Holiday cheer! My favorite months...

The Holidays are rapidly approaching and I feel so incredibly festive. This time of year is truly my favorite. The colder air puts me in the mood for warm drinks all throughout the day, a fuzzy blanket, and good book. All the yummy comfort recipes get me going as well! We have quite the busy month ahead of us, but I am refusing to allow the busyness of it all overshadow the joy this season brings. For starters, we have Thanksgiving on Thursday and we'll be hosting again. This year, I'm making my grandma's cornbread dressing. Last year I skipped it. The year before I made it. Let me tell you, Thanksgiving was great last year but there was a piece missing without grandma's dressing. My husband also devours my grandmother's dressing. When I told him I'd be making it again this year, I think he almost literally jumped for joy.

Second occasion on the calendar is our 2-year anniversary on Dec.2. I can't believe it's been that long all ready! Michael's anniversary gift came in the mail today. I snuck it past him and hid it. I'll wrap it tomorrow while he's at work. Then, I like to sit it out to make him drool over wanting to know what's in it.

Third occasion on the radar is my husbands 26th birthday, December 2. We haven't planned anything too special. He isn't big on birthdays, never has been. So we'll have a quiet dinner at home and gift-opening of course!!

The next occasion, if you want to call it that is our big move to Florida! That in itself is a J-O-B. I've began wrapping my head around the packing. Since I cannot physically move very much, I want to at least inventory each box and keep things organized. I'm also creating a mental list of things that we can purge or put on Craigslist. There no sense in hauling junk from one place to another if we haven't used it in years.

Finally, there's Christmas! Ahhhh my favorite day of the year. Well, one of my favorite. Since we'll likely be unpacking in a new house and filling empty spaces, I'm hoping just a tree will suffice this year. We'll do Christmas dinner obviously, but I think rest and relaxation will be the priority after all that work!

Lest we not forget we have a BABY ON THE WAY! I cannot WAIT to put my daughter's nursery together. I just got her crib sheet in yesterday. I'm purchasing the fabric for her linens tomorrow. I can't wait to see it all come together.

All in all, it'll be an exciting and fast-paced finish to 2010. I'll keep you updated!!

We Baked. We Sold. We Froze.

Yesterday, oh what a day! I live in a highly suburban community, by Northern VA standards, full of apartments, condos and townhomes. Just down the road 3 of my closest friends live in the SAME complex. How convenient for me, 1 stop = fun x 3! One of these dear friends is the event coordinator for the apartment community. This is a surprisingly time consuming, but very rewarding side-job. She does it in her spare time as her focus is purely on being a stay-at-home mom. But, it gives us a chance to come out to her events and support. In the special case of Veteran's day, it gave me a chance to propose, plan, and execute an event at their complex for the benefit of our local military!

My husbands' base has an officer spouses organization which spends the year raising money to create a college merit scholarship fund for high school seniors of military (regardless of rank, branch, or status of service). So how neat would it be to host a bake sale in this apartment community on Veteran's day to raise money to contribute to this scholarship fund?! Thats exactly what we did!

The apartment complex supplied us with the funds to purchase our ingredients and we recruited volunteers to bake. We had pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate on chocolate cookies, fudge brownies, a decadent assortment of cupcakes, and an apple pie! We all dressed in our finest military paraphernalia to represent the different branches. Of our group of friends, we have Navy, Air Force, Army, and of course Marine Corps. It was a grand ole time. Though it was FREEZING!!!!

We raised about $250 and have a few left overs. Once our toes became numb, we realized it was time to head inside! The left overs will be sold at our church this Sunday after service. So much fun!

More information on this scholarship? Visit Q.O.S.O.

The Quest for $100

A few days ago I opened an envelope to find $100. What a nice surprise. A dear family member wanted to send us a little something for baby McGehee. I was incredibly grateful and set the $100 aside to deposit later. Now, to fully understand this story, you'll need a little context to our banking system. My husband and I bank with a local credit union that offers great rates to military families. We've been happy with their service. The drawback by having a wonderful military-dedicated bank such as USAA, is that you have to mail deposits since there are very few actual branch locations. Now, we are currently fortunate to have a branch location near my husbands job. This is a cool 45-minute commute, without traffic! Couple that with the fact that my husbands work hours exceeds normal banking hours. Needless to say, bank errands are infrequent. If we have deposits to make, which we often do, we let them pile up for a week or two then take them to the bank. (My husband will usually leave work early or take a trip over on a lunch break.) I happen to have 3 other checks to deposit in addition to the $100 so I set them all together...or so I thought.

Fast forward to 9 p.m. as dear wifey, ME, tidies up the house for a bit before hopping in bed with a bowl of cereal, a cute Marine man, and a few good books. I decide to double check the pile of checks to deposit in case dear husband decides tomorrow is the day he's going to swing by the bank. Well...well...well, the $100 is NOT THERE! Now, had this been a check, we'd simply get it cancelled and that'd be a simple fix. But, a LOST $100 in the house is inexcusable. We HAVE to find it. So I look in all the obvious places. I retrace my steps from opening the check envelope to setting it down. I cannot figure this out. Why wouldn't it be with the other checks?! Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's because your absent-minded dear friend Jessica operates on auto-pilot doing a million things at once while committing her brain to about 20% of the processes. My husband wanders in and wonders why I'm removing couch pillows and looking under vases. He's perplexed. He asks what I'm looking for and I share. He says, "do you think you threw it away by mistake?" After all, yesterday I did go through a paper purge session, cleaning out my wallet, throwing away old receipts, mail, et cetera. Maybe just maybe. "It's possible, but unlikely," I responded. Secretly I thought to myself that if I truly threw away $100 I'll never never never live this down. Perhaps God is telling me to SLOW DOWN and pay attention. It just CAN'T be in the trash.

I began to think threw the things that I threw away recently...left over crushed tomatoes, a rotten onion, old pasta w/ ground beef and melted cheese, lots of junk mail, and paper towels. "Ummm, I'm not looking in the trash honey. It's full of bacteria and gross stuff. I'd need a tetanus shot after going through it!" He smiled and responded "I'll do it." I held open a fresh garbage bag and tried hard not to puke as my husband pulled out item by item of slimy stinky garbage out of the trash to put into my bag. We found all sorts of stuff that began to help me picture my previous evening of paper purging. I knew that at the very least we should find the envelope the $100 came in because I know I threw that away. So, he kept going, we're nearing the bottom. All that's left is spoiled pasta bake. My husband looked at me, then at the mushy pasta covered in sauce, cheese, and ground beef, and looked back at me. He scrunched up his nose and dug his hands all through the pasta feeling for a piece of paper.

What do you know, folded in half between several pieces of bowtie pasta, $100.

Tisk Tisk.