Let's Talk about the Loot

Yeah yeah yeah, Christmas was great this year (it really was!) but I'm going to discuss what everyone inevitably asks. What did I get for Christmas?

Without sounding like a spoiled brat, I was pretty thrilled with just about everything. I received lots of thoughtful gifts, lots of useful things and even some random but funny items. I won't say who gave what, but here's the list in all its glory:

- An iTunes gift card. Hooray! Maybe I'll take another year to get through the whole thing. I'm incredibly cheap when it comes to purchasing music so I use gift cards sparingly. I mean - I really struggle with dropping 99 cents on a song. Is it truly worthy of my gift card?

- A bottle of Glenfiddich. I know it's weird but I have recently (since visiting Scotland) taken an interest in drinking single malt Scotch. It's very grown up of me, doncha think? Or perhaps it's very senior citizen of me. I haven't decided yet. But I do enjoy it.

- New running headphones (voted one of the best in Runner's World Mag), the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit and a shoe clip for the Nike sensor. This is hilarious because I actually purchased the Nike kit earlier this year but never used it and ended up returning it. When it ended up on my Christmas list this year, The Mr gave me a hard time. I've messed around with the Nike+ kit and think it's amazing. Why didn't I use it before? It's great!

- A GPS unit! I'm finally a hip youngster with a GPS unit. Perhaps NOW I can find the best route to places, drive to new places and NOT be stuck in traffic that forces me to take 9 hours to get to the Outer Banks when my hipster friends only drove for 5.

- Vegan with a Vengeance and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbooks. Sweet!

- A new bike! While this isn't necessarily a good triathlon bike, I do plan on using it whenever possible. Actually - The Mr got a bike as well (a bit manlier) and we biked 20 miles yesterday… and my ass isn't completely sore like it normally is!


- A PETA travel mug and a new lunch bag:


- These super cute (non-leather) boots!


- Lots of little random but nice things (gift cards, etc)

- And the best gift of all…


The Wii Fit!!

Quick story - when I had originally opened the Wii Fit from the wrapping paper, I squealed and asked where The Mr found it. I had explicitly stated previously that I really wanted the Wii Fit but that it was not worth it if he had to purchase it in some stupid bundle. He said that he found it on Ebay. I was hit with a slight bit of panic about him spending twice as much but he assured me he didn't spend much more. He suggested that we set it up so I opened the box and found it filled with paper and cardboard boxes… and NO Wii Fit! I yelled, "You were duped!" but he can't keep a straight face to save his life. He jumped up and exclaimed, "Just kidding!" and pulled out the real Wii Fit from behind the sofa.

Apparently he borrowed Theresa's Wii Fit box and thought it would be funny to panic me on Christmas day. NERD!

Btw - is Wii-rexia a disease yet? The Mr thinks I may have it. I'm addicted to this game.

What was your Christmas loot? I'll talk about the rest of Christmas in another post.

Trying to Get into the Holiday Spirit

Even with the economy going down the pooper, I'm trying really hard to get into the holiday spirit. It's tough when you get your year-end review and the salary increase doesn't even meet the cost of living increase (but I can't really complain because I should just be happy to have a job) and blah blah blah...

This year, I put the tree up last weekend. In the past, we've waited until the week before Christmas but dammit, I'm getting in the holiday spirit.

We've watched a bunch of holiday movies and whatnot.

I'm feeling holiday happy, dammit!

Okay - not really. And the idea of Christmas shopping is really overwhelming this season. For the first time ever, I have no idea what to get anyone. I've run out of clever gifts. Shopping for parents is a difficult thing especially when they buy whatever they want. Yarg! I am at a loss. My dad? All he asked for was the new Indiana Jones dvd (despite my telling him the movie was so not worth it). The Mr? Don't even get me started on his wishlist:
Playstation 3
Blackberry Storm
Some crazy $700 surround sound system

Um... we're broke.

What are you getting your parents? Your in-laws? Your significant others? I need ideas!

A New Tradition

So now you have read how we spent our first anniversary. Now let's talk about fun stuff. Presents! Yippee!

Given all of the weddings we're participating in and the new wedding approaching in Scotland (congrats Juli and Martin!! I hope that you don't pick the specific date I told you I couldn't do because of the wedding I'm in because I really really really want to attend your Scottish wedding in frickin' Scotland because hello? It's Scotland and that's the land of half of my people so just keep that in mind even though you really shouldn't plan a wedding around me... but it would be super cool if I could attend), we didn't want to spend a small fortune on gifts. Actually, I think the conversation went as follows:
The Mr: We're not doing gifts, right?
Me: [gasp] It's our first anniversary!
The Mr: um... okay, well we're not spending a lot, right?

I was struggling with what to get him. They say the traditional gift is paper which can be translated into a number of different things: tickets to an event, a book, and I don't know what else because I'm really not that creative. The Mr isn't really into music. He listens to it but isn't one of those people that MUST go see a specific artist live in person. He's not much of a reader either plus he's already stocking up on books for law school (so that he becomes a reader) and while the idea of contributing to that is practical, it just didn't seem like a fun gift.

I was stuck. Then I thought, "Hey! He likes soccer. Maybe I'll see if one of the Premier League teams is touring through the U.S. or something" but nope. This led a person to suggest getting him a jersey of his favorite team. Great idea! The problem? I didn't know his favorite team. Yeah yeah yeah... we're married and I should know these things but he isn't fanatical about ANY team. I was scrambling to get answers. I e-mailed Katie to call Ian for the scoop. I e-mailed Mark for the scoop and then called Travis for some more scoop. The general consensus was that The Mr didn't have a favorite team.

Great.

Ian suggested I get The Mr a new jersey for one of the countries he already had old jerseys for and Mark and Travis confirmed it. I will give Mark a little bit of credit though in that he did tell me what team The Mr did love at one time (Ajax... a dutch team). He also sent me the link to the nearest soccer store that carried tons of team jerseys.

As I was in the store, I realized that I didn't know what half of the jerseys were. I was able to find Germany and Italy with no problem but didn't understand the other country symbols... because I'm an idiot. So anywho - I got The Mr this Germany home jersey:

It was surprisingly expensive. Who knew sports jerseys were expensive? Oh - everyone but me knew that? Dammit.

I wasn't expecting much from him and in fact was thinking I'd end up with some random electronic entertainment thing (like he's done in the past) but he really surprised me.

First, we shared the top tier of our cake:


This was kind of sad for me. I didn't want to let it go! We only ate a piece, and it was delish but we weren't planning on eating the whole thing especially since he had made a new cake (I'll talk about that in a second). So he threw it away. This really upset me so I told him to do it when I wasn't looking. Who gets attached to cake? So lame.

On the table, he had made a cake (entirely from scratch... it was a 2 layer, chocolate chocolate-chip cake with a raspberry filling and a whipped white frosting. A.ma.zing.) Next to the cake (that he put in our cake dome! We never use it... so sadly, this brought some joy to me) were 3 wrapped gifts.

I opened one and it was a framed picture of us (and its a picture that I love). I laughed when he said it was for me to take to work because I have about 3 pictures of us already when he has NONE. Zero pictures. Is this a guy thing? Another guy at work getting married has no pictures of his fiance either. I thought she was made up until I met her.

The other gift was a pretty journal. And I was definitely confused because I'm a blogger... I type. I don't handwrite. The next gift was a box full of 12 bottles of wine. The same wine. Huh?

Then I read his card.

First - he is not known for being romantic AT ALL. But he surprises me with how thoughtful he is sometimes. Anywho, the card said something along the lines of how anniversaries are about traditions and that we should start a tradition of our own. So every year we'll make that specific cake and we'll drink a bottle of wine. We'll write down how the wine tastes and every year we can see how the taste of the wine has developed/changed like our relationship will continue to grow/change.

The wine thing wasn't completely out of left field for me because he had talked about doing this before. Buying the same brand of wine and seeing how it changes each year is apparently something wine-lovers do. Who knew? But the whole message and the thing about making it a tradition was really sweet.


Inside the journal he glued the recipe to the cake. We also decided to add another element to the journal in that we'd write down what we did to celebrate and the highlights of that year. Yeah yeah, puke gag gah-ross...

So he really took the time to think out a fantastic and thoughtful gift... and I got him a fucking soccer jersey.

Happy Anniversary, love!

I Didn't Forget

So - I didn't completely forget Valentine's Day. As I was cleaning up my room yesterday, I realized I hadn't taken my copy of Skinny Bitch out of the Target bag that I purchased a few weeks ago.

As I opened the bag, I saw a red envelope. I had no idea what it was until I flipped it over and saw that it was the Valentine's Day card I bought for The Mr.

Whoops.

So I filled it out and left it for him on the sofa to read when he got home from work.

See, I'm not a total ass. Just a slight ass.

Whoops - I thought we weren't exchanging gifts

So - aside from the craziness of my day yesterday... The Mr got me a little something for Valentine's Day:


A new travel mug to replace the one I partially melted in the dishwasher. Who knew the water got so hot that it would melt plastic? Its good to know that my dishwasher is killing germs.


A Godiva dark chocolate candy bar. I love dark chocolate. Its like crack cocaine.


There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell: A Novel of Sewer Pipes, Pageant Queens, and Big Trouble by Laurie Notaro. It was on my Amazon wish list and he said he thought it had the best title.

And a cute little card.

What did I get him? Nada. Nothing. Just a hug. I think he expects me to put out this weekend.