So yes, today is my birthday. I figured that in itself maybe deserves a post around here, no? Okay well I can at least catch you up on what’s been going on in my life the past 4-5 days, as it kind of feels like a blur at this point.
Wednesday Matt and I got out of work early, got ourselves some holiday coffee beverages at Starbucks, and listened to Christmas music on our drive home. After hanging out with the puppers for a bit, we headed out to our favorite Greek restaurant, Spiro’s, and met with Amy, Bruce and Amy’s brother Eric. We then made our way over to Kent Station to see… THE MUPPETS!
Now you guys need to understand how excited I’d been for this movie. After seeing “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and finding out that Jason Segel (who is definitely on my top 5 list, haha) was going to be working on a new Muppets movie, I think I screamed for joy and anxiously have been waiting for this movie since I first heard about it.
Needless to say, the movie did NOT disappoint. It was probably the first movie I’ve seen in a very long time (or ever) that I literally did not stop smiling at. It was that wonderful. It was sweet but hilarious and just brought I think everyone back to a really happy time. I think I liked it best where someone said it was a love letter to the Muppets. I can’t wait to buy it on blu-ray and watch it over and over again. They did a wonderful job with it and it’s a great movie for every age. I can’t recommend it enough. 🙂
After the movie, we headed home and relaxed with our doggies, and got up early the next day to watch the Macy’s day parade on TV. We had a delicious breakfast and watched our favorite floats and balloons, all the way until Santa came along (which has been disappointing since every year I swear I can see Santa’s NON-WHITE hair underneath his hat), and then I worked on trying to re-install Windows or something on my iMac for a video game that will only run on Windows. I love Apple products but trying to work with Windows on a Mac can sometimes be a pain in the ass process.
Thanksgiving was spent at my in-laws house, where we played Bohnanza and Ticket to Ride, ate an amazing Thanksgiving dinner, and I opened lots of fun presents. My sister-in-law bought me a really awesome wax warmer that I’m definitely looking forward to using, and my in-laws got me The Big Ass Book of Crafts 2, a Hungry Girl grocery store book, and the iPhone cover I’ve been wanting since I first spotted it. It’s so beautiful!
If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s from “Tangled” and I just loved how this case was designed. I found it on Society6, which is a great place to find really unique pieces of artwork and iPhone cases. It’s very Disney-esque, but not super over the top cheesy.
Anyway, we headed home to our dogs after Thanksgiving dinner and pies, where we relaxed until I headed out at 11:30 with my friend Amy for Black Friday shopping. I caught a quick 30 minute nap before she picked me up, and thank God I did because it ended up being a much longer night than I first anticipated!
We pulled into Walmart at around 11:45 and it was so busy there wasn’t any parking in the actual Walmart parking lot. We ended up parking in some USPS lot I think, and walked over in the cold to the store. It was pretty much what I expected it to be; a complete and utter madhouse. People were huddling around items that weren’t going on sale until midnight, so it was a pain in the ass to get through any area near the electronics section and/or any area they had doorbuster items sitting out in plastic wrap. Amy was gunning for a $19 printer, but the crowd swarmed those like locusts. I pointed out the $39 printer that was wireless, and she ended up grabbing that instead. I’m thinking that was probably a better deal anyway due to it being wireless. I was tempted to grab one but didn’t.
I ended up with a few t-shirts, some slippers for Matt, the movie Super 8, a $3 coffeemaker (it won’t be bad for this Christmas swap at work) aaaaand the wrong DVD of the movie X-Men: First Class (which reminds me, I still need to return it!). We hopped in line and holy frijole it was long. Fortunately it moved extremely fast and we were out of Walmart in just over an hour. Kohl’s was next on our list, and I figure at this point we’d be in and out of there and I’d ended up getting more than just 3 hours of sleep.
WRONG. We walked into what I’d call a deceptively quiet Kohl’s. I was pretty happy about this, and we made our way upstairs to look for a few things. I didn’t need much at Kohl’s, but ended up getting a cute coffee cup thing for the swap, and a few Christmas decorations. After Amy picked up her stuff, we made our way to the end of the line… which took us 5 minutes to find. It literally wrapped around the store TWICE. We stood for an hour and a half and this is where I learned that standing is ten times worse/pain than walking for an hour and a half. At least walking you’re moving and your legs/feet aren’t getting super stiff. It was pretty miserable, and without Amy I don’t think I’d have survived.
I didn’t get home until around 3:30, and into bed sleeping until 4. I had to be up at 7 for work. Ill-planned? Yup. But it’s a fun tradition that I do with Amy, as half the fun is people-watching. It’s unreal what people will do for a good deal.
3 hours later, I woke up to my alarm going off and I couldn’t move my legs. I was pretty tempted to go into work in my Kermit pajama pants but decided against it. After working for 4 hours, I headed out for home, making stops at Bath and Body Works, Gamestop and Target. I couldn’t help it; I totally got sucked in!
At Bath and Body Works, I managed to get 6 candles, 4 soaps and a VIP bag for $70. This normally would cost $250. Yes, I saved that much. I was a proud lady.
At Gamestop, I was excited to get Sonic Generations for $20 off, and it was a darn good buy. That game is like old school Sonic but taken to even better levels.
At Target, I picked up a bunch of crap we needed for decorating, a Dirt Devil vac for $9 (best $9 I’ve spent; I never have to sweep again and it works like a charm!), and a new coat for Matt. He’s been in need of a nicer new one, and I knew how much he liked this one, so I got it for him. He looks quite dapper in it and it fits him really nicely. 🙂
After all that, I finally made my way home, had a mini-meltdown, ate food and felt a lot better. We then got started on decorating the outside of the house. Holy. Crap. This ended up taking us around 4 hours, because everything that could’ve went wrong, went wrong. We got it all done, and I was so proud of us because our house looks AWESOME. Much better than last year and much more polished. We ditched the net lights since I found them ugly, and also did white icicles instead of multi-colored, so help things not look overly-colorful. This gives you an idea of what it looks like, though I’m hoping I can take some nicer photos like I did last year of the house sometime this week.
Anyway, after hours outside (with a mini-break to eat dinner), we started decorating the trees. Matt had already put up the trees and put the garland on the mantles while I was at work (he basically did a LOT of work on decorating for like 14 hours that day), so we started with our first tree in the family room. I’m really happy we did a white tree this year, as it looks really pretty.
We moved into the great room and worked on the big tree, which took a bit longer since we have the train that runs around the tree midway through, plus many more ornaments. Of course, we put Bumble on top like we do every year, because he’s the best topper EVER. It looks beautiful and I swear if we ever entered an ornament contest, I think we’d win with the best collection. I’m going to toot our horn on that one for sure.
We ended the night finishing up The Polar Express, and conked out early as I was super exhausted.
Saturday we got up at around 8:30-9ish, and went out to breakfast at Wild Wheat. We then ran a bunch of errands and came home to clean the house for my little birthday deal we were having. After cleaning for a bit, I opened presents I got from Matt. He gave me the Pawnee book (yay!), Professor Layton and the Last Specter, Lost Cities (which he later DESTROYED me at! hahaha), and a Revoltech Professor Layton action figure!
He also got me the cutest card ever (on the inside it says “Happy Birthday, sweetheart”):
That night we played some board games, ate cake, and I opened more presents. I got some great board games from Bruce and Amy, along with some funny social network magnets, some beautiful mums, and a balloon!
Sunday was our lazy day, and boy did I need it. Problem is, I was so exhausted from the past few days that I still could’ve used just one more day at home, but alas, Monday is here and I’m at work.
I was feeling a bit sad about being at work on my birthday (not sure why, as I’ve worked on my birthday many times), but Matt remedied that quickly by giving me fun gifts to start off the morning, and another awesome card. I came into work to a present on my desk from my manager. She got me the two best stamps ever, a “Dislike” and “Like” stamp. I totally plan on using this whenever I can in my office. I had plenty of fun things to play with at my desk today, so it’s kept me a pretty happy lady!
Matt surprised me at work around 10:30 with a box of cookies from Specialty’s, which makes amaaaazing cookies. He’s gone above and beyond in making this the best birthday ever. Definitely one of those days where I’m just reminded of how lucky I am to be married to such a loving and kind person. He makes me so happy and I am so glad we’re fortunate to have found one another. 🙂
Okay so looking back on this post (which God save your soul if you’re still reading at this point!), I can’t believe I did ALL of these things in this amount of time. Just reading it is making me tired. I’m definitely looking forward to things slowing down a bit, though my Mom is coming to visit this Friday-Tuesday, which is exciting! Hopefully aside from dinner, breakfast and Zoolights, she’ll be up for watching lots of Christmas movies and relaxing at the house. I need a weekend of that!
A Weighty Mix 