National Holiday. Time for a Celebration

Hello it is I Chuck the Chiweenie overtaking my mommie's blog once again.  Sorry it has been quite sometime, I have been rather busy in the cul de sac.  Before I dig into the details of that, please take a moment to bask in this glorious day, which should be declared a National Holiday for the whole world to celebrate.  Today would be my birthday.  Celebrations shall be had.  Rumor has it mommie will treat me to a human cupcake.  I am sure there will be presents too.  Since one can never have enough presents though feel free to contact my mommie if you would like to send me something to celebrate my day.   It's my birthday!! It's my birthday!!

Moving on to cul de sac business.  There has been quite a stir here and a changing in ranks at the cul de sac. Protecting the cul de sac is a very tough duty.  Bullet does a good job, even with his short attention span, of watching the front of the homestead.  I have devoted my time to watching the back.  Now this has left very little time for me to personally protect my humans, my mommie in particular and then daddie especially when I need a puppie massage.  Hey I work hard.    Sometime in November mommie and daddie decided that I would be better suited to ensure their personal protection full time.  To enable me to do this, they brought home a new puppy brother that I can train to take over as the backyard guard.

Let me introduce...Little Man. 

Even his name sounds fierce.  Like a professional boxer. He wears no tags just a label from mommie. Mommie says he is quiet and stealthy like a ninja. I have seen it. I mean he can poop on the floor 3 feet away from them and be on the couch by the time anyone notices. Plus he is not afraid of baby gates.  He will push them over to gain access to the forbidden rooms in the house, one being the teenage boy's room and anyone who can go into there is one brave brave puppie soul.

 

Our first order of business was to take him for a walk in the cul de sac.  One needs to be shown the perimeter they are expected to protect.  He must memorize the lines of where protection should begin and the neighbors cars.  Mommie and daddie do not approve when we bark at the neighbors cars.  It is rude.

Here he is cross training with Bullet while I oversee the process.

 

Now to make sure he stays lean and mean, my Uncle has been bringing over Ava monster for him to "play with".   She is bigger than him and will just keep getting bigger.  Plus she is younger and training to be a hunter.  Here they are in one of their practice sessions.

 

 

Of course I must oversee everything to ensure that they are both working hard and Little man is performing to the specifications I have established for him.

 



Now my dear people you are aware on why I have not had the time to pay a visit to my mommies blog for sometime.  No worries though I will be back on schedule here soon.  For now though I must go, we are going to party like it's my birthday....

 IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!  IT'S MY BIRTHDAY !!!

 

What Christmas Means to you #blogmas14

What Christmas means to me...well first let's get the stressful rant out of the way of the tedious task of putting up the tree.  Ok I am sorry, but really I need a way to strategically pick it up place it somewhere and have it ready to go with lights, ornaments etc. for the next year.  See we inherited a tree that we have to place every branch in and then "fluff" it. Since the year before I basically stood (aka jumped up n down on it) to get it flattened to fit the box.

Some people look forward to that and that is what it means to them...others look forward to getting the gifts.  I though would rather give them...I look forward to the crazy task of finding just the perfect gift for that person.  Something that they will love and is a surprise.  I read this from Real Simple yesterday and it hit it spot on for me...Habits of Thoughtful Gift Givers

 

Look at that joy when she realized she got a box of crackers...kidding.  We love using food boxes.  Or the joy on my son's face, which was truly just the happiness of it possibly being the last box before the motherload.  Seriously though for me it is getting the perfect little thing for someone and watching them absolutely love it.

 

After all of that, I just love spending time with my family and all the laughs and craziness that goes along with it.  Our family is seriously awesome.

 

 

Choose Your Adventure

Novembers theme was organize.  Now I can say that I had some lofty goals for the month.  Can you say crash and burn.  Not sure what I was thinking when I came up with these.  November can be a little crazy with my focus on the holidays.   Let's just hop to it though and see how I did...

1. Try to complete the 31 Day organization challenge that A Bowl Full of Lemons presented last month.  The idea was each day your organize one thing. So this week you will see me attempt to organize the pantry, magazines, dresser drawers, toys, cleaners, makeup, shoes and my car this week.  Holy bananas, think that woman picked the hardest things for week one. Failure was imminent.  Out of the days I can say I only succeeded in newspapers...because I only get one a week and I read and toss almost immediately.  Then bedding just because we really do not keep much of this around.  I would still like to do something like this maybe not with the expectation to do one area a day. 
2. File Paperwork - I am just going to bury my head and not even mention how behind I am on this. This is getting written down as accomplished only because I paid a teenager to work on the filing while I got my son's scrapbook in order. Now to stay on top of it.
3. My desk - Since the filing got done, this would be about half way done.
4. Family "command center" - Need to do some adjustments to better fit our needs aka mail duties, job help board for seasonal/monthly items to get done. Girls got a plan in that little head now to put it to work. This was a win.  Managed to dedicate a little area to jobs I need.  Then I set up an area to deal with my parents mail plus store my running items that I only use on occasion instead of looking at them lay all over the house.

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Now this months December theme is SIMPLIFY.  My Goals will be:

1. Utensil Simplification: Also known as there is way to much shit in this drawer it won't close, why do we need 10 spoons, 2 can openers etc. Our mission will be to pull everything out, what we use gets to go back to the drawer.
2. Planner Simplification: Basically I was using way to many calendars or places for notes between work and home.  This year it will be funneled into one maybe two locations.  I am seriously freaking out about this also...since I will be working with a whole new planner with a different style.
3. Weekly Simplification:   To make my week simpler, work hard to get everything (clothes, food etc) together and ready to go on Sunday.

There you have my simplify goals...oh and maybe I should add a simplify one day by being extra lazy over the holidays and lay in bed in my pj's and binge watch a show, not worrying about anything.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Honestly am I one of the few people who leave all decorating until December.  I will always wait for the first weekend in December to do any decorating. 

Friday evening I worked on getting a little bit more of my Christmas shopping done. I had a crazy amount of kohl's cash to spend from the week before plus coupons.  Honestly I was hoping that they would pay me, but that didn't work out so well.  At least my whole bill was $25.   Seriously want to tell everyone more, but hey that would ruin Christmas, which is no fun.

Saturday we had to get up early to take the steppie to her wrestling meet...and I discovered that one of my fave breakfast places is open that early.  So of course, I had to talk the hubbie into it.  Places are so different earlier in the day, peaceful.   Then the rest of the morning was spent doing errands.  Believe my afternoon was consumed with getting my calendars and planners in order for next year

Inadvertently I ended up getting the same wall calendar style as last year.  And I will be testing out a new planner this year, the Emily Ley.  I am very excited for that.  Watch for my thoughts as I get going with this...it is kind of different from this years.

The afternoon led me to running and picking up the Ava monster, so she could play with the boys.  Or should I say give someone for Little Man to play with when Chuck gets tired.  Ava is doing a great job of kicking his butt. 

 

In the evening since we had to go pick up the steppie, we decided to hit our fave Mexican restaurant for a little dinner and margarita.

 

Sunday morning of course found us running our normal errands and then the afternoon, we went out for a little blog picture taking session.  I can just say this, I am well aware now why there are very few fashion bloggers in Wisconsin.  It is too darn cold to be sitting outside taking pictures outside.  Glad I only dabble in the whole what did I wear moments.

 

Here are some candids caught by my photographer aka the steppie.

 Yep, that would be the river iced over.  Surprisingly though there is some open water right now.

 

The remainder of the afternoon was spent decorating for Christmas.

Now I am sure that you can not miss the green all over the light in the background.  That was deemed the hubbies tree aka creation.

Yep it is kind of an awkward thing made with left over branches and one lonely ornament.  Plus we kind of have to ensure that the light is not left on for any great period of time.  Just being on the safe side.

 

That pretty much wrapped up the weekend...now counting down the days to Christmas and some days off work.

 

 

 

 

November Favorites

Moment:

Even though it was tough going bringing home Little Man was a great moment.

My brother getting my little pup niece Miss Ava monster.  She is growing like a weed too.

Brian Setzer Christmas concert.  Goodness I love me some rockabilly.

 

Music My jam - Taylor Swift Shake it off...really I have been hard core jamming when this comes on the radio emabrassing




Beauty Product - Soaps from Lush

Oh my I got the Ice Blue and I believe the other was Bohemian, it smells like lemon and is a glorious wake me up fresh smell in the morning.  And my skin feels seriously clean after I use these.  Suddenly a soap lover.

Clothes - No clue on this one this month. November has been all over the board here.

 

Reading - Bloglovin, Magazines...really need to get to some books already.

Watching - The Following Season 2 - And we saw "Mockingjay", which everyone loved.

Food/Drink -

Hello it maybe winter but the grocery store had a sale and again it is winter so might as well add me a little fluff.

Purchase - Can't say that I had to much except maybe a pair of navy blue skinnies oh and I finally got a decent rain coat that I have been lusting after during our outlet mall trip.

Internet Random - I seriously have got nothing this month.  Can you tell how busy the world has been for me lately, argh.

Looking Forward too in next month or now this month....having my teeth cleaned.  Yes, seriously people I love how they feel afterwards and then of course, getting Christmas out of the way.  And on that note, I am out of here with plans to absolutely crush some savings at Kohls later.