Holiday Chillin'...& my new favorite commerical!

Christmas 2013 -  tradition about 13 years running....Kylee/Chinese Food/old movie

1. Holy crap! We actually fit 12 people in our little 1000 sq foot abode for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday (not counting the Baby Brady). 

2. Though actually when you think about all the shit his parents had to bring with him, i think i should count Brady as TWO people. He actually took up MORE real estate! 

2. My niece Kylee has been so busy with her design job in Seattle and being in love that i didn't expect that she would want to keep our tradition of helping me decorate my Christmas tree, but i am so happy that she did! And in keeping with tradition we watched an old movie. She wanted to see Annie Hall. One of my favorite movies!  This is always my First Christmas Moment of the year. (Love that girl!)

3. I am looking forward to the holidays this year and that's not normal for me. It  likely has something to do with my nephews babies and also having more time this year to get ready. Plus Brian and I head out to our favorite Vashon Island beach cabin on Christmas day after we open presents for three nights. 

4. We had so much food! 95% of the people in the Louvrak family do not eat dessert so we had a whole Thanksgiving pie, more than half of a chocolate mousse and lots of cookies left over. 

5. What's astouding is that we even had some beer left over too. 

6. We played Apples to Apples at one table. (My brothers are hysterical to play with.) The other table played bouree'. So it all worked out.

7 Have you noticed that this year folks put their trees up VERY early this year? During my runs last week i could see that many people were ready for Christmas in a big way before Thanksgiving. Is it because T-Day is so late this year? 

8. Normally this bugs the shit out of me. But not so much this year. 

9. You might think i was on Xanax for all of this good chill i'm exhibiting, but you would be wrong! 

10. Xanax just made me remember..... We are going to Italy! In June for two whole weeks to a place called Cortona. Somewhere in the Tuscany Valley i think. Brian has a friend through work who has a place there and she offered it to us and she sent photos. It's a cool apartment set up! With a pool! She is going to be there in another place and will pick us up at the airport in Rome and help us get acclimated. 

11. How many Xanax will i need for a plane trip as long as this? 

Ok, that's all i got. I just wanted to get this changed since it's been awhile. 

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and are ready for the deluge of Christmas! 

Notes to Self: 

Word Count: 481 - doing good keeping it under 500 words!  (not counting Notes to Self)

Shout Out: Donna! (I thought of you because i put your beaded ornament on my tree today!

Book: The Circle by Dave Eggers.... this is a creepy book that almost makes me want to quit Facebook! 

Longest Run this week: 48 minutes

Temp: hi/51; low/46
Sunrise:
Sunset:

sunrise: 7:34 am

sunset: 4:23 pm

Opinionation Station

my original blog photo!

1. I changed my subtitle here to Opinionation Station. I like it better!

2. See the thing is.... I can make up words on my own blog. So don't be calling the English Language Police on me...

3. louie, i mean YOU! And pearl too, if she is looking in.

4. I am excited about Christmas. (I always love the early part of the holidays!) Plus this year I have already started shopping.

5. Don't hate me for being semi-retired please. I wish allofy'all could have my schedule! If i were Santa Claus I would grant all of you that wish!

6. How old were you when you stopped believing in Santa Claus and why did you stop?

7. I am back to running okay and feel better about being able to stick with my goal of running until i am 60 years old now that my foot has healed.

8. However, i have found that running is so easy compared to doing those circuit training classes at the YMCA! I rejoined after 5 years and going back has been hard. I can't do what i used to do in those classes. I had to quit before the class was up, it was just too hard.

9. Planks are a bitch! I used to be able to hold a plank for nearly two minutes. Now it's about 30 seconds.

10. How can i be getting old when i don't feel old in my head? I hate measurable differences like this that reminds me.

11. Since it's Thanksgiving let me add this and y'all should add yours: I am thankful for many many things.

• I am thankful that my brothers and sister had children so that i didn't have to. Because the truth is, i do love being around kids and young people. 
• We have two new babies in our family this year - my sister's son had a baby in August and my brother Troy's son had a baby in October. My niece Ashley just got engaged to her boyfriend after 4 years. (I posted her very funny email here that she wrote to me telling me how she was so stressed to the point of being ready to throw up about having to buy him a Christmas present since they had only been dating a few weeks.)  I like her man A LOT! 
• I don't take my health for granted anymore. (But i also don't worry about it.) 
• I love my galpal friends and our annual getaways. 
• I love that while i am not the perfect wife or perfect person, my husband still lets me know when he thinks i have done something special or cool. This is special because i know that he is truly a better person than i am. 

i just checked and Wordcount = 465, which the exception of this sentence, so i am signing off! 

I only need three more...

my husband Brian and louie's daughter Emma in Port Townsend

Jo Glows! 

Port Townsend chairs

My blog post goal is one a week and lately i've been slacking. I think ever since i found out that fake vampirestat blog was stalking me and inflating my numbers for their own gain that i've not been as diligent since humans are not REALLY here. This is post number 50 for the year 2013. And about as many real views for the year by humans. 

Let's just do an old fashioned Menu....

Port Townsend Brevia coffee. 

Menu of the Day:

Photos: louie and i and our husbands had a fun weekend in Port Townsend over Veterans' Day.  Louie's daughter Emma joined us for Saturday night. Here are are few photos from that.

Book: I just finished two. Where'd You Go Bernadette and We Are Water. I love both of these books! The Bernadette one is a raucous fun satirical bunch of characters. The Wally Lamb Water book is very good too, better than his last one which was a novel about Columbine.

iTunes purchase: I bought the Lumineers from iTunes but iTunes has upgraded and for the life of me i cannot figure out how to get it on my iPod. It used to be a drag and click to the joPod. But now it's more complicated.

Irritation: See above.

Blessing: See above. (If iTunes is my irritation, i have to say i have it pretty good!)

Struggling with: winter running. I don't believe this year i will be able to consider the half marathon training as incentive. I'm still running but my knee is not going to hold up for long runs and now the bottoms of my feet are always sore. (I blame New Balance for making it difficult to find my shoe size and i have to keep trying out other brands, first Saucony, and now Brooks. Neither work for me.)

Looking forward to: I have finally ordered the fabric to re-upholster my sofa. It will be a nice solid cranberry red.


I'm feeling good about: Having started some Christmas shopping!

Speaking of Christmas: This year we are going to get a tree from H&L Produce. They already are cut. For the first time in nearly 40 years i am not going to the tree farm where it takes me two hours to choose a tree, OR as in the times when Brian went alone, 15 iPhone photos of trees sent to my work email for my approval. Each year they have been drying up in spite of my diligent watering and the cooler LED lights. Also i'm putting it up Thanksgiving weekend.

Note to Self: 
Word count: 294
Sunset: 4:38 pm :(
Longest Run this week: 42 minutes

i can't think of anything to talk about.

I have a post but it's stupid so i deleted it.

I feel blunted and stupid and boring. Only what's interesting is i am not bored at all. I just feel like i have nothing to talk about. Even Dear Abby must have heard i was going after her job and she started kicking it in with better readers AND advice. So i can't even go after her.

I think i have Writer's Block. Or i am losing my ability to have opinions. Which is most scary to me. I don't even have anything to rant about.

I feel neutral and content. Yikes.

I don't like it.