Merry freaking Christmas

White Christmases are so overrated. I will NEVER wish for one again. 

Greetings from the Doubletree Inn in Durango, Colorado where we have been snowed in for a day and will possibly be trapped today as well. That's right, Christmas at the Doubletree. This consisted of mostly me crying (because I love Christmas and I wanted to be with my Mom and brother, Jeff) and watching the first season of TNG, which I bought the husband for Christmas. 

We were supposed to leave Christmas Eve in the afternoon and get into Prescott (where we grew up) by about 8pm. We did not do this because we got guilted and bullied by Mike's family into leaving early Christmas morning. And then, of course, the blizzard warnings started. We started off in the morning and ended up in a ditch, stuck in a mean 4 foot snowbank. I'm not sure what happened, the car skidded to the side and all I remember is snow coming over the windshield. We caught a ride back to the cabin after trying to dig our way out and then my BIL, FIL, and SIL's boyfriend came to help. That was ugly. Let's just say that my FIL is not the nicest man sometimes and kept making nasty comments about how we were definitely going to miss my Mom's Christmas and how on earth did I drive the car into a ditch. When I told him that wasn't helping, he of course screamed at me in front of everyone not to be "short with him." Nice, huh? I was so ready to be out of there at that point.

So, we headed out after the tow truck from AAA pulled us out (the tow truck driver was Prescott High School class of '89. It's a frakking small world.). 

We got as far as Durango and the visibility and roads were really bad so we decided to hole up at the Doubletree. We didn't want to go back to the cabin - it was far, it was a pain, it cut back on our head start down the mountain when this eventually clears up, and we were done with the close quarters with family, even if it was Christmas. 

The bright spots of this week include our win at the Las Vegas Bowl. Arizona has not played in a bowl game in 10 years and we were playing a ranked team, BYU. But we did it! See a picture of us at the game here. The uploader is not working for me. And I rushed the field for the first time ever (Marching bands all over the US are not allowed to ever rush fields after this incident so I never had the opportunity previously). We also did some fun things like a sleigh ride and skiing, but I still think Christmas is best spent at home. It really didn't feel like Christmas yesterday at our hotel, despite the fact that they were serving turkey dinner (or mashed potato dinner for us vegetarian types) to all the pathetic, stranded travelers who couldn't get home for Christmas. 

Merry Christmas from the Doubletree Inn. Hope you all had a better holiday than we did! We're still hoping to have a wonderful one if we ever get out of here. Ironically enough, it's blizzards today, clear and sunny tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!!!

holiday card, originally uploaded by prideofazchick.

Well, we are off on our epic adventure to Vegas (GO CATS!) and then Durango. I'll catch up with you all on the flip side of Christmas unless I have some sort of amazing thing to share with you and I find a way to do so!

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone.

Let's color correct the web!

Wow, it has almost been a week. So much for my blog resolutions, eh? In my defense, I've been pretty busy with volunteer work, regular work, and polishing off the holiday shopping.

So, because of all that, I just have a short tidbit to share with you instead of an entire blog entry and that is this: You just can't trust online shopping sites for true-to-life garment color. I prefer to shop online but how do you ever know that what you are getting is the color you want?

For example, this:

can't trust computer screens by Jelitan

These are my exact sweater and bag for today. Would you have ever guessed by these online store shots that they are almost exactly the same deep gold color??? Didn't think so. One looks bright yellow and the other looks pale gold...

And that is all... I'm so useless today! This entire entry was inspired by me searching for the sweater I'm wearing today to see if it came in other colors because I love it. :-)

Holiday Road Trip

We have always been a simple, stay at home for the holidays family. Most of my family lives in Arizona so even after my parents got divorced, there still wasn't that much traveling for the holidays. The fact that my husband's parents live in Prescott too helped a ton! The longest trek was always just Tucson to Prescott and back during college.

This year, however, between UofA making it into the Las Vegas Bowl (I don't even want to tell you how long it's been since we have made it to a bowl game) and Mike's family's destination Christmas in Durango, we have a pretty significant road trip planned for the holidays.

How far do you travel for Christmas?

This ain't no party!

This ain't no foolin' around.

Love it.

From THE Jaime of Design Milk.

Sunprints and embarassing childhood foibles

HERE is a really cool post about using a sunprint kit to make neato holiday decorations. I had such a kit when I was in middle school but I thought it would be a "great" idea to try to use it as photo paper in a handmade pinhole camera (made with a pringles can, soda can, and black paper) and expose and develop it and think that it would come out any other way except totally blank.

Hopefully all the holders of the stockings into which I will be stuffing this are smarter than my 6th grade self and can use it to make beautiful designs.

More amazon awesomeness

I blogged a while ago about amazon's universal wish list which has been great for the holidays. My family members want very specific ideas and having everything in one place ensures that people have ideas and I usually don't need to return things.

There is another feature that I've been using off and on but never really realized that it's a really good idea. That is the gift organizer function.

Check this out. This is my Dad's page. When I buy something for him, I mark that it was a gift for my Dad in the drop down and now I've linked it to his wish list too. So, I just go to the gift organizer and click on "Dad" and a bunch of good gift ideas pop up, either from his wish list or suggestions based on presents I bought in the past. Genius! Go check it out on your amazon page.

(click picture to enlarge)

I don't know if you can tell what my Dad's interests are from seeing this. They are obviously extensive and varied. :-P

Santa Labels

I used these mailing labels on our Christmas cards. I added in our return address in candy cane font from dafont and then used the xyron to affix them. They turned out great! Yay for mostly free Christmas crafts!

Beautiful books - what more could you ask for?

Look how beautiful! I would love to have the pretty copies of any of the above novels. I've read most of them but actually only own Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

And now I'm old, too

I think have officially crossed into the age range where I find it really offensive when people think I am older than I actually am. This problem is compounded by two factors. The first is that I do volunteer work with teenagers. They apparently lump me in with all of the other advisers who are all much older than me. Most of these people were advisers in the program when I was still IN the program as a teenager. But if they make a cultural reference, they feel like they have to explain it to me. I asked if a headline they were running that played on a band's name was topical enough that most people would get it. The kids, of course, said "haha, it's a BAND!" like I didn't know. Of course I knew it was a band. I was going to their concert the next week. I'm NOT OLD. When I told them I had a cell phone in high school, they asked me if it was one of those big brick ones from the 80's. I graduated in '01!

The second factor that compounds my neurosis is the structure of my firm. Associates constantly move upward in rank and responsibility throughout our career so we are hiring new staff members and interns at least twice a year. The problem is that people in my particular rank can be of many different ages so apparently the new staff just assume that I am older than I actually am. I had one staff who went to the same University as me go on and on about "oh, I don't if that professor was teaching way back when you were in school..." (yes he said 'way back' - more than once!) until I finally stopped him to discern the difference in our ages. I was undergrad class of 2005, he graduated in 2006 - I am ONE YEAR OLDER.

And, of course, when I told a different staff the first story about the teenagers she said "oh, did you try to sound hip?" and then laughed. I am hip, goddamnit! And not as in a broken hip.

Anyone else have this problem? I find it quite frustrating. It's right up there with people making assumptions about my interests and personality because of my work clothes (we have a dress code!!), or that the fact that I'm married means I want to have kids right now (no way!!), or that I'm a girl so I couldn't possibly love sci fi (I'm a geek!!), or that I'm boring because I'm an accountant.

Please, share an assumption someone made about you that really pissed you off! We can rant together.

So much for not phoning it in...

Ok, so I promised in my 100th post that I would have fewer mini-posts, but sometimes you just need a little post that says "this pillow is adorable."

Buy it here.

A very merry un-birthday to you

I could throw the most fantastic unconventional tea party with these cups from trixiedelicious.


Everyone would be required to wear jeans and slurp with their elbows on the table, of course. I think I would also need to have her heavenly virtues set as well, just to up the irony factor.

In addition, they are recycled vintage teacups that have been hand-painted - the seller refers to it as 'vandalizing vintage.' As if I didn't already love them enough.

More Faux Disposables

I posted recently about faux-disposable items and I just discovered a few more. I love the tongue-in-cheek mocking of our disposable culture. Plus, they make for good gifts!

Sommelier wine glasses

Fast Cup Drinking Glass

Ceramic Crinkle Cups

Aren't they just great?

Eco-Christmas - Start With the Card

Madebygirl has some really beautiful eco-friendly, recycled paper holiday cards this year. If I hadn't already gotten mine months ago I would be all over these. We'll think about next year!

I especially love this one. Please don't cut down a tree this Christmas. Mike and I have a beautiful fake tree that will last us many years and we love it!