Inane Chatter » holidays

Watch out for falling cliches

Zannah — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:36:57 +0000

Happy New Year! It’s a brand new year, not too cold (I’m convinced we’re going to be paying for this in February), sunny and shiny and fresh, and I have the cliché-est of all resolution clichés: I want to lose weight. Eat right. Be healthy. Find the exercise routine I lost a couple of months ago. I’m reluctant to even call it a resolution. It’s a thing that is always true and that I’m always making some effort to do. How much of an effort is what varies. Let’s just say I’ll start paying attention again. Making better choices. I also think I want to be a database administrator. Maybe. I’m still trying to find out what it would take.

Something almost unheard of happened last night. Or didn’t happen, actually. I didn’t knock over any champagne glasses. ! You’re shocked, I can tell. No one knocked anything over, as far as I know. Jess had a close call, but she saved it with her catlike reflexes. A little champagne dripped here and there while it was being poured, but that doesn’t count.

John and I have done very little today, and it has been wonderful. The best thing about right now, right this very second, is that there’s no work tomorrow.

The best thing about last night is that there were too many good things to pick one. I LOVE having our friends at the house, New Year’s Eve or any eve. Thanks for coming, guys! Man, we should have taken pictures.

It’s a Christmas miracle

Zannah — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 04:33:23 +0000

For the first time in living memory, we’ve gone to bed before midnight TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW while staying with John’s family. Tonight, we all have hours and hours in which to dream of sugar plum fairies (or David Tennant – whatever floats your boat). Molly is a college student who has to be dragged from her bed in the morning now, not the five-year-old who woke me up with hilariously frantic whispers at 6am that first Christmas morning. Aging. It’s a wonderful thing. To a point.

Baby, it’s not that cold outside

Zannah — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:15:17 +0000

It’s not cold enough. I should be happy about that (I hate being cold), but it’s hard to feel Christmas-y (or Hanukkah-y – yes, I’ve been lighting candles this year. Please pick your jaw up off the floor. That’s not sanitary.) when you barely need a coat to go outside. I’ll get over it. Just as soon as we hit the road. Which can’t be soon enough for me. What I’m really looking forward to is the time off. I need a long, long break. Or maybe…yeah, we don’t talk about that on the internet.

I also didn’t mean to publish that yet. The Publish button looked a lot like the Save Draft button just then. Whoops. (For those of you coming late to the party, first of all, shame on you. Get it together and be on time. Secondly, it’s kind of obvious what just happened, so this explanation is unnecessary.)

I regret my choice of post title now. Not just because it’s dumb, although that should be enough. No, I regret it because that song is stuck in my head now. I like it fine, but I’ve been having this problem all day, and I can’t settle on a song I’d be happy to have looping through my brain all day. I woke up this morning to the theme from The Price is Right (thanks to the episode of How I Met Your Mother we watched last night), but I started to tell John about it and immediately switched to “You Were On My Mind” by We Five. (John, you were right. It’s We Five.) Maybe I can get that one back. I’ve always liked that song. Wish me luck!

Anxiety reared its ugly head again, but I beat it back with presents and winter penguin wrapping paper.

Zannah — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:13:25 +0000

I don’t have a fear of crowds. I don’t have a fear of speaking or performing in front of people. Right now, though, I can’t seem to make myself go back to my gym classes. I haven’t been in about four weeks (I’ve been to the gym plenty, thank you very much, but only to work out on my own), and even though I really like those classes and I really like the people who take them and teach them, I don’t want to see them. I’m hiding. My plan for this afternoon was to stop working around four, go get my nails done, and get back to the gym in time for Muscle Blast and then yoga. Four came along, and I found myself procrastinating. Why would I do that? Why would I waste time when I could be at the nail salon? The later it got, the less likely it became that I’d have time to get my nails done in time to make it to class. And then I started trying to decide which I would rather do if I only have time for one. And then I realized that it’s the Wednesday before Christmas and I haven’t wrapped any presents yet. If I don’t do some (or all) of it tonight, I’ll only have tomorrow evening to get it done, and really, where are my priorities? The gym will still be there tomorrow morning (for weights) and tomorrow lunchtime (for cardio) (same for Friday), and if I have time, I can still get my nails done. And if I don’t have time, who cares? They can wait. Or I can – brace yourselves – do them myself.

So the anxiety I was feeling about going to the gym morphed into anxiety about my to do list, and I’ve sent it all away by deciding to wrap presents and watch TV and drink wine until John gets home (from another office Christmas party). I win!

Not exactly ahead of the game, but at least it’s not the absolute last minute.

Zannah — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:41:08 +0000

The shopping for presents, it is done. Except for one small thing, but it’s easy to get. We spent SIX HOURS at the mall yesterday. It was insane, but everyone seemed to be on their best behavior. We didn’t witness any tantrums or pepper-spray attacks, although the staff at the restaurant we had dinner in dropped five plates, broke a glass, and spilled some wine right next to our table. (Those were three separate events, not one big disaster. All in the space of an hour. Not their best night, I think.)

All that’s left is the wrapping.

Whistle a happy tune

Zannah — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:51:04 +0000

It’s amazing how much better I feel, how much looser, more relaxed, now that my exam is over. I didn’t know how much it was weighing on me until I was done. (It went well, for the most part. I think. (Does a comma go in that sentence? I can’t decide.)) I was telling Mom earlier that I think most of the stress comes from trying to balance school and work. I don’t feel like I have enough time to devote to school because of work, and I don’t want it to take up all my free time because, you know, free time is necessary, but I can’t really relax in my free time because I know I have schoolwork to do. I know – life is hard, and I’m only taking one class. Boo hoo. Now shut up. I’m saying I personally don’t handle it very well. But now, now that the test is over, now that all that’s left is work (which slows down during the holidays because everyone takes time off) and present shopping, I can maybe enjoy these here holidays. Take some deep breaths. Look at the pretty lights. My neighbor at the bottom of the street has these icicle lights that actually look they’re dripping. But she might think it’s weird if I go stand on her sidewalk and stare…

This holiday snuck up on me

Zannah — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:33:55 +0000

I don’t know why I expected to be productive today. I really really wasn’t. At all. Nope. The only good thing I did all day was keep the dogs company so I could put off the guilt of dropping them off at the kennel. Something I will be doing within the hour. The guilt is rising. At least it’s only two nights. We’ll be back before they know it (I hope), and they can spend the whole weekend draped over our toes as we spend lots of quiet hours working on our schoolwork (John plans to put in some quality thesis time, and I have my last calculus quiz to work on). We may watch the rest of Twin Peaks. We started it a few days ago, and we’re five or six (seven or eight) episodes in. We’re looking for stuff to put off getting caught up with Doctor Who and Torchwood. I’m not ready to not have any new episodes of those to watch. So I’m treating Twin Peaks like a movie, kind of. The end isn’t far off (it wasn’t on the air that long), and I want to know what happened! I could do without the music, though. Truly awful stuff.

I’m not ready for Thanksgiving. Mentally. How did it get to be late November? Wasn’t it August, like, yesterday? What happened to August, anyway? Well, crap. I must be old. Maybe I can find a way for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas to slow down a little so I can enjoy them. Unlikely. I can’t get today to slow down – how could I get whole weeks to stop rushing by?

On the other hand, no work for four whole days! Yay! Save some green bean casserole for me. That’s all I care about this year. That and sweet potatoes. And stuffing/dressing/however it’s made – I love it either way. Really, it’s just the turkey I can do without.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Avoiding an egging

Zannah — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:05:40 +0000

We weren’t particularly in the mood for Halloween this year. John picked up some candy yesterday, but we didn’t decorate, we didn’t look for costumes for ourselves, and as of this morning, we’d decided to pretend we weren’t home. I had visions of us leaving all the downstairs lights off and hiding in our room with dinner, the dogs, and the Roku, blinds closed. I would have put a bowl of candy on the front porch, but that would have been it. Then John got home and decided we weren’t going to be those neighbors. Instead, the lights are on, the doorbell is ringing, the dogs are going nuts (Riley LOVES Halloween – he’s so excited he gets to say hi to all the little kids), and we’re holding dinner until the rush is over. But the kids are cute. This one little boy was pretty clearly dressed as Thor, so I asked the idiot question: “Are you Thor?” “NO. I’m FIVE.” I stopped asking. Another little girl ran back to her parents yelling, “I petted the doggie!” That’s SO much better than candy.

Happy Hallmark Day!

Zannah — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 02:47:52 +0000

Isn’t every day supposed to be Valentine’s Day when you’re in love? What makes today so special? And why should we let somebody else dictate to us when we should celebrate our love?

On the other hand, celebrating love is a whole lot better than celebrating war or other bad stuff.

I love Russell Brand. Happy Valentine’s Day!

That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers

Zannah — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:24:12 +0000

It’s GROUNDHOG DAY! And in about half the country, no one can even find any woodchucks in the driving wind and snow. Have you seen that Geico commercial?

Dang woodchucks.