Thank you all SO MUCH to those of you who have offered well wishes and thoughts and prayers and crossed fingers for Ben this last weekend. It’s was a REALLY stressful and REALLY long weekend and we still don’t have any “real” answers about what’s going on with his back.

So here’s a play by play of what happened Saturday and Sunday and where we are now:

Saturday:
6:00AM - We woke up, grabbed breakfast and headed to the track.

8:00AM - I headed back into Willows to get a print out of the bank’s acceptance of our offer. I had to go to about three different hotels before I finally found a printer that worked but was OUT OF INK. Thankfully, I was able to talk the manager of the hotel into letting me use his personal office and printer. Then I headed back out to the track to that Ben could initial it. He was just finishing up his first session and I got to watch the last three or four laps and he was taking the back half of the track (the part I could see) with ease. It was really cool to see the car flying around the track again.

9:00AM - I headed BACK to Willows with the signed papers to try and find a fax machine to get them faxed but first I had to call our agent and get the number so I hung out in the hotel room and watched some TV while waiting for a return call.

9:50AM - Liz called, gave me the info, I packed up my backpack and was walking out the door when the phone rang and it was our friend Stuart who was also at the track running his car that day.

Me: Hey, Stuart, what’s up?
Stuart: Are you back at the track?
Me: No, I’m about to fax these papers and then head back, you need something from town?
Stuart: Well, Ben spun and was tapped lightly in the front.
Me: I’m on my way.

I didn’t really think that it would be as bad as it was. “Tapped lightly” made me think that maybe one of his fenders was dented and a headlight was broken but either way, I knew that I’d need to be there for Ben. I understand why Stuart worded it the way he did. If he’s said “Ben just got hit head on at near race speed” I’d have probably wrecked on the farm roads back to the track myself.

When I got there, before I could get to anybody to talk to and see what was going on, the tow truck drove by with Ben’s car attached and him in the passenger seat. He was talking to the driver and pointing at the trailer so I knew he was okay but the state of the car was a complete and utter shock. I pretty much just stood there, stunned, for a good 30 seconds. It seemed like the car rolled by in slow motion and my brain just wasn’t wanting to process what it was seeing.

I finally gathered myself up enough to hook the trailer up to the truck and drive to the end of the track to where they had dropped off the car.

What happened: Ben spun, a yellow flag came out so everybody should have been slowing down, two cars pass Ben with no problem, third guy in a Porsche GT3RS was not paying attention to the flags and instead was trying to still race the Porsche in front of him and saw Ben too late. He tried to swerve but ended up hitting Ben between 60-70 MPH head on. The guy didn’t even seem phased that he’d just wrecked his $140,000 car, let alone Ben’s M3. Asked Ben once if he was okay and that was it. Basically, he’s a rich asshole.

11:30AM - We start trying to get the car on the trailer. The front wheels are pointing right and part of the frame is pushed into the front right wheel so there’s no way for us to straighten them out which makes it impossible to get the car on the trailer straight. It finally takes a winch, jack, several wood boards, the cherry picker on a tow truck, four guys, me and more muscles then I’ve used in the last six year to get it on there.

3:00AM - We FINALLY have the car on the trailer. We haven’t eaten since breakfast at 6:00AM. We are tired, hungry, sunburned, defeated, and reluctant to drive home from there because the car is sitting the WRONG way on the trailer which is a horrible load/weight missbalance. We eventually decided to spend the night after loading all the gear into the truck, getting back to the hotel, getting showered and some food into us.

7:00PM - Stuart and crew are back from the track. Ben heads out to hang out with them while they catch dinner and a few drinks. I stayed in to PASS OUT. I think that Ben must have been living on adrenaline at that point because I was just EXHAUSTED.

I don’t know what timePM: Ben wakes me up, he has to lay down RIGHT THIS SECOND because his back is spasming. He’s in a LOT of pain. Get him into bed then sped all night tossing and turning.

How are we going to get this car home? It’s on the trailer but dangerously.

Is Ben’s back going to be okay? I know he’s not sleeping either.

How are we going to get the car OFF the trailer and UP the driveway?

How are we going to get Ben back on the track? This is his dream, his passion, and it’s sitting broken and shattered on a trailer outside.

So basically, I get no sleep.

Sunday:
5:00AM: Ben gets up to go to the bathroom. He’s in so much pain he has to crawl back to a bed, making the most horrific moaning painful sounds I’ve ever heard him make.

8:00AM: Walk to Chevron to get Ben Ibuprofen, he takes 800MG and it doesn’t even phase the pain.

10:00AM: I load all the luggage in the truck, get Ben out the door of the hotel, back starts to spasm, he has to lay down in the parking lot to keep it from going into a full on pain attack. I put my foot down, make him get in the passenger seat, lay it all the way back and insist on driving the truck and trailer home.

I’m not sure what time we got home. It was a long drive, I can tell you that. I had to drive between 45-55MPH the entire 180 miles because the weight of the motor on the BACK of the trailer instead of the front was making it rock really bad. At one point I hit a bump and it actually lifted the back wheels of the truck off the ground.

It wasn’t fun.

Stopped at the house to unload the truck, called Ffej to come over and take a look at the car, BS for a few minutes. Ben lays on the grass in pain the whole time.

We decided to take the the car, on the trailer, and park it at the lot where we store the trailer. This is a temporary fix. We want to have the car at home but right now, we aren’t sure how that’s going to happen in it’s current state. I spend some time trying to get two seperate car covers to cover the entire car.

I. AM. SO. TIRED.

Drive to Urgent Care.

6:30PM - Arrive at Urgent Care. It’s packed. We have to get a restaurant style pager to let us know when it’s Ben’s turn. Get a blanket, find a dark quiet waiting room in the medical center, so he can lay on his back to wait.

7:15PM - Get in to see the doctor. Ben’s reflex test is bad. His left leg is responding normally but his right leg is hardly responding at all. Doctor want’s him to go to the ER. He’s hungry and just want’s food. If he takes the ambulance he gets right in, if I take him, we start at the back of the line in the waiting room. I say TAKE THE AMBULANCE.

8:00PM - 12:00PM - Pretty much waste four hours in the ER and walk out with a prescription and a big bruise on Ben’s butt from a pain medicine injection.

Total. Waste. Of. Time.

Monday:
12:00AM - Pick up FOOD SWEET FOOD from a Burger King drive through and eat it in a 24 hour Walgreens parking lot while they fill his prescription. Ben takes the pain killer as soon as I get it in the car and falls asleep on the way home.

12:40AM - HOME SWEET HOME We came upstairs, stripped and PASSED OUT. I woke up at 6:00AM and called my boss to let him know that I wouldn’t be in, gave Ben some more pain medicine and we slept till 10:30AM. It was beautiful, wonderful, awesome, beautiful, blissful sleep.

I took Ben to the doctor today and his reaction test was better, but not at all normal. He’s in less pain but he’s on a LOT of pain medicine. A LOT. The pain medicine has an anti-inflamatory in it and that might be why his reflexes are responding more today then Sunday but either way, the doctor want’s an MRI and she is also leaning towards it being a ruptured disc. We’ll know more for sure after the MRI which might not be for two days. In the mean time he’s pretty much on bed rest. No driving, keep on the medicine and do as little as possible.

And I’m still trying to recuperate from all of this. So now I’m going to go soak up some time with Cassidy who we picked up after the appointment today. I’m SO GLAD she spent the weekend at my mom’s playing in the pool rather than having to deal with all this stuff. After that, I’m coimg back upstairs, cuddling with Ben and trying to sleep the rest of the exhaustion off.

PS - Inbetween all this we managed get the final papers signed for the house. Well, not the FINAL papers, but the IMPORTANT papers which mean, GOOD NEWS!!! We GOT THE HOUSE! YAY! We can talk about that and celebrate later. Sometime before July 15th which is when we take posession.

So we recieved a ‘Verbal’ acceptance on the house. That means we got it but I’m not going to bank or count on anythng till we have some papers in hand to sign from the bank. We also recieved the Section 1 inspection that the bank had done not long ago and there were some possible troublesome items that will have to be looked into farther on Wednesday when we have our own inspection.

I just wanted to let you all know what was going on on THAT front. So far so good, and when I know more, I’ll let you know too!

But that’s not what I sat down to write about.

Ben and I are SO HAPPY about this house. And even if we don’t get THIS HOUSE and it ends up being another one, we’ll still be SO HAPPY because eventually we WILL find The One. And it WILL probably be in Morgan Hill or Gilroy. And goddamnit I wish people would stop making this ALL ABOUT THAT LAST POINT.

Of the 40 people I’ve told about ths house, 32 of them responded with:

- Wow, that’s so far.
- That’s a LONG drive.
- Gilroy is so far away.
- Man, you’re going to get tired of that drive.

And seriously people, JUST STOP. When a woman tells you she’s pregnant you don’t respond with “OMG you’re going to get FAT!”. If you did she’d probably smack you upside the head. I don’t know why some of you think that it’s okay to respond to such life changing event, like buying your first home, in such a negative way. PLEASE DON’T DIRECT YOUR NEGATIVITY AT ME.

The thing I don’t get is that a lot, if not all of these people know how Ben and I met. How he used to drive 1000 miles a WEEK to see me. How he’d leave work at 3:00PM on a Wednesday, drive 240 miles to eat dinner with me, sleep, then wake up at 4:00AM to drive 240 miles back home to work. Then he’d be back again on Friday night and gone again Monday morning. 1000 miles a WEEK. To see me. You think he’s going to let a 20 mile commute keep him from something he loves? Something he want’s so badly? If you do, you really don’t know either of us as well as you think.

My dad and Cherie have been SO helpful in this process. Seriously, we would not be where we are now in this process without their constant guidance, support, and 10 billion emails and phone calls back and forth. He’s voiced his opinion about my commute, but also been SO POSITIVE and suportive and encouraging. THAT is what I want. I want people to, of course, DISCUSS the issues with me but STOP making it all about how sorry I’m going to be when I have to drive to work every day. For the record, as soon as the inspections are passed and we are a positive go on the house, I’m going to seriously start looking for jobs in either that area or southern San Jose.

Yes, we are going into this whole home buying thing blind, but we aren’t complete fools. We have REALLY thought out the pros and cons of moving farther south then we already are. We have spent many long discussions hammering out these details and thinking this stuff through and please, JUST BE HAPPY FOR US.

PS - This is not directed to any of my online girls, you all rock hardcore and have been so supportive. This is people in real life that have been, in general, not very thoughtful when reacting to the news.

*Title quote: Thich Nhat Hanh

So, I had this great idea for a blog post to announce our most recent BIG NEWS. Don’t you love the BIG NEWS?! I was going to formulate a list of houses with similar attributes and post about them one at a time starting in San Francisco, and working South from there. Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, San Jose, Morgan Hill then Gilroy. It was going to be pretty cool because it was going to show you how moving 20 miles south is saving us around $600,000 on the house we just made an offer on.

It’s THE HOUSE. Ben and I both loved it and I seriously figured we’d have to look at 179 houses over a year period to find a house we both loved because we can have such differing taste when it comes to this kind of stuff. We found it much sooner though, it was around house 17. It’s actually the second house that we put an offer on but I don’t really want to go into the FIRST house because it was stressful and FAST and all could have been made much better if the lending company hadn’t put a wrong loan amount on our offer letter. I mean, being a little off is one thing but they sent a letter showing that we had $300,000 LESS FUNDING than we actually do. It was just a big mess. BIG MESS!

Anyway, we put an offer on this house and I have my fingers crossed and this post is really just to ask you to do the same because I REALLY WANT THIS ONE. Alot, alot.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll post the expense progression post. Every time I look at homes around here I’m reminded what a cool deal we’re getting (assuming we get it) and how much I’m looking forward to our family moving into this new home and seeing where this new adventure will lead us.

*crosses fingers*

I should apologize for the fact that I haven’t written a blog entry in, like, two weeks but I’m really not sorry. I was sick. NON FUCKING STOP. The Plague, then The Great Belly Ache of 2008, then The Sinus Headache To End Them All. And in the midst of all this Ben had the audacity to also catch The Plague and be sick and not able to take care of me in a manner in which I require while I’m clearly in need. All I ask is that he bows to my every whim and desire. He acts like this is ASKING A LOT but really, how hard is it to hand feed me chocolate ice cream while scrolling webpages for me and wiping my nose? Seriously.

Married life has been fabulous despite that one shortcoming my husband has and I have now officially acquired his last name. And can I just say that WHAT THE HELL!? Women get the shaft on that end. Social security cards, drivers license, ATM cards, bills, email addresses, online accounts, credit cards… all of them have to be contacted, forms filled out, phone calls made, then you have to call them all 29 times and yell at 17 different people to get them to understand that ALL I WANT TO DO IS CHANGE MY NAME!

Anyway! I’ve been reading all your blogs and will get around either today or tomorrow to comment and show you all much love. But I missed you all lots and lots and lots. I’d make you all cupcakes and hand them out if you were here to try and grovel but you aren’t… so I’ll just eat one in each of your honor instead!

And because I feel bad for not showing all my girls love, I command you all to go tell Brit stop being so reclusive because I miss her, poke Ashley’s belly and wish her well on her upcoming arrival, go welcome Sewwy to the inked skin family, congratulate katy on her new geek job, remind Becca that mommyhood is full of sickness and booboos and she ROCKS at it, give Steen the love and positive thoughts she needs in the wake of losing her beloved Riddle, and tell Jenn to stop blogging so much because she’s making all us slackers look bad.

There are many more of you, but I’ve reached the point at which I’ve become too lazy to continue.

*big hugs*

I know that some of you have been twittering for quite some time and some of you have just been recently introduced to the obsession. It doesn’t matter WHEN you started though because the fact is, if you are twittering, you are hooked. You might send a tweet once a day or multiple times an hour, it doesn’t really matter because YOU HAVE BEEN SUCKED IN. MUAHAHAHA. I admit, my obsession has died down some since that first phone bill arrived with all 2,356 text messages listed and Ben was like, “THINK OF THE TREES!”.

I’ve tried to see if I can have just a select few tweets sent to my phone. Like, I don’t need every single one of Scoble’s tweets (even though I secretly wish I could follow him around from one techy junket to the next) but I would like to get Steen’s. And Jenn’s. And Sewwy’s. (PROPER SEO, Julie! Who, by the way, doesn’t Tweet which makes me sad.) So I think I’ll try when I get home to finally get that all lined up and working properly.

Ben has never really gotten into the whole twittering thing. When he’s seen me send a tweet from the phone or I’ve told him that YOU SO NEED TO TWEET he’s given me his standard “I love you dearly you hot ball of sexyness, but hell to the fuck no” look.

So I have to admit I was a little surprised yesterday the other day when he emailed me a link to a setup that sends you a tweet when your house plant needs to be watered. Surprised because maybe he was suddenly interested in twitter?! NO! Surprised because WE DON’T HAVE ANY HOUSE PLANTS! Well, we do have the one bamboo plant but you pretty much can’t kill those. I mean, you have to TRY and fail them. Maybe Ben would be more interested if there was a way to twitter you when your wife is premenstrual! Dude, somebody should get on that. As long as it doesn’t mean sticking electrodes to my ovaries and stuff. Because, no.

Man, I should really stop blogging when hopped up on Flu medicine.

So um, BLOG GIRLS! Are any of you thinking of attending BlogHer this year in San Francisco? Because it’s SO CLOSE to me. It’s like, right there *points North* and I promised myself last year that I’d attend this year and not be sorry I missed out on all the fun. But the thing is, I’d like to KNOW somebody going. I mean I know OF plenty of people going but I can’t exactly walk up to Heather Amrstong and be all, “HI! I totally stalk, I MEAN READ, your blog and think you are just the bee’s knees and can I sit next to you at the Cool Kid’s table?! Because that would be swell! And you said once that your shampoo smells really good can I just smell your head?! Wait! Where are you going? WHY ARE YOU SPRAYING ME WITH PEPPER SPRAY?!”

Or something.

And all of you who read my blog already know in advance that I’m crazy so it wouldn’t be QUITE as shocking to you. And I’ll probably go regardless but it would be nice to have somebody to hold my hair back after the cocktail parties.

MARRIED!

It’s still sinking in a little. And you have NO IDEA, dear Internet, how hard it was to keep all this a secret from you! Like, the time I almost passed out while trying on my wedding dress, totally bloggable! Seriously, David’s Bridal, when you have a girl in a knee length body cincher and a dress with 7 layers of fabric, it’d be nice to RUN THE AIR CONDITIONER. I have to admit for just a few seconds as my vision blurred and the wave of nausea hit me and the hot flash started, I thought that maybe if I DID pass out I’d get a discount on my dress but the fear of a black eye on my wedding day didn’t seem too appealing.

The secret was so worth keeping though. My step-mom said she almost called at 12:05 Friday morning because IT WAS FRIDAY AND SHE WANTED TO KNOW THE SECRET ALREADY but they waited and she and my dad are both so happy for us. And my mom cried when I walked into Bella Vista in my wedding dress and hugged us both and gushed and gushed. And the outpouring of well wishes from you guys was just… awesome. Ben and I both appreciate the comments, the email, the IM’s SO much. Every single one of them was read and appreciated and fantastic. Especially the ones that reminded Ben how hot he is because maybe it will coax him into letting me catch him in front of the shutter more!

We booked tickets and condo reservations for eight days in Maui in early April which will be our official honeymoon. We’re taking Cassidy this time though because we both want her to get to experience snorkeling in Molokini, Haleakala on horseback, The Road to Hana and so much more. Plus, the condo has an awesome day camp that teaches kids to Hula, play the Ukulele, make sand art, and lei’s and swimming and she won’t have a chance to be bored at all for the entire eight days.

And finally!

About a week ago I scored four free tickets to see Owen Benjamin at the San Jose Improv (YAY for mailing lists!) so Ben, Lisa and Hans and I went last night and after the opening act, SURPRISE, Jimmy Fallon made a guest appearance. He sang Car Wash for Peace (download it on iTunes, the proceeds go to a great cause) then made fun of himself and had me ROLLING ON THE FLOOR with his stand up. We had up front seats to watch my second favorite SNL star ever! SCORE!

And now I’m going to go upstairs and cuddle with my husband and pretend that my throat isn’t raw, my belly isn’t upset and my uterus isn’t pissed. They can’t ALL be good days.

*squeel* Friday I will be announcing BIG NEWS and while I’d love to spill the beans RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND, I’m not going to. And you have no idea how much it’s killing me not to tell the internet my BIG NEWS because I suck at keeping secrets. Not, like, secrets my friends tell me, but surprises. Seriously, when I have a surprise for Ben I’m like, “I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU! Do you want a hint?! Well, I’m going to give you one anyway, IT’S A NEW CAR!” Not that I’ve ever bought him a new car, but if I DID, that’s totally how it would go over.

Instead I’m going to tell you about our dinner at Outback the other night because every time I talk about it I have to stop half way through to keep from laughing and if I can’t tell the internet my BIG NEWS, the very least I can do is make you laugh.

So, the waiters at Outback have always done this thing where they sit in the booth while taking your order. I guess it’s supposed to make it feel like they’re a friend there to help you and make you feel comfortable and, whatever, just get my food and drinks to me. However you need to get that done, I’m cool.

Our waiter sits down and takes our order… and then moved in with us. Before we even had our DRINKS we knew that his girlfriend, Cassy, was a dance teacher and worked at two different dance studios, that he had recently applied to the Police Academy but then blew out his knee and tore his meniscus and some other important knee parts and was going to have surgery and he was really nervous and he loves kids and plans to have a huge family one day and…

Me: I’d like a Shark Bite with the 151 Rum floater. ASAP please.

Then he told us all about how he’d had a few too many Shark Bites in Cancun once and like, WHOAH, what a time he had.

I’m totally not joking. I’d had a REALLY rough day at work and GOOD LORD JUST BRING ME MY DRINK ALREADY! So our drinks come, my Shark Bite, a Long Island for Ben and milk for Cassidy. And shortly before our meal came he reached down to check on Cassidy’s milk and the next 10 seconds happened in slow motion:

He reaches for the drink, shakes it, goes to set it back down, misses the table, the milk hits the booth, he jumps to grab for it, pushes his thumb through the styrofoam cup and the milk proceeds to turn into a MILK EXPLOSION. At which point he starts to run around like he’s being attacked by a swarm of fire ants.

He apologized, PROFUSELY, and to make up for it brings Cassidy a big glass of chocolate milk. THANKS! Because what I totally wanted was to sugar her up at 8:00PM! Whatever. My Shark Bite is starting to kick in and I’m caring less and less. Did I mention where he sets the milk down? Directly in front of Cassidy’s left hand, two inches from the edge of the table.

I bet you can see where this is going can’t you?

Yep, that glass of milk lasted about 10 minutes before IT turned into a milk explosion. Only a CHOCOLATE milk explosion.

Me: Dude, we’re on some hidden camera show? I’m being punked, right? Where’s the camera?

The best part of the night though came straight from Cassidy herself. At one point I was telling Ben that the alcohol was making me feel warm and relaxed and…

Cassidy: If you get drunk, don’t poke holes in me.
Me: Um… Oooookay?

Back story, at one of the many parties we had at our house, Ben was “feelin’ good” and took the Henckel to the ice that I had in our favorite metal mixing bowl and now you can’t mix anything in the bowl. On the plus side, it can efficiently strain MASSIVE amounts of spaghetti.

The other gem came when I leaned over to smell Ben’s freshly clean sweatshirt for about the 30th time (I have a Downy obsession) and said again how OMG GOOD it smelled and…

Cassidy: Is it his BowChikaBowWow?
Me: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
*deep breath*
Me: What?!
Cassidy: You know the BowChikaWowWow I got him for Christmas?

*dies*

You had to HEAR her say it with that perfect nasal inflection. It was probably the funniest thing she’s EVER said. I start laughing, Ben starts laughing, she’s laughing at us laughing. I’m laughing now just reliving it! Hopefully you laughed too because that’s the end of the story.

It seems like this is how all our outings go. I have two of my own personal comedians to keep me constantly entertained and when that isn’t enough and I’ve had a particularly rough day, they enlist the help of outsiders to make it THAT MUCH BETTER.

Anyway, I need to get my 365 up and get myself into bed. I hope you all have a fantastic week! I’ll be busy, busy, busy and probably won’t be back to post till Friday when the BIG NEWS is announced.

Honestly? This is why I love this man so much. When I’m PMSing and I come across this thing that I think is SO GODDAMN AWESOME but will probably end up with me being shot at by a disgruntled asswad driver, he’s there to talk me down off that cliff.

Benjamin: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8e9a/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8e9a/images/2422/
me: OMG!!! I WANT! I WANT!
me: I seriously want that.
Benjamin: Although its a funny idea, I still think that it might be a bad idea for you me: there are no cuss words!
And I bet my ’smile’ to ‘idiot’ would be better than you think.
*ratio
Like 3:1 at least.
And since I could actually SHOW the person what I’m thinking it would mean I’d be less likely to yell it at them when only you can Cassidy can hear it… because they’d KNOW. And that would be the ultimate satisfaction. No yelling necessary!
Are you serious though? I can’t have it?
Benjamin: I’m writing an email right now work related, I’m not even sure if its legal in CA
me: What if I promise not to use it while I’m PMSing?
Benjamin: is it legal in CA?
me: If it’s legal in CA can I get it?
Benjamin: its around the price point that you don’t need to ask, so I don’t know why you’re asking me
me: Because generally, with things like this, you are a better judge of good idea/bad idea.
Benjamin: bad idea
me: heheheheh
(k)
I love you. Even when you are trying to save me from myself.

A few minutes later:

me: hahaa I asked Claudia about it. I usually drive to lunch. Her answer: “As long as you never use it when I’m in the car with you!”

Oh, the New Year, it as come at last. Except not at last, more like: ALREADY?! Is it just me or do the years get shorter as you grow older? It’s really like an odd Vortex of Time. The days seemed to fly by when I was walking the halls of Garces while the years seemed to drag on forever, but now the days drag on while I sit at work bored blogging but the year seems to pass by in a few blinks.

I know I said before that I would blog and list some resolutions but, yeah, I totally failed the only resolution I made this year the second day of the new year. Which is actually one day longer than I made it last year so, YAY? I plan on getting back on track with that but since I feel like not making myself feel like an Epic Failure at the end of 2008, I’ve decided to list a few things that I’d more call “goals” than “resolutions”. Meaning if I don’t get them accomplished I’ll just be “lazy” instead of a “failure”. Ahh, wonderful semantics.

Goal 1) Grow enough back bone to start taking some real street photography shots. When I look through photostreams all over the internet, I’m always drawn to these little moments in time perfectly captured forever in a single frame. They are so much more “real” than posed shots. The problem is managing to get a shot without GETTING shot. By like, a gun or something. While I have no problem pointing the lens at my family and friends obsessively, I’m not quite to the point where I feel comfortable doing it to random people on street corners. I think that a better zoom lens would help this but until I feel like shelling out that cash, I need to become comfortable doing it with the equipment I have.

Goal 2) Start to explore some of the fantastic culture around me. We live 5 minutes from Downtown San Jose but I actually WENT downtown exactly three times last year and I only drove one of them. I *hate* driving downtown. It’s all full of one way streets that are narrow and the sidewalks are at street level and some of them are ‘bus only’ and some of them have the light rails like, ON the sidewalks and it’s just NERVE WRACKING.

But, I just need to get the fuck over it. My first adventure will be to the The Tech museum this weekend.

Goal 3) Take a class. I haven’t decided yet between English or Photography but I’m leaning towards English. And I don’t want to do it online because I’m too easily distracted. I want to sit in a classroom with other students in front of an actual teacher that keeps me on my toes.

Goal 4) Get my car on the track. This is big step for me and just typing it out actually makes me heart race and my palms get sweaty but it’s something I want to experience. Ben has done SO MANY of the things that I want to do and doing something with him that he is so passionate about is important to me.

Goal 5) Get in a LEAST a blog a week. heh

Goal 6) FINALLY finish 365!

So there ya go. I really hope that so far 2008 is treating you all well!

OMGHI!

I know that I’ve been Teh Suck at updating regularly and I could totally lie to you and say it’s because I’ve been SO BUSY with… THINGS! Important things! Things that take important time!

The truth is I just haven’t felt like writing.

But since it was Christmas and all I thought that I should take the time to make some kind of Christmas type post so you don’t all think that I’m some horrible holiday hating Scrooge or something. Because that’s only partially true.

I do love the holiday season. I love the house lights (and really think that they should stay up all year and not just because I hate taking ours down, they are pretty and the neighborhood seems so boring and bland after New Years), and I love cookies (as witnessed by the two pants sizes my ass has expanded in the last month), and I love the music (as long as it’s MY MUSIC and not that crappy mall muzak shit, Kenny G playing Silver Bells with that horn thing he uses puts me in one mood; the mood to sleep). Ben and I just had a rough few months prior to the Christmas season so it was hard for me to get into the mood right away and it didn’t really hit till about a week before The Big Day.

I think one of the hardest things for me to grasp this year is that this is probably going to be Cassidy’s last “Santa” year. She’s already really skeptical but I could tell that there was still a glimmer of magic in her eye as she asked the questions you expect a kid to start to ask when they are putting the pieces together. Next year she’ll have become one of those precocious 10 year olds that pretends to believe in Santa because she knows she’ll net a bigger profit if Santa is involved. She’ll start to complain about having to take the lights down, and she’ll start rolling her eyes at the Kenny G musak and she’ll see the cookie making as a chore instead of a fun activity and it’s all just kind of depressing.

But! I still made the most of it and Christmas day was great and she ripped open 30 presents in 4.7 minutes flat. We now have more Hannah Montana CRAP in the house than I’m comfortable with and I’m pretty sure that I funded the next month of Hannah’s life with said CRAP.

And I wrapped some of Ben’s presents in Alliance wrapping paper. That alone made Christmas day ROCK.

And now the obligatory list of fabulous loot. I’ll keep it to the big and fantastically bad ass things.

• KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer in Red from my mommy. <3
• Senseo coffee maker also in red from Cassidy.
• Tickets to see Beauty and the Best in May when it comes to the city from my dad. It will be Cassidy’s first Broadway type play and we are both really excited.
• A really nice laptop bag from Ben.

And last but certainly not least was DxO from Ben. It deserves to be separate from the bullets because it is THAT bad ass. It’s this really advanced photo correction software that uses all these complex mathematical algorithms to correct photos caused by known “flaws” in camera body and lens combinations. So in layman terms, it make pretty pictures EVEN PRETTIER. They have a free demo if you have a DSLR and want to give it a try.

And now, the look forward to 2008 which will require another obligatory post about the past year and what I expect for the NEXT year and I’m sure that “Rinse, Repeat!” isn’t going to cut it so I’ll be back sooner than you think! But just in case I don’t, have a great New Years Eve everybody! Drink lots, don’t drive and ring in the year with people you love and don’t want to punch in the face if you do get too drunk!

*hugs*