Christmas purchase

Saturday I went shopping in Valencia with some girls from work. We went to home goods which had oodles of stuff for Christmas. Now I am the most avid Thanksgiving fan but it is exciting to get Christmas decor because I have none! I saw these ornaments and I had to get them. I've never seen anything like them and well they seem to suit me and Ben. I thought Ben would like them also, of course I didn't get the reaction I was hoping for and after he was done teasing me he admitted that he liked them. Hopefully they will make our tree look beautiful and unique.

Progress

I have told the saga of a now thriving backyard that took much sweat to get it to the way it is now. I still have another wish, that I would have a front yard to match the back. Oh to not get dirt in my shoes every time I walk to my car, to not have a growing dirt pile by the front door. Its the simple things really. Well we are one step closer to my dream of a front yard. Ben put it one of our strips of bender board. One side of our front flower bed actually is contained and looks nice and neat. Ben really knows how to make me happy, coming home to see that brought joy to my heart. I have been giving him a hard time because he has been working on "fun" projects like his gun range and deep pit barbecue pits. Well watch out we are on our way to living in luxury.

A "before" picture


The product of Ben's labors

New Decor

I think I could speak for most women when I say they want their home to feel like theirs and put special touches on it. When we moved in we had our work cut out for us. Two people with a lot more stuff than they thought they had plus a house that had been unoccupied for a few months prior equals a lot of work. Moving our stuff in plus wedding presents then de-weeding and getting grass growing, putting up a shed and maintaining a huge garden, all of this while working was making life busy. Luckily I was only part time at the moment and was able to invest a lot of my efforts into making our house livable. Once we got to a point where it was maintenance work instead of an uphill battle it was nice to be able to relax. We have three bedrooms besides ours one which is Ben's "gun room" and the other two just have random things thrown in. Out of sight out of mind and that was good enough for me. I started working full time and then I found it hard to even get in the basic cleaning and laundry much less the little extra projects that are waiting around. I was glad I could just close the doors of the back rooms. Lately I have gotten the urge to make more progress on our house. There are parts of it that are already how we want it and then there are parts that irk me a little. So instead of diving in to something huge and being totally overwhelmed I decided to start small. A new shower curtain and towels for the back bathroom seemed to fit that criteria. We had been using older towels that had seen better days and the shower curtain wasn't my favorite. So I ventured to one of my favorite places, Target, and got the items I had been wanting. I must say it has helped me feel a bit better about our house. I have bigger and better things on the brain though and I will be sure to post them when they become reality.

Ode to walks and pumpkin muffins

Not much has gone on around our parts lately but I do have a couple of things that I want to highlight. Ben and I frequently go for walks out around our rural country home. These walks always prove relaxing and fun. Peachy comes with us of course and she is a source of endless entertainment as she is curious about everything. I love these times that we can just get out and walk around with no destination in mind and the only goal being to walk until we don't want to anymore. I also saw a pumpkin muffin recipe on my sister-in-law's blog. I have been craving something festive and thought this would do the trick. They were great! The combination of pumpkin with cinnamon and other spices just warms the heart. I must admit I am a big Thanksgiving fan and these just bring all that is Thanksgiving to my mind. So there, I've said it. I love pumpkin muffins and walks. It's the little things that make life so wonderful!

Miss Peachy

Soon after Ben and I moved to Bakersfield we acquired a beautiful little puppy whom we named Peachy. She is a border collie australian shepherd mix, loves to be with people, and has endless energy. As this is my first time owning a dog I could not be more happy with our little friend. She lives the wonderful life of a country dog, going on runs with me, going to work with Ben and not to mention our house is just surrounded by fun things for a dog to investigate. This country life has its hazards though. This last week our Peachy started acting very unlike herself. She was sluggish and lacking energy. Not very much like the Peachy we know and we attributed it to a long day with Ben. When she was barely excited about going to work the next day we knew something was wrong so Ben took her to the vet. They came to the conclusion that she had gotten into some poison. Peachy had to stay overnight and the next morning looked better but her blood platelets were very low. I did not even know they could do that for dogs and words like "transfusion" were being thrown around by the vet. All me and Ben could hear was the "cha-ching" of a cash register so we crossed our fingers Peachy would pull through for us. She did with flying colors and was able to come home yesterday to two very happy owners. She is getting babied right now with nice soft dog food and doggie pills. She is already like her old self again so hopefully she learned a lesson that squirrel bait is not good food!

Weekend Fun

I have admittedly been slacking on posts. Ben and I have been doing stuff sometimes it's just hard to get up the gumption to blog. Over the last couple weekends we have been pretty busy. Two weekends ago Ben got our spa wired and running. My parents came down at night to hang out with us. We took them to Woolgrower's. It was not their first basque food experience but you have to try Woolgrower's. It was good to see them since we don't see them as much as we would like. That weekend we also did a little demolition on our garden. The garden has been pretty much done for a while now but we needed to pull out drip tape and tomato supports. Ben decided to hook a rope to his truck and then one of the supports because it's way more fun that way rather than kicking it over. I got a good laugh and it was a very effective method. That's about as far as we got, Ben will disk it under someday soon hopefully so it doesn't look like such a mess anymore. This last weekend was the cruise 99. Ben's truck hasn't been quite right for a while and the Monday before he and his dad decided to fix it. Talk about cutting it close they got it running and back together at 2 p.m. the day of the cruise. It was a great time as it always is, all the old cars, fast ones, ones with cool paint jobs. I hope we can get to use his "fancy" truck more often now that it is back in good health. Saturday night we had a ladies dinner at church. The night was so nice with great food and great company. I also really enjoyed the couple that sang. So that is what we have been up to lately. Hopefully my next post won't be so long in coming!

Ben hooking up the tomato supports


The supports biting the dust


The cutest dog ever


The red truck lives again


A happy cruisin' couple

Sunday Funday

Today during the sermon in church Pastor John mentioned a big juicy steak. This got stuck in Ben's head and since we were headed to the grocery store after church anyway we decided to "feast." Every great once in a while Ben and I have what we call a feast. It doesn't necessarily mean there's tons of food it just means we're going to treat ourselves to some very tasty stuff. We got big beautiful Rib eye's from the butcher counter and purchased some potatoes and salad to go with. The steak turned out amazingly as usual. We didn't get much past them though. I ate about 1/4 of my potato and Ben didn't finish much more of his. The salad went untouched. After a nice Sunday afternoon nap we headed out for a drive around me and Peachy on the gator, Ben on the dirtbike. It didn't last too long with it being about 102 outside. Once inside again Ben played some video games while I worked on a couple things. We topped the night off by pazookie. Homemade chocolate chip cookie dough and great vanilla ice cream. I made it in a pie pan though and I think we made it through maybe half. Thus our day of feasting, fun, and of course football was done. I love these days but I'm glad they are far and few between. They wouldn't be as special and I would be quite a porker! Anyways, kudo's to Ben for a wonderful steak and to Denise for the milk glasses that hold the perfect amount of milk for these occasions!

Delicious Ribeye steak with mushroom and onion


The untouched salad


Ben's half eaten potato


Ben having a beef overdose


Short-lived second attempt to eat more potato


Ben on the dirt bike


Peachy getting ready for our ride


Time out in the shade from our ride


Chocolate chip pazookie