Merry Christmas!

So, here are the pictures I promised of my husband's present. He loves cuff links - he only wears french cuff shirts and has a huge cuff link collection. He has a star sapphire ring that belonged to his grandfather and has always wanted cuff links with star sapphires.... We hadn't been able to find any, so I took it upon myself to make them. They turned out pretty dang good, if I do say so myself.... :-) And he loves them... So that makes me happy too.

Best of - day 23 and 24...

Not as bad this time.... hahaha

Day 23 - Web Tool: Umm... First thing that pops into my head is Blogger. It makes it so simple for me to have my blog... And the reader on the home page makes it so simple for me to keep up with my favorite blogs...

Day 24 - Learning Experience: That sometimes you have to stand up and say, "NO!" If you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, the best thing to do sometimes is to just say no. Haha... It may not be easy, but you will feel better in the long run....

Merry Christmas tomorrow, everyone!!!

Picture Post

Ok... I have been really terrible about hooking up my camera and pulling pictures off of it to post on here, but I finally have a chance! Here is some of the stuff that I have been doing or working on lately:

First:
I got tickets to go to the Lakers - Bulls game a few weeks back. The drive up SUCKED the big one... But we had fun at the game! It's always a good time in the Toyota suite.... :-) Even with J making fun of me because I was rooting for both teams.... haha

Let's go Lakers!

Next:
My best friend and her husband got tickets to the Duck's game right after Thanksgiving. It was a BLAST. I love hockey... (Prefer the Kings, but I take what I can get and it was an awesome game...

The newest blimp that flies around and drops coupons... As a BIG Beatles fan, I LOVED it!!

Whooped 'em! Go Ducks!

Next:
This is the blanket that I made for my newest niece. It turned out really cute...

She had a little bitty monkey costume for Halloween, so I got monkey fabric for the blankie...

Finally:
My fuzzy sheets.... Love love love love love these.... :-)

You can kind of see my boy cat, Fred, there... My furry, little, near-permanent fixture on my bed... haha I swear he sleeps 20 hours a day...

So there you have it.... Enjoy :-)

Best of - day 19, 20, 21, and 22...

Oops again... I feel like I haven't had a chance to stop moving... And this little adventure of "Best Of"s has suffered a little because of it... But at least I get it caught up every so often!

So here we go....

Day 19 - Car Ride: That would have to be our trips to go camping... There is always a lot of texting, talking, and laughing on the way there... Slightly less on the way back because of being sleepy from the weekend of camping... haha We always stop multiple times both ways for potty breaks, food breaks, and just to get out of the car... But it is always a good time. :-)

Day 20 - New Person: The only one I can think of is - a couple months ago my office got a new management trainee from our corporate office. He was a really nice guy and really fun to have around. Unfortunately, he was only on loan to us and we could only keep him until he found his permanent position in one of the offices. I had high hopes that there would be movement in my office and we would be able to keep him permanently... He now has a permanent position with our Lexus office in Atlanta... He is definitely missed and the office is a little less fun now... And I will be e-mailing him every time there is an opening in our office until I get him back... Have fun in Atlanta, John, we will get you back eventually.....

Day 21 - Project: Ok - this one is something that I just did today. I always have a really hard time thinking of something to get for my husband for Christmas... This year I found something on a website and decided that I was going to go outside of my comfort zone and make him something that I hoped would turn out really cool. I figured it out today... And I think it turned out beautifully. I will post pictures after Christmas because, while I don't think my husband has ever looked at my blog, I don't want to chance ruining the surprise... I am ridiculously excited about it!

Day 22 - Startup: A business that I found this year that I love? Um... Don't really know... There's a game store across the street from my house that I love, but it isn't new and I found it years ago... Um... I can't really think of anything for this one.... Oh well..........

Best of - Days 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18!

Oops..... MAJORLY dropped the ball! HAHA!! My week has been absolutely insane...

So to catch up.......

Day 14 - Best rush. Hmm... I'm not really too much of a thrill seeker.... Um... Best rush - I would have to say when I drove my new IS 250 the first time... Don't get me wrong, I loved my Prius dearly, but it was so nice to have a "real" engine again! And I adore my new car.

Day 15 - Best Packaging. Umm... I always get a little thrill when I see the Harvey's (Seatbelt Bag) logo on the side of a box....... And I got my fair shair of them this year! :-)

Day 16 - Best Tea..... Uh.... Oh! I know... Someone was showing me these really amazingly beautiful teas called "flowering teas" or something like that... It looks like a nasty little lump, but when you drop it into hot water, it opens up into a really pretty flower... It was really cool... But she said that it's also really expensive...

Day 17 - Word or phrase that describes the year.... So as they had it on there "2009 was....." gone before I realized it began.

Day 18 - Shop. I love Target. This is not a secret... haha But this year I would have to go with the Seatbelt Bag store in Anaheim.... It's the original one. I love Seatbelt Bags (also not a secret), but had never actually gone to the store until this year... I was like a kid in a candy store...

All right! I got caught up! I guess that's what I am able to do when there are only a few minutes left until I get to leave work and be on VACATION for TWO WEEKS!! And I have finished (well, mostly - there is one thing that I can't do because they company that processes the report I need hasn't done it yet) my insane "Must Do Before Vacation" list and am counting down the seconds until I have 16 full days that I don't have to think about coming into work!!! Hooray for doing whatever pops into my head that I WANT to do, instead of always having to do what I NEED to do!!!!

Best of - day 13.

Today's best of is "Change You Made to the Place You Live"

That's an easy one... My husband finally got me my birthday present (only 6 months late... haha) a few weeks back - it's a sewing machine. I've been wanting one for a while now and he got me a really nice one. I love it.

The first thing that I made with it was awesome sheets for my bed. You know those ridiculously soft fuzzy blankets? Well, we already had one for our bed and it is so soft that J and I kept saying how they should make sheets out of them... So, since you can't buy something like that... I made them. All it really entailed was using the blanket we already had as a top sheet and we bought another one and I sewed it to a fitted sheet. Then we got a different light blanket for the top of everything (those fuzzy blankets are pretty warm by themselves) and there we go. It is DISGUSTINGLY comfy and soft. We both love it.

I already loved my new bed, but this just added a whole new level of comfiness... It's fantastic. I'll take some pictures and post them on here... (I can't take the pictures right now because J is taking a nap... haha)

I'm confused....

Can someone please explain to me what a threesome has to do with selling watches? I'm confused...

But it's D&G... Hellll-ooooo!

Best of - day 10, 11, and 12....

Once again, I dropped the ball on my best of, so here's a few at once again!

Day 10 - Album of the Year... Hmm... I think I would have to go with........ Umm... I don't really buy a lot of cd's or listen to much popular music (I am a die-hard Beatles fan), so this one isn't easy... I could go with the new Flogging Molly... It is fantastic and gives me a good boost whenever I listen to it...

Day 11 - The Best Place... Hmm, again... The place that I spent the most time away from home would be my best friend's new house. It's definitely my home away from home. And tons of really great memories starting back with freezing our buns off remodeling it back when they first bought it...

Day 12 - New Food... New food.... Have I tried any new foods this year?? Umm.... I found out a while back that I like brussel sprouts... The Kogi adventure introduced me to the wonders several new flavors... I tried lobster the other day... And I absolutely do not like it... I have been trying to expand my horizons and not be so picky... Whenever we go to a restaurant, I try to order something that I haven't had and take my chances instead of ordering a safe choice... J is definitely happy that I am trying to be less picky... He is my chef and he hates having to stick to my picky guidelines... haha But his cooking is AWESOME and he has definitely made huge strides and expanding my horizons...

Best of - day 9.

Today's best of is "Challenge." It's supposed to be something that really made me grow... I don't really know what to write about today... Hmm... I really can't think of anything good for this one... Maybe my biggest challenge is trying to think of things to write! haha

That would be kind of fitting... I thought of a REALLY great title for a book about 7 years ago and cannot think of what the book should actually be to save my life... It sucks. Because I really love the title. If I saw a book in Border's with the title, I would at least pick it up to see what it is about... I guess I'll just have to keep thinking...

Best of - day 8.

Today's Best of is "Moment of Peace." This one should be easier... haha When life gets hectic - this time of year always is - it's harder to remember the moments of peace...

I would have to say any of those perfectly blissful lazy days spent with my husband or friends would definitely fall into this category...

The first thing that really stands out in my mind would be what I call "snuggle time." Every night - well, almost every night... Sometimes I got to bed before J - when it's time to go to bed and we are done with our normal nightly routines, we end up in our big comfy bed. We always snuggle up and hold each other while we talk and laugh about our day. No complaining... Just happy thoughts and love. Some nights we will talk and laugh like kids at a sleepover, giggling until I think a mom is gonna come through that door at any second to tell us to keep it down and go to sleep... haha Other nights we just listen to whatever is on the tv (usually Comedy Central) and start to drift off. At some unspoken point we kiss goodnight and both roll over to hunker down in our usual sleeping positions... We love our california king bed because we both sprawl out when we are sleeping...

That is definitely a moment of peace.

And now I can't wait to go to bed tonight....

Best of - day 7.

Today's best of is "Best Blog Find."

Seeing as how I just got into blogging this year, this one is easy and hard at the same time... I have stumbled across so many blogs that I love to read that there is no way I can pick just one. It's great how you get such a look into people's lives through their blogs and even start to feel like you know them.... If you look at my profile and start clicking on the links of blogs that I follow, you can't go wrong with any of them... They all have something really great about them...

Best of - day 4, 5, and 6...

Oops... Missed a few days there...

Day 4's best of was: Book. I think this year, my favorite book was definitely Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It was delightfully twisted.

Day 5's best of was: Night Out. Hmm... That one's a little tougher... A normal night out for us consists of going to our friends' house and playing cards or Wii... Not exactly exciting, but still a lot of fun...

Day 6's best of is: Workshop or Conference. Really? Boring day.... Hmm.... My department planned this giant meeting for all of our dealers. It was pretty crazy and intense planning, but it was really nice to see it all come together and sit in on some of the sessions. Plus, our closing speaker - Larry Winget - was hysterical and made SO much sense... He talks a lot about personal responsibility and all that kind of stuff and I agreed with everything he said.... Plus, he has a pretty sarcastic sense of humor and that cracks me up...

Best of - day 3.

Today's Best of Topic is "Article."

The only one I could really think of that I shared a lot was one about a guy supposedly finding a condom in his french onion soup at the Claim Jumpers across the street from my house... By chewing on it. It pretty much turned out that he was a liar and planted it to try to get money... I was never really worried about eating there - not that we want to take the time to go there all that much anyway...

Other than that, the only articles that really stick with me this year are the ones lately blasting Toyota... It just doesn't make sense... Oh well, we'll make it through...

Best of - day 2.

Today's best of 2009 is the "Best Restaurant Moment."

The first thing that popped into my head was our Kogi Truck adventure.

Technically not a restaurant, but a fantastic adventure for sure....

Best of - day 1.

I decided to take part in 20SB's "The Best of 2009 Challenge" for the month of December. Each day will have a different topic that is your "best of" for the year.

Today's topic is Best Trip.

My best trip of the year.... Hmm... That's a little tough because we don't really take a lot of trips... I guess it would have to be one of our camping trips. Every so often (though, not quite often enough) get all of our friends together and head out to some sand dunes and play for a weekend. Our last trip was to Pismo Beach (technically Oceano Dunes). We hooked up our pop-up camper and met up with my best friend and her husband. It was my friend's birthday and I had gotten her a Seatbelt Bag wallet to go with her new Seatbelt Bag that her husband bought her (also for her birthday...) and was DYING to give it to her before we left... We got on the road, got up to the dunes, and started to get camp set up. It was over-cast, but it was perfect that way because it stayed nice and cool. Everyone else started showing up shortly after that.

The first night we always end up staying up late because we're waiting for everyone to show up and are all amped up about being on "vacation." In the morning, everyone ends up rolling out of bed/tent eventually and once every grabs something to eat, it's time to play on the dunes... People take their trucks or bikes/quads out for a romp... I don't generally go out anymore because I get too nervous now for some reason... This time I chose to go out for an quick ride in the truck...

The second night this time was movie night... One of our friends brought a screen and a projector and we watched a movie by the campfire. It was a pretty posh activity for a camping trip... People tend to trickle off to bed faster the second night because of the day spent playing in the sand... The last morning we roll out of bed again and after eating, start packing back up and get on the road to home.

We have a tradition with my best friend and her husband to stop at In and Out on the way home... It's always SO delicious... We don't even care about how dirty we are from spending a weekend without showering... haha

Once we get home and unload, the first step is a long, hot shower... It's always a sublime feeling. So is sleeping in our comfy bed.

But, dirty or not, it's always a great trip that we can't wait to repeat...