Thursday 13 with a guest blogger

I am having an nutzo crazio week. I have been so very busy- too busy to email, return phone calls, and yes- dear readers too busy to blog. Tonight, I had to cook dinner, make brownies for school tomorrow and work on a few of the 22 conference report that I am working on for conferences next week. Until these are completed and printed- I will basically be a recluse. I fell asleep on the couch somewhere between 9 and 10. When I checked my email- Mr. D. had emailed me his version of the Thursday 13. So, for all of you CHEESE lovers out there here it is.

As the guest blogger for this week I want to list the Thursday 13 reasons why Mr. D thinks Mrs. D is the best ever...
13. She can cook better than any chef you can name - the brownies tonight rocked!
12. She loves my teams - Patriots, Braves and Gamecocks
11. She loves my presents - I dont think the Seattle Sweatshirt has left her side
10. She pretends to not be asleep - this is a nightly game in our house..."are you asleep - nope, just closed my eyes"
9. She loves to do projects with me - closets, patios and anything else we dream up.
8. She loves to travel - I could list 13 great trips we went on
7. She loves to go out to eat - you have seen the postings on Shonos and they dont even touch the fun we have at Cozumel
6. She is a great friend - loves to listen and will always be there for you.
5. She is the best teacher a kid could want - you should see the kids at school run up and hug her. They all love her!
4. She is the best "fur" mom in the world. Brady is her buddy and she always takes the extra time to make him happy
3. She loves the birds on our porch even though they drive me nuts.
2. She loves our time together...no matter what we are doing, it is always fun as long as we are together...even karaoke
1. She loves me

sleeping soundly

For those of you who may not know- we are total sheet snobs here! The higher the thread count- the happier we are! Everyone reading this need to invest in a great set of sheets. I mean, you spend alot of your time on this earth sleeping. Tonight- I will be sleeping on my new 800 thread count Pima cotton sheets. Our old 1000 thread count sheets have been retired. We have washed and dried the new sheets and I can hardly wait until time to go to sleep. It will be cozy and comfy! They are a beautiful color. It is like a bronzy-taupe. They have a slight sheen to them. The coloring goes very nicely with the other things in the bedroom.

33.5

It's my 1/2 birthday-- I am 33.5 today!

It's time!!

This is the time of the year I always look forward to. My #1 favorite candy ONLY comes out at Easter time. It is Whopper's Mini Robin Eggs. They come in a cute little milk carton. I bought some at Target last night- and I just opened them. I can't believe they were in the house almost 15 hours without me having one. I love them! MMMMM!!!

spa party

Last night, I went to a spa party at the home of a friend/coworker/neighbor of mine. It was so fun. There were several stations for us to go to. We experienced facials, a foot spa, a hand spa, and a relaxation station. Then we did a lip spa and put the cool eye mask on and relaxed. The spa party was for Beauticontrol and I purchased a product called Luxuries of the Sea Instant Comfort Gel - It's a gel that you rub into your sore or stressed areas and for the next 15 or so minutes it feels all tingly like a massage. Now, I am not particularity sore or stressed most of the time, but I still thought it felt nice. The products seemed to be great and it really was relaxing. It was nice to hang out and chill out with friends. It was such a great way to start the weekend!

Thursday 13: thirteen questions from my readers

1) Do you always sort your M&M's? Yes, I do... that is unless I am in a dark place like the movies or something. I like to eat My M&M's by color. I usually will eat the Brown M&M's first since they aren't as pretty as the other colors.

2) Who was your favorite Matron of Honor at your wedding? Very funny Karen! All of my attendants at my wedding were already married. I like Karen and Kim the best of course!

3) Will your guest room closet ever be organized? Umm- stayed tuned and we will see together!

4) Why is your husband never on the blog? He is too cool for the bloggerville! No seriously, he considers it unprofessional to have his life plastered on the Internet. Maybe he has political aspirations... So, in respect of his wishes- I speak of him in the abstract. Please know he does exist and he is a pretty awesome guy.

5) What talent do you wish you had? I wish I could paint- something that actually looks like art.

6) Who is the most interesting person you have met/What effect did this person have on you? I haven't met them yet- but my children are going be very interesting people who will have a huge effect on my life.

7) If you could remove one and only one bad thing from the world, what would it be? Hate.

8) If you could go on the same place on vacation every summer, where would it be? I think I would like to have a lake house.

9) What is your pet peeve? Email forwards... especially those that try to blackmail you. Forward this to 7 people in the next 3 minutes and something awesome will happen within 21 minutes. For the record- it never happens.

10) What is your favorite hobby? I don't know if this is an actual hobby, but Mr. D. and I are playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. We are playing the 2 player version. We play almost every night and we have 90 stars so far. It is fun working as a team.

11) How much longer until you can get your hair cut for Locks of Love? I can at anytime now. It is SO flippin long!

12) What are you freaking out about? I am currently freaking out about the fact that my Spring Break is almost here and my plans aren't firming up like I would like.

13) If I keep posting stupid questions, will you publish you 13 already? Yes Tiffani- stop bombing my inbox. Here is the moment you have been waiting for all day!

thinking about next week

I am already thinking about next week's Thursday 13. I will be taking questions from my readers and I will answer 13 of the best questions. So, put your thinking caps on and ask away. I will not publish any comments until my 13 next week. Ask as many questions as you wish. It will be like a mini interview with me next Thursday. Have fun!

his work is complete

Here is the final closet creation. Now- my work is all that is left. Great job Mr. D.!

da de da da da (Trading Spaces theme)

Did you guys know that Trading Spaces is back on with some of my favorite cast members? I love watching my favorite designer Laurie Smith! If I could hire her- I would! She is so sweet that I just want to be friends with her! Love it. Last night- Hildi was on the show and Mr. D and I both agreed if she were doing a room in our house - we'd cry!

Anyway--- there is a little Trading Spaces of our own going on here this weekend. There are only a few differences. They have 2 houses- we have one. The have two teams- we have one. They have two days- we have as many as we want. They have a $1000 project budget - we don't. They provide a designer and a carpenter- we had to be our own. They get a $500 gift card from Home Depot at the end- I doubt Paige is going to show up and give us one when we finish this job... but we will see. So here is the project at hand. I know my loyal readers have read the many many funny blog entries about my junky guest room closet. Well, it is being liberated! On Friday- I unloaded the closet. Here is a picture of just some of the crap that came out of it. I know I need Oprah to intervene! But as part of our motto- Eliminate '08 - I am cutting the clutter pile to a minimum!Yesterday- we made a trip to Home Depot where we spent about an hour gathering supplies. We packed everything in my Mazda Tribute and came home. We got straight to work. My job is mainly the clutter piles and offering a hand here and there. By the end of the day- here was our progress. Mr. D. created a few little shelves on the side of the closet.
I hope to find some cute little bins to sit on these little shelves and I know just the store where they are located- so it shouldn't be too hard..

This is a 3 drawer "in the box" cabinet unit that was put together as well.

I don't know how much progress will be made today- since we slept until 11am. Like I said before we have as much time as we need. I will keep you posted in the progress!

Thursday 13: Thirteen things about my Valentine's Day

Sorry I have not been blogging much this week- it has been crazy! Here is a Thursday 13 about my Valentine's Day.

1) We had a make your own english muffin pizza party at school.
2) I had a beautiful vase of flowers delivered from my secret pal.
3) The flowers are 5 pink roses surrounded by green hydranias.
4) I went to the grocery store.
5) I regailed my mom with the story of how in the middle of the night- I had a fever and thought about calling her to come and get me a drink from the refrigerator. I had chills and couldn't get up because I was convinced that it was too cold outside of the bed. I was so very thirsty and I didn't want to wake Mr. D. up again because I had just asked him to get me the extra blanket. The only thing that stopped me was that I couldn't reach my cell phone. I must have been delusional since my mom lives about an hour and a half away. It all seemed very rational in the middle of the night though.
6) I ate 2 pieces of Godiva chocolate... sorry Tiffani- I couldn't wait.
7) Mr. D and I grilled out New York Strips, had baked potatoes, sauted mushrooms and yeast rolls.
8) I played with Brady.
9) I had a whole philosophical discussion with Mr. D. and my friend Karen over if we were wrong not to really celebrate Valentine's Day when there are so many people miserable not to have someone to celebrate Valentine's day with.
10) I took a bubble bath.
11) I chatted on the phone with friends.
12) Entered a contest on Stephanie's Blog.
13) Blogged for the first time this week!

my new favorite restaurant

Last night, we tried a new place to eat and it is now my favorite! It is called Shonos Japanese Grill. I can't describe how incredible the meal was- but I will try. The place is kind of like your average Japanese place, but without the large tables and the show. The prices are not as expensive as usual. We ate goyza which were so yummy. They are kind of like pot stickers, but grilled crispy on the outside. After that, we ate our salads. Mr. D. had the chicken and shrimp meal. I had the shirmp meal. The chef/owner (Eddie) came over with our food to tell us what a treat we were in for with the shrimp. He was so right! Each piece of shrimp melted in our mouths. It was the freshest tasting shrimp I have ever had (including at the coast). I moaned with every bite. The meal came with fried rice (or steamed- but I chose fried) and veggies. The shrimp sauce was great too. All in all, we had salad, appetizer, tea, diet coke, 2 meals and only spent $25. If anyone wants to go out- and I get to choose- we are all going to Shonos!

Thursday 13: thirteen things I did on my day off

I took a day off work today- my first day off in the new year (actually since October). Here is a list of 13 things I did today.

1) ate Chinese food to celebrate Chinese New Year
2) caught up on emails
3) matched and folded all loose socks in the house
4) played with Brady
5) unloaded and loaded the dishwasher
6) took a nap
7) talked and texted on the phone
8) watched TV
9) played Super Mario Galaxy
10)laundry
11)surfed the internet
12)went to the Dr.
13)rested, relaxed and enjoyed

my funny guy

Tonight- my guy has been in the best mood. He has been joking around all night and keeping me in stitches. We have a slight (insert sarcasm here) overage on our text messaging plan. First he noticed and let me know yesterday that he was over his limit by oh about 50 bucks worth of messages ( 15 cents per message- you do the math). Me being the reassuring one was like ok we will pay it this month but you have got to call t-mobile and get on an unlimited plan. Tonight he still hadn't completed this task and I got a text from my friend Leah. I was like- hey if you are over on the messages and we share a plan can I text or not? He said to look it up and I was ...well.. over by about $45 bucks worth of text. Between us we owed almost a hundred bucks for this mistake. We had to run an errand and when we got back he called T-mobile. T-mobile has an automated service where you say what you want and the computer tries to figure out what to do. It was hysterical because Mr. D. was talking like an alien and then like a jazz singer. He was saying phrases like "you know it baby" and "oh yeah baby" It was SO SO SO funny! He even got disconnected one time and had to call back. Anyway he got a very nice guy who changed our text plan to the unlimited and even started it at the first day of last month's billing cycle. So, one funny phone calls saved us a hundred bucks and I got a few laughs as well.

my new friend

Even though I haven't met her yet- I know I am going to have a super fun time with this girl! Introducing a 4D pic of sweet little Cecilia Elise. Congrats Natalie and Jesse!

scenes from the Super Bowl Party

Here are a few food scenes from last Sunday's Super Bowl Party. Even though our beloved Patriots lost... the food was YUMM-O!

I come bearing bowls of bread

My sweet guy came home today with fresh baked San Francisco bread bowls. One of our favorite honeymoon memories is eating soup in bread bowls at Fisherman's Wharf. So tonight, I made a pot of baked potato soup and we enjoyed it in the bread bowls. Yumm- O!

pre game organization

As I mentioned earlier- Mr. D plans a Super Bowl party each year. He plans the guest list. Sometime I have to do the invitations- but usually he does. It is totally his event- except for my main job which is to plan and coordinate everything else. He always is out of town until the day before. He always comes home exhausted so alot of this falls on me. I don't mind though because he has such a fun time. He is definitly the social butterfly of the family. Tomorrow a few friends are scheduled to arrive. I have planned a extensive menu taking great care not to make anything remotely healthy. I am also excited this year to be using a few new serving dishes. Here is what I have planned.

velvetta, sausage, and rotell dip with scoops and flour tortilla chips
pizza dip with fresh baked frozen garlic bread sticks and crunchy bread sticks
crunch and munch (talk about an impulse purchase)
cocktail weinies in a yummy sauce made from current jelly and mustard
potato skins
popcorn chicken
super bowl cake

I was going to make a recipe I made up in my head- involving refrigerator biscuits, popcorn chicken, cheese, buffalo wing sauce and ranch- but Mr. D. said he felt like I had planned too much food. We also usually cater in some of the food, but the guest list was smaller this year, and Mr. D. again changed his mind on that too. Oh well, less work for me and I am sure no one will leave here hungry.

Friday night- FINALLY

This has been the longest week ever! Mr. D. gets on the red eye tonight and will be home at 9 in the morning. I wonder... will he take me for a spin in the new car....hmmmm?
I am taking full advantage of my last night alone- I am going to be at 9pm and watching TV until I fall asleep. I am sleeping in as late as I can in the morning. Mr. D. always has a Super Bowl party- so the real work for me will begin tomorrow with dip making! Smart me- I already went to the store tonight- so we don't even have to leave the house tomorrow (except for that ride in the new car). Mr. D. has so much fun with his friends each year that it is totally worth it! I can't wait to having him home!