Back to Everyday Life!

And oh am I happy about that. This past month has been truly overwhelming and the past two weeks have just been a whirlwind. The holidays were wonderful and the boy and I were able to spend them together, with friends and with family and I could not have asked for more. He was very generous, thoughtful and considerate. I enjoyed spending Christmas Eve with my family and him exchanging gifts, attending mass and of course eating and then Christmas Day with his family doing a lot of the same. It was interesting to partake in someone else's traditions and his family was absolutely wonderful to me and we had a great time.

We also had friends for dinner here and there which was nice. While my house is no where near complete, it is nice to have my own place and get back to doing something I really enjoy, cooking and entertaining for friends. The boy is enjoying the whole cooking aspect of it as well and I think that we are both eating better and healthier because of it. I love to cook, and I like to make sure it is as healthy as it can be, it is nice to watch someone else enjoy it as well. One thing I did get done last week was get all of my cookbooks and magazines unpacked and put away, now I just have to start trying out some new recipes. Last night I did make filet mignon with mushrooms and a salad, very simple and the filet was very good and tender. The boy and I kind of lazed around in the morning, it was a long night the evening before, and then we went to see "The Good Sheperd" which I would highly recommend. It is tough to follow at first, and it is long, but we both really enjoyed it. We also have seen "Night at the Museum" at the IMAX which we both enjoyed and I just LOVE Dick Van Dyke, and "Dreamgirls". Dreamgirls was a little too songy for me, but there was some good acting and a great cast. I am glad that the boy and I both enjoy the movies so much. We went to a new movie theater that just opened last night and it was really nice and the whole experience was wonderful, I think that is always a plus as well. Tomorrow night we are going to a premiere of "Notes on a Scandal" which is up for a couple of Golden Globes so I am looking forward to that as well. We also have seen Rocky 6 which we both enjoyed too. I gave the boy the Rocky anthology for Christmas and he was very excited about that so I am sure we will be catching those here and there too. We also have Netflix so we watched "The 25th Hour" with Edward Norton that was good too. Nip/Tuck is also a favorite and I have the first three seasons on DVD, so last night we watched episodes 1 & 2 from season 2 which so far is really good. Like the boy says, this stuff is addicting. So I guess everyone has their thing and I guess ours is the movies, it could be worse I guess.

My house is coming along little by little. I did stay home one day last week and got my office at least cleaned out and my books unpacked. We went to IKEA on Friday for storage solutions and actually found quite a few which worked out nicely. My linen closet is now organized and my chalkboard is up which I just love. I have yet to boot up my laptop at home, that is on my list of things to do this week. The boy was able to put up my full length mirror and help me get my guest room straightened up so that we could put the aerobed in there and his brother and his brother's girlfriend could spend the night New Year's Eve with us. We figured since they didn't have her kids it would be a good opportunity to hang out together not do any drinking and driving. His brother and I certainly accomplished the drinking part. We went to "J"'s and had a really good time. She had some neighbors over and we had some really good food and great conversation. It was such a nice eclectic mix of people. We cabbed it back to my place at about 1:30 and I was ready to hit the hay, but of course didn't want to be the party pooper, so I did what we used to call the "Shippan Ditch" out East. The boy found me in my walk in closet in the process of changing clothes to go to bed. I guess I looked pretty guilty. They were up until 4 so I am glad I ditched when I did, I am SO not a nightowl. I was not on my "A" game the next morning, but I was better than his brother who proceeded to lose the contents of his stomach the whole next day. It was a nice time and it was good to spend it with friends like that. "J" hand embroidered the cutest dish towels for me, I may have to take a picture and put them up. She did such a good job, and they are SO me! She did say that I am an incredibly difficult person to shop for, which I know, so this was a very sweet gift. They are pink embroidered and they all carry the cowgirl theme. VERY cute and something I really need.

I have a lot of planning coming up. Next week I am hosting the first casual wine tasting at my house, I am not sure if my place is ready for it, but I will do my best. I am meeting a wine educator at a new little wine bar on Thursday evening to discuss him coming and teaching us all a thing or two. We aleady have 24 RSVP's and I have limited it to 25. I have also invited a couple of friends so we will see who shows there. The group has been growing though and I have really been enjoying it and I am looking forward to planning future events. There is a big food and wine expo in February that I am sure will be a fun outing too. I have not been playing any tennis which I need to start doing more of. I also noticed a couple of women heading into the church across the street from my house on Saturday morning with yoga mats at about 9 am so I am going to check into that as well. I am captain of our Twin Cities Fit club too which I need to coordinate and get started, there are about 8 of us in it and I think it is something that those of us who are in it will stick with. I have continued losing weight over the holidays however, which is again, not a bad thing, but I am back at the Doctor a week from Friday for another biopsy as the last one that I had, the results came back inconclusive so they want to do a more evasive one. I decided to do a Chinese New Year's Party theme for my housewarming, so that is February 17th, so I have been busy making notes and planning that too. I have lots of ideas luckily and really the biggest thing I need to do right now is design the invitations and send them out. I am thinking I may use the Designhergals site which I used for my holiday cards. They were very fast and I enjoyed their product.

"J" has offered to help me go through my closets and weed through my clothes. The boy and I dropped off 5 big boxes for donation the past weekend and I have 12 bags of recycling for this Thursday morning, so I am purging which is good. And since the holidays are over my Ta-Da list has shrunk considerably, but there is always more to do. Work has been interesting, and that is about as far as I want to go for now. I need to wait to see how a couple of things shake out before I make up my mind about next steps. I like my new manager as a person, I just do not think that he is the right person for the position and I feel as though myself and my peer are carrying a lot of his weight which I am not sure is fair. Then again, no one said life is fair, but I think that this ship may sink and seeing as I am not the captain I am not sure if I want to go down with it.

Now that life is a little bit more normal, I will try to do more of a daily post like so many of my other fellow bloggers are so good at doing. I was very sad to see today that E. is shutting down "The Preppy Cafe". She is the one who not only inspired me to blog more, but also turned me onto so many of the other daily blogs that I read and enjoy. I can understand her shutting down though, it can be a lot of work and when you have your own high expectations to live up to, it can be a challenge. I wish her the best and will continue to read "Suburban Cupcake".

So tonight I think it will be packing up the holiday decorations, at least the ones that I did get up, and changing the linens once again on my dining room table. I think I am going to go with a light blue and silver theme for January and then turn to the black and silver for February throwing a little red in for good measure. I hope that everyone has had a very happy holiday season and I wish everyone the best in 2007, I think it is going to be a great year!