I am not good at surprises. I love them, but something always goes wrong.

Not this time, though. This time was perfect.

Last Wednesday was my parents’ 35th anniversary. Their 30th fell the same year I was graduating from college and planning a wedding, as well as when my sister was graduating from high school, so it sadly fell by the wayside. I didn’t want that to happen again.

So this year, after considering several options, Chelsea and I decided that I would fly into town unannounced and the four of us would spend the weekend together. This was perfect, because we are rarely able to make it to Texas during the year and when we do, we have a million places to go and people to see. This time would be all about them.

I flew into town on Thursday night, and my friend Allison picked me up from the airport and took me home. Chelsea met me in the driveway and took me inside, telling our parents to close their eyes because she had a surprise for them.

You know how on reality shows, when people are excited because they might have lots of dollars in their case or they get picked for a one-on-one date or they get tyramail? Picture that kind of excitement on a short woman in her pajamas. It was so fun.

We spent the weekend shopping, including what felt like an entire day at IKEA. We ate excellent food like chicken ceasar salad and lobster pizza and fried flounder and barbecue ribs and tiramisu. We played games and told stories and redecorated a bedroom. And it was fabulous.

(A quick lesson, from me to you: if you are 26 and married with no kids in a family where almost everyone else has been birthing some babies since the age of 18, it might not be the best idea to attend a baby shower with said family for your cousin’s girlfriend. One can only take so many comments about how they’d like to be throwing one for you or how you don’t know how to use a bottle brush before heads begin to roll.)

So happy happy happy anniversary, parents. Thanks for staying together and being awesome. Even if you have selective memory about certain impromptu performances of Vanilla Ice songs back in the day.

Okay, people.

We have got to figure out a way to get me on What Not To Wear. Seriously.

I will do whatever it takes. I will wear sweats to work. I will curl my bangs like I did in junior high. I will tuck sleeveless polo shirts into mom jeans. I will wear pleats and tapered pants and hot pink lipstick and furry clogs out in public. All at the same time.

I watch this show, and it just makes me crazy. These women do not understand what they have been given! FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS, PEOPLE. Just for clothes.

They balk at pointy boots and straight jeans and velvet jackets. They recoil at the prices. They can’t imagine spending that kind of money on clothes.

You know who can imagine it? ME.

I would love for them to hand me $5000 and tell me what to buy. I would be all over that. You want me to buy tweed trousers and wrap dresses and funky jewel-toned heels? I’m on it. This coat is $500? NO PROBLEM. Ring it up.

So. I’m about to lame up my wardrobe. I just need y’all to nominate me.

Dear Brandi,

Every year after the holidays, you get all bummed out and feel like nothing fun will ever happen again. This makes sense, as December is a whirlwind of parties and gifts and spending two weeks doing nothing but shop and hang out with your friends. January feels like the beginning of… nothing. Cold, gray days and lots of working. It is MONTHS until your birthday – who will buy you presents?

But self, January is not so bad. It does feel like a fresh start. New books to read, new recipes to try, new friends to be had. Somehow, you manage to forget every year that the month of January is not an overwhelming expanse of blah.

January is a trip back to regular life. During the holidays, that sounds terrible, but once you’re back in it, you remember that you like it.

It’s also time for your semi-annual “What Am I Doing With My Life?” breakdown of sorts, in which you will search for a new job or a new house or a new SOMETHING, just to make yourself feel like you’re going somewhere, like you’re moving up. But give it time, and eventually you will remember that life is really nice just the way it is. You will be reminded of all the good things you have going, all the things that are more important to you than moving up some corporate ladder you’re not sure you want to be on in the first place.

So, self, try to remember all of these things in January 2008, when once again you’re wondering what you’re doing with your life, why do you live so far away from your family, who let you eat all those rice krispie treats at your in-laws house, how are you going to make it through all the boring days you have ahead of you. They’re not boring days. They are your life. And they can only be what you will allow them to be, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and make them good.

Also, remember to pay better attention to the after-Christmas sales.

Love,
Brandi

So we made an offer on a house yesterday.

It was perfect. Right in the middle of the neighborhood we want, even down to the little box of streets I’ve deemed most desirable. In our price range. Hardwoods (under PINK CARPET). Cool built-in shelves. Plenty of storage. An incredible back yard with a huge deck and well-kept landscaping. With work on the floors and walls it would have been sweet. We found it online on Friday, looked at it Saturday and Monday, and made an offer yesterday.

But we didn’t get it.

I’ve never gone through that process before. We bought our townhouse new and got to choose all the details on the inside. Plus, we were renting before that, so we didn’t have to deal with selling our house while trying to buy another one. It was easy like Sunday morning. But this was stressful - how much do you offer? What about the inspection? What do you ask for your house? When can you show it? WHAT DO WE DO WITH MILES!?!?!?

It’ll make you crazy, and we only did it for three days.

We were so close we could taste it, and now we’ve got the bug to move. Which is why you could find us at 11:30 last night, driving across town to look at a house we found online. We think we might like it. We’re going to see it this weekend.

Wish us luck. I am freaking out.

Head over to the Corner Table to find my (and a few others’) list of the top ten albums of last year. I worked hard on those descriptions, so go say something nice.

In third grade I played on a basketball team called the Wildcats. Our colors were green and white. I was… not good. I played under the basket because I was tall, but essentially all I did was get pushed around and shoot bricks.

Our uniforms were pretty sweet - community center issue green jerseys and shorts with white letters, to which we added white knee socks with green stripes at the top and green knee pads.

That’s right, people. Knee pads. With our jersey numbers written on them with black marker. We had it going on, let me tell you. It looked especially good when we accidentallly put on one knee pad upside down.

My dad tried really hard to get me to wear a certain style of sneakers to play basketball: kelly green Converse high tops. I was HORRIFIED. Green high tops? It was the worst possible thing that could happen to my 9-year-old self. All my friends had puffy white low-tops with double-tongues, and so help me I wanted them too. Dad gave up the fight for the Chuck Taylors and I got my big white shoes.

This year for Christmas, I asked for some Converse. I needed some casual sneakers and they seemed to fit the bill. But somehow, when I picked up a shoebox-shaped package from my dad, it didn’t occur to me what it would be.

They’re not green, and they’re not high tops, but Dad finally got to buy me some Chuck Taylors. He was quick to point out that, should the opportunity present itself, they’d be great for some basketball.

Several years ago, my mom bought a little four-building set of houses to put on top of the entertainment center at Christmas time. She rolled out some cotton, bought some little people, lit the houses and called it good.

And it was, for a while.

Then she started finding bigger, fancier houses at Kohl’s. More detailed pieces. Shops and cabins and boat docks and churches and playgrounds and ferris wheels.

And the village grew.

My dad, being something of a train enthusiast, decided to add a train to the mix, causing a move from the living room to the game room. He started building tunnels and bridges and mountains.

And the village grew.

Today, it takes up 3/4 of a room that used to be a garage and is a continual work in progress. The cotton has been replaced by mountains and roads carved out of styrofoam. The store-bought trees, acceptable for a while, have given way to homeade trees of dowel rods and sponges. There’s a lake. And an ice-skating rink. And a downhill ski slope. And a carnival.

And it is awesome.

The ski slope:

The neighborhood:

The ice skating rink:

Hotel and shops:

The carnival:

Food stalls at the carnival (I love the colored trees):

Carnival parking lot:

Borrowing Kari’s format, here’s a list of what I read in 2006:

1. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares (f)
2. Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald (f)
3. Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo - Andy Greenwald (nf)
4. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (reread) (f)
5. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell (nf)
6. Emma - Jane Austen (reread) (f)
7. Wayside School is Falling Down - Louis Sachar (reread) (f)
8. Wicked - Gregory Maguire (f)
9. Sideways Stories From Wayside School - Louis Sachar (reread) (f)
10. Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger - Louis Sachar (reread) (f)
11. Amped - Jon Rech (nf)
12. The Jane Austen Book Club - Karen Joy Fowler (f)
13. The Sweetheart Season - Karen Joy Fowler (f)
14. Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn (reread) (f)
15. Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld (f)
16. Traveling Mercies - Anne Lamott (nf)
17. Why Girls Are Weird - Pamela Ribon (f)
18. Through Painted Deserts - Don Miller (nf)
19. Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities - Alexandra Robbins (nf)
20. Songbook - Nick Hornby (nf)
21. Cold Sassy Tree - Olivia Ann Burns (f)
22. The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke - Suze Orman (nf)
23. Evensong - Gail Godwin (f)
24. Babyville - Jane Green (f)
25. Bergdorf Blondes - Plum Sykes (f)
26. The Other Side of the Story - Marian Keyes (f)
27. The Wonder Spot - Melissa Bank (f)
28. Bitter is the New Black - Jen Lancaster (f)
29. Plan B - Anne Lamott (nf)
30. Debutante Divorcees - Plum Sykes (f)
31. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (f)
32. Father Melancholy’s Daughter - Gail Godwin (f)
33. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguao (f)
34. Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris (nf)
35. Reading Lolita In Tehran - Azar Nafisi (nf)
36. Favorite Father Brown Stories - G.K. Chesterton (f)
37. The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger (reread) (book club) (f)
38. Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock - Andrew Beaujon (nf)
39. Bachelor Brothers Bed and Breakfast - Bill Richardson (f)
40. The Finishing School - Gail Godwin (f)
41. Julie and Julia - Julie Powell (book club) (f)
42. Why Moms Are Weird - Pamela Ribon (f)
43. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling (reread) (f)
44. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling (reread) (f)
45. Colors Insulting to Nature - Cintra Wilson (f)
46. Daisy Miller - Henry James (f)
47. Marley and Me - John Grogan (book club) (nf)
48. Persuasion - Jane Austen (f)
49. We Are Still Married - Garrison Keillor (f)
50. The Explainer - Slate Magazine (nf)

So there it is. My fiction/nonfiction ratio was 36/14, which is not surprising to me at all.

Favorites:
The Wayside School books (#7, 9, 10) - I loved them growing up and my mom got me the set for Christmas last year… they are still wonderful and so, so funny.
Songbook (#20) - not only introduced me to some new music but made me think about why I love the music that I do.
The Gail Godwin books (#23, 32, 40) - Evensong and Father Melancholy’s Daugther tell the story of the same set of characters, and they are both really beautiful books. There’s not a lot of action, but they dive deep into the histories and motivations of the characters, and it’s fascinating. The Finishing School is really different, but it has a touch of mystery to it and really held my attention. I’m excited about reading more Gail Godwin this year.
Why Moms Are Weird (#42) - I love Pamie’s site, and her first book was a fun one. But this one really struck a chord with me - I could really relate to the main character and her struggles.
Colors Insulting to Nature (#45) - really, really interesting. It took me a while to get into this one, but she really makes you care about the main character, even while you hate what she’s doing. Slightly strange subject matter, but a good read.
We Are Still Married (#49) - my only exposure to Garrison Keillor prior to this book was the Prairie Home Companion movie, which I loved despite never having heard the show. This collection of short stories was quietly funny and definitely made me want to read more of his stuff.

Disappointments:
Wicked (#8) - I wanted to like this so much. I haven’t seen the musical, but I know the songs and have several friends who rave about it. I enjoyed it for a while, but it lost me somewhere in the middle.
Prep (#15) - This one had me hooked the whole way through, until the very end. She writes high school so well. But it kind of flickered out at the end, and I didn’t get the resolution/character development I thought the book deserved.
The month of July (#25-28) - I went through a serious chick lit phase in the summer, to mostly disasterous results. The only one I’m not embarrassed to have on the list is #27, The Wonder Spot. I would recommend that one and her other book, Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing. But it doesn’t make up for the horror that was Bitter Is The New Black. Blech.

So there it is! This year I’ll keep a list, but no number goal. I see thick books in my future.

I’ve never been big on new year’s resolutions. I used to get really excited about the new year and all the new things I planned to do and the changes I was going to make, but I’ve learned that all I was really doing was setting myself up for disappointment. If I really want to start eating better or take up embroidery or become fluent in Spanish, I’ll do it when the idea strikes, regardless of whether it’s January 1 or July 13 or December 30.

I do like to have plans for the year, though. The idea of a fresh start gets the list-making goal-setting side of me in gear. Last year I set a goal to read 50 books in 2006, which I accomplished by the skin of my teeth. (Come back tomorrow for the list.) Along the same lines, I’ve set three goals for 2007:

1. To always be reading a book. My 50 books goal from last year kept me continuously reading - always looking for something good to pick up next and keep me on pace. I’m not setting a number goal this year because I think I shied away from super-long books last year for fear of getting off track. I’d also like to plan my reading better and stretch myself more on the type of books I read.

2. To read through the Bible. I’ve always wanted to do this, but I’ve never really put much effort into it. I’ve found a guide that looks interesting in the way they’ve split out the daily reading and I’m excited about getting started.

3. To write more letters, particularly to family. It’s so easy, being far away, to let my extended family fall from my thoughts when I’m caught up in daily life. I’m thinking one letter a month to each grandmother as a starting point, and adding more people or more letters as I get into the habit.

So that’s my plan for 2007. I guess they are technically resolutions, but calling them goals makes them seem more attainable. Wish me luck!