Need a Laugh

Things have been stressful but getting better... I have decided 2012 is not my year but I am going to make it my year! or my bitch... either way I will come out winning!

 Getting ready to have a super celebratory weekend for many reasons but most importantly celebrating Mother's Day! I have needed lots of laughs lately and if you want to laugh until you almost pee yourself check out this awesome slideshow from Awkward Family Photos LOVE IT!

 Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there and of course my Mom who is hands down the best! (sorry ladies but it's true!)

Getting back on track...

So I haven't been keeping up with this like I planned to but at least it hasn't been a month since my last post. I think that deserves a gold star!

I have been have some issues and I'm broken... boo hiss. I was born with umbilical hernia and it decided to pop up at a most inconvenient time (well there is never a good time to have hernia. This is the first time I have ever experienced this and it is painful! I have been in a pain for a couple of weeks and went to the Dr. who sent me to the E.R. to rule out more serious things. And here I am! So we are working on getting this taken care of. I have mild umbilical hernia and it is ouchy! So I hate to know what it feels like when it is full fledged how that feels. Here is hoping to getting this resolved and never dealing with it again! (You know the power of positive thinking and all that jazz.)

If you know me I don't let things stop me, or at least I try not too. O has been all up on me about not doing stuff blah blah blah... umm how am I supposed to have fun!?

Well it hasn't stopped us too much, last weekend (which was also before I actually went to the Dr. and the Fun Police started regulating me) we went to the Metro Richmond Zoo to celebrate my friend and her son's birthday (who turned 1!) Two of my good friends both have children born one to two days after their own birthdays. Best Birthday presents ever if you ask me! I also think its pretty neat but they may not agree with me. (too bad!) The zoo was pretty fun and you could feed the animals and get pretty close. 

A Fabulous and Fun time was had by all! I love being able to see friends that I really should see more often, and really Richmond is not that far away at all! We also got a chance to stop by and see my friend Pocahontas and her little family and had a fun but too short catch up visit with them as well!

We are so looking forward to the summer and trips to the beach and making memories with friends and family this year. So much goodness is coming up in the next few months! Don't worry I will do better on keeping things up dated on here (ohh I am such a tease aren't I!?)

Much Love,
J and O

I know I know I suck....

...at keeping up with posts on the blog.(Yeah so you know this is going to be long one so get ready)

I have been seriously tired. That is all, not sure why just have been. So here is to getting my energy back and motivated to keep up with the blog and many other things. Lots of things have been happening at the McNeil house, the weather here in Northern Virginia has been super warm this spring. There pretty much was no winter at all. Most of March it was in the upper 60's and even the 80's a few days.

So Happy Spring! I don't know about you but I am so ready for Spring and Summer and the beach and lake trips. Suntans, margaritas, cookouts, concerts and fun times. I was born to be in the sunshine, I hate winter seriously I do and was pleasantly surprised by the warm winter.

I can seriously drink a million margaritas all day long... you don't believe me just ask my husband. I don't drink often (because usually I forced to be the DD and chauffeur my drunk husband around town just kidding I love you O!) but when I do drink I can drink O under the table.











I also got my craft on and made this Spring wreath. I am straight up proud of myself!




Easter was wonderful, went to church and celebrated the tomb being empty and Christ had Risen. I love Easter it makes everything feel new and reminds me of life and new beginnings and fresh starts. I mean really how lucky are we to have had Christ die on the cross for us! The Easter Bunny swung by our house too. The had a wonderful lunch and dinner with the family and even got a quick visit in with one of my oldest and best friends and her little family too!

See that Easter basket...and all that candy. Yummy right! Well I wouldn't know because O ate it ALL! Well not the Peeps (yet!) but everything else. Sadly I didn't even get one bite of that chocolate bunny. (O did feel guilty and bought me a new chocolate bunny though so he halfway redeemed himself... and he saved me a lot of calories and time in the gym too!)

We did have a cookout a couple weekends ago and enjoyed the early warm weather. Thanks to my addiction to Pinterest I found this awesome cake recipe and I must say the cake is delicious, I will definitely be making this again. It would be perfect for a brunch or shower too! Enjoy and find me on Pinterest! Till next time which I promise will not be too far away! Strawberry Buttermilk Cake 

Oh the places you'll go!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! Today the movie The Lorax comes out in theaters as well, I was super excited because The Lorax is my favorite Dr. Seuss book and I can't get enough. Then this morning I heard the reviews and it made me sad that they were less than stellar. I really hate it when Hollywood takes something amazing and then effs it all up. Hey but they could be wrong and I may just love it (even if Taylor Swift and Zac Efron are voicing two of the characters)-so Im going to give it a chance. Not this weekend but maybe next weekend I will get the chance to go see it. See the last two Saturdays I spent all day watching the 9 films nominated for best picture at the AMC Best Picture Showcase. I LOVE MOVIES, I LOVE GOING TO THE MOVIES YESSIR! I was very proud of myself for only having seen The Help out of all the nominations. As I am sure you all know (since I have been delayed from updating this recently due to the fact I keep trying to master sleeping at work with my eyes open and still being productive and then I get home and crash) The Artist won best picture and yay for them although it was not my personal favorite and would have like to see The Descendants or Midnight and Paris grab that one. The only movie I never ever want to see again is Tree of Life, just saying once is more than enough for me but go ahead and watch it for yourself and then get back to me on that one.

I loved this movie and I read the book which made me cry like a baby. I am warning you  I bawled my ever loving eyes out during this movie. Seriously I cried so much I couldn't breathe. BUT you should see it.

 

Like I said earlier I have just been tired for the past week and have been slacking again at updating. I promise I will try to do better but even right now I feel like I could crash and take a 2 hour nap and not even that would be enough. Must have more caffeine stat...seriously I need more coffee in my life (even more than the 2-4 cups I already drink every day). We celebrated my little brother (not so little anymore at 28) 's birthday this past Sunday and I made Coca Cola Meatballs and baked "fried" pickles. Success! We had ribs and brisket, all the sides and cake and ice cream for dessert. Not too shabby for a Sunday.
 And here are my awesome baked fried pickles (which is a favorite of mine) and you can get the recipe here  http://www.thevanillatulip.com/2011/11/cilantro-garlic-ranch-fried-pickles-and.html


O has been coaching High School and now Middle School wrestling at 2 local schools and loving every minute. O love wrestling more than anything else, except for me (I hope). O and the other coaches at the middle and high school are starting a wrestling club and have been hitting tournaments with the kids on the weekends. O will be wrestling in a tournament himself sometime in April and I can't wait to see my hubby back in action and pinning down guys on the mat. Tonight we have a hot date since we haven't really gotten many chances to sit down and enjoy each others wit and company between wrestling, movies and just the busy busy day to day we have been having lately. Then O will be off at a wrestling tournament in Richmond Saturday and  I am looking forward to sleeping in and getting somethings done around the house that we have been putting off. I will be heading out with the boys another weekend or two or three soon. For now all I have to say is have a good one and GO WARHAMMERS!

And seriously I took this picture on my phone February 20th and seriously we have daffodils in FEBRUARY! The weather has been so crazy and really a mild winter (minus the day of the bursting pipe and the day of no heat of course) Yesterday it was 70 here in the DC area and not for the first time this winter. Now we have a whole garden of daffodils blooming and I have decided that Spring just has to come now because Winter already had his chance.

So its been awhile...

So its been awhile and really so much has been going on I haven't really had time to post anything, but they have been good things so that is a definite plus to being busy. When we weren't busy I was so tired I didn't have the energy to write or post anything.

This is what we have been up to (the long and the short of it)

• I turned 30! My birthday was amazing and full of surprises and really 30 isn't so bad afterall. O surprised me the day before my birthday with a lincoln town car and driver and whisked me away to D.C. for a romantic dinner at Cuba Libre (which is amazing and my favorite). Saturday I celebrated with friends and family and felt so loved and also quite tipsy by the end of the night. (Why is it people want to get you wasted on your birthday, I am not sure but it sure is fun!)
• Our hot water heater broke and in turn our heat stopped working, fun luck runs rampant in our house but it is all back and working now. The pilot on our hot water heater broke (due to a faulty part) and I decided to wait until Monday (the 13th of Feb) to have the plumber come out and fix it since they charged and extra $260 per hour to come out on the weekend (I was trying to be nice to our landlord). Well I didn't realize that we have an Aquatherm heater which uses hot water to heat the house (so very energy efficient of us and to me credit the owner did not know that either) so living with cold water thats fine, no heat not so good, being gone all day and coming home at 10 pm to a freezing cold house (this was the coldest weekend all winter of course as well 20 some degrees outside yay!) not fun. Saturday night we snuggled up with the kitties and space heaters and Sunday after being told they had to order the part they actually found it somewhere and by Sunday night we were back in business.
• We have carpet and walls and our house is all back to normal! YES YES YESSSIR this is so wonderful. It was all finished on the 17th of February and I couldn't be happier, I never knew how much I loved carpet and hated cement until I had to live with it for a month. We will post pictures soon, since I have decided this called for a little redecorating as well (I mean its a good excuse to put all the skills and ideas I have been getting off of pinterest to good use)

In between all this we celebrated other birthdays and had family gatherings. We just installed a new closet system in the coat closet (with a little help from Dad). We are truly thankful for everything we have and know that God was looking out for us and things could always be and have been worse. I have to admit though I am over this fun luck streak and looking forward to quiet and boring hopefully for the rest of the year.

That's all for now! I am excited to be going to the AMC Best Picture Showcase this weekend to see the films nominated for Best Picture and O is going to a wrestling tournament with his middle school wrestlers in Richmond. Sunday we are celebrating my bratty brothers birthday (well he isn't really a brat but is pretty awesome but all little brothers will always be somewhat bratty in their older siblings minds).

Promise to try and post more and keep things more current and witty (or at least try).

Is January over yet?

Not that I am that excited for February since my Birthday is the fourth and I am hitting that milestone big 3-0 and I am not really that excited about that.

But seriously January 2012 has sucked a big one and I am not talking about a lollipop or popsicle. I am over it. I want our house to be back to normal and I want all this insurance drama to be over and I want my routine back and everyone to be happy and healthy. Every other day something is going on and usually its not the best of news, and its making me grouchy. Seriously, my happy smiley demeanor is fading quickly and I am finding it harder and harder to be nice.

So we are still rocking the concrete floors but we bought some nice area rugs so that does make it better, I still sigh every time I come home though.  See how pretty the rug is though :-)

We also have our closet door sealed with plastic and lovely blue painters tape since there is a wall missing and old man winter has started to make and appearance and that cold air was straight up blowing into the house making it freezing. But now it is so much warmer, we just divert our eyes from our saran wrapped closet. It depresses me but I know things could be worse and mostly it is the other fun and games that are coming along with all this mess that are making me cuckoo. I can't talk about it but I will be so happy when this is all over. There really is so much to be thankful though, like that our gorgeous walls were not destroyed and that it really could be so much worse that it is. I am thankful for that, it is just starting to get to me.

Oh and by the way NEVER GO TO JIFFY LUBE. They suck and have added to my winter blues. They broke my car when I went in for an oil change. I drove away thinking how smart I was for getting it done one time and how there wasn't a line and then white smoke billowed from the tail pipe and my car wouldn't accelerate. WTF!? Lucky for me I have a great friend who followed me back since I was scared I was going to break down in the middle of the road or an intersection and end up on the 4 o'clock news for being the lady in the hoopty who cause a 10 mile backup. My car has never done this before ever and for the record it is definitely not a hoopty, so I was a little upset. So they gave me an excuse for what happened, even though between you and me I think they didn't put oil in the car. It is all back together and working well now. But I am NEVER going back there again. I have hear horror stories about Jiffy Lube before and I should have headed the warnings. Lesson learned.

I also got to spend time with my wonderful delightful cousins (in case you can't read sarcasm that statement is dripping with it). I love my family and my cousins, but sometimes they can turn into Satan and that's how I know we are really related. Everyone is well and on the mend now but I am sure I will get lots more qaulity one on one time with the little darlings. Also side note I am never having more than 3 kids seriously anymore than that and I might lose my mind. I have lots of respect for all parents but even more for people with half a dozen children.

Happy news though we booked a house at Chincoteague Island, VA for vacation this Summer, YAY! That is so a silver lining and now the countdown to June begins! I cannot wait for time with the family, sunshine, ocean waves and sand between my toes! Early morning bike rides, and seeing the wild ponies and amazing wildlife on Assateague.

Sorry for my ranting and venting but this has been the longest month ever. Hoping that we get our house back soon and we can move along and put this all behind us. O and I decided that after this month we have gotten all our bad luck for the year out of the way, so come on February and the rest of 2012! I am so lucky to have such a great husband who loves me and brings me wine for dinner.

When it rains it POURS

In our case though it didn't even need to rain to have water pouring from our ceiling all over the first floor of our house. O got home last Wednesday and our first floor was flooded and water was gushing from a pipe that had burst. How long had it been raining inside our house who knows but why couldn't it have happened while we were at home ugghh. That's life though I guess. We rent our townhouse and so are working with the landlord in getting everything back to normal quickly. And now our house is dry- yay! We spent 5 days with 13 industrial fans and 2 dehumidifiers and it was not fun, but as of yesterday we are free and dry and in the clear! That is a huge relief and now we wait to have carpet and few other repairs made and we can get back to normal. How long until it gets done is the question and with insurance you never know (or so I am told since I have never filed an insurance claim before and well there is a first time for everything). So I try not to cry every time I walk in the house and it is a little bit easier now but I am a neat freak and have slight obsessive compulsive tendencies so it is hard for me. O was in awe of why I had to organize all the things we brought up from the first floor into separate boxes etc. each specifically for a room downstairs, well organizing makes me feel better (maybe I have control issues you think?) and besides it will make it that much easier to put everything back when this whole ordeal is over. The long and the short of it is this sucks- big time and dealing with everything sucks even more BUT we will get past it and we will be done with all of this soon and things could be much worse. So we are thankful that it was only the first floor and that the damage wasn't worse because it could have been much worse than it was and besides who knows maybe we will start a trend with cement floors as the new it thing to have in your home :-) and while we are thankful we ask for your good vibes and prayers to get things swiftly taken care of and that everyone is happy in the end with the outcome.

While in the midst of this O decided that I was right about us having WAY too many dvds (after having to carry them all to the third floor in a hurry) and so we sorted through them (well he did mostly while I was being crazy and organizing things into boxes) and went to O's favorite place 2nd and Charles and we got $106 for them - YAY! We also left with 20 more comic books for O, but as he tells me this will be an investment and really in 20 years those comics will be worth a lot of money. So here's to retiring early with all the money we will make off comic books!