Great Day

Happy Valentines Day! Today was a great day.

Valentines Day

I've noticed a new trend watching commercials and observing people in stores. Valentines Day as a child was filling out cards for the entire class, getting chalky heart candies, and decorating boxes to hold the cards you get from you classmates. I don't remember parents getting their kids anything. In my entire elementary school, I don't think one person ever got a special card from parents much less a present.

Hallmark has a commercial for a Hannah Montana recordable Valentine's Day card. In it, the mom had given the card to her young daughter. Really? At the supermarket yesterday, I noticed several parents buying Valentines Day cards that were definitely for kids along with $50 gift cards to Toys 'R Us. Again, really? Since when did this holiday become one where it's another gift grab by kids? Do toy manufacturers need another holiday to commercialize? Is Christmas, Easter, and Halloween no longer enough?

Hello World

It is a brand spanking new year, and I apologize for not posting the last two weeks. We had a busy holiday vacation in Memphis. We got to hang out with old friends, and we got to spend some quality time with his family.

We are back in Pittsburgh now, so I am going to continue to try to blog every day. While there's probably nothing really interesting going on in my life, I am liking the act of journaling.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

As of today, Jeremy and I are 99.9% going to Memphis for the holidays! Woohoo! It would have been really hard not spending Christmas with family. It was hard enough not going home for Thanksgiving. We are beyond excited at this point, but there is a lot of planning and a lot of things to do around the apartment before we leave. Now that we know for sure, we also have to start e-mailing friends to let them know we'll be there. =) I haven't stopped smiling since this morning.

Decisions

Jeremy still hasn't found a job he wants yet. He's turned down one offer, and he's been turned down by another, and while he's got several other possibilities and interviews, it's becoming unlikely that he'll be employed before the end of the year. This puts us at a crossroads for Christmas. We stayed here for Thanksgiving because frankly, 4 days in Dallas couldn't justify the $800 a ticket price tag. Christmas would be different though because I'd try to get the time between Christmas and New Years off as well. Without a job, he wouldn't have to worry about time off. It makes it harder to justify the cost of traveling though with only one income. We have a bunch of money saved up just for this occasion, but I wonder if it's more prudent to be frugal now in case he doesn't find a job for an extended period of time.

Thankful

Today has truly been a great day. The weather is nice, and although we were unable to go home to celebrate with our families, we did have a wonderful day just Jeremy and me. We made the pies last night, and we slept in this morning. Once we got up and going, we managed to get everything finished and on the table by 2:30pm. We had recorded the Macy's Day parade, and we watched it from the Thanksgiving turkey till Santa. Now, we're watching the Cowboys play the Seahawks and continuing to gorge on yummy food.

Although this year has brought a lot of changes and upheavals, I am very thankful for the support I've received from my family and friends. I am most thankful though for Jeremy because even though this move was hardest for him, he never once considered not moving with me.

Holiday Season

The holiday season is almost upon us, and I feel like there is still so much to do before I'm ready. There are still things that need unpacking at home, and I feel like I'm running low on storage space. We still need to finish unpacking the office, but until Jeremy gets a job, there are a lot of things that we cannot unpack. There are other things that I would ideally take to work with me, but since our lab is just temporary, I don't want to bring them here and then move it all again.

The dining room is especially problematic. There isn't as much storage in the kitchen as we had before, so we have a bunch of things that ideally would go in the kitchen, but don't fit. The cabinets in the kitchen are also unusually skinny, so nothing fits in the cabinets except glasses and mugs. Until we get a buffet or something, we really have no place for our dishes because the one large cabinet we have is for pots and pans. So, we've still got things packed up in boxes scattered around the dining room.

We want to get a Christmas tree, but the current disarray of our dining room makes that prohibitive. I suppose I could dedicate this weekend to cleaning the apartment, but I don't really feel up to that right now. The mood could strike suddenly though as it did a few weeks ago when I finished unpacking and cleaning our bedroom/closet/bathroom.

Excited

I am absolutely dying here at work today, and I can't imagine how I would be like if I were in Memphis. Today starts ESPN's 24 hours of college basketball, and Memphis plays UMass tonight at midnight. I really want to stay up and watch the game. On the other hand, that would mean staying up until 3 am, and it's usually not possible for me to stay up until even midnight. I am going to give it a try.

On top of all this, it is now less than a month until the Georgetown game, and we finished booking our hotel and bought the tickets. We're going to drive since it's a 4 hour drive but an 8 hour train ride. Hopefully, we can leave right after work Friday and get there not too late.

It started snowing today. Nothing is sticking yet, but that in itself is contributing to the general excitement of the day. This needs to wear off soon as it's likely to snow a lot this winter, and I cannot get this jacked up at every snowfall. Also, it's likely that I'll be so sick of the cold before the winter is over, but I'm not anticipating that.

Thanksgiving is also about a week away. While I had hoped that Jeremy find a job before the holidays, it will likely be December before he formally starts a job. That's fine. We're staying here for Thanksgiving, and we've decided on eating ourselves silly the entire day. I want to have the food done and out shortly after noon so we can start eating and watching football. I don't plan on moving much other than between the couch and the dining room table.

I hadn't meant for this post to ramble on, but I am apparently looking forward to a lot of stuff.

Home

It's been a long time since I actually required airfare to go home for the holidays, and I'd forgotten just how crazy prices are. Since we don't know if Jeremy will have a job yet, we're limited by several factors when planning trips home. We both very much want to go to Dallas for Thanksgiving and Memphis for Christmas. However, as we approach those holidays, it seems like we'll be in Pittsburgh for both. If Jeremy doesn't find a job, we'll likely not be able to afford to go home for either holiday. If Jeremy does get a job, we may not have the vacation days to go home. This sucks because I've found inexpensive tickets to Dallas but the return date is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. We'd be able to afford the tickets but Jeremy probably won't be able to get two extra days off work. Ideally, we'd got to Dallas for just 4 days, but the cheapest ticket then would run us about 1k apiece. Not exactly financially feasible even if Jeremy did get a job.

As for Christmas, if can't go back to Memphis, we'll miss the entire basketball season. There's a good possibility that with a job, he'll only get Christmas Eve/Day and New Year's Day off. This means that there's no way we'd be able to go to Memphis.

It was so much easier when we both worked for Universities so we got all holidays off similar to the students. Additionally, when we could just hop in a car and drive to Dallas or down the street to his family's we didn't have to weigh the costs. The plus side I suppose is that Jeremy's mom and stepdad will probably visit us in the spring. My brother may come up to visit the schools and go skiing this winter. It will be hard not spending the holidays with family though.