Brand New Year!

Happy 2007...call me jaded (Jaded! Jaded! Mere's Jaded!!), but the concept a fresh start on January 1 is kind of lost on me. Things can change. I believe that. However, if you're only changing because of the day on the calendar, I don't really think that's a reason/motivator large enough to make the change stick. Maybe it is for some people, but for me, I need more. If my doctor said, "Jaded, if you don't lose 30 lbs in the next 6 months, you're going to die," then I would change. The question is figuring out what threat between January 1st and death is sufficient motivation to make a change real.

I think I've watched too many episodes of Oprah over my little Christmas vacation.

So Much Christmas Love

Since I just had my Midwestern Weekend adventure a couple weeks ago, I'm going to be staying here in DC for the holidays. This will be the first holiday I have spent away from my family. It's hard, but I think it's the best choice for this year. There is so much expectation and anticipation leading up to the Christmas Holiday. It becomes impossible for things to be as great as we want them to be. For the last several years, we've had major explosions that pretty much overshadowed any festive cheer. I have been accused of ruining Christmas by my mere presence more than once over the last several years. That's no good for anyone!

Well, being homeless for the holidays is a lot less stressful when you are surrounded by friends. My friends Brie and Becky didn't hesitate to invite me to their individual family holiday celebrations at their parents' homes. In my family tradition, our Christmas celebrations have usually been on the smaller side. A lot of the time, it's just been the immediate four members of my family. To be invited to someone else's family celebration is really touching to me. Steve's family always has considered me one of their own, so I'm invited there too, despite the current situation.

In the end, I think I'm going to a single-generation Christmas celebration at Martine's house. Her twin sister, Julie, is in town, and Martine's husband will have just returned from the USO tour in Iraq. I haven't been hanging out with Martine a whole lot in the last year because of her insane schedule, but the few times we do hang out, I'm reminded of what a fantastic friend she is. Even more lucky, Julie is preparing a Christmas Eve celebration which I am invited to as well. Julie's good friend from college is my good friend from high school, Jill. (That's a random story about how Martine and I knew each other for quite a while before we discovered that Julie and I were both going to be bridesmaids in the same wedding--Jill's!). Anyway, Jill and her husband John are also going to come to Christmas Eve at Martine's. Quite the party.

After all this merriment, I think I'll need some time off, so I'm taking all of next week off from work. I have no idea what I'm going to do, but I'm thinking I'll hit the gym, read, rest, and watch TV...My new DVR and On Demand viewing is awesome!

Happy Holidays!

A Midwestern Weekend - Part II: Wrap it Up

Saturday morning, my sister and I got up and opened our Christmas presents. She gave me a really pretty figurine set of two sisters praying together, one ooh-la-la sweater that I love but would never have picked out on my own, plus a black cashmere turtleneck--just what I asked for!

Next, we went to Waffle House. I've been all over the United States (visited 40 of the 50 so far), and somehow, I had never had the pleasure of dining at any of the Waffle House establishments that dot the highways of our great land. Honestly, Waffle Houses look a little...unappetizing and scary, despite the word "Waffle" right in the name. It's been a difficult conflict for me. Well, I threw caution to the wind (plus, Meegan had a great coupon) and went to waffle house. What can I say? Like everything by my sister's house, it was brand new and totally clean. Susan, our waitress, was friendly and attentive. We each had waffles, toast, eggs, bacon, AND hashbrowns, plus coffee for me and juice for Meegan. The bill was less than $10. I have three words: God Bless America. And three more: Hooray Waffle House!

Next, we did a little shopping and got Meegan's nails done--she has acrylics and they were in desperate need of emergency repair. Then we went back to Meegan's house and started baking cookies. It took forever. I'm not very practiced at rolling dough (plus, since had no rolling pin, we were using a bottle of wine with the dough sandwiched between waxed paper), and it was tough. The hardest part was getting the cut out dough from the waxed paper to the cookie sheet. We only baked about 5 at a time. 4 dozen cookies later, it was time to start getting ready for the party, so we didn't have time to do the fun part--decorating with colored frosting and sprinkles! Oh well. I think the dough was too sticky and we were rolling the dough too thin (that was my bad. sissy wanted thicker cookies, but once I have my mind made up...Forget it.)

Anyway, off to the Holiday Party, but first a stop at the purse store where Meegan works part time. I got ANOTHER purse. I can't help it. It's an addiction. At the party, I got to see some of Meegan's friends that I hadn't seen in a while, plus meet a couple others that I had heard about but never met. There was a gift exchange and cookie decorating--neither was not exactly family-oriented. The gift I gave was a very silly Justin Timberlake bobble head doll from his boy band days. The box said "2001 Collectors Edition" so I considered it vintage. I ended up with a variety of condoms. Lovely. We played a game where we re-wrote the words to "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and then decorated a scene from our revised story on a giant cookie. Our poem rocked and the fact that we didn't win was basically criminal. At least I got some cookie decorating in. Several glasses of sangria and a couple shots later, it was 3:30AM and definitely way past my bedtime. Meegan drove us home. I passed out in the car. 99.9% of the time, I am the designated driver with a sleeping drinker in my passenger seat, so this was an interesting role reversal. thanks sissy!

Sunday morning: not a good scene. Perhaps I was out too late. Perhaps I'm way too old to be shooting tequila. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to cram so much activity into one weekend. Alas, it was time to go to the football game. One of Meegan's friends gave her tickets which was so nice--7th row seats! The Chiefs were playing the Ravens. The fans were crazy. My cutie sister was on the jumbotron at least 3 times. It was really fun. We left early to avoid traffic and rest for 30 minutes at home before heading to evening church service. Meegan goes to a mega-church in Overland Park, KS. As we were walking in, they were singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" which is one of my holiday favorites. There was a great sermon about God choosing the unlikely to do the extraordinary. And then, HOORAY, a wonderful soloist sang "Oh Holy Night" which is only my all-time favorite Christmas song. It's so hard to sing, but when someone does it well, I think it's awesome. This guy was definitely of the awesome variety.

Next, dinner with Mom and Dad. I can't write about it. The problems I'm having with my parents are depressing, frustrating, and pitiful. We ate a great meal, then talked about our disagreements for about 3 hours. Meegan and I left around 1am. It's so hard to see them.

Monday morning was an early flight back to DC. Steve picked me up at the airport and dropped me off at the office. I was wiped-out, but managed to make it through the day and go to bed at 8:00. What a weekend!

A Midwestern Weekend - Part I: Friday

Oh hooray...This weekend I went "home" to Kansas City to see my sister, Meegan. Kansas City isn't my real home (I don't have one), but it's where my parents moved after I graduated from college and where my sister also moved after her own graduation. Alas, begrudgingly, I call KC "home" (quotes not optional). It was a jam-packed weekend with tons of activity.

Friday morning Steve graciously drove me to the airport at 7:00 for my 8:40 flight. I know I'm not very fun company when driving to the airport because I'm always worried I'm going to miss my flight, miss the baggage cut-off or some other random misfortune. The flight ended up being just fine except a little late. No big deal...Meegan couldn't pick me up right when I landed anyway because she had to be at work until 11:00.

After she picked me up in her gorgeous new car (new to her...It's an '02 accord coupe V6 and awesome), we drove to this area north of the airport called Weston which has quaint little shops, a couple small restaurants, a winery, and this bar called O'Malley's, which I'm told is quite the place. I think my sister and her friends might hang out there more if it weren't in the middle of absolutely no where. We had lunch at "The Vineyard" (across the street from the Winery, though there was no vineyard in site). The service there was ultra slow, but Meegan and I were really chatty, so we hardly noticed. She had a beef tenderloin (yum-o) and I had this salad with apples and bacon.

After lunch, we browsed through the shops on Main Street for a couple hours. I bought some Christmas gifts and Meegan got this antique hat that totally rocks. I could see Gwen Stefani wearing this hat. I have no idea when Meegan will ever wear it, but that is really not the point. The point is that the hat is fabulous.

After the shopping, we went to another shopping area closer to Meegan's house called Zona Rosa. Think Reston Towne Center only more stores you'd actually want to shop at and better restaurants. So, we went to DSW and I tried on pretty much every single pair of tall black boots they had and bought none of them. It has been so hard for me to find boots that are the right style (simple skinny heel, pointy toe), not made of plastic, and actually fit my big feet and calves. Plus there's the whole issue where my legs are long, so even a tall boot kind of looks like it's just calf-length. boo.

After DSW, we picked up Indian Food (Indian Food is becoming all the rage in KC...So says Meegan). Then we went back to Meegan's house to eat. Well, I walk into this place and it's freaking gorgeous. She has been painting the walls in good colors I would never think to use, her furniture is so cool and she bought this giant plasma TV over her marble fireplace. The decorating looks like it belongs in a magazine. Sheesh. Makes my place look like a total shack. Nevermind that mine is worth 3x hers. Ah, the Midwest. Gotta love affordable living.

So, we ate about half the Chicken Tikka Masala (we never order anything else), watched "Failure to Launch," wrapped Christmas gifts, set up her Christmas tree and decorated it. Around 11pm, we decided that we would run out to WalMart (open 24 hours) and pick up some ingredients for the cookies we were going to make. Meegan has the most giant WalMart I've ever seen and it's like 3 minutes from her house. Well, the WalMart is so big that we were there for over an hour. They sell liquor right in the store 24/7 (all together now: Ah, the midwest!). We got home and despite the fact that we should have just gone to bed, we quickly made up the dough for our cookies and put it in the fridge to chill.

By this time, it's after 1am and neither of us had much sleep the night before, so we finally went to bed. I am pretty sure I fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

Tomorrow: Santa comes AND Meredith persuades her sister's friend to snort tequila.

New Beginnings Again

Hmmmm...So, I realize that I actually started a blog a year ago when my friend derek went to Japan and he posted updates of his travels so the pals back home could keep up.

Now Colleen has a blog too, so I'm going to try again.

I had a really good weekend. Fridays are some sort of kryptonite for Steve and me. He was mad that I didn’t leave work until after 6 (still only an 8 hour day for this late-arriving sleepy head), and I was mad that I had asked him about 15 times between Wednesday and Friday at 3:00 what he wanted to do on Friday night. As of 5:00 we had no plans, so when my boss asked me if I could go over something with him, I said sure. Well, I was in his office from 5-6, and by the time I got out, I had missed 4 calls from Steve. I called him back. He was mad. I said it was only 6:10, so we could meet somewhere instead of meeting at my house and then going from there. He was just being a scrub and hung up on me. Ugh. Really, he has NO interest in planning anything, and then I’m in a meeting for an hour and he freaks!!!

Friday we ended up having a pizza at my place and watching Polar Express on TV. Saturday he took me to Costco so I got Meegan a combo Christmas/birthday gift of an iPod. That was way over our normal spending limit, but I feel bad that I’m not going home for Christmas, so she has to deal w/ mom and dad all on her own. Yes, I’ve been reduced to trying to buy her affection. ;) Saturday evening, Becky Steve and I had a real nice dinner at Eggspectation to celebrate her being done with the LSAT. Steve even paid for all of us which was very nice!!! After that, the three of us headed over to Red Rocks (I’d been craving a Blackberry margarita). Shocker, Shocker... mere and becky are having fun and all dressed up, therefore, steve is sick so we had to leave early. Now, in his defense, he did throw up for a long time after we got home, so I know he wasn’t faking, but it seems like that always happens. It was probably for the best because Becky hadn’t had a drop of alcohol in over a month and was somewhat tipsy so better to go home before everyone starts doing dumb things. I made pina coladas at home and we played trivial pursuit. Went to bed.

Sunday Steve went home to make chili for his mom and dad who were coming to visit. Becky and I went out to breakfast and then she went home around 2. I had investment club at 3:30 and then went to a birthday party for Martine (she is 29 today) at her new house—which is huge!! Seriously, HUGE. It’s kind of crazy that it’s just she and her husband live in this 5 bedroom mansion. Anyway, it was absolutely great to see her. She is so busy with school, plus teaching classes as a consultant on the side, plus her regular job, plus the new house…well, I never see her anymore!

Now I am back to work. Today has been pretty normal for a Monday. Oh! Weight watchers…as you can tell, my weekends have been BAD! So, I am stalled out after only losing that initial 5-5.5 lbs. I haven’t gained, but I’ve been doing this for a month now, so I think I’m going to have to stop having insane weekends and get my butt to the gym to break though to the next 5 lbs. I am pretty darn good during the week, but my weekends are still problematic. This weekend I’m going to KC, and Meegan usually is pretty health-conscious, so this weekend shouldn’t be too bad. I had wanted to lose 10 lbs by the time I went to KC (that’s the goal I wrote in my journal), but I think I’ll be lucky if I can get to 7-7.5. (Meanwhile, steve has been even worse than me and lost 10 lbs! Jeez! Of course, that was on two different scales, so it’s not 100% accurate. I do think his belly looks flatter though.)