Q Party

work Christmas party with the hubs :)

(and then we came home via sloppy roads and a snow-filled driveway that had to be cleared.  what is it with dressy into-the-late-night work events and massive amounts of snow?)

life lately - a random recap

Man have I been neglecting this blog lately.  Although, I'm not as awful as it seems, as I have had many topics, ideas, and musings swirling around in my head, but unfortunately none of those made it down on paper, or keyboard, in a timely matter (if at all).  And so, here is a hodge-podge post about our lives lately:

We've watched multiple dogs - all within a close period of time.
[After which I got sick of walking through the front door and only smelling dog, so I did a thorough cleaning of all the floors and baseboards, including washing them on my hands and knees (made mom proud).  I vacuumed and febreezed all the furniture too, as those two littles got up no matter how many times we said no.  Love them dogs, but not the smells that multiples of them in one house seem to make.]

 
We had our first fire of the year in our new fire pit.
[Which we got in the spring and just put to use.  Summer always gets away from me...]

We completed more yard work.
[Where I got carried away with my non-electric hand trimmer and majorly trimmed half of a bunch of trees off since they are over our fence.  Col loves the end result and feels it opens up our yard a lot.  Even though we can see more light through to the neighbors' back yard, I like it too.  He said he knew that if I got going, I'd have it all down.  I can't help it; once I start cutting, my arms just keep moving!]

We attended our first Adoption S.T.A.R. picnic as a waiting family.
[I loved seeing the large turn out, meeting another new waiting family - who had a connection to us through our adoption of Mendon! - and seeing all the kiddos.]

I attended a seminar for work on social media.
[Which got me really excited and shouting to myself in my head, "I can do that!," over and over...until I remembered that at the moment, I do not have time to do that as I'm still working double duty.  But, once I'm able to fully transition, I can't wait to implement what I learned.]

Col's grandma had her 80th birthday.
[We celebrated with his mom's whole side of the family.  Another fun day of watching all the kids play and eating good food.]

I've had friend and family time.
[Bills training camp with a community group family.  Roomie time after an emotional day.  Visiting the newest community group baby.  Bridesmaid dress shopping for Rach's wedding - woot!  Redwings game with Col's fam.  Firemen's competition.  Lots of relaxing at home.]

We started obedience training with Mendon.
[She's actually quite well-behaved, and Col has done a great job training her.  But it's free through his work, so we thought, why not!  It can't hurt, and she'll love more time with other dogs.]

We've had moving on the mind for all of our parents.
[We've been assisting Col's rents with going through/selling stuff from their attic and garage as they prepare to move...sometime.  And we've been keeping up on my parents as they "moved" in with grandpa today, and will hopefully close on their new house soon.]

I'm working on organizing, re-arranging, and going though many areas of the house (again).
[I honestly think I'm nesting.  While I love myself a good organizing project any day, why else would putting clothes away turn into taking all of Col's clothes out of the closet and rearranging them by color while he and Mendon enjoyed a nap?  And check out Col's new tie storage solution!]

movin' and groovin'

There has been some news brewin' for a little while and now that everything is official, it's time to share :)

1) My dad is a Free Methodist pastor, and [in a nutshell] the way that it works is that he can be asked to move to a different church when a need arises.  When he first started out, he pastored at our hometown church that we were already attending which was awesome.  Six years ago, he was asked to move to a small town south of Buffalo, where they live now.  However, a couple months ago they came to him and asked if he would move back to Batavia, our hometown.  At the time my parents couldn't tell anyone where, but when they were able to, we were so surprised!  It's so amazing that none of us could have planned this, the timing seems great with our adoption, they'll be closer to all of our family and Col and I, and back at our old church.  It will be hard for them to leave the awesome people of G-town, and I'll miss visiting there, but I'm thankful for a much shorter drive to see them.  He starts in September, hooray!

2) I was officially offered a promotion at work, which has been a work in progress for a while.  I am now the Marketing & Online Content Specialist and Lindsay House Surgery Center Specialist.  Eventually, after training a replacement and getting things settled, I will be doing full-time marketing as well as the operating room schedule (which I do already).  Things have been in transition, so I'm doing multiple jobs at once, but I'm excited to begin focusing fully on the marketing aspect and using my English degree by writing a lot of content.  I'm nervous and have a lot to learn, but it should be great!

winter weekend

We were hit with winter storm Nemo this past weekend (real scary name, right?).  Unfortunately that meant that it took me an hour to get home from work on Friday, quadruple the normal time, but that was fine because I was safe.  However, when I was finally in reach of home, I got stuck turning onto our street.  So there I sat, in the middle of the street unable to do anything but call Col and think through a plan.  I was supposed to be back downtown to volunteer for an event for the foundation that my employer has in an hour, and seeing as it had taken me that much travel time to get home, I wasn't sure how I was going to make it work. 

I ran home, grabbed a shovel, and thanks to the part of my mom that I have in me (go self-sufficient woman!), I shoveled my car out so that I could park in the driveway, run inside to literally throw on a dress, forgo any hope of fixing my hair or putting on makeup, and head back out to the streets.  I made it to the hotel only about a half an hour late, where Col had beat me and was walking out as I was coming in.  I trudged in, wearing a black dress and my super heavy duty winter boots, not caring about anything other than the fact that I was there (at least I remembered heels to change into).  Despite the weather, the event was a success, and I was glad to have Col there volunteering with me.

When we got home at 11pm, we attacked the driveway, excited to shovel out for the first time at our house.  It took us about 2 hours, and since we were wide awake and enjoying the peaceful, quiet beauty of 1:30am where everything was covered in white glistening snow, we took a walk around the neighborhood.  Afterward, we attempted to pull an all-nighter but only made it to 4am watching Oceans 11 in bed.

Saturday we had such a great day because we never once set foot outside the house.  The plumber came in the morning and fixed all of our plumbing issues which was great, and we unpacked the rest of the boxes/put everything away.  We even got to decorate some.  The house is looking more homey, and we were talking about how it's felt like home since the very beginning.

Despite getting stuck and the rude plow guy I encountered, it was such a fun time enjoying our new homeowner status, even the shoveling.  I am so thankful for our spontaneous-ness in staying up late and enjoying the peaceful walk together around our new neighborhood (we even saw a deer!).  I think we're pretty keen on this homeownership thing :)

What about you?  Did you turn the storm into an opportunity to do something fun/out of the ordinary?

Q Christmas Party

All dressed up with a work Christmas party to go to.

  

We compromised events tonight and not only enjoyed the party 

but caught half of the Knighthawks exhibition game too.

a little Christmas cheer at work

the 14-feet-tall tree at work that my co-workers and I decorated :)

[and you know I've already replaced the regular Muzak CD with the holiday one]