Life Lately - A Brief Recap in Photos

Once upon a time I did a weekly/bi-weekly sort of "life lately" recap through the pictures I'd taken on my phone...but then Christmas arrived, the New Year started, my family went to Disney World and then unexpectedly headed back south to MS and lo and behold - here we are at the second week of February and I've had this post in the works for something like six weeks.

So without further ado - the last six weeks or so in pictures and brief snippets - so I'll finally feel "caught up" on life.

My office mates and I are notorious for our love of coffee - we like to keep a rotation of flavored coffees and creamers and we all drink at least two, if not three cups of coffee a day. Heck - we even hired an intern that has the same coffee inclinations as we do...and my boss visits Starbucks more than once a day. So it should come as no surprise that when it comes times to give gifts, coffee mugs are always a big hit - I need a way to display all the mugs I have. One of the three mugs (yes - three) that I got for Christmas is all things Sith and I love it! Combining my love of Star Wars with caffeine - for the win!

The morning my sister left to fly back to Las Vegas - it snowed! And yes, this is going back to December 30th...and so far, that's the only time I've seen it snow and stick to the ground so far this Winter! It did enough snowing to cover the ground and make everything look pretty, but much like my little sister...by the late afternoon, the snow had moved on to other places.

My dad took the pictures below without my sister and I knowing. I was singing to her as I told her "bye for now" - since when she boarded her flight to Vegas on the 30th, it would only be six days until we'd see each other again in Orlando on the 5th of January. The pictures crack me up!

Also of so much importance - have y'all heard of Nothing Bundt Cakes? My little sister introduced them to me and oh my! The company makes...no surprise here...Bundt Cakes that are to die for! Happily, there is a Nothing Bundt location quite close to Dulles and so after dropping my little sister at the airport, we stopped and grabbed a couple "bundlets" to have - those are small (not mini - the minis are called bundtinis) bundt cakes and they are delicious. If you've never tried Nothing Bundt, I'd definitely recommend them - they are so good!

The final day of 2017 was crazy cold; I think the temperature at it's highest hovered just above 10 degrees. It was the definition of bitter cold! I kept seeing people posting pictures of frozen bubbles and when I read that they could be created as long as the temperature was below 11 degrees, I went for it! I didn't have an actual bubbles - so I had to make my own bubble solution and so I think that's why my bubbles were only...sort of...okay. It was still fascinating to see them become these perfect little round "pearls". Unfortunately my home made bubble solution only produced a few wee bubbles and mostly a lot of light blue sludge...oh well - it was fun to give it a try!

When the time came to dismantle all the Christmas decorations, I really felt like a slacker. I love decorating for Christmas but I hate taking it all down; it makes me sad and not to mention, the flame retardant that is on fake trees causes my arms to break out in welts! So I decided that I would put away all my ornaments and then sit the tree, still with lights and tulle into the storage room. I topped them with plastic garbage bags and then went around each tree in a big circle, wrapping them in Saran Wrap to keep them from getting too dusty and funky until mid-November. I was pretty pleased with my ingenuity - although I'm sure I'm far from the first person to "put away" my Christmas trees this way!

One of my Christmas gifts was a gift card to Tiffany's - and the one item I decided that I wanted was; of course, sold out at the flagship store in NYC. It was also sold out at the store in Tyson's and so I went ahead and ordered my necklace to be delivered to my house. It arrived less than a week after our visit to NYC and I am in love with it! I knew when I saw it on the website it was exactly what I wanted and it's one of my favorite pieces of jewelry that I own!

I also received a really sweet bit of mail from one of my higher ups at Perfectly Posh for having such a great December - I thought it was really sweet and I'm still trying to decide exactly what I want to use my cute new bag for!

I know I mentioned a couple times (or something...) that after our family returned from Disney World I joined my sister in doing a thirty day clean eating challenge. Well the company whose products I was using was Arbonne - I was drinking two protein shakes a day and had to cut so many things out of my diet - including coffee, which almost killed me. My sister and I were past the halfway point when we headed to Mississippi for my grandmother's funeral and with all the other stress that comes with that sort of situation, we just decided to call it done.

I lost five pounds in the 2.5 weeks that I was doing the clean eating and while numerous people touted all the benefits - I honestly hadn't yet felt the burst of energy and renewed health that other people were talking about. I don't feel like I eat that poorly - I don't fry food, I eat a ton of vegetables and the only things I ever drink are water and coffee. So, it wasn't really for me and while I'd have definitely kept it up for the thirty days...life sort of got in the way.

I mentioned in my Five on Friday post that I'm just in re-do mode all over my little house and I recently received the most gorgeous hand painted Game of Thrones postcards from a friend as a Christmas gift. I got those framed and found a shadow box for my signed copy of the script from season 6, episode 9 - the Battle of the Bastards - and placed my wee Jon Snow and Daenerys and called my new couch table decor a done! I need to decide what color to paint...

Of course, no post from the past few weeks would be complete without some shots of Watson! The cold weather has made him especially snuggly and we've spent many an evening curled up on the couch catching up on our favorite shows and enjoying the warmth of the fireplace!

Just two weeks ago, I spent Saturday afternoon with my friend Katie and her precious baby boy - he is growing so quickly and is already five months old. We caught up and I watched the little guy taking in the world around him; he's especially fond of his puppy dogs and gets a kick out of everything they do! He's so sweet and snuggly - and those cheeks are just too precious!

 

Last...but certainly not least...just a few shots from my time in Mississippi. I didn't take that many pictures and I guess it wasn't really a trip that warranted a ton of pictures, but there are a few that were taken here and there.

And finally - at long last - this is the life lately post; although using the word lately is stretching things just a bit. However, I finally feel caught up and now maybe I'll get back to the business of blogging about present day...