Good morning!!!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!!! We certainly did...

We've been so busy packing and moving stuff to the house we will be renting, it has been really hard getting into the Christmas spirit! But when you are with family and the kids are so excited, it's hard not to join in and get caught up in the moment!

Mark had to work on Christmas Eve and his office was having a breakfast potluck, so I packed up my griddle and headed to work with him so I could make french toast for the office! They are all so much fun and were so appreciative of me coming out to make them breakfast... It was lots of fun....

We spent Christmas Eve with my mom and sisters as usual. It was great, we all came to my moms place in our pajamas... Jay and I rocked our old school jammies... Me with my feetsie jammies and him with his butt flap jammies.... It was too funny! We had a traditional dinner of posole and tamales... Tons of sweets.. well plenty of food.... We opened presents and just hung out enjoying each others company for a while... I think we got home around 1:30am... and Santa had visited our place, so we opened presents and then headed to bed around 2....

On Christmas morning Noah woke up at 6am and decided to put together the lego set Santa had left for him. We had breakfast and relaxed for a while... I had to make a few things for Christmas dinner at Marks brothers place, so I got to baking and prepping... It was such a rainy day! We got ready to go and headed out to the OC.... Our drive was miserable! I thought for sure it would hail, and for once I actually saw everyone driving carefully on the 91 freeway.... Amazing!

Christmas dinner was great. All the food was awesome and you can't beat hanging out with family. I even got some snuggle time in with my father in law!!! He's the sweetest! The kiddos opened all their gifts, and then we even played a little guitar hero world tour... I just cannot get into this game.... If I'm playing guitar or drums, it's OK, but the singing is just awful.... Ehhhh... Can't win them all.... After all that, we headed home and went to bed....

Friday was busy for Mark and I. We spent all day packing, moving as much of the little things as we could. Our apt. is so bare now. It's basically beds and couches. Everything else is gone. Mark must have driven 8 or 9 carloads full of stuff over there.... He hates packing and organizing, so I do that and I hate loading the car up so he does that.... We are in sync... A perfect team!

I was on call last night but luckily didn't get called in. Today I came to work and we had 3 cases scheduled..... and as soon as one surgeon walked in, we got a phone call saying we were getting 4 more cases added on.... So while my partner does her case, I thought I would get a quick blog in before my case starts next...

After work, I am going to head to the house and start putting things where they belong and unpack as much as possible. We will be sleeping at the new place Sunday, so I better get moving!

Have a great weekend everyone..... and a Happy New Year too!!! I'll post pics of the place when we get settled....

Goooozzzfraba.....

You feelin' me on this one??? My anger management reference??? I love that movie... and it is soothing to say it... Just makes me smile thinking about the word....

Today has felt like an emo roller coaster for me.... My mind runs wild when there are opportunities in the air. Sometimes you just have to sit back, chill and say it....

Goooozzzfraaaaabbbaaaa.....

Yesterday I never heard back from the guy I left a message for regarding that job position... So this morning while I was busy running some forced-day-off errands (like dropping Noah off @ school and my cousins @ Disneyland) I was feeling kinda glum that I hadn't gotten a phone call especially since my doc said the guy was expecting my call. After I dropped my cousins off to Disneyland, I decided to go visit Mark for lunch since I hardly get the chance to do that.... I hung out with my father in law and Marks friend Todd for a while, and just when we were going to leave for lunch, my phone rang.... Marks eyes opened so big, and I fumbled to grab my phone out of my purse... It was him!!!! I rushed out of Marks office because we get horrible reception there and practically ran outside to take the phone call. We chatted for a little while and he asked me to email my resume to him (which I had updated last night figuring he would want it) and that he would want to meet sometime next week to go over my resume and talk to me and see if I would be a good fit for the jobs available... So I agreed and told him I would email my resume later this evening.

Mark and I were full of things to talk about at lunch... We went to JT Schmidts @ the District that is close to his office.... They have a great Monte Cristo sandwich there.... Mark and I talked for an hour and a half about this opportunity, what it means to us, what we are happy about, and what we worry about... I texted my doc to let him know I had talked to the guy... and the response I got blew me away even more.... Vague, as it was.... He said there was something else... That he would talk to me about later.... Another opportunity..... WHAT??? That has kept my imagination running for the rest of the day....

It has been a great few days, as far as I'm concerned. To know that all my hard work.... and I do mean HARD WORK is not going unnoticed, unappreciated, and now unrewarded.... Just the recognition makes me gush. I am horrible at taking compliments... Ask anyone that knows me well. I blush, I deny it... It puts me on the spot and makes me want to change the subject.

So there is my update... Thank you for the thoughts, prayers and well wishes.... I know my blog has not been allowing comments... I don't know what happened, but I think I fixed it....
Time to catch up on tivo'd shows and maybe play a little RB... Goodnight...

Isn't it funny???

I've blogged lately about plans and goals that I want to set for myself and follow through on... Isn't it funny that as I am thinking of taking steps to change my life that something just drops out of the sky and into my lap, to possibly jump start the process???

Today, after much trepidation... I was told of an exciting opportunity that I may be able to take advantage of. One of my docs said that there was an immediate opening as a sales rep for a very big orthopedic and trauma company... And that if I was interested that he would put me in contact with the right people to talk to about landing this job... At first, I hesitated because I'm not certain that I would be a great sales rep...and who wants to just be ok at anything.. I hate salesmen, going to car dealers and buying cars gives me hives and heart palpitations... So how could I think of doing it myself???? Then after I marinated on it for a bit, I thought to myself, if my doc didn't think I would be good at it, he wouldn't have told me about it at all. And after he assured me that he wasn't trying to get rid of me :) I told him I would definitely take the time to talk to the boss man of this company and see what the whole job entails and all the details... So I've called and left a message and am now just waiting for a call back.... I must admit nervousness... Job interviews always have made me nervous... And especially to look into something that I've never done before...

So please just pray for me that if this is meant to be, it will go well and without too much strain... Thank you Dr. G for the recommendation... Thanks for the vote of confidence....

So as I wait to hear from this company, I just wanted to get out my anxiousness out of my head and into a quick blog post.... Phew, I feel better already...

Holiday Spirit....

I love the holiday season.... Putting on a warm jacket and enjoying the cool weather (well, SoCal cool anyway).... Smelling spice in the air, baking yummy goodies, putting up the tree and decorating... The true holiday spirit is well and alive in me... I have been baking like a fiend lately... Cakes, cookies, cupcakes... I just love it... My labor of love... I have been lucky enough in life to find many things that I can do that make me happy... and I'm not bad at them either!!! My job, baking, and a few others... I am grateful for the talents that I have been given. I definitely appreciate them and use them as often as possible.

Shopping... ehhh not so much... It's funny to admit that most of the time Mark does the Christmas gift shopping since I have shopping crowd rage.... I hate being elbow to elbow with people that are giving me eye daggers because they think I am going to grab the toy they want... Oh no... Not for me.... If I can find something cute online or in a catalog... I am all over it.... My specialty is wrapping all those lovely gifts.... I love wrapping, tying bows, making it cute... Sign me up....

Well as Christmas moves closer... So does our move... Mark is actually going over today to sign the lease agreement and iron out all the final details... This makes me sooo excited.. I'm an organizer... I love to plan and arrange things... So as soon as I get details I am all over making a plan of attack so this move will be as easy as possible.... I've already got some of the plan together... I'll be taking boxes with me to work everyday so I can drop them off in the garage on my way home.... Unpacking things inside as soon as they have the carpets done and final painting done... This way we only will have a few big things to move when we have people to help us... I don't want to waste a whole day for any of our wonderful friends that are willing to help us... (We appreciate the help sooooo much) Hopefully this month long slow move will reduce the stress of moving from a third story apartment.... I remember how tough it was for us to move down from a second floor and up to a third floor.... We physically were both sick for nearly a month after and I think it was due to the fact that we did it all in one day...

The rest of our weekends for this year are filling in.... My sister and cousin get back from Vegas today and we may go take a walk around the Mission Inn again tonight so my cousin and her family can check it out too... Tomorrow we will be headed to Knotts Merry Farm.... Next weekend we have the annual Christmas program at my in-laws church then dinner at their place after..... Sunday we are going to the Rose Bowl Flea Market, and maybe IKEA... I love IKEA.... So many cute and unique things... Can't wait!!! If we can squeeze it in, we will be doing a baking night at my place with some of my friends... Nothing like a bunch of girls getting together to bake, laugh and just be girls!!! The rest of the weekends are filled with moving, holidays, parties and even a concert tooo!!! Phew.. 2008 is going out with a BANG!!!

As usual, I get those lovely inspirational and motivational emails with wonderful little quotes to make you reflect on life... Here is the one that stood out the most to me lately....

“It is never about how good your voice is; it is only about feeling the urge to sing, and then having the courage to do it with the voice you are given.”
-- Katie in ‘True to Form’ by Elizabeth Berg

I love it... Everyone knows Mark and I are RB and GH junkies... So what better quote to speak to me than this one... I've been so frustrated with GHWT lately because it's scoring is so much more brutal than RBs... Last night Mark and I played it for a few hours and even though my scores were only in the 80's I had such a great time just pretending to rock out and singing really loud... I sang so loud I had no voice left by the time we finished playing... After my squeaky apology to Mark for blowing his ears out, I finished our game with a smile on my face.... It was simply fun..

Do I Say Good Times A Lot???

I sure do... But what else can you say when you have an awesome family, great friends, and cool places to spend time with them....This past weekend I was able to have a few days completely off, spend lots of time with my family and even go out with friends AND best of all have one on one time with Mark too.... Sound like a packed weekend??? It was...

Wednesday we ended up working a whole day instead of just half... Oh well, that's just the way it goes when you work at a surgery center... Things change by the minute and you just have to adapt! Well, I went home and started baking for Thanksgiving with the DeMers.... I made sweet potato praline and carrot cake and even snuck in some salsa for my "dad" (father in law) and Bri (brother in law)....

Thursday was great... We slept in a bit... Relaxed at home then got ready to go spend Thanksgiving with the fam... If you know us, you know how AMAZING this next sentence is... We were on time to the Thanksgiving family event.... Did you get it??? ON TIME... us ... Enough said... Dinner went great.. Lots of yummy food, great conversation... Grammy (my mother in law) even bought the wine we had tried on the company cruise... Vouvray... It was delicious! After we all binged on some awesome dinner and dessert, we all hung around chatting for a while... We headed home and rested our full bellies!!!

Friday I woke up so full, I couldn't even think of food... I just relaxed all morning... Mark Noah and I hung out... It was awesome!! Then we decided to decorate the house... We put up our tree, other decorations and Marks personal fav... The Raider Village!!!! We cleaned up our decorating mess and showered up for our next adventure which was going to the Riverside Mission Inns annual lighting ceremony with my mom and older sis Terri. It was so beautiful!!! We always make a night of going to walk around the mission inn every year, but this is the first time we've ever gone to the official lighting ceremony. It was great chilly weather, they did a fun countdown and had a great fireworks display! After the lighting, we headed out to Canyon Crest for dinner at a great Mexican place.... It was a great way to kick off the Christmas season...

Saturday, as usual, I worked... We were pretty busy for the morning... I was able to first assist our surgeon on a big bowel case... We've been having a run on those lately... Well, he let me assist him which was tons of fun!!! Put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.... After work, I headed home and vegged on the bed for a while.... Later in the evening Marks big brother came through in a pinch for us and watched Noah for the night, so Mark could come out with me to The Vault Martini Bar in Redlands... Our little band Hobo Jazz was there, and a bunch of my friends from work came to hang out... We had drinks and laughed till 2am!!!! On our way home, I threw out the idea of going to the beach since Noah was gone for the night... So from Redlands we drove out to Newport...parked and walked out to the water... We climbed up on a lifeguard tower and just hung out like we did almost 10 years ago... It was an awesome time.... We haven't done that for such a long time... We sat out there for quite a while, well, at least till we couldn't stand the cold anymore!!! LOL..... We hopped back in the car and headed back home... We decided instead of going all the way home and then driving back to Corona in a few hours, we would just park outside of Marks brothers house and chill for a few hours till it wasn't rude to call and pick up Noah... We ended up sleeping in the car for an hour!!! Hahah... So we picked up our boy, and headed home to sleep....

We slept in until 11am which really wasn't too long considering we didn't get home until nearly 8?? I think it was somewhere around 8.... I woke up and started baking for my family Thanksgiving dinner at my moms... For this dinner Mark and I made frog-eye salad, carrot cake cupcakes, sweet potato praline, stuffing and corn.... Terri and Jay deep fried the turkey and we ate like Kings!!! After dinner we played a couple rounds of Catch Phrase which was SOOO much fun... I think Mark and I are going to buy that game.. We had a blast!

When we got home we did a bit of cleaning focusing in Noah's room.... Then I finished a cake I made for dinner but didn't get to frost, so I took it to work today... It was a spice cake with molasses cream cheese frosting and coffee toffee... Sound rich??? It was!!! I actually got a sugar headache from it being so rich and sweet... But it was yummy so I sucked up my headache!!!

Work was awesome today... Monday is my usual pain management day... Today we had a full line up including two permanent spinal cord stimulator implants... We figured it was going to be a "full" day as in it would take us 8 hours to complete everything on the books... Well, we finished right around 230!!!! I was so proud of my doc!!!! We have two more next week too... I love those cases!!! They are so fun for me AND I get to hang out with a few of my rep buddies!!! Good times!!!

The rest of this week is work as usual... Call a couple nights this week and work through Saturday. Today I went to our leasing office here at the apts. and gave them our 30 day notice...YAY!!! This weekend we will be meeting up with our new landlord to sign our lease agreement and next week I will slowly start moving things over to the house!!! They will be cleared out of the house hopefully in two weeks time, but for now I can start filling the garage with our storage things. Thank goodness for my two weeks off from the surgery center for Christmas and New Years... I am going to spend that time moving stuff, painting furniture and getting projects done at the new place.... I'm starting to do the moving purge... you know??? Clean, pack, throw stuff away, give stuff away.... It's fun.....

My cousin, her husband and their kiddo will be flying out from Costa Rica tomorrow night and will be hanging out for 2 weeks!!! I'm so excited to see them!!! I know they have a few lay overs so I pray that they will have a safe and uneventful flight.... It's hard traveling with a young kid!

Well, it's pretty late and even though I am still finding that I have energy, I better try to get some sleep....