It's been a whirl of a weekend. I'm so happy to be back in the comforts of my own home and bed for that matter.

Let's start how my weekend went shall we?

The hubs and I went to Las Vegas so that I could partake in my 2nd Half Marathon of the year. I don't know what I was thinking to schedule two half marathons one month apart. Who does that? Oh that's right. Me. Ofcourse.

You can read about my race here.

When we returned, we made a quick stop home because over the weekend, we received a phone call that our house alarm inadvertently sounded off. It's pretty frustrating to be hundreds of miles away and receive a phone call from the alarm people and tell us that they aren't quite sure why the alarm went off. Why the hell are we paying you then? Morons.

The hubs graciously asked if they can have the police swing by to make sure everything is okay and fortunately, everything was okay. The house is secure! But, we just wanted to see for ourselves before we headed off to my parents house to pick up Maddie.

Thankfully, our front door was locked and nothing was taken away. Phew!

We were so excited to see Maddie. I always miss her whenever I leave out of town. She's starting to get along better with my parents little dog, Jordan. Err, I mean, Jordan is starting to "tolerate" Maddie more. I don't blame him. She's like a gazillion times bigger than him.

I haven't even begun decorating our house for the holidays. So far, I have a snowman rug outside and a Christmas runner on our table. Just purchased a fresh wreath at Trader Joe's for $11.99 and wondered if I should have splurged a few dollars and got the eucalyptus one instead.

Hopefully, we can get our tree this weekend. My parents are going to give us their 9ft fake tree that they hardly use as we were telling them that we want to invest in a fake tree. Hey, I'll take it. It's beats fighting the crowd post Christmas and hello, it's FREE!!!!

How are the Holiday decorations coming along in your household? Are you like me and have like a handful of items up or are you already way ahead of me and have a slew of stuff hanging all over your house?

As most of you know, I work as a Registered Respiratory Therapist. Since the summer, we have been hit with the H1N1 and I have to admit that at times, I would get scared of this H1N1 epidemic because of how fast it can affect your body and sometimes cause the patient to deteriorate quickly and/or expire.

In September, we had a patient come into our ER. I remember working this night and my friend/coworker, " No Fear" was working the ER. I think I had the floors that night. Anyways, she was just in disbelief how a patient that was experiencing the usual flu-cold symptoms comes in with extreme weakness, shortness of breath and lungs that appear so shot on the xray that we were already wondering if he was even going to make it the next few days.

This patient was in our hospital for 30 days. We aggressively treated him respiratory wise by placing him on all kinds of machines in order to assist him with his illness. Some of these machines we don't often use at our hospital, so it was quite the adrenaline rush at times to have to monitor these machines on a patient.

Well, fortunately, the patient survived and wanted to personally thank the staff in the ICU that cared for him. What better way to do it than by bringing in with him a news crew! Two of my coworkers are in here. One of them being our Clinical Coordinator who had absolutely no clue that she was being filmed. Odd because there's like a huge camera in your face. Haha.

Anyways, I'd just thought I'd post this touching story as I am just so happy that this patient was able to pull through and spend the holidays with his family in his own home and get a second chance to live!

Please click here to view this special occasion.

Last year, since we just purchased our first home and got married that year, we figured, why not host a Thanksgiving mealat our house. I didn't realize how much work goes into hosting a Thanksgiving feast. Like, I REALLY didn't realize. So much cooking and cleaning and good Lord, the post cleaning and the impaction of your refrigerator. Good God! How does one stay sane?

During the week of, we did a lot of cutting and cleaning. It didn't help much either that I had to work majority of that week,too! The night before, the hubs and I prepped the turkey with the whole brining method and hoping for the best that it turns out ok. It was our first time preparing and cooking a turkey and so you can say we were a bit nervous of what the outcome would be since, afterall, it is the main star of the meal!

This year, Thanksgiving is "thankfully" at my parents house. It's usually is and has been for many, many years at their house. Phew! Took the pressure off of us. Plus, I'm glad it's back at their house as their house is a midway point for everyone. Poor family last year had to endure a 3 hour drive up to Sacramento at a snail pace. I handed them a beer once they came through the door as they looked like they needed one.

I can't wait to see my family as it's always quite the fun event. We drink, play games, watch tv, sing karaoke, talk, gossip, and just pretty much lounge and enjoy each others company.

Where's Thanksgiving for you this year? Will you be hosting it at your house? Are you making any entrees, appetizers, desserts for Thanksgiving?

This past weekend was a semi- eventful weekend.

It was raining on Friday but it didn't stop me from going out shopping. I remember seeing an advertisement in the Sunday paper a week ago for World Market. They were selling mugs that replicated the to-go mugs for $7.99. I've always wanted one of those mugs and nearly bought the one that sells at Paper Source for $20.

So, off I went to WM in search of those mugs. They had a solid a red and green ones and a odd looking plaid one. If only the plaid one was in much better colors, like umm, Burberry plaid colors? Right? That would make a pretty delicious looking cup. I should write to WM and let them know this.

I snagged one for myself and two more for Christmas presents. Wanting them to be used year round, I got all green mugs even though I loved the red mug. I'm a sucker for the red cups at Starbucks. But, I knew getting the green mug would be the perfect call.

The mugs are porceline and have a silicone top. It's also dishwasher and microwaveable safe. Love that!!!!

On Saturday, I ran my very first 10K race. If you are at all interested, you can read about it here. Slept pretty much majority of the day once I got home from the race which made Saturday a big fat dunce. Oh wells, there's always Sunday right?

Well, Sunday I woke up to make a heaping pot of Colombian coffee and enjoyed it in one of my newest mugs, a San Francisco mug. I found out that Starbucks puts out each year a series of collection mugs for cities. You can only purchase them in those designated cities. So far, I've collected Sacramento, San Francisco, and most recently because the hubs visited Chicago for a speech, I got Chicago! They also have state mugs, too! Ofcourse, I have the California one already.

Ran a lot of errands on Sunday. After running the 10K on Saturday, I've realized that I am in super dire need of outdoor winter running clothes. So, we headed to the Nike outlets and I guess it was meant to be because they were having a pretty good sale! Additional 30% off all the clearance items as well as some other items around the store which so happen to be the items that I really liked. Score!







Afterwards, we headed to another WM location because I wanted to see if they had another pattern for those mugs in which they didn't have at the first WM location that I went to. Boo, they sold out on all of the mugs. Couldn't believe it. So, I ended up just mosing around and found these lick- your- lips hot chocolate flavors! They are $1.99 each and I think, that is, if they taste as good as they sound, I am going to include them with the mugs I bought.

Super busy weekend this past weekend. I was able to switch shifts with a coworker to get Saturday off so that I could host and watch Manny Pacquiao kick Cotto's bootay!!!! It sure was a great fight and glad that it lasted 12 whole rounds. It's really true that when Pacquiao fights, the Philippines stops. Every single Filipino is watching the fight, literally. Not to mention, constantly updating their Facebook while watching the fight. Hilarious comments!

Hosting a family gathering is no joke. While I enjoy having the family over and noshing on good, the cleanup is always the aftermath of it all. Dam, there was so many dishes and pots and pans to clean. Ugh. I'm still trying to clean up the mess we made.

Parents brought over a couple of succulent plants for me. I decided to display them in the front of the house. So pretty! I love succulent plants. The best part, you don't have to water them as often. Hopefully, I kill them even with the lack of watering that they need.






Target boots came in last night. While I like the way they look, I am not liking the shortness of them. They fit just above my ankle. Wish they were just a little bit higher. Should have purchased the taller ones. But, I'm going to give them a whirl out on the streets or play with them with various outfits and decide if I want to keep them or not. They are comfy, though!

Maybe I should just get the UGGS. Ugh, dammit!!!!

When I am on my 7 days off from work, it's the time me and the hubs cooks and sometimes try different recipes for the first time. I think after living together for a year, I've developed a system when he cooks. I try to clean up as much as I can when he cooks. I'm basically his assistant per say. I remember in the beginning of us living together, I was wide eyed with the amount of mess he makes in one sitting while cooking. So, now, I just bite my lip (at least I try to at times!) and just clean up as he cooks. I sometimes, pray that he'll just adapt to this way of cooking and cleaning through the years.

Anyways, this week we tried two new recipe's. There was a sale on the sirloin beef at the local market and the hubs brings home 4 pounds worth of the meat. Ugh.

We decide to try out Sandra Lee's Crispy Orange Beef with Broccoli. I've never made a Sandra Lee recipe before, although I've watched her show countless times on the Food Network. Whenever I watch her show, I always think to myself, " why couldn't I think of that?" She never fails to come up with clever way to come up with recipes and this Crispy Orange Beef with Broccoli is one that doesn't disappoint! Its definitely a "fake out" of Chinese food and easily satisfies your craving for Chinese food in my opinion. We loved, err I loved it so much that we made it two nights in a row!

No picture was taken of our meal, but trust me, it was really good.

Last night, we tried a Thai Peanut Turkey Burger. After reading about this delicious recipe on KimberlyMichelle's blog, I made sure to bookmark the recipe and try it. The picture isn't mines, but is taken from the website of A Good Appetite.

It sure was good. The hub was trying to figure out what the flavors reminded him of. After a few bites, he realized that it reminded him of a gyoza dumpling sans the yummy wrapper. Just the inside of the gyoza. I suspect it has to do with the fresh ginger I grated in it. Maybe, I put too much?

Do you and your husband cook often? Who does the majority of the cooking in your household? Do you like to experiment with different recipes?