Fantasy Football

by Ang

For the past two years, my husband has been in a fantasy football league with a group of his friends. This year, they needed a 12th person. I knew NOTHING about fantasy football and frankly the whole thing completely confused me. I like football, but fantasy football is a whole new ball game (ha ha, get it?).

So I reluctantly said I would be their 12th person if they couldn’t find anyone else.

I did some online research but was still confused about how it worked. So my husband sat down with me and gave me a fantasy football lesson and some drafting strategies. This helped, but I still needed lots of help at the draft. Before each of my picks, I would ask him what he thought of my selection. The draft was then over and I had a pretty good team! So then came game one. I started who I thought would do the best based on projected points, who they were playing, etc. And then I would start them, but still have my husband check to make sure everything looked good. And I won game one! This was fun! And then I won game two. And three. I didn’t lose until game 4. I also lost games 8, 11 and 13.

I still asked my husband for advice, but towards the end (the past few games) I’ve done it on my own and started who I thought was the best choice.

I made the playoffs. Along with three other people (including my husband). There’s only one playoff game, and I was playing my husband.

I won.

Which means…..I made it to the Superbowl! The guy I’m playing has a good team…but he’s had a couple of bad games. I think the only way I’ll be able to beat him is if he has a bad game. But it’s possible! The Superbowl for fantasy football leagues is this week. I will know by Monday night if I won or lost.

So I think (win or lose) that my first year doing fantasy football was a success. I’m still undecided if I’ll do it next year or not, just because it is very time consuming and even a little addicting. But we’ll see how I feel about it then.

But this year…it’s been fun. And even if I lose the Superbowl, coming in 2nd place AND being the only girl in the league is pretty darn good I think.

And if I win, I’d like to thank my husband for helping me. And Reshard Mendenhall, Wes Welker, Ahmad Bradshaw, Steven Jackson, Roddy White, Vincent Jackson, Eli Manning, and the Pittsburgh Steelers defense (my key players). It’s been fun boys!

(my pink football avatar and my team slogan 'You have just been beat by a girl!')

My Wonderful Weekend

By Amy

I had a great weekend. No complaints here! My mom and dad came and spent the weekend with me. And guess who else was there?!?!?

She spends most of her time playing on my slide

Meanwhile.....

This was during a intense moment watching Go Diego Go!

Bath time!

Look how long her hair is!

This weekend was actually what I needed for my mood. How can you not be happy around her?

Back From the Pit of Despair

By Amy

You don't even want to know what went on at my house last week. Really you don't. Because I know you are so sick of hearing me complain about how behind I am and how overwhelmed I am. I'm really not that whiny, complaining person that I seem like here. Ask the people that know me! I mean REALLY know me not just from the blog.

In a brief, fact - stated nutshell.....all four members of my family were sick last week. I'm going to blame my husband for everything because he delivered the whopper of illnesses to the household ...pneumonia. We all had fevers and we were all miserable. It was quite sad actually. We were holed up in different parts of the house. Sometimes I would hear a small voice, "would somebody get me a drink of water?........anybody?" Crickets. It all started the Saturday BEFORE last and ended......maybe today when we all made to school and work for the entire day.

We are slowly getting back to normal. I have no pictures for you. Mainly because during the last week my camera weighed at least 55 pounds. The same with my toothbrush. So I've got nothing. Soon though I will have it together. You don't believe me do you? I kind of don't either. But I can promise you that I won't complain in my next post. And I'll have pictures of some sort. That will just have to be good enough.

Report Card

by Howie

(as told by Howie, our boy kitty)

My parents took me to the evil weird place today. The place with sharp pokey things, funny smells, and strange sounds. I hate that place! But I hadn't been since we moved here, so they thought it was time.

They brought along two of my sisters, which were of no comfort to me whatsoever.

I got poked, prodded, probed, squeezed and more. It was NOT pleasant.

When they were done torturing me, they gave my parents this blue sheet of paper.

Turns out it's a report card! My very own report card! Let's see how I did.

Look at all of my smiley faces! Look how healthy I am! My skin, heart and lungs are wonderful! And I don't have feline leukemia, which apparently is a good thing.

But wait....there's something written at the top next to 'Musculoskeletal System'...what is that?

Heavy?!? What? I'm not heavy. I only weigh 18 pounds! That's....nothing! They weighed my sister and she weighed 8 pounds, that's not much less than 18. Or...is it.

Okay, okay. So maybe I should try to cut back a little. The mean lady at the evil place said that even though I'm heavy, I'm healthy and told my parents not to worry about it too much. I'm hoping they listen to her. I love my food!

Update from the House of the Sick

By Amy

Saturday my littlest woke up with a fever, Monday I woke up with a fever, Tuesday my oldest and husband woke up with a fever. And the verdict is in.....

Hubby has fluid in his lungs. Got a shot in the bum and a prescrip. I'm blaming this whole adventure on him.

I am sick with something that has no name. I begged for a prescrip anyway and she gave me one.

Oldest has a ear infection.

Youngest has a sinus infection.

We are all cranky and feel miserable. But at least we are all on meds and hopefully tomorrow will be the start of feeling better. In the meantime....one of the sweetest pictures ever.

History Lesson

By Amy


Before I left for Arizona I started a big project. My Grandma had given me a tote full of keepsakes and pictures from her life. She had given it to me about 4 years ago. It has been in my attic ever since. It was gnawing at me because I knew there were treasures inside that deserved more then living in my attic for four years. I couldn't stand it any longer. I went through each paper and picture that it contained.






It was full of goodness. Like this cute picture of my Grandma.

I got out my scrap booking stuff and went to work.

This is my Grandma's bridal shower list. Isn't her handwriting beautiful? It looks exactly the same today.

I found alot of pictures of my dad. What a cutie!

Her parents came over from Germany. The picture on the top left is my Great Grandpa's visa picture. And the lower right picture is their first car. A 1928 Model T Ford!

Lots of pictures of my Grandma and her mom.

My Grandma's senior picture.

Friends and events.

Fun pictures of my dad growing up.

It took alot of time but I loved every minute of it. I feel closer to her. Like I lived her life a little. I smelled the pages she had written on. I could see her carefully writing on the backs of pictures and clipping out newspaper articles that were special to her. It was also fun seeing younger pictures of my Great Grandma and Grandpa. They were always so......old. But through these pictures I could see them as a young couple, traveling to America and settling in the Midwest. They had only one child. My Grandma. We love her so much!

Day Tripper

by Ang

A few months back, we bought a book at Costco – ‘Day Trips from Albuquerque’.

I hadn’t ventured that far out of Albuquerque, and I was interested in seeing more of this 5th largest state (in land area, followed by Alaska, Texas, California and Montana) that I now call home. (Fact: even though it is the 5th largest state in land area, it is the 6th most sparsely inhabited state).

Trip one was a couple months ago. We went to Taos, a remote mountain town about 130 miles north of Albuquerque. We set off early that morning, then got going!

After we got there, we had a nice lunch and shopped in the town square:

It was really nice. My favorite store was the 'Moby Dickens' bookstore, which was mentioned as a 'must-see' in the book. It was very charming, had a good selection and there were two store kittens wandering around. Very cute!

After spending some time in Taos, we decided to head north and cross another day trip off of our book:

The ski town of Red River:

The Rio Grande Gorge:
It was fun! We were home by 7:00 p.m., and I got to see another portion of our state.

We've since taken one more day trip, and I'll blog about that next.

Long Time No Blog

By Amy

It seems like my blogs lately have a theme. I have a big project going or I'm out of town and then I'm overwhelmed and it takes forever to catch up. So here is another blog like all the rest! I made it back from Arizona and now I'm overwhelmed and behind. Story of my life! Arizona was crazy busy. So busy in fact that I didn't take any pictures. Well I think I took four. Here they are. The view from my room.....

And a mirror that I almost tried to put in my suitcase because I love it so much.

I spent my days serving, washing, helping, offering and eating and drinking. Hello five pounds I didn't need! I did get a break on Saturday and was treated to a massage and pedicure/manicure. Awww....loved it. I also went shopping with the ladies one day and in between carrying bags and running back and forth to the car with purchases, I was bought many beautiful things. BEST BOSS EVER.



These aren't all mine. I take the bosses purchases home too so she doesn't have to pack them up.

So that is my Arizona trip in a nutshell. I have alot more things to blog. But not tonight. At this rate my sister's blog tally to be more then mine. And that's ok with me!

First Snow

by Ang

It snowed for the first time this winter on Thursday. It was a VERY light dusting...and it was gone within 2 hours or so.

I snapped a picture of the cute little birdies I have on one of our tables out back. They look cold!

MISSION: Organization (Project 2)

by Ang

On to Project #2! My pantry organization project was a success and I'm proud to say I've kept it organized! (I realize it's only been about a week, but still).

My next priority was my desk. We have an office here at home, but it's my husband's office (he works from home). When I moved in, there was no room for my desk in his office. And I wanted to have my own desk so I could have a place to study, pay bills, BLOG, etc. So we designated a corner of our living room for my 'office'. Our living room is long and narrow, so it worked out just fine. My desk sits right by the patio doors so it's nice and light. And it doesn't feel like I'm right in the living room either. It's sort of on it's own.

BUT it is still technically part of our living room and our living room is visible from the kitchen, dining room and entry way (our house is very open). And I'm sad to show you had bad I let it get:

Aack! It's awful. I don't even see my laptop anywhere. And look at the piles and piles of....stuff!

The first thing I did was clear everything off and put it on the floor. And then I went through every sheet of paper, every folder, every miscellaneous item and divided it: keep (to file), put away, shred, throw away. This was obviously the most time consuming part. Once I went through everything (my 'throw away' pile was the largest!), I then went through my existing files. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a 'before' picture of the files in the cabinet.

This is the after picture of my files:

Okay, so this may not look like much. But I have to work with what I have. My desk has a small cabinet and it's not an actual file cabinet. So a few months back I bought a small portable file case (the gray thing with the hole) for my hanging files. The files you see on top of that are larger files that contain too much paperwork for a standard hanging file folder:

And everything on the left of the gray case are extra folders, envelopes, etc.

Now if you have a large desk or a large office with room for lots of hanging files, than that's obviously the way to go. But I don't. Plus, I believe that the more space you have, the more items you keep. I went through all of my files and got almost an entire trash bag full of files I don't need anymore. I simply don't have the room to keep them! I have a stash of the plastic folders that will hold a LOT of stuff. I just sorted everything down, got out the label maker and went to town!

It works for me. You don't need a label maker or fancy folders or anything. The most important thing is go through your files on a regular basis and get rid of what you don't need. With so many things available online, you don't need to keep a copy of your electric bill from a year ago. Or even six months ago. In fact, I just keep the most recent bill on a lot of our statements. It has saved a lot of space!

After I got the files taken care of, the rest was a breeze. I just had to put pens, clips, etc. back where they belonged.

I feel so much better with this project done and out of the way. I'm going to try my best to keep up with my filing and purging!

Before:

After: