M A xx W Cimetière de Bracieux L L

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Trail of Lights

We went to the Zilker Trail of Lights on Sunday with some friends. Patrick made his famous hot chocolate and we froze our butts off.

Enjoy the pictures!


Our First Tree

I was trying to take pictures of our first Christmas Tree, all decorated and lit up, but Calliope wanted some attention and posed for me too.


Calliope stretching for a belly rub

Presents are all wrapped! I think Patrick is excited that he hasn't had to do any wrapping and that all the presents are actually tagged this year - that way he knows which one is his. See the homemade tags?

The Birthday present is for my sister - a Christmas Eve baby.


For our niece!

Chloe decided to help with the ornaments for the tree. She likes playing with the brass bells and loves attacking the soft cloth ornaments. When I come home from work, I usually find them somewhere in the middle of our living room floor.


Chloe "helping"

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

A Better Bag

I normally bring my own bags to grocery stores and try to refuse bags when I can just carry the item in my hands. Every once in awhile, I'll forget to bring the bags in, or buy too many groceries to fit into the bags I do bring in, or just plain forget to say "Thanks, but I don't need a bag."

As of today, Whole Foods here in Austin has discontinued offering plastic bags at checkout (they'll still offer 100% recycled paper bags.) And to kick off their campaign, I got a free reusable bag from them! Now, every time I use the bag below, or any other bag I bring in, they discount 10 cents for each bag - which is double what they used to pay!


only 99 cents after today

Hopefully some other grocery stores will follow suit (ahem....HEB, Walmart, Target....) But I think these other places are still just getting used to the idea of people bringing in their own bags. I don't know how many times I've asked the bagger to not bag things in plastic before putting the items in my own canvas bag or "No, I'm not buying that green bag, it doesn't need to go in a plastic bag."

Being a typical 12 year old kid (and because everything they do embarrasses you), I remember getting embarrassed at my mom bringing in her own bags. Now, I'm glad she did that and instilled that into my head. Now I always keep one of those fold-up bags in my purse, just in case.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Eight Days...

Eight days until we leave for Houston for Christmas. Tree is lit and ornaments are hung. Gifts are all purchased, and all there is left to do is wrap them.

Yesterday, I came home to find our answering machine blinking. I press the play button, but all I hear is static. So, I go to adjust the volume and try to get it at that perfect spot where the speaker doesn't crackle and I'm not blown away by the decibels. It keeps cutting in and out and all I can decipher is that an order has been declined because of something having to do with the credit card information, like an incorrect number or date or something. When I try to play it back, I accidentally erase it. I guess I wasn't supposed to hear a message relating to my Christmas gift. Luckily for Patrick, our answering machine is a piece of crap.

After trying to listen to the message, I went down to the gym to go run. And since I sometimes try to time my workouts around Scrubs reruns on Comedy Central, I was able to catch one of my favorite episodes: The Scrubs Musical.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Lately

Things are going well here, it just seem pretty busy. Patrick's working crazy long hours and working on online school work, so he doesn't usually come home till after 9pm every day (and sometimes later.) So, on the weekend we don't do much other than sleep, eat, watch football, and as of late, shop for Christmas. While he's at his office I'm filling up my free time cleaning the apartment and trying to do this Couch to 5K training thing, but not really training for a specific run.

Kitties: Chloe's being much more cuddly as it gets colder and Calliope is just getting fatter - as confirmed by her latest vet visit...She's 13 freaking pounds!!! The Vet wants her at 11 and so I think she should started training with me. We could both stand to lose a couple.

We bought our first Christmas tree over the weekend and that's been a fun experience. I've never had a real tree before and the kitties have never been around one either. As Patrick brought it in our apartment, Calliope hissed at it. I'm not exactly sure what she thought it was, just that it was a foreign object occupying her space. Now, they both just like to eat the needles and drink the tree's water. I'm just glad that they haven't tried climbing it....yet.

Right now, we have white lights and about 7 ornaments on the tree, and a topper in waiting. So, it looks kind of sad unless you look at it really up close. Just waiting for the box to arrive with the rest of my ornaments, then I'll post pictures. It's nice to finally have a tree, it really makes it feel more like the Christmas season. In the past, Patrick and I would be gone for such a long time around Christmas, that it would have been just a hassle. But with a shorter trip this year, I had to have one.