drool, man

well, so much for posting every. single. day. like i swore up and down i'd do at the beginning of the month.

this is huck:

this is actually a very unfortunate, hilarious picture of my little huckleberry, because he really never looks like the chesire cat except for in this picture. regardless, this is him. he's adorable and friendly and curls up with me in bed, which is essentially all i need to be head over heels in love. however, recently, huck has developed the very interesting habit of drooling all over the place when he finds himself having a good time. he drools on the blankets when he's cozy, he drools on our hands when we pet him and, recently, he drooled all over the warm wireless internet router as he was laying on top of it, effectively destroying our internet access and preventing me from being able to blog (among other things, like research wedding vendors). i'm currently on luke's computer, stealing internet from one of our neighbors.

life without the internet is a tragic, tragic thing and i'm hoping to remedy it as soon as i can call verizon tomorrow morning.

yoga-cize

hello!  i am so tired.  it's a combination of not sleeping for like 23 hours a day, as i grew accustomed to doing during the break from school, and the fact that i'm actually really working during the day.  i'm struggling with being exhausted and still wanting to have my life, watch tv, make dinner and clean up after myself.  however, i've managed two full days of it, and am very proud of myself.

this afternoon, i went to a new yoga class with a friend of mine from work and it seriously kicked my ass.  it was so incredibly difficult - i ran track for seven years and never sweat as much during a workout as i did today in that class.  i felt like i was running an impossible race, possibly because the instructor was calling out poses like this: "warrior pose, inhale, plank pose, exhale, upward facing dog, inhale, downward facing dog."  read that sentence and then imagine doing all those things as quickly as you read it.  exactly.  i feel awesome now, though, and the class had the added benefit of being filled to capacity with beautiful people with amazing bodies (including diane lane!*), which was, surprisingly, more motivating than it was depressing.  i just hope i can move tomorrow.

*i think it's totally bizarre that i could just walk into a yoga class diane lane was taking.  i don't really know why i feel like that's so bizarre, but i guess when someone is a bazillionaire famous person, you might expect they wouldn't dane to sweat it out in a public class.

surprise!

work was remarkably less tragic than i thought it would be last night, as i lay in bed replaying all the horrors of the last few days before winter break, trying to imagine what i was in for today.  it was, all and all, much nicer than it could have been, so i have my lucky stars to thank for that.  having dreaded it for the past two days has done wonders for my skin, though - i've already started to break out again and it's only day one.

this afternoon, my christmas present came in the mail, which made luke very happy, as it had been lost in the bermuda triangle of christmas packages for the past two weeks.  he got me a delightfully hilarious charm bracelet - he wrapped up each charm individually and hung the little packages from boughs of our christmas tree (which, yes, is still up and decorated and is giving off the most wonderful holiday smell as it decays front and center in our apartment).  it was adorable, and actually pretty hysterical, because he'd found the following charms: a loaf of bread, a mammoth, a can of diet coke, a squirrel, a bachelor's degree, and, among others, a potato.  a potato!  anyone who has known me for more than two minutes could attest that my entire life's work can be summarized by the charm bracelet i've got now.  it was a very, very cute idea.

<3.

(money) launderer

so, we buckled. instead of carting all our clothing to a laundromat, we packed it all into the car and carted it 3o minutes to my parents' house! what we lost in transit we made up for in free laundering and dinner with my family, which is always wonderous. i would honestly rather drive up here all the time to wash my clothes comfortably than pay $5.00-a-load at our apartment complex. we're currently waiting for the umpteenth load to dry and could quite possibly be here all night.

i am so not pleased about starting work again tomorrow. after all the total insanity that was this fall, and after the relatively low-key holiday season (during which i did nothing and slept in until 11 am nearly every day), i can't really fathom having to start it all again. blarg.

in other news, i worked in the lab at the museum today and finally asked the director for a letter of recommendation for grad school applications (oh, yeah, i'm doing those again - i'm a glutton for punishment, i guess) - this is a big deal because i've been too intimidated to ask her about writing one for approximately one full year now. yipee!

how do you get that shirt so clean, mate?

today, luke and i cleaned the whole apartment, went shopping for necessary goods, hung a picture that we had framed like seven months ago and made dinner for friends.  all in all, it was an epically productive day, and means that two days into 2010, we're still keeping our joint resolution of being just as productive and successful at home as we are at work.  that was our major problem last year (most especially in the fall, when stress was at its peak) and we have vowed to be better about it this year.  we are living a totally crazy modern life, with insane work hours and many, many hours per week spent in a car and are without wonderful conveniences like a dishwasher and a washer and dryer, which makes cooking at home and doing laundry just that much more obnoxious.  i know that sounds really lazy, but when you've spent your entire day running around like an banshee, the last thing you want to do is haul all your crap to a laundromat or make dinner with the promise of doing all the dishes afterward.

god, how did humans do it for thousands of years before dishwashers and washers and dryers?

luke and i are trying desperately to find out how those ancient peoples handled all their many, back-breaking responsibilities without going absolutely nuts.  perhaps it was because they didn't have the knowledge of these wonderful machines that could do all the work for you, if only you'd have the foresight to rent an apartment that provided them.

happy new year!  i'm very excited for all the things to come, and my excitement has led me to this: i've decided that i'm going to post something every day this year.  2010 promises to be a year full of changes, of new experiences and will definitely force me to do things outside my comfort zone.  in short, i'm planning on being a much bigger grown up exactly one year from today.  and, much like people who keep a food journal to monitor what they eat, i want to use this blog as both a motivator and a memory-keeper, so that when i feel like not doing something i absolutely need to, i can feel responsible, at least in some very minor way, to what i've written here.  and, as an added bonus, when this year is over and all the monumentous things i'm looking forward to are over, i can have a record of all the thoughts and feelings i thought were soooo important at the time.  

win, win.