I had so many images and plans in my head. Visions of what this Christmas would look like. The expectations were high--are high--since it's the first Christmas Conrad and I will spend "together." As in, wake up in the same toasty-warm bed and run downstairs to see what Santa left in our stockings. We're also approaching our one-year wedding anniversary. ONE YEAR. My god, has it really been that long? I remember when I was younger, grown-ups would say, "when you're an adult, the years just fly by, and you look up, and ten years have passed." It was hard to imagine that would ever, ever happen. Back then, summers lasted for decades and the time between the first day of school and winter holidays seemed infinite. There was just so much time to spend, it was practically decadent. Now I sit down at my desk at work and see projects that I've been working on for months and think, I just started that. I just a moment ago started that project. I think this means I am an adult. I can see the years of my life flying headlong at me, hurtling me into old age.

This holiday season has been strange. Good, but bad, too. The worst of the bad is a spate of health issues on my Dad's side of the family: Christy, my cousin Greg's new wife, goes in to the hospital tomorrow to start an intense week of chemotherapy before her bone marrow transplant on December 28. And last week, my Grandma (Dad's mom) fell and broke her hip. She's been in the hospital since then, and is now in a rehab facility, and she won't be able to join us for Christmas Eve, as she has every Christmas Eve of my life. And Granddaddy says he doesn't want to come if Grandma can't. It's so hard to be merry and bright when people I love so much are scared and sick.

And yet, I've spent a lot of time doing things that are fun and wonderful and special and festive. We've been to dinner with couples we love hanging out with, I went roller skating with one of my favorite girls, we decorated the condo with (most) everything I wanted to do, my awesome sister-in-law came down for a special craft day, we played fun games with my family, we saw a cheesy holiday musicale, we went to several beautiful parties. And we just purchased our condo--our first home!--a big, wonderful thing. I feel hyperaware of how complex life is right now. How the beautiful world can turn upside down in an instant (does it ever NOT turn upside down in an instant?). How very, very blessed we are ... and how thankful I am to have love in our lives that is constant despite the circumstances we're in.

I always found it disgusting to suggest that God puts people through trials and pain to "teach them lessons" about how to appreciate what they have. I don't think God works that way. And yet, I'm thankful that it's sometimes a byproduct of those trials. And this Christmas, I'm opening myself to that realization, and hoping that when my trials come, the gratitude will already be there, filling up my heart.

Yesterday I ate Chick-fil-A for lunch while sitting in the bathtub. I needed to shave my legs for last night's dinner party, what would you have had me do? All told, I've had worse lunches. You just have to be careful not to drop crumbs in the water. Now THAT would be gross.

I feel really good lately, and I can't seem to stop dancing. This week the amazing news came that the leases are signed for the first two franchise stores of Conrad's restaurant. That is HUGE news. We've been patiently waiting all year for progress on the franchising and now it's OFFICIAL. First one set to open in April, second one in August. So excited. Congratulations, Conrad and Achim! You guys work SO hard and you deserve this. I'm so happy to be part of the Otto's Family. I lost my head a little bit when I heard the news:

Julia texted me this morning with a suggestion that read my freaking mind:

I was just talking yesterday about how I wanted to go roller skating. I haven't pulled these girls out of the closet in way too long.

Awesome. Rollerdisco goodness to follow.  

Conrad doesn't use recipes. He hates them. Why would you want to read while you are cooking? he asks. They just get in the way. He can't pay attention long enough to get to the end of the recipe. Instead, he's already wrist-deep in a butternut squash, devising his own take on the soup I tore out of Martha Stewart Living. Despite his disdain for culinary instruction manuals, he is an amazing cook. I am wholly the opposite. I pore over cookbooks, foodie magazines, Epicurious. Most of the time, I can follow a recipe (to the letter, I do not risk deviations) and end up with an edible, and sometimes even palatable, dish, but when turned loose with no galley map, the only thing I can turn out is a bowl of cereal. I am to the kitchen what a 16-year-old with a dog-eared copy of the Kama Sutra is to the bedroom.

Conrad had to leave work yesterday with a case of the pukes (poor Pea!), and in between refreshing the cold cloth on his forehead and tucking the blanket around his shivering frame, I put together Alicia Paulson's gumdrop wreath. About halfway through, I ran out of gumdrops and went to the store to buy more (they were out) and had to settle on a different brand from another store. I hope you can't tell. I think it still looks awfully cute.

Conrad was still feeling under the weather today, and we had to reschedule our Game Night with Mom, Dad and Angela for next week. With Conrad out of commission, I took over the kitchen for my own devices. First up, broth and crackers for Sick Boy:

Then I got to work on something to take to the Repertory Company holiday party tomorrow night. After much deliberation and lots of thumbing through cookbooks, I tossed them aside, and bravely stepped into the wide open frontier. I came out with mashed potatoes. But! I did manage to "infuse" them, a la Conrad, with cream of thyme.  

Next, peppermint bark for the interns, whom we are taking to lunch tomorrow for all their hard, unpaid work. I had bookmarked a Martha Stewart recipe and set aside most of the ingredients a few weeks ago, but the required peppermint oil was not to be found at regular grocery stores and I was too lazy to go to the specialty market. Turns out peppermint extract works just fine (I just used 8x as much). Besides, who cares what it tastes like when it looks this pretty?

I got these cute cellophane bags at the Target One Spot. Oh, One Spot, how my cart runneth over! 

 And when it's 80 degrees in December, peppermint ice cream is at the top of my menu. Perfect right out of the carton--no recipe required.