Thursday, December 27, 2007

12 days of Christmas

I always knew that B is a creative guy, but this Christmas, he outdid himself and really impressed me with his thoughtfulness and creativity. On December 13 (aka the first day of Christmas), he gave me a single book with the Twas the Night Before Christmas poem--with a cat twist. The next day, he gave me 2 hair clips. On the third day, he gave me 3 travel-size lotions.

On the fourth day (4 flower pins/hair ties), I realized what was going on. It was so exciting to have a new gift to open every day, and I never knew what the gift was going to be or when it was going to appear. Other gifts included 5 pairs of socks, 6 votive candles, 7 letter-sealing stickers, 8 nail polishes, 9 personalized note cards, 10 toe separators (well, 2 toe separators, one for each foot--for all 10 toes), 11 golf balls, and 12 colored gel pens.

The twelve days of Christmas ended on Christmas Eve, but B gave even more gifts on Christmas Day! A sweater, a coat, a new bathrobe and pajamas, and lots of fun stocking stickers (Italy stickers, a little cat figurine, and other fun goodies).

It was a great Christmas.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Simplify simplify simplify

Every month or two, I realize that our home is disorganized and full of clutter, and then B and I spend many hours trying to whip it into shape. This realization usually comes right before we have people over. It's ok to live among the clutter if it's just the two of you hanging out in your pajamas and watching an I Love New York marathon on VH1 and eating Ben and Jerry's straight out of the container. But you don't want your friends and family coming over and mentally comparing your home to the monkey pit at the zoo.

Maybe my priorities are messed up--maybe I should try to clean a little every day and stay on top of the clutter situation--nip it in the bud. But I'm the kind of girl who occasionally realizes--while I'm brushing my teeth before bedtime--that I've gone the entire day without brushing my hair. Is it reasonable to expect that I should be proactive about cleaning the house when I can't even remember to detangle my own hair?

(I just realized that I haven't brushed my hair today. However--and if you've never had thick hair, you will think I'm crazy, and if you do have thick hair, you will be nodding in agreement at my next statement--I can't actually brush my hair right now. Well, I can try, and I can brush my way through most of it, but my hair is so thick that I cannot entirely remove all of the tangles. Even if, by some miracle, I am able to get my brush through all of my hair, the tangles form almost immediately. I have made a hair appointment for next week to have my hair thinned, but until then, it's bun season.)

Anyway. Back to cleaning.

Part of our problem comes from traveling clutter. Traveling clutter is stuff that does not belong anywhere, so you continue to move it to different places in your home with the hope that someone else will either throw it away or hide it so you don't have to think about it anymore. Examples of traveling clutter in our home include:
  • Pieces of granite that we rescued from the leftover bin while on a trip to Vermont. We took their trash, transported it many miles to our own home, and now have no idea what to do with it. B has a strange sentimental attachment to the rock chunks so I can't throw them out, but I don't think that they make the nicest decorational items for a bedside table in our guest room, either.
  • Organizational shelving from The Container Store. Everything from that store costs twice what you think it should, so once you buy it, you can never bring yourself to throw it out, even if you don't need it anymore. I bought something like 4 of these double-drawer shelving units for our pantry, but now we have Ikea shelving that does a way better job. What to do with the TCS shelving? No idea.
  • Magazines. Oh, the magazines. When your frequent flier miles are about to expire, the airline sends you a message saying, "Don't let your miles go to waste! Get free magazine subscriptions!" You convince yourself that you will read 8 magazines a month for an entire year. And then they arrive in the mail and you don't open a single one, and you stack them on whatever flat surface area you can find until your blanket chest is covered in magazines, and the idea of opening it to add or remove an item is so daunting that you would rather go cold than figure out what to do with the magazines.

I've decided to take back control. I'm not going to clean my house every day, and I have come to accept having books strewn about in every room. But I'm throwing away those magazines! The Puritan voice in my head says, "But you haven't even taken them out of their plastic wrappers! You haven't opened any of them!" But I don't care! You have to draw the line somewhere, and in my life, there isn't room for Domino, Lucky, Jane (Jane! Unloved, cancelled magazine, how can I throw you out unread?! Surely I will be punished for this blasphemous decision but I suspect the former editors would applaud my "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do" attitude), and even Martha Stewart. Farewell, literary flotsam! Hello, simplification!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Food snobbery

I am an unlikely candidate for a food snob. I spent my childhood avoiding all foods of the vegetable variety. It took me over an hour to eat dinner every night because I was so distracted by everything going on around me and couldn't sit still. Food was more like fuel than anything else.

As I got older, I became more adventurous and started trying foods that I had never heard of or that I had been scared to try, and I discovered that I enjoyed them. Travel, especially international travel, provides excellent opportunities to broaden your food horizons because you're already in an adventurous mindset. When I traveled, I found myself trying foods that I wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pole when I was younger, and I brought the adventurous spirit home with me and continued to embrace new and different foods.

As my food horizons broadened, my cooking knowledge improved. When you're feeling adventurous, a recipe that involves ginger isn't as daunting as it used to be. I found myself making dishes that I never would have had the guts to order in a restaurant, and then I found myself ordering similar dishes when I was out. Then I realized that I could cook food that tasted better than the food I could get at a restaurant, and I started wanting to eat only at restaurants that offered meals that I couldn't or wouldn't make on my own. And I started not wanting to go to restaurants that served food that wasn't as good as my own.

That's when I realized that I am a food snob.

I sniff at restaurants that serve frozen food or that feel the need to coat every dish on their menu with a thick slab of cheese or so much salt that I am thirsty for days afterward. If I am faced with the option of eating home-cooked food or restaurant food, I would choose home-cooked food 9 times out of 10, unless I was looking for the convenience of being served a meal--or if the restaurant offered a wonderful meal.

Unfortunately, there is always a problem with the restaurants that offer wonderful meals. B and I were at a four-star steakhouse in a nearby town a few weeks ago, and I kept saying throughout the meal, "I don't know why we don't come here more often! This food is so good! This restaurant is great!" Then we got the check. And we remembered why we don't go there often.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Farewell, worst day ever

I have declared yesterday to be the worst day ever. Perhaps the worst 2 days ever, or more accurately, the worst 24-hour span ever.

Yesterday started fine, but the threats of a winter storm made me decide to leave work early. My one o'clock meeting was cancelled, but my noontime gathering of friends to read an old radio script was a highlight of the day and I just couldn't miss it. In hindsight, perhaps we should have postponed our fun.

I hit the road a little after 1, around the same time as everyone else in the state. The traffic reports at the time were reassuring, but what I was seeing with my own eyes was not. I moved about 6 car lengths in an hour--and we're not talking on the highway or even on the roadway--I was still at the top of the driveway of my office park.

Hours went by and progress did not improve significantly. Soon it was dark, and I had barely made it halfway down the hill. At this point, the traffic reports were starting to reflect a negative situation on the highways, but I thought I had invested so much in my commute and if I turned around, I might have to wait in the same long line at a later point in the day. I decided to stick with it.

And stick with it, I did. After about 6 hours, I made it to the real road. At 8 hours (after having moved 100 meters at most), I noticed that my car was acting funny. I realized that the red light that kept popping on and off on my dashboard was actually a low-battery warning. And I realized that the lights in my car (as well as my headlights) were dimming and then brightening and then dimming again. I am not a mechanic, but I knew that something was wrong.

I called B, and he said I had to turn around and go back to work. "Go back?!" I said, "I spent 8 hours trying to get here!" He explained that the symptoms indicated a failing alternator, and I might not have much time left before my car died. I didn't want it to go in the middle of the street, so I took his advice and went back. I still hadn't been making any progress on the road, so it was somewhat liberating to drive a whopping 10 miles per hour to get back up to my building, even if it was through 6 inches of snow.

I found lots of coworkers who had seen the unmoving line of cars and decided to wait out the storm at work. At least I wasn't alone. I made my way up to my office to try to figure out a plan. I have AAA, but not the premium program, so I could have my car towed only 3 miles, not all the way to my house (note to self: will be upgrading to the premium plan pronto--it allows up to 100 miles of free towing). So if I was going to have my car towed, where would I tow it to? And could a tow truck even make it through the gridlocked traffic?

As it turned out, it didn't matter because the AAA number was busy every time I called, and at that point, I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my car. Technically, it was still running, so a tow might not even be necessary if I was going to take it to the garage up the street. I prepared myself mentally to sleep at the office until one of my coworkers who waited out the storm and who lives in a neighboring town from mine kindly offered to drive me home--so nice! We left around 10, and by that time, traffic had cleared up considerably (though the roads were not in great shape because the plows had been unable to get through the gridlocked traffic to plow them). I was home by 11:30 or so.

B had a slightly easier travel adventure, even though he was making his way home from NYC. Yesterday morning, I watched the travel forecasts, and they said that NYC would be a mess by lunchtime--I knew there was no way that his plane was going to leave the ground. I called him around 10 and told him to get on a train, and he was able to hop the 1 o'clock train. And thank goodness he did--all of the flights were cancelled.

When his train reached the city, he hopped the commuter rail out to our town, and I was supposed to be there to pick him up. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Luckily, one of his coworkers lives in town and was home and has a 4x4 truck--his coworker picked him up from the train station and drove him home, and he was back well before 8.

So we both got home last night--but neither of our cars did. Mine was at work, and B's was at the airport. We planned to get a cab to the train station to take the commuter rail into the city and then make our way to the airport, but all of the cabs were booked. I had the idea of taking an airport shuttle, and they were able to squeeze us onto a van--hooray! The driver was perplexed to see that we didn't have any bags until we explained our situation.

We picked up B's car and then stopped at a store to buy a new battery for my car, a transaction complicated by my coupon and the sales man's inadequate understanding of fractions. Then we made our way to my office building (I can't look at those roads in the same way) and located my car under a big pile of snow. Amazingly enough, with a little cough and whimper, she started up, so B pulled her out of the snowbank and then turned her off and went to work on the battery. Within 20 minutes, her new battery was installed, and she roared to life with an enthusiasm not seen in years.

Our next stop was my mechanic. We called him earlier in the day to ask for advice, and he said that even if my alternator wasn't working, my car would make it the 37 miles from where I work to where I live on a new battery. We stopped in and he did a quick test to see if the battery was charging--it was--hooray! The alternator was fine. My six-year-old battery, and the 8 hours of idling, combined with my charging my phone in the car, was the problem. I had actually been planning to buy a new battery, just as soon as B was home and could help me through it. It just happened sooner than either of us planned.

Now we--and both of our cars--are home, recovering and safe, and we're preparing for this weekend's storm. And hoping not to have another worst day ever.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I wanna talk about me

A couple weeks ago, I helped a coworker format the manuscript of his father-in-law's memoir. He had been after his FIL for years to record his memories in one way or another, and putting pen to paper (well, he was more technical than that and used a computer) was how he chose to do it.

I got to thinking about it, and while my life has not been nearly as tumultuous as my coworker's relative (I am, after all, only 25 at heart), I have lived quite a life. I decided it was time to start writing some of it down--on a computer, that is.

The first step was to take a little walk down memory lane, and let me tell you, it was not as easy as I thought it would be. I don't mean that I had trouble remembering--I just didn't want to remember everything! A good story requires some sort of conflict, and going through all of it in my mind at once was overwhelming.

Sitting down to write the first sentence wasn't easy, either. I had been crafting paragraphs in my mind during my ride home, but when I sat down in front of my computer, writer's block set in. I wrote a few sentences but was dissatisfied with their blandness. I forced myself to keep going and write a straight account--even if it was boring and could have come from a user guide--and then I went back and made my sentences more clever sounding.

One great aspect to memoir writing is that you know the entire story from the start, so you can start at any point and write until you get bored, and then you can start on another section, and it's easy to pick up where you leave off. I haven't written much in my memoir, but I started with the night that B and I met--a very happy moment, in hindsight anyway. At the time, he scared me and I vowed to avoid him as much as I could. Luckily for both of us, I didn't keep that vow.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Landlocked for now

It's no secret that I've been bitten by the travel bug, and I've recently been contemplating a trip to Germany to visit Christmas markets. They are outdoor shopping markets full of hand-made Christmas-related goods and fun and festive foods like pretzels and spiced cider and probably sausages (which I could pass on without much regret). Unfortunately for me, the Christmas markets in Germany only happen during December (unlike American radio stations, which think that Christmas begins immediately after you throw out the rotting jack-o-lantern that you carved for Halloween, Germans believe that Christmas should be limited to only one month of celebration). I was seriously tempted to go this year and went as far as researching airfare for sample dates in December. And, not surprisingly--who really wants to go to Germany in December; it's wretchedly cold and dark--airfare was a bargain.

Then I remembered one teeny tiny detail--I had no passport! We mailed them off for renewal the day before Thanksgiving, and I thought the likelihood of receiving them back before January was slim--no chance of an international trip for at least a month. But then we both received our passports in the mail yesterday! It was a turnaround of 19 days, and I am impressed.

However, there isn't any time for a Germany trip. All of our weekends are booked, and the only open timeframe is between Christmas and New Year's, and by then the markets will be closed, and I am certainly not going to Germany in the winter just to wander around and be cold--I can do that for free here at home. And the Auntie Anne's kiosk at the mall has a near-unlimited supply of pretzels should I get a craving.

Luckily, I have our Italy/Greece/Croatia/Germany trip next year to look forward to. And B has been hinting that he might be interested in a trip to Japan afterwards. He also pointed out that there is a Disneyland in Japan. My interest is piqued...

Sunday, December 9, 2007

One more Christmas task

The stockings are hung, the lights are up, Gretel is decorated, and the shopping is finished, but one final task remained--writing the Christmas cards. Now that we are married and have collected everyone's addresses, we feel like adults, and adults send Christmas cards.

I love buying Christmas cards. They come in all shapes and sizes and have fun pictures and messages and sometimes there is even glitter (and when there isn't, I have been known to add my own). However, sending cards is not as easy as buying them, so I frequently buy but then do not send them. This slackertude served us well this year, however, because we had almost 50 cards to send and didn't have to buy any.

The hardest part of sending Christmas cards is writing addresses, and we found a shortcut around that hassle--we printed all of the addresses on address labels. If I were really snazzy, I could have done a mail merge to move the addresses from our wedding spreadsheet to Word, but I've never done a mail merge successfully on my own, and I decided that copying and pasting was the faster option.

We printed return address labels for our names (with fun and different clip art--everything is more fun with cheesy clip art), so the only writing to do was inside the cards--febulous! Now the final step is to drop them in the mail and hope everyone likes them. And then buy cards for next year during the post-Christmas sales, of course.