Weekend Warriors

We accomplished everything on our To-Do list this weekend! 

Friday night, Justin came home and said they didn't have to work on Saturday after all--yippee! So we stayed up late and watched Adam Sandler's Grown Ups to celebrate (yes, we're lame!)...and since I can't sit still for long, I put up the Christmas tree.  Personally, I love all the colors of the lights and decorations but that doesn't stop me from dreaming of eventually owning a department store tree!  We still have more indoor decorating to do, but having the tree up will bring so much cheer to the house :-)

Saturday morning came and I got up to run errands...and once that was over, I started some food for our staff meeting potluck and put up the garland on our fence. The garland is pretty wimpy and I wish the fence was already painted white, but it will have to do for this year.  However, the best part--everything cost just $15!  Thank you, Hobby Lobby for your awesome sales :-)

While I was at our staff meeting, Justin raked up the yard, bagged up all the leaves and cleaned out the gutters.  For having a day-off, he ended up working pretty hard...but that's Justin for ya.  I did have a quick break between some  meetings, so I put up the icicle lights along the porch railing...I just can't wait to finally turn them on!

Then today--Santa came!  That's right!  He noticed the TV we'd been wanting since March was on sale at Best Buy--and it was a pretty good sale, too.  It's perched on the bedroom dresser for the time being and seems HUGE compared to our old one!  Granted, it's only a 32" inch but it's much better than my old one from college.

After lunch, I started pulling out my garden. I'd been putting it off for as long as possible--just this past Monday, our pepper plants were still blooming and we picked a few big bowls full this afternoon. It was a successful year for our tomatoes as well...after pulling out the first plant, I found a bunch of fruit that had been concealed by the overgrown foliage!

And after removing all three plants, this is what we found!  Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do the quantity of hidden tomatoes justice.

Finally, we got around to hanging the rest of the Christmas lights...I must say, they cost more than I thought they would! Let me take that back--the lights weren't too expensive, but the darn extension cords were! Our outdoor outlet is on the back of the house, so we have to run a cord to the multi-outlet stake (it came with a built-in timer and being on sale, was cheaper than a normal outlet!), run a cord to the lights around the roof, run a cord to the lights on the south end of the porch and run a cord to the lights on the north end of the porch...we went from having 0 cords to 4 in a matter of minutes!

We maxed out our budget for the outdoor decorations but I still have tons of ideas for the dormer, front windows and garage.  Guess those ideas will have to wait until next year, unless I would happen to randomly stumble upon a bunch of money in the coming weeks!

After hanging the lights and doing some maintenance on my car, the outdoor work was finally done!  We were able to come in and defrost some--today's high was forecasted at 62-65* but it never got above 44* and with the windchill, it felt like 41*.  It was a bit cold!  But after some bubbly Tater Tot Casserole, leftover creamed corn and Jell-O cheesecake, we're ready to start packing for Louisiana...we're not usually fanatic about decorating for Christmas and I'm sure the neighbors think we're overzealous, but I wanted all the outdoor decorations to be done so we could return from Thanksgiving and enjoy them!  Now we'll just have to see if I can refrain from turning the lights on between now and when we leave...