Review of 2008

I saw this and took if from Amiee's blog who stole it from Nicole, who stole it from Aly.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Held a loved one's hand as they died (human)

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? For the most part I did, could have done better, but made an effort. Yes, I have made some for 2009

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Tina, my sister-in-law, - Isabella and Peter; Karina - Harper; Karen - Aiden; Kathleen - Thomas

4. Did anyone close to you die? Uncle Aldo (Jan.); Aunt Cathy (Jan); Dad (July)

5. What countries did you visit? Didn't leave the good old USA

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? It would have been no stress or really big worries, but since that's already been completely blown out of the water and we're only 15 days in to the New Year, I'm thinking of something else.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April - we sold our condo finally; May 10 - Our housewarming party and official opening of the tiki bar; May 19 - 1st Anniversary (along with May 17 and May 31 the two weekends we celebrated it); July 2 - Dad passed; Sept 5-7 - Las Vegas

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Doing things with family and friends and attending their celebrations

9. What was your biggest failure? Not controlling my temper enough

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nope

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Jason's - he was there for me every step of the way; went and still goes above and beyond with helping with my family

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? A friend (let's call her Blue) who had a friend (let's call her yellow) whose mother was dying, so Blue wrote a letter to the mother, which was sweet and about how Blue loved her and would miss her, etc. - which is a nice thing - but then had the nerve to give it to Yellow and ask her to read it to her mother (yellow's mother) saying that it was too hard for her (Blue) to deal with all that was going on - umm, I think that Yellow whose mother was dying was finding it just a bit harder than the Blue who wrote the letter - duh, some people don't think.

14. Where did most of your money go? Mortgage, home improvements, etc.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? The Las Vegas trip and splitting the pot in one poker tournament and coming in second in another poker tournament

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? My husband says it's John Rich's "Raising McCain"

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) Happier or Sadder? Happier. (b) Thinner or Fatter? fatter (c) Richer or Poorer? Poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? relaxing and hanging with loved ones

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? stressing and feeling angry

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2008? Visiting and partying with friends and family

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? always and forever with Jason

22. How many one-night stands? NONE

23. What was your favorite TV program? Samantha Who?

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Hate is such a strong word - I would say I have a strong disliking of a person that I didn't have last year at this time

25. What was the best book you read? I don't think I can pick just one - it's too hard, there are so many good series that I read/started to read in 2008 that I can't pick - I read about 96 books in 2008 - The Rachel Morgan series, The House of Night Series, Twilight series, etc.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

27. What did you want and get? New camera

28. What did you want and not get? Tennis bracelet

29. What was your favorite film of this year? Maybe Ironman?

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? We went out with friends and had drinks and prepared for our trip to Las Vegas which was a continuation of my birthday - which I celebrate for a whole month now :-) oh, and 43

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? My loved ones not dying and them and others staying in good health

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? It was just there - nothing new - boring

33. What kept you sane? Jason, Family, Friends

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

35. What political issue stirred you the most? The presidential race itself and the banning of gay marriages

36. Who did you miss? My dad and my sister

37. Who was the best new person you met? Carrie and Kim - to great women

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Things don't always go as planned, you need to be strong to get through things, but sometimes you can let go and there really is someone who is there to help you, pick you up and love you no matter what. I also learned and am still trying to learn that if a person doesn't like you for no reason you gotta just say F**k it and go on - go on being the person you are, especially when you are nice and there is no reason for this person not to like you except she's a psycho, bi-polar girl - maybe she's jealous ? :-)

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow - I'm still looking for it

40. What are your resolutions for 2009? Continue to try and be a better person, learn to curb the "tone" of my voice, be there for my friends and family, try and make a difference in other people's lives, live a friendly and caring life, most of all be me and love me

New Year's Eve 2009

Oh, yes, by the way, if you want to see pictures from our New Year's Eve trip to Canaan Valley, WV please use the link on the right side to my Picasa web album - I posted the pictures there. Let me know if the link doesn't work or you can't find it and I'll try and add it to this post. Below are two video's of the snow storm Kim (who recently moved here from Dallas though grew up in Schenectady, NY was driving), Jason and I went through in order to get to the grocery store and back. At the end of one of the video's Jason is saying something about a good thing and then it ends - what he was commenting on was that he thought is was that one of the good thing about Kim not being able to see that far in front of her was the fact that she couldn't see the 30 ft drop from the side of the road - Now, that made Kim feel all that much better about driving - NOT! Men! I hope that everyone has a wonderful and exciting 2009!

Started the big WW on Saturday

So, Jason and I started with Weight Watchers on Saturday. We had said we would after the beginning of the year and we actually followed through! Woo Hoo! It is so cute, Jason is really enthusiastic about it so it is making me even more into it. I actually probably would have continued to drag my feet about getting around to go to a meeting and had even said that I might not really start until Monday after attending the first meeting on Saturday. But, Jason was adamant about his starting the program (I am trying my hardest not to call it a diet - since that bring such negative thoughts to my head). He was like, you go ahead and do what you want, but I am most definitely starting on Saturday. At first he was a little leery about it when we walked since at that time he was the only guy, but by the time the meeting started about 5 other guys had also walked in, so he was more comfortable. Once we got to the point where we were told about how many points we would have he was relaxed and happy about how many points he had - me, maybe, not so much - I have about 10 less than he does - grrr.

We went to the store to stock up on all that we would need to make it. Jason made sure he had the WW Food Companion book with us and the points builder ruler and was very into making sure we were getting good food. He was also making sure at the same time that the majority was food which was good for us as well. We didn't go out on Saturday night, after the meeting, visiting with my mom for about 4 hours and grocery shopping, we still had to get in most of our points for the day, so we had to stay home and eat, relax and read our materials.

On Sunday, we started the day off right with a wonderful breakfast and then I went to visit with mom - whose doing ok - still a bit negative, but we keep encouraging her to build up her strength and remind her that she was just ill and not dieing, which she has in her head for some reason. I convinced Jason to come up and pick me up at the rehab center and we then went over to a friends house to watch the Steelers/Chargers game. What a wonderful game that was! Go Steelers!!! We watched what we ate and stuck with water for drinking. Now we both know that we can use points for alcohol if we want, but we are trying to stay away from that for at least the first week so we can get the whole change of eating concept in before making it harder and more tempting (munchies after drinking).

So as we move ahead, we are optimistic and are generally preparing ourselves for the challenge ahead of us - um, I mean wonderful life changing experience ahead of us.

Just don't get it

I want to comment on something that has been bothering me for quite a while.... What is up with the people who disembark from the MARC train with me every morning at Union Station? Now, I'm not talking about everyone, just certain folks. The ones I just don't get are the regular riders who know the platforms and, ok, I'm sorry, even those who aren't regular riders and don't know the platforms. Most of the platforms at US have these big round cement columns down them - all the way down the platform. If you get off the train and look down the platform even just a little bit you see them and you can see that they go on down the platform. The people who I don't get are the people who see these, or even if they walk up on one and then have to go around it, proceed to go right back into the path of the next column which they then have to merge back into the other commuters who are walking to the side of them and then go back around the column and then back right into the same path for the next round. I can see if you are trying to pass a slower person in the walk through area so you step over into this short "passing" area, but what I don't get is the people that just walk that way - in, out, in, out. Obviously from my writing you can tell I just don't get it!! :-)

Let Freedom Ring...

I may be a little behind on this but saw it and wanted to support the cause. As you may know a number of states voted to ban gay marriage, something I definitely don't agree on. While I do see where people might have a problem with it from a religious standpoint and the fact of churches marrying gays, I do not see where these couple can not be united by a justice of the peace (government official) and be given recognition as their partner's husband/wife. Gay unions should not be viewed as sub par. There is supposed to be a separation of church and state in this country. This is just hate!

I found a way to show my disagreement with what happened via first going here to "WTF Have I Done" Julie's blog and then going to visit with Kayla and Rufus on their mom's blog "the state that i am in" here and after seeing Erin showing her support on her blog with her post pointing me to "Diary of a Modern Matriarch" here (where you too may go to show your support if you'd like). So, this is what I think of this ban...




P.S. Do me a favor and ignore the bitten-down finger nail and the profound need for some hand lotion, just take in the true sentiment of the picture :-)

Ok, these are two of the best Speak-Outs:
and

Halloween 2008

Another Halloween and I have to say I really enjoyed myself. It is Jason's favorite holiday and he always wants to go all out and I must say I am a little scared by this and in normal fashion not totally into something someone else is totally obsessively into, but this year I did make steps towards embracing Jason's enthusiasm for the Halloween holiday.

We spent the evening in DC and met up with friends with the understanding that we were pretty much just going to one bar and not doing a lot of moving around as the bar we picked was near the beginning of the annual "Nightmare on M Street" event. We chose Buffalo Billiards which when we got there at about 7:30 we were the only one's in costume, but this eventually, like all other bars in the neighborhood didn't last long. We did make one venture out down to M Street to attempt going into Sign of the Whale because we were told there was no line - I don't know who told that lie as the line was all the way down the block when we got there and wasn't moving, so we returned to BB, where we were able to avoid the line getting in there since we had already been there. It was pretty cool, I must say, to walk around though and see everyone's costume and join in the weird camaraderie of the evening.

I want to thank our friend Ray for his advice on going to the website vampfans.com to order my fangs for the evening - they were awesome - looked good, felt pretty natural, didn't keep falling out and best of all didn't make me keep gagging with a gag reflex - woo hoo. We had done a "dry run" of our costumes by attending a halloween party the weekend before - another great time - and I had to try and use the store bought plastic ones after the fang kit I bought at the costume store completely sucked.

As you can tell by the last picture in the bunch it was a "fun" night and I was done in by the end of it. Luckily we stayed right down the block at the Hotel Madera
a Kimpton property where they allow pets (actually treat them well - next time we might go for the pet pampering package) which rocked because we were able to bring Lucie and Kira with us, so it was almost like going home at the end of the evening. The room was wonderful, the staff great - they said the dogs were good - didn't hear a peep - when I'm quite sure they did bark their heads off at least a little bit - I'm thinking everyone around us had to have been out enjoying their evening too :-)

I almost can't wait for next year....

Baby's got a Brand New Pair of Shoes

This morning I'm riding up the escalator at Metro Center standing on the right hand side, of course, and this older lady - I'd say in her late 50's early 60's walks on by me on the left hand side. Now, that just happening shows how lazy and pathetic I really am, but to top it all off she's walking by me up the escalator stairs in a pair of heels - I'd say about a 2in heel - and there I stand on the right with my brand-new flat Naturalizer shoes. Something is definitely wrong with this picture. Me in a pair of flat Naturalizers and this older lady sporting some stylish 2in heels. I have to say though I do love my new shoes. Just bought them last night after another agonizing day in my ankle boots which have a two inch heel. I loved these boots when I first bought them two or three years ago - they were so comfortable, perhaps it's because they are old that that is why they hurt now and maybe all that I have to do is buy a new pair of boots which will have padding in the sole area. Yay - more shopping!!!

I actually got two pairs last night one flat pair (the Cresson) and the other, I went out on a ledge here, a 1 1/4 in hee (the Gaston) l!! Aren't they cute? Very, very comfortable!!

Women Please Get Out and Vote

Preview for the 2004 HBO movie Iron Jawed Angels. A very powerful movie which all women should watch to remind us what had to be done in order to give us our right to vote. A reason for all of us to exercise this right!

Register to Vote - DC & VA Deadline Today - MD Oct 14

Saw this on Julie's http://juliezilla.blogspot.com/ blog and had to copy. Please remember to vote and register to do so in time.