Happy New Year… Nearly a Month Late

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged – and it’s mostly because I’ve been super busy. The holidays were so busy and crazy. I went through physical and emotional lows and highs. We had many sicknesses. We traveled a lot more than we anticipated. I worked – a lot.

But most of all, we got spend time with a lot of people we love. We are so blessed with so many wonderful friends and family and that we got to ring in the new year with them.

So where does this leave us in the New Year? Happy. Life is good.

I lost my grandmother, but I still have my wonderful family and friends.

My parents are still awesome.

My sister is preggers and expecting a boy.

Sebastian is still with us – fat and healthy.

And the love of my life is still the love of my life.

A super lazy weekend

The boy and I had a very good, very lazy weekend – and I was reminded again why I like to stay busy. This was probably one of the laziest weekends I’ve had in a long time and I could not be more disgusted with myself. At least, if I have a lot going on, I am active and more motivated.

I got up at 8 a.m. on Saturday but didn’t actually start the day until 1. I sat around, ate breakfast and caught up on TV during that time. And then Sunday, I didn’t get out of bed until 11 a.m., the latest I’ve slept in since I started working.

I decided to try to overcompensate for my laziness. I started planning for Christmas gifts and our Holiday décor. I was even ambitious enough to try a new recipe that I thought would be very difficult.

I made this delicious ratatouille recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Look how beautiful it is:
And I bought our first piece of Christmas decoration, mistletoe:And I expect many kisses this holiday season!

Happy July 4th, and how it all went downhill

This weekend started off great, but it's amazing how quickly things that turn around. Kannapolis had their annual fireworks show on Saturday, so we decided to invite some folks over for food, drinks and a mini-pre-celebration. We had a blast before heading to downtown to watch the real show.

Sitting on the brick sidewalk on North Research Campus Drive, we excitedly watched the 20-minute fireworks show. It was amazing - and it gets better every year. I wish I had taken photos because right now would be a great place to post them.

After the show, we came home to clean up. That's when the night started going downhill for me. I had noticed my stomach hurting after we ate. I had previously experienced this pain - upper abdominal pain that was very dull, but numbing. It always came after a large, often greasy dinner. I previously drank Pepto-Bismol to ease this pain and in an hour or two, it subsided. I tried that, and after an hour, nothing was feeling good. The boy suggested I try milk because it was a base - and the food we were eating probably had a lot of acidity. At that point, I was willing to try anything.