Category: christmas

christmas · currently

Currently… Christmas Edition

Jess13 Comments

Reading: I just finished reading Market Street Cinema by Michele Machado. It was a NetGalley read that was short and not bad but didn’t leave a strong impression on me. Next on my list is Graceling by Kristin Cashore. I downloaded the Overdrive app to check out Kindle books from my library, and it’s perfect because I can read with one hand while holding Ellie. I am a big fan of physical books, but it’s way more practical to use my Kindle right now, and even better that I can still check out library books.

Watching: I haven’t been watching anything lately, because I’ve been trying to catch up on reading, but I watched a lot with Penelope in the first month or so. I love Call the Midwife on Netflix. I may be a bit baby obsessed, but it’s a great show, anyway.

Feeling: Like we are totally crazy for taking an 11 week old on a normally 10 hour road trip. My family really wants to see the baby, so we are taking a trip to visit them over Christmas.

Enjoying: Ellie’s smiles – she has recently been loving when I burble my lips at her, and she tries to do it back at me. It is so adorable!

Wanting: All I want for Christmas this year is sleep and maybe a date night. Ellie has been fighting the bottle, so I’m not sure if my mom will be able to watch her or not. There are so many good movies out right now we would love to see, like Rogue One.


Eating: I cut out dairy again *bye cheese, miss you,* because Ellie has lots of spit up and no dairy for me seems to help. We made these vegan chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and they are delicious – so chewy and perfect.

Wishing: Everyone has a perfectly awesome Christmas holiday! We are traveling down to SC and plan to stay for a week or so. We aren’t doing gifts for each other or Ellie this year, because we have too much going on and our finances don’t leave room for extra spending. It’s totally fine, because we don’t need anything and the only things I want are immaterial, like sleep, relaxation, or maybe a hair cut. 

We already got the best gift this year, duh, and she is too sweet. We are waiting to find out lots of things about our future plans, about when we are going to move etc… I just want to know more.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week and enjoy your Christmas plans, whatever they may be.

cats · christmas · food

The Weekend I Ate All the Foods

Jess13 Comments

Is it really halfway through December? And Christmas is already a week closer?

I love Christmas – it’s just happening so fast. It makes me want to drink some frozen hot chocolate (maybe this recipe?). Greg and I will be hanging out here this Christmas, since we went down to see my family at Thanksgiving. We usually spend Christmas here, and relaxing and staying in is sounding awesome.

We have a tree up, but I have a few more things to do. What are we gonna eat? I still need to get stocking stuffers! And send presents. I’m just gonna be singing to myself, eating cookies, in the corner.

The cats have been loving the tree They haven’t learned how to climb it, yet, but all the ornaments from the lower 1/4 of the tree have been murdered. So, the top half of our tree looks glorious with its extra stock of ornaments.

Greg and I went for a run this weekend. There’s a state park by our house that’s free during the winter, so when it’s not too cold, it’s fantastic.

The best part was that we saw wildlife. So much wildlife! There were equestrians out riding in the horse field, and we saw deer in the field that didn’t even move when we stopped to watch them.

And then there was the food this weekend. SO MUCH DELICIOUS FOOD.

First of all, we had to navigate through a sea of Santas, because apparently it was the weekend of the Running of the Santas in Philadelphia.

I was hungry, dehydrated, and I am already navigationally challenged, so I was not completely opposed to running over some Santas.

It turned out to be totally worth it, though, because we went to Dos Segundos and I had a vegan philly cheesesteak burrito. All of those words are the best combination.

Inhaled that shit. It had seitan and fried plantains, yummm. Highly recommend this place if you go to Philly!

The next day, we made simple vegan pizza for dinner with some broccoli. It’s my favorite vegan pizza recipe, and it actually is really easy to make.

Finished the night off with some sugar cookies.

The recipe uses pumpkin instead of egg, but doesn’t taste like pumpkin. Magic! And really good with a cup of milk.

Linking up with Biana. What are your favorite Christmas recipes?

cats · christmas · hair

Catmas / Santa Claus Visits

Jess9 Comments

Is this thing on? Hope everyone had a happy Christmas and got everything they were wishing for.

This is probably not exactly what my cat was hoping for, but he’s learned to live with it. This time comes but once a year.

I got a hair cut a couple days ago, just to get rid of my split ends. I loved the hair dresser; we talked about our pets and her dog throwing a soggy squirrel corpse at her face, which turned out to be a stuffed animal. Basically, pets are there to terrorize and love you at the same time.

She even curled it for me without me even asking! Now if I only knew how to do that myself as easily as she did. I set up an appointment for color next week, so I am crossing my fingers. I’m not sure exactly what I want yet, besides ombre.

I almost always wear my hair in a braid at work, so coming in with it down was a surprise to some coworkers the other day. I came in with it in a bun on top of my head today, and one of my coworkers exclaims, “What happened to your hair???? It was so nice the other day.” Thanks, sorry it looks like a pile of llama poop today.

I got a HUGE surprise at Christmas. Greg’s family and mine went in with him on my/our gift, which is something I’ve wanted for a long time. When I unwrapped my gift, I found a Macbook Pro. I’m still in shock and so amazed. I am glad we can both use it, especially since he is in school.

Does anyone else have a Mac? I’ve used one before but mine was a much older version. Any tips I should know about? I’m a little worried about using up the space, but I could use my external hard drive if I need to.

cats · christmas

Happy Catmas

Jess4 Comments
This is Luna this time last year. I can’t wait to break out their new Christmas outfits!
We drove nine hours yesterday and are visiting my mom in South Carolina. Luckily, we missed all the snow on the way down. We have been enjoying ourselves eating SO much food.
We dropped the cats off at Greg’s parents, because we were worried about a long drive with grumpy cats. We wanted to take them with us so bad, but I don’t think they would appreciate it. Do you take your pets on trips with you?
christmas · weekend

Christmas Shenanigans

Jess8 Comments

To our cats’ excitement, this weekend we put up the Christmas tree. They have since been terrorizing it; luckily, they haven’t taken the whole thing down yet.

As if my cats aren’t already crazy enough by clawing my bed at 6 AM to wake me up, now they have been pouncing at ornaments and dragging the tree skirt everywhere.

Saturday night, we went to go see The Hunger Games (finally!!). It was awesome!! The first part of the movie was killing me; it was so sad. I want to reread the books; I couldn’t remember what was going to happen or how it’s going to go down in the third book.

Bahaha! If you haven’t seen it yet, you will recognize it when it happens.

Last night, we made dinner and rewatched The Avengers, one of my favorite movies. We made Ultimate Chicken Fingers and baked potatoes, NOMM. It was SO good.

 Flannel Top: Old Navy // Lacy Top: Urban Outfitters (similar – here or here) // Jeans: Forever 21 (similar) // Socks: Target (similar) // Boots: Steve Madden

I just got some shopping done from the Target Cyber Monday sale. That takes care of the big items I was shopping for, but I am not nearly done yet. Are you shopping today? Any other sites having huge deals?

Sami's Shenanigans