Adventures perhaps not so exciting....

So my friend Eric has reminded me that I have a blog! You know, NYC was so random and interesting that I never really lacked for things to update. Now that I'm back in Ohio (on sabbatical, in hibernation, whatever you want to call it), I find that I am less exciting on my own than I thought! But, I think it's only fair that I post upon request and also that I make a vow to post at least twice a week from now on. Does that work?

So, as I mentioned in the title, Adventures in Ohio was the overwhelming winner in my very successful voting (sarcasm intended, I think I got like 10 votes!) endeavor. So here goes!

I arrived home last Tuesday (has it REALLY been 9 days?). My grandma picked me up at the airport and we went to lunch at Applebees. My "you're not in Kansas anymore" moment (New York City being Kansas in this analogy) happened as soon as we walked through the door and I was hit by a wave of cigarette smoke. Yes, that's right, in Michigan they still ask you "smoking or non?" when you arrive at a restaurant....ugh. Thankfully the great state of Ohio has banned smoking in restaurants (and that's about the only thing I like more about Ohio than Michigan, but I won't get in to that ;-). Anyway, I headed home right after lunch with grams and got to my house at around 3:30pm.

I have made a commitment to go to the gym every day in the three weeks between when I got home and when I go visit Taylor. So I hit the gym right away when I got home and ran 5 miles. Not bad, right? My mom and I went out to dinner that night at P.F. Changs and just relaxed.

A lot of the other days since I got home are sort of a blur of going to the gym (I've missed a couple days due to a cold and a stomach virus one day!), showering at about 4pm, and eating dinner with my family.

Highlights include:

• I picked up my wedding dress last Thursday!
• My mom and I gave blood at the Red Cross (0-, so popular right now)
• I went with my mom to an ornament exchange with my mom. Think 30 or so midwestern middle-aged women, CHRISTMAS SWEATERS that light up, play music, and jingle (no, not as a joke, for real), sexual innuendo in amounts you would expect at an 8th grade boys' get-together, and some really tasty snacks. It was a good time.
  
• We had Christmas with my Grandpa and Grandma Hooper and I got some sweet gifts including a medal plaque from the NYC Marathon! Isn't it cool?!
  

• 
• Headed up to Dearborn, MI (it's basically like New Delhi, MI, tons of Indians) for the Shinske family Christmas, which is basically my dad's mom and all her siblings and their kids and grandkids and greatgrandkids (those are the ones I'll be having one day....). There's about 100 people there and about 20 kids. This year, no one volunteered to be Santa so - being the resourceful midwesterners that we are - we hired one off Craigslist! Nice.
• Went to my OTHER grandparents church for their annual Christmas play. My grandpa has been raving about it for years and I've never been home soon enough to see it (Dec. 14 was the last show), so I really wanted to go. It was pretty amazing, but not surprising considering it's a church of 30,000 people!
• Oops, I may or may not have burnt my butt by going tanning apparently for the first time without underwear....
• Some drama with the boy which has subsequently made me even more desperate to go visit him. I leave in 12 days and even though I love Christmas and don't want it to be over, I'm DESPERATE for Dec. 30 to get here.
• Today I found out that the job I had before I left NYC which now has me working from home (oops, forgot to mention that....I'm doing that too about 25 hours a week) wants me to stick around after I get back from Indonesia. That's pretty exciting!

Alright, Eric (and my 3 or 4 other loyal readers), I hope that this is a worthy update!