It's beginning to look a lot like....crazy Christmas days....

I should be blogging. I mean, that's why I have a blog, right? To post entries, whether they be an account of my day, a funny story, needing advice or something else. And here I am with a self imposed hiatus in which I didn't even really know I did it.

It's nothing personal, and I bet 90% of you didn't even notice. That's perfectly fine, despite my viewpoint sometimes not EVERYTHING is about me. :-) But life has been a little topsy turvy over the last month or so. When we last left off I was choosing a new dress for a wedding we went to. The problem here is that most pics of me were not taken w/my camera so I can't show you the final result. There is this one though, taken a little too close and it makes my arms look huge, but there you go.

We had an amazing time, boogied on the dance floor and managed to get into a fight over trying to find the hotel. Seriously, the two of us + two different GPS systems does not = a good time. But once we arrived to the hotel we were fine.

//

We did manage to finally have our housewarming party, this would be the biggest reason for my absence. Who knew throwing a housewarming party in the 1st week of December would be so much work? This means getting all your holiday decorations up before the party (minus the tree) and right after getting home from Mexico. I took off the week after our Thanksgiving vacation to prep for the party and that's probably the smartest idea I've had in a while. More and more people RSVP'd, and I think the final count was around 40 people. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off for a while but I think the end results came out nicely.

Our staircase

The front room fireplace

Then of course we started prepping for Christmas. There was oodles of shopping every weekend (in the far early morning). Am I the only one who hates shopping during Christmas time? There are too many people around and I tend to lose it. The only way M got me out an about to some of the more popular spots is because we showed up right when the place opened.

But on top of this I had to organize our company holiday party, the white elephant gift exchange (because it wouldn't make sense to have them at the same time) and then surprise! I realized I had not finished all the knitting I promise people every year. Now I'm a knitting machine and freaking out over the time left.

//

M has left for his family house today for Christmas since despite our long term status we're not married and do not share our holidays. I'll head up to my family's tomorrow and I'll attempt not to strangle anyone. Something about being around your family brings that out of people. :-)

But before M left, we had our own Christmas on Tuesday. We toured the new neighborhood looking for holiday lights and even went through the other close neighborhoods where we almost bought houses seeing if theirs were more festive. The verdict being that some of them were better, but ours is pretty good for a first year decorating project. Next year expect better things from us. Hehe.

But we exchanged gifts before we went to bed. M got me this treble clef from Pottery Barn I had been eyeing a few weeks back along with this wine label serving tray since I've been saving labels pretty much since we started dating. The best part though were the "santa" gifts. Although there were a few nice things in my stocking (pedometer, candy etc) Santa brought me this gorgeous piece of machinery!!!:
It's the Kitchen Aid professional stand mixer (in empire red) that I've been coveting for the longest time. Apparently he bought it before I even officially put it on my Christmas list. I cannot wait until I get to use the thing, although I've already put it up in the kitchen. I feel like it needs a name, but nothing stands out as of yet.

Now since everyone is busy with holiday festivities...what is your favorite part? And what stresses you out the most?

Viva!....Las Vegas!

I keep hearing about people in Vegas, or people in San Francisco and it boggles my mind because I'm going to be in both THIS WEEK/END and how on Earth does that happen? Right now I'm sitting on the bed in a San Francisco hotel cursing this ethernet cable that should be WAY longer than the little cord provided so that you can only use your laptop while sitting at the desk. Tell me, who in this world who owns a laptop actually sits at a desk to use it? Laptops are all about the couch or the bed.

But like I said, I am here in San Francisco for the first time ever for a business function. I've wandered the streets a little and found out that there are some great shops around this area (Anthropologie, French Connection, CB2) that I'll have to hit tomorrow. I have a meeting in the evening to go to and that's about it, so shopping might be on the horizon.

Even better, I head out Saturday...early AM to fly to Vegas. I've never tried Virgin Air before but it's a hop skip & a jump over to Vegas. The BF has been holed up in a hotel there since Monday so I'm trying to visit him (which btw is another first..Vegas that is) but in the meantime I feel a little Up in the Air with him in one hotel and me in the other. We have oodles of plans while we're there, most importantly seeing O on Sunday. I hear so many great things about that show.

But the surprise tonight is First Crush. If you're in the SF area we had some seriously amazing food there tonight. They were able to accomodate our large party and some of this food was the best I've ever tasted.

Happy Friday (tomorrow) to everyone, I hope your weekend is as fantastic as I hope mine will be.