it's the little things...

You'd think there would be a nice holiday recap post here, wouldn't you? Especially after I just was doing a little housekeeping by posting my 2009 reads. Nope. While it was a really good holiday and Santa was nice to us all and we were even nicer to each other and there were no tears even though there were multiple family gatherings, I'm going to go in an entirely different direction. Months ago I bookmarked this . Here's my version of the list--basically horrific things that pop into my head without me wanting them to. And just for the record, no, this doesn't happen terribly often. That the plane will crash, sometimes from something mechanical and sometimes from gravity and physics just no longer working. That I'm forced to make those frantic, last-minute phone calls to loved ones before we all die. That up ahead? On the other side of that hill? Is a car barreling towards me in the wrong lane. That Chucky is in my room, you know, just at the edge of the bed....

It's that wrapping-everything-up time again. 19. The Dread Crew: Pirates of the Backwoods 18. March 17. Twelve Sharp 16. Eleven on Top 15. The Reader 14. What No One Tells the Bride 13. Breaking Dawn 12. Eclipse 11. Ireland: Little Known Facts & Well-Known Places 10. New Moon 9. Into the Wild 8. Skinny Legs and All 7. The Working Woman's Wedding Planner 6. Planning a Wedding to Remember 5. The Everything Wedding Book 4. Priceless Weddings for Under $5,000 3. Easy Wedding Planner 2. Saving Your Marriage Before it Starts 1. 101 Amazing Things About Love

Or, you know, something... Christmas is always so fun but stressful. I love picking out presents for the family (er, families). I enjoy putting thought into something each person would like or sneakily doing research for the perfect gift or just paying attention when they don't have something or say they need something. I'm less of a here's-my-list-now-please-pick-something-off-of-it kind of person. But I'm having to learn that that has its place. I do love decorating for the holidays. Here's our tree (with its crooked star apparently--someone should fix that) and lots of presents. Here you can't tell the star is crooked but you also can't really see the ornaments. And why has no one taken any pictures of it at night? No bokeh shots? Must get on that. I also love wrapping pretty presents. I bought paper on sale last year and was apparently already in wedding-color mode. Turns out, that was a fantastic idea. I could use the leftover wedding ribbon for the pac...

I'm not sure if it's because I usually travel on Tuesdays, but when yesterday was over it didn't feel like there was only one more workday left in the week. But, Lordy. After the teleconference schedule for today and the sifting through tons of e-mails, I'm ready for the weekend. Here's some catching up on the Best Of series: Rush. I think I have to go with the getting yelled at by the crazy guy I mentioned in the last post. Best packaging. Oooh, Moo cards. For our Christmas cards this year, I ordered Moo business cards. They're of great quality and have great packaging. (Sorry for the poor photo quality.) But the box is very compact, is made from recycled pulp and is recyclable. The cards themselves are made from sustainable forests. All that info is on the bottom of the tiny box. When you pull off the lid, you see this: Hee hee. And then there's a one-page insert that looks like this: If you can't read that, it's the "Buzzword Challenge....

New food? I can't think of one specific thing but this year I've continued to really enjoy making breakfast. Last year for Christmas my husband got me a cookbook from the B&B we stay at in Brenham. She has great recipes! I've also made one non-breakfast recipe she has in there and it's fantastic, too. Changes? To where I live? Where there any? Um, yeah. We've done a lot of work in the yard. Cleaned out a bunch of the beds, planted the lime tree, lost the papaya tree, planted a few other random flowering plants, gardened!, dug up the back "sidewalk" and are prepping for the new one, started growing herbs again. Inside, we've merged our stuff (which was way more involved than 4 measly words convey), got rid of a bunch of things, and finished the black and white bathroom. All good changes! Well, I did like that papaya tree...darn storm. Unrelated to the best of? Ok, so Husband and I woke up sort of early (for a weekend) to head to town to vo...

So my favorite place is home. Is that lame? And my favorite place at home is wherever my husband is. Is that cheesy? And my favorite place where my husband is is that spot. You know, the one right where his arm meets his chest, just below the top of his shoulder. That spot where my head fits perfectly and I'm terribly comfortable. Yeah, there. +++++ In unrelated news, there's a deer head in my freezer, outdoor Christmas decorations and lights are up, and I'm trying out a new mac and cheese recipe. Perhaps this one will be good enough to cross it off the Life List. Thanks, peeps, for letting me know you're still here. Maybe I'll try to make these posts a little more interesting then. And how 'bout you? What place would you vote the best of the year?

Best and biggest challenge of the year? Marriage. Hands down. Best album? I'm going with all things Ray LaMontagne. Just throwing these two up here before bed. Since no one reads blogs anymore it's only for myself anyway... Ho hum. And tomorrow? I'm giving up the internet for personal use. Just for tomorrow. Going to be my own slave driver at work.

This year was a lot of things but peaceful does not rank highly. However, things are often peaceful when snuggling with the Hubby. And, amidst all the wedding craziness, there was a lot of peace (but not so much quiet) during the girls' weekend in Brenham. It was such a good break from everything.

Given the main topic of my life this year, my favorite new (to me) blog would have to be weddingbee . I highly recommend it to engaged peeps. You get to see real brides planning real weddings. They're very diverse--culturally, geographically, budget-wise. But, if you're just seeking ideas on some craft projects, flower arranging, party ideas...it's a good resource. I must admit that I still read it even though I was finished wedding planning 4 months ago. I'm just not getting invested in the new brides. Just reading the recaps of the ones who were planning along with me. Speaking of recaps, if we ever get the negatives of our pro pics, I'll have a little recap series of my own.

Not much to report here. I had two training meetings for work this year. One was in Atlanta and was very brief. We were away from the city a bit so I didn't get to look around. It was the first time I was outside of the Atlanta airport, however. I got to drive by (in a cab) the Hubby's alma mater. And we got really good food. The second was in Vegas and I'm going to say it was my favorite. Got to hang with some nice folks, friends and strangers. Food? Less good. Gambling? Lost $20.

The best night out? It seems like I've had many more nights in this year. While relationships and married life comes with their own set of challenges and sometimes stress, the one thing I probably am most happy to see go (related to the single life) is the pressure to go out. The whole "you can't meet anyone at home" thing was annoying when I was single. I was past the clubbing stage but hadn't met someone to stay home with. Ahh, but now the joy of couch snuggling! So nights out? There have still been a few. The first one that comes to mind is the night we got into Chicago. My SIL2 (since there are now 2 SILs it seems like maybe there should be a way to differentiate them) picked us up from the airport and we headed to a little bar. We had a bite to eat and drinks outdoors (perfect weather). And nice chatting. We had a few good nights out with The Brother and SIL. Saw Les Mis earlier in the year and A Christmas Carol just recently. While it's not The Hubby...

The best trip of 2009? You'd think that would be easy. Hands down, doesn't 10 days in Ireland on your honeymoon sound like a shoe in? And you know what? It was great. We got to experience lots of new things together. See a tremendous amount of a country neither of us had been to. But there was some stress leading up to it and we were still trying to settle in to married life (heck, we still are). Truth is, I think every trip we took this year was fantastic. We had a quick trip down to Moulton/Shiner for Joe's birthday in February. Costa Rica for a week in March. Chicago in June. I had a great girls' weekend in Brenham in August. The honeymoon in August/September. Southern California (so The Hubby could be a groomsman) in September. The Hubby went with me to San Antonio for work in late September. And Nashville in November. We were busy bees. The best restaurant moment? There have been many memorable ones this year. Eating fantastic food one night in Costa Rica with t...

I was reading the Superhero blog (linked on the side down there) and Andrea is doing the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge . When she does something like this it's usually an interestingly enough idea that I want to do it, too. For some reason, the link above doesn't work on my PC but does on the Mac. For those of you who may not be able to see it, here's the short list of prompts: Dec 1: Trip 2: Restaurant moment 3: Article 4: Book 5: Night out 6: Workshop/conference 7: Blog find of the year 8: Moment of peace 9: Challenge 10: Album of the year 11: Place 12: New food 13: Change you made to the place you live 14: Rush 15: Best packaging 16: Tea of the year 17: Word/phrase 18: Shop 19: Car ride 20: New person 21: Project 22: Startup 23: Web tool 24: Learning experience 25: Gift 26: Insight/aha! moment 27: Social web moment 28: Stationery 29: Laugh 30: Ad 31: Resolution So you can do one or all. You can write a novel or a sentence. Since I'm already procrastinating by doing...

Geez, time has been flying. So, how's it going? Whatcha been up to? Have a good Thanksgiving? Things are still just rolling along. No terribly exciting updates but I do have a question for you (but feel free to answer the ones above, too). So over there on the side? Down a little, a little more...right there! Is my Life List. I've recently added a few things. Do you have one, formal or informal? What's on it? Just curious. Also, what's the largest number of strands of Christmas tree lights you can connect without fear of burning something down? One more thing, word on the street is it may snow on Friday. Nuts. That's all. Back to work.