Monday, January 27, 2014

Madness

Oh, why do I do this?

I have a sickness, a problem, a disease, a madness! It's called "home decorating"!

Now that I have a full time job, there is more money coming in for making updates to the house! YAY! But less time to do them in, Boo!

One much needed update is blinds! We have been living sans blinds for over a year and a half now. We replaced all the windows in our home and got new siding in August 2012. And I hated the blinds that had come with the house so we just choose not to put them back up and would get new...

And money had been tight, so new blinds waited, and waited, and waited some more... until finally we realized how much we needed them. But custom is what we have to have because of the window dimensions, so we will be slowly going room to room getting blinds (they still are expensive even with a little more coming in each month).

The first set finally came! We are getting blinds for the front bedrooms first (another reason to wait, our bedroom is at the back of the house and we don't have neighbors close to use out the back and they are high up). We don't really use those front rooms since we don't have children yet or a lot of house guests. Jon uses one for keeping his work uniforms and gear in it and its wear he gets ready each day for work, so it needed blinds! Especially, when we realized that one of neighbor's can see right in when they have their front blinds up too! I actually caught them one time.... creep!

Anyway, we have blinds up in one room now! But in my craziness, the casements needed to be painted, we had never painted them when we painted the room, they were still a purpley-lavender, what had been there when we moved it. So, I spent a few hours painting the casings with a little art craft brush white. It took 3 coats (I would have preferred more but Jon said no).

We also ordered a blind for the 1/2 bath on the main level but of course I couldn't leave it only...so what started as just painting the casings quickly turned into lets just repaint this entire room! It's a disease! I started this project 4 days before having a party at my house... Way to go smarty pants!  I will do my best to finish but doubt it will happen quickly...

Wish me luck...(seriously, what was I thinking?)

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Major Wife Win

I've earned a major wife win!

Jon celebrated a big birthday last week by turning the Dirty Thirty! We kept it low key, which he said he wanted because he wasn't to thrilled about this birthday. Little did he know that I had planned a big ol' surprise party for him! :)

I started the planning stages way back in like September with my sister, Teresa. Teresa and her husband threw each other surprise parties over the summer because they too celebrated big birthdays!

The original plan was for Jon to go to breakfast with his parents, brother and sister (and me) on January 5th, two days before his actually birthday. However, Mother Nature decided to throw a temper tantrum and send us into the Polar Vortex! I cancelled the party and rescheduled it for the next week. Talk about panic. I had so many people to contact ASAP on Friday, January 3rd and I had to cancel the cake, etc etc.

Jon's sister had to go back to Iowa so she wasn't able to come back for the party reschedule :( but Jon's parents and I forged on with the breakfast for all of us on the next Sunday! I was to pretend to be sick to get out of it. And let's just say I should be winning an Oscar for my performance! Jon said I was so believable that he was annoyed and just wanted his parents to come get him so he didn't have to hear me whine! I even had tears in my eyes!

They left, and I had 2 hours to finish party prep, aka pick up everything I couldn't because he'd have noticed something was up (I'm not a great housekeeper); and I need to get drag everything I had been hiding out from their hiding places, like the basement and the trunk of my car!

Everyone arrived between 12:30-1:00pm and Jon didn't figure out anything until he was right outside the door and asked his mom, "Is this a party?"

The relief to know I had succeeded and that it was over was unbelievable! I will never have another surprise party! Everyone had a great time, lots of food, lots of talking, and lots of fun!

Have you had a major win over your spouse too?

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

My Love Affair

I have had a 10 year love affair with shoes. Pretty shoes especially high heels! The higher the better! Sadly, I have realized at the tender age of 25, that my poor feet cannot handle the stress of cheap or narrow toed shoes or shoes with high, high heels anymore :(

I need shoes that have cushioning, support and a wider toe box. I can't handle high heels like I could 5 years ago. Which wasn't a big deal at my old job because I could wear tennis shoes and jeans everyday but at my new job I need to be more business casual so tennis shoes are not always acceptable.

And the adorable, affordable flats of Target are terrible: no support, and they smoosh my poor toes together. My pinkie's are being forced to curve and its creating the painful, beginning stages of a bunion on the side of my feet.

My feet and legs can't stand up to the pressure of wearing 4-inch heels all day while walking anymore. My whole body will hurt if I try. Mostly, in my lower back, the balls of my feet and once again my toes. Even my toe-nails will hurt!! (Say what?!?)

I am however thankful that because of my training as a running shoe expert fitter that I recognized the signs before things got too bad. (I saw some pretty nasty feet of women who refused to accept their actual shoe size or who had crammed their feet into heels and flats for too long.)

For me, it started last spring when I realized my foot hurt and my pinkie toe's weren't where they should and used to be. Luckily, the weather was warming up and wearing sandals and going barefoot were just around the corner. Over the summer I worked to correct this issue by not wearing shoes that enclosed my feet if at all avoidable, unless tennis shoes with wide toe boxes, and wearing my Vibrams (toe shoes when I could).

The sad thing is I had just bought a pair of Chuck Taylor's and I can hardly wear them because of the narrow toe box :( Jon and I took a day trip to my Alma Mater in the fall, I wore my Chuck's and was almost in tears by the end of the day walking around campus!

But Ladies, this is a warning that sometimes we need to think about the long-term side effects are our love affair with shoes! What you do when you are young will affect you when your older, in all things! I'm now on the hunt for cute shoes that are healthy for my feet and body. Now, occasionally I will wear my super adorable but totally impracticable shoes; key word is occasionally.

I'm just thankful I realized the change I needed to make before it was too late, because I can't afford surgery to fix the problem! :)

I'm also on the hunt for good, healthy flats for work...still rocking my cheapy shoes but my knees, ankles and feet are killing me more and more.







Wednesday, January 8, 2014

That Moment You Realize...

I am becoming my parents!

Oh what a sad realization that is when it hits you... For The Hill's - The Younger (aka me and Jon) its been a slow realization but has been made more clear lately.

Yesterday was Jon's 30th birthday. He is not a happy camper about getting older but I'm of the mind that nothing will change the passage of time. We can't age backwards like Benjamin Button, we can only move forward and accept the aging process.

Anyway, we went to dinner with his parents and then decided to go run an errand. We live in Illinois, and Jon has a job were he's outside a lot but he doesn't have good cold-weather gear. (The man didn't have a winter work coat!!) We went to Dick's and were looking found what he wanted but either they didn't have his size or the sticker shock got us.

1. Sticker shock - I believe this hits men differently than women and at different stages. I hit it a few years ago when I decided to be more responsible with grocery, home decor, and clothes shopping. Jon, I believe really just hit it last night. He's always been a, "here is what I want, and I'm going to buy the first one I see" instead of pricing and shopping around.

So, with Dick's being a bust, I suggested we try somewhere else, he wanted Carhartt's, where's one of the best places to find Carhartt's? Farm'n'Fleet!

2. We enjoyed shopping at Farm'n'Fleet and will be back - as children we both hated when our dad's needed to go to Farm'n'Fleet. It was boring and had nothing for us as children, I thought the clothes ugly. Oh, how wrong we were!

Jon ended up with a new winter work coat, long underway, and work gloves. He's still on the hunt for overalls (they didn't have his size, WTH?) and a face mask.

Driving away, we talked about how much we underestimated the wonders of Farm'n'Fleet and came to the realization... we are slowly turning into our parents.

Not a bad thing because both our parents have had lasting marriages, worked good/hard jobs and have reached that peak in life that we would call success. I'm curious to see how much we end up like them in the future...

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Snow Day 2014!

January 6, 2014 - Snow Day = No work for me!

Yesterday was a snow day for me from work! WooHooo! Jon's "weekend" (days off) just happen to be Sunday/Monday, so we got 2 full days of nothing but each other because we were homebound due to the snow and extreme cold!

Sunday, we did go out and shovel our driveway, it took about 2 hours! But I did get some play time in the backyard - jumping in a drift and making a snow angel before heading inside! Duncan was out with us in the backyard, we were clearing a path for him to go potty; he was not a fan of me jumping in the snow, he came bounding over to make sure I was okay.

The rest of the time was spent reading, Jon playing his Christmas/birthday present = PS4, and I did get sucked into the season premier of Downtown Abbey; we ended the night by watching Man of Steel in bed. And I even made Jon one of his favorite suppers for his upcoming B-day! Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn.

Monday - I win the best wife award! I decided I couldn't handle another day of watching Jon play video games so instead we had a Lord of The Rings: Trilogy, Extended Edition! We made it through 5 of the 6 total DVD's in the Trilogy. We did have a break because we needed to go out and dig out Jon's work car and make a path for me to get on to the street from the driveway.

And today it's back to work in the freezing weather but on an exciting note it is Jon's 30th Birthday! Needless to say he is not quite as excited about this birthday as in years past but I hoping he'll get over his dislike of getting old, because there's no stopping. But here's to another year of awesome for my Boy!

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Resolutions?

Happy New Year! I can't believe that it is 2014!

I hope that you all had a wonderful and safe time ringing in the New Year! Mine was spent at my brother, Brian's home with our family. It was a great time, we played games, talked, ate too much and even had a childhood flashback with a fight between the sister's  (not me, 2 of the older ones). I was sick and without my sweetie to kiss at midnight. We both have colds and he was working an extra shift.

But now the question is what are my resolutions for 2014?

Normally, I don't make resolutions because I think they are silly and things you say to make yourself feel better about the year to come, to accomplish something, but how often do you not follow through on them?I've never been successful at keeping them but I did make one for this year!

My 2014 Resolution: To establish a good and well-rounded routine!

I know, I know this isn't much of a resolution for many but for me this would be awesome! I haven't had a good routine since August and I've been scattered and all over the place (which makes me a little nutty).

I've never had a full-time job, and when I started it was right before Thanksgiving and I've been going non-stop ever since. And the past 2 weeks, I've had days off during the week for the holidays which threw off my work schedule routine.

I want to establish boundaries between me-time, us-time, errands and extras. I need established routines and schedules to help me budget, start working out, Bible study time, grocery shop, and spend time with friends (they got the short end of the stick this fall/holiday season).

Here's hoping to establishing a good, well-rounded, stress-relieving routine!

Did you make any resolutions?