things i do not want to do before i die

I read this article. It made me laugh and then it made me think. There are quite a few things on that last that I 100% agree with, but I have some other ones to add. I decided to make my own list.

SHANNON'S REVERSE BUCKET LIST

• Go camping. This picture sums up how I feel about the outdoors. 

via

• Run a marathon. As a former cross country runner, I have run some pretty high mileage in my life. But a marathon? That just sounds awful.
• Doing a cleanse. I get that you can lose crazy awesome amounts of weight and feel amazing, but I cannot live on lemonade, cayenne pepper, and syrup. Or leafy green vegetables. If I can't have Velveeta or a buffalo chicken sandwich, I'm not interested.
• Become a vegetarian. Similar to above. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge animal lover, but I just simply cannot live without eating meat. I mean I COULD live without it, but I don't want to.
• Climb Mount Everest. First, see item #1 up there. Second, when I think about climbing Mount Everest, I am instantly transported back to the documentary I watched at the IMAX theater when I was little. The whole thing was about pain and dying. That's how climbing Mount Everest works. You are either going to be in so much pain, or your going to die. NOPE.
• Backpack across Europe (or any continent for that matter). Seeing the world is definitely on my real life bucket list, but I want to do it with all my stuff. If I'm going to be in a foreign country for a month or longer, I will need at the very least three large bags. How else will I pack multiple changes of shoes? Backpacks are not forgiving on shoes.
• Know what my animals are thinking. This seems to be on a lot of people's actual bucket lists. I'm pretty sure I already know what los chats are thinking. Food, sleep, pet me, play with me, leave me the f*#@ alone, you're crazy. Anything other than that, I don't think I want to know...
• Taking a cruise. Being trapped on a boat with a bunch of strangers for a week? I'll pass.
• Have children naturally. It's a very personal choice for everyone. When that time comes, GIVE ME ALL OF THE DRUGS.
• Learn to knit. What in the world will I be able to accomplish with that? Making quilts that can sit around and collect cat fur? Knitting sweaters for Christmas that everyone will pretend to love but actually they throw them away as soon as they get home? No thanks.

What's on your reverse bucket list?

around the bungalow: christmas presents

Our Christmas wreath that my mom made us. It was peacock themed, of course.

Santa was pretty darn good to us this year. You know you're an adult when your wishlist has things like pots and pans and a hardwood floor cleaner on it. We have roughly 1300 square feet of hard floors, 1100 of it original hardwood and the remaining 200 is tile. It's not fun to mop that many square feet. We have had our eye on Andy's parents' Hoover FloorMate hard floor cleaner for quite some time now. When Andy's mom carted in a big box and set it down in front of us on Christmas day, I did a huge fist pump and a "yesssssssssss". The FloorMate was ours!

It's beautiful, right?

Andy and I also treated ourselves to some time at the mall the day after Christmas. Gag. It was crazy busy, but we were on a mission. Fiestaware was on sale at Younkers, and we knew that if we didn't get it that day, we would never do it. We have a few glass cabinets in our kitchen, and they were previously being used as cookbook storage because that was the only acceptable looking thing to put in there. We had been using my plastic Target plates and cups that I bought my freshman year of college that were a little worse for wear (ie. half melted). So we stepped it up and now have awesome colorful Fiestaware!

Turquoise, Lemongrass, Marigold, and Tangerine.

I feel like such a grown up now with such fancy plates! The nice thing about Fiestaware is that we can keep adding colors to our collection and if someone breaks a piece (klutzy me will most likely be the culprit), you can replace individual pieces instead of having to buy a new set. Andy's grandma had a large collection that was split up after she died. Andy's dad has an orange water pitcher made with radioactive paint in the 50's. It's worth A LOT of money. 

Andy is making me throw away the plastic plates and cups and I am having such a hard time parting with them. I have no idea why. Farewell cheap, single girl life...

Did you get presents that made you say "yesssssssssssssss"? Also, do you have any tips on how I can cope with the loss of my plastic plates? 

baking extravaganza

I took Friday off to enjoy my new KitchenAid mixer. My sister came over and helped for awhile, but my total bake time was 7 hours Friday and 3 hours Saturday. You could say I got a little carried away. Behold! The fruits of my labor:

Mini Mint Truffle Brownies

recipe found here

Raspberry Swirl Mini Cheesecakes

recipe found here

Peanut Blossoms (can't have Christmas without these!

recipe found here

Shannon tested hint - take the cookies out with 2 minutes left of baking time and add the Hershey's Kisses. Put back in oven for remaining two minutes. This will help the Kisses stay soft, instead of rock hard as soon as they cool.

Oreo Bark

recipe found here

Shannon tested hint - You don't need the double boiler. I used a bag of Ghirardelli white chocolate chips and melted them in the microwave in closely supervised 30 second intervals.

My hard work laid out at my parent's house before people got their hands on it.

All of these recipes have been added to this. My mom made me a binder full of her and her mom's recipes, with plenty of room to add my own. Probably my favorite present ever.

Did you bake for your holiday gatherings? I want to hear your recipes! I have plenty of space for them in my new binder.

P.S. I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas. I know we did at the Bungalow.

writing it fancy and kites

Cuddle buddies sleeping on the couch.

Andy works hard. Very hard. Some weeks he puts in 60-70 hours. Such is the life of a fancy-pants engineer. When he works a lot or gets stressed, he talks in his sleep. When we first started dating, it scared the living daylights out of me because I had no idea what was going on. The first night I encountered the sleep talking went like this:

Andy: Do you want me to write it fancy for you?

Me: (half asleep, confused) Do I want you to what?

Andy: I don't know. Some people like it to be written fancy.

Then he went back to sleep. I was wide awake by that point. What in the world had just transpired? Did I miss something? Was I the crazy one? He had no recollection of what he said in the morning when I asked him what the heck he was talking about. The weirdest thing about his sleep talking is that he is able to hold a semi-conversation with me while he's doing it, so I'm never sure if he is actually awake or if he's talking in his sleep. I used to get mad, because this girl does NOT like anyone messing with her beauty sleep, but now I can't help but think it's funny because he says some hilarious things. Most recently, the conversation went a little like this:

Andy: The kites. There are kites and flags. Flying.

Me: Tell me about those kites and flags.

Andy: They're all there. The kites. Flags. Kites?

Me: What about them?

Andy: I'm not sure.

And he went back to sleep and I laughed quietly for a long time. Then I gave him a really hard time about it in the morning. Only fair for waking me up, right?

Have you encountered any sleep talkers? Was it as funny as when Andy does it?

christmas traditions

Does anyone else feel like their head might pop off the week of Christmas from sheer excitement and stress? I do. So to combat that feeling, I was thinking about my favorite Christmas traditions. Probably my favorite tradition I had growing up was my sister and I's Christmas morning tradition. 

My sister (right) and I (left) when we were just baby people. Also, MATCHING OUTFIT ALERT! My mom did that kind of stuff to us all the time.

My sister and I being pirates (??????) in Hawaii last winter. 

Let me start  by saying that my sister is the only person who consistently makes me laugh so hard I cry. We have so many inside jokes that it gets hard for anyone on the outside to understand what we are saying. Two years ago for Christmas she printed off a copy of our all of our Facebook interactions since she first got Facebook. I was sobbing laughing. We are just crazy ladies when we are together.

So in our family you are not allowed to watch A Christmas Story until AFTER church on Christmas Eve. It's just the rules. I have no idea when and why that rule came into place. My family LOVES that movie and we can all quote it from heart.

On Christmas morning every single year I would wake up before the crack of dawn to crawl in bed with my sister and watch A Christmas Story with her. Also, no boys allowed (this made my brother Dylan cry on several occasions, sorry dude!). We weren't allowed to go downstairs until my parents gave us the go ahead. They would torture us by going down there and poking around and arranging and making the coffee and generally being rude. So my sister and I would just wait it out in her bed watching the movie until it was time to gather at the top of the stairs (my mom would give us a 5 minute warning and we would sit at the top of the stairs, Dylan included, until they told us we could come down). It was something we did every single year, even when I was 20 years old living at home for a few months. She is home for break and was joking that I should come spend the night and we can do it again for old times sake. 

Sometimes it's sad to grow up. Traditions fade, but memories will always remain.

What are your favorite traditions? Do you still do them or are they something that you did as a kid? Are you Christmasing so hard this week? I am.

target FAIL

Last week, Andy told me that my Christmas present would be arriving by UPS on Friday. I got all excited and told him that I would know what it is because I would definitely read the shipping label (I've always been a Christmas snooper). He told me, "It's from Target. Good luck with that." Dang. There is so much amazingness at the Target!

So Friday came and I was the first one home from work that afternoon. I went out to the porch to get the mail, and there was a big brown box sitting next to the door. I got all squeal-y and got the mail quickly while trying not to look at the box. I turned around to go back into the house and the box was in plain sight since it was right next to the door. I ran into the house in some attempt to unsee what I had just seen.  Those #@$#@%ers shipped my present in the original box.

TARGET SHIPPING FAIL.

I called Andy and told him the bad news. He told me that it wasn't that big of a deal because he didn't think he was going to be able to wait until Saturday to give it to me anyways (we are TERRIBLE about waiting until Christmas, birthdays, etc. to give each other gifts). But, he was sad that he didn't see my face when I saw it. I told him to hurry home because I needed to open that sucker right away. I have wanted a KitchenAid mixer for pretty much my whole life. I often joked that the only reason why I wanted to get married was so that I could register for one. It is a pretty awesome gift, and one that I in no way expected (last year he got me RayBan Wayfarer's and got so excited that he texted me a picture of the sunglasses sized wrapped box, so I knew what I was getting). AND he got me my favorite color!

Isn't she beautiful!? It's more of a lime/apple green than how light the picture makes it look. My sister is coming over on Friday and we are going to bake like there is no tomorrow. Homemade peppermint marshmallows anyone?

Do you wait until you're supposed to give gifts or do you get too excited like Andy and I do? Are you giving any awesome gifts this year that you can't wait to see their face when they open it? Are you as excited for this weekend as I am? I am going to Christmas so hard (reference here, that blog is awesome).

scenes from the weekend - ugly sweater edition!

Happy Holidays!

(lately after watching too much TV, Andy and I call it "Happy Honda-days!")

This weekend we had Andy's family's first annual ugly sweater party. To say that it was an absolute blast is an understatement. I laughed so hard I cried all night long.

Then things got a little hairy. (Or scaly? Reptiles don't have hair)

Andy's cousin works for an animal sanctuary that travels the country visiting schools and other groups. He was on his way in town for the holidays, and had the animals in his van until he could get them to the sanctuary the next day. Of course we needed him to bring them inside. What really cracks me up is all the crazy animals in front of the beautiful Christmas tree. 

Craziest. Christmas. Party. EVER.

Also the most fun.

Did you go to any holiday parties this weekend? Ugly sweaters or not? I got mine at the Walmarts for $20 (HIGHWAY ROBBERY) because every thrift store in Omaha was sold out. I guess ugly sweater parties are popular here.

links i'm lovin'

May I introduce you to Phil? He's very happy to meet you.

This has been on repeat in the car and in the office.

I don't think there is a cuter baby that nathefatrat's Huck.

I love this etsy shop. Her work is beautiful.

A chevron ceiling? To die for. Also, I love the chandelier.

This is so funny. I got the church giggles at work watching it.

I want this so bad it hurts inside.

Are these obnoxious or awesome? I can't decide.

I really want to try this. It looks delicious. Plus, Mandy is hilarious.

Cat lady alert! When my coworker and I are having a bad day, we always look at this.

This couch really wants to live in my house. I know it.


What links are you lovin' this week?

surprise date

Andy and I went to Pitch Coal Fired Pizzeria last night. I was still all dressed up pretty from work when he was on his way back from a meeting, so he picked me up at home and took me on a surprise date. Surprise dates are the best kind of date because they get you out of doing the mound of laundry you were supposed to take care of.

Pitch is in our favorite neighborhood, Dundee, but I had never been there before (Andy had). We went to a place that was similar over the summer in Minneapolis called Black Sheep (check it out, it is so good), so Andy had been talking about going to Pitch again ever since. It is always SUPER packed on weekends, so a weeknight is the way to go if you don't want to wait.

The lighting in the restaurant was spectacular. I might be a little biased because my work designed it, but I really loved it. I couldn't get a good picture of the bare single Edison style bulbs that hung over each table, but that was probably my favorite part. I also was a big fan of the wall of back lit wine bottles above the expo line for the kitchen. Overall, I think it is one of the best designed restaurants in town.

We had the calamari to start with and HOLY COW it was good. There were little slices of pepperoncini and zucchini added in and the breading had a bit of spice to it. Probably the best calamari I have ever had, and that's saying something. I've eaten a lot of calamari in my life.

Next up was the Mia pizza. It had a sweet tomato sauce topped with fresh mozzerella, fennel sausage, and huge pepperonis. Delicious. I ate way too much last night but I am so excited for that leftover pizza for lunch today!

Do you like trying new restaurants or do you stick with your tried and true? I try to do a little of both.

p.s. - It's almost Friday. Wooooooo!

starbucks: 1, shannon: 0

So I have been struggling with an addiction lately. It's name is Starbucks.

Taken when the morning they joyously started using their holiday cups.

It all started a few months ago with a coworker telling me about some rewards program that Starbucks had. I was so very intrigued. I love rewards! I love Starbucks! This is so great! So I went and got myself a gift card (you have to have a gift card to sign up for the program) and registered myself in the program online.

Levels. Those dang levels and my competitiveness. There are three levels of their program. introductory, green, and gold. When you hit the gold level, they send you a fancy membership card. You know I don't mess around with ordinary. I needed that gold level! And so it began. The almost daily trips started adding up. Did I want a blueberry muffin with my grande skinny caramel macchiatto? Sure did! Extra shot? Yup! The reminder emails flooded my inbox. "3 more stars until you hit the green level!" I hit the green level in a couple of weeks. Next came the hard part, getting to that beautiful, gleaming gold level. I scheduled my mornings around getting to Starbucks. I woke up early! I battled traffic! I fought the rich teenagers from the fancy school across the street! I was a Starbucks warrior, on a quest for gold. Before I knew it, I was only a few stars away from my beloved gold card. I wondered what it would be like, to obtain what I had been working so hard for.

Well. I hit the gold level last week. I was so excited when I got that email exclaiming that I had finally done it. I opened it to read, "Your personalized Gold Card will arrive shortly (please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery)". 6 to 8 weeks!? That's a long time away to wait! Could I possibly make it? I guess I would have to.

Then Chuck (my car) died. Looking at the cost of repairing that poor guy made me think long and hard about my finances. I was spending $20 a week at Starbucks. That is over $1000 a year.

ABSOLUTE AND UTTER INSANITY.

As I sit here drinking my Diet Coke (free from the fridge at work), I know that I am not immune to Starbucks' alluring scents that waft to me in my dreams. I will go to Starbucks again. Maybe even to use my fancy new gold card. But I sure as heck am not spending $20 a week there any longer. You may have won this round Starbucks, but I'm fighting back.

back to your regularly scheduled programming

downtown buildings all lit up for the holidays | awesome neon signs at a bar downtown | wish i could have gotten a better picture of this one, the bottoms up kolsch | holiday lights festival on the gene leahy mall | wall of scotch at the dundee dell | completely in love with this ceiling at beer and loathing in dundee | the dell has been around for a few years | we did a lot of relaxing/snuggling on sunday | made some beer bread from scratch on sunday, yum!

After how crazy last week was, I'm back! 

The new Focus has a name... and it's.... Phil! Phil the Ford Focus. I can't get over how tiny he is compared to my last car (Chuck was a Ford 500... grandma boat car). I finally feel like I have a cute girl car instead of a grandma car.

Yesterday, after complaining about all the cars that park in the street in front of our house since we moved, we were amazed to find "no parking" signs on both sides of the street. I was so happy! All the cars parked at the bottom of our driveway and around it made it nearly impossible some days to get onto the street. But, my happiness was short lived. This morning I awoke to the utilities company parking their trucks to rip up our front yard. Long story short, Omaha has ancient sewer systems that have combined waste water (ie. toilet) and rainwater sewers. Heavy rains = flooding = toilet water in your street. So they have to fix that. By ripping up everyone's front yard that lives in the older areas of Omaha. Do you think they will let me keep the "no parking" signs after they are done? I would consider it payment for the inconvenience of them ripping up my front yard.

How was your weekend? Did you do spectacularly fun things? I want to hear about it!

STRESS

Holy cow guys. It has been a whirlwind week. Chuck died a valiant death yesterday after being on the edge for about a week. He had some sort of special transmission called a CVT that was going to cost me about $4000 for a USED one. They couldn't even find one in state and the closest one was somewhere in the middle of Kansas. That totaled my friend Chuck. After multiple close calls with panic attacks yesterday (no way could I afford to buy a new car! how am I going to afford a car payment! Chuck was paid off!! whhhhhhhhhhhhy!?), I went to the nice Ford dealer and leased myself a 2012 Focus. I'm pretty excited about how much money I'm going to save on gas (28 mpg city and 40 mpg highway baby!). I haven't had a chance to take any picture of the new guy, but I'm sure I'll get some in the next few days. He looks like this, but in black:

Okay. So now I need name suggestions. These are the rules: Must be a boys name and one syllable. My mom likes Stan (ehhh...), my sister likes Dale (ewww...), and Andy liked Phil or Fred (Phil isn't so bad...). It's one of those things that when I hear a name I will just know. I know, I'm totally weird about naming my cars. 

Have you had any stressful situations that you've dealt with lately? How do you handle your stress? I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep today and could use your suggestions!

family

I am so unbelievably blessed to have my family. Through thick and thin, they are there for me. For example, when Chuck died again today and I needed a chauffeur to take me to school tonight. Mom to the rescue! (More happy thoughts for the Chuckster, I'm afraid a new car lease is in my future...)

At a wedding in August 2011. I have a real job and don't get to bake in the sun all day like my other family members.

Christmas 2009. The Chloe dog looks like a stuffed animal here.

At a wedding in June 2009. My brother looks like a tiny baby. Where does the time go?

One of my favorite pictures. The whole crew fall of 2008. Can you spot me with short hair and bangs?

The cousins with my grandparents. November 2010. The last picture we have with my grandpa.

I miss him very much. I managed to save this grainy picture of us from the archives of pictures that we found preparing for his funeral. I love it.

This will be our first Christmas without my grandpa. It will be hard, but I know he would want us to have fun. He was such a troublemaker.

Do you have a rockin' family like I do? Do you enjoy spending the holidays with them? Or do you have one of those, "I don't want to be in this room with you any longer than I have to" kind of families?