Seriously?! Already the end of November?!

I seriously cannot believe that today is the last day of the month of November! Time has seriously flown. I mean seriously, I've posted what, five posts this month? UNFORGIVABLE! :)

I just feel like I don't have much to blog about anymore. My life has gotten into a pretty routine state the past couple months. I'm not looking forward to a big move, I'm not planning any kind of vacations, and I'm not hunting for a job (yet). I'm considering getting a second job, but in order to do that I need to find a part time job that would allow me to work 7-midnight or so. Even still, I'm not sure if that'll be ideal because then I'll have to balance that with sleep time. And anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE sleep. So that's why it's just a consideration and not actively hunting for now.

Christmas IS coming up though, and I have a full time job for the first time and am on my own for buying Christmas presents for friends and family. I can tell ya, I don't know how anyone does it! There are some people who I know exactly what I'm getting them for Christmas, and some people I have NO CLUE what the heck to get them. I decided to make a couple gifts, and I'm hoping they come out pretty decent. I'll be making posts later this month showing off what I made :)

Within the next week or so, my friend Kellie from work and I are planning to start hittin' the gym together. She decided earlier this month that she was going to try her hardest to lose weight, and so far she's been pretty successful. I've been more determined on getting back to working out/jogging regularly. I've gone a couple times this month for a jog, but nothing has been consistent.

Together, we have set a time of day and a minimum number of days a week we're wanting to go. We're both hoping that having a partner to help keep us accountable will help both of us in our goals. I'd love to get back in the type of shape I was in to be able to run another big race. I do know it'll take some time, but having someone who has similar goals is going to help, and I know it :)

December is also bringing up the HUGE celebration that Jared, Kellie, Shawna, and I are sharing for our birthdays in the middle of the month. We're hoping to have a whole room to ourselves and have a gathering of a ton of people to help us celebrate in style. It's gonna be a fun time, party people!

I'm going to finish off the night by cleaning the place a little bit. I've been tackling it room by room all week.

Here's to December!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I don't even know where to begin with filling you in on what's been going on the last two weeks.
I was one of those crazies that went to the midnight premiere of Breaking Dawn part 1. AND. I. LOVED. IT. The special effects team did SUCH an amazing job on Kristen Stewart when she was preggers. She looked like death.

Thanksgiving was amazing as always with good food. I just sadly didn't get to spend time with my mom because she had to work :(

Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I don't believe in celebrating my birthday in one day. When I was in college, I would start celebrating the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week and celebrate all weekend long. Today is my actual birthday, so sometimes Thanksgiving will fall on my birthday. It has its pros and cons, like getting to celebrate for 5 days growing up, but never having too many friends to celebrate with because of the holiday.

Back in the beginning of November, a fellow blogger friend of mine, Kristina of A Perfect Dose of Life and I had this conversation via twitter:

kmstreeter12509 Kristina Streeter 

People are already rocking out to Christmas music...loudly...in public... What happened to letting thanksgiving happen first????

3 Nov 

in reply to ↑

@mbattiestMallori Battiest

@kmstreeter12509 I'm partial to Thanksgiving! I feel this pain every year! My birthday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving and gets forgotten!

in reply to ↑

@kmstreeter12509Kristina Streeter

@mbattiest oh that is terrible!! :( Tell me your birthday and I won't forget! :0)

So I told her my birthday. And I was pleasantly surprised to wake up to THIS POST on  her blog in my reader feed this morning!

Kristina, you're amazing!

So what did I do to celelbrate my birthday weekend this year?

• Friday we had ice cream pie from Braum's at work. Then Friday night I enjoyed a relaxing night in, watching one of my favorite movies (Easy A) with my bff Shawna, eating pizza and drinking cosmos. Delicious.
• Yesterday, I dyed my hair (it's slightly red), went with my brother and two of my cousins to the Christmas train in Dry Gulch, and then went to my favorite dancing club downtown. Unfortunately, last night didn't quite go as planned, but I refused to let it get me down because IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! WEEKEND!
• Today, I am going to eat at a local Mexican restaurant with some of my coworkers for lunch in a couple hours.

Even though this weekend didn't go exactly as planned, it's still been a pretty amazing birthday weekend. I've gotten to spend time with people I love all weekend, and there's no better present than that!

IT' GIVEAWAY TIME!

After my shameless plug to enter my giveaway last week, I had a few other last-minute entrants. By my count, I  have 9 different entrants for my giveaway. Since this is my first time to ever do a giveaway, I used random.org to pick the winners. Here are the results:

Winner #1:

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:9Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Amy said...

exciting! And yeay for new music too! Fingers crossed!

schnakums@hotmail.com / amyisthinking.blogspot.com

Congratulations Amy! I will be sending you an e-mail later this afternoon!

Winner #2:

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:2Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Shalyn said...

Yayayayay! So excited. Can you believe its been a year? I sure cannot! thelaughblog@aol.com

Congratulations Shalyn! I will be sending you an e-mail later this afternoon!

Thanks to everyone who entered! Chances of winning were really good with so few entries. I wish I could have given every one of you some kind of prize, but that would have broken my bank :(

Thank you for being a loyal reader for a year now! You guys are the best!

3 day weekend ahead!

If you've anxiously been waiting for an update on the wonderful weekend I spent with my brother, you're going to have to wait until next week.

We picked him up at the airport last Thursday, and I really think he's glad to be home. I know we're glad to have him home. He was tired (from being up at 4:30 a.m. every morning since June 7), so we let him go home while we all went to our various homes.

The plan on Friday was to be something like this:

1. I was to drive from my place in Broken Arrow to mom's in Sperry to pick him up.
2. We were to go borrow the truck from my cousins/aunt & uncle and load a dresser in the back.
3. We were to go to his reporting station to turn in his debriefing papers.
4. We were to go to a BBQ place near my work and get some DELICIOUS BBQ to go.
5. We were to unload the dresser and eat our food.
6. We were to talk about life and stuff since he left.
7. He was to take the truck back to Sperry while Mom arrived at my place to help me cook/grocery shop for the Scentsy party I was hosting.

The plan got stopped short at #3. When we went to his drill station, they told him he was supposed to have reported to drill that morning....we later found out this could have been avoided if he had just gone to turn in his papers on Monday.

He was supposed to go to the OU/Texas A&M game with my aunt, uncle, and cousin on Saturday. The family was supposed to have a welcome home dinner/barbecue for him on Sunday (we Oklahomans love our barbecue). None of that happened.

Fortunately for me, I got to use his football ticket, so I went to my first home game of the season last Saturday. I miss the game day atmosphere. I didn't get to see as many friends as I would have liked, but I did get the chance to catch up with some of my amazing APO brothers. It was so good to see them!

The Scentsy party I hosted was a huge success! I ended up getting $90 worth of free stuff and three half-priced items...guys, I seriously bought almost 30 items from Scentsy and only spent $42! The good thing is that a lot of the women I work with bought stuff as Christmas presents, so it helped me out a lot.

Work this week has been crazy. Not overly crazy busy, but transactions have been crazy and people have been crazy. Like, I have wanted to ask people if they really are that bitchy in person or if they're only saving it for me since I'm handling their money?

We do have tomorrow off for Veteran's Day. I'm going to spend the entire day with my coworker Michelle, and we're going to watch Star Wars Episodes IV-VI on Blu-Ray :)

HAVE YOU ENTERED MY GIVEAWAY TO CELEBRATE MY BLOG BIRTHDAY YET?! As it stands, I only have FIVE entrants! This means chances of you winning are good! Entering is easy, and tomorrow is THE. LAST. DAY. to enter. You have until 11:59 p.m. Central Standard Time (12:59 a.m. EST, 9:59 Pacific) to enter. Because Oklahoma is smack dab in the middle, therefore everything is CST to me. AND YES, MY REAL LIFE FRIENDS (Katy and Erika and Baxter) CAN ENTER AS WELL!


Good luck! Winner will be announced on Monday!

Day two of Staycation

I really do wish that instead of having a little mini staycation, I were in North Carolina watching my oldest brother graduate from AIT. However, being a responsible adult now and having bills to pay, I had to make the decision to stay home and welcome him as soon as he lands at the airport.

This guy:

When we were told to pose for a picture, this is how we posed. We're slightly the same person.

will be returning home at 9:50 tonight!

You have no idea how very excited the entire family is to see him again! He left for boot camp on June 7, and I haven't seen him since then. I wrote him all throughout boot camp, and thank goodness for us upgrading our phones and amazing technology because since boot camp I have gotten to carry on conversations with him through HeyTell. (android app; iPhone app) Also because of this app, he and I carried on a walkie-talkie style conversation one evening, and we both turned on our gps locations (you can pick and choose who sees this) and he could see exactly where mom and I were having dinner one night.

Now I am far behind almost everyone else when it comes to technology, but I'm so glad that I was introduced to this little app before I upgraded to a smart phone :)

As far as the home front goes, yesterday the Tulsa area got a cold front. It was also kind of rainy all day, so it was a fantastic day for my staycation. I went to lunch with my friend Kellie before she left to go to South Carolina, and then stopped in by my work to drop off the fundraisers Kellie had.

On my way home, I decided that since I'm already at home inside on a rainy day, it would be a perfect day for some hot tea. I excitedly stopped by a local store to pick up some tea to put in my new tea kettle that my grandma gave me for the place. I got all the way home, went to put water to boil in the tea kettle, and then realized I have no mugs. What's funny about that is that my grandma tried to give me mugs multiple times, and every time I said I didn't need them because I don't drink coffee and don't even have a coffee maker. Silly me for forgetting about my hot tea obsession in the winter months! :)

Needless to say, I sat in my apartment with tea bags waiting to be brewed all day without hot tea.

Then last night I went over to my friend Michelle's place for dinner with her kiddos and then we watched American Horror Story. I seriously love this show. It's weird, and I love weird! I then returned home to watch True Blood season 1. Michelle let me borrow it a long time ago, and it's about time that I finish it and return it.

I've done absolutely nothing but lay in bed today and catch up on reading blogs. I'm about to get up, cook myself some lunch, then get started on cleaning my room. Later today, Mom and I are going to be moving a dresser into my room, and then going to the airport to pick up Jared!!!

Tomorrow will be putting the finishing touches on making my place spotless before my Scentsy party and hanging out with my brother all day!

Sunday we'll be having a welcome home dinner for him out at my aunt's! Then next week I have a four day work week due to Veteran's Day! November is shaping up to be a FANTASTIC month!!

Day One of Staycation

Honestly, I'm super sad that I didn't post yesterday. November is my absolute favorite month of the year! It just so happens to be my birth month, so I'm slightly biased in my opinion :)

This year, I have some more things to be excited about the month of November!

• 5 months ago, my oldest brother Jared left for Boot Camp followed by AIT. He returns this Thursday night. I'm super excited to see my brother again. We've all missed him so much!
• Because I was originally supposed to go watch his AIT graduation, I now have a 5 day weekend off from work :)
• I get an extra day off of work next Friday for Veteran's Day!
• My cousins start playing basketball and I actually get to watch it this year!
• Birthday weekend!
• Thanksgiving!
• I'm hosting a scentsy party this Friday to show off my new apartment!

November is seriously the best month ever.

Last night, Shawna and I went to El Guapo's here in Tulsa for the first time in like 2 and a half months together. It was ridiculous. Not eating there, but waiting that long to go to a Taco Tuesday. And we definitely made up for lost time with the amount of chips and salsa we ate. I'm pretty sure I still have a food baby. We're not going that long without it again. I'll swear by it.

As far as my book review goes, I didn't finish a book in the month of October. That's sad.

But I am almost done with One Day, and so be looking for that review next month!

I also failed to mention that I did a guest post last week. You can find my October Obsession post over at Eat. Drink. Be a Tourist here. It's kind of manly. ha ha

Happy November!