Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to everyone! F.B. & I will be celebrating Christmas Eve at our apartment. This will be F's 1st Christmas in the USA, our 2nd Christmas married & our 3rd Christmas spent together. :-)

I'll be making alfredo pasta with mushrooms, bacon and ham for Christmas Eve dinner. Also Texas toast with cheese, and Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for dessert. Mmmm.

Christmas Day we'll be meeting my family at a Chinese Buffet for brunch. (3rd year we've done this tradition). Then we'll be heading back to my parents house to exchange gifts. F.B. & I will be exchanging gifts tonight.

I made a batch of cookies Friday night and two batches this afternoon. Of course I had some cookie baking disasters though... 1st off, I really need to buy a GLASS measuring cup- my plastic one melted while trying to melt chocolate in the microwave, lol!


And I really love Dollar Tree. My apartment is stocked with stuff I've gotten from there. But their cookie sheets... epic fail. The metal warped in the oven and my cookies ended up looking like.... brownies? The perfect cookie on the right is from the cookie sheet my Mom gave me. The cookies on the left... are from the Dollar Tree cookie sheet...


I made a batch of these White Chocolate Cherry Cookies:


And Thumbprint cookies with strawberry jam!

We had to take Jasmine to the vet this morning, to be put to sleep. I hate having to make that decision... it's the worst.

Jasmine started with an eye injury back in November. We think maybe one of the girls scratched her in her eye. It got infected and started swelling. The vet started her on Cipro eye drops & oral antibiotic. She was doing betterish, but then developed a nasty respiratory cold on top of things. Poor girl was wheezing and losing weight and her appetite was really decreased. She had a re-check at the vet and they switched her to Baytril antibiotics, plus the Cipro. Her eye started to get worse a few days after her 2nd vet visit. The eye had ulcerated. If she hadn't had the respiratory infection, the eye could have been removed. Poor girl wasn't doing so well though, she was hardly eating, and we could not get the antibiotics down her. Even when we tried mixing them in baby food or Ensure.

Jasmine was always really sweet and energetic. She LOVED to give kisses. She would kiss your hands, your face all over. She was a sweet mellow rat. She also loved to eat- when she was well. She loved treats or scraps of food. I will definitely miss her kisses. ♥

You can see just how bad Jasmine's eye was in this picture with Violet & Daisy.

Today is our 2 year wedding anniversary! (Though "legally" our marriage certificate says December 18th. See why here). I get 2 hours of administrative holiday leave, so I am using it to leave work a bit early on our anniversary. We will be heading to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner!

I finally finished unpacking on Sunday! We have internet now too. Yay! January is going to suck with all the new bills being due though... I may have to call the electric & gas company to change my due dates once I pay the 1st bills, so that my one pay check will just be for rent, food, gas & my other check for all the other big bills.

We had my cousin Jessica over Saturday night for dinner. (Darn we forget to get pictures together!) We also Skyped with her sister, my cousin Chrissy who lives in Georgia. We ordered Chinese take-out and exchanged Christmas gifts, had some wine & watched 'The Social Network'. It was a really fun evening.

Our new apartment is really close to where I used to work, before our office relocated to Center City Philadelphia. It's a shame, because if we still worked at the old location I could probably WALK to work! The Chinese take-out place is one that my co-workers used to order from for lunch. :-)

My cousin spoiled us with some Christmas/Housewarming gifts!

Sparkling wine!

Christmas day, we are hopefully meeting with my family to have brunch at a Chinese Buffet & exchange gifts. For New Years Eve, I think my husband & I will just be celebrating here at the apartment. I already bought a small half ham, sweet potatoes with brown sugar, crackers, cheese, pepperoni & Martinelli's sparking cider. And a chocolate chip Panettone cake.

Moving day went fine. So exhausted and achy though! Almost unpacked, just some clothes to still hang up and put away. Returned the Uhaul truck this morning. My family helped us move yesterday and we were able to load up the truck for one trip. And then just 2 small trips for last minute items. We are using the internet from my cell phone until we get our Comcast internet. My T-mobile Sidekick 4G can be used as a router. I have "unlimited" mobile internet, but only up to 5GB a month so we can't watch any Netflix until our regular internet service is set up. Back to work on Wednesday. I'll have to use a different train station too. :-p

Also there's some things in the apartment that maintenance has to check out. Our bathroom sink is leaking underneath when you run it. And our shower doesn't work. The knob to turn for shower just gushes tub water out whichever way the knob is turned. Anyhow if that can't be fixed the way I want it- then I ordered this as a back up. At least we don't have to pay for water.

This morning we just ran the tub & used a bucket we have with a handle & spout to "shower" with. (Philippines flash back! The water pressure can be pretty low at times in the Philippines. So everyone has a big tub of back up water with a lid & a bucket or ladle to rinse/bathe with in their shower/tub.)

Here's some pictures of our apartment. We picked up a few Christmas decorations at Dollar Tree today.

I'm closing the contest a few hours early- it's going to be a busy week for me & my husband. We are moving to our new apartment this Friday so my internet may be sporadic until we get it installed in our apartment. (I'll only have my cell phone for internet).

Soooo..... I've used random number generator to select a winner! Out of 23 valid entries.... the winner is....



Please check your email, I will be sending your $10 e-certificate to Fortune Cookie Soap! Congratulations! And thank you to everyone that participated!

(I am not affiliated with Fortune Cookie Soap, I just love their products!)