My Year of Meaningful (2011)

Since one of my New Year's resolutions is to work harder and face work with a more positive attitude, I'm going to have to make this one short because I have made an appointment with L. that I'm going to be punctual about keeping. But I wanted to do some more reflecting after getting back and finally getting some rest (albeit jetlagged rest, i.e. waking up for no reason at 4:30 am and not being able to get back to sleep, etc - 4 nights in a row now).

Right, so in a whirlwind the way we finished the holiday after Memphis (which the Mr. was a really big fan of, as far as US cities go, btw), was to cruise down to New Orleans, have a great New Years down there with Pete, Adelly, Jéan, Brandon, and the Mr. This deserves more mention, but I'm in fast mode here.

After that, the above-mentioned J man and the Mr. and I cruised on through Mississippi, Alabama (ate some wicket cheap bbq), over to Pensecola Florida, back into Alabama (Super 8 in Opelika and amazing mexican food in the parking lot), up through Georgia, into North Carolina (pit stop overnight at Mike's in Greensboro), into Virginia (Quality Inn in Waynesboro, fabulous Learf red wine out of plastic cups to celebrate the Quality), up through the Shenandoah with some hiking to boot, and finally landed back at SheofDC's pad in DC. After showing J. around our lovely capital city for a day and a half (with the obligatory feast at Ben's Chili Bowl, and tapas at Jalero), we dropped him back at the airport to fly off to Scotland, and the Mr. and I spent our last day of the trip with our favorite couple and bff the HG & her K. Definitely the best way to end the best holiday ever.

I have lots of highlights I want to write about but that will have to come one at a time between short bursts of work.

One highlight which segues nicely into my plunge back into life here however, is a story Brandon told me about this lackey he had at work, who needed to carry a little notebook around with him 24/7 in order to write down ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that people told him to do, in order to remember stuff and not fail at everything. The moral of that story is that it works, and that even you can grow up to be a dependable sherriff....? Well, my first purchase since I've been back in town, is one of those "idiot notebooks". It's small enough to fit in my palm, and I'm keeping one for personal life and using my work diary (calendar) for work life. The year of the lists! Fingers crossed this might just be what I need to not be miserably confused, bamboozled, disorganized, and a pain in my husband's corn hole in 2009.

Labels: xmas 08