day 280: Since Ben and Mark are coming to my parents’ house for Christmas this year and neither of them has ever had a personalized stocking at my parents’ house… I figured it was time for me to get crafty and break out my embroidery needle. I’m not quite finished with them yet but this is what I’ve got so far. Yay for Christmas stockings!

day 279: With the total lack of evening light these days (darn you winter) it’s hard to get inspired to get out and take photos after a long day of work. By the time I step outside it’s usually totally black. Today I happened to step out a bit earlier and caught the very last of the sunset as I was walking to get a coffee. I can’t wait for the days to get longer again!

day 278: This evening Ben and I went to meet up with a bunch of people that I used to work with at my last office. It was their holiday party and afterwards they all went out to a bar in Santa Monica. Little did we know there was a band…

day 277 : I told Allison I’d post a photo of our Christmas tree for her so she could see what it looks like… here you go 🙂 It’s fabulous isn’t it?

day 276: My office has been suffering from total lack of lighting for some time now… which is especially troubling when trying to edit photos at night. The bright glow of an LCD display in a dark room can totally throw off the brightness of your images. Anyhow I finally made it to Ikea (oh how I love that store) and picked up a new lamp to add some brightness to my workspace. It’s oh so lovely!

day 275: I feel quite lame that I’m posting two photos of Rita right after each other, but it happens to be the best photo I took today, and I think (like the other one) that it’s quite funny.
So to make up for the fact that I am posting too many photos of my dog, I’m going to give you some good advice today: go see “Is He Dead?” on Broadway. Bridget’s in it, it’s awesome, and the New York Times agrees.

day 274: Last night we went to the Santa Monica promenade to eat at my favorite restaurant Real Food Daily, where I unwittingly poisoned my friend Paul by feeding him nachos with fake cheese which were made out of cashews. I forgot he was allergic to nuts. Sorry Paul, I feel terrible!! Anyhow, once we left the disastrous dinner we went for a walk down the promenade, which is quite festive for the holidays. Yay for holiday lights!

day 273: This evening after work Ben and I went to an ugly Christmas sweater design party. Everyone brought a sweater and we had piles and piles of felt, hot glue, and googly eyes to make the most ridiculous sweater possible. Ben’s was pretty sweet.

day 272: I get a huge kick out of this photo and if you’ve met Rita you probably know why. She has a habit of staring people down… or rather looking expectantly at you… I think she’s always asking if you’d maybe like to give her a treat. Or if you’d like your feet licked. In any case this is her signature pose. And her scarf says Happy Holidays. I’m quite entertained 🙂

day 271: Ok… the front facing logo was not intentional… sorry if this looks like an ad. Ben and I have been so busy we haven’t actually had that much time to just hang out lately. This evening we went to get coffee and talk about what we’re getting everyone for Christmas (yay!) and I took this photo… and then later realized that the logo was front and center. oops. Like starbucks needs more advertising…