Holiday wrap-up

So I can say that I made it through the Holidays unscathed. It was touch-and-go there for a bit, as my last post not-so-subtly alluded to, but I had an amazing Christmas. I feel the need to admit that a few things from my “list” got dropped. First of all, the cookie thing just did not happen, I simply never made the time, especially after many days of indulging myself on chocolate and homemade cookies courtesy of others. I still have the ingredients to make my planned cookies, so maybe after all of the chocolate that Santa left in our stockings is gone, I’ll think about doing some work in the kitchen. Baking and sharing sweets with others could actually be a welcome respite from the drudgery that is January/February in Minnesota. (Do we not all agree, the worst months ever? Just more cold to look forward too, the holidays are over, and the snow starts to really feel like an inconvenience rather than all magical and cheery. Plus it means the end of all those wonderfully horrible made-for-TV Christmas movies on ABC Family, Lifetime, and The Hallmark Channel. Did anyone else watch Snow 2: Brain Freeze? Certain to be a classic! [Sarcasm.] )

Also getting back to the items on my list that didn’t actually get done… shhhh, I haven’t really cleaned my house yet. I know, I’m terrible. THIS WEEKEND though, I swear!

Our Christmas involved lots and lots of family time, which I can say is usually both wonderful and exhausting. Dan and I still try super hard each year to give every side of the family equal time, but it can be so trying. Believe it or not we actually hit up two separate celebrations on Christmas Eve, plus church, after both working half the day. I don’t know how this is going to continue to work when we have kids, since it’s barely working now. When we first got married it felt like there was nothing to question; of course we’d just cram it all in because neither of us could imagine not seeing our respective families on Christmas Eve. However every year that we do it, the idea of switching off year-to-year between his family and mine sounds more and more appealing. My Christmas season mantra needs to be, “You can’t make everyone happy.”

Just to make you all realize that I am not kidding with the overwhelming-ness of family commitments over Christmas, this was our schedule for those few days. I MUST reiterate that I am not making this list as a complaint, because I love how awesomely large both of our families are, and I love being able to spend time with everyone. What gets to me is how condensed all of this family time is. It constantly feels like we’re running somewhere new, and not able to enjoy the place we’re in.

Night before Christmas Eve:
8:00 – 2:00 Work/commute (and a sneak-out for a bit at lunch to finish my shopping)
3:30 – 9:00 Dinner and presents at Dan’s parents’ house

Christmas Eve:
8:00 – 1:00 Work/commute
4:30 – 5:30 Church
5:45 – 8:45 Dinner and presents at my aunt’s house
9:00 – 11:00 Presents and dessert at Dan’s grandparents' house (his mom’s side)

Christmas Day:
8:00 – 9:00 Open presents at home with Dan and Bella (& COFFEE!)
10:00 – 3:00 Brunch, presents, games at my parent’s house with my immediate family
3:00 – 8:30 45 minute drive to and from Dan’s aunt’s house for his dad’s family
8:30 – 9:30 Stop by at my grandparent’s house for games
10:00 – 12:00 Crash on the couch watching Love Actually

Sunday after Christmas
12:30 – 2:00 Drive to my aunt and uncle’s place up north
2:00 – 6:30 Football, sleigh ride with real reindeer, dinner, coffee, chit-chat
6:30 – 8:00 Drive home.

After making that list, I feel like I should suck it up and shut up, because that is probably what most people’s holidays look like.

As far as gifts go, the holiday has definitely become less and less about the presents. I still LOVE shopping for presents, and wrapping presents, all of that, but for me, I really have no idea what to tell people when they ask what I’d like. It’s not that I am this great person who does not need material things… no I am all about the material things… total Material Girl. I love clothes, love makeup, love shoes, books, iPods, home décor… basically I love stuff, and love being given it. I just have no idea how to answer that inevitable question, which of course leads to me telling multiple people the same thing almost every year. This year, it was the small point-and-shoot digital camera. I already have a big honking camera that has an incredible zoom and takes great photos, but it is bulky, a bit confusing for some, and quite simply is tough to use for those long arm self-portraits that we ladies love to do. Anyway, so I asked for said small camera from both my mom and my husband without realizing. Of course they each got me one, and I had to admit this to my mom when I opened her gift. I felt like a total ass.

This is becoming very rambly, so I think I’ll bring it to a close. All-in-all, a great Christmas, but I’ve come out of it on the other side a very very tired girl. Tonight is New Year’s Eve at Liz’s place, and I can’t wait to see all my friends and commiserate over our shared exhaustion. Cheers! Be safe tonight!

T'is the season... to freak out

Do you ever have those mornings where it feels like your life is just in shambles? Well, that’s a really dramatic way to put it, but lately I just feel like I can’t get my act together and get out the door in a reasonable amount of time. And I know it’s because I am so unorganized at home, I work long hours, get home, make dinner, and just poop out on the couch. It doesn’t help that my house is sooooo cold, that the minute I get home I feel like I need to either get under a blanket or change into long underwear. Anyway, the point is, I am so lazy on weeknights and end up wasting them away, even when there is SO MUCH TO DO! Like right now. Right smack in the middle of the holiday season… there is so much that I just keep putting off, and it really is having a terrible affect on the rest of my life. This morning, a direct result of my laziness with laundry and inability to get out of bed at a reasonable time (and I suppose my unwillingness to forgo my morning run), I missed the first half of a really important meeting. With really important people. People who can make or break my career advancement at this company. I am stupid.

The list of things I have been forgoing each night for a glass of wine and my DVR is a mile long, and I’m going to publish it here in hopes that my acknowledgement of the list will encourage me to tackle it.

1. Christmas cards. I FINALLY ordered photo cards from Costco yesterday. After a month of looking online at cute designs and going back and forth as to which picture of Dan and me over the year to use, I finally just had to go with cheap and fast. They should be ready for pickup today at 4:00. Obviously, step two is to get them in the freaking mail. This will also involve going to the post office for stamps. Damn, I totally forgot about that stupid little errand. I hate the post office and usually prefer to order my stamps online, but of course… procrastination rears its ugly head and we do not have time for that.

2. Finish Christmas shopping. We’re doing ok here, only a few people left. Of course I have a WHOLE separate list for Christmas gifts, but this definitely needs to be included here. Now I’ve sort of got a nice matrix-list thing going on. See List 2 appendix i, column G.

3. Make cookies! I know this could totally be dropped from the list, but the holiday season just is not complete without a few baking-induced arguments in our messy little kitchen. You see, Dan and I are not always the best team when it comes to cooking. I like to boss and obviously my way is always the right way, and he does not like being told what to do. Trust me. We both become horrible versions of ourselves when we try to accomplish anything together in the kitchen. Snide comments, check. Silent treatment, check. Taking it out on our dog who is constantly under-foot causing us to trip all over ourselves, check. And what better way to honor Jesus’s birthday? (Also, I am craving like you wouldn’t believe those candy oatmeal cookies that we made last year, sooo… yea.)

4. Finish gift-wrapping. See List 2 appendix ix, column B.

5. Put away the laundry/shoes that are all over the guest bedroom, our living room, our laundry room, etc. Oh, and the clothes that are just spewed all over the two bedrooms upstairs as a result of multiple outfit crisises (crisi?). Also, organize the thousand pairs of tights I have accumulated that are hanging out of their overstuffed and disheveled dresser drawer.

6. Wash all those clothes that need “special care” that have been hanging in our laundry room for possibly two decades. I have so much cute stuff down there that I haven’t worn in ages because I avoid the laundry room like the plague. That’s Dan’s room, he handles the laundry. However rightfully so, he refuses to deal with any of my clothes that have special instructions.

7. Clean the bathroom, vacuum the first floor, scrub the kitchen, remove dog hair from furniture, make our house look less hobo.

8. Bring grandma’s gifts (for us, which we bought for ourselves) to her house, so she can wrap them. Seems wrong, yes, but I am getting an adorable kelly green peacoat with big black buttons and a round collar that makes me look skinny instead of puffy. And if it saves her a few holiday shopping freak-outs, than everyone is happy I say.

9. Do the grocery shopping for my friend Holly’s holiday party on Sunday. We’re supposed to bring a dish to share, and I’m making this dip. Holy yum. Also, we need to find and wrap two crappy things we have lying around in our house for the white elephant gift exchange they’re doing.

10. My OCD side wants this list to be an even 10 but I can’t think of an actual substantial final item to add to this list. There are thousands of little things that I’m not going to bore the internet with (hasn’t this list already bored (boreded, bore, boren?) you enough?), but those are all going on List 3 of my List Matrix, which I still need to compile from the dozens of post-its littering my office. Got it! The tenth item on this list will be to compile List 3. Genius!

So there you have it. Operation get my life on track has commenced!

Knew something was coming

So I have a lot on my mind today, mostly due to stuff going on at work. I’m not going to get into too many details, because as most of us know, writing about work on the internet for current and future bosses to read is NOT SMART. All I can say is, I’ve been wondering lately when the ball would drop here at work, with everything that’s going on with the economy, and its pretty safe to say that said ball has dropped. That’s not to say that it’s all in pieces smashed and broken all over the ground. The ball’s just sitting there on the dirty ass floor, rolling around a bit, waiting to get kicked around some more. [Ok, enough with the metaphors right? It’s not even a good metaphor… I’ll stop.]

It’s just that until now, considering these terrible economic conditions we’re living in, with so many people out of work, loosing their homes, and eating into their savings, I had really yet to experience a scary, first-hand impact of the sucky economy. Of course my 401K is down like a bajillion percent, and I’ve essentially lost every single penny I put into it this year plus a whole crap-load more, but I’ve been trying to just roll with the punches with my investments, keeping in mind that they are decidedly long-term, that the economy is cyclical and my retirement fund will live to see another day. Suffice it to say, what my colleagues and I were told today hit quite a bit closer to home than all those red numbers on my 401K statement.

I’ve got a job, and I was recently promoted, so I have so much to be thankful for… that’s just something I need to remember over the next year. That's WAY more than so many people in our country can say.

Also my presidential candidate was elected to office, so I’m hopeful for the future and convinced that his leadership will help us turn this around. Yes we can.

Debbie Downer

I guess Dan caught up on my blog today, and he commented to me that it looks like I've been a real Debbie Downer lately. I seriously had no idea that I was coming off as such a curmudgeon! I've just been trying to put in a little effort lately to actually freaking blog, but it appears that the thoughts/events that inspire my blogging are usually of the negative variety. In the past month I've complained about eating candy to the point of feeling like vomiting, being ugly for Halloween, my cold house, the fact that it is dark so early lately, long and exhausting weeks at work, Dan travelling for work, my fears of fall being over too quickly (which I now see were completely warranted... winter needs to turn its ass back around because I am not ready for it yet!). Now today, it's all about the static cling and how it is ruining my life.

[Update on the static cling issue: I went to Target at lunch and bought a slip, and my world is right again because my skirt doesn't ride up to my crotch when I walk. My self-imposed banishment to my office chair is over. I've been walking to the printer, going to the bathroom all the way at the other end of the building (just for fun), and getting coffee like a mad woman. And it doesn't get much better than printing reports, peeing, and drinking 16 oz cups of watered down coffee. A whole new woman I tell you.]

Anyway, the point is, I am a happy person, no worries guys. Though I may take Dan up on his offer of "finding something to cheer me up". I could always use a new pair of shoes honey. =)

Good morning?

The good: I'm wearing a ridiculously cute outfit today, if I do say so myself. Peachy-orange, green & black floral dress, black cardigan, black tights, 3 inch black booties. My hair is cooperating. I'm drinking coffee.

The bad: Major static cling issues. I'm not kidding, it is insane. My dress rides up the moment I start walking. I've applied lotion all over my thighs & knees (on top of the tights), which usually works. Nada. I have some static cling spray stuff at work, sprayed that crap all over my self, and still no relief. I even grabbed a few fabric softener sheets as I ran out of the house today, and I've basically rubbed them all over my legs and dress to no avail. This sucks. I don't know what else to do. I would have changed before I left for work when I realized the problem, but I was already running about 10 minutes behind, and stressing about getting out the door. It's so bad, I can't even walk to the printer without walking like a hunchback and tugging at my hem.

Tuesdays suck.

Jason Mraz though on Thursday! Twilight on Friday! I just have to make it through this hell.

Home

I'm sitting here on the couch, perusing blogs, uploading pictures to facebook, digesting the homemade macaroni and cheese Dan just made, and I'm thinking to myself, a Friday night spent in my cozy home doing nearly nothing is exactly what I've been needing. I have a really hard time saying "no" to plans with family and friends, always have, which means we're barely ever able to have nights like this on our own on the weekend.

I can't believe its winter already. Seriously, how did that happen? I hate how dark it is at 5:00 PM, it really does a number on my productivity and energy.

So happy hour last night was really fun, I will be forever grateful that we ended up in a graduate program with such amazing and fun people, and I want to make sure we keep up these relationships that somehow formed over two years of group projects and commiserating over shared elevated levels of stress. For all the talk about networking in an MBA program, I think we've been lucky to have made relationships that go beyond that. It's also nice to have more people to drink and gossip with. ;-)

I'm going to go put some socks on, because my feet are freezing in this drafty old house of ours. One of the many joys of owning a house built in 1936. (I complain, but of course I love it.) I love that we have no plans until tomorrow evening, so I can look forward to a lazy morning of VH1 music videos, a pot of coffee, and some more melodramatic vampire love. Oooh, and we have bacon in the freezer, I think we'll have to break that out tomorrow. I can't even describe how much I fricken love bacon, there's a reason why I don't usually buy it.

My god this was random.

My Friday

I'm so ready for the weekend. Thankfully I have tomorrow off, so my weekend is about 20 minutes away from beginning, but, my goodness, this week felt long. Dan was on travel for work again, so its been a bit dull, even though I've kept pretty busy with evening meetings and dinners with family. It's crazy how much easier it is to appreciate something when you have to go without it. It's like we're in this little bubble of a life together, and I take for granted that I get to come home to this wonderful man who's my best friend, roommate, "co-parent" to our dog, and partner in all things. I take for granted that he's always there every night to listen to me complain about work, to make dinner together, to watch The Daily Show while we eat at the coffee table like twenty-two year-olds. I don't know, I just like being with him, which I guess is kind of awesome. But also sorta... well duh!

Crap, I gotta go, we're meeting up with some people from our MBA courses for happy hour downtown, and I was supposed to leave 10 minutes ago. I am so chronically late it's not funny, which I can safely say is one of those things Dan doesn't appreciate about me.

Anyway, happy weekend!

Gross

I feel like I'm going to puke. Here in the office on a Friday afternoon, all alone and bored because my coworkers are a bunch of Friday-work-ditchers, I have eaten an excessive amount of those Bit-O-Honey candies that I've been obsessing over.

And I'm pretty sure my stomach is going to explode.

I wish I had some self control. Blechhh. I wish I could tell 1:00 PM me to not venture into the convenience store for that stupid candy. I hate you 1:00 PM Alicia.

Musings on a lot of random crap

So I’m reading the Twilight series, sometimes referred to as “those melodramatic teen vampire books”, and now that I’m on the third one I’m a little bummed by the fact that all I can picture are the actors from the upcoming movie. Ever since I finished the first one, I have been scouting around on the internet, watching trailers, and devouring the movie’s IMDB listing, and I just can’t get Kristen Stewart or that Harry Potter dude out of my head… and reading isn’t as fun that way. Plus, Edward was way hotter in my imagination. My brother and I were talking about this the other day, and he said he does the same thing. He said he was relieved to have read The Davinci Code before seeing or hearing about the movie… Tom Hanks being such a bizarre casting choice for the role. Maybe that’s why I never finished that one; I tried to read it during post production of the movie and just couldn’t get through it. Or it could have just been all the hype that did it in for me with that damn book.

I’m pretty much always in the middle of reading Pride and Prejudice. I start it, finish it months and months later, and then start it again. I have a problem with all things Jane Austen, I tend to become obsessed. The weird thing is that as I read, I mix up all the actors from the different movie versions of the novel. So Lizzie Bennett is Jennifer Ehle, the chick that played her in the old BBC Miniseries, but Mr. Darcy is the guy from the Keira Knightly version. Jane is also the actress from the new version (because she’s so freaking gorgeous), but the other sisters are from the old one. Mr. Bennett is definitely Donald Sutherland, because I love him, but Mrs. Bennett is that horribly screechy woman from the BBC miniseries. Oh, almost forgot Mr. Bingley. Of course he is the adorable Simon Woods, in my head. God, is anyone still reading this? For your sake I hope not, I am becoming ridiculously rambly.

Lately I’m obsessed with Bit-O-Honey candies, which are little old people candies that we have in our candy dish at home. I can’t stop thinking about them, and have even been eating them for breakfast on my way to work. Just thought I’d throw that in, because it is incredibly random to be freaking out over weird grandparent candy. Ha! I just read that Wikipedia link and have learned that the Bit-O-Honey was voted the Most Appalling Candy at some Kentucky county fair. I guess there are many who do not agree with me that Bit-O-Honey are the bom-diggity. I am in a weird mood... it's my Friday.

Our annual Halloween party is on Saturday and I am super pumped! However… my costume this year is seriously ridiculous and UGLY, and I’m starting to regret it. Like any woman, I like to look cute on Halloween, not slutty cute, but at least pretty. I say this now, as a warning, I will not be pretty on Saturday. Ugh. I wonder if it’s too late to switch costumes. Considering our house is a mess, I have done no shopping for the party, and there are pumpkins to be carved… no, I think I’m committed. Oh well. I hope we at least get laughs if I have to endure being so damn ugly the whole night. Reminds me of when I wore my pig flannel pajamas and pigtails to the bar on Halloween during my freshman year of college. I regretted that the second we stepped into the dance club full of slutty nurses and devils.

Cracking up

I am just loving everything about this fall, the changing colors of the leaves, the green grass, the pumpkins by the side of the road, the mums we bought for our front stoop, even the Halloween candy in the aisles of Target. However, for some reason I am living in this weird funky constant state of fear that it will suddenly be over. It simply always feels like winter is just around the corner, ready to pounce on us poor unsuspecting fools. So every one of those beautiful autumnal days we have, if I’m too busy to really enjoy it I find myself in a state of panic that it might have been the last one, and I just squandered it away. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just enjoy a good thing without questioning it, without thinking about the bigger picture, without being afraid of tomorrow? I must have a sickness.

Speaking of my issues, Dan was away for business earlier this week, and during those three days I had all by myself at home, I sort of felt like I might be cracking up. My feelings on being home alone land on two sides of the for-or-against argument. On one hand, I absolutely love it. Specifically, I love being able to eat cereal for dinner or watch whatever I want on TV, and I love being able to read in bed without getting molested. I like how whatever mess I make is MY mess, so it doesn’t bother me. I can get engrossed in Facebook stalking or reading blogs for hours without someone asking me what I’m doing, what errands we need to run, and what the plans are for dinner. But with the good, come the bad. I am the first to admit that I become SO LAZY when I’m by myself and have no real, concrete plans. No matter what I might have earlier decided I wanted to do with my night, I can’t seem to get my ass out of the house. A lot of the time it’s because I somehow become engrossed in terrible sitcoms on Lifetime (Reba? Really? What is wrong with me?) or West Wing episodes that showed up on the DVR. I have needed blush since Saturday, but I haven’t been able to drag myself to Sephora yet. I was planning on stopping to buy some zucchini the other night on my way home from work, but instead I just kept on driving and made macaroni and cheese at home and vegged out watching 27 Dresses. While I don’t begrudge myself a little vegging out, it really makes me wonder what my life would be like if I actually lived by myself. I’d like to think I would still be an active member of society who leaves her home, but I honestly can’t be sure. Thank God for Dan. Hopefully I never have to find out!