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he said. she said. a married couple's blog
I'm just taking a moment to reflect on how my resolutions for this year are going.
First up: less screen time. This one is the hardest. It's not going as well as I had hoped, but I am not watching Top Chef or Project Runway Allstars so that's improvement - nothing new picked up. I do find that I am reading more (number 1b) and being more crazy with the kids (1a) so there is less screen-looking, but I don't feel like it's quite enough.
Next: make more. I've got some works in-progress. Some other ideas working in the back of my head, and have gotten some really great emails recently. January has been pretty good in this regard. Perhaps I'll get myself to another Needlework group at the library or to the embroidery shop for a stitch night this month. Here's hoping
As for eating right and exercising, I haven't gained any significant weight so it's going just fine. Though exercising isn't exactly happening...
I have not been brave with my correspondence. Nor have I cut the snark completely. But it's only 24 days in to the year. Can't have everything!
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I've been spending some time in my own head. Thinking. My latest read is MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend (http://mwfseekingbff.com/) and it's got me considering the state of my current friendships and so forth. Perhaps more on that to come. We'll see. I am not feeling particularly brave today.
For Christmas this year, Brendan got me a Diana F+ lens and adapter for my Nikon. It's a little bit tricky, but I'm trying to get the hang of it. I apparently tend to over-expose, so it'll take a bit more work. Still, it's nice to have something soft and different than usual.
This weekend it was ridiculously warm - in the 60s - and knowing that it wasn't likely to last (being that it's January), so we hopped in the car and took the back roads to Harper's Ferry.
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We attempted to take some photos of the kids together, but that's easier said than done. We didn't get too much hiking in, we saw some trains, had lunch, climbed the hill up some steps to get a view of the river, walked down and over the bridge across to the Maryland side and attempted a little walk, but it just wasn't working (with the kids) so we went back across, had ice cream, walked a bit more and headed back home.
Before we came home, we stopped off at a "nanobrewery" called Corcoran Brewing Co. that was about a mile and a half off the main road. Just hanging out next to some residences is this little place. There was quite a little crowd -- they are only open Saturdays -- there was a fundraiser happening for the Dropkick Murphy's charity. So there was lots of music and Irish dancing going on while we had our tastings. It was quite enjoyable.
(And a few days later, it snowed, of course)
I am not normally one for formal resolutions at the start of the year, but if the Mayans are right and this is in fact our last year of existence, here goes nothing.
1. Less screen time. The internet isn't going anywhere and I'm not going to miss anything that important. (Right?) And missing out on a show or two isn't going to ruin me*.
1a. More kid time. And hopefully less me agonizing over things getting completed the right way, and just letting them do a dang project. (Really, you have no idea how hard it is sometimes to just keep my hands off.)
1b. Read more books. I used to. I can again.
2. Make more. Ideas are great and all, but having them go nowhere isn't accomplishing much of anything.
3. Keep up with the eating right and sort of exercising. I haven't really blogged about it at all, but I've lost over 30 pounds since this spring and have been dabbling in running. Winter running and I aren't really getting along, but brisk dog walking should do for a while.
4. Maintain correspondence with more than just two friends. I love emails (and real mail) and by golly, the best way to get either is to hand it out.
5. Biting my tongue. Enough with the snark.
And that's where I'll leave it. Let's not go crazy here.
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*Except Downton Abbey - I had to add that one. But promise to drop something else so it balances out.
After we got the basement completed, we were able to rearrange furniture in such a way that our turntable now has a place in the living room. Among Brendan's 45 collection is a set of 80s singles that includes Nena, Men Without Hats, DEVO and Weird Al. And then there are the Motown singles. It's awesome. Our LP collection is a bit of a mish-mash including records I saved from my Dad's purge several years ago, Beatles albums I purchased at thrift stores and other miscellany. Powering the turntable is my old stereo from college. Which also gives us a place to play actual CDs and TAPES! I think I have more nostalgia for tapes these days than I do for my records.
My dad had this one tape titled - 90 Minutes of Good Music. It was a mix compiled of tracks he had taped from records including Jimmy Buffet, James Taylor, CCNY and others. At one point I had it in my possession but since it was one of his favorites, I had to give it back. I did though, in 1998, make a copy of what were my favorites of his favorites. And today, I found it! I don't know if Dad still has his copy of the tape (probably not) and I don't recall exactly what all was on it anyway. But at least part of it survives.
There's also a pile of CD mixes that have been just sitting on the shelf. Since our cars both have a hook in for the iPod, we rarely use them anymore. It's like a little time warp, really. What songs was I obsessed with in 2002, 2003, 2004?
I'm dorkily excited about all of it. Of course, there's no way that we'll be getting out the entire CD collection again (it has all been digitized afterall), but I like the idea of curating a little selection.
Christmas this year was pretty magical. More photos to come eventually.
We have been pretty darn busy over the past month.
We took the kids to see The Muppets just after Thanksgiving. Bridget really loved it (and so did Brendan and I), and now we're watching The Muppet Show! thanks to Netflix. Johnny would have made it through the whole movie quite nicely had the previews not gone on so long. He loved Ms. Piggy and her karate chops.
We went to a fancy holiday party at the National American History Museum. It was pretty awesome. Saw the Jefferson Bible and Brendan totally geeked out. The next morning we were (some of us more than others) reminded that we are not in our 20s anymore.
We did a little bit of decorating, but not too much until...
The basement got finished! Brendan and I put in a lot of time putting up walls (him) and painting and painting (mostly me, but also him) and getting trim up (him). And still more painting. Carpet was ordered and installed just in time...
.. for the MuskoX-mas celebration at our house. And though I mis-read the directions on how long the ham would take to heat up, it was still very successful.
Now we just have some final preparations for Christmas. I think our artificial tree looks pretty darn good.
As it happens, I work with a lot of vegetarians. And all of them sang the praises of Field Roast sausages. Specifically the Smoked Apple Sage variety (they cautioned that the chipotle was very spicy). This week, I took a look at our local Wegmans and sure enough they had a big selection. It was pretty expensive, around $6.50 for four sausages, and I don't think that calorie/protein wise these are any leaner than actual pork sausages. That being said, they were fantastically delicious and will be occasionally making their way onto my table.
This year, we decided to skip the driving and stay home for Thanksgiving. Brendan's mother and a couple of our friends made the trip down to have dinner with us.
It's only the second Thanksgiving dinner that I've cooked. The first turned out well, but sacrificed my right shoulder. I have gotten better at cooking meals for a group of people over the past six years, so it wasn't nearly as stressful as my first Thanksgiving. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied carrots and parsnips, corn, jello salad, and green salad. It was just enough food to have some leftover for today, but not too much.
We took it easy on the table settings, and while we used our wedding china and crystal, we kept all the food buffet style in the kitchen. It was a good move. We sold our really big table in the big yard sale this summer but we made it work with our little table and an extra card table.
Today we hadn't planned on doing any crazy shopping. I like to stay out of the way of the crazy shoppers. However, as we were browsing the ads (we get the Sunday paper now like good little suburbanites) I noticed that the tree that we just bought on Monday was on sale for $100 less than we spent on it. So Brendan woke up at 5:00 and went over to the store only to find them all gone (barely, people were in line with them). Thankfully, the managers at the store were very nice at 8am when I called and asked if we could just return the one we bought and re-buy it at the sale price. Even though their policy is to only allow that sort of thing within three days of purchase, they were kind and let us do it today four days after purchase.
We promptly turned around and spent that money on primer and ceiling paint for the basement. Now it's up to me to start painting. I haven't quite worked up the momentum just yet.
Usually we head out in early December to go chop down a tree. This year though, will be different: today we purchased an artificial tree. Brendan declared that "I won" because not only is in an artificial tree, but it is prelit with white lights only.
You see, I maintain that white lights are prettier. But I was willing (eventually) to compromise on this - since we've always had colored lights because it is what my husband prefers - however, there were none available. (So I suppose that means that colored is more popular and perhaps my taste is incorrect?)
At any rate, it's going to be an artificial tree this year. It makes sense in that the basement redo is still incomplete (though getting close). We'd be pushing it to try and get it finished and still have time to go out and get a fresh tree. Plus, with a dog who likes to chew (as our severed FiOS line can attest) and who prefers wood to all other chewing things, a real tree would be awful tempting. I'm sure that he'll chew on the artificial tree, too. Thus, we opted for a more, shall we say, economical model this year. If this experiment is well-liked, we'll invest in a big nine footer with a thousand lights and with limbs that bounce back.
I do get annoyed while tramping around the field looking for The Perfect Tree. I'd usually be fine with any tree out of about three or four of them, but Bren's always on a hunt. I think I'll probably sort of miss the real tree, but we can always go back.