Giveaway

Is anyone who reads here a size 4 and want a really pretty little red Christmas dress? I will attach a photo later if someone is the right size. I just love it so much but my post baby body is not as enthusiastic.

Why My Sleep Sucks

It's midnight, on a work night, and I've been trying to sleep since 9:30. Why is this happening? Well, it's my Monday tomorrow.. Always worse. Also, I'm suddenly freaking out about my part time work plans and our family's future. For the love, someone talk me down!

Child is also sick and thoughts of daycare/not daycare are plaguing me,

And this, folks, is what it's like to have my brain.

Christmas Card Review

I've gotten Tiny Prints Christmas cards 2 years in a row and liked them very much. The pictures turned out beautifully, the colors were great, and the the cards looked high quality. Last year I even reviewed them in return for free cards.

This year I didn't have that same reviewing opportunity and decided to buy a Living Social deal from a new company: Simplytoimpress. I like the cards we got. They're nicely done. However, the card stock, printing and images don't strike me as high a quality as Tiny Prints (and I believe they were the same price.) They also do lighting etc "fixes" on your images, which I thought would be a good thing. But the lighting changes that were made to the photo of my son seemed overenthusiastic. I felt the photo looked more overblown than "lightened." Perrhaps they think he's whiter than he is? ;-)

On the pro side for Simplytoimpress, the packaging was delightful (see image below), and their customer service seems good too. We got not only 2 extra envelopes (like Tiny Prints), but 2 extra cards along with a little note explaining that they understand how easy it is to miscalculate, so here are two cards just in case. I liked that a lot.

Overall though, I think I preferred the look and the options for Tiny Prints cards. I was getting a special deal through Living Social, so it's fine, but I will probably go back to Tiny Prints if I have the money or if they offer me a deal again. Note that I was offered nothing for this review in particular. I often look to others for advice on these sorts of choices, so I try to review when I can.

Tired. What else is new?

I have started posts/photos about my new batch of hard candy, trying a new card service and various other adventures, but it hasn't gotten done. I've been just so tired. I haven't even been commenting much on Jen's posts. You KNOW something's wrong now right?

Ever since we got back from our home trip, I have been completely wiped. I chalked it up to travel fatigue, and then not eating right, and then not sleeping well, but nothing I do is making it any better. So today, only 2 mos after my last Endo visit, I called them and asked them to check my thyroid. We were going for a year between checks this time. Sigh. The change in seasons generally does screw with it though. I really hate this. Can't it just be stable?

Hard day. Don't you hate those? Too bad I'm not home with my family for Thanksgiving.

Things I've Learned Recently

We've just returned from our trip to visit family. I did well with the hard candy! It's much more like cooking than baking, so it was more up my alley. I'm not so hot with the baking. This has been the year of trips. I really should include some photos from California, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. I'm a very negligent blogger.

In any case, here are the top things I wanted to share with you that I learned in the past few weeks.

1. If you unknowingly brush your teeth with whitening Sensodyne, it will not help your sensitivity. In fact, you will end up with very painful high sensitivity that you then go to the dentist about without realizing you caused the problem in the first place. Smart.

2. If you think to yourself, "Huh. My car windows seem to go down and up really slowly these days," check your battery. What? I've never had automatic windows before!

3. When making hard candy, if you cook it slighly too long into caramelizing, then add teal food coloring, it will be forest green... 'cause, you know,  yellow and blue make green.

4. Here is a lovely photo of my actual teal candy. The photo makes it look more true blue, but trust me, it was teal.

5. I handle the cold much better than I used to, and I seem to have less tolerance for heat. So weird. I don't know if it's having my thyroid and PCOS under control or what. But while I still lean heavily toward Virginia, I could possibly live in Pittsburgh as well. E blossomed incredibly around all his family. He particularly loved his "cousints." 

Branching Out

And then we get the Florida fall and winter, and I never want to leave.

In other news, I'm attempting hard candy from scratch today. I'll let you know how it goes. I remember "helping" my Grandma as a little girl, but that's as far as my experience goes.