High on LIFE!

Okay...not really. But I want to amp up the mood on this thing, after a pretty damned crappy few months here.


First observation of the day:


Nicole Scherzinger, lead singer for the Pussycat Dolls (and a Guest Artist on "Grown Man," brought to you by NKOTB), doesn't strike me as someone who has many body issues.

For example.

I am unclear as to why she is asking four men (five, if you count Jon, which I no longer do despite him once having the rank of Third-Favorite New Kid), at an average age of 40, if they "like" her "body," and if they "think" she is "a hottie." First: that doesn't rhyme. Second: I'm sorry, but even in their hottest days, they couldn't get a Nicole Scherzinger.

Second news item:

I got my nameplate today! "Genevieve Dazet," all black and official looking, resting on the top entrance to my cube (which actually isn't so much a cube as a shotgun, railroady-type long office space thing). My lone Office Decor is the argyle sock, framed from Sarah (oh, and a peppermint-striped ribbon from a box of lotions, strung around a file holder), and I'm excited to start making this area my own. I'm thinking the Gashlycrumb Tinies poster behind my computer, and maybe the American Folklore Theatre print on the other side.

A Summary of Now:

So...life is puttering along. It's better than it has been, and I'm relieved at that. I don't know if anything changed specifically, or if it's just the forced re-adjustment we had to deal with and are currently used to. But our home is no longer a Festival of Tension, and I don't feel that eggshells are underfoot all the time...I hope we're settled into this pattern of rest for awhile. I know everything can't be perfect all the time, but I was so worried that something had changed for good, and I had no way to make it better. Thank you, friends, for your support and love during that time of mondo-insecurity. I'm not promising I won't call you weeping/come over crying/send you a venting e-mail that's all about me anymore, but for the time being, things are all right.

We're mostly set with our Christmas gifts, for which I am grateful. If there's one awesome thing about working so very, very much over this month, it's that I don't have to worry so about affording all the nice things I want to get for everyone. I know in the past I haven't been particularly smart when it comes to being financially responsible over the holiday season, and I get into a vicious cycle: I set vague amount-limits on everyone's gifts. Then I see something perfect for Joe that's a little more than what I spent for everyone else. So I feel guilty and get everyone else a little something extra, because it's super-obvious I spent more on one person. Then, the most perfect "little something extra" for Lily costs more than everyone else's something extra, so I get another extra something for everyone else, inevitably finding something for Steve that costs more... See? It never stops. And I'm normally not in a position AT ALL to be spending what I want on these things. But I do anyway! If I were buying things for myself and it was out of control, that's one thing, but it's hard to look at buying things for other people as *wrong*.

Also, after over a year of wanting it, we finally bought this!!

It is so smooth...and light...and just freakin' fantastic. Neil took great pleasure in hauling my cheapo blue Wal-Mart vacuum out to the trash last weekend. We suddenly got a few wedding checks in the mail, and since they would all be deposited in a chunk, rather than $20 here, $50 there, it was easier to step back and say "Whoa, we can actually do something with this money!"

Our Thanksgiving weekend was a joy, as ever, but a couple things changed.

First, Jordan asked me around about the wedding-time why we never had pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. "Jordan," I said, "I'm going to change that." We used to, but it was never eaten because the apple-pie-with-Mom's-wigwam-sauce was always chosen in favor of it, and then we'd have a totally uneaten pumpkin pie left over. But I missed it. I love a pumpkin pie.

My first day of JC-work, Sarah and I went to Cafe Via Roma for lunch, a coffee/pastry/sandwich/etc shop across from the capitol building. They advertised holiday pies you could reserve, including a yummy-sounding praline pumpkin pie with a vanilla crust. I called and said I'd pick one up the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I was so excited for it. It was expensive, but I figured--I never contribute anything but dish-doing to the occasion; I might as well bring a freakin' pie.

So I drop by on my way home Wednesday night, go up to the counter, and say I'm here to pick up my pie. The barista sends another employee upstairs to get it. She comes down with a Sara Lee box, throws it on the counter, and yells "Does anyone know if we have a box?"

I mean, I don't want to be a snob. But seriously. Don't advertise on your chalkboard that we need to 'reserve a holiday pie' if you're just going to order it from a big company, box it up in your own bakery boxes, and charge an arm and a leg for it.

And it could have been that the pie was delicious. When I tried it the next day, though...it just tasted like Sara Lee. A good pie, with a nice crunchy pecan topping and a vanilla-y crust.

BUT NOT WORTH SIXTEEN DOLLARS.

Anyway.

Wildwoods Farms, where we've cut down our tree for nigh-on 30 years, is closing after this year, so they haven't been planting in recent years. Thus, we knew we couldn't find a suitable 11-12 footer for the living room's vaulted ceilings. We made the decision to go elsewhere. I did some research and made some calls, and we decided on a small, VERY organized tree farm off Brown Station Road. I'm not sure how I feel about the rows; our Wildwoods experience always involved a search, walking around a large acreage of land, going over hills and around a huge quarry, and it was lucky if we ever found the perfect tree within view of our car. This one, though...it was, frankly, easy. We immediately found several that would do the job, and the one we settled on was even chosen by Lily herself! (If you didn't know, one of our rules is that if Lily says a tree looks good, IT NEVER IS.) Every tree was a short distance from the car, and it was less of an expotition (TM A.A. Milne) than we were used to. But that's okay; it was cold and sleety and snowy and wet, and pretty miserable.

And I love this picture of me and Lily taken there:

The tree is at Dad's, waiting for me to hairspray it before they take it in (watch the Christmas episode of Mythbusters if you don't know what I mean). I'll bring over my South Park Christmas DVD this weekend and maybe it'll all be done next week!