Life of Steve

Debate over XMAS Cookie Season

My wife and I are having a debate about the appropriate XMAS Cookie Season. I have always thought that the cookie season goes as follows: Cookie Baking and Freezing begins after Thanksgiving. Eating of Christmas cookies can begin anytime during the Advent Calendar. Maybe while watching some of the Christmas TV specials on TV the Parents and Kids could eat a plate of Christmas Cookies. Also it could be fun to have the Christmas cookies while decorating the Tree or the House with all of the Christmas Decorations. Or when you get that first batch of snow in Dec. and you start to think about the holiday you could be drinking the hot chocolate and eating a cookie. Sounds great, Right!?

However, according to my wife the Cookie season begins on Christmas Day (which according to me means it ends on Valentines Day.) I love having the Christmas cookies while opening the presents. The problem comes in around the 3rd week of January when I am still eating the cookies and I just feel like I am eating badly vs. participating in the holiday that ended 4 weeks ago. Instead of feeling joyful and anticipating XMAS instead I just feel pathetic that I am eating a Christmas Tree Cookie on Martin Luther King day. 

Anyways, that's my take. Thoughts?

Back on the Fitness Train?

A couple of weeks after the baby was born I gave up on exercise. No big deal since I have been working out without any major breaks since about the first year of college. (Wow only 5 years ago!) Taking even an extra 45 minutes out of my sleepy time was no longer a practical option. I was walking around like a zombie and was functioning badly with my sleep deprivation. I needed to dedicate as much time to rest as possible and the workout went out the window.

It's time to get back on track. My wife is going back to work next week which means we need a new morning routine to get everyone to work and the baby to childcare. Since that means I will be up early to feed and dress the baby anyways I figured it would be the perfect time to renew my old good habit of getting my workout completed in the morning. So far I have been doing some baby workouts to get ramped up again. I forgot how good it felt to be awake and showered after exercising and ready to go for the day. In addition, I didn't get upset about the weight I gained these last 10 weeks since I simply refused to step on the bathroom scale. I highly recommend throwing the scale out anyways and merely see how your clothes fit. You will be much happier.

XMAS 2008 Pictures Online!

Check out my photos from Christmas this year in my Photo Albums section!

Year in Review 2008

Around this time of year I always start to reflect on things that happened this year.

Things we did this year:

-Went to see the Musical The Lion King with both my family and my wife's family.

-My wife and I went to Deep Creek, MD and decided to try Husky Dog-sledding.

-We spent many many hours remodeling our old house to put it up for sale.

-I attended an Oracle Conference on Oracle R12 for a week in Peachtree City, GA.

-I got promoted to Managing Consultant at work.

-We got Pregnant with a Baby Girl who is coming next Spring (2009)

-We went up to Seven Springs for the Wine Festival with a bunch of our friends and rented a really nice condo. While we were up there we announced to our friends there that we were expecting a baby.

-We traveled to North Topsail Beach, NC to try a new Vacation Spot in the Off-Season (September)

-We went to our first "PSU Night Game" as part of our Annual trip to Penn State with all my Alumni Friends.

-We bought a new house in Mars, PA  and moved into the house in Late October.

-We had our annual "Christmas Special Viewing Party" where we had a chance to have people over to see our new house and enjoy cookies, snacks, beer and eggnog.

Things we didn't do this year:

-We didn't travel to anywhere tropical since we decided to try renting a beach house here in the USA.

-We didn't decide on a name for the baby girl who is coming next year.

-We didn't sell our old house.

-We haven't decided on how to decorate the Baby's room yet.

-We didn't go to an amusement park. (They frown on that when you are Pregnant)

Things we will be doing in 2009:

-We will see my niece get Baptized and we get to be her Godparents.

-BABY ARRIVES!

-Steve is planning to travel to Florida for a few days for a business trip.

-We are planning to once again travel to PSU in the Fall for a football game with my alumni friends.

-I would love begin building my own gym in the basement (We'll see if this happens)

-Finish unpacking the boxes from moving into our new house in Oct 2008. (Yes we are not done yet. Took a break for Christmas)

-Get the nursery ready for the baby. (All the decorating, car sears, swings, cribs, changing tables, etc. You get the idea)

-Hopefully get a chance to vacation in some fashion to take a break from the stress of work and everyday life.

All in All I would say this has been an eventful year. Hard to say that next year will be quite as busy with all the traveling and trips considering that we will have a new baby to handle. However, I am sure that the little girl will keep us very busy at home. That's it! Merry Christmas Everyone. See you next year!

Christmas Cookies

When you get married you both bring family traditions with you from the days when you were growing up from childhood to adulthood. Sometimes these traditions don't always match up with the ones that your partner brings to the marriage.

In my family growing up we had Christmas cookies during the Christmas season. The Christmas Season for us is the weeks before Christmas and afterward until around New Years.  I remember that for many dinners in December my mom would have a big Santa Dish full of all sorts of Christmas cookies and we would get to have a couple for dessert. The Christmas presents would not arrive until Christmas Day when we would get to open them while eating Christmas cookies.

In my wife's family the Christmas Cookies are like the Christmas Presents. The cookies are not allowed to arrive until Christmas Day and they get eaten during the month or so after Christmas (Roughly until Valentine's Day.)  Last year this meant that I was pathetically eating Christmas Tree Cookies in Late Jan long after my post holiday diet to lose the Christmas Holiday pounds should have been in full swing.

This year seems we are still on the late end of the game. This coming weekend is deemed Christmas Cookie baking weekend. (Dec 20 & 21) To be fair though we did make some cookies earlier this week and a few a couple weeks ago. So it appears that although I haven't had a giant variety of cookies to choose from during the Pre-Christmas days I have probably had enough to satisfy my cookie craving but not so much that I have gained all my holiday weight yet.

New House

We came to an agreement with the sellers of the House we want to buy recently! So I have a house inspection to do this coming Friday PM but for now it looks like we will be moving into a new house at the end of October. The truly amazing part of this process was not coming to an agreement with the sellers but coming to an agreement with my wife on what house we wanted to buy. Since the house is not that old (about 10 years) I am optimistic that the inspections will go ok and it will be a done deal. Good news and I will follow up with more info about the house once the rest of the paperwork and process wraps up. (I also expect to have a few blog posts about the moving process)

For Sale

Well as of last week we finally got our house on the market. We even have had a number of people to come and view the house (which is good.) One adjustment to get used to is to be able to have the house look clean and presentable (which usually includes removing myself, my wife, and my dog from the house for a period of time) on a short notice. I don't think our house has ever been consistently clean for a week straight since I moved in. Anyways, I'm chalking this up to being one of our major acomplishments for this year. After all the renovations, de-cluttering, cleaning, landscaping, etc the house is really ready for prime-time!

House Hunting Part I

We are almost ready to put our house up for sale. In the process I learned more about home improvement than I ever thought I would learn (I'm a computer guy not a handyman.) So we get these e-mails from our agent with listings of houses we might be interested in and we also do searches on the Internet to see if there are houses that are worth a closer look and a visit. My wife seems to have a much more stringent standard of what sort of house would be acceptable than I do. I just need a place to work, a place for my car, and a place to do my business (bathroom) and I will be happy. We do seem to have good taste in which houses are worth a visit though since the ones we visit seem to sell the next day (literally.) This can cause some anxiety when we find something we like but it also gives me hope that our house won't linger on the market for a long time and will sell. I have noticed that some sellers are still adjusting to the reality of the housing market and starting to drop prices when the houses are not getting any buyers or visits. I am feeling positive about our search though since we are discovering some nice neighborhoods with houses close to our price range. The next steps are to agree on a house that is perfect for us and also successfully sell our house as well. More to follow...

Home Improvement Part III

I am not a handy guy. (My job involves accounting and not construction.) However, I did order a book from Amazon and then decided to fix stuff around the house that has been broken for quite some time. This is the book:

The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair: With 350 Projects and 2300 Photos (Black & Decker)

Armed with this new knowledge I decided to attempt the following repairs:

-Replaced Dimmer Switch
-Replaced standard light switch
-Replaced Light Socket in Basement.

All without electrocuting  myself.  For a non-handy guy that is pretty good.  Up next will be to finish painting the Kitchen and figure out how to replace the Kitchen Floor so we can sell the house. I might even install a shelf or two! Such is exciting married life!

Home Improvement Part II

I wrote a post on Home Improvement on 02/08/2008. I am happy to report that we actually started one of the projects on Saturday. From my wife I learned the importance (previously unknown) of sanding and spackling the walls and ceilings prior to painting. (I have painted before but never needed to repair the walls prior)

One thing I have learned about these projects is that you just have to do them. If you wait until you have free time and feel like painting they will simply never get done. The other thing that I learned is that they need to be prioritized over the basic day to day stuff or they will never happen. My brother mentioned that he will set aside a couple hour slots during the week to do such work so it gets done. I might be following his lead.

I'll also continue to try not to paint the dog!