Dear Future Heather,

You do not like throwing New Year's parties. They require a lot of planning and prep and they require that the house get cleaned and then STAYS cleaned. This is a lot of work on your week off. It takes away from your relaxation.

You will drink too much, talk too loud and possibly even get sick. You are definitely going to feel bad on New Year's Day and then you have to go back to work. Ick. Future Heather, you need to take January 2 off too. Plan for that now.

Future Heather you need to know that when you are on vacation you are lethargic. You don't eat right, you don't exercise and you have really poor habits all around. Don't try to act like you do, just try to do one thing better in the future. If you plan on doing all of them, you are oging ot disappoint yourself time and time again. But if you make an effort to talk walks then at least you're being active.

Just some things to think about.

love,

Past Heather

PS to my 2 readers: Have a happy, healthy, joyous new year. I don't make resolutions, so I won't be swearing I'm going to write more or anything but keep in touch!

The comments I have been getting on this emailed picture are torn between how cute the puppy is (we wound up naming him Charlie Bear because he looks like a Teddy Bear) and how cute my HUSBAND is.

I agree with both.

Been having a blast with the puppy, but we're pretty spoiled by his mellowness. He has had few to no house accidents and no "destroy everything" incidents.

Plus, he will acknowledge you (sort of) when you call him. Although he has been prone to taking a message and getting back to us.

And having the puppy has introduced us to The Dog Whisperer on the National Geographic channel. This is me and Pops (my nickname for Scott's dad) new favorite show, but Scott gets burned out in it pretty quick.

If anyone has any tips on easing crate training, I'm open to suggestions...

Our puppy has arrived and we have decided to name him Charlie. As sort of a tribute to my dad, Charles. I asked my mom if she thought he would mind, and she wrote back, "How would we ever know?" His full name is Charlie Biscuit Lee. Mom says that if I had been a boy, I would have been Brian Charles and Dad was going to nickname me BC. She said if we called our boy Biscuit Charlie, he could have the same nickname.

But, I'm digging on calling him Charlie B.

He's always been an outside dog, so bringing him inside has been somewhat confusing for him.

But boy, he is CUTE. I never knew I would be this much of a dog person but he is the newest love of my life!

We're getting a puppy!!

This is not an exact image of our puppy but he is a golden retriever and we'll have him next week.

We called Scott's dad and stepmom to tell them. I said, "You're going to be grandparents -- it's a boy!"

Ooops. They went nuts. Crazy with the yelling and excitement. I couldn't let it drag out and had to yell over them that it was a puppy. They were still pretty happy but not like that.

Wow.

But now we're debating names. Can't decide on one.

Any thoughts from the readers?

Why is it that whenever I cut my hair off my husband suddenly wants me to grow it shoulder length? A style that I have been saying I think I wanted to try but he would not validate.

Why does the world seem so absurd sometimes? I cannot relate to anything or anyone for long periods of time. What's my character's motivation? Why am I interested?

I'm never going to be able to tell you the truth about how I feel about you and it's killing me.

And that sentence is true for so many people in so many different ways.

Here is what I find annoying (I think I've said this before) -- why is it that I can lift weights a couple of times a week and never get any stronger? What is that about?

If I know what's going to happen to you, is it because I'm psychic, a know-it-all, or you just keep making the same dumb-ass mistakes all the time?

And, what is the being right thing about? Why the fuck do I have to be right all the time? That is so obnoxious. If I never solve anything else about my character, I really wish I could fix this. Man, it's disgusting. I don't want to be right all the time. I want you to be right and I really want not to care that I don't get to be right.

I can't believe I am going to have to study to get a D on a test. I mean, I know that's arrogant, but that's because I'm arrogant about this. I always bought in to my own hype that I'm smart. But, if I were smart, I would not have to study hard to get a D. That's not fair.

Travis figured out tonight that Scott and I's "act" is that we sell each other. The thing I sell him on is that he wants to take care of me and nurture me and the thing he sells me on is that he can do all of that and more. We're not always successful selling each other, but I guess it makes a fun show to watch.

I know it's wrong but sometimes I think we like being in love in front of people. Our kind of love. The goofy dysfunctional kind. We like to show it off and see if people think it's as cool as we do.

But there's a lot of expectations that go along with show-offy love and I think sometimes we let each other down.

You can't put on the show all the time.

I think the reason I like to take a week of at Christmas is that I like to pretend it's high school break. Take time to be with my friends and family. Hang out and talk to them. And in these fantasies we're always drinking hot beverages. Usually spiked with rum.

Hmm, I'll have to call HP2 and pass this on as a suggestion...

Oh my freaking God I am almost done with Physics.

Whenever people in my class learn that I am not taking the next class, they always ask why I am not required to take the next level? I explain that I did not even have to take THIS level, but that I am an idiot.

It's perplexing being an idiot in most situations, but in Physics it's a tragicomedy. Especially since the teacher will ask us if we understand and then tell us that of course we do and move on to the next thing.

Why did I take Physics? Because I don't like to cut things up, I am really bad at Chemistry and I think Earth Science is boring.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have chosen to be bored.

But I don't, because I'm leaving and heading for VA Wesleyan in the Spring to work on my grown up degree. Woo hoo!

And next semester I'm not taking anything that could even remotely be mistaken for a lab science. Not even in a dark alley in a bad neighborhood. I'm taking Organizational Psychology and Buddhist Philosophy.

Don't you love the yen/yang of it?? Does Organizational Psych get less zen than Buddhism? It's basically the antithesis of Buddhism, I think. I think it's going to be a good contrast. Plus, this is my first toe dunk in to a 300 level class. Something I believe I am completely unprepared for, but who knows? I may surprise myself.

Then again, I seldom do. :)

Actually, this whole going to grown up school is pretty funny because when you look at me on paper from back in the day (aka my JMU transcript), I really look like a drop-out burner/loser. My GPA worked out to be like 1.5 or something horrific like that. My VWC advisor was praising me on how proud I should be of what I have accomplished in my adult college career. I mean, it just doesn't seem like she should be talking about me.

I was an honor grad, for pity's sake. I took AP classes. Who is this loser with the shit GPA we're talking about? Hard to believe it was me. Hard to believe that I look like that on paper. It just goes to show, I think, that it really doesn't matter what those numbers look like -- they tell nothing of the person behind them. No one who met that girl would have ever believed that she was capable of being like that.

But, she was -- I was. But, I still can't reconcile it.

And this is where it gets a little wrapped up... I think that people who have known me since I was that girl still see that in me. Still see that girl who made those mistakes and who let her life fall in to someone else's hands and gave it away. Someone that it never would have seemed possible. It's hard not to see myself that way sometimes. It's hard to accept that I am a different person now -- a person that I wish that girl could have met and learned from.

Boy, all this rambling ain't gonna cut it at the 300 level... :)