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

Secret revealed

Ok... so I've had some people bugging me about the secrets I've been keeping. One has now been revealed. And most people already know this, but if you don't, it's that Tiffeni and Brett are now engaged.

So congratulations to them both!

Thanksgiving

This year was a very special thanksgiving for the Bauman family for several reasons. Most importantly, Kevin and Darice flew in from Indiana, and Brian got to spend much needed time with his brother. Everyone came to our house for a fabulous thanksgiving feast complete with my Rosemary Guinness turkey with sage and apple stuffing, yorkshire puddings, garlic and blue cheese mashed potatoes, among many other wonderful side dishes. Jen and Ethan joined us, as is the tradition. And an intersting announcement called for much celebration in the Bauman household ;-)

I'm on an old lady schedule.

I mean it. I pass out in front of the tv by 9:30, and I'm wide awake at 5:30. On the way to Asia, I didn't have this kind of problem adjusting to the many time zones we crossed. We even lost an entire day because of the date line, but I functioned just fine when we were there. Coming back, though, we arrived in LA BEFORE we had left Hong Kong. And I just can't get my internal clock to understand that I don't want to be awake at 5:30am.
The cats don't seem to mind. In fact, since we've been back they've been within 2 feet or less of me at all times. I guess they missed their mummy. Awh!
This morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn, did some work, then went to the gym with Barbie. Imagine Barbie getting up and working out at 7:30?? Who is she, and what has she done with my best friend? I supsect alien abduction. If she stops smoking, I'll know for sure ;-)

I swear I'll put pictures from our honeymoon up soon. I'm just too damn lazy at the moment, and as always, work is consuming all of my time. Things ran very smoothly while I was gone, though. Thankfully. And all because of my awesome team. I am very lucky to have them. I spent most of my day today recording speaker notes for a bunch of slide presentations that will go on the web. It's a good thing that the recording software lets you alter the pitch of your voice. I had no idea how much like a 12 year old I sounded. Ack!

Keeper of Secrets

I'm keeping 2 secrets right now. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! You may think you know what they are, but you don't.

Hello from Hong Kong

Well, we're on the last leg of our trip now. We've seen some amazing things, eaten lots of weird food, which we've really enjoyed, and have soaked up some Asian culture. We're now in Hong Kong. Today we took a tour of the city, which took us up Victoria Peak for an amazing view of Hong Kong from above, then to stanly market for some shopping, and to the aberdeen floating community where we took a water taxi around to get a look at all the people living on boats and working the floating market.

Bali was beautiful and a real eye opener as far as the culture goes. We took two days worth of tours, including a trek through the rice terraces, which was wonderful. Our guide showed us all the different types of rice, and picked fruit from the trees for us to try. There's a fruit here that I really like, the Dragon Fruit, which I've never seen before and I love it. In Bali, I also tried the Durain fruit, which we saw on one of the discovery channel shows and is the smelliest fruit in the world. It smells like hell but tastes like heaven, apparently, and they were not kidding. It did smell really bad, but I liked the taste. The only problem is that you burp it for hours afterwards and we all stunk up the car ;-)
The houses in Bali are really weird, too. I'll explain more later, but bascially, they are pretty much out in the open and only the beds are covered, and the kitchen. No privacy, whatsoever. It makes you realize how spoiled you really are when you see cultures like this.

So only one full day to go now, and then we'll be on our way home. We leave at 1:30pm on thursday, and arrive at 9:30am the same day in LA, so we're going back in time ;-). Maybe this is the secret to staying young?

Anyway, we're happy that we got to take this amazing trip, and we have lots of stories to tell and pictures to show, which we may bore you with whenever you come for a visit, but we are both very excited to come home and resume our normal lives. We miss our cats and friends, and we miss hanging out on the couch in the evenings. So we hope to see all our Austin friends this coming weekend so that we can feel back to normal.

I haven't missed work one bit ;-)(sorry guys)

(Hi Wassim - We're thinking about you slaving away while we're out here NOT thinking about PDE).

Getting old(er) is a bitch!

Not only does getting older bring you more to shave, but it also brings a variety of physical ailments that let you know that while you might have the maturity of a 15 year old, your body is wearing down. It sucks because when you're in your 20's, and somewhere near your physical peak, you lack the experience that you gain in your 30's to appreciate it. By the time you get into your 30's you're already struggling with gravity and those extra few lbs a year that creep onto your ass. Before you know it, you start looking up things on Web MD to find out what your latest sucky symptom is a sign of, and how to aleiviate it.
My particular problem today is back ache. And I'm not talking a slight dull pain that hurts when I walk. No, this one hurts when I sit. That's going to make the plane ride fun :-(
I'm not one to run to the doctor at the first sign of a sniffle, but yesterday, after about 2 hours in my office chair I couldn't handle the pain anymore and went to the doctor. She hooked me up with some vicodin and some muscle relaxers. I had THE best nights sleep EVER last night. I slept from 10pm to 8am, all the way through. Not even getting up to pee several times (another thing that age brings you).
Today, my back hurts still, and I'm hoping that resting will make it go away for the trip tomorrow. But if it doesn't, then I'll take a vicodin and pass out on the plane.

My timing on injuring myself is impeccable.

Ouch!!!

Today is my second day of pain! Damn you, Larry, and your correct form for squats! Yesterday I was rather uncomfortable when getting up after sitting for a while, and of course getting in and out of the car. Going down the stairs was also a challenge. Today, it's twice as bad. Today my legs feel *worse* than they did after all of the marathons I've done. Needless to say I skipped the gym yesterday, and I'm skipping again today. I'll go tomorrow when I might be back to yesterday's level of pain. Oh how I long for yesterday's level of pain!

We went to a new bar last night in Pflugerville. Can't remember the name of it, but we had fun. Andi, Barbie, Scott, Michelle, Renee, Sonny, Kitty, Nick were all there. There was a duo playing. Not particularly good. We're all hoping that Andi gets gigs there. It was a cool place and I wouldn't mind going there to see her play.

In other news, work's calming down. We've shipped the final big docs to translation and are now working on the minor details. We shipped on time, though, which nobody thought was possible. So big pat on the back to my entire team who are fricking awesome! And now I have only 2 work days left before it's HONEYMOON TIME! wooohooooooo! Good timing too. I hate to say it, but I did plan my holiday around the release schedule at work, which is majorly nerdy of me, but it is in keeping with my life goal, which is to have a happy and stress-free life.

This weekend will be all about preparing for the trip. Making lists, buying things we'll need, like... um... new shoes... no wait... I can get them cheaper over there. Ok, like... new... well crap! I don't have any excuse to spend my weekend shopping. The only thing we need, really, is a new suitcase for Brian. He borrowed one from the 70's from his parents for our Dominican Republic trip, and let me tell you, that thing is UUUUGLY. It's also not very easy to wheel around on account of it not having wheels ;-)

I do have a nice long run planned for Sunday with Andi. Let's hope that the muscle soreness goes away so I can enjoy it!

Leg work with Larry

So I was at the gym yesterday, just trying to get through my weights work out as fast as possible. I was almost done and was on the leg press machine when this guy in a weight belt came over and said "can I give you a tip?". I'm not one to refuse helpful hints so of course I welcomed the information. So this guy repositions me on the machine and makes me do 10 reps. Yea, that's more difficult. I'm gonna feel this tomorrow. So then this guy, who then introduces himself as Larry, offered to show me some other exercises that would maximize my limited time at the gym and help me get the sculpted ass that all women want. How can I refuse that??

So Larry takes me over to the squat machine. The one where you lift the dumb bell but it's on a track, so you can't drop it or get stuck under it. And he shows me the right way to use it. Positioning me just so, and boy! did I feel it! Then he showed me an exercise for my calfs, and then how to use the leg press machine properly, and then an exercise on the ball that is damn near impossible, that he made look super easy. Oh, and then that awful torture machine that does the hip abductors. Yea. I'd been doing that wrong this whole time. And 5 minutes doing those machines the right way is like spending 30 minutes doing it the way I had been!

So 30 minutes later, I was sweating like a hog, and had a fabulous work out with some random guy at the gym who used to be a personal trainer. It turns out he works for IBM now. Small world. Larry offered to show me any machine I liked whenever I was at the gym. How lucky is that? people pay lots of money for that kind of help at the gym!

So I know you're thinking that this guy was probably trying to get into my pants. That's the first thing Brian thought, too ;-) but actually he's married and mentioned his wife and kid on numerous occasions during our workout. He was genuinely just helping me because he was a nice person. How refreshing is that?

Party like a rock star!

Jeezus! I've been eating like crap over the last couple of days. I feel the need to confess all the bad food I've eaten, or booze I've drank. I'm embarassed, but I feel like if I confess, I can start today with a clean slate. On Thursday I ate a Wendy's chicken sandwich, fries, and a 1/4 of a vanilla frosty. And I had 2 glasses of wine. On Friday, I ate a molten chocolate lava cake and vanilla ice cream for dinner. On Saturday I ate a fried egg sandwich at Waterloo and on Saturday night I had vietnamese noodles, 1 wine, 2 beers, 2 cosmopolitans, and 1 dirty martini, followed by a slice of Roppolo's pizza at 1:30 in the morning, and THEN fries from Whataburger on the way home. I obviously need to go to the gym today!
Brian's in Houston this weekend, and I spent all day saturday with friends. I had a great day. It included a huge amount of greasy food, booze, and shopping. What more could a girl want? Fabulous ass jeans! that's what. I bought a pair of jeans from Buckle. There is nothing more satisfying than a pair of jeans that make a woman actually like her booty.

Pfft! I knew that!

So now I can tell people that my singing in the car is just my way of expressing how intelligent I am....

Your Dominant Intelligence is Musical Intelligence

Every part of your life has a beat, and you're often tapping your fingers or toes. You enjoy sounds of all types, but you also find sound can distract you at the wrong time. You are probably a gifted musician of some sort - even if you haven't realized it. Also a music lover, you tend to appreciate artists of all kinds. You would make a great musician, disc jockey, singer, or composer.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

7 miles of fun

My run on Sunday was awesome. Andi and I did a 7 mile loop and it seemed quite effortless. When we were done, we both felt like we hadn't ran 7 miles. During our runs, we solve the world's problems. At least those problems in our world. Ok, maybe not solve them. But definately share them and the old saying "a problem shared is a problem halved" really seems to hold true. I always feel lighter after a good run. In both senses ;-)

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at work now. And only 2 weeks until we leave for our honeymoon. A few days ago, the field guide for my new Nikon arrived. It's extremely helpful. I feel all the stuff I learned about photography so many years ago (thank you, Mark) flooding back when I read it. And today my new Nikon 70-300mm lens arrived! I've read great reviews about the lens, and the only negative is that it searches for a while in low light. Easily remedied by flipping it to manual control and focusing yourself.

It's not like me to be proactive and a planner when I take a trip. I usually like to just figure it out as I go, so it might suprise people to learn that for this trip I put together what is now a 12 page document, complete with all the embassy information in each country we will visit, and things to do based on my internet research on frommers.com, fodors.com, and lonelyplanet.com, and of course suggestions from people who've been there. The reason I'm putting so much effort into it is because I don't want to waste a moment of our time their trying to figure out how to get around or where to go, or what to do. One of the things I'm most excited about is the food. I love Asian food. At least America's rendition of it. I can't wait to sample the real thing, though.

14 days and counting down.....

White and Nerdy

Weird Al's version of Camillionaire's "Riding" is so funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kw

Random thoughts

Only 3 weeks until we go on our trip. In preparation, we ordered me a wedding ring. Just a plain band so that I don't have sparkly, come mug me and cut my finger off written on my forehead during our travels. It arrived yesterday and I like it a lot. I also ordered a new zoom lens for our new digital Nikon, which is totally badass, by the way! I ordered a 70-300mm Nikkor lens from Amazon.com. It got great reviews and I can't wait to try it out.
I used the camera and the 18-55mm that came with the camera last weekend when we went wake boarding. The autofocus is extremely fast! I got some awesome shots of Mike doing jumps at 2 frames per second! you do not miss a thing with this camera! Speaking of wakeboarding, I managed to face plant twice. The first one knocked the snot out of me and pulled me right out of my bindings. We captured some good footage of Brian so that we can see what he needs to change to make it all the way across the wake.
This weekend I finished up the floor tiling project in the upstairs loft closet. It looks a million times better and smells better, too.

This weekend has been full of friends, as always. Friday we did happy hour at Mesa Rosa, followed by Donn's Depot. Brian was pretty wasted from the two massive 'rita's at happy hour, which made for a very entertaining time. Saturday night we tried a new place for burgers - Casino El Camino on 6th. Don't recommend the burgers, but it's definately an interesting place for people watching. On Sunday we grilled with friends.

Brian's been playing a lot of football (soccer to you yankies). He's playing on 3 different teams. 2 indoor teams and one regular. Tara and I went to watch 2 of his indoor games on Sunday night.

I'm considering going back to martial arts and learning an internal form - Tai Chi. I noticed during my run on Sunday morning that Andi is way more flexible than me and I used to be way more flexible than I am now when I was going to Kung Fu. It's not good to be so stiff. So after we get back from our honeymoon, I plan to check out my old school's (Shaolin Do) Tai Chi program. I think it will also be good for me mentally as well as physically.

As for running, I've done a couple of 7 mile runs. I have absolutely no desire to run a marathon this year. I might consider the half marathon, though, because I love training for a half and there are some great races for that distance in Austin.

Tonight I have a hot date with Barbie to go see the new Jackass movie. I imagine we're going to be completely grossed out!

Tomorrow I'm volunteering at Goodwill, where I will be dismantling computers and salvaging parts. Sounds like a nerdy and fun time!