H54F – And A Partridge In A Pear Tree

This post is going to be a compilation of 2 weeks. This week was kind of a wash with recovering from the holidays and getting the house somewhat back in order. Cleaned up our back yard of all the dog poop this morning, Trubba — let’s just call him Jude from here on out eh? — has been sick (see below) and yeah….fun times. The excitement of my week may be a bit TMI for many, so we’ll keep it PG. 😉

Made cilantro – lime shrimp this week. This stuff is AMAZING!!

Christmas Day started with a fever and puking. It wasn’t pretty, but I had plenty of snuggles as Jude took one nap (pictured here — he’s only half awake) in the morning and then another that night.

We had Christmas with my family the Sunday before Christmas and Jude had a lot of fun running up and down the stairs at my cousin’s home — much to my horror.

Only the second live tree we’ve had in our home. I feel like such a “newb” when it comes to the care of these things, but I guess it’s pretty basic.

You saw this Wednesday. This was me transferring all the birthday and anniversary dates over from our old calendar to our new one! Happy New Year everyone. 🙂

Recipe for the shrimp is here. See you all next week!

2013 In Review

I’m always curious to see how other blogs perform and I’m quite proud of how far this blog has come this year. I’m looking forward to seeing how far it will come this year as I don’t plan on taking any breaks since I’ll be mostly commitment free!! A year of freedom! Yay me!

So, without further delay:

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 20 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

I SURVIVED!!!

Holy schmeeshus! I survived Financial Accounting by the skin of my teeth, but I passed the class with a B. I wrapped up an AS in Business and an AS-T in Administration of Justice and boy am I tired. This semester was trying and borderline awful at some points, but I did it. I even found myself stepping out of my “leave me alone” shell which is saying a whole lot for those who know how shy I am.

Meanwhile, I’ve been selling Pink Zebra on the side and I can’t wait to make that a larger focus over this next year. So many exciting things have been happening with it, but this introvert is still having issues booking parties. I’ve been having an awesome time with vending events though and I’ve been loving that!

Trubba has been growing like a weed. Firmly in 3T’s and we’ve given up the beloved “pacie.” (First morning’s reaction on the left.) He’s been sprouting out whole sentences (Mommy, where’s my shovel?) like crazy. He’s definitely becoming articulate and blossoming into a child. He blows me away everyday, but still manages to sneak the toddler in on occasion. Terrible twos are definitely in da’ house!!

More on all this later. Just wanted to let you all know that we’re alive, we’ve survived and now onto…well, who knows? For the first time in a few years I don’t have a concrete goal. Seems kinda weird!

2012 in review

These annual reports always seem to put things into focus. Onto bigger and bigger in 2013!

Here’s an excerpt:

The London Olympic Stadium is 53 meters high. This blog had about 610 visitors in 2012. If every visitor were a meter, this blog would be 12 times taller than the Olympic Stadium – not too shabby.

Click here to see the complete report.

Getting Back On Track

I’m not going to lie – this holiday season has put a damper on our finances. Even before we were living on one income, I would generally have a large percentage (if not all) of our Christmas shopping done by early December. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened the past two years due to either spending money preparing for Nibbler, spending money on those “cute clothes” or those “holy crap, my tires have no tread!” moments. Money has either been tight, or we’ve been broke, but even still we’ve been doing quite a bit better than I anticipated by skirting right above being in the red. So, starting this week, I’m putting our financial needs first again and we’re paying off those damn credit cards – AGAIN!

Getting back on track not only applies to our budget, but also to this blog. I actually feel like I have less time to blog being a stay at home mom than I did before – and none of this has anything to do with having a lunch hour because even then I was either pumping to keep lil’ man in breast milk while I was gone or I was catching up with Facebook. Now, Facebook has become both a blessing and a curse since it allows me some social time that doesn’t involve a twenty word vocabulary from a 14 month old, but then I find myself wasting so much time on it, it’s ridiculous. This becomes worse since I moderate a fan page for my family’s pumpkin patch and also have become an admin for a new group just yesterday for the community news that goes unreported. I love being involved, I just don’t love all the time it takes.

So, going into 2013:
♣ One day a week I’m unplugging from FB. There are far too many other things I can be accomplishing than seeing what my “friends” are doing. (This will probably be the hardest of all my goals, sadly.)
♣ Blogging more. I’m going to try and get back on track with posting every other day. I’m also thinking about bringing my book reviews back here which is going to be a HUGE chore to move them all back, but it will be best and I’m tired of updating TWO different blogs. I thought I’d like it more, but I was so, so, so wrong. I should also have more time to read since I’ll have a day free of FB.
♣ Taking a daily walk – Well, this first requires finding a jogging stroller we can afford. Suggestions? Like I said, our budget is pretty strapped, so it would have to be around the $100 mark.