Sugar & Spice of Everyday Life

+Sugar: We've really been enjoying watching the Olympics even though they seem to be on at slightly odd hours.  I've found myself tearing up when they feature certain athletes and their families and love all of the tradition and patriotic festivities.  I've also been tearing up when seeing poor pink eye ridden Bob Costas.  Someone get that man some eye drops!

-Spice: Our current place has odd heat circulation and our bedroom is always cold.  Step into our walk-in closet and you'd think you had just stepped outside.  We were remedying this situation with a space heater and it QUIT this week - which makes for a chilly night sleep and extra close cuddles :)

+Sugar: It's the week of Valentine's Day and I've been having lots of fun baking, DIYing and celebrating this month of LOVE with my family.  I sent two Valentine care packages and have been spreading the love.  I'd also like to bake some treats for my neighbors.  Sometimes I chicken out because I don't know them that well and I'm afraid they'll think I'm weird or that they won't want to eat treats from me.  I really should just suck it up and spread more love!

-Spice: I've been looking out my windows and missing the mountains this week.  I got spoiled with an amazing view in Utah and after 9 years it's kind of strange not seeing them.  Plus I'd gotten used to using them to help my navigation around the city.  No mountains equals a constantly disoriented me.

+Sugar: We got a new vacuum cleaner.  Our old one just wasn't cutting it anymore; it was time to be a grown up and spend far more money than we wanted to on an upgrade.  We weren't willing to spend Dyson money on a vacuum but we found a Shark that does a great job.  I've been vacuuming daily since Olive spends a lot of time on the floor and since we have to furry felines in our family.

-Spice: We had quite a debacle at Wal-Mart last weekend.  It was my idea to use the self check out since the two lines they had open each had 10+ customers with carts full of merchandise in them.  It was dinner time and nap time for Olive so we were trying to be quick.  We scanned everything, bagged it and tried to wedge it all in our car seat filled cart.  Kevin swiped our card, inserted the coupons, payment received flashed on the screen and then everything froze up.  An associate came to help and said that we'd have to RESCAN everything because the transaction did not go through.  We said the screen said payment was received but he said it was not.  We called over a manager and she agreed that we needed to do it all again.  The store was packed, I teared up and Olive was crying.  We were all ready to go and they wouldn't let us leave with the groceries.  Kevin called our credit card company and we had been charged for our purchase.  They employees said it didn't matter because we didn't have a receipt.  We weren't allowed to leave so I went to stand in a line.  People looked at me like I was crazy because all of our groceries were bagged.  Kevin went to consult a manager and she said we had to recheck out and that the charge would not go through.  Fast forward to mid week and we have two $100+ charges on our credit card and Wal-Mart isn't being helpful about giving us our money back.  They said to wait and the first charge will go away but it has yet to be taken care of.  So much for living in the Home of Wal-Mart state...

+Sugar: I have been on quite a contest winning streak.  I mean I enter contests regularly and NEVER win but for some reason my luck has changed.  I won a gift card to a fun, handmade shop, a gift card to an athletic apparel shop and I won the mother of all giveaways to promote my blog on 22 different blogs for two months.  Maybe I should head to Vegas with all this luck on my side... I kid, I kid :)

+Sugar:  I've been doing a good job of working out regularly.  The scale isn't reflecting major changes yet but my jeans are fitting better already.  Let's be honest, jeans are a pretty great measuring tool, no?  I'm using my "jean-o-meter" to stay motivated to keep fitting into those jeans that have been tucked away for months.

Just a little dose of reality from my house to yours :)