Happy New Year

I love the start of a new year. 365 days of possibilities. A new start. It's so exciting. I have given much thought to my 2009 goals. This year I am going to keep it simple. I am only going to focus on two areas, at least to start. Weight and Finances. I know, how cliche. But these are the two areas that need the most attention.

1) Weight - lose 20 pounds. I'd be happy with 10 pounds but I have a whole year, why not aim high. It's time to get super serious. It only gets worse each year. If I don't turn things around now I am facing the remainder of days as a short frumpy woman.
2) Finances - Absolutely no charging. I made a decision to start 2009 free of Christmas credit card debt and I made it. Now I just have to continue down that road. I am not one to keep a big balance on my credit cards but I have a tendency to use them on the premise that I will pay it off when the bill comes and some times I do and some times I don't. The key thing this will do is make me stick to my budget. I won't be able to fall back on my credit cards when I get a little slack on budgeting.

So that's it in a nutshell. Time to go open my small bottle of bubbly and call it a night. It's been along time since the House of Fowler has really rang in a New Year. Mister calls it Amateur Night and I need to wake up feeling good to start the year right...

Exhibit A

Three days ago while putting up the Christmas decorations I heard the familiar humming of the vacuum cleaner being used by Mister. He likes to vacuum because he says I go too fast and don't get everything up. I say with 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 3 people you're going miss some stuff.

This my friends is the vacuum posed very close to the outlet for the central vac and resting outside it's home ~ the white door, the closet that houses the vacuum. Yesterday I asked Mister if he's done with it (translation why is it still out) knowing he vaccumed the night before. His response, we need to vacuum everyday. My thought ~ ok fine, but three more steps and a turn of the door knob and we wouldn't have to step around the vacuum between vaccums which I know will not and do not happen on a daily basis. The question is which one of us is more twisted, Mister for thinking it's normal to leave the vacuum just outside it's home or me for expecting it to make sense to put it up? Seriously this is a very common sight at the House of Fowler. At one point I thought Mister might have a closet phobia, you know like in the creatures that lived under the stairs or something.

I guess I'll break down and put it up today in my quest to get the house clean and organized to start 2009 off on the right foot. I guess this morning I find it more humorous than maddening knowing that the vacuums days are numbered since we've decided to sell the house and move back to the orginial House of Fowler this summer in which we will have to resort back to your standard vacuum cleaner ~ gasp.

more to be written on our attempt to simplify and downsize.

On Vacation

Have a Merry Christmas and Happiest of New Years

Late Thankful Thursday

With all the holiday happens I totally forgot to post my Thankful Thursday yesterday.

I am very thankful for my job. Any time I am unhappy about something having to deal with work I always preface it with "don't get me worng I am really happy to have this job" because it is an excellent company. With the announcement of accelerated cost containment yesterday and restricted hiring I am even more thankful albiet a little uneasy since recruiting is my job. I won't even complain about delayed salary increases for 2009.

Assembly Required

It's been a long standing tradition (since Brownies) that Lolly gives her Girl Scout leader and co-leader santa and snowman themed gifts. We did it the first year and got lucky that the co-leader loved snowmen. By default, we hope the leader loves Santa because we add to her collection every year. This years gift includes a stuffed snowman or santa, a finger tip towel, a candle, notepad, deck of cards, and a grow your own santa or snowman

I got these cute bowls at the $1 store to use as "baskets"

I typically use cellophane to wrap the gifts but was out so I had to resort to shrink wrap, which I haven't used for years and it probably shows. Need to work on my hairdryer skills...

Christmas Tour of Homes

My plan was to fully participate in the tour of homes but at this point I may just spend my time visiting the other homes, there's a ton!

Update: 2:42pm ~ there are now 417 homes to visit.

Thankful Thursdays

On this rainy Thursday, I am very thankful for being able to telecommute once a week. It may seem very small but not having to travel downtown and battle Atlanta traffic one less day a week is very BIG to me. Also I get to drive Lolly to and from school just like the old days and she loves that!

Note to Self

Ugh, the pounds are creeping on....

Something to Think About

I don't know this H. Jackson Brown, but I don't think I like him...I now must go find something important to do...

Let the Gift Giving Begin

Since today is the last day in our department for one of my team mates and I have an off site meeting this morning, I delivered my co-wokers Christmas gifts yesterday. It seems every thing is happening early this Christmas season and I am kind of sad about that. One of my favorite things is "putting gifts together" and since we are doing gift cards for Lolly's teachers this year, this may be my only assembling work I get to do....

I don't think the photo's do them justice. Either way though they loved them. The personalized key chains were a big hit and everyone loved calendar/to do list.

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful for a childhood filled with wonderful family and friends. After twenty some years of being away from "home" I still get home sick this time of year ~ All those wonderful holiday memories.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I've been drawn to Nativity sets ever since I had to "make" one in 2nd grade. By make I mean color, cut out , and paste the holy family, wisemen, angel, and animals inside a shoe box manager. When I was done I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, if I do say so myself. I wish I still had it. But I only started actively collecting nativity sets several years ago. Lolly usually buys me one for Christmas ,while she's in Huntsville visiting her Dad, at a place called Trade-Fair Marketplace http://www.fairtrademarket.googlepages.com/. Some of my favoirtes have come from Ten Thousand Villages http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/ and Servv http://www.serrv.org/. Wonderful things for a wonderful cause. I have my eye on this one made out of recycled paper...

Ongoing battle

Recently I cleaned out my "gift closet" ~ the place I hide all that stuff I see and think that would make a nice gift, the place I hide all of Lolly's gifts, our luggage and all my gift wrap paraphernalia. I actaully had to pull stuff out of it in order to get in there to clean/organize this

and this, and the stuff that is just beyond this shot that spilled into my bathroom
When I was done I was left with this wonderfully organized space. Which is really much more impressive when standing in there.
Of course that was before I started my Christmas shopping. Now it looks like this...UGH!!!!!

Thankful

For so much! image taken from http://yourmessagehere.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Savings

Here are two websites my mom told me about last night. http://www.currentcodes.com/ and http://www.freeshipping.org/. Hope you find them useful!

Tonights Project

Lolly is out of town this week so that can only mean one thing ~ time to clean her room. If you can ever really consider it clean due to all the clutter. I always think it holds such cute potential if there wasn't so much non coordinating stuff in there. But the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. When I was growing up my walls were so covered with stuff you couldn't even see what color they were and I thought it was great. So I continue to try to keep quite and let her enjoy her space as she sees fit, with a pick up and modification every now and then that is...I know it doesn't look it but you have to trust me, this is the clean version