I know, I know, I've been noticeably absent from blogland for the last couple of weeks. Needless to say, things have been a little c-r-a-z-y here at the Lo house! The sad part is that I've had much to blog about, but, no pictures to post with my updates! My camera power cord is still in our room back at the house we were staying at during the transition time, and I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet. My camera battery is completely dead. SO, more pictures of the settling in process will be forthcoming, but I thought it was time to at least give a brief rundown of our recent activity!
We had a good Thanksgiving with the Lo family! This was my second Thanksgiving with Truman's family, but my first Thanksgiving officially being a "Lo"! With all of the busyness going on with both us and
Truman's sister and brother in law, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving in Austin this year. Truman's parents graciously braved the boxes and came from Houston to stay with us for a couple of days. While it wasn't exactly a leisurely visit (we promptly put them to work), we did feed them well on Thanksgiving! My brother in law, Dennis, deep fried our turkey. It was the first time I'd had fried turkey and it was delicious! I can understand why families' try it once and never go back to the roasting method. We had much to be thankful for this year!
The real insanity began on Black Friday. My wonderful and very patient husband humored me and joined in the shopping extravaganza. I was so thankful to have company and some muscle to help! Since we had just moved into our house, we had some basic items that we really needed to purchase. With our move falling so close to the biggest shopping day of the year, we felt the need to take full advantage of all of those discounts! We were up at 3:15 and in the Kohl's parking lot by 4:00. By 11:00 am we had put in a full 7 hour day of shopping and grabbed some *great* bargains at two stores!!! While Truman vows this was his first and last Black Friday excursion, it was well worth it for the significant savings on some necessity items this year!!
My hubby actually had surgery this morning on his collarbone. He broke his collarbone a year and a half ago in an "extreme sledding" accident in Colorado. I know, don't even ask! His collarbone hasn't healed properly, so they went in to shave some of the bone off and look for any other issues. I'm happy to report that the doctor said the surgery was successful. Though Tru is rather nauseous and in some pain, he is fairing as well as can be expected!
In light of his surgery and knowing he won't be able to use his arm to do any lifting or strenuous work for awhile, we had a very full week this last week trying to get things in order around the house. In the process, I seem to have pushed a *little* too hard and woke up with extreme pain in my right shoulder & arm on Thursday night. I basically haven't been able to use my arm for the last two days! But, after some pain meds, heat & a lot of rest, it seems to be improving. With Truman's left arm out of order following his surgery, we make quite a pair right now!
I'm itching to get back to the process of making our house a home. It's still a wasteland of boxes despite significant progress. Does anyone else ever feel like settling in takes a LOT longer than one might expect? I had finally cleared out a significant portion of our living room when Tru picked up a load of belongings from the guest room where we'd been staying...and now, you can hardly walk through the living room again. We do have some fun projects in progress, including refinishing a great piece of furniture I snagged off of
Craigslist, that I look forward to posting about soon! I promise more house pictures will be added soon!!!
It was fun to wake up to several inches of snow on Saturday morning! As usual, our local weathermen were a tiny bit off in their predictions, so I was surprised to see a winter wonderland of white outside the window. We didn't have to venture out, which I think makes the snow even more enjoyable....watching the snowflakes fall from my warm & cozy spot inside! We don't get the pleasure of snow often in Texas, so I'm thankful a blanket of white arrived during our time in Ohio.
This weekend, we had our family Trim the Tree get-together! Our whole family was together and we had a fun afternoon of appetizers, decorating our tree and making gingerbread houses. I had forgotten just how tempting it is to lick your fingers when they are covered in icing from trying to add the candy decorations to your gingerbread house. I think we all made the mistake of licking out of habit, only to be reminded that royal icing tastes more like the cement it functions as, and less like the sweet goodness decorating our annual tradition of sugar cookies! We'll have to bake up a batch of the yummy icing soon because playing with all of that icing made me hungry for sugar cookies that taste as sweet as they look! It's always fun to see the individual creativity of our family come out in our houses. I think our gingerbread village is a festive addition to the dining room table for the holidays!
