Weekend wrap-up

I blogged about my new outfit that I bought a couple weeks ago for a friend's birthday. Here it is:

Jeans and both tops are from Wet Seal. Along with a necklace and earrings, the entire outfit was less than 70 bucks. LOVE the jeans especially, although I can't put anything in the front pockets. 


As for the rest of our weekend ...
- Friday night I did some cleaning around the house, J and I did a little fence work and then had pizza and played pool and darts.
- Saturday I did more house cleaning, grocery shopped and chilled with our niece Hannah, while the boys worked on the fence. Birthday party was a blast (no pix because I didn't take my camera)
- Sunday we bought some gates and the guys did more fence work. And I went to a baby shower :) We ran out of some materials but plan to get them this week and hopefully we'll finish up the fence next weekend! 
- That's about it. The weekend truly flew by!

Ten on Thursday

1. I've been having a shopping problem lately. I always love to shop, but I usually restrain myself from spending too much. Last week, though, we went to the mall and I bought a couple of tops from Charlotte Russe. Then we went to Wet Seal and I fell in love with a shirt  and justified buying it for my friends birthday party this weekend. Then I needed a cami for underneath. And jeans. And jewelry. Oops. However, I spent less than $100 on four shirts, jeans, a necklace and three-pack of earrings - while J spent right at that on ONE PAIR of jeans. 


2. Speaking of clothes, my closets are stuffed. When I cleared stuff out for the garage sale this spring, I vowed to get them all in one closet. Now it's even worse. I must go through it all! And I never even transferred my winter and summer stuff - and now that it practically September, that's probably not the greatest idea anymore.


3. I have found a workout DVD that I LOVE. Jackie is hard-core and I love it! There are four 15-minute workouts - abs, upper body, lower body and total body - and a 45-minute total body. I've done this just over a week and already see a difference. I do my abs every day, and then rotate upper and lower body.

4. I'm not really seeing any difference on the scale though. This workout is crazy on the weightlifting, so I think it's just that I'm building a lot of muscle. Still, I know I need to incorporate more cardio, so I'm pumped the weather has cooled off and hoping to start running at night again, two or three times a week. 

5. I can't believe Labor Day is in a week and a half. Must wash all of my white pants and wear them one last time!

6. I've tried out some new recipes recently. When I get bored at work or home, I browse looking for new ideas. Mostly on orgjunkie.com 

This week, I made porcupine meatballs. DELISH!

7. Jaxon, our 3-year-old horse, has been a bad boy and gotten into his dad's pen through the hot wire fence one day and his mom's the next. So that's definitely motivating J to finish the fence at our house.

8. J still hasn't finished the weed eating, so I haven't taken pictures of the final results of our landscaping project. 

9. I love seeing the house come together thanks to my yard sale finds! A month ago, my kitchen walls were bare and white, but now I have two awesome photos and a baker's rack to complete it - for less than $60! Photos coming soon :)

10. After working six days last week, I'm super ready to be off work tomorrow and enjoy a weekend! Although I work next Saturday, too, I'll still get a two-day weekend because of Labor Day. Woot woot!

Wow - I didn't think I had that much to say. 

Workcation - pressure washing

I'm incredibly late getting this up, but better late than never, right?
So for our first week-long vacation together, J and I stayed home and put the money we would have used for a little trip towards our home. There are several things we've been wanting to do since moving, but time, weather and money have held us back.
First up: pressure washing. 
We have siding and it was pretty dirty. As was the sidewalk, etc., seeing as the house is about 10 years old. 
This was a HUGE job for J. We rented the pressure washer on Saturday - the place is closed Sunday so you get two days for the price of one! I ran off to do some preserving and garage saling with my mom on Saturday, while J got to work on the house. 

The back of our house is basically two stories and there was no way J's arms and the little wand would reach all of it, so he rounded up some scaffolding to use on Sunday. It scared the crap out of me, yes. Wouldn't this freak you out?

Luckily he is a monkey man and didn't care.

See all those blocks? Those are in addition to all of the ones below, moved away from the side of the house. I carried all them to the grass so we could wash them off, too. And then we used them in our landscaping --- photos to come soon. What a workout!!!

We never realized how big the house was until it got dark and we still weren't done! And then J ran out of gas so I had to drive into town to get more! Determined to take it back on time the next morning, J worked until after midnight. I should add that we also washed our garage - we did want to get the most bang for our buck!

The result? We loved it! It was a lot of hard work, and next time we'll probably break it up more, but it was well worth the time, effort, and rental fee. 

Our other loves

I know I post about our dogs a lot, but don't remember if I've ever mentioned the horses.
We have three ... Doc (stud - 16 years), Scarlett (mare - unknown age) and Jaxon (stud to be cut, 3 years) ... and they are a pain in the ass! Haha ... they are a lot of work but sorta enjoyable. A lot less since I broke my arm after I was thrown a few years ago. 


Anyhow, baby Jax got into his daddy's pen the other day. Those two look so alike it's scary. Here's a picture of my two studs :)

Catch-up

Wow, I took another week-long bread and I wasn't even on vacation.
More like catching up from vacation. And helping fill in for my boss, who is going on vacation for three weeks!
I have pictures from our landscaping work other than the final one, with the blocks. We still need to weed eat so I can get a really good photo of it. 
Honestly, I feel like there hasn't been much going on in my life other than working, sleeping and cleaning house. I guess it's just that season of life! But I'm hoping to get back to the blog mostly full-time this week :)

I'm back

Totally didn't mean to take off from the blog world all vacation, but that's how it happened. 

Over the past nine days, we did a lot of eating, working and some playing. I'll detail all that later. 

But for now, I'm working on responding to all of the e-mails in my inbox, restocking the fridge, and getting rid of the notes on my desk :)

Fitness Friday & Staycation preview

I'm totally bummed with the scale this week, as it shows that I gained four-tenths of a pound. But I haven't been drinking water like I should and only squeezed in two work outs, so I think some of that is water weight. Hopefully it will turn around soon. 
I'm really starting to love this workout. Hello glutes! I hope I'll be ready to hit level two soon :)

I am on vacation all next week and so.freaking.excited. I actually haven't taken a full week of vacation since I started this job in May 2007, so I'd say I totally deserve it. Hopefully I'll be able to get on a better workout schedule :) 


The downside of being a homeowner really hit when we were discussing vacation plans last week. We intended to spend a couple of days in St. Louis — especially after I found a killer deal on downtown hotel rooms on Hotwire — but once we started talking about things we need to do to the house, like finally finishing the landscaping, pressure washing and more, we realized that we really needed to stay home, devote some time to that, and spend the money on something that would last. 


So ... J has rented a pressure washer for Saturday, while I plan to make pizza sauce and can one last batch of sweet dill pickles with my mom. We'll work outside/relax on Sunday, and Monday we'll buy the mulch and get it all pretty. 


Tuesday we plan to spend most of the day at my aunt and uncle's pool, then we'll spend the rest of the week relaxing, watching the rodeo/drinking and nursing hangovers. I'm actually really excited :) 


Expect to see lots of pictures through the week and/or when I return!!!

Come to my pity party

I sit here on break with my eyelids about to close. 


Yesterday was election day. I finally shut my laptop about 11:30 p.m. Then, of course, I was so wired I could not sleep, so tossed and turned all night and finally just got up to come in to work. 


Thankfully I am on vacation next week :) But sometimes I think a vacation isn't even worth it, as hard as you work before you go and after to get ahead/catch up. 


We were going to head to St. Louis or Memphis for a day or two during vacation. But we're likely just going to stay home, work on the house/fence, lounge in the pool and get drunk and crazy Wednesday through Sunday at our town's rodeo. 


I've been horrible about the diet/exercise this week. Stupid work schedule that has me doing more of a grab-and-go. I don't even want to step on the scale Friday morning. And I'm too exhausted to think about cardio. 


It's freaking hot, with triple-digit temperatures. Even Hank wants to stay in the garage vs. outside.


Sigh. 


Is it Friday yet? 

Weekend wrap-up

We had a great weekend but as usual, it flew by much too quickly!
Friday I got off work early and made some Mrs. Wages salsa with my mom. Yummy! It is so easy, and next time I'll just use canned diced tomatoes instead of blanching and dicing them myself :)
That night J wasn't feeling well, so we stayed home and watched TV. We recorded The Client List a few weeks ago and finally watched it. 
Saturday morning we went to the horse pasture we currently rent and did some lawn mowing/weed eating between the fence and the road. Then we went home and I pulled all of the green beans out of my garden, as well as picked everything else. That afternoon we did a little grocery shopping and later went to one of J's co-workers 60th birthday party. 
At the party, we played euchre with a couple. Team Michelle won all three games! Since the party was over at 11, we hit up a local bar for a couple of drinks while I drank soda to make sure I wouldn't get pulled over, as the cops have been horrible here lately! 
Here are a couple of photos I snapped:

Team Michelle! Both of our first names :)

Sunday we did some more work outside. Earlier this spring, we did a lot of work to our front landscaping and I blogged about it here. To make a long story short, the place we were supposed to get our mulch never worked out, so it's just been sitting and attracted weeds, as well as serving as a digging bed for our dog. So, we pulled the weeds and leveled the soil. We're on vacation next week and plan to finish it up then, so we're working to get rid of as many weeds as possible before we weed barrier and mulch. 

That's it, I think. I'm still canning up a storm and totally looking forward to having some time off work next week. 

Menu Plan Monday: Fill the Grill!

It's hotter than the hinges of Hades here and I have another crazy busy week at work, so we did most of our cooking for the week last night :)


We found some awesome-looking sirloin steaks at a local grocer for $2.68/lb on Saturday, so we grilled four of those. And since I like to get the most out of grilling, we also did potatoes, six hamburger patties and a package of hot dogs. 


Only two steaks got eaten, which means we have two steaks, six burgers and eight hot dogs left. We'll probably do steak tacos one night and burgers two other nights, so we have at least four total meals from what we grilled last night. There's also some leftover barbecue and taco meat, so that gives us two more meals :)


Hence, no real menu plan this week. We're just going to sort of fly by the seat of our pants and use up what's in the fridge. If need be, we have frozen pizza and the fixings for several types of sandwiches, so I think we'll do just fine :)


To see some menus, or for meal-planning ideas, go to I'm an Organizing Junkie!