Live with...

and Happy Inauguration Day! You may or may not have voted for President Obama, but you can't help but take in the excitement and history that happened today. I am hopeful.

Make your own Obama-esque poster!

Thirty...

Well, it happened - I turned 30 years old on the 13th. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but for some reason it seemed like a pretty significant birthday. Mark made plans for us to go to New York last weekend to celebrate. He had to be there on business on Monday and we thought it would be fun to go a few days ahead of his meetings. We both LOVE New York and it was the first time that we were able to enjoy the city together. (I will post pictures very soon, I am waiting for Mark to get home with the camera.) I'm not sure there is much that can compare to seeing Central Park covered with snow. It is a truly beautiful sight. We enjoyed fabulous food, and more fabulous food, a fabulous hotel, fabulous company. He did a great job planning a very memorable birthday.

Since my birthday was on Tuesday and Mark was still in NYC, my neighborhood girlfriends (Tera, Leslie and Laine) took me out to celebrate. I chose Chuys for dinner and margaritas. After dinner we walked down the street to Harry's for birthday frozen custard. We had such a great time - and a big thank to Lainey for taking pictures!



My 3oth was such a great birthday, I think I will do it again next year.

Merry Merry mmmeerrrrrrrr.... (snore)

Well, it's Christmas Eve, the presents are wrapped and the stockings are hung, the cheese ball is made and the cookies are decorated. You would think by the look of these two snoozing on the couch, that they were more help with said accomplishments! Instead, this is where they have spent most of the day - napping! I think this their plan in order to stay awake all night in hope of chasing some reindeer and eating the cookies left out for the big guy in the red suit! Priorities, people, priorities!

Here's to a happy, healthy and well-rested holiday!

Keeping it real...

I saw this on a blog somewhere along the way and I thought it was a really good idea. Sometimes you just have to keep it real - I think it's a good thing. I just decided that I should put it out there to remind myself to...

• learn to embrace my imperfections
  
• choose to eat healthier foods
  
• create more often
  
• write love notes
• be motivated to exercise more
• choose to wear more color
  
• express appreciation
  
• send more thank you notes
• adore my home and my family
  
• try yoga - maybe
  
• dress up more often
• organize my closet
• clean house more often

Here's to a fantastic 2009!

Christmas Cheer...

My friend Jen tagged me for some holiday questions. Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. Okay,here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Tag as many people as you want to....

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I am big fan of wrapping paper, but sometimes the item is a better fit for a lovely bag. I LOVE ribbon too - so a package coming from my house is never complete without some great ribbon tied in a knot or a simple bow.
2. Real tree or Artificial? I love the smell of real trees, but that wears off after a couple days and then the whole fire hazard thing scares me... so I will say artificial. I am dreaming of buying a old vintage aluminum tree, something about those trees is so kitschy and cool.
3. When do you put up the tree? Sadly, I haven't put up a tree since my days back in Cali. I know... I know... I need to get on that!
4. When do you take the tree down? I don't have to worry about it since I don't have one right now! But, otherwise I would always try to take it down before my birthday in January.
5. Do you like eggnog? I really like it, especially with Sailor Jerry's spiced rum - that'll warm you right up! We call that little concoction "Christmas Cheer" at our house!!
6. Favorite gift received as a child? I think I am going to say my teal blue Beach Cruiser bicycle. I thought I was hot stuff riding around the ol' hood! I HAVE to dig up a picture, I think I am wearing my handpainted (puff paint days) pink sweatsuit. See I told you - HOT stuff for sure!
7. Hardest person to buy for? This year it's Mark - hands down. There are so many things that I really want to buy him, but they are car related and out of the budget this Christmas.
8. Easiest person to buy for? Hmmm...? Maybe my Grams - she is always so sweet about whatever you buy her. I think that's just a Grandma thing!
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes... I believe so. I think it might still be at my parent's house. I think I need to check into that. My little sister and I used to fight over who got to put the baby Jesus in the nativity scene. It cracks me up today! The irony of fighting over our Lord and Savior - I think Jesus is laughing at us too! At least I hope he found it entertaining.....
10. Mail or email Christmas cards. I love mailing Christmas cards. I am slow this year. I think I will shoot for New Year's cards instead.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? That's a pretty hard question... I will have to think about that one.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? All-time faves are National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story. A recent favorite is Elf.
13. When do you start shopping? Around Thanksgiving or so. We have really tried to limit the "gifts" we give and really try to spend quality time with friends and family throughout the year. I much rather sit down with our friends and enjoy a meal and wine and laughter.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Pleading the 5th!
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? When we are at my parents we usually do something like cinnamon rolls and my Dad's famous "rationed" bacon. Seriously, we really give my Dad a hard time about rationing 3 pieces of bacon for each person. He likes to buy the bacon from the butcher, rather than the packaged and he always counts the people... yada- yada... hell hath no fury like my father finding out that SOMEONE ate four pieces.
16 color lights on tree? White. I love the sparkly golden color.
17. Favorite Christmas song? I am such a music person, so this is another hard question. I really start the season out loving all of the Christmas tunes and by the end - dreading them. Favorite? I would have to say Carol of the Bells - I remember as a child being fascinated by ALL of those words and thinking SOMEDAY I will learn how to sing ALL of those words...
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We usually travel, I long for the day that the family comes to Dallas for the holidays.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? All eight of them? Or course!
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? There is a star on top of my imaginary tree
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Both, Christmas Eve and Day!
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The traffic. I swear everyone becomes an amateur driver these days... what is it about the holidays?
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I am feeling very sentimental lately and I really love the idea of all of my childhood ornaments.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Who knows? People can cook (and drink) in my family - so they are all favorites!
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? I really just want to spend time with my family and friends. Oh and that really want that beautiful watch and red wool coat- (oops was that my outside voice?)

I made it through and you can too! I'm tagging Lainey and Kia and whoever else wants to play along! Just leave me a little comment so that I can go check out your answers...

Love/ Hate...

I thought I would go ahead and get it out there. My concern is that if I get it out there I would fall off the wagon and back at square one. In the past month or so I have started the dreaded journey and I am embracing my love/ hate relationship with the gym. I have never been the type to *enjoy* the gym/ exercise experience. The other aspect to working out is finding the time - I am not a morning person and thought the idea of getting up at 5:30 AM or earlier was out of the question. Going to the gym after working all day? Uh, no thanks! So... I need to make time. I need to make it a PRIORITY! So there. There you have it folks - I am putting it out there on the blog in hope of it motivating my lazy behind and being accountable. Also, in hope of someday, maybe one day having that a body like that chick's the picture above (I need to print it out and place it on my fridge! Hey... a girl can dream, right!?) I'm saying it here... Because, I certainly don't want to let you all down.

Now we're cookin'....

I have discovered that I can actually cook! For so long I thought I was pretty unskilled when it came to whipping up Martha's latest recipe. And just because I have a subscription to Everyday Food certainly did not mean that I knew what I was doing. But, guess what... I am pretty good at it. Mark always says that I cook really well, but he also knows that he lives with me and wants a happy life he better compliment my cooking. So he is biased. Not really! Lately, I have been cooking and baking for us and for our neighbor friends. And they say it's pretty good too! So there you have it folks - I am a good cook! Every good cook needs good cookware - well at least a cook needs cookware. I have been making do with what we had. Mark and I both had hand-me-down Teflon coated cookware that was BAD! BAD! BAD! The Teflon coating was chipping away. If I recall, that's pretty bad and if that stuff ended up in your food it could cause cancer. YIKES. On Sunday, we ran to Macy's (surprise, surprise - they were having a sale). I picked up this NEW glorious cookware (isn't it beautiful!) and I didn't spend a fortune. I figure I will do that on my next set - when I decide I am bound to be the next Food Network star!

Tonight we are off to The Swell Season concert here in Dallas. Mark and I fell in love their tunes when we saw the movie Once almost two years ago. We have been looking forward to this show for months. I can't wait!