Countdown
Because I have had to turn the heat on in my car for like 5 consecutive days now, I feel at liberty to start counting down to Christmas. 88 days people. Have you started shopping yet? And really, I can count down until Halloween (39 days), after which point I turn my attention almost exclusively to Christmas...Christmas decorating, Christmas cards, Christmas music, Christmas parties...aaaaah, Christmas.
Christmas this year will top every other year for a few reasons.
1.
My House. Because I now have a house that has a bannister (upon which I will of course put some garland), I feel that Christmas will be celebrated a little bit more joyfully this year. If I'm being honest, one of the first things I pictured when we first looked at the house was a garland running up my Adirondack staircase. I was sold. I have also identified at least 3 places in my house which will accomodate Christmas trees very nicely. Three times the Christmas trees, three times the Christmas joy. yay.
2.
Monday. Christmas this year falls on a Monday. I have not thought this through thoroughly but I am quite sure that Monday is the best possible day for Christmas to fall on for those of us who work and have sparing amounts of vacation time. I will get out early on Friday, have the weekend off of course, and then have holidays Monday and Tuesday. All the Christmas joy, no vacation days used. yay.
3.
DV-R. This is another whole post in itself, but I am quite sure that our recently obtained DV-R will conrtibute significantly to the Christmas cheer factor this year. Why? Let me explain. My favorite thing about Christmas is how everything ordinary in life becomes Christmas-ized. Trees are all lit up, shopping is almost exclusively Christmas related, and even most baking is themed. This of course extends to TV. I don't watch a ton but around Christmas, I like to see Christmas versions of the today show and all of my favorite sitcoms. Unfortunately I am not home to catch these, not to mention the excellent Christmas specials which air so frequently around this time. Thanks to Time Warner Cable and the wonders of technology, I will no longer be deprived of Christmas programming. yay.
88 days people...get your game faces on.
Digging in the dirt
So yesterday was my first attempt at "gardening." Let me caution you, I use that term very, very loosely, because I don't know if what I did yesterday can really be considered gardening. But anyways, a very good friend of mine has spent years on her gardens, and she was pruning them back this summer, and very graciously offered to give me some. The idea of having something to grow in my backyard other than giant squirrel was very appealing and I accepted her offer.
This decision was followed by much trepidation, since I don't have any clue of what to do when I have gardening gloves on (yes, gloves. They have special gloves for gardening. I learned that). But the more people I talked to, the more the process of planting things sounded simple. Dig a hole, put in the plant, cover with dirt. Repeat. So Saturday night I brought home 2 huge hosta plants, black eyed susans, daisies, daylilies and cone flowers. Little did I know that you trim all of these back in the summer, so they all looked the same in their little pots....just roots and dirt with chopped stems sticking out. Luckily my friend is not only a gardener, but a compulsive organizer. So each plant was labeled and corresponded to a little guide on how to plant it, what it needs, etc.
So Sunday afternoon I bought a shovel and a rake, brought the plants out back, and started digging. I even pretended I was one of those outdoor designers on HGTV and put the pots in several locations to see which arrangement was most Zen like. It was actually kind of fun, and a lesson in patience...I have to wait 8 or 9 months to see these babies bloom! Oh well. It will all be worth it in the spring! Hopefully I didn't mess up and I will actually have flowers blooming in the spring..
Sign-ups
I hope someone out there finds this as funny as I did. Here's a little background.
Since we got married I've been nagging, I mean
"urging" my dear sweet husband to see a primary care physician. I would guess it's been in the arena of 5 years since he last had a check up. As his wife, I feel that it is in my best interests for him to live; more specifically to live longer and healthier. In my limited assessment of how the world works, I think a primary care physician is the first logical step in achieving this goal.
Unfortunately Brian isn't really a fan of the doctor. As it turns out, he is in good company. Less than 30% of patients seen at family medicine clinics in the US are male. Brian's medical care since we've been married has been limited to dental visits. And this only happened when pain levels resulting from dental issues got so out of hand that he was consuming too much Excedrin every day to operate heavy machinery (like his car). So he went to the dentist, and ended up getting all of his wisdom teeth pulled. Since then, no doctors.
As many of you know we have recently been paying more attention to our health. I had a general check up last week and my doctor shared my concerns for Brian, and said he should at least see a doctor every few years to have his blood tested for cholesterol levels and the like. I shared this with Brian.
So last night, Brian announced that he has been thinking about the whole doctor's thing that he will go if I "sign him up for a blood test."
I burst into laughter for a short period of time and then I said "You can't just 'sign up' for a blood test, you have a see a doctor." To which he responded "Then sign me up for a doctor." I responded with a few minutes more of intense, silent laughter. Then I informed him that there is no such thing as
www.signupforthedoctor.com. Apparently Brian has been out of the health care loop so long that he forgot that you have to 'make appointments' for such things. In his defense, maybe that is what he meant when he said "sign up." I just thought it was really funny...
Traitor
I have a confession to make. I am ashamed to admit that on Friday I created a myspace account. Sure, I claimed that the only reason was to "enhance" my blog (whatever that means). But alas, I soon found myself wasting time adding friends, uploading pictures and posting comments. As the minutes turned to hours, I realized I had a problem. I feel as though I have adulterated you, my faithful readers (hi mom). For this I apologize.
Ok all kidding aside, myspace is perhaps the most addicting thing I have ever encountered. And the funny thing is, everyone is open about how addicted they are, and it is uniquely acceptable, even praised, within the cyberwalls of myspace. Since I'm a communications geek, I've been thinking a lot about what the draw is; what in the world is it that draws us into the poorly designed (I don't know much about html but I do know that myspace isn't its best work), largely useless network that is myspace. In no particular order and with little forethought, here is what I've come up with:
- Myspace is a social grandstand. You can lay it all out there: who you're friends with, who you comment with the most, who you have pictures of, etc. You can even show everyone who is in your elite by posting your "top friends." I know its been a while since I've been in high school but this is obviously much less effort than, say, eating at a table together or getting together at someone's locker. There's no work involved if you want to bring someone in or cast them out. You just rank them and they can log in and check and see where they stand.
- Myspace caters to curiosity. Curiousity is probably the most watered down way to say this...it definitely borders invasion of privacy but hey, we're all putting it out there so why not look? You can find out what someone likes, what they watch and listen to, who they're friends with, and even see what they did on their last vacation. All this without committing to an actual interpersonal interaction, you know, like conversation. Which brings me to my next point.
- Myspace is convenient. It's no shocker that we live in a generation that texts instead of calling and e-mails instead of walking over to a colleague's office. Myspace is taking this to the next level. Communication is ultimately convenient and surprisingly non-committal.
- Myspace is controllable. No social blunders here. You are completely in control of how you appear to others. Sure, out in the real world you have to present yourself consciously and be sure that such presentation is consistent with your "image" (whatever that is) but within myspace, you can edit your picture, change your interests, alter your background, your song, your mood... And if you want you can spend hours tweaking to get it just right.
So anyways, I won't venture any crazy interpersonal communication theories about what all of this means. Suffice it to say that I am a dork and I think about all of this. Oh, and I'm pretty sure it definitely means something.
Happy Birthday to me
You may be thinking, oh how sad. Libby has to wish herself a happy birthday. But this is not at all the case. Let me start from the beginning.
I came in on Wednesday and much to my surprise, my dear friends Mary and Lauren had put a beautiful bouquet of red and orange roses in my office. How sweet. Another colleague of ours just had a baby on September 4th, and I was sharing with Juliet that I was going to have to take the Sept 4th baby under my wing and prepare her for the psychological impact of having an early September birthday.
My birthday very often fell (as it did this year) on the first day of school. You know how when you were in high school your friends would decorate your locker on your birthday with balloons and confetti and magazine cutouts of Brad Pitt? Well on the first day of school, no one knows where your locker is. This actually starts long before you even have a locker. Even when I only had a shared kindey-garten cubby, all of my peers (I wouldn't dare call them friends...I was pretty awkward up until 6th grade and then some) would get baked goods from parents on their birthday. Even the summer birthdays got a big lumped together birthday baked good acknowledgement. But me? I got lost in the paperwork. Too late for summer, too early to be planned for.
So anyways, all joking aside, I'm not THAT scarred, but it is kind of true. Well after my bouquet of roses my boss got me a nice arrangement of fresh flowers, and then around 2 pm Northway sent me a beuatiful unique arrangement of gerbera daisies (always exciting to have the receptionist call and say you have a delivery...almost like having your birthday read over the PA on the morning announcements). But the fun didn't stop there. Brian sent me a HUGE arrangement (in my lap in the above photo) from Gallo which was so, so sweet. And if you can believe it, my awesome in-laws sent me flowers AND a happy birthday balloon. I felt just like the prom queen :)
Even though I had to work and then go to class and got home at 9:30, it was a great day. I don't usually make a big deal about birthdays, because they usually just feel like any other day. But today was anything but ordinary, because I was surrounded by people who made me feel extraordinarily special. Since Brian is the only one who got to hear my little speech when I got all emotional last night, let me just say that I am the luckiest 25 year old girl in the world. I have a wonderful husband who loves me (who wrote me a beautiful card AND cleaned the entire kitchen yesterday), I have awesome friends and family (who took me out for a delicious crispy fish burger for lunch), and I have 5 bouquets of flowers in my office right now. Life is good.
