Time for a little reflection

Today is my favourite day of the year. The last day of the current year. In Scotland there is a tradition where at the stroke of midnight you leave the house through the back door, which symbolizes taking out the old year, and enter through the front door, which symbolizes bringing in the new year. If you want to be really fancy, you leave a bucket filled with coal outside the front door, and each guest brings a lump of coal in with them, which symbolizes prosperity for the new year. Since coal is in short supply, it's been replaced with shortbread. You can buy shortbread at World Market. Walkers is the best. Also, it is considered especially lucky if a tall, dark, and handsome man is the first to enter your house after the new year is rung in.
So that's a little nugget of worldly trivia with which to impress your drunken friends.

My 2006 New Year's resolutions were as follows:

- boldly go where I have never gone before (mentally, emotionally, and physically) ;-)
- sing every day
- continue learning Spanish
- be a wonderful wife to Brian
- become a mother ;-)

SO how did I do?
boldly go where I have never gone before:
Well, this one's ambiguous, but I did challenge myself mentally last year by learning a new language, and taking on additional projects at work that I had no experience with. I'm claiming complete success here. Emotionally, I've grown as a person. I've learned to let go of things that aren't important, and learned to recognize feelings that I had traditionally supressed because I thought they made me weak, and embraced them instead, let myself feel them, process them, and move on from them. I feel great about that. Physically, I have challenged myself by committing to going to the gym and lifting weights. I've kept this up for more than a year now, and while I'm no American Gladiator, I was able to drop several percent in body fat and gain lean muscle, and maintain a healthy weight. My running has suffered a bit this year, though. I have'nt done many races, and I'm not training for anything. I have only ran for fitness/weight maintenance this year, and I'm ok with that.

sing every day:
That's easy. I did. In the car, in the shower, and to the cat, who loves when I sing to her and follows me around, climbing on things to try and reach me and put her little kitty paws around my neck and hug me and chew my hair. The downside of this is if I don't let her up, she bites my feet.

continue learning Spanish:
I failed here. I took spanish one, then I stopped. I will try again this year.

be a wonderful wife to Brian:
Brian would be a better judge than me as to whether I accomplished this goal. But I take comfort in the fact that I am the best wife he's ever had ;-) All kidding aside, I do feel like things between us are as great today as they were when we first met. I'm still crazy about him and have enjoyed the last 6 months of being Mrs. Brian Bauman.

become a mother:
Well, obviously I didn't accomplish this one this year. So I'll roll this one over into 2007.

So I've had some successes and some failures, but in all I'm pretty happy with 2006. I got married to the love of my life, surrounded by my best friends and family. I've lost family members, and deepened relationships with friends and other family members. I've gained a whole new family. I've fulfilled my dream of going to Asia. I've gotten over some disappointments with what I hope was a little grace. Now I'm looking forward to all the challenges that 2007 brings. And I know for sure that this coming year is going to be the biggest challenge of my life. So here's what I'm hoping to accomplish in 2007 (in no particular order):

Buy a new house
Become a mother
Maintain a healthy weight
Continue to go to the gym regularly
Continue to run
Learn to be more paitent (a major challenge)
Pick up where I left off on Spanish
Paint more (and perhaps paint for my friends, specifically, Tara)
Focus on the positive and take action to destroy the negative (when appropriate)
Allocate time to hanging out with friends
Balance work and life appropriately

Wish me luck!

This evening I plan to park myself in front of the web cam for a while and watch the festivities at Aunt Glenys and Uncle Terry's house in England as the Burton clan celebrates ringing in the new year. Listen to Big Ben chime 12, and hopefully sing Auld Lang Syne with them, before heading downtown to celebrate the new year in style with a big group of close friends and family.

I LOVE NEW YEAR'S EVE!

Happy Hogmanay everyone!

Xmas

Xmas was fun, as always, Brian got me the most thoughtful gifts and even one big item from my list -- a pink iPod Nano! I just loaded it up with all my favourite bands and am now going to test it out with a work out at the gym.

This year we did the usual Bauman christmas rituals, such as decorating the tree, xmas eve dinner with the Rambins, and opening presents on xmas eve. But we added a new tradition this year, just me and Brian. While I'm thankful to be included in the Bauman traditions, my family tradition is that we don't open gifts until xmas day, and it just doesn't feel right to me to open everything on xmas eve, so Brian and I reserved some gifts for xmas morning and opened them in private. Another new development this year, usually we open my parents gifts early because we have to go to Houston for xmas, but we took them with us this year, and I got an international calling plan on my mobile phone especially so that I could call my parents from anywhere. At 2:30am on xmas morning we called my parents and opened gifts over the phone. I was so happy to talk to them on xmas day for a change. Next year will be extra special because they are spending xmas with us! For once, I'm actually excited about xmas. The bad thing is that it's a whole year away!

New year's is just around the corner. It's my favourite holiday. To me it symbolizes new beginnings, self improvement, and hope for the future. I like to reflect on the past year, and this year has been the best one of my life so far. It seems hard to top the events of this past year, but I have a feeling that next year will be even better.

My extended family...

I'm heading to Houston to spend xmas with my new family. This is my first xmas as a full member of the Bauman family, although in past years the family has always gone far out of their way to make me feel included. As I head out, I just want to let all of my English family know that I miss you terribly and wish we could be together for the holidays.

Mum and Dad, I'll call you on xmas eve or xmas day! (P.S. The best present ever would be if you moved here *hint *hint)

Aunty Glenys and Uncle Terry, I wish we could join your for your New Year's Party. I'll be calling you at midnight to hear Big Ben chime and listen to you all sing me a drunken rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

Daz and Mel, it was so great to talk to you yesterday, sorry it was brief, I will talk to you again before New Years (P.S. The info I told you yesterday is not public, so mum's the word ;-)) Give my love to Louise!

And for my Austin family, you know who you are... Though I don't get to spend xmas with you, you guys make every day a holiday {{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Much love and happiness to all for the holidays (even you, Wassim ;-))

Shoes really do motivate a person

I've been less lazy this week. I ran yesterday with Brian, then today I did 30 mins on the treadmill at the gym, and weights. Last week I said I would buy shoes if I ran twice (I think), and I actually only ran once, though in my defense I did go to the gym several times and use the cross trainer, so that should count. Anyway, I bought two pairs of totally cute shoes from Stein Mart. They're closing their shoe dept so everything is on sale. I view today's and yesterday's efforts in exercising as paying off my shoe credit, since technically I didn't deserve the shoes when I bought them. So nobody can say my shoe purchase wasn't legitimate :-)

In other news, Festivus was a huge success. The festivus pole had a new addition this year. A red light. It was warranted after last year's display of lude poses with the festivus pole. This year, two new feats of strength were added entitled penis envy, and sumo sammi, and of course, the traditional airing of grievances was done by all. Pictures from the Festivus Spectaculous can be viewed here. A big thanks to Mike and Tara for hosting. And mum, everyone loved the trifle -- I added Bailey's as suggested.

Great weekend

I had a really relaxing weekend. Nothing was expected of me. I didn't have to DO anything, and I spent most of it with my best friends. I love weekends like that.

Brian and Mike went to College Station to do a race car driving class on an actual track. They had a blast. An instructor rides in the car with each driver and gives advice on taking turns and driving the course. Brian did so well that next time he goes, he's moving up into the next rank of drivers!

Way to go Brian!

In other news, Christmas sucks! I hate the crowds at the malls and I hate the obligation you feel to buy gifts for people, and the awkwardness you feel when you don't get someone a gift, but they get you something. I hate the indecision when you find something you think worthy of giving, but then you question whether that person needs it, already has it, or would enjoy/appreciate it. Or if it's just another one of those "oh... er... how thoughtful... a christmas sweater" type gifts. I'm not a total grinch, though. I do love to give gifts when I have the perfect gift to give. It's just the getting there that pisses me off to no end.

Can we just skip christmas this year?

I've been bitten!

By the Lazy Bug!

Since returning from our honeymoon where we did no running whatsoever (though in my defense we walked a LOT), I have ran a grand total of 4 times. In a month! I have been going to the gym very regularly, and I do weights and 45 mins of cross trainer, but it's not the same. I just can't motivate myself to go out and run. I especially can't motivate myself to go and run by myself. I think it's the cold weather. And I used to love running in the cold weather.

I need to make a deal with myself to try harder. Maybe a reward system! So if I run twice this week, then I can buy a new pair of shoes. Yea, that'll help!

Honeymoon pics are here!

Click on an album below to see the highlights from our trip:

Thailand

Singapore

Bali

Hong Kong