holidays

Happy (late) birthday to me!

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Late because it was yesterday, not late because it was forgotten.  I had a great birthday weekend.  A long birthday weekend.  (Those are the best kind.)  Mom and Dad came to visit, and we had delicious dinners out, walked all over DC, hung out at home, stayed up late, drank some wine, and talked and talked and talked.  I am thoroughly exhausted, but very happy.  And I have LOTS of flowers in the house.  John came home from work yesterday (I had the day off and spent it working on homework) with sushi and two bouquets of flowers.  He said he was trying to decide between them and then realized he didn’t have to choose.  Then, right after he got home and gave them to me, the doorbell rang.  More flowers!  Mom and Dad sent some from the road.  I love it.

Work today tried to undo my wonderful weekend, but it won’t succeed.  Work stays at work, and I’m going home.  Where I have homework to do.  You know what will make me feel better?  Indian food for dinner!  Because you can’t have too many birthday dinners.

Dear John: A Love Letter (Or Why I Don’t Write Love Letters)

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Dear John, – no, sounds like we’re breaking up

Dearest John – how many of them are there?  Besides 8?

Dear John who I love more than anything in the world,

I love you more than anything in the world. Oh, please.  Start over.

Dear John,

I love you.  I love that you make me laugh.  I love that I make you laugh.  I love how delighted you look when you make me laugh.  I love your principles and how you stick to them.  I love how when you’re excited about something, you fill up the room.  I love that you’re a better cook than me, and when you decide to make something, you throw yourself into it and make it from scratch (and make it better than I could have made it).  You throw yourself into everything you do.  I love that you have more hobbies than you can count and that you always have a pile of books you’re in the middle of reading.  I love that you don’t think there’s such a thing as owning too many books, that you pushed us to get those pictures hung, and that you hold my hand every night as we fall asleep.  I’ve loved you for 14 years and I’ll love you for 140 more.  (Keep an eye out for that deadline in 2152, though.)

Happy Valentine’s Day and every other day.

I love you,

Zannah

Get it together, card industry

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Cards have always tended towards dumb.  If you go to the card section in any drugstore, grocery store, big box store, or card store and pick a card at random, it will be either schmaltzy or cheesy.  A very very teeny tiny eensy weensy small percentage of cards are amusing, and an even smaller amount are actually funny.  And I know this makes me sound old (Get off my lawn, you crazy kids!), but I really think cards used to be funnier.  Or at least less dumb.  I feel like I had a better chance at finding one 15-20 years ago that I would actually give to someone than I do now.  Maybe my sense of humor has changed, but I don’t think that’s it.  (I share my sense of humor with my 6-year-old niece, so I’m fairly certain it’s not me who changed.)  The bottom line is that I don’t buy cards that often anymore.  I don’t even send e-cards as often anymore.  And it’s a little sad.  I used to send cards just for fun.  Because they were funny.  Sending funny emails is not even remotely the same thing.

Funny.  Funny.  What a weird-looking word.  Funny.

Obviously, since it’s Valentine’s Day, I was thinking about Valentine’s Day cards in particular, and how I didn’t buy any (except the one for Gaby’s class, and it didn’t even say Happy Valentine’s Day.  It said Happy Heart Day.  When did that become a thing?  It doesn’t even make sense.  At least say Happy Happy-Heart Day.  Every day would be Happy Heart Day because everyone has a heart, in whatever condition.  You might be wishing someone a Happy Broken-Heart Day.  I need to get out of parentheses.) because they were dumb.  John and I don’t usually do much for Valentine’s Day anyway (takeout and a bottle of champagne tonight), but it’s the principle of the thing, Hallmark.  And whoever else makes cards.  Be amusing or you’ll go out of business.

Watch out for falling cliches

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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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!

The theory sounds good….

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It’s Christmas Eve morning, and we have some errands to run.  Liquor store, grocery store, mall.  It’s somewhat cliche to go shopping at the mall on Christmas Eve, but I like it.  I’m not going because I have to (my shopping is done), so I can enjoy watching everyone else run around in a frenzy.  I get to slow down and notice the decorations and the music and what holiday cheer there may be for me to notice.  I may also be able to come up with a better idea for someone, although that would put me in the same category as the frenzied last-minute shoppers.

Presents!  I need to need less stuff.  Fewer things.

Catching up

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After hearing their version of “Let It Snow” on Pandora the other day (last weekend, maybe?), I bought The Four Freshmen album, “Snowfall”.  It’s my new favorite Christmas album.  I’m listening to it now, relaxing a little before bed.  We had a very busy, productive day, starting with a long-overdue visit with Erik and Margaret.  We met for lunch and moved on to Barnes and Noble, chatting about their wedding plans, puppies, travel, wedding music, wedding dresses, and Calvin and Hobbes, among other things.  John and I bought road maps and travel guides for our trip, and then we went shopping for new weather-proof winter coats.  We both ended up with coats with zip-out fleece liners (’cause it just makes more sense), but I fell in love with the new Columbia Kaleidaslope jacket.

Trust me, it’s way more flattering on than in the picture.  I tried on the large, and it was perfect.  And SO warm.  I’m very happy with the coat I got, but can’t I have both?  I need this one, too, right?  Or, you know, not.  I’ll live.  The point of today’s shopping, though, was to get us that much closer to ready for our trip.  Which we’re very very very excited about.

We got home much later than originally planned and settled in for dinner and our annual viewing of Love Actually.  Which got interrupted (but in a good way) when Corey called.  We’d been trying to connect all day, so I put the movie on hold (to be continued tomorrow) to talk to Brother of Mine.  Also long overdue.

Speaking of Christmas, and thanks to nn.c, here’s a link to a bunch of Christmas-themed photos from around the world.  My favorites are the skiing Santas and both of the ones of Santa runners.

Advice

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I’m not going to talk about Thanksgiving this year.  Just because.  Except to say that I don’t recommend going grocery shopping (for ANYthing) two days before Thanksgiving.  Two nights before Thanksgiving, every grocery store in the country (and certainly the Wegman’s on my way home from work) is a madhouse.  Tons of shoppers clearing the shelves, tons of employees restocking the shelves (thankfully – hee), tons of cars in the parking lot.  And tomorrow, one day before Thanksgiving, will be even worse.  Lesson: whether you’re shopping for the whole Thanksgiving dinner or just getting what you need to get through the week ’cause someone else is cooking, DO THE SHOPPING THE WEEKEND BEFORE.  Plan ahead.  Words to live by.

You’re welcome.

Must. Tell. Someone.

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I’m bursting with news, but it’s all about work, so a) the Internet at large doesn’t care (not that the Internet at large cares about anything I write, reads me regularly (or at all), or even knows I’m here (Goodness.  Pity party much?  Move along, please.)), and 2) I will NOT go into detail about work stuff here.

Also, with a little perspective, it’s just not that exciting.

So.  Other stuff to talk about.  Thanksgiving plans?  Don’t have any yet.  All we’ve decided for sure is that we don’t want to have a big gathering (last year took a lot out of us), and traveling for the holiday may be difficult since John doesn’t automatically get the day after Thanksgiving off from work.  And we’re saving vacation days.  Big trip coming up.  And we like running that 5K on Thanksgiving morning.  That’s the extent of the discussion so far.

The band is practicing tonight, so I let the dogs come upstairs with me.  Roxy curled up on the floor next to my side of the bed.  She either fell asleep immediately or she’s faking it so I won’t make her go downstairs once the guys leave.  She might really be that tired.  She had two seizures yesterday, one around noon and one around 11 last night.  She’s fine now, but I think she could use a little extra love.  We may try letting the two of them sleep up here tonight.  I’m sure they’ll only make it an hour or so before one of them decides to stick a cold nose in my face.  That’s when I’ll shoo them back downstairs.  Happens every time.

4th of July

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I wore the dogs out today.  We went for a two-mile walk around mid-morning and they came inside acting like I’d asked them to run a marathon, and this evening I brought them to the block party where John’s band was playing.  Roxy laid down at the end of her leash and pretended we weren’t there, as usual, but Riley got a little nervous and spent the whole time trying to crawl into my lap.  While drooling.  He was mostly okay as long as I had my hands on him, but heaven forbid I let go so I could clap for the band (who did really well – John was awesome during “All Along the Watchtower”).

We’ve never really made a big deal out of the 4th of July.  I think we’re too lazy.  A couple or three years ago, we had some people over and played with sparklers, but that hardly took any effort.  Last year, we tagged along with other people’s plans and spent the afternoon at the pool and watched the fireworks in Falls Church (really good fireworks).  This year we had tentative plans to do that again, but then the band got a gig, and that ended up taking up pretty much the whole day.

Tomorrow will be all about trying to keep cool.  It’s supposed to get ridiculously hot, but I don’t have to do anything that’ll keep me outside.  I think I can safely skip running.

Go be your own country already!

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As if we needed another reason not to move to Texas.  Go read Jess’s take on it.  It’s good.

In other news, I had the BEST sandwich for lunch today.  Turkey on honey wheat bread with sprouts and avocado slices.  SO good.  And it came with baby carrots and ranch dressing (GOOD ranch dressing) and a cookie.  If you have an Apple Spice Junction near you, I recommend it.  At least that sandwich.  And the ranch dressing was green!  I’ll admit it made me a little nervous at first, but it tasted great, and it’s been six hours since I ate it and I feel fine.  Maybe turning a dairy product green for a holiday isn’t such a good idea.  Not without a note or something.  You know, like “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Your ranch dressing is green on purpose!”