Yes, I'm still alive...

...but life hasn't been all that interesting lately. My days consist of going to work, walking the dog, washing the dog, eating, sleeping, talking myself into going to the gym, deciding I'm too lazy to go, and resisting the urge to just buy a whole new wardrobe. Throw in an episode of Grey's Anatomy and Glee here and there, and you've got my life for the last 6 weeks in a nutshell. Now you see why I've been MIA with the blog.

I did, however, make a quick trip to LA a few weeks back (I forgot I did that!). It was warm, and sunny and beautiful and a really nice trip. Except for actually getting down there... that was a nightmare.

So Allegiant Air has these suuuper cheap flights from Pasco to LA. For a measely $100 round trip, I'm more than willing to subject myself to a middle seat next to a crying baby and a guy farting next to me every 5 minutes. But when the flight is delayed by an hour and a half because some lady doesn't recognize her own name when it's called, and the rest of us have to pull out our IDs and the crew has to go person by person checking IDs to find this woman... that's when I say it may not be worth it. They finally found the woman, after announcing her name 6 times... I was more than a little dumbfounded by the sheer obliviousness of some poeple.

But, I finally made it to LA, and spent a great day with an old friend from high school that I hadn't seen since graduation. We romped around Pasadena, drinking and eating our way through the cozy dive bars, reminiscing about times of old and admiring the incredible architecture. And he educated me in yummy beers and we ate some very tasty cajun muscles.



Pasadena City Hall. Very cool.

Then I was passed off to another friend and we headed up to Valencia. We watched movies, played with the baby, ate cookies and nutella popcorn (SOOOO good), and had a great time spying on the crazy neighbor girl giving a strip tease on her balcony. People in California are crazy...

Needless to say, I will be going back very soon. :)

And I will try harder to live a more exciting life for those that actually read up on what I'm doing...and then blog about it.

slr

Update: Operation Finance

Yeah... so I was a little premature with Operation Finance...I was good for about 2 months, but then I moved, bought a new car, and then Christmas hit, and, well, things kind of feel apart. But I'm kicking things into high gear for 2011. Plus, I'm scheduled to get a little bit of a raise at the end of January/beginning of February, so that should help too, although with the pay freeze and higher insurance rates, I'm not sure how much help it will be...

My 2011 financial resolutions/goals:

1) Pay off the main credit card by January 2012 using whatever means necessary. Balance will be ZERO by 1/1/2012.

2) In order to accomplish #1, I will limit my frivolous spending to CASH only. This includes, eating out, movies, shopping, etc. I will take out a certain amount after every pay day and once it's gone, it's gone...until next pay day.

3) In order to accomplish #1 and #2, I need to stop buying stupid shit.

And that's pretty much it... for finances anyway. Really, if I can do those three things, I should be in pretty good shape (HA!).


My 2011 non-financial resolutions/goals:

1) Run a 5K by June 2011. I've run/walked a few 5Ks, but this is the year to run the whole thing... says the girl that hates to run. This should be interesting...

2) No more fast food. Exceptions: Papa Murphy's take-n-bake, the fresco menu at T-Bell, Taco Truck (so not fast food), and the occasional ice cream treat. McD's french fries are allowed on the very, very rare occasion.

3) Get bikini ready - this ties into #1.

4) Travel as much as I can.

5) Bowl a 200 game. My highest game ever happened 2 weeks ago... a 198. Whoot whoot!! This is the year.

6) Make an honest effort to talk/text my mom more often.

I'd say these are fairly reasonable goals... except for maybe #6. That one's gonna be hard...

slr

Christmas in the Northwest is a gift God wrapped in green...

So someone must've been looking out for me, because I got to Seattle and back without any weather glitches. Oh, there were plenty of flights canceled while I was home due to freezing fog in WW, so I was almost obsessive about checking the weather, but I lucked out. I just missed the fog... I must have great flying karma because I've never had an issue getting in or out of the WW airport. *knock on wood* Let's hope it lasts!

Unfortunately I forgot my camera in WW, so I don't have many photos to post (says the self-proclaimed picturaholic. I must be losing my touch), but the trip home was great. I flew in on Sunday, and after picking up some longjohns (forgot mine on the couch when packing. Grrr) we headed downtown for my very first Seahawks game!! The game was poorly played (although I was sure the Seahawks were going to get spanked worse than they did, so that was a plus), but we had great seats and just being there was a lot of fun. Leland was nice enough to give up his own season ticket to join me in the endzone with my friends Tarin and Patrick. We had a great time.

Then, thanks to Tarin for letting me borrow her car, I headed up to Mt. V for a surprise visit to the Cook family and friends. Unfortunately my surprise was spoiled by the gang at Good Winds, but it was still a great visit. Worked on my football spiral, got some Charlie lovin, some yummy spaghetti pie (Mmmmm...), and an almost visible winter solstice lunar eclipse. :)

The rest of the week consisted of me sleeping in, jumping on trampolines, eating way too many Christmas cookies, driving Tarin to work, shopping, and seeing family and friends. I got to catch up with an old high school friend that I haven't seen in years too. I wish I could've seen everyone on my list, but there just wasn't enough time. And with Christmas on Saturday, it just didn't work out.

But my Christmas was pretty awesome. Low key is what I like. Did breakfast at my sister's place with my mom, then headed out to the movies. We saw "How Do You Know." I don't recommend it... It was painfully slow, and so not funny. I even fell asleep during part of it. But after that we picked up dinner (Chinese, please) and headed back to my sister's to watch a better movie... Inception. :) Loved it! So good. Definitely a buyer. Then I did second dinner at Tarin's house. It was a good day.

But as we drove home from a weenerific, authentic German Christmas Eve dinner, we came across the best "Griswalds" display of Christmas lights I've ever seen, with a little something extra:

 

Obviously it's not the gawdy display of flourescence that makes this spectacle so fantastic... :)

Oh, and if you've never heard the song of which this blog entry is named after, it is the most fantastically sappy Christmas original I've ever heard. I love it. It's playing in my head right now as a matter of fact... And yes, I still have the album I bought back in Jr. High when Ernst still inhabited the Sunset Blvd location in Renton. :)

And so, I leave you with the best electronic Christmas card I've ever received...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

S