Five Days Until Xmas!

I can't believe that Christmas is in five days. The weather has been entirely too warm, and it doesn't even seem like it's winter outside.

We have most of our holiday shopping finished, and nearly all wrapped. There are a few stragglers, but we are getting there!

Scored a mildly good deal this morning

Toys R Us is running a 12 days of Christmas secret sale promotion right now where they e-mail you coupons every day good only for that day. I heard through the grapevine that Final Fantasy III (Nintendo DS) and Final Fantasy XII (Playstation 2) would be on sale today for half price via this sale. So they'd be $20 and $25 respectively.

This morning I checked my e-mail and did receive the coupons so to give myself the best chance of landing this pretty nice price, I hit TRU on my way to work. (They are opening at 8AM for the Christmas shopping season.) I always get a nice little rush when I'm on the hunt for a bargain, which is really a lot of the fun after all! At the light for the shopping center there were 5 or 6 cars in front of me so I imagined they were all going to pull into spots in front of TRU alongside me and we'd all be in a mad dash for the electronics section. But as it turned out there was just one other lady calmly walking towards the door with me and she wasn't even headed to the video games. They had several copies of each game behind the counter and I scored one of each.

Amazing dinner last night

Yesterday evening we had Jeremy and Nicole over to our place for dinner. We all had a great time and K threw together an amazing meal.

First we had a feta and walnut dip with roasted garlic on the side paired with wedges of pita bread. This might not seem like something typically in my wheelhouse, but it was really good. Also popped open a bottle of Our Dog Blue from Chateau Morrisette, K's parents favorite winery.

Following that we had a delicious salad (awesome cherry tomatoes with simple mixed greens) followed by cheese fondue with a side of potatoes for a main course. The potatoes were great, roasted with a little salt and pepper and tossed with some minced garlic and fresh rosemary to finish them off. Yum! We used our new knives (wedding gift from Grandma!) for most of the prep. Those things are awesome. (Henckels Pro 'S' series if anyone is interested.)

K picked up premixed fondue from Wegman's that we just dumped in a pot to melt and then in our fondue pot to keep melty while we ate. I wasn't sure what to expect from pre-packaged fondue, but it was amazing. We had chopped up apple, two kinds of bread, carrots, and cremini mushrooms for dipping. The mushrooms were sauteed in a little butter and olive oil just to soften them up prior to dipping. My mouth is watering just thinking back to it! The best part is we have some left over to have another night this week.

K even had some sugar snap peas to have along with all of the fondue and potatoes, but we decided that was just too much food!

Finally K had whipped up little mini chocolate cakes with peppermint cream and rasberries for dessert. Quite an impressive spread!

AJ (our cat) was her usual charming self. She immediately walked right up to Jeremy and Nicole and won them over. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they are cat people, owning two kittens. AJ can be a little skittish when she is away from home, but on her own turf she can be very friendly with strangers.

Let's Get Organized!

Rob and I cleaned out our office tonight. It had become a terrible dumping ground for everything that didn't have a home, and I was sick of it. It was nearly impossible to even walk in there!

A good part of the clutter on the floor is leftover wedding stuff .... programs, cards from gifts, etc. I went through it, pulled out what I needed to keep, and junked the rest. It feels good to be getting organized!

Rob took command of the computer desk and shelf, clearing off the clutter and pulling it together. I even convinced him to keep all of the extra cords in a lovely Longaberger basket! :)

It's important to me to have a clean house, and Rob and I don't always agree on what constitutes "clean"... I guess everyone interprets things differently. I looooove organization, clean floors and an untouched coffee table that isn't always pulled up to the couch. We're working on it.