Good TV.

Besides the always dependable shows -- The Office, 30 Rock, and The Hills -- I haven't really been able to get into a TV show recently (other than the usual HGTV and Food Network gems). But that is about to change.

Even though The Hills' season finale was last week (and I feel slightly guilty for thinking Spencer was a nice guy in the episode), MTV didn't let me down with the new shows, The City and Bromance.

I didn't want to get hooked on The City -- but let's be serious, I knew it was going to happen. I feel like my days of watching MTV should be over, but I am just not ready to let it go. While Whitney remained relatively drama free in LA, I am glad to see things are getting interesting in NYC.

Exhibit A: Olivia.

She seems like she is a nice person deep down, but can't help from acting snotty and bitchy. And what is her obsession with Whitney's relationship with Jay? Which brings me to . . .

Exhibit B: Jay.

I sure hope he isn't giving Whitney the run-around. He is WAY hot and has a great Australian accent.

Speaking of eye candy, I am not embarrassed to admit that I also watched Bromance. The show's concept is pretty much Paris Hilton's My New BFF, but with guys. Despite being a pretty terrible show, Brody Jenner is a looker so I will continue to watch it. Big thanks to MTV for the gratuitous shot of Brody getting into the hot tub for the elimation.

And don't worry, it's not only the MTV-trash shows aimed at teenagers that I like -- there are a couple non-MTV shows premiering soon that I am looking forward to. Scrubs premiers January 6th and 24 has a 4-hour/2 night premier beginning January 11th.

5 things . . .

5 things I am thankful for:

1. Visiting with friends and family over the holidays.

2. Our dog Riley, who is curled up in my lap (making typing difficult).

3. Homemade macaroni and cheese - yum!

4. The holiday movies Love Actually and Elf.

5. Joel McHale coming to town in February.

Merry Christmas!

I heart Banana Republic.

I have recently been able to resist the temptation to look at clothes on BR's website, but I couldn't resist any longer.

There are so many great shirts that are perfect for work under a suit, but can also be dressed down with jeans. I love things I can wear to work as well as out to dinner on the weekend.




I love button-down shirts with ruffles or other fun embellishments.


BR has great wrap dresses, and this pattern and color is great. I always feel like I am wearing my PJ's to work when I wear a comfy wrap dress like this. Not to mention, most wrap dresses are pretty figure-flattering

And this dress is fabulous. I love the criss-crossed ruching at the waist and neckline.


I see a BR shopping trip in my future -- or I may take the lazy way out and order online (love the free luxe shipping)!

Blogging Hiatus.

Chick-fil-A and I have a love-hate relationship. I love their food, but their floors hate me.

We went to grab a quick dinner on Friday, and I slipped and fell on a very slippery floor. I knocked my head on a table, landed on my tailbone, and somewhere on the way down the tip of my right hand ring finger "exploded" (in the words of the ER doc and orthopedic surgeon). Thankfully, the fracture will heal on its own, and I only had to get 1 stitch because it was too swollen for anymore. The bad news is that all of your nerve endings are in your finger, which means that my finger hurts like heck. Thank goodness for vicodin and norco. I will refrain from posting any pictures of my beautiful black and blue finger.

From Friday to Monday afternoon, my entire right hand and wrist were in a massive split. I could only hunt and peck with my left hand. I am glad to report I can now type with 9 of my fingers! I am just thankful that I won't have as hard of time opening presents now (and blogging of course)!

Christmas Decorations.

This is really our first year to decorate our house for Christmas so everything is pretty simple, which is fine by me. I do have to say, they are much better than last year's decorations. Since we moved in 2 weeks before last Christmas, our house was decorated with boxes. Here are a few pictures of our Christmas decorations.

I just added 2 cute twig reindeer from Pottery Barn (they were calling my name the minute we walked into the store) and a bowl of tasty peppermint taffy to spruce up the buffet in the dining room.


And because my twig reindeer aren't very photogenic, here is a close up from the PB website.


I need to find some pretty ribbon to hang these ornaments with, but for now the simple hooks do the trick.


Centerpiece for the dining room table.


Guess I should iron the table runner . . .


My favorite decoration of all--the tree!!

Presents!


View of the lighted garland from the 1st floor.


Hanging the garland is Justin's specialty (he only uses 1,000 tie wraps).


I love coming home and seeing the lights outside!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

I love our new stockings, but they were hung with more care than most. We got them on sale, +20% preferred customer discount, free monogramming, and free shipping. However, there was just one small problem . . . they didn't hang very nicely. Here is where my OCD kicked in -- it bothered me immensely that Justin's hung more "flat" while mine and Riley's were more "tilted" (and at different angles no less). Something had to be done.

I am not a seamstress (heck, I can barely sew on a button), but I whipped out some needle and thread and took care of the problem.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Problem solved! I can finally rest easy when I am in the living room -- no more attempting to twist and adjust them to no avail. While I make no guarantees about how much loot they can hold, they sure look better (at least to a crazy perfectionist).

Christmas Decorating in Progress.

Due to our camera's corrupt compact flash drive, I thought all of the pictures we've taken over the past 2 months were ruined. While 50% or more of them were, I was excited to find that there are some that don't have neon horizontal lines running through them.

Here are a few that turned out from Thanksgiving weekend when we decorated our house for Christmas . . . As you can see, our dog is extremely helpful.

Riley helping us remove the tags and put lights on the wreaths.

Side note on the un-lighted wreaths -- Justin was pumped that he scored a great deal on these super discounted un-lighted wreaths during an after-Christmas sale last year at Lowe's. I wasn't so confident because I hate dealing with the little tiny lights any more than I have to (read: I would rather pay more to have someone do the work for me). He assured me that there wouldn't be any problems. We finished the first wreath in no time. After about 1.5 hours into the second wreath -- trying to find the problem light and re-stringing for the second time -- he mentioned that maybe the un-lighted wreaths weren't such a good of a deal as he originally thought. I of course did the "I-told-you-so" dance (a la Will & Grace). But in the end, the wreaths look great (and we saved some money too).

Riley thought the wreaths also needed a sock.

Riley posing under the tree before the ornaments go on.

Putting up Christmas decorations is hard work.

Stay tuned -- I will have pictures of the final product soon!

5 things . . .

5 things I am thankful for (there seems to be a theme):

1. Starbuck's Grande Non-Fat Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha

2. Dryer's Slow Churned Peppermint Ice Cream

3. Marich Mint Chip Maltballs (found at Central Market)

4. Williams-Sonoma Peppermint North Poles

5. Peppermint Taffy (courtesy of my mom).

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

It is snowing . . . in Houston! You gotta love Houston weather -- it was literally 77 degrees yesterday. Last time it snowed here was Christmas of 2004, and as my luck would have it, we were in Tennessee where it didn't snow at all.

Of course we went outside tonight and took some pictures to document the winter wonderland. I am sure our neighbors think we are weirdos, but I am okay with that. They should just be thankful I wasn't laying in the grass making snow angels. Here is our front yard and Justin's car:



I am not looking forward to my drive (albeit short) to work tomorrow. People here, myself included, have no clue how to drive in the snow/ice. It should be interesting. I am just excited that it is actually starting to feel like Christmas. While I am not much of a cold-weather person, it is a little difficult to get into the holiday spirit when you're wearing flip-flops. I'm not going to lie -- I was pretty pumped to wear my boots and long coat today.

Let the Blogging Begin.

The phrase "that's blog-worthy" has come out my mouth more than a few times over the past year or so. I have finally decided to do something about it. For about a month Justin and I had the great idea of having a blog together (which I thought we were equally excited about), but we could never seem to come up with a blog name. I mentioned the idea of just doing one without him since my ideas for blog names never met his standards. His response -- "that's fine, I wasn't sure how much I was going to blog anyway." So, here is my blog . . . maybe if he's lucky, he can make a guest post every now and then.

As far as the name goes -- I am going to make an effort to list 5 things every week I am thankful for, planning on accomplishing, etc. I am a big fan of lists, so this will only further my OCD list-making nature. (As a side sappy note, Justin and I have always done a cheesy little thing of naming 3 things we love about each other. The blog title of "name 3 things" was already taken, so I considered it a sign that we should now tell each other 5 things we love about each other.)

Who knows if anyone will really read the blog, but it is more of a way for me to get my thoughts out there, document interesting (and not so interesting) events, and show the progress of our house.

So with that introduction . . . let the blogging begin!