Thanksgiving...a little late...

So Thanksgiving came and went and I didn't get around to post about it untill now... better late than never right?!?!?

There are so many things I am grateful for, that is hard to know where to begin. I guess I'll start with the first thing that comes to mind.

To my amazing husband, Dana: I am so grateful for you, for all that you do. I am grateful for your willingness to work and provide for our family, I am grateful for your hard work when you get home, for your amazing creativity and talent and the vision that has created Custom Kingdoms. I am so thankful for your sense of humor, for your kindness, for the unique way that you look at life that makes everything so much easier and better. I am grateful for your easy attitude and your no stress policy (even when it drives me crazy) I am so thankful for your playful side that allows me to be silly as often as I want (which let's face it, is most of the time!!)  There are no words to describe how special and loved you make me feel, or how important that is in my life. You make me better in every way and push me to do more than I ever thought I could. For that and so much more I am so grateful. I love you (and all 10 Corinnes agree!! ;) ) so much, with or without icecream!

To my family: though we may be scattered across three continents, I am so grateful to all of you, for your love and support, for all the memories, for the feeling of belonging and the joy that I feel when I am with you, or talk to you, or text you! (Sharon, get a silly phone line!!) Migey, you are so special, you have such a drive and determination that I envy so much. Mindee, I am so grateful you are part of our family, your kindness and wisdom are wonderful gifts you possess that have helped me so much. Sharon, I wouldn't be who I am today without your influence and sisterly advice, I miss you so much.  Mom and Dad, there are no words for how thankful I am for all that you have shown me and thaught me over the years. For all the opportunities you gave me to be better, for pushing me to work harder and acheive more. I love you both so much!

To the family I married into (my second family, how lucky am I!??!) : I am so grateful for your acceptance and your love, I am so lucky to have married into such a wonderful family and such a big family too!! Your sense of unity, love and unwavering support for each other is so admirable and amazing. You are all so talented and so ready to share all your talents. Brent and Vea, I am so grateful to have been lucky enough to become one of your daughters, you are such an inspiration to me; and Vea your quilts are a work of art. Michelle, you are simply amazing and when I grow up I want to be just like you!!  (well I do want my hair straight!, sorry) Tyler I wish I could juggle!!   Toby and Jill, I look at you two and am simply amazed at your family. I hope that Dana and I can be half the parents you are. Lynn, you are the older brother I never had, complete with teasing and poking fun at me.... that's ok, I can take it. Your work ethic is spectacular and such an inspiration. Dallas, kudos to you for putting up with him! :)  Emma and Barrett, I don't know how you guys do it, but I wish I had a fraction of your sense of adventure and courage!  Josh, there are no words to describe how thankful I am for you; though we may sometimes disagree in the kitchen (sugar in your tomato sauce?!?!? ) I have learned so much from you and am so amazed at your drive and talent. Oh and your math jokes are awesome!! The number 3 will forever be special. Levi, I have so enjoyed getting to know you better and findng out how talented you are. I am so excited to see where it's all going to take you.
Natalie, you are a lovely young woman and like the rest of your amazing family so talented.  I am so grateful for all of you and all that you have brougth into my life.

To my Savior, Jesus Christ: there isn't a day that goes by that I am not thankful for this wonderful church that I am part of. The gospel has made such a difference in my life and though sometimes I am not as active as I would like to be, I know that all that I have and all that I am is because of Him. I am so grateful for His Atonment, for the scriptures that guide us and teach us what we need to know and who we should be. I am grateful for a living Prophet, that guides us, protects us, prays for us and shows us the way. I am so thankful for all the blessings we receive on a daily basis, for the protection that is ours, for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, for Its promptings that help us be better and avoid sin troubles. I am grateful for the trials that come my way, for I know that they strenghten me and teach me the things I need to know and sometimes refuse to learn

I am so grateful for friends to share fun times with; so grateful for friends who are there in time of need and who are always willing to lend a helping hand. I am thankful for all the people who have touched my life and made it better somehow. I am thankful to live in this wonderful country, with all that is available to us and the luxury in which we can live in. I am grateful for the internet that keeps us informed, and connected..... (and also lets us shop from home so we can avoid the crazyness that is Black Friday)

There is so much to be thankful for that I can hardly remember all of it, but I know that I am so thankful each day (yes, even on my bad days....) for being alive and for all that I have.

What are you thankful for?

Custom Kingdoms 2 minutes of fame.... well more like 1 but still!!

This is too cool to pass up, I just had to share it!! One of our customers pointed us out to Blue Table Painting, a Utah based company that paints warhammer miniatures for those who can afford to have them done professionally. Go us!!

I am hungry!

A few months ago I decided to kick start my losing weight journey by trying the HCG diet. After seeing Michelle's results (you totally rock, btw) I was very excited to do it. It's 26 days of very strict dieting, but in the end you lose 20-30lbs, not a bad exchange if you ask me.  So at the end of my first round I had lost about 25lbs and vowed to never do it again.. "over my dead body" was my thought at the time.. I think. And here is why:

1. I don't like drinking tea every morning, well, don't like tea at all.
2. I love to cook, it relaxes me. There is very little cooking involved in this diet, after all you are only eating 500cal a day
3. I am hungry all the time. The diet promises it will pass, it doesn't for me, sigh...
4. I start having these really weird food dreams: talking french fries, dancing pizzas, melting icecream, spaghetti on skates... it is very bizzare and unsettling...
5. Every movie, show, clip I watch seems to have some sort of delicious food in it, that I CAN'T eat!!!
6. I get more headaches/migraines than usual
7. It totally disrupts our schedule/routine
8. Dana pretty much has to fend for himself for meals.

On the other hand there are some pretty nifty rewards for doing this diet:

1. weight loss!! woot!!
2. My stomach actually seems to not hate me so much (I have digestive problems or something)
3. Very little clean up after meal preparation. ;)
4. Weight loss!! (had to put it down twice, yes it's that exciting!!)
5. There are plenty of veggies and fruit in our house!! (we tend to buy less of those when I am not on the diet as they substantially raise our food bill, sigh, why is the good/healthy food so much more expensive than all the processed crap?!?! pardon my french)
6. WEIGHT LOSS!! (ok maybe 3 times is a little excessive, but it's my list so you are going to just have to deal with it! :P )

A few months after that I won a free kit from HCG, thank you very much Facebook!!  What to do then?!?! Well, not much to do but suck it up and do it again.


This brings us to the present. Day 5 on this blasted diet.. sigh... I am HUNGRY!! Other than that, I seem to have skipped the "headache for the first 10days" part of the program for which I am grateful. I have also decided to not follow their advice on no exercising and actually exercise, will have to see how I do with that, so far so good.


The plan is to lose about 30lbs this time around. Will have to skip the Thanksgiving festivities altogether as they fall right smack in the middle of the 26 days but it's ok, I don't really like turkey, will eat mashed potatoes if it's available but I dont' love it, don't care for gravy and don't like pumpkin pie. Sorry to all those that love the traditional Thanksgiving meal, it's just not my thing.


Oh, and did I mention I was hungry?!!? .....

On moving....

I have to confess a weakness/neurosis of mine... I love looking at houses/apartments/townhomes.  There is a wonderful webiste called craigslist.com that feeds my habit.  I will and do spend outrageous amounts of time browsing their for rent and for sale listings just to see what's out there and to imagine what I would do with it if it were mine.  My favorite listings are the ones that include floorplans, but I am not picky. 


So obviously, when we talked about possibly moving... in about 6 months from now... I went a little crazy, as Dana can attest to, and spent even larger amounts of time browsing for the perfect place... pretty silly since we wouldn't be able to get any place I actually found.. no one will hold a rental for you for 6months!! Anyways, I just couldn't help myself and it was a lot of fun... free entertainment for me, yes I am a very cheap date!!  So, amid all this looking and planning and fantasizing an idea struck and rooted with the speed of lighting!! Why wait the 6months to move if we could find a cheaper place now and save loads of money for those 6 months?!?!?!  Doesn't that sounds like a brilliant idea?!?!?!? I thought so too..


So with renewed gusto I paraded a whole fleet of listings for Dana's approval; different sizes, locations, prices, amenities, you name it, I found it. But we were still waffling around a bit, after all :

1. Dana absolutely hates moving
2. We were going to have to downsize, and what's the fun in that
3. What about Josh?!? He would have to move too, 6mo. ahead of schedule!!
4. Is our credit good enough to get a new place!??!?  (we have really good credit, I just like to obsess about things!!)

So we devised a brilliant and sinister plan... we would take 2 weekends before we had to give notice to our current landlord, and tour some of these properties, just to see what we thought and if anything screamed at us "I AM YOUR NEW HOME, RENT ME NOW!!!"  Lo and behold that's exactly what we did... we looked at about 10 places, maybe more, it all became a blur at one point... and found THE place!! We were so excited, great location, great apt complex, lots of amenities, really nice office people, the works!!  Yeahy for us, we are so awesome!!  But we just had to look at one more place before making the decision....


Disaster struck, this other place was way cheaper, sligthly bigger and in a non apt complex (which really is a plus) ... sigh.... after a tearful goodbye to our PERFECT place (which now I can say really wasn't all that perfect but oh so cute!!) we went for it.  Selling feature for us?!? besides the low price?!? it has a laundry room!! not a laundry closet, but a laundry ROOM!!  I mean, can you blame us, who can resist that?!?!?


Fast forward 4 weeks, we are here and moved in, mostly..... it's a lot more cramped that we imagined, especially since Josh is here with us, but all of it fits, which is nothing short of miraculous if you ask me.  Even though, poor Josh, the room he is in is basically one giant store room, our boxes, his boxes, the exercise bike and 2 TVs! 


I always forget how stressful moving is, my brain must just erase all those horrible things that must be done when one moves, the utilities exchange, the new internet set up, changing your address everywhere, the upfront costs of moving, they always want deposits and such.... Adding to all of those, this time around we have dealt with some unforseen complications such as:

1. Our bank just decided to mark our rent check as fradulent and cancel it, without checking with us or anything, then refused to pay for the returned check fee which we were charged by our landlord, no worries, we are changing banks, take that WellsFargo!!
2. We got a notice from our landlord saying we didn't pay all of Octobers rent "You owe us $425" no we don't, we moved in on the 16 so it's only half month's rent, which we did pay.... many phone calls and stress ensued
3. They misplaced Josh's credit check fee.. much annoyance on their part and surprise on ours till it was all figured out... sigh... really!?!?! can't anything go right with this move?!?!?
4. We just received another notice saying we didn't pay for November's rent, "Please remit the total amount owed and another $65 for being so late" No we don't, we payed for 1 and 1/2 month's rent up front instead of first and last month, somebody PLEASE read our contract, for Pete's sake!!! More phone calls and more stress ensues..... I think I  need a vacation...

Makes you wonder what they are doing in that Accounting department, playing russian roulette I am sure... "which one of our tenants will receive a mistaken invoice for money they don't owe us??!?!? and the lucky winner is Apt 1 at The Crest.. ding ding ding!!! Twice in a row!! woot aren't they lucky?!?!? "


Things I have learned that hope I won't forget for the next time we move:

• It takes a lot more money to move than one thinks
• Yes, it will take you hrs on the phone to do easy things like switch your utilities from your old place to your new place
• When measuring a room to fit your furniture in, please remember that other things go in there as well.. such as but not limited to : chairs, lamps, giants bags of packing peanuts, giant rolls of bubble wrap, boxes for shipping, 3-drawer carts... oh and you also need walking room!!
• Make lots of friends so you have more people to help you move!! Thank you Callen, Sandra and Aaron!!
• It takes a lot longer to pack up the "few things left" than you thought
• STOP BUYING STUFF!!!!

Ok, done with all this now....

To Blog or Not to Blog?!?

The question of "to blog or not to blog" has now been answered.  To blog it is!


Now comes the more arduous task of figuring out what to blog about... or more to the point, what can I blog about that will not send people running to the closest "GET ME OUT OF HERE" button?!? Things I can promise you now are the following:

• Be prepared for the gross overuse of punctuation!!!!
• Some blogs may be good, some may be bad.... this one will at least be interesting!
• Chinchillas will be mentioned.. probably often!! ;)
• Recipes will be shared for the enjoyment of all ..free of charge!!
• Italian references and expressions that may or may not make any sense will be used

That's a lot of promises right there.... hope I haven't just set myself up for failure!


And now, for something completely different.....


Why blog now? you ask, well, I dont' have a good answer, the best I can come up with is.......... because I want to, because I think some of my thoughts and craziness needs to be shared and because it sounds like a good idea... who knows, maybe this will be a diary of sorts for me, something the grandkids can read and remember their crazy italian grandma by .... "See, she was always crazy, it wasn't just old age setting in!!"


Italian... but adjusted  that's me to a T, I love my roots and where I come from, but am equally in love with this country and all that it has to offer and has offered me..only thing I really miss is Gelato and good pizza.. ok, that was two things but you know what I mean.


And then it began..........