Weekend Update

This has to have been the most relaxing weekend for me in a very long time.  Which is quite bizarre since I still had to do laundry and house cleaning.   I was able to get all my chores done on Saturday -- I even had time to run to the mall to get my "free gifts" from my favorite cosmetic counters.  Still, I feel very relaxed and stress free.  

It may possibly be because Friday night I sat and put a plan together for the next few months.  With football's regular season about to start, our next few months are going to be busy.  When we have a home game, there's lots of tailgating prep that has to happen on Saturday and then the entire day on Sunday is spent at the stadium.  Last year was a bit overwhelming for me because of it.  This year, I have my cleaning schedule in place, my holiday decorating marked on my calendar and I synchronized our family get togethers with my sister and are now marked on my calendar as well.  September, October and November are busy birthday months for our family.  In November alone, we have five birthdays.  I am pretty excited about having everything mapped out.  I have a clear, detailed plan.  I know it sounds obsessive, compulsive, that's   because it is.  But that's how I operate; I always need to be in control.  

I was also able to work on our September budget yesterday.  I have this great binder that I bought at Target a few years ago.  It's spectacular.  It's called the "organizher".   I want to believe it was created by a woman for women because it's a great tool for organization.  It has a sleeve for all 12 months to keep monthly bills in.  It has monthly budge planner sheets and a calendar in each section.   Although I keep my budget electronically (and on a thumb drive so I can access it at work) I still love the organizational capacity of this binder.  As the mail comes in I put the bills in the monthly pocket so I can always locate them with ease. 

I love my Organizher!

After my house cleaning was done, I ran to Macy's to get Lancome's gift with purchase, then I walked over to Dillard's to get the Estee Lauder gift with purchase.  I have used Estee Lauder for many, many, many years.  I love their products and always take advantage of the gift with purchase.   My friend at work recently introduced me to a few Lancome products that I love so I also had to get the Lancome gift.  You may think it's excessive -- trust me it's not.  Okay, it is, but I have a cosmetic bag fetish and I just love the travel size products that really come in handy.

The rest of the weekend I will spend just relaxing and reading.  Sweetheart finished the Hunger Games series last weekend and I am still on book one.

Have a great week!

Happy New Year!

Where did last year go? I can not believe it's already mid January 2012! The last time I posted was on October 30, 2011. Wow! The last quarter of the year just flew right past me. Having season tickets to the Cardinal football games really took a toll on me -- it's only eighth home games but couple that with holidays and taking care of the home, it's a lot!

I didn't post the following (and I had EVERY intention on doing so):

• Cardinal football games 4-Rams, 5-Cowboys, 6-49ers, 7-Browns and 8-Seahawks


• Thanksgiving decor pics


• Christmas decor pics


• Handmade Christmas cards


• Christmas wrapping


• My Sweetheart's holiday party


• the Insight Bowl


• premier show of the new MI: Ghost Protocol flick


• my new iphone


• my new ipad2


• Kuerig Special Edition

We are planning on season tickets for the Cardinals again this coming fall BUT this time around I'll be able to handle things differently. I'll know that when we have a home game, it will take up nearly my entire weekend. Preparation for tailgating, coupled with housework and grocery shopping takes up all of Saturday. Then tailgating, the game, post game tailgating take the entire day on Sunday.

We had the BEST time at the games and met some fun people and in the end the kaos and (threatened) meltdowns were totally worth it!

My 2012 plans are underway: organizing, finishing rooms (that I started mid year 2011), backyard projects, etc. There's a lot we want to get done and I'm so looking forward to executing our plans.

Bring it on 2012......I got this!

It's not as easy as it looks.....

Wow! Maintaining a blog site is not as easy as it looks! I loves reading my daily blogs and for some reason I always thought well that looks like fun! Well, it's really hard work! I generally catch up on my blog reading while at work so it's rare that I read blogs at home. That in itself is the problem here. I realized I need to schedule time in my evenings to maintain my daily (or even weekly!) blog. Tonight I sat down and created a schedule for myself so that I can try to update my post at least 3 times per week.

There's so many things going on here, I should have plenty of projects to keep me busy. By the way, I finally got to some of my projects that I was working on in July. Here's the list:

Paint front door - done
Paint flower pot at front door - done
Buy (drought/heat tolerant) flowers for pot - done
Go to Marshalls and Home Goods in Chandler to see if I can find matching bowls for cake plate I just bought - done
Start designing guest bedroom makeover
Plan master bedroom furniture painting project

Not bad, eh? So the guest bedroom and the master bedroom are still untouched.....I'll get to that later.

Well, that's all for now. I can't wait to start posting and sharing pictures again.