A New Year, Eh?

After an excellent break Living with My Family in Virginia, I am back in Arkansas. 

I got back to the Natural State on Thursday, and promptly got to work grocery shopping and unpacking. It was startlingly warm (in the 60s), which may have been one the reasons it felt good to be back. It was also very nice to be back in the house with Chris, and, after a brief trip to Target, which was theoretically for conditioner and more hangers but somehow resulted in more than that, we spent Thursday night making dinner and showing off our Christmas gifts. 

Chris, unfortunately, had to go into work for an hour on Friday morning, so I passed the time while he was away by reading a bit of my book and watching an Ally McBeal rerun. When Chris got home from work, I figured it was time to change out of my pajamas so we could venture out into the real world. We went to the mall first, where I continued to take advantage of the Gap sale, and then to Anthropologie, where I bought a small bowl (I got a purple one for Christmas, and I like to keep the numbers even, so I bought a white one to go with it). 

Our plans for New Year's Eve were slow in coming together, but we planned to have an early dinner out with Chris's mom, sister, aunts and uncle. So, after a brief visit from Chris's dad and step-mom, which included a lovely champagne break, we got ready and headed out to the first of our evening's activities. 

After dinner, we headed home for a dessert of more champagne and cupcakes and then decided that, since it was about 7:00, we should probably figure out our plans for the night. Luckily, our friends Steven and Caitlin were wondering the same thing, so they headed over to our house so we could make a plan together.

After more drinks and several heated rounds of Guess Who (one of Chris's Christmas presents and a shockingly competitive game), we called a cab to whisk us off to a club downtown, where we planned to ring in 2011. We arrived at Sway just in time for a drink and some dancing before the countdown began and the bartenders (one of whom is the editor of Arkansas Bride…awkward), started doling out free champagne.

We got home around 2:00, went to bed around 4:00 and woke up around 11:00. As such, I'm assuming nothing needs to be said about what our Saturday was like. 

Sunday, Steven and Caitlin came over for lunch, mimosas, and the Saints game, and Chris and I undecorated our house. 

Now, back at work, I've spent most of the day reading all the e-mails I received over the past week, set up two meetings for tomorrow, and read Vanity Fair online. Let's say I'm easing back in, shall we?

New Year's Resolutions Include:

-Keeping a more consistent running schedule (aka, running 2-3 times a week, and not just any time there's some festive 5k in town)

-Reading more

-Dedicating more attention to this blog (since I know yall care oh so much)

And you?

Happy 2011!

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Sunday morning, Chris and I celebrated our Christmas together. Since I leave to go home Thursday, it was our last weekend morning together before the actual holiday. 

We woke up and made our Christmas breakfast of muffins, bacon and hot chocolate, and then settled down to open our presents. 

                                                          Eggnog muffins for Xmas morning

First, Chris opened his present from my fam, a sweater which he loved and wore later that day (looked great and fit him perfect). 

Then, it was my turn to open his present from me. As I'm wont to do, I'd been trying to guess what it was since he put it under the tree. The box most closely resembled a shoe box, but I had a hard time believing that he would buy me shoes. As I started to unwrap, Chris told me that there was an explanation that went along with the present. As a veteran of my family, I am used to this, as our presents tend to come in the form of card with picture/poem, and an explanation of why the object isn't actually there in physical form/when it will be coming.

So, when I opened Chris's box to reveal a can of bike lubricant, I immediately feared that he was getting me a bike. This seemed unlikely since I don't ride bikes and don't like bikes, and have mentioned this several times. Still, I didn't know what else to think. 

Until Chris went to the closet and pulled out a much larger box, which I came to understand was actually my present. The bike lubricant was completed unrelated, and the shoe-sized box was just a diversion. He didn't want to put the real box under the tree and thus give me time to guess what it was. 

So, with joy and relief, I began to unwrap my actual present. There are no words for how surprised I was or how much I love it. The pictures will have to speak for themselves, but let me just say: much better than bike lubricant. Or a bike for that matter. 

                Glamor shots of my wonderful Christmas present from the wonderful boy I live with.

Then Chris opened his present from me, which was a nice pair of dark jeans to wear to work and go with his sweater and new grown-up persona. After gift-giving, we watched Love Actually, to further deepen our Christmas spirit. 

Leaving the mess behind, we eventually changed out of our pajamas and went to his mom's house, where we were having a little family party to celebrate Chris's birthday. I also used it as an opportunity to give his family my Christmas gifts to them, and received their gifts to me: a great, big L.L. Bean bag from Margaret, inside of which was a smaller cosmetic bag, inside of which was a cute headband. From Stephanie I got a manicure kit with two nail polishes, which will come hugely in handy, as I repaint my nails about twice a week. 

From there, we headed to his dad's house for his Christmas party. Starved by that point, we spent the first twenty minutes being anti-social and stuffing our faces, but eventually joined the party-goers to participate in actual conversation.

When we finally got home, we changed back into our pajamas, made ourselves a little Christmas drink, and stared at the mess in our living room without making any attempt whatsoever to clean it up. 

                                              The remains of Christmas. We'll clean up later!

A very merry Christmas indeed.

Reunited (it'll feel so good)

Well, the weekend is almost here (hooray!).

For my part, I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of my three dear girlfriends from New Orleans, who are arriving Saturday evening to decompress from their finals, and visit the boy and I.  I have not seen Alexa and Sara since May, and I have not seen Hannah for almost a year! So, it will be a very happy reunion.

As far as I'm concerned, a huge chunk of the agenda is watching Sex and the City DVDs, and continuing the (several) vigorous conversations we've all had about which one of us is which one of them. Chris, as you could imagine, is very excited.

Have a good weekend!

Merry Christmakkah...

This weekend, the celebrations began. On Friday, Chris and I hosted friends Caitlin and Steven, as well as Chris's mom and sister, for a Hanukkah dinner. Being the first time I had undertaken a Jewish meal of such magnitude, I planned it down to the wire, and it actually came out pretty ok. 

Our menu included: brisket (many thanks to Barbara Brown for the easy and delicious recipe), latkes (many thanks to Chris for peeling all the potatoes), applesauce (again, many thanks to Chris for peeling all of the apples), and kugel, which I made using my grandmother's recipe, which had to be verified and edited several times. But which was extremely delicious. 

In an effort to time everything precisely, I made the brisket Thursday night, where it tortured us by smelling delicious for three hours in the oven. We also did the apples on Thursday, by which I mean Chris did the hard part by peeling them all, and I helped him slice them. 

When we got home from work on Friday we went, well, straight to work putting the rest of the meal together. I mapped out my burners and set the applesauce on the left back burner. Meanwhile, Chris peeled potatoes. The water for the kugel noodles went on the front right burner, and while it boiled, I changed and got ready. Meanwhile, Chris peeled potatoes. I then added the noodles and tended to the applesauce, while, you guessed it, Chris peeled potatoes. When the noodles were done, I put the rest of the kugel together and stuck it in the oven. Chris, bored (and finished) with peeling potatoes, began, instead, to grate them. A hard-working goyim!

The brisket reheating in its yummy juices and the applesauce doing its thing, it came time to face the latkes. I had grated the onions and Chris had drained everything, so when the oil was heated, it was time to fry. Chris entertained our guests, and, in between sips of red wine, our potato pancakes got made. 

Rather than simply allowing everyone to eat as soon as dinner was ready, we all gathered in the living room to light the candles. When that was done, I figured I had denied my guests long enough, so we all crowded around the dining room table to eat and eat and eat. Chris's mom gave us wine glasses as our Hanukkah present, which were immediately put to use. Suffice it to say, we were very full and satisfied. 

                                            From left to right: applesauce, brisket, latkes. Yum.

                                                                         Full up!                                                          

                                                     Opening our Hanukkah presents!                                                 

 

Lovely. Will go to good use.  

On Saturday, Chris and I woke up and headed downtown to run the Jingle Bell 5K. It's a race to benefit arthritis, and included with your number, you get two jingle bells to pin on your shirt or tie on your shoelaces. The effect, as you might guess, is a very noisy race that jingles along for three miles. The weather was gorgeous, though, and we had a lot of fun. I'm a bit out of shape, but, as one of the basketball players holding signs up along the route said, "Santa will know if you walk." So, we ran it out.

After leftover brisket for lunch, we switched into Christmas mode, and headed out to buy wrapping paper, a few ornaments, and our Christmas tree. More so than paying rent, having my own Christmas tree makes me feel very grown up. Saturday night we stayed in, ate pizza, watched a movie, and decorated. 

                                                          Christmas tree in the living room. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmakkah!

Gobble Gobble

Taking a short break from Living With a Boy to go home for Thanksgiving! Half day of work, two flights, and then I'm there!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

DIY

Last weekend, in a burst of energy (and/or guilt at having done nothing else productive the entire weekend) I re-covered our dining room chairs. 

We got the chairs from Chris's dad and stepmom, who had them in their attic, and though they are nice chairs and the perfect height for our table, their cushions, shall we say, were not exactly my style. 

I meant to re-cover them two months ago, when I bought the fabric to do such a thing, but of course never managed to get around to it. With the rest of our house in entirely livable condition, it gets harder and harder to worry about the tiny little details. 

But, as I said, I'd spent the rest of the weekend flopping around the house, watching the Harry Potter marathon on ABC family, and the weekly Sunday marathon of Law and Order: SVU. So, I determined to do something worthwhile. 

It's sort of amazing the difference it made. All of a sudden, we had our chairs, not just chairs that we had gotten from Chris's dad (though of course we are eternally grateful for the loan). I am quite possibly the least artsy person on the planet, and I generally have to have pages of detailed instructions for even the most basic DIY project. Occasionally, though, I have bursts of handiness, and one hit me on Sunday at just the right time.

And, as is to be expected, with the completion of that project, there are suddenly dozens more that I want to undertake. I want to hang more pictures, clean more surfaces, and start brainstorming our holiday decorations. The boy I'm living with is, happily, game, and in fact has already bought our Christmas lights. Rest assured; we won't be putting them up until after Thanksgiving. We have standards. 

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I am six and a half (including one press day) days away from being home for the holiday! Besides seeing the fam (holler), I am most excited to eat stuffing, see how our den looks without a carpet, spend time with Polly (who is hopefully planning for this as well) and see the dog. In no particular order.

Halloween Wrap-Up

This post is a bit delayed, but it has been a busy week.

Chris and I enjoyed ourselves a lovely Halloween weekend here in Little Rock. Though it's hard to beat some Halloweens of past, by which I mean third grade when I was a bag of m&m's (with a terrible pixie haircut and bangs no less) and last year when I along with several New Orleans friends managed to beat the trend of going as the cast of Glee, this year's celebration was pretty great. For convenience's sake, I'll provide you with a timeline:

Saturday, 10/30:

• 6:57am: Wake up, because I have to be at a testing site at 8am to take the GRE, and we (I) have to stop at Starbucks on the way there. Coffee makes my brain work better.

• 11:00am: I finish the test happy with my score, and Chris comes to pick me up with a cupcake decorated like a Mummy. He eats one decorated like Frankenstein. Halloween celebrating has begun!

• 2ishpm: Get back home after spending some time out and about, having lunch and shopping. Chris bought a really nice jacket, and I bought bowls from Anthropologie. They are the one thing I cannot escape that store without buying. Good thing they keep making new colors.

• 5:30pm: Start getting ready for Stephanie's Halloween party. Stephanie loves Halloween, and her parties are always amazing. Her Halloween party last year in New Orleans included a fog machine, so it's safe to say she goes all out. She opts for cocktail parties instead of costume parties, but we were going out after, so we did a combo of both.

• 8:00pm: Get to Stephanie's party, and the house looks amazing. Tons of really cool, old, antique type decorations, like birdcages and candelabras. Everyone was very well dressed, and we had a lot of fun eating and drinking  (gingerale, vodka, cherry jello. seriously.). 

• 10:00pm: Meet up with some friends to go to the big Little Rock Halloween party, at a club called Discovery (disco for short). Lots of typical costumes, but good music, good dancing, and several drag queens. Ingredients for an excellent Halloween celebration. .

Sunday, 10/31:

• 11isham: Wake up, start the day right by getting huge, greasy burgers and flopping around on the couch.

• The rest of the day: Lounge around, eventually go out to get candy, hand out said candy to several adorable trick-or-treaters, watch the Saints game. The end.

At work this week, highlights included writing my second cover story, getting a flu shot (free for employees and their housemates, so Chris got one too, and got to see my office) and meeting our owner's dog. Though I have never formally met our owner, Olivia, her black lab, Moose, and I are now quite friendly. 

Also, it's finally cold! Chris and I got the heat in our house checked on Tuesday, and luckily had not yet tried to turn it on, because if we had, it wouldn't have worked. Now, luckily, it is working, because it's dropping into the high 40s at night. While I am conscious of the environment and our utility bills, it gives me great pleasure to be mostly in control of what temperature my house is. Wonder why (cough *dad* cough). 

Less than three weeks until I'm home for Thanksgiving! Woo!