First let me apologize for my recent lack of writing. I know you are all dying without me, but work has been busy. Second, this isn’t a serious post, so if that’s what you’re expecting from the title, sorry to disappoint.

Somehow, I have ended up with three different tacky Christmas parties to go to this weekend with my friends. I don’t know if this is just a trend of the last few years or if this has always been a trend people follow at Christmastime and I was just too young to notice. Whatever the reason, it puzzles me.

I get that there are tacky sweaters out there and I get that some people actually wear them, but to actually have to go buy one just to go to a party and have people tell me it’s tacky. I don’t understand. I’m not such a big fan of dressing up anyways and now I have to dress up for Christmas. What happened to just having a party and looking nice. Someone someday is going to look at pictures from the 2000’s and wonder why we were all such lame holiday dressers.

My family has never been a tacky Christmas kind of family. We are a list making, buy you what you want kind of family (favorite presents include a TV in my room, my own phone and a Cabbage Patch Kid who still resides in my guest room) So except for a dozen or so matching jewelry boxes that my sister and I received each year from an aunt, I’ve never really gotten a tacky Christmas present. If for some only God knows why reason I actually asked for clothes, my mom would take my sister shopping with her as a tacky buffer or vice versa.

The only time I can remember receiving clothes that I thought at the time were tacky*, was actually on my sister’s birthday and it was my own fault. My grandma took me shopping with her for sis’s bday and for whatever reason I was really mad at my sister that day. There were these two matchy navy and white outfits – one with a skirt and one with shorts. the one with a skirt was really super cute. The one with shorts, not so much. My grandma asked me which one she should get my sister and me being a vindictive little 7-year-old** I said the one with shorts. To this day I don’t know if my grandma read my mind and was punishing me or if she was just being nice, but she decided that she was going to get outfits for both of us, so she got my sister the one with a skirt and me the one with shorts. Touche Grandma, touche.

On that note, I have successfully avoided tacky holiday outfits for almost 29 years*** but I think I’m going to give in this year and head to Wal-Mart**** after work to find something to wear this weekend. I think I should get bonus tacky points for wearing whatever I find three times in one weekend also. If that’s not tacky, I’m not sure what is.

* Looking back, a lot of my clothes were tacky, but at the time I really really liked them.
**Guessing on the age, but 7 sounds about right.
***My birthday’s in less than a month – get excited, and if you need a list of what to get me, I’ve got it covered.
****Because surely I can find something tacky there.

Saturday at Borders

Guy at Borders: Ok, after the giftcard you still owe $x.xx.
Me: Sweet, I didn’t realize the card still had the whole amount on it.
Guy: In that case, would you like to donate a book to the Children’s Hospital book drive.
Me: Oh, I guess, hmmm… (took 5 minutes looking through the stack of books deciding which one I most wanted the kiddos to have and simulataneously probably ruined the day for the person behind me) Ok, I’ll take this one.

Sunday at Barnes & Noble

Me: Ok, that’s all.
Checkout Girl: Your total is…
Me: (swiped card, entered Pin)
Transaction Complete
Girl: Oh, would you like to donate a book to our book drive.
Me: No Thank You.

It’s safe to say that the Borders Guy totally kicked the Barnes & Noble Girl’s* butt as far as salemanship goes. Not only did he ask before the transaction was completed, but he also managed to totally shame me into doing it because I had pretty much just admitted that I wasn’t going to be spending as much as I thought I would be. I respect him for this. It takes a lot to get me to donate to stuff at checkout. In fact this might be a first. I’m usually more organized than spontaneous with my donations.

* No comment on the fact that I was at both Borders and Barnes & Noble in the same weekend.

For Thanksgiving my brother came over well-armed with two bottles of wine and two books by Chuck Klosterman. Well actually he had about 10 books total, but my sister took the other eight. This might be the perfect hostess gift. Anyone else who might be invited to my house for dinner in the future, should take note.

I really like Chuck Klosterman’s writing. I almost just said that I liked him, but I haven’t met him and he could quite possibly bore me to tears in person, so that might not necessarily be true. But I love his books. I’ve read three of them, and now I have the newest two to delve into. I just started Eating the Dinosaur and will probably read Downtown Owl as soon as I finish. Oddly the one I haven’t read is Fargo Rock City, and I think they are making a movie from it, which means I should probably go ahead and read it.

I stayed up a little too late reading last night and pretty much had to force myself to put the book down and go to bed. It’s a little frightening how much I can totally see where he is coming from whether he’s writing about Nirvana, a band I never really thought much of*, or time travel, which I don’t really give much thought to.**  His arguments seem completely valid in my mind, even though half the time he’s not really making a point.  He could probably talk me into thinking that I don’t really exist if he wanted to.

Okay, so that last sentence might be a little exaggerated, but you get the point. I’m enjoying this book so far. If you’ve never read anything by him, I would suggest you pick up Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and start from there. If you’re like me and like to read a book before seeing a movie and think you might see the movie based on Fargo Rock City, you should probably pick that one up to.

* I liked Nirvana when I was in middle school, but mainly because that was what everyone was listening to then. This was before I really gave a hoot about music and my brother had the Nevermind CD, so… but I remember when Kurt Cobain killed himself mainly because of how it affected this boy in my class. You would’ve thought his parents died by how torn up he was about it. At the young age of 13 I was really surprised by this. I still don’t get it when people are devastated by the death of someone they don’t know. Same deal with Michael Jackson this year. Judge me if you will, but I really didn’t care about Kurt Cobain then and I really didn’t care about Michael Jackson this year either.

** I’m only  a few stories into the book, so you’ll have to forgive my references being all from the beginning of the book. Maybe I’ll write more once I finish it…

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my Christmas music. Pandora was annoying me because it just kept playing different versions of the same songs so I thought it was time I added to my collection. So after playing around online listening to samples, reading suggestions, etc, I have added a nice list of songs for my listening pleasure…

Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight) – The Ramones
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses
Christmas Song – The Raveonettes
Father Christmas – The Kinks
A Christmas Duel – The Hives & Cyndi Lauper
I Wanna Take You Out in Your Holiday Sweater – Pas/Cal
Just Like Christmas – Low
Season’s Greetings – Robbers on High Street
When My Heart Finds Christmas – Harry Connick Jr.
What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? – Harry Connick Jr.
2000 Miles – Pretenders
The Night Santa Went Crazy – Weird Al Yankovic

These songs will go nicely with the 74 songs I already had… I really like Christmas music… I really hate “The 12 Days of Christmas” though so don’t play that anywhere near me…

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go listen to these songs over and over again so by the end of December I’ll be completely tired of them for 11 months (funny how that works out)

* Random side note: My collection started with the Now! That’s What I Call Christmas CD. I can’t remember exactly what year I got it, but it was way before mp3’s, napster, and iPods. I told my mom that I wanted a Christmas CD, gave her a list of probably 15 songs I wanted on it, and she found this which had everything but Silver Bells. After I opened it Christmas morning she handed me the sheet music for Silver Bells and said that would have to do I have since added Silver Bells to my collection, but I still always think of that Christmas when I hear it.

but I swear I’m not twelve…

Besides the normal Monday night programming I have recorded ( House, HIMYM, Big Bang Theory, Gossip Girl) here is what else is currently on my DVR ( in case you had any doubts about how cool I am)

Bridge to Terabithia (the new one – I’m a little nervous it will not be as good as the book or the original movie so I haven’t watched it yet)
Camp Rock (sadly, I’ve already seen this, but I recorded it anyways)
Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana
Hocus Pocus (Only, the best Halloween movie EVER – a muck, a muck, a muck, a muck)
Robin Hood (the cartoon – recorded 2/1/09, still waiting for my brother to come over and watch it with me – maybe Thanksgiving)
Shrek the Third
The Santa Clause
Wizards of Waverly Place
Wizards of Waverly Place
Wizards of Waverly Place

I might as well not even date them anymore – I haven’t been very good at keeping this weekly, and today, everything I’m going to write is from yesterday, so really this is more like “My Thursday in TV” (to appease my sister, I’m adding this warning – this is all about shows from last night.  If you don’t want to know what happened, stop reading)

Community – I absolutely loved the scene that wrapped up all the story lines while Troy and Abed sang “Somewhere Out There” If you are not watching this show, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Parks & Recreation – I don’t usually like the multiple takes thing, but I about died when Leslie was trying to convince the Ranger that she shot Ron. I still can’t get over how much better this show is than it was last year.

Grey’s Anatomy – Come on. First we have to get use to the idea that McSteamy is a Dad and then they just throw in that his 18 year old daughter is pregnant. I don’t know if I can buy him as a grandpa. That’s just weird.

Private Practice – Reverand Camden as the philandering Captain. As much as I like Stephen Collins, I’m not buying this either. Way to bum me out this week ABC.

Most notable absence: Vampire Diaries – Big Shock – I didn’t even watch this one yet. I didn’t get home from work until almost 8 so I went with the comedies instead to lighten things up.

Cool News: Chuck – It may not be the best present I could think of for my 29th birthday, but I’m super super excited that Chuck is coming back on Jan 10th/11th instead of after the Olympics in March. Way to go NBC – this is totally worth having to revise the programming on all my 1Q buys (and that is saying a lot about how much I love this show)

I don’t really care, but you might: Lost is coming back Tuesdays at 9 on February 2nd.

It’s fall. That means I’m killing myself at work estimating ratings for one of our clients. We place annual buys for them that go from April until March, which means right now I’m estimating ratings for 2q10-1q11. To do this, I’m looking at ratings from Oct08 through Sep09. So many years are in the equation that sometimes it’s hard to keep track of which one is current. I mean it’s really anyone’s guess what will be running in March 2011, but we do the best we can with what we’ve got.

So even though it is currently 2009, after working with all these dates all day every day, things get a little confusing. When it hits late December/early January it gets really bad. I sometimes get a little confused about where I am. During these fall months, when I think 1q, I’m always over a year out. I’ll be thinking about 1q11 so much, that when the year rolls over, it is likely that I will forget sometimes that it’s only 2010.

The reason this came up is because I just had to search around our office for a 2011 calendar so I could figure out what date the Superbowl and Oscars will be on. Seriously 2011 – I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around it yet.

An example of my confusion: Every year I make my Grandpa a yearly planner for Christmas* and for Christmas 2007, I put 2009 on the cover, put it all together, took it to Kinkos (where no one said anything), had it bound and then got home to realize my mistake. That was fun. Luckily it was pretty easy to change the 9 into an 8.

My birthday also falls right in the middle of this since it’s in January. It’s also a week right after my friend’s birthday, who is a year older than me, so I also usually think I’m going to be a year older than I am (except this next one because I do not even want to think about being 30, so I’m focusing really hard on the fact that I will only be 29).

Needless to say, this is probably really confusing you guys right now. Welcome to my club.

* Because what else do you get someone in their eighties – besides maybe a book from someone at Fox News, and my cousins usually take care of that.

Ever since Katie over at you are what you eat…or reheat posted this recipe on Wednesday I have been craving Chicken Piccata, so since tonight was my first night home all week and it’s been ages since I’ve cooked for myself, I went for it.

I forgot how relaxing it is to cook. It was a nice way to wind down from this busy week.

Looks good doesn’t it? It was delicious!

Now if there was only someone here that could clean up…

So if you’ve never read Stuff Christians Like, you should. If you’ve never heard Jon Acuff speak and you have the chance, you should go.

That being said, this post really isn’t about that, well not really.This post is about stepping out of your comfort zone – kind of. Well, I’ll just say it’s a little glimpse into my head.

Some things to know about me:
1. I do not like going places by myself, even if I know people will be there. It doesn’t matter, I still want to walk in with someone. This probably stems from years of my punctuality and other’s lack of.
2. I REALLY don’t like going places by myself when I don’t know anyone that will be there and/or have no idea what to expect. (This was hard when I started going to church, and this is still hard now)
3. I’m trying out a life philosophy if you will – do stuff that I want to do, don’t do things I don’t want to do. Yeah, it’s simple, but who cares.

Ok, so if I still have you, here goes…

I wanted to go hear him talk tonight because I’ve been reading his blog for a while, I think he’s great, and I’ve never heard him speak. All I knew about his talk was the description on his blog “come see me speak about how to have a wicked awesome dating life” When this is all you can say to your friends when you ask them to go with you, you get these responses: “hahahaha,” “I’d rather be drinking,” “No, I don’t want to go,” “I can’t go, but why don’t you go and take notes for me,” “hahahaha, no”

So, besides needing new friends, I also had to talk myself into going by myself. I really didn’t know what to expect, and I imagined the worst. What’s he going to do? Is this going to be interactive? Am I going to have to make small talk? Am I going to be the oldest person there?

But then I thought, screw this, I want to hear him talk and I’m going to go. What’s the worst that will happen? It’ll suck and I’ll waste a Wednesday night – Modern Family isn’t on anyways. I’m not going to lie though, there was a little bit of traffic on 400N and I was kind of half hoping that maybe it would be so bad that I’d be a little too late and have to skip it, because then I could blame it on traffic instead of being chicken to go by myself – Hey at least I tried right?

Well, traffic wasn’t too bad, so I made it in time, walked in and my first reaction was, “tables really? so much for it not being awkward that I’m by myself” So I sat down at the table closest to me and chatted with a girl who was also there because she reads the blog, and not because like most of the people, there because this was the third week of a series on dating (which by the way, I’m not judging, just noticing – really) Then I looked around and you know what, I wasn’t the oldest one there, by a long shot, so that was nice. Then he started on time, and it was a great talk about honesty followed by some good texted in questions.*

So, let’s review – My friends suck. (J/K) I went anyways. Lots of great stuff to think about. I wasn’t the oldest one there. You should read his blog.

* I was pretty impressed with this technology. Instead of having to raise your hand and ask a question, you just texted it and then it popped up on one of the computers and he answered it. If I had had any questions and/or knew how to text non phone numbers (ie. 42647, etc) then I would have appreciated being able to do so without having to raise my hand.

So today the weather is CRUMMY and I’ve heard no less than four people say something along the lines of “It’s so rainy, I just want to sleep and not do any work.” This made me think that no matter what the weather is like, it can and will be used as an excuse:

“It’s so sunny outside, I don’t want to be here. I want to play outside”

“They thought it would ice over today so they will closed schools, so since everyone who has kids is not at work today, then well I’m not going to do anything either”

“Sorry I’m late, there were sun delays on my way to work” (This makes me laugh every time they say it in a traffic report)

By all means though, excuses to talk yourself out of working should not be limited to just the weather. Feel free to use at your leisure…

“I need to go home, I just ran over my toe with my chair” (one hazard of never wearing my shoes at my desk – I’ve done this at least a dozen times, but I’ve never really left because of it)

“I can’t focus today- why have their doors been closed all day. What’s going on? Do you know?” (repeat at least 10 times to 7 people)

“The printer’s broken? Well then, if I can’t print anything, I’m just going to get on Facebook”

“Well I have a meeting in 30 minutes, but if I start something now, I’ll just have to stop. I’ll just wait until after they leave”

“Sorry C, I can’t help you right now, I’ve got to come up with hints for my playlist contest” (haha not really)