First, I have been taking my vitamins and doing my workouts and I am actually getting to bed at a reasonable time at night – which is awesome news. My workouts are getting steadily better and longer which is also amazing news. So things are progressing and I am starting to get more sleep! Which is even more amazing considering that work has been extremely stressful lately.

Mike & I took the cats to the vet last Friday because they needed their Distemper vaccine boosters. Nemo hates it when he is in the carrier, and he always rubs his nose on the metal bars until his nose is all puffy and sometimes even bleeding. He also got weighed, and he is a whopping 15 pounds. What a hefer! The vet gave us a few suggestions to get his weight down. Otherwise, both Nemo & Buffy are healthy and fine, and there is no danger of Distemper in their future either. I noticed 2 days ago that Nemo was sneezing. A lot. He sneezed all afternoon and evening and would have these fits of like 20 sneezes right in a row. The poor kid! I was really worried. He continued the next morning so I did some research online and found that excessive cat sneezing can mean there is a respiratory infection. So I called the vet and they asked me to bring him back in this morning. I was right, he has an upper respiratory infection and we have to give him antibiotics twice a day for 14 days. Yipee. But hopefully this will help and he will be feeling better soon.

My mom got me a pressure cooker for Christmas, and I tried it out a couple of times this week. I was nervous at first because I have heard horror stories about them, but it is actually awesome. On Sunday I made a delicious pot roast and it only took about an hour! It’s crazy how fast that thing cooks food. I also put frozen chicken breasts in it along with some sauce and chopped onion and mushrooms, and that took 30 minutes to be completely done, and was also delish. My mom also got me a couple of really cool cookbooks that I have been making good use of as well.

From Mike I got Star Trek The Original Series Season 1 on special edition Blu-Ray. HOLY COW. It looks AMAZING. They have redone all of the effects and cleaned up all of the film, and it is crazy how awesome it is. There is a little documentary where they explain how they did it, and they show side by side comparisons of the original footage and the redone footage. Just the clarity of the picture alone is great, but on top of that, the redone effects are incredible. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

As some of you may know, Mike’s birthday is next week. We decided to make a weekend trip to Traverse City, so we are leaving on Thursday next week after I get out of work. I am super excited to get away for a couple of days, and also to celebrate Mike’s birthday. It should be really fun, plus we got an amazing deal on the hotel room!

When my stepmom was here, she told me that I remind her of Punky Brewster. I think she was referring to my pajamas. I usually just look in the closet and grab the first PJ things I find that are clean and put them on. When she said that I was wearing my crazy knee high socks that I made, grey cotton capris, a baby blue care bear t-shirt, and a bright blue & hot pink plaid long sleeve flannel shirt. A few nights later, after my family left, Mike, George & I had plans to watch a movie. I put on my jammies, and then came downstairs. They both looked shocked because I was wearing hot pink legwarmers, a purple and black striped skirt, and a fleece top with a crazy print in insanely bright colors. They laughed and made jokes about how much my clothes clashed. Anyway, it really got me thinking. I think I am like Punky Brewster. My favorite knitting projects are always the ones I make with scrap yarn in a crazy assortment of colors. I searched my Flickr photos for “scraps” as a tag and I got this. Hmmm, kind of a lot. Plus, that’s just the items that are complete – I also have 2 scrap afghans, a pair of scrap socks and 2 scrap scarves on the needles right now, and I recently made a draft dodger for the Man Cave from scraps that I don’t have photos of yet. I think maybe Punky should be my new street name? The thing is I do love color, and one of the reasons I love to knit so much is because I love to put colors and textures together in interesting and unexpected ways. So yeah, I guess my stepmom was right – I am sort of like Punky Brewster. You have to admit – the kid had style. I love her whole outfit, right down to her pigtails and jaunty thumbs up.

So here is the result – Mikey with his Sackboy:

I am pretty pleased with how the Sackboy turned out. He is actually really cute, and I am quite impressed with myself. Mikey likes him too. Since Sackboy loves to wear different costumes, I also gave Mikey a few changes of clothes for him. I got him a police officer’s outfit, a ninja set, and BEHOLD – Sackboy Pirate:

Anyway, I just wanted to share the photos of Sackboy – I was dying to blog about him while he was in progress but I had to keep him a secret!!

Anyway, we had a great time, and it was soooo great to see all of them. I will be very glad when I am on vacation next week and don’t need to work during the day so we can hang out.

Here’s Miss Renea:

After we all shopped a while, the guys dropped me off at home so they could go out and do some super secret boy Christmas shopping. I came inside and decided to make a cup of tea. I went to the sink to fill my kettle and saw this:

Look closely at the second pic, and you can see there are FIVE deer! It was so cool. They nommed our bushes for about 10 minutes while I watched. They were so pretty!

Last night we got to hang with Becky & Amber, who are in town from FL for the holidays. It was SO AWESOME to see them! I miss them so much. Anyway, we are for sure getting together with them on Saturday night, and hopefully before that too.

My dad and his family are in town and will be here to stay the night this afternoon. It will be good to see them – it’s been a while! That’s all for now. Million things to do.

I don’t have a ton of things to say at the moment. I’m getting a haircut this afternoon which makes me super happy because this mullet needs to go before Christmas! Tonight my family is getting together for dinner with my BFF from WAY back Babs, and her family. I can’t wait, it’s been too long since I’ve seen them! I still have a few more gifts I need to get, and a million things to do around the house, but everything will work out in the end, I’m sure.

I have not been sleeping well at all. I can’t seem to fall asleep at night, and I just lay there for HOURS. Then when the alarm goes off, I’m so exhausted that I am fighting myself tooth and nail to get out of bed. I’m pretty sure it is holiday stress. I am desperately in need of some time off to relax and unwind. Luckily there is some right around the corner. Now if it could just get here a little faster!

As for TV, I have no idea what I will do without Glee for the rest of the winter! The winter finale or whatever the eff they are trying to call it was amazing, and I can’t wait for more. I have been missing the Vampire Diaries, and also can’ wait for it to return. I have been watching the Sing Off, too, and it has proved to be very entertaining. I have been wanting Nota to win from the start, but once I saw the Beelzebubs do their Who medley, I am really liking them too. Before the Who I was kind of ehhhh about them. I have no idea who will end up winning, but I still hope Nota takes it. The Bubs have really impressed me though, and I think I’d be happy to have either of them win. I was also pleasantly surprised by Maxx Factor! I figured they wouldn’t make it to the end, but the Beach Boys medley was off the hook, and those chicks rock. I was also BLOWN AWAY by Nota’s version of Sledgehammer. I thought it was crazy awesome. 

Oh, and I decided not to do Christmas cards this year. So I wasn’t snubbing you personally if you were expecting one. I was snubbing you AND everyone else. MERRY CHRISTMAS. Pretend that was your card.

Well I think that’s it for now. I hope everyone is having a rocking holiday so far!

On Friday, we decided to do some shopping. Not the crazy 4 AM shopping, we went out on Friday night around 6 and hit a few places. We went to Target, Best Buy, and Gamestop. We managed to weasel a few of the super cheap deals that were still available, and the lines weren’t too long, so it was nice. I also went to the Dollar Tree and snagged a few holiday decorations – pine garland for the railings, and also these really pretty snowflakes that I hung in the living room windows. I was really excited because the next day Mike’s mom & dad were coming over to loan us their 12 foot Christmas tree and help us put it up! So I got as much of the holiday decor put out before I went to bed.

This is where the best laid plans started to fall apart. I woke up around 3:30 in the morning and was throwing up until about 5. Hmmm, maybe not the best day to put the tree up after all. I felt awful. I had awful chills and nausea. We had to cancel the tree plans, and I was in bed all day long. The only time I got up at all was once in the morning and again at night to go feed my mom’s cat, Tigger, while she was gone for the weekend. Thankfully, Mike drove me both times and I rode in the passenger seat clutching a wastebasket in case of emergency. I finally ate some dry toast in the afternoon, and then a tiny bit of chicken broth and some saltines in the evening. On Sunday, I was still a little queasy, but feeling quite a bit better. I was even able to take care of Tigger on my own! Mike’s parents came and we got the tree up, which was really cool. Damn, a 12 foot tree is a ton of work! It sure is pretty though! Here’s a daytime pic, keep in mind it looks so much prettier at night. And here’s a really cute pic of Buffy chilling under the tree, too. She LOVES it! She has been sleeping under there at night since we put it up. I sort of miss her because she used to sleep with me, but she sure looks cute under there.