My family takes our family photo at Christmas time… I think it’s always a terribly unflattering picture of me, because I’m always showering and trying to ready myself in someone else’s bathroom an on a day I’d rather just stay in my pajamas, but in any case, it’s fun to see the whole family together…. so here we are:

And then a little bit sillier:

Personally… I’d rather remember the moments in the week when I looked like this:

(This photo taken during the previously mentioned karaoke event that took place last Monday. It was a crazy fun night…. but what night out with that group wouldn’t be).

I also like this one, even though my eyes are totally bugging out, and I should probably cut off the bottom inch or so of the photo to be modest, but it’s me with Patti who is such an amazing friend to me. I <3 her.

Anyway… enough pictures! Goodnight, 33rd birthday day. It was nice knowing you.

I loved being 11 because I thought it looked neat to have two of the same numbers next to each other. 11 was also cool because if you write your 1s with the little flag at the top and the line underneath… with an 11 you can just do one quick line underneath both flagpoles.

33 is not as cool, really. But, it is what it is.

This could likely be the quietest birthday I’ve ever had. Without the invention of Facebook’s birthday notification, I imagine it might have gone completely unnoticed by others (aside from my closest friends and my mother). I’d really be okay with that. I left the house once… to go to the grocery store to get more cough drops and tissues. I’ve been trying to beat a cold for the last 5 days or so, and today was definitely an up day in that process… of course not really getting out of bed except to procure hot beverages and food probably helped. My plans are to head to bed early again tonight… I can’t exactly call in sick tomorrow when we’ve been on vacation for 10 days already, even though in another circumstance I would definitely take another day of recovery and quietness at home.

So anyway Happy Birthday to me. Life is different (significantly) than it was at 32… or 31… and in my mind I am perpetually 26, regardless of what the passage of time tells me. I wonder if I will ever adjust my mental age… perhaps when I’m 50, I’ll think of myself as 29, at least.

I’ve been using twitter lately… my username is withinwithout. I kindof like it… wish you would add me there if it’s your thing.

Happy New Year!

So, I *think* it’s after advent, although I do know we are still in the 12 day of Christmas and actually, one my favorite parts of the holiday story/season… the epiphany, is still more than a week away. But anyway, back in early December, when I decided to give up the browsing of personal ads for advent, I wasn’t sure I’d actually be successful at it. After all, even when I’m not really looking or responding at all, the browsing can be addictive.

I can’t say that I completely stuck to this… but I do think that the past 4 weeks have felt different to me. I’ve got a handful of winks and emails that I may or may not ever respond to and I logged into eHarmony this weekend to over 100 new matches that have been collecting. I’m not actually interested in looking at them, but I suppose one option would be to delete them all, tighten up my “preferences” and see if eHarmony really thinks they can send me someone who would actually catch my attention. It’s such a silly system really. Another option would probably be to just shut down the account… I’m not really interested in doing it anyway. I’m sure if someone was matched to me while I was permanently away and they really wanted to contact me, they could find a way to do so.

But seriously…. Christmas is a lonely time to be single… and I’m in a lonely chapter of my life anyway. It surprises me how some days I am thrilled to be where I am and to have the freedoms that my life affords and then the next day (or sometimes the next breath) the fear that my life is on some endless loop of disappointments is overwhelming.

Anyway, tomorrow we’ll all go out for karaoke, then Tuesday afternoon I’ll head up to Marysville to be with family for a few days (apart from Wednesday evening for a NYE gathering). “Christmas” morning is on Thursday. In general, I hate how I feel so anxious when I’m away from home and how hard it is for me to not be on my own schedule. It makes it so hard to just enjoy time away with friends and family. I already want to go home… but I’m here until Saturday so I’ve gotta get over the bump of edginess I seem to have hit.

I’m tired of late night TV and my laptop is almost out of batteries. Sweetdreams.