Grr....

When I sleep in too late in the mornings, I wake up one of three ways:

1) The cats are meowing, because they want out of the "cat room" (read: spare bedroom) where they sleep at night,
2) I have to use the bathroom, or
3) I'm hungry.

Yes, I sometimes wake up to stomach growls. When I get up one of my first thoughts is eating breakfast, because my stomach aches and makes grumbly noises. Matt thinks this is crazy, and when he gets up, he actually can't imagine eating. So I wonder: is it weird to wake up hungry? Does this happen to anyone else out there?

Our "first" "Christmas"

Tonight we had our first Christmas as a married couple. We spent the day relaxing, watching movies and old episodes of the Wire, making our first curry and doing a little last minute Christmas/grocery shopping. Then we settled in with a bottle of wine, dinner, and a huge pile of Christmas presents! We opened gifts from my mom, a few from friends and Matt's mom, and then a bunch from each other. Matt and I set reasonably rigorous spending limits for one another -- under $100 -- and we both impressed the other with the gifts we found. Matt got me a pair of Wellington boots, some cozy socks, slippers and foot lotion, a page-a-day calendar of grammatical fun facts for my desk, and a lot of snacking candy. I got Matt a pair of leather gloves (super on sale at Macy's), a sweater and socks (ok, a little boring) and a ticket to see the Blue Man Group. The cats also celebrated with catnip toys from my mom, snacks from Meg, and a new water bubbler from us. Now we're going to relax, pack, and go to bed early so we can fly off tomorrw morning!

P.S. The title is a shout-out to one of my favorite blogs, the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotations. These, however, are necessary. This was not really Christmas, and it was not actually our first.

Party time

Work slowed down for me a bit late this week, and I had the weekend all to myself. For the first time in weeks, I didn't do any work all weekend long. And Matt and I threw a spectacular holiday party. We had nearly forty guests, and Matt made amazing appetizers including some macaroni and cheese bites, some curry wings and open-faced crab empanadas. I didn't do quite as much for the party, but I made my mom's famous fudge and also whipped up a batch of shockingly potent peppermint martinis. We got all sorts of gifts from friends: wine, ornaments, candle holders, and a beautiful snow globe. The gifts are spread all around our house now... along with many used wine, martini and rocks glasses that we really need to clean sometime soon.

Here are a few pictures from the night... I hope everyone out there had a great weekend, too!

Matt, Dan and Dave toasting. You can't see it here, but Dan split his pants and we got to tape them up.

Girl's night: party time!

Clay looking jolly as Chrissy chats and Piran sticks a hat on his head.

Christmastime is here!

Here's a picture of the tree Matt surprised me with on Tuesday, with all of the trimmings that we attached on Tuesday evening. The cats love it, but so far, we haven't had so much as a broken ornament from them. Now, we just have to find stockings!

Holding back

Somedays I feel like I will make a terrible attorney. My problem today? Crying.

Crying for me is an automatic reflex at times. It happens when I am overwhelmed, stressed, or upset. Today, while I was on break at a conference, I got an email from someone for whom I have written and re-written a memo. The email said the document still needed "significant revisions," and the notes on the document just made me feel dumb. (e.g. Did you proofread this sentence?, or what do you mean?) And instead of appreciating the mostly constructive criticism, I cried. And when I went back into the conference and a friend asked how I was, I started crying again. I wasn't that upset, but I couldn't stop it. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this in the workplace. What if I cry in front of a partner, despite my best intentions? It's such a silly, unproductive reaction... but sometimes, I feel like I can't help it.

And what kind of attorney cries?

The Art of Busy

Things here have been good. The cats are growing up. One adjusted quite well to his extremely dorky snowflake collar ($4.99 at Target); the other somehow managed to get his mouth in it and scraped at it for ten minutes before letting us get close enough to remove it.

In other news, we have been doing quite a lot. We've had a few dinner parties: in particular, we had two of my bosses over one night, and a coworker and his wife another night. Matt cooked everything and both dinners were successes! We went back to Iowa for Thanksgiving and relaxed and enjoyed spending time with my mom and sister; Jill and I hosted our annual Christmas party a little bit early. We went on a Christmasy shopping spree, but still don't have a tree (everyone in the area was out of tree stands). I worked my latest night ever -- eleven p.m.! -- and am now enjoying three days out of the office at a conference. Matt is still job hunting, but has had a couple of interviews and continues applying to every open job.

Now, I am enjoying the end of a good weekend, watching The Wire with Matt in preparation for the fourth season to come out on DVD. On the queue for this week: more health law conference, a girl's night to celebrate Chrissy's finishing the patent bar, the firm's holiday party and Heather's Christmas party. It should be good!