Fully Alive…Ready to Smile

posted by erin on Jan 9

• Where am I?  In bed…next to snoozey mcSnoozerhead

• What am I wearing?  Whoa!!  Getting a little personal aren’t we?!  Why don’t you tell ME what YOU are wearing instead, huh?  Huh?  Yeah, I know you are still in your p.j.’s!  Just sayin’ is all.  And I’m in my bathrobe that I got for Christmas.  It says “All about me” on the back.  It’s perfect really, don’t you think?

• What did I eat last?  2 handfuls of mini M&M’s and a mini Lindt chocolate.  Two things in common…mini and chocolate.  That’s right.  Kind of like being on a diet.  Makes it all feel a little more okay to be eating it at 11 p.m. if it’s in mini form.

• Most exciting thing I did today?  Not clean my house.  I had a plan.  I had momentum.  I was going to take down my Christmas tree.  Then the phone rang and I got invited out for the second coffee date of the day and I was out the door faster than you can say…something that’s really fast.  Yes people, I am a busy person, cramming as many things into my social calendar and avoiding dust wherever possible.  It’s tough being me.  Tomorrow, coffee and photography group in the morning and in the afternoon coffee and catch-up with old friends.  Good thing I don’t drink coffee or I’d be wired after all these so called “coffee” dates!  And for those people who don’t know what I’m talking about, we here in my small town call going visiting “going for coffee” regardless of whether or not you actually consume said beverage.

• Last book I read?  ”The Sidewalk Artist” by someone.  Hold on while I Google that…okay, it’s by Gina Buonaguro (and I only had to flip back and forth between this post and the Googled page 4 times to get the spelling of her name right.  Remind me next time to use copy and paste!).  This book is fabulous.  It’s a quick read (for someone like me who thrives on 1000+ page novels) and it was completely absorbing.  Written in the first person present tense style, I immediately felt drawn into the story and the emotion.  I felt like I was living and breathing the story.  It really came alive for me.  It isn’t your classic happy ending love story kind of book and usually that’s not okay, since I’m a bit of an escapism reader.  But this time I really liked it.  So you really have to find out for yourself if you like it.  I really did.

• Biggest challenge I had today?  Getting my picture for the 365 project.  Gah!  Today was tough.  I hit a bit of mental and creative block.  I trudged through lots of snow again in order to find something outside to photograph.  I laid on my dining room table.  I stood on the table.  I stood on my bed.  I burned my hand getting too close to the chandelier lightbulb.  I put bubble dish detergent water in a sparkly martini glass.  It was a beast today.  Here are some of the pics I DIDN’T use…

Froze my legs and filled my boots with snow only to come home and realize that the sun was really overexposed.  That’s what happens when it’s so cold outside that your breath fogs up the screen and you THINK it’s going to be great, but it really isn’t.  Still kind of a cool shot with the lone lightpost, but, meh… 

That’s the view from the bottom of my chandelier above my bed.  I know, really inspiring, isn’t it?!  The ceiling does look a little like chocolate.  Hey, that could explain my desire to eat chocolate when I’m lying in bed!! 

Did you know that standing with your face mere inches from hot lightbulbs encased in glittering crystal is rather blinding?  Lesson learned.   

Almost sloshed water onto my laptop whilst standing half on the table, half on the chair balancing a full glass of water up close to the chandelier while holding my camera in the other hand and trying to adjust settings and take the picture.  As you can see, didn’t work out to well for me  

So my final picture that I used was a composite of a picture I did in fact take today and 2 others that worked with the theme that I had taken before Christmas.  So here it is if you care to see.

• Number of streetlights I can see from my current position at the dining room table in a pitch black house?  7

• Why I’m now at the dining room table rather than in bed where I started this post?  My battery died.  2 hours, my foot.  It lasted a whole 34 minutes!  Sucky laptop.  Nice to have such a handy portable device when you can’t go further than the nearest outlet!  

• Reasons why my Christmas tree is still up on January 9th?  Well first off, when asked by my 5 year old when we were going to take the tree down I murmured something about leaving it up until Valentine’s Day.  I think she took me at my word because I later overheard her mentioning this quite incredulously to my mom.  Then today when I said that Mommy should probably think about taking it down, my 3 year old said, “But you said it was staying here until Valentine’s!”  Not that she has a hot clue what Valentine’s Day is.  But it did provide ammo for an argument with Mommy which is always awesome.  Secondly, I have upwards of 400 ornaments on it.  It took me 3 hours to decorate it the first time, 4 hours spread over a week to decorate it the second time…I have no motivation to take it down AT ALL!  I’m done.  In fact, when it does come down it will likely all go into a big box and I’ll open it up next year wondering why I didn’t nicely separate and organize the ornaments.  I’ll probably also wonder next year at the annual “falling of the tree” why we bother in the first place.   

• Number of friends I have on Facebook who have blogs? 33

• Number of times I had to recount that because I kept getting distracted from reading their status updates? 3

And now that I’ve bored you all to tears, I’m going to go to bed.  I’ve hit the backspace more times than I can count because my eyes are drooping and my motor skills are failing me.  I think one day I’ll type a post and not use the backspace key at all.  Then we’ll see what an awesome typist I am.  I know…you can hardly wait.  Good night all!