I wasn’t expecting company today – thank you so much for stopping by!

Would you like to come in? The place is kind of a mess these days, but at least it’s warm.

Hungry? I can’t eat sweets, but I’d love to watch you eat my favorite cupcake of all time.

Lemonlicious. I am so going to eat 10,000 of these bad boys in February.

No? You just ate? Well, you have admirable self control my friend.

But I feel like I’m failing at my hostess duties if I can’t force you into consuming something. Can I get you a drink? I may have a strawberry Bellini lying around.

Mmm. Bellini-y.

There. That’s better.

Now that you’re nice and liquored up, can I get your opinion on something?

Please, let’s head into the living room. Right this way.

That's not our furniture. Or our clock. Or our giant TV. Or our freshly vacuumed floors.

Let’s talk about my fireplace.

I know. The dark green wall has GOT to go.

It’s a bit too tall for us to reach though – even with our extension ladder. (Although my husband has the brilliant/terrifying idea to set the ladder on the hearth and very carefully paint the tippy top of the ceiling. Yeah. No thanks.)

But don’t worry – we’ll figure SOMETHING out!

And we’ve already got the replacement paint color picked out. It’s called “Hinting Blue” from Sherwin Williams.

Oooh! Aaaaaah! The caption is twice as big as the swatch!

But let’s try to ignore the wall and focus on the fireplace.

Still not our furniture or giant clock. Man. The clock and the TV make the fireplace seem much less huge than it is. Perhaps I need to invest in a giant clock?

It’s lovely. But… it’s kind of hideous.

I mean, it’s SO HUGE. And so very… bricky.

If I had magical powers, I would paint the brick and mantle white, I’d add tall light-giving windows to either side of the fireplace – like this or this – and I’d find a classy way to mount a (bigger than our actual TV) flat screen TV above the mantle.

CLASSY, I said.

No, I really think it can be done in a classy way.

Okay, we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Anyway, since I am neither a successful coke dealer nor the inventor of actual Coke, the windows will have to wait.

Unless you have a brilliant and cost-effective way to insert windows into the side of a house?

No?

Too bad.

But I do still have dreams about painting the entire fireplace white.

What’s that?

No, I have no idea how to paint wood OR brick.

But! I have been pinning a lot of white fireplaces on Pinterest! Didn’t you know that if you pin enough images that you unlock a level where little robots climb out of your computer and do your every bidding?

I’m thinking that I can get away with just painting the mantle. You know, if I can figure out how to do that.  I’m envisioning a result like this.

Of course, our fireplace doesn’t have that same kind of fancy wood surround.

Those knick knacks are mine. Don't you love the artfully casual way they are strewn about the mantle and the hearth?

Sigh.

Maybe it will look less awful once the green paint is a distant memory?

What’s that?

Oh, you’re so sweet. Thank you for saying it isn’t that bad. I know one girl’s ugly fireplace is another girl’s beautiful focal point. I just need to find an easy, cost-effective way to DO THAT.

Well, it looks as though you’ve finished your drink. And I really should get back to work. Shall I show you out?

If you have any thoughts about what to do with this monstrosity, or any ideas for general fireplace sprucing, give me a ring.

It was lovely to see you. Thanks for stopping by! You are welcome in my home any time!

But recently he came home and told me, rather forlornly, that he has lost the will to sandwich.

This poses quite the problem, Internet. Because he needs to eat SOMETHING. And before you recommend the cafeteria, let me say: taking a lunch is both healthier and quicker – not to mention VASTLY more palatable – than eating in the cafeteria. Sometimes, on long shifts, he ends up eating two meals at the hospital. That means he DOES have to use the cafeteria. So he prefers that at least one meal includes something not packed with sodium. Plus, the cafeteria closes at some point during the evening, which is weird to me. Because so many people work overnight. And THEY NEED TO EAT TOO.

So. He needs a lunch that he can bring to work. And yet the sandwich – which is clearly FAILING HIM – seems to be the only food in the universe that fits all his criteria.

What criteria, you ask? Well, let me tell you.

He needs something that he can eat while sitting at a chair or while standing. (This fact makes me sad.)

He needs something that doesn’t require fussing. (Even adding salad dressing to a salad was rejected as too complicated for someone who is forced to scarf down lunch while standing in the back of a crowded conference room. Don’t even get me started on NEEDING A FORK.)

He needs something that goes well with pretzels/chips and Diet Coke – his sandwich pairings of choice.

He needs something that we can buy/make once a week, that will stay fresh (“fresh”) all week the way cold cuts do.

He is pretty conscious of his health, so he needs something low in sodium, not too crazy fat-wise, and low in sugar.

He (and I, thank you) would prefer that it not be crazy expensive. I mean, caviar is out already because of the No Flatware stipulation. But still.

And it would be awesome if the Savior Lunch Option didn’t require a lot of heavy-duty preparation. We’re talking about something that can be prepared once a week or so and frozen, or assembled hastily before dashing out the door.

See? Criteria up the ying yang.

I know some people have been doing those Bento box-style lunches for their kids. But is there a Man Friendly version that a) isn’t twee and b) can satisfy a Man Size appetite? All I can think of are cheese and meat cubes accompanied by some sort of nut… but that sounds suspiciously like a denuded sandwich.

Is there such a thing as a cold burrito? I don’t mean a burrito that is cold, but a burrito that is SUPPOSED TO be cold. But not a wrap.

Is there some kind of pulled-pork/chicken option that wouldn’t be too time-consuming or sloppy?

Am I overlooking some sort of non-bread food-delivery apparatus?

I am a person who takes eating Very Seriously (you no doubt sense my level of seriousness by the emphatic capitalization), and I cannot imagine forcing myself to choke down a sandwich I didn’t care for day after day.  So I really want to find my husband a workable and tasty solution.

This is what Pinterest was made for, I’m guessing.

I will certainly keep you posted. But in the meantime… Do you have any ideas?

* I woke up at 5:55 this morning to the sound of howling wind and shrieking rain. (Rain doesn’t technically shriek, but I felt like it needed a descriptor so as not to feel left out.) I drifted back to sleep only to be re-awakened at 6:20ish by a suspicious chair-tumbling-over-in-the-wind sound. My husband peered out the window and saw nothing. Once I woke up (considerably later, though under perplexing circumstances STAY TUNED), I checked out all of the windows and couldn’t see anything that would have made such a noise. The two chairs on our front porch were upright. So were the 10,000 chairs on the back deck. I didn’t spot any rogue chairs that had blown over from the neighbors’ either. So WHAT MADE THE NOISE?

* Remember a long time ago (or 60-odd words ago) when I told you I woke up for good under perplexing circumstances? I was jostled out of sleep about 10 minutes before my alarm went off (fist of anger!) by the sound of two people talking. It seemed like they were standing right below my window, in the space between my house and the neighbor’s. I listened very closely but I could not make out what they were saying. Never one to pass up an opportunity to eavesdrop on stinky pre-alarm wakers (Word really wants to correct “wakers” to “wankers,” which I appreciate, but no), I crept over to the window and peered out the side of the shade.

Nothing. No one was standing below my window, having a Seriously Early Conversation.

But I could still hear the voices: a strident, whining woman and a calmer man. So I looked out the front window, straining to see down the street on either side.

Nothing.

What was it, Internet? Was my neighbor having a Very Loud Discussion with a lady friend in the room directly opposite my bedroom? Was he listening to an annoying morning talk show at top blast while he showered? Was someone hiding under the eaves of my porch, trying to torment me into waking up before I wanted to? WAS IT GHOSTS?

* Speaking of my neighborhood. The house across the street and one to the right has frequent visitors. Or, if not visitors, frequent Car Overflow. A white pickup or a brown sedan or both are regularly parked along the curb in front of this house. Right in front of the sign that says “No Parking This Side of Street.”

It must be terrible to deal with BOTH Car Overflow AND sign illiteracy.

* A “friend” of mine has been behaving perplexingly. I met her three years ago. She’s the wife of my husband’s co-resident. She and I have been out together a handful of times and we’ve always gotten along well. Or so I thought. But she will usually promise to get together… and then I won’t hear from her for eight months. (This is not an exaggeration. We have TWICE gone eight months with nary an interaction.) It’s not for lack of trying on MY PART. I have sent text messages, Facebook messages, emails. (Not all at once. I’m not a crazy stalker type.) But when she doesn’t get back to me – and I mean that, she just never responds – I give up and figure well, she must not like me. Or she’s busy. Or whatever.

But recently, she called me. Out of the blue. And left a message that she wanted to catch up and come see the new house and oh, by the way, she had a new business venture and maybe could she get my help?

I called her back NO JOKE 30 minutes later. And I didn’t hear from her again.

* As you know, I’ve been pretty terrible about showing you pictures of my house. There are two reasons for this: 1. I haven’t really DONE anything to the house. There’s one room (coincidentally, the smallest room in the house next to the powder room) that’s NEARLY finished… And yet we just can’t seem to hang the picture that will complete the thing. (Also, the longer it sits there, nearly finished, the more I think that we need to do some rearranging of book shelves.) Anyway, it’s hard to get excited about writing a House Post when the rooms still look half- or un-finished.

2. The only room I seem to be able to write about is the master bathroom. Which is perfectly functional and which we will not redecorate in ANY WAY for many years. It’s perfectly fine and while we may replace the toilet sooner rather than later (who wants to see a toilet before and after?!?!), the rest of it is going to Stay The Same until we have enough money to replace the tile and the shower. Which may be never, if I’m being honest.

So WHY is that the room that I want to discuss at great length? Why not the dining room, which we are going to redo in February? Why not the kitchen, which ALREADY has some nice before-and-afters? Why not the basement, which is STILL painted in primary colors? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

* We – much like most of the country, I’d guess – are having Wackadoo Weather. It snows… then it rains and the snow melts. Then it’s sunny and feels like spring. Then there’s a Thunderstorm Warning. Then it snows again and everything gets a thick, six-inch coat of white.

I’m not complaining. I’d take this wacky changeableness ANY DAY over Constant Grey. But it is perplexing.

* I spent part of this weekend scouring the internet for two books I couldn’t remember. I found them BOTH, so I am going to tell you about it so that I NEVER FORGET THEM AGAIN.

Both are books from my childhood. In both cases, all I remembered about the books were two key details.  (Full disclosure: I have ALREADY forgotten the name of one of them. So I need to pop over to GoodReads to check.)

The first book was a ghost story. I remembered that the main character’s name was Zoe and she had an imaginary friend. That is ALL. (Why did I want to find this book about which I remember next to nothing? Well, I think I liked it, back when I was a kid. Plus, it is aggravating when one’s memory fails.)

For a long time, I tried looking up other ghost stories I read as a kid (man, I loved Betty Ren Wright) and using Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” feature to look for the Forgotten Book.

This did not work. Although it did fill me with nostalgia for the time when I could spend hours reading ghost stories.

So I Googled “book imaginary friend Zoe” and TADA! Google showed me exactly what I was looking for: Stonewords: A Ghost Story by Pam Conrad.

The other book is one I’ve been trying to remember for YEARS. I distinctly remember wanting to track it down in grad school, when one of my colleagues did a paper on Dare Wright. Dare Wright wrote a book called The Lonely Doll, and it sounded ever so slightly like a book I’d read as a kid.

The book I’d read as a kid was about a wooden doll who bought a human at the human store and mistreated her much in the way a human owner would abuse a doll. I’ve idly searched Amazon off and on for keywords like “doll buys human,” “doll owns girl,” “wooden doll,” “mean doll,” etc. No luck!

Finally, this weekend, I had a niggling little memory that the doll’s name was Gert. Or Gertrude. Typing “Gertrude doll” into Amazon’s search field yielding the book Gertrude’s Child by Richard Hughes. SUCCESS!!

Now I need to re-read these books.

* We have some flowering shrubbery outside our front door. I mean, it’s not flowering NOW. But I know it DOES flower, since we first saw this house last summer. One of the plants is DEFINITELY a hydrangea. I know this for sure, because I love hydrangeas.

But… I have no idea what the other plants are. Worse? I have no idea how to FIND OUT what the other plants are.

* We really need to get some curtains. I am quite certain our neighbors would agree.

* Blogger has been eating a LOT of my comments recently. I promise I have been better (not GREAT, but better) about commenting lately. But if your blog is on blogger and has a word verification? More often than not, my comments are not posting. I have typed in up to TEN word verifications in an attempt to get ONE comment to post to NO AVAIL.

I don’t think my comments are going to be life changing, or anything. But I do appreciate comments so I like to leave them when I can and MAN IS IT FRUSTRATING for them not to post.

* A cat ran through our backyard the other day. That makes him OUR cat, right?

Well, that’s all the random I have for you today.

How are you, Internet? Did you have a nice weekend? Any random things you need to discuss with me?

I don’t have gnawing cravings for sweets anymore. I’ve made it 18 days with nary a sweet, and I have no doubt I can plow right through to the end of the month.

But I do have a deep yearning. This yearning has me poring over recipe blogs and Pinterest posts, pinning cookies and cakes and brownies with wild abandon.

Next month is so going to be The Month of Sweets.

Anyway, since sweets are occupying a lot of my brain space, let’s talk about ice cream.

My husband got a book of ice cream recipes for his birthday last October.

He got it from me, actually.

The book is Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer. (Unrelated to ice cream: Do you think there’s any way Jeni is related to Tami Taylor?!?!)

He’s recently been in quite the ice cream making mood. Over Christmas, he made Backyard Mint ice cream for the whole family. I don’t normally like mint ice cream, but this was SO SHRIEKING GOOD. It was made with lots of fresh mint, so it had a very fresh mint taste – not a spearmint or peppermint flavor. It was crisp and clean and fresh-tasting. Yum.

(I think I was the only one who liked it. But WHY? It was SO GOOD!)

Now that we’re home, he’s made two other Jeni’s recipes.

Because giving up sweets INCLUDES ICE CREAM, I may have done some pitiful whining and puppy-dog-eyeing when he mentioned his yen for ice creaming it up.

So we compromised: He would only make flavors that I wouldn’t want.

He’s kept his end of the bargain. The first batch he made was star anise ice cream. That was super easy for me to avoid. Not only do I haaaaaaate anise flavor, but the star anise itself looks like creepy little spiders swimming through the ice cream. No thank you.

Most recently, he made a batch called “Gucci Muu Muu.” I mean, I’m not going to eat a flavor with that name just on principle. LAME.

But it’s also a dark chocolate ice cream with yellow curry and toasted coconut. I’d skip it for the coconut alone, honestly, but the yellow curry makes it… weirdly curry-heavy. And the combination of chocolate (yum) and coconut (yuck) and curry (good in savory dinner foods) is just not something my tastebuds can handle.

(I know it’s curry-heavy because my husband needed me to hold the bag of chilled, steeped ice cream liquid steady over the ice cream maker. And a little bit of the ice cream liquid got on my hand. So I licked it off.)

(THIS DOES NOT COUNT AS FAILING AT MY “NO SWEETS” GOAL.)

The truth is, I am not a huge ice cream person.

I mean, I LIKE it. I am a human being. But it’s not a driving force in my life. It IS a driving force in my husband’s life. In fact, his love of ice cream is one of the most adorable, charming things about him. Before we go ANYWHERE – whether it’s to Paris for our honeymoon or to Columbus, OH for a fellowship interview – he researches all the ice cream in the area and plans exactly which ice cream we’ll try during our trip. He may or may not have back up ice cream stops, in case the first choices are closed or too busy. Ice cream is a Serious Priority, is what I’m saying.

But I’m a little more ambivalent.

I like Jeni’s ice cream. Jeni has come up with some crazy flavors. I wouldn’t call them “splendid,” mainly because I don’t use that word very often. But some of them are pretty amazing. The Cherry Lambic Sorbet is delicious. So is the Lime Cardamom. The Goat Cheese with Cognac Figs is wonderful – despite the figs, which I do not like. Salty Caramel is pretty good.

My university had a couple of ice cream shops just outside of campus. My husband and roommates and I would go out for Thai food and then go straight to one of those ice creameries (the better one, in my opinion. Though many would disagree with me.). There, I’d order green tea ice cream. Or cookie dough ice cream (which didn’t have chunks of cookie dough – instead, it was a soft, dough colored base with tons of mini-chocolate chips in it). Or sweet cream ice cream.

As far as Ben & Jerry’s flavors go, I have a weakness for Phish Food. There’s just something about the marshmallow ribbon and the caramel swirl and the fudgy fish. (I may or may not have bought many pints of Phish Food from the campus convenience store when I was in college.)

The first time I ever had Coldstone ice cream was in California. I was visiting my college roomie/dear friend for several weeks, and she took me to Coldstone and I was blown away. I had the sweet cream with fresh raspberries.

No other Coldstone has ever measured up to that first time. Believe me, I’ve tried.

When it comes to other chains… well, it’s not uncommon for me to skip the ice cream altogether.

Except Dairy Queen. I’m a sucker for a chocolate Dilly Bar.

But my single most common ice cream order is chocolate. Regular chocolate – not dark chocolate.

Usually, I’ll get a chocolate milk shake. If I’m feeling fancy, I’ll go for a scoop of chocolate with caramel sauce.

If I’m being REALLY adventurous, I’ll do lemon something. Or raspberry something. Or cheesecake something, if that’s available.

I don’t really like CHUNKS of things in my ice cream (Phish Food notwithstanding. I didn’t say I am CONSISTENT.). Chips, on occasion. Fruit and candy, not so much. Nuts, no thank you.

And please, keep your bananas away from my ice cream.

Well. I am QUITE SURE you have DEEPLY ENJOYED learning about my ice cream proclivities.

So now! Please regale me with your own. Best/worst chain ice cream? Favorite flavors? Ice cream no-nos? Personal ice-creamy quirks?

Go!

If I’m with him – and I will state right here for the record that while I LOVE to read and I ADORE buying new books, I HATE browsing through bookstores/libraries – he’ll inevitably hand me a book and direct me to read the back cover.

I don’t like reading the back cover. More often than not, the person who read the copy seems to not have read the book at all. (I just finished a book where the cover copy MISSPELLED the name of a character in the book.) (Deep breaths. We will all get through this.) But even if the person who wrote the cover copy DID read the book, even LOVED the book, well, it’s just too small a space to always convey a book’s awesomeness.

Of course, there is always the misleading cover copy, the kind that tricks you into believing a book will be crazy good… when it is NOT GOOD AT ALL. (Cough cough, Voluntary Madness, My Sister’s Keeper, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter cough.)

That was a long-winded way of telling you that I don’t put much stock in cover copy. If a book woos me with a beautiful title (which is how I judge a book, while my husband literally picks up books based on their covers), I will read a page or two. Sometimes I will flip to a random page and read a few paragraphs. If I’m not won over by these methods, I’m not buying.

Gah, that’s scary. As someone who would like to WRITE and PUBLISH a novel someday, it is pretty terrifying that a reader takes so little time to discard a book from her list of possibilities.

Anyway, The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht was one of the books my husband pulled off the shelf at some point last year. First point against it: It’s got one of those “The [Something] Wife” titles that are far too popular these days. Second point against it: The cover copy was kind of boring. Third point against it: The cover is a mainly black field, topped by the bottom half of a slinking tiger. As in, nothing to write home about.

I did the old flip-open-and-read-a-passage-at-random thing, but I handed it back to my husband. Not for me.

But after it started appearing on all sorts of “Best of 2011″ lists… When it made the list of finalists for the National Book Award… And won the Orange Prize… My husband decided I should read it.

So he bought it for me for Christmas.

And I had to read it. For one thing, my dear beloved husband had purchased it for me as a gift. So I had to at least TRY it. For another, I’d managed to fly all the way to Florida for a WEEK without a SINGLE BOOK in my possession.

Internet.

This is the book I want to write.

There. Is that enough to make you buy it?

Because I can’t give it higher praise.

Now, I’m not saying it’s the best book I’ve read EVER. (In fact, I’d give the same high praise to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. And The History of Love. And The Time Traveler’s Wife. Everything Is Illuminated. Lolita. Song of Solomon. Love in the Time of Cholera.)

But it’s up there.

Mini-NO-SPOILER-plot summary:

This story is about Natalia, who is either a med student or a resident or a fairly-new physician, I didn’t pay attention to the details. She and a friend/fellow doctor are journeying across the border to inoculate some orphans who are living at a monastery.

The book is only slightly about that journey. It’s more about other types of journeying. Primarily the journeys that Natalia and her grandfather make in search of answers.

Natalia has a very close bond with her grandfather, and the book is, in part, about their relationship. Like any love, theirs is not a straight line. It has hooks and crags and peaks and valleys.

The book is also about love, in a global sense. Love between parent and child, grandfather and granddaughter. Love between spouses. Love from afar. Love of ritual. Love of countrymen. Love of humanity.

And, perhaps even more so, this book is about the opposite of love: pain.

The pain of love, unrequited and realized. The pain of disrespect. The pain of abuse. The pain of escape. The pain of life. The pain of fear. The pain of knowledge. The pain of uncertainty. The pain of an ending. The pain of war. The pain of peace. The pain of loss. The pain of discovery.

It’s also about mythology, and the role it plays in our lives and behavior and thought-processes. In fact, the bleak reality of the book – which takes place in an unnamed war-torn area of Eastern Europe – is off-set by legend and superstition, both of which are so important a part of the characters’ lives that they become real in their own way: A man becomes a bear. A tiger becomes a husband. Death becomes a human being.

But these wild, fantastical elements are not absurd in the way of much magical realism, nor do they seem out of place or artificial. They are woven so tightly into the fabric of the book’s world that they are almost indistinguishable from fact.

It’s about all of these things and about that single thing we all have in common: death.

So much in this world is horrible. There’s heartbreak and war and murder and indifference and illness and cruelty. And all the struggling just leads us closer to the day when Death will reach out his hand and guide us into his home.

But there’s beauty, too. In the most unexpected places: the brush of tiger fur against skin; a childhood book tucked inside your pocket; boot-legged music played on a car stereo.

And there’s love. Complicated, inexplicable, tangled-up love.

This is the story I want to write.

Should you read it? You know, I recognize that every person reading this post right now has her own idea of what The Perfect Book is. Maybe you won’t think this book is perfect. Maybe you won’t like it one bit. If you don’t, I promise I won’t love you any less.

But oh, Internet.

The prose is lovely, vivid. This is the kind of story told to children in hushed voices as they’re drifting off to sleep. The kind of tale that comes alive in the brain, as real as if you were watching it happen in person.

And it was satisfying in the way only a great book can be. For instance, the plot is twisty and full of mysteries. But there ARE answers. Some, at least. Or at least semi-answers that are complete enough that you can fill in the rest for yourself.

The themes are universal, which means – I think – you will relate to the main characters and their journeys. But even though this is a love story, a death story, a story of loss like so many, many stories are and have been and will be, it plays out in a truly fresh, interesting way.

Will this help persuade you? I got to the end and I wanted to start right over and read it through again. I read every word in the book, from the author bio to the reader questions to the (overall dull, although at times very interesting) conversation between Obreht and Jennifer Egan of Goon Squad fame. I recommended it to my book club – just so I could talk about it with someone, anyone! And I have been thinking about it non-stop since reading the first chapter on Christmas Day.

Now, the book isn’t perfect. I have unanswered questions. I see loose threads wafting in the breeze made by the cover falling shut. Perhaps Obreht intended them to float there, unfinished. Perhaps she couldn’t find a way to do so without tying too neat a bow on the whole thing. Perhaps she recognized that loose ends are part of life.  In any event, I wasn’t frustrated by the loose ends. I didn’t feel let down, the way I did after reading, say, Life of Pi. I felt glad to have read it. And certain that I would read it again.

It’s a great book, Internet. Beautifully written, beautifully told.

Give it a try, won’t you?

**********

Anybody else read this book? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Warning: May contain spoilers.

I trust that you will read with the proper amount of sympathy and then excuse yourself to the restroom to laugh discreetly under cover of the sound of a running sink. And that you will share similar tales of humiliation in the comments. Or at least do that thing where you pretend it happens to everyone! All the time!

Because I have given up sweets, I have been craving carbs like whoa. Crackers. Bread. Pasta. Popcorn. Just pile it all up onto a plate and send it my way please.

(Good thing the sweets restriction is not for weight loss purposes!)

Saturday night, my husband is at the hospital overnight. As is my custom when he’s overnight, I cannot bear the thought of sleeping alone in our bed. So I stay up very very late watching a marathon of The Big Bang Theory.

At around 12:17, I decide I want popcorn.

Our pantry contains two types of popcorn:

Option 1: A 100-calorie pack of Pop Secret.

Option 2: A whole box of normal size packages of fake-butter-flavored Boy Scout popcorn.

I choose Option 1, read the instructions, and throw the bag in the microwave. Three minutes seems like a long time for such a small amount of popcorn, but hey – that’s what the instructions said. It’s not like I need to leave it in that long. A veteran popcorn maker, I know that you pay more attention to the pops than to the time remaining. And when the pops start spacing themselves two to three seconds apart, you remove the popcorn and start stuffing your face.

I peek into the microwave at some point and notice steam coming from the bag.

That’s odd, I think to myself. I didn’t realize popcorn steams like that.

A few seconds later, I peek again. The steam is thicker and more… insidious than normal steam. And it is pouring from the bag with great vigor. So I open the microwave and a big plume of burnt popcorn races for the ceiling.

I throw open the window.

That’s when the siren pierces the midnight calm with its furious wail.

Because, as is my custom, I’d turned on our burglar alarm as soon as my husband left. And opening any windows or doors triggers the alarm.

Fanning at the smoke with a dish towel, I run over to the alarm keypad and punch in our code. Then I fly back to shoo the smoke out the window into the icy January morning.

The security company is supposed to call us when the alarm goes off. When I don’t get a call right away, I realize they must have called my husband. Who will probably freak out. So I send him a text letting him know it was a mistake, nothing is wrong, I haven’t been murdered.

Then the phone rings. It’s the security company dispatcher. I babble at her, still shaky from the popcorn fire and the ear-splitting burglar alarm, telling her it was a mistake and I am so sorry and blah blah blah.

When she finally gets a word in edgewise, she asks me for my security code and then tells me that since I haven’t reset the alarm, she has called the cops.

O. M. G.

I don’t know how to reset the alarm! I tell her. I plugged in my code!

Plug it in again.

I do. Nothing.

Well, she says, trying for patient but succeeding at exasperated, you try it again and I’ll let the cops know it was a false alarm.

I get off the phone with her. I stab in the code a couple more times.

That’s when my husband calls.

Um, he says, I got a call from our security company that the alarm went off and they had to send the cops to our house. Are you okay?

He is very calm, Internet. Much more calm than I am, and I know I’m okay.

At top speed, I tell him what’s happened. He remains very calm, unconcerned, no trace of even mild bemusement or irritation, and then reminds me – kindly, mind you – that he has actual dying patients to tend to.

I am afraid the cops are going to show up. And I’m fresh out of the shower (don’t you shower at midnight on a Saturday?) wearing nothing but a white sleeping tank top and pajama pants. My house is fogged in with a thick layer of popcorn smoke.

I hightail it upstairs to grab a sweat shirt.

I’m halfway to the second floor when the phone rings. I race back into the kitchen, where, of course, I’ve left my phone.

It’s the security company again. I still haven’t managed to reset the alarm. We determine that the woman on the line could be dealing with ACTUAL emergencies, rather than helping me figure out how to reset the thing. We determine the reason it won’t reset is because I haven’t closed the kitchen window. I slam the window shut, rekey my passcode into the alarm panel, and dash back out of the kitchen.

As I’m skidding down the hallway, I see police lights striping my neighborhood with red and blue.

I am sure all my neighbors are rushing to their windows, ready to watch as the cop leaves his car and marches up my front steps. Perhaps his gun will be drawn. Perhaps his partner will go around the side of the house to scope out the situation from the side window. I imagine having to answer the door, baring my tank-top and still-wet hair to the biting January night as the entire neighborhood watches. Just another wife-beater-wearing weirdo for the next episode of COPS. (At least it’s a CLEAN tank top.)

Is she a meth cooker? A prostitute? A murderer? my neighbors will wonder. They’ll whisper about me at Super Bowl parties and barbecues. The rumors will get wilder and more outrageous, until I’m a sex-crazed asylum escapee who’s chopped 10 consecutive husbands into little bits and now makes popcorn-scented bombs in her basement. Their kids will peer in our windows and run away shrieking – half-terrified, half-delighted – every time I leave my house to empty the trash. The wives will stand across the street in clumps of three or five, speculating about my stringy hair and questionable fashion sense and how to run me out of town. The husbands will grouse about my effect on property values.

In the few seconds I pause to decide whether to open the door or sprint upstairs for the sweatshirt, the police car extinguishes its lights, pulls into my driveway, backs out, and speeds off down the street.

At least I know it only takes about 10 minutes for the police to respond to an emergency at my house.

I know you are dying to learn how the night ended. I stayed up until 3:00 watching The Big Bang Theory reruns. And, of course, I made another bag of popcorn. Successfully, this time.

(This is where you tell me about an equally mortifying thing that happened to you.)

But! I am not opposed to bogarting other people’s resolutions.

When my best friend from back home told me she was giving up sugar for January, I jumped right on board.

My logic: If I don’t make it through January, I only have HER to blame, for picking such an unreasonable resolution. Right? RIGHT?

Anyway, I need to take more initiative when it comes to my health, and abstaining from sugar for a month seemed like a good idea. I don’t expect to give up sugar forever. But I do think this will help re-calibrate my sugar-desire mechanism. Or whatever it is that one re-calibrates.

(And by sugar I mean sweets. I am still eating fruit and drinking juice [in moderation] and using products that may have sugar or a sugar derivative in them, like ketchup.)

(I’m not even TRYING to aim for perfection here, Internet.)

Since I will only be traveling once this month (woo!), I thought it would be a good idea to get into exercising. After all, my in-laws gave us an elliptical and a treadmill. So it’s rather stupid NOT to use them. Especially because they are set up very nicely in front of the basement TV.

So far this week, I’ve exercised every day AND I’ve steered clear of sugar.

But I do have Things to Report. (Yes! Already!)

Thing 1: I didn’t realize how much I was depending on sweet things. I never really cared about sweets – well, not THAT much – until I met my husband. But he has a MASSIVE sweet tooth, and he converted me to sweettoothism as well (although I’m nowhere near as devout as he is). But I always thought that I was so much more of a chips and cheese gal that sweets weren’t really a big part of my life.

Nonetheless, it turns out that I really MISS sweets. I guess they had become a bigger part of my life than I realized? (Although, thinking back, I do seem to remember lots of Reese’s eating going on this year.) I find myself prowling around the house, hungry, trying to figure out how to satisfy the gnawing sweet-hunger I’ve developed. Usually I stave it off with chips or alcohol.

Thing 2: But! Now I am giving up alcohol for January as well, just because my friend is. And because I am clearly a masochist. Now I will have to really load up on the chips to compensate!

Thing 3: I tried to use my computer on the treadmill the other day. I do a lot of reading (for work) and I figured I could walk and read at the same time. Of course, my treadmill doesn’t have a laptop holder. So I thought I would just hold the laptop in my arms. It would be a good workout for my arms, to hold it for 30 minutes whilst climbing an imaginary hill.

Then one of my clients IMed me. So I IMed her back.

And fell off the treadmill.

Don’t worry! I didn’t drop my computer!

Thing 4: Last night, I made a “milkshake” with orange juice, crushed ice, Greek yogurt, a dash of vanilla, and a little drizzle of honey.

I do not recommend it.

It was gritty and tasteless. But I made a LOT of it, so I drank three glasses.

Thing 5: My husband and I tried a new recipe – broiled salmon with Thai sweet chili glaze from Once Upon a Chef. It was delicious and SUPER EASY. We paired it with steamed broccoli.

I felt SO HEALTHY after eating it, too.

Thing 6: It feels very virtuous to say “I’ve exercised and abstained from sugar ALL YEAR LONG.”

It feels less virtuous to be reminded that the year, so far, is only 5 days old.

Thing 7: I have an urgent and inexplicable craving for Brie. Wrapped in phyllo dough and crisped in the oven until the Brie oozes out the sides.

My friend better not say she’s ALSO giving up cheese.

How are your resolutions – or non-resolutions – coming so far, Internet?

Not literally surrounded, you understand. I’m sitting in my living room and the snow is – thankfully – OUTSIDE, where it belongs. But it’s very snowy. Perhaps I should have said that from the start? Snowy in my brain, too, apparently.

I haven’t done a randomosity post in AGES, but I am feeling very random. So let’s get to it!

* After much consternation (about whether to send out holiday cards even if they weren’t the beautiful, personal photo cards I WANTED them to be), I went to Target and filled my cart with boxes and boxes of regular old Target cards.

Let me tell you – it was like being inside a middle school math problem. You should have seen me standing there (this was weeks ago, by the way), trying to figure out how many boxes of 12 cards and how many boxes of eight cards and how many boxes of 10 cards I would need in order to have enough holiday-neutral cards and enough Christmassy cards with a few left over just in case. I knew roughly how many people were on my card-recipient list, but I wasn’t really PREPARED to have to do complex calculations whilst elbowing other frantic last-minute card senders out of the way.

Spoiler: I bought enough. Although it was touch-and-go there a while with the holiday-neutral cards.

* I knew that I would come home and my husband would look at my stockpile of cards and say something along the lines of, “Hot potatoes, woman! Why are you spending so much money on CARDS?” And then possibly launch into a grump about “the high cost of stamps these days” and “I don’t even like sending out cards” and “don’t expect ME to help with ANY of this!”

So I got all Pre-Emptively Defensive while driving home. When I got there, I threw the shopping bags on the kitchen floor with much huff and affrontedness and said loudly, “I bought a lot of Christmas cards because sending Christmas cards is important to me and I don’t care how much it costs.”

He accepted that with no argument. But when I showed him the cards, he asked me why I did not just get multiple boxes of the 16-holiday-neutral-cards-for-$8 rather than two boxes of those plus a couple boxes of 10-Christmas-cards-for-$7.99 plus a box of BEAUTIFUL Christmas cards that were $10-for-eight-cards. Etc.

I told you. I bought MANY boxes of cards.

So clearly, while my husband is TRYING to understand – or, if not understand, at least shut up about it – why I need to shell out what is admittedly not a small amount of money on Christmas cards, he does not fully APPRECIATE the card choosing and writing process.

* By the way, in case you are wondering, I bought several different TYPES of cards because I cannot resist the pretty pretty. The best of the remaining holiday-neutral cards were kind of lame, so I didn’t want to send those to people on my list who are definitely Christian and/or wouldn’t be offended by a clearly-Christmassy card. (I felt a little bad sending them to the Jewish folks who make up roughly half my list, because the cards were kind of lame. But they weren’t FULLY lame, and I TRIED and it is the THOUGHT that counts so please get off my back!) (Why, Target, WHY are there so few acceptable Hanukkah cards? WHY?)

* Because I had so many different types of cards, I had the pleasant task of choosing which person would get which card. Some people might have just started with one box and gone straight down the list until that box was depleted. Those are the same people who might have bought only one type of card, so we must clearly reject that as an option.

Instead, I very carefully chose the most appropriate card from my stockpile for the recipient next on my list. For instance, I hoarded the beautiful 8-for-$10 cards and doled them out only to the people I thought would REALLY appreciate them. The Good Crystal cards, you know, that you bring out for purposes of impressiveness rather than purposes of utility.  These went mainly to friends of my parents and in-laws. Because haven’t you always wanted your in-laws to pass on word that their friends were ooohing and aahing over how lovely your Christmas card was? “What a catch that Mrs. Doctor is! You are so fortunate to have her as your daughter-in-law!” and the like.

Then I had the cards with the cheery, I’m-not-a-card-who-takes-myself-too-seriously image and message that I sent to good friends. I thought they were fun and sweet and that they might also appeal to children. I also had cards that were VERY Christmassy and had lots of words in them, which I sent to people to whom I have little to say (like one of the people who wrote my husband a reference letter for fellowship – he’s someone we care about and want to keep in our lives, but we aren’t, you know, TIGHT or anything and he’s never even MET me), and holiday-neutral cards that were even LAMER than the OTHER holiday-neutral cards (they featured a rather bored-looking snowman outline), which I sent mainly to the single boys (men?) on my list because I know they are less likely to care. (Not because they are boys [men?], but because these particular boys [men?] aren’t the type to care about stuff like this. I know for a FACT.) And there were a couple of others, I think. I forget because LOTS OF CARDS.

* Speaking of math – which I was, at one point – I sent out 89 holiday cards this year. I got 24 in return. TWENTY-FOUR. That is a 27% return, Internet.

But! Even though I am discouraged, I will not be discouraged! That number seems to eke upward a little each year, and I know many of the people on my list just won’t EVER send cards. So I send them cards with goodness in my heart, not with the expectation that I will get a card in return. I mean, I send ALL of my cards with goodness and no expectations. But with some of them, the goodness/no expectations may be perhaps accompanied by a little bit of feeling-superior-ness.

* Among the Christmas cards we received were two Christmas letters. When I told my husband how much I love Christmas letters, he thought I was a little nutso. But I do! I love them so much! I get great delight in discovering what the person thought was appropriate to include in the Christmas letter. I delight in learning whether this is a “we” family, where the content comes from the family as a whole, or an “I” family, in which the wife (usually) writes about her whole family in an Amused Matriarch manner.  (I personally find “we” messages to be difficult to write, so I can fully understand why a letter would come from an “I.” My husband, however, points out that the card – though chosen, written, and sent by me – comes from BOTH of us, so should be written from a “we” perspective. Hrrrrmph.) I get the greatest delight in discovering how that person spelled the things that she thought appropriate to include in the Christmas letter.

And of course I like sharing in the joy of new babies and new jobs and graduations and family vacations and all that good stuff.

I wonder how I can procure MORE Christmas letters.

* Receiving a Christmas letter always makes me want to WRITE a Christmas letter. But – contrary to what this blog might lead you to believe – mine would be far too short to be worthwhile. And if I tried to be satirical and sort of gently mock the whole Christmas-letter tradition, well, I’m afraid it might… miss its mark. And satire that misses its mark can only end badly.

* Speaking of missing the mark. Well, missing something. Last year, my husband and I sent out holiday cards with a photo of ourselves. We added a little message to the card, and signed the card with our surname.

You must know, firstly, that our name is French and unfamiliar to most people. I’d say 98% of people who encounter it for the first time ever butcher it pretty badly. (One notable exception: When we flew home from my in-laws’ last week, the Delta ticket agent AND the TSA agent in the security line BOTH said it correctly! I was very impressed.) That’s fine; not everyone took French in high school and then had to re-take French in college because it didn’t stick and still can’t speak French fluently not that everyone is bitter or anything.

Let’s say our last name is Le Blanc (it isn’t). So we signed the card, “Happy Holidays from the Le Blancs.”

We did that because it is correct: to pluralize a name, you use the same rules you use to pluralize anything. Add an S to the end. Or, if your last name ends in S already, you add an ES. (“Happy Holidays from the Joneses!”). Just please don’t change any Ys in your surname to IEs. (It’s “Happy Holidays from the Kellys!” not “Happy Holidays from the Kellies!”) There are other rules but that is not the point of this bullet. (See Swistle’s excellent and hilarious post on the subject for more suggestions.)

But this year? We have received several cards – SEVERAL – that have been addressed to “Husband and Wife Le Blancs.” As though the final S is part of our name.

Moral of the story? We will end our holiday cards with “Happy Holidays from the Le Blanc Family” or “Happy Holidays from Husband and Wife” from now on.

* We got a few holiday cards intended for the previous homeowners. Now, we have gotten a LOT of mail for them since we’ve moved here. At first, I would email the seller’s real estate agent, and then we’d set up a time where I’d leave all the mail out for her and she’d pick it up.

But after a point, that got to be annoying. Mainly to my husband, who cannot fathom how someone could fail to change his address after moving. (His wife understands.)

So we started writing “return to sender” on the mail and dropping it back in the mail box.

Each time we got a Christmas card for the previous homeowner, that’s what we did.

Today, we got one of those “return to sender” cards back! Returned to the “return to sender” sender!

The NICE thing to do about this would be to email the real estate agent, I suppose, and arrange a pick up. But the LAZY – and therefore more appealing – option is to drop it back in the mail and see if the “return to sender” request works this time.

* Have I mentioned that I love receiving holiday cards? I truly love sending them out – I love choosing the cards and going through my list of recipients and writing little messages in each card and thinking about how lucky we are to have so many beloved people in our lives. Or, if not beloved, much liked and/or much appreciated. Okay, that doesn’t sound as nice – let’s go back to “beloved.”

But I also love receiving them. It’s so FUN! I mean, getting mail is delightful in itself. But holiday cards are top of the awesome. I especially love photo cards. This year, all but THREE of the photo cards we got featured very adorable babies. So that was extra cool. We also got a New Year’s card, which is a WONDERFUL idea. It was an awesome card, too – it was from a newly married couple who each grew up in a separate state. It was a photo card, of just the lower arm and hand of each person. Each hand (just two hands, to be clear) was holding a bottle of beer from a microbrewery specific to the city in which the hand’s person grew up. If you followed that, you will understand that the card was SUPER cute and fun.

* Of the photo cards featuring couples, MOST if not ALL of the photos were candid. That made me feel a little silly for dithering for so long about photo cards simply because we don’t have any great photos of us. It is clear to me, looking at the photo cards I received, that I care MUCH LESS about the photos being perfectly posed and professional looking or even season-appropriate than I do about HAVING the cards in the first place.

One of the cards we received features a husband and wife in their plane. It’s a super close up – you can tell the wife held the camera up about 10 inches in front of them and snapped it – and you can only see part of their faces and they are wearing sunglasses and they are partly obscured by shadow. But they are SO ADORABLE. I can totally imagine the husband doing all his pre-flight checklist things and the wife saying, “Wait one sec! SMILE!” and him grumbling about getting going and her nudging him with her elbow and saying “Don’t be such a spoil sport! You’ll be so glad to have photographic evidence of this LATER!” And him agreeing and smiling as she clicks away, maybe looking at the photo in her camera first and saying, “Oh hon, I caught you mid blink and it looks RIDICULOUS! Let’s do one more real quick!” and him saying, “Okay, but JUST ONE!” and them smiling into the camera before resuming their pre-flight preparations and flying off down the Florida coast, capturing this perfect little slice of happiness that becomes not only a summary for the entire day but for the couple as well. Happy sigh. It makes me smile every time I look at it.

Will I remember that “perfect” is not necessary NEXT YEAR when I’m dithering about holiday cards? Unlikely. But still: perfect is NOT NECESSARY.

* The worst part about the holiday-card-receiving season is taking the cards down when the season ends. Which… WHEN does it end? People in our neighborhood still have lights and holiday décor and Christmas trees up. (I know about the Christmas trees because our neighborhood has a propensity for leaving its front drapes open, and I like to peer inside when driving past.) But my mother has already put away HER Christmas decorations. So I’m just not sure.

Anyway, getting back to the “taking the cards down” part: I always hate to throw cards away. ESPECIALLY when they feature adorable children. Jen suggested, last year, that I use the photo cards as bookmarks throughout the year. (At least I THINK she suggested that. I could have made that up entirely. If so, EMBARRASSING.) I thought that was a splendid idea, even though I failed to follow through last year. Maybe this year I will be better.

Well, Internet. That wasn’t quite as random as it might have been, otherwise. Did you send out cards this year? Did you receive cards this year? Are they still hanging on your mantle or wherever you hang them? What else is up on this fine Wednesday?

Anyway, that means that I probably missed out on some of the very best things you wrote this year.

So I have a request: Will you please hop into the comments and give me a link to the best thing you wrote this year? Or a post where you had lots of interesting comments? Or a post that surprised you with its popularity?

If you are for some reason embarrassed to do this, I would also love to learn what OTHER blog posts were among your favorites this year.

I’m feeling very quid-pro-quo today, Internet, so I will leave you 5 of my favorite posts from this year – favorites because I was proud of the writing, or because I loved reading the comments, or because I find the topic really fascinating, or because I was surprised by how many people weighed in, or because I totally forgot I wrote the post in the first place.

And I will ALSO leave you 5 of my favorite posts from OTHER bloggers – favorites because they made me think or cry or laugh or all three. (IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NOT FEELING LEFT OUT PURPOSES: Let it be known that these are only a SMALL SELECTION, tiny really, of the blog posts I adored this year. An EENY MEENY sampling.)

Happy reading!

Posts I Read at LEAST Once This Past Year That You May Not Have Read But You Really Should Read

“They don’t need the bright side, they need the support.” – Here We Go Again

“… one of my possibly-never-to-be-healed breaks is this dark abiding fear that one day my husband will decide I am too much.” – Where the Catholic Sun Doth Shine

“If I could have you in my life for one more day, I would definitely, definitely spend that day naked and in coitus.” – Hilarity in Shoes

“…underneath that there’s a deeper, and greater, fear: that even if I do manage to produce something I deem acceptable, that ultimately it’s meaningless in the end after all.” – The Startup Wife

“I imagine unspooling, breaking open.” – All & Sundry

“…grief hums in the background of my life, simultaneously silent and ear-splittingly loud.” – Mommy Interrupted

“Poop in unexpected places.” – Reading and Chickens

Posts I Wrote That You May Have Not Read the First Time Around

It will be this way again, but it won’t be this way forever.

In which a full ice tray is the key to a happy marriage.

The Things about you that aren’t really a big deal except that a few arsehats make you self-conscious about them.

How is it possible that any marriage works with such VAST DIFFERENCES between your family and your spouse’s?

What does it really mean to be happy?

Now it’s your turn Internet! Give me something good to read! (Um. Please.)

Snow is falling gently outside my living room window, carpeting the lawn in my very own backyard. The year is winding down.

It was a good year in so many ways.  But overall I spent this year involved in many internal struggles. Struggling to match up who I thought I was with who I am; struggling to reconcile who I want to be with who I can be; struggling to maintain my own sense of safety and security in the face of uncertainty.

These past three months have been especially trying. I’ve felt unmoored in a lot of ways – caught up in forces I couldn’t control, battered on all sides, afraid of sinking.

But I’ve managed to still the seas – at least the internal ones – and I think I’ve (at least temporarily) found a way to feel okay in open water.

Anyway, I have squared my shoulders and I’m ready to march into 2012 and face whatever it has in store.  Before I do, I want to take a quick look at the past 12 months. Won’t you join me? (Here are links to round ups from last year and the year before.)

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Bought a house!

Decided to – eventually, mind you – have a baby!

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

As I say every year, I’m not much of a resolution person. But I do want to make a concerted effort to curb the worrying in 2012. Magical thinking does not prevent bad things from happening. But incessant anxiety does prevent you from really enjoying the good things when they happen.

On a more frivolous front, I also really want to learn how to bake a cake from scratch. A real cake – with layers and frosting.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Aside from Internet folks (who seem to produce some of the most beautiful babies in the world), not really!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Sadly, we lost my husband’s grandmother this year. She lived a long and full life, but death is never easy.

5. What countries did you visit?

As I did last year, I’d like to swap out “countries” for “states.” Because saying “none” is so sad.

California

Florida

Illinois

Maryland

Montana

New Jersey

New York

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Texas (for the first time ever!)

Virginia (for the first time ever!)

Wisconsin (for the first time ever!)

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Security.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

June 15 – the day my husband matched into his fellowship program!

October 14 – the day we closed on our house!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Writing over a check for half our savings and not keeling over, dead of a panic-induced heart attack.

9. What was your biggest failure?

My failure to keep stress and worry at bay.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Well, I had a few colds and a stomach flu or two… and I managed to boil my toe over Thanksgiving… but other than that, it was a remarkably healthy year!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

This house. I love it.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My husband’s. He surprises me constantly with his generosity of spirit and his depth of kindness. And his ability to understand me, to stick with me when I’m anxious and stretched thin, to hold me tightly and assure me that everything will be okay – well, it’s lovely.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I do not want to go here, Internet. Thinking about it just makes me… appalled and depressed.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Aside from boring things – like taxes, rent, down payment, loans, etc – most of our money went to… more boring stuff: travel for my husband’s fellowship interviews.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

If by “excited,” you mean “scared witless,” then it’s obvious: Buying a house!

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2011?

All of the Lights by Kanye West

Codex by Radiohead

Good Feeling by Flo Rida

Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO

Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People

Someone Like You by Adele

We Found Love by Rhianna

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? Hmm. I’m not SAD. But I don’t feel as vividly HAPPY.

b) thinner or fatter? Thinner, by a very little bit.

c) richer or poorer? Poorer – buying a house tends to do that to a person!

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Exercise. Cleaning. Being zen.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Fretting. Worrying. Stressing.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

In Florida with my in laws, eating beef tenderloin outside by the pool.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

I fell in love with this house. I’m so glad we were meant to be together!

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Oooh! I usually have so many shows I love. But 2011 was the year I grew obsessed with The Closer and Brenda Lee Johnson. That show is SO GOOD. I caught up on the two episodes I missed over Christmas and I can’t believe I have to wait until the summer for the next six episodes! Nor can I believe that the series is coming to an end! SAD.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No, not that I can think of. I got frustrated with several people this year. Really frustrated. But I don’t think it ever edged over into hate.

24. What was the best book you read?

I didn’t read very many books this year – I fell far short of my 50-books goal. And when I took a look at my GoodReads list of books I’ve read this year… Well, there were several I can’t even remember reading.

But I DID read some really good ones.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Half Baked by Alexa Stevenson

Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

Nurtureshock by Po Bronson

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

And, while I’m not quite finished with it yet, I am going to put The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht right at the top of the Best of 2011 books. I got it for Christmas and it is FANTASTIC.

25. What did you want and get?

A new house!

26. What did you want and not get?

I really wanted to get the house all painted and whipped into shape. HA. That did NOT happen.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?

I don’t think I saw a film at all this year. At least, at the theatre. But I did enjoy Crazy, Stupid Love and Bridesmaids and the final Harry Potter movie.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned THIRTY this year! THIRTY! It still seems like an impossibly adult age, and I’ve spent much of the year reflecting on the nagging feeling that I should somehow BE more adult simply because of my age.

Anyway, my husband and I spent my birthday in Pittsburgh, where he was interviewing for a fellowship position. He set me up with a massage and a beautiful dinner and we had a lovely time together.  I still dislike Pittsburgh, though.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I’d spent more time just enjoying life, rather than worrying about the future.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Pajama rama.

31. What kept you sane?

My husband. The internet. A dear blog friend who understands me more than I thought possible for a person I’ve never met.

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

Kristen Wiig. That woman is FUH-NEE.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?

The Planned Parenthood debacle.

34. Who did you miss?

Strangely enough, the people I missed the most this year are some I’ve been working with for years. Because of some big changes earlier this year, I lost touch with several of them. And I’ve felt their absence in my life.

35. Who was the best new person you met?

The best new person I met was also through my work! She’s another freelancer who works with my top client, and she’s smart, talented, and extremely sweet. We clashed a little at first, but I’ve come to know her better – as a colleague and as a friend – and really like and respect her. I hope our relationship lasts for many years.

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

There will be a beneficial outcome. (I’m still trying to learn this one, every day.) As you know from reading this blog, I spend a lot of time looking inward. This year I dedicated even more mental energy than usual to looking at myself, analyzing what I do and why I act the way I do.  Shining that light on myself unearthed some unpleasant things. It’s not pleasant to look at yourself in the full glare of a bare bulb.  I have many flaws, I do. One of those flaws is that I sometimes can’t see my own strengths. If I focus more on those things that make me strong, good, capable – I think I can move forward with more courage, more hope, less fear.

37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

“Turn up the lights in here baby. Extra bright – I want y’all to see this.” – Rhianna (“All of the Lights”)

Happy New Year, Internet!