Another day at the Office

My pile of towels (this is only half of them). I did the other half yesterday

Much better!

...And for the sheets

I usually hurry to fold all the towels, flat sheets, and pillow cases, and leave the fitted ones for Sam! Today I conquered my fear of the fitted sheet and did 8 in a row. It really isn't so bad once you get the hang of it.

And it's about time you get to see this place. This is where all the magic happens. Don't you love seeing the towels all stacked up nice? It makes me happy. I love having a washer and dryer. I never liked going to the laundromat.

Awesome Ski Day and a Little Respect for the Beards!

So Sam and I just got back from a perfect day of skiing at Stevens Pass. We were blessed with a rare bright sunny day and we had a blast. Sorry, no pics, we were having too much fun to stop and record it. But I do want to share the etsy print I just bought. And here's a shout out to Bearded Guys! Amy told me her brother isn't getting much respect for his beard. He says people just don't respect the beard any more. Well Nick, take a look at all the prints sold of these bearded guys, maybe they're making a comeback! Someone has a little respect. I just love all of these bearded men, I really wanted 3 different ones, but didn't want to shell out that much. Well, Ashley just added this one to her shop. I love it, all the different guys in one print!

A Few Gems

So I haven't really posted many of my steals, deals or finds on here. Probably because my pictures were so disorganized before I had no way of finding them on my computer. That is, until the other day, when I just decided to bite the bullet and organize 'em, it had to be done. So I did, and I'm happy because I can share this post with you on some fun little things I've found.

So this is very random and I hope to do this more. I love sharing a good find with you folks. Now that I'm organizing my life and all, I decided to be more well rounded in my blogging. I categorized my blogs the other day. So this is the fruit of my organizing labor.

I got this whole bag of notions at Savers for about $2. Lots of
goodies!
I wasn't really into the whole owl craze, until I found this at Goodwill. I just knew it had to be mine!
This was found at one of those church basement sales. I plan to use these on aprons, or bags, or a towel. I'm not sure, but I know I'll use them, they're just so darling.
This bowl I found at an antique shop in Mankato. I dragged my poor friend in to the store, and she had to pull me out. You see, she's not really into antiquing. She isn't a nut like me. I found some awesome rings at that place too, and a letterpress drawer, more to share for another day.

Christmas Eve

So, since we were all alone at the lodge, we ate our Christmas dinner up in the dining room. I made this amazing ham. You can make your own mouthwatering ham with pecan, bourbon and molasses glaze right here. I love epicurious! This was so delicious and easy to make. We decided to dress up, so it would feel more like Christmas. (*on a side note, just had to say that the cardigan I'm wearing was a $1 thrift store find, and the holly centerpiece was from our first wedding at the lodge, they left us 2 as a gift) We had a nice quiet Christmas here, and then we had fun and were thankful we were able to spend two days after Christmas in Spokane with Sam's family.

Holiday Lights

Yes, yes, you don't have to tell me. December is long gone. But I did fall behind on posting this advent stuff, and I'm still determined that we will finish all of them. So I am posting, so that the post with all the activities will have links to pics. I am not the only one. I have seen several bloggers still posting about their holidays!

This neighborhood is right down the road from us and all 5 houses in the culdesac all got in the holiday spirit and decorated their homes. It was hard to get a pic showing them all.

Gingerbread Men

We made gingerbread men. Sadly, I didn't take pictures of my argyle sweater old man, or Sam's nerdy pocket protector office man, or his Speedo sporting swimmer. But here are some of them! I didn't bake as much as I would have liked to. Although it's probably a good thing, since Dec. was slow, we would have been eating a lot of cookies.

Puzzle Complete!

It took so long! We finished it last week. It's the Crystal Mill in Colorado. Now it's in the loft for others to have fun with!

Leavenworth

We took a trip to a Bavarian village called Leavenworth a few weeks ago. The whole town was made over to look German. You can see better pictures and learn about it here. Right before Christmas was the perfect time to go. All the shops had real evergreen boughs with lights. It snowed the whole day we were there. It was really pretty. So many people seemed to be vacationing there. It was neat to go for a day. I think I would get bored after that. Some interesting shops, but lots of your typical touristy trinkets. We heard there are some good cross country ski trails around there, so we'd love to go back and do that. It was funny to see all the scrolly painted signs, Wells Fargo, McDonalds, Napa Auto Parts- they all had a hand painted wooden sign.

Goals, NOT Resolutions

So it's a new year. I looked over my blog from this last year. I didn't label posts at all until just recently. I'm really trying to be more organized in all aspects of my life. So for this blog I'm going to try to be more specific about my posts. Usually I find that I'm blogging about 3 different topics, and then it's hard to label them. Although, that's life, isn't it. It's all intermingled, and it all weaves together. So we'll see what happens. I'm not big on resolutions, I like the idea of setting goals. I always do that. I think I hate resolutions because I still get horrible images of school- sitting in a desk, staring at a blank piece of paper, trying to think what I can do to improve this year! I hated being forced to do that, I always thought it was dumb! And what kind of word is that anyway, resolution? I don't like the sound of it. So calling them resolutions are dumb, but setting goals, that is fine.
Some goals:
*no pop (I've been very good with this so far, I am realistic with this one now, I can drink it on occasion if I'm at someones house, but I don't buy it to drink at our house)
*drink more milk (this one has been going well also, and I've been drinking more water, now I have a new Sigg waterbottle I enjoy it more!)
*be active (I have to do this one solo, Sam and I can't both go out, so I'm going to hike and cross country ski, do some yoga, and some stuff at home)
*eat well (we have been doing better with this one, again, the organization is key, i'm starting a food journal and trying to plan out meals)
*be more organized (Sam has been really good at helping me with this one, I'd be lost without him)
*start an Etsy shop (I've been wanting to do this ever since I started this blog, I think I can do it this year because I have more time to make things, so I need to still work on making a lot of stuff-my sewing skills are really lacking, but hey it'll get better)
*learn to speak Spanish fluently (this is a long term goal, I don't know if it will happen this year, but we want to spend some time in a Spanish speaking country. And I've been looking over my blog from last year and just found a comment from someone who lived in Guatemala and learned Spanish, so I really need to e-mail her, I'm excited about that.
*get caught up on my scrapbooking (this time of year has me looking things over, and I do think this year this is realistic, I've already got a good start. I have to look at being cooped up here as an opportunity to make things, I have so much scrapbooking to do!)

So of course I have a lot of typical goals that everyone seems to have. I will try. I have learned to be content at all times. This is a good thing. Life would be boring if we weren't trying to stretch ourselves and try new things, but we should always be content with where we're at at the current time. It's too easy to get sucked into thinking, I'll be happy when... But why not look at the stuff we're blessed with now. This seems like such a simple thing, but it's taken me a few years to learn. I truly believe it now, I may not be happy all the time, but definitely content, and I try to be happy as much as possible. No one likes to be around and listen to negative people. And I'll never forget that statistic I learned in my communications class, it takes 10 happy people to counter 1 negative thought. I have a lot to be thankful for this year and I can't wait to see what God has in store for our lives for the future.

Phil 4:11-14
Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

I can't even compare, I have never truly suffered, never gone hungry or put in prison, but we all have bad days. And remembering that we are saved and we have heaven to look forward to should always keep us content. I know I'm being all preachy, every once in awhile I get in these moods!

All Advent Activities

Well, it's after Christmas, it's the new year! But I didn't post all of our advent activities. I didn't post every day in December like I said I would, but it was my best month of blogging. (The most posts in one month) So here are all of the advent activities. We still have to do a few. The ones we still need to do are in red. The ones we did are in green.
1. Gift for Sam (book light)
2. In the meadow we can build a snowman
3. A gift for Sam and Becca (dish scrubber for Sam and a piggy bank for me)
4. Pick out a Christmas CD to buy (we got and love the Sufjan Steven's Christmas box set)
5. A gift for Sam and Becca (Black licorice for Sam, Woman's Book of Delights for me)
6. Cut down a Christmas tree
7. Go ice skating (I still need to figure out where we can do this one!)
8. Take a thermos of hot cocoa and look at Christmas lights
9. Make and send a random gift to a friend (I sent Elizabeth a mixed CD of some holiday tunes and decorated the case with scrapbook paper, I think Sam has yet to do his!)
10. Go on a winter hike
11. Go Cross Country Skiing (we were going to do this in Leavenworth, but we didn't have enough time, so we're going to make a whole day of the cross country skiing)
12. Go to Leavenworth (A German Bavarian Village, kinda cool, neat to go at Christmas. It was snowing all day long and very magical)
13. A gift for Becca (bar of really good chocolate)
14. A gift for Sam (an envelope opener gadget and some little plastic travel bottles)
15. Watch a Christmas movie (We watched Little Women and my favorite A Christmas Story)
16. Play a game together (I think we need to get another game, we got Mad Gab, our games aren't suited very well for just two people)
17. Spend a whole day baking Christmas cookies together (We made cut out sugar cookies, gingerbread men, snickerdoodles, and Sam had to make drop cookies as he was remembering fond memories of them at the church potlucks when he was little)
18. Write a love letter to each other (hopefully we'll do this one soon!)
19. SKI! At Steven's Pass (I think we're doing this on Thursday we went the following Wed instead and had a blast, yay!)
20. A gift for Becca (Dec. Martha Stewart Living magazine)
21. Put together a Christmas puzzle (almost complete!)
22. A gift for Sam and Becca (Sam got a backpacker gear guide magazine and I got my favorite kind of pens, usually I steal them from Sam but he got me my very own!)
23. Go to Jack's Country Store (this is a cool place by the ocean that sells old things, we'll do it sometime this month and I'll update you!)
24. Read the Christmas story together in the Bible

So, 18 21 out of 24 isn't too bad. Hopefully they'll all be completed by the end of January! This was really fun to do. I think it's always fun to plan some things you like to do together. Every place we live at we make a list of things we want to do. Of course, they never all get accomplished, but we don't get bored. What should we do? Let's look at our list, let's go to Colorado Springs and see Garden of the Gods. I hope to keep that up and research some cool things to do in the Seattle area.