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Monday, 21 December 2009

  • The Joys of Working at Home

    The Mister: Hi! I'm home! How was your day? (Kisses on top of the head)

    Me: Oh, fine! It was crazy today. There was so much to do today I'm practically sweating!!!

    The Mister: Hmm. Did you get to shower?

    Me: No... did you hear me? It was insane today!

    The Mister: Oh. well you smell like a homeless person.

    (Well, you smell like a jerkface.)

    I think he's jealous that I spent the day in toe socks.



Saturday, 19 December 2009

  • Merry Christmas, Part Un

    Tonight we celebrate Christmas with the Asian half of our family here in Berkeley. The weather is depressingly sunny and nice... the only time it's depressing when it's warm is when you're trying to celebrate Christmas! We're headed to Minnesota on Christmas Eve for Christmas Part Deux... in my head this means "Prime Rib #2". Yessssss.

    Another perk of being married. 2 servings of prime rib.

    Here's what the tree of 2009 turned out like. It's been another great year.

     

    Hope you're having a good one!

Thursday, 17 December 2009

  • Selfishly Avoiding the Smart Phone

    I want a smart phone. The Mister wants a smart phone. We currently both have plain old phones, the kind that make phone calls and little much more. They serve us well; I rarely leave the house, and The Mister doesn't technically have business on the internet.

    When I leave the house, however, it is painfully obvious sometimes how I rush home so I can check my email. Sometimes it's just downright embarrassing. There is never a person that I talk to that says their iPhone isn't "the best thing ever". I know it's true! iPhones look sooo awesome!

    But, as someone on the outside (iPhone-less) looking in, I admit I don't love what the phone does to the general public. I'll often notice that The Mister and I will be enjoying a nice meal at a nice restaurant, and couples around us are staring down at their iPhones, rather than interacting with each other. Being the internet addicts that we are, I think that this will be us. At home, we rarely interact; we counteract this by having regular hikes and dinners out. But if we had internet at dinner? Ooo. I dunno.

    But, here's my biggest confession: I don't want to get an iPhone because I don't want my husband to have a smart phone. There. I said it. I don't think it would be fair for me to have one and for him not to (plus, he'd just use mine if we only had 1 between the two of us, and... I'm an only child and I don't like people touching my stuff).

    Sure, I could rationalize: my work resides on the internet. Email is an essential part of my work-life, while my husband has virtually no business on the internet. He uses the internet strictly for pleasure. And by pleasure I mean browsing ESPN for hours and hours on end.

    What would I do if we were sitting at dinner and there was a game on that my husband wanted to monitor? For sure he'd keep his phone out, keeping an eye on the score. And then I'd have to punch him in the face. And that's just not nice.

    We talk about getting smart phones almost every day. I know I definitely want to get one very soon. I just don't know. I don't want my husband to have one. Period. And so, when the conversation comes up, I always just kind of talk about how "maybe Verizon will pick up the iPhone next year", or "let's just see what happens with the Droid" or "Google is talking about making a phone that runs on VOIP, let's see where that goes..."

    I am mean.

    I don't even think we could even get them and "set boundaries" for them. I mean we're just not that couple. We don't sit there and set rules for each other. "No internet during dinner"... I mean come on, what are we, 5 years old? I'm not going to say that.

    I'm not even going to sit here and ask you if you have a smart phone and if you love it, because I know if you do, you love it. They are awesome, for sure! I just don't trust myself to be able to function as a normal person in public anymore if I get one though. I will be GLUED to that baby.

    Ohhh I want one. But just for myself. I am terrible.


Wednesday, 16 December 2009

  • Haters

    It's hard for me to read when someone says they "hate" something. (Do you like how I did that? I could have just said I hate it when people say they hate things.) The problem with saying that you hate things is that inevitably someone is alienated when they read that.

    In all honesty I hate a lot of things. Oh man, if I had a personal Twitter account, it'd probably be filled with crap I hate all day long. (The world is a better place because I don't have one!) And I can't say that I haven't been guilty of saying that "I hate this" or "I hate that". I mean, if you hate something obvious, like the smell of dog poo or the being constipated (wow. 2 poop references. what's up with that), then no biggie. But so often I hear of people saying they hate things that I know plenty of people out there actually like, even if they like it behind closed doors.

    I've followed and then subsequently unfollowed a lot of bloggers because they said they hated one too many things. I think there's a tactful way to express your distaste in something without actually coming out and saying that you hate it.

    I know I say a lot of weird things because this is my personal blog and I'm not terrified of alienating people here, so I'm not exactly tactful all the time here... but I know it's a bit of a different story when I'm blogging for work.

    What about you? Does it irk you when someone says they hate something (that you love, or know that there's a segment of the population out there that probably likes that thing)? Or do you live by the "to each his own" motto, and don't mind when someone says they hate something you like?

Monday, 14 December 2009

  • First Christmas Mailing

    I lazed out last year and didn't send out any Christmas cards; too bad, because any excuse to milk those wedding pics more would have been good. Alas, time escaped us. I really wanted to send out a Christmas letter this year and sat down to write it... a couple paragraphs in I realized that it seemed a bit strange reading a newlywed couple's letter. I LOVE Christmas letters, and I love hearing how our friends and family sum up their year. But as I typed it it all seemed a bit... gloaty. With no kids to talk about, and feeling a bit weird talking about what our parents are up to, it seemed like a Christmas letter talking about just the two of us seemed a bit short and... conceited.

    But, I still really wanted to send more than a regular card out. I was thumbing through an old Rachel Ray magazine at the gym (it was either that or a People magazine from over a year ago) and there were some resumes for interesting kitchen gadgets or something. I won't go into details because I guess it doesn't make sense unless you see it, and I can't find any online images.

    Anyhoo, I thought it might translate well into a Christmas card. I had grand visions of manila envelopes and mock presentation resume folders getting really into it, but in the end, I copped out and just bought whatever they had at Paper Source. I wasn't real explicit about the fact that it was a resume, so I wonder if people will even get it. I have no idea. We are weird so maybe they will just chock it up to our weirdness, even if they don't get it.

     

    I inkjetted it. The Gocco is gathering dust; I'll pull it out soon, I promise. The front is like a cover letter of sorts. The Mister put his stamp on it all by signing the front... and he thought that was pretty damn difficult. Men.



    I added little headshots and hammered them in with eyelets or grommets or whatever they're calling those things. A big part of the reason why I liked this resume idea is that the three of us (me and The Mister and Billie) didn't really take one epically great picture together this year, so the headshots did the trick. Billie is ridiculous, as usual. SHE LOVES getting her picture taken so she posed like a champ.





    I couldn't get away without a little gadget goodness, so I cut our last name out at the top of the "resume" part and added red paper behind it for dimension. I used my Cricut to do this. It didn't turn out as great as I thought it would; I used a funny font that didn't translate well WITH THE FIFTEEN LETTER LONG LAST NAME. Ugh. FIFTEEN. I went with Paper Source's Christmas color scheme (Red and Pool) because originality is not my game.



    I was having a hard time writing out a letter that talked about our goings on for the year, and this was a great copout. I went through my Google Calendar and picked the 12 most interesting things we did month-to-month and added them to our "Experience Highlights".

    That's pretty much it! I can't believe I got these out way before the 11th hour. It felt good to be on top of it for once.

    And in other news, the household around here is a bit of a bizzaro world. Billie was a horrible dog as usual this year, yet her stocking has been stuffed to the brim while ours remain empty. W. T. F.





    She'll sit there and stare at her stocking for 5 minutes at a time though at random intervals during the day, which is hilarious.

    Christmas is the best.

wifeylifey

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