what i did today

I’m feeling crazy tonight.  Second-guessing the whole add a few more blogs thing.  Because I haven’t touched the new one in two days and I *need* to work on that if it’s going to take off.  And because when I got off work today we interviewed Brad Leland “Buddy” of FNL and then we had company over for dinner and my amazing husband bought and made dinner and while he talked to the company, I got the girls to and from church and did homework when they got home while watching American Idol and then watched FNL after getting them off to bed and podcasted it directly after that and found out we have two more FNL interviews next week, one with “Vince” and one with “Billy” (yay!).  It’s 11 and I just now put the dishes away from dinner and started the dishwasher.  Not to mention my Danny blog that is getting seriously neglected by me right now and thank goodness for the help I have there.  And oh my word, just feeling a little overwhelmed tonight.

I’ll be ok.  Carry on.

I think it must be a record I’ve gone 5 days without blogging, at least in recent times.  So what have I been up to?

• Couponing.  I ended up at Harris Teeter I believe 4 or 5 times in 3 days.  I think I ended up with $200 worth of groceries for less than $20.  Lots o fun.
• Running.  Just completed W6D2!  The next run is now going to be the longest run of my life…25 minutes.  For the record, I still do not like running.  I like that I’m completing the running and I’m proud of myself but I do not like the running itself.
• Blogging.  I’ve got two new blogs coming up.  If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know about one of them!  In other exciting and random blog news, Kaitlin and I are interviewing Brad Leland “Buddy” off of Friday Night Lights tomorrow afternoon!
• Working.  I’ve gone to the office the last two days.  I’ve gone to bed before 9:30 the last two nights (8 on Sunday) and spending the day in the office both cut down on Internet time.
• TV. I actually gave up on Bachelor last night mid way through.  I found Jake to be quite boring and the girls to be quite annoying.  There was no one I was rooting for much and then I read spoilers for the season and I’m just out.  As for American Idol tonight, Justin was my favorite.  I also liked the girl with the grandmother, the one of 12 kids and the one with the church background.

Alrighty, it’s going to be another early night…

I haven’t done a post on couponing in quite some time but be rest assured I hit CVS up weekly. And like today, Harris Teeter. It’s super double coupons this week and I can’t tell you the joy I got from the look on the cashier’s face when my total went from $60 to $3.84.

I’m sporting ghetto nails today. Actually it’s an adventure trying to type this on my phone. I bought these at the dollar store for the girls’ Christmas stockings and thought they had stickers. They didn’t. I glued Emmas on today. I started to put Lexi’s on and she decided she didn’t like them. In a genius moment I thought I’d put them on just to mess around. Well here we are 8 hrs later and I still have them. It feels like my entire nailbed might rip out of my thumb when I try to remove them so they all stay. In fact, I glued back on two that had fallen off just so I didn’t look any more ghetto than I do. It was all for naught though since I lost a pinky nail whilst couponing.

Dollar store ghetto nails and free food. Yep, that was my day.

Posted via email from Amy’s posterous

Let’s make a list!

• We’ve caught Dave Ramsey on TV a few times.  I haven’t read his book but listening to him for just a few minutes is enough to make you second-guess your spending habits.  After digging into a month or two of ours, well, let’s just say we’re making changes.  As of today, it’s been over a week since we’ve had dinner out.  It feels really different but in a good way.  Speaking of, does anyone successfully use any budgeting software they can recommend?
• Emma has become miss sassypants lately.  I think she’s getting it from girls at school but we’ve really had to pay more attention to it lately.  Not fun.
• Lexi has suddenly adamant about what she is wearing.  She’s 5!  I used to pick her outfit out and got minimal kickback. But Sunday she had a meltdown because I put a white shirt under her sleeveless dress.  On Monday she was trying to tell me something about church and she said, “You know the day I had to wear that white shirt with my bow dress?” I’m sure I’ll hear about that day for many years to come.  Trauma, I tell you!
• I’ve been enjoying the winter hiatus on TV so much.  In its absence, I decided to go back through Lost starting at Season 1 and Scott has stuck around for several episodes now.  In fact, once we were done with Season 1, he asked for Season 2.  The show may travel too much on the scifi side for him, especially in Season 5 but it is nice to have another show that we can watch together.
• I’m so tempted to create a fan site for CW’s new show Life Unexpected.  It’s gotten good reviews.  I’m just not sure whether I have time for it and also there is already an established site for it out there.
• Emma and Lexi start gymnastics for the first time Thursday.  We’ll see how this goes. I think it will either be a huge hit or a complete disaster.
• This Saturday I’m running for 20 minutes in a row for #C25K W5D3. I’m trying not to freak out.  I think it’s the longest I’ve ever run in my life.  LIFE.
• I’ve all but given up on my book.  I’m just eh about it right now.  I got the story on paper and that was my goal.

I guess that’s it for updates around here.  Running, cooking, cleaning, laundry, taxi-ing, blogging here, here and here should fill in all the gaps!

This weekend we made our annual Christmas trek North to visit family.  In short, we had a fun, snowy weekend!  If you want all the details, read on:

This weekend was not much of anything we expected.  I saw the snowflakes on the weather report for Saturday but had absolutely no idea how much was expected.  Those little snowflakes changed our entire weekend.

The plan was to stay at my cousin Kelly’s Thursday night in Lynchburg and then head up to PA to stay with my mom’s best friend Friday night.  Her and her husband are empty nesters of 3 boys and none would be coming home for Christmas quite yet.  Saturday was supposed to be jam-packed with Christmas gatherings…breakfast with my Mom’s dad, lunch with my Dad’s entire family and dinner at my mom’s sister where we would stay the night and then head home Sunday.

Thursday went just as planned.   We made it to Lynchburg before Kelly and her husband got off work so we headed to the mall where I also coordinated a mini tweet-up (meeting of two or more friends on Twitter) with my friend Amanda (@aehamlin).  I felt like we already knew each other and it was a very easy and fun conversation!   Kelly and Brandon met us at the mall and we headed out to a restaurant downtown for dinner.  It was an old train station that used old pews and hymnal racks for their tables and condiment holders.  Great food with a great atmosphere.  After stopping at Brandon’s office we spent the rest of the evening and night at their house.  I have to say it was so, so nice.  Kelly and Brandon were fantastic hosts and I only wish we lived closer.

By Friday morning we were realizing just how bad the snowstorm was going to be so we headed out early and on a mission to get to our favorite restaurant D’Atri’s for the best cheesesteak sub ever.  We spent the afternoon in Cumberland, MD doing last minute Christmas shopping and stocking up on all the snow-appropriate clothing we all were lacking.  Gloves, hats, socks, boots, sweaters…our cart made us look like the visiting Southerners we were.

Friday evening we decided to also stop and see Dad’s mom Nana and Mom’s dad Pap in case we got snowed in.  Present exchanges took place as we were unsure whether we’d see them again.  That evening we made it to DeAnna and Mike’s and went to bed knowing we’d wake up to a white world!

The forecasters were all right and we woke up to at least 5″ of snow.  The kids were ecstatic and I have to admit I was too.  The only issue was all of our family gatherings were all in jeopardy.    By 7:30am our lunch one was canceled.  Mike took us in shifts to my grandfather’s house only a mile or two down the ry.oad for our breakfast.  Thanks to him, we were able to carry on that one as planned, albeit a little later.

My uncle and his family decided to drive out to Mike and DeAnna’s and we all spent the afternoon sledding, throwing snow (we couldn’t make snowballs) and drinking (real) hot chocolate.  I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in the snow in years.

We went back and forth about what to do about Saturday night.  But because the snow was still coming down and our vehicles (and it’s drivers)  just weren’t able to make it up there, we ended up cancelling.  We all were able to exchange presents though and we had to open ours with just the four of us.  Mike was able to get out and get us some pizza at the local restaurant in town.  It definitely wasn’t all the dinner goodies we had planned at my aunt’s but it was better than nothing and honestly, that was some good pizza!

Sunday when we got up Mom and Dad were going back and forth on whether to go home on our planned day.  Scott had found out he had the whole week off and we just weren’t in a hurry to struggle with the roads to get home.  We had heard of massive delays and wrecks on 81 and there was no sense in taking the risk.    We all ended up staying for the rest of the day.  We ended up just spending the day back in the snow, visiting DeAnna’s brother’s deer farm and ended the day with their church’s Christmas program.

While I really, really missed seeing my entire family, I have to say Mike and DeAnna’s was a great place to be snowed in.  They are fantastic people with a fantastic house.  All in all, a great weekend.

Lots of pictures have been posted on my Facebook acct if you’re interested.

Catching up on the random

• Kaitlin and I decided to go after some cast interviews for our F. N. L. podcast (sorry for the vagueness, I don’t want Google picking it up) .  Amazingly, several already have agreed and we might be interviewing “Becky” as soon as tonight!  “JD” is scheduled for January.  All I can think is thank goodness for Kaitlin because interviews scare me to death.  I mean, I’m really excited to talk to these people and could probably carry on a conversation for hours but for the interview you get 15 minutes to ask just the right questions and it’s all recorded.  Ah, the pressure!
• I also was able to speak to D. G. ‘s management the other day.  Basically I was looking for info on his appearances to be able to report on them.  She emailed me and asked me to call her. She was super nice and seemed willing to work with me.  She already has answered some questions through email for me that the fans have had.
• Our Christmas shopping was basically started and completed last weekend.  I think I only need to get one or two more gift cards and a few more presents for the girls and we’re good.  Definitely easy shopping this year.
• I’ve been thinking a lot about my  job recently.  We interviewed 4 people to come on our team in the past week to work on a project.  I’m basically going to be the team lead for it.  A few of these people choked a little in the interview and I felt bad. I felt worse knowing that a year from now I could be in their shoes.  I haven’t interviewed for a “real” job but twice in my life and that was almost 9 years ago.  In fact, I don’t even know what to do about next year.  Honestly it’s unlikely I will get the one full-time spot they might have to offer.  I think at this point I would take it if offered as long as I could continue to work from home.  But if it’s not am I ready and willing to take another full-time job away from home? I really don’t think so.  So what does that mean for me and also our budget?  I don’t know, it’s a lot to think about.  A year is a long time though and who knows what will happen.
• I’ve completed 5 sessions of C25K.  Pretty sure I still hate running.  In fact,  I’m seriously thinking about dropping it and I HATE not finishing things.  I mean, I know I could do a 5K but if exercise and health is most important, why would I do it when I have cycling that I can do with the same health effect and enjoy so much more?  But, it’s only been 5 sessions so I’ll probably give it some more time and see what comes of it.
• I just finished Lysa TerKeurst’s latest book Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl. Some of it wasn’t challenging but some of it was very challenging.  It was worth the red for me and I would recommend it.
• Speaking of books, I’ve been trying to spend some time editing mine.  I’ve been waffling on what to do with it.  I mentioned not liking quitting anything and while I would hate to leave it what I would call unfinished, I could be ok with walking away from it and calling it a lesson learned.  I know this sounds weird but I think God keeps calling me back to it.  I recently sent it out to a professor that I met at a tweet up.  She’s supposed to read it over winter break and give some feedback.  I’m hoping she does and maybe will jump-start some good changes that I know are needed.
• Lately I just haven’t felt much like myself emotionally and even physically.  I’m beginning to think my thyroid may be out of whack.  Part of me thinks it’s just the weather.  I miss the summer.  I miss the pool.  I miss the sun.  Gloomy is just not fun.  But I have some other symptoms I’m worried about…I’m much more emotional lately both crying and feeling irritable much more often, losing weight is not nearly as easy as it has been in the past, I can’t seem to get enough sleep even though I’m getting 8-9 hours a night and even yesterday I took a nap and still had no trouble sleeping, even cold intolerance is something on the list I identified with.  I don’t mean to be a hypochondriac by any means but really, something is going on.  Who knows, maybe this is what getting older feels like.

So that’s where I am.  The girls are great, Scott is good, we are good.  Nothing at all to complain about.  In fact, lots to be thankful for and I am.