At home

I've only been home for about four days and already I've covered the gamut of experiences I was looking for on my vacation. I met my new baby niece, Amber (photos to come), went snowboarding twice in Montana's notorious epic powder, watched my little brother throw a 360 on skis, went cross country skiing out my parent's back door, read my book, saw about 100 people from high school at the local bar, had appetisers and wine with the girls, played my mom's baby grand piano for hours and listened to my dad read the Christmas story. Now if my sister would only get here...

Lessons learned: I miss Montana.

I'll be home for Christmas

I'm headed off to Whitefish for Christmas...and New Years. It's the first time I've been home in a year and a half. I probably won't be updating this blog much, because I've resolved to spend very little time on the computer while on vacation. Hopefully I'll get to see any of you who are part of the old high school crew. Merry Christmas.

Counting down

Here are the top five reasons I need a vacation:

5. I wrote and called and interviewed and wrote, and yet, somehow, I only had two real stories that ran in the paper this week.
4. There is laundry hanging all over my apartment, dishes in my sink, wrapping paper in the middle of the living room — it's a mess. That's not all that unusual. The difference is, I don't care.
3. I've started two books in the past four months, and I'm only into the second chapter of both of them.
2. Wednesday night I was hanging out with some girls wrapping presents. I stuck some tape on my lip, kind of like when you put bobby pins in your mouth to hold them. Only, bobby pins don't rip the skin off your lip when you take then out to use them.

And the Number 1 reason:
I forgot my purse at the gym last night. That's like, say, forgetting my right hand. Then I went on to leave my oven on for about two hours.

Luckily, I am flying to Montana tomorrow to spend Christmas at home and hopefully get my sanity back.

Lesson learned: I need to sleep in, read my book and not write for 10 days straight.

In the spirit

The other night, some friends and I had another Christmas party — that makes about 15 for the season so far. This was one of those heinous Christmas theme parties. We all wore gaudy Christmas sweaters and bells. Or in my case, antlers with bells, a big bow on my butt, a Christmas tree turtle neck, knee high red and green socks, and slippers with reindeers on the toes. I even had these huge silver ornaments as earrings.

I won't lie, I was pretty heinous. I could have been one of Santa's elves. I even won the contest.

And in some sort of garish holiday fluke, my friend Justin was dressed to match — we both wore a quilted Christmas vest and jean. He just didn't look as ridiculous as I did. Too bad.

Lesson learned: My tree has nothing on me.

Christmas? check.

I've finished all of my Christmas shopping, which is nothing short of a Christmas miracle. Usually, I'm one of those who does it all the way up to Dec. 24. Well, it's done, and now I can focus on cramming all the work I can into this week before I leave for Montana on Saturday. I'm counting down the days.

Lessons learned: Why haven't I done it this way before?

Tired

I have a headache in my face. Is that even possible?

Today, I worked on five different stories, three of which were about traumatic events. Switching concentrations so often and so rapidly breeds a unique kind of exhaustion.

Thank God Grey's Anatomy is on tonight. Fake tragedy is easier to take.

Lessons learned: I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, "I had a life, but my job ate it." So that's what happened to it.

Let it snow

It's raining! Not just the pathetic drizzle we have had maybe twice this winter. Actual full size rain drops that collect on the streets — like the good old days when I first moved here and everything was flooding. It's funny, when you haven't seen it like this for awhile, you forget what it's like. You forget how it soaks the bottom of your pants and what it sounds like on a rooftop. I had to concentrate on not letting the onslaught of drops splashing on the pavement hypnotize me on the way home from Sarah's tonight.

It renews hope that there could be a ski season on the horizon. I was thinking that I was going to resort to washing my car for this to happen. (See this previous post.) It's only supposed to rain through Saturday, though, so the drought could be back.

Lessons learned: Maybe I will get to snowboard soon. Maybe I won't.

Rider Tunes

My friend, Jesse, from college has started up a Web site worth browsing. It's sister to a site he started awhile back at www.skimoviemusic.com. I wrote about it at the time. Anyway, the new one is www.ridertunes.com. (For some reason, my blog isn't letting me link to outside sites, Sorry.) It has a list of all the songs on various snowboard vidoes released in past years. You can click on the songs and download them from iTunes. The first site is how I discovered that I really like Sweat Shop Union. Check it out.