Tony said, "You have vastly improved you tree decorating skills."

I love it when my husband uses words like vastly.

But really now, look how barren my tree looked in 2006 vs. 2009's light fest! My mom and I had a very serious discussion over my Christmas decorations the day after the 25th that went something like this:

Me: You think I could fit a bigger tree in that spot?
Mom: You definitely could. I think it's come to that point, Jennifer. *mom refuses to call me Jenny*
Me: You're the one that keeps buying me ornaments!! (All the while knowing very well and good that I have an entire trunk full of 50% off Christmas decoration deals. Hey, Sam's club had INCREDIBLY cute stuff this year. It's hard to find the candy colored decorations, people!!)
Mom: I think this situation might call for a 12 footer.
Me: *sigh*


I'm very lucky that I have 14 foot cathedral ceilings in my living room *shrug*. Honestly though, I do feel the need to outdo my own Christmas tree every year. It's my absolute favoritist thing to do at Christmas because every ornament I have is very special to me. I have an ornament that I specifically had hand turned for my father at the Opryland hotel craft fair when I was a child. I have some of my mother's treasured keepsake ornaments from our family. I also have the Christopher Radko glass ornaments that mom has consistently bought for me since I was 18 or so. I like to put each one up in the order of the Christmas I received it, yes I know each ornament's date, and remember that time I spent with my mom picking it out. :) Yes, she lets me pick them out. :)

Plus, there's the plethora of adorable glass ornaments I pick up because I love flamingos and need a flamingo, or the puppy dog that looks just like my Burty or the angel because her wings are glittery... I think my point is that I have a problem. I haven't fully decided if it's a bad problem to have necessarily. But, a problem all the same.

Because now I have to buy a 12 foot Christmas tree.

Could I also take a moment to point out that my decorating skills in general have improved vastly as well!! Look at that chocolate brown couch popping off that beautiful pale blue wall! I astound myself! ;)

...on why you should always be laughing.

I'm not the funniest person in the strictest of terms. Not intentionally anyway. However, I find my friends laughing with me at myself when we are hanging out. Tony laughs at me, the master of meatloaf laughs at me... customers laugh at me. My point is, I want to always be laughing. I want to always have half of myself solidly planted in the, "c'est la vie, la vie en rose" mentality. It's not all bad. I learned not to take myself so seriously in high school. Shoowee, can we talk about some of that "poetry" written for literature club? I use the term: poetry very loosely because in looking back I realize you can fit a lot of angst onto an 8x12 ruled sheaf of notebook paper. Shoo, indeed.

My point is, I'm suspicious of people who don't laugh or smile frequently enough for my tastes.

One of the great sources of my laughter is my pets (this includes Tonster)I came home and smiled at my animals, and loved on them each equally for a little while because I read this today:

Sad Face.

A devout Christian once told me pets couldn't possibly go to heaven because they don't have souls, and the lack of opposable... um, souls, can seriously hinder one's ability to be saved by the great I Am. I can't get behind that.

Because God likes to smile too, and laugh.

Life is far to short and precious to not be able to laugh at oneself hysterically, consistently. And all of our precious furry laugh makers will meet us again in the great thereafter. Make no bones about it.

New Year's resolutions:

I resolve to:

1. Be a better person and friend. I know everyone makes this resolution, but when I say it it's not a load of bull shit (sorry guys, I can't write for an audience that can't handle the gift of cursing). 2009 was ridiculous on a lot of levels. I feel like the tonster and I survived a shitstorm of epic proportions. I compare our employment situation to the TV show Survivor. We came into work every day with our fingers crossed that our torch wasn't going to be extinguished. He had a close call, I felt like I had 5 close calls... when in reality I probably had 2. Any bad feelings, depression or anger seemed to waterfall from that. I think it's safe to say that we both spent 12 months of our lives worrying about where our proverbial next meal was going to come from. But, with every storm cloud there exists a silver lining. More on that in resolution 2. Honestly, some of the ties in my life had to be severed or are hanging by a thread at this point because of the way I handled 2009. I solidly resolve to bring my wolfpack back to myself and learn to be the kind of friend I expect to have. My ability to be a good friend falls short of my own "friend expectations" and that's just piss poor.

2. Resume/continue saving money. Bottom line. I. Can't. Accomplish. My. Goals. If. I. Don't. Learn (annoying yet?). To be fiscally and financially responsible for myself. This includes going back to school, staying home to raise my family or helping my husband really give the breath of life to this photography business he wants to start. Financial responsibility is not his problem. It's mine. I'm the one that overspends, overshops and over consumes. I learned a lot about the real world over the past year. 5 years ago (in February) we purchased a house, and last year I experienced the sheer terror of what would happen if we lost it. I am thankful that we did not, but we agreed to learn to live as though our next paycheck was our last. That learning process involved a lot of alcohol and tears. Lots and lots and lots and lots of tears.

3. Lay off the alcohol. I am not a drunk, I am not even close to what I assume an alcoholic looks like. But I never want to look like an alcoholic either. This might be the only image I don't want people to have of me. As fiercely as I feel that other's opinions don't matter, this opinion matters. I need to stop it.

4. Get in the gym and stay in the gym. I resolve not to lose weight or "get healthy". I enjoy going to the gym. I resolve to go to the gym and continue going. I actually ENJOY physical activity. 2 years ago when they built the gym attached to my workplace, I inwardly cringed. No more excuses not to go, because it's right there and it's easy. So I went, and found out that I loved it. It's an immense stress relief tactic for me, and it's probably the single best weapon I have against the shorter daylight hours in the winter time. I seriously regret that I didn't participate in any group or individual sports when I was younger.

5. Watch all of the oscar nominated movies. Or at least watch as many as I can within reason. I love movies, I typically watch at least 1/3 of the movies nominated. I'd like to see at least 2/3 this year. The last 1/3 I'm counting as foreign language animated and the movies that are inaccessible to those outside of Hollywood.

6. Read less braincandy. Expand my literary horizons. Possibly try to keep a book diary/online journal. I probably just lost cool points for that one.


That's that. I have been giving these serious thought in the past week and wanted to record for personal posterity.

I close with a few pictures Tony has taken as proof that standing by my husband's decision to become a photographer is a very good one.

December:

Christmas is the name of the game folks. Tonster and I have been shopping like all the malls in the world will dissapear tomorrow. We always find ourselves spending more on Christmas than we really should. Why do people feel the need to do that?

The annual Lopez Christmas party is upon us. I convinced myself I'd make one recipe per night, starting tonight-- so that Saturday morning I could clean. So far so good, one recipe down, 5 more to go. Tonight was Peanut Butter Blossoms. Basically peanut butter sugar cookies with a hershey's kiss stuck on top immediately after baking (to maximize the whole melty yummy chocolately thing).

In other news I've quit smoking. I've been nicotine free for 38 days now, I guess. I just had to count. I'm not counting the days individually this time. Yeah, THIS time. I've probably been trying to quit smoking since I began smoking. Hopefully this time it sticks. I'm really tired of quitting and starting. And I know I'll be better off. It's hard to give up the oxygene breaks at work though. And the withdrawl... yeah, that's no good. Let's leave it at that. ;)

So we aren't exactly religious in the strictest sense in the Lopez houshold. But, we're definitely spiritual. May the peace of God be with you, the love of your family around you and the light of the stars in heaven (I like to think of them as guardian angels) guide your path always. :)

Lions and tigers and vampires... oh my...

Hi there! First post! First family blog! Hopefully this can become a good spot to update yourself, or anyone interested for that matter, on the goings on within the Lopez household. I know most people do these things when they have "the kids". Don't bust out the bubbly just yet. There are no "the kids" on the horizon. Just us still... Tonster and Renny Bopez. OH, and the dog: AKA Burty Butt, cat 1: AKA Butter Butt and cat 2: AKA Weezy F. Baby Lopez.

But. Hopefully there will be kids in the future, when that time has it's place. Personally, I'd love my little mini-me to have a nice, organized record of how goofy his/her parents really were/are.

Plus, unbeknownst to me (Jlo), a lot of ridiculous stuff happens to us. It's funny, it deserves to be recorded!

First order of business... I devoted a full evening to the new Twilight movie premiere: New Moon. Courtney, Amy, Shellie and I set out on our 3 hour tour at approximately 7pm on November 20, 2009 with a goal in mind to see New Moon (a 10:10pm showing) and partake in the best food Bowling Green has to offer (The Monte Christo/ Cheddars. I capitalize because it's THAT good people).

Cheddars is still new to Vette City. That means that every Ezekial and Jo-Beth from the surrounding tri-county area flocked eagerly with their 17 family members to the blessed resteraunt's doorstep. Thankfully Courtney and I arrived late (as per the usual) so Amy and Shellie bore the brunt of the 60 minute wait! :) We ate, we laughed and we caught up. A good time was had by all.

We assumed arriving at the theater an hour early was more than a sufficient lead time on the hoardes of tweens guaranteed to be seeing this very important piece of artwork along with us. Well, we totally assumed wrong!! W-R-O-N-G, as evidenced by this post's illustration up above. We took turns warming ourselves up in Vivianne the Volkswagen, Shellie and I had a particularly high school memory inducing experience... and eventually we got in the theater. Best part of the night was hearing Amy screech,

"RUN, COURTNEY, RUN!!! GET IN FRONT OF THEM! RUN!!!!!" Then seeing Courtney skinny pants take off across the theater. The other laugh inducing moment of the night came when R. Patzz shed his shirt in what was undoubtedly supposed to be the most drool worthy moment of the entire movie. One of these things is not like the other, indeed.

Tonster took some pictures of one of my lovely coworkers and his fiance to act as engagement shots last weekend. I've given him up to the office and Harpo control room for the vast majority of this week. I have gotten a few peeks at the completed, edited photos and they're breathtaking. I can truly say my husband is one of the most gifted men I know.

All in all-- New Moon was fab compared to Twilight. Courtney skinny pants and I found our inappropriate laughter to be infrequent during this installment. Granted, I didn't go in expecting Oscar worthy performances, writing or directing. But I definitely got what I wanted... Taylor Lautner's hot abs and R. Patzz's incredible jaw (wonky nipple). ;)

Love-- us.