Second favorite shopping day of the year

I absolutely LOVE the after Christmas sales. I love getting half price wrapping. I love getting half price gifts for next year. I love buying half price ornaments to put on packages. I love it all and I especially love going to Barnes and Noble and buying half price Christmas books for my future children. For the last few years I've made sure I stop by the bookstore to pick up a few good books for my stash. There's nothing like finding your favorite Christmas story at half the price. This year besides my favorite Christmas books I hit a major jackpot. Barnes and Noble had a big box of stuffed animals sitting out. I dug through them all and almost settled on the characters of Where the Wild Things Are but as I dug into the bottom of the box I notice a soft looking something. I pulled it out and it was a GIANT Classic Pooh bear. Now Pooh is not my favorite children's character but this Pooh was SUPER soft and pretty big. I knew Mark would LOVE it. I snatched up my half-price Pooh and headed to the register. So now beside all the wrapping and ornaments I bought sits the biggest, softest Pooh bear a kid could ever want. Our future child is sure to love it and in the mean time my little monster, I mean Mack, is eyeing him. I'm going to have to find Pooh a home on a high shelf before Mack claims him.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

One of the joys of being a pet owner is dressing my pet up for all major holidays. Usually when I do this Mack looks as if he is saying curse words to me. Tonight was no exception. This should be our Christmas card.

It's happened

I'm pregnant. This is something I've been waiting on now for the past 11 months. To say we are excited is an understatement.

We took the test the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I immediately went back to bed because I thought 'Oh there's no way it will be positive.' After about 10 minutes or so Mark went into the bathroom to check it (as per our routine) and calmly walked into the bedroom. Then he exclaimed. 'YOU NEED TO COME IN HERE AND LOOK AT THIS THERE IS SOMETHING THERE!' I was like yeah right that isn't funny.

So I walked into the bathroom, glanced at the test and then pulled it closer to my face. He was right there was SOMETHING there. Now if we hadn't been using these things EVERY month and definitely knew what a negative test was this test would have been pitched into the trash and considered negative. But Mark and I were pros at looking for nonexistent lines and THIS test had something there.

As luck would have it, it was the only test we had in the house that month to encourage me not to test. So as I went online with my internet friends to debate what counts as a line with them, Mark scrambled around the house looking for shoes to go buy more tests.

Mark finally gets back with more cheap dollar store tests and I immediately take another. We thought maybe I waited too long with the first one to get accurate results. So after I peed we waited to watch the test. And slowly the faintest line began to appear. OMG could this be a positive. We didn't want to get too excited yet.

So we carried about our day. Then that evening we went to church. After church we decided to stop by the Wal-Mart to get some fancy tests. It was time to bust out the digital. We got home and Mark was like TAKE IT NOW. So I headed into the bathroom and he began to make our dinner. I peed again and started washing my hands. By the time I finished my hand washing I glanced down and the word I had waited months to see was there. PREGNANT. OMG I'm pregnant. I calmly scurried into the kitchen and threw the test into Mark's face.

And now the journey is really going to begin.

Carbon monoxide PSA

In honor of my anniversary coming up and in honor of the colder weather, I would like to share with my readers a cautionary tale of two young newlyweds embarking on their FIRST week together.

Mark and I were married Nov. 25, by the first week of December we were experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning. I don't joke. I moved into our lovely duplex on Spring Garden the day after our wedding and pretty soon after (like in the first week) I experienced my first and only migraine EVAH!

Mark worked at the car plant during the night. It was a Friday night when this all started. I went to work writing obituaries that evening with the worst headache of my life. I don't know how I made it through. After work I stopped by my mother's house. I was sick and didn't want to be alone. Mark called around 10:30 p.m. not realizing how sick I was, he refused to pick me up and instead made me drive the two blocks home. (I still hold a grudge) Instead of driving myself those two long blocks, I had my loving twin brother take me and drop me off. The next day was our town's Christmas parade and Mark and I were planning on attending. On Mark's way home from work he even stopped and bought us both long underware in anticipation of the next morning.

After stopping off for long underware, Mark made it home around 4 a.m. At this time I was dry heaving in the bathroom. I was in SO much pain, my whole body ached. After staggering back to the bedroom I asked Mark 'Where were you in my time of need!' He replied that he was sitting on the bed gathering up the courage to come watch me throw up. Turns out my new husband has a weak stomach.

The next morning I tried to gather up the strength to go watch Christmas floats on Main Street. No such luck. I was so pitiful and in so much pain. I couldn't even sit or stand. Not only did my head hurt but my whole body ached. Mark insisted on taking me to the emergency clinic.

We went to the clinic, missed the parade and all I could tell the doctor was 'Make my head stop hurting NOW!!!' So I left the office with pain medication and medication for a throat infection. Turns out I also had a throat infection which I should have been hurting from but I was in so much full body pain my throat felt wonderful.

So for about a week I was on the antibiotic for my throat and took a few of the pain pills. I didn't take many because I have really low tolerence for medication and they made me loopy (as in I did the cha cha slide at a wedding and professed my love for The Pick of Destiny and Jack Black all while taking them)

During this week I noticed that Mark and I were sleeping for long periods of time and our little dog was throwing up EVERY day. Little did we know what was lurking in our house.

When I moved into Mark's duplex my dad installed a carbon monoxide detector. He just said he felt safer with us having one there. I fully believe my dad saved our life.

A few weeks or so after the body aches the carbon monoxide detector went off. Mark had just left for work. It was a Thursday night. I was in the house with Mack and all of a sudden the alarm started going off. I grabbed Mack and the phone and stood by the back door and called my dad. After talking to my dad we decided we needed to call the fire department to have it checked out.

The fire department came. Remember I had been airing out the apartment before they got there. The firemen closed our apartment back up for a few minutes and then went in to take readings. The readings showed there was definitely carbon monoxide in our apartment and it was coming out of the air vents. I forget the numbers they told me but they were definitely high. The firemen confirmed that my illness earlier in the month and our sleeping late and Mack's throwing up were all symptoms. Our gas was turned off and they told me I needed to find a place to sleep for the night. Mack and I packed our bags.

The firemen told us we were lucky that it wasn't that cold outside because our heater wasn't working as hard as it would be in the upcoming weeks. If it had been colder out and our heater was running more often then it was quite possible that something could have happened.

So as we all enter the winter months, remember to make sure you have a working detector and if yours goes off, DON'T IGNORE IT. You can't smell or see carbon monoxide. It's better to be safe. I share our experience and symptoms so you will be aware that it can happen, even in your first week or month of marriage!

Major Christmas find

I just made a major find of the Christmas shopping season. My friend was looking for these adorable little Zhu Zhu hamsters for her kids. Evidently they are the hot new toy for the season. They are sold out from walmart, target and toysrus.com AND they are going for 30ish bucks online. She told me about them at around 7 p.m. and at midnight I went to Walmart with Mark to stand in line for the new Call of Duty.

I saw in the Walmart ad before we left the house that Walmart was supposed to have them and cost only $8. So when we got there I immediately high tailed it to the toy department and began my search. After walking up each aisle a man approached me to see if he could help. I told him I was looking for hamsters and he said 'Oh they are right over here.' I followed him and discovered seven of the little critters hidden behind a dog in a bag. Jackpot!!! He said 'And they are ringing up for $8!' I, of course, already knew this already and began to load my arms with the furry creatures.

Then I skipped back to the long gamer line to announce proudly to Mark. .... 'Look at all these great hamsters I found, now give me your phone so I can call my mom!!!!'

Mark informed me on the way to the car that a wife should not approach her husband while he's standing in line to buy a war game, surrounded by 50 other males and try to explain her great toy find to him while holding boxes of hamsters. Evidently the wife she bring her own cell phone, buy her hamsters and wait in the car. Well not this wife! This wife wants to share her great find with all within ear shot, including the war-game lovin' guys all around.

Party decorating

My Halloween party is coming up Saturday. I really excited! I wanted to share my favorite decoration for the party with everyone. Mark sprayed these cheap pumpkins with matte black spray paint and I think they look awesome! I had him do another batch tonight for the party. I plan on getting a couple bigger pumpkins and spraying them too.

Oh Subway......I hate you.

There are like 10 Subways in my home town. (Maybe a little inflated) Mark and I are not meant to eat at any of them. I don't know if the workers see us coming in the door and are like 'Oh it's that one couple! We must do something disgusting or rude to scare them off!' I would like to rundown our adventures to Subway.

It all started one afternoon when we thought we would break from our traditional McDonald's run to get a healthy lunch. We park. We enter into the Subway closest to our house and upon entering the establishment we should have walked right back out the door. But No we stayed to watch. When you enter this particular restaurant the restroom is right beside the door and straight across from the restroom door is the door to enter behind the counter. There's the set up. So when we come in we notice there is something going on to our right. ALL the employees are gathered around the bathroom door. This we note is strange. There is another couple in the Subway eating. So upon further inspection we notice there is one girl flinging a pee stick around about in front of her exclaiming 'OMG I'm pregnant!' Yes you read that right. She took a pregnancy test while at work, while there were customers inside eating and within full view of ALL who walk in off the street. Then we hear another coworker  who is standing beside the door to the counter say to another 'Well we have to believe her this time, we saw it with our own eyes.' And then they go back behind the counter to take our order. And all Mark and I can think about is the possible pee particles that have been flung throughout the air around us.

Then we have a few minor infractions: The guy at the Wal-Mart Subway dragging a trash bag across my sandwich and looking at my husband cluelessly when he is asked to make me a new sandwich. And we have this gem: My husband goes to Subway wearing a purple shirt (Now Mark is 6'4 and not one to be teased) when the boy behind the counter proceeds to sing the Barney theme song to him. Mark is not amused and the counter boy doesn't understand why. 

And that leads up to today's infraction. I stand in line at Subway while people are eating all around me. There is only one girl working I guess and she is counting down her drawer. I watch her count a large stack of one's twice, not even looking up to acknowledge me. When she is finally done counting, she walks over pulls out a paper to put my sandwich on and proceeds to ask me what I want. There was no washing of the hands and no putting on of gloves. Straight from the stack of filthy ones to my potential lunch. I tell her I'm not ordering and leave.

So Mark and I have determined that this is it. We aren't eating at our hometown Subways ever again. We've already marked the local Taco Bell off our list and now we are adding Subway. It's back to McDonald's I go.