Random Tidbits

Bear with me on this one, ladies, it is going to be completely random!  

I want to start off by saying Yay!  Welcome new followers!  So glad that you stop by my little corner of the blogging universe.  :)

Prayers for Sweet Babies

There are so many sweet babies (and mommies & daddies) that need every prayer they can get right now.  Check out my sidebar for links to find out more about them, in case you haven't already.

(The Horror of) Eating Out

So sorry for depressing everyone with my last post!  Nothing depresses me more than realizing that I have been stuffing my tummy with all of this crap.  :(  Boo.  JPO had a great point about portion control - things aren't nearly so bad if you only eat 1/2!  My mom used to preach this to me constantly when I was growing up.  I have a girlfriend that eats 1/2 of her portion at restaurants and then dumps salt on it so that she won't eat it.  It's a little strange, but it saves the picking that I always do while waiting on someone to come steal my plate away.  I should also point out that there are some sensible (yet still yummy) things to eat if you have to do the drive-thru:  McDonald's 6 piece Chicken Nuggets have 17 grams of fat and 250 calories while Taco Bueno Chicken Taco Rollups only have 8 grams of fat and 210 calories.  

Local DFW Area Christmas Needs

While I know not all of my readers are in the DFW area, if you are one that does and feel so inclined, check out this story about Hope's Door.  They are a Plano women's shelter that caters to women and their children who are in need and have possibly (and probably) been a victim of domestic violence.  The charity who had committed to providing Christmas gifts for the women and children at the shelter refuse to do so without receiving the names of those living at Hope's Door.  It is against Hope's Door's policy to divulge this information, as it is a safety matter for everyone living there, not just the domestic violence victims.  You can read the news story here.  If you, or someone (or company) you know that is interesting in becoming a donor, contact information is available at the bottom of the story. 

Why do my children want the most obscure Christmas gifts?

Every year they just have to want the hardest-to-find items to come from the big man.  Seriously.  Last year it was the Zhu-Zhu pets, which my husband single-handedly tracked down via a combination of Craigslist and eBay.  This year it is the Zhu-Zhu princess collection (which I think were an eBay-only release as I have not seen them in any stores and the people at Target had no idea what I was talking about) and this beauty:

The Barbie 3-Story Dream Townhouse.  This thing is awesome.  I think I might want it for me more than the girls.  Just kidding.  I think.  Anyway, it is very cool and has all sorts of working lights, sounds, and overall jazziness that my 80's dream house didn't.  I did see a big stack of them at Toys'R'Us a few weeks ago, however, they were about $50 more at TRU than at Wal-Mart.  So, I foolishly decided to wait patiently for them to come back in stock at Wallyworld.com.  They are still out of stock with no signs of coming in anytime soon.  In the meantime, TRU is sold out, as is everyone else except Amazon.  Amazon, where they are priced $100ish more than they were at TRU.  Freaking ridiculous!  Husbie and I decided that the Barbie house would make a great Valentine gift.  About 10 minutes after this discussion, my assistant comes in to tell me that she has found it on Amazon for cheaper than the original TRU price.  Holy crap, she has redeemed herself!  *I should note here that I did not assign her with the task of finding it, she did it on her own.  Mainly b/c I think she would rather shop than work, but that is a whole different topic*  So, it is on its way here.  Hooray!  That was a huge item off the list.

The Best Laid Plans

My feelings toward TheLimited.com right now are not thoughts of sugarplums, they are thoughts of coal.  I ordered the adorable skirt from my Office Party WWW post on November 29.  It is still not here.  Husbie's office party is tomorrow night.  The skirt is supposed to be to me on Saturday.  NOT helpful.  The Limited never communicated that it would take over a week to get it out of their warehouse.  To make matters worse, it is coming via FedEx SmartPost, which I have learned is the shittiest (language, sorry) way to send a package.  It has gone from Ohio to Massachusetts to Dallas.  It is now sitting in a sort facility in Dallas and I cannot pick it up!!  SP packages are delivered by the post office, not FedEx.  I am hoping our post office can catch it and hold it tomorrow so I can pick it up.  Tonight I will be searching for an alternate skirt in case it doesn't.  Husbie's office environment is of the bureaucratic federal variety, so it is always difficult for me to find a cute outfit that is appropriate and doesn't make me look 20 years older than I am.  This was THE outfit!  Fingers crossed that all works out!

Tweet, Tweet!

Do you tweet?  I do!  My twitter username is @applesfalling.  My tweets are private, primarily because I don't like all of the spammers following me and there are certain individuals that I know IRL that I may or may not tweet frustrations about sometime.  So, please follow me!  I try to reply to some of y'all sometimes and you don't see it because I am private.

I'm a total space cadet.

Sooo, I posted about a really fun blog hop that I was doing here, and I never posted the responses I got.  Bad blog hop cruise director!  I'll be posting them later today, I promise.  

I hope everyone is having a great week!  It's almost the weekend!  :)

Dear Santa,

I am realizing, as it is 2 days before Thanksgiving, that it is time for me to make my Christmas list!  I have had a mental list, up until this point, but I know I am going to (if I haven't already) forget to mention things to those involved until it is too late!  So here goes:

UGG Cardy Classic Knit Boots in Black

I really wanted these last year, but had lots more important things on my Christmas list that were prioritized above them.  I love to wear boots in the winter and end up wearing my leather boots all the time.  I would really like to have something more casual to wear on the weekends and these would be perfect.

The Entire Victoria's Secret Clothing Catalog

Thanks to WorkWear Wednesday, this one probably goes without saying.  I love VS's clothing, so cute and so affordable!  Their loungewear is super cute - the Steelers tee is definitely on my list and I really like the sweatshirt & sweatpants on the top right.  Who am I kidding?  I would like everything!  :)

Somewhere Fancy to go on NYE

So I could wear this dress (or something quite like it)! We haven't been out for NYE in years (other than last year's fail of a dinner at Del Frisco).  I think it would be fun to go to a big party where I would get to wear sparkly cocktail attire.  I'm sure I'll be sporting yoga pants and a t-shirt as usual this year, though.  There's always hope for next year!

Reebok Easy Tone Apparel

I don't usually spend lots of money on work out clothes, but I might make an exception for the new line of Easy Tone Apparel.  Reebok has built resistance bands into the tops and pants in this collection to help increase muscle activation.  Very cool!  I found out about it from chatting with one of the Reebok girls at Dick's Sporting Goods a couple of weeks ago.  I'm all about anything that will help me maximize my workout!

Belkin Pro-Fit Armband for iPhone 4

I am still not completely sold on wearing my iPhone on my arm to work out - the phone is almost as wide as my guns.  My big.scary.guns.  But I digress.  So, this is pretty much the smallest armband I could find, in that it doesn't add to much bulk to the already bulky phone.

8GB iPod Nano in Pink
Just in case my whole strap-an-ipod-the-size-of-a-calculator-to-my-arm thing doesn't work out, I would really love a new 8GB iPod Nano in Pink (of course).  Our first Christmas together when we were dating, husbie bought me the 1st generation Nano, which I still use!  It works like a champ, other than when it sometimes freezes and won't turn off.  This doesn't happen very often and the sucker is 6 years old.  Solid investment!  Now the Nano has cool clips so you don't need above armband for the gym.  

And here comes the section in which I realize I am a completely boring adult...

KitchenAid Porcelain Cookware Set 
We need new cookware baddddd.  We have a combination of our pre-marriage cookware and it has gots to go.  Granted, this is something we could/should just buy for ourselves, but there's always a list of things ahead of it that seem to be more important.   I like that this set is red and got excellent ratings from Target.  Granted, I would really like an ah-may-zing set from Williams-Sonoma, but I don't want to take up that much of the Christmas budget for something boring like cookware!

KitchenAid Riveted 18-pc Knife Block Set

Pretty much the same applies to our knives as our cookware.  Old, mis-matched, not dinner party kosher.  I could buy them for myself, but decor is soooo much more fun than knives.  And the taste of certain gift givers does not affect knife purchases. 

Sony VAIO Signature Collection EA Series in Arabesque Black
This one is really going out to my Work Santa (our CFO).  I'm up for a new laptop in the next few months and I LOVE this one.  I think it would be a really hard sell - since it is SO girly.  It would be pretty funny if I left the company and they hired a dude to take my spot.  Ha!  He'd probably take one look at the laptop and run the other way.  Regardless, if I was buying a personal laptop, I love this one.  Sony also has a 8" netbook in Crocodile Pink.  It is so.freaking.cute. 

Of course there are a million other things that I can think of, but I'm trying to be realistic here.

Let's do a fun blog hop here!  Send an email to me at applesfalling(at)gmail(dot)com with what your wildest Christmas wish would be, along with a link to your blog.  Next Tuesday I will put up everyone's Christmas wishes with hyperlinks to their blogs.  I think everyone enjoyed the last one about 'something not everyone knows about you' and hopefully this one will be fun as well.  Send me your links by 8PM next Monday, December 29.