New Year's Eve

This year Shane & I unfortunately spent New Year's Eve apart :( He was sent to Denver, CO for work earlier in the day which also meant that he wasn't going to be able to go home to SD with me over the New Year holiday :(

We had been invited over to our neighbor's Melissa & Nick's house for the evening so I ended up going anyway and had a great time. All our game-night friends from the 'hood were there and it was a super fun evening. We enjoyed eating, each other's company, playing Rock Band & of course posing for many pictures! Thanks Melissa & Nick for such a fun evening!

*This is our gangster sign for the Woodland Ridge subdivision :)

I ended up leaving around 11:30 pm so I could get home & finish packing for my early departure to South Dakota the next morning. Shane called me at 11:59 pm and we got to bring in the New Year together - on the phone :)

"The One With...the Pedicure"

Today I had an appointment to get my hair cut, brows waxed & a pedicure. I guess you can say I had a mini-spa evening after work :)

I get to the nail salon & settle into the massage chair with a good magazine. Not 5 minutes into it, I see an elderly couple (probably in their 80's) walk in & the wife asks if her husband could get a pedi. I thought it was the cutest thing ever. The wife leaves & the man struggles to crawl up into the huge massage chairs. He finally gets settled in two chairs over from me & I am thinking how cute is this 80+ year old man coming in here to get a pedi done! Suddenly my cute & sweet thoughts disappear as I am instantly horrified (and somewhat nauseated) as I look over at this old man's feet. Now any of you who know me, know I can't stand upkept feet. It is a huge pet peeve of mine. I have warned Shane that when I am old & in a nursing home & can no longer take care of myself, someone better be taking care of my feet!

At work, we check pulses in patients feet before & after each procedure so you can about imagine the "hooves" & toe fungus I see on a daily basis. We at the cath lab refer to "hooves" as toe nails that are so long that they start to curl over the toe. These bad boys are like cutting through concrete when you go to trim them. This by far has got to be the worst case of feet I have ever seen. Now I'm not exaggerating when I say this man had "hooves" for toe nails. No wonder his wife sent him in for a pedi! Those digits were in serious need of some attention & I wasn't sure if the nail salon attendant was even going to be able to help him with those digits! I tried not to look down at his feet during his pedi but I was somewhat intrigued & curious as to how this lady was going to attempt this frightful sight. Amazingly enough, she went to town on those toes with a special cutter & lots of TLC & after it was all said & done, his toes & feet looked normal again. As I looked over at him, he was smiling & you could tell he was very much enjoying his massage chair & the attention to his digits. He was once again the cutest lil' old man I ever did see!

After the lady finished with him, she helped him put his socks & shoes back on, assisted him down from the chair, & helped him walk over to the row of chairs to sit & wait for his wife...still with a smile on his face :)

French pedicure: $32

Tip for nail attendant: $5

Seeing the joy & content on the old man's face after his pedi: priceless

The One Where..."I'm Spoiled"

Looks like Santa thought I was "good girl" this year. Look at one of the gifts that was left for me under the tree:

It is a Garmin Nuvi 205W GPS system and I love it! I don't know how I managed this long without one. It seems stupid, but I love to hear the voice talk to me and direct me where to go. It's like having a friend in the car riding along with you - and I shall name her "Susie" :)

Seems that Heather also thought she was exceptionally "good" this year so she bought herself a little something as well:

A pair of Ugg Australia boots and I am in love with these things! It is definitely a spendy purchase but worth every penny. I didn't really know what all the hype was about these boots until I did a little research on them and then I made the mistake of trying them on! These boots are made out of super soft sheepskin suede on the outside and wool shearling on the inside. The shearling acts as a foot lining, eliminating the need for socks. That's right - you can wear these barefoot in the middle of winter (guaranteed up to -30 degrees) and your feet will stay warm & cozy! At this rate, I just might not ever take them off :)

"The One With...Christmas Greetings"

Just wanted to take a moment to wish my family & friends a very Merry Christmas! Hope you all have a blessed day!

The Taylor's ended up having a very quiet holiday this year! We started off our day by sleeping in. Once we awoke, we opened our gifts to each other, then went to I-Hop for brunch and then to the movie Seven Pounds. It was quite a powerful movie with an awesome performance by Will Smith however, the ending is quite the tear-jerker. We then spent the rest of the afternoon spending quality time together hanging out at home. We had a really nice dinner which consisted of pot roast, mashed potatoes & corn & spent the rest of our evening catching up on all the shows we have DVR'd these past 2 weeks.

We will be traveling to South Dakota over the New Year holiday weekend where we will be having the Freier Family Christmas. Definitely looking forward to a few days off of work and spending time with my family!

"The One Where...the bullies get gifts"

So last nights festivities were alot of fun but I sure paid for it today :( Shane warned me the entire evening that I wasn't going to feel well if I kept it up the crazy drinking shenanigans and he was SO right! I was supposed to spend the day baking away in my kitchen making up all the "goodie bags" for my neighbors and friends but instead, I spent the entire day laying in bed feeling like poo! Ugh - this 36 year old just can't party it up anymore like I used to when I was in college! I don't bounce back as quickly! So, I am taking a 1/2 day at work tomorrow and spending the rest of my day baking away - like I should have been doing today!

This evening we had a fun event with the bulldogs at the Taylor house. I have been part of a bulldog forum online (http://www.bulldogdomain.com) ever since we got Bentley as a puppy and have made several friends online just by communicating to each other about our Bulldogs. Every year, we have a Secret Santa Bully Gift Exchange where a bulldog name is chosen for you & you are to buy a X-mas gift(s) & send it to your chosen name and then we all get-together in a chat room on the designated date and open our gifts from each other. This year two bulldogs named Hemi & Tritan had Bentley & Millie's names and they were SO spoiled by them! Here are some pics from the gift-opening ceremony:

"Is it time to open the presents?""Almost got this one open..."

Look at all the presents they got...
"I think I like this one the best!"
"Yum...I LOVE me some Nylabones"

"The One With...The Progressive Dinner"

Saturday night we had the 2nd Annual Progressive Dinner with our neighbors here in the cul-de-sac! For those of you who don't know what a "progressive dinner" event is, it's where you “progress” through a meal, from course to course, going from house to house, changing locations and hosts for each step of the way.

This year we decided on a "Mexican" themed event and festivities started off at 5pm. We started at the first house with cocktails which consisted of margaritas, sangria & Dos Equis beer. Next house we headed to was for appetizers, then over to the Taylor house for soup & salad, next door for the main course, across the cul-de-sac for dessert, then we headed next door for after-dinner drinks. This is where I lost track of the evening :) I was doing pretty good by only having one glass of wine at each house so if you are keeping track, I have had 5 glasses of wine by this point! Oh yeah, I forgot about the 3 chocolate cups filled with Bailey's at the house where we had dessert!?! My bad...

So, everyone is having drinks, we are opening gifts from our White Elephant X-mas exchange and someone starts making slippery nipple shots. For some reason, I thought I was back in college and end up slamming 3 of them! They were quite yummy!

After everyone had their fill of drinks, we headed over to Suzie's house for sopapillas & Mexican Brandy along with a game of "inappropriate charades"! It was a great evening filled with good food & good friends. We are so blessed to have such wonderful neighbors!

Here are a few other pics from the evening:

Pictured are: Susie & Brian

Linda showing off her gift from the exchange :)

No idea whose hat this belongs to! I think I have definitely had a few drinks by this point!

"The One With...the Sweet Tooth"

For those of you who don't know, my husband has a serious sweet-tooth! I would have to say it is 10x's worse than mine - if you can believe that! Here is a perfect example of what happens whenever there is anything "sweet" in the house. I had bought this bag of Reese's Miniatures yesterday for the cookies that I am going to be making on Sunday and I left a "sick" hubby home alone today. This is what I came home to this evening:


The bag is 1/2 gone! And you all thought I was kidding when I said in the below post that I had to "hide" the sweets in the house! Looks like I will be heading back to the store to buy yet another bag of Reeses Mini's!

"The One With...Another Ticket"

Can I just say I HATE SMALL TOWN COPS! I grew up in a small town where they sucked and now that I live in an even smaller town they still suck! They spend their entire day with nothing better to do than cruising around the town of Spring Hill, KS just waiting for something exciting to happen...someone to mess up so they can pull them over and give them a ridiculously overpriced ticket. Ugghhh!

So picture if you will, it is 5:30 pm and I am pulling into the subdivision. I get to my cul-de-sac and decided to make a quick loop around the neighborhood to admire all the Christmas lights. I'm driving along checking out everyone's decorations and I'm not even 1/2 a block from my house when out of nowhere comes this car up behind me with flashing lights. As soon as I pull over, I knew instantly that I had ran one of the stop signs that are located in the 3 most ridiculous places in our subdivision. I was SO mad...mostly at myself for making a dumb impulse decision to look at the stupid lights in the first place and also for not paying attention. So I'm sitting there with the lights going full blast behind me and as I look to my left and to my right EVERYONE is looking out their windows staring at me and the cop is taking FOREVER to write up my ticket. I swear I sat their for 10 minutes and the nosey neighbors all stared at me the entire time. I wanted to jump out of my car and tell them all to take a damn picture-it'll last longer! Anyway, the cop lady comes back and hands me my DL and ticket and tells me to be safe and have a great holiday. I about told her what she could do with her ticket AND her holiday - especially when I looked at how much it cost! $75 for running a stop sign and $40 for court costs that I'm not even going to be present for - $115 total! Unbelievable...I knew I should have just went straight home! The lights weren't that great anyway :(

"The One With...White Fudge Oreos"

I have a new addiction I want to share with you all. It has become out of control and I do believe an intervention is going to be needed soon! Sadly enough I find myself hiding the boxes (yes I said boxes-plural) from Shane just so I can enjoy them all to myself. As you can see on the box, it says Limited Edition which means that these heavenly little bites of goodness only hit the stores around this time of year and after Christmas, they are gone :( If you haven't experienced these yet then you are seriously missing out on calories well worth eating! Trust me...you will thank me later :)

"The One With...Cozy Bubba"

It was an evening spent with the hubby, the furry-kidz, a few movies and a warm fire. I had went upstairs to fix some popcorn and when I came back down this is what I found: Bubba all curled up under the blanket laying in front of the fire :)

"The One About...Stephanie"

This past October, I received an email from a girlfriend of mine asking me to pray for her friend named Stephanie Vest. In early September, Stephanie was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that attacks the skin called Gamma Delta Lymphoma. She and her husband Eric left for the Mayo Clinic on Sept 5th for her first round of chemo treatments leaving behind their 9 week old daughter named Gracelyn and sons Zachary (7) and Cole (4). After the first round of chemo things went quickly downhill. Stephanie had an adverse reaction to the chemo which put her into systemic organ failure which she battled to recover from for over 11 weeks. Her husband & friends (called the Prayer Warriors) started a blog to keep friends and family updated on her progress which I religiously check everyday. (It is located under my "peeps" section on my blog if you want to check it out).

Stephanie's story soon became local news and their family was featured on KC's Fox4 news.

http://www.myfoxkc.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=7A718199A1A922C7CABB0B92E0E9EAA2?contentId=7965814&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

There were many fundraisers put on around the KC area to help with medical costs. These included community garage sales, "expect miracles" bracelets were made & sold along with pink t-shirts in Stephanie's name, 2008 chandelier holiday ornaments were made & sold and even the First Pink Laundry 5K Run was not only held in KC but in St. Louis as well. It is truly amazing how the community has come together to help this family.

After being hospitalized for over 3 months at the Mayo Clinic, I am saddened to say that on Dec 3rd, Stephanie lost her battle with cancer. Her funeral service is being held today.

I did not know Stephanie or her family personally, however I will never forget her or the impact that she has made on me just by reading about her life these past few months. As I read about her daily struggles she truly became an inspiration and made me realize yet again how very short life can be. Stephanie was only 34 years old. She was a devoted wife, mother, sister & friend. The joys in her life were spent with family, celebrating special occasions with her friends and decorating her home. She loved the color pink. She had a creative knack for color and style. As you can see on the left, she created a hot pink laundry room with a chandelier that she thought celebrated the beauty of completing a load of laundry. It was said that she was a kind and approachable person with a magnetic personality, and was blessed with many friends. She was an organizer and did so by putting together many social activities in her neighborhood, was the founder of her Bunko group and she formed an annual Christmas caroling group for children. Just by reading about her, you could tell Stephanie took great pride in being a wife & mother and taking care of her family.

To me, it looked like Stephanie lived with grace and dignity and had unending strength. It was as if she had the knowledge that her life was not her own but one that had been given to her for a purpose that was far greater than we could ever know. What a phenomenal woman she seemed to be! I am honored to have had the privileged with getting to know her through her blog and will forever be changed. Her experience truly makes you feel thankful and blessed for what you have. It makes you realize that the little things in life that you find annoying or upsetting aren't worth getting worked up about. Her family will continue to be in my prayers and I will never forget her and the impact she has had on so many people. I have such admiration for Stephanie, Eric and their family for the willingness to share their inspirational and heartbreaking journey these past few months with us all. Following her story gave me the chance to see how her kindness, strength, and her love of her family and friends can touch so many lives...especially those like me who didn't even know her!

In honor of her memory, I have decided to join the many others and turn my laundry room into a glamorous hot-pink laundry haven. I will definitely post pics once I am finished with it. It will be a lovely tribute to the wonderful person that Stephanie once was and a reminder to find joy in the simplest of things...even doing laundry in a pink laundry room with a chandelier :)

Stephanie, Eric & their children

Fox 4 news here in KC did a follow up story about Stephanie Monday night. Here is the link: http://www.myfoxkc.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=8029497&version=1&locale=EN-US

"The One Where...I Decorate"

So I started off my day with every intention to decorate for the holidays but I kept getting sidetracked. The decorating festivities didn't begin until 5pm but by golly I got it done and you know what??? I'm happy to report that my Christmas Spirit is BACK :)

I started off my morning by writing my annual Christmas letter and starting my X-mas cards. What better way to get in the mood, right? Later I met my brother & his fiance Meghan for lunch out at the Legends. After we ate and said our goodbyes I made my way over to Gap Outlet and Banana Republic for some shopping where I snagged some awesome deals and a few items for myself :) My holiday shopping is now 90% done. Yippee!

Once home, I see that Shane is seriously involved in his PS3 war game so I thought it would be a great time to start the decorating. I set the iPod to holiday music, put in my earplugs and it was just me and the holiday music in our own little world where I decorated my little heart out! I quickly found out that Millie's obsession with the tree hasn't disappeared with age so she will be a challenge AGAIN this year. She is fascinated by the lights and the ornaments that look like her Cuz ball and loves to wiggle her Fatty McFatterson self under the tree for naps. I'm just glad I'm not the only one that has an obsession with holiday decor ;)