christmas preparations

i love christmas.  always have.  i love decorating the house and i love baking cookies.  it's the one time of year when i feel like i can fly my martha stewart flag high and show my face in the craft store without feeling like i'm forty years too young to be thrilled about yarn.

i was sick last week.  so sick, in fact, that my christmas preparations were in real danger of never even happening.  there is so little time between thanksgiving and christmas.  those few weeks are critical if you want to pull off the perfect christmas.  and for some reason, this year i was determined that it would be close to, if not perfect.  probably a continuation of the whole buying the house and wanting it to be absolutely perfect the moment i moved in thing.

anyway, last saturday when i finally started feeling at least a little bit better, i felt so behind on everything that it was overwhelming and i almost just said screw it, i'll wait 'til next year to have a perfect christmas.  i even thought that i would forgo the cookie baking thing (if you know me, you would know that i live for christmas cookie baking.  this was a big deal).  i have no idea what it was that lit the spark in me, but one minute i was relaxing on the nap couch and the next minute i was yanking the christmas tree box out of the storage closet.  i even had andy help me bring it upstairs.

andy is somewhat of a reluctant christmas celebrator.  it's not that he doesn't like christmas, it's that he doesn't like the setting up of christmas trees and the sending of christmas cards and all the work that goes into christmas.  he basically complained the entire time we were setting up the tree...."why are we even bothering to do this when we're leaving [for my parents] in ten days?"..."why are you bothering to set up a tree when we have a kitten who messes with everything?"  i tried telling myself that it was just him being a boy and that all the christmas preparation is part of what makes it special, dammit.



after we set up our christmas tree with colored lights, i went to town on the mantel.  i was inspired by this mantel i saw at crate & barrel:

now that i've linked it i'm embarrassed to show a picture of my mantel because mine looks pretty pathetic compared to this.  but what the heck.  you only live once.





note: i did not leave the stockings up for long because god forbid i have anything dangling in the way of curious kittens in my house.

once i had finished my tree and my mantel, i added a wreath to our front door and voila! it was christmas.

later that evening, i was sitting downstairs on the nap couch with andy watching real housewives of BH and working on another craft project when we heard a loud crash and the scamper of little feet.  we ran up the stairs and i stuck my head around the corner, then immediately tried to draw back so that andy wouldn't be able to see into the living room.  despite my efforts at pushing him down the stairs, andy came up beside me and said "well, that was worth it".  someone had knocked over the tree onto the hardwood floors, which shattered the ornaments i had put on that side and also broke the stand of the tree.  so that was it for the short life of our 2010 christmas tree.  it was fun while it lasted.



decorating the house got me in the mood for baking cookies.  a post dedicated to cookie baking is coming soon.

december house update

we got a couple of big items in the past few weeks that have made our house look pretty much complete.

at the top of the list is our new couch.  don't be fooled by my seemingly nonchalant attitude here -- the couch was many years in the making, and it did not come easy.  no siree.  you see, this is the couch for the man cave, andy's sanctuary where he can hide from me and all my annoying little habits.  we went to countless furniture stores and sat on easily over 200 couches, and finally the big beast came home on december 3rd.

in order to arrange to have the new couch delivered, we had to get the old couch out of the basement.  this turned out to be fun and not at all annoying.  we simply brought the couch up the basement stairs, removed the feet of the couch, angled it every imaginable way while adding numerous scuff marks to the already worn basement walls, then had to go back down the stairs so we could take it out the basement (sliding door).  but that's not where it ended.  it was pitch black outside and it had been raining for days.  luckily no one slipped, but good lord it ended up being such a pain.  thankfully, the thing fit through the front door or i would've flipped my lid.

the new couch was delivered and is definitely worth the wait.  the minute the guys were done setting it up i had to take a nap on it.  10 out of 10, baby.

since the old couch was moved up to the living room, i got to do whatever i wanted with it.  i covered it with the slipcover we bought a few weeks ago so that it would coordinate with my new armchair, and i tossed a few ikea pillows on 'er for a little pizzaz.  i'm quite happy with the way it turned out.

now i think we are pretty much set for house stuff.  we still need some bedroom furniture for the two empty bedrooms upstairs, but it can wait.

thanksgiving re-cap

andy and i went down to southern virginia for thanksgiving.  the drive down was beautiful (although, it was a bit busy since we were one of the millions of cars on the road the wednesday before thanksgiving).  the crowded streets and massive buildings slowly gave way to farms and rolling hills, and soon we were approaching a bright orange and pink sunset that served as a beacon leading the way to a slower pace of life (and hardee's).

the view from the car

every trip to andy's home town seems to be marked not in hours or events, but in restaurants.  prior to our arrival, we always talk about the places we might go for dinner, lunch, breakfast, etc.  i think that must be the thing andy misses most about his home town -- the comforting smell of a hardees biscuit.

with that said, i will now do a run-down of the four-week trip.

wednesday night -- arrived in wytheville, met andy's family at cj's, a fine establishment specializing in pizza, calzones, and subs.  we ate with andy's mom, sister and brother-in-law.

thursday morning -- andy and i drove to wal-mart to get a sports bra for me and i changed in the back seat of his durango so we could get a little bit of exercise.  we jogged for about half an hour, then met his mom at hardee's, where andy proceeded to eat a biscuit, eggs, cheese, and who-knows-what in a bowl drowned in gravy.  i had some oj.

thursday afternoon -- i helped andy's mom prepare the corn casserole (corn cassy for those of you who know me well), green bean casserole, broccoli casserole and various other side dishes.  kyle drove down from his parents and andy's granny came over and had thanksgiving with all of us.

thursday evening -- leftovers and football.  yum.  for some reason andy went through his old clothes and found a pair of pheonix suns shorts (that go with the coordinating jersey) that he wore in middle school.  let's just say he may or may not have put them on and worn them all night to make us all feel awkward and uncomfortable.  we played grey's anatomy trivia, trivial pursuit and scrabble slam.

friday morning (black friday) -- andy's mom got up early to go to walmart to get a tv.  i slept in until 9 and then vegged on the couch with andy for another hour or so.

friday afternoon -- we met andy's sister and brother-in-law at red robin for burgers, then went to every virignia tech bookstore in blacksburg. andy's looking for some inspiration for his basement. we also went to target and pier 1, where i picked up a few christmas decorative items.

friday evening -- leftovers again (i think).

saturday morning -- the entire group went to hardees.  andy reminisced about his friend's dad who used to go to hardees every morning and sit and read the paper while smoking. ah, the good 'ol days.

saturday afternoon -- the big commonweath cup (i think that's what they call it).  virignia tech played university of virginia and creamed 'em.  andy was happy.  we also set up andy's mom's christmas tree and ordered from his favorite chinese place (peking) at half time.

saturday evening -- we left andy's parents' around 5:30 and got stuck in post-game traffic in blacksburg.  i slept for about an hour in the car and we listened to christmas music and taylor swift.  when we got home it was close to midnight, and we both crashed.

as always, it was so good to get out of the city and the hustle and bustle of every day life.