AH! I am so excited about going to Mexico. It is going to be such a nice, relaxing trip. But when I get back, it is back onto the band wagon. For good. I want to lose the 10lbs that I have gained away from my goal weight. It is time to be proud of my accomplishment, again. It sucks having this guilt inside me. I know this sounds bad, but I will eat and drink my face off in Mexico (because I can ) and then I will start anew when I am home.

See you all in a week! I hope to have many exciting pictures to show you!

I knew that I was coming home to an empty house on Sunday, but I came in the house and called out for the kitty. Just in case. Nothing happened :cries: I teared up a little, but tried not to cry as I knew it was only a temporary thing to start of with. It’s still hard. He was my furbaby for a glorious week.

Ok, I know I am talking about the kitty too much. Ah. Onto other things….

We leave for Mexico on Sunday morning!! It has come so fast. Super excited. Although I plan on cross stitching for most of the trip, I still took out 4 books from the library. They are The Girl Who Played With Fire, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. I will probably only get through one of the books, but it’s better to go prepared than be left with nothing to do but eat and drink. LOL. I know there will be too much of that going on already. I aim to take plenty of pictures and hopefully be able to share them with everyone. There is 90 minutes of free wifi per day from the lobby. I may or may not take advantage of that. If you would like to read about our resort, please go here.

I know we haven’t even been to Mexico yet, but I am already planning our next vacation. I think I will be booking it in the next month or so. Peter and I will be going to Florida for 15 days in November. 7 of those days will be spent at Cape Coral Escape sitting by the pool and shopping. Then we will drive up to Orlando and visit Disney World and Harry Potter World for 8 days. It is going to be such an amazing trip. I have to say that it will be sad without my Mom. She is my favourite travel companion, as you can see. I just don’t think Peter will be any near as fun. Truth be told, he’s kind of a party pooper.

In 2010, Mom and I got to experience Mickey’s Halloween, so this time it will be Mickey’s Christmas!! Does anyone know if The Haunted Mansion goes Holiday like in Disneyland?! That would be awesome!!! If not, then we will have to plan our next trip after that to Disneyland!! Hahaha. I am a travel monster.

Some of you may know this already, but the thing I want most in the world right now is a kitty. I don’t care if it’s a kitten or an older cat, it just has to be a feline. Heck, I’d go for a tiger if it was plausible. I LOVE cats and I miss my two kitties that I had growing up. They are currently 14 & 15 and are living with my brother at his house. I get to see them occasionally, but they are getting quite old I really want a furry fluff ball all of my own.

I bet you are wondering, well, why don’t I just go and get a cat then?! One word: Peter. My husband. He hates pets. I don’t know how that is possible, but it is. He has no desire to have any kind of animal in the house. He just won’t let me get a cat. Sure, I could go and get a cat and bring it home against his wishes, but that would lead to a lot of fighting and he would probably make me get rid of it anyway. I sort of knew about his aversion to animals when I married him, but I sure didn’t know the extent of it. He usually gives in and lets me get whatever I want, but this is the only thing he has stood his ground firmly on. It’s weird. I thought for sure that I would get him to budge. Nope. No budging.

So I am floating on cloud 9 this week as I spend as much time as I can with this lovely kitty. I LOVE HIM already. It’s going to be hard for me when he goes back to his house. I have grown so attached already. And I like to think he likes me too. He follows me around and meows if I don’t pay attention to him. His name is Monaco and here are some glamour shots:

I was hoping that having this kitty here for the week, Peter would see how much it means to me to have a cat. I don’t seem him budging any time soon. I don’t think he has as much as touched the kitty. He is not interested at all. It’s sad really. The first thing he said when the kitty arrived was, “That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.” NO WAY. He is the cutest thing in the entire world!!

Oh well, I will never give up asking Peter to get a furbaby and I am going to enjoy these next 5 days as best as I can.

Even though I could watch with my USB through my playstation, I wanted to figure out a way to use my USB stick on the TV in our bedroom. It had a USB slot, but no matter what the format of the movies were, I could never view the movies. It was maddening. After much googling, I finally gave up and conceded that it was an impossible task. C’est la vie, I still had the PS3.

Well, when the TV (with built in blu-ray player) in our bedroom started acting up, we used our warranty and got a new tv with a separate blu-ray player. For no charge on our behalf. Yay. Anyway, I noticed that the new TV had a USB slot in it, so naturally, I tried to play a movie from my usb stick. No success. I was a little disappointed as I had hoped that technology had changed. Oh well.

We have had the new TV since January 9th and only today did I notice something peculiar on the blu-ray player. There was a little USB logo etched into the front of the player. After picking at it with my finger for a second, a little plastic cover popped out and behind it was a USB slot!!! What?! A USB slot in the blu-ray player as well as the tv?! Well I thought I would give it a try with my USB stick. It’s not like I had anything to lose. Low and behold, IT WORKED!!! It played every file I had on my USB stick. It just made my entire life!!! Now I can watch in the living room on the PS3 or in my comfy bed on the blu-ray player!!! AHHH. Comfiness is key and now I have so many choices!

I know this is such a ridiculous blog post, but it’s the small things in life that bring such joy. This has brought me bundles of freaking joy

The reason we are going to Mexico is because Peter’s best man from our wedding is getting married to his long time girlfriend. It will be a beautiful wedding on the beach. We will be staying at the Riu Palace in Cabo San Lucas. It is a 5-star all inclusive resort. (My first all inclusive!!) The resort has a beautiful view of the ocean and all the guacamole I can eat. What more can I ask for?! I don’t plan on doing any of the extra activities. I don’t want to go scuba diving, or snorkeling or para-sailing or anything like that. The only extra thing I may want to do is go into the local town for a little shopping, but only as long as we go as a group. Honestly, all I want to do when we are there is sit on the beach in my swimsuit with a drink in my hand and my cross stitch in the other. I’ll put a little music in my ears and I’ll be all set. It sounds so relaxing. I just can’t wait. The only obligation I have is to attend the wedding and any wedding related things we have to do. It will be bliss.

I started pre-tanning a couple weeks ago and I will continue to go up until we leave. I burn so easily and with the hot sun in Mexico, I can’t be too careful. The last time I was in Mexico was in 2007, while on a cruise, and within the first half an hour out in the sun, I was burned to a crisp. (Side note: I was a dumb-ass and forgot to put on sunscreen Duh.) It some-what ruined the trip for me. I am NOT letting that happen again. With my base “tan” and my SPF 110 sunscreen, hopefully I won’t burn. Who knows, maybe I might actually tan!! That would be something. Ha.

So anyway, the count down has officially begun!! Have any of you been to an all inclusive resort before? Do you have any tips for me?!

• Run a half marathon – Complete!!
• Try a new recipe once a week – I kept up with this for maybe 30 out of 52 weeks
• Floss every day – Haha, I did it for all of January and February, but as soon as I went for my bi-yearly dentist appointment in March, I stopped. Bad Carolynne.
• Try eggplant – Ate it, didn’t like it, won’t eat it again
• Blog more – I may not have blogged once per calendar week per say, but I posted 64 times in 2011 so that equals to 1.23 posts per week!
• Get to my goal weight and lifetime membership with Weight Watchers – YES! I successfully reached my goal weight and earned lifetime status in the winter of 2011!

Now that the 2011 goals are over with, here are my goals for 2012:

• Get back to my goal weight with Weight Watchers – I finally reached goal last year, but since then, I have seen my good healthy habits taking a turn away from where they are supposed to be. Therefore, yes, I have gained a little weight. It is time to buckle down again and get back to the weight I worked so hard to achieve.
• Make a meal plan at the beginning of each week – By making a meal plan for the week, I hope to save money while grocery shopping and to stay on track with WW by only buying the food that I need.
• Keep the house clean – Peter and I are not messy people, but sometimes we do let things get a little cluttered around the house. We clean it up so beautifully, which takes forever, but eventually stuff just starts to pile up again. I want to clean a little each day and hopefully the mess will never get too big.
• Blog more – I aim to blog at least once a week for sure, but like 2011, I am aiming for 2-3 times a week.
• Make at least one new recipe a week – So many bookmarks on Pinterest and in my RSS Reader that I need to try!

Well, Happy New Year once more and best wishes for 2012.

I am very proud of myself for completing one of my 2011 goals. Project 365 turned out to be a bigger undertaking than I thought, but the good news is that I succeeded. I am so happy to be done. Unfortunately, to tell the truth, the project seemed like more of a chore than the fun times it was supposed to be. But alas, it’s done and I am not going to do another one this year. It was more of a hassle because I had a very crappy camera that I used for most of the year. Yes, I took pictures on my iPhone as well, but they were still not very good quality.

Even though I got a new camera for Christmas, I am not going to do another project. There were so many nights when I was in bed and I would remember that I hadn’t posted a picture for that day. Then I would have to get up and do it. Often, I would just wait until the next day to post it. For me, I just don’t want to go through it all again.

You can view my whole project (with full sized photos) at the 365 website or just click on any of the months below to view thumbnails on my flikr account.

In the next few days, I will be posting about my success/failure of my goals in 2011 and I’ll be posting my new goals for 2012

After dinner, we had decided to play Apples To Apples, but the 3 year old soon got distracted and the 1 1/2 year old was trying to steal the cards. It was hilarious. Then we played with some of their new toys and the 1 1/2 year old got out his stickers and was putting them all over us. Soon, we all had matching stickers attached to our foreheads.

We eventually ended up having a dance party. We would be jumping and dancing around and then the 3 year old would say STOP and we would held our pose. Then he would say GO and it would start all over again. It was fun and exhausting at the same time LOL The stickers we had attached to our forehead kept falling off and losing their stick so the boys would have to pause the dance party to get us new stickers. Very cute.

I don’t get much interaction with children on a “personal” basis and Peter gets even less than I do. As I work in a family restaurant, I do see a lot of kids. Unfortunately, most of the kids usually pancakes and syrup all over themselves, which kind of grosses me out, so I don’t spend a lot of time at the tables “hanging out” with the children. Last night was quite a change from our normal nights and it was fun to spend a night with children that I know and like.

It was also so wonderful to see Peter interact with the kids. We are not planning on having a family any time soon, but I did get to have a little glimpse of what he will be like as a dad. He definitely adopted the baby talk tone of voice for the kids. It was just too funny.

It cracks me up that kids can keep themselves amused with the smallest things. And for so long!! We danced for such a long time and they weren’t getting tired at all. The same thing was happening over and over and they just loved every second of it. At one point, both boys were hiding in the curtains and we were asking, “Where’s Ben? Where’s Alex?” Then they would pop out and would be so amazed that they fooled us. The 3 year old was kind of old enough to know that we knew where he was, but the 1 1/2 year old was convinced that he disappeared and that we had no idea where he was. The smile on his face when he “reappeared” was precious.

At the end of the night I made sure to say thank you to kids for letting us play with them. It was probably as much fun for me as it was for them.

The joy of a child really is an astonishing thing to see.

The 2nd part of my Christmas was great, just like part 1. I was spoiled, again. Everyone is too generous. You can see the loot from part 2 here. The only thing that I didn’t get from Peter, which I absolutely begged for, is a cat. It’s what I want more than anything right now. But, Peter just doesn’t like pets. He said we can get a pet as long as it stays in a tank. Meaning a fish or lizard or something. But I don’t want a fish or a lizard, I want a kitty!!!! Honestly, I will be the one taking care of it. He won’t have to do anything at all. I don’t know what the big deal is. He thinks he is allergic to cats, but until he goes to the doctor and proves it, I won’t stop asking for one. He has never had a pet before, so how does he know for sure! Ah well, I will continue to beg Peter and hopefully he will give in one day.

Part 3 of our Christmas (with the in-laws) is coming up on Saturday night and so I will post an update on the final loot then. I feel so greedy because so many people don’t even get to celebrate Christmas and I get 3 Christmases I donated to the food bank and volunteered at Theatre Calgary this season, but it’s just not enough. I wish that everyone was as lucky as me. I will just have to thank my lucky stars everyday.

Anyway, how was everyone’s Christmas? What did everyone get??!!

I can’t believe that Christmas has come so fast this year. It will be over in the blink of an eye and we’ll have to wait until next year. Ah well, I’ll enjoy it while I can. Peter and I went over to my grandmother’s house tonight for Christmas Eve. We gave/received our gifts to/from my parent’s, brother and grandma. I have to say that we definitely made out like bandits! So spoiled. Here are all the goodies I got from my side of the family:

I am very happy to have a new camera. Now my photos won’t be blurry and really crappy quality. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do another 365 Project next year, but with my new camera, I may have to participate after all! LOL It’s the perfect reason to do a 365. I just got really sick of this year’s 365 and I am SO glad that it is almost over. Ugh, I found it more of a chore rather than fun. Maybe I will have a special theme to my pictures each month, to make it more interesting. Anyway, when the year is up, I will do a recap of all my photos from this year.

I have been busy getting my code on in the last few days and I am working on a new layout. My aim is for it to be clean and simple and less cluttered than my usual. I am trying some new html/css techniques and am trying to break out of my bubble. It is a lot of trial and error and then google searching to find the answer! So far, so good and I may be launching it in the next week or two. Yippee.

Well, because of my current coding obsession, I have been neglecting my poor cross stitch, which is nearly finished! I have 3/4 of the final page to do and then I AM DONE! Whoo. I started this one in March and I am so ready to be finished and working on another project.

On that note, I want to wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS