Christmas Cookies

So this weekend I am going home to bake some Christmas cookies with my mom, sister, and possibly my great-grandmother. I am very excited about this. First, I love to bake. I bake at least one thing every week (and usually only one otherwise I'd have an ass roughly 3 times the size mine is now in no time) because my husband likes to have sweets around the house. Damn him and his natural high metabolism!

Second, I love to spend time with my mom and sister. We see them a lot, but it's always fun and I always look forward to it.

Third, we'll be out of our apartment all weekend long. Two weekend ago we were there the entire weekend except one short sojourn to church. Last weekend we were there Friday night, most of Saturday night, and most of Sunday night. We did get out a little bit, but getting out usually means spending money, which we did. The only money we have to spend this weekend is gas money. Yay!

So, yeah, I'm going to my parents' house this weekend and it will be great and we will have fun.

I was hoping to get to drive my car to my parents' house this weekend, but no such luck. After only having it for, oh, just about six weeks now, the body shop just discovered (JUST!) that there are a few hoses that need to be repaired too.

I have my little sister's car (she's at school so it was just sitting at home not being used) so it's not that big of a deal I guess, but she's going to be home for Christmas break soon and I was hoping to get it back to her before then. I don't think it's going to happen. They're still working on the body repairs and have yet to finish any of the inside stuff (of which I'm sure there's much - when I put it in park after the accident? it kept going. That has got to be a bad thing).

So, in summary, cookies and parents and sister? Fun. Car? Suckage.

Happy Birthday to Me?

I have some advice for you all:

If you can avoid it, never start your period on your birthday.

Just sayin'.

I almost cried this morning because my husband didn't make me breakfast in bed. He didn't need to do it. He didn't have time to do it. I wasn't even expecting it, but for some reason it made me sad. It's not like he hasn't already taken me to a movie and dinner, bought me some new shoes, or baked a cake and planned on making me dinner tonight.

I'm far too hormonal.

But other than that, this is a great birthday. Someone at work even brought in cookies!

Just wish you didn't have to get older every year.

Thanksgiving Redux

Thanksgiving was pretty fun this year. We celebrated with my husband's grandparents (both sides) and ate A LOT. I realized Wednesday night that the Monday before Thanksgiving was a bad time to start a diet.

Anyway, while there was a lot of eating, there was not a lot (thank goodness) of baby guilt trips. Only one. And when I got it, I almost smacked myself in the head because I am such a dork.

You see, we wanted to celebrate with Aaron's entire family this year, so we called his Grandma who typically hosts Thanksgiving and asked if we could come. Then we asked if his parents and his mom's mother could come too. Of course she said yes.

And then she got excited.

Since we wanted the whole family to be together, we must have an announcement, right?

Oops.

I feel bad for having caused so much disappointment so unintentionally. I now know what not to do in the future.

This of course led to Aaron and I talking about babies for the rest of the weekend, but that's an entry for another day.

Also, there were new things this year that I had never tried before and loved (collard greens and sweet potato pie) and many, many old favorites (corn custard, cranberry sauce, and cheesy potato casserole). Unfortunately the dessert I was planning on taking (a turtle tart) didn't work out. I was really looking forward to it, but again, am an idiot, and mis-measured and ruined the crust. We had more than enough food anyway, so it wasn't really missed by anyone but Aaron and I who were looking forward to it.

Oh, on a completely different subject, I want to send a quick "Yay!" out to my brother (who has no idea I even have this site and therefore does not read it, but I'm excited so I'm going to share). He and his fiance set a date and are getting married in June and I'm very excited for them. It totally works out too because Aaron and I were planning a trip to visit them in June anyway (they live fairly far away and we don't get to see them often). Should be a blast!

Stupid People (me included) Annoy Me

So it's snowing here today. A lot snowing actually. And I just went out to lunch and did something stupid. And then something stupid was done too me. Two somethings, really.

So, my scraper is in my apartment, not in my car where it should be, because I took it out of my other car when it went in to be repaired (which - note to self: call body shop and see if they've finished my car yet because they've had it for more than ONE MONTH now, and they don't like to call me and keep me updated) and didn't think about it until about 20 minutes ago. When I actually needed it.

I went outside to go to lunch and my driver's-side window was covered in snow. I didn't have my gloves on to scrape it off, and my hands had instantly frozen when I stepped outside so I didn't want to wipe it off.

"Ah" I thought "I'll just slam the door really hard and it will fall off"

Sounds plausible, no?

So I opened the door not really looking at how much snow was going to fall into my car when I did so.

Hint? A lot.

So, crap. Snow on seat. Sit on seat anyway. Slam door hard. Nothing.

No snow fell off. So I thought to myself "Just roll down the window, and then push it and it will fall off". Plausible? Yes. What happened? No.

I rolled it down a little too far and got snow EVERYWHERE. So I opened the door, brushed out the snow with my popsicles - I mean hands - and slammed the door again. With the window still down. Even more snow EVERYWHERE.

I? Am a stupid person.

SO...after that fun, I went to the local Taco Bell for lunch (which, I know, asking for trouble). While there I confirmed a theory I've had for a while now. When you order something at Taco Bell and ask for no meat in it? They'll look at you like you just said you killed their puppy. Sort of stupified and confused, and all "Why? What?" And I'm like "Just the burrito, no meat" and they'll be like "So just rice and beans?" and I'm like "Bingo" And then they do this sort of annoyed eyeroll and punch the order into their little computer. I don't understand why this is so hard.

Then, I got back and started eating my burrito. Apparently they think that if you don't want meat, then you must want extra beans. Which, no. I do not. And this is especially not good if (TMI warning) I'm headed to the gym in just a few short hours. Sorry ladies, you'll be getting more from me than just a work-out buddy today. Just don't pick the machine next to me and everything will be all right.

Good thing I'm leaving work early today. Maybe the gym won't be as crowded as usual and I can avoid complete and utter embarrassment.

My Favorite Time of Year

I'm so excited the holiday season is here. It's also the season that includes my birthday (although I'm kind of sad I get a year older in a week) and my anniversary. Bring on the pampering and good food!

We're doing Thanksgiving this year at my husband grandparent's house. The food is always amazing and very plentiful. I've been eating light since Sunday to make up for the thousands of calories I'm sure to ingest on Thursday. We're only going for the day, thank goodness, because his grandmother likes to make sure we have plenty to eat so if we were staying longer she'd probably make another complete meal or two for us.

Sunday we're celebrating my birthday by going to P.F. Changs for dinner and going to see the most recent Harry Potter movie (although I might do that on Saturday because not everyone that will be going to P.F. Changs with us is as excited about seeing the movie as I am - I know I'm a dork and I'm proud of it!). Tuesday (my actual birthday) Aaron is making me spaghetti and garlic bread (he makes awesome spaghetti!).

This is going to be a fun week. Plus the four day weekend. Yay!

I'm just hoping Aaron feels better by Thursday. He's home sick today, and if he's still sick on Thursday we probably won't go to his grandparents' house, because I don't want to get anyone sick. I loaded him with medicine, put a pitcher of water next to the bed for him, and made chicken soup this morning for him to eat. I'm hoping that cures him.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope your holiday is wonderful.

Jittery-ish-ness

It is a distinct possibility that I may have had too much coffee this morning. The evidence is mounting. It includes:

• My hands are shaking
• I can't seem to blink
• My boss just scared the absolute shit out of me, simply by walking into my office and saying hi
• I'm actually pretty focused today (caffeine tends to do that to me)
• I've had to pee about 40 bazillion times
• My foot won't stop moving

What do you think? Maybe I should lay off and not have any more caffeine today. Maybe I should have an alcoholic drink to mellow myself out (don't think the boss would appreciate that though).

In other news, operation "actually sleep on new mattress" has been working well. It could be because I was exhausted on Wednesday night from lack of sleep Tuesday night and therefore slept the whole night, and last night I took Tylenol Night-time cold medicine because I'm still having sinus issues. I probably won't find out tonight if it is those two things that have ensured a good night sleep the past two evenings, or if I can actually sleep on the new bed because I'm taking my friend Molly out tonight for a belated birthday celebration. So, there will probably be alcohol interfering with finding the answer tonight.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

I just looked out my office window, and saw something I haven't seen for many months.

Snow!

Winter has begun, and it has begun rather suddenly. It was close to sixty degrees here yesterday.

Now I'm craving hot cocoa (with peppermint schnapps, of course) and Christmas carols.

Happy Winter everyone!

Hard. Like a Rock.

The new mattress was delivered at about 7:30 last night. It came in plastic wrapping (thank God as it was POURING last night - although the pouring did pause long enough for them to bring in the mattress set, so not too much water around the apartment. Bonus!) and looks very pretty. The delivery "men" (because they were maybe 20) dropped it off and Aaron and I excitedly set it up. We could have had the delivery guys set it up, but Aaron was afraid they'd hit our ceiling fan with something and break it, so we did it ourselves. We are very handy.

First things first, we set up the frame. The frame has wheels you need to put in. Aaron did this and managed to scrape the hell out of his wrist when he was pounding one in with his hand, so therefore he looks like he had a very bad day yesterday what with the bandage we put together to stop the bleeding. That was fun with a new white mattress and clean white sheets. He did avoid getting the blood on anything, so that was good.

After the frame was put together and in place we set up the mattress, stretched our mattress pad and sheets onto the mattress (because it is about 3 inches thicker than our last mattress and therefore the sheets, they are a little tight) and threw on the duvet. We laid down and it felt oh so comfortable.

At about 9:30, we couldn't resist it calling our names, so we moved in there to watch our shows and enjoy the new mattress. It seemed comfortable then, but compared to our former mushy pile of mush mattress, it was pretty firm. In fact it was hard. Like a rock.

Also, we had a wind storm last night so that was loud.

At about 2:30 I woke up with a stabbing pain in my shoulder and hip. The wind was very loud, and we must have kicked up some dust from the packaging the mattress came in so I couldn't breathe. I laid there until about 3:00, then I moved to the couch because tossing and turning will wake up the other person in the bed, right?

Wrong. He slept like a log the entire night and woke up refreshed. I slept like a colicky infant - not at all and feeling like crying loudly because of it. I'm sure I'll adjust, I always sleep horribly the first night in a new bed, but last night was hell.

Thank God for a tall cup of strong coffee. Otherwise I'd be completely worthless today.

Beloved, may your sleep be sound

So, this past weekend my husband I decided it was time to shop for a new mattress. The mattress we currently "sleep" on (and I say "sleep" because we mostly just toss and turn all night because we are uncomfortable) was a hand-me-down because when we first moved in together we literally had no money.

At first we thought it was incredibly comfortable. Could be because we were used to sleeping two to a twin mattress. Our "new" one was a queen with a pillow top.

As time has worn on, the mattress has worn out. At first there was one big furrow in the middle of the bed and so we'd both end up there. Now there's two furrows - one on either side of the bed - so hard as I may try to snuggle up to Aaron in the middle of the night, as soon as I fall asleep I fall back down on my side.

So yes, it's time for a new mattress.

So, we went shopping on Saturday, bought a new mattress and it's being delivered tonight. So tomorrow I'll either be very well-rested or very tired because I'm not used to the new mattress yet. I'm also hoping that the new mattress will keep Aaron from complaining about his back hurting every morning.

Here's to a good long night of sleeping soundly.

The Meme

Okay, so finally, here's the Meme that I wrote about the other day. Nothing too exciting, but it was the first meme I was invited to do so that was kind of flattering. Here Goes:

5 Things

10 years ago - I was a sophomore in high school and I painted my fingernails a different color ever night to match my outfit for the next day.
8 years ago - I was just about to start dating my high school sweetheart and I was fighting with a friend over him.
4-7 years ago - College. Also meeting my husband (about 4 3/4 years ago). That was a good semester!
2 years ago - I was in my first semester of graduate school and working two jobs. I was slightly busy.
Now - I am enjoying life as a bona fide adult (i.e. no school, full time job, not completely broke) and I'm about to turn 26.

Five Yummy Things
1. Macaroni and cheese
2. Bruschetta
3. Soup (particularly tomato basil soup)
4. Fritos Chili Cheese Dip
5. Edamame

Five Songs I Know by Heart
1. The Luckiest (Ben Folds)
2. Sugar We're Going Down (Fall Out Boy)
3. Nightswimming (R.E.M.)
4. Crocodile Rock (Elton John)
5. Michigan State University Fight Song - Go Green!

Five Things I Would Do with A Lot of Money
1. Buy a house
2. Two new cars
3. Pay off college loans and other debts.
4. Travel through Europe
5. Save some for my (future) kids

Five Places I Would Escape To:
1. New York City
2. San Francisco
3. Tropical Islands
4. Home
5. My Grandparents' House

Five Things I Would Never Wear
1. Bermuda Shorts (they're just not flattering on me)
2. Mid-drift baring tops
3. Blue Lipstick
4. Platform Shoes/Boots (there's a story behind this one. I'll tell it some other time)
5. A Fanny Pack

Five favorite TV Shows
1. Desperate Housewives
2. CSI
3. America's Next Top Model
4. America's Funniest Home Videos
5. Arrested Development (and I totally almost cried last Friday when the cancellation news came out).

Five Things I Enjoy Doing
1. Being with my family and Aaron.
2. Cooking and Baking
3. Traveling
4. Playing Board Games
5. Hiking

Five Favorite Toys
1. Settlers of Catan Board Game
2. Scrabble
3. Sudoku Books
4. Sponge Bob Square Pants and the Battle for Bikini Bottom video game
5. The Sims

Five People who Get This Meme
Bethiclaus, Miss Sizzle, Mabel, JustJane, and Ellen

Spam Sucks!

Well, I have decided to turn on the word verification option in my comments - sorry if this causes any annoyance. I had to do it because the spam was driving me nuts. I usually notice it right away and delete it, but lately they've been going into old posts and so I have to search through my posts figuring out where it is, so that on the off chance that someone may be surfing through my archives they don't get stuck reading something like:

Hey! Great Site. Check out my site sometime. It's all about enlarging your penis and pleasing your woman.

Yeah, it's great. Love reading those comments.

In other news, the chocolate chip cookies won the "vote" yesterday, so that's what I'm making. I use a recipe called "My Big, Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies" (here's the link to the recipe if you'd like to try it) and they are AWESOME! I made them for a church group meeting one night and the 6 of us finished them all - one girl even unbuttoned her pants because she was so full. I guess I'm glad she felt that comfortable around us, or something. Anyway, they're good and huge and chocolatey and best straight out of the oven.

One other thing, a small town near where I live has made the national news and even David Letterman because a high school senior was elected mayor of the town this past Tuesday. He wasn't even old enough to register for the election (because he was not yet a registered voter) when it was time so he waited until he was 18 and ran a write-in campaign. It's kind of cool that he won (by two votes) but I do have some issues. First, I remember what I was like at that age, and he's still planning on going to college while he's working, but he'll have to be extra responsible and not party like most college students. Can you imagine that headline? "Mayor Gets Charged with Minor in Possession". Also, he's kind of a goon. He was on the Today show this morning and he kept making weird faces, and you could completely tell that Katie Couric thought he was a good. Hopefully he'll overcome the obstacle of being young and goon-ish to do some good for the town. I wish him the best of luck!

Well, TGIF and all that. Hope everyone has a good weekend. I think we're going mattress shopping, so that should be either fun or stress-inducing, depending on if my husband and I can agree on what we want.

Updated:

I don't know if it was what I wrote earlier, or just a good spam day, but I got two questionable URLs in my stats - one that mentioned make-her-horny and another that had pokersafety.

Also, I played around with my sidebar a little in an effort to deal with the tempate that blogger gave me. I'd love a new one but I'm also too lazy to create one.

Yesterday - In a List - with a Question and a Meme

So yesterday was a LOOOONNNGGG day. Here's why:

1. Meeting across town at 8 in the morning, so my morning commute (and the fact that I usually don't leave the house until eight) went from 10 minutes to 30 minutes.

2. Get back for more meetings. Meetings all day. Blech.

3. Internet was down at work. This made it very boring and also I couldn't do some online research I needed to complete. (And - I didn't get to post on here like I was going to!)

4. Neighbors were loud again but my husband was too crabby to go talk to them. And I wasn't feeling very good (darn lunch made me sick) so I wasn't up to baking cookies anyway.

5. Although I was exhausted I could not seem to fall asleep last night, so I was awake way past my bedtime.

Yeah, that all makes for a craptacular day.

Anyway, here's the question: what kind of cookies should I make to take to the neighbors? I was thinking nothing with nuts (since they could be allergic), but I don't know if I should make sugar cookies (like Snickerdoodles), chocolate chip cookies, or oatmeal cookies. Which do you think I should take?

Also, I was going to post that Meme, but Blogger is being all annoying with the auto formatting and making me all crazy-like, so I'll post it later when I have more patience to deal with it. GRRRR...auto-formatting is the devil!

Neighborly?

We have a new delimma. Or, I should say, my husband does.

This past summer we moved into a new apartment complex, and it's really nice and exactly what we wanted. The entire building is non-smoking. There are quiet hours (from 10 pm to 8 am) which we love because noise was a real problem in our last place. Our neighbors are mostly elderly or professionals, so they're quiet and not there often. Perfection. When we first moved in a retired couple lived downstairs from us and they were awesome - really friendly and deaf - which meant they couldn't hear us, and we never heard them (except for some bathroom issues which I'd rather not discuss because old men with digestive issues = ew, but he couldn't control that I guess)

We have new neighbors that moved into the apartment below ours this past weekend. As far as I've seen (which isn't much) it's two African American women from Alaska. My husband said hello to them when he was out the other day, but I have yet to see/meet them.

The first night they were there, Aaron said "Well, they have a baby" because he heard crying coming from downstairs. But, you could only hear it in the living room, so it wasn't bothering me.

Yesterday evening you could hear their television. Loudly. In fact, Aaron had to turn up our television to hear over theirs. I was in the bedroom again, so I didn't hear it, and I was asleep before 10 pm so I didn't know if it continued after quiet hours started.

It did. And it did again this morning before 8 am.

So what do we do? I'd hate to be the annoying neighbor and say something because the possibility exists that they can also hear us (like I said the previous tenants were pretty deaf and they never complained, but who knows). Anyway, it's not really bothering me, but it's really bothering Aaron. A lot. He thinks he's going to go say something tonight if it continues.

I may make some cookies for him to take down if he does. That way the goodness and the crappiness of us being complaining but baking neighbors equals out.

Wish us luck.

Two Things

Just two things real quick-like:

1. I had my first ever Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks this morning. I have no idea why I had never had one of these before, but I will have to have at least one more before they go away for the season. Because, YUM! They are so good.

2. We bought Scrabble this weekend because we are looking for things to do instead of sit in front of the television from the time we get home until the time we go to bed every evening after work. It is fun and I am totally kicking butt at it so far. We have, however, only played two games, and I never stay the winner for long. My husband is very competitive and likes to win and therefore finds a way to beat the pants off of me every time before too long. But for now? I'm the Scrabble Queen in my house and I'm enjoying it.

Another Delayed Vacation Post

One theme from our vacation (besides me kicking butt at making a camp fire) was shortcuts that didn't turn out to be shorter.

Like the shortcut through the middle of Mackinac Island that added an extra mile on to our trek. (Although it was beautiful, half of it was uphill and my ass hurt the next day from riding the bike over all the bumps on the un-paved trail.

But? My least favorite "shortcut" we took on that vacation was the one on the way back to the campground from Mackinac. The one that had us lost at midnight with little to no gas.

Yeah, it was that good.

There was construction on the main freeway that lead back to the campground and we had noticed quite a few state cops there earlier, so we decided that instead of pissing off whoever was behind us by going the speed limit (Michigan drivers like to ride your ass if you're going anywhere under five miles over the speed limit) that we'd take a different route.

Well, we got off the freeway right at the beginning of the construction zone(which was about 10 miles long total) and we knew where we had to turn (or so we thought) so we were good. Right?

Wrong.

Along the way, I noticed a sign that said "Burt Lake State Park, Next Right". I pointed this out to Aaron who turned at the "Next Right". Well, this was not the state park where we were staying, but instead, it was on the other side of the lake. Wish they would have indicated that.

This was at about 11:15 pm and about 1/8 of a tank of gas left.

We went along this road, and started noticing that the moon was on the wrong side of the car. We were going north, not south or east like we should have been.

So we turned down another road. This is when we realized we were lost.

We realized we were really lost when the road we were on turned into a dirt road with only sporadic cabins along the side.

And the moon was still on the wrong side of the road.

We stopped and looked at the map which really helped since we had no idea where we were, but we could still see the lake so we knew we could find our way eventually.

Then we couldn't see the lake any more.

Finally, when the gas light came on, we came to a paved road and it was about midnight now. We found it on the map, and I started laughing hysterically. I told Aaron to turn right and it would lead us back to the freeway.

At exactly where the construction ended.

We had taken a "shortcut" that got us lost in the middle of nowhere for 45 minutes, and we still had about 20 minutes left until we got to the campground.

We found a gas station, filled up, made our way back to the campsite, and pledged never to take a "shortcut" again.

Pardon the Delay

I've been wanting to tell this story for a while now, but was waiting for the photographic evidence. I finally got pictures scanned (and they didn't turn out as well as I hoped, but they'll suffice) so here goes:

So this past summer (the last weekend in July to be exact) my husband and I went on a vacation. Our first long vacation together where we didn't visit any family at all the entire time.

It was wonderful.

We went camping up north and did small day trips to various places like Mackinac Island, Traverse City, and the Old Mission peninsula. In addition to all the fun, non-camping-like things we did (like eat fancy dinners out and go to wine tastings at local vineyards) we also wanted to do some traditional camping things.

Like campfires.

So, the first night out, while I was setting things up in the tent and getting things ready for dinner, Aaron went about getting a campfire started. It took a long time for it to get going, but once it did it was a nice little campfire, and we enjoyed the roasting of hot dogs and marshmallows and warming ourselves by the fire.

While we were talking I mentioned that I might like to try to build a campfire the next night. I had been watching the Food Network the previous weekend and my favorite chef (Paula Deen) on the Network had been doing some outdoor cooking and was giving tips on how to build a campfire. I wanted to try out her method. (And I like to do things by myself just to prove I can).

So the following evening I set about building my campfire. I rolled the newspapers as instructed - from corner to corner, make a tube and tie it in a knot - and Aaron watched me like I was some sort of crazy person. I could tell he thought I had no idea what I was doing and that he'd have to come fix it later.

Ha.

I arranged some kindling sticks on the newspaper knots and then built a little tepee around my pile of newspaper and sticks. At this poing Aaron decided to go change so he went into the tent.

I went about lighting my fire.

After I lit it, I was a little amazed at how fast it was starting up, but I thought, ha, I showed him!

So I sat down next to the fire. And it got bigger. So I turned to move my chair back, and when I did it got very bright all of the sudden.

I turned around to flames shooting 6 feet into the air above the pit.

Oops.

Aaron came running out of the tent asking me what I had done. At first, from inside the tent he thought someone had parked their truck close by with their headlights pointing at the tent, so he was going to ask them to turn them off.

Then he saw the fire.

I was laughing hysterically because this was my first attempt at camp fire making, and I had succeeded. Well that and the fact that Aaron was freaking out. He kept asking me what I had put on it, because he thought the DNR would come around and ask him to put it out and he wouldn't know how. He thought I had thrown lighter fluid or something on it.

I hadn't.

My laughing as I swore up and down that I hadn't added anything - this was just the fire I built - wasn't convincing him.

This all happened within the span of less than five minutes.

Well, he was finally convinced a couple of minutes later (or at least gave up trying to get me to tell - there was nothing to tell), and we set about roasting marshmallows and trying to not get burned on the really hot flames.

Here's the photographic evidence (but like I said, it's not that good - it was taken after the flames settled a little bit and Aaron's initial shock wore off):

Aaron has sworn me to secrecy about this story when it comes to his friends. He's afraid of being teased that his wife is a better fire-maker than he happens to be.

I told him all those years of playing with fire really helped me in this situation.

He's still not amused.

A Cause for Celebration

Yesterday I wore a suit that I have not been able to wear for about 3 years.

It was wonderful.

Unfortunately I paired it with some very uncomfortable shoes and so therefore was not able to completely celebrate the wonderfulness of it all.

So to celebrate I'm going to be drinking wine again tonight - for the third night in a row.

I'm becoming a wino - and I love it!

Stupid work...Expecting me to be here every day...geez

So, last night was one of those perfect nights that you wish would never end. After work I actually made it to the gym (it had been a week and a half) and once I got started I had the motivation to keep going, so I actually got a really good work out.

I went home and put on some Jack Johnson and started on dinner - Penne with Vodka Sauce. It was amazing and it didn't take that long to make. We cracked open a bottle of our favorite wine (Ravenswood Zinfandel) and it was an exceptional bottle. We slowly ate dinner at the dinner table while listening to Dave Matthews and sharing pleasant and intelligent conversation.

After dinner, I retired to a bubble bath with my second glass of wine and the book I am currently reading. This was the first time I've taken a bath at our new place and the bathtub kept the water warm for the entire time I laid there. I read for about 30 minutes and then got out, put on my most comfortable pajamas and snuggled onto the couch where Aaron was reading his magazine. We read for a while longer and then went to bed to cuddle and watch tv. We fell asleep early and cuddled all night long.

All in all, it was an amazing night, save for the midnight phone call with no one on the other end (grrr). It was hard to wake up this morning, and even harder to leave the house. I love evenings like that, and they make it hard to ever want to move in case you might ruin the perfection of what has happened.

Here's hoping tonight is more of the same.