Thanksgiving is over, which means that as of Friday morning Otis has deemed that it is now calendarily appropriate to put up the Christmas decorations. We agreed we would decorate on Sunday, so I spent part of Saturday afternoon purchasing new Christmas decorations at Garden Ridge. I had this crazy idea to decorate in non-traditional colors, born partly of my desire to do something fun and different, and partly of Otis' repeated demands that our Christmas decorations match our current apartment decor.

As soon as I got home with my orange/brown/gold color scheme I knew it was a mistake. I started thinking about all of my childhood ornaments sitting in a box in our storage closet and realized they were going to clash terribly with these fancy new decorations. Seeing as how my childhood memories are so intimately wrapped up in my joy of Christmas, Otis and I decided to scratch the new decorations and just add to what I already have. He even agreed to go with me to Garden Ridge the next day to return the items and pick out new decorations. Him. A man. Agreeing to go where no man has ever willfully gone before. I wasn't going to pass up this opportunity.

The combined excitement of decorating for Christmas and the fact that my husband was going to accompany me to Garden Ridge the next day was so overwhelming that I jumped up and ran through the open sliding glass door onto our balcony to start pulling the Christmas decorations out of the storage closet. That is until I ran full force into the screen door that had been pulled shut. The force of impact was so great that it ripped the screen door off its track and simultaneously threw me back into the living room. I was so confused as to what happened that I just stood there looking at Otis, then back at the door, then back at Otis, until I finally realized what happened and nearly peed my pants from the hilarity of it all. And if Abi could talk, she would have been openly mocking me in retaliation for all the times I've laughed at her for doing the exact same thing.

I finally uploaded some of the pictures I took of our Christmas decorations, so I thought I'd post a few of my favorites here.

This is a train I've had since I was a baby. My parents bought it to commemorate my first Christmas and the fact that my middle name is Noel.

These are some ballet slipper ornaments I bought when I worked at Macy's. 40% discount in the Macy's Christmas store is a dangerous thing.

And here are some close up shots of our tree, in all its glorious fakeness.

Merry Christmas!

I'm sitting here sipping a Gin & Tonic after a long Christmas Eve day's work, listening to my new KT Tunstall CD, courtesy of Otis via my stocking. My life is good. Better than I could have ever planned, actually.

To all of my friends who have found the happiness they're looking for, I hope you're able to take some time to appreciate it this holiday season. And to all my friends who are still searching, may you find it this coming year. My prayer is for you to experience the same joy God has given me.

I love all of you. Merry Christmas!

Over IM...

Me: I know you want the Ninja Hand Claw.

Otis: or EVERYTHING!

Me: I especially like the sloth toed boots.

Otis: For stealthiness.

Otis and I got back from Washington DC late Tuesday night after spending 5 days there. We had such a blast. DC is a very fun city, with so much to do we couldn't possibly do it all even if we had 2 weeks there. To very briefly sum up the trip, we visited a few of the Smithsonians, the Holocaust Museum (very good), the International Spy Museum (way cool), visited with friends we made on our honeymoon, visited with Matt's sister and her husband, and played in the snow that fell on Sunday. Here are just a few of the great pics from our trip. Check out the rest at our flickr site (to your right) soon.

We saw this building rising out of the trees on our drive into Virginia from Baltimore. My first thought was "OMG...it's the Wizard of Oz's castle!" It turned out to be the local Mormon Temple, of which we could not enter because we forgot our Mormon membership cards that day.

Otis took this picture of me in front of the Washington Monument. I love the perspective.

Otis and me near the Washington Monument. I'm totally submitting this picture with my application to America's Next Top Model.

Our friends, Matt & Adriana, putting their own trademark pose on the swirling steam at the Washington Monument.

Hiking through the snow.

Snow Dog in the National Mall.

And finally, a beautiful picture that Otis took of the Capitol Building at dusk.

I found these cupcakes on this blog - Wisdom of the Moon. They are completely awesome, and I'm so jealous I think I may have to make some myself.

I finally have all of my Christmas shopping done and all the presents wrapped. This year I decided to get a little more creative with my gift tags. And by more creative I mean I'm actually using them instead of just writing the "to" and "from" on the package. I saw these stickers while I was standing in line at the craft store the other day, and I decided they would add the perfect finishing touch to my packages. This tree was my favorite of them all.

And since I was a good girl and got all of my shopping done, today I'm just relaxing. I might go work out, and at 1:30 I'm getting a 90 minute massage. A very much needed and deserved massage.

So, this weekend was a weekend of dichotomy - fun!/ not so fun. Saturday morning Otis and I got up and headed out to Pedernales Falls for some hiking (fun!). The weather could not have been more perfect. I was only sad we couldn't stay the entire day. Unfortunately we had to get back to Austin because I had to work the 2 Saturday evening services at our church/my work (not so fun).

After the services we had dinner at Chick-fil-A (fun!), then went over to some friends' house to help another friend practice administering field sobriety tests for his police academy training (fun!). This of course required us to be not so sober (fun!) because what fun is administering a field sobriety test if you can't fail someone? Then, as I was standing there talking to a friend, the world started spinning and I suddenly felt very sick (not so fun). Before I knew what was happening said friend was walking me to the bathroom and I was leaning over the toilet while she held my hair back for me (not so fun AT ALL). And then I started crying hysterically, because I didn't know what was happening and I kept trying to explain that I only had like two drinks and why am I throwing up like this. Matt came in a few minutes later and picked me up off the floor and took me home. I slept fitfully through the night, got up at 8am and promptly began throwing up again. This continued throughout the day (VERY VERY not so fun AT ALL). I was finally able to hold something down around 4:30pm. Turns out I didn't have that much to drink...I was just that sick and didn't know it. Being sick on Sunday also meant I missed the Easter service I was looking so forward to seeing (not so fun), and also missed Easter morning pancakes at the Juicebox's (also not so fun).

I'm still not feeling so hot, although I did manage to make it into work today. I keep debating if I should go home and rest. I am SO tired, and my stomach is feeling a bit squirrelly. Yeah, I think I'm headed home shortly.

Lastly, I want to say this here for the record. I believe this episode has put me off Gin & Tonics for a good long while, if not forever. Just saying Gin & Tonic is enough to make me feel like I'm going to lose it again. Must think of something else...