I resolve not to resolve.

Wow, I can't believe a whole year has passed me by again. I can't recall what my New Year's resolution was last year so I can't tell you if I kept it or not. *Sigh* My memory is fading. My daddy told me this would happen. Bah!

Well, Christmas was really nice, really nice. We spent Thursday with boyfriend's extended family (aunts, uncles, and cousins), there are about 30+ of them. The food was absolutely yummy. The menu was a typical Italian menu, I'm told ... Lasagna, Pizza, Stuffed Artichokes, and various dessert and treats. Oh and I must not forget, Bloody Mary's (and let me just tell you, these people make GREAT bloody mary's). It was very, very entertaining to say the least. Really, his family really is great. And they are so cute about how they exchange gifts. First of all, Mimi and Pawpaw (that's the grandparents for you Yankee readers) take a seat in the corner of room so that everything in the room is visible to them. It's almost like a scene from The Godfather, sort of like they are on thrones. Then, all of the little ones gather in the center of the family room. All of their gifts are passed out to them and are accumulated in piles in front of them. At this point they all have to wait to open gifts one at a time. The youngest child opens everything in their pile, and so on and so forth up to the oldest child. What's so amazing is that they actually wait! This would never happen with my family, I'll explain that later. Then when all of the children are done opening gifts they all gather up their loot and go upstairs to play with everything. Then the adults follow the same process. It's all very organized and makes for great photo opportunities. Simply a blast!

Friday, boyfriend and I got up at the butt-crack of dawn to drive to Louisiana where my family lives and we still didn't get there until 11 am. Then boyfriend had to meet a customer an hour further into peaux-dunk country to complete a car sale. Poor thing had to actually work on Christmas Eve, my sweet work-a-holic. Anyway, so we finally get everyone home and ready to exchange gifts around 2 or 3 and the chaos begins. Thank goodness, my family's Christmas is much smaller (about 15 people). Everyone gathers in the family room and picks a spot. My baby sis (she's only 10) and myself proceed to pass out all the gifts and create piles for everyone. When everything is passed out and the bottom of the tree is bare, everyone just sort of tears into their gifts. The best thing about this is that it's all over in about 30 minutes as opposed to boyfriend's family's 3-hour gift exchange. Not that I'm knocking the way they do it, I just like to get it all over with so we can eat and relax. Our Christmas meal was Shrimp Victoria, a typical Cajun dish. Yummy, yummy, yummy!

So boyfriend and I start driving back home that night and just as we get back into town, IT STARTS TO SNOW, and really hard! It would have been great except that Houston never gets snow; therefore, no one here knows how to drive in weather like that. Typically, once you hit the outskirts of Houston, it takes about 30-45 minutes to get to our house. However, when it snows, it takes 1-1 1/2 hours to get to our house. Why? ... You ask; because there were 4 major (by major, I mean 4-8 cars involved) accidents in a 20-mile stretch of freeway. That comes to 1 major accident every 5 miles. Needless to say, by the time we made it home, I had literally said about 50 small prayers and was extremely thankful to have made it home in one piece.

Saturday, Christmas Day, again we get up at the butt-crack of dawn to head to North Houston to spend the day with boyfriend's immediate family. Finally, a relaxing day. The food was again yummy! The gifts were all perfect. Everyone is happy. I thoroughly enjoyed Christmas this year. I got to spend time with my whole family, my wonderful boyfriend, and his beautiful family. I ate way too much and loved every second of it!Now, it's about to be 2005. I'm thinking about all the lessons I've learned this year, and trust me, there are many. In no particular order ...

Once trust is broken, it's extremely hard to get it back. But if you work really hard on it, you can.

Family and loved ones come first, because they aren't always going to be right in front of you.

Beware of whom you trust with secrets. Not everyone knows what it means to keep a secret.

Just because someone says they are your friend, or that they love you, doesn't mean it's true. People often say what they think you want to hear, not necessarily what is true.

True friends support you and are consistently there for you when you need them most even if you don't take their advice.

It's ok not to go out and party every night of the weekend. You aren't missing anything that you haven't already seen.

If you feel in your gut that something sounds shady, it probably is. Trust your instincts. God put them there for a reason.

Past loves are "past" for a reason. Let them go and don't look back. Focus on what's right in front of you.

Don't stop being friends with someone to please someone else's insecurity. True friends are hard to come by, don't let one go to waste.

You can find a true friend in the most unlikely place if you just open yourself up.

Patience is the key to life.


I'm sure I will think of more, but those are the one's that come to mind right now.

We're planning to have a fabulous New Year's Eve celebration this year. I bought my gown a few weeks ago when I did my Christmas shopping and it's gorgeous. It was a size 2, but I had to have it altered. Apparently a 2 is still too big for me, sucks to be me (just kidding). With all the visits to the gym that I've been making, I've lost an
inch off my bottom in less than a month. Hmm, imagine that, boyfriend was right
about something ... working out does pay off. HA! And to top it off, I noticed I've finally got those sexy bottom row of ab muscles right below the hip bone that make you squirm. A huge "thank you" to my work-out buddy. You've been great honey!

Well, I think this entry is long enough. I hope you all have a very happy and safe New Year's Eve celebration. See you next year! Smooches & hugs all around!

Alluding to Avril: "Nobody's Home"

I couldn't tell you why she felt that way,
She felt it everyday.
And I couldn't help her,
I just watched her make the same mistakes again.

What's wrong, what's wrong now?
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

Open your eyes and look outside, find a reasons why.
You've been rejected, and now you can't find what you left behind.
Be strong, be strong now.
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

Her feelings she hides.
Her dreams she can't find.
She's losing her mind.
She's fallen behind.
She can't find her place.
She's losing her faith.
She's fallen from grace.
She's all over the place.
Yeah,oh

She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

She's lost inside, lost inside...oh oh yeah
She's lost inside, lost inside...oh oh yeah

Looking for a good home ...

Not me. Ha! My neighbor keeps finding dogs downtown and rescues them from being hit on the busy streets around our house. She found this dog and needs to find it a good home. Her desciption of the dog is this: "She is very sweet. The vet said she is in good health. I really want to keep her, but we can't. She and our dog Pilot play so well together and she is totally house broken. I am getting way to attached, so I need to find her a home ASAP! Let me know if you find someone interested. She weighs 32 lbs to be exact, so pretty reasonable size." So if you live in town and would like to adopt a free dog or know someone who might be interested, please feel free to forward the link to them. Email me and I'll send you my neighbor's contact information.

No big plans this weekend. We're having a house guest who will no doubt try to convince me to go out. My only goals this weekend are to get my Christmas shopping completed and to work on Reagan's Closet, of course.

One more thing, I'm impresed with myself. I've worked out really hard for the past 4 days straight. At first I was so sore, I couldn't move any part of my body without wincing in agony. But not so much today. I'm going to try to work out this weekend, at least on Sunday. There is a Pilates class that I want to go to. But, I'm still not addicted to the gym by any means. So, whoever said, "Oh once you start going regularly, you'll get addicted," is full of crap. In fact, my gym buddy all but had to twist my arm to get me in there yesterday because I was so tired. And then it took us 2 hours to get through all the machines we usually do. Maybe when I start seeing some results, or at least that's what I'm being told now.

That's all for now. Have a great weekend.

It's good to be Carlos Beltran.

Whoa! "According to a Houston television report, the Astros have offered Beltran a five-year deal worth $70 million to stay an Astro." ... The New York Post. That's a lot of freakin money. But I guess you have to pay the big bucks to keep the great players on the team. That comes to $14 million a year. How do you even begin to spend that kind of money? What a lucky guy.

Now on to one of my biggest pet peeves. I work for a commercial real estate firm that specializes in apartment properties. In other words, we list and sell whole apartment properties. In order to sell those properties, we have to create marketing packages that show what the property makes from rents, and also what their immediate/area competitors are making, which will then show what the subject/listed property has the potential to make if they are below market. It's all pretty logical stuff.

My job in all of this is to do some of the research. I have to call the competitors of a particular property and convince them to give me their correct current rents and specials. Not as easy as you would think. Most apartment communities are paranoid and don't want their competitors to know what their specials are for obvious reasons ... If the competitors know what my specials are, they could match or beat those specials and potentially steal my leases. So, you have to lie to them to get information from them. My story is that I work for a real estate firm that is trying to send them my clients (potential leasing clients) and I have to update my files so that the customer has the correct information (only partially a lie). Of course, they want you to send them leads so they are more than happy to give you the correct information, for the most part.

Most of these properties have anywhere from 3-20 different floor plans that all have different prices. I'm not a stupid woman. I understand, because I used to be a leasing agent for an apartment community, that they are pretty busy most of the time. For this reason, I always ask them to just fax over a pricelist with their specials listed and they are off the phone in less than a minute and I have the information I need. Sometimes, I get, "I don't have a hard copy of a pricelist." Now, I consider this pure laziness. Have you ever heard of that new invention, it's called a computer and it's located in every freakin office in the free world and almost always comes with a software program called Microsoft Word. You could use that to create a pricelist, because I know damn well I'm not the first person to call you and ask you for a pricelist. Again, I know this because I used to be a leasing agent. The alternative is that you spend the next 5 minutes on the phone, going through your 20 floor plans to give me the prices for each one, all between calls and people walking into your office with more important tasks for you to complete. Yuck. No one wants to spend that much time on the phone with one person when they've got 5 other lines ringing at the same time, like me.

Another thing they do that bugs the crap out of me, and this only happens with properties that have 20 different floor plans, is this ...

"Hi, my name is Reagan. I work for so-and-so. We're a real estate firm in Houston. I need to update my files real quick with your current rents and specials so that I can send some clients over to you. I see that you have several different floor plans. Do you have a pricelist available that you can just fax over to me?"

"No, I don't." Of course not, because you're lazy.

"Ok, well can you tell me by square footage what each of your floorplans are priced at?"

"Sure, go ahead." You lazy freakin bastard.

"No, I need you to tell me what your prices are!"

"Why don't you go through them and I'll tell you if your list is correct." Because I don't feel like going through your 20 floor plans just so you can repeat the correct information back to me. You do it, and then only one of us has to talk.

Makes sense to me, but apparently that's just incomprehensible to some people. Double-Yuck!

Site updates.

I've made some updates to the menu to the right.

I added Chaos to the list of online diaries that I read. I've been reading her entries for a couple of weeks. She makes me laugh, especially this entry. Get ready to laugh your butt off when you read it.

I also added a list of my favorite songs and musicians. "At Last" will most likely stay on that list forever. The other songs, I will try to keep listed so that the most current ones are at the beginning. I put the artists on there because I love all of their music and I couldn't pick any favorite song from any of them. Some of the artists haven't put anything new out in a long time, but I don't care. I love them anyway and always will.

Anyway, not much else to write about. Oh yea, ... Visit Reagan's Closet!

No thank you, I'm not interested.

I was watching Rebel Billionaire last night. This dorky guy, Steve, was biding for another contestant, Jessica's, affections. While, I haven't really kept up with this one very well (I've only caught one other episode), from what I gather, Steve was into Jessica and was making his feelings for her very obvious. While Jessica was spending time with Steve, she didn't seem to be returning his feelings or reciprocating with any physical affection. Basically, she was enjoying their friendship but didn't see it as anything more than that; however, he clearly wanted her to be "his girl". Now, this is a typical situation that occurs all the time all over the place. But, it gets juicier, of course (it wouldn't be reality TV if it didn't). One of the other, more attractive male contestants, Michael, begins to openly, but casually flirt with Jessica. Steve unmistakably, to everyone else as well, begins to show blatant signs of jealousy while he sits in the corner with his pouty face on. Eventually, during dinner, Jessica gets up to go to the restroom and Steve follows her, like some sort of crazed stalker boyfriend, into the ladies room ... YES I SAID INTO. Of course the cameras didn't follow them in, but stood outside the restroom door recording the conversation. At which point, Steve hostilely confronted Jessica and basically threatened her. In fact his exact words were, "I can make you look very bad." Of course, the next day, he attempts a pathetic apology and explanation. When Jessica asked him how he could speak to someone he likes that way, repeating his words, above, Steve ends the conversation with, "I can't talk to you about this anymore, especially if you are going to start making things up." HA! Did he really think the cameras wouldn't continue to roll while they were in there? He then proceeds to profess his eagerness (on camera in an interview) to "get rid of Jessica." The nerve!

Now, this only really hits a nerve with me because a similar (but on a smaller scale) circumstance happens to me when I go out clubbing. In fact, this is the main reason I just don't go out anymore.

For instance, boyfriend and I went out Saturday night to one of my least favorite but most popular bars in town, Copa Room. I loved this bar when it first opened, mostly because of the convenience factor since it is right next door to another club that I used to frequent but now hate as well, Red Door. The only reason I loathe these two bars now is because anytime you (I'm sure this only pertains to females, since I can't imagine a lady acting this way and even if she did, I can't imagine a man alive that would be opposed to it) walk into either of these places, A) the second you step foot inside you are immediately mentally undressed by every male in there (at which point, at least half of those men make it a point to crassly flirt - and by flirt I mean insist that you talk to them) and there are usually 10 guys for every girl; and B) it's always so slam packed that you can't walk though the club without being continuously squished and groped (God forbid you have to use the restroom, it'll take you 30-45 minutes just to get through the crowd and back, and don't even think about ordering a martini otherwise, you will be wearing it within seconds).

Sorry, I'm digressing. Anyway, so we're at Copa on Saturday night (I almost forgot, we had been fighting the crowd at Red Door for about an hour and a half prior so I was already annoyed) and on two separate instances, I literally got yelled at by two different guys for simply saying "No thanks, I'm not interested", when I was asked what my name was. "No thanks, I'm not interested", has always worked in the past. They usually finally look around and see that boyfriend is standing right next to me or simply get the hint (that I'm there with someone) and walk away without making a scene. On occasion though, some guys (I'm assuming) are just too intoxicated and get extremely offended that I have politely turned down their advances. Dude, at least I was nice about it! I have girlfriends who are totally (and now understandably) bitches about it. I understand that it's hard enough to approach people of the opposite sex that you don't know in the hopes of striking up a conversation, (although, let's be real, no guy in a bar is just hoping for conversation; they're trying to hook-up, DUH!) so I've always tried to be as polite as possible about it. Just because, I'm "Sweet Reagan". ;)

One of the guys even started a whole drawn out argument about it. "Hi, what's your name?"

"No, thanks. I'm not interested," as I turn back to my friend who I was in the middle of a conversation with.

"Why do you have to be such a rude bitch?"

"Pardon me?" I was truly surprised by this question.

"You don't have to be such a bitch!"

"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude. I'm here with my boyfriend, he'll be right back." Again, I turn back to my friend thinking that was definitely polite (since I apologized even though I was just called a bitch) and did the trick.

Nay, as he staggers a step back while spilling his already half-empty drink on his shirt, "That's fine but try not to be such a bitch. (Yelling now) YOU KNOW, IT WOULDN'T EVEN BE SO BAD IF YOU WERE AT LEAST HOT!" Then he finally walks away as both my friend and I are left standing there with our mouths wide open in surprise by this disgusting display of the rejected male species. Oh and everyone within earshot was staring at us. How embarrassing and what a freakin’ jerk!

Was I really being a rude bitch? Was I supposed to be somehow grateful that this slurring ass asked me for my name? I don't think I'm "hot" by any means, but that was just so ugly and unnecessary. If my usual response is considered rude, then what exactly is a polite response? At any rate, I insisted boyfriend take me home after that one. And I vow never to step foot in either of those bars again, unless of course I too am so completely bombed out of my mind that the crowd and blundering idiot men don't affect my fun.