(first published on blogspot on Feb 10, 2014)

Happy Monday!! It’s time for another MIMM post! Thanks Katie for hosting!!

My weekend started out by running errands. I am not sure why, but I was excited to go shopping at Target. Maybe this was because I had so many coupons I had planned on using. I am not an extreme couponer (if you have seen that tv show), but I do like it when I need things and have coupons for them so that I can save some money. Saving money is certainly marvelous! We had coupons for at least 50% of the items on our list today and I was so excited about that! I also purchased these.       I heard these were being released on Feb 3 and finally purchased them. However, I must say, not as good as they sound. The filling just tastes too artificial for my liking. I will just have to buy some regular oreos and make some cookie dough. That will probably taste better.         After running errands, I headed to a marvelous yoga class at One2One for their grand opening. Also I loved how their sign was sitting on a mound of snow! There are so many snow piles around here and it’s currently snowing as I write this. 

 

    After yoga, we enjoyed veggies, fruit and some cake to celebrate a birthday of one of their staff. I talked with a few people I had met in the class and also a person who was in my high school class. I didn’t know her much in high school, but she actually recognized me and once she said what her name was, I recognized her and we were chatting about what we are currently doing in life and everything. It was really fun.      Then there were raffles, which I didn’t win, but we all got some little goodie bags which was filled with some pretzel chips, a sports bar and brownies from Rose’s bakery that is located below their studio. I still haven’t been to the bakery, but sometime I plan to stop in. 

      Once I got home, I got to work on making some marvelous muffins. Thanks toAmanda for the delicious recipe! Check out her page for better pictures, but here are what mine looked like when they came out of the oven. 

     Once they were cooled, I tried them and they were so good! It was hard not to eat all of them. I then made my sister and parents try them. My family approved, even after commenting on how they were made and the ingredients. They didn’t know how they would turn out, but I am glad they liked them. I, of course, had to make a second batch in order to bring some to work today for my manager’s birthday.        Later in the afternoon, this happened…

 

  That would be my cat Skittles on my dad’s lap, which has NEVER happened. This is why I needed picture proof of this. Skittles has been enjoying sitting on people’s laps under blankets recently so when my dad offered her a blanket and my mom wasn’t sitting down, she actually got on his lap. Usually the cats are afraid of my dad. This could be because he used to trim their claws when they were little or because he isn’t usually the one to feed them. Saturday though, she was desperate for some attention so she got some petting by my dad.    To end my Saturday….Marvelous is cleaning my desk. I knew my desk was big, but seriously look at the space I have now! You really couldn’t see much of it before. I can actually work at my desk now! (Also love the background of my computer, my one leg bridge pose in the Bahamas)

 

Sunday was also pretty marvelous. To start off the day, the sun was out!! It may be snowy outside still, but to see the sun out and glistening on the sun was marvelous. Chicago has some pretty grey winters, so I feel like it’s a rare occasion to see the sun shining, especially with all the snow this year. I also finally got a chance to take some pictures of the snow and the beauty of winter. 

tree in my front yard

 

street before they plowed

 

backyard tree

 

the park nearby

   My favorite picture is the one of my backyard tree. It’s just so beautiful in the sunlight!!       Anyway onto the rest of my day, I went to a Pure Barre: Breaking Down The Barre class so that I could learn the proper posture for the moves. Hopefully now when I attend a class I won’t be all confused as to weather I am doing it correctly.       Later in the afternoon, marvelous was getting the house to myself and making another batch of muffins followed by some chocolate chip granola bars and individually wrapping them so they are ready for the week. 

     After all that I was pretty tired, so finally it was time to sit down, relax and watch some of the Olympics and enjoy the rest of the evening. 

(first published on blogspot on Feb 2, 2014)

This weekend, I was absolutely crazy and drove 3 hours in snow to go see my friend and rub her baby belly. The good news was it wasn’t consistently snowing for the whole drive, but the roads were absolutely terrible from the snow overnight. As long as I had tire tracks to follow on the interstate and kept my speed around 40 mph, I was good. OK I was nervous the entire time!! But I kept my focus on the road in front of me. There weren’t too many cars around me, as most people were smart to stay off the roads in the morning. It was scary and good at the same time. I didn’t like how there weren’t many cars on the road in case I did get in an accident (luckily I didn’t), but it was also good because when the “lane” I was driving in would get too snowy, I would just move slowly over to the next lane that was slightly better. I say “lane” because obviously it was kind of hard to tell where the actually lane lines were and I was totally OK with driving in the middle of two lanes if it meant I could control my car better.
    After three hours (on a normal day, it’d be two hours) I finally arrived, stepping hard on the gas pedal to get into the parking lot of the church where the baby shower was being held. I was so happy when I arrived safely there and couldn’t wait to just get out of my car for a bit and stand and stretch my legs. Then to see my friend and her baby belly. She is due in about 5 weeks!! OMG how time flies! (Sorry for the blurry pic, my phone camera is really not that good or my hand isn’t steady enough)

I was also starving when I arrived since I ate breakfast early and left later than planned, but had to wait for the baby shower to officially start. We had some little sandwiches, fruit, pasta salad, cheese and crackers. It was delicious and as you can see, I started eating before actually taking a picture.

  Aren’t those wooden forks so cool?!?! Everyone at the shower was thinking maybe we should wash these and save them because they are so cool. 
   We then played a couple games, which were new to me (I’ve only been to 2 baby showers and we played different games at those ones). The first game, we had to close our eyes and draw what the baby might look like in 30 seconds. I forgot to take a pic of mine, but one of my legs was definitely not attached to the body of the baby…
    Then we played a game which included phrases about pregnancy and after and we had to name a candy bar that went with it. We weren’t given any sort of candy bar list though so it was really tough. Ex: hospital bill = 100 Grand candy. That was the only one that most people got right. I think the highest score was 2 correct out of 20…no one was good at that game. I’m not a big candy person and some of the candies mentioned, I had never heard of.
    Then it was time for cupcakes and presents. I made her a diaper cake with “cupcakes” made from onesies and baby socks. I had so much fun putting it together.

 

 

diaper cake

 

onesie and sock cupcake

 

finished product

   She got so many cute clothes and baby necessities. Then we cleaned up and I stayed the night at her place because there was no way I was going back in the same day with all the snow. My friend’s buried mailbox and all the snow piled high.

 

    At least I had a buddy at her house. Simon loved me 🙂

 

     The good news is, after staying the night, the roads were much clearer in the morning (once I made it out of the side streets…barely, I was scared my car was going to break with how much I had to slam on the gas and wiggle/zig zag down the street until I reached a semi plowed part). I made it home in the usual 2 hours and they were just plowing my street when I got home.
     Also it’s February 2, I believe the groundhog said 6 more weeks of winter and there is already snow in the forecast for Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday this coming week. Because of all this weather and the holidays, I realized I’ve only worked a full work week once in the past 5 weeks. It’s pretty crazy and I’m getting too used to the delayed starts and less than 40 hours a week, going back to full work weeks is going to be tough LOL.
     Hope everyone enjoys the Superbowl. I’m not into sports, but I think I’ll watch some of the puppy bowl tonight.

(first published on blogspot on Jan 21, 2014)

With all the treats I’ve been giving myself this weekend, I thought it was time to join in on Becky’s Treat Yourself Tuesday.

     So even though I was sick all weekend, I still treated myself a lot. I think it helped me feel a bit better or at least distracted me from feeling sick. First, while I was out Saturday morning, one of my stops was Dick’s Sporting Goods. I had received a $10 off reward in the mail and planned to buy a swimsuit to replace my one piece for swimming laps, but their swim suit collection in stores in winter is minimal and instead I bought an under armour shirt that was discounted and used my $10 off. Score! I can already tell this is going to be my new favorite workout shirt.

        On Monday, my mom needed me to return some stuff to the mall for her and since it was a holiday, there were tons of sales, though most of the things I ended up buying were not on sale….Anyway I treated myself to some wild strawberry tea from Adagio tea and bought some candy cane tea that was 50% off for later.

 

 

   Then I stopped in Bath and Body works, because they were having a sale and I had some coupons. I wanted to try their stress relief aromatherapy so I thought the travel size would be perfect to try some before buying a bigger bottle. I also threw in an energy body wash. I can’t wait to try these out!

     Just a few little treats from the weekend, but they made me happy. Now to get through the work week. Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!!

(first published on blogspot on Jan 20, 2014)

Happy Martin Luther King day! I was so happy when my work announced that we were getting today off. Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and if they have today off, hope you are enjoying that as well.
    Last Tuesday night I went to my first Blackhawks game. It was actually the first time I’ve ever watched hockey and can’t say I really paid attention for the first and second periods of the game, but it was a fun night with my co workers. You just can’t pass up the opportunity when you have box seats from your company.

 

 

   Yes I enjoyed those chicken fingers and chips and sprite for my dinner. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had had a sprite and to be honest, I think I overdid the sugar that night because for the next day my stomach hurt. The dessert cart later didn’t help….

 

   I really don’t get the chance to eat cookies the size of my hand very often, so I couldn’t resist! The rest of the evening, I was stuffed. I finally got into the game during the third period and started to actually follow where the puck was going. The stadium was rather quiet during the game, but when the Blackhawks scored, it was insanely loud with buzzers and cheers, so that was hard to miss!

this was when they scored their second goal

      The Blackhawks ended up being tied at the end of the third period so the game went into overtime. So here you have my overtime face…

    Unfortunately, in the end, the Blackhawks lost, but I have to say I was fully paying attention through overtime anxious to see who would score, other than when I took that selfie of course.

     After staying out late on the Tuesday, the rest of the week just felt off. On Wednesday it felt like it should have been Friday already and the week was tiring as it was our first 40 hour work week since before Christmas, seeing as the past week we had a lot of weather related time off. Eventually Friday came, but I felt awful.
        Unfortunately I’ve been sick since Friday, but all the sleeping in I’ve done this weekend is slowly helping. Despite being sick, I was able to get my errands done on Saturday morning that I had planned, including shopping for my friend’s baby shower gift, which I’m so excited about!
       Sunday I went bowling with another friend as an early celebration for her birthday since I will be out of town at the baby shower on her birthday. My goal was to score over 100 in each game, but I only scored in the 80s.

 

It was great to get some bowling practice in also since on Wednesday my company starts their bowling league. I don’t bowl often, nor very well (unless I get lucky), but it will be fun anyway. Today I plan to just take it easy and try to relax and hope that I feel better for the work week ahead.