Thoughts for a new year.

My first post of 2012 was going to be about a realization I came to a few days ago. A light-bulb moment. The realization hit me when I was on the elliptical machine one morning. I realized that I have three very strong personality traits, all of which start with B, and all of which are quite shameful. I admit it. More often than not, I am 1) bitchy, 2) bratty, and 3) bullying. Am I being a little hard on myself? Ask my mother that when I chastise her in front of my father's family at Christmas for overfilling the take-home containers with pie such that the covers would squish them and make them "unpresentable." Or ask Doug that question when I fly through the bedroom at 8am with way too much energy, like a tornado, grabbing my sneakers and exercise clothes to head for the gym, all the while chiding him for being lazy (because he's still in bed, god forbid). And these are just two very recent examples. So I would say no; I am not being hard on myself. Just honest.

But what would really be achieved by spending a whole post on these three Bs? Just a lot of belly-aching from me about how I'm not my ideal self. That in and of itself (belly-aching about not being my ideal self) is not a wholly unpleasant topic and is one I often dwell on, but today I'd rather spend my time and energy on another topic. Let's talk about things to look forward to in the upcoming year. Christmas and New Year's a behind us; 2012 is underway (I've successfully written 2012 on three checks so far!). Let's focus on the good stuff before we face the end of the world.

Sherman is doing much, much better with his scratching. The prednisone is helping, thanks to Doug's determination to get the little pills down his throat. It is true that Sherman still scratches and breaks the skin, leaving crusty scabs and patches on his ear and neck that are completely hairless, but overall he is doing so much better than he was even a month ago. He has gone days without his cone. And just today I saw him touch noses with Meg before she let out the death growl! This is a Christmas miracle! Maybe 2012 will be the year of cat harmony in our household.

Doug and I (and possibly my mother and brother) plan to go away sometime in May. A trip! Involving a plane! For more than two nights! I am very excited about this and so is Doug. Last night I started doing a little research into places to go. At first we had our sights set on Europe but based on ticket prices I think we're going to stay domestic. Over $1100 to fly to Berlin? Close to $1000 to fly to Paris? And $800 to fly to London! Iceland was our only relatively inexpensive European option, at a little over $600/pp/round trip, but Doug's not all that keen on it, mostly because of the cost. Neither am I, really, and mostly because of the cost. Maybe I'm getting cheap in my old age, or maybe just more practical, but when I think about spending most of my waking life at work and sloughing through the days there, I think much longer and harder about how I spend my money. Spending a few days in San Francisco and then a few days in one of the Redwood National Parks would be fun. We've never been to Northern California. Or exploring the national parks of southern Utah - we haven't been to the Southwest, either. Or maybe 2012 is the year that we visit Seattle and Portland! We always say we want to go there, and we could see Rod and Tina. The funny thing about "settling" for domestic travel is that we really haven't narrowed our choices by much. I want to go everywhere. I am still overwhelmed by the possibilities.

But how wonderful it is to have possibilities! Yesterday I got side-tracked by looking through all the photos that we had taken in the past few years while I was transferring the files from the desktop to DVR discs. I was simply shocked by all the things that we have filled our life with. We've documented so much of our life, which makes me realize that every day we are doing something no matter how mundane or tiresome the days can feel. There were photos of our move to the house, photos of the many meals that we have made in our kitchen, photos of day trips and vacations and times away from the house, and photos of family and friends and friends' babies and friends' pets. When you do a mini-retrospective like that you realize so many things are possible.

I learned, too, by looking through these photos, that it's possible that Wyatt's death had a profound impact on our lives and for much longer than we originally thought. In looking through the photos from 2010, I can see how we felt his loss each day. The pictures of us and our life were very different post-loss than they were when he was still with us. Doug lost a lot of weight after Wyatt died, and I started to gain a fair amount of weight after Wyatt died. We looked different in other ways, too. Doug looked paler. My hair looked stringier. We also entered our professional crisis period, with me leaving my corporate job and Doug leaving his job. There was definitely a dark cloud above our house for that latter half of 2010, and really for the vast majority of 2011. But the final couple of months or so of 2011 have felt better. The cloud is moving on. The fog is lifting. Maybe Sherman has helped us. Maybe therpay has helped us. Regardless, we are seeing the possibilities now and it feels like a much better way to be. We look forward to 2012 because we know now that we can face difficult times and come through to feel the sun on our faces and breathe the fresh air on the other side of the void, but also, and quite possibly more importantly, because we have this one cat, this one soft cat in the photo below, who, regardless of year or season or mental state of her owners, is just the most photogenic cat ever and she makes us happy.*

*Much of the time.

Wrapping up.

So, we leave 2011 behind in just a few hours. I don't tend to be nostalgic for the passing year, so I will not post about what I liked in 2011 and what I didn't like, or what resolutions I had and didn't keep or that I had and did keep, etc., etc. Let's just catch up on how 2011 ended, which was with a nice holiday bang.

The Christmas holiday for me and Doug now goes like this:

We wake up somewhat early on Christmas Eve morning and get ready for our Connecticut Christmas. Once everything is packed up and the cats are fed and watered, we spend some time around our tree and exchange the gifts we got each other. This is one of my favorite parts of the holiday, because it's the one I'm most awake for. I haven't yet stuffed myself silly with any of the holiday goodies that await down I-84. Plus, I like watching Doug open the gifts that I get him. I try to put thought into what he gets, for at least one of his gifts. He has stand-bys, like socks, t-shirts, underwear, and also sweaters, but I like to throw in at least one "surprise." This year it was Slowhand on vinyl.

With the new furniture arrangement (couch downstairs in basement along with TV, and record player set up in living room where TV was), we have been listening to our record player like we never have before. As a matter of fact, before we moved the couch and TV downstairs to the basement we were trying to sell the record player. We didn't think that we liked it (too much like a DJ turntable), not to mention the fact that we never listened to it. But now we listen to it quite regularly and are amassing quite the collection of classic rock albums, which sound fantastic on vinyl. Slowhand is the poster-child for this. We heard my father's copy of this album at my uncle's house in New Hampshire this past Labor Day weekend and it had such a great sound on vinyl. Doug is normally not an Eric Clapton fan, but the vinyl won him over. He talked often of the quality of that album since we heard it in New Hampshire, so I tracked down a copy. Slowly but surely we are creating for ourselves a nice library of Eric Clapton albums and are really enjoying what we are hearing.

Okay, so I surprise Doug with at least one gift that requires a little thought and creativity on my part, and Doug does the same for me. This year it was a necklace. Good job, Doug!

Once we open our gifts and give the cats one last pat good-bye, we pile in the car with all of our Christmas CDs and make the drive down to CT. This awaits us chez Sisko:

As does this:

And this:

We never forget to sing "Happy Birthday" to Doug. This year his birthday cake was a carrot cake. Whatever bakery the Siskos go to down there in Fairfield County certainly does cakes well. This cake was so moist and not sweet at all. Which reminds me - we still have some in our refrigerator. Yay! Cake tonight after Doug's homemade meatballs.

Anyway, once we celebrate well with the Siskos we head an hour north and visit with the Sheridans. This year my father, my aunt Mary, her husband Fred, and Doug jammed on their acoustics. I think that this was the first year that Doug played with them. I'm glad he did - they sounded good, and I think that the older folk are excited to play with Doug. He's in a band, after all. He's Doug Sisko, Guitar Guy. Rocker. Cool City Dude. All very impressive.

Once the family jam was over, which just may become a new Sheridan Christmas tradition, we headed over to my parents' house to spend the rest of the evening around their Christmas tree exchanging gifts with my mother, father and brother. My brother is notoriously difficult to buy for, so much so that it is a topic of conversation between me and just about every member of my immediate family in the weeks leading up to Christmas. What to get for Brian? We never have any idea. He already has his New Yorker subscription. He really doesn't need or want anything else. Really. So for the past few years I've been getting him artsy-type gifts. One year was a set of ceramic owls. One year was a Monet doll standing at an easel. This year I decided to make him a stupid sock creature (see previous post), and I think he liked it.

Then, once we all start to fall asleep on the floor surrounded by wrapping paper bits, we call it a night. Doug and I make our way back to Massachusetts the day after Christmas and get back to our regular routines. The holidays are essentially over. We tend not to do anything too thrilling for New Year's, mostly because we are tired from all the birthday and Christmas activities in December. This year is no exception. We got a bottle of champagne for Christmas so we decided to stay in and have some of it. Doug's making some meatballs, we'll cook up some cocktail weenies, we'll sit on our couch and reflect on the year that's ending and talk about things to look forward to in the new year, and, if we are lucky enough to be awake, will clink our (champagne) glasses at midnight. Sounds truly wonderful to me. I smell the meatballs cooking now. It just may be time to go out and pop that cork early!

2011 is the year of the rule of three.

I can't let a New Year's pass without writing a little about what I have to look forward to in the coming year. So here's my requisite New Year's post, and I want to direct your attention to the title. 2011 is the year of the rule of three. I've been blogging intermittently with my "three things" theme, and I recently had a discussion about focusing on three things and only three things in order to make one's life more manageable (a variation on the "jack of all trades, master of none" idea). I follow the time-management three things rule, too. So, in an effort to live a consistent life, I've decided to carry over my rule of three to the new year, and instead of making resolutions or declarations on this New Year's Day I'll simply talk about the three golden rules I will strive to follow this year.

Rule 1: Practice a commitment to physical and mental health.
This rule is something I try to do each and every day, but, as with lots of things, sometimes I fall off the wagon. And I've accepted that I'm going to fall off the wagon. And, I'll admit, sometimes I even plan in advance to fall off the wagon if I know a special day or event is coming up, such as last night when Doug and I had Five Guys for our New Year's Eve dinner. Classy, right? But the point is that even with these little deviations from my first golden rule my ultimate goal is to stay healthy. Eat well and get plenty of physical exercise. Not necessarily hours at the gym, but just an active lifestyle. Walking, biking, hiking, yoga, the gym... all of that. Because all of that helps me stay calm and balanced, alert and able to focus. And able to be on the path to follow my other two golden rules for 2011, the second of which is:

Rule 2: Live my values. Do I sound like Real Simple or Self yet? Bear with me if I sound a little new age-y. This rule has much to do with me having confidence in myself, in what I believe, in what I want, in what I know, in what makes me comfortable, in what makes me happy and content, and in doing it. If I think it's important to spend more time with my family, or to remain connected to friends, then I'm going to do it. If I think that sitting on my couch and quilting my way into the New Year is a viable activity for a thirty-one (good god, almost thirty-two!) year-old woman, then I'm going to do it. Because I want to, because I can, and because it's okay for me to live how I want to live.

All of this brings me to my third and final golden rule for the year, which is my Rule 3: Less thinking, more doing. The more I sit and think about being healthy and active, the less I'm actually out there being healthy and active. The more I sit and wonder what my values actually are, and if they are actually viable and realistic and accepted/acceptable values, the less I'm actually living them, or even knowing what they are. So... less of that. Less of that stuck in my head and more of going out there and doing. Like this morning, when I woke up on this fine and relatively warm first day of the new year and told Doug that I wanted to stop off at Minute Man State Park to walk on one of the trails there on our way back from selling a couple of his speakers to this guy Doug met on Craigslist. I could have (and probably would have) debated this idea with myself in my head before asking Doug what he thought we should do, because I would have been concerned about having enough time to do all the things that I wanted to do that day, but instead of all of that headgame I just said, "Let's do it." So we did it. And I felt good because I was practicing rules number one and two - and rule number three. I started the new year off on the right foot. And spent some time with Doug, who got to practice rule number three with me today. I think I might get him to practice my rules this year, too. Or might get him to make three rules of his own. Or, more appropriately, might inspire him to make three rules of his own. Because 2011 will be a year of good things, just as 2010 was, and being able to inspire each other to live these lives that we know will lead to good things will just lead to more good things.

Okay, I've gotten a bit too John Tesh-y for my own liking. Time for dinner, for more Netflix, and for more quilting. Time for living my three rules. I could really get used to this, and I hope I do.

Ringing in the new year D.C. style.

If you read the novel of my last post, you'll know that Doug and I took a few days away from the homestead and visited Washington D.C. over the New Year's holiday. We were there for three full days and four nights. Just enough time to start to feel comfortable there, and just enough time to get enough of a taste to know that we'd go back in a heartbeat. In three days we were only able to see parts of two Smithsonians, the lobby of the Capitol building visitor center, the Lincoln, Jefferson, WWII, and Korean War Memorials, the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, the National Archives Rotunda (where they keep the originals of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution), the outside of the White House, the National Christmas Tree, and lots of other buildings that we walked by, like the U.S. Treasury building, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the USDA, etc. We did eat in the Smithsonian's American Indian Museum, and I used its bathroom, but that's as far as we got there. There's really just so much to see. And I bet if I lived there, which I found myself instantly wishing would happen, I wouldn't see these things nearly as much as I think I would (but would still like to be near them. I could still absorb their karma and history through osmosis, I bet.). Needless to say, we had fun and really weren't ready to come back.

I took many, many photos, and a few videos, but will only post some highlights here. Someday the photos will get to my flickr page and you can see them all there, or else you can see them once I put them in a real, physical photo album (I have one of those for all the trips Doug and I have taken together; it's archival tradition) when you visit Dedham next. Let's start with the White House, the first stop on our whirlwind tour.

Doug stood in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and dreamed of being president. It happened once, so it can happen again!

I stood in front of Julia Child's kitchen at the National Museum of American History and was inspired to be great (or at least not burn so much of what I attempt to make).

We trekked out in the unseasonably chilly D.C. night to see the National Zoo awash in lights. The panda and the reptiles were our favorites (mostly because the other animals were all asleep and because of this rather boring).

Marvin was our restaurant of choice for New Year's Eve. Doug had scallops and I had steak. Doug prayed there would be enough Belgian beer to last the whole night (we managed to stay up until after midnight this year. Amazing!).

In the spirit of eating well in the U Street district, we had a New Year's Day dinner at Ben's Chili Bowl. The chili cheese fries were fantastic (even when I tasted them again the next day).


We became very adept at the Metro, despite getting almost stuck in the door. It's clean, fast, and makes sense. Beat that, T!

And, we marveled at how European the city felt, which makes sense, since it was modeled on great European cities like Paris. But look at this photo and guess where we are - we could be anywhere in Europe, but we're in front of the U.S. Capitol. How cool!

Rents in the city are outrageous, and to buy there we'd have to give up a lot (like all of our possessions and any kind of attachment to physical space or a place to park). But we can dream, right? And we can plan a trip back to the city to see all the things that we didn't get to see this time. Maybe I'll put that on my list of goals for 2010.

New Year's reflecting.

Last post was about Christmas reflecting; this one will be about New Year's reflecting, all done from our hotel room in Washington D.C., since that's where we are right now. We're having a great time, by the way, so don't think that I'm spending all of my time in the hotel room on the Internet. I'm just putzing around on the computer, checking email, looking at things to do today, while Doug still slumbers. Ahh, to have that kind of internal clock. Some days it would be nice!

Before writing this blog, I was laying in bed thinking about what I would write if I were to write a New Year's blog, and now I a) can't remember any of it, and b) don't know if I want to write about it, anyway. I find that most of what I write here gets a little too personal. Shows a little too much of the inner workings of my mind. Most of the time I throw caution to the wind and figure that if people are going to read my blog they should know who I really am, warts and worries and all, but I don't know if what I write really and truly reflects all of me. I adopt a persona on my blog - well, one of two personas. I am either this happy and chirpy "life is great" kind of person, which sometimes I am, or this reflective and somewhat depressing "life sucks" kind of person, which sometimes I am, too. And sometimes I am neither of those kind of people. And sometimes I am both kinds at the same time, and often am somewhere between the two. If you tone down whatever I write by a couple of shades, that might be closer to who I really am and what I'm really feeling. But not all the time. This is getting complicated.

However, in an effort to be more truthful and to live more in line with my values and priorities (again, see previous post on reflecting for more context), I'll post a few things that I've been reflecting on from the past year, and a few things that I imagine I'll be reflecting on in the coming year, and I'll write it all straight from my gut as my gut is right now in this moment. Oh, you lucky reader! :-)

Reflections on 2009

2009 was another year for great change. 2008 saw our marriage, the purchase of our first home, Doug's job change. 2009 saw my job change, Doug's re-design, and our adjustment to being homeowners. There was just so much in 2009. So much going on.

2009 was a year that for me was spent living too much in my head. Sure, I did a lot, and accomplished a lot, and experienced a lot of change, but at the expense of living more in the external world. My mind was a bit constipated this year. I dealt with the change I experienced at work and personally completely internally (though at times those thoughts spilled out onto my blog), ruminating, over-analyzing, doing mental gymnastics. Should I do this or should I do that, should I have done this or should I have done that. And then, what I actually did do (the external-world part) always felt wrong, incomplete, not what I really wanted to do. Really not a very healthy or freeing mental state to be in.

2009 was a year for reflection, which goes along with my thoughts above. I gave a lot of thought this year to how my life was maybe not going in the direction I wanted it to go in, and started to think about what I would have to do to change that, or what direction I do want my life to go in. But note that I've only started this process. It will continue. It's a lot to think about.

And, of course, 2009 was also a year of so many positive things. Celebrating life's milestones with such good friends, relaxing around a quiet lake with friends, seeing friends have such beautiful babies and seeing those babies begin to grow up, to become wonderful little people. We also spent some great times with family. My family visited Dedham/Boston a few times and we had some great family band moments. We spent a few weekends with Doug's family and tried to make connections there. And Doug connected with some extended family on Facebook. These were all good things. Very good things.

Beginning to Reflect on 2010

So what do I want for 2010? More of the same from 2009? Yes, I would love for some of the feelings and actions of 2009 to continue into 2010. The positive things. The foundations we've started to build. These are things I still want for 2010. But, naturally, I want other things for 2010, too. Such as more action, quicker thinking (or maybe less of it, less of the debilitating kind), more self-discipline, more focus on the priorities and goals that Doug and I have made for ourselves, more time with my cats, more expression of emotion both verbally and physically (like learning to give people hugs when I see them or leave them, because inside I want to hug people but my wants in this way, out of habit, don't materialize into action), more awareness of how I am acting and how I am being perceived, and more enjoyment of everything. Yes, more joy. There are so many good things that happen each and every day, and I want to focus more on those things and less on the other stuff that just gets in the way.

Is this a tall order for 2010? A bit. But it's all possible, and all of it, with a little focus, discipline, and energy, is probable. And to kick things off one day early, I'm going to start all of this by picking out a few things to see today, such as the Jefferson Library at the Library of Congress, the American History museum, and National Archives rotunda, and then not get upset if things don't go according to plan. Now, if only I could get my husband to get out of bed we could close 2009 out with a really impressive slew of positive action!

Christmas reflecting.

Though at Thanksgiving I reflect a bit about what I'm thankful for, for the most part my primary goal is to stuff myself full of all the wonderful food that's around me that day. Christmas, however, is the holiday that gets me to thinking about my priorities, my goals, how I spent my last year and how I want to spend the upcoming year. I think about the good, the bad, and all that's in-between. I think it's because Christmas always sneaks up on me in a way that as a kid I never thought would be possible, and I'm always a little peeved that I didn't have more time to prepare. Or really, to celebrate. Didn't see any carol performances, didn't go to midnight mass to hear the music and smell the incense, didn't bake cookies, didn't carefully pick out the perfect gifts for people, didn't spend as much time wrapping as I would have liked to make the packages really shine. You know, that kind of thing. Gee, it sounds like my Christmases are now filled mostly with regrets.

However, that's not really true. By far, my thoughts are positive around Christmas, or at least get me to move in a positive direction. At Christmas, all I want to do is see family and friends, to hang out, to give gifts (but actually don't care to receive them. Getting gifts is nice, of course, but I don't want stuff. At Christmas, what I really want is human contact and emotional intimacy with those I care about the most), and to enjoy the lights, the trees, and the music. Really. And for the most part, this happens each year. This year included.

We spent a day in Monroe. We saw Doug's Grandfather and gave him a digital photo frame so that he can have a piece of Dedham in his home each day. We saw Doug's parents, whom we also gave a digital photo frame, loaded with 120 photos of us, the cats, the house, our friends... hopefully it will make them feel more connected to our world (as long as they can figure out how to use it).

We then spent a day in East Hartford. We spent quality time with my family - my mom and Tyrone my father my sister's family and my great-aunts, who despite a trying month were in good spirits for the holiday.

We also spent some time in our own home, in Dedham. We actually spent some time in our own home on Christmas Eve. It was lovely. The cats gave Doug a sweater and some random cat named Mr. Peepers gave me a gift card. It was so wonderful being in Dedham and celebrating around our own tree. Meg liked us being there, and so did the other cats, though Wyatt was non-plussed by Bret and Jemaine.

Now the Christmas reflecting can really begin. Are my priorities in order? Is my primary relationship being nurtured and cared for properly? Am I making decisions that allow me to be the best version of myself? Am I applying enough discipline in my life to bring me towards a common goal? Maybe this year I'm thinking more about things because I happened to stumble upon a great book called The Seven Levels of Intimacy, which if you can put aside your cynicism for a while is actually a very informative and useful book (and by "you" I mean me, of course). I knew a lot of the stuff that this book is trying to tell me already, but somehow reading it, and reading it at this time of year, makes it all click. The light bulbs go off and I am reminded that I've gotten a little off-track. That's the good thing about Christmas. Even if I know I didn't get to do all the things I wanted to do, I have hope that the next one will be better, and I can look forward to a year of getting back on track. I have hope that in 2010 I will steer this ship a little more towards my priorities and will not let the wind blow me off my charted course.

Welcome to January.

So it's January. And it's 2009. The last time I blogged it was 2008. Weird. Our New Year's Eve consisted of me getting out of work early due to the snow (but having to come home and still do work...), Doug making up a bag of Totino's Pizza Rolls, us eating a late dinner of Hungarian goulash, a recipe courtesy of my mother's Crock Pot instruction manual, and watching movies on the couch. What did we watch? I had plans of putting in Smart People, since that's been kicking around the house for a while and I wanted to send it back to Netflix, but we instead got hooked on John Hughes movies playing on cable, so we watched Sixteen Candles and Weird Science. I admit to being asleep on the couch well before midnight. Apparently Doug was trying to wake me up when the ball dropped in Times Square, but I have no recollection of this at all. New Year's Eve and giving my husband a kiss at midnight were not priorities for me, it seems.

But 2009 has been good to us so far, which may bode well for the rest of the year. We met with our mortgage guy about refinancing and it looks very good for us to refinance. The new rate would be considerably lower than our current interest rate, which means lots of savings each month come mortgage time. I will no longer have to cry myself to sleep after writing out the check to the mortgage company, or at least won't have to cry as hard.

We've also been cooking more in 2009. I do not make resolutions come each new year, but I do tend to put a few things on my running mental list that I'd like to get done in the next 365 days. On my running mental list is always "cook more at home," and so far we have been. It helps, too, when we get new cookbooks. For Christmas my sister and her lovely family gave us Jeanne Lemlin's Quick Vegetarian Pleasures, a cookbook that her friends Suzanne and Heinrich swear by. Since it is also always on my running mental list to incorporate more vegetables in our diets, this cookbook serves two wonderful purposes. The first recipe we've made is the corn chowder. I put in ground thyme instead of dried thyme (I already made a note in the recipe not to do that again!) and I will say that despite the fact that I don't like ground thyme and that the thyme was all I could taste in each bite, the recipe came out well and I'd gladly make it again. See below for some photos of our corn chowder adventures. Up tonight is an eggplant-tomato sandwich, and for tomorrow a split pea soup with homemade golden raisin Irish bread. Yum!

The negative retail environment has been good to us, too. We made a trip to IKEA, really just because we wanted to get out of the house but didn't want to travel far, and we ended up getting a new cushion for our Poang chair. Many of the cushion fabrics were on sale, probably being discontinued, but one was marked for $20! Compared to the original $89 price, that was quite a discount. It was not our favorite fabric (it's not very bright and has an odd pattern), but it would work right in our living room and for $20 we couldn't say no. So we trekked into the self-serve area to get the cushion, only to see the price on the bin in the self-serve area marked as $39. Well, for $39 we didn't really want the cushion, so we took it to the register and asked the cashier to check into it. She called the salesroom floor and no, the cushion was indeed $39. Well, we bought it for $39, but we were mad at ourselves because on the tag on the showroom floor the cushion was marked as $20. So Doug and I, determined to be a) more money conscious in 2009 and b) more assertive, decided to contest the sale. Doug took the receipt to the showroom, showed a salesperson the tag with the $20 price, had to have a manager write a note saying that we could get the cushion for the (accidentally) marked price, and then went down to the returns area to get our $19 refund. Yes, this made for an overloy long IKEA trip but we got the cushion for $20 and like it much better now. In other purchasing news, we also got a new coffee table at the Boston Interiors clearance center, which is very close to IKEA. The coffee table was half price, with no visible scarring. How could we go wrong? It's larger than our old one, has a shelf on the bottom for storage of magazines, the computer, etc., and is the same color as the woodwork in the room. So it works well, was a great price, and we like it. Thank you, failing economy!


Doug and I have also scratched off of our running mental list "eat at 50s Diner." The 50s Diner is a Dedham staple and one of the only little breakfast/lunch places in town. We've been meaning to eat there for a while, but it's always packed with a line waiting out the door. Yesterday we were determined to eat there, so we waited in the line for our first 50s Diner experience. The verdict is... the food was okay. I did not have the best club sandwich ever, Doug did not have the best cheeseburger and onion rings ever, but the ambiance was good and the waitstaff was friendly. It was also cheap. So in all, a good meal, but we both say that we would not be willing to wait outside on a freezing cold day for the food (even though we did, but not again).

Not all is great in 2009, however - Doug is sick and is passed out on the sofa right now. His father was just coming down with some kind of bad cold when we were at his house for Christmas, and then my sister and her family all have bronchitis, so we were exposed to all of their germs, too. There was no hope for us. I am getting over my cold, though still sound a little like Kathleen Turner, and Doug just got hit with his on Thursday/Friday. We do hope to get a movie in this weekend, but it looks like much of the weekend will be spent on the sofa in front of the television with orange juice IVs going into our arms. Which is fine - it seems the only time Doug and I ever slow down is when we're sick. I don't feel guilty about being a sloth when I'm ill because I have no choice. So I say "yay!" to sickness for once and look forward to sharing the sofa with my ailing husband.

Good-bye 2008!

2008 was for me and Doug a good year. So many good things happened! We got married, we went to Belgium on our honeymoon, we bought a house, Doug got a new job, we moved into our house, we took many, many day trips in the fall, we now have friends in Portland, ME, so we can go there whenever we want (but we don't abuse that privilege, of course!), friends Mike and Emily had a beautiful baby boy, friends Jesica and Chris had a beautiful baby boy, and we bought a new mattress. Yes, I list the mattress among the good things because this means there is more room on our bed for the three kitties who share it with us, and also because we now will have a guest bed! This is definitely one of the highlights of the year. However, we do know that 2008 was a difficult year for many people, including some of those who are close with us - between health concerns and the world's economy falling apart, much of 2008 wasn't really that great. Here's to hoping that 2009 will continue to be good for me and Doug, and get much better for those who wish 2008 might never have happened.

I haven't yet started reflecting on the year, believe it or not. I've got time - it's only 5pm on New Year's Eve, after all! What I am thinking about now, though, as the snow blows outside and I am visualizing the morning shoveling, is a vacation. Will there be one in our future in 2009? I certainly hope so! Here are three places to which I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to travel. My camera's ready, so economy please help me out and stabilize!

Germany (this is Munich, but anywhere in Germany would do fine)

Chicago

Guatemala (yes, indeed!)

Now that I'm done dreaming, I can go get on my pajamas, sit on the sofa with my husband and cats, get under a blanket, and enjoy the first new year's that we've ever spent alone, just the two of us (plus the cats, of course). I'm looking forward to it. Happy 2009, everyone!