12 on the 12th--December Edition

Michelle saved my bacon and made my grid once again!

{Click to Enlarge}

1. I started out my morning (at 5:28am) listening to the Danny Gokey Station on Pandora Radio. I've been listening to Pandora at work and at home these days and love the almost-commercial free listening and variety of artists I get to select, woohoo.
2. I had time to write a couple thank-you notes while my hair was in curlers.
3. My view during family scripture reading.
4. I keep all my work hours in this little notebook and was using it to total up last week's hours so I could turn in my timecard.
5. The headset look I sport in the office.
6. I had to rush home to bake some cookies for Whitney to take to Activity Days (luckily I had dough already made in the freezer!).
7. I was also scrambling to get a package of stuff Landon sold on ebay ready to ship before I had to go visiting teaching.
8. I made it to the post office to drop off the package (luckily I'd printed postage online before arriving so I didn't have to stand in the long line there), then picked up more free Flat Rate boxes and went visiting teaching from 4-6.
9. This creation of Whitney's was so funny and brilliant to me!
10. Randy and I went to Los Hermanos for dinner to discuss Christmas. I had definitely been feeling unsettled about it and found great relief in making a plan.
11. We stopped by Target to buy bagels and price something and Randy tied my shoe in the middle of one of the aisles, it looked so chivalrous like he was proposing!
12. We stopped by Barnes and Noble to get a book for my work's book exchange. Of course I bought A Girl Named Zippy because anyone would love it.

**Did you document your 12th?

Are you ready for Christmas?

Have you gone visiting teaching?**

Comment Window Tidbit: We've had potlucks 2 days in a row at work so I've been eating far better than I usually do, except that today I accidentally sampled a seafood dip that I mistook for a taco dip (the coloring fooled me) and was totally grossed out.

Morning

This is what I saw when I stepped out of the house to go to work last Friday morning at 7:15. This picture doesn't even do it justice.

I pulled over as I passed the temple because the view was so gorgeous!

Comment Window Tidbit: I only have 2 days of work this week so I've been thinking these days would be calm and easy...they're not.

Miscellaneous Monday

This post is really a review of last Saturday, but since I'm posting on Monday I'm going with the miscellaneous angle.

We had a bunch of stuff on our calendar for Saturday so I knew I needed to get up early to maximize my day and accomplish the things I wanted to do. I was super happy and shocked that I got out of bed at 6:15! I was showered, ready and in the temple parking lot by 7:49am! No one was more shocked than I was. I was finally able to do initiatories for the 5 names I'd had hanging on my fridge for 3 weeks! I was there so early (by my standards, though the parking lot was full when I got there)  that the sun hadn't even peeked out over the mountains yet.

But it was shining and beautiful when I came out just over an hour later.

I totally cracked up when I saw what Whitney had done with the little travel bag I'd given her earlier in the week...only Whitney!

It's a good thing I was home by 9:00 because I ended up needing the next 3 freakin hours to make a schload of cookies for Lori's birthday party (I made ice cream sandwiches) and our ward's Linger Longer. I tried the recipe Holly had linked to on her blog (there's vanilla pudding in the recipe) and then managed to put my poor math skills (despite my months of 7th grade math refreshing last year) to use to double the recipe in my head. I should know by now that I need to add my fractions on paper, not in my head because I ended up thinking I miscalculated the amount of butter I needed so then I increased everything else to compensate for it and then realized I hadn't originally miscalculated the butter but in trying to correct my nonmistake I made a new mistake (aargh!). I feared the worst but somehow the cookies turned out fine. It must have been Divine intervention because I really needed these to turn out that day.

By 1:00 we were at Whitney's soccer game watching her team annihilate the other team (which is sad because her team really isn't that good).

She was happy because she scored 2 goals!

Landon had a game on the next field over at 2:00 (mighty convenient) and ended up making us scream our guts out because it was so intense. His team played the best they've ever played but they were missing 4 guys and last 2-1.

We spent the evening at Adam and Amy's house celebrating Lori's 35th birthday (though she still looks like she's 22). Lori really wanted a cake from Cold Stone so she ended up buying one for herself...the rest of us had the ice cream sandwiches I made. I'm still itching for a white Costco cake with cream filling since that's what I really wanted for my birthday...dang it. I may just have to buy myself one some day and have them write "Happy Birthday Beautiful" on it like my hilarious blogging friend Ashley did.

It was a super busy day but we managed to get everything done that we needed to do. I have caught the vision of early to bed, early to rise but I must say it's seriously messing with my love of TV.

**What did you do on Saturday?

What do you think of Whitney's pet frog?

Do you have recipe math issues?

Have you ever bought yourself a cake?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I'm so glad so many of you commented on my Saturday post to let me know that you're out there, but it's baffling to me that you don't comment more often. What's up with that?

Issues

 

My new wake-up time is messing with my head for several reasons.

1. It's freakin early.
2. It's dark outside.
3. Because it's early and dark outside I tend to think I have a lot of time to get ready.
4. I have 1.5 hours to get ready, so I tend to mozy, I really don't like to rush.
5. The time goes ridiculously fast so I start to panic when I'm down to 45 minutes left to get ready.
6. It takes me awhile to cool down and when everyone is asleep I can't go to my usual cool down place (my bed).
7. Our goal is to be ready to read scriptures together at 7:00 so I can leave at 7:15...we've only been successful once so far, but we're figuring it out.
8. Is it wrong that I feel like I should get paid for these hours?
9. I have go to bed around 9:30 so I can read myself to sleep, otherwise it ends up being past 11:00 and then I don't do so well.
10. I think I'm a high maintenance sleeper.

**Thoughts??**

Comment Window Tidbit: Whitney is joining elementary orchestra which means I have to pick her up from school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then run home for 15 minutes and then go back to the junior high!! Aargh!

Thoughts Upon Waking Early

My bladder or maybe the birds woke me up at 5:45am on this fine Saturday morning, but upon returning to bed (giddily so) I was surprised to find that my mind was awake (and singing an Indigo Girls song) and that I sneezed repeatedly (either I'm getting Whitney's cold or I developed an allergy over night).

I always say that I wish I was an early riser, but I didn't mean today! Ha. After sneezing 4 more times I decided to get up, so here I am semi-voluntarily awake at 6:00am on a Saturday...so this is what dawn looks like, who knew?

What to do, what to do? I've got cookies to bake for church tomorrow (Father's Day treat), Sharing Time to work on (again!), books to read, shows to watch, a walk to take, Betsy to talk to at 8:00, a potato dish to prepare and on and on.

Updated at 9:20am to add: I'm a fraud. I'm not an early riser, I was a victim of sleep interuptus not finishedus. I blogged for awhile, drank my instant breakfast, then laid down on the couch to read until Betsy called. She didn't call! I just woke up and it's 9:20am!

**Would you have gotten up?
What would you do with this time?
Are you an early riser?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I think 5 parenthetical asides in one small, 3 paragraph post may be a record for me, but I love them so (I really do).