Category: Daily Life

I had a conversation with my husband the other day that made me realize that he and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to being friendly with people we encounter in our day-to-day life.

Husband: Do you remember Brian at the pharmacy?

Me: ?

Husband: He was there when we first started going there. He went back to school [blah, blah, blah – I'll admit I wasn't paying much attention] and now he's back working on Sundays.

Me: I really don't remember him, but I might if I saw him. I'm afraid I don't pay that much attention when I'm involved in a purchase.

Husband: You're really not very friendly, are you?

Me: No. No, I'm not.

And it's true. My husband knows the names of everyone he regularly encounters at the restaurants and stores he frequents. He knows what's going on in their lives in more detail than I probably know what's up with my actual friends.

If he came home one day and said, for example, "John from the bagel shop needs to stay with us for a while because he's homeless and couch surfing and has nowhere else to go," I would not be surprised for an instant. And then I would have to ask how tall John is because only one of our two couches is long enough for most people to sleep on—and I wouldn't know which bagel shop guy he was talking about until I saw his face.

Is that a guy thing? An extrovert thing? I don't know.

I don't tend to ask people a lot of questions. I was raised with a strong, "Mind your own business" ethic and I always figure that people will tell me if there's something going on that they want me to know about. That's friends, though. It really never occurs to me to ask personal questions of acquaintances and casual contacts.

It's certainly not that I don't care. Reading blogs and following people on Facebook and Twitter exposes me to exactly the kinds of things that the writers want to share with others. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all of the personal happenings—good and bad—that I read about online.

So I don't know how to feel about the fact that I was neither aware of our pharmacist's absence and return, nor does it make any difference to me. I'm not at all rude in public, just businesslike.

Which side of the spectrum do you fall under? Super friendly, all business or somewhere in between?

Photo credit: ~*Ally*~

Oh, hi. Yep, still alive. The last week or so has mainly been me working a lot between coughs. I am considerably better, but I may still end up consulting an allergist because it seems likely that allergies are playing a part in my recurring cycle of coughing. Not to say that I haven't had colds, too. That became abundantly clear when I started infecting key co-workers who now hate me.

I learned this week that I am rather frighteningly tuned out on the highway. I was commuting between a client meeting and my office (about a 30 minute drive) when I got a call from my brother-in-law. He said he'd been beside me on the highway for miles trying to get my attention: honking and swerving and generally scaring every driver on the road except me. I had absolutely no inkling of any of it. Frankly, I'm not even sure what to do with that information.

I've had two book club meetings in the past week, so there was a reasonable amount of reading taking place in my spare time: "Emma" by Jane Austen and "How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe" by Charles Yu. The former was kind of a slog and I didn't finish it until almost a week after we met to talk about it. The latter I read in one sitting, which I would recommend because it's the kind of book that has a flow that you don't want to interrupt (and it's short, so that works out well).

On Tuesday, I got the first season of "Game of Thrones" on DVD. I couldn't get to them until Wednesday night and then I discovered that my Blu-Ray player's firmware needed to be updated before they'd play. Aargh! I am proud to say I actually figured out how to do the updates myself, so we've been watching one episode a night since then. It's just as wonderful as I'd imagined.

I got a chance to visit the auto show with Social Media Club of Kansas City on Wednesday night. That was cool. We were treated to a reception by Ford, which has been a social media pioneer among auto makers since the early days. If anyone would like to get me this car, I'm accepting donations.

Otherwise, it's been a pretty quiet week. I've had a lot of free evenings, including last night. That gave me the opportunity to do a little Trader Joe's shopping and make dinner at home, for once.

Tonight's another open night and I hope to repeat the dinner at home and TV watching experience of last night. Tomorrow I'm forgoing some of the things I've been invited to do so I can get my tax paperwork together for my accountant before it's time for my volunteer shift with the adoptable cats at Petco.

So what have you been up to?

Last night I actually had a free evening, for once. I've been maintaining a fairly hefty post-work schedule even while being sick, so it was wonderful to have the opportunity to laze around the house and go to bed early.

I ended up sleeping close to ten hours, which I really needed. Right before I woke up, I was having a detailed dream that involved a winter festival and I thought to myself—in the dream—"I should be taking photos of the colored snow sculptures."

That may be the definition of an obsessive blogger: the desire to get photo documentation of stuff that's only happening inside your own head.

Photo credit: Agustin Rafael Reyes

I was humming along nicely with the photo challenge but then I contracted the plague and lost my will to go on.

My husband caught a bad cold from some of his studio clients and of course I got it from him. I was this close to being over the bronchitis I'd had since Christmas and then I was plunged back into the whole mess again. Yesterday I went to the doctor and was re-prescribed all the heavy-duty meds I'd already taken this year. Ugh.

The fun, new symptom of this particular cold is that I can't taste or smell anything. Ordinarily I have an unusually sensitive nose, so it's just plain weird to have that shut off completely (although it made scooping the cat boxes a lot less unpleasant). Also, I have to say that not being able to taste anything really sucks a lot of joy out of life. Right now I'm sipping a cup of jasmine tea that may as well be a cup of plain hot water.

Today the coughing has subsided considerably, which is good because I was tired of getting the Typhoid Mary stinkeye from everyone I encountered.

If this latest round of antibiotics and steroids don't do the trick, it'll be time to make the rounds of specialists. The whole allergy/asthma thing I deal with all the time has already made it so I can't sing in a band anymore. It may be time to look for a more targeted allergy treatment and make sure my sinuses don't have something going on that we don't know about.

So how's your week so far?

Tissues, cough medicine, cough drops and bottled water. Not pictured: inhaler.

I am SO ready to be over this case of bronchitis. Here's hoping the antibiotics kick in soon. It would be really nice to sleep through the night without waking up every two hours to take yet another cough remedy. I'm running out of options.

When I saw Mocha Momma's photo retrospective yesterday, I immediately knew I wanted to do something similar. Then I started looking through my 1,333 photos from the past twelve months and I could see I had a daunting task on my hands.

I obviously needed an angle, so I decided that I would stick mainly to posting photos of friends and family from last year. I immediately realized that in many cases I had done a rather poor job of photographing people while I was out and about (one of my birthday parties is represented solely by two photographs of cupcakes), but that will be a resolution for 2012.

Here's my sister and my nephew at his sixth birthday party celebration. That's a balloon sword—get your mind out of the gutter.

I did a lot of volunteer work for The Animal Rescue Alliance (T.A.R.A.) all year long. This was a St. Patrick's Day parade. That's my long-time friend Amy on the right.

Mission Pub Crawl! A bunch of my favorite tweeps meeting up to start the all-day extravaganza.

Hanging out in Rockwall, Texas with Kay and Kathie from my Soroptimist Club.

All-day Dune game with my gaming peeps, including A Librarian and Kanga.

Dinner, drinks and animated conversation with Guavalicious and Cagey.

Getting ready for the Urban Photo Safari with Susan.

Relaxing with some of the Regular Girls on a hotel balcony in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Eventually there were seventeen of us vacationing together.

More Regular Girls hangout action in Eureka Springs. By this point in the trip, we had all pretty much foregone makeup, but I think everyone looks beautiful.

My San Diego BlogHer roommates: Siel, Liz and Cagey.

Sarah and Suebob, two more of my favorite BlogHers.

Doing a jigsaw puzzle at BlogPaws with Melanie and Stacey.

Sarah again and Laurie, catching up with me during an unforeseen extension of my trip to Washington, D.C.

Let's not forget (wo)man's best friend: my new dog, Toby!

Another game night with the usual suspects. This time including Vince and Nuke.

My husband and his Aunt Pat at their family reunion.

I tried to stick as much as possible with photos I hadn't posted before, so if you expected to see yourself but didn't, you've probably been immortalized in an earlier post this year. Or I forgot to photograph you. Sorry.

Looking back over all of these photos of social activities—which represented a fairly small percentage of the actual social events of the year—it's easy to see why I felt so very busy in 2011. I took four trips (not including business trips), attended dozens of parties, met up with friends for dinners and happy hours, and played lots of board games. That doesn't even count lunches, holidays and the many other opportunities I had to spend time with my favorite people.

If I can take away one thing from 2011, it's that I'm incredibly fortunate to have SO MANY wonderful people in my life. I might not see all of them often, but the connections are there.

Thanks to all of you for your support and friendship in 2011. Looking forward to an even better 2012!

I haven't been posting because I'm doing almost nothing worth mentioning unless you're one of the animals in my household. If you're my dog or one of my cats, your world has been amazing since I got off work last Friday because of all the petting and snuggling and extra treats and unexpected midday naps.

Which is to say that I'm not leaving the house very much, nor am I accomplishing anything of note. I may or may not have worn the same pair of yoga pants for two straight days.

I have taken a lot of photos like this:

If you look closely, you'll see three sleeping pets in the photo. The dog is on the couch to Dr. Jones' right and there's another cat (either Trillian or Velvet) inside the wicker cat furniture.

I've been cruising around a lot on Facebook and Twitter, but not posting very much because I have little to contribute.

However, I would like for someone to explain this Facebook ad:

Why is Kansas City hyphenated and oddly capitalized? Why is "new" capitalized? Why is "everyday" only one word in this context? What the heck is that whale thing and where in Kansas City is it?

The only good thing about the ad is that it reminded me of the whale sculpture at the Kansas City Zoo that you can walk through, and since the weather is unseasonably warm this week, I'm considering going to the zoo between now and Monday. If you'd like to go with me, so much the better! Email me and we'll make a plan.

Today my main goal is to shower and go to Target for laundry products. Maybe I'll even do laundry once I have those products. I might even clean the kitchen.

Despite the way I'm making it sound, I'm actually enjoying myself a great deal. It's nice to have this kind of downtime to recharge. When I go back to work next Tuesday, I'll be ready for anything!

The story really starts on Saturday. I spent part of the day transporting cats for The Animal Rescue Alliance (T.A.R.A.) and then settled in at home to make dinner.

We decided it was time to give our cats their gifts: a new scratching pad that looks like a DJ turntable and three toy mice that I'd been holding back from the last package I bought.

They liked the turntable okay, but they LOVED the mice. I should have saved myself the money and just given them the mice and some catnip.

We hosted my dad for a low-key Christmas Eve dinner: enchiladas, Mexican rice and Harvey Wallbanger cake. I had the dishes washed and all signs of the meal tidied away by 8:30 p.m.

I woke up early on Christmas Day with thoughts of the foods I needed to prepare in the morning swirling in my head. Since gifts are no longer the focus of our Christmases, food has stepped up in importance, and I was in charge of quite a few dishes this year.

By the time I was ready to leave for my sister's house, I had made pomegranate salsa and the dough for dinner rolls and gathered up the ingredients for baked brie with pecans and brown sugar and a pot roast. Oh, and the spicy saltines and Harvey Wallbanger cake I'd made the day before.

I packed everything into my little car along with six folding chairs, the wrapped gifts for my niece and nephew, and Toby's bed and blanket. Last but not least, I put Toby himself in a carrying crate and we set off on the 30 minute drive.

As usual, Toby whined the entire time we were in the car, but I just cranked up the heavy metal Christmas songs on House of Hair as I drove. When we arrived, Toby was a little clingy for the first hour or so, but he settled down eventually. I was glad I'd brought his bedding.

We got there right in the middle of the kids' ferocious gift-opening extravaganza. I procured a pecan cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee and sat back to watch the whirlwind. Both kids loved the gifts I got them. I bought each of them a cool kite: a pteranodon-shaped one for my nephew and a koi for my niece. I got my nephew a knitted hat that looks like a sock monkey and my niece a selection of patterned knee-socks.

My nephew also got a lot of Star Wars stuff this year. It's his favorite right now.

When all that began to die down, it was time for me to shape the roll dough. I ended up making two pans of rolls and they smelled amazing.

I also splurged on some Shatto butter to serve with the rolls and it was worth every penny. I actually forgot to bring the butter with me, but I texted my husband and he retrieved it from our fridge before he came over.

We snacked all day long in lieu of lunch and my sister made me one bellini after another. Fortunately, she was serving them in small glasses. I started preparations for the pot roast about five hours in advance and it cooked for four hours.

There was a big concern that their oven might not make it all day long. It has a thermostat problem, but fortunately it did not seem to mind the 275°F temperature that the roast required. Later on it did shut off while we were trying to warm up some casseroles, but we made do with the gas grill and the microwave.

For some reason I stopped taking photos after the rolls came out of the oven, but it was a lovely, relaxing day filled with pleasant conversation and delicious foods.

After dinner, I played a game of Munchkin with my aunt and cousin. I think I'm going to need to own a copy of that game now. The hard part would be deciding which version.

True to form, Toby whined all the way home. We were asleep by 10:30 p.m. and stayed that way well past 7:00 a.m. this morning except for a 4:30 a.m. potty break for Toby.

I should have most of this week and next Monday off work, so I'm looking forward to reading, getting my home office cleaned up, but mostly taking it easy.

Hope you had a great holiday as well!

Despite the fact that funds are low this year, I'm having a rather nice holiday season already. My extended family agreed well in advance that no one would be buying gifts for other adults, so I got the shopping for my niece and nephew done pretty quickly.

Now I just need to wrap everything and take it over to my sister's house early so my car won't be so overloaded on Christmas Day.

At my office, our 2011 "holiday card" is this website, that features amusing videos of one of our associate creative directors (who is also a comedian) doing "good." Every day this week, he has spent literally all day on camera, riffing on whatever people suggest using the Twitter hashtag #randomgood.

I haven't had a lot of time to watch, but the highlight of almost every day has been a jam with him on banjo, one of our techical directors on guitar and one of our finance department ladies singing classics like "Stand by Me." We have an open floorplan, so almost everyone in the office can hear it live if they're not watching the stream. There's applause throughout the building when they finish a song. I don't know how many people outside our office are watching, but I think it's been good for office morale if nothing else.

I'm planning a cookie exchange party this Sunday that will, as tradition dictates, include viewings of selected holiday DVDs such as "Christmas Vacation," "Elf" and "Bad(der) Santa" at the end. I suppose I should figure out what kinds of cookies I want to make. I hadn't really given that part much thought yet.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being rather excited that my office will be closed from December 24th through January 2nd. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't have to work if something comes up, but even if that happens I'll still be spending a nice, long week at home.

So what I'm saying is that I'm looking forward to the holidays. This year promises a perfect balance of friends, family, food and entertainment.

What do you have planned?