Happy New Year all!

On New Year’s Eve, I like to think back to all the things I’ve done in that year that were momentous (or that I did for the first time). Here’s a portion of that list:

1. Got married
2. Visited Italy
   • spent two days trying to find the Spanish Steps
   • ate real bistecca alla fiorentina and it was GOOD
   • found “our” wine while having a snack in the Piazza della Signoria, which we now buy whenever possible
3. Gave two weeks notice and started a new job (all my other job switches before have been preceded by other factors, like moving)
4. Said goodbye to my mom when she moved several hundred miles away
5. Saw a Wagner opera
6. Was a bridesmaid to one of my bridesmaids
7. Went to a “feting” (NOT a wedding)
8. Decided to go to law school
9. Visited Sedona and saw the red rocks
10. Had my wisdom teeth out, five years late
11. Said goodbye to my best friend when she moved several hundred miles away for culinary school
12. Took the LSAT
13. Debauched in Las Vegas for four days
14. Applied to law school
15. Hosted Thanksgiving at my house
16. Found out I’m going to be an aunt next summer
17. Got accepted to GWU, where I know I’d enjoy being a law student

Wow! That’s a lot! There are some good things in there, and some sad ones, and some that will shape the direction of the next several years of my life. I’m a little scared when I realize that, YES, I have been accepted to law school and this whole adventure is no longer just a flight of fancy. It’s actually going to happen. And you know what? I’m thrilled. Best of all, I have my soulmate with me and we’re on this rollercoaster together.

Happy New Year!

absurdity

By the way, have I mentioned that tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and I have been wearing flip flops and a t-shirt all day? Really ridiculous, and makes it not feel like New Year’s Eve is tomorrow.

It also makes the menu planning I did this week sort of unusable. Nevertheless, tonight we are having osso buco. Hey, I’ve been craving some sort of braise. I may need to jack up the AC so the temperature is appopriate for digging into all that goodness, though.

celebration and relaxation

Yesterday, after my good news from GW, I drove about an hour to see my best friend. She recently moved away for culinary school, but came back to visit friends. Seeing her was the perfect topping to yesterday. We ate good food (tomato basil bisque, yum); had pedicures (and I had a manicure, also)—good girly fun; and then we had cocktails. The visit was too short, but they always are, and I think we’re going to try for a spring trip to New Orleans, just to get some more good girly time in.

I also took my sister to dinner and gave her her Christmas present. She showed me her new apartment—her first all-by-herself apartment— and her tax ID number: my little sib is starting a business on the side. Her own apartment, her own business, and even a new friend-boy…these kids today, they grow up fast! I’m so proud of her.

This morning, as a treat to Mr. Angst, I got up early and made us breakfast: buttermilk pancakes. As an extra-special treat, I frothed up some milk for our coffee with my new milk frother, the best Christmas present ever. When we went to Italy on our honeymoon, breakfast at our hotels always included excellent coffee and warm, foamy milk. We’ve been trying to recreate that ever since, but I hadn’t been able to accurately duplicate the foam. Now I can have foam whenever I want it! Hurrah!

My vacation is almost over, so I’m going to have to make the most of these last two days. Excuse me, I have a new book to read. (NOT the Glannon, though. Sorry.)

whahoo vahoo yippety skippety!!

Just found out I got into George Washington! It’s a good day in the Angst household.

UPDATE: It only took me an hour to realize that I probably don’t need to apply to American anymore. I think I’ll save my $65 and focus on Chicago-Kent Honors.

devastation

I haven’t written about the horrors in southeast Asia yet because, frankly, I’m still absorbing all of it. It is almost impossible, at such a removed distance (and from my extremely advantaged standpoint), to grasp not just the numbers—CNN says the death toll could top 60,000—but also the difficulties of getting information, traveling to remote locales, beginning to distribute aid, and rebuilding in that part of the world.

I know that it’s terribly un-PC nowadays to ask strangers and psuedo-strangers to pray for anything—and I certainly don’t want to offend my readers—but I really do ask that if you pray, pray for the people who are still waiting to be rescued, who are looking for their families, who are without shelter and food. And if you want to help, Larry has some links to aid organizations, as does Janine.

no more traveling!

I had my Northwestern interview this morning. I had to drive to a nearby city for it, so I was on the road again. Despite having to travel again so soon after coming back from a week away (and I am sure that sentence could read better, but I don’t feel like working on it), the interview went off pretty much without a hitch. She was very nice and personable and made me feel very comfortable; we talked quite a bit about the environment at Northwestern, which I was starting to think might be too corporate or business-oriented (she disabused me of that notion, so hurrah!). Somewhere in the midst of it all, she told me that she felt I would fit in quite well at Northwestern, that my experience, etc., would make me a good match.

I hope the adcoms feel the same way! I’d be thrilled to get into Northwestern; it would take some of the pressure off of me if we end up going to Chicago for Mr. Angst.

So now I’ve finished everything I needed to do for my top five apps; they’re all just waiting to be read, I guess. I suppose I should get cracking on that Chicago-Kent essay, and maybe send in my American application. 🙂 I have the week off—theoretically, I have plenty of time to do both. We’ll see how realistic that is, though!

oh, yes

I almost forgot! How exciting that Jeremy ended up in the New York Times (still on the front page, no less!) and yet even more exciting that AL and Jeremy are one and the same.

I admit it, I am one of those people who blogrolled both Jeremy and AL. I read both pretty regularly, and, nope, didn’t pick up that they were one and the same. (I wonder what that says about my powers of observation.) I’ve always wondered, though, how real AL could be. Well written, definitely; fictional, absolutely.

Anyhoo, I think I just want to give a big “Hooray!” to Jeremy for landing in the Big Paper—and another “Hooray!” for keeping AL “secret” for as long as he did. He definitely deserves that book deal.

many things

In the last three days, so many things have happened, and I have not written about any of them. No, nothing momentously life-changing; just lots of events.

Christmas Eve with the Angst-in-laws was lovely. They have an old tradition of having fondue for dinner, so we all happily dunked into cheese and broth. We played Pictionary, and the men’s team won (despite the women being more talented. We had harder cards). We opened gifts and giggled a lot and took pictures.

My sister-in-law (the soon-to-be-mom) gave me a copy of Civil Procedure by Joseph Glannon. I chuckled at the gift—it was humorous!—but she was dead serious. (She is an attorney and went to Harvard, so it wasn’t too random a gift.) She gave me a smile and told me I held the key to understanding CivPro right in my very hands and that I’d be glad to have it next year. It was still a little funny—such a strange thing to receive, essentially, a textbook for Christmas, and be very happy about it!

On Christmas Day, we attended church, watched some football, and ate turkey, ham, potatoes, asparagus, and…something else….I can’t remember, but the table was covered with food. Oh, and bread pudding. A true holiday feast. The meal sort of exemplified what I love about this season: it’s a chance to gather together and eat, drink, talk, and enjoy being with each other. That’s really what’s most special about Christmas.

Of course, after lunch, we had to make our way to the airport—where the line to check in on Delta was longer than I’ve ever seen a line, anywhere. We opted to check in at the SkyCap, only to wait another half hour while they cleared up the security flag on our tickets. (I think it’s because we flew into one city and out of another.)

By the way, Christmas Day is the day to travel if you love being on airplanes with LOTS of small children. I’ve never seen so many young ones in the airport, including on little girl who was draped atop her father’s rollling suitcase, sound asleep.

By 11:35 pm, we were home again, home again, jiggety jig. Asleep by 12:30; up by 8 for choir, and now I’m heading off to Houston for the night: Northwestern interview in the morning. Not sure what to expect.

making my list and checking it twice

1. Christmas cards written and mailed: check and check
2. Gifts wrapped and under the tree: 3/4 check and check
3. Biscotti in the oven: check

We also saw Meet the Fockers which was, to be honest, pretty good. Babs really stole the show, and Dustin held his own (despite his skin resembling shoe leather). Good clean family fun.

Tomorrow:

1. Finish wrapping gifts
2. Start to pack up (we leave Saturday evening)
3. Make fondue (Christmas Eve tradition)

A good day planned, all in all.

shopping

All Christmas gifts needed for this portion of the holiday festivities have been purchased. I still need to buy 8, maybe 9 gifts, but those can wait until we’ve returned home.

Also, I note on weather.com that the weather at home is unusually cold. This means that my plants are dead, sadly. Why would I have covered them before we left? It never gets cold before Christmas. Plus, they’d have died from lack of sunlight. Well, now they’ll be dead from freezing. I’m a bad plant mom.

I have finished my American application, but not submitted it yet. I need to print it out and review it before I send it off. After I do that, I’ll work on my Chicago-Kent essay. (Seeing as all Christmas shopping is done, I don’t have anything to do tomorrow and Friday morning.) Oh, and I am going to help my mother-in-law set up a recipe website. And write and mail Christmas, er, Holiday cards.

OK, so I do still have a lot to do and little time in which to do it. Sigh. Vacation always goes by too quickly, especially when I spend so much of it sleeping in.