Let the Madness Begin!

Today is the beginning of my Thanksgiving madness.  Aside from my spreadsheet and lists, of course.  :-)

I will be shopping for all the groceries (minus the strawberries because I want them fresh) this afternoon.  Not only will I be picking up the Thanksgiving groceries, but everything else we need as well.  This is likely to be the highest grocery bill I have ever seen.  But you know what?  I'm ready.  I say Bring.It.On.  I'm going to be trying a couple of new dessert recipes that I'm really excited about.  Bite sized s'mores from the oven will be the best, I think.  It's a pampered chef recipe that I hope is as easy as it sounds.  I am also going to make some no bake cookies...chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal....mmmmm.

I know that everyone will be food shopping this weekend so I'm hoping to miss some of it by going this afternoon.  Wish me luck on that one.

The other madness this weekend will be Christmas tree hunting and decoration hunting.  Since we will be decorating next weekend we really need to find a tree.  We need a slim, pre-lit tree because our living room is a little narrow.  Something we didn't anticipate when building the house.  There was an option of a more bumped out space but we figured it was big enough.  We didn't think about a tree needing to take up residence for a month.  Anyway, I digress.  We want a tree with multi colored lights and lots of them.  Not so easy to find.  We found one that we liked but it was only clear lights.  That might end up being the one we get but hopefully not.  I saw one at Michael's last weekend but BJ wasn't with me to give me his thoughts so we are going back together.  It was on sale and I'm hoping it is again.  We still need some decorations for the house and the outside but are having a hard time deciding what we want to do.  I think this year and probably next year will be a learning experience for us in decorating and figuring out our tastes, so to speak.  We have also decided that we need to seal the grout in our kitchen.  So on top of my usual Saturday morning cleaning routine, we will be making the house smell terrible with sealer before we head out for the day.  Fun, no?

Sunday will be a day of football and that's a good thing because that means we probably won't go anywhere.  I'm sure after all the running around Saturday we will be happy to sit our butts on the couch and chill.

Monday will be a crazy day at work because I will be trying to finish up anything that is pending since I will only be in a 1/2 day Tuesday and then gone the rest of the week.  Crazy things always happen when I'm prepping to be out, why is that?  The crazy work stuff will carry into Tuesday, I'm sure and then the real fun begins!

The Little Guy's mother is dropping him off to me Wednesday morning.  We will be getting his hair trimmed so he looks nice for all the pictures I will be taking and then we are cleaning (mostly me) prepping and baking to get ready for Thursday.  Here is the list of things I will be making on Wednesday:

• Prepping the turkey which includes stuffing it (and that means making stuffing).  I will do this late Wednesday
• Deviled eggs - sure to make the fridge smell great overnight!
• The crust for my apple pie - I'm going to wrap it up and take it out Thursday morning when I actually make the pie.
• Chocolate trifle - this includes a chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, (light) cool whip and heath bar pieces...to die for.
• ranch dip - packet of seasoning and sour cream
• onion dip - lipton onion soup mix and sour cream
• fruit dip - blueberry yogurt and (light) cool whip - yummy with just about any kind of berry
• oatmeal cookies - from above
• mini s'mores - also from above

Pretty ambitious, huh?  Most of it is pretty simple but can be very time consuming.  The Little Guy will love helping with the trifle, oatmeal cookies and the mini s'mores.  And if he'd rather stay on the easy side of things, I'll just have him mix the dips for me.

And to top this off, it's time for our year in review on our house.  Our kitchen sink is leaking sporadically so we are having the plumber come out...on WEDNESDAY of all days.  Hopefully most of the stuff will be done by the time he gets there and hopefully he's not there very long.  I needs my sink whilst I be's cookin'.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.  I'm hoping to be able to update Monday about our shopping excursions this weekend.   I have a few blogs I'm reading that I hope get some very happy news soon!

I'm So Bad....

Not only have I not updated in over a week, but I have hardly had the time to read my fellow bloggers tales. I have just over 60 entries to catch up on. CRAZY! I'm going to give you a quick run down of happenings in my life over the last week:

Thanksgiving - ended up being fine. I missed having the Little Guy around as it was his year to be with his mom and her family. I'm not very good at sharing so it was tough on me. But it all ended up ok as we had a lovely dinner and a nice time with BJ's family.

Black Friday - I woke up at 5:15 and thought to myself and said to BJ that I should just go out and get what I needed since I was awake. He kiboshed (sp?) that because he worries about me and all the crazies out there trying to catch a deal. The result? I didn't get what I wanted when I showed up at the store at 8:00. Bummer. I still managed to spend some money just not on what I had planned.

Weekend - BJ and the Little Guy had their first hunting outing together. I would love to post pictures of how cute they looked in their matching camo outfits, but in the interest of trying to remain a bit anonymous, I can't. They didn't see anything but heard a couple of shots around them. BJ had bought a new blind (a sort of tent for anyone unfamiliar) for them to sit in and I wish I had been there to get a few pictures but I had to settle for just seeing them before they left.

New House - The carpet is in but covered with plastic so no pictures. We had a preliminary walk through Tuesday with the contractor. He's great. I'm hoping he's not just saying all the right things while pulling the wool over our eyes but he seems to be on the up and up. They paved our driveway and are installing our mailbox today. Everything should be cleaned and a final coat of paint will finish things off by early next week! I am impressed with how they are sticking to their timeline. We are due to settle at 11:00am on 12/11. BJ will bring the box truck home from work Thursday (I'm taking off to pack and clean) and we will load it Thursday night. We will also load up my SUV and drive them both to settlement and as soon as we have the keys we are heading to the house to unpack. And let me tell you, he better carry me across the threshold when we first walk in after it is OFFICIALLY our house. I'm sure he will and I can't wait! I will post some pictures of our light fixtures and our driveway probably early next week.

TTC - I am 11dpo today. I have no signs of an implanted embryo. Unfortunately, I have been fighting a headache since late yesterday that leads me to believe the period will actually be starting early. She's not due until next Wednesday but I ovulated on day 10 and I can't trust my body to do anything right anymore. My temps have stayed up, which is good. I'm hoping this is just a regular headache and not a progesterone dropping induced situation. I actually started daydreaming about getting a BFP right when we move into our new house. I picture me wrapping up a positive hpt in some pretty Christmas paper and handing it to BJ one evening while we are alone as an early gift. Or asking him to unpack a box that has only the hpt in it...how cool would that be? I am a good dreamer, aren't I? I know it's possible, just not probable. I so wish that could be the case. I get all giddy just thinking about it. Then I get mad at myself for even thinking such gibberish. It's a merry-go-round of emotions I tell you.

I just got a phone call from our receiving area that I had some flowers! This time last year, my parents sent me a beautiful arrangement of Christmas flowers inside a big red ornament as the vase. I figured that they were the culprits again...not so. My wonderful husband sent me a beautiful Christmas arrangement! I just took a few pictures of it but I don't have my USB to download and share them so it will have to wait until I post the house pictures. I can't stop smiling...and looking at them...and smelling them...and smiling...

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow so I'm leaving work a little early (yay!) and I'm not looking forward to it. The last time I was there I told them that they couldn't take any x-rays because I might be pregnant. It was during my IVF cycle and I was actually only in the stimming stage but I didn't want to radiate anything. I hope they don't remember that. I don't want to have to explain anything or start talking about my TTC efforts and all the questions that will come along...let's hope they don't remember and just take my x-rays and all will be fine.

I have a lot of reading to do so I wish that I had the Internet on my cell phone or a shiny new blackberry or something...I will try to get caught up with everyone over the weekend. If it's not too cold, BJ will be hunting Saturday and that will afford me some time to myself to just sit and read until I can't read anymore.