30 Memories of 2011

It's that time again! Time to reminisce about the past year. My family and I are mildly obnoxious about musing about the past. We've been known to drive away from a vacation and immediately launch into a round of, "What was your favorite part of the vacation we just took?" Even Dan and I have begun doing this, asking questions such as, "Remember how that waiter surprised us with free sambuca?" mere days after it happened. Uh, yeah, I was there...

You know that I don't just pick the best moments a la a suburbanite's Christmas card. This years had its ups and downs and the below list reflects that. Since it was the year I turned thirty, I decided to pick thirty memories I musn't forget to remember:

January
 In January, I:

Resolved to eat at twelve new restaurants
* Updated my living room
* Celebrated friends turning 30 and dreaded my upcoming birthday



February

In February, I...

* Said goodbye to a classy lady here and here
* Made art for my bedroom

March


In March, I...

* Turned 30 and discovered my new favorite U.S. city
* Fed alligators
* Beat my 10K time from last year



April

In April, I...

* Kicked some brass
* Savannah vs. Charleston showdown
May

In May, I...

* Ran a mud run
* Started to work on our backyard


June

In June, I...

* Kayaked along the Potomac for Dan's birthday
* Saw our city as tourists
* Finished our backyard make-over

July

In July, I...
* Updated our bathroom
* Went on beach vacation with our family
* Played golf for first time ever... at night

August


In August, I...

* Biked 8 mile night time ride
* Survived Earthquake 2011!
September


In September, I...
* Opened up about our loss

October


In October, I...

* Danced in a flash mob to this song
* Won a costume contest
* Listened to the wedding roast... errr... toast
* Hiked the Appalachian Trail

November


In November, I...


* Wrote about an odd type of gratitude
* Officially became a published writer!
NOTE: After four years of corresponding with a Virginia Tech professor, I was finally sent a copy of this book containing a lesson plan I created on The Outsiders! Never blogged about this because it's kinda boring to anyone who doesn't teach eighth grade English, but Ponyboy would be proud.

December


In December, I...

* Went to an "H is for Holiday" party
* Restored my belief in Santa
* Rocked a resolution


Want more memories? Remember that time I was a juror for a murder trial? Or when I almost passed out after bikram yoga? No? Then, go to the 2010 breakdown here.


I'm nothing if not thorough in my reminscences.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

I believe because he made one of my husband's biggest wishes come true. And on Christmas Eve at that. Nice work, Santa.

Dan has been in a fantasy football league for the past seven years. Each September, he shells out 100 bucks in order to join the trash talk and male bonding that is fantasy football. He seems to forget that I know nothing about sports and agonizes over who to start each week to me. Anyway, he is the complete underdog. He has come in last place twice and almost last several other times. He's even been forced to work the fantasy football board at their draft, which is the equivalent of being the "asshole" in the popular college drinking game by the same title. Dan and his friends are pretty merciless at heckling one another, so when he was in last place there was no shortage of comments requesting that he turn in his "man card". In short, he had no where to go but up.

By the way, if you are like me and totally unathletic and are about to stop reading, I promise that is the extent that I will discuss fantasy football. I'm also going to end with belated pictures of my holiday decor. Stick with it. You're almost done.

Somehow, Dan made it to the final "superbowl" in his fantasy league this year. The culminating "game" was on Christmas Eve. (Notice the over-use of quotation marks as fantasy football is still crazy confusing to me). He kept sneaking peaks at the computer to see the score in between opening fabulous gifts and our decadent crabcake dinner. When he realized that he had squeaked by a win, he launched into a full-on happy dance complete with fist pumping. The conversation went like this:

Dan: YES!

My mom: What's going on?!

Dan: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Me: Hit refresh to make sure.

My dad: Did you win?

Dan: WHOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!

Me: You did it? You actually won?

Dan: YUHHH HUHHHH! *&%* yeah!!!!! WOOO

Me: Seriously? That's great, hon!

Dan: HOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Yes, on that magical Christmas Eve, my husband couldn't stop himself from relishing in his win. His text to his friends that night?

Merry Christmas and a happy new year, from your league's champion!

Hope you all suck less in 2012.

On second thought, maybe Santa created a monster...

As promised, I thought I'd share a few rather blurry photos of my holiday decor to inject some estrogen into this post:

If these twelve days of Christmas plates don't counterbalance all the football talk, I don't know what will...

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday with your families!

H is for...

La Vida Lista Encyclopedia: Volume H

Since I already had two posts about gratitude, I figured letter "G" is covered. I'm moving on to letter...

Randomly, there are three things going on in my life that fit neatly into this "H" category. I'm saving the best for last... an "H" themed party! Yes, really.

Hardware:

I kicked some more brass. That's right. Before the hardware on my front door looked like this:

I spent a Sunday afternoon unscrewing everything, positioning them on the cardboard boxes, and spraying them with this exact method I found from YHL. It updated the look for less than ten bucks, even if it was more time consuming to figure out how to reassemble than I had anticipated.

There are still ninety-nine problems with the front of our house, but our handle ain't one. Small victories, people. See the new dark look?

Moving right along...

Holiday decor:

More on my new holiday decor next week when I have a chance to breathe (NO school! Woo hooooo!), but I thought I'd share one thing:

I have a turquoise, blue, and white color scheme going on in my dining room:


So I took the mason jars that I scored from my sister-in-law's wedding, filled them with sea salt "snow", spray painted a faux tree and bush, and made a little snowglobe sans the water:


Next week, I'll show off more decor and the other one I made after bleaching a few faux trees white.

Lastly, to round off volume "H"...

The H party

Some of Dan's quirky friends from work through a holiday party with an "H is for Holiday" theme. They requested that everyone come dressed as something starting with an "H".

Interweb, I give you... my hubby dressed as Harry Potter:


Hahahahahaha! This has been cracking me up all week!

His graduation robe + a Redskins scarf + faux glasses = the sexiest Harry ever

I pulled out my "house" Halloween costume and my sister Bethy came along dressed as "Heaven and Hell"

Ignore my sister's odd "I'm hammered" expression. The above picture was taken at the end of the night.

I didn't get very many pictures of all the great cosumes (Hokie! Hippie! Hermit Crab! Hester Prim! Holiday sweaters!) but here's a random one of Dan and a colleague dressed as a hiker:



H overload: Heaven and Hell, Hairstylist, Captain Hook, Heaven:


Random but fun party! I'll leave you with two more photos we took at the end of the night.

The hostess set up one of those stick-your-head-in-the-holes picture ops:

Happy holidays!