525,600 Minutes

It's been another great year. I am truly blessed.

I'm now the mom of a smart, friendly and happy kindergartener!

I turned 29 and had several fabulous celebrations including a family dinner in at a Hibachi and a dinner with friends in the city at Tria.

Birthday Nutella Panini.... yum!!

I've made it to a couple of concerts. I started off the year seeing Vs. the Earth on New Years Eve. I mingled with some friendly lesbians to see Sarah McLachlan and Sara Barielles at the Lilith Fair. And thankfully 2010 didn't pass me by without a chance to see the best band in the whole wide world: Counting Crows!

**Swoon**

I've been to a bunch of good plays including The Merry Wives of Windsor at the PA Shakespeare Festival and Wicked. This was also the first year the Isaac was old enough to appreciate the theater and we took him to several productions including Harold and the Purple Crayon in the city, The Emperor's New Clothes, and Frosty. He was also able to come with us to seee the traditional Christmas Panto at People's Light and Theater company instead of staying home with my dad like years past. "Grandpa and I are finally old enough!" he declared this year. It's so exciting to be able to share that with him now.

I had a great tan. I logged many, many hours by various pools and on the beach. I put some miles on my bike (though not as many as I should have).

I got a new phone when my old one died. Had a good laugh when the guy went to take the sim card out and a huge pile of beach sand fell out.

I successfully jump started a car without causing an explosion or electrocuting anyone.

I've been fortuneate enough to go on some wonderful family vacations.

There was our quick get away to Florida in the spring:

Our annual week at the Jersey Shore:

My sister got married!

So did one of my good friends from college Nicole: I went through a break up. I listened to a lot of Alanis. I moved on and went on more dates. I saw my old long-time college bf WJM in the flesh and didn't die. I've made some new friendships.

And rekindled some old ones.

I figured out how to use my sewing machine and did some crafting: I have one tooth less than this time last. Tooth 31 is now gone! I stopped eating red meat in July. I rejoined a gym, started (and subsequently quit, whoops) a running regimen. I got back into yoga. I discovered Zumba.

It's been a pretty great year. I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for me.

blah

My New Years Eve is looking pretty lackluster. It's always my weekend with Isaac. This year my parents have tickets to something so they are out as babysitters. Not that I have anything going on that I would potentially need a babysitter for. I even offered to babysit for one of my girlfriends so she could go out, but she ended up not needing me to. Not that I have ever had a truly epic New Years. Looking back at New Years last year, I think it was the beginning of the end for me and PDH. Which sounds more dramatic than it actually was. PDH drove me down to the Baltimore to see one of his favorite (local) bands who he claimed were all his closest friends at a big party in a fancy hotel. We got there on the early side and so we killed time walking around the inner harbor. It had snowed all that day and I was wearing little black flats from Target and black tights and before long all of the ice water had seeped inside my shoes and they were frozen and soaking wet. We ended up spending the first part of the party sitting in his car with my feet and shoes held up against the air vents in his car trying to dry everything out. We ran into the band before hand and they chit chatted for a few minutes-- long enough for me to ascertain that while there was no doubt that PDH was the band's number 1 most devoted fan, he had exaggerated quite a bit on the best friend's part. Anyways, the party was pretty amazing. Fancy food, several different dance floors with DJ's, stand up comedians and the band we had come to see. I wanted to dance, but PDH doesn't dance. Even when his favorite band came on he just stood there woodenly watching them leaning against a pillar in the back of the room. When midnight rolled around there were fireworks above the water and we got a good spot to watch them. It was my fanciest New Years by far and had the potential to be a really good time, had I been there with my girlfriends. However, it fell a little flat. Another year for New Years my friend had been out visiting me for a few days when he was home for holidays. We had no official ending time to his visit, but I ended up sending him on his way that afternoon. It ended up being snowy weather and he got into an accident on his way home and totally his parents SUV. I worked at least one New Year's when I worked at Melmark. I got done at 11:15 which is not nearly enough time to go anywhere before the ball drops. Lame. One time when I was still at Pitt, I drove back early before the semester started. Oakland was a ghost town and my one friend Colleen and I rang in the New Year at the only place we could find, this total dive bar in South Oakland with, like, three other people who were all wearing sombreros. I definitely rang in the new year at a church dance at least once. And apparently the rest of my New Year's celebrations have been so uneventful that they are actually unmemorable because I can't dredge up anything else. Or I'm just really old and losing my marbles, which is also totally possible. I am 29 after all. Anyone have any fun new years plans?

Book Review

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir

I had this one on my wanting-to-read list since I saw a review of it in People Magazine and so I was excited when my mom gave me a copy for Christmas. It was refreshing to read an account of being a single Mormon girl in a big east coast city trying to navigate the minefields of dating, and LDS culture. Sure there are some books like that out there but this is the most true to life I've read to date. I guess because it hasn't been white washed and sanitized by Deseret Books. The picture she paints is accurate. I will totally vouch for that.

Here are a few excerpts from the beginning of the book:

Cue: this place. And by this place, I mean a lame dance held in a church gym..... Let's not forget tonight's DJ Brother Mo, who's wearing a polyester suit and tie with no trace of irony. He occupies the stage at the far end of the gym. To his left there's a long plastic table for refreshments: lemonade and cookies, as if we're a little league soccer team.

....If it weren't already painfully obvious, these events are organized to facilitate marriage. How else would we Manhattan Mormons meet, marry and then make more Mormons? (Take that, Sally and your seashells at the seashore). No one acknowledges this, though; that's another unspoken rule of the Mormon dance. We're all just here to "have fun". The effect is pretty horrifying. It's like watching a bunch of assembly line workers at a factory pretending they're there because they love screwing nuts on bolts. I want to should "Can't we just acknowledge that we are here eventually to screw a nut on a bolt?" But no one would get the joke, and the ones who do would be terribly offended.

However, this book may not be for everyone. I could see that more conservative members would be offended by certain parts (or even rallying for the author to be ex'd). She's very open about her faith, her doubts, and her sexuality. I was a little turned off by how much of the books focused on the importance of being physically attractive. And sometimes her naitivy (spelling?) was just annoying (she doesn't know porn is available on the internet? Come on, you only hear about porn at every single General Conference).

Overall, I give this book two thumbs up and would recommend it to my Mormon and non-Mormon single gal friends alike.

Life is like a box of chocolates...

So I finally ventured out of my house today and checked the mail for the first time since Thursday. (EDITED to clarify I have ventured out of my house since Thursday. But I haven't checked the mail). And found a key in my mailbox. Which means.............. I have a package. A cute little package. Shipped priority. From Maryland. And when I opened it, look what I saw: (Sorry if it is huge. I have resized like 4 times in photobucket but it still comes up humungo in blogger)

It was filled with Flake Bars a yummy candy bar I fell in love with when I was in London. They are really hard to find in the USA. Remember summer dating guy? ("I'm not ready for a relationship with anyone, oh wait, now I'm dating an undergrad" -- that guy). A specialty grocery store by his house has a spot for them in the international aisle but more often than not they are out of stock. He would look for me when he would go grocery shopping and if they happened to be in stock he has picked them up for me before.

Well anyways, he sent me a whole pile of them for Christmas. Not from the specialty grocery store. But from a website.

I was so thrilled.

That's a whole lot of Flake bars. A whole lot of crumbly, flaky chocolatey goodness.

And I was pretty surprised.

I mean, I didn't even send him a Christmas card.

Yummmm....

Christmas, Christmas Time is Here

Isaac woke us up at 7:30. We managed to get Joe out of bed and we started in on our stockings and then the presents. Isaac's big present was a bright red Wii from Joe. He recieved a lot of complimentary gifts relating to that (extra controller and nunchucks, several games) and we had fun trying some out. Jenny and Drew had me in the sibling gift exchange and they sent me Dance Dance Revolution and an extra controller. I'm extremely excited about this. Mom and Dad gave me a much needed food processor. I've been making lots of soups lately and I've been relying on a small food processor that only holds one cup. I can't wait to try it out. The kids all got my mom an accuquilt die cutter and she was really excited about it which was great. I wasn't entirely sure if she would like it or not.

Playing with the new Wii Tom showed up later in the morning.

Everyone got a kick out of reading Joe's new book "Here's the Situation: A Guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades and Getting in Your GTL at the Jersey Shore".

Reading some new books from Jenny and Drew.

Isaac gave my dad a football for Christmas and he was so excited to get all the guys out and play. You can see Joe's new puppy Bailey who joined us this year running along too.

After much debate, they settled on playing touch instead of tackle football.

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas." ~ Peg Bracken. Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given--when Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes." ~ Joan Winmill Brown, American author and editor.

Good food was eaten. Naps were taken. My german chocolate cheesecake turned out amazingly. We talked to Drew and Jenny, Aunt Kathy and other loved ones who are far away on the phone. And I decided to crash at my parent's one more night. =)

In the words of my mom "Merry Christmas one and all!"

cool

Stumbled across this artwork by Janine Rewell. It's a real tan!

HA