Five Tips On How To NOT Be A Bridezilla

I'm not sure if I was successful at being a Non-Bridezilla while I was planning our wedding, but since then I have gathered some ideas on how to keep your inner beast tamed while planning your big day. I am partially writing this post for my sister-in-law who is in the process of planning her May 2013 wedding. While chatting with her about what she is planning I have noticed that while trends change so much from year to year, there are some basics that are always the same.

1. My first suggestion is always to research and find a photographer that you love! It is so expensive to hire a professional photographer, but if you find the right one it will be very much worth the sticker price. I was really disappointed with our pictures after the wedding and that will forever be my biggest regret from our day. I had two photographers that I loved and both of them were booked for our date and we ended up going with someone that we knew (family member of an acquaintance) and I ended up with very basic pictures and very disappointed. So research and book your photographer EARLY. My friend Amanda had this to say about booking a photographer: 


"Love your photographer, if you have any doubts after engagement pictures- REBOOK. Make sure you to tell your photographer exactly what images you want, chances are they will miss some. So communicate. Have your MOH or a bridesmaid make sure your dress doesn't need to be re-adjusted during shots (ie your bra is showing on the side) because your photographer is too busy clicking away to care (and a good image might be ruined by careless editing on their part)."


2. The second piece of advice that I can pass along is to stick to your choices! There will be times where you will see something else you want to add, something you want to change, etc. but the best thing you can do is just stick with your original decision. If you are constantly looking for new things to spend time and money one you will eventually be broke and have an over-done event where 60% of the little details you agonized over will go unnoticed. 

3. Let people help you - I am a self-proclaimed perfectionist. I had a very hard time letting people help me with anything wedding related. If people offer to help, give them some job to do, something that you don't mind letting go of. In the end it will help check something off your to-do list and will make your friend or family member feel like they're helping with something.

4. Don't let people sell you on extra crap you don't need. I hate seat covers - they always get stuck on the backs your chair legs and quite frankly just look silly. They also cost a fortune! People that work at banquet halls will try to sell you all kinds of crap because it's more money in their pocket. Keep it simple and keep it unique to you.

5. Have fun! Don't stress yourself out on the day of your wedding! Little things might go wrong, but let other people handle it for you. The day will fly by faster than you can even possibly believe and you won't be able to remember the details if you're constantly worried about something that *might* go wrong. It is your day - everyone is there to see and celebrate you. Enjoy it.

Have any other tips for brides? Share them!

High Five for Friday

So, I've been pretty MIA lately on the blog front, but I figured if I was going to avoid studying today I might as well be a little productive...if you do, in fact, call blogging productive.

Remember when I said I found some things from other blogs that I wanted to try? Well one of them is called "High Five for Friday" a bunch of bloggers connect with each other and share the highlights of their week. I'm going to try and make an attempt finding five things to highlight from the past week but it's been kind of a strange week so it might be difficult. 

On Sunday, Justin and I went with my sister to the Detroit Zoo's Run Wild fundraising event for the animal hospital at the zoo. My sister is in school to be a vet tech and her class go to this event every year and we decided to tag along. We got admission to the zoo, a t-shirt and a bunch of free food. It was a beautiful day and we even tagged along on her class's tour of the zoo's animal hospital which was pretty cool even though I knew nothing about 90% of what they were talking about.

This really isn't a highlight, but Justin went to Texas this week to spend time with friends. From what I've heard he's been playing video games, touring Lubbock, went to the gun range and other Texas boy stuff. While he's been away I have been pretty lazy - did some laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping but other than that I've been nursing a wicked cold and playing with the kittens (I did go to work too). 

Another highlight - I had today off, which was really nice. I intended to be rather productive but ended up not really doing much of anything. I did try a recipe that I found on pinterest and let's just say it did not turn out as expected. Here is the original recipe...and this is what mine looked like.

They tasted like crap too. Oh well - better luck next time. The down side of being off today is that I have to work all day tomorrow, BUT I get to work with one of my favorite ladies - so that's another highlight :)

So there is my first "High Five for Friday" post - hopefully next week I have more highlights to share, but you've gotta start somewhere!

The Last Normal Day: Part Two

So, I think I have been holding out on you a little bit on the second half of the story. Honestly, I think I feel like I have told the story so many times that people are sick of it and could probably tell it as well as Justin or I could. So, I will give you the reader's digest version and leave it up to you if you want more details :)

I think I left you right before we were give the "diagnosis" of lymphoma. So, Justin had surgery on a Monday and as we were prepping to go home on that following Wednesday the hematologist came into the room and said that it looked like he had an "unconfirmed" diagnosis of Non-Hodgkins Follicular Lymphoma - he said that typically they do a watch and wait plan at first and someone from his office would call us in October (at this point it's the beginning of August) and then he said "do you have any questions?"...this was literally 3 minutes after he walked into the room and we were still in shock, I think. He handed me a bunch of papers on lymphoma and told us to have a nice day. Gee thanks.

After our not-so-great experience with this doctor, we decided to change doctors and check out the University of Michigan's Cancer Center. The doctor we ended up with was amazing and made the entire experience as comfortable as possible. He answered our questions and made sure we understood everything that was going on and we felt like he was always honest with us, which was important. 

Long story short, the week after Thanksgiving Justin started chemotherapy, a lot earlier than both the doctors and we thought. Chemotherapy is one of the scariest and most emotionally (and physically, obviously) exhausting experiences we have ever had. After a second unsuccessful attempt at getting the original medicine to get into his system, they declared Justin allergic to one of the medications (scariest day of my life) and changed his treatment plan to a more traditional chemotherapy. 

In April Justin finished his last chemotherapy treatment and in June his tests and bone marrow biopsy came back without a sign of cancer. He is not cancer free - he will always have lymphoma and will most likely have to battle it again in as little as three years but he is currently in remission and feeling great. We're just happy to have the opportunity to get our lives back to normal.

This is undoubtedly the "reader's digest" version of the story, but honestly at this point the little details that I remember aren't as important as the fact that right now, he is feeling well and the treatment, as traumatic as it is, did what it was supposed to do.

Justin and his sister, Jaime at his "No More Cancer Birthday Party"!

Teen Mom Series Finale

So, last week I told you I was going to blog while watching the Teen Mom series finale - but while I was watching the hour and a half episode, I found that there was no way to organize a post like that in a way where you would understand what was going on unless you were watching with me. So, although I never posted a play-by-play of the episode, I thought I could still post about Teen Mom as a whole.

I have been watching these young ladies since they were on the first season of 16 & Pregnant and have been following their stories in the media as well. For the most part I have had a positive opinion of the show, but after watching the last episode and possibly the last couple of season I'm not so sure what I think anymore. 

I do, however, have a very specific positive or negative view on each of the ladies on the show:

Catelynn - I love! She was mature, thoughtful and undeniably selfless when she decided to give up her baby for adoption and since has taken responsibility for her younger brother in order to provide a stable home for him (or so I have read in the press recently).

Amber - She infuriates me. The father of her daughter infuriates me and they both have from the very beginning. Their poor daughter, Leah, is constantly stuck in the middle of their violent fighting and even as a baby was left (from what I could tell) unattended and was pretty much ignored. But, again, this is just what I see from the show so I have no actual idea about what happens when cameras aren't rolling.

Maci - I really like Maci, she seems to have a good idea of what she has to do to be a good parent and puts Bentley first. I go back and forth with Ryan. I hate that he is constantly trying to scheme against Maci and calls her names in front of Bentley but in the last episode it was nice to see him having fun with Bentley and his family. I am always rooting for Maci, she works hard to provide a family and home for her son.

Farrah - Ugh. Farrah. She is so incredibly self-centered and blows up without any reason on a regular basis. The fact that she gave her daughter to her mother for a month just made no sense to me. She made the choice to move across the country where she knows no one and then when her toddler got a little restless after being ignored she sends her away. What a great way to take responsibility for your child. I do, however root for Farrah. I hope she is successful in school and has a great life with Sophia.

I am still deciding whether I think the show was a positive thing or not. I think it caused a lot more drama than necessary and probably escalated problems that might not have been there otherwise, but for people like Catelynn, Tyler and Maci I think it helped them provide for themselves so they could accomplish their goals. I think Cateylnn and Tyler will make amazing social workers (coming from someone in the field) and Maci will continue to make the right choices for her family and be successful in whatever she chooses to do in the future.

In the case of Amber - I think the show did nothing but provide a microscope onto a problem that might not be there otherwise. This could be a good thing or a bad thing: If there is in fact a problem, it's good that the proper course of action is taking place when it comes to the child, but if the press and show are escalating the situation, it's not necessarily a positive situation for anyone involved, including MTV. 

Farrah is a toss up - I hope that seeing herself on the show makes her realize how unreasonable and selfish she can be and how incredibly rude she is to people, especially her parents. I am still so confused as to why she calls her dad, Michael...

So there you have it: a very undefined look at what I got from the show Teen Mom. 

What do you think about the show or the ladies?

I haven't watched other seasons, but tell me about those!

Get Me Some Coffee and a Hoodie Because...

IT'S ALMOST FALL!

My favorite time of year - cider, doughnuts, pumpkins, new school supplies, warm drinks, blankets, boots, hoodies, scarves, sweaters, colorful leaves, cooler weather, mums, open windows instead of AC, apples, darker hair colors, AHHH! I love everything about fall!

Things you may not know about me...

I believe it's People Magazine that has the "20 Things You Didn't Know About *insert popular celebrity here*" article and this is partially inspired by that. It is also a chance for you, my avid readers, to get to know me a little better.

Even as an adult I am afraid of basements - as a child I used to take our family cat downstairs with me in case something or someone was hiding down there while I was doing laundry.

When I find a new TV show that I like I obsess and watch every episode that I can and then get sad when it's over or I've caught up with the current airing schedule. In the past few years I've obsessed over Brother & Sisters, How I Met Your Mother, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Army Wives and most recently: Gossip Girl. All of these are outside of my other TV show obsessions like One Tree Hill, The Office, Gilmore Girls, and pretty much anything on Bravo.

My biggest fear is having someone break into my home while I am there. This fear comes out WHENEVER I am home alone. Even this morning after Justin left for work I kept "hearing" someone come into the apartment.

Most of my iTunes library consists of music from the show from One Tree Hill.

I am an organizational junkie and love new planners - I buy multiple planners every year because I hate how messy they get after a few months.

Every time I see an add for the current lottery I day dream about how I would spend my millions. My first thoughts are usually: pay off all debt, buy a house, buy a house up north, start my own business or non-profit, pay for different family debt/stuff.

One of my dreams is to own a house that I love as much as I loved my house growing up. I don't need anything huge or luxurious, but something that we can host holidays and make comfortable for our little family.

As much as I might never actually admit it in person, I miss high school and the early years of college. I thought I NEVER would miss high school - I was an average student and was itching to get out by the time I hit junior year but I had some awesome friends and had a lot of great times! And really, how many times as adults do you get to get all fancied up and go to a dance with all of your best friends? 

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. I love being able to keep in touch with my friends and family but I hate the drama that comes along with Facebook - and I really don't need to know every single thing that everyone is doing every second of every day. (<---that's a lot of "every"s)

Productive Procrastinator

Usually I can be quite the procrastinator, I work much better under pressure. I seem to think faster, am more logical and focused when I'm working in the eleventh hour. In elementary school I was the kid who on Sunday night says "Hey, Dad, I have I have a science project due tomorrow...I need poster board, paint and 10 facts about Wisconsin." Yes, that really happened. So now that you all think I am completely lazy and would make an awful employee let's talk about being productive. 

Ever have a day where you leave work or school and feel like you have accomplished every little thing you set out to do and feeling awesome? I had one of those days today. I had a to-do list and each and every thing on it was crossed off all before the stroke of 5pm. I have a big training to do in the morning with over 60 people expected in a room that isn't one of our normal training sites. These 60 people are also being mandated by their employer to attend 8 hours of training tomorrow so I'm sure 8am will really be amazing for them (sarcasm intended). But I am pretty sure I covered all of my bases and managed to get all my prep work done this afternoon with a little time left over to get my tedious every day task done before leaving for the day. It felt awesome!

So, I pose a question: How can one self-proclaimed procrastinator get such satisfaction out of getting things done early? Seems a little hypocritical, doesn't it?

I'm not sure if I'll ever give up on some of my procrastinating ways, maybe only when it comes to stupid tedious things. What stupid tedious things do I hate doing, you ask? Well I'll tell you!

1. Browning ground beef - I did this for dinner tonight and it was painfully boring and takes too long

2. Shaving my legs - why do girls over 13 have leg hair anyway?

3. Blow drying my hair - ugh...I hate blow drying my hair

4. Putting away groceries

5. Matching up socks - they all end up in a drawer and we find the match before we put them on.

I'm sure I could think of more but then that would just be me complaining. So, what are the stupid tedious things you hate doing?

Tomorrow I plan on blogging as I watch the last episode of "Teen Mom" with the original cast. I realize it's on tonight but I'll be DVRing it so I can catch up on some sleep before tomorrow's big training. So stay tuned if you're a "Teen Mom" fan!

Good night, Em

5 Little Things I am Thankful For

I am going to start a segment of the blog called "Little Things I am Thankful For" - at this point I'm not sure if I will be doing it weekly or less frequently but my current "Little Things" are all things that made me happy in the last week and I thought I would share them with you. A couple of them are products that I adore too!

1. My "My Panera" card. This little gem has been providing me with amazing discounts and freebies for about two years and I WOULD NOT make a Panera purchase without it. Panera can get a little pricey so it doesn't get as much us as it used to but getting the 1/2 off "You Pick Twos" really makes it worth it! 

2. Mixed Berry Ice Breakers Sours. A friend (Hi, JK) turned me onto these a while back and now they are a regular appearance in my purse. They really aren't all that sour, but just have a little kick to them. They're good when you just need a little bit of sugar and leave your breath feeling fresh and not too fruity. I love the mixed berry flavor BUT would NOT recommend the the apple flavor - too much sour and not enough happy fruitiness!

3. My "Ribbon Candy" scented hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works. This came in a Christmas gift from my boss and I absolutely love the smell! I have no idea what real ribbon candy smells like, but if this is an accurate depiction than I'm missing out!

4. C.O. Bigelow Mentha Lip Tint in "pink mint" - this is also from Bath & Body Works and I got it on Black Friday last year mixed in with a bunch of other goodies I snagged on sale. I love the minty flavor and the color adds just the right amount of tint without over-doing it. I also have this same product without the tint.

5. The 2013 Ikea Catalog. I usually have a hard time shopping at Ikea, things seem to either be cheap and confusing or awesome finds. The trick is you can't just go to Ikea and browse because it is COMPLETELY overwhelming so I loved flipping through the book and dog-earing some pages with things I want to look for on my next trip. Justin and I are debating moving in the fall so I'll have to plan my trip around that but there are some definite fun finds in this year's catalog!

And there you have it: The Five Little Things that I was thankful for this week - nothing huge and I'm sure I could come up with more but we'll save those for next week :)

A Lazy Sunday

I have been spending the last week looking at other blogs and seeing how I can ramp up my blogger profile a little bit. So far I have gotten a few ideas, some of which will start next week so stay tuned for that. I am hoping to keep up my blog while I start back up with grad classes in a couple weeks, but we'll see how that goes. For now I am busy getting the most out of the last bit of summer before the fast pace of fall starts creeping back into focus. In an effort to do just that, I am having a lazy Sunday afternoon with my sister in downtown Plymouth.

My extremely rich drink and Gatsby :)

A couple days ago I went to see "Hope Springs" with my mom and sister and while it was a good movie, I came away with a bigger impression from one of the previews that played before the movie. In case you've missed it, a film depiction of "The Great Gatsby" is coming out next year and the preview alone was intriguing. I have never read the book because, in all honesty, I enjoy easy, fad-type of stories rather than the great american novel. However true that may be, I have had an itch to try Gatsby several times in the past and after seeing the trailer for the movie, I couldn't get it out of my head so I made it my resolve to at least give it a go. So when my sister said she needed to make a quick pit-stop at the library this afternoon, I knew this would be my chance to check it out. In the end, we both ended up  borrowing the book (yes, I did look slightly silly checking out two copies of the same book) and decided that we will have our own private End of Summer Book Club and discuss it over coffee over the next couple of weeks. I'm not entirely sure if either of us will finish it, but at least we'll get coffee out of the deal :)

My sister, Laura. 

In more Lazy Sunday news, we are spending this beautiful day in downtown Plymouth watching the bustling Kellogg Park from a cozy booth inside Panera. We are relaxing with yummy frozen drinks and she is in the process of writing a paper for school. So I will leave you with a couple of questions to ponder and if you're feeling nice, you can answer them for me!

What is your favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

Have you read The Great Gatsby? If so, what's your take on the great american novel?

What is your favorite frozen drink (adult or otherwise)?

Happy Sunday,


Emily

Quickie Post

I had a couple things that I've been wanting to post and figured since I have only 20 minutes on my laptop battery I would start a "Quickie Post" segment of my blog where I can just throw a couple random things at you that I think you should check out. Here are my current Quickies:

1. I made delicious shredded chicken tacos for dinner tonight - if you're a friend on facebook you've already seen the post so sorry for the duplication but I cannot rave enough about this incredibly easy recipe. I neglected to take a picture of dinner tonight, but here is the link to the original blog post. I used 3 frozen chicken breast instead of 6 and let it cook on low for 8 hours and it turned out juicy, tender and delicious! With the 3 chicken breasts we had enough chicken for us each to have a taco for dinner, gave 2 tacos worth to my dad and enough for 4-6 more tacos for lunch/leftovers. I cannot recommend this recipe enough. Try it!

2. I wanted to call out some blogs that I am currently following that have some great stuff happening:
 - Bethany Joy Lenz is an actress, Mom, philanthropist and lover of all things cool, I enjoy reading her blog and she is one of the reasons I decided to start my own blog :)

- My cousin Sarah and her friend Erin write about their estate sale adventures on their blog Dig This Treasure. I have the RSS feed on my phone and like to read 4-5 posts at a time when I can't sleep or am bored. I ALWAYS manage to chuckle at their adventures and antics.

- All the Small Things is a new blog that I have started following and I am slightly obsessed. She has all kinds of crafty and girly things going on and the simple fact that she taught me how to cut my own bangs makes her a rock star in my book.

And there you have it - my quickie post. Only 3 more minutes of battery life left so I'm off.
Em

The Good, The Bad and the...Confusing?

I would be lying if I said the last 10 days or so haven't been slightly strange and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not but you can help me decide :)


First of all, this week the weather completely did a flip and went from disgustingly hot and humid to cool and rainy. We definitely needed the rain so it was a welcome soggy mess for a couple of days but rain really has a way of making people look just as soggy as the grass outside and it kind of puts a damper on the whole summer wardrobe and usual sunny commute to and from work. Today seems to be the perfect combination of cool, breezy and sunny so that's a good thing.

Ugh, I will have to write an actual blog post for this next event of the last week, but the gist of it is that in the process of selling my Keurig on eBay I had to deal with a complete jerk. The whole situation gave me anxiety for a week and made me want to climb through my computer and strangle someone. Good thing this guy lives across the country. Thumbs DOWN!


On a more "strange" note - Justin offered to go grocery shopping with me on Thursday night. Considering it works 40 hours a week in a grocery store it's a very rare thing for me to convince him to grocery shop with me so considering he sought me out to help was so completely awesome! We hadn't been shopping in over three weeks so we revenged the aisles of Kroger and took home one of everything - I may have slightly exaggerated the amount of loot we hauled home, but only slightly. So having food in the house is also a good thing - another thumbs up!

On a more recent note - I started watching Gossip Girl on Netflix today. I was in need of another show to have going on in the background of my lazy Sunday and I'm already out of How I Met Your Mother episodes. Considering I have an obsession with teenage dramas I knew this could go either way: loving it and becoming slightly obsessed or hating it and having to find something else to obsess over while I do laundry, drink lots of coffee, give myself a pedicure and love on the kitties! And so far the verdict is I think I'm going to be obsessed...not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, so that gets a confused...eh.

I'm trying to get back to my regular blogging schedule that I had last month soon so I hope that's a good thing for all you FB friends that get inundated with posts in your news feed.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! I'm off to Draino the tub, switch loads of laundry and refill my coffee cup - ah, the life of the rich and famous - be jealous, outrageously jealous :)

Revelations in Strange Places

So our Staycation has come to an end - we relaxed, cleaned, did laundry, hung out with family and I went up north for one of my favorite annual trips. I was surprised how hard it was to go back to work this morning. I love my job, I honestly do, and around Wednesday of last week I thought I was more than ready to get back to the grind but getting back into the swing of things wasn't as easy as I anticipated. I've come to realize that part of my difficulty getting back to reality is that I had a really thought provoking couple of weeks and it made me think about who I am, how I am to others and how I live my life. Here are some of the things I realized:

Everyone has difficult times. After Justin made it through chemotherapy I was so relieved that he was going to be okay for the time being that I had a tendency to think that everyone else's struggles were nothing in comparison to what we had just lived through. This made me slightly bitter and probably rather rude to those around me. After spending four days with my extended family I got the realization that everyone has difficult things going on in their lives and whether or not they are a life or death battle like cancer is, they are important and cause people to stress, worry, be sad, angry and depressed. It is not for me to determine that their struggles are any less important than mine.

Sarcasm is not always attractive. I am sarcastic. It's a fact. Most of the time it's to be funny, but sometimes it can just be plain bitchy (sorry for the lack of a better vocabulary word...) and when I gave myself some time to sit back and actually shut up for a few minutes I was able to realize that sarcasm is not always funny, sometimes can be condescending and just plain unattractive. I cannot (and will not) ever stop being sarcastic, but I promise to be more aware of where the sarcasm is coming from and the impact it may have.

Appreciation is important. I just spent four days up north with some of my favorite people in the world. How freaking lucky am I? I have a family that enjoys each other's company and gets together every year in a beautiful place to recharge and have fun! I very rarely take the time to be thankful for the little things in my life that are not necessarily so "little". On the way back from Mackinaw Island on Friday I was sitting on the top level of the Star Line ferry and I found myself gazing out at the Mackinaw Bridge on the most beautiful day I have ever witnessed and I was SO thankful for the opportunity to be up north, in my favorite place (Mackinaw Island) with some amazing people. I don't do that enough and I am going to to make it my mission to be more thankful for the people in my life and the experiences that I am fortunate enough to have.

I'm going to leave you to ponder these three things and with some fun pictures from Girls Weekend 2012 :)
Em

Progress Report

Welp, apparently it's 2004 again because I slept in until 12pm this afternoon which is absolutely INSANE! There is no reason for it - I didn't go to bed late last night, I slept just fine, I just kept sleeping until about noon and had I not gasped in shock when I looked at the clock (yes, that rhymed...) I might have fallen back asleep for a little longer. 

Now, before you all band together and start throwing eggs at my apartment - I am going to tell you some of the down side of this whole "staycation" thing. First of all I want to start by saying that I love and adore my husband and we've had a lot of fun together over the last few days but with that said, you can only hang out with each other for so long before you need to spend time with other people. Here's the catch: everyone else has to work! So you're stuck making plans for the evening and the day kind of gets lost inside or with errands - ie: sleeping until noon today. I've accomplished a couple things on my Summer To-Do List, as well as some other things that I didn't add but here's my progress thus far:

Borrow books from the library (instead of spending $ for e-books) - Going this afternoon or tomorrow
Go to the Plymouth Farmers Market (Sat mornings) and ACTUALLY buy produce!
Use our free tickets to the Henry Ford Museum
Go to Kensington Park
Do a bike riding trip
Take pictures and get them printed -- In progress
Make some pages in my Smash Book
Purge some of the stuff still in boxes from when we moved TWO YEARS AGO!
Have my parents over for dinner 

I've decided to to take the "Take Pictures and Get them Printed" goal to another level by learning more about my camera and how to use it manually to take better pictures. I've already found some awesome blog posts that explain the different functions (aperture, fstop, depth of field, etc) but the hardest part has been trying to figure out how to make those functions work on my camera...it's a work in progress and hopefully I'll be posting some awesome pictures soon!

That's all for now - Thanks for reading,
Em

Staycation Day One

Sleep, empty the DVR, sleep, eat leftover spaghetti, watch Wilfred with Justin, more sleep. We might be on to something with this whole "Staycation" stuff :)
Tomorrow I'm hoping to browse the library for some good summer reads! Stay tuned so I can make you incredibly jealous of my luxurious vacation!

I've Been Poisoned!

I have been pretty lucky for the past 27 years but that luck ran out yesterday when I realized I had gotten food poisoning. Ugh, it was NOT fun at all and I am just now, about 29 hours later, feeling pretty normal again. So, while I was trying not to die yesterday I was otherwise having a nice evening. I made dinner for my family who came over for dinner and a movie - I finally got to make sloppy joes for my parents! I fell in LOVE with this recipe I found online, it's easy and super delicious and it seemed to be a crowd pleaser! Here's the basic recipe, I don't measure anything - just mix and taste:

Emily's Sloppy Joe Recipe - Found Somewhere online

Brown ground beef in frying pan - drain

Add chopped green pepper and onions - continue cooking so the veggies soften up a little

Add Ketchup, Yellow Mustard, Brown Sugar and Garlic Powder - mix and let simmer for about 10 minutes. 

We eat them open-faced on hamburger buns - delicious!

On a more positive note - I get to check off two of the things on my summer to-do list! In case you missed it, I blogged about it earlier this week (here).

My mom and I went to the Plymouth Farmer's Market yesterday, I was so excited to go and got some decent deals on produce. I bought strawberries, blueberries, grape tomatoes and fuji apples for $11.50! So far we've sampled everything and it's been delicious! I plan on going back in a few weeks when they're up and running again.

I guess that even though I spent most of the weekend feeling awful some good things happened too:

• Our apartment is relatively clean
• I put up a bunch of pictures that I have been procrastinating on 
• I finished Season 6 of How I Met Your Mother
• I went to a nice bridal shower and one of the favors was Bath & Body Works hand soap and we TOTALLY needed soap!
• I sold some old stuff that I've been trying to get rid of on EBay (although I still couldn't sell my wedding dress or my Keurig)
• I had a nice time with my family last night

I think that's all for now - I plan on laying low and cuddling with Ally for the rest of the evening.

Happy Sunday!

Staycation

I seem to be having trouble sleeping tonight, I'm not sure if it's because I can't get my mind to stop whirling around in circles or if I had a dose of caffeine too late in the day...maybe both. It could also be the confusion that I was off from work on a Wednesday and my body thinks tomorrow is lazy Sunday not Thursday. Maybe it's because I keep wondering why I'm awake? Who knows, but anyway...

Justin and I had to make a responsible decision tonight but it made me kind of sad. We were planning on road tripping from Michigan to Texas next week to visit some friends in Lubbock, but unfortunately, due to limited funds we had to cancel our trip. It was the right thing to do with gas prices the way that they are but we were both looking forward to our first cross-country road trip and seeing our friends. So we are instead opting for a "staycation" which I normally would think is one of the DUMBEST words ever, but in light of our current predicament I have found some inspiration from this rather annoying, fake word.

Since we both already have the time off, we have decided to do some fun things while we're home and save some dough. Tonight while I was thinking of the (free) fun things we could do, I was inspired to create a list of things I want to accomplish this summer. I am slightly nervous that if I do not actually make a list and post it on my blog (that no one reads) I will not hold myself accountable to actually do these (free) fun things while I'm on vacation and I'll end up hanging out on the couch doing laundry watching endless episodes of How I Met Your Mother. So I leave it up to you, whoever you are, to hold me accountable to these summer goals. I might not get them all done on my vacation, but I would like to accomplish them before September. Hopefully that will also inspire me to post more on my blog, because let's face it - I'm not really being the best blogger.

Here is my list so far, I will add to it as I think of more things!

Borrow books from the library (instead of spending $ for e-books)
Go to the Plymouth Farmers Market (Sat mornings) and ACTUALLY buy produce!
Use our free tickets to the Henry Ford Museum
Go to Kensington Park
Do a bike riding trip
Take pictures and get them printed
Make some pages in my Smash Book
Purge some of the stuff still in boxes from when we moved TWO YEARS AGO!
Have my parents over for dinner (this one is kinda sneaky because I already have this planned for next weekend) ;)

That's all I can think of right now so I am going to try and go to bed - mainly because I am sitting in the dark living room with my laptop and am being attacked by a killer moth.

G'night, Em.

Dear Jacqui,

So... a little birdy told me that I should update my blog so I figured maybe today's the day.

I'm still not convinced that anyone actually reads it, but you could prove me wrong ;)

Honestly, my life went from super stressful to winding back down toward normal and I think I've been taking advantage of any opportunity I can to just literally do nothing. I'm not joking, I spent quite a bit of time not doing anything and it felt GREAT!

I don't want to make this a super random post, but if it turns out that way, I apologize! I am completely and sincerely grateful for some people in my life, they helped keep me sane when the rest of the world seemed to be scheming in some big cosmic joke. No matter where I went I had someone to keep me laughing, positive, calm and pushed me to keep things going. If you think you might be one of those people you most likely are. Unless...you're not. HA! I couldn't help myself.

The biggest thing going on in my life right now is waiting. Sounds kind of crazy, but when you're waiting for information it seems like you have nothing else to but think about how long you've been waiting. Thankfully Justin finished his chemotherapy treatments in April and has gotten through a second bone marrow aspiration and PET scan and now we're just waiting to hear if everything worked. In the mean time we're living life and planning our big road trip to Texas in July.

So I guess this edition of Still Standing ended up being a little more random then I would have liked, but it's something. You'll have to keep me inspired to keep posting.

OH AND FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER - @ejfpaff

The Silver Lining: When did this "Glee" thing start?

Ok, so I'm being a little sarcastic. I clearly realize the show Glee has been around for a few years, but I never took the time to pay attention and frankly it annoyed me a little bit. But somehow I managed watching episodes of Glee until 1am last night and ::insert tiny whisper voice:: oh, yeah, it's on right now...

So how did I end up watching Glee until 1am you ask? It is all a result of one thing: tequila. No, I was drinking when I was watching but I was hungover like a crazy person and couldn't sleep anymore and the only thing I could find to watch was Glee. I realize that's not a very good story but it's really the silver lining in the worst hangover of my life. And now after a day of eating nothing but crackers, pretzels and bananas I am ready to spend a day lounging, eating something yummy (like mac and cheese, food of the gods - if you get that reference I love you) and watching Glee.

Although being hungover is stupid and sucks, the celebration that caused this stupid day was completely worth it. Justin finished his last round of chemotherapy at the beginning of the month and had his birthday this week so we went to our favorite spot with some friends and family to celebrate the two milestones that hit us this month. So even though I had a rough day yesterday, there were several layers of silver lining from the last few days:

1. My husband, after seven months, is finally done with chemotherapy
2. He got to celebrate his birthday instead of starting a new round of chemo.
3. I had a great night with some friends and family
4. I found Glee

I guess the corny message of this blog post is to look for the silver lining and sometimes you can't see it until you're through the thick of it - so hang tough through the bad times and look for the positivity to come.

I'm off to make some mac and cheese (yes, I realize it's not even 11am but it's Saturday) :)

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Are you singing the song from "The Sound of Music" yet?

Remember the collage I posted in my first blog post (here)? Well a lot of my favorite things are in that collage. I thought I would share some of them a little more in detail.

One of the pictures in there is of a sign that says "Somebody told me that this is the place where everything's better and everything's safe" - that sign is from one of my favorite shows: One Tree Hill. I really like the quote and considering the last episode of the series premiered a couple days ago I figured that would be great place to start. I have been watching (okay...obsessing) over this show since I was in high school. Yes, it's a teenage drama series, yes it's quite ridiculous and outlandish and yes it is awesome. It's funny how after nine season these people and these relationships sometimes feel real - I've laughed at them, cried with them and got excited for the big moments in their lives. (P.S. I realize this is NOT reality and these people are actors...I'm not THAT crazy) It was extremely sad to see the show go, but I have to give it to the writers and cast of the show - the last episode was perfect!


Lilacs: Not only do lilacs smell AMAZING, they also are super pretty. You'd be crazy not to at least notice they're pretty, even if they make you sneeze :) Shortly after our honeymoon, Justin and I took a trip up to Mackinaw for the lilac festival. I was super excited because I have never seen the island covered in lilacs and had been told you could smell them from the ferry. When we got there (the day before the festival started) all of the lilacs were already gone. I was so disappointed and it continues to be one of my dream trips to spend time on Mackinaw Island during the Lilac Festival.



Oddly enough, there are two pictures on my collage that I do not really consider big parts of "me" anymore. I recently gave up drinking diet coke. (Shocking, I know!) It was a spur-of-the-moment decision and has been easier to stick to than I had originally thought. I decided to give up pop entirely and was fine with it until just this week. I gave into my cravings today and had half a glass of Sierra Mist - it was good, but honestly didn't taste as good as I remember. Water seems to satisfy me much more than other beverages. In addition to the diet coke can, there is also a Starbucks logo. Don't get me wrong, I still love me a Grande, non-fat carmel macchiato (sp?), but lately when I have a lot of caffeine I have been getting pains in my chest and shaky feeling so I've cut way down on my caffeine intake as well. My assumption is that since I have taken out my #1 form of caffeine (diet coke) my body has gotten used to functioning without it and now smaller amounts have bigger effects. But either way, I don't think I would include those two pictures in my collage if I was to make it again today.

So, these are a few of my favorite (and not-so favorite) things. What are yours?

If you were told to pick three favorite things, what would you pick?

Mega Millions for Mega Dreams

Wow, Worst Blogger Ever Award? Yep - goes to me!

Sorry for being MIA lately, if anyone actually noticed the absence of my obnoxious posting. Although it sounds like an excuse, my crazy busy job and life have kind of taken over lately and to be frank, I really was having trouble coming up with ideas for good blog topics. I don't want to keep writing about cancer, tv shows, my boring life or other things that just aren't that exciting or thought provoking. But, over the past few days I have been thinking about something and figured I would share in the hopes that you will share with me as well.

So unless you've been living under a rock this week you know that the Mega Millions lottery is close to $600 Million. Holy crap, right!?! While everyone's instinct is to go out and buy a bunch of lottery tickets, mine is to constantly day dream about what I would do with the money. For me the fun of pretending and imagining what that money could do far outweighs the waste of money, hope and disappointment that comes with buying a losing lottery ticket (a little pessimistic? maybe...). An amount of money of that caliber can do so much and fill so many dreams. A few blog posts ago I talked about goals. Now, I'm talking about DREAMS. Dreams are things that you would love to do, but may not be the most practical or obtainable. So while I have been living in a day dream land of paid off student loans, fancy houses and wonderful vacations one of my life-long dreams keeps floating into the forefront. My dream of owning my own non-profit organization keeps coming up and I am constantly wondering how much of a "dream" this is and how much of a "goal" it could become.

As someone who already works in the non-profit world I know what how much the right programming, staff and passion can help those in need but that means I also know how hard this mission can be. We all know our state is not in the best position, we have children dropping out of school, not having food in the bellies, no heat in the winter, men and women living on the streets, people struggling to find work or even hold onto the work they already have. It seems extremely daunting and incredibly sad that there is all this need around us and very little resources to fulfill it. I guess that's another part of my dream, helping and putting an end to something that is plaguing our communities... maybe I should buy a Mega Millions ticket after all :)

So, now that you know one of my biggest dreams, I want to know yours.

If you were to win the $600 Million tonight - what would you do with it?

Three Things I Think You Should Do

Hey people!  (If there's actually people reading this)

1. Read the Hunger Games: I have been slightly MIA lately as it concerns this little blog here... BUT I have a good reason. I have been totally engrossed in the Hunger Games series! It takes a lot for a book to hold my attention and actually keep me hooked like this and honestly I am enjoying more than I did the Twilight series. (insert appalling gasp here) I love the story line, the romance and the fact that there is a movie coming out next week!! I have to say though that I am slightly nervous about seeing the movie because I have a feeling it might disappoint when compared to the book...they always do. I'm hoping that I can drag my sister to the movie since she has yet to read the book so I can see what her perspective is on the film without reading the book... I told her I would prepare discussion questions for afterward but she didn't seem too into it :)



2. Stop drinking pop, soda or whatever you want to call it: So in addition to reading the Hunger Games, I have been trying to do little things that make me laugh and keep me happy lately. It's going over pretty well if I do say so myself. I gave up drinking all pop, which was a lot harder then I thought it would be, but honestly, I feel a lot better and have saved some money by not buying diet coke everyday. So if you need a sponsor for your diet coke addiction - hit me up!






3. Be nice to people: I really can't believe how rude people are to each other. When did it become okay to treat other people like crap? Everyone needs to slow down, take a breath realize that EVERYONE has stuff going on in their lives that distracts them, frustrates them, is depressing or makes them late for work. None of these things are a reason or excuse to treat those around you like they don't matter. Instead of blowing up, take a moment and think of the 10,000 things that might be going on in that persons life that might make them a little less than perfect.


Here's an extra one for you:
4. Comment on Emily's blog so she feels like people are out there. Kthanks!

The Last "Normal" Day - Part One

I remember our last "normal" day - It was Wednesday, August 3rd 2011. It was a partly cloudy, windy day in the Upper Peninsula - about 65 degrees. Not a bad day for making the eight hour drive home from our vacation in Munising. We had just spent four days up north at my aunt's cabin, fishing, swimming, reading and being lazy - it was an amazingly perfect vacation. We had a lot of fun and even spent a couple days with my parents before heading home to go back to our real lives. Going home was a bummer, but we didn't mind. We both had work to get back to and we were waiting for the final word on a house we had put an offer on months before. We were happy.

 

When we pulled into the parking lot at home, Justin got out of the car and said he couldn't feel his foot. After an eight hour drive, I figured it was normal and even poked fun at him - calling him an old man. We both figured it would go away, no big deal. The next day I went to work and he went to a big work meeting (even though he was still technically on vacation) - when I got home from work that day he told me he still had no feeling in his foot and it was actually kind of tingly. I thought it was strange, but really didn't think it was a big deal. Justin had a friend who was in the process of finishing his bachelors in nursing at the time and Justin had him check out his foot before they took off to play disc golf for the rest of the afternoon. His friend made a comment that he really needed to get his foot checked out, just in case, but they were still going to go disc golfing after they visited the doctor. So, I stayed home and emptied out my DVR, while they went to urgent care.


I don't know the details of events of the next few hours so I will paraphrase: While in urgent care, the doctors had a hard time finding a pulse in Justin's right foot but thought they might not have the right equipment to do so and they sent Justin to the emergency room to have everything checked out. At about 9 o'clock that night, I got a call from Justin. He told me that he had been checked out by quite a few doctors and they couldn't find a pulse in his foot and they were preparing to do emergency surgery if necessary. I got in my car.


When I found Justin in the ER, he was laughing and having fun with the staff, but I was panicking. Surgery? Emergency Surgery?!?! How did this happen? WHAT was happening?  I was pretty much going crazy. At about midnight, the doctors decided that it wasn't necessary for Justin to have surgery right then, but they wanted to keep him overnight so the vascular surgeon could see him in the morning. The three of us spent the night in a very nice, private hospital room - I got about 15 minutes of sleep. Justin got very little sleep as they have to check his vitals every hour or so. Overall it was not a fun night.


The next morning after we spoke with the vascular surgeon and numerous tests later, they diagnosed Justin with popliteal artery entrapment syndrome. It's an issue that happened when he was developing before he was born. Readers Digest Version: the artery carrying blood from the thigh to his foot developed inside of his calf muscle instead of around it. His calf muscle was squeezing off the blood supply to his foot. A few more hours without going to the hospital and Justin would have lost his foot. (P.S. I feel totally awful about calling him an old man now). With constant monitoring and preparations to go into surgery if needed, they scheduled the surgery for Monday (at this point it was Friday morning). They put him on blood thinners and kept him under constant watch in the hospital.


I know you're thinking - "um...what the hell does this have to do with cancer?"...


I'm getting to that :)


The results of one of the 10,000 tests that Justin had done over that weekend showed some enlarged lymphnodes in his abdomen. The vascular surgeon said it could just look big on the scan because Justin is so thin, but they wanted to biopsy one of them and bring in a hematologist while they were in surgery on Monday just to be sure. This seemed super scary at the time but honestly, no one really made a big deal of it...it just seemed like something they were double checking. Everyone's main concern was his leg and the artery bypass surgery on Monday. Looking back, I wish I could have that carefree (lets face it, I was a basket case, my husband was having emergency surgery on his leg, but in terms of what I have gone through since then, this was nothing) feeling again, even if it's just for a few minutes.


Little did I know the worst days of my life were not too far into the future...

Goals - Tiny and Tremendous (and everywhere in between)

We all have them - sometimes they're little goals like making it through the day without drinking pop (ok, that might be a tremendous goal for some, mainly me and my good friend diet coke) or they can be huge and include major life changes. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the time we tend to set negative goals for ourselves by taking something away from our lives and we rarely look for positive goals, especially when looking at small goals. I also think we are so incredibly hard on ourselves for not successfully reaching our goals - why not celebrate the time and effort you put into your goals and adapting your expectations to set yourself up for success?


In the spirit of tiny and tremendous goals, I thought I would share some of mine with you in the hopes that you will also share some of yours (SERIOUSLY people, share stuff with me so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself. Please and Thank You :))


I am an organizational junkie so my first goal, while tiny, is going to bring me A LOT of relief, happiness and calmness - I plan on cleaning out my purse before going to bed tonight. I have a rather large purse and I tend to just shove things in there and that has resulted in about six birthday cards (my birthday was about two months ago, btw), old receipts, about four mini bottles of hand sanitizers, etc. Who knows what I might find in there - maybe I'm a millionaire and don't know it ;)


This next goal is a little bit on the tremendous side because it requires me to wake up a little earlier and put in more effort in the morning - I am going to start making my own breakfast at home. For months I have been picking up breakfast on the way to work (along with a giant, cold, diet coke...soooo good) and not only is that incredibly unhealthy, it's also ridiculously expensive. If you're spending about $4 a morning, 5 days a week that's $20 a week on breakfast when I already have bagels, cereal, carnation instant breakfast and eggs at home...what a waste!! So far this week, I have been successful and have even brought my lunch to work both yesterday and today - I must admit, it's nice to know I'm saving money and not wasting the food I already bought from the store. Score!!


Now, a super duper tremendous goal of mine is to save enough money to buy a house. We are so over living in an apartment and really need more space but have been screwed several times in the home purchasing department and pretty much have to start over again...in a couple years. With everything going on in our lives right now we are extremely thankful for not being stuck with a mortgage, but boy, would we love to have a house right now. Can someone just deposit a couple hundred thousand dollars in my bank account? kthanks.


These are just a couple of my goals and I'm sure I'll post more but for now I'm going to try and work on my tiny, kinda tremendous and totally tremendous goals.


Tell me about your goals!


xo Em

Saturday Night Traditions!

Saturday nights have become full if traditions for Justin and I. A few months ago we started coming over to my parent's house for dinner. We are going on four months and have only missed one Saturday! Its tons of fun and nice to spend time with family.
Tonight we joined two traditions, our Saturday night dinner and what we call "hockey snacks"! Hockey snacks are a bunch of yummy appetizer type of foods that my mom makes to eat during a Wings game. We have been doing it forever and it is a favorite tradition for each of us. I took some pics of the yumminess that will be consumed tonight :) we have mexican dip, mini reubens, bagel bites, cheese sticks, etc.

What are some of your favorite family traditions?

Happy Saturday & GO WINGS!!!

Cold Feet and Crock Pot Pork Chops

Michigan officially has the craziest weather, ever! Yesterday it was about 45 degrees - I didn't wear my coat for most of the day and actually had to open a window in the office because it was too hot in there. Today it was chilly but not too bad in the wee hours of the morning, but it started snowing like crazy around 9am...just enough to make it slippery, slushy and wet. Now, as I look out our window I see ZERO snow. Kind of irritating considering I wore my ballet flats today and ended up with soaking wet feet for about five hours and then snow decides to melt as soon as I get home and don't have to bother with it. BAH!


So I'm all snuggled up at home now, in the lazy-boy under my favorite purple blanket with dinner in the crock pot, catching up on the DVR with the hubs. I have to admit, I feel super strange not being at work (and hesitate to admit that I've been on my work e-mail all afternoon even though I got off work at 2p) but I am enjoying my afternoon off with Justin, who had his fourth chemotherapy treatment this morning. Looks like the drugs are kicking in since he's eating us out of house and home - in the last three hours he has consumed lunch, a bowl of chili and a bag of popcorn. THIS is why they say you gain weight while going through CHOP chemotherapy, haha.


Has anyone else seen this commercial? I think it's hilarious!!

I plan on updating with more substantial things soon, but thought I would brag about my cozy afternoon ;) Also, if this new pork chop recipe turns out well, I plan on completely bragging about that later too!
xo Em.