Best Christmas Ever!

This Christmas definitely rated up there as one of the best Christmas's ever!  Why you ask?  Was it the ipad? The rings? The pumpkin roll?  Nope.  It was dishtowels.  Beautiful, lovely, hand embroidered dish towels given to me by my Grammie.

When I was a little girl my Grammie embroidered all the time.  I had pillow cases,  she had dishtowels, she made wall hangings.  I used to love to look at the rainbow of colored thread in her many boxes.  She has mentioned periodically over the years how she misses embroidering, but that her eyesight isn't what it used to be, and the small stitching is hard on her eyes.  This makes me sad.  In my heart I refuse to believe my Grammie is growing older, but in my mind I know.  I see the age spots, the slight shake of the hand, I notice that sometimes I have to speak louder than I used to and she forgets things...  She's almost 72.  She's still in amazing health for 72, she can still do ALOT.  She cares for Harri, she keeps up her house and half of ours!  She is amazing.

Back to the dish towels.  When I opened the box and saw the little lady in an embroidered orange dress...I lost it.  They were just like the ones my Grammie made herself when I was little.  Looking at them made every single happy childhood memory I had with my Grammie come flooding back.  I was so surprised and honored that she made them for me.  The sacrifice of her time, the detail that went into them that must have strained her aging eyes and hands.  I am completely and totally humbled by this gift, they are by far my favorite gift from this Christmas.

More Christmas!

It's the most wonderful time of the year.  It still doesn't feel 100% like Christmas b/c we still don't have snow, although we have plenty of cold!!  I'm SO excited for Jason and the kids to open their gifts on Christmas morning.  I worked hard to make this an awesome Christmas and I think that it will be!

Tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at....making a pumpkin roll!  I love them, and they only sell them at Thanksgiving, so I'm going to try and make one for Christmas dinner.

Not much else is going on.  I'm pretty excited for 2011. I'm still working on my goals, I'll post those next week.  They are nothing crazy though. In 2011 we are going back to Alabama to see my Amy.  Woot-woot!  We were hoping to buy a van, but we'll see... That whole VA thing may have put a wrench in that.   In 2011 I will celebrate FIFTEEN years with the man God made just for me.  We talked about a cruise, but we'll have to see how everything works out later in the year.

My Life

This is one of my favorite quotes:

We're all given terrible trials sometimes, things we think will break our spirit and kill us, and they make us stronger in the end. They seem like the cruelest blows, but in a funny way they're like compliments from God. If he didn't love you and believe in you, He wouldn't give you challenges like this. They're opportunities for Grace.


This is one of my favorite quotes ever.  Reading it and re-reading it has gotten me through me very rough times.  I would love to tell you that it was spoken by some neat person at time of terrible strife, however I got it from a Danielle Steele novel :O)

Yet again this week we were punched in the gut by VA.  I am truly starting to hate our country and their treatment of vets.  Their total disregard for the soldier/student is appalling.  They constantly F up, we have to scramble b/c of their mistake, and they have struck the Hallock's AGAIN!  It's a long story but it comes down to this.  They over paid us by $5,400 and they want their money back, like yesterday.  So, they will take our housing allowance for the next 8 months to recoup their money.  Yup, $1,000 a month less in the Hallock Family pocket due to their mistake that should have been caught during Jason's certification period.

Needless to say, I about went crazy when I heard this.  It's not like we were living high on the hog to begin with.  We have been very wise with our money to be able to get Jason through school.  I initially freaked at the thought of losing that much money per month, WTF were we gonna do??  After much talking, planning, and budgeting I think we have it figured out.  It's gonna be tight(duh!), but I'm confident we'll be okay.

Today, Jason and I went out to finish up our C-mas shopping.  So much fun.  We have almost everything!!  I have to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond this week to get 1 thing for the kids, then my grandparents and Jason's stocking and I'm done :O)  I'm so excited!!  It hasn't snowed at all, which is inhibiting my Christmas spirit.  It just doesn't FEEL like Christmas to me yet.  Hopefully the next 7 days will get me in the mood :O)

Christmas List

One of my friends put her Christmas list on her blog, and I thought it was a cute idea, so here we go..

1. Brown knee high boots
2. New wedding rings
3. A new comforter set
4. Taylor Tickets(although they are not even on sale yet!Sept. 24th BABY!)
5. Fake Bake sessions

This was HARD, I don't really WANT for anything!  That's a massive blessing.  What's on your list this year?

Christmas!

I'm so excited for Christmas this year!  We have planned and saved so everyone in our family can have a good Christmas and I'm pretty excited.  Yesterday we started our first round of Christmas treats.  I don't like to bake, but I love to do non-baking treats.  We did Puppy chow and holiday rice krispy treats yesterday.  Next weekend will be dipped pretzels and peanut butter balls.  We'll do fudge too!  It's going to be hard to keep from gaining weight, but my goal through the end of the year is to maintain.  I've gotten back to running.  This week is the last week of my trainer :O(  She has decided to stop personal training and focus on her studies and other jobs.  I don't care for any of the other trainers, so my plan is to keep it up on my own.  I know what to do now, I just really like her accountability.  I've been doing lots of interval runs on the TM.  I'll do a 10 minute mile for .10 of a mile, then a recovery walk for .05 of a mile, it's tough!  It's been giving me a 12 minute mile average, which is faster than I have been able to do on my own.  At the end of 2 miles I'm dripping sweat!  Yesterday I even up'd it to 9:30 min mile for a little bit.  It's tough, but it's a nice change.