Presumed to be awesome.

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans!!! May we continue to be better, as individuals and as a nation.

In other holiday weekend news, the Niece Child slept over, so I took her to see Wall*E last night. ( I think I have a new Pixar favorite. )I loved it! As did Rianna.

I also LOVED being able to catch the last inning of the Diamondbacks game against the Brewers during dinner. They went into the bottom of the 9th down 5-0 and somehow pulled out the most amazing rally to win it! Man, I hadn't seen my boys hitting like that since April!

Now I'm off to get my ass kicked by Trainer!Boy. I'm strangely excited about this as I haven't worked out with him since last week. Then it's off to the ball park to see my D-backs and _lisalisa_'s Padres face off.

Hope y'all are having a good 4th of July! Whether it's a holiday or just a Friday, make it awesome!

- Weekends should always be three days long. *nods* Mine has been quietly productive. The piles of laundry invading my bedroom are slowly being conquered! \o/

- Naturally there was lots of baseball to be watched with the D'backs @ Braves series. Highlights so far include: Doug Davis coming back from his cancer fight and getting the win on Thursday and Eric Byrnes hitting his first career grand slam yesterday. Byrnes looked as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning coming in to home. Go Eric!

- Trainer!Boy lost his studio space, so he's now coming out to clients' homes for workouts. Great workouts on Friday and Sunday and another one planned for this afternoon! My ass and quads are definitely feeling all those squats and lunges today.

- Other than the workout, today's plans include an afternoon barbecue in order to take advantage of what has been unusually cool weather 'round these parts for the end of May. Mmmm...steak and potato salad and watermelon! Also on the agenda is more laundry and a good deal of work that needs to get done before I can hie off to L.A. on Wednesday.

- In keeping with the day, coolwhipdiva has pointed out this site. Regardless of my opinions about the war or the administration who still has our troops in harms way, I will always support the men and women who serve in the military. And while they always have my good thoughts and prayers, AnySoldier.com seems like a good way to tangibly show that support.

- Hope y'all are enjoying your day!

2007 has been such a mixed bag of good and bad. It's been especially difficult in some respects, and wholly unreasonable in its misery with some people I care a great deal for. In other respects, however, it's been a year of tremendous personal growth, challenging and rewarding professional strides, and amazing relationships. It ought not surprise me, therefore, that when I look back at the tarot reading I did back in January for 2007 I deemed this year The Year of Paradox.

As my personal cycle of transitioning from one year to the next generally starts around Samhain and continues through the Winter holidays, completing some time near or soon after the Gregorian New Year, I normally end up spending some portion of New Year's Eve, looking back on the year and forward to the year ahead. I try to stay away from the typical resolution-setting, but I do like to look over my journal for the past year, think about some of the high (and inevitable low) points, and at some point culminate all this naval-gazing by writing down a few statements of intention, that include not only things I intend to change or do differently or continue doing in the new year, but also an accounting of those things that I've done right, that I've accomplished, that I can look at and feel a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

( So, here they are, the highlights of 2007 and some of ways I intend to focus my Will in 2008: )

I rang in the New Year in much the same way I hope to spend the year ahead: with family and friends. Jo and I hung out, watched movies, drank wine (well I did; Jo stuck to mojitos), indulged in decadent desserts. My mom joined us for a movie. It was a relaxed and lovely New Year's Eve. Tomorrow I shall do more of the same. I also plan on making paella and some yummy Mexican hot chocolate.

I hope all of you lovely people had a happy and safe New Years and that 2008 brings you much love and laughter and all the things that fill your life with joy!

Whether you celebrate your winter holiday on this day or on another or even not at all, I hope your day is full of the love of family and friends and everything thing that brings you joy and laughter!

* * *

And in equally important Happy Wishin', Happiest of Birthdays to without_me!!! I hope your day is fabulous, A, full of laughter, yummy cake, and hot men! *squishy birthday hugs*

So, my Bah Humbug mood isn't quite as intense as it was earlier in the week. I'm convinced that the improvement in my mood is due mostly to those Candy Cane Joe Joe's. OMG! So delicious! I'll definitely be going back to Trader Joe's for more of those.

I also managed to get my tree up and trimmed. True, it's only a two foot table-top tree. And one of the strings of lights is now refusing to work. *grumbles* But it's definitely an improvement in the holiday decorating front.

I sat down to wrap presents the other day, and I wrapped one then just couldn't do any more. I hate wrapping. If it were up to me, I'd use gift bags for everything. Apparently, though, tearing open the gift wrap is half the fun. *grumbles some more* Anyone want to wrap my presents for me?

See, what I mean? The holiday cheer is very limited around these parts.

But! In a valiant attempt to get into an appropriately cheerful holiday mood, idiosyncratic and I went driving around to see holiday lights last night. The lights were scarce. But we did have hot chocolate to drink and Steve Carlson's Christmas CD playing. And while we only had Steve on Jo's iPod, while the L.A. Hookers had him in person (hope y'all had a great time!), that's still seriously a lot of holiday cheer right there. *g*

Plus we got to see a house decked out with so many gaudy lights that we couldn't help but stare (and laugh) in awe. This house, people, had a coyote howling at the moon and a sky full of blinking stars, on the roof a smiley face, a peace sign, and a Sponge Bob Santa -- all in bright, blinking lights! And the piece de resistance? A disco ball spinning in the entry way! It was brilliant. And, while some of the houses were decorated quite nicely, I was most impressed by whoever decided to decorate an entire portion of South Mountain. Someone decorated the freakin' mountain! It was awesome.

We came home prepared to watch Riley Smith on Criminal Minds only to discover, after we'd watched the entire recorded episode and hadn't seen any sign of Riley, that the network pulled all the first run episodes this week and aired repeats instead. There's apparently no new air date for Riley's show as of yet.

Let's see. What else? Ah, yes. In addition to failing at holiday cheer, I also fail at remembering birthdays this week. *facepalm*

It was thefirespiral's birthday on Monday. Monica is one of my dearest friends. I hope, Monica, that your day was fabulous, and that the year ahead brings all the insight and resolution you need in order to be happy and healthy!

A Belated Happy Birthday to wrenlet as well! Wren, baby, I hope you had a great day! One of the greatest things of 2007 for me has been meeting you and getting to spend time together involving various shenanigans! Mwah!

Today I had my first session with Trainer!Boy since I dragged my ass back to the gym last week. Go me! \o/ Only now everything hurts. I was expecting a certain amount of soreness. In fact, I think I deserve it being that I completely fell off the workout wagon over two months ago. But this is ridiculous. My shins hurt. Hell, even my hands are sore! I've loaded up on ibuprofen and I'm just hoping I'll be able to walk up the courthouse steps tomorrow without the assistance of a cane. Ow!Ow!Ow!

Additional accomplishments for the day include getting my holiday cards mailed. Go me, once again! \o/ This is the first time in like, well ever, that I get cards in the mail by the first week of December. At this rate, I may even get holiday decorations up before Yule. Imagine that?

The rest of the day was pretty much spent sitting at Borders with Allie and occasionally pretending to work. Not exactly productive, but, as time spent with Allie tends to be, definitely entertaining. *g* Go us! \o/

The food was yummy and plentiful. The family was also plentiful. And raucous. The football, at least the college version, was disappointing. (Sun Devils, what the hell was that???)

All of this -- the food, the family, the football -- being part of our annual ritual of gratitude, here are some of the things that I'm particularly thankful for this year:

- My family. They love me and support me no matter what, and I simply wouldn't be who I am without them.
- My friends. I've been blessed with some pretty amazing people in my life. Y'all -- with your many shades of friendship, laughter, intelligence, and creativity -- make my world a better place.
- My work. Risks have paid off and I'm enjoying a greater degree of satisfaction from my professional life than ever before.
- My body. It's taken a great deal of personal work to come to a place where I can love and appreciate my body exactly as it is now, and be grateful for it's health and ability and beauty. But I do. And I am. And it's a great personal victory for me to be able to include my body in this list.
- My spiritual community. For several years Diana's Grove has provided a safe space in which I've been able to push my edges and grow into a better, more aware, more evolved, version of Me.
- The many simple pleasures and various luxuries that make my life fabulous and fun.
- I'm most grateful to be able to say, with all sincerity, because of all the people and all the reasons listed here, and for more reasons than I can possibly list, I FUCKING LOVE MY LIFE!

If you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope it was a good one, filled with good food and the love of family and friends. If you didn't, then I hope your Thursday was a good one, filled with whatever it is that makes you happy.