2008 is definitely off to the right start!

After a really fun NYE, we woke up fairly early on the 1st to get the new year started. I caught a little of the Rose Parade and then it was football, football and more football on the TV for the rest of the day. However, it was also time to finally take the tree down, pack up the Christmas decor and get the apartment cleaned and organized again. This took us most of the day, but by the evening our place looked fantastic and it was nice to know that the holiday clean-up wasn't hanging over our heads anymore.

Hubs also finally got around to transferring his itunes music from our old computer that was barely revived enough for him to get the music files off of it (really, the poor thing is begging to be put out of it's misery) and onto the new pretty pink one. We picked up gigantic back-up hard-drives during our latest Costco adventure so we can have all of our important music and pics stored on another, separate location in case the new computer ever decides to randomly bite the big one. As he was getting this all organized, it was time for a trip down music memory lane. Seeing my very white husband bumpin' to Tupac and then crooning to Frank Sinatra within seconds of each other is beyond hilarious.

For dinner, we tried out a local Chinese restaurant for takeout and sadly, it was just okay. :( We're still trying to find a good Chinese takeout place that is close to us, but so far, we're failing miserably.

Yesterday it was back to the grind. Not much to report here. Everyone is still trying to get back in the swing of things. After work, I hit the gym to meet with my trainer for an hour. The first 30 minutes were pure hell. It went beyond that burning sensation in your chest to full on 'OMG I'm gonna puke'. And yet, as awful as it was, I felt really good afterwards, like I had really accomplished something. We're keeping this schedule up until at least the Peru trip, but I might just vote to keep going like this even afterwards. We'll see....

And now, to the best part of last night -- dinner! In order to make the healthy eating a bit less boring, I told myself I was going to try out a bunch of new Cooking Light recipes that I've had my eye on for the past month or so. Last night it was Pasta with Vodka Cream Sauce with a simple green salad on the side. I followed the recipe to the letter with the exception of using the Barilla Plus penne instead of just the regular stuff. I cannot tell you how absolutely amazing this dish was!!! No pics of my version because we dug in as soon as it was done, but this stuff is just so good. And it doesn't taste like you're eating a "diet" dish, which makes it even better. I highly recommend trying it out for yourself. Easy enough for a weeknight meal, but fancy enough that you could even make it for company and they'd think you slaved over for much longer that it actually takes :)

While I'm sore this morning, I feel really good and slept like a baby last night. So far, 2008 is shaping up to be a pretty good year.

Clean Sweep -- it's not just a tv show

Last weekend started early for me as I flew to my mom's house Thursday night to spend the weekend with her. And what were we going to do over the next 2 1/2 days? Why, clean out, organize and re-arrange her downstairs bedroom! Although really, this is only the tip of the iceburg....

Backstory: My parents had been married for 32 years, when early this year my mom filed for divorce. The reasons are long and complicated and messy to go into, though I will say that adultery and abuse were not part of the equation. Thank God. That being said, the divorce should be final by year's end. My mom is now living in the house where I grew up in Northern California by herself (my dad is living in Arizona) and the 30+ years of stuff that has accumulated in the house is just out of control. My mom finally hit a turning point this summer and has started changing her outlook on life. I think there were a number of years where she hasn't been happy, but buried that unhappiness to not make waves within her marriage or the family in general. Instead of dealing with it, she compensated by shopping. Which, of course, just added to the clutter and craziness in the house leading to more unhappiness.... Well, you see where this is going. But over the past few months I have seen such a change in her and it is definitely for the positive! She is getting her life back in order in so many ways, but it is partly expressed by getting her literal house in order, too.

So, this weekend's task was to tackle the bedroom. Quite frankly, we were both overwhelmed with the sheer volume of "stuff" we had to go through. I have tried to help her organize and clean out the bedroom before, but she fought me on purging a lot of the clutter and instead of weeding things out, we just re-arranged what was already there. But not this time!

Once we finally found a place to start, she was throwing stuff into the Goodwill and "sell" piles with wild abandon. I think we had a disagreement on whether to keep or sell maybe 3 items in the entire room. Over the course of 2 days we made 3 trips to Goodwill, 1 trip to the hazardous waste recycling center (for an old TV and batteries) and filed up at least 2 garbage cans of boxes, papers, old mini-blinds and whatnot. She also has several boxes of items that need to go to the antique dealer next week to see if it can be sold. Amazing!

After the room had been purged of all the unnecessary crap, we found homes for the things that were staying in the room, gave the whole thing a good cleaning, replaced the mini-blinds and window coverings and updated the bedding and lamps. It is not an understatement when I say the room looks like a million bucks!!

My sweet mother was just giddy at how much we accomplished and with the final results. She said it was just the motivation she needed to get her started again tackling other rooms in the house. [Prior to my arrival, she had already been working on the garage, backyard and various rooms in the house for at least several weeks. It's just that there is so much to go through, it can be overwhelming and quite tiring at times].

I am so happy for her and really proud of her for taking charge of her life and making some big changes that are right for her. My mom has always been a "people-pleaser", putting everyone else's wants and needs ahead of her own, and now for once, she is putting herself first. It just puts a huge smile on my face when I think about how far she has come in just a few months.

It was a work weekend and I'm still somewhat tired from all the activity, but it was also a lot of fun and well-worth the effort. :)

Shopping and cooking and cleaning, oh my!

Yup, that pretty much sums up my weekend.

Shopping

• After work I hit up Target for a new shower curtain and bathmat (it was time to replace them) and Best Buy for a USB memory card reader and the Grey's Anatomy vol. 3 sountrack. I highly recommend picking it up -- lots of really great tunes including previously unreleased tracks from John Legend (Sun Comes Up) and Matt Kearney (Breathe In Breathe Out) and a song written especially for the season finale from Ingrid Michaelson (Keep Breathing).
• Later that night the hubs and I had "date night" at Costco. When I told my co-workers about this, many of them let me know that they often do this with their significant others too. Nice to know we're in good company. We stocked up on wine, chicken, cereal, chips, a few new books, season 6 of Gilmore Girls (for me), eye drops (for him) and a fresh baked pizza for dinner. Can't beat 9.95 for a pizza the size of a small country.
• Saturday I swung by the new AG Jeans store in Beverly Hills and picked up 2 new pairs of jeans. Woohoo! The salesgirl was really nice and very helpful, even bringing me a bottle of water when I started having a coughing fit in the dressing room. After a stop at Denim Doctors this week to nip in the waist, they will be perfect! Thank you Oprah for bringing my attention to the Club fit --- my backside will be forever grateful.
• That afternoon I went to the grocery store and stocked up for the week. Yay! No lines are so very nice.

Cooking

• Saturday night I made an Applesauce Spice Cake (recipe from Real Simple) which made the whole apartment smell like fall. Although, I guess anything that starts off with a stick of melted butter and a cup of sugar is going to smell pretty darn yummy.
• For dinner, hubs requested my salmon and asparagus in parchment. Again, recipe is from Real Simple (found here) and looks/tastes much fancier than it actually is. Add a side of white rice and some wine and voila! Dinner is served.
• Last night I tried a new chicken recipe for dinner from Cooking Light (my other favorite place for new recipes). Chicken and Asparagus in White Wine Sauce with chive mashed potatoes. Yeah, this one is a keeper! Even though it's from Cooking Light, the amount of butter used probably makes it less than healthly, but eh, still better than getting takeout.

Cleaning

• Went through my closet and loaded up another 2 bags for Goodwill.
• Replaced the bathmat and shower curtain in the bathroom and gave the rest of the room a quick cleaning.
• Dropped off a bag of dry cleaning and did 4 loads of laundry at home. And now we have clean things to wear this week.
• Cleaned and reorganized the kitchen. It looks all pretty and shiny again.
• Reorganized and dusted my half of the office. The hubs side is his responsibility. hehehe

See, not a terribly exciting weekend, but very productive! And now only 4 days til my long weekend -- no work on Friday or next Monday makes me a very happy little worker bee this week :)