Yep, I'm Pretty Much The Best Wife Ever!

Because I got my husband this for Christmas. AND I let him open it early!

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I wanted to take a picture of him with his laptop, but our conversation went something like this:

Me: Can I please take a picture of you hugging your laptop, so I can brag about how I'm such a good wife for getting you an awesome Christmas present?

Him: No way, that's stupid.

Me: You're stupid! :P

Him: Why don't you just take one of our wedding photos where I'm hugging you, and photoshop a laptop over yourself? It's practically the same thing!

Yeah.....as much as I like photoshop, I wasn't going to go that far. So you'll just have to take it from me that he loves his gift!

What did you get for your SO for Christmas? Any good ideas for hard-to-shop-for guys?

Happiness Is: Spreading the Holiday Cheer

Last week I spread the holiday cheer, by donating to one of my favorite Christmas charities, Toys for Tots. I know there are lots of ways to help less fortunate families this time of year (I also brought in a big bag of groceries for the food bank my company is donating to), but no kid should have to wake up on Christmas morning without a present to open.

So I donated to Toys for Tots through my favorite local radio station (yes, the same radio station we won tickets to meet Sara Bareilles though), and they managed to raise over $45,000 in one morning. Then, Wednesday of this week, they went to a Toys R Us in the east bay and spent it all! It was so amazing to listen to their live broadcast from the store, some of the families in need even came by to say how grateful they were, and it was very touching.

They managed to fill this giant truck full of toys, so hopefully many, many children will have a wonderful Christmas morning this year, and it feels really good to know that I helped contribute to their joy.

{Photos from the radio station's website}

Did you donate to any charities or volunteer this year? What are your favorite good causes?

P.S. I'm not sure how much time I'll have for posting over the next two weeks, I'm going to have to put in about 80 hours at work between now and Christmas (hello, crunch time!), and then will be traveling a bit, but I'll check in when I can. And I'll definitely be making time to catch up on everyone's blogs the week after Christmas, when things at work finally slow down. :)

Meet Chloe!

I’ve written about (or complained about) my cats several times, but today I thought I’d show you all my other pet, a leopard gecko named Chloe. Or, really, Chlo-he, because he’s a boy. But I couldn’t tell his sex until about 6 months after I got him, so he’s stuck with a girlie name.

I used to have a second leopard gecko, named Gucci, but she passed away a few years ago. I got them while in college, in 2003, because I really wanted pets, but knew I needed something easy to care for. And these geckos really are super easy and fun pets! They live on average 6-10 years, but males can live up to 20 years, they live in a small 20 gallon tank (20 gallon size is ideal for 2 geckos), are smart enough to only poo in one corner of their tank, and it’s really entertaining to play with them and watch them eat. They eat live crickets, and it’s like my own Animal Planet in our family room, watching Chloe stalk the calcium dusted crickets. He will even wiggle his tail a little just before he strikes, sort of like the little butt-wiggle cats make before they pounce on something.

Look at how cute he is! It's really fun to make an obstacle course out of your hands, he'll crawl back and forth, and dangle off of one hand to get to the other. I don't get to play with him as much as I used to, only when the cats are outside, but I still love this little guy.

His face always reminds me of dinosaurs, and his neat eyes take in every little movement around him.

Leopard geckos are sometimes called "designer geckos" because of their bright colors and spots. They almost look like a fancy brooch! Especially when he climbs up on my chest or shoulder and nestles under my hair, like he loves to do. They have fat-ish tails, because they store fat in them, but they can also detach their tails if they need to (although it will never grow back as pretty or as pointy), and have little claws on their feet instead of sticky pads.

Here's a reference to how big Chloe is, this is as big as he will ever get.

And a video of him in action. Such a cutie, leopard geckos are my favorite non-furry pets!

Do you have any less traditional pets? Anyone else out there a fan of reptiles?

I’m Pretty Sure We’re The Only Newlyweds….

Not sending out Christmas cards!

Lately I’ve seen a ton of blog posts about super cute newlywed Christmas cards. It seems like everyone is jumping on the chance to pick a wedding photo or pictures of their kids for their Shutterfly cards to share with their friends and family.

And I kind of wish we were jumping on that bandwagon too, but we’re not.

It’s not that I don’t like Christmas cards, I really do! If you followed my wedding planning blog, you know I have a fond place in my heart for all kinds of paper products. I would usually jump at the opportunity for a creative project like Christmas cards.

But I decided I’m not going to be an a-hole.

See, nobody in my generation on either side of my families send Christmas cards as of yet. Only grandparents and aunts and uncles exchange cards. So I don’t want to be the jerk that starts the trend, and have all my cousins resent me because they’ll feel like they have to send a card in return. Us kicking off the sending of cards would open up a whole can of worms, and I’m just not down with that kind of thing.

So sadly, we won’t be sending cards out this year, and likely not for a few years. That is, until one of my cousins sends one to us first, then it’s GAME ON! Muwhahaha (evil laugh)!

And since I can’t get my Christmas card fix on, I’ll share this with all of you lovely readers. Meow-y Christmas, from my fur babies!

Happiness Is: Christmas Lights

This weekend we will finally be putting up Christmas lights on our house!

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Ok, not quite like that, more like just a strand along our front gutters. But it's really the only Christmas decorating we're doing this year, so I'm excited. Plus, I like to hook them up to a timer, so I don't have to come home to a dark house. We were going to put them up last weekend, but with the rain and police drama in our front yard, it didn't happen.

Are you doing any holiday decorating this weekend? Or are you a champ and already have it all done?

I Want to Have a Bacon Party

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On the talk radio show that I was listening to this morning, they were randomly talking about bacon peanut butter cups, when a listener texted in that they sounded perfect for ‘bacon parties’ that she has.

Basically, everyone comes over and brings a different bacon dish. All the guest share the recipes, and pretty much just gorge themselves on bacon.

I want to do this.

That is all.

A Police Standoff....In My Front Yard

Saturday around noon, my husband and I were making lunch in our kitchen, when I happened to peek innocently through the blinds to see if it was still raining, or if we could put up some Christmas lights.

Upon looking out the window, I could do nothing but yell "holy crap!" and my husband ran to the window. This is what greeted us out our front window:

Four cop cars directly in front of our neighbor's house, one (not pictured) almost in front of our driveway, and we suspected more down the street, blocking traffic the other way.

After the initial shock, we ran to our bedroom window and the window in our garage to see if we could figure out what the heck was going on. Annnnddd, we saw cops with sniper rifles, oh fun!

(cop leaning over the back of the blue Mini, with gun trained on the house two doors down)

After about a half hour or so of wondering what could be going on, just when we were beginning to get bored, this white van arrived, which we thought was maybe a SWAT team. They had a police dog too, so we wondered if maybe drugs were involved.

Crime scene tape....

The guys in the white van were decked out in full gear, so we knew they were planning on doing something big.

They did an initial approach to the house two down from us by foot, with just two officers.

I don't know what those two guys saw, but it must have been something (or nothing, and they were just being cautious), because then this armored black van pulled up, and a whole crowd of officers in full gear conferred at the end of the street.

We definitely thought something was going to go down soon, because these guys set up shop kitty corner to our house, with sniper rifles pointed at our neighbor's house in question. Boy, were we glad that we'd never met these neighbors!

About, oh, 2 1/2 hours into the standoff, with us posted up in our kitchen being lookie-loos, the armored van started driving down the street and toward the house.

The van got into place directly in front of our neighbor's house two down from us, confirming that that was the house they were interested in, and positioned the van so that the front of it was facing the front of the house.

They then proceeded to plead with "Jim" to come out of the house. This went on for about 15 minutes or so, with them repeating the same things like, "It's going to be alright, we just want to talk, etc." If you turn up the sound, you can even hear them in this video I took from our side garage window.

The whole time they were on the loudspeaker, the guys across the street were waiting for something to happen.

However, after a while, when "Jim" still didn't come out, the van drove back down to the end of the street, I guess so everyone could regroup, or come up with a plan B. They hung out down there for a while, then returned in the armored van, this time pulling up right in front of my next door neighbor's house.

There, they took some time gearing up and gathering stuff from the back of the van, before approaching the house.

Short video of them walking up to the house in full gear, with guns drawn:

We waited, and waited, fully expecting to hear gun shots and see someone drug away in hand cuffs. We were just sitting there, wondering how the heck this was happening in our quiet little neighborhood, but after a while, the cops came out shaking their heads.....nothing.

They must have radioed down to the rest of the group at the end of the street, because two animal control officers came running, and took away two dogs briefly, but brought them back about ten minutes later. We were guessing they just wanted the dogs contained so they could check out the empty house, because it seemed like "Jim" had already escaped.

After much standing in the road and talking, the armored van finally packed up and drove away. A few police officers remained, tying up paperwork, we assumed. We quickly lost interest, after all, we'd wasted all afternoon looking out our window, without much payoff, since we didn't get to see the bad guy brought to justice.

So yeah, that was our Saturday afternoon. Definitely not a normal occurrance where we live! And until this morning, we still thought it was just a matter of the guy escaping before the police got there. But I finally found a news article that explains it all (sorry, I'm not going to cite which local newspaper this is from because the article lists our street and I'm paranoid like that).

"Police, SWAT team members and crisis negotiators surrounded a XXX home Saturday after receiving reports that a man was threatening to kill himself, police said. Hours later, they found him dead inside from an apparent suicide.

The 61-year-old man's wife and adult stepson called police at about 11:15 a.m. saying they had fled the home on the XXX block of XXX because they had seen the man loading a gun.

"He was despondent, he was acting suicidal, he was threatening to kill himself and they had seen him loading a revolver," Wylie said.

The man had "quite a few" weapons registered to him, Wylie said, so police did not enter his home immediately.

Crisis negotiators tried to reach the man through his cell phone and home phone lines, but couldn't get through, Wylie said. A SWAT team was called in and crisis negotiators tried using a public address system. Police blocked off the street in front of the home and evacuated neighbors in four nearby houses.

Eventually, police borrowed a camera-equipped robot from the Department of Public Safety and sent it into the home. The robot found the man in the garage, dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, Wylie said. He was pronounced dead at 3:51 p.m.

Wylie said the man may have already been dead when police arrived. Neighbors, as well as the man's wife and stepson, said they did not hear any gunshots. Neither did police who arrived on the scene."

Crazy, right?

Happiness Is: Friday!

Really, that's all it's taking to make me happy this week, just the fact that it's finally Friday!

For some reason this week has seemed really long, probably because last week was a short week. I'm looking forward to happy hour tonight with some lovely bees, and a productive weekend doing exciting things like cleaning and doing laundry. And maybe I can convince my husband to venture out to get new cell phones, our contract was up for renewal last month and I'm dying for a new phone, since my G1 is getting sloooowwww!

Happy Friday everyone!

My Christmas Wish List

Now that the holiday season is in full swing, I've been busy buying Christmas gifts for everyone on my list (getting close to being done!), and it started me thinking, what would I like for Christmas (or, more likely, what things will I eventually buy for myself!)?

A cute apron, since I'm just a regular domestic goddess these days (Not! But I could still use a cute apron.)

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The best catnip in the world. Well, really this is a present for my kitties, but it's so fun to watch them all cracked-out on this stuff, that it's sort of a gift for me too!

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Victoria's Secret pjs (that come with free slippers with a promo code on their home page!). So cute!

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A gift card to H&M. Since I lost some weight last spring, and have kept most of it off, I'm in need of some new clothes, especially pants. But I can't easily order online from Victoria's Secret anymore, since I'm not sure what size I am in fitted pants there anymore. I think I'll have to bite the bullet and actually go try on clothes in person.

I'm also really intrigued by the new Levi's Curve i.d. jeans, so a Levi's gift card would be awesome too. I would gladly go into the San Francisco store to get custom fitted, for jeans that would actually fit correctly in all the right places!

I've wanted diamond stud earrings to wear in my second ear holes, since, well, forever. So these are always on my list! I'd actually asked for them as my wedding gift from my husband, but then I ended up going about $500 over budget on my wedding band, so that became my wedding gift (although, now that I think about it, I did pay for my wedding band myself...).

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And of course, I'm dying for a nice DLSR camera. I hinted to my husband that he shouldn't get me anything for Christmas, and should combine my Christmas and birthday gifts to get me this bad boy this spring:

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The Canon EOS Rebel T2i. I would have so much fun learning how to use this, instead of trying to get cool shots with my little point and shoot Canon that lives in my purse.

I need to do a little more research on lenses though. It's only $100 more to get it with the kit lens (EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6), however, I think I really want this lens, the EF 50mm f1.4 USM, for about $350. So I need to look into if it's worth the extra $100 for the kit lens, since I did see in reviews that it's a good lens for a kit, or if I should just go with the body and the 50mm lens. Or maybe I should hold off on the more expensive lens and try to get away with just the kit lens for a while, until I learn the camera?

What are your wish list items this year?

Cooking Up A Storm!

I've been busy, cooking!

Last week I tackled quite a few things in the kitchen, starting with making spaghetti squash for the first time, thanks to Katie from rufflesandtruffles.com. Her post on how to cook the squash, and then how to incorporate it in this amazing recipe were a huge help, so a big shout out to her for opening my eyes to this great meal!

Then, on Thanksgiving morning, I made the Cheddar Bay Biscuits and BLT Bruschetta, which is always a big hit with my family. The recipe for the bruschetta below is from allrecipes.com, but I substitute chopped frozen spinach for the lettuce, as well as add about 1/2 of a cup of chopped mozzarella cheese. I also used tofu bacon, because a few of my cousins are vegetarian, but it's so much better with real bacon!

* 8 slices bacon, crispy cooked and crumbled
* 3 Roma (plum) tomatoes, seeded and chopped
* 1 cup chopped leafy green lettuce (or 1 package of frozen chopped spinach
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves
* 1 clove garlic, minced
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
* 1/3 cup olive oil
* 1 (8 ounce) French bread loaf, cut in 1/4-inch slices
* 1/3 cup favorite crumble cheese, blue cheese or feta (optional) (or add 1/2 cup of chopped mozzarella cheese)

Directions:

1. In medium bowl, stir together all topping ingredients; set aside. Brush olive oil on both sides of bread slices; place on baking sheet.

2. Bake at 400 degrees F, turning once, for 7 minutes per side or until crisp and golden brown; cool.

3. Either spoon the bruschetta onto the bread and serve on a platter, or surround the dish of bruschetta with the bread and let guests dish up their own bruschetta.

On Friday I made the garlic and rosemary turkey roast that I posted the recipe for last week, as well as sweet potato fries. We ate turkey roast for dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and it was SO GOOD! Seriously. If you try this recipe, you'll thank me. The turkey is so moist that you don't even need gravy, and as the garlic soaks into the meat, it just gets better and better as leftovers!

For the sweet potato fries, I looked at a few recipes, but ended up just winging it by chopping the potatoes, dumping them in a freezer bag with olive oil, season salt, garlic powder and pepper, and then baking them for about 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes.

And of course, I had to have a variety of dipping sauces! Sriracha and mayo, fry sauce, and caesar dressing and ketchup.

Tonight I think I'll be making spaghetti squash with a red sauce, since we have half of the squash left over from last week. I can't wait to experiment with it in different meals as a substitute for pasta!

How much cooking did you do over the Thanksgiving holiday? And good recipes to share?

Some Thanksgiving Laughs

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

And just for fun, some Thanksgiving quotes:

"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land." - John Stewart

"Thanksgiving. It's like we didn't even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is, we overeat. 'Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?' 'But we do that every day!' 'Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us?'" - Jim Gaffigan

"Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America's obesity statistics. Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car." - Stephen Colbert

"You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out." - Jay Leno

"Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often." - Johnny Carson

Hope you have a wonderful day filled with lots of family, lots of friends, and lots of food!

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See the rest of the comedian Thanksgiving quotes at The Huffington Post.

Breaking Away From the Norm: Non-Standard Thanksgiving Decor

As I mentioned last week, we're going to my aunt's for Thanksgiving this week, so I don't have any reason to decorate for the holiday. But a girl can still dream, right?

When I think of how I'd decorate my table for Thanksgiving if I ever hosted, I tend to lean away from the traditional explosion of the color orange that seems to always be associated with autumn. I get it, orange is the main color of the leaves people see when they look outside this time of year. It's the color of pumpkins and gourds. But that still doesn't mean that I care for the color. It's actually one of my least favorite colors, and just because it's popular doesn't mean it's something you have to stick to!

And since last week I presented you with my favorite alternative turkey recipe, with lots of garlic and rosemary, I thought I'd also share some non-standard Thanksgiving decor inspiration. I think these still convey the Thanksgiving holiday spirit, but with only a hint or two of orange at most.

(With red fall leaves instead of the white flowers on the branches, how easy would it be to make these centerpieces with stuff from your yard!)

(Here's an easy way to get rid of the orange-overload and still incorporate pumpkins--white paint!)

(I always feel like deep purple is a perfect fall color, but it's often overlooked.)(More purple. It really balances out the hints of orange in the centerpiece.)

What color scheme did you use to decorate your home for Thanksgiving this year? And would you consider ever going a non-traditional route?

Photo sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6