Is it too late to be Thankful?

Well friends, things have been MIGHTY BUSY around these parts as the semester wraps up. Between being sick, the holidays, and trying to finish up reading Shakespeare in every class I teach, things have been hectic, but I can't complain. I'm lucky to love what I do. Is it too late to be thankful? I know Thanksgiving is over, but man oh man... even despite the bad days, I am so thankful for what I have. They're just bad days, not a bad life. I've got a great life. I've got a fantastic husband, a job I love for a supportive district, great family, good friends... I wish I had more time to catch up on sleep and scrapbooking, but who doesn't, right? Let me catch you up.

One of Ben's private cello students has a new baby brother. We had the family over for dinner at our apartment, and got to hang out with the little man. I'm thrilled that I've got a couple babies coming soon to people in our lives, so that I can have baby time until we are ready for our own!

Ben's mom also sent us the greatest Thanksgiving package from Indiana. Hand-written notes, hand-made gifts, and my favorite chocolate in the world. YUM!

This year, we spent Thanksgiving in Kansas City with my family. We started the morning with our own homemade Thanksgiving breakfast. I'm hoping this will be our own little tradition. Food at my parents was our traditional set-up of turkey, ham, potatoes, macaroni and cheese, carrots, etc. I made my famous deviled eggs. Overall, it was a good day. We also got to spend that weekend with Ben's extended family that lives in KC over turkey, pie, and California wine. :)

Ben and I got to put up our first Christmas tree in our own home (along with a few other decorations). My parents gifted us a tree as an early holiday present.We decided to stick with green, silver, and white ornaments. There are a few special Hallmarks and a KC Royals ornament that don't follow that, but you win some, you lose some. I love the way it turned out, and the hot chocolate while we put it up didn't hurt either!

Chiefs season is still a FREEZING full swing. I've been fighting a cough and runny nose for weeks after standing outside for hours... but this too shall pass. I love being able to spend time with people I love so often.

 

Finally, and most recently, Ben and I took our first little mini-vacation to Branson. The time off and together was much needed. We were able to enjoy Lambert's on the way down; shopping at the landing; coffee, ice-cream and walking hand-in-hand downtown, and a fun tribute show on the strip. The Elvis impersonator in the show was the 2013 World Champion Elvis Impersonator. It was so nice to go somewhere just the two of us for some quality time, but naturally we saw about five people we knew including family and former professors! :)

With Christmas coming, I can't help but be thankful that I've been blessed with a few good days of health lately so that I could enjoy the holidays. Ben and I adopted two children off of the angel tree and bought them Christmas gifts instead of buying for each other. We think this might be a new tradition considering our wedding anniversary and Ben's birthday are within a week of the holiday. Why get more stuff when we can bless someone else?

We're also looking forward to traveling to South Bend for Christmas with Ben's family. It will be my first Christmas away from home, which is sad, but I'm looking forward to my first holiday with the Duvalls as a Duvall. :) I'm also looking forward to maybe getting into Chicago to see Alli for a couple hours, and getting ALL OF THE CHOCOLATE to bring home.

I'm looking to set up coffee and dinner dates for break. This married/working full time/medical problems life is busy, busy, busy so I'm looking forward to a little time to rest and see some beautiful faces! xxx

Whoops...

I'm going to be real honest with y'all. I sat down a couple weeks ago and planned out all of my blog posts for the rest of the calendar year. I was so proud of myself and thought I was being so productive. Since then I've missed publishing two of the posts that I had "scheduled." Whoops.
Let me tell you what; switching medications sucks. I hate to blame my transition for my not posting on the blog, but let's be honest... when you don't feel good, it comes across in everything you do. How you act, the things you say... and in reality, I didn't want to flood my blog with negative thoughts about how my condition SUCKS and so does medicating myself for it. In the end, here I am telling you about it so that you may understand why I'm not staying on top of things like I wanted to. Catching up with work, life, and moving forward as best as we can through the holidays have sucked all of my energy.

With all of this in mind, I have had a lot going on!

First thing first - Ben and I have decided that we are going to buy a house next year! This has been a decision in the making for a while now. We are currently renting an apartment in the Gladstone area. While our apartment is nice, it's a bit far from work for me. We had originally planned to continue renting until 2016, but with Ben and I make plans for our future regarding a family, etc., we've decided that pushing it up a year and going for it when our lease is up is the best plan. I'm really excited about having a home of our own! We're hoping to land in the Northern or Downtown Liberty areas, so if you know any realtors hook a girl up!

Another weird thing that's been going on is that I'm taking the holiday season off from Old Navy. As most of you know, I have been working there for 6.5 years. This store has given me so many gifts, including some of my closest friends and my husband. Going in to talk to management about my medication transition was hard. I met our new GM and cried in her office within minutes of meeting her. Explaining to someone you don't know the delicate details of your medical conditions isn't happiest thing to do, especially when you're asking for grace in terms of working the holiday season. To be honest, I am having some pretty gruesome reactions that make coming to my every-day job difficult, and adding ON on top of that would put me over the edge. I'm so blessed with great managers who support me (and always have) throughout all of these trials. I'm looking forward to relaxing this holiday season and getting back in there in January.

I think the most exciting part of my life right now though is the fact that great things are happening to people I love so dearly. One of my very best friends Hannah got engaged on Halloween, and I was lucky enough to get to be there. Additionally, my lovely friend Ally is halfway through her first pregnancy! She's announcing the gender on Saturday and I can't wait!! Ben's sister is also pregnant and due around the same time!! I'm looking so forward to being an aunt!!!!!

         

Here are some pictures of some of the things I've been up to the past month or so:

       

       

      

 

I promise I do have plans to get back on track with this blogging thing! Be looking out for my "10 days of Thankful" post next week, a reading list, and some holiday cheer. xxxo

Shopping Trip!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Ben and I are menu planners. I won't tell you that we always eat the meals on the day they're written, but the meals we buy for are the meals that we eat that month! I've been reading posts about people's budgeting and grocery shopping lately, and I figured I'd share how I went about it this month. :)

First, I went through and took inventory of the proteins that we have in our freezer. We are currently trying to clean out the freezer before we buy a bulk of meat. We are considering buying a partial cow/pig next year!

Next I searched online for a few great recipes to try. Pinterest is a great resource for these purposes. With my skin problems, I can't do a ton of cooking over heat so I am huge fan of oven- or crock-pot-based recipes. I also decided on a few of my favorite things to make/eat and added those to the menu. I always take into account days where dinner will be abnormal in our house as well. For example, Chiefs game days I am not home for most of the day so sometimes we eat out, sometimes we eat left overs, etc. This month I also took into account Thanksgiving dinner and having leftovers the next day of course!

Here is a picture of our November menu:

The next thing I did was create a word document with each meal and the ingredients that are needed for that meal. Once this was done, I categorized all of those items into lists of where they are in the grocery store. This may seem like a bit much for some people, but it really helps me stay organized and focused in the store - aka: less likely to buy a bunch of EXTRA things. I also color code mine for fun. :)

For the second to last step I check the grocery ads to see if/where things are on sale, specifically noting sales on things I know I need. This is when I also note special "treats" like $1.99 Oreos, etc. I usually shop at HyVee, Price Chopper, and Sam's Club. It depends on what I need, how much, and sale prices. Finally, I check through our fridge/pantry to see if there are things we use, but don't need for meals (fruit for snacks, sliced cheese, etc.).



Normally, Ben and I go to the store just once or twice for big grocery hauls. Having to take less trips means spending less on extras! We of course will run to the store between for milk, eggs, bread, and specific produce that won't stay fresh for use at the end of the month.

Ben and I took our November trip last night (we had everything for the first few days at home already - also a good strategy to have). I asked Ben to go with me this time to 1) be the muscle and 2) see how much we could get for what price. We went to HyVee, and will visit Sam's Club this weekend. We like HyVee because we earn money back with Fuel Savers by buying things we would buy anyway! Here is what we got:

Bakery
- Black pepper Parmesan bread (1 loaf)
- Garlic herb Italian bread (1 loaf)

Dairy
- Stick butter (2 packages)
- Sour cream (1 tub)
- Tube biscuits (4 cans)
- Shredded cheese (4 bags)
- Cream cheese (1 bar)
- Velveeta (1 block)
- Kraft singles (2 packages)

Frozen
- Egg noodles (2 bags)
- Hash brown potatoes (1 bag)
- Peas and Carrots (1 bag)
- Peas (1 bag)

Grocery
- Pasta (2 boxes)
- Veggie pasta (4 boxes)
- White beans (1 can)
- Kidney beans (1 can)
- Sesame oil (1 bottle)
- Tortilla chips (1 bag)
- Cake mix (2 boxes)
- Frosting (2 jars)
- Rotel (1 can)
- Salsa (1 jar)
- Soy sauce (1 bottle)
- Taco seasoning (2 packages)
- Tomato sauce (1 can)
- Tomato paste (1 can)
- Tortillas (1 package)
- Cream of chicken soup (5 cans)
- Light brown sugar (1 bag)
- Onion powder (1 bottle)
- Quick oats (1 large can)
- Saltine crackers (1 box)
- Progresso soup (8 cans)
- Alfredo sauce (1 jar)
- Beef stock (1 carton)

Meat
- Sausage patties (8)
- Pork chops (4)
- Chuck roast (22 lb)
- Smoked sausage (14 oz)
- Pepperoni (1 package)

Produce
- Raspberries (2 packages)
- Garlic (2 bulbs)
- Sweet potatoes (5)
- Green onions (1 bunch)
- Carrots (1 bag)
- Red onion (1)
- Potatoes (10 lb bag)
- Spinach leaves (1 bag)
- White onions (8)


Our grand total for the bill was $143.53 PLUS savings of $.26 per gallon with Fuel Savers!

B

If you asked me sit down and pin point the exact moment that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Ben, I'm not sure that I could. When I think back on the past years, I feel like I came to that decision very slowly, and then all at once.

Over the years, things haven't all been sunny. To be honest, our transition to married life (by this I mean June when we moved into together) was not all rainbows and roses. Sharing space, budgeting, and adjusting to the time we can/cannot spend together was a challenge.

After six months, I can honestly say that I feel like our married life transition is over. It may have taken some time, but our groove has hit and I couldn't ask for a better life than the one I have with Ben. Trips to the city market, movie nights, chatting on the couch about everything and nothing... All things I love and look forward to.

I may be having a hard time with my medical conditions, and I may be stressed because of work, adult decisions, and planning for a family, but I have the most supportive guy next to me. I couldn't ask for more. Here's lookin' at you, B.

Family Photos