See Ya Later Alligator

Today is New Year's Eve, and I am the only one it seems to be stuck at work on this blustery morning. The sky has spit out a smattering of snow, just enough to make people drive 45mph on I75, with promises of 3-6 more inches by the end of the night. Just what the drunken idiots who decide to drive tonight need, an excuse for their poor driving skills.

Tonight we are going to a party at our friend Mike's house..ok,ok, Mike/Alex/Cale's abode. Should be a fun time. They plan on getting a keg, and playing massive amounts of beer pong, which Team Miller is still the reigning champs. Not sure what I'm going to wear yet, not that it much matters since we're just hanging out with a small group of friends, instead of the huge bashes we usually attend. This is the first year I haven't bought something new to wear for the occasion. Of course my bank account is giving me a big thumbs up for not being weak and going to purchase something last minute.

The Annual Roehrig family Christmas shindig was on Saturday. This is one of my favorite parties because my favorite cousins and my sister and her brude get together and we eat like gluttons and play games and talk. It's always a fun time. Here's a picture of all of us with my Papa (who will be 90 in April):

The three little ones are my sister's kids. My aunt always makes her chocolate desert, which was dubbed by my father over 20 years ago as "the chocolate shit." This is my favorite desert of the year. Of course it's really close between that and my sister's homemade cheesecake. My mom did a change of pace this year though and made lasagna for dinner. Yum! I, however, not being the culinary specialist of the family brought the shrimp ring and the beer. Next time though my mom said that Steve must make something, since he IS the chef of the family and I'm the never ending bragger of his creations.

Tomorrow we are throwing the annual "Hangover and Football" get together. Steve is at home right now going through his recipes deciding what we need and making a list. I'm pretty excited because the last time we threw a football party he made a turkey with this rosemary and olive oil rub, and injected the turkey with garlic butter. Not the healthiest of turkeys, but it was probably the best turkey I've ever had. He is ever the host and is always trying new things to make. I swear even if our cupboards look completely bare to me of anything edible, he'll jump right in and 20 minutes later he'll set a plate in front of me of something incredibly yummy. It's his gift.

"Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let's just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that." Judith Crist

Getting ready for 2008

I'm not sure if everyone that has gotten married and changed their last name or just changed their name period has gone through a transition like I have. It feels weird (not in a bad way) to sign Miller after signing Maynard for my entire "handwriting" life. Although I'm sure this isn't such a massive change since the first letter is the same and Miller isn't very difficult. I mean it's not like going from Mastronardi to Zulewczykski or anything. In fact it sort of feels like I'm forging someone else's signature, if that makes sense? I had practiced the signature before in the months leading up to the wedding. Sort of like when you're in junior high and you write you name with the person you have a crush on. It gave me a tingle everytime I did it. It still does. So I'm wondering to all you married ladies who have taken their husbands surname, when does the tingley newness wear off?

Ok sorry, now that I'm done babbling. Christmas went pretty smoothly. It tends to get difficult to manage our time when you both have parents that are divorced and all remarried. This means that in a mere 48-72 hours (from December 23-25th) my husband and I feel like we ran a Christmas covered marathon. Not that we don't love everyone we visit. We do. It's just difficult for everyone to feel like they are the most important. You don't want to disappoint your family and/or seem rude when you're only at their home for a couple hours when the other parent got double the time. Of course everywhere you go has a TON of food and again you don't want to be rude by saying how incredibly STUFFED you are from the previous two places you had already visited that day. I mean how many shrimp rings can I possibly endure before I start sweating shellfish! haha!

This year was particularly difficult because Steve was laid off about 6 days before Christmas (gotta love that Michigan economy). Also we had purchased all of our Christmas gifts in Mexico on our honeymoon. Since my luggage was subsequently lost, Christmas was RE-purchased for everyone. This was the hard part. We didn't want to seem cheap, but we spent so much for it all to be lost and not have the money to replace it once we got home. Of course American Airlines is STILL looking. It's been 37 days. I don't think their going to find it. Not to be pessimistic, but my hopes have long gone away for this one.

In other Christmas news, my wonderful husband started to replace my tshirt collection that was lost to the luggage fiasco. He found some pretty cool ones at Penny Pinchers and other places. My favorite though is the one my sister bought me. It's from threadless.com It says on the front "Meat is murder" and then in smaller letters below is"tasty, tasty, murder" I cracked up! Here's a picture from the website:

Steve also got me Dance Dance Revolution, now I can tone up while "bustin a groove" haha!

Oh and keep on the lookout for our wedding announcement in the News Herald (www.thenewsherald.com) Hopefully it will be in this Sunday's paper.

Sleigh bells Ring are you listening

What a fun weekend. We decided to go bowling with our friends to celebrate Joe's upcoming birthday. Once again, team red prevailed, and it felt good to do something on the weekend other than hanging at Snookers (no offense to our friends that are employed there).

Saturday night was the ANNUAL MILLER CHRISTMAS PARTY, complete with "Santa Claus" (Uncle Dave), homemade fudge, and an over abundance of alcohol. I decided pretty early, knowing that the weather was going to turn that I would be the the one to drive us home safely. So I hung out with my sister-in-law (the 1st Sarah Miller) and watched Bewitched and bs'd. I'm glad I didn't have more that one cocktail, because the drive home at 3am was a bit tense. We came home ate our late night Taco Bell fix and went to bed.

Once the snow rage of Saturday into Sunday had calmed a bit, Steve and I thought it would be fun to go sledding. Well no such luck. We forgot the saucer sleds at his parent's the night before, and when we drove past, the kids of our neighborhood had already taken full advantage, and the hill was reduced to slush and mud. Boo! :( So we spent the evening wrapping gifts and watched "Superbad." If you haven't seen this movie I recommend it! The end was a bit campy, but all in all it was pretty hilarious.

Saturday we also met with our wedding photographer to get our proof book and DVD's. Here's one of the pictures:


Once we purchase the negative CD I will have lots more to show.

7 days until Christmas!

Let the craziness of the holidays begin

I know this is my second blog only, but things have been crazy.

Since Steve and I got married almost 3 months ago things couldn't be better. I have only one complaint, American Airlines. We returned from our wonderful honeymoon more than 3 weeks ago and have not seen my luggage since. In my luggage was everyone's Christmas gifts. We are not rich and therefore have had to rebuy things since we've been home to give people for the holiday. I'm really bummed because we spent most of our 2 weeks in Puerto Vallarta looking for that perfect something to get for each of our friends, and family memebers. Not to mention that my ENTIRE summer wardrobe is now MIA, and half of my sisters. Enough complaining about what we've lost. Here's a picture from our trip:


We came back to the cold Michigan weather and I swiftly got a cold from the change in temperature.

Last weekend we went to see our friends in Kalamazoo, AJ & Adam. One weekend a year the Bell's Brewery has an Eccentric Night, you must come dressed as your alter ego or you won't be allowed inside. Of course also on this night they also uptap their Eccentric Brew. Which is about 23% alcohol volume and honestly looks and tastes like hopsy mollasses. In other words, it would get you drunk, but taste like crap. So I took a very small sip of Steve's and made a face and that was my eccentric beer. I did, however, have a few of what they labeled as "Red Nose Brew" and it was pretty tasty. We saw people dressed as so many things, Bob Seger, Tony from Scarface, 8 Nacho Libres, 3 Elvis', King Tritan, and partridge in a pare tree. Ok I'm kidding about the bird, but everything else was there. Many men dressed as either cowboys or women, and a group of people dressed as criminals. Here's a picture:



I registered for Winter Classes this week too. I'll be taking Accounting I, and Marketing 215, oh and required 1 credit class called Prof Career Strategies that takes up 2 of my February Saturdays, and costs me $185. It's required to graduate though so I have to take it. Only 9 more classes until I get my ASS degree, so I'll be transferring by next fall. I've spoken with admissions at UofM Dearborn, and got the ok to transfer there. The only problem is that all of my current credits won't transfer directly so I'll have to go to Wayne County for a semester, and then transfer from there to UofM D so that my current credits stay with me. Pain in the butt, but worth it in the end. I don't want to have to repeat classes.

We have been in straight holiday mode lately, the first Miller Family Tree is up, and we've decorated our balcony with some lights. We couldn't put up my big tree this year though because Steve's hobby has taken over the living room. Dear God, please bring me the real estate listing of my dreams so that Steve's fish tanks don't do this next year!

This weekend we are going bowling with a couple friends, and tomorrow is the Millers' Friends and Family Christmas Shindig. Santa comes and visits all the kids, and the adults pretty much sit in the garage and drink cocktails and talk the night away. Everyone tends to stay the night, except those of us that live locally, and it's just a good time.

So Sleigh Bells are ringing in the Miller household, and I'm off. Got to work sometime today!