Category: Everything Else

Categories
Everything Else

happy new year!

Welcome 2009! Hope everyone has a very happy new year!

Thought I’d do a quick 2008 year in review.
Jan/Feb/Mar: I became president of the Raleigh Area Chi O group. Jason had surgery to remove the pins in his hip from his skateboarding injury. So we laid low while he was recovering. We traveled to OIB to be with family and get a little beach time in for Easter.
April: Jason started taking IT night classes. We went to Midlo for Mollie & Colin’s couples shower. I traveled to Charlotte for Kim’s bachlorette party. My parents came to Raleigh for a visit.
May: We went home to Richmond for Mollie & Colin’s wedding. We enjoyed another long weekend at OIB over Memorial Day weekend.
June: We went to Charlotte and had a great time with college friends at Kim & Jeff’s wedding. I went to Hilton Head with my aunts & grandparents for a long weekend.
July: We enjoyed another great beach weekend in OIB over July 4th. The following long weekend, we traveled to Atlanta (my first time!) for my work conference then were able to visit Jason’s family and go to Jason’s mom’s family reunion on our way home.
Aug: We went to visit my parents in Midlo then convinced my parents to join us in OIB the following weekend. We also spent Labor Day weekend visiting my grandparents and getting some beach time in. We’re definitely very fortunate to have a close by, free vacation spot!
Sept: Thanks to my parents we were able to continue our tradition of getting NCSU football season tickets! My favorite part of the fall! Sept had 3 home games (2 home wins & one loss) and included a great reunion weekend with my college buddies and their significant others! Jason turned 35 on the 11th! Sept 29th we low-key celebrated our one year anniversary. Jason started a new job at Cisco this same day!
Oct: We went to Leanne & Cliff’s wedding in town (a first for us!) and got to visit with a bunch of former coworkers of mine in first weekend in Oct. We watched FSU beat State in a heartbreaker on Thurs night (also the first night of the fair and Jason almost missed the game with the traffic!)
Nov: I took a moms & daughters trip to Philly the first weekend in Nov. My parents came in town and we tailgated with one of my best friends & her parents for the WFU game. It rained but state won and we had a great time! We went to OIB to meet up with both sides of my family for Thanksgiving.
Dec: We enjoyed last month with lots of cookie exchanges! I turned 27 (I’m getting old!). We went to Midlo for the Christmas weekend. We rang in the new year last night with wonderful friends at the home of Beth & Dave!

I’ve always been a big reader, but this year with Jason having class at night I renewed my love of reading. I joined the Raleigh nest ladies book club and helped start a Chi O alum book club. Both of those motivated me to reading things a little out of my norm which has been awesome. My goal was to read 50 books in 2008. I only made it to 46. So I’m renewing that goal for ’09.

Categories
Everything Else

LOST Book Club

I saw a post about this on the Nest Book Club and thought it was really cool. Jason & I LOVE LOST & can’t wait for season 5 to begin! I’m not sure I’ll read all these, but I do think it’d be interesting to read some of these especially to rewatch the show that the book’s mentioned in. Here’s the link: http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=bookclub

Categories
Everything Else Food

weekend

My parent’s came into town this weekend. We have a tradition of going to the NCSU/WF game with one of my good friends from college and her parents. I made blueberry scones for breakfast, whipped together a parm/ranch veggie dip (using a herb pack given to me by a friend, ranch dressing & sour cream), and a layered Mexican dip (except that I used HT’s refried black beans and omitted the olives & onions b/c I didnt have them on hand). All three got rave reviews! We also had beer, mojitos, bloody marys, Bojangles chicken, slaw & beans, and birthday cake (yay for Brett turning 30!). Even though it rained a little bit, we didn’t mind and we were prepared this time with raincoats & ponchos.
To make it an even better weekend, NCSU won! I’m such a huge NCSU football fan and am thus so excited that they won the game Saturday night. I’d resigned myself to them losing, but it’s so much more fun when they win! My dad laughed and said they only have to win out to go to a bowl. Not sure that’ll happen, but I’ll be wearing red the next two Saturdays to support the pack. 🙂

Categories
Everything Else

voted

I voted early tonight! The parking lot was packed and the line was way out the door, but it was worth standing out in the cold for 15 minutes. Since I’ll be getting back into town late Monday night, voting tonight will make next Tuesday a little less hectic. But while I was waiting and then as I was filling in the little ovals I was thinking how cool it was that one we live in a country where we can vote and two that we live in a country where voting is so low key and normal (I know there are countries where people are killed/harassed etc while trying to vote). It really wasn’t that long ago that women weren’t allowed the right to vote and I hope that we as Americans (especially women) remember not to take that for granted.

Categories
Everything Else

I gave up…

on reading Reading Lolita in Tehran. I tried (I read the first 68 pages on Saturday) but I think for the first time in my whole life I quit a book. Earlier this fall I read The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns & Three Cups of Tea all of which are set in/about the lives of Afghanistan. I enjoyed all three of those books, read them kinda back to back and was talking about them at a recent book club meeting. I read in Real Simple about Reading Lolita & then someone from book club also recommended it, so I thought it would be good. I’m not sure if the writing style just wasn’t working for me or if I’m just kinda over that Afghanistan setting for now. I’ve put it on a list to try to read it later on this year or maybe next year. Just thought I’d share my confession with the world!