Author: Lauren

I'm Lauren and this is my life.

Weekend Things & Gingerbread Reindeer

Lauren2 Comments

Ugh, Monday already?  More perfectly snowy and cozy weekend time, please!  We seriously had zero plans this weekend and instead of being all “must schedule in every second of Friday-Sunday!” we decided to just play it all by ear.  Also, there was a 45% chance of snow on Saturday and I was holding out for a good cookie baking and Christmas movie watching day.

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This came in the mail late Thursday and was waiting in my office Friday morning.  It smells magical and I was feeling glad to be running late to work because it meant I had packed oatmeal for desk breakfast and could pour some of the vanilla right in.  In other words, Friday was off to a good start!

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I had some library books to pick up after work and dragged Joey with me.  All the employees seemed extra friendly and gosh, the library just makes me happy.  Checked out The Paying Guests and The Truth According to Us, in case you were curious.  Then… brewery dinner!  This place was good enough.  We liked the space, the atmosphere and the beer but the pizza was just okay.

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I assumed it wasn’t actually going to snow when I woke up to a dry sky (is that a thing?…) but we decided to cozy up with pancakes and The Santa Clause anyway.  Please note that the scene pictured above is when Tim Allen says “You want me to take the toys down the chimney into a strange house, IN MY UNDERWEAR?”  I’ve maybe seen that movie too many times.  Read More »

The Holiday Season & My Obsession with Tradition

Lauren12 Comments

When my sister’s boyfriend came to watch us cross the finish line of our half marathon, my mom warned him that “now that you’ve done this once, Lauren will consider it tradition and expect you to be at the finish line every year.”  Ha, I’ll be damned if that isn’t a frighteningly accurate summation of my life.

Look, I’m well aware that once I do something and love the outcome, I’m hell bent on repeating it year after year.  You know, to recreate the same level of predictable happiness that I attained the time before.  And there is no time that I’m more determined to be repetitive than during the holidays.  I can’t help it, it’s such a special time of the year and I’m deathly afraid of changing things up, for fear of disrupting my own vision of how things should be.  Plus the holidays totally cater to tradition, making it just that much easier to convince myself that things MUST be the same way they were last year.

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But the thing is, and I’m just sloooowly realizing it, is that things DON’T have to be the same to be good and changing things up just creates opportunity for NEW good experiences.  Take Thanksgiving for instance.  Every year, we run a Turkey Trot.  This year, we didn’t.  And can I tell you what a HUGE RELIEF it was to just have a calm relaxing morning at home, drinking coffee and watching the Macy’s Day Parade?  It’s like these holiday traditions are so ingrained in my head that I don’t even ask myself if I even really want to do them or not.

So even though I’m still hell bent on taking advantage of every single holiday moment, this year I’m really going to keep in mind that things do not need to be pre-determined.  Spur of the moment decisions are fun.  Changing it up is exciting.  And even if I end up missing some holiday tradition, there’s ALWAYS next year and the year after that and the year after that!

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Are you a creature of habit, especially this time of year?

Are there any holiday traditions you CAN’T go without?