Oh bother!

I contemplated blogging in October, I seriously considered it in November, I even sat down to read other blogs in December. Did I actually blog? No. 'Course not.

Top 10 best excuses I can think of that might justify 2.5 month absence from the blogosphere:
1) Hibernation (...can't blog if I'm sleeping)
2) Finger paralysis (...can't blog if I can't type)
3) Internet allergy (....can't blog if I'll go into shock)
4) Blog-amnesia (...can't blog if I don't remember how or where to)
5) CBS (Catholic Blog Syndrome) (...can't blog if I feel so guilty that I haven't blogged)
6) Blog-a-phobia (...can't blog if I think it might cause harm)
7) BD (Blog Dysfunction) (...can't blog if I can't "get up" the will to...wait, don't they have a pill for that?)
8) Blogastination (...can't I always blog tomorrow?)
9) Bloggers-block (...can't blog if I can't think of anything to blog about)
10) Life (...that one always seems to get in the way)

What I've been up to - the readers digest version.

October:

• Beach trip with the Hunts, our friends, to celebrate Brian and my shared birthday.
• Work at Willamette - leadership development and a little bit of herding cats. Realized mid-way through the month how to do my job better: teach, DOH!
  
• Canvassing and volunteering for Obama - watch out, my political career just started.
• Trip to Walla Walla with three friends from graduate school to surprise another of our friends from the program...laughted 'till I cried MANY times.
• Trained at PCC to be a "casual" advisor - that doesn't mean I work in sweat pants, it means I'm sort of like a substitute teacher.
• Joined a choir - Consonare Chorale - and remembered that I LOVE to sing. DUH!

November:

• Work at PCC (the Rock Creek and Sylvania campuses) - busy, busy, busy advising students as they prepared for the new term. They actually pay me to do the COOLEST job in the world! I heart my students.
  
• GObama!
• My partner finished the billable year and meets the minimum requirement for his hours billed! YAY!
• Trip to the Gahr Farm Bed and Breakfast to celebrate end of the billable year. Voted one of the NW best places to kiss. We concur. Such fun, even in the rain.
• Work for the Oregon Women in Higher Education Conference - recruiting and evaluating presentation proposals.
• My partner rings in his 30th birthday !
• Travel to Seattle for Thanksgiving with my parents - got to see my brother and his family. Fun to see the kid-os. Nice to get away.

December:

• Staying busy with advising at PCC - Interviewed for a full-time position at Rock Creek as an advisor. Fingers crossed!
• Rehearsals for Lessons and Carols choir concert - only to have it postponed due to the weather!
• My partner's firm's holiday party - such fun! I love dressing up and dancing with my one-true-love. He bought a new tie to go with my new sparkly dress. I got my make-up done and even got fake eyelashes for the occasion. :)
  
• Preparation Christmas including the vocal solo on Christmas Eve at Calvin Church. Excited and scared all at the same time. I'm 98% done with the shopping/shipping/stressful/material side of Christmas...only 3 small gifts to purchase and a few others to wrap. Cards are out, hand-made gifts are done, boxes have been shipped. The fun parts (egg-nog lattes, holiday CD's, and cookie baking) are now all that are left to enjoy! I boy-cotted decorating this year and it feels GR8! No pine needles on the carpet, no debating over white or colored lights, no sneezing from the pollen on the tree, no fear of making kindling out of a $50+ tree, no having to unpack my entire storage closet in order to get to the decorations, and best of all no irritation when-- after all of that effort -- my house still just doesn't look like the Pottery Barn catalog. Thanks to our friends and family who have let us soak up the holiday cheer at their homes. :)
• Watched almost the entire series of Hero's (that show is awesome!) on my partner's new Xbox 360. I'm NOT techy at all, but the streaming Netflix is pretty SA-WEET!
  

Things I wish I would have done more of in the last 2.5 months:

• Run or exercised (for a girl who is supposedly training for a marathon, I didn't run much...oops! At least I have a good excuse, the knees started giving some trouble and I decided walking into my 30's was more important than running out of my 20's).
  
• Blogged (...yeah, we've been over that).
  
• Read (at least I wasn't the only one, the book club my friends from graduate school and I started was a bit of a joke, we all failed to finish the book - I think it is too soon after school to be reading whole books - we're trying articles instead).
  
• Expressed my feelings in a more emotionally intelligent way (Why is it that throwing a tantrum doesn't get the point across? Seriously, being an adult can really suck some times!).
• Laughed. <-- Sad, I know, but we're working on it.
  

Things I wish I would have done less of in the last 2.5 months:

• Stressed
• Made decisions out of fear
• Tried to control things I can not
• Paid for my own health insurance (why does it feel like that should be paid for...oh, that's right...'cause I'm a stark-raving-socialist who thinks we should have socialized health care)
• Prolonged joy (AKA packed hope into things that are for the future) - darn that whole living-in-the-moment thing!
  

Plans for the rest of the month:

• Soak up the snow days - currently we're on day #3 and I'm actually getting a little sick of fuzzy socks and hot cocoa!
  
• Enjoy the simple and magical parts of Christmas.
  
• Blog!
  
• Keep making plans with my sister for our trip to Minneapolis in January - CAN'T WAIT!
• Apply for jobs.
  
• Do excellent work at the jobs I have.
• Just keep singing, singing, singing.
• Start up the house search again, with rates aroun 4%, we'd be CRAZY not to at least look.
  
• Run! It might be the Eugene 1/2 marathon and the Portland Marathon, that feels a bit less insane and a bit more balanced, don't you think?
  

Alright faithful readers - If I haven't lost you after the insane hiatus, I hope you'll find this update sufficient until my next post. Thanks for patience and understanding Happy reading!

~Phoenix