A New Year

It’s a new year, time for a new blog look. I’ve been feeling bored with the old one.

Resolutions? Anyone?

Resolution Number 1: I am seriously back on the diet and exercise wagon. I’m gaining weight, I’m feeling like crubbish. Starting tomorrow I’m on my no sugar plan again. I managed to not eat sugar except for one splurge day a month for 6 months in 2005. Everything kind of fell apart after the Bar Exam as I justified eating anything yummy in the name of celebration. Ironically I was in the best shape I’ve been in since college or so when I took the Bar Exam. I was swimming almost every day and eating very well. That's probably key to why even though I was stressed, I actually felt good about myself and managed to pass the Bar.

I bought some Haagen Daaz chocolate chocolate chip today to celebrate my last day of sugar. Tomorrow: no sugar, no white flour. AND I’m going to give no caffeine a shot too. Dum dum dum! We’ll see how that whole no caffeine thing goes. I may cave on that one.

Starting Monday, I’m working out again. That’s right! Pulling my lazy butt out of bed first thing in the morning.

Resolution Number 2: I need to figure out once and for all where I am going to be. I’ve been playing this back and forth game between Boston and DC for the past four months and all it’s done is make me feel flighty and alone.

I haven’t assimilated into my DC ward in any sense. It’s hard enough to find your place in a singles ward. Since I’ve been gone one weekend a month and generally sleeping in past my 9 AM Sacrament Meeting and going to a later ward on a second Sunday, I’m sure the ward is very concerned about my activity level. Well, if they’ve even realized I’m there at all.

Here’s the saddest part of all of this. It’s New Year’s Eve and I am home alone redoing my blog template. OK, actually the geek in me thinks redoing the blog template is fun, but the point is, I’m home alone. Jason and I couldn’t be together because it was too pricey. He asked me today why I wasn’t going out with anyone tonight and I pointed out to him that I have no friends here. Well, that’s not totally true. I do have some people I’m friendly with here, but not really anyone to hang out with on a regular basis. I took a step outside of my introverted self yesterday though and asked a work friend what she was doing and if I could tag along. Unfortunately, she herself is crashing a gathering tonight and didn’t think it would be cool to bring a total stranger, which I agree with. (But on the upside, we might be getting together to do something later this week).

Anyway, as I feel myself spiraling further into this isolated depression, I know that trying to meet some people around here is key. And I need to get a job. That would help the depression a lot too. Soooo, Boston or DC? We shall see. I'll keep you posted.


OK, so these resolutions are sort of a bunch of little resolutions within resolutions. Basically right after I took the Bar I was on top of the world. I wasn't sure if I had passed, but I had completed the process and felt proud of that. I looked good and was feeling sassy. I was looking forward to moving to DC and the exciting adventures in lawyering that awaited me. Unfortunately the DC thing hasn't worked out as well as I'd hoped. But I'm getting back into my job search and something will come up. At the very least I'll finally get sworn into the Mass Bar, file my DC Bar application, and be able to make more than I am right now (that is, if the Mass Bar ever gets around to sending me the info I need to get sworn in. Last time I called they said it would be going out next week). Anyway, what I really want is to be back in the good place I was in a few months ago. That is my ultimate goal.

Those Crazy Mormons

I am back at work, mercifully migraine-free. Hallelujah!

I always think of this story when the Mormons Are So Weird stories turn to tales of polygamy.

During our study of late-19th century American Government my senior year of high school, we came across that Supreme Court case outlawing polygamy. Despite growing up in a 5-stake city, I was usually the only Mormon my friends associated with on a regular basis. Unlike everyone else in my ward who went to the neighborhood high school, I went to a high school in the middle of the city where the Mormon population was decidedly lower. I think there were probably 40 of us out of the 2000 or so students.

So when the teacher stopped his lecture on the polygamy case and looked contemplative for a moment, I knew I was in trouble. He began with, "Now I just don't understand this whole polygamy thing." {pause} "Is anyone here Mormon?"

My lone little hand slowly went up as my friends who knew my religion turned to look at me.

The teacher then proceeded to ask me in front of the entire class, "So what was up with that polygamy thing?"

Um.... Red-faced, I mumbled something about traditional families, more women than men, survival on the trek West, blah blah blah.

I still don't have a good answer for that one, but I must say that Mr. McAndrew could have taught a course on how not to win over a 17 year-old. (Between that and his diatribes on the Vietnam War with multiple pronouncements about all of his buddies who came home in body bags, the man had issues).

The good thing about me being outed as a Mormon in Government class is that I became known as "a cool Mormon" for the first time. I may also be cool because when we had a free day and everyone was drawing and playing Hangman, I wrote the counting part from "Kiss Off" by the Violent Femmes on the board.*


*Did I mention I went to a nerd high school? Yeah, that's key.

Back in DC

Yes, it's true. I'm back in DC, all alone in my little apartment. I am supposed to be at work, but I sent myself home sick. I had a headache yesterday and I thought it had gone away, but by the time I got to work this morning it was a full-fledged migraine. After an hour and a half of attempting to get work done, I admitted to myself that five minutes of work followed by ten minutes of cradling my forehead in my hand with my eyes closed was probably not the best recipe for productivity.

I did all of my remedies: ice pack, Coke Slurpee (something about the frozen caffeine usually nips the migraine in the bud), Excedrin, Ibuprofen in case it's being cause by tension in my shoulders. I had a veritable over-the-counter drug cocktail going on. Nothing was working, but now finally it seems to be gradually seeping away. I hope it goes away completely. One of the cruddy parts of this whole temping thing is that I get no sick days, so I got a whole hour and a half of pay today. That's not going to pay rent, now is it? At least it's a slow time at the firm because of the holidays so I don't feel like I'm completely leaving them in the lurch.

How cool is this? My dad's sisters gave him a coonskin cap for Christmas. Apparently when he was 8 or so he had the entire Davy Crockett ensemble, complete with buckskin shirt and pants. I would love a picture of that, but for now the picture of his mumble mumble-year-old self in the coonskin cap will suffice.

And here he is opening another present with glee:
He does glee pretty well, don't you think?

My mom showing off our Christmas PJs (she and I always have matching Christmas Eve PJs/nightgowns so we can watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Christmas movies in comfort and style . This year they were white thermals with blue flowers. Very cozy.)

My lovely olive wood holy family. A present from Jason.

And do you all know what this is from?

Department 56 had an A Christmas Story village this year, which my parents snatched up. The family's home even has the leg lamp in the front window. Fabulous!

The Haul

Do you remember coming back from Christmas break when everyone would ask everyone else, "So what did you get?" OK, well let's be honest, that still happens, doesn't it? I got:

• A pretty carved olive wood holy family (this isn't exactly the one I got, but it's similar)
• The Truth (with jokes) by Al Franken
• An Ansel Adams picture book and calendar
• Netflix gift subscription
• 2 purple cashmere cardigans (apparently there was a bit of a mix-up. My dad thought he had already bought the teal one so he got me another purple one. That's what gift receipts are for!)
• A pretty pink v-neck with sequins
• Cracker Barrel Christmas ornament. Seriously, it's a Christmas ornament shaped like the Cracker Barrel. It makes me giggle.
• The Princess Bride DVD
• Mushrooms (this is a tradition. I love mushrooms and used to steal some every time my dad opened a jar when he was cooking. One year my parents gave me a jar as a stocking stuffer. I've gotten some pretty much every year ever since.)
• A street sign that says "Swimmers Lane" that made my dad think of me and basically means I need to get my butt in gear and get back to the pool.

Anyone else? What did you get?

Tomorrow I am hitting the after-Christmas sales bright and early. I love shopping for Christmas decorations after Christmas because they're usually 75% off or something crazy like that. Target has a line of crimson and silver decorations this year that I'm hoping haven't been completely picked over. That's why I've got to wake up early. Well, the decorations and my favorite yarn that's on sale at Jo-Ann. And pretty much the entire inventory of Kohl's.

Merry Christmas!

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

What Is It About Spanish Class?

I have a recurring nightmare that pops back into my life periodically for no discernible reason. In the dream, it's coming up on finals time and I have a Spanish final coming up in a day or two. The only problem is, I went to the first day of class, and then kind of got caught up in the rest of my classes and life and all of that so I never made it back to class. In fact, the textbook is sitting in my locker with a perfectly unbroken spine. I usually spend most of the dream either crying or freaking out to a friend with a big ball of panic in my throat.

I had the dream last night and was so relieved to wake up and discover that not only do I not have a Spanish final tomorrow that I am woefully unprepared for, but in fact I am no longer in school and don't have any finals to prepare for ever again. So that's kind of nice. But it doesn't really make up for the sheer panic I felt while I was asleep. My subconscious needs to relax.

Harvey Says, "Merry Christmas!"

Sorry he's so blurry. It's really hard to get a good picture of him because apparently my hands shake so the flashless pictures are blurry, but he's really reflective, so I can't use the flash.

Isn't his Christmas schwag pretty?

Jason made me a bunch of Christmas CD's that I'm loving. There is one of Irish Christmas music and then several of Christmas choral music, including Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College Chapel. The music is beautiful and there's something, I don't know, fancy about scripture read in a British accent.

Sacred choral music is Jason's little red wagon and he's trying to teach me about it, although my apathy is making me a slow learner. I think it's great that he loves it and I will go to concerts and support him and listen to it with him, but I don't feel the need to know all of the composers and be able to recognize in just a couple of notes who wrote the song because it's so typical of Vaughan Williams or whoever. Jason is expanding my horizons, though, and isn't that part of what this whole couple thing is about after all. I wonder how I expand his horizons. Teaching him the finer points of the Pixies? Instructing him on why make-up isn't really evil after all? (And my mom thought I'd never land a man because I didn't wear enough make-up. I bet she didn't figure on my finding a great guy who recoils in horror whenever I threaten to kiss him with a lipsticked mouth).

This past weekend we went to Maryland to see a big Winter Lights display on Saturday. My one complaint is that it was a 3 1/2 mile drive through sparse decorations. I would have much preferred a walking tour through a denser display of lights. But the characters were very cute and I think we got some cute pictures. Then we saw King Kong, which rocked. I'm still a little freaked out when I think about the giant bugs, though. And I actually like bugs. I can't imagine how the squeamish people took that scene.

Sunday we saw the Master Chorale of Washington perform their Christmas candlelight concert. The music was beautiful and the conductor was funny and charismatic. I kind of wonder how much of a chummy type of guy he really is, though. Every time he told a joke that made the audience laugh uproariously, I glanced at the choir to see their reactions. I saw a slight smile or two, but no big smiles on their faces and definitely no laughing along. So either the jokes are old and they've heard them all before OR he's a hellish taskmaster and the choir hates him OR the choir was just in the zone and I am a Philistine for expecting them to unfocus enough to notice a little joke or two.

As promised, the Swiss Chalet advent calendar:

Obscure Griping

I'm pretty sure only me and some health care professionals and health care attorneys care about this, but I'm really annoyed with CMS (The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services). They redesigned their website, which is great because their old website was a big stinkin' piece of crubbish, but now ALL the links from ALL the websites in the entire world that used to link to some CMS resource are wrong and send you to an error page.

This is not helpful when I'm trying to do research and just trying to find out which state Medicaid plans offer Hospice benefits (there used to be a page at CMS that would tell me that according to Google and a bunch of hospice websites). Could they have maybe kept the same links or told me where the new pages are or SOMETHING?

Sigh. OK, I'm done now.

Does Need = Love?

I'm ruminating and I wonder what other people think. I've been thinking about the whole concept of needing someone. A friend sent me an email forward about a man and a woman where she asks him a series of questions and he says no to every single one, then responds with something even better. For instance, one of the questions is something like "Do you want me?" and he says, "No," then tells her, "I don't want you, I need you." (He also says No, she isn't pretty, she's beautiful. Along those lines.)

It got me thinking about the whole concept of needing someone. When I was with my ex, I needed him. But that wasn't necessarily a good thing. I needed him to be there for me and to build me up because I was incapable of doing it for myself. I needed him to tell me I was pretty and smart because I didn't believe that I was. I needed him to be my other half (a phrase we used often) because I didn't feel like a complete person without him.

I remember bursting into tears in my roommate's car one day because I could feel my relationship with the ex falling apart and I was powerless to stop it because he had stopped talking with me. I felt like half of me was being amputated because that is the power I had given him in my life.

Fast forward 2 1/2 years, with a year of therapy and anti-depressants under my belt, and I realize that I never want to feel that way again. Maybe it's self-preservation. I prefer to think that it's just me realizing how unhealthy it is to see myself as inextricably wrapped up in another person. I'm sure the ex wasn't destroyed when he broke up with me because despite his words, it wasn't really how he felt. I, unfortunately, did.

If Jason and I broke up tomorrow would I disintegrate into nothing, needing a couple of years to pull myself together again? I don't think so. I would be very, very sad, of course, because I do love him and love being with him and it would be awful if he didn't want to be with me anymore. But that girl who fell apart, it's just not who I am anymore. More importantly, it's not what our relationship is. I don't see us as two halves of one person, but two people coming together to create this (what I consider) pretty cool couple. We both have our individuality, and sometimes that strains things because we both have fairly strong opinions and don't always look at things the same way. But so far that's working, I think because we're both willing to compromise and we both want the other one to be happy.

So what does it mean to need someone? Is it ok to need a certain person? Is need in love the same sort of need as in, I need water or I need air? What is "need"?

Positive Movement

It's official. The new administrative assistant is starting on Wednesday, which means I won't be doing the admin stuff anymore, but will instead be doing more interesting, substantive work. Right now I'm researching the changes in estate taxes for 2006 to write up something for a newsletter. Hurrah! (Now if only they'd pay me what they pay her. I typed up her offer letter on Friday so I know for a fact she's making more than I am. Plus benefits.)

Negative bit: they know I have a boyfriend in Boston. They were all asking for updates on the weather on Friday with the whole will she or won't she make it to Boston this weekend situation. So I think the odds of them hiring me for real, which were never great since I don't think they want to hire a permanent attorney and why would they when they can get me at bargain-basement temp rates and still have me doing semi-substantive stuff, are pretty slim because they know about the Boston boy. I should just shut my big mouth and say I'm visiting "a friend."

The Fantabulous Tennessee Thanksgiving Adventure

Every cloud has a silver lining. My flight is now supposed to leave at 12:40 AM, which is an improvement from the 1:30 AM it was at when I left work. Despite the wondering if I'm going to make it to Boston tonight or, really, at all this weekend, I am a little glad because I came home to my new computer cord. Hurrah! On to the pictures!

Day One: Wednesday - Driving to Tennessee
The trip wound up taking about 8 hours, what with stopping for lunch at all. It was a lot of fun, and I think Jason and I are pretty good travel companions. We stopped for lunch in a town outside of Roanoke and spent our meal snickering at the thick accents floating around the restaurant, particularly the man in line in front of us who sounded just like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. We then spent the rest of the next 5 days talking to each other mainly in thick Southern drawls.

One issue that came up: Jason is convinced that I hate his penny whistle (no, that is NOT a euphemism, you dirty people). See, we both like the high-spirited Irish music and he made me some CD's that we listened to on the way down. At the start of the first song, he whipped out his little penny whistle, which he's practicing in preparation for eventually learning the Irish bagpipes for our someday Irish band which so far includes me, his brother and sister, his brother's girlfriend, and probably his cousin in Rhode Island. Now I'm all for his practicing his penny whistle skills - for a bit. Along about the 8th song, I was getting a little tired of the high-pitched whistle drowning out the rest of the music. So I asked him to stop and he did after giving me a hurt look and then ratted me out to my cousins, telling them I hated his penny whistle. Tattletale!

We arrived amidst many hugs and welcomes and settled into Kingsport life relatively quickly. Or at least what I consider to be Kingsport life, which consists of extensive chats with family members and naps.

Following are the reasons why even if Jason and I had broken up before Thanksgiving, he was still coming with me to Tennessee, darn it:

Exhibit A - Cousin George and his wife Angie

Exibit B - Cousin Greg and his fiance Rosie

Exhibit C - Cousin Amy and her boyfriend Craig

Exhibit D - Cousin Geoff and his fiance Megan (showing off her bling)
Did I mention they're ALL younger than me? Any questions?

Day Two - Thanksgiving:
Lots of food. No, really, LOTS of food. (my dad gracing us with his carving skills despite my aunt not having the right knife. Yes, everyone was just as shocked and appalled as he was. Have I mentioned my dad's a bit of a knife snob?)

My mom and dad.

Aunt Laurel, hostess extraordinaire: She was up into the wee hours basting the turkey and baking pies in her brand new double oven.

Everything tasted great and being able to spend quality time with family who I haven't spent quality time with in years was wonderful. I took a nap in the late afternoon, letting the tryptophan work its magic, which was lovely as well.


Jason woke me up and told me he'd learned a lot while I was asleep. Specific topics included deer hunting and digging a hole with a Bobcat.

Day Three - Black Friday
While I've only personally ventured out on Black Friday once in my life that I can remember (in Harvard Square. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who is claustrophobic and/or does not like crowds), Jason is an old pro, scouring the ads beforehand. We hit Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max, Wal Mart and Target.

This year's deal that everyone had was a portable DVD player. Jason got one at Best Buy using the rebate and his McDonald's Best Buy bucks that he'd been hoarding and that were going to expire soon.

That afternoon the ladies minus me went wedding dress shopping for my cousin's fiance, Rosie. Jason and I got back kind of late from shopping and I was worn out and feeling grungy because if you're going to drag me to the stores at 6:30 AM, I'm not going to shower beforehand.

Jason and I went to dinner at Cracker Barrel with my parents. Yee-haw! I had a big Southern breakfast for dinner with grits and biscuits and gravy. I really hope that my Heaven has lots of Southern food. We also took advantage of the slashed prices on all of Cracker Barrel's autumnal wares. I got a great silver maple leaf candle holder.

Day Four - Saturday
Bays Mountain Park day! I have many fond memories of going to Bays Mountain Park when I was very small and feeding the ducks in the lake. It was also the first place I saw Hardware Wars, a classic for every Star Wars fan, in my opinion. I had a crazy flashback when we turned a corner going up the mountain and the side of the dam was in front of us. I didn't even know that I remembered what the dam looked like, but it was total deja vu.

I also have fond memories from when I was eight of freaking out my big tough, camo-wearing, shotgun in the Everglades-shooting cousins (one of whom is now a Marine), by holding the GIANT snake after the snake presentation, and then letting it wrap around my leg because it was cold. Poor snake.

We walked all around the park and saw snakes, big bullfrogs, wolves, deer, and a fat possum named Poindexter.
It looked like the ducks were all gone for the season, which I was sad about since I was looking forward to seeing them again. As you can see from the pictures, it was a beautiful day.

Inside the main building some of the exhibits were the same ones that were there when I was four. I should have taken pictures of the diagrams of how bees make honey and the plastic dinosaurs showing the various dinosaur eras (plus the wooly mammoth and giant deer. There were giant deer back then! I had no idea. And based on what were surely accurate scale model representations, those suckers were almost as big as the T-Rex).

The best part, in my opinion, was the kiddie cave, which explicitly forbade anyone over 11 from entering. WhatEVER. As you can see, Amy and I had no qualms with joining my cousin's stepdaughter, Carrigan, in the cave.

We stayed for the planetarium show, which took us on an exploration of space complete with a snazzy spaceship and a futuristic theme song that Jason regaled us with afterwards while Amy danced.

Day Five - SUNDAY
Sad day. We said good-bye to everyone the night before and headed out early Sunday morning. We met up with Jason's brother and his girlfriend in Shepherdstown, WV, a cutesy-pie little town with cutesy-pie little stores near the site of the Battle of Antietam.

Here's a cannon:


Yep.

Then we got lost and stuck in major Thanksgiving weekend traffic coming back and were dead tired by the time we made it back to my place. The next day Jason's flight left first thing and then I went to an interview for the job I have now. All in all, a successful weekend.

As a side note, the family LOVES Jason. Every single one of them. Now I'm going to give him a big head, but I got lots of thumbs ups from the men and many "He's so cute!" and "He's great!" from the women. So I think we've officially reached the point that if I break up with him I will be shunned and ridiculed forever in my family circles.

Freakin' Weather!

Don't get me wrong. I generally love snowstorms. Watching the snow out my window, reveling in being all warm and cozy inside and possibly indulging in a mug of hot chocolate, going for a walk and enjoying the strange silence of a deep snowfall.

But really, I would love this one a lot more if I was ALREADY IN BOSTON WITH JASON!!

But no.

As of now, my flight is delayed two hours and is supposed to take off at 9:50 PM. Of course, the airline can't actually tell us that the flight is officially canceled, as I'm very sure it will be, until the last minute, so I'm going to have to drive myself out to Dulles, park, wait for the shuttle in the COLD, get through security and all that jazz, and wait at the gate for 3 or 4 hours until they send us home. I was planning on taking public transportation out there, but if they cancel my flight after, say, 11 PM, I'm basically stranded because I refuse to pay $75 or whatever it is for a cab. So I will drive.

It's so frustrating because the weather is absolutely fine here. The storm came in, dumped a few inches of snow on us last night, and then moved out, leaving a cold, yet sunny day. This morning the storm was moving fast and they said it would stop snowing in Boston by early afternoon. I've been getting email updates from Jason all day and the basic fact is, weather people lie.

I am reminded of the time when I lived in Tucson and a HUGE scary hurricane was supposed to sweep over us via the Gulf of California in between Baja and mainland Mexico. It was all the news people could talk about for 3 days. The storm's a-comin'! Grab your children and hold on tight! People in low-lying areas sandbagged their homes, people in the foothills stocked up on food in case all the washes filled up and they couldn't get to the store. It was madness.

Guess what? Not a single drop of rain.

Weather people are LIARS!

Actually I wish they could have been bigger liars in this case and completely mispredicted the snowstorm.

Alright, I'm going to go check the airline website again.

My Lights, They Are A-Fallin' Down

Last night I was sitting in the family room watching this really awful AMC/Entertainment Weekly holiday movie special. I Tivoed it because I thought it would be a cute little holiday retrospective, but as soon as it started and I realized the little 2-second snippets of holiday movies were going to be interspersed with a not-so-delightful farce starring French Stewart (the weird guy from 3rd Rock From the Sun), I probably just should have stopped it right there. I must remember that AMC is no longer the awesome American Movie Classics from my childhood, but is now the crazy random movie channel that played Halloween 5 a couple of nights ago.

Anyway, I was watching this solely for the 5-minute interviews with directors of some of our favorite holiday classics, when this riiiiip sound shot through the room, scaring the crubbish out of me. Then I noticed my lights had fallen. See, I stuck them on the wall with the help of these little holiday decoration brackets, marketed and sold by Wal-Mart with the promise that they would hold up my lights. They consist of these plastic brackets stuck on sticky circles, which then stick on the wall. The sticky circles are still on the wall, but they have lost their hold on the plastic brackets.

But here's my plan. Maybe you remember that I fixed my broken bookshelves with the miracle of epoxy? No, I'm NOT going to epoxy the lights to the wall. I'm going to epoxy the little plastic brackets to the sticky circles and make them super sticky in the hope that they will hold my lights up through Christmas. That's my project for tonight.

Also, tonight I'm going to the National Cathedral to see Jan Karon, author of the Mitford book series, speak. Those are some of my favorite books and I'm so excited!

Going Through Withdrawal

I'm so desolate without my computer at home. Over the last couple of days I've managed to pop on for a second here or there just to check and see if I had any pressing, important emails. Yeah, that never really happens, but I can pretend.

Last night, the battery officially died. I was reading an email and suddenly my little Dell was preparing to hibernate. Fine. I hope my new cord comes soon.

I still want to post about Thanksgiving, more for my own journaling record, I suppose, since it's now a week and a half after the fact and you all are probably over Thanksgiving stories. But I have some cute pictures.

I decorated my little family room down in the basement this weekend. Jason and talked about getting a tree Sunday night after Thanksgiving, but we got back to town late. We did manage to find one tree lot just about to close, but the little trees were $35 and I wasn't feeling that dedicated to it considering I'd be decorating it by myself and all since he was leaving at 6 AM the next morning. Plus I was really, really tired and not feeling all that Christmasy.

Well, Saturday I pulled out one Christmas box looking for my Santa Claus Christmas countdown door hanger. I didn't find it (and am really wondering where it is...), but I did pull out some cute figurines of angels and santas, including the angel music box that used to sit on my piano every Christmas when I was growing up. I also happened upon some lights that I decided to check and see if they still worked. One of the long strands worked perfectly, so I sat on my floor for a moment, mulling over the set-up in the room and deciding what to do. I wound up stringing the lights across one side of the room and placing burgundy velvet bows on the lights intermittently.

I spent the weekend basking in the Christmas light glow. When I was little I used to lay almost under the Christmas tree, reading Anne of Green Gables or A Christmas Carol in the glow of the lights on the tree. Um, that may be one of the reasons why my glasses prescription is so strong.

Also, my mom and dad sent me this amazing Swiss chalet advent calendar. I don't know if anyone besides me ever noticed this, but in the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in between each day they show this beautiful Victorian house that is an advent calendar. They open a window every day, and behind each window is a painted scene of Victorian holiday fun. On Christmas Day they open the front door, where you see the family gathered around a huge tree. It's probably wrong that my most vivid memory of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is the scene-changing advent calendar, but there it is. I also rather liked Eddie's bright red dickie under his cream sweater.

Anyway, my parents found this advent calendar in the shape of a Swiss chalet with snow on the roof and evergreen and holly in the window boxes. There are no painted scenes, but instead the windows either open to reveal an empty space or pull out a little drawer perfectly sized for a little Christmas treasure. So cute! I have taken pictures and will post them once I get the computer cord.

See how much of my blogging destiny hinges on getting that computer cord?

Since I have a job at least until Christmas, I find that I'm getting into the Christmas mood. It has come late this year, but it's here and I'm glad. Yesterday I Tivoed "Christmas" and "Holiday" for the next couple of weeks to find the programs I don't want to miss. I'm looking forward to some festive TV viewing.

Work

The people I'm working for now are a hoot. I'll explain more once I can get on my computer at home again.

Here's something that I really believe is true: you work to people's expectations. In my last job I was coddled and led around, doing menial tasks, with my boss overexplaining and double-checking everything. Here, they've kind of thrown me into the deep end and expected me to swim. So far, I've come through. And because they know my credentials and trust me, I'm in charge of a couple of projects and once they hire the permanent secretary I'll be doing more substantive work.

Frappr

I'm jumping on the Frappr bandwagon. Come, look, tell me where you are.