atlanta

Thanksgiving 2011

As promised, here is the long-awaited (tee-hee) entry about my Thanksgiving, only 1000 years after everyone has posted theirs! 🙂 To be fair, I did have an extended holiday, starting off Tuesday evening when Aidan arrived! He spent that night here playing and playing. Then he spent Wednesday playing and playing. Good times.

Aidan

LEGO

Thursday, we headed to our friends Jeff & Deborah for our annual Thanksgiving meal. Good food, and good times. Even when Aidan didn’t eat the yummy Yukon Gold potatoes. Hmph. After dinner, we went for a little walk, and I modeled my new coat:

New Coat

Deborah and I also looked cute for the camera.

Deborah and Me

THEN it was off to the airport. It was SO NICE to fly on Thanksgiving evening during dinner time. The airport was so quiet, and the plane MAY have had 50 passengers total on it. It was so peaceful and smooth, and we arrived in Atlanta 50 minutes ahead of schedule!

Because Adam and I flew in Thanksgiving Day, we held off until November 25 to celebrate…..

THANKSMAS
The epic holiday combining Christmas,
Thanksgiving, and Family Portrait Day.

My Mac and Cheese
This happened. You’re so jealous. Just admit it.

Rich and a Turkey
Adam’s dad doesn’t look too proud of this turkey,
but HE SHOULD because it was DA BOMB DOT COM.

Good food was consumed, along with wine. Games were played, conversations had. Then it was PICTURE TAKING TIME!

Piggy Back

Cute Lola

Family Pictures

Wheee!

Aidan

Lola Shows Stuff to Grandpa Rich

After pictures, we sat around and talked until the sun went down. Then it was time for Thanksmas to start!

Thanksmas Gifts

Thanksmas was awesome. I got some really neat things. But I had to leave them there because we flew Airtran and had our carry-on bags already packed to bursting (too cheap to pay baggage fees, ha). So Adam’s parents will ship all the big stuff to us.

World's Best Person.
His statue says “Best Person.”
It came from the Tacky Gift Exchange.
Aidan likes it.
I wanted the Justin Bieber toothbrush
but my cousin Annie got it instead.

Tree

Next day was stocking stuffers, naps, a morning of THIS cuteness:

Lola and Aidan

and a visit to see……

YAY Santa!

Woooo!

Oh, and more pictures.

We're a Family!

Snort

Gotta love that Atlanta in November is warm enough to go coatless. Back in Chicago now–we got back Tuesday afternoon. Another awesome Thanksmas!

Til next time! 🙂

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Today For You, Tomorrow For Me (Pictures)

To be honest, I don’t feel a heck of a lot like writing, but I’m going to babble on a bit until the generic Nyquil kicks in and hopefully puts me to sleep.

I’ve been non-stop sick for the past six or seven weeks and today, my throat feels like it’s on fire. My ears are burning too. And I’m having periodic coughing fits, especially when I lie down. This started (again) Sunday night, so it’s been a week—way too long for a sore throat. I have to clench my hands when I swallow, it hurts so badly. I went to Urgent Care a few weeks ago, got a z-pack, but I don’t think it worked because I vomited up the dosage the first night. Plus, the doctor MAY have taken five minutes to look at me, so I doubt his diagnosis was correct. I am going to have to suck it up and go out to Stonecreek after all, I think, even though it’ll kill my gas mileage for the week and I’ll have to take some unpaid time off of work. I’m thinking it’ll be worth it so I can stop feeling so sick. ‘Cause on top of all that, I’m battling a migraine.

YAY Leaves!

Still, sick or not, I had a wonderful time in Atlanta with Adam’s family. I flew in Monday night (November 19th), and stayed until yesterday. Nice, long, relaxing vacation. And I do feel very relaxed and at home at the Selzer’s. While there, I got to spend lots of quality time with the family, eat good food, and celebrate Thanksmas. Because most of us kids can’t make it to Atlanta for Christmas, Adam’s mom combined Thanksgiving and Christmas into one really fun holiday. I got spoiled. Rotten. And…not only did Adam and I get our first ornament together, but I also got my very own stocking with my name embroidered on it. 🙂

Here’s the ornament:
Our First Ornament

Among the gifts I received:

– An electric throw, which I am using now. This will totally help me save on energy costs this winter.
– Rent DVD
– Woody Woodpecker DVD
– Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo (and lots of other books)
– A cute tee-shirt that says “Life is Simple. Eat. Sleep. Read.” PERFECT!
– A cute hoodie with the snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Under him it says “Ice Cold.” Again, perfect.
– Monkey Pajamas:
Monkey Pajama Girls!

It was very beautiful there. The fall colors were at the tail end of their peak, and most days, the weather was very nice. Check out the photos:

Thanksmas 2007

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Registered, New Family, Marriage (Pictures)

Adam and I spent last week together, with his family, in Atlanta. We popped in to Target to do our first registry. Good times. 🙂

We both had fun with the gun, even though it yelled at us from time to time. We tried to register for things that’ll be around for a while there rather than seasonal stuff; the wedding is still almost a year away. What’s challenging is that he and I both like fall colors, like oranges and browns and reds, and those are seasonal!
Speaking of the wedding, I haven’t done anything major with plans in a while. Well, I did pop into the Jessica McClintock store to peep at some of the dresses, but that’s it. I’m not sure I should even be worrying about much until I move. It’ll just be easier once I’m living in Chicago.
But, we’re registered at Target. At first, I thought about registering at least one more place—probably Bed, Bath & Beyond or Linens & Things, but we’ll see.
I had a great time with the Selzers in Atlanta. We celebrated Thanksmas, which is a fun combination of Christmas and Thanksgiving. With Eli & Melissa in California, myself in Ohio, and Adam in Illinois, it’s hard to travel a lot this time of year for both holidays. Sooooo, Adam’s mom, Sharon, decided to combine the two holidays.
It was a lot of fun. Sharon had told me once that I really fit in with the family, and I really felt like it all last week. 🙂 I hear these stories about in-laws not getting along and I feel fortunate that won’t be a problem for me. I’m going to like being a Selzer.

(Originally published at Anywhere Is…)

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An Update (Lots of Pictures/Survey)

Hello, LJ people.

Yes, I’ve been away. Well, not exactly. I’ve been reading, just not posting. And it’s not because I haven’t had much to say. Okay, sometimes that was the case. But often, I was just too tired to sit here and write an entry.

But I am here now, so sit back and brace yourselves. It might be a long one! 🙂

Here are the things I’ve done since I last posted:

– Took my laptop to Best Buy again because the power adapter thingy was overheating and melting the cord. I mean, it was getting uncomfortably hot. It will scald you. Was told that there was liquid damage to the motherboard and they wouldn’t fix it unless I paid them more than $1200. I told them to leave the computer as is. I’ll just not touch the damn AC adapter part. It’s at Best Buy now, waiting for me to pick it up. I’ll go get it tomorrow. Seriously, who’d pay $1200 to repair a two-year old laptop when one can buy TWO NEW ones for that price?

One of these days, I’m going to get a Mac.

– I’ve subscribed to a bunch of feeds; The Bargainist, WiseBread, zen habits, The Happiness Project. I call the folder they’re in “Lifestyle” The Bargainist has lists and lists of deals, free samples, coupon codes. It’s neat. Wisebread is a money-management blog. The other two are just for me to become more at peace and happier. Good stuff, those. I have a ton of feeds on my Google Reader, actually. It’s such a convenient way to get loads of info in one place.

– Downloaded the new version of Flock. Got irritated because the pages with feeds and searches on them kept bringing up this little bar that asked me if I wanted to subscribe to them. I finally went into configurations and turned them off. Now I like Flock again. Except I can’t figure out how to turn off the media stream notification. Ugh.

– Had my one-year evaluation at work. It went really well. The copy editors are all going to start taking classes for Copy Editing certification. We wanted to start this month, but we’re waitlisted. We’ll see what happens. At any rate, work has been really good lately. The new lead copy editor is very cool. I won’t have page proofs coming in until October (sigh), so I’m doing a lot of pick up work for marketing and leftover stuff for everyone else. Plus errata. Always errata. Boo to errata. But yay to the style guide coming together!

– Became ADDICTED to enchiladas from El Vaquero. Seriously, they are SOOOOO good. I had some yesterday for lunch. Yummy.

– Started listening to the following bands a lot: Lacuna Coil, Grateful Dead, and The Crüxshadows. I also decided that I love the song Breakin’ Dishes by Rihanna. And If Tha Mood by Esthero. More songs, too.

– Went to Atlanta to meet adamselzer‘s parents and also for Dragon*Con!

Read about and see pix from Atlanta/Dragon*Con

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