What will happen next year?
See you in 2012...
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Random Thoughts: After Christmas Edition...
1) Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like I've been eating non-stop for the last two weeks?? If I believed in the concept of juice fasts, I think I'd be ingesting nothing but the watery innards of fruits and vegetables until New Year's Day. But seeing as I am of the opinion that bodies work best when they are fed a reasonable combination of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, I'll just have to do my best to rein in my calorie count for a while. And it's a good thing I'm so in love with my treadmill... because I'm going to be seeing a lot of it...
2) We returned from cold, rainy Austin last night. Actually, it was only cold and rainy the first few days we were there. After church on Christmas Eve, we exited outside into a freezing cold downpour... the kind of weather that makes you want to curl up on a couch in your PJs with a mug of hot cocoa. (Hey, why didn't I have any hot cocoa over Christmas?? I think that's about the only thing I DIDN'T eat or drink...) Yesterday, however, was sunny and beautiful, so of course it happened to be the day we were leaving...
3) We got bumped up to first class on our flight home. At first, we were excited about the prospect of actually getting food on the plane, since our flight took off right at dinnertime. But then we realized that we were on an American EAGLE plane -- the little tiny ones that are usually reserved for short jaunts between cities in the same geographical region. We're always on American Eagle from Chicago to Buffalo, but we've never had an American Eagle plane from AUSTIN to Chicago. And since the planes are so small, there's no room for any kind of REAL food. But we did get a bag of pretzels and some cookies. Which is more than they gave out in coach...
4) When we got back to Chicago, we waited more than an HOUR for our luggage to show up on the carousel. At first, we thought perhaps they'd posted the wrong number (which is quite a common occurrence at O'Hare...), but eventually we saw Austin pop up on the board for carousel 9, so we stood there waiting for something to happen. There were four or five other flights listed on the board for 9, too, and yet the bags coming into the terminal were few and far between. Every five minutes or so, a random bag would show up and take a lonely journey around the carousel. But the bags from the Austin flight never appeared. After about 40 minutes or so, Rick finally went over the baggage counter, where a long line had already formed, and an angry mob was beginning to materialize. I mean, it's one thing to misplace ONE bag... it's quite another to misplace an entire PLANE-load of bags. Finally, after we'd been standing in baggage claim for an hour, SOMEONE figured out where the bags were and started loading them on the conveyor belt. Our theory is that whoever was supposed to drive the bags from the plane to the terminal decided to go on break, and never asked anyone to take over. (Flying is so much fun... :))
5) Only three days left in 2011... where did the year go??? (Seriously, does anyone know?) I guess I'd better get going on my New Year's resolution now and walk on the treadmill for a while. I hope everyone had a great Christmas... :)
2) We returned from cold, rainy Austin last night. Actually, it was only cold and rainy the first few days we were there. After church on Christmas Eve, we exited outside into a freezing cold downpour... the kind of weather that makes you want to curl up on a couch in your PJs with a mug of hot cocoa. (Hey, why didn't I have any hot cocoa over Christmas?? I think that's about the only thing I DIDN'T eat or drink...) Yesterday, however, was sunny and beautiful, so of course it happened to be the day we were leaving...
3) We got bumped up to first class on our flight home. At first, we were excited about the prospect of actually getting food on the plane, since our flight took off right at dinnertime. But then we realized that we were on an American EAGLE plane -- the little tiny ones that are usually reserved for short jaunts between cities in the same geographical region. We're always on American Eagle from Chicago to Buffalo, but we've never had an American Eagle plane from AUSTIN to Chicago. And since the planes are so small, there's no room for any kind of REAL food. But we did get a bag of pretzels and some cookies. Which is more than they gave out in coach...
4) When we got back to Chicago, we waited more than an HOUR for our luggage to show up on the carousel. At first, we thought perhaps they'd posted the wrong number (which is quite a common occurrence at O'Hare...), but eventually we saw Austin pop up on the board for carousel 9, so we stood there waiting for something to happen. There were four or five other flights listed on the board for 9, too, and yet the bags coming into the terminal were few and far between. Every five minutes or so, a random bag would show up and take a lonely journey around the carousel. But the bags from the Austin flight never appeared. After about 40 minutes or so, Rick finally went over the baggage counter, where a long line had already formed, and an angry mob was beginning to materialize. I mean, it's one thing to misplace ONE bag... it's quite another to misplace an entire PLANE-load of bags. Finally, after we'd been standing in baggage claim for an hour, SOMEONE figured out where the bags were and started loading them on the conveyor belt. Our theory is that whoever was supposed to drive the bags from the plane to the terminal decided to go on break, and never asked anyone to take over. (Flying is so much fun... :))
5) Only three days left in 2011... where did the year go??? (Seriously, does anyone know?) I guess I'd better get going on my New Year's resolution now and walk on the treadmill for a while. I hope everyone had a great Christmas... :)
Saturday, December 24, 2011
And to all a good night...
I completely forgot to bring a camera with me to Austin, so I've been experimenting a lot with the camera on my new phone. I've been doing what anyone would do when they're unfamiliar with the capabilities of their new phone/camera:
Taking silly pictures, of course.
No, I mean REALLY silly pictures...
Clearly I have issues...
I didn't realize how cold and rainy it would be here in Austin this week, so I spent much of the day grateful for the fact that the ONLY sweater I brought has a nice, cozy hood...
That's the least goofy picture I've taken of myself within the last 24 hours.
Anyway... I always wish I have a camera when I'm at our church's candlelight Christmas Eve service, and this year was no exception. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, my camera is back in Chicago. I did manage to snap a quick picture of some of the decorations before the service started, but one of these years I WILL get a picture of all the candles lit up at the end of the service.
I hope that everyone has enjoyed their Christmas Eve, and I wish everyone (even those of you who don't celebrate the holiday :)) love and peace and joy and contentment -- now and throughout the coming year.
Merry Christmas!!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Four days??
We only have four days until Christmas?? How did THAT happen??? I must've dozed off...
Fortunately, I think I'm mostly ready, although I'm refraining from wrapping the few presents I'm taking to Texas until after I GET to Texas. Don't want the nosy TSA agents unwrapping my gifts to make sure that jar of Play-doh isn't a plastic explosive. (Did you know that? Modeling clay looks like plastic explosives when it's run through an x-ray machine... probably best to just go with Legos...) Actually, no one is getting any Play-doh this year. I kinda miss Play-doh... that was fun stuff...
We leave for Austin tomorrow afternoon... so, since our weather today has been exceptionally gray and gloomy, I've had my tree lights on all day. I figure I should enjoy them as much as I can today, since it's probably the last day before Christmas that I'll get to admire my tree-decorating handiwork. (Not that it takes much of a talent... :))
(Pay no attention to that box by the table... it's a telescope -- eventually we'll actually set that thing up somewhere so we can more easily spy on the neighbors... haha! Kidding! Sort of...)
I only half-UNpacked from our trip to Vegas, so I'm already half-packed for Austin. But I suppose I should go busy myself with the final planning and packing I need to take care of. The cats are going to be sooooo annoyed with us for leaving again... :)
Monday, December 19, 2011
Randomtastic...
1) I made copious amounts of cookies over the weekend, which are now boxed up and ready to be distributed to the cookie-deprived masses. (The "cookie-deprived masses" being Eric and Faisal... can two people constitute a "mass"??) And I am ashamed to say that I've accidentally eaten about five-sixths of the copious amount of cookies I made, so there are only about five left. (Eric and Faisal -- you each get two and a half cookies. You're welcome.)
2) On our way back from Las Vegas, I ended up behind possibly the slowest people to ever go through airport security. It was a sixty-something (I'm guessing) couple from New York City (they were very chatty with the TSA agents), who required no less than EIGHT plastic bins for their random personal items. Just when I thought they'd retrieved their last bin and I'd attempt to reach for the ONE plastic bin I needed, they'd grab another one. I've never seen people go through airport security with so much stuff -- they had coats and sweaters and scarves and shoes... bags and belts and hats... necklaces and bracelets and watches. They each had about fifteen layers of random accessories to remove before they were finally ready to go through the body scanner. The only good thing about this was that they were causing such a back-up in the line that by the time the TSA agents got to me, they were herding people around to the plain old metal detector to move things along more quickly.
3) I was quite happy to get back to Chicago after several days in Vegas -- not that Vegas isn't fun... but the last day we were there, it suddenly hit me that even though Christmas was less than two weeks away, there was nothing very Christmas-y about Las Vegas. Here in Chicago, the buildings are lit up red and green, the trees on Michigan Avenue are outfitted with white lights, random decorations are everywhere, and holiday music is piped into every store. In Las Vegas, things seem to stay relatively the same all year round -- the lights on the Strip are always bright... the music in every store seems to be geared toward dancing in a club... random decorations are few and far between. In fact, our hotel didn't even HAVE holiday decorations -- we stayed at the Cosmopolitan, which was a really nice hotel, but perhaps trying a bit too hard to be "modern." (Or maybe I just like modern every time of the year except Christmas... :))
4) For some reason, Rick has been added to the subscriber list for a magazine called "Black Enterprise." It now comes in the mail regularly. He has no idea why he's been receiving this magazine lately... but it's probably for the same reason I've been getting "Asian Small Business Monthly."
5) We're getting ready to head down to Austin for Christmas. I would lament the fact that I have no chance of having a white Christmas this year, except Chicago has been sorely disappointing in the snow department this season. I woke up to falling snow a couple days ago (which may or may not have resulted in some sort of happy snow dance in my living room... yeah, let's just say it did NOT result in that...), but after about an hour, the falling snow retreated into billowing flurries, which faded into nothingness... And since it's been rather warm (for December, at least), the snow that DID manage to fall didn't stick around.
6) I'm off to eat lunch and then jump on the treadmill for a while... I ate FAR too much in Las Vegas... I'll be burning off those calories until January...
2) On our way back from Las Vegas, I ended up behind possibly the slowest people to ever go through airport security. It was a sixty-something (I'm guessing) couple from New York City (they were very chatty with the TSA agents), who required no less than EIGHT plastic bins for their random personal items. Just when I thought they'd retrieved their last bin and I'd attempt to reach for the ONE plastic bin I needed, they'd grab another one. I've never seen people go through airport security with so much stuff -- they had coats and sweaters and scarves and shoes... bags and belts and hats... necklaces and bracelets and watches. They each had about fifteen layers of random accessories to remove before they were finally ready to go through the body scanner. The only good thing about this was that they were causing such a back-up in the line that by the time the TSA agents got to me, they were herding people around to the plain old metal detector to move things along more quickly.
3) I was quite happy to get back to Chicago after several days in Vegas -- not that Vegas isn't fun... but the last day we were there, it suddenly hit me that even though Christmas was less than two weeks away, there was nothing very Christmas-y about Las Vegas. Here in Chicago, the buildings are lit up red and green, the trees on Michigan Avenue are outfitted with white lights, random decorations are everywhere, and holiday music is piped into every store. In Las Vegas, things seem to stay relatively the same all year round -- the lights on the Strip are always bright... the music in every store seems to be geared toward dancing in a club... random decorations are few and far between. In fact, our hotel didn't even HAVE holiday decorations -- we stayed at the Cosmopolitan, which was a really nice hotel, but perhaps trying a bit too hard to be "modern." (Or maybe I just like modern every time of the year except Christmas... :))
4) For some reason, Rick has been added to the subscriber list for a magazine called "Black Enterprise." It now comes in the mail regularly. He has no idea why he's been receiving this magazine lately... but it's probably for the same reason I've been getting "Asian Small Business Monthly."
5) We're getting ready to head down to Austin for Christmas. I would lament the fact that I have no chance of having a white Christmas this year, except Chicago has been sorely disappointing in the snow department this season. I woke up to falling snow a couple days ago (which may or may not have resulted in some sort of happy snow dance in my living room... yeah, let's just say it did NOT result in that...), but after about an hour, the falling snow retreated into billowing flurries, which faded into nothingness... And since it's been rather warm (for December, at least), the snow that DID manage to fall didn't stick around.
6) I'm off to eat lunch and then jump on the treadmill for a while... I ate FAR too much in Las Vegas... I'll be burning off those calories until January...
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
What happens here...
Supposedly stays here... but what if you were unlucky enough to have a room in a hotel with bedbugs, and the bedbugs hitched a ride back to your house in your luggage? Would THAT stay here? I mean, is the "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" concept truly magical? Because that would be pretty awesome. But I have a suspicion that it's more ad campaign than magic...
Fortunately, our hotel does not have bedbugs. It DOES, however, have a great view of the city, which I have documented with many pictures. (It also has a great view of the airport, and I've spent much time mesmerized by the flights of the departing planes... I'm a little obsessed...)
I took all of these pictures from our balcony:
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Too much noise...
I'm finishing up packing for our trip to Vegas this afternoon. I did NOT get a good night's sleep last night, so I can't necessarily say I'm looking forward to a day of travel... but hopefully I'll feel better after a cup of coffee...
I was up late packing and planning for this trip, and when I finally got to sleep, I couldn't get my mind to shut off long enough to sleep well. I got up around 2:30 to use the bathroom, then attempted to fall back asleep. Piva jumped up on the bed and curled up next to me... our white noise machine was set to "thunderstorm," which is just the sound of falling rain accompanied by an occasional sound of distant thunder... as I started to get comfortable -- with a purring cat curled up next to me and the calming sounds of the white noise machine lulling me to sleep -- I was startled (actually, "startled" isn't a strong enough word... more like "forcibly ripped from my peaceful state) by a huge BANG somewhere outside. It was like a cross between a loud clap of thunder and the sound of a bowling ball falling into a dumpster from a five-story height.
Piva shot off the bed to find a good hiding place, and Rick and I both got up and searched the cityscape outside for clues to the origin of the sound (an explosion? Did a transformer blow up? It definitely wasn't thunder -- too cold and clear... Did someone literally drop a bowling ball into a dumpster outside???), but everything looked totally normal -- a few random middle of the night cars on the streets... nothing on fire... nobody screaming or running... no sirens... all the electricity seemed to be working.
But after hearing that mystery sound (and how is it possible for a mystery sound to be so loud?? A sound that loud should have some kind of OBVIOUS source...) it was impossible to fall back to sleep very quickly. I was wide awake for the next half hour, anxiously waiting for another loud bang... eventually, I started to think that it may have been some sort of isolated incident, and perhaps it was safe to stop listening so intently to nothing in particular. But it was at least another half hour before I finally dropped off again...
And of course I woke up about fifteen times after that... I told Rick this morning that he should walk up and down the halls of our building and ask anyone he sees if they know what the loud sound was last night. I mean, honestly, I'm not only seriously curious about what could've caused that noise, but I'd like to know if I should ever expect it to happen again. If last night was "Drop Your Old Bowling Balls Into the Dumpster Five Stories Below" day, I'll have to remember this date so I can expect it next year...
But for now, I'm off to finish packing... and to find coffee... lots and lots of coffee. See you with Las Vegas pictures soon!
I was up late packing and planning for this trip, and when I finally got to sleep, I couldn't get my mind to shut off long enough to sleep well. I got up around 2:30 to use the bathroom, then attempted to fall back asleep. Piva jumped up on the bed and curled up next to me... our white noise machine was set to "thunderstorm," which is just the sound of falling rain accompanied by an occasional sound of distant thunder... as I started to get comfortable -- with a purring cat curled up next to me and the calming sounds of the white noise machine lulling me to sleep -- I was startled (actually, "startled" isn't a strong enough word... more like "forcibly ripped from my peaceful state) by a huge BANG somewhere outside. It was like a cross between a loud clap of thunder and the sound of a bowling ball falling into a dumpster from a five-story height.
Piva shot off the bed to find a good hiding place, and Rick and I both got up and searched the cityscape outside for clues to the origin of the sound (an explosion? Did a transformer blow up? It definitely wasn't thunder -- too cold and clear... Did someone literally drop a bowling ball into a dumpster outside???), but everything looked totally normal -- a few random middle of the night cars on the streets... nothing on fire... nobody screaming or running... no sirens... all the electricity seemed to be working.
But after hearing that mystery sound (and how is it possible for a mystery sound to be so loud?? A sound that loud should have some kind of OBVIOUS source...) it was impossible to fall back to sleep very quickly. I was wide awake for the next half hour, anxiously waiting for another loud bang... eventually, I started to think that it may have been some sort of isolated incident, and perhaps it was safe to stop listening so intently to nothing in particular. But it was at least another half hour before I finally dropped off again...
And of course I woke up about fifteen times after that... I told Rick this morning that he should walk up and down the halls of our building and ask anyone he sees if they know what the loud sound was last night. I mean, honestly, I'm not only seriously curious about what could've caused that noise, but I'd like to know if I should ever expect it to happen again. If last night was "Drop Your Old Bowling Balls Into the Dumpster Five Stories Below" day, I'll have to remember this date so I can expect it next year...
But for now, I'm off to finish packing... and to find coffee... lots and lots of coffee. See you with Las Vegas pictures soon!
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
What? More random stuff?
1. Yes. Yes, it IS another blog post full of random stuff.
2. There are only 19 (19!!!) days until Christmas, and I have far too many things to do. Even more than I would usually have to do, since Rick and I, in our infinite wisdom, decided that this would be a good time to take a small vacation and head to Vegas this weekend. We're also heading down to Austin for Christmas. Which means that I really need to have most of my gift shopping completed this week. Because when we get back from Vegas, I will be using all my free time to bake cookies for Eric... :)
3. It has been far too cloudy here in Chicago this last week. I wouldn't mind it so much if the cloudiness was accompanied by snow... but, save for one little ten-or-fifteen-minute flurry a couple weeks ago, we've had NO snow so far this season. It's just been cloudy... cloudy, dark, dreary, depressing. I need sun. Or snow. I'll take either one...
4. So last year at this time, I was attempting to stretch out in my cramped 600-square-foot apartment (which, by the way, only had one wall of windows and tended to stay dark most of the day)... and now I have a corner loft condo with 14-foot ceilings and tons of light. Ah... much better. I remember that everything in that little apartment was so dry -- walking across ten feet of carpet would build up crazy amounts of static electricity, and I was constantly getting shocked. I tried to counter the dry air with a makeshift humidifier -- I kept a big pot of simmering water on the stove all day, hoping that the steam would make a difference in the tiny space. I think it actually DID work... but of course the same kind of thing wouldn't be practical for my new place. So far, we haven't had super-dry weather... but I'm sure, just like snow, it is inevitable...
5. I just happened to look outside my window, and could've SWORN I saw snowflakes... but now I'm not sure. I think I'm having winter-wishful-thinking hallucinations...
6. Could someone tell me who came up with this year's Starbucks holiday campaign?? In case you haven't seen it, the tagline is, "Let's Merry." Let's Merry??? It sounds like an advertising campaign from Japan that was haphazardly translated to English. Let's Merry Happy of the Fun Santa Day! Maybe it's just me...
7. I think that's about all I have today. Now everyone go to Starbucks and enjoy a cup of merry...
2. There are only 19 (19!!!) days until Christmas, and I have far too many things to do. Even more than I would usually have to do, since Rick and I, in our infinite wisdom, decided that this would be a good time to take a small vacation and head to Vegas this weekend. We're also heading down to Austin for Christmas. Which means that I really need to have most of my gift shopping completed this week. Because when we get back from Vegas, I will be using all my free time to bake cookies for Eric... :)
3. It has been far too cloudy here in Chicago this last week. I wouldn't mind it so much if the cloudiness was accompanied by snow... but, save for one little ten-or-fifteen-minute flurry a couple weeks ago, we've had NO snow so far this season. It's just been cloudy... cloudy, dark, dreary, depressing. I need sun. Or snow. I'll take either one...
4. So last year at this time, I was attempting to stretch out in my cramped 600-square-foot apartment (which, by the way, only had one wall of windows and tended to stay dark most of the day)... and now I have a corner loft condo with 14-foot ceilings and tons of light. Ah... much better. I remember that everything in that little apartment was so dry -- walking across ten feet of carpet would build up crazy amounts of static electricity, and I was constantly getting shocked. I tried to counter the dry air with a makeshift humidifier -- I kept a big pot of simmering water on the stove all day, hoping that the steam would make a difference in the tiny space. I think it actually DID work... but of course the same kind of thing wouldn't be practical for my new place. So far, we haven't had super-dry weather... but I'm sure, just like snow, it is inevitable...
5. I just happened to look outside my window, and could've SWORN I saw snowflakes... but now I'm not sure. I think I'm having winter-wishful-thinking hallucinations...
6. Could someone tell me who came up with this year's Starbucks holiday campaign?? In case you haven't seen it, the tagline is, "Let's Merry." Let's Merry??? It sounds like an advertising campaign from Japan that was haphazardly translated to English. Let's Merry Happy of the Fun Santa Day! Maybe it's just me...
7. I think that's about all I have today. Now everyone go to Starbucks and enjoy a cup of merry...
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