all i want for christmas is .....

an ipod and I got one!!!! It was a happy exciting time at the piper house on christmas morning. I had begged and pleaded for a couple weeks telling my mom how great an ipod would be. Her response was predictable. "All it does is hold music. You don't need one." My parents were pretty good with their poker faces. I couldn't tell if I had gotten through to them. But there it was the last present to open. They were sneaky and hid the box inside another present.

So far i must say its awesome. It is going to be my motivation for working out. I get to use my fun new gadget when i go to the gym!

Not much else has been going on. I've been motivated to really clean my house. So far its working. I saw Meet the Fockers this afternoon with my parents. Its an ok movie. There are some laughs.

Merry Christmas

Hey guys - I'm not sending paper christmas cards this year. You can view my online Christmas card.

Thanks to everyone for reading and listening. Its been a year since I've started writing this blog. Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. :)

Today I ventured out to finish up my shopping. It was a nightmare. People everywhere. I even witnessed a fender bender right in front of me on 33. It was a successful trip, but it sure wore me out. I went home and slept for a little bit. Then it was time to meet Lynley for coffee. She's helping me develop a fitness plan so that I can achieve my goal of running a 5k. Thanks Lynley, you rock!

Now, I'm set up in front of the tv for an evening of wrapping presents. Should be fun.

Merry Christmas everyone!

more dreaming

That's right I had another weird one

Part of it had me shopping for a coat. I couldn't find one that i liked. Bt it was kinda weird cause all the coats were outside. I took one inside to see what it looked like. All the employees were sliding around on the floor. It was really slippery for some reason. I decided not to get the coat.

The next part I was at a coffee house. There was some guy that sorta seemed interested in me, but for some reason we didn't talk to him. I was with my small group. So then we left and I wasn't with my small group anymore. We were driving away on a golf cart. I started wishing that I was still at the coffee house so we turned around and drove back. But we couldn't find it.

We must have stopped somewhere else and I realized that Misty (my cat) wasn't with me anymore. So I start looking for her. There is another cat too. I chase her and finallyl get her. Then I realize she's running around the cart. So I let the wrong cat go and chase again.

She runs on a porch type area of a house. I'm afraid to go up there cause the owners will think i'm up to no good. So I call her name and eventually she lets me pick her up. Finally I have the right cat and can go home. But I'm afraid the owners of the house will see me and think i'm stealing their cat. I also have this thought that we need to leave soon, or else Misty will change into a person and people will think i'm kidnapping her.

The owners of the house drive up and sure enough Misty turns into a person. Instead of a cute little girl like I had the impression she would turn into, I was holding a 18 yr old guy who seemed like he wasn't playing with a full deck. He was sweating a lot and I kept telling him he had to cool down so he could change back. So he took off his clothes and started feeling better.

The owners just kept looking and watching. It was really bizarre. Thats when I woke up and was happy to realize Misty was still a cat. :)

any dream will do

Ok, so last night I had an interesting dream and I actually remember parts of it.

It starts at some type of huge family gathering. I'm sorta bored and tired of the usual chit chat. I see some people drinking booze and I'm like "give me one of those". (This is really strange cause there is never booze at family events.) So I go searching for booze. I find some in a kitchen. All of a sudden my glass is empty and the kitchen is empty. So again I go searching for booze.

This time its not so easy to find. Now my dream becomes familiar. A common theme in my dream is staircases. Usually in a church or hotel. I go up and down and never quite reach the floor I expect to find. This dream is no exception. I'm in a church going up and down staircases. Another common theme is finding small passages that I'm suppose to go through, but really it would be impossible. In this dream there is a really small door that I look through. Inside is a group of people surrounding a newborn and a person in a coffin. Then beside me there was a girl and she told me that she was suppose to be in the room, but she escaped.

That's about all I remember. Interesting themes.

*************
Tonight was the sunday school christmas dinner. It was delicious and fun.

its the most wonderful time of the year

That might be overstating it a bit. :)

As I alluded to earlier, I've been contemplating what the meaning of life is. I haven't figured it out. But I realized that its been almost five years since my life fell apart and I picked up the pieces and built something beautiful out of the rubble. So life is good to the point of being mundane. It like I need a crisis to make life more interesting. Its a crazy thought.

Well since I don't really want to arrange a crisis. I'm doing the next best thing. Taking a life assesment and figuring out where i'd like to go. Its kind of slow work since I have no idea what I want out of life. Should I get an MBA. Should I do voluntary service? Am I satisfied at my job, or should I consider a career change? What will make my life seem meaningful?

I don't really have any answers right now. Just questions. So I'm left thinking about what I can change for the new year. Make my resolutions and hope I'm successful. Wish me luck. :)

parents say the darnest things

I forgot to mention the funniest part of the texas trip was when we returned. We walked out of dulles airport and it was raining. It was the first time we had been outside in almost 12 hours. One of my parents said "why is the sky leaking?"

I'll let you figure out which one. :)

here it is; the texas report

The adventure started at 2:45am on Wednesday morning. Mom and Dad picked me up and we headed to Dulles. Around 6am we boarded the plane. I slept and read for most of the trip to Dallas. The layover was a couple hours, so we ate at TGIFridays. Then we boarded a plane and headed for Houston. Once we arrive, we got our luggage and headed for the car rental area which was a bus ride away. During the ride, it was discovered that we forgot to pick up one of the bags. So we left mom to guard the bags while dad and i went to find the missing bag. It turned out to be pretty easy. The bag was over to the side with a couple of other bags.

So we hooked back up with mom and got our rental car and directions. We showed the hertz lady the directions my cousin had given us. When she saw the highway we were told to take, she said "Oh thats a nice road, someone must care about you to have you take that road." We arrived at the beach house around 3:30. Then we almost immediately went to the newspaper that my cousin Jill works at and got a tour. It was pretty interesting. Then we ate at a mexican restaurant. When we finally got back to the house. I crashed.

The next few days(thursday, friday, saturday, sunday) all run together. Each day was made up of playing cards, reading (3 books), walking on the beach, playing halo on xbox, and sleeping. The only thing that was different was Saturday when we went to see Ray (the movie).

Monday we packed up our stuff and helped sharon clean up. Then we headed back to houston to do some shopping. The outlet mall was pretty much a dud. I didn't find anything worth spending my money on.

We spent the night in a hotel in houston and left the next morning. Around 9 we headed back to the burg. After hours of traveling we ended back up at dulles around 6. There was a lot of traffic and it took forever to get to manassas.

Finally we made it to harrisonburg and my house. The cats were really happy to see me. :) Somehow they had managed to eat 2 weeks of food.

Well that pretty much the trip. Pretty uneventful but in a good way.

don't mess with texas

I'll try to write a vivid description of my trip to texas, but later this week. Tonight I'm battling a cold and its winning.

I'm not sure if its the state motto, but that logo is all over t-shirts and stuff at the airport. :)