Thanksgiving

For the last three years at Thanksgiving, Fiance and I have taken a trip up to San Francisco/Napa Valley. We spend Thanksgiving Day eating at Moose's - our favorite SF restaurant - and lounging around the hotel or window shopping in the familiar but different streets. We like the chilly air, scarves, and hot mochas that make us feel the sense of expectation the holidays always bring. On Friday, we traditionally make our way to Napa Valley for a day of wine tasting. We love wine. Of all kinds. And inevitably we join a wine club - which has helped to keep our wine cellar stocked over the years.

This year, because of our work schedules and the upcoming wedding (ie massive financial drain) , we decided to forego this wonderful, romantic trip. Instead we are staying home for the first time in our dating history.

Part of the reason we started taking this trip is that, despite the fact that Thanksgiving is traditionally a family time, neither of us have family in the area. And with the crowds that rush the airports on the days surrounding Thanksgiving (or any holiday), it's just not worth it to try to fight our way back East like we do for Christmas.

So it will just be the two of us. And one massive turkey dinner. Personally, I think we're up to the challenge.

Rather than cooking the turkey from scratch, we're getting a precooked one from Albertsons that will only require 2 hours of reheating. Along with the precooked turkey comes precooked mashed potatos, stuffing, and gravy. We're planning to eat the potatos, but the stuffing and gravy will go immediately into the fridge and on "standby mode." I plan to prepare chestnut stuffing and chardonnay gravy myself (the Albertson's ones will come out if I screw it up), cranberry relish from my mother's receipe, and green bean casserole from my grandmother's recipe. In addition, David has requested we also have corn, which will come from a can. And of course we will have pie for dessert - either pumpkin or pecan depending on what hasn't sold out when we pick up our turkey on Wednesday.

For lunch on Thanksgiving day, we're making butternut squash soup. Moose's serves it every year, and though I don't like butternut squash in general, it is always so creamy and perfect that I find myself looking forward to it. So rather than go without, I will attempt to replicate this tasty treat.

I'm a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself, and David is practically gourmet. By our powers combined, I anticipate we will turn out a feast fit for a king. Worst case scenario: I will heat up the frozen pizza in our freezer. Worst WORST case scenario: Everything will be so incredibly delicious I will eat my weight in food and not fit into my wedding dres.

Pulled

To think that I am the only person who feels pulled in a million directions today would be foolish. It is the American way - the very challenge of adulthood. Balancing wants, needs, desires, and obligations. Walking the tightrope between sanity and responsibility. Stretching ourselves as far in one direction as we can without having to let go of anything else.

But the fact remains that - alone or not - I feel pulled in a million directions today. And since this is my blog space, I'm going to talk about me. So here goes.

I devote over an hour every morning to my daily exercise. And while an hour is not a large percentage of my time, it does represent a significant percentage of my total daily energy. I'm hugely proud of my newly established ability to run anywhere from 5.5 to 6.5 miles, and it is only through a committment to regular repetition that I am able to do it. Despite my blog title, which is more a commentary on how I feel about life than anything else, I'm not actually in training for anything. I'm just OCD about exercise. Mostly for weight issues.

I work until 7:00pm five nights a week. By the time I fight traffic to get home, it's 7:30pm. Work is going very very well, and I'm quite happy with my job. But it sucks up my daylight and ability to get anything else done during business hours. I find myself frustrated with lack of time I have left to do anything else.

We don't eat out during the week. Ever. We just don't. For many reasons, including but not limited to my weight issues (those pop up a lot), the frugal nature of my fiance, and our combined desire for longevity and health. This includes lunches, which we dutifully prepare and pack every evening in preparation for the next day. So when I arrive home from work, we immediately set about cooking, eating, cleaning up, and preping the next day's food. Even when we have simple meals, it takes usually somewhere around an hour and a half to get all of this accomplished.

Bedtime is somewhere between 10pm-11pm. It has to be, since I plan to get up and run 10k in the morning and work a full day immediately after. If I've done my math correctly, that means I have exactly 1 luxurious hour to do "whatever I want" before winding down for bed.

Whatever I Want:
Planning a wedding
Christmas shopping for our family and friends (50 people)
Nurturing my relationship with Fiance
Reading a few chapters of my book
Watching my favorite TV shows/movies
Talking to my friends or relatives on the phone
Returning emails
Reading my mail

It's no wonder, really, that I feel like one thing is spilling over into the next. That I sit at work and am distracted by all the wedding stuff that should have gotten done or am trying to remember which Christmas presents I'm supposed to pick up at lunch or on my way home.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't FEEL pulled in a million directions. I AM pulled in a million directions.

I'm not having a pity party. I don't have children to juggle, and I'm not starving or struggling financially. I'm very grateful that the choices I've made have led me here because, all in all, here is a pretty happy place to be. I have a fiance who loves me and who I adore, a fabulous job, and a great apartment. I just wish I had more TIME. Time to stop and enjoy it all just a little bit more. To luxuriate in the here and now of life, instead of running from one thing to the next. I feel like I must miss out on a lot of things because I just don't have the time or energy left to even look at them.

A Fun Survey

A Survey

1. Explain what ended your last relationship.
Moving to California. At least intially. And then there was some on-again-off-again long distance communication. Ultimately he met someone else, but now that I have some perspective on the matter, I realize that it was practically inevitable that one of us would. It just happened to be him first.

2. When was the last time you shaved?
This morning, thankfully. Before that it had been about five days. I hate to shave. Hate it I say.

3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?
Finishing up my 5.5 mile jog and wondering my my iPod was acting funny.

4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Pouring fat-free dressing over my lunch salad and thinking about how tired of salad I am. And probably checking my email, which I did right before coming here.

5. Are you any good at math?
Pretty good. (I scored higher in math than in English on my SATs) I'm VERY good at using the tools that do math FOR me though, like Excel. Excel is probably my favorite computer program.

6. Your prom night?
Sucked. Big time. I went with a guy who liked me but who I only liked as a friend, and he spent the whole night pouting while I spent the night trying to avoid him without being obvious. I was immature and childish, my dress didn't fit right, and my hair didn't look good. I shudder at those memories, both of how I acted and how I looked.

7. Do you have any famous ancestors?
Tale to tell is that the I'm related to THE Captain Morgan on my mother's side, whose mother's maiden name was Morgan. Fun Fact: Captain Morgan is rumored to have been a woman.

8. Have you had to take a loan out for school?
No. Not unless we're counting credit card usage. I had a full tuition scholarship.

9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile?
MySpace is the devil.

10. Last thing received in the mail?
A Hickory Farms catalog, which I am embarrassed to admit I read cover to cover. I love catalogs!

11. How many different beverages have you had today?
Two: Water after my run and Coffee all morning. Ahh, the healthfulness of it all!

12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machines?
Ever? Sure... especially if I've called more than once and not gotten through. Or if calling in the first place was an obligation and leaving the message will get me out of having to call back. And sometimes when I just call friends to say Hi, I leave a message saying I'm thinking about them. Because I am.

13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
Amy Grant. I was in 4th grade and a friend took me.

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
Sometimes. I try not to break the surface layer of sand here in LA, though. It's dirty and you never know what you might accidentally uncover. Some things are better left where they are, and ignorance is bliss.

15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had?
Wisdom teeth removed, though it wasn't nearly as painful as I had heard. I think my oral surgeon was a miracle worker. I had the whole thing done under local anesthetics instead of general.

16. What is out your back door?
A small slab of concrete that serves as our balcony and a window box "planted" with fake flowers. There used to be real ones in there until I killed about three batches - complete and total neglect apparently does that to plants - and stuck some fake ones in there as a joke to get David to stop teasing me about my brown thumb of death. It's been weeks. They're still there. Joke might possibly be on me at this point.

17. Any plans for Friday night?
We fly to Detroit tonight on the redeye for an all-day Friday funeral. I'd put money on being in bed as soon as possible Friday night, since we'll be emotionally and physically drained. Usually, however, Friday nights involve drinking a bottle of wine and watching movies.

18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair?
I do. It has body and texture and looks shiny from all the sea salt.

19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns?
Once. For Christmas. My friend Anne opened it and had about three kernels and then put the lid back on. When I packed up my Christmas stuff to drive back to college, I forgot it had been opened. I put the open tin on it's side in the back window of my car, which happened to be a convertible. On my first big turn of the drive, the lid came off and three kinds of popcorn spilled all over my back window well, which was made of cloth (part of the convertible top) and pretty deep. When I got to school, I was too tired to clean it up immediately, so I left it to clean later. Turned out to be a terribly bad idea, as the Texas sun, even in winter, melted the carmel popcorn into the cloth, making it impossible to remove. It stayed caked with carmel corn until I sold the car five years later.

20. Have you ever been to a planetarium?
I took an astronomy class in college that had a lab in the planetarium of the new Environmental Sciences building. It's the only class I've ever - EVER - gotten a C in.

21. Do you re-use towels after you shower?
I do.

22. Some things you are excited about?
Christmas. My upcoming wedding. The Honeymoon.

23. What is your favorite flavor of JELL-O?
Red, but only if I'm sick. And I like it kind of melty and soft, not hard and chunky. And Don't! put any fruit in my jello. I like to practically drink it, and chunks of any kind will ruin it.

24. Describe your key chain(s)?
I have a pink Coach locket keychain that David's sister gave me for Christmas and a chapstick holder with a Chapstick brand chapstick attached.

25. Where do you keep your change?
In a Casino bucket from Vegas that sits on David's dresser. We both dump into it.

26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people?
David's sister's wedding in August. I did a reading in church. Does that count?

27. What kind of winter coat do you own?
A long, black, wool dress coat. I wear it exactly once a year to Christmas mass in Detroit. Otherwise it never gets cold enough here to wear it. Sweaters are usually enough.

28. What was the weather like on your graduation day?
Hot and sticky.

29. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed?
Firmly closed. We only have air conditioning in the bedroom, so we like to keep it inside. Plus it keeps the monsters out.

If you've read this, feel free to consider yourself "tagged." :)

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