Archive for September, 2008

Taking a break from work…..

{ September 30, 2008 @ 7:49 pm } · { baseball, birthday, weekend }
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Hello, readers!  I haven’t been giving you guys much to work with lately.  I struggle a lot with trying to find interesting stuff to write about.  Sadly, my everyday life just is not exciting enough to really write home about.

I had a great weekend.  My dad and step-mom came to visit me.  Last week was a flurry of cleaning my house (yes, I am somewhat of a slob, internets), paining my house, and food gathering.  We had a really nice time together.  We went to see the Sox play on Saturday night.  I had hoped that would be the night they clinched it for the post season, but HA!  Um, no.  But we had a really good time.  Being at those games just makes me feel so purely happy, and I could never really explain why.  I just get so excited and I love to see their opening video and hear “Thunderstruck”.  Really gets my blood pumping, and puts a smile on my face.

So I REALLY hope my boys can pull off a big win tonight and keep going. 

Today is B’s birthday.  33.  Not a baby anymore.  I baked him a carrot cake.  I don’t really even like carrot cake, or any kind of spice cake, but it is his favorite.  So I gave it a go.  Hopefully it tastes good.  And I slathered enough delicious cream cheese frosting on top of it, so I may even be able to tolerate a piece myself.

As an aside, seriously, have you guys checked out Pioneer Woman??  If you haven’t, you definitely should.  She makes some delicious and easy food.  And has beautiful photography.  But if are on some type of low cal/fat diet?  Then yeah, maybe you don’t go look. 

I am seriously addicted to food blogs lately.  I can’t tell you how many of them I have in my Reader.  And trust me, it is a nasty little habit.  I look at pictures of fantastic looking food all day long.  Not helping me lose weight, that is for sure. 

Anyway, B’s birthday.  So tonight I’m going up to B’s house and taking him out to dinner.  A rare weekday get together for us.  Last night I spent a good hour and half wrapping up his gifts perfectly.  That’s when you know you have too much time on your hands – when you can spend that much time devoted to wrapping and ribbons.  I can’t help it – I always like my wrapping to look beautiful, even though it is a complete waste.  I blame it in part on the Container Store for having such lovely giftwrap.

I just realized how truly riveting this post must be.  Sorry, I’ll try to be more interesting.

Anyway, you want to know what I’ve been enjoying lately about blogging?  The true diversity of people who read a given blog.  Sometimes I get a comment from a new reader, and when I do, I always go check out their blog.  And I’ve had a number of them lately that are from places halfway around the globe, from people whose lives are so totally different from mine.  I just love that they can find something to relate to in my writing, and me in theirs.  I guess parts of the human experience is global, and it is easy to forget that sometimes. 

Ok, I better get back to work.

Why is coming up with a title so hard?

{ September 26, 2008 @ 6:12 pm } · { dating, family, life, relationships }
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Hey Guys!  I haven’t posted in a while.  Just been a busy week, I guess.  My dad and step-mom are coming to visit for the weekend, so I have been a lot of prep work.  Which basically just means cleaning.  I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit of a slob.  Not in a dirty way, but on any given day I may have most of the contents of my closet strewn across my room, and I have a ginormous pile of shoes that never goes away.  I just don’t have anywhere to put them.  And how many pairs of them are in my regular rotation?  Oh, about 5, probably. 

Also I decided that my house wasn’t enough of a mess already, so I decided to paint my bedroom (a task I have been meaning to accomplish since March).  So yeah, that was fun.

Anyway, thank you for all the comments on my last post.  They were all well thought out, and I thought there was good stuff in all of them.

Ultimately, I was just having a moment of insecurity.  Which, God knows I do from time to time.  I did talk to B about it when I saw him over the weekend.  Told him that sometimes I think he would never want to give up the bachelor life.  He said basically, no.  He enjoys his life right now, but he also wants other things.  The priorities he has right now will not always be his priorities.   

Also, as much as he enjoys his single man life, I don’t think it would be the same if he didn’t have me in his life.  He has been a single boy since the beginning of time, and there is a reason why he wanted to find someone.  All the baseball/football (I am SERIOUSLY regretting the start of football season) games in the world do not add up to more than having love in your life.  (I know all you men out there are shaking your heads right now, saying “huh?  What in the world is she talking about?).  In any case, I, like most women before me, am not going to force poor B to choose between me and his sports.  That would be silly.  I just always want to feel confident that I am a priority for him. 

Anyway, just to clarify, I never meant that I am anxious to get married now.  B and I are not at the point where it is either fish or cut bait.  Of course, I wouldn’t (and I assume he wouldn’t) bother to keep on dating if I didn’t think we had a future together.  But I’ve never been bothered by the pace of our relationship, and if anything, I’ve been the one wanting to take things slow.  I just wanted to make sure that he considers it a possibility.

Oh, and for those of you who asked, B and I have been dating for about, er…..18 months.  But we got off to a pretty slow start, because we only see each other on weekends, and I wasn’t completely sold at the beginning.

So anway, I cleared up my issues, and except for a little tantrum I threw when I realized that no, we weren’t going to get to play golf like I wanted (and we had discussed) because the Bears kicked off at noon.  Silly me.  I had totally forgotten about football and the havoc it wreaks on our Sundays.  Which isn’t a big deal, except that Sunday happens to be the only real day we get to spend together, and I hate football.  But I managed to ease the pain with some retail therapy while he watched the game.

I’m looking forward to this visit with my dad and stepmom.  It has been two years since they have been here to visit me.  We have tickets to the Sox game (and don’t even get me started on how I feel about the Sox right now, after they TOTALLY blew it in Minnesota), so that should be a good time.  And I’m happy that B and my parents get to spend some more time together.  I like it when they get to hang out together and B can see how great my parents are and why I love them so much, and vice versa.  And we are having such wonderful indian summer weather here lately, so I love to be outside soaking up what is left it.

Have a great weekend!

Trying to figure out my head

{ September 15, 2008 @ 9:24 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I just talked to B last night and it killed my good weekend buzz.

I’m not even sure why, really. 

I’m sort of writing this post as a way to sort it out in my mind and figure out why it bothered me. 

He has such a busy life – always has things to do, friends to be with.  He had friends over for the football game today (as he will pretty much every Sunday as long as the season lasts, then went to a Cubs game with his mom.  He’s going to Cubs games tonight and Wednesday night.  Talking about his plans irritated me.  But there is nothing wrong with any of it.   And I know I’m a priority for him.  The time that he spends doing this other stuff doesn’t take anything away from me…..it is all during time when I wouldn’t see him anyway. So why does it bother me? 

Because my life is not as fun?  Because he doesn’t really need me in his life?

He has a great bachelor life.  He gets to go to sporting events to his little heart’s content (and he does A LOT).  If he wants to spend $1000 to take his mom and brother to a game, he has no one to answer to or ask permission.  He can go out to happy hour with the guys (and girls) from work as often as he wants (and he usually does at least a couple of times a week).  He doesn’t have anyone waiting at home, pissed off because he is gone yet again.  He can golf as much as he wants.  He can do basically anything he wants with his time and money.  His married friends envy him.

So why would he ever want to change that?  Why give that up?  Right now he has the best of both worlds.  He can do whatever he wants, and then once a week I come over, and I’m always here when he needs me (or so I like to think). 

I also talked to him about how all of my friends/friends’ parents asking about our relationship and talking about marriage……and he didn’t really say anything in response. He told me when Ben (his best friend) talks to him about that stuff, he tells him to go f*ck himself.  I’m about 98% sure he was kidding, but it made me the tiniest bit nervous that he isn’t totally serious about me.  I’ve never worried about that before.  I don’t need to get married this minute, and I’m surely not trying to push him into it, but I need to know that it is a definite possibility.   I always assume that he sees our future in the same way I do, but what if he wants to continue our current situation indefinitely?

So I guess I just need to talk to him about how he sees our future together.  But I’ve seen a lot of girls push a guy into marriage/family more quickly than they were ready for, and I definitely don’t want to do that.  If/when that time comes for us, I want to know and I want him to know that it is definitely what he wants and that it isn’t just to appease me. 

See, now I have this crap on the brain thanks to my friends and their questions!!  Damn you, peer pressure!

Easy like Sunday morning…

{ September 15, 2008 @ 4:01 am } · { babies, baseball, boobs, friends, indoor sports, love, sex }
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Oh, it is Sunday evening again.  I’m just here at home, trying to soak up the last little bit of the weekend. 

I’ve had a nice weekend.  Got to see my girlfriends, got to see my B.  What more could a girl ask for?

Friday evening I went up to B’s and spent the night.  We didn’tdo much – I’m always tired on Friday nights.  But we went out for some Mexican food (my favorite) and then went back home and just hung out.  B was feeling kind of…..well…randy.  We tried some new things.  Not necessarily all things that I would be dying to do again, but it was nice to have a break from the usual.  Then we just fell asleep and went to breakfast in the morning. 

Then I drove to my hometown (about 2.24 hours) to spend some time with my girls.  Last night I went together with one of my girlfriends, and then the two of us headed over to our friend Susie’s parent’s house.  Susie and her husband and two little girls were hanging out at her parent’s house, and they wanted us to come over and visit.  It was really nice.  I really love all of my friend’s parents (keeping in mind that I’ve known all of these girls for about 15 years), and I rarely get to see them.  We all stayed up until about 2:00 in the morning just chatting away. 

Today we went party hopping.  To two birthday parties.  For one-year olds.  So yeah, exciting stuff.  But with my girlfriends, it never really matters what the activity is – we always have so much fun in each others’ company.  So despite the deafening noise of all the small children in attendance at the parties, it was a good day.  I got to hold some babies, give some adorable baby gifts, eat some cake, and spend time with friends. 

And oh, being around all these babies did not help my baby fever.  I just love their sweet little faces and I do really so look forward to being a mother, when the time is right for me.  I try not to get anxious about it, because I know it will happen eventually, but is was easier to ignore before my age started with a 3. 

Anway, I got a LOT of questions this weekend about my relationship with B.  “How is it going?  Is it serious?  Is it good?  Just good, or is it great?  Really great?  Are you in love?  If he proposed to you right now, would you be happy?  Would you be happy and just say yes?  Or would you be REALLY happy and cry and say YES!  YES!! …….”   So on and so forth.  Ad nauseum.  That kind of talk always embarasses me.  I just don’t talk like that.  It just isn’t my style.  B knows how I feel about him and I have no trouble telling him, but I’m just not a gusher.  So my face always turns red and I feel like I’m in 6th grade when my grandparents asked me about my first “boyfriend”.  Silly, I know.  But I’m just private that way. 

Cut me some slack, I come from a broken home.

While I was driving back home today, some dude on the interstate was checking me out.  You know how you can tell that another car is trying to stay even with you?  Well, he was doing that, and I looked over and he waved at me.  Then he stayed about even with me for the next 10 miles, and when he went to exit, I looked over and he blew me a kiss.  I just laughed.  Totally stupid, I know, but hey, I don’t get that much attention, so I found it amusing.  I think he liked the way my seatbelt cuts right into the middle of my boobage, thereby accenting my already too large chest.  Trust me, it’s totally hot. 

Oh, and my Sox pulled it out of their asses to win tonight, after totally blowing it in the 8th inning.  So yay!  We need all the wins we can get at this point to stay ahead of the division.

Ok, time to prepare myself for yet another week of work.  *Sigh*

We are family

{ September 9, 2008 @ 3:37 am } · { family, moving in }
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Over the weekend B and I went to visit my dad and stepmom.  They live about 5 hours away from me, and B had never been with me to visit them.  In fact, the only time B has met my dad at all was at my birthday party.  So I was looking forward to us going.

It went really well.  We had a really good time.  It was nice and easy.  My dad is really easy-going, as is B, so they got along well.  And they kept us pretty busy all weekend.  We lost some money at the horse races.  We went golfing, which was a first for me.  My dad bought me a set of clubs last summer, and I’ve been to the driving range a few times, with fairly limited success.  But it was pretty fun actually playing.  Except for about 4 holes in the middle where I got all 9s.  I was pretty aggravated at that point. 

On Saturday night, my step-brother, who is 24, took us all out to their city’s downtown area and we went bar-hopping.  First he took us to an upscale mexican restaurant/bar for mojitos.  I had strawberry.  Yum!  Then we went to a belgian-themed bar, for beer.  I can’t stand beer, but B has this fantasy of turning me into a beer-drinking, football-watching kind of girl (not going to happen), so he and my step-brother found a peach beer for me to drink.  Truthfully, it wasn’t bad.  I actually kind of liked it, but don’t tell B.  After that we went to a blues bar with a live band.  A great way to cap off the evening. 

My dad tried to talk to B a lot about his dad.   I appreciated that, because I think a lot of people would have skirted the subject, given that it hasn’t been even a month since his dad passed away.  And I think B was happy to talk about him.

I was just happy to have my two favorite men in the same place for a few days.  And of course, my stepmom and brother. 

Kara asked me if B and I have discussed moving in together any more.  We haven’t.  We sort of tabled that discussion, because it just isn’t very practical right now.  My job is down here, his is up there.  Also, his place isn’t big enough for the both of us, so he would need to sell his place and find a bigger one.  So we have a few details to work out before that can happen.  I don’t know, maybe we are doing it backwards.  Maybe we need to make the moving in together the top priority and work everything else out from there, I don’t know.  I’m not sure if we are supposed to wait for the time to be right or make the time right. 

It’s just weird because I’ve been so independent for so long.  And B too.  In some sense, I think it is easier to move in/get married when you are younger.  None of my girlfriends ever lived on their own.  Not that I think that is better, necessarily, just maybe an easier transition, when you are just getting out of college and are used to moving every year and having roommates.  Not that I wouldn’t love to live with B, its just that I’m so used to being selfish and doing what is easiest/best for me.  So when I think about moving up there while I have my current job and signing myself up for an hour long (at least) commute twice a day,  just think, “meh”.  Is that bad?

So, anyway, we’ll definitely get there, I’m just not sure how soon it is going to be.  Probably once B is able to sell his place and get a larger one, then we’ll really give it more serious consideration.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood….

{ September 3, 2008 @ 5:27 am } · { These people are killing me, neighbors }
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So there is this guy that lives in my apartment complex, Bob.  Pervert Bob.  I avoid him like the plague, which can be tricky because he is ALWAYS sitting out in the courtyard.  And I have to use the courtyard to get to my garage and to the garbage.  I will literally wait until midnight every night to park my car so as to lessen my chances of running into him, and I have been known to let my garbage sit way too long before taking it out to the dumpster for the very same reason. 

Pervert Bob is a drunk.  His eyes are usually glassy, his breath always reeks of alcohol, and he has this huge disgusting red bulbous nose.  I can barely look right at him, usually choosing instead to stare at the ground or off into the distance. 

Bob is also very outgoing.  He talks to everyone who walks by, and anyone who will listen.  I walk right by whenever I can, but he usually calls me over to talk to him.  Past conversations have included him telling me that he was staring at my breasts and wanting to know if I want to come over to play sometime (and no, he isn’t talking about tennis). 

He remembers a little of what we talk about, from time to time.  Most of it he forgets (see above re:  alcohol).  Most of the time (but not always) he remembers my name, and he always remembers that I am an attorney, a fact he loves to share with whomever he happens to be sitting with at the time.  He’s asked me detailed questions about my love/sex life, and he isn’t afraid to ask my income. 

Tonight I went to park my car, late as usual.  Unfortunately, he was still sitting in the courtyard, drinking beer with an old buddy.  He called me over, and I tried to beg off, telling him that it was past my bedtime.  “Oh, come on, you can give me a minute.”  Fine, I said, but just the one.

So he wanted to know how my weekend was – he remembered that I told him a few days ago that I was going with my boyfriend to visit his mother.  Mind you, when we talk, I only answer the questions that he asks (the appropriate ones anyway) – I don’t initiate conversation.  Anyway, he wanted to know how that went.  Then he wanted to know more about my boyfriend.  How long have you been dating?  Is it serious?  Do you love him, are you guys in love?  Where is it going?  Is he afraid of committment, are you going to give him an ultimatum?  So on and so forth.  After about the third question, I said, Bob, you are embarrassing me.  I don’t like to talk to random people about love (except you, dear internets).  It makes me uncomfortable and makes me feel like I’m in the 6th grade again.  And why do people always assume that it’s the man holding up a relationship (not that I feel like my relationship is being held up, but Bob didn’t understand that)? 

Ok, I guess it makes sense.  But why assume that I’m sitting around, crying everyday about my lack of a diamond ring (although let’s be honest, we all like diamonds), wishing, hoping, waiting, praying this day will be THE day?  I tried to tell Pervert Bob not to worry, that I’m perfectly happy with the pace at which the relationship is progressing, and that I am a cautious person by nature, so not at all the type to rush into anything. 

And then I thought to myself, why the hell am I even trying to explain it to this dude?  For one, I’m only having this conversation with him out of politeness, and two, he isn’t even going to remember this conversation tomorrow (if, God forbid, I run into him again).  So I quickly said good night to Bob and his friend (who had started getting in on the questioning) and walked away with Bob still talking. 

Why can’t I have cool neighbors?  Bob is essentially harmless, but it really is a pain in my ass to have to work so hard to avoid him (and only partially successfully).  This is one reason that I look forward to winter – because it is too cold for Pervert Bob to hang out in the courtyard and I can come and go as I please. 

Well, I really am tired now.  Maybe some other time I’ll tell you about Landlord Bob (equally as weird), Eleanor (drinks Manhattans and falls down in the courtyard), and her shut-in roommate (don’t know her name).  And those are all the friends I’ve made in this neighborhood. 

Yep, it’s time to move.