Welcome 2012 with Open Arms and No I am not Steven Perry...

I am so thankful that today is Thursday. Waking up each and every morning to shower dress and drive out to my job in MA while I leave the hubby and pup sleeping in bed is so very hard to do. Both of them smell of sleep and are warm to the touch, when I whisper my goodbyes with tender kisses I listen to sleepy sighs and settling back into the bed. To say I am jealous is an understatement.

A complete understatement.

Tomorrow I should be getting out early since it is our work week New Year's Eve, I have my fingers crossed I somehow miraculously get it off but I don't foresee that happening. I just want to stay in bed with my boys and be completely lazy tomorrow. Alas, I will have to wake up in the dark and repeat the leaving process one more time before I can stay in bed with them Saturday AM but only until about 9AM. Saturday Mitch and I leave for New Jersey to see a football game on Sunday. The Giants vs the Cowboys. Guess what team I will be cheering for?

My darling husband got me the above Cowboys jersey for me for Christmas, unknowing I was buying him tickets to finally see his boys play New Years Day. The game time has been changed from 1PM to 8:20PM, I have resigned myself to the fate that I will be freezing my butt off watching this game. I have to make sure I buy us some thermal underwear otherwise my nipples freeze off. The one upside to this late game is that on New Years Eve we can get toasted and sleep in until our hearts content on Sunday without worrying about missing the 1PM game. So I guess there is something to look forward too...a very swampy Kettle One martini, or hopefully a couple of those. I don't plan on getting fall down drunk because New Year's Eve is an amateur drinking holiday and I am almost 30, so I can or should be able to hold my liquor.

It has been a long time since I have gotten stupid drunk, maybe this weekend will be one for me. Or I can save it for the PBR next weekend at Madison Square Garden. Oh, you don't know what PBR stands for? That would be Professional Bull Riders, one of the only sports I watch every time it is on. I am dedicated to those bull riders and their polite manners, tight Wranglers and shy smiles. Not to mention they put their life on the line every time they get in the chute with a 1200lb bull whose only goal is to get said rider off. I love love love watching these events live and I am so excited to see their 1st event of the season. I am hoping and praying I can also get a picture with my favorite bull rider of all time, Mike Lee.

That is Mike Lee compliments of the PBR website. Isn't he dreamy? I may be a married woman but it is OK to have a little crush on someone else who isn't my husband. The only way it would be problematic is if I do something else with someone who isn't my husband. Anyways the above dream machine is also married with babies. He has the most amazing eyes I have ever seen in person, first time I made eye contact with him I was putty and he was my #1 bull rider. It also doesn't hurt he was the PBR World Champion in 2004. He is tough and knows how to ride bulls. My #2 man is Austin Meier. I am hoping and praying both my guys have awesome seasons this year. I can't wait to see them next weekend, I hope my cowboy boots come in on time.

Yes I live in RI and will soon own an awesome pair of Sangria cowboy boots. Yay :)

OK enough of this, I am going to continue to fantasize about Mike Lee and wish y'all a great New Years. See you in 2012.

Back to the grind...

So I had a pretty awesome 4 day holiday weekend. I woke up Friday morning refreshed and ready to tackle my kitchen to surprise my boo with some homemade biscuits and gravy

Yes, they were as delicious as they look. I then proceeded to make some cinnamon rolls as well. This recipe makes 8 pans of rolls. I was a little worried working with yeast but I figured if I failed, no one had to know. If it was a success (which it was, an ooey gooey, delicious success) then I could give them to friends and family. I made them and they came out looking like this:

Do those look good? I even scrimped a bit on the frosting but as soon as they were ready I tried one and I almost wept myself into a diabetic coma. To say these are good are beyond accurate. I made this recipe and the biscuits and gravy compliments of a Pioneer Woman. I am so excited, I got her cookbook this Christmas and have proceeded to make 2 recipes from it since Sunday (the Marlboro Man Sandwich and Blackberry Cobbler) and Mitch is loving it. Mitch is also at home all week while I work. All I have to say to that is boo.

So I had a good weekend, I got to see all of my family and Santa was good to both Mitch and I. My Mom took the below picture at Common Park on Christmas night while we were checking out the lights

I am so excited for this coming weekend, Mitch and I get to see the Giants/Cowboys game in NJ. It is going to be my first NFL game and 1st time Mitch gets to see his boys the Cowboys play. I hope we both get home in one piece after wearing our Cowboys jerseys...we will only have to wait and see :)

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays...Whatever PC Thing you Need

So all of my baking this weekend went off without a hitch. The white chocolate for my peppermint bark melted down perfectly, the fudge was sinful and my cookies were delicious and chewy. I was so proud of my baking prowess that on Sunday I had some people over for football and delighted them with a delicious Swedish Apple bake. I have to thank my dear friend Kristen for the topping recipe. It was sooooo good. I definitely need to photograph my food as I cook it because me telling you how good it was isn't the same as a picture that will put 5lbs on your waistline by just looking. So speaking of putting on 5lbs by a picture alone, please check out this recipe: Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls I have decided I am going to make these on my new found Friday off to give to some family members for the holidays. Yes I know that was the point of the treats I made last weekend but more is more, right? I will start making these after I make Mitchel some homemade biscuits and gravy from scratch for breakfast. My poor boo, if I keep cooking this way, he is going to get so fat. A Santa in training :) This will also be additional to the Italian Creme Cake and Creme Brulee Pie I am making for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day commitments. Fun times people. So the next few days of mine will be filled with gift wrapping, cooking, eating said cooking, Melting Pot (nom Fondue), friends and family. I am so excited. I decided to post today so I won't feel guilty ignoring this blog until next week. Now I have to head to Shaws for the 3rd time in a week to snag some ingredients for another cooking expedition. Fun times :) Have a happy holidays everyone!

So This is Christmas...

One of things I love about the holidays besides the family, friends and well duh, presents, is the baking. Though I may be a diabetic, I absolutely adore baking and while I have tweaked recipes to my diet needs, come Christmas I bake for the masses since those are the people I am dispensing these noms (edibles) to. I usually start out with only one thing I am going to make and expand. Take this year for example. I decided I wanted to make 1 batch of peppermint bark to give out, I found a Paula Deen recipe and decided to tweak it by adding both white and dark chocolate layers to the bark. So I made my mini grocery list and held off to tackling both the grocery shopping and making of said bark until this weekend and then life happened...

I was on Facebook and found a link for Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies. Now, I may have lived in New England my entire life but I have family down in South Carolina. I was introduced to and fell in love with red velvet on my very 1st visit there. I came back up North and made red velvet this and that and introduced some of my friends to it for the first time too. It is so good, so seeing this on my advertisements on the side bar, I couldn't resist. I clicked, found the recipe and decided to add these to my mix for this weekend. So I added the ingredients to my grocery list, printed the recipe and moved on with my life, until...

I love Pioneer Woman. I want to live on a ranch in Oklahoma and home school my 4 children while sleeping beside an actual living and breathing cowboy. I love (lust) cowboys. It was the reason I went to the PBR (Professional Bull Riders for all of you uninformed folks) for the first time. I went for the cowboys and fell in love with the sport. I am actually driving to NYC in January so I can see them at Madison Square Garden for their 1st event of the season. I watch it every weekend on TV, I am a fan. OK so I digressed like a ton on that, back to square one.

So I love Pioneer Woman and happen to follow her on Twitter as well as read her blog. This morning she decided to post about a recipe on her sister site Tasty Kitchen that she came across. This recipe was entitled Nutella Chocolate and Sea Salt Fudge. There is not one word in that title I do not like. I am a Nutella fiend, I used to put that on my toast, pancakes, waffles, significant other. It is so good. So I have decided I am making that too because I don't have enough to do now. So I added those ingredients to my list and I went shopping today on my lunch hour so I had everything I needed and could no longer add to my list.

I am pretty excited to tackle these recipes tonight and tomorrow. I will definitely take some pictures and post them on the site Monday. I won't be able to do that sooner since I have baking, parties and friends to do (that sounded bad) this weekend. It is super packed but I like that! Check out the links for the recipes below if you decide you want to cook some up for yourself!

Peppermint Bark

Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate Nutella & Sea Salt Fudge

Oh the holidays

So this week is going to be a beyond crazy week for me. Last night I had the pleasure and the privilege to see my darling friend Sarah who is officially 6 months pregnant as of yesterday!



Isn't she beautiful? I absolutely cannot wait to meet baby Benjamin. Auntie Becka loves you little man. I am going to call him Benny, but that is another story for another day.

I had the honor of fulfilling Sarah's Taco Bell kick with her as well as relaxing back at her place so we could talk, unwind and catch up. I love those nights in her room aka Cave, they keep my sanity in place and balm my soul.

It was definitely a late night for me and the hubby. He was visiting with his cousin Derrick, the birthday boy. By the time I snagged him, we didn't get home until after 10PM. For a woman with a usual 9PM bed time during the week, it was a late arrival. Never mind we didn't have Slash man with us because a) we have a company Christmas party to attend tonight for Mitch's boss and b) Mitch's mom Dianne missed her poopy puppy and he was staying with her.

So I have another late night tonight (who throws Christmas parties during the work week?) I love going every year but Mitch's awesome boss keeps refilling all the wine glasses so tomorrow morning will probably be a rough go for me. 2 late nights and liquor, I would say tomorrow night will be an early night but we have to head in New Bedford to grab Slash back. I cannot wait for Friday night, seriously. I will be passed out on the couch by 9PM, guaranteed.

Weekends

So on weekends I am pretty much unconnected to online with the exception of my phone. I kind of like those 2 days to decompress and not constantly feel like I need to update things or pay attention to everything. Call me a bitch but for me it is bliss. I do make a minor exception to Facebook because I still update that, it is an addiction but I am fighting those one at a time.

So this weekend Mitch and I visited with my dear friend Kristen and her hubby Damien at their new home they bought. She made a delicious meal and it was an awesome night full of great conversation including topics like dutch ovens (not the cooking variety), our significant others intricacies and one of our old dear friends Brad. I sometimes wonder what happened to him, I miss my Bradamao.

So on Sunday I did pretty much this all day



With the exception of making a nomalicious Boiled Dinner, cleaning and this



I love the tree except it is so grown up now. I can't wait until I have a little one and I can get all crazy with it again. Until then I will strive for pretty. I can't believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away. Luckily I wrapped up all of my shopping today. I am done with a capital D. Huzzah!

I Hate Doctors

I really and truly dislike my visits to my doctor's office. The first thing you do when you get behind the mysterious closed doors after waiting 1/2 an hour is get weighed. I don't think any woman enjoys this part of the exam. I have tried to worm my way out of it countless times "Oh I was just here last week" or "I am kind of in a hurry, is this necessary for my poison ivy" and alas every time I have been shot down and forced begrudgingly on the scale. There are times I am pleasantly surprised, other times I hear excuses coming out on my mouth, today's being "Oh you know, the holidays".

Anyways I hate the doctors not because of the staff, my Nurse Practioner Joyce is awesome, I hate it because it is never good news. Ever. I was diagnosed when I was only 21 years old with Type 2 Diabetes. I do not look overweight per say but I have always been carrying around an extra 15-20lbs over my healthy BMI since late high school. In high school and college I had some decent muscle mass so I looked OK but was definitely overweight per medical standards. Screw you medical standards.

So at age 21,this sugarholic was informed that I was a diabetic. I wasn't put on any type of medication because I was considered "borderline" So I did the intelligent thing and ignored this diagnosis for the next 8 or so years until this past June the doctor, not my NP, made me come in after normal hours (like 7PM) and basically tore me a new one. My A1C (which is kind of like me sugar levels over a period of time ) was over 10, normal would be under 6. She told me if I wanted to live to see 40, I needed to start taking care of myself. I had so much to live for...



Isn't he a fox in a cowboy hat. Let's just say up in RI he got a couple of looks for wearing this for me. Swoon.



Be forewarned, you will always be treated to a lot of Slash. :)



This is one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world. Kristen and I were each other's maid of honors at our weddings this summer. Actually she was my Matron since she got married first...teehee. Like our look for her bachelorette shower?



This is my family. My folks are divorced so this photo of all of us together is actually pretty rare and I love it. That sexy bald beast on the far right is my brother. I love that kid to freaking pieces.

So yes, I have a lot to live for. After crying my eyes out, I asked her to give me the chance to clean up my act with pills before she put me on insulin. The idea of having to inject myself multiple times a day kind of woke me up so I decided then and there to take care of my body, it is the only one I have.

Well I did awesome up until my honeymoon. I even told my DR that on my honeymoon I was going to eat what I wanted. We were staying at an all inclusive in Punta Cana and I was going to get my $$s worth of drinks and food. Surprisingly enough not one of my drinks was a dirty martini, they were fruity and sweet and delicious. So I ate and drank what I wanted and after I got back, it took awhile to readjust (I am still working on it).

So that being said, I improved my A1C to a 7.4 but it still isn't good enough. Rather than get a congrats on the work I have done I get told it needs to be better. So I am going to work on that too. It is important my A1C be under 6.5 otherwise any children I carry could be born with spine or brain defects. This is also why I have been on a pre-natal vitamin and additional folic acid, I want to prevent this from happening.

So I hate the doctors office, never any good news. Maybe once I finally get things under control there will be no news so that is better than bad news. Also every time I go I get a gallon of blood drawn, not fun.

Babies

So my husband Mitch and I are totally gung ho on the whole baby making thing. We want little ones. Well actually I want a little ONE. Mitch, a only child, wants little ones. Since it is my uterus and it may be a difficult pregnancy, we will make that decision a little further down the line. But our first obstacle to overcome is getting pregnant itself. See this:



This is the man I pledged my life to. I love this man more than I love myself...which is saying a lot since I have a blog and obviously consider myself important enough to have followers someday...hahahaha.

OK I digress, but that is my hubby. He had some medical issues as a kid (poor thing) which required radiation so to say the least, fertility is a small issue. He just got some results today on his fertility tests. It is pretty scary thinking we may not be able to conceive naturally and may need some assistance. It makes me feel like a defect at the ripe old age of 29. I guess that is a bridge we will have to cross when the time comes. Until that time I am going to focus on getting myself healthy and in my healthy BMI. I want to make sure my A1C level is good so there are no risk of defects for my little one.

A1C = Diabetes. A whole different story to address...sigh.

I need a place to vent...

So apparently Facebook is no longer a place where I can vent. Everyone on there is sick of seeing everyone's bitching and moaning. I find this slightly amusing considering a status update is to let people know your current state of being and unfortunately not all of us live in the North Pole or wake up on the right side of the bed (damn, I really do wake up on the left side...).

So since my freedom of speech is being impugned on Facebook I find myself here. I am working on becoming a more positive person. I have a lot to be thankful for. Mainly this right here:



Oh and this



And this



Isn't he adorable? He was all cleaned up compliments of his ring bearer duties for our wedding, he normally looks like this:



His name is Slash and since my husband Mitch and I do not have any children, he is pretty much our baby. Luckily for us he is a super cuddle bug, just thinking of him makes me wish I was at home so I could squish him.

So I have a lot to be thankful for, my husband, my health (well kind of sort of, that is another post), my family and my awesome friends. But I have issues with stress, as in I don't know how to deal with it. Like 3 out of my 5 work days I end up spitting mad, muttering curse words and empty threats under my breath. I am worried some days that my head is going to explode (so not a good feeling). I just quit smoking over 2 weeks ago so one of my methods of dealing with my stress was probably worse than the stress itself so, goodbye smokes (now I want one).

So I am working on trying to be more positive. It is better all around. I have to somehow stay above the things that get me mad and realize how good I have it. So I guess you guys can travel on that journey with me. When my coping methods fail, at least I know I have vodka and olive juice :)