Teeny tiny blog announcement

I finally got Haloscan, which should make commenting much simpler and more efficient. Unfortunately, in the process, I lost all my old comments! Now, I know I don't have a huge fan base, but I really miss the few comments I had from those of you that do faithfully read my ramblings!

So please please please continue to comment away!

Christmas Ramblings

I am such a dork. I'm at work listening to my two newest CD's (Christmas gifts), Vanessa Carleton's "Harmonium" and Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway", and I am just so ecstatic and sublimely happy about them both. I am a girlie girl through and through; three of my favorite things: chick flicks, chick lit, and chick pop/rock.

My Christmas weekend was highly enjoyable, and incredibly busy. It started off with D. and I both taking off Thursday to get some of our last-minute Christmas shopping done, and to experiment with our oven and cookie cookbook. He was strangely and ridiculously motivated to make Christmas cookies, while I would have been fine making a trip to the grocery store less than 2 miles from our house, but I tried to be a good sport about it! Can you believe he got up at 6:00 on our day off to bake? I love my funny domestic husband. I finally dragged myself out of bed at like 7:30 because I was feeling horribly guilty hearing Mr. busy-bee in the kitchen. However, it took me until 8:00 to actually wake up, I swear I only have a vague recollection of those first 30 minutes crouched on the couch with a bowl of cereal, staring comatose at the blurry television. I really don't like getting up that early when I don't have to.

Anyways, the first candy cane looking cookies that he made turned out great. The other ones were pretty comical. We tried to make these "Chocolate Snowflake" cookies and followed the recipe exactly. You were supposed to take the cooled round chocolate sugar cookies you made and use a self-crafted snowflake stencil and some powdered sugar to make a snowflake on the top. Ok, that book was full of crap because all that happened when the powdered sugar hit the cookie was a big white poofy mess. I decided after about 4 attempts with the snowflake stencil that the authors of our cookbook were playing some sort of mean practical joke on us, so I just made some frosting with the only food coloring we had (red) and frosted the stupid cookies. So we ended up with pink frosted round chocolate sugar cookies. They looked ridiculous, and our kitchen was covered in powdered sugar. So much for our first attempt at holiday baking. My two best friends were there to witness it all and were highly amused, I'm sure, by our antics. Oh, and D. is a severe baking Nazi but I won't get into that. ;)

The rest of our weekend, starting with Thursday night, involved a lot of running around and a lot of family! I feel so lucky to have so many people that want to spend the holiday with us, but I think it's safe to say we were definitely exhausted come Sunday night at 8:00 when we were finally home and officially done with Christmas.

I was reminded this weekend how much I love the game Clue! God, I hadn't played that for AGES! Unfortunately, I could have won the first game but I threw it all away on a really stupid mistake. Man, that pissed me off. Now my brother Ben has bragging rights to winning both games. I'll get him next time though, I have that game down. Speaking of dumb board games, I asked for Guess Who for Christmas and I got it from Santa. I need to break that sh#t out, I love that game! I hate when I draw a girl though. You pretty much automatically lose, there's nothing stopping you from forfeiting immediately, you really have no hope. Unless you believe in Guess Who miracles.

God, this Kelly Clarkson CD is awesome. I adore her. Go out and get it now if you don't already own it. Amazing.

Quick update:

So thanks to all your prayers and hopefull thoughts... I got the coat that I have been coveting for the last month! Well I can't really say that you all had anything to do with it, since my dear mother went out and bought it for me the day after we first found it (meaning both my entire family and my husband have been messing with me for the past month), but I still really appreciate you all having my back!

I don't have time now to write, but I wanted to spread the news to those of you that have been waiting with bated breath to hear if I got it. ;) I'd like to post a picture, but we don't have a digital camera anymore, so I'll have to see if I can figure something out, maybe try to work that scanner that D. has in the basement.

Anyways, I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday! I'll update on my weekend tomorrow when I have more time here at work!

Can you do me a favor?

Please please pleeeeease send out all your happy thoughts into the universe and pray that I receive the ONE and ONLY gift I really really really want for Christmas (remember that glorious suede coat I talked about earlier this month?).

And if I don't get it, pray that I will be a gracious adult rather than a childish brat about it. I admit I have been acting like the latter a lot lately, pestering both my mom and husband almost on a daily basis about how much I need this coat.

One last request, pray that it is still available for purchase if I do not get it as a gift. Because I will most certainly be running on out there to purchase it myself, and it will just be double disappointment if it is no longer in the store.

Thanks!

I need to lay off the Christmas cookies this weekend

In just one hour I will be leaving this dreadful office for a glorious 4 day weekend, I am so excited!

Good God, this week has been hectic. I absolutely love this time of year, but it's so exhausting, and I think I'm going to curl up into a cozy ball of television-watching laziness when it's all over. I can't wait for that. But for now, I will keep up with the tasks at hand, which include finishing up some extremely random Christmas shopping (including buying a gift for Bridezilla, who sent me an email yesterday declaring that we need to get together so she can give D. and I our gift... not only were we not planning on buying her and her husband anything, but I was also planning on avoiding any contact with her for as long as possible so as to keep myself from going absolutely insane listening to her b#tchy drivel), baking cookies (very scary, will try very hard to not burn the house down), and going sledding in this lovely -20 wind chill weather we're having.

This morning, as I was in my normal rush to get ready (I just can't get up when the alarm goes off), I somehow did not get all of the conditioner out of my hair. So the roots of my hair where my bangs would be if I had them are extremely crusty and greasy looking. It's a really good look to sport in the office, you should all try it.

Since I started working out again almost 3 weeks ago (after our treadmill purchase, which I do not regret one bit) I have inexplicably GAINED almost 4 pounds. WTF!! I threw quite the tantrum after that realization. I have been a very dedicated runner, about 4-5 times a week, and have not changed my eating habits, so I am just pissed. Argghhh. Don't really know what to think, but I guess if I want to loose that 5-10 pounds I was originally looking to do, I'm just going to have to stop eating altogether. Definitely going to stay away from the scale though, cause that unfortunate event caused me to momentarily question why I am even trying. B#tch scale. I sort of want to take it out to a deserted field and take out all my aggression with a big ole' wooden bat, sort of paying tribute to the Office Space scene with the destruction of the fax machine, or copier, or whatever it was that was always jamming on those guys. God I don't know when the last time was that I got to destroy something like that, but it sounds awfully therapeutic.

Well, since I am off work for the next four days, it is HIGHLY unlikely that there will be any blogging going on in my world. So with that I will bid you all farewell, and a very Merry Christmas to you all!

Knock on wood

This weekend just reminded me of how much I absolutely love D., and how ridiculously happy I am in my life with him. Nothing specific actually happened to remind me of this, it was really just a dreamy feeling of happiness throughout the entire weekend. We had several of those moments where everything in the world just seemed perfect and life felt absolutely blissful. I would look at him, and just think, "God, I just love this man". I really love sleeping in on the weekends, and groggily snuggling up to his warmth, smelling his yummy man-smell, kissing his very kissable back and shoulders, entangling my legs with his. He's just so delicious, there's no other way to describe it.

So in other news, it's our first actual Christmas together as a married couple, and up until we started talking about how we were going to split up the family time, everything was going just dandy! We had put up our Christmas tree, wrapped hoards of presents, hung our stockings, lit cinnamon scented candles, and all seemed perfect. D. and I had actually come up with a very reasonable way to manage spending time with both of our families over the holiday; the trouble actually started the moment we tried to discuss our plans with my mom. My mom is the type of person who will not give you a straight answer about anything, instead she does her patented passive aggressive thing. Rather than talking it over with me calmly and telling me how she feels, she ignores me, walks out of the room, and continues to make snippy comments until she drives me so crazy that I'm sneaking off to another room to cry, listening to my dad doing his best to convince her to be rational about the whole thing. (My dad is my hero, I'm such a daddy's girl!) I realize now that she's actually just really sad, and is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that she has to share me with another family, (it doesn't help that her two sons are both away at college now for 9 months out of the year, leaving her wondering what in the world she's supposed to do with herself now that she's pretty much finished raising her children), but she's making it really difficult on D. and I who are just trying to make everyone happy. I realize now that this silly notion of making everyone happy is actually impossible, and we were kidding ourselves thinking we could do it. Hopefully we'll have all of this down pat next year.

I decided I needed to knock on wood after re-reading my first paragraph where I talked about my blissful and perfect married life. Just wanted to state that for the record because I am idiotically superstitious about that sort of thing, and have this voice in the back of my head that is constantly reminding me that actually acknowledging your happiness and calling your life perfect is just the sort of thing that people do the day before they're run over by a bus or something. Ok, I have to stop doing that, knocking on wood again.

50 things you may not know about me:

1. I wore my hair the exact same way every day in 7th grade. It involved pulling half of it into a ponytail while still wet, and letting it air-dry. It looked horrible.
2. When I was little, my dad made wooden swords for my brother Ben and I so that we could play He-Man and She-Ra.
3. My first kiss was in 12th grade, how big of a dork am I?
4. My first kiss was with the person I today call my husband.
5. I can’t even quantify how many people I kissed during the time between that first kiss with D. and when we actually got together more than 4 years later. (I think I was trying to make up for lost time.)
6. I believed in Santa Claus for WAY too long.
7. I’ve always wanted to live in New York for at least a few years of my life, but I know that dream was sacrificed when I decided to marry D.
8. I could totally eat a whole 12” sub at Subway, but I force myself to just get a 6”.
9. I wish I could live all 4 years of college over again. I hate that I’m an adult now.
10. I have a serious weakness for men with Australian or English accents, and it doesn’t matter their age, I immediately find them sexy.
11. I literally sobbed watching the series finale of Dawson’s Creek.
12. I hate my body.
13. It’s impossible for me to get out of credit-card debt. I have many times been “this” close to having it all paid off, and then something comes up.
14. I love to gossip too much. It’s a serious problem.
15. I become mute-girl when I am put in social situations where I don’t know people very well.
16. I am terrified of having children and I don’t know when I’ll be ready.
17. I feel like I am living the movie Office Space.
18. I was so scared of boys in junior high that I hung up on the first boy to ever call me. He rode my bus, and I avoided eye contact with him for the rest of the year until he went to High School.
19. I throw like a girl, and almost always strike out. It’s caused me a lot of gym class anxiety over the years.
20. I once dropped a Lit class in my sophomore year of college because we were supposed to have a book read by the next day and I hadn’t even started it.
21. My family has had Spanish-speaking exchange students living in our home on 6 different occasions for months at a time.
22. My favorite Christmas movie of all time is White Christmas with Bing Crosby. My dad is the only person who will watch it with me.
23. I know I’m a terrible driver, but I’m too stubborn to admit this fact to my husband.
24. I used to know the sign language that goes with the song “From a Distance” by Bette Midler.
25. I used to change my outfit 3-4 times daily between the ages of 9 and 13.
26. I made it to “Caddettes” in Girl Scouts. (Yes, we’ve already established that I was a big dork.)
27. I went out with a guy for two months and I didn’t know his real name.
28. My favorite flower is the tulip.
29. My drink of choice at Starbucks is a grande non-fat, no-whip mocha.
30. I prefer red wine to white wine.
31. I have my dad’s huge ears.
32. I absolutely hate them.
33. I have considered having that surgery where they attach them to your head better so they don’t stick out.
34. When I was in 5th grade, 8th grader Jeff Cota called me Dumbo on the bus.
35. I cannot cook. I become somewhat panicky when I’m trying to do more than one thing in the kitchen at the same time.
36. I absolutely love that Ryan Reynolds guy from Van Wilder, and I actually considered seeing Blade: Trinity when I saw that he was in it.
37. I hate talking on the phone.
38. I prefer Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke.
39. I watch re-runs of the shows Angel and Charmed almost on a daily basis.
40. I never would have even considered watching them when they were actually shown for the first time on prime time.
41. I had the worst haircut of my life when I was 18, forever known as the “Triangle Cut”.
42. I was in a summer bowling league for like 5 years.
43. I had a huge crush on my next-door neighbor Trent growing up.
44. One time I did that thing to my shirt where you take the bottom part and fold it up into the neck hole part of the shirt, creating a classy white trash mid-riff-baring look, and went over to Trent’s house to try to seduce him.
45. I was in like 4th grade.
46. My brother and I told our younger brother Nathan that he was born with a big crack down his face, and our parents and the doctors thought it was actually his butt.
47. We also told him he was adopted.
48. I have never been able to do a cartwheel, and crooked somersaults are the extent of my gymnastic abilities.
49. I consider myself religious, but I never remember to pray unless I need something from God.
50. Admitting that makes me feel like a terrible person.

She's home!

I am such a happy girl today, because my best friend in the entire world is home for the holidays! She has been living in Costa Rica for the past year and a half, and I have just been missing her like crazy. We had another one of our tearful goodbyes (there have been too many) about 7 months ago as my brand-new husband and I were exiting our wedding reception en route to our honeymoon suite. We have been friends since before I can remember (together enduring Catholic grade-school, shaving our legs, first crushes, and geeky prom dates), but our lives have unfortunately taken each other in very different directions over the past few years. She has been traveling the Spanish-speaking world, meeting ridiculously handsome Latin men everywhere she goes, and I have resigned myself to the daily 9-5 routine, settling comfortably into a happily married life with the man I truly believe to be my soul-mate.

But, for ONE WHOLE MONTH... she's home! I am so overjoyed!

Welcome home Lisa, I've missed you so much, you're the best Christmas present I could ask for!

Trying to make the day go faster

Ugh. I cannot get that horrible Lindsay Lohan song out of my head... "I'm tired of rumors starting, I'm sick of being followed..." that obnoxious girl is seriously on my list. That song is the biggest piece of drivel I've ever heard, and I need to stop listening to pop radio so that I'm not subjected to any more of her foolishness. I would totally have Hilary Duff's back if those two were ever to duke it out.

Speaking of things I hate... I hate Friday afternoons. Seriously, the minutes feel like hours as I sit here trying my best to distract myself from looking at the clock. When I finally let myself look at it, it's been like 3 minutes. Ridiculous. This day is never ending.

So who else was relieved last night when that Alex girl on the O.C. refrained from sculpting her bangs into a bird on the top of her head. Now if she'd just lay off of the eyeliner, I would be able to watch that show without cringing at the sight of her. I mean I know she's supposed to be all funky and alternative, but I can't handle it. Sad too, because that girl is absolutely gorgeous.

Ooops, I have a meeting in like 2 minutes. Gotta go.

Holiday buffet over-indulgence

So my company had their annual pot-luck holiday buffet today for lunch, and now I am sitting in my cube with the most upset stomach imaginable. Who know that 2 pieces of fudge, 1 brownie, and some apple crisp would have this kind of affect on my body's digestive ability? I KNOW it was all those sweets, because everything else I ate was in relatively reasonable quantities. I'm a big dumb idiot, and am paying heavily for it now.

I finally saw the Bridget Jones Diary sequel last night. It was pretty good, not as great as the first one, but I found myself hiding my eyes during so much of the movie. I really hate when watching a movie you feel embarrassed for the characters, drives me crazy. While the first Bridget Jones offered plenty of cringe-worthy scenes, they seemed really gratuitous this time around. I don't know, not a severe disappointment, but that might be because I was expecting the worst after reading hoards of bad reviews.

My favorite part about seeing the movie last night was the 20 minutes of trailers that came before it! I am excited about so many movies coming out, especially that one with Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace, about the 50 year-old guy with a 26 year-old boss. Dennis Quaid is so sexy. I am least excited about the new J-Lo movie... while at the same time, admittedly intrigued and fascinated. I hate that woman. It doesn't matter if she's on some magazine cover, doing an interview with Diane Sawyer, or walking the red carpet at some awards show. I have this inexplicable obsession with everything J-Lo. Her and Britney Spears, my two celebrity gossip vices. I absolutely love to hate them both.

Anyways, I'm going to get back to doing what I do best... procrastinating. Funny, I thought my procrastinating days were over when I graduated from college less than 2 years ago. No, I think I'm going to be a lifer.

I have a biggest fan!

I had a request from my biggest fan (and one of my very best friends) that I stop being a boring-ass lazy bum and update this site! Well, she was nicer about it, but I know that's what she meant.

So, I've written a few times about my exercise motivation issues, and I have a bit of an update. Actually, this is something that I personally am ecstatic about, but I know it won't come off as a very exciting update for you all. My husband and I bought a treadmill on Monday night! Yeah! It seriously makes me so happy. Every time I go in my basement I look at it and smile like it's some sort of pet or something. We miraculously got it put together late on Monday night, after D. and his poor dad managed to get it from the van to our basement during what I'm positive was quite an amusing display of masculine determination. Anyways, I think it is the perfect answer to my work-out woes and I believe it will solve the biggest problem I have with keeping up my exercise regimen: I won't have to leave the house anymore.

For those of you who live or have lived somewhere like Minnesota, where it is practically winter for 7 months out of the year, you will understand where I'm coming from. Right now, for instance, it's dark when I head to work in the morning, and dark on my commute home. I will have absolutely EVERY intention of going to the gym after work, but I walk out into that cold darkness, I drive the 35-45 minutes home, and I get tired. I get sad that I missed every spec of sunlight that day had to offer. I want to be in my home. And I want to be with my husband. Around this time of the year everyone's always talking about seasonal depression, (my God, even my work sent out a company-wide memo on it!), and while I never thought it affected me, I think I've been kidding myself. I think it affects everyone living here, some just more than others. While I'm not trying to blame my laziness on the winter, I know that I have my own issues with my job, body, and self-esteem that affect how I live my life, but I think I've finally realized that there are outside factors that are not helping my cause. I really hope buying the treadmill was not a $2,000 mistake. No, you know what? I KNOW it wasn't a mistake, because I've already worked out more this week than I have in the last two months, and I think I've actually gotten my optimism back. Cheers to no more excuses!

I've also decided to turn my life around and force myself to be a morning person. This morning I actually got my butt out of bed when D. did and got to work by 6:45. This effort seriously deserves a rousing rendition of "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow" (is there a feminine word I would insert here for fellow?) because it took every inch of motivation in my body to get me up this morning. Honestly though, it felt really good. D. and I got some quality time in this morning while we were getting ready for the day (we even watched some of the news together!), my commute was about 15 minutes shorter, and I arrived at a peaceful quiet office and was able to listen to my favorite radio morning show without interruption from the screech-inducing ring of my telephone. It was a good morning. And not only that, I will be able to leave this afternoon almost 2 hours earlier than I have been leaving work the past week or so. And get this... I will be driving home whilst the sun is still shining! How great is that?

Another week at the office... OVER!

Wow, this week has just flown by! I have off work tomorrow, and I just seriously cannot believe it's the weekend already! Yea!

One of my amazing friends who has a tendency to make me laugh until I cry is in town and I am just ecstatic about seeing her tomorrow! We lived together for 3 years during college and now she's down in Florida working as a nurse. I'm definitely not used to her living so far away, and I'm thankful that she has a brand new fiance still living up here to woo her into frequent visits! Anyways, we are going shopping tomorrow, and I am absolutely intoxicated with the fact that I will be shopping with someone other than my mother or husband. Let me tell you that these two very important people in my life are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to their shopping personalities, both being almost intolerable 99.9% of the time. My mom is sooooooooooooo slow, and could shop for hours in the crappiest stores imaginable. My husband, on the other hand, will walk around a store for no longer than 5 minutes before he takes his sulky position in some corner and proceeds to shoot fireballs at me from his eyes until I am finished with my browsing and/or purchasing.

So needless to say, I am pumped for my shopping excursion tomorrow with my good friend Kate! To top it off, tomorrow evening is our annual Christmas Party with my college girlfriends, so I'm looking forward to participating in some much needed girlish activities which will include the consumption of way too much red wine and pasta, playing silly board games, gossiping, reminiscing, and laughing. I can't wait.

Have a great weekend everyone!