and then she turned into a unicorn

My husband is actually friends with someone that I went to high school with. They ended up being in the same ROTC program in College, and I remember how funny it was when we discovered that “Pinson” (how my husband knew him) was actually who I knew as “Jeremy” from high school. For added irony, Jeremy was actually one of the only people I had a crush on in High School who I didn’t try to pursue. Jeremy also confessed to my husband (in our early dating years) that he had had a crush on me. It was quite comical.

For a while now, Jeremy has been stationed a few states away from us, so we haven’t seen him. He came home this Christmas though, and Husband has been able to hang out with him once, and last night, we all went to dinner together.

During dinner, somehow we started talking about surprisingly gay celebrities. Gerard Butler’s name came up. Jeremy insisted that he had seen a magazine in which he was “coming out”.  I was bummed. Shocked, actually. I sat there and argued with him about it. And then I decided that this is typical, all the super-good-looking guys, the ones you would least expect, turn out to be gay. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t sad though.

So, I dropped my head in sorrow…….and banged it right into a glass on the table.

A hard, thick glass.

One that didn’t move in spite of the fact that I knocked my head into it pretty hard. Both my husband and Jeremy tried really hard not to laugh. Once I started giggling though, they felt that it was safe. I’ll be honest, if my 2 best friends had been with me, they would still be laughing now, a day later, so the 4 or so minutes the guys were laughing was really nothing.

We came home and iced it, but now I have a pretty sizable, BLUE, lump on my forehead.

Just what you want when you have plans for New Year’s Eve.

on my top 10 list of sucky things

Discovering that your favorite girl name is #1 on the list for 2008.

i use the st. jude’s hospital return address labels, but i’ve never donated to the cause

Do you want to know how many times you have to take a picture of 1 adult and 3 almost-adults before you actually get a good one?

Let’s count, shall we? One.

Two

Three (notice the prep for a “wet willy”)Four (that’s my husband’s finger. because at one point, we all gave up and figured there was no way of actually getting a decent picture.)Sometime during the evening, we ended up with this:

We’re not quite sure how, but Merry Christmas anyway.

being organized might actually pay off

Last night I determined that today would be the day in which I completed my Christmas Shopping.

So, I sat down at my husband’s trusty lap-top, opened up Microsoft Excel, and made a list of all of the people I have left to shop for.

The list totalled 21 people.

Twenty-One.

My husband pointed out that if we spent only $10/person we would be out $210. We both know, of course, that we’re spending more than $10 on some of the people who are left on my list.

I guess we’re going broke this Christmas. If any of you are still looking for gift ideas for us, maybe you’d like to pick up some of the people left on our list?

In all honesty, laying it all out on Excel really helped me out. I was able to think about what I wanted to get for each person, and I have at least 2 suggestions next to each name! My goal is to start in the northern-ish part of my state where the Target is (because they still haven’t put one close to me) and work my way toward the bottom-northern part of the state to finish out the day. It could be interesting. It’s like a shop-a-thon!

Some people work out, I just shop.

love knows no budget

We’ve all heard the talk over the last couple of months about how everyone’s cutting back this year. “There won’t be as many presents under the tree.” you’ve heard – or my favorite, “Even Santa has limits!” (I heard a mom in the mall telling this to her 5-ish year old).

Frankly, I’m a little tired of all of it.

I’m not a budget kinda gal. I enjoy going out, buying gifts, and somehow, I just know when I’m “done” shopping for someone. It’s not a number, it’s a feeling. This year though, I’m being forced to stick to a budget, and it’s all wrong. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about all of this frugality just makes me feel incomplete.

It’s like not being able to finish a sentence. That’s how a budget on Christmas makes me feel – like a fragment.

I’m sure that if I took a good look at the book, The Five Love Languages, mine would be gift-giving. There’s nothing more thrilling to me than buying something for someone that just fits them, and then watching their face as the see it for the first time. It’s not approval I seek, it truly is a genuine desire for the people in my life to be happy, and to have what they want. I know at the end of the day, material possesions are not fulfilling – just take a look at the folks in Hollywood for proof of that – but it’s nice to be able to enjoy material possesions for what they are. And I like being the person who is responsible for that temporary happiness. So sue me.

I guess this year, I’ll just be forced to abide by the rules. I’m sure though, that I won’t get in too much trouble for going a couple of pennies over-budget!

coming back down to earth

This week is a regular week. There are no special events planned, (ok that’s not entirely true, but it’s really not until the weekend) and I’m finding that Husband coming home, although a much-desired and enjoyed event, wasn’t an end-all to regular life as we know it.

I still have to go to work, he still has jobs to apply for and we’re still living with my parents.

Where’s all the fan-fare? Shouldn’t we get another honey-moon or something? Do something exciting or irresponsible (like say, get pregnant ;) Go clubbing a lot?

Alas, life has returned to comfortable ol’ normal. And I’m strangely uncomfortable because of it.

one of those people

First you should know, that I have enjoyed having my husband around immensely. Probably more than immensely. In fact, I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a good enough word in the English language to describe the happiness I feel at having him home.

I would also like to take this time to say that there is no one else in this world who knows what it’s like to have a spouse gone like I did except for other military spouses. We are in a club that few enjoy being a part of. Yes I’m proud of him, yes I know that this job makes him happy and he feels a certain fulfillment as a result. But I wish that he were anything else. Anything.

That being said, I can’t wait to spend time getting to know him again. That’s the fun part.

Also, a VERY SPECIAL shout-out to DDTM and his wifey, who had champagne and a fruit and cheese tray waiting for us in our hotel room upon our arrival. I still have no idea how you found out where we were staying, but I’m almost (ok, not really at all) willing to stop my attempts in finding out since it was one of the most thoughtful things EVER.

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Ok.

So tomorrow, I’m going with a busload of people to New York City to watch the tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center. I am aware that there will be other people there. Thousands of other people. This will be my first extended trip to NYC. I’ve been there once before – for Valentine’s Day, but we only went out to eat and then went to the top of the Empire State Building.

I haven’t been back since.

Tomorrow we’re doing other tourist-y stuff. Shopping on 5th Avenue, Ice Skating in Central Park, you know, annoying, non-resident stuff. The kind of stuff that I’m sure drives real New Yorkers nuts.

We apologize in advance for stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to take pictures, squealing with delight at the sight of anything that is in essence very “New York”, being too chipper, the fact that our 24-passenger bus is going to create even more traffic on some of the busiest streets in the US during the most chaotic time of year, looking for celebrities and then stopping to take their pictures when/if we find any, and just in general being very un-cool. We just can’t help it.

But please don’t rob, mug, or rape any of us, it’s not really an even trade.