Can't Believe I forgot...

Don't know that anyone else really cares, but when I mentioned my weight loss a couple of weeks ago, I forgot to mention that I also cut about 13" of hair off. My hair went from being middle of my back, almost to my waist long to being about an inch below my ears long.

It was somewhat drastic, a little impulsive and traumatic. I donated my ponytail to Locks of Love. I'm having dinner with Bruce tonight and he has no idea that I cut my hair (even thought I did it two months ago and he's scheduled dinner and cancelled it like six times since then). That should be fun and interesting!

TGIF (seriously!)

April 3, 2009 – Sorry I didn’t update yesterday as promised, the day sort of got away from me. My birthday ended up being pretty good for a middle of the week birthday. I got into my office and the boys had surprised me with not one, but two bouquets of flowers and a couple of wrapped presents. It was very much appreciated and certainly unexpected. Bruce sent me a lovely bouquet of roses (two dozen beautiful violet colored roses) and my mother sent me a bouquet of gerbera daisies. By the end of the day my office smelled like a florist shop and it was lovely. I didn’t really get to do anything that night because I had rehearsal, but Alicia brought me cupcakes so that was pretty awesome. Can’t go wrong with a cupcake (or three as the case might be). Tonight is when we are really celebrating. My friend Justin’s birthday was the 31st and my coworker Winston’s birthday was the 2nd, so we are all having a joint happy hour today after work to celebrate and then I think a couple of my friends might be going to Flute for a champagne night cap. Weather permitting, of course – right now it is raining like hell outside. Have a wonderful Friday!

Pre-Holiday Update

November 20, 2008 – I just bought one of the more awesome things I have spent my money on in a while. For $10, I am now the proud owner of the Holiday Fire (which includes 10 Carols to “warm your toes”). I figured since I was hosting the holidays this year (mom is in town starting tomorrow for Thanksgiving and dad will be in town for Christmas), and my apartment is not equipped with a fireplace, we need an artificial fire. I have the option for “real” fire sounds, Christmas music, or a mixture of the two; and I can choose from a regular fireplace or a campfire. The novelty has not yet worn off in the office and I’ve been asked to bring it to work with me next week so we can keep it playing on a spare laptop to keep the holiday spirit alive.

In other news, my mother will be in town tomorrow and there is still a lot to do to get the apartment to make sure it is ready and she has a place to sleep and the bathtub doesn’t have a black ring because it stopped wanting to drain. Ah, the joys of houseguests. At least if something doesn’t get done, she’ll be really cool about – usually I don’t bother to clean at all when she comes, so the fact that I’m making the effort is proof that I’m growing as a person. Also, proof that I no longer have roommates.

My moment of bragging: holiday shopping is practically done. I made Dallas and Alicia’s gifts and both have minor finishing touches needed before I wrap them (in my hand stamped wrapping paper – seriously, I gave myself a blister stamping), mom’s gifts are all done and wrapped, Justin’s are done and wrapped, I made my own Christmas cards and I only have to get daddy and Bruce’s gifts (which are picked out, I’m just waiting to get paid).

Mom and I are putting up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, so I’ll try and post some pictures once we get that done. I need to go pick up some colored lights to replace the white ones that Dallas and I had from our “designed” tree last year (I was out voted).

Hopefully this finds everyone out there happily getting ready to stuff their faces and not feeling the economic downturn too much (a girl can dream, can’t she?). Have a great day!

Holy Crap!

November 5, 2008 – Today I am basically useless for staying up all night watching history happen before my eyes, but it was totally worth it. I proudly voted yesterday for Barack Obama before taking myself out for blueberry pancakes to celebrate the day. Politics were on the minds of everyone I spoke to (my office was split 7 for Obama and 2 for McCain), and there was a sense of urgency. I’ve never been reminded to vote my so many people before. Even the people on the subway who are usually screaming obscenities or asking for change were reminding people to vote. Election parties were held all over town and when they announced that Obama had won, there were eruptions. My friends in Manhattan said you could hear the cheering spilling out of nearly every bar, out of apartment windows, from crowds gathered in Rockefeller Center. People honking and yelling a generally jubilant. In Brooklyn, we had the honking and the hoopla. Overall, it was incredibly joyful and peaceful and for the first time in a long time, I had hope.

I stayed up to hear the speeches. McCain’s concession speech was elegant and graceful. If he had spoken like that on the campaign trail and in the debates, the outcome of yesterday’s voting might have been very different. Obama’s speech left me – for lack of a better term – speechless. It made me cry, it made me feel proud, and it restored hope for the future. I liked the honesty, I liked the humility, and most of all, when the TV cameras panned over the faces in the crowd young, old, black, white, famous or not, everyone looked like they were inspired. Even if the road is hard and long and only half of what he wants to do is accomplished, when was the last time we had a leader who could inspire people to get involved, to want to be a part of something larger. My mother made a point of noting that when he gave his speech, he was standing alone on stage and the crowd was around him. There was no invite only, VIP section immediately near him (or at least that was recognizable to me), you saw Oprah and Jesse in the crowd with everyone else. If that isn’t a metaphor for what this whole thing is about, I don’t know what is.

As some of you may know, Bruce is a McCain supporter, so he has now declared this “the beginning of the end” and has said that he washes his hands of the whole thing (he voted his economic interest and isn’t taking it well that I voted my own economic interest as well). For the first time in a long time, I wouldn’t be afraid to go to a foreign country and say I was an American.

Above all, I’m very happy that I do not have to move to Canada. It’s cold in Canada (especially this time of year), and I don’t like the cold. Yay, America!

39.2 Miles in 2 days - YIKES!

October 2, 2008 – In about 2 days I will be walking 39.2 miles and camping out on an island in the east river and spending time with 8 women I hardly know and my best friend – al for an extremely good cause. The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is two days of walking with a record breaking number of people raising a record breaking amount of money for Breast Cancer Research. It’s not too late to donate if you are interested: http://walk.avonfoundation.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1660&px=4289734 For those of you who have already donated, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support! You are rock stars!

While packing and getting ready for this thing I am starting to freak out an awful lot, but I know it will be loads of fun once I actually get there (at the ass crack of dawn – we start walking at 6:30am). I’ll take as many pictures as my camera will allow and do my best to post them back here.

In other news, my mother and I are starting a business together (on top of my full time job – it should be fun). I don’t want to give too much away right now, but look for more news in the coming months.

I recently started reading the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. I read the first two books in one weekend and finished the 3rd in a single evening. The last one is burning a whole in my bag right now, but I’m going to do my best to keep myself from staying up until all hours of the night.

Bruce is a little upset the last few days because he left the windows in the house open on Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning when he woke up, the cat was nowhere to be seen. The theory is that he escaped from the spare bedroom to the roof of the neighboring house, but we can’t find him anywhere. If anyone in Bay Ridge Brooklyn happens to come across a black cat that likes to cuddle and talks a lot, shoot me an e-mail or leave me a comment, please. Alicia thinks it’s weird that I’m not more upset about it, but what are you going to do? Rocky has his claws and is still very capable of hunting. Making a big fuss about something that’s already happened and I have no control over will only make Bruce feel bad and it isn’t his fault.

Gotta run – wish me luck on the walk and look for updates and pictures after this weekend!

Where am I and what is going on!?!?!?

August 21, 2008 – Today (Thursday) is actually my Friday! This is the first vacation day I’ve taken all summer and I’m not doing anything! Bruce and I are actually trying to plan a full week away the second week of September, which will be nice, but the day off for no good reason is sorely needed after the last few weeks.

Lots of changes are in store for my company in the coming months. I can’t talk about too many of them because I’m not sure if any of my coworkers have found my blog. We are moving into permanent space (which I am in the process of finding), and have a lot of things planned for January 2009. It seems like that is really far away, but at the rate time passes, January 2009 might as well be next week.

The apartment is just about done. Someday, I will actually get the pictures of all my hard work up here so you will all know what I’m talking about. My spare bedroom/closet has turned out a little more childish (my mother used the word “whimsical”) than I’d planned, but it works for the moment. I did finally give into my urge to purge. Last weekend I went through ever closet in my house and got rid of a pile of stuff as tall as I am. I couldn’t figure out how I had managed to accumulate so much crap, but then I realized that I’ve been in this apartment longer than I’ve lived anywhere ever. I’m used to moving every couple of years and you always do a grand purge when you move. Hence no move, no purge.

Last night I started my first Christmas present. I’m trying to get back into doing some needle work, so I’m doing some therapeutic cross stitch. I’m hoping to turn some of my therapy into gifts for friends (thus reducing the cost of the gift giving while upping the thought that went into it), but I know needle point and cross stitch aren’t very trendy/fashionable/popular for people under the age of 197. We’ll see what I can do.

This may seem a bit fractured, but it is a good representation of what I’ve been feeling like lately. Going in a hundred different directions at the same time while trying to plan for stuff that is coming faster than I’m prepared for. Happy (almost) Friday!

Cue the Choir of Angels!

I officially have no roommate! The house is completely destroyed and no one came to help her move, but she’s out and it appears like we managed to save our friendship as well. In addition to that, I got a Wii (technically it was for my birthday, but it came last Friday, so I opened it and started playing) and tonight I am getting an iPhone (which I won from the office because we did over $200,000 in billing last month $160,000 of which was billed by my team). Given all that, things are going pretty well for me these days. I’ve picked out a color for the other bedroom and I think I might paint the hallway the same color. I cannot wait to get started on that project.

Even Bruce is excited. He said that he hesitated to do anything around the house before because he didn’t want to do anything for her or that would benefit her. Now that she’s gone, he says things are going to be different. We’ll see. Both he and Justin have said that I seem noticeably happier just in the day or so since she’s been gone.

Hopefully this is just the beginning of more wonderful things to come!

Halleluiah! There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

She has an apartment and she has a move in date and, God willing, I’ll have my apartment to myself as of the weekend of March 1st. I am thinking about buying the paint to repaint her room this weekend so that I can be completely prepared to take over that room as soon as she is out. I’m taking suggestions on the color (it is two different colors of bright green now). I was thinking of just doing a much lighter green, but maybe I should let the BF pick the color since I picked out all the other ones. Maybe I’ll just give him some options to choose from…

I’ll have a closet! My clothes won’t be hanging in the living room and I’ll be able to see which suits are where rather than trying to figure out what is hanging in the bedroom and what is in the living room. I’ll have a spare room that is more than a junk room and I’ll have some storage back!

Can you tell that I am very excited?

Christmas has Come!

Hello! I know everyone is anxious to know what I got for Christmas this year. I thought I'd go in the order I received it (to the best of my memory since Mom is shipping me the stuff she gave me and it's been a while since I opened hers). So without further ado:

1. The America’s Test Kitchen Book.

2. The most current season of America’s Test Kitchen on DVD.

3. Magazine subscription to Real Simple

4. Smithsonian Membership

5. A lovely journal and a book mark and some beautiful pens

6. Boots

7. A new digital camera, the Canon PowerShot SD30 in a beautiful Rock Star Red

8. A new cell phone because I HATED MY RAZR. I love my new Samsung t619.

9. A new white down jacket.

10. The new Product Red iPod Nano

11. New Coach sneakers (brown and gold)

12. Beautiful Veuve Cliequot Champagne set in a beautiful cooler case with flutes.

13. Dual Membership to the American Natural History Museum

I gave Bruce the book that Dallas helped me make and he got really emotional about it. It was the perfect gift and I’m glad I could pull it off for him. I will actually be spending the holiday alone in my house with the boys, so it should be interesting. We have our first real Christmas tree this year and so far the boys haven’t tried anything more annoying than trying to drinks the tree’s water out of the stand. Also, Pyam sent me the first Christmas card sent to Bruce and I, so (if you are reading this) thank you for that. It was really uplifting and Bruce has decided he likes you even though he hasn't met you yet. I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday!

(I was trying to put pictures and links to all this stuff, but I haven't quite mastered that skill yet, I'm still learning how this works.)

Long Time in Coming

Hello again from the craziness that is my life. The last few weeks have been crazy and strange and most of it in a not so great way. In my last post, I mentioned that my Grandmother had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her jaw. My Grandmother - Marie Hieser - died on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. My mother went up to IL to help her siblings make arrangements and do whatever it is people do when someone dies. I tried to get to IL for the funeral and ended up stuck in Detroit. Bruce managed to get to me in Detroit so I was at least not stuck alone, but it sucked a lot (I HATE DETROIT AND NORTHWEST AIRLINES) and I felt like I let my mom down. Somewhere around the second or third weeks of December (whatever two weeks ago was), Mom had surgery in Houston. It was going to be exploratory surgery but ended up being a hysterectomy. She was in the hospital for a couple of days and couldn't drive for a week. She came through it fantastically, however it was a little difficult for me. Times like this, I wish I had a sibling or two running around to help take care of some of this stuff. I did, however, get to reconnect with Pyam while I was home and that was fantastic. I was with Mom until she got out of the hospital and then I went to Atlanta where my dad met my boyfriend for the first time. I also got to go to the GA Aquarium (which was AWESOME!) where I got to touch a little shark.

I was really worried about my dad meeting Bruce for the first time. Bruce had no idea what Atlanta traffic was like, so he was actually like an hour late (of all the times to be late, right?!?) but in the end I think it worked out fairly well. My dad went from being adamantly against the whole thing to just wanting me to be happy and not get hurt. I especially loved the part where I was sent away for an hour like a child so they could have a man-to-man talk. I'm glad they seem to have come to some sort of understanding, but I'm really worried about my dad.

Come to think of it, I'm actually very worried about both of my parents. With mom's friend Tom moving to Africa, she doesn't have much of a close support group left and I worry about her. Daddy wants to be happy and doesn't know what it would take to be happy. They are so much more alike than they think they are. In case anyone wonders where I get that whole philosophy of "if you let people get close to you, they can hurt you" - it came from both of my parents.

The best things that happened since my last post if that the show opened and closed, I finally got to spend some time with my boyfriend in daylight, I got to see both of my parents and already got all my Christmas presents, and at my office people seem to have been handing out bottles of champagne like water. More on the Christmas presents to come in a few moments in a separate post.