other then that, were going to be loading stuff up on the truck and in the mini cooper, and moving stuff all day. Sadly the apartment doesn't come with a fridge so were going to have to go fridge shopping as soon as we can.
The apartment complex has wifi for everyone, but one of the managers told us that it may not reach our apartment, so that is one reason I wanted to update everyone now, incase we don't have internet in our apartment, I'll have to find a good spot outside to do some stuff or head to Starbucks or something.
we will see I'm not going to worry about it much right now.

But hey, this is major exciting stuff. First time my husband and I will finally have our own place, finally living within a mile of a ton of place to shop, get food, have fun, etc.
 it's kinda crazy to think that other than the two months I stayed with my dad before I came out here this is going to be the longest I've ever been away from my mother, I see her everyday...and now I'm going to be living an hour away, I mean I'm glad its happening, its about time, but my mother has been the biggest support throughout my life other than my husband. 
it's just going to be a weird and pretty big change is all.

But I think were ready, like I said I'm definitely excited to be close to a mall, some of our favorite restaurants, and a Starbucks, woot woot! Sad that we won't be near snow for christmas, but at least we can go visit snow when I visit my mom. Oh, another perk is we're an hour closer to the beach so hopefully we will finally make it down there :)

Anyways its late, I gotta get to bed. Long day tomorrow. Pray all goes well, that we have a smooth move and nothing is lost.
and I'll be back on when I can.

P.S. I wanted to add this photo somehow and I forgot to last week so here it is. This is the day we found the apartment :)

Monday, December 3, 2012

This May be the Start of Something New

DECEMBER!!!
One of the worst months for change, especially when it involves finances. But if this all works out for the best, then I guess it will be a great christmas present for both me and my husband.

So it looks like me and my husband will be spending christmas in our own place :)
We may not be able to afford anything else but I guess that's ok. It's been a long road to this point and it's been long awaited, and the rest of our extra money is going towards our trip in June so other than the presents I've already gotten my husband christmas looks to be covered.
BUT it's not set in stone yet, were putting down the money today to save the apartment, but Michael still needs to work over 40 hours this week so we can get the apartment. It's a little scary because we're only able to save the apartment for a week, we can afford it until the next paycheck, and that doesn't come through till the 12th (that's why he needs to work so many hours this week) and on top of that the 12th is our move-in date, so we won't find out if we will have enough until a day or two before we plan to move-in :\ 
Sounds tight, I know, we're praying over everything and hoping for the best, but it should only be this tight this month because almost all our other monthly bills and stuff come through within the first 2 weeks of the month, so since this is crammed in there, and there's an extra 300 for a down payment so it's taking a little more outta us since it's the first month and all.

but like I said, we are working it all out :)