more photos on flickr >>

 

This photo was taken a few weeks ago — me with my younger sister, Angela, at her baby shower in Richmond. She’s having a boy in July.

****************************************************

Although my boyfriend and I have been dating for over six months, it wasn’t until recently that I came to the following realization:

Before I was born and my parents decided to go with a different name, my mom referred to me as Rachel Lenore.

My boyfriend’s last two long-term relationships were with women named Rachael…and Leanor.

****************************************************

I’ve had a bump on my lip for about five months. It never hurts or changes shape, but it’s also never gone away. I went to a dermatologist recently and he said it’s a blocked salivary gland. He also recommended leaving it as-is unless there’s a noticeable change or starts to hurt, which it currently does not — the other option would be to cut it out and stitch up my lip, which would be quite a bit more noticeable.

It actually looks worse in this close-up photo than it does in real life (I’m linking to it rather than posting it here because I don’t want a big ‘ol picture of my lips on the screen). I’ve never had anyone ask about it or point it out (other than my dentist during a routine cleaning a few months ago). I’m hoping it goes away on its own.

****************************************************

This photo was taken in an elevator in Vienna, Austria. I found it while looking through some old photos recently — it was taken a year ago this month when I was on a two-week trip to Europe. I like to call it: “Zan is Wearing Sunglasses on an Elevator.”

****************************************************

Last weekend, I was told by a male friend that my home decorating style reminds him of how a man would decorate. He meant it as a compliment to my minimalist tendencies and I took it that way.

****************************************************

Two friends from Richmond came to visit me in DC last Saturday. I’ve known Chris for almost 13 years and Teresa just about as long. We drove a few places (and walked others), and they complimented me more than once on my awesome parallel parking skills. (I rarely had to parallel park when I lived in Richmond so I couldn’t give them any crap about their lack of talent in this area.)

This is Chris checking out mirrors at Eastern Market (he ended up buying three of them in different colors to put on a wall in his house).

****************************************************

This weekend: Attending a Nationals game tonight, going to a wedding tomorrow in Fredericksburg VA, and then a friend’s cookout on Sunday.

1. Due to the DC area’s multiple snow events in the past week, I’ve been working from home since last Friday. The Metro is back open today, but there are longer-than-usual waits for trains and they’re traveling at slower speeds. Instead of wasting a bunch of time commuting, I stayed home again (it was fine with management — only a few people were asked to go in today if they were involved in meetings, which I wasn’t).

2. I’m looking forward to making a big, productive trip to the grocery store. My car is still covered with snow, but at some point soon I should attempt to dig it out. It’s amazing how one person can deplete most of the supplies from their kitchen when they’re eating all their meals at home for a week (except for that one time when I fought my way through the snow to get sushi for lunch).

3. I’ve done a lot of reading this week — I finished two books and started two others. Before this month, the last book I finished was in November (I started a few books in December and January but could never get into them enough to read them all the way through). Luckily I picked up a few books from the library the day before the first snowstorm hit last week, so I’ve been working my way through those.

4. A few weeks ago I drove down to Richmond to hang out with my sisters. This photo was taken of us while I was there and I’ve been using it as the wallpaper on my phone ever since. I love these ladies.

(Elissa, Angela, me)

As you may have noticed, I haven’t done a Random Friday post in a number of weeks. I’m still jotting things down during the week like I used to, but when I go back to the list later to see which of those things I want to write about — recently, for some reason, I’ve been looking at what I wrote and deciding not to bother with the post. But look! I’m writing today.

A few things have happened in the last few weeks:

* My friend Janet from Slice of Pink came for a visit to DC. She was here for an entire weekend, but I only got to see her for about 3-4 hours on the first night she arrived because our schedules didn’t coincide the rest of the time. Still, it was wonderful catching up with her. We used to live in the same town during the year I lived in southern California, and I also got to see her at BlogHer ’08 in San Francisco. She’s one of the most delightful people I know (seriously, I used the word “delightful” to describe her to my sister last week, and I don’t think I’ve ever used that word to describe anyone before).

* I went to Atlanta for two days to attend a company training/networking event. Well, I tell everyone that I went to Atlanta, but actually the training took place at a hotel that was less than a mile from the airport. So that’s not technically Atlanta. I’ll have to go to the actual city some other time to see if I like it or not. As a team-building exercise while we were there, we assembled bicycles to give away to a charity. That was something I’d never done before, so it was a pretty cool experience.

* I went to Richmond and got drunk with my mom. Isn’t she cute? While I was there that weekend, my nephew made me watch two scary movies (which I strongly disliked), and I also saw the last hour or so of Marley & Me (and I did NOT cry at the end when the dog was put to sleep. I guess this proves my hard-heartedness). I also received — and answered — a very unexpected phone call that weekend, but that’s a long, non-bloggable story.

* One of the things I did for Halloween Festivities last weekend was to hang out with my friend Andrea (a former co-worker) and some of her friends at Capitol Lounge on Capitol Hill. As we were walking to the bar, we passed Sasha and Malia Obama trick-or-treating with a group of adults (but no, not their parents). This pic was taken at the bar — as the photographer aimed the camera (my phone) at us, I tried to pull down Andrea’s low-cut shirt. She caught me just as the pic was taken – hence the smiles.

* I’m excited about tonight because two of my good friends from Richmond, Chris and Teresa, are driving up to see me. I’m taking them out in Old Town Alexandria tonight, and when we get home I think I’ll make both of them pile up with me in my double bed so we can have a good ‘ol slumber party. Or something like that. Tomorrow? They’ve never been to Georgetown, so I think we’ll head out there and see the sights.

This pic was taken of the three of us back in May, when I was in Richmond. We must take new, just-as-cute photos this weekend!