Auld Lang Syne....

I can't say I'm too sad to see 2010 go.  New Year's is one of my favorite times.  I like how everything switches over and you can kind of forget about all the sucky things that happened in the year before.  That being said, 2010 was a pretty good year for us here at the Brown household.  Here are some of our highlights:

 This is a biggie....we got married.  May 15, 2010 was an especially good day for the Browns!  Our ceremony only lasted like 10 minutes and luckily for us it was the only 10 minutes of the day that it didn't rain.

 We went on a few vacations.  Unfortunately KB wasn't able to take that much time off of work when we got married, so we never really went on a honeymoon.  Good for me, like 3 weeks later I went to the beach with my family and some special people (holla Skinny and her photog skills).

 We added this little guy to our family.  Pancho has turned out to be a really sweet, sometimes crazy guy and I'm not sure what I would do without him.  He is definitely a super fabulous mamma's boy.

 My little KB had a big year.  Early last year he got transferred to a new position at his company dealing with big people stuff like 401ks and retirements.  He also became the lead singer of a band in town (Mudcutt represent!) and caught a bunch of fish.

I had a pretty interesting year to say the least.  I've had 3 jobs this year, been unemployed once, lost 10 pounds, gained back like 20 and overall had a lot of smiles and laughter.

Bring it on 2011!

Turtle Time

My crazy grandmother will only order our Christmas presents from the Land's End or LL Bean catalouges.  Every year the day after Thanksgiving (sometimes even before) she makes us "put in our order".  This year I was kind of at a loss for what I wanted, so I picked out some random shirts and things.  I wore my first one today and I am in L-O-V-E.

The Land's End Lightweight Cotton Modal Gathered Turtleneck (that's a mouthful)  is one of the best shirts I've ever owned.  It hits me just right, it's super soft, the turtle neck doesn't feel like it's strangling me and it's great for layering.  They also aren't that expensive.  Mine was only like $10 I think.  They also come in petite sizes for those vertically challenged like myself.  I'm definitely thinking about ordering quite a few more.  I promise, they look a lot less mom-ish (no disrespect to you mammas out there) than the picture shows.


It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Orange who...

Orange you glad you didn't say banana!

I am over run with oranges!  We got them in every stocking that we got this year (that's a total of 6) and every church treat bag (that's 4).  I don't really like oranges.  Do you have any good recipes that I could use them in?  I don't want them going to waste!

Whew....

Whew am I glad that Christmas is over! Don't get me wrong, I love the holiday season, but I don't think I've ever been this ready for it to all be over.  I just want to go to work come home, cook dinner and be my boring self.

On a less Debbie Downer note, we did get some cool goodies for Christmas.

I've only used it a few times, but I already love it!  What are your favorite K Cups?  I got a promo code for two free boxes.

Yes, that is a food dehydrator.  Normal people use it to make delicious dried fruits and nuts.  KB uses it to dry his various and assorted wild game meats.  This is a companion gift to his book on how to make different types of jerky.

A Tom Tom.   Hopefully one day Verizon will get the iPhone and this will be obselete, but you never turn down good electronics.

A new lunch box!  I've only used it one day, but I already like it.  It fits a lot of things and it is waterproof.  Apparently it is made out of the same stuff that wetsuits are made out of.  KB likes to make fun of me and tell me I can take it snorkeling with me.


Of course we also made it home with lots of hunting supplies, jewelry, purses, clothes, shoes, etc.

What are some of your favorite gifts that you received?

Wandering Wednesday

It's a weird day around here....

Today is my last day at work for the week so it feels like a Friday, but isn't....weird.

These went over like hotcakes at work.  There was nearly a fight for the last one and some people took 3 or 4.  You should definitely make them if you need to suck up to coworkers.

My darling little African friend K.Pool is back in the US of A!  She traveled all the way from Cape Verde and we're glad she made it!

I just became a member here.  If you're a nerd like I am, add me (REBrown).

This is not good.  I hate snow....especially at Christmas (I sound like such a grinch!).  

What Wednesday randoms have you gotten into today?

Christmas Time is Here

It's not really Christmas until the Green Giant has a "ho" off with Santa!

Reading Year in Review...

I got the idea for this from a fellow Rachel, at In No Simple Language.  I used to be a big reader, but in college I was forced to read lots of things that I didn't want to and I kinda dropped off the bandwagon.  This year I vowed to get back into reading.  I got a library card and went to town.  Here are the books that I read this year.

The Twilight Saga.  Yes, I'm one of those.  Through all the hype I vowed that I would never get sucked into it, but then my mother in law gave me the movies to watch.  After that, I was hooked on the books.  I read all four of them in a week (true I was at the beach and had nothing better to do).  I can't wait to see the newest movie.  Yes, I'm a nerd.

I'm normally not a big fan of historical fiction, but this book ended up being pretty decent.  It's set in the time of the plague, but most of the story is about how it affects the lives of a group of people in a town that is ravaged by the plague, but agrees to shut themselves off from the outside world in order to not spread the disease.

I absolutely hated it.  This was one of the worst books I think I have ever read.  I hated it so much that I did a whole post about it.  I'll probably never read another one of Elizabeth Gilbert's books again!

I got this from the library on a whim.  It took me forever to read, but it was really interesting.  I've always like Elvis and Priscilla and this book really made me sad to see how bad they really were for each other. 

This book was a really quick read, but it didn't really have much substance.  It's basically just like The Devil Wears Prada, but with more women.  I ended up reading this in about a week of reading for about 15-20 minutes a night.

I actually read most of this book in college....in Spanish.  I went back and read it in English this time and I really loved it.  It got started a little slow, but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my favorite authors and I had forgotten how great he was until this year.  This is probably one of my favorite books I read all year.

I just finished this book and it was ok.  It wasn't the best book I've ever read, but it also wasn't the worst.  It was really slow getting into this book.  The first 250 pages were a little boring, but once I got into it, the rest of the story went really fast.  I'm a little surprised that this book got as much hype as it did.

I ended up liking this book a lot.  I feel like you kinda need a background into Motley Crue to really get a lot of it, but where else are you going to get a book that has chapters titled "The Third Time I Died".

I actually only picked this book up because it was written about girls from my college's rival, but it ended up being pretty interesting.  Every now and then it's nice to read some non-fiction, scientific stuff.  It is pretty easy to read because most of it is taken from conversations.

I'm currently reading this book now.  It's technically a "young-adult" book, but so far it is pretty good.  It's very easy to read and really goes into detail about a leper colony on a deserted island in Hawaii.  I'm only a few chapters in, but so far so good.

I just picked up this book yesterday, but I'm excited to get started on it.  All the reviews seem to suggest that it is really good.  I really have no background with Catherine de Medici, but the book jacket made it seem really interesting.  If you've read it...let me know what you thought!

What kinds of goodies have you read this year?