When in doubt, smile.

My PMS is kicking in this weekend, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Today I emptied the fridge, took out the garbage, swept out the garage, took down all the ornaments & lights inside, packed up the tree, cleaned the kitchen, moved out all our living room furniture, steam cleaned the living room (and it needed it sooo badly, I have before and after pictures, but I might not post them, its kinda embarrassing that our floor got so bad) and I just threw together a beef stroganoff with the last of our leftover Christmas roast (which was actually pretty good, considering I barely followed the recipe, as a baker its hard for me not to follow a recipe).

Needless to say, I’m going to sleep well tonight! Tomorrow I want to sweep and wash our tile floors, organize our pantry and linen closet, start laundry, and maybe start taking down the decorations outside. We’ll see how things go, hopefully my cleaning PMS will stick around 1 more day.

[UPDATE] Here are some before & after pictures from steam cleaning.

I am actually getting sick of cookies but I hate to throw them out. There were tons of good food and great times this Christmas, I was pretty sad for it to end. Liz uploaded pictures [click here] .. Sean also got a flip video recorder, so there are a couple silly short videos on my youtube account.

There were a bunch of really good gifts given and recieved through the family this year. I made my mom a knitting backpack, and put together a photo album for Liz of Ella’s first year, broken down week by week. Sean got a hot dog griller and a ton of really nice tools from his Mom. Dad got a nintendo DS and a iPod dock for his home stereo receiver. Liz got a Canon XTi camera, so look forward to amazing photos from her. Mom also got an iPod and a GPS unit for her car. And I feel totally spoiled this Christmas, some of the highlights are a Cuisineart Griller that makes awesome paninis and other things I haven’t tried yet, a speaker dock for my iPod so I can listen to music in my sewing room, and Sean got me a Mac Pro (desktop) that is much more powerful then my laptop, so that I can edit photos faster, and spend more time on customers, to get my photography business up and running.

So onto 2008 right? I’ve been trying to think of my new years resolutions this year. For one, I want to eat at home more, and healthier. When I go out to run errands, because we’re at least 20 min from shopping areas, I’m usually out for 2-4 hours, and I almost always get hungry. I want to stop snacking on fast food and get in the habit of packing an apple or celery sticks before I walk out the door. Continuing on that train of thought, of course I want to lose weight. I estimate I have 20 - 25 lbs to lose now, but I refuse to step on that scale yet. I started an account on traineo.com and I’ll have a little ticker on this page to keep me motivated. I’ve picked a time to do my cardio daily (right after the puppies start their morning nap, usually around 8:30). And hopefully once I get back in a schedule, I’ll make a 2nd visit to the gym on some days for yoga or other classes. Lastly I want to make a real effort to start my photo businesses. I plan on joining local business organizations and write up a business plan.

Alright that’s probably a long update. Time to go clean the kitchen! Hope everybody has a good New Years!

I hope everybody has a very Merry Christmas!

Here are a few favorite outtakes from our card photoshoots.

I think .. well at least all the gift shopping is done .. or will be done by this afternoon. Eh, maybe I’m not done yet I do need to start wrapping. But I am done with our decorations this year .. So here are a few pictures!

This is a picture of our indoor wreath and our Christmas card tree.

gotten a word or phrase stuck in your head, like you can get a song stuck in your head? I’ve never remembered doing it before, but on Tuesday I started the day off by repeating in my head ‘No, the other kind of German Shepherd” from the Tina Fey AMEX commercial. Ok, yeah I’ve heard of people getting jokes stuck in their head, so I kinda understand how that happened. But a few hours later I realized I was repeating ‘Sweeney Tot’, a headline I read on TMZ.com announcing Helena Bonham Carter & Tim Burton’s new baby girl. Once I realized what I was doing I thought I had stopped it .. but a few hours later .. I was repeating Sarkozy, as in the French President Nicholas Sarkozy?? Over and over and over again my head! I have no answer on how that got stuck in there. So I had enough of repeating words and headed over to youtube to replace the words with Ella’s new rocking horse’s song Its very catchy.

After a week of 5:30 am wake up puppy yelps, I slept in until 9:30 this morning! The dogs didn’t even want to get up then, until I told them it was breakfast time I guess running around with Rocky for a week really wore them out!

This week just flew by. We didn’t end up going to that Gymboree class, but we did have alot of fun adventures including a dawn photoshoot for her Christmas card, a trip to the Westin Diplomat to see Annabelle and Halle, and a few shopping trips. Ella was awesome for me the whole time, she made it too easy really. Friday we spent the day at Jungle Island with the Konickis and Donalds. Ella had woken up at 6:15 am .. didn’t sleep during our 45 min drive there (which I totally expected her to) .. then only fell asleep for a half hour on our way home, and stayed up until 7pm without any fits! I couldn’t believe it. Seriously .. too easy.

So Jungle Island was really neat. Ella had so much fun. She met a turtle, fed a kangaroo, saw chickens, pet goats and touched an alligator. She loved waving hi to all the animals we couldn’t get close to, and running around the playground with Halle and Annabelle. Here are a few pictures, and there are plenty more on her website.

This is from Thursday when we joined the Konickis and Donalds for lunch at their hotel

The hardest part of the week were the puppies. Thursday after Ella and I came home from visiting Halle and Annabelle at their hotel, she went down for a nap and I let the dogs out back while I emptied out the car. When I went to go bring them in .. I realized my 2 dogs had gone under the fence into my parents’ neighbor’s yard. So I pulled out one of the many rocks we have piled under the fence to keep them from going under and Rocky, the 3rd dog, ran under. So I run to a part of the fence where I could see through into the next yard and I see that the neighbor’s gate is open .. and like it was a cartoon or something, as soon as I saw the open gate all 3 of them ran full speed out of it. That’s when my adrenaline kicked in, I hopped the 6 foot wood fence, grabbed one right outside of the gate. Then I  saw a speeding car coming straight for us and yelled at him and Big Boy went right after the car. Luckily the guy stopped and I managed to grab Big Boy. Then with 2 dogs under my arms, I corralled Little Girl back into the neighbor’s yard, shoved them all under the fence where I had pulled the rock away and started to climb over the fence myself. I looked down as I was about to swing my other leg over the fence and my 2 dogs ran back under their original hole .. UGH … and stupid me never closed the neighbor’s gate! So another run up and down the street, grabbed them both, plugged up both holes, threw them throw a missing plank, hurled myself back over the fence, and then crated them while I calmed down. I was furious, and so lucky Ella had been asleep and that nothing had happened to those darn dogs. Friday they were chained up everytime they went out, just like they are here where we dont have a fence.

Here is a silly picture from our first night at my parents house where my trouble makers decided to join Ella in her bath.

I can tell they’re happy to be home, we had to leave quickly this morning, they slept the whole trip and most of the afternoon .. they’re both curled up with me on the couch right now.

Well today is my 2nd day of Ella-sitting. I’m here for the entire week as Ella’s regular babysitter has gone on a vacation (lucky her!). Ella’s been great for me so far. I guess because she doesn’t get to see me very often, she associates fun things with me. So keeping up with tradition, Ella and I went to the mall yesterday where we ended up walking the toy aisles at Target, and even played with their life sized robot pony (scary huh?). I even got her out of the toy aisles without any crying! We had Jamba Juice and went to Barnes and Noble yesterday too. Between the very active toddler, 3 puppies and waking up at 6:30am, I was exhausted last night.

This morning I realized I had a bunch of work to get done today, so I decided to try to get Ella to nap twice (since she still has a cold, I think I have a good chance of making that happen). We went out to breakfast and when we got home she went right down for a nap, YAY! She’s already been down for an hour! Hopefully this afternoon will go as smoothly as this morning.

As for the rest of the week .. I’m trying to come up with things to keep us busy. I signed up for a free class at Gymboree tomorrow morning. The Konickis and Donalds will be down here tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully we’ll get to hang out with them on Thursday.  I’m trying to decide if she’d enjoy something like the Young At Art Museum or maybe a trip to MODS.

Well time to get my work done, not sure if she’ll sleep much longer! If you have any fun suggestions for hanging out with a toddler .. leave me comments!

This is seriously easy .. and so good. The hardest part about it is having the patience to do it correctly. My last batch took a half hour of stirring over a hot stove, which gets annoying. Tip #1 have help standing by, you’ll only need them for 2 minutes tops, but when it comes to pouring and spreading the brittle the more help the better. Tip #2, measure out all your ingredients before you start. Once things get going you wont have enough time to measure out your baking soda or peanuts. Tip #3, use a candy thermometer, dont even attempt this without one unless you’re a pro candy maker. It’ll make this so much easier! Oh! and don’t be afraid to try this .. its really easy if you’re prepared, and its sooo cool to see all the different stages of boiling the sugar!

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup peanuts (I use spanish peanuts and omit the salt. If you use salty or roasted nuts, forget the salt)
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

1. Place a large cookie sheet into your oven and preheat to 200 degrees.
2. In a heavy 2 quart saucepan over medium heat bring sugars, corn syrup, salt and water to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Set candy thermometer in place and continue cooking, stirring frequently. Use a wooden spoon, don’t even try to use plastic, and if you use silicon (which I use) be careful that the end doesn’t get loose and come off in your brittle (happened to my first batch last year)
3. Once temperature reaches 250 degrees add peanuts.
4. Once temperature reaches 300 degrees remove from heat and add in the butter, vanilla and baking soda. Combine well, but dont over mix.
5. Here’s where an extra person comes in handy. Take out the cookie sheet from the oven, spray with Pam and pour candy all over the pan (one person pours the very hot candy, the other handles the cookie sheet). Then shake the pan to spread the brittle out evenly.
6. For cleanup, place all utensils and pots in hot soapy water and let them sit for a little while. Eventually the sugar will break down and cleanup will be much easier.
7. Once the brittle has cooled feel free to crack it anyway you like!

I’ve doubled the recipe before, it filled my cookie sheet and made much thicker brittle, I prefer it thinner, so I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.

Next week I’ll be in South FL for the whole week .. which means after this week, I’m left with 1 week before the family comes back up here for Christmas. I’ve been sewing and working on photo projects all week, and I have a few more to finish, I think I’m going to have to bring my machine south with me.

Here are a couple pictures of our regular visitor to our pine trees out back. Today when I went to grab my camera he actually flew to a closer branch and posed for me, showing me both his (or her) sides. 50 points if you can tell me what it is! (besides a hawk)