photo credit

Part 1: 1-25 (people related)
Part 2: 26-50 (things)
Part 3: 51-75 (actions)

76. mom’s cooking
77. having events to look forward to
78. my parents are still together
79. having gone to college
80. the college experience – sharing a dorm room, roomies, boys, classes, parties
81. the all-girl high school experience
82. the sacrifices my parents made for the above
83. my wide-eyed wonder of the world, though it’s kind of dorky
84. cheesy jokes
85. the cozy feel of scented candles and a blanket
86. that I get along with my coworkers and boss
87. sharing such a fun and meaningful New Years tradition with Kim
88. creative play
89. health insurance
90. leaving work at work (such a breath of fresh air in comparison to last year)
91. my ability to maintain close friendships despite physical distance
92. my ability to navigate conversations with strangers
93. my bestie handing down her laptops to me!
94. resilience
95. the liberties that come with living alone
96. make out sessions that are just make out sessions
97. discovering new music
98. only 5 more days of National Blog Posting Month
99. ability to schedule blog posts while I’m in Houston and am without reliable internet connection
100. 2010 being all in all a great year filled with many lessons

Hillary, Alex, and me last Thanksgiving

I’ve been so homesick I could cry. I’ve been craving my friends in Houston. I’ve been wanting to check in my friend who lost her brother last month. I haven’t seen Ms. Kimmy in a while. I can’t wait for our girly date. I can’t wait for tonight, and having a cup of the best hot chocolate of my life (Chocolate Bar in Houston, trust me) with Hillary and Alex. And then again on Friday with Sarah. I can’t wait to see my parents and eat momma food. I’m excited about dim sum with my family on Sunday. I’m looking forward to listening to my dad talk over glasses of Scotch. I’m crawling out of my skin excited!

There’s something magical about picking up where you left things with your oldest friends. Friends who know where you came from and are coming from. We’ve all cultivated separate grown-up lives and reunions kind of bring us back to the roots of ourselves. At least for me they do.

Back in college, my roommate of three years and I had a running inside joke at her expense. She had this cheesy writing class and the last line in one of her essays she wrote, “It says home to me.” And her teacher ate it up despite how cheesy we thought it was. So even now, when something makes us feel so at home and at peace, we’ll half jokingly and half seriously say, “It says home to me.” Then we follow it with giggles, or if it was me who said it, she’ll curse at me for making fun of her. I tell you this because all the things I’m looking forward to about going to Houston, “say home to me.”

Houston, I’ll see you tonight! Insallah. (God willing in Arabic. I say “Insallah” a lot in real life.)

1. What are your plans for the holidays? Do you travel at Thanksgiving? If you celebrate Christmas, do you travel then, too?

For both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I drive 2.5 hours if there’s no traffic from Austin to Houston. My plans during the holidays usually entail waiting around all day and evening on the actual days of Thanksgiving and Christmas til my parents close down their shop. After which, we have a late quiet meal. The days surrounding Thanksgiving and Christmas I spend fluttering between friends. I am so happy around this time because of the out of town visitors coming home for the holidays and the Houston friends I do not get to see that often during the year if at all.

2. How do you make the plans for the holidays? If you have a significant other, how do you decide which family to visit?

He goes to his hometown and I go to mine. We exchange gifts before or after.

3. Do you have your Thanksgiving meal at lunch or later in the day?

Late late late. Like 9pm late.

4. Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving tradition?

Our family Thanksgiving traditions are modest. Just a quiet meal late in the night. I have a personal tradition where I send out Thanksgiving cards to my loved ones counting the ways I am thankful for them. This year I’ve only sent one half of them. The other batch needs to be written and get sent out late. Ooops. Story: Once I sent out a Thanksgiving card to Jon in New York around Thanksgiving and somehow he received it in his mailbox in July the next year.

5. After a big meal, do you lounge around or get up and take a walk?

Usually I try to walk it off and rub my tummy, if I can. Sometimes I overdo it so much that all that can be done is to lay down and groan.

6. Do you shop on “Black Friday” or do you avoid it?

I have a couple of years ago to get a camera. Meh :) Black Friday. Meh.

7. When do you usually finish your Christmas shopping?

There’s always that one person I’m stuck on that has me running around up to Christmas Eve. I used to buy year round for the people in my life but then I got paranoid that it was jinxing the relationship. Seriously. I once bought this girl an inflatable cowboy because she was obsessed with cowboys and would have enjoyed it. Then we stopped being friends. Ha. After toting that bad boy around for years waiting for the next person who lovesss cowboys to come into my life, I gave up and gave it a temporary home at Goodwill. Twice, I’ve made photo books and friendships disintegrated while the books were in shipping. My closest friends requested I stop giving photo books.

This year, I’ve started and hope to be done as soon as possible. Any idea what to get a 10 year old niece I really didn’t even know about til this year?

8. Do you and your significant other exchange gifts? If there a budget?

He tends to spend a lot on me generally. Spendy meals often. Holidays and birthdays are the occasions I try to keep up with him and almost almost match him.

9. When do you decorate for the holidays?

I’m not a big fan of Christmas so in my own apartment, I’ll whip out my two holiday snow globes I was gifted, a few stockings and that’s about it. They’re all out already. I usually bring them out when it starts to get cold in November. Though, we’re back to eighty degrees this week.

10. Do you go “all out” with the decor or keep it simple?

I do not go all out. Last year I lived with Brandi and she is a HUGE Christmas fanatic. Our apartment looked like a paper winter wonderland. See below a picture of our fireplace last year.

Also my two holiday snow globes. The full extent of my decorating!

photo credit

Part 1: 1-25 (people related)
Part 2: 26-50 (things)

I’m thankful for the feelings that these actions evoke:

51. Confiding
52. Listening
53. Cuddling
54. Kissing
55. Hugging
56. Reading
57. Dancing
58. Writing
59. Cooking
60. Scheming
61. Learning
62. Teaching
63. Playing
64. Cleaning
65. Organizing
66. Laughing
67. Clicking / Connecting / Visiting
68. Commiserating
69. Traveling
70. Leisure shopping
71. Winning
72. Volunteering
73. Eating a delicious meal
74. Celebrating
75. Relaxing

If you missed out on numbers 1-25 here’s the link: 100 Things I’m Thankful For (Part 1: 1-25)

26. My cell phone
27. Coffee
28. Libraries
29. My apartment
30. My loot of journals
31. My car
32. Facebook for reuniting me with my half sister
33. Google reader for organizing my blog subscriptions
34. Google Voice for helping me troubleshoot not having cell phone reception at work
35. Grooveshark for giving me music during work hours
36. Mint.com for keeping me financially organized
37. A job with benefits
38. My modest personal library
39. My heavenly mattress
40. Chocolate
41. My camera
42. My webcam
43. My GPS system ♥♥♥
44. Photo albums
45. Colored pens
46. My jade pendant, gifted from my dad which I wear around my neck pretty much everyday (I even sleep and shower with it).
47. ATMs
48. The Internet
49. Stickers
50. DVR (While I had it, it was wonderful.)

I’ve been planning this series since last year when I did 3 “Ten Things I’m Thankful for” posts during November. This year, I’ll be making 4 lists of 25 things I’m grateful for to post every Thursday this month. I roped my bestie to do the same and she told me her first list of 25 is the “people” edition. So I took a cue from her and did the same. (Thanks, Mef!)

Here are numbers 1-25 of my 100 things I’m Thankful for List.

1. Good health of my family and friends
2. Shedding of toxic friendships
3. Rekindling of previously lost relationships
4. Best friends and surrogate sisters

5. Love and support of my parents
6. Sharing a good laugh with my people
7. Date nights with my man
8. Date nights with my friends
9. Trips back home to Houston
10. Phone conversations with long-distanced friends
11. Reunions
12. My half-sister finding me on Facebook
13. Watching my little from Big Brothers & Big Sisters grow in the almost three years I’ve known her
14. Watching the boys I babysit grow from newborns to rambunctious three and seven year old boys
15. Being up with my dude when it feels like everyone on our side of the world is asleep
16. Spending Christmas day with my BFF last year and this coming year
17. People who read my dribble on the blog (Hi!)
18. People who read and comment on my dribble on the blog (Hi!)
19. Snail mail – All snail mail but namely regular correspondence with my Sarah (Hi!)

20. Forgiving and Forgiveness
21. Role models who inspire me to do better, think better, and be better
22. Having an extensive archive of all the Gchats my BFF and I have ever had
23. Google searching our archives to mediate our arguments
24. Having enough security, trust, and love in relationships that it feels safe to fight and argue
25. Having enough history and love in relationships that the lines between friends and family start to blur

Basically, I’m thankful for the people in my life.

Part 2: 26-50

In comparison to 2008, 2009 was awful! The one thing I can think of that 2009 had over 2008 was that I read more than double the books I read in 2008. I’m anticipating the fresh feel of a new year that is 2010. In the meantime, here’s a review of how my year has gone with heavier emphasis on my blessings verses my misfortunes.

Note: All links open in a new window.

January 2009

• Celebrated New Years with Alan and his friends.
• I worked a lot. Logged a lot of hours.
• Saw one of my favorite movies of the year, Slumdog Millionaire.
• Kim sent me Tiff’s Treats at work to cheer me up about something.

Celebrating New Year’s with the boyfriend

February 2009

• Alan took me to my third Killer’s concert as a Christmas gift.
• Tried out Joe Dimaggio’s for the first of three times this year. Went as a Valentine’s date with Alan.
• Got flowers from Alan at work.
• Alan, his roommate, and I all played Bingo for the first time.
• I worked a lot. Logged a lot of hours.

Alan and I at the Killer’s Concert

March 2009

• I worked a lot. Logged a lot of hours.
• Went to my first rodeo with some work friends and Brandi.
• Ate at Mighty Fine for the first time, now my favorite burger joint of the year.
• Celebrated Brandi’s birthday at Pete’s Dueling Pianos.

Rodeo, Austin, TX

April 2009

• Went to Houston for my daddy’s birthday.
• I worked a lot. Logged a lot of hours.
• Was supposed to be Jamie’s date for a wedding. We got lost in West Austin and ended up exploring Salado, Texas instead.
• Celebrated Selina’s birthday at her house on same day Jamie and I almost went to that wedding.

Selina’s Birthday

May

• Worked a lot; logged a lot of hours.
• Visited San Francisco for the first time and went with Alan. It was our first vacation together and we ate very very well.
• Put in notice at my Clincial Research Job and thus ending that career path (for now at least?)
• I finished out May working at that job and I stopped logging too many hours.
• Celebrated Sae’s graduation from Law School.
• Kim visited from Houston for Memorial Day Weekend.
• Katambra introduced me to a snowcone stand that I frequented often in the summer.
• Saw Star Trek in IMAX, was surprised to love it.

Celebrating Sae’s law school graduation

June 2009

• Ate at a lot of happy hours with old coworkers, with Alan, Sae, and his girlfriend with new free time.
• I took a certification class to become a teacher
• I went to Houston for Father’s Day
• Kim and I tried out Feast, voted best new restaurant in Houston by a handful of magazines.
• I saw Thomas in Houston and we ate at Fufu’s.
• Went on a lot of double dates with Sae and Young. (Here’s our first time at North)

Cindy and me at Grand Lux Cafe in Houston

July

• Celebrated Fourth of July with Brandi and her boyfriend at Zilker Park..
• Went on a lot of double dates with Sae and Young.
• Went to Houston for my mom’s birthday.
• Saw Cindy in Houston and we ate at Classic Kitchen.
• Kim and I discovered Hugo’s, hands down my favorite restaurant in 2009.
• Moved in with my current roommate, and long time friend, Brandi.
• Celebrated my birthday with tons of great people at Trailer Park Eatery.
• At one point, had 4 bouquets of flowers delivered at our apartment and they were all to me from different people. Felt very loved.
• I took and passed my state certification test to become a middle school teacher for science.

Brandi and me on Fourth of July

August

• The first two weeks of August, I tried to squeeze in as much time as I can with Alan because he was about to leave for Korea for up to 4.5 months.
• Starting, August 16, I started counting days Alan was gone.
• Kim came to visit the weekend of the 22nd and we saw Wicked.
• I saw 500 Days of Summer three times this month, in theatre, of course. This is the first movie I’ve done that.
• Jon visited from NYC.
• I got a part-time, part-time (yes you read that right) job, thanks to Brittany dropping a good word for me.

Alan’s last night out with friends before going to Korea.

September

• Hosted the first Alphabet pot luck. We started with the letter P.
• Wrote a blog entry about my journals, surprisingly my favorite blog entry of the year.
• Friends and I got dressed up for Deesh’s brother’s wedding reception.
• Visited Mary Ellen for a long weekend in Boston. First time I’ve gone to see her since 2005. Had best breakfast ever at Mike and Patty’s and most interesting hot pot.
• Alan surprised me by coming home from Korea early.
• Went out for Selina’s Bachelorette Party.

October

• Celebrated Alan’s birthday at Joe Dimaggio’s. Was very happy to have him back in Texas and to be able to celebrate his birthday with him and take him as a date to weddings. He had good timing :)
• Stood in Selina & Ryan’s Wedding and witnessed strong love.
• Realised I don’t really want to be a teacher.
• Threw 2nd Alphabet Potluck.
• Dressed up as a cow girl for Halloween.

November

• Went to Wurst Fest with friends.
• Went to Cathedral of Junk for the first time with Brandi.
• Texas Renaissance with Jessica and Brandi
• Had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Houston where I reunited with people I don’t normally see! (Willis, Thomas, Kim, Shane, Kelvin, Chris, Aishah, Kym, Hillary, Alex)
• Had my second progressive meal this year.

Having hot chocolate at Ren Fest.

December

• I started my new full time job and kept my part time night job.
• I struggled with what it means to be someone’s family.
• I struggled with what it means to be someone’s friend.
• I made truffles for the first time!
• Saw Avatar in IMAX opening night. Awesome.
• Attended and witnessed proudly, Bing graduate from college
• Attended annual Christmas Party for Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America with my little and her family.
• Jennifer from Philly is in town and I introduced her to Teucsher.
• I went home to Houston for Christmas break and was able to see Mary Ellen, Aishah, Pinky, Cindy, and Kim of course my lovely family.
• Had hot pot on Christmas day twice. Lunch with Mary Ellen and her mom and dinner with my own family. Hot potted out! (Blog entry to come.)
• Released balloons 4 days early as part of a New Year’s Tradition with Kim. (Blog entry to come.)
• Tonight, most likely will be going downtown for New Year’s and spending it with Alan.

After party in the car.

I’m a blessed girl. Instinctively, I’d tell you my 2009 was pretty awful but when I write it all out like this and focused on the good rather than the bad, I can see now I’m still quite lucky. Farewell, 2009.

Tell me how your year went. Or better yet, if you have a year in review entry, I’d love to read yours.