I am still somewhat recovering from the flu....my energy level is still pretty low and I still have a little bit of a residual cough but I've finished my courses of medicines and overall, feel a lot better than I was! Sterling has been having a lot of congestion lately - mainly allergy related though.
We are in the process of gearing up for the holidays. The Hill family Thanksgiving is going to be at our house this year. Last weekend, we went to the Nutcracker market and piddled around looking for some holiday decorations. We didn't find anything in our price range that we were crazy about, but we did get to do a lot of taste testing - which Sterling of course loved :) It was all I could do to keep up with him, jumping from booth to booth tasting sauces and dips and honeys and butters and spreads.....He had a good time :) We ended up buying some really good spiced tea, some "Country Cowboy" Amaretto Honey Butter (also realllllly good), some Irish cream hot chocolate mix, and a couple of mixes that dependent upon what you add to them, they can be used to baste/flavor different meats or made into a chip/pretzel dip. I might attempt to make some over Thanksgiving...
Rice Homecoming was also last weekend. We didn't go to the game as we had to be home for our alarm system to be installed, but we did go out to dinner with some friends who were in town. We went to a pretty good Mexican restaurant called El Pueblito . The patio area is really cool. Sterling said it made him feel like he was on vacation because the fans looked like palm leaves, haha. The boys ordered pitchers of Margaritas....needless to say, it made for an interesting time.
We also got some house stuff done over the past weekend. We organized our garage (one side is our yard stuff and the other side is all of the stuff we are going to either sell in the next garage sell or donate to goodwill). We still have a lot of boxes in the formal living room but I collapsed all of the big ones and left all of the dish size boxes alone. We have room in our attic for them but we are going to check with Perry homes first about putting stuff up there. They told us previously that it could be used for some storage but not to put too much up there because it could effect the ventilation of the attic (and subsequently, our bills and the moisture content of the house). I guess we will just have to find out how much is "too much". For the time being though, it doesn't bother me too much to just have them neatly stacked against the wall of that room. It's not like there is furniture in there and it's not really being used right now anyways. We still have a bunch of miscellaneous stuff in our 4th bedroom that we will have to clear out before mom, dad, Janna, Brett, Jessica and David come down. And the room that we are using as an office definitely needs some organizing....papers everywhere! We will see how much of that actually gets done before Thanksgiving....we are aiming to at least have the bedrooms cleared out. We have one extra queen sized mattress and then a queen size aerobed...we are going to see about borrowing another air mattress or two from a friend so that we can accommodate everyone.
We haven't gotten around to buying any decorations or anything like that for the house, but I did get us some new ceramic cereal bowls on sale from Ross :) They look pretty similar to the Biltmore phoebe cream china we already have and the Biltmore china only had the wide soup bowls - we needed some deep bowls for cereal. If you've ever seen Sterling go after some Reese Puffs or Cocoa Krispies in the morning, you know why :)
For Thanksgiving, I already bought our turkey and ham (great deal at HEB - buy the half spiral ham, get the 12lb turkey free!). Now I just have to figure out how to cook them :) I am also planning on making some of my mom's mashed potatoes, some sort of green bean casserole dish, stuffing, some bread/rolls, double layer symphony brownies, and roasted chicken pie florentine (sounds fancy I know, lol :) I learned how to make it from a lady giving out samples at HEB. It's pretty good!)
We are also excited to put up our Christmas tree and some Christmas decor outside. We have the tree (which is pre-lit) and a few ornaments (like probably 5 so far, haha)....we'll have to go find some more tree decorations and a few little outdoor decorations. We were thinking some basic outdoor lights and a nice wreath :)
When my parents come for Thanksgiving, apparently we are celebrating Christmas with them at that time also. I had previously been planning on getting presents during day after Thanksgiving sales and then just mailing them up since we won't be in TN for Christmas this year...so I'll have to add some Christmas shopping to our to do list next weekend. We are celebrating Christmas with Sterling's family this year in Maypearl :) We're a little jealous (ok, a lot jealous!!) cause they will be getting back from JAMAICA right around the time we go up there! We were invited to go but it wasn't really feasible for Sterling's work schedule. He has to be at work for at least 3 or 4 days before Nymex settle...and we also want to make sure he is doing all that he can to set himself up for a raise or a good bonus...or just to stay employed in general. With this economy, if companies think they can do without you, you'll get cut. Fortunately, Sterling has been doing a good job at work and seems to get along really well with everyone and the programs that he has written have been able to earn the company quite a bit of mula, so I'm not worried about him earning his keep :) I think they like him and want to keep him for the long haul :) Just like me :)
Other than that, we have Adalia and Erik's wedding next Saturday which should be fun :) Next weekend is shaping up to be a busy one!!!
Life is busy but good, we feel very blessed :)
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