Holiday Weekend Recap

*For those who didn't see this Friday,  if you would like to participate again in my "share your holiday cheer" post, I need your submissions by Monday, December 10th.   Send me pictures of your trees, holiday display, holiday decor or favorite holiday tradition, and they'll go up in a post on the 18th.  Message me on Facebook or email me at mrs{at}successalongtheweigh{dot}com.*

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Our holiday was...different.  Obviously, the first one without Grandma here makes it different in itself, so it went back to the previous hosts' house.  A divorce with a favorite relative happened, so they weren't there and were missed.  I'm happy I texted them on their daughter's phone.  Finally, we have someone gravely ill there as well.  We tried to make it seem as normal as we could under the circumstances.  It wasn't.  But as mentioned on Criminal Minds the night before, "it can never be perfect, can it?"  "No, but sometimes good enough is good enough."  For Thanksgiving, I will take good enough, but Christmas is another story.

Friday was pretty low key.  I did a little work but not much.  My brain couldn't take much more so I needed the day to unwind from the previous three weeks.  We got in our workout (an hour of kettlebells), ate beef stew for dinner and I could've done nicely to do nothing the rest of the night.  It was also grocery weekend so about 8pm, we made our trek out and thankfully all of the stores were totally dead.  We got our usual stuff and our appetizers for the football game the next day.  We went to bed around 1am.

I got up and grabbed a shower Saturday morning, we went over to Hobby Lobby to get flowers for Grandma's "condo" for the holidays.  Of course, I picked up a few more things too especially since it was so dead in there.  It was actually a joy to be in there which isn't usually the case.  We got home with half an hour to spare before I needed to start baking all of the apps.  I felt like it wasn't worth it.  It's like any time you have something with cheese, it always leaks out, and you have like a 30-second window from when it's almost done to bursting out.  I had a bursting out day.  Didn't stop me from eating it though.  😞  I was on the laptop half watching the game for the first half then fell asleep for the second half.  I love food coma naps.  I did a little research I needed to do, chatted with a friend, and the Mr was starting to get a headache later, so I warmed up Thanksgiving leftovers, not from our holiday but leftovers I'd already made a few weeks ago.  I needed the room in the freezer anyway. 

The food and some peppermint oil on his temples helped the headache go away.  (Oil works almost every time!)   Then that was pretty much that.  I did use my new water bottle my grandpa's wife got us that we asked for.  They're 64 ounce insulated water bottles so it's your whole recommended intake for one day and it's heavy as a mutha.  But I'll tell you what, I didn't think I'd be able to finish one of them in one day right away, but I did!  That is a real feat for me, so I'm SO glad she got them for us!

Sunday I did a little work, we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to an antique show a friend told me about.  I think I talked her out of it by accident by saying how bad it had been in the past but a check of their social media page and I saw it was supposed to have a few good vendors.  They lied.  It was the same ol' people, dragging out the same ol' crap with maybe four decent booths.  But it was a way for us to walk our two miles while doing something to take our minds off of it, so it was fine.  We stopped by Grandma's, and I put new flowers in and laminated her Christmas card and tied it to the vase.  We stopped by the grocery and picked up a few stocking stuffers and our strawberries and bananas for the week.  I thought I had enough light to get some work done but of course, halfway through, it all went away.  Oh well.  I'll have to figure something out with that one.  The Mr did wax my car and put the cushions on the patio away for the season.  So irritated that we never really got to enjoy our patio at all.  Literally, one week after it was finished (the second time), they began construction about 100 feet away with it going well into winter I'm sure.  God laughs.

We had to get in our workout then I made dinner, and we settled in with some hot chocolate and watched Home Alone with the tree on.  It was a long weekend, I've got a lot of stuff to get working on this week, but it should be at a bit more of a relaxed pace so I'm praying I can actually breathe now.  The past month has been nothing but stress, deadlines and the like. 

Oh, and a little heads up, you're probably going to see more affiliate links in upcoming posts, and I wanted to explain why.  This blog has flipped this year to no longer breaking even for me but actually costing me money to run.  While I am certainly not in this for the money and have never made more than it costs to keep it up, if this continues, I'll have some tough decisions to make at the end of the new year.  I've tried not to be like other blogs that bombard you with videos, popups (except the ones I have to have by law now, which sucks by the way), distracting ads strewn throughout posts in addition to the one at the bottom.  I don't like to read blogs like that myself, so I never wanted to do that to people even if that meant sacrificing my income potential.  I've always been honest with you guys, and I didn't want people to see the affiliate links and think I was getting greedy.   I also don't want anyone to think I'm trying to garner sympathy clicks, I'm just trying to be as transparent with you as possible.  Those food or product reviews I do are at my own cost.  I've only ever gotten one sponsored post, but I assume my mouth makes me undesirous to marketers which I'm okay with if it means I don't have to blow rainbows up your butt and be disingenuous.  (Lines like that are what I'm referring to.)

I also get it that I haven't exactly been a model for weight loss in the past years even if we continue to work out and eat right six days a week.  This has been a very bad year for us, and it's not been sunshine and rainbows for most of it.  I understand if between those two things that it's just not fun to read anymore as it was when we were dropping sizes left and right.  So, I'll press on in the coming year, and hopefully we'll get our act together on the last chunk of weight we need to lose, and it'll be a little more entertaining and upbeat...peppered with my realism and snark you've all come to love...or hate.  HA!

How was your holiday weekend?  Anyone venture out on Black Friday?

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