I do not rock half as much as Hope Wallace does. She is the one who got this site up and running again after Blogger switched to the new and improved version. The new version was not improved. In fact, many of us couldn't post for months. I wrote support so many times that I lost count. I began logging on to message boards chatting with other bloggers in distress. Thanks Hope! Oh Queen of Rockness. Did I mention that her store Paper Relics received a fabulous write up from Daily Candy? Check it out. Hope is hot!!

So much has happened that I thought I just give a quick review starting with my southern Christmas.
Tom & I drove over 7 hours to Richmond, Virginia the Saturday before Xmas. Tom was behind the wheel the entire time and boy, was he grumpy. We had a wonderful dinner with his parents, sister and her man Justin and Kyle. Missing were his sis Gina, hubby Steve and our nephew Jackson. They were stranded in blizzardy Colorado. Xmas Eve as full of shopping, wrapping, cookie making and cramming in as much time with Kyle before he headed back to Virginia Beach. Our formerly stranded family members arrived after 10pm. We scared the Bjesus out of little Jax with our excitement of his presence. Loads of gifts were opened. Champagne flowed as did Tom & Jerry's (family tradition egg nog like drink). Xmas morning we all jumped in Gina and Steve's bed, playing with Jackson, waiting for HoHo to arrive. Ho Ho was very generous! Tom and I got a trip (to Costa Rica) which we'll be taking at the end of the year. Bill (Tom's dad) made an amazing breakfast. A frittata like sausage & cheese combo that was yummy. We packed up our car and drove 5 hours down to North Carolina to see my mom and sis. We arrived in time to drink wine, eat stuffed mushrooms, pickled everything, and lasagna. We played with Bobby (nephew) and baby Gabriella (mom's friend's child). She did the best Cookie Monster impersonation that we ever did see. The day after Xmas we went to lots of furniture stores, ate, and chilled. We were up early the next morning and hit the road and drove mucho, mucho, hours back to NYC. Are you thinking that we were totally high to do all that traveling in 5 days? Yup, so were we. We now realize how crazy it all was and probably will not ever do that again, unless we have about 2 weeks to play with.

Back in NYC preparations were being made for Karen, Gina & Steve's (Tom's sisters & bro-in-law) visit with us. We have never had 5 people stay overnight before in our 1 bedroom apartment. It was fine. Worked pretty well. We ate lots of pizza, visited Ground Zero, shops, had a good French meal, went to Astoria for authentic Greek pastries and Ouzo. OOOHPA!! The pastry place made the wedding cake that was featured in "MY BIG, FAT, GREEK WEDDING". We threw a New Year's Eve dinner party. I made an antipasto, gravy for cavatelli, meatballs & sausage. Cooking is a breeze when you have people slicing, dicing and grating your garlic, onions and cheese. Tom took everyone out for the afternoon so that I could set the dining table all fancy and decorate for the festivities. What a blast! We ate loads, champagne flowed, cigars were smoked and games were played. Girls against the boys (80's trivia & SNL Trivial Pursuit) and we kicked their butt! Hangovers were had by all. New Year's Day was officially slug day. We stayed in our pj's, ate leftovers & lentils and watched movies.

Since then it's been all about keeping warm (man, it is brutally cold) and working on lots of projects. Stuff for Heart of Gold, gathering content for my design/organizing business website, getting this site up and running again, and catching up on lots of movies. Pan's Labyrinth was the best we've seen so far. I'm going to Nashville in March for a conference. I'm excited about visiting Music City! We're headed to Costa Rica in May with friends. Yup, we're going twice this year. Checking out all different areas and going on some real estate tours. And taking an excursion to Nicaragua. Our Costa Rican bathroom is finally done! It looks so funky! We still have to take some after pictures and then I'll share the results with you all. All in all I'm psyched about 2007! It's going to be a year filled with adventure, changes and progress.

Posted by Dawn Falcone @ 5:38 PM 13 comments