Advent Ideas

I grew up watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation every year. Every year I wanted an advent house like they had on the movie and I could never find one.

A few years ago I found out that someone was selling them on the web. They are AMAZING and beautiful and perfect, but they're also super expensive. They are $1000 for the house. Granted, they are well constructed and even have brick and mortar, but still quite pricey. One of these days I'll save up and buy one and treat it as a family heirloom.

Here's a picture of the house:



While I'm on the topic of advent, I wanted to share with you the advent list I found on Katherine Marie's blog. It's a random acts of kindness advent list for Christmas and I was blown away when I read it. What a wonderful idea! If you're curious as to what is on the list, click here to read it.

Hope you all enjoyed Black Friday! I did nothing but put up our tree as Italy obviously doesn't even know Black Friday exists or what it is and it was snowing. First snow of the year for us!

Wednesday White-Out

Well, Mother Nature has gotten the best of me once again!

See...in Italy this past week it seemed as if spring was on the way. I could smell spring in the air, farmers were plowing up fields, trees were being pruned, small flowers were blooming. I even laid out on our balcony to soak up some sun.

Then the wind hit. Now, let me just say, being from Oklahoma I am used to the wind blowing, but living in Italy has spoiled me because here the wind rarely blows. The last two days it has howled. It's been so loud it's even scared Boomer and he doesn't usually get that riled up by weather.

Then this morning I open up my shutters to see huge flakes of snow. I'm talking massive snowflakes. These would be the Goliaths of the snowflake world.

However, I had to go to post for my new tires to be put on, so I couldn't slack at home and see what happened. Fast forward about five hours later and the snow is now sticking and it's gotten colder. It's still snowing like crazy, so bad in fact that post is closing at 4p.m. today.

Now it looks like this here:



Do you see how big those flakes are?

I'm not too worried about the storm though, I got the essentials at the commissary before I came home. You know, things like milk, cheese, Weight Watchers ice cream bars and of course some breakfast sausages. Yeah...I'm not sure there is a method to my madness, but I also got Gone With the Wind on DVD at the library today so I think I'm good.

Final 2 days at Polk

Well, all our stuff is officially packed and out of the house. Hopefully it all makes it to Italy in one piece. No I'm not holding my breath on that one.

After work last night we went to the house to clean.

Can I just say I HATE deep cleaning a house. Quite frankly it sucks and I wish I could just nod my head like Jeannie and it all be clean.

I think most of the deep cleaning is done, minus the carpet cleaning. That I will have to do tonight. I spent last night vaccuming and cleaning the baseboards. Yes...that's right me cleaning the baseboards. In every room.

After cleaning for a few hours last night we went back to our hotel room.

I was all pumped about staying in the Magnolia House on post. It's got great rooms, cute kitchnettes and the beds are comfy.

We are staying in the Cypress Inn, which I guess is an annex of some sort.

Word of Warning: If you ever stay at Fort Polk, avoid the Cypress Inn at all costs.

It's Amenities include:
1. Tiny Shower
2. Uncomfortable bed complete with lumpy pillows
3. Paper thin comforter for a great cold night

I think I slept the best out of the three of us.

I'm really not trying to come off being Miss Complain about everything today. I promise. I'm just ready to go home to Oklahoma. Which we will be doing Friday after I get off work.

Tonight is the final night of cleaning. We have our final inspection Friday morning at ten. Since Sean has to go to work and final out that day Boomer will be coming to work with me. It's ok since Kelly and I will be the only ones in the office.

My boss took all of us to lunch today for my goodbye dinner, which I was grateful for. I had a delish steak and baked potato. Looks like those pesky five lbs I wanted to lose before I went home aren't going to disappear after all.

Oh well...'tis the season to eat lots of goodies!

We got a little bit of snow last night. It was mostly slush on our car, but Baton Rouge got several inches today. Where is this wacky weather coming from? I didn't expect for it to be snowing in Louisiana before we left!

14 Days Until Christmas!