You "Deserve" It

Lately I've been really hating the word deserve. As Christmas gets closer I am noticing it being used more and more:

• A commercial for a car dealership says they will take any old junker as a trade in, because "You deserve a nicer, newer car."
• A mail insert for a furniture store offers me low interest rates to help me get the furnishings I "deserve".
• A billboard for a bank offering holiday loans to "give your family the holiday they deserve."

All of these statements make me want to scream! Yes, it is really nice to have nice things, I get that. But to have the mentality that you deserve nice things, even if you can't afford them, means one of two things:

1. You are going to go into debt to get them.
2. You are expecting someone else to get them for you.

Going into debt for something as silly as a couch or a Christmas present is insane! And expecting someone else to get it for you is selfish! And at the end of the day a new couch isn't going to make you happier. You will be the same person with the same problems (maybe more problems, if you went into debt to get it!), just with a nicer place to sit. 

I'm going to step off my soapbox now and put Christmas music on Pandora and finish decorating the tree. After all this typing, I think I deserve it! ;)

Is it Fate?

A few days ago I noticed a pair of nail clippers on my work desk. How the heck did they get there? No idea. I chalked it up to my pregnancy brain and moved on with my life.

I didn't move the nail clippers though. That one isn't related to pregnancy. I'm just lazy.

Today I had a little break before I had to attend a meeting. A long enough break that I could get bored, but not so long that I could actually start doing something. That's when I noticed that my right big toenail was a little long and the left one was uneven.

Then I remembered that I have nail clippers at my desk! Maybe I knew that future me would need to clip her toenails but wouldn't have time to go get the clippers?

I think it was fate.

Beauty

I found these beauties growing behind the recycle bin on the side of the house. I had to cut a few and bring them inside the house!

Commitment Issues

I love having a fireplace. Not because I think it will be nice on cold winter days to curl up next to a fire. Let's face it. I live in South Texas. It's November and it was 82 degrees today. Maybe in a really cold year we would actually light a fire five times.

No, I love having a fireplace because it comes with a mantle! It's a built in shelf that can hold so many cute things! All of those candle holders I randomly picked up at Goodwill now have a home! I love rearranging the mantle, trying out new things, new colors, new height combinations.

Today I had the idea to start stacking pictures on the mantle. Hey, I'm not putting them on the walls, I might as well do something with them, right? And that's when it hit me. The clock would look so cool up there! So I put it up in the middle, and it looked great. Only... it was too low! So now I really want to try hanging the clock up there.

But... the mantle is brick. Hanging something in brick is a commitment! It involves special drill bits and stuff that I let Steve think about. Once it's up there, you can't just take it down or move it. And if I get tired of having the clock there, I will be forced to put something else there to cover up the hole.

I'm just not ready for that type of commitment...

Life's Great Mysteries

Why is it that I can't wake up on weekdays, but I can't sleep in on the weekends??

Resolutions - A Look Back

Ok, first of all, how in the world is today November first? Seriously? What happened to October? We are exactly three weeks away from Thanksgiving… What??

Since there are only two months until the end of the year I wanted to check in and see how I was doing with my New Year’s Resolutions. They were to:

1. Become an extreme couponer.
2. Get into a routine with my housework.

I did pretty well at becoming an extreme couponer. Except, I’m not that extreme. I would say I am a moderate couponer. There are so many regular products I don’t use because of the parabens (drugstore shampoo, makeup, body wash, etc) that even if they were free, it wouldn’t be worth it for me. But we are all stocked up on contact solution, deodorant, Steve’s body wash, laundry soap, razors, toilet paper, and paper towels for a while. I stopped going every week, and just go now when I see something that I really want/need. It works for me. I’m going to say this was a success!

The housework routine was not quite as successful. It started out pretty well, but then things got a little crazy. We started getting serious about buying a house, and packing disrupts everything. Then we moved, which is even more disruptive. Morning sickness/needing 12 naps a day kicked in a few days after the move, and poor Steve had to do everything for a while! But even if I was feeling fine, keeping a 2000 square foot house clean is MUCH more difficult that keeping a 900 square foot apartment clean. There are so many more surfaces, more floors to sweep or vacuum, more corners to dust, more space for junk to accumulate! But I’m getting there. I haven’t been behind in the laundry for over a month, and I’ve managed to get dinner on the table almost every night. So even though this didn’t go as well as I had hoped, I still say it was marginally successful.

The good news is, I still have two whole months before the year is over. 61 days to get better!

My Perfect Town

I was thinking the other day about all the cool stuff in the places I have lived. I really wish I could take little bits and pieces of every town I have ever lived in and made one big perfect town! My perfect town would include:

From Silver City:

• Vintage Fantasies. Seriously the best vintage store I’ve ever been in. Great scarves, jewelry, shoes, dresses, and the best collection of vintage hats I’ve ever seen!!
• The Antique Mall. Rooms and rooms of old stuff. Most of it is junk, some of it is treasure. I could stay there all day!
• The Grinder Mill. Chile cheese fries. What more is there to say??
• The Gila Cliff Dwellings. Native American ruins. A fantastic one mile hike!

From Las Cruces:

• COAS books. A huge used bookstore with floor to ceiling books for amazing prices. All of the paperback books are half off of whatever the cover price is. So that awesome book you found from the 70s that was $0.50? It’ll cost you a quarter! Another place I could stay all day!!
• Andale’s. The tacos. Oh, the tacos…
• The Organ Mountains. I really really miss living in a place with mountains. But I specifically miss these mountains! My last semester of school I made a point to notice the mountains every single day on my way to school. They change colors depending on the weather and time of day. I just love them!
• Keva Juice. Ya, they have them other places. It’s just not the same!

From Tempe/Phoenix:

• The Goodwills. Especially the one in Scottsdale. Half off everything in the store every other Saturday. Man, I got some great stuff!
• Tempe Town Lake. I love the water, and having a ‘lake’ just down the street was great! Lots of restaurants on one side, a walking path on the other side. Just don’t go there on Thursday nights. Unless you like drunk college kids!
• Ra. The best sushi. And if you go during happy hour you’ll feel like you’re stealing it!!
• Ikea. I seriously miss having an Ikea 10 minutes down the road. When I didn’t have anything to do on a Saturday I would go have breakfast there, shop for a while, have lunch, shop some more. I would have moved in, but apparently it’s frowned upon…
• The Mesa temple visitors center/grounds. I feel so blessed to have a temple just a few minutes away, but I really miss having the visitors center and the beautiful grounds to walk around. I miss the Christmas lights and the Easter pageant…
• Merchant Square. It's a mix of a flea market and a thrift store. Lots and lots of cool stuff to look at and buy. Also, they have the only hot dogs I will break my ‘One Hot Dog a Year’ rule for.

From San Antonio:

• The Riverwalk. I fell in love with San Antonio on the Riverwalk. It’s also where Steve proposed! I love the water, I love the atmosphere.
• Thrift Outlet. On Wednesdays, EVERYTHING in the store is a quarter. Everything. Does it get any better? I don’t think so!
• The Cove. A restaurant smashed between a car wash and a laundry mat. Serves locally sourced food, and soda with real sugar. They have live music most nights, and a playground for the kiddos. Get the burger with the goat cheese. It’s amazing.
• The Botanical Garden. Amazing plants as far as the eye can see. They also have really cool live music events. Love it!
• Lulu’s Cafe. A three pound cinnamon roll. Yep.
• The outlets. Just 30 minutes north! Has pretty much every store you can think of. The deals can be hit or miss, but having them so close makes it worth the drive!
• The Spurs. Gotta love some basketball! Go! Spurs! Go!
• The Alamo. Yes, most people are disappointed when they first see it. It’s small. It’s in the middle of town (I think people watch too many movies!). Once you get over that, you can be in awe of how very old the building is, and how many people walked through the very same place you are walking.
• The Hacienda. The first time we ate there all I said the whole time was Oh man, this is so good. I might have been close to tears. Get the fajitas. You won’t be sorry!
• The Missions. Once again, really old buildings with a ton of history. One of them is still a working monastery and church! It almost makes me want to be Catholic just so I could go to church in such an awesome place. 
• Blacks BBQ. An hour drive. Worth every single mile. Every. Single. Mile.
• The Majestic Theater. An old theater from back when people took time to focus on the details of buildings instead of just trying to get them built as quickly as possible. Everything about this building is ornate, gaudy and awesome. I usually miss the first part of the show I'm seeing there because I'm looking around at everything. They even have a stuffed peacock!