Comments (7) Do you ever feel pressure to act a certain way around certain people? Maybe it is not a conscious thing, but after the fact, you realize you were falling into a pattern with your behaviors. You were most likely falling in sync with their behaviors.
Sometimes it’s a good thing… sometimes it’s not. But it helps you realize who brings out the best in you… and who doesn’t.
Sorry for being vague.
Happy New Year! I will post my mock New Year’s Resolution list tomorrow.
Steven and I finally arrived in Kansas City! And there were no blunders in the airport. (Okay, that’s a lie. We were all on the plane ready to take off, and they made all the passengers get off the plane, walk to another terminal and load onto another plane. Whatever.)
We are having a Christmas dinner and opening gifts with Steven’s family today. My mother-in-law came up to me this morning to tell me merry Christmas and that there were going to be some extra guests during our dinner.
“Great!” I said, “Are they people I know?”
“Yes,” she answered mysteriously.
“Oh,” I replied, somewhat worried. “Who are they?”
“Your parents!”
“What?!”
So apparently my parents and brother are driving to Kansas City (from Iowa) to pick up a car and decided to surprise me by joining us for dinner. Those schemers!
What a great surprise though!
For Christmas, Steven had a star named after me near the Leo constellation! He named the star Ilax.
Hmm, do you think he secretly hoped this would prompt me to finally change my last name? We’ll see… someday I’ll have time to go to the DOT and Social Security office…
I’ve been trying to research the leo constellation, and I think you can see it in the northern hemisphere in March, near Ursa Major (aka “The Big Dipper”). The star’s actual coordinate numbers are RA10h44m37.02s D10°52’50.49″. Does anyone know what that means? Nope? Me either.
But you can guess what I will be doing come March!
What gift were you most excited to give someone this holiday season? How did they react when they opened it?
It’s kind of silly for me to ask this, because personally, the only person I have given gifts to so far is Steven. We haven’t seen his family or mine yet.
But, I really love giving gifts, so I wanted to hear all of your stories before it got too late into January and you forgot!
Steven has been talking about a universal remote they sell at his office for months now. He anxiously awaited its December in-store release so he could play with it.
As soon as it came in the store, he gave me rave reviews of how much he liked it, how cool the interface was, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, the thing is a few hundred dollars, and I couldn’t afford to buy it for him.
I told him he wouldn’t be getting it and he didn’t seem too disappointed. He knows I am not rolling in the riches!
But then his brother and parents decided to go in on it with me for his birthday. So I bought it in secret (which was hard since I bought it where he works!).
We were planning on giving it to him together last Saturday – on his birthday. But our flight never left, and we went back home. On Sunday, his parents told me to go ahead and give it to him. He was so surprised and happy to get it! He spend the whole day programming it. He even brought it to bed with him. Ha ha.
I am happy too – now we don’t have to use 4 separate remotes to watch a movie!
Tell me if you can relate.
Sometimes, when Steven and I are eating out, we’ll order a cookie to split after the meal. A few times, I’ve told him “I’ll cut the cookie in half. Then, since I made the cut, you get to pick which side you want to eat first!”
He’ll pick his side of the cookie and I’ll say, “I knew you were going to pick the bigger side!”
Then he gives me a strange look and asks why he should care which side of the cookie he gets.
Apparently, Steven never had to split anything with his brother? For some reason, I can remember arguing with my siblings about: who got the biggest piece of “fill in the blank” treat, who got the last piece of “fill in the blank” treat, and why did “fill in the blank” sibling get “fill in the blank” treat and I didn’t?
Yeah, we were probably big brats, but this must be a common argument among siblings?
I think I saw heart-shaped Valentine’s Day balloons in a Walgreens this morning.
Barf.
And did anyone else notice the “Didn’t get what you want for Christmas? Come to our After-Christmas sale!” and “Time to take off that holiday weight!” ads on the television yesterday?
Hi. While I am opening my presents, I don’t want to see an ad about “not getting what I want.” And I definitely don’t want to see an ad about “losing weight” while I am working on my third piece of pumpkin pie.
It just seems like every year, advertising gets pushed forward. Soon enough, we will be seeing Christmas decorations in the stores in July!
When will we get a break?
Happy Holidays from me and the boys…
… who will probably remain in this position all day long.
We plan to spend the day eating fettucine alfredo, rolls, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and sugar cookies (jealous of our amazing menu?) while watching movies on our new 50″ plasma. It should be a nice, relaxing day.
Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope your day is filled with fun and laughter!
While Steven and I were in the car today, I asked him what books he read as a child.
“Did you read Clifford and the Bernstein Bears?” I inquired.
“Yeah,” he replied. “And when we were really little we read those Little Golden Books as well.”
“Oh!” I said excitedly, “I read those too! Did you ever chew on the edges of the book?”
“What?! You are the only person I know who chews on books!”
“The edges tasted like foil!” I explained. (huh?)
“People don’t eat foil!”
Ha ha ha. When he said that, I was drinking a bottle of water and I spit all the water out onto my lap. I wonder if the people in our next destination (Best Buy) wondered why a grown woman looked like she just peed her pants.
I also wonder if those books still have bite marks on the edges. Ha ha ha.
“I’m gray… inside the suitcase it’s gray… they’ll never know I’m here!”
Truthfully, I took this picture yesterday before Steven and I left for the airport, but planned on posting it today, as sort of a filler while Steven and I are on vacation in Kansas City.
But we never made it. And here is one of those “wow, I am happy it didn’t happen to me” stories for you.
I was paranoid all week about our 3:30 pm flight to Kansas City. I worried about the weather, about the long lines through security, about us getting there on time. So I made sure we left the house early. Check-in and security turned out to be a breeze – maybe 10 minutes total! Wow!
Our flight already had a 45 minute delay when we got there. Then it was 35 minute more. Then an hour. Then another hour. Until it was finally set to leave at 7:15. Then it was canceled and they told us there are no other flights until Monday because of bad weather.
We fought for a refund on our flight (“we don’t give refunds for flights canceled due to weather”). We had to run around the airport to retrieve our check-in luggage (they said it was probably on its way to Kansas City – uh, if we can’t get there, how can our luggage?!). We tried to figure out if we could rent a car and drive there.
We came home, defeated, 11 hours later. Steven had the crappiest birthday ever, and this will probably be the crappiest Christmas ever. We still don’t know what we are going to do. We both feel very sad. We were really looking forward to seeing his family.
Today is Steven’s birthday and I am really excited to give him the two gifts I got him – a watch case engraved with his initials, and a watch:
Steven doesn’t like surprises. I love surprises. So every year, I buy him something not on his wish list, in hope that he will start to love surprises like I do.
And every year, he guesses what the thing is I bought him. Even though it wasn’t on his list. This year was no different! How does he do it? Am I that obvious?
Oh well, I still enjoy pretending that I was really clever and bought him something he would never figure out.
Happy Birthday, Steven.
Hi! I'm Kim, a 34-year-old living in Chicagoland with my husband, Steven, and our cats, Khali, Apollo, and Starbuck. I work in the design industry (architecture), follow a vegan lifestyle, am addicted to running, and am an ACE certified personal trainer (working at Essential Fitness, LLC ("Efit"))! I write about a variety of topics, and consider this a "life" blog - a place I can share anything that's on my mind. Please visit the "About" page to get a better idea of who I am! :-)
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