Crunch Time

There are six days until Christmas and I am feeling the pressure. I have a few projects that I need to finish, well some that I need to start and finish, and some that I should have had done already. I just don't seem to have the motivation that I need to get the ball rolling. I have plowed through the entire 1st season of L.A. Ink and have now resorted to a terrible movie called Food Boy to assist in my procrastination, so instead of feeling the satisfaction of being done, I now have the desire for a tattoo and I'm hungry. Everyone has their presents, it's just that these little projects are the icing on the cake. Wish me luck.

Christmasy

I love Christmas time and I guess I didn't realize how much until I left everyone else who took care of the Christmas cheer for me. My mom has the best decorations to get you into the Christmas season and Mindy always has a killer Christmas playlist that played nonstop starting Thanksgiving night. Now, I am the one in charge of all that and I am finding that I can't wait to get it going. I had music on before Thanksgiving and a few presents under our tree the night it went up, which was before December even started. I have gone crazy with twinkle lights in the apartment and now have the beginning of a little Christmas village. There are two silver Christmas trees that I made out of mardi gras beads that sit over our stockings and Christmas themed dishes that are filled with Christmas candy. The tree is full of awesome ornaments and there is a plethora of gifts under the tree for Dom and I.

Before we had family dinner over here the other night, I was looking at a couple more Christmas decorations with Dom at the store and he said that if we tried to be anymore Christmasy that he would have to gain two hundred pounds and wear a red suit. I thought that might be taking it a bit overboard and decided that we had enough decorations for this year.

Pain

I can't move, just a touch to the skin kills, and going to the bathroom has turned into a work of art. Dom and I have played walleyball the past two days with his brother and cousin and since I haven't worked out since Dom and I got married, due to some knee problems, my muscles are in shock! Walleyball is volleyball played on a racquetball quart with a men's height net and you can use the walls during play. I had so much fun diving and hitting and playing with my husband, but in my current condition, I am beginning to wonder if it was all worth it. I have to use what's around me to lower myself into a sitting position and I have to make sure that my limbs don't rest on one another due to the sensitive muscle pain.

Playing volleyball again was like drinking a cocktail of happiness and adrenaline. I love the game and my sincere devotion only comes when it's played indoor and on a court, so this was right up my alley. As I recover, I think that I am learning to appreciate what it is to be "in-shape." Once I can work out again, I am going to make sure that a couple games of walleyball don't send me to traction.

The Sled

I have this other post that I have been working on slowly that updates you all on my recent trips but I know if I keep waiting to finish it I'll never blog again. I'll just update you on what happened today and if I feel like telling the story of my business trip to San Francisco or vacation to Napa Valley, Monterey Bay, and Atherton, or my trip home this past week then I will later.

Today Dom and I went to the mall to buy "Our First Christmas Ornament" and the first house of the village I want to start collecting. We live about a mile from the mall, if that, and we decided that with the holiday traffic that we would just walk there. Well, today happens to be our third rainy day this week and we got soaked but it was great fun. We stopped at Starbucks on the way to enjoy some goodies and then headed out into heavier rain.

We found our ornament at Crate&Barrel! We looked at Macy's, Sears, JC Penny's, and Hallmark before we found it. It's a wooden sled with little red mitten's attached to it. I am so excited about it and about starting this new tradition. I don't think I'll let this tradition slip away from me because it involves shopping. Unfortunately, we didn't have such great luck with finding the village house. My mom owns a small village, one house will fit in your hand, and she has a whole collection. The place she got hers from is closed now and all the ones we saw are about the size of my head and they light up. They look adorable but I don't know where I will put them once the collection really gets going. I think that I am going to give in though and buy a Department 56 village house.

All in all, I had another great day with my husband, especially since this was all his idea. :)

P.S. "Fail" I forgot to put up pictures from my last post but it's been so long that I didn't want to dedicate this title to my failure. :)

San Francisco

Next week I am going to San Francisco for a work conference. It is pretty much a trade show but I won't be working at the booth. I will be meeting and greeting and trying to get a better understanding of the Hemophilia world that I work in. Seeing my parents again is what I am really looking forward to, I will take the train in on Thursday morning (I am so excited for this) then stay with my family for the night and Dom will come up the following day after work and then we'll have our own room. We didn't stay in a hotel on our honeymoon and haven't really gone anywhere since, so I am looking forward to our first hotel stay together.

Sunday is going to be devoted to sight seeing and hanging out with my family. As long as we get out a little and explore the town I am happy. What's going to be best is having my wonderful husband there to share it with me. Things are much better with him around. I will hopefully have some fun pictures to put up when I get back but we'll see if I remember to whip out my camera or if my next post title is, "Fail" then I definitely forgot.

Weekend

So, Friday night went fantastic. We did end up sitting by older people with children that are full grown and out of the house and some that are in high school so that part of the night was a little bit of a let down but, to my astonishment, I actually really enjoyed learning more about our church! I thought that it would be a big lecture all about the church history and what they are doing now but our pastor and the executive pastor got up and said a little bit about themselves and about the church's beginning but most of the time it was Q&A. We learned about ministries and the church's views on some tough issues. The food was great and we finally got to meet our pastor face to face. He is super tall and really expressive but so nice. We loved hearing more about how he prepares his messages and a little bit about his beginnings as a pastor. All in all, Dom and I had a blast

Sat. was a relaxed day but something that I thought was funny happened right before we went to bed. I was mad at Dom for something and I was being ridiculous as usual. As we were laying there in the dark, not talking to each other and trying to fall asleep, this is how the conversation went:

Me: I don't like going to sleep mad at you.
Dom: Then don't.
Me: But you're a butthead.
Dom: You're a bigger butthead.
Me: OK.
Dom: OK.
Me: I love you.
Dom: I love you too.

Then we snuggled and fell asleep quickly. Oh the joys of marriage. :)

Sunday was also fantastic because I finally got to go to Apple Hill with Dom. His family has been telling me about this place since I met them and I could never go with them since the season to go was always during school. Well now that I live up here I could finally make a trip to see the famous High Hill and ginormous crates of apples. It was much different then I though it was going to be. The only details I heard about was there was a great pie shop, lots of apples in huge boxes, a High Hill that the boys used to storm and that's it. Nobody ever said that there were a couple dozen different apple orchards that spread out over three exits on the freeway and each orchard had a pie shop, boxes of apples, and crafts like at a swap meet. I guess they failed to mention that the details that they had shared were just of the places that they like best of all the ones available at Apple Hill.

We went to a few of them and I saw the famous High Hill that Dom and his brother used to storm. What I mean by storm is that they would run up it. I pictured a tall grassy hill that they would run to the top of. No, it was basically a ditch that looked like a half pipe that was all dirt with some trees who's roots lined the ditch. I ran it with Dom and it was quite fun. Your momentum leads you up the other side quite quickly and hince the tons of fun I have heard about for two years. We had great pie and bought apples and amazing apple cider. This was a wonderful memory I finally got to be a part of. ;)

New Comers

Tomorrow night we will be attending the New Comer's dinner at church. We signed up in order to meet new people but I am sure that it is going to be sufficiently awkward and that Dom and I will try and stick to ourselves to avoid it, but I do have hope that we will be strong and put ourselves out there. It is going to be catered, which I'll admit is one of the reasons that we signed up, and they are going to be explaining to us more about the church, where they are heading and goals they have, things like that.

All I want to gain out of this is one good conversation with someone I have something in common with. That seems pretty dismal but I don't want to get my hopes too high, expecting to come out with three new best friends, or couples that Dom and I will dine with every other night, no, I want to be level headed and realistic. I will tell you that I thought about these things as possibilities when I first heard about the dinner but I have realized that whenever I think like that I am usually very disappointed in the actual outcome and so now I take precautions when I make my predictions.

Anyway, I am excited to be getting out with Dom and consider it something resembling a date. I know I will fret about what I am going to wear and how to do my hair but I will be having loads of fun trying to decide each.