thanksgiving is over…let’s get on to christmas!
i’ve got the house started…we’ll hopefully get our real christmas tree (for the living room) next weekend. yay! i am a bit sad though…all my pretty pumpkins are still so pretty i don’t know what to do with them. our house has a conflict of interests right now…pumpkins on the outside and christmas on the inside!
are you an early bird or a night owl? honestly, i have never usually been able to answer that question one way or the other. i’ve always liked to go to bed early, and i’ve always liked to sleep in. i guess i just really love my sleep. i definitely can’t function (or immediately get sick) if i get less sleep than i need.
i’ve gone through some transformation over the last year or so and i can officially call myself an early bird. but i don’t really like that fact. gracie consistently woke up at 7 am sharp for so long that i get up without an alarm whether i like it or not. but now with ava, i am up at 6:30 every morning, and i am disappointed to say that i have gotten used to that now.
being up that early could easily have it’s benefits…since i don’t have to leave for work until 8:30, and getting ready only take about 40 minutes, i have more than an hour to conquer the world! do i read? no. do i clean? no. do i take a morning walk? no. do i prep or get something laid out for dinner that night? no. do i do anything of merit or substance? no. i have absolutely no idea what i do all morning (yet i still find myself leaving not enough time to get ready and causing myself to rush in the last half hour). i have a glorious beautiful sunny hour to myself every morning to do whatever i needed and i piddle around and do nothing. my lack of activity frustrates me enough to write about it. (or complain, i guess)
i would say i wish i wasn’t an early bird. if wil’s not opening the following day, he’s up till at least midnight, while i doze off on the couch by 9 pm (10 pm if he’s lucky and the show we’re watching is exciting enough, 11pm if we are out or doing something). i guess i feel like, when i get home at 6, i have the entire night to do whatever…but because i wake up so early, i am so exhausted so early that my *decent* time with wil is cut short to 3 to 4 hours. so lame. (i tried having a cup of coffee a few nights ago at about 8…i still only lasted till 10)
i guess i want the impossible for myself. if i am going to keep getting up early (and it looks like i will because i don’t think ava’s going to grow out of her morning energy- now SHE’S the early bird…she’s jumping and running and wiggling at that hour), i wish i could accomplish something for myself that makes getting up that early worth it, but still be able to stay awake long enough in the evenings to really enjoy the night (*i HATE falling asleep on the couch, but i would HATE even more going to bed at 9 and not being with wil).
any tips?
i feel loved!
i didn’t expect it to, but this entire week has been a great birthday week…just a little celebration every day, rolling up to today.
cassie bought me tickets to regina spektor. woohoo! so wednesday after work, we went out to dinner at a swanky little place in nashville (we had the boys join us last minute since both of them were just sitting at home)…i enjoyed a pomegranate martini, cassie, a sangria, and of course the boys had something manly like beer or a whiskey something. they have these awesome tempura green beans it actually makes me like green beans, among other fun side dishes to mix and match. after dinner, we split up and cassie and i made our way to the ryman (my first time there!) and unfortunately, after sitting, waiting and chatting in our seats for about an hour, a man came on stage and explained that regina had collapsed during the sound check earlier in the day, the doctor told her she could not perform tonight, and that the concert would be postponed. bummer! to be honest, i wasn’t too disappointed; the dinner and company was so nice, and i knew we’d see her later and it’s not like it was cancelled completely. my night (unrelated to my birthday) was pleasantly not over, when we realized project runway started that night, and because of the concert, i made it home just in time to watch it with wil!
thursday ended up being more of the ‘actual’ celebration, with a planned night out. a big group of us went to nachos for trivia (which is a fairly usual thing for us, but we hadn’t been in a long time, and we had fun playing a boys table against a girls table). the boys actually got first place of the whole restaurant and won the coveted $20 gift certificate for a future visit…us girls didn’t do so bad ourselves, just barely missing the third place prize by one point. eh, it didn’t matter since the boys gave me the certificate at the end anyways. : ) we ended up going back to our house and had cake and a good but surprisingly fast game of cranium. the boys won again, but in our defense, we were not far behind, and we did have one less team member for about half of the game. i was too happy and content to get competitive.
yesterday morning, i came to work to an empty office (i knew carolyn and cassie had a morning meeting), and was delighted to see a sweet vase of flowers on my desk. i feel so special! later in the day we all put our work down and had some more cake and ice cream!
although that evening was not for my birthday, wil and i had a great time at his store, watching and listening to the first of a friday night music series…among a few other people, we were serenaded with the delicious harmonies of the three very talented girls of everlife while hanging out with all our friends of his store. (had some nice christmas songs in there too, to get you in the spirit)
upon coming home i watched wil prepare dinner for tonight…i asked him to make me chili (not your usual favorite birthday meal, but he makes really good chili). we opened a bottle of some really cool french grand cru wine (a bday gift…google it…some of these bottles from similar regions go for hundreds of dollars!), the girls sat and patiently waited for wil to throw them a pepper every few minutes, and i excitedly researched about my gift. i was planning on being surprised tomorrow, but as wil found out the place it’s coming from was out of stock, it’d be a few days. he’s getting me an iphone! i almost fell off my stool when he told me…totally surprised and SO excited. it’s like 4 gifts in one, a new phone (i have needed one badly), ipod, mini computer, and a decently good camera!. (thanks to the parents also who were part of the gift!)
and now i have woken up to the actual birthday. we’ve just taken it easy this morning- sleeping in and wil is making me some coffee downstairs. he took the day off, and i am just really looking forward to having a fun day of just me and him. we are going christmas shopping (and a bit for myself with a few new gift cards!), maybe meet cassie and mike for lunch, and then having a nice quiet dinner with the two of us at home. we’ll probably attack the leftover birthday cake a couple more times. : )
(more random pictures on flickr)
gracie goes in to the vet tomorrow for some booster shots and we get to see how much she weighs! it has been since may, when we last found out her weight. at the time she was 113…and man has just bulked up since then! write a comment and make your best guess and we’ll see who wins! GO!
UPDATE: so basically this is what we found out: gracie is fat! she weighed in at 139.8…making mom/janet the winner! wil’s always thought she was overweight, but i didn’t really notice until the vet showed us areas of her body that ought not to be as round as they are. : ) so, she’s going on a diet! and ava was 24 pounds…following in close to her sister! good guesses everyone.
