If you’re married to a geek like I am, this might be a great Valentine’s day gift to give. Actually, I wouldn’t half-mind one myself. I can’t believe how cheap thumb drives have gotten. I was excited about getting a 1 gb thumb drive for $35 a few months ago. Now I can get a 2 gb one for less than that. In a pretty color. With my name engraved on it!

Looky how cute:

With my design business doing pretty well, that 2 gb drive (in red, I think) would come in very very handy. A nice backup for my files, and a way to transport them to another computer, if the need arises.

Now, a cute lil’ thumb drive presented to me with flowers before we go to dinner at a nice restaurant? Even better!

HB to meeeeeee!

Don’t you think you should automatically get a day off when it’s your birthday? Like a free holiday? I do too. Hmmph. Oh well. Ren and Gary are coming to have lunch with me today. That’ll be fun. We are going to have sushi, and maybe Gary will get a pina colada again. Nothing says “raw fish” like a pina colada. Or nothing says “pina colada” like raw fish. Something like that.

Went to the beach last weekend. It was so fun and relaxing. Hope to do it again soon.

Tonight George is taking me to Galatoire’s for dinner. I have never been. I am v excited to go. That thing we call “Weight Watchers” and “points” do not exist tonight, though I will go to the gym after work and will count points during the day to attempt to minimize the gain. Because by golly, I will eat the hollandaise sauce!

Okay, must get ready for work now….boo!

Happy New Year!

In spite of the fact that George and I have both been sick for the past few days, I don’t think it bodes badly for a new year. I certainly had a great time on Sunday night. Perhaps too great, as it happens. But that’s all done and past. While I have your typical run-of-the-mill cold, complete with fun chest congestion, poor George had a nasty bout of food poisoning. Well, we think it’s food poisoning. Presumably it came from a salad I made him at a grocery store salad bar. A very fancy grocery store salad bar. No proof though.

Just before the tainted salad was consumed, we went to the movie and saw the Holiday. Cute and all, but I really wasn’t convinced of the chemistry of the couples. Too bad. What I coveted most from that film wasn’t Kate Winslet’s flawless skin, but instead her perfect, cozy, tiny cottage. Ah well, they only exist in movies, right?

I also banged my knee up pretty badly on New Year’s Eve, and now am walking around with a limp and a bacon bandaid on my knee.

Happy New Year!

Christmas pictures!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! Me, I did. Got a bunch of good stuff, including (best of all), not one, but TWO diamond pendants from George! Atta boy! I’m going to return one, though, and get something else like a ring or earrings or an anklet or something. (Kidding about the anklet, in case you don’t know me.) George doesn’t mind the exchange, because, see, I already have one diamond necklace and now if I have THREE then my first one and my new one will be worn only 1/3 of the time each, but now they can be worn half the time each, and they won’t feel like I’m neglecting them.

Here is a picture of the new ones…the one on the right is the one I’m keeping. Ain’t it dreamy?

So, in addition to the diamond extravaganza, I also got to hang out with Ellie (and the rest of my immediate family.) Exciting, no?

So, as most of you now know, I’M GETTING ANOTHER NIECE! Of course this is good news, except for Ellie. Now she won’t get to refer to “my cousin Vinny”. But what can ya do?

Can you believe it’s a week til Christmas? No, me neither, when the temperature is in the *&#@ 80s. Ah well. Who cares what the weather’s like, because Ellie will be here in six days!

Had quite the family-oriented weekend. Friday, I had dinner with cousin Monica and her son Max. Max is so cute. He calls me “Aunt Pam” and climbed on my lap and asked me if I was happy (yes, how could I not be, with you being so sweet?) and we had lots of fun playing with his toys after dinner.

On Saturday, I went to Baton Rouge and Mom and I had dinner with some of her siblings. It was Mom’s birthday-eve. I probably shouldn’t mention numbers, in case Mom is reading. Let’s face it, Christmas is coming and it’s not too late to return my presents.

On Sunday, Mom’s actual birthday, we went to brunch (mmmm, eggs sardou) and then did some Christmas shopping. Well, she did anyway. It’s really hard to think of presents for my brother and brother-in-law. On the other hand, my brother owes me $50, so maybe I don’t have to find anything for him after all. Hmmph.

We also got Mom a Christmas tree and set up a web cam. We got to see Ellie on it, so the stress of dealing with a Windows computer was worth it, in the end.

And then I babysat Max last night. We had lots of fun watching Cars. Max was understandably upset when Mommy left, but he calmed down before too long and we were able to enjoy the antics of Lightning McQueen and Mater (my favorite.) Unfortunately, a massive cockroach decided HE wanted to have fun too, so we fled the room and played with Max’s toys for a while instead. And then Monica came home and killed the roach and all was well.

Hurrah!

This post will take the form of a bulleted (okay, dashed) list…

– today jenny and rob find out if i will be having a niece or a nephew!

– this weekend was pretty jam-packed with fun. friday night would have been much better, though, if i’d run into paula at the beginning of the (very painful to me) concert, rather than at the end.

– i beat my personal record of 20:56 at the Celebration in the Oaks 2-mile run with a blistering 20:30! Yes, I kill myself to run 10:15 miles. teresa, however, while she had a good time, ended up with a severely swollen pair of eyes. it is a medical mystery, but now she is all better.

– i got the best christmas present so far this year (and this one is going to be hard to beat, people) from kristina. it’s the most beautiful purse in the world.

i swore i wouldn’t use it until christmas, but today my willpower was out to lunch and i couldn’t resist. the leather, it is like butter!

– last night, whilst toasting tortillas to go in the soup i made, i turned our house into a smoke pit. i may have left them in the toaster oven a tad long, and they may have turned to ash. the stench is lovely. how to get rid of it?

– sunday is mom’s birthday! so i will be going to baton rouge saturday night so we can see “The Holiday” and then have brunch on sunday.

– 10 days to ellie! again!

I just posted on how I am having a hard time with Christmas shopping. Seriously, it is not easy! Usually I don’t have a problem thinking up fun, original gifts for my friends and family, but for some reason this year, I’m totally stymied.

But then I thought, what about Gourmet Gifts? How fun is that? One year, I got a gift of cheese from Kristina, and it was the most fun present ever. I’ll never forget that. So take it from me, a gift of the gourmet will always be a hit.

Some ideas:
Chocolate Indulgence (yes please!)
For the newlyweds
For the grillmaster in your life
Oooh, and this looks like a great one to sneak into the movie theater. Not that I’d ever do that…
Oh my. Here’s what I need…a YEAR OF CHOCOLATE! What a year that’d be…oh my…

Hmmm….now, remember, act surprised if you get one of these from me!