the new year that i shall not say

I don't know how I feel about 2010 so far. Is it "twenty-ten" or "two thousand ten"? I can't decide, and that just leads to further feelings of ambiguity about this year. It's like when you're unsure how to pronounce a word or (worse) someone's name. You sort of just want to avoid that word/name altogether. Anyway...so it's a new year. A year that Shall Remain Nameless.

Despite my feelings of ambiguity about what this year should be called, I still maintain that it is an excellent year to have a child or get married or do anything else that is noteworthy. Think how easy it will be to calculate dates! No crazy subtraction or addition when you're trying to figure out what year Junior will graduate or retire or how long you've been married (or alive). I think it would be great. I'm math-challenged, so I've always wished I could have been born in a nice even year like 1980 or 1985 (I do realize 85 is not an even number, but it's MORE even in my brain... ????)...figuring things out would be so much easier. I was born in 82, but in mid-December of 82, which is really more like 83. So my age subtraction has always been tricky. Anyway, I'm not sure why I'm going on and on about this...I've lost track of where I was going.

But wait--let me linger here one minute longer. I'm not sure anyone reading this has any idea what I'm talking about yet. Age subtraction? Who doesn't know how old they are? Okay, so lets say people are talking about some song or movie that was popular in 1991. Maybe I'm not familiar with the song or movie, so my reasoning for why this is the case (other than the fact that I was/am incredibly sheltered!) could be that I was only x number of years old in 1991. This requires some quick math. 1991 minus 1982...um...borrow a 9, carry the 2, multiply by 7, find the cosine...uhhh...I was... YOUNG! Had I been born in 1980? Piece of cake...91 minus 80, 11. BAM. Easy. This illustrates what I mean by age subtraction. (Kristina: I know you absolutely followed my sketchy math back there a few sentences ago, so go ahead and give yourself a Q.E.D. and head to the library...)

I think this new year has made me dumber.

So moving on! 2010 has been pretty good so far. Matt and I both had off Friday and Saturday which is pretty much a never seen before miracle-- that, and we actually DIDN'T HAVE PLANS. I'm thinking this has never really happened before. So yesterday we were quite productive, working on some home improvement projects (they never end) and actually doing a few things that we meant to have finished...oh...before we moved in six months ago. Oops! Silly things! Things that really only took 20 minutes to do! But alas, we procrastinate.

This is our kitchen window. Nice blinds, right? Don't you like how they're REALLY SUPER LONG and therefore STACK up for the bottom six inches of the window? Haha...it really was quite funny. That's why we left them that way for six months. For giggles.

But when it comes down to it...well, those suckers needed to get fixed. So we did it. It's amazing how much I can see now! I never knew what the bottom of that window looked like!

We also installed the cabinet knob thingies. Matt bought them for me for Christmas, so it's a Christmas miracle that they were installed within one week of me receiving them! (As you may have noticed, usually we begin a project about 7 months before we attempt to complete it.) I was going to hunt down a "before" picture, but I'm lazy, so just put your finger over the little silver dots on the cabinets and that's what they used to look like. Trust me, it's better now!

After all our hard work and a hard workout with Jillian (No More Trouble Zones...OW OW OW!!!) I made us a semi-traditional New Years meal. That means I incorporated the traditional foods that appealed to me/I had the ingredients for/I felt like, and improvised the rest.

Ham with a YUM homemade brown-sugar honey glaze, hoppin john with rice (hoppin john has black eyed peas, so that counts), steamed broccoli, and cornbread. Ham is pretty much my favorite food (second only to BACON) so this was a darn good meal in my book!

Somewhere in between working out, cooking, and eating, I had a revelation that resulted in a Facebook Status Update that has turned out to be my most "liked" and popular status update ever! "[I] work out with Jillian Michaels every day. And cook like Paula Deen every night. This makes no sense..."

Such truth. Such irony. Such the story of my life.

Then we stayed up all night watching Biggest Loser episodes courtesy of On Demand. Each episode is 88 minutes long (since they combine the show with the results show, I guess) and we watched...oh...6 or so? This kept us up approximately 16 hours past our usual bedtime.

Therefore we slept in LATE today...got up, finished the season of BL (can't wait for Season 9 to start this week!!), and have spent the rest of the day just chilling, running errands, and staying warm. And doing a Bootcamp Legs workout. OW.

New Years Resolutions? I'm not big on those. I like to set goals whenever I feel like it. Like when I decided I wanted to start getting in shape, I didn't feel like waiting til some popular day to start. I just started then. December 6th!! Therefore I've been working out for almost a month-- BOO YAH, all you people who started yesterday. :)

I hope to be a better wife, daughter, sister, and friend this year. I hope to be a better blogger (note to self: blog less about math). I hope I will continue working out and continue being proud of myself for doing it! I hope I become a mom this year. Since I evidently have very little control over that, I will continue to put my hope in the One who does.

"Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed." (Isa. 49:23)

Happy New Year. May yours be full of joy, peace, and love. And hope. Always hope.