Dousy!

This blog is going to be a dousy indeed. I've realized I have many pictures to share! It look so long to upload them all. Our internet has been weird lately. We upgraded to a faster speed, yet it seems to be slower than what it was before. I need to check it and talk to Frontier about it.

This blog was going to be written last night, but do you know what happened while I was uploading the photos? Yeah, I fell asleep.

Then, it was going to be written earlier this morning. I got all cozy, opened up the website and fell asleep.

It's a problem. This time I am armed with coffee. Do something now autoimmune fatigue! Actually, please don't. You're probably resilient against caffeine.

Over the course of a week or so I got all of our Christmas decorating finished. It seems I haven't taken pictures of the outside yet. I've learned the key to doing things is moderation, taking breaks, and not trying to conquer the world all in one day. I take on all my daily chores throughout the day, and add some type of project in on top of it usually. I spent about three days on my bathroom project rather than hammering it all out in one day and exhausting myself.

By taking my time and doing it in spurts our Christmas decorating got nice rather than rushed by pain etc.

I spent a lot of time on our windows. Most of them aren't too hard for me, but the lower ones are. It didn't help that while I was crouched down doing the lower ones Tuxington decided to ride me like a pony and refused to get off.

 Since there's so many pictures of some things I'm making them small so there's not ten feet of images for those of you that aren't interested. But, if you are into this sort of thing if you click on them they'll become significantly larger. I have a really great quality camera, and I take all of my pictures in high definition which adds significantly to my uploading time. I've considered changing the settings a bit to lower definition, but changed my mind. It's not like I'm lacking in time or anything.

My Mom got us a Christmas tree at Lowe's. We got one at Wally World last year which was cheaper, but Lowe's takes some of the work out of it. They cut a slice off of the trunk to freshen it up to drink, wrapped it, etc. Tux knocked it over while it was leaning here. Chris said it was his 'one' for the year. 

Chris put the ornament on that we got made at Park City Mall on our way home from the honeymoon, and then the tree sat for a few days until we had time to decorate it together.

One of the few benefits of how low our ceilings are is that a short/cheaper Christmas tree looks huge. I always like to put it next to a window (which isn't hard to do because our apartment is all windows) because I've always liked going by people's houses this time of year and seeing their tree lit up inside their window. I think it's cozy, intimate, and what not. I'm a Pisces; I can't help myself.

We got it decorated the other night when Chris was off work while playing some Christmas music. Christmas music is pretty much the go to ambient noise in our house this time of year. Don't judge my unpretty coffee table display. I haven't quite decided what I want to have on there yet. If you look closely you can see one of Tuxington's toys tied onto the aquarium door handle, two of the ornaments he knocked off the tree and I haven't rehung yet, and his very obvious cat nip scratch mat. This is our first tree as a married couple! It's quite pretty!

It's interesting our different strategies for tree decorating, and our different 'go to' ornament style. Between combining both our 'ways' though our tree gets pretttty beautiful if I do say so myself.

Sat a few of my miscellaneous Christmas trinkets on our bookcase. You can also see some things from our wedding, and gifts from both of our mothers. We like to read. This is the bookcase I want to get another of for our TV room.

I even got our stockings hung. Daisy and Tux are going to have to share a stocking now.

I've really been making the most of my alone time and this whole new being a wife thing. I've even been trying to learn some new styles of cooking. Chris is Puerto Rican and enjoys the cuisine a lot, as do I. I just never knew how to cook it, so I've been convinced to learn. With the help of his family I'm getting pretty good at it.

It has a really good flavor profile that I've even been working into some of the more common regular meals I cook. Sofrito is amazing and very versatile. Achiotina on the other hand is evil and will stain the bullshit out of anything it touches. It sucks that it has to make food so delicious.

Trying to come up with good meals is important to me. Chris works hard, and food fuels the body and what not. The least I can do is come up with a good meal for him for when he comes home. And I hate cooking the same things over and over again. It's boring to cook, and eat. Luckily Facebook seems to have a great deal of food inspiration lately.

We tried a Screamin Sicilian pizza the other night that I had a dollar off coupon for. They're really good. I suggest giving them a try. They have pretty many varieties and are made with really great quality ingredients. They're not shy on the toppings either.

Added bonus that the box had this hilarious pop out mustache.

Chris is really fussy about his pizza and generally hates frozen pizzas. He bellyaches about it every time I try to get one. He really wanted to just order delivery, but I insisted that we try this instead. I've been trying to save money where we can. He devoured it and said we need to get it again sometime, so I was pleased to say the least.

Yesterday was one year since Chris proposed to me, and we've been married for over a month now! Time flies so quick. It also happened to be his last day off of work before Christmas so we went out for our annual Christmas light tradition. We grab some hot cocoa, snacks, and drive around looking at Christmas lights. There's a local 'Christmas Village' that I've been dying to go to. We might go after Christmas, or wait until next year. It's really pretty. This year we went to the light display at Gring's Mill on top of our drive around which was fun. It's only five dollars a car to go. They had really good hot cocoa, different snacky foods like soft pretzels, and peppermint sticks! Santa was there too!

I had to toy with the settings on my camera a bit to figure out how to best capture the Christmas lights in the dark. I used the fireworks setting at first which made the pictures trippy in a cool way, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted, haha.

Gring's Mill is a really nice woodsy area with a pretty bridge, mill, etc. There's pretty much trail through the area that's paved. It's great for me because it limits my chances of falling. I told Chris we need to start coming here more often to go for walks. This is where the MS walk is usually hosted. I want to find out if it's a pet-friendly walking area, it would be nice to take Daisy with.

Chris loved the trippy looking Santa on the roof. They didn't have an exuberant amount of lights up, but it was enough to be pretty and make for a nice walk. It was definitely worth the five dollars.

I loved the reflection of the lights into the water. The picture doesn't do it nearly enough justice.

It took us a minute to figure out that the light up guy was fishing. The line moved and at first to me it looked like a lasso, and to Chris it looked like a whip. Then I realized that it was a fishing rod, which makes a ton more sense than either of our original ideas considering the water.

Chris was very patient about letting me take pictures of everything, including him. Not only is it great for sharing with you guys, but I try to save memories where I can.

They had a really cool model train display with lots of buttons to push. They used a tablet as a drive in movie theater screen playing the old vintage Rudolph movie which I thought was super clever. Kids were really getting a kick out of the display. Hell, I was really getting a kick out of it.

The walk back got a bit rough for me. I started to have trouble with my legs from my MS. I was wobbly, staggering, and they felt really heavy. I didn't say anything at first but Chris noticed it almost immediately. He's very perceptive and almost always notices right away when something's wrong.

I told Chris it seems the more active I get the more my MS is showing. I'm not sure if all the extra activity is riling it up, or if it's just presenting more of an opportunity for it to show itself. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I got back to the car in one piece though. We drove around a bit and looked at lights after that and snacked on popcorn. We stopped by a huge display in Sinking Spring and donated a dollar there to the ARL.

 We came home to a package on our porch which I was pretty surprised about. We left around 6pm I'd say and didn't come home until well after eight. Fedex is running late with the holidays I suppose, but that's really late. Turned out it was the package Tania sent us, with our canvas of one of our wedding pictures! I was so excited to get it. The quality of the canvas itself is amazing. I own a few canvases now at this point, but none of them are so well made. It's something made to last as an heirloom, and even has protective coatings to make dusting and what not easier.

Tania taped the bullshit out of the box so I had to get a knife to open it. I was so worried I was going to accidentally cut the contents of the box. I got it out fine though! We hung it up right away on the nails that were holding a different thing on the wall, but it doesn't look quite right for my taste. When Chris is feeling energetic enough to be my handyman I'm going to move it a bit over to the right yet. This room has a bit of work yet to be done in it until it's to my liking. My 'to do' list is never ending lately, and keeps growing! 

Tuxington knew I was up to something and kept jumping on top of the fireplace while I was trying to take a picture. After putting him back down two times and going for a third he gave me an annoyed meeeowwwwww. He has such an attitude and will occasionally back talk, which is hilarious. He did then sit still and let me take a few pictures of him. I don't have too many nice pictures of him yet. In his kitten phase he didn't sit still long enough. So I was happy to snag a few handsome ones. He's a good cat.

Tania is soon going to have the blog up about our wedding, and shortly after that get the pictures to us. I can't wait to see all of it! It's like early Christmas!

Daisy was busy being nosey out the window, and Chris was busy playing a game on his tablet. He's off to work already for the day. I have so much to get done while he's gone today chore wise. I don't think I'll be doing much else extra. I'm so glad the days are soon going to start getting longer again. I hate how early it gets dark lately. It doesn't help my whole falling asleep issue.

Daisy and Tux have been hanging out in the TV room with me while I blog. Tux is sleeping on Chris's seat, and Daisy on my lap. The days he works until close tend to really throw me off. We sleep in later, it's dark while I'm trying to do things, and I generally forget to eat a meal. He eats at work because by the time he gets home it's too late to eat something heavy.

I still need to make my shopping list for Christmas as well! I just saw Tux's orange collar and ID tag shipped out from Amazon today. I really want to get the Exploding Kittens card game, as well as Cards Against Humanity. Neither of us have ever played either, but they look like something we'd enjoy.

Anyways, time to get busy! I'm burning daylight! Hope you enjoyed my ridiculously long catch up blog.