Sunday, December 30, 2007

Hubby's new toy...

So, we've been having fun playing with hubby's new blue (to match his work uniform...Eva picked it out) IPod Nano, which is so technologically superior to my Shuffle (the white kind that is about the size and shape of a pack of gum) it's not even funny. I've been playing DJ when we've been driving (a lot recently), but on our way home tonight, I put it on shuffle, and hubby told me that he's seen blogs have lists of what was shuffled on their IPod, so I wrote down as we went. I was originally going to do the first 10 songs, but I actually wrote down 13, as that's how many it took to get home...so here they are (I wonder what this says about us!)

1)Count My Blessings
Curtis Stigers
Curtis Stigers

2)Letter Shapes
They Might Be Giants
Here Come the ABCs

3)Give It Up Or Let Me Go
Dixie Chicks
Wide Open Spaces

4)Mary, Joy Of All Who Sorrow (With Script)
Cat.Chat:The Catholic Audio Show for Kids
Mary Leads Me Closer To Jesus

5)Jesus My Faith Is In You (With Script)
Cat.Chat:The Catholic Audio Show for Kids
Cat.Chat #2 Jesus In My Heart

6)Tell Me Something Good
Rufus
Millennium Funk Party

7)Here's To Lyin'
Doug Supernaw
Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Mind

8)With Or Without You
U2
Joshua Tree

9)Just Like Anyone
Soul Asylum
Let Your Dim Light Shine

10)Your Banquet of Love
Simonetta
Keep Your Eyes On The Beloved

11)My Best Was Never Good Enough
Bruce Springsteen
The Ghost of Tom Joad

12)Nickel in the Well
Bryan White
Between Now and Forever

13)I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
U2
Joshua Tree

So, a random sampling of what we have out of 1800+ songs on hubby's IPod!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Domestically Challenged

So, I have been a housewife for the last, oh 5 years or so (full time for almost 2 years, part time for 3 years before that...not to mention the other 3 years as a student and wife...), so you'd think that I wouldn't run across that many tasks that I have NO CLUE how to do...

Don't get me wrong, I have ironed items before...I try to avoid it as much as possible after the high school trauma of melting my choir dress (we lovingly called them our blue garbage bags) by using too high of heat.

Hubby had thrown a couple of horribly wrinkled uniform shirts in with a wet load of laundry to try to get the wrinkles out. He fished them out, and they were still just as wrinkled, and I told him to throw them back in for the rest of the cycle (he thought that they might burn in the dryer...I figure, if I've never burned an article of clothing in the dryer, it is just NOT POSSIBLE!) He made the comment that he would probably need to iron them if they came out and were still wrinkled. So, they came out of the dryer, and guess what!?! STILL WRINKLED!!! So, I thought this would be a great opportunity to practice sacraficial love for my husband by doing something that I can't say that I hate (because my iron and I don't have enough of a relationship to label) but that I can say I avoid, and thus, really don't know how to do!

So, I grabbed up the three work shirts in the load of laundry, and set up the ironing board and the iron (there have been YEARS in our married life when we couldn't find/couldn't use our iron...for instance when it was covered with bits of wallpaper from trying to steam off 3 layers at our old house...), and set to work. I vaguely remember my MIL telling me of her grandmother's order of operations while ironing, so I thought I'd try that. (I am at least 2 generations away from any level of domesticity) So, I ironed and ironed...and got no where! Sadly, the shirts are made of a cotton/poly blend, which on our iron is in that ambiguous range where it might be steam iron, but it might not bother... So, now I am online not only to lament my pathetic domestic skills, but also to look up nonvideo (as our dialup and videos do not get along) instructions for ironing shirts.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

I love Taxes...

Okay, so technically, I don't really LOVE taxes...I don't particularly like paying them...I'd prefer to keep our money...but I love the new year because I have 1) an excuse to buy a new piece of software every year (TurboTax...tried TaxCut once...it SUCKED!) and 2) an excuse to look at all our finances and recap the year in what we accomplished or did not accomplish to make goals for the new year.

Yes, I am a dork! I'm sure at some point I've put up a blogthings quiz to prove it...

So, I got TurboTax in the mail today, and have been playing around with it instead of accomplishing any dishes or laundry. Of course, I don't have any tax forms yet, but we just got hubby's last pay stub of the year today, so I've been figuring things out based on that. Of course, that means that I'll have to correct a bunch of numbers when the appropriate forms come in the mail, but hey, I find it fun!

I've always been a money nerd (not a math nerd, I never could do math problems unless they involved money...I just need it in practical terms I understand $$$) I used to balance people's checkbooks for them in college. I did try to get my MIL on a budget/to balance her checkbook for the first time EVER...but after about 3-4 months of it, I found that I didn't have the time to babysit her. If there ever was a lost cause in terms of financial responsibility, my MIL is it...I love her dearly, of course, but I just try not to even THINK about her finances.

Oh, we've also set a new financal goal...I'll probably work on a ticker for it (I love tickers...I'm a dork, I said it already!) but we plan to save right around $20,000 in the next 18 months to buy a new to us car for our tenth anniversary. That means ol' Bessie is gonna have to make it 18 more months...I've been expecting that car to die for about 5 years now, but it's still going strong, so what's another year and a half?

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Christmas Decorations

Well, it is December 23rd, and hubby is at church serving up breakfast to all the brave souls who stayed to decorate for midnight Mass tomorrow. I brought the girls home because I am just not brave enough to let them wander free in the church with decorating going on. However, the fact that the church is getting decorated is making me think that maybe...just MAYBE...we ought to decorate our house!

Hubby pulled down the Christmas decorations he could find from the attic (a place I have never ventured, and never really intend to...) but he couldn't find the ornaments for the tree. The tree itself has been up since Thanksgiving (only because my parents sent us a new, prelit artificial tree as an early Christmas present...had it been in storage, I'm sure it would be going up today!). I am, however, proud to say that our Advent wreath (we've had it for a few years, so it had to come out of storage) has been out all of Advent, and our nativity scene (new this year) has been up for weeks.

The rest of the decorations, minus the ornaments are in our bedroom, which the girls keep going in to attempt to eat things off of our wreaths, etc. So, today when hubby gets home, he will be sent up into the attic one more time to attempt to find the ornaments (and put up some outgrown clothes and toys) and I hope to clean and decorate the house, and pack for our whirlwind trip to see my parents. We get to leave sometime after noon tomorrow, and have to be back in time for hubby to go to work at 7am on the 26th.

My mom is doing well, she had a very long named surgery on December 12th to deal with the scarring from her cancer, so she will be sore and unable to hold the kiddos, but I know she is looking forward to seeing them!

Oh yeah...I almost forgot, I have to wrap all our presents (minus the girls two, since I wrapped them immediately after I got them home so that they wouldn't find out what they are!

Merry Christmas!!!