Happy Holidays!

This year, in lieu of sending out Christmas cards, I have decided to post my annual year-in-recap udpate online. If you're an optimist, you will be glad I have felled fewer trees. If you are a pessimist, you will bemoan this day of instant-gratification, always-on fad-chasing as the flash in the pan it likely is.

I choose to be an optimist, and am using the environmental angle for all its worth.

Possibly, I am feeling optimistic because of some of the things that have happened to me in the past year. If you regularly follow this blog you will know that in February, I got engaged, and in September, I got married (I hear a number of cynical, non-romantic type people even cried).

I won't chronicle that whole process for you, but I will tell you that at just over three months after the wedding, we don't seem to have any less to do. I thought that after the wedding was behind me, I would be able to focus on all of the little things that I had been neglecting, like regular correspondence and organizing the spice collection. Alas!

Immediately on our return, Michael and I took hammers and crowbars to our kitchen to start our most ambitious renovation project yet. So big, in fact, that we could not possibly go it alone. We can do a lot, but offsetting the weight-bearing load of the ceiling to cut down half of a wall, and running new gas line across the entire house were a little beyond our abilities.

So, for the past two months, we have been fighting over the most insignificant of decisions as we remodel. If you have ever remodeled, you must remember how many different colors, finishes, metals, handles, tile, paint, heights, widths, angles, creative solutions, and mistake fixes you have had to decide.

I would recommend avoiding any renovations at least until the paper anniversary.

Undaunted by all this niggling, Michael and I have come through the process, and are now emerging on the other side with a bona fide hipster pad. Part urban contemporary, part antique, part ironic kitsch, part overserious adult, our apartment has finally become our home.

Completing this process has put the finishing touches on our transformation from boyfriends to a family. The English have a saying to describe something that is steadfast and secure: "safe as houses." I can understand why.

Now, if the rest of our building would just get the message! Our building was built in 1965, and converted in 1985. Some of the residents are the original owners from that conversion, and have officially moved into the old retired lady category. The board of directors was overwhelmingly in that category, and it was quite frustrating to try to get a straight answer about some basic questions, like "why is the community manager only here during limited business hours, when everyone is at work?" and, "why is there no visitor parking, despite having the space for it?" or, "why are there so many feral cats running around outside our building?" Actually, the third one did have an answer: because one of the board members was feeding them!

Michael expressed mild interest in possibly running for a spot on the board in passing, and it was a forest fire of excitement everywhere he turned! People were coming up to him in the hallway to tell him how he should run, and there needed to be some big changes around here. In November, Michael walked into the annual board meeting, and people started pointing to their friends, and declaring, "that's Michael!" Several people who didn't speak English well asked him to write his name on their ballots since they didn't know how to spell it.

Suffice it to say, Michael is now the Vice President of the Palazzo Condominium Association, and I have taken to refering to myself as Tipper Gore. I thought that was a little more tasteful than Lynn Cheney.

Now, we are frantically packing and preparing for our honeymoon: a week in Seoul and almost two weeks in Thailand. We will be seeing friends, beaching, clubbing, palacing, artisan-districting, and hopefully showing Michael a little bit about what working in Korea would be like by visiting a couple friends who are working there now. It's the trip we've been talking about taking since we first met, but there have been myriad reasons why it was never a good time. We decided, though, that if we didn't do it for our honeymoon, we might never do it. So, it's off we go, and a good thing too. I think, after visiting my mom and stepdad in their new home in Las Vegas, we might need a little time out de-Amerify.

The last year has been one of tremendous growth for me personally, and I am so grateful for the blessings of the past year. You, dear reader, are one of those blessings. Thank you for your friendship and I look forward to seeing you and hearing from you more often in the coming year.