The weather is too beautiful to stay indoors! It's 71 degrees F today and is gloriously sunny. K.A. and I decide to head down to Newbury St. to hang out and maybe do some shopping. Apparently everyone else felt the same way. The area was bustling with people just enjoying the day, many wearing shorts, halter tops, sandals, that sort of thing--in December! How great is that? We checked out a few art galleries and kitchen gadget shops as we worked our way up and down Newbury St. Musicians were all over the place, playing music, singing, drumming to entertain and make some money. Several artists were out in front of their galleries, painting in the warm sun. We watched one for a while as he worked the canvas and joked with passersby, trying to entice them into the gallery to look around and maybe buy some art.

We went into a really cool furniture store called Zoe. They have the wildest furniture and it all looks so comfy. Check it out at www.zoehome.com.

We were getting hungry but all the outdoor cafe's were filled and had people waiting in line so we stopped at Tapeo's for some Spanish tapas and Sangria. This is a great place and it didn't disappoint. We had the pork tenderloins with a goat cheese and portabello mushroom sauce and also had the Lobster gratinee.

By the time we finished, it must have been close to 5:00 so we headed over to the Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony at the Prudential Center. I haven't been to this ceremony in about 13 or 14 years when I went with BSA and KB. That was a long time ago! We waited around, thinking that it would start at 5:00 but soon found out that it wouldn't start until 6:00. Good--gives us more time for some retail therapy. Went back over to Newbury St. for some more shopping and by 6:00 headed back over to the ceremony. There is a much bigger crowd by this time and we decide not to make our way to the front. Luckily, Boylston St. is closed off from traffic for this event since there are literally thousands of people in the area. We couldn't hear much from where we were standing but they had a big screen so we could all see what was happening. Several bands played, one with someone doing yo-yo tricks to the beat of the music, singers sang, dancers danced, drummers drummed, (no maids a milkin?) and we finally decided to leave. It was great entertainment but it was just going on and on and on. They still hadn't lit the tree by the time we left.

All in all a wonderful day though!

I think I spent all day on the phone, talking to different people, mostly about this business thing which is getting way out of hand. It's getting very frustrating working on this project. I'd quit if it weren't also so amusing and such a great experience. I've already learned a lot about business in the process of doing this and can now appreciate business school so much more. But, we're starting to divide into groups. I can't tell what the division is since it could be several factors. It's sort of men against the women but it's also techhies against nontechhies and then again it's possible that it's something else that is dividing us. The problem is that we don't have someone to guide us, at least not anyone that will help us out for free. I think I'm going to have to go over to the Harvard Coop and pick up some of the textbooks from the Executive MBA program.

I was just getting brave enough to order tickets to fly to Michigan for Christmas and they have now announced that the country is again on high alert for possible terrorist threats. Not sure what to do now. Should I still fly? Should I drive? Should I just stay here? I hate this!

Walked around Jamaica Pond--beautiful day today. This time I walked around counter clockwise just to mix things up a bit. Hey, it's the little things that count, right? Of course, my mind starts trying to figure out the world's problems while I walk around the pond. Especially the business venture. Don't want to go into detail here but I don't see why we can't start selling at least one of our products now or at least very soon. We don't need to wait for VC funding.

I made homemade vegetable soup today. At least it didn't take as long as it did last year to make, though I ran into similar problems. My stove is a flat-top range, which I love, but I have not purchased all the appropriate pots and pans to use on this type of appliance. My big pot is not flat enough on the bottom which means that the water doesn't get hot enough to boil. I even resorted to using a wooden spoon to push the bottom down to touch the stove for a while to let the water boil for a while. But that got annoying real fast and was too hot anyway to hold it for too long. Thank God for food processors though! I was able to chop and grate the veggies much quicker using the food processor.

This gave me a huge pot of soup that I can put into separate containers in the freezer to use throughout the winter. Very economical, wouldn't you say? I guess I've found my inner domestic goddess!

You can stop laughing now... the domestic thing is only temporary.

Went for a walk again around Jamaica Pond. The weather is just fantastic, especially for this time of year. I wore a short sleeved shirt and no coat and it's December! Actually, the weather has been perfect all year long. This had to be one of the best summers that I can remember--not too hot, hardly any humidity, not a lot of rain, especially over the weekends.

Can you believe my Forsythia bush is actually blooming right now? In December! Not just budding, but actual yellow flowers.

Finally reopened the real estate book to start the studying over again since I seem to have forgotten everything! I'll definitely have to make the appointment soon to take the exam. Before I do that, though, I need to find two more people to sign my form to validate my good moral character! Hah!

Had dinner at the Stockyard in Brighton to celebrate K.V.s birthday. The place was jam packed and it took a while to find parking. Looks like we forgot about all the work Christmas parties that have already started. While I was waiting in line for a table, I noticed there was a private party going on in the back bar area. There were several people from that party looking for a place to change into their costumes. This piqued my interest so I was eavesdropping. They were planning on doing a murder mystery dinner theater for the party. How fun. I've never been to one but I've seen them from a distance at other restaurants.

Wow. It's supposed to be in the 70s today. Another great day and another walk around the Pond. Today was the first day I saw a Park Ranger there. I stopped him (I think it was a him??) and asked how far the trail around the pond was. He said it's just under a mile and a half--somewhere around 1.48 miles. I'm glad to hear it because I've been timing myself and thought I had really slowed down a lot. I thought the trail was just under a mile and it's been taking me just under 25 minutes to go around. Since the trail is longer, my pace really isn't that bad--somewhere between 3.5 and 4.0 miles per hour which is pretty good, I think.

Finally got around to emptying out one of the boxes of stuff from my office and only have 2 more to go.

It's Friday already--where DOES the time go?

I'm starting to get real tired of eating soup. Soup for lunch, soup for dinner, and I still have a ton of it left over in the refrigerator and the freezer. Luckily the local Chinese Restaurant delivers and I haven't had Chinese food in quite a while.

Well, this morning I woke up and there is snow covering the ground. I guess it had to happen, it is December after all. The dilemma--do I shovel the driveway and sidewalk or do I just drive through it? OK, so it's not really a dilemma. I bought a 4 wheel drive vehicle for a reason! Shoveling snow has never been a chore I enjoyed.

Speaking of chores.... I'm getting very tired of doing dishes. I have never washed so many dishes in my life. When I was working, I ate breakfast and lunch at work and usually went out to dinner at some local restaurant or pub. But now that I'm home, I'm making my own breakfast and lunch and am trying to eat dinners at home as well. It's great for saving money but it adds to the days chores. Why didn't I have a dishwasher installed when I had the entire kitchen redone???

I watched the original version of "Ocean's 11" today. The critics have been saying how horrible it was supposed to be but I actually kind of liked it. It's hysterical to see how small Las Vegas was back then in the 60s. And the end was quite surprising....

Not a good day today. I paid some of my bills and got thoroughly depressed. Especially the local phone bill. I had tried to economize a few months back and switched to a cheaper version of the local phone subscription. Unfortunately, they didn't explain the service very well and I got quite a surprise at how expensive the bill was this month! The bill is around $90.00 which is funny because the only listed calls outside "my area" add up to about $2.00. I called Verizon to find out why the bill was so expensive. I still don't completely understand who came up with this but apparently not all 617 calls are considered local even though I'm also in the 617 calling area. And, some 781 calls are considered local. So, I get charged for calling some 617 numbers including the length of the calls. But, none of these are itemized so I couldn't tell where all these calls were made to. We finally figured out it was from the dial up modem for my computer. The number I dial into is most likely located about 2 miles from my house and is in the 617 area, but is not considered a local call--go figure!

Speaking of calls, I finally called AAA and made my airline reservations to go home for Christmas. I'm not looking forward to flying during the holidays or flying at all for that matter. I'm even angry about it. Especially when people keep saying that it's safer than ever. Safer how? What is different? Nothing. Oh, they have the National Guard standing around the airports but they don't do anything. Today's Boston Globe had an article about the airports and their so called "security." One woman was asked by the security people if she had any nail clippers and had to turn those over. It wasn't until she reached her destination that she realized that she had a box cutter in her purse which was never detected. Of all things, that should have been discovered and confiscated, not nail clippers! Anyway, the flying is only part of the stress. My family wants to have a family portrait taken. I'm not exactly looking forward to that! And, when I had told my family that I wasn't sure if I was coming home, they actually planned on using a 35mm photo of me last year and having the photographer superimpose it into the picture. Oh my God! Can you imagine? It would look like something out of a bad tabloid magazine.

And the gifts! Now, I know my family means well but I don't usually receive great gifts. I'd rather have less gifts than some that I've received in the past. Last year I actually got a used, stained dish towel and they were upset that I didn't like it! Apparently it had been my grandmothers dish towel. Uhhhhh, I don't even know what to say about that! Gee thanks, I always hated fresh, new dishtowels?

Oh, I also got a box of knitted drink glass sweaters. Actually I'm not sure what they are called, cosies? They are rolled onto the glasses to collect the sweat that accumulates. And, yes, these were also previously used and once owned by my grandma. I'm not sure what to expect this year--grandma's bloomers? Her old shoelaces?

I don't think I've ever received a really nice gift from anyone, now that I think about it. Let's review. Most of the men I date, or have dated, hate shopping so I usually ended up with a candle or stuffed animal or an ugly sweater that they had their sister pick out. (I won't even talk about the ones who are so cruel as to break up before Christmas to avoid buying a gift altogether and then want to get back together after the holidays!) Hmmm, what else? Oh yeah, when my other grandparents sold their farm and auctioned off a lot of their stuff, my mother bought me one of their doorknobs. Yes, you read right. And, I don't think I ever really received it. My 30th birthday gift is also a real doozy. Turning 30 is already stressful and I really just wanted to ignore it but my family decided to give me my very own cemetary plot. I'm not kidding, either. I still have the paperwork somewhere though I think I stashed it somewhere so I don't have to look at it or even think about it.

Not a good day, can you tell?

Well, it's official, I'm flying on an airplane for the holidays. Not thrilled about this but the whole family will be home and I can't wait to see my new great-niece. I picked up the tickets at AAA--the flights are the cheapest ever since my years of flying during the holidays, especially purchasing them so late in the year.

On my way to AAA, I stopped to get gas at the local station. They weren't too busy though there were a few cars there. There was a guy standing by the pumps and then he poked his head into my car and asked what kind of gas I wanted, that he would take care of this for me. So he got the gas going and then washed my windshield and the back window for me. I had my window open and he started chatting, saying that he really didn't work there but figured he'd help me out. ?? It was pretty funny. The guy that worked there thought he was my husband and then found out we had never met. He laughed and said that was nice but it would have been even nicer if he had paid for the gas for me. Not sure what that was all about but it was very nice.

Picked up a few Christmas gifts but have decided to do some power shopping once I get back to Michigan instead of shipping everything from here.

I may possibly have gotten myself involved in another project that doesn't pay! My home town in Michigan is trying to find ways to bring people back to the area, as well as to bring tourists there. So far the ideas haven't been that fantastic or cost the taxpayers more money so I suggested they build an Aquarium. Apparently someone thought that was a good idea and had thought of it a few years ago as well. Within the hour he had put up a website and is asking for volunteers to get this project going. I volunteered of course, since I tend to stick my nose in everywhere.

OK, I'm getting a little bored not working and I really miss that paycheck! Once the holidays are over I'll get back in gear and attempt to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I have to find a way to pay off some of my debts and writing a daily journal won't quite cut it. Well, it could have been a great idea if there weren't already a "Bridget Jones's Diary" or if I were willing to get into nitty gritty details of what really goes on in my life, past and present, as well as anything more interesting than what I normally write about.

"What you reward is what gets repeated."

No, I'm not getting deep. I had read this somewhere and wrote it down because I thought it was something interesting to remember. And frankly, I wanted to throw away the paper but keep the sentiment so I decided to put it here.

Actually left the house for a while to have dinner with K.V. She's been traveling all over the country for the past several months so it was fun to hear about some of the trips. She just came back from Las Vegas and had a really good time, especially at "The Legends" show where Elvis jumped on her table and "shook his booty" for a bit.

"If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got."

OK, so I'm on a roll with these little sayings and I have plenty more where those came from.

Got an email from M.T.--she's going to run the Boston Marathon this next April. That's fantastic--she'll do it, too. She has more determination than anyone I know. I'm not quite sure why anyone would want to run 26.2 miles--I have a hard enough time driving that far! Can you wear a Walkman? What do you think about for 26.2 miles--"hey this is fun"? You have to figure that if you are a typical person running this race, you have to stand at the starting gate for about an hour after the starting gun goes off because there are so many people in front of you. Then, it would probably take about 4 or 5 hours to run the race, assuming you actually finish. Maybe another hour in the medical tent with an I.V. and an aluminum blanket to recuperate. And another hour to hobble to your friends car to get a ride home. That's about 8 hours--kind of sounds like a typical day at the office, doesn't it? Well, except the running part and the aluminum blanket. But the I.V. (ok, at the office, it's filled with coffee), the slow start in the morning, and hobbling to the car after it's all done sure sounds familiar.

Best of luck to M.T.--better her than me!

Needed to do some shopping today but didn't want to fight the mobs at the malls so K.A. and I went to Newport, R.I. and toured the Marble House and shopped in the gift shop there. For pictures and more info, go to: http://www.newportmansions.org/gildedage/marblehouse.html

What a great day--the Marble House is absolutely beautiful and the drive up and down Bellevue Ave. is fantastic.

Packed my suitcase and headed for the airport for my trip to Michigan for the holidays. Feeling very nervous about flying for the first time since September 11th but the other choices were driving or the train/bus which takes way too long. When I got to the Northwest ticket counter, the agent never asked to see my ID and never asked those usual useless questions about who packed my suitcase and have they been in my sight the entire time, etc. Normally I think those questions are ridiculous but at this time more than ever they should at least still be asking them.

Downstairs, at the ticket counter level, there were no National Guardsmen anywhere. I assumed they would be all over the place but I didn't see any until I went upstairs to get to my gate where there were a few but not many.

I must say, the worst part of the entire trip was walking to the plane. It felt like "dead woman walking" -- as if I were on my way to the electric chair. I don't remember much else from the flight except that I read a magazine most of the way. I didn't want to look around in case there were questionable characters on board--I just didn't want to know. I also had brought my Rosary beads that I bought at the Vatican last Spring--even though I'm not Catholic, I figure any little bit helps, right?

But, I have to say, it was a smooth, uneventful flight. Then I got to Detroit--everything was going pretty smoothly. I found my gate easily and got on board. We backed away from the gate and started taxi-ing towards the runway but then went back to the gate. They made us sit there for about 10 minutes and then finally said the plane would not be going anywhere due to mechanical problems. Great. Luckily, there was another flight to my hometown airport leaving shortly and I got on that flight and eventually got home and only about 2 hours late.

It was good to be there around family and really good to be in a nice warm house since mine is so drafty and cold all the time.

Got up and made coffee and was sitting down reading yesterday's newspaper when my dad came in from his daily 7 mile walk. He made himself breakfast and sat down and starting eating. That's when I noticed what he was having for breakfast--an egg sandwich and Kool-Aid! Oh my God....

Went to do my power shopping. I had my list of everything I was going to buy for each person. Unfortunately, the day didn't go well. The stores were out of some of the specific things I wanted to buy. The pearls I buy my nieces for their Add-a-Pearl necklaces were out of stock and they didn't know when they would get them in stock again--the suppliers were located near the World Trade Center in New York and have had to move so they are behind schedule on delivering their products.

Eventually got most of my shopping done anyway.

We get to celebrate Christmas again, this time and my parents house. My brother and his family will be at my sister-in-laws parents house so it will be the rest of us today. We had our usual breakfast (no Kool-Aid though they were going to put cookies on the table for breakfast) and then went and opened gifts and had a nice lazy day.

After our Christmas dinner, my niece Shay and I played cards--she kept beating me so I kept telling her that she was cheating. We're both brats!

Family portrait day......

Time to fly home to Boston. K.W. was working but she seemed busy so just waved and said goodbye.

Thanks to the new turn of events in air travel (potential shoe bomber Richard Reid), most people had to take their shoes off and run them through the x-ray machine. Apparently, this small airport had been doing that for a while now anyway which I find funny. Funny that a small 3-airline airport in the middle of nowhere would have higher security that Boston's Logan airport--especially since Logan is the airport that so many horrible things have happened.

When I got to Detroit, I was shocked that my next gate was right around the corner. That so rarely happens and seemed too good to be true. Well, you know what they say--if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The line at that counter was about 100 people long but it was for an earlier flight to L.A. that had been delayed. I checked the monitors several times and it still said that this was to be the gate for Boston so I sat down and tried to read a magazine. It still didn't feel right so I kept my ears open to hear for any announcements. And of course, eventually, only because a few people had cut in line to ask the agents about the Boston flight, they made an announcement that the Boston flight will now be at a different gate. That doesn't sound too bad unless you've ever been at the Northwest terminal in the Detroit airport. It's huge--the Northwest terminal alone is almost bigger than the entire Logan airport. I grabbed my bags and started walking and walking and walking and walking. Even with the people movers it took quite a while to get from C over to F.

And even that would be too easy. The flight got slightly delayed at first and eventually they made an announcement that they were short one flight attendant and had to try to find another one, which would then have to make their way to the airport. So more standing and sitting around waiting and waiting and waiting. Finally I decided to see if there was another flight to Boston that had any available seats. I had learned last year that even if there are, they don't tell you unless you ask. But, at that point, they got a call that informed them they found a flight attendant and now all we had to do was wait until she arrived. Eventually she got there and we finally boarded and made our way back to Boston. It's definitely good to be back home, even if it is to a cold drafty house.

One holiday down and one more to go, but how to spend those days? And how to spend those days without spending money? Called up K. and we decided to have an arts and crafts day. Yeah, it sounds kind of silly to most people but it really can be kind of fun. We went to Pearl Art store in Cambridge to pick up some kits to do something fun for the day. We couldn't find exactly what we were looking for so decided to search around for something different. Finally settled on paper making kits. I also bought a Bedazzler--something I've wanted for a long time but was never a priority to buy. A Bedazzler is a little gizmo to add metal studs to clothing--figured I'd spruce up some plain jean jackets or something. Will I ever really use it? I don't know but I bought it anyway.

Went back to K's house and began our paper making efforts. It was really quite fun and interesting and so easy. You really just take old scrap paper and put it into a blender with some water, then pour it into this wooden mold on a screen that is sitting in a sink full of water. Then you take the mold out of the water, pull out the screen with the pulp on it and start pressing the water out of it with the sponge and then iron it dry and you have a sheet of textured paper. We even added some rose petals and leaves to the blender for added interest. It was really cool (albeit lame to some of you!). Our only dilemma is to figure out what to do with the paper once we've made it! Maybe I'll make my own Christmas cards for next year.

Ahhh, the dreaded New Years Eve!! What to do, what to do... Spent the morning drinking my new English Toffee coffee--it's brilliant, so smooth and such a great flavor. Normally I don't like flavored coffees, I much prefer plain black coffee but the aroma from these beans was too wonderful to pass up. And the flavor didn't disappoint.

Had lunch at Johnny's Luncheonette in Newton Centre with S.E. The place was jam packed and we had to wait about 30 minutes for a small table but it was quite good, especially since I was so hungry. We had a nice time and lingered for a while to catch up on each other's lives.

Made my way home and stopped along the way to pick up some wine for the evening.

K.A. came over for a rousing evening of movies and Chinese take-out and wine. From other conversations, it sounds like that was a typical evening for most people this year. Too cold for First Night, we're too old for most nightclubs (or at least too old to enjoy throngs of young partygoers loudly bringing in the new year). Nothing spectacular but it could have been worse. It's always good to spend time with good friends and good wine.

Here's to a great New Year!!!