%^&# 2009

In all honesty, we had a great year.

I feel like I should be all depressed about some of the stuff that happened in 2009. Maybe it is just that I’m heavily medicated or something, but really I’m pretty happy about the way the year went down.

I made a New Years resolution this year that I wouldn’t eat any doughnuts. This wasn’t so much in an effort to be healthy or lose weight or save money or anything logical like that, it was just that I wanted to make a resolution I could stick to and while brainstorming, I walked by a box of doughnuts and voila—the perfect New Years resolution!

Today holds my last chance to muck up my doughnut resolution and as a result, the cravings are coming in strong today. My mind is simply determined to make failure my destiny, but this year it is going to lose. Ha! Take that, brain! (Mmmm...doughnuts...only 15 more hours…)

Moving on to 2010 (I’m so excited to say twenty ten instead of twoooothoouuusssannndddddwhatever, we'll save so much time). Craig decided to join in with me in my—pick-an-attainable-and-somewhat-ridiculous-resolution—idea this year.

We had decided on not going to any movies at the movie theatre in 2010, but then we watched the Alice and Wonderland trailer and lost confidence in that plan. In light of that, right now, our resolution is pending, but I’ll be sure to keep you posted as soon as we are enlightened. I know, you’re waiting on pins and needles, right?

Christmas Spirit

As we don’t have a tree up this year and the economy has kind of crunched our purchasing activities we have had a really tough time getting into the “Christmas spirit”.

I tried several things—listening to and performing Christmas music, making cookies, drinking lots of Abuelita, and incorporating winter smells into our house, but nothing really worked.

Then the following happened:

1) The ladies in my performing group invited me to participate in the gift exchange that I had bailed out of due to the aforementioned crunched purchasing activities.

2) Went to a Christmas party.

3) Then the big one—three of my co-workers, acquainted with the lack of Christmas décor in my house (due to it being staged), brought me a wonderful little silver tinsel tree and tiny colorful bulbs. Serious turning point.

4) Went to another Christmas party.

5) I worked on some gifts.

6) My grandpa (who had fallen down the stairs and broken his neck and spent 3 weeks in the ICU, 3 weeks in a long term acute center, and 4 weeks in a care center) went home!!

7) My brother (who I didn’t think was coming home for Christmas) will be home next Wednesday!

I guess the biggest thing I’ve learned is that the Christmas spirit seems to be a lot more about having people who care about you than I ever really understood before. Also, having the little tinsel tree on my desk really helps, but probably half of what makes me so happy about that is the fact that there were three people in my office who cared enough about me that they spent the time/money to bring me Christmas joy. I hope I never forget how I felt when they came up behind me and sang “We wish you a Merry Christmas” and I saw the tree. If I can remember that, then I’ll always be able to feel the Christmas spirit.

P.S. I’m entitled to write two cheesy posts devoid of cynicism twice per year. This is one.

Green Eggs--no seriously!

I always thought Dr. Seuss was just being goofy when he asked if “you like green eggs and ham” but did you know that some chickens really do lay green eggs?

Check it out!!

I love to eat farm fresh eggs but they are so astonishingly expensive at the grocery store. Turns out that one of Craig’s scouts raises chickens and sells the eggs for $2 per dozen. Totally worth it and totally green (pun intended).

Of all of the blogs on my daily blog roll, I think ours is about the only one who hasn’t posted anything about a Christmas tree or decorations.

Truth is that we’re trying to sell our house and it is staged which means that we’ve completely removed every ounce of personality from our house (except for our cat) and it has become Pottery Barn central—gag. Yes, I gag, because it looks nothing like “us” but actually it looks awesome. For some reason the decorator was not a fan of our Cosmo Kramer portrait or the large empty frame on our living room wall, or our Dia de los Muertos dolls…or even our piano for that matter, but I won on the piano.

Our house has its very own URL for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.