2 day week

Sooooooooo I'm at work, and I'm a 1/4 done with my week, which is extra nice because my week only started about 6 hours ago. Well, I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday during the day but when it's during the day I just don't feel like I need to count it. Funny how that works out. So at any rate, Monday to the best of my recelection I just hung out and scrapbooked, then met friends for happy hour at Widmer, way fun. Then I went back to Vin's with Andy and Vin and Daniel and watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Actually much better than I thought it would be. Tuesday I had my usual meeting, then did lots of scrapbooking again all day, then got my furniture delivered around 7 PM (all of the chairs and the new table are here!!!). I went to bed about 10 that night, crazy. I woke up at 6 the next morning, which was nice because I actually got a lot of stuff done before my 8 AM training and got to work around 7 or 7:30 to get some stuff done. I met up with Daniel for lunch and drove him home around 5, then went to a singles group at church that I normally don't get to go to because I'm working, so that was really nice!! :-) Thursday I went to a meeting from 9:30 - 11, then an urgent care center because I had a rash which turned out to be eczema behind my ear. Haven't had that in about 10 years, though I used to get it a lot as a little kid. Got lots of drugs because it was infected and I had a temperature and swollen glands, so I have an antibiotic and a topical steriod. Good stuff, hopefully it goes away soon! :-) That took awehile because it was the urgent care center and I had to wait a long time (they died down RIGHT when I came in, I had to wait an hour and the person that came in about 50 minutes after me got called right after me... oh well). So then I went home and did my typical "first day of work try to nap" thing. I finally got about 2 hours of sleep, then I met Vinnie at Qdoba for dinner. Yummmm quesedillas. For reasons that shall remain nameless, he owes me 1300 "bits" of niceness... he was able to pay me back 4 bits tonight, so that's fun. Just 1296 to go, so I've got that going for me. :-) He gets a bit for things like walking me to my car, and volunteering to get my prescription for me (that was a free bit because I did it myself, but the thought counts). Anyway, that's our new little joke and I enjoy it. We were supposed to go snow shoeing Sunday but there's no snow again, so that plan is foiled. Not sure what the weekend has to offer. Tomorrow I'm meeting some peeps for sushi before work, so that'll be fun. Then weekend, YAY! :-) So more then.

Blogideas.com!

So now I think instead of just posting about my day (which I will keep doing in case you're that curious) I'm going to try to post some random stuff some blogideas.com!! For today:

An update on your Favorite Band - My favorite band, as you PROBABLY know, is Chris Tomlin. He's currently touring with Steven Curtis Chapman and Casting Crowns, which is the concert I went to in October with Adds. I HOPE he'll be back at Creation this summer, I hope to make an appearance there. We'll see how that one plays out. OH and his new book is coming out in February, YAY. Although I don't know what to think of Chris Tomlin "the author"...

Behind the scenes of 'Your Blog' the movie. - There would be little controversy and it would be dull. I want Jen Garner to play me, of course. No, that's not true. It's gotta be Reese Witherspoon. Jen Garner is really only liked for her action roles, Reese is a more all around actress.

Best compliment you've ever received. - Oh my gosh this is so hard. I've received so many great compliments in my life, and I'm so thankful for them. The most recent one that stands out is that I did a great job Wednesday, which was important to me because it was my first end of year review session and I was nervous and had to fight for a few of my reports. So that was good that the rank manager thought I did a good job on it!

Boxers; Briefs; Commando - For women? Briefs I guess. :-) Ideally bikini briefs.

Breakfast: Yes or No? - No, unless it's a "big" breakfast... either going out (most likely) or making bacon and eggs or waffles or something. And in Chicago, it's gotta be Walker Brothers. :-)

My blog sucks

Seriously.

I was just back looking at my blog in May and it was SO FUN! Granted it was the last month of my senior year of college and I did nothing more than sit around a sorority house all day and do random stuff that would later be very blog-worthy, but still!

I'm such an old woman. I talk about work and Vinnie and that's about it. I act like Vinnie and I are married and we're NOT EVEN DATING! I need to make a serious effort to be more fun.

The good news is I took this quiz tonight: http://www.blogthings.com/whatagequiz/ and it said I was 22. Which is good, because I am 22, so at least I act my age according to this quiz.

So I'm going to try to be more fun and random in my blogs in order to amuse you all more and increase my readership. YAY.

Saturday

So I had a way sucky workout today, that was unfortunate. :-( But then I was going on my "I have to work Saturday night so I get Chipotle" trip to Chipotle, so I IMed Vin to see if he wanted to go, so he met me there. Then he came to work with me since he had to fax something, so that was sorta fun. Then since it's Saturday night we were sorta bored at work so we decided to go to Old Chicago for dinner, which was way fun. :-) Definitely enjoyable to feel like you're doing something fun during work. Then Vin paged me and saying "Coffee?" (I had asked when we were at Chipotes if he wanted to go out for coffee later but he paged me earlier saying "Poker night, no coffee. Sorry" so then we went to Old Chicago). So now that I was just getting back from Old Chicago I was like no way am I going out for coffee now, I just got back from that same mall area. So I asked him to get me (and one coworker) coffee, and he was sweet enough to do that. Big points for him on that one. :-) So he came over and I asked my team to postpone a meeting for a bit, which we did. Only 15 minutes though so he left after that... I think he was like "what the heck, I came over here and brought you coffee and then you have a meeting"... but it was okay cause he went home to finish his movie. Tomorrow we're going running and watching Alias. He wants to watch at his house and is trying to intice me to bring my Tivo over because he got his fireplace cleaned this week so he can have a fire and he's all "we can have a fire and watch Alias" and I'm like "they're in two seperate rooms (the TV and the fireplace)" and he's like "it's on wheels". So we negotiated and decided that if he wheels his TV into the other room that I will bring the Tivo over to his house, and then we will watch Alias by the fire and in good quality. Although it's somewhat wasted because he has an HDTV and I do not record Alias in HD (Tivo doesn't record HD) and not only that, I record on the lowest possible quality Tivo has. Oh well, it will be bigger than mine at least. Then Monday we're going out with a bunch of friends to a brewery downtown (Widmer, Patrick) for happy hour, yay. $2 pints of my very favoritest beer in the world (Drop Top, it's like Fat Tire but better). So yay for already having fun weekend plans... not to mention the fact that I'm working during the day again on Wednesday and then I have just a two day work week. Woo hoo! :-) Good times. Only 3 more hours left of this shift (and hopefully I'll spend one working out) and then I get to go home. YAY!!!!!

Weeks to come:
1/23 - Short week of work
1/30 - Fun training classes during work that I'm looking forward to.
2/6 - Short week of work
2/12 - My aunt is visiting through the 16th. (plus Valentine's Day)
2/20 - Going to Bend for President's Day / my birthday for the whole weekend (2/18 - 2/21)
2/27 - Winter party for work! and working day shift the whole week
2/6 - Short work week
3/13 - Leaving for "spring break" on the 19th
3/20 - On spring break the whole week!
3/27 - Hiking class starts
4/3 - I go back to my regular life and nothing fun for a while... but I still have hiking class for 6 weeks!

So YAY I have 10 weeks of fun to look forward to... meaning only 1 more long week of work (and that week involves training) in the next 10 weeks. I'm WAY excited about that! :-)

Grrrr

I posted on Wednesday but it didn't work and all is bad. Here's the rest of the week:

Tuesday: Got up and did some scrapbooking, then worked out. Then I showered and made a yummy lunch. Then I stopped into work for a pre-session for the meeting I had all day Wednesday (end of year reviews). Then I came home and did some more scrapbooking and some reading. Then I stopped BACK into work for a meeting with a co-worker (indirectly) who was a Theta at Northwestern. Then I went and picked up Subway for me and Vin and then met him at my apartment and went to the hospital for my Remicade. It was way sweet that he came with me. Then I rented Cellular and watched it at his place with him and his new roommate. HORRIBLE MOVIE. Don't ever get it. I don't care much about bad acting, but this was the worst acting I've ever seen. I should have rented Little Black Book instead.

Wednesday: Worked from about 7:45 AM to 6:15 PM. Then met up with some friends at 6:30 to go downtown to this pizza place called Escape from NY. Best Pizza in Portland and on the most trendy street in Portland, though it doesn't compare to Gios, Ginos, or Lou Malnatis. Booo to West Coast pizza. Anyway then we went to a fun bar downtown and played pool and chilled. Way fun night, but the kiddies who had to work in the morning made me go home about 10:30! Although I wasn't complaining, I woke up at 7 that morning! Fun night. I was so happy to have a week night OFF. I need a new job. :)

Thursday: Went downtown to REI in the morning and bought hiking boots! Yay for me, I was so proud. I spent over an hour trying on boots, what nonsense! But I found the perfect ones and I'm way excited. I can't wait to go hiking soon so I can actually try them out. I hope they really do work well for me. We shall see. Then I came home and proceeded to slack off and not go running... oh well. Then of course work Thursday night.

Tonight I'm working AND tomorrow night... it's my long week. But I did go running this afternoon and then worked out again this morning, so I've got that going for me. If I do the same tomorrow I'll be quite pleased. The gym at my apartment is much nicer than the gym at work (in some ways, not all). I was supposed to go snowshoeing on Sunday but that was cancelled due to too much rain (eating the snow) and because of the rain we can't even go hiking! So maybe I can watch Alias and do some scrapbooking and maybe go out to dinner with Vin. We shall see. :-)

More to come soon, hopefully more consistently if this actually works!

YAY I have readers!!

You guys have no idea how happy I am to see all of your comments! It put a huge smile on my face. A special shoutout to my favorite reader in RUSSIA... I miss ya Dave! :-) I'm praying for you and I hope all is well with you.

So it was my short week so I was done with work SATURDAY, yay! Oh and Friday night at work I worked out with a few co-workers, so fun! I'm going to start going down to the gym every night, it was such a good way to keep awake and totally feel good in the middle of the night. Saturday was the big "day of the ice storm"... everyone in Oregon was completely freaking out about this alleged storm that was going to shut the whole city down. It was tooooo funny. Yes, it was a bit icey, but these people were hysterical. A lot of people left work early "just in case". When I got up I kinda chilled around the house and watched Daredevil in preparation for watching Elektra that night with some friends (good thing I still have Vin's movies that I "borrowed". Later that afternoon I went over to Vin's to help him hang a shelf in his garage. Then I convinced him to come over and watch Alias with me. YAY for Alias and Jen Garner! At 5:40ish we left to run by the bank before we met friends at Red Robin at 6... good thing we got there at 5:57 because they were closing at 6 due to the "extreme weather conditions". Hahaha. It was just too funny you guys. It was 32 degrees out, BARELY freezing! Just a little ice on the road, that's all. I slipped once driving Jakers, but not much. And my stairs up to my apartment were COVERED in ice so that was a challenge, but I didn't stay holed up for 3 days straight! Anyway, we had our yummy Red Robin and then went to go see Elektra... I'm a big Jen Garner fan but not her best flick! :-( It was okay though... we watched it and enjoyed. After that we went home (had to prepare for the "storm") and I went to Vinnie's to play Nintendo... we played old school Bubble Bobble, remember that game? It was so fun. We beat the whole game in one sitting, from level 1 - 100. Good thing Vinnie is good, otherwise it never would have happened!

Sunday morning I woke up feeling blah... just one of those icky days where you want to sit in bed all day. And of course it was a Sunday so I wanted to go to church but I didn't really *want* to because I was blah. (I really just kind of miss Chicago sometimes, and having so many friends there. I have so few friends here, and I never see them because I work icky hours!... I'm looking for a new job with day hours.) But I dragged myself out of bed and went to church and it was CLOSED... weather!!! In all of my 22 (23 in 33 days!) years of life, I have never heard of church CLOSING. I'm quite sure I've been to church in blizzards and -20 degree temps. Hmmm... but okay. So I went for a drive instead, which was good for me. I love driving, it clears my head. I drove down to Woodburn which reminds me of Keith who I miss so much and went to Wal-Mart since I was down there. It's kind of fun to go there every once in a while. Then I drove back and asked Vinnie to meet me at Qdoba for lunch. I had a buy one get one free entree coupon so it was great! Then we went to REI (his toy store) which is so fun too. It got me more excited for my new hiking /mountaineering plans. Yay! Too bad everything is so expensive. :-( After that we stopped by Target so he could get sheets, and I got 13 Going On 30... YES more Jen Garner! But it's such a cute movie! So we watched that at Vin's house. Then we got ready for this party we were going to go to downtown at Bar 71, but there were only 10 people (and 5 employees!) there when we got there so we ditched that idea. :-( We just went back to Vinnie's house and had a REALLY nice talk, so that made me happy. Definitely more fun than a party would have been. Sometimes you just need a good talk.

Today was so productive! I was supposed to meet Andrew for lunch in fine Monday tradition, but he had to go job hunting so that didn't work out. So instead I cleaned lots around my apartment. It's pretty messy and yucky so it was nice to straighten up a little. Hopefully I'll spend another hour or so working on it tomorrow. I also got some laundry and random bills and stuff taken care of. Then I worked out, an extra good workout so that put me in a good mood. I took a little 30 minute nap since I didn't sleep all that well last night, and then watched 24 from last week and scrapbooked. I was hoping Kristie would call me for dinner (she has tonight off, yay, but I'm afraid she fell asleep since she worked last night and didn't sleep this morning), but instead I got a call from the Vin, so I met up with him and his new roomie Daniel (from TEXAS!!!!!) at Old Chicago for dinner. Yuuuuuuum. I had a crispy chicken salad! Then I came back home for more 24 and scrapbooking. It's actually been a very productive night, I'm getting so much done with the scrapbooking. I'm totally in the mood for it (I skipped from doing elementary school to my 21st birthday and beyond so it's way more fun) and it's going to be great when I have a scrapbook of my whole senior year of college. It was such a super fun year. It even competes with senior year of high school, though that might have been the best year of my life. Who knows. :-) Anyway it's fun to look back and remember all of the fun times, especially when I start to miss people some (and by some I mean a lot). So anyway, it's been a good night, and now I'm talking to Adds and my pledge grandkid Kathleen online, so that's way fun!

That's all for now, but now that I know you're all still reading I'll try to keep posting more so that my blog will live on. :-)

The Week in Review

Sunday: Slept until 1:30 or so, sorta putzed around the house, went to church, picked up a new wine rack from some guy on Craigslist in North Portland, watched a movie, then picked Vin up from the airport. SO FUN!!! He was so super cute and you could tell he'd missed me, which was very nice to have him come home too. He definitely wooed me, though unintentionally, that night.

Monday: Relaxed, made some phone calls. Then I went to Red Robin for lunch with Mr. Andrew, it was a lovely time. Then took a nice nap in the afternoon. Vin and I were supposed to go running, but he didn't have time, so on his way over to my place after work, I went for a quitek run. Then we went out for dinner at Macaroni Grill -- VERY GOOD. It's been underhyped for years, so I was quite pleased. Then I fiiiiinally got to watch the season permiere of Alias -- woo hoo!!!! Super good. Can't wait for next week (though in reality, it was on TV like 30 hours ago). We had a bottle of wine and just a lovely evening. It's kinda funny 'cause he's still on East Coast time so he gets tired and starts talking nonsense.

Tuesday: FINALLY went for a run together. We ran a two mile loop around his house, then went to a co-worker's house to pick up a table he bought. Then I made yummy fajitas for dinner for me and Vin and we talked for a long time, really good.

Wednesday: Didn't get to work out, which was very upsetting, but I had to wait for the UPS man since I'd missed a package the day before. So I took my afternoon nap on the couch, which is definitely the way to go! Much better sleep for some reason. The UPS man didn't come until that night, of course, so I wasted the whole day, but it was okay.

Thursday: Had a great talk with a co-worker in the morning, and then after sleeping all day Vin came over and we worked out inside. I ran and biked and he biked and lifted. It was much more enjoyable to have a partner in crime while working out, so hopefully he'll work out with me more often. I should start working out more at work, then I'd have like 3 coworkers to work out with. But then they'd make fun of me like they always do, so I dunno.

I miss everyone's blogs... I'm the only one who still blogs, and I'm not even doing it that frequently because I feel like no one pays attention anymore. But I'm going to keep on trucking until someone tells me not to. :-)

The Batcave Mat

http://www.hammerco.com/cgi-bin/pageserver.exe?BOOK:ID2796

So you can see what it looks like in person. :-)

My life is weird

This guy at work keeps telling me I have no friends and I need to branch out and move downtown and all of this stuff. In THEORY living downtown would be fun, but also expensive and truthfully, I like the suburbs. I can do what I need to do and go downtown when I want to go down there. Whatever. But I'm definitely going to start talking to people wherever I go so that I can meet more people, and hopefully that will be cool. Highlight of today was Addy's blog, she too jokes about us being a lesbian couple. LOL: http://osuaddy.blogspot.com/2005/01/holla-back.html

Am I getting crunchy?

So on occasion, Jenni has been known to refer to outdoorsy types as "Crunchy" so this has been the big joke with me and Patrick since he came to visit and we mocked the cunchy Oregonians. When we looked at townhouses there was this one in particular that had a guest bedroom that was all trail maps and hiking sticks and whatnot and we were like "this is the crunchiest room we've ever seen". So now with all of this hiking, I'm afraid I'm getting crunchy. But I still see yuppie in me. Although my coworker says that I live in the suburbs, NOT the city and Portland is barely a city to begin with, and I'm not a professional since I work in manufacturing. I need to be a consultant living in Lincoln Park to be a true yuppie, so really I guess I'm just becoming a crunchy Oregonian. At least I don't recycle and eat yogurt yet.

Votes for me being crunchy:
- hiking
- living in Oregon
- eating Nature Valley granola bars

Votes for me being yuppie:
- my modern-lookingish apartment
- the stores I shop in
- the restaurants and bars I go to

Votes for a combination:
- shopping at REI, the yuppiest crunchy store on earth.

Who knows. I think I'm waaaaay more yuppie than crunchy, but we'll see. :-)

The Aviator

So today I got up and dragged myself to a meeting at work, then grabbed a quick lunch and headed to Washington Park for my hike. I hiked about 8 miles roundtrip, up to Pittock Mansion for GORGEOUS views of Portland and then back down to the area near the Portland Zoo and Vietnam Memorial where I parked. I'll post pictures of my hike in the days to come. After that I went to Costco but didn't find anything I wanted, then drove around and looked at a few houses. Then I realized that I was about to miss movie Tuesday, so I headed over to the theatre and saw The Aviator on a whim. I'd never even heard of it, but it was playing about 10 minutes after I got there so I figured that would work. It was 3 hours long (yikes) but actually pretty good. I was a little disappointed by the ending, unfortunately. If they were going to end it the way they did, they might as well just have ended it that way an hour earlier. If you see it you'll know what I mean. But anyway, then I came home and got my mail and paid my rent. Then I took a bath, my second in about 3 days but also my second since I've lived here. Interesting. And I had apple cider, yum. Now I'm doing laundry, looking at houses online, and pondering life. Actually I'm counting the minutes until 10 when I'm letting myself go to bed, yay! :-)

Update!!!

Thursday: Woke up at 2:30, which was irritating. What the heck?! At least I did succeed in getting up "by 4". Hung out with Vin some but I was crabby cause I was tired, but I finally cheered up and we yuked it up about HIKING!!!! YAY! I sent him on his way and was sad, then got over it. ;-) Work was fun, I dealt with some things and got a NEW TEAM and I'm excited because it's an area I've been wanting to work with for a while. Woo hoo and stuff.

Friday: Woke up about 12:30, good time for the first day off shift. Bummed around, cleaned up a little and did some returning, then took a shower and waited for my lovely Addy to arrive. She came about 5 and we went to the grocery store for some wine for the party at Doug's (my coworker) and then grabbed dinner at Wendy's. Then we went over to Doug's and Sheila's for the "party of the couples". 2 married couples, 2 engaged couples, 1 regular couple, and one Kelly-Addy lesibian couple. YIKES. In all honesty though, it was a GREAT party and a wonderful New Years Eve, easily top 5. (In order they probably go 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2001). Hmm... guess it's not too hard to get in the top 5 if you're in the 2000's. We'll see how they stack up after this year. Anyway I'm getting off topic. So yes, fun New Years Eve. And Vinnie sent a text and was 75 yards away from the ball in Times Square, so that was cool.

Saturday: Adds and I woke up at 1 PM, yay but she was like YIKES LATE!! It was funny. So then we went to Sweet Tomatoes YUUUUUUUM for lunch and then did some shopping! We did Target, Pier 1, Bed Bath and Beyond, and a few other random places. Oh Barnes and Noble and Borders too. And then we went by Vinnie's house and I sort of stole all of his movies. ;-) Then we made cheese fondue, opened a bottle of wine, and watched movies all night. Perfect romantic date. ;-) I won't mention that the cheese got burned and was EW. Seriously I don't know how we screwed it up... yes I do. We didn't have all of the ingredients, because it needed brandy and the liquor stores weren't open on New Years Day, and you can't buy liquor in the grocery stores in this crazy state. Plus we sort of combined two recipes, one we had and one we didn't. Long story. But still a fun night and watching movies was way fun.

Sunday: I slept until noon, at which point Addy burst into my room and was like "OKAY GET UP". I had a crazy dream which I haven't decided if I can blog about yet or not. Anyway, then we went to Chevy's for lunch YUUUUUM and then spent the whole day looking at single family homes. And I put a down payment on one. JUST KIDDING... a little blast from the blogging past. ;-) Hahahaha. Okay I'll quit laughing, because I know you're not. Then we went to church, the sermon was about 10 reasons why and how we should be more like little kids. One of them was laugh more, so I whispered to Addy "that's easy -- BATWOMAN") which made up both crack up. It was great. I love how the name will make me laugh forever. Then we came home and just chilled for a little bit and then Adds went home and I cried. Addy and I are going to read the Bible through together this year... my church has a reading plan so we're doing it! It started tonight so we're off to a good start. I guess that's my second ever New Year's Resolution... and all in the same year. Wow this will be interesting. I'll keep you updated on that and the hiking as we go through this lovely year.

Monday: Had to get up and att-em this morning for shopping and hiking!! Checked the weather and saw it was 28 and wind advisory, but sunny, so I figured I could suck it up and go hiking. I went to Crate and Barrel (the first one in Oregon opened November 17, apparently it's some big deal that I didn't know about, but we talked about it when I went into work tonight) and got there around 9:55, thinking they opened at 9. NO, they open at 10, but there was a big line of people waiting to bust in the doors at 10 AM sharp. What the heck, this is Crate and Barrel, not Fry's Electronics! So I felt like a HUGE dork being there, but I went in, did my shopping, and left. Then I went to the mall and returned something that I got $32 for today but my sister got $20 for last week. Sucks to be her. ;-) Hit up the Victoria's Secret semi-annual sale and Pottery Barn, got some fun stuff. Three HUGE shopping bags. I talked to my friend Andrew on the phone last night and he said to call him today, which I meant to, but he beat me to it (while in the dressing room at Victoria's Secret... needless to say I let it go to voicemail and called him back). He called and asked me to go to lunch, so we met at Olive Garden around 12:30 (first I made a stop at Target for these great $3.99 fleece blankets I found the other day and bought 2 of and wanted MORE, but they didn't have them but I did buy an 80 piece flatware set for $34 that I don't need and will *hopefully* return). Back to the story at hand, we had a great little lunch and I was telling him I was going hiking and he said he was going golfing. He wanted to go the coast but had no one to go with, so I said I'd go. So much for hiking... but so we grabbed my car, got some gas, and drove to Seaside. I haven't been there in a year because I always go to Tillamook, but it was LOVELY. It was 45 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, so we took an awesome walk along the beach. Then we drove up to Astoria because neither of us have ever been... I'm a HUGE fan of that town. I had no idea it was so much bigger than Seaside. I fell in total love... I will have to go back, because we just drove through and watched the sun set. Then we drove along Highway 30 along the Columbia River home, and then cut through this crazy road down to 26, the road back to Portland. Good times. I dropped Andrew off and then I went to ANOTHER Target to look for the blankets. They had 50 or so when I bought them Friday, but NONE today. Outrage. Grrrr. Anyway, then I grabbed some dinner, came home and caught up on email, then convinced myself that walking on the beach for an hour or so didn't really count as my work-out/hike so I went and did some stairs and then a little time on the bike. The stairs really are what I need for hiking, and I can't wait until Vinnie gets back because he promises he will run with me, and I need a running partner! So I'm off to a good start to my hiking deal... at least in terms of doing "something" related to hiking every day (well, maybe not the 1st and 2nd, but I blame Addy... just kidding, I love ya Adds!). Tomorrow I have a meeting in the morning and then my plan is to drive straight to Washington Park to go hiking, so hopefully that really will work out this time! For now I'm off to bed, but I think I'll be able to blog tomorrow because I really only have meeting and hiking and catching up on paperwork tomorrow.

I'll try to quit this "blog once a week but about each day in detail" thing soon. I've been a little busy catching up from the holidays, so it's been crazy. I think that I'll get over that pretty quickly here!

My Holiday Post-Mortem

Thursday: Flew to Albuquerque via ORD. No issues, great flight. Met a nice guy who bought me a drink. Chilled with the fam and grandparents talking, then went to bed.

Friday: Woke up fairly early, had crossants for breakfast (Mommom, my grandmother, got them from a local bakery). Went to Old Town for some shopping, lunch at Le Peep, and a few malls. Then went home and chatted with my cousin Amity and her boyfriend Brandon, and then all went out to dinner at Garbanzos, a Mexican place. YUM. Then we went to church at a Presbyterian church for Christmas Eve, then came home and saw my Aunt Rufina, Uncle Rich, and Rufina's niece Cecile who had arrived from Dallas and DC. Went for a Christmas Eve walk to see the luminaria. Albuquerque is known for its luminaria on Christmas Eve and my grandparent's neighborhood is one of the places on the official tour. It's so cool and I love being there for Christmas.

Saturday: Had brunch and opened stockings and presents at 10 AM. Rufina, Rich, and Cecile went to mass at 12:30, the rest of us relaxed. We all went for a walk along the Rio Grande (about 1/2 a mile from my grandparent's house) and it was a lovely day! Then we played an awesome game of dominoes and had a great Christmas dinner with pecan pie for dessert. YAY! Super fun day.

Sunday: Got up really early for a 9:30 family photo. This hysterical Italian photographer named Vinnie (just kidding, his name was Michael) came and took lots of pictures. I will publish if possible. Then we drove to Santa Fe for lunch at Geronimo, a great restaurant. Rich and Rufina have friends from England and this is their favorite restaurant in the states! I had a great salad, the best bread I've ever had, champaign, Elk tenderloin, and toffee cheesecake. And that doesn't even describe how good the meal was. Then we went to a famous chapel and to the town square in Santa Fe. YAY. Then back home and basically chilling and sleeping.

Monday: Oh my gosh, had to get up for breakfast at 7:45 before Amity and Brandon had to work. I was NOT feeling good about all of this getting up early... so hard on my body! So we did that and then went to Old Town one more time and then off to the airport. My flight from ABQ to Denver was fine, and then I volunteered to be bumped for a free ticket off my next flight (sound familiar?). It was a 5:35 flight, I was then confirmed first class on an 11:25 flight the next morning but I waited to see if I could get on a 9:08 PM flight that night. It was 15 people overbooked and I was 1/29 on the standby list. Since they won't take voluntters for a standby passenger to get on, that means 16 people had to not show up at all for me to get on the flight. Yeah right. But being stubborn (and don't forget tired) I waited it out... they asked for volunteers, but then they asked them to go ahead and board which meant they weren't too overbooked. At the end they thought 2 people didn't get on... but they found one ticket and paged the other person and she came running up. I was so tired that I cried when I didn't get on, and the gate agent looked so sad for me because she knew I wanted to get on. The thing that killed me was the 9:08 flight was pushed back to 10:30 because the flight before was late leaving Orange County, and at least 4 people showed up in that 82 minute period. Which means I would have made it if the flight left on time. Poor Vin and Russ and my mother had to endure all of my crabbiness, but I did get to catch up with Adds and Erin on the phone, that was nice. I tried to hide my crabbiness from Adds and Erin and Russ, but Russ TOTALLY picked up on it. Tells you something about how wells he knows it. Vin and my Mom I didn't even play games with. I'm going to stop being emotional around Vin, he HATES it. :-) For serious. But that's another story entirely.

Tuesday: Finally got home... had an AWESOME flight, very relaxing and enjoyable, then saw an engineer I work with in the airport. Then I got on the Max (Portland train) and saw 2 NU IE grads! Super funny. Then Vin picked me up at the airport. He kidnapped me to his house, so I took a nap and a shower there, then we went out to a really nice dinner. I love "Italian nights" because we drink wine and he acts all chivalrous (he was even joking about that). Then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond and chatted it up forever and hysterical stuff. I even did circle circle square square, spiders crawling in your hair, tight squeeze, cool breeze, now you've got the chills. Yeah, he thought I was as crazy as you do.

Wednesday: Got the oil changed in Jake, then went to Target, Michaels, and Office Depot for a shredder and to look at scrapbooking stuff. Then to Chipotle, then home for lunch and to shred stuff and attempt unpacking / cleaning. Then I tried sleeping and then woke up, had a snack, and went to work.

Tomorrow I will try to get up by 4 so that I can spend a few hours with Vin before he leaves until the 10th. Kinda stinks because I get less sleep and my apartment will remain a huge mess. Adds is coming up (I hope) for New Years and I think we're going to go to a party at my co-worker Doug's house. YAY that will be fun. Kristie wants me to do something with her but she was invited to Doug's too so maybe she'll go. Just today I got 3 different New Year's proposals, YAY I feel popular. Which is good because all too often I feel so lonely in Portland. I miss Keithers.

Speaking of lonely, I did a lot of reflection and thinking while gone. I think I'm going to do even more in the next 10 days while Vin is gone. I definitely am planning on a fun weekend with Adds, and then shopping on Monday and hiking on Tuesday or the other way around depending on the weather. I definitely want to get some hiking in because I want to start getting in shape for the spring/summer when I can do some more serious climbs. I'm also going to have to spend time biking (for endurance), doing stairs (for climbing), and running (for general fitness) so that I can become more hardcore. Gee, my favorite things. If only I just wanted to swim. So that's my goal and I'm super excited. But hiking will give me lots of time to think which will be super nice. Then I'll have a 4 day work week, then just a Sunday alone and then Vin comes home. Sounds like a good deal to me!

I haven't been commenting in people's blogs lately -- but I still read them. And I added Julius to the list, so hopefully I'm not one of the people he doesn't want to read it. :-/ But yay for blogs.

I have decided to make what I think will be the first New Year's Resolution of my life: go hiking more. My reasons for this are threefold:
1. See the beautiful Northwest
2. Learn to be a better hiker so that I can climb Rainer
3. Get in shape
YAY for hiking. :-)

IOWA

SO funny, I just wrote Adds this comment in her blog about how much I miss her, and then I read my comments (I don't get them emailed to me anymore because my school email is gone) and she wrote me a comment saying she misses me. THAT is true love.

So WOW it's been a while... when I'm not in Oregon I sort of forget about the blogging. Here's the lowdown:

Saturday -- Travelled almost the whole day. Left work about 5:30 AM (after a REALLY good conversation with a co-worker) and got the awesome Vin to drive me to the Max station. Got to see the sun rise over Mt. Hood, then took my flight to the lovely O'Hare International Airport. Oh how I love Chicago. And it was just a classic Chicago wintery day. YAY. Then my flight to Cedar Rapids was about an hour late (that makes 2/2 for Iowa) but I got home. Saturday night I slept a LOT because I had been up since basically 3:30 PM on Friday, with a little plane sleep in there. I also went to my beloved Panera with my mom, which I've been wanting for a long time. Soooo good.

Sunday -- Slept in super late. Yikes. Then my sister and dad and I tried to go out for Thai but the Thai places were closed and it was getting late and she had to be at work, so we went to the food court in the mall - biggest mall in Iowa, yee haw! Then my dad and I came back home and I definitely took ANOTHER nap. Then my mom and I went to Target and on a secret Christmas mission and then picked my sister up. Then my mom made me guacamole and chile con queso... her Texas specialities! YAY for my Texan roots... 5th generation Texan right here peeps! Then my sister and I got an "early Christmas present" -- season 7 of Friends for her and season 8 for me. I now officially have all of the seasons that have been relased. Once I have 9 and 10 my collection will be complete. So we watched that the rest of the night.

Monday -- Saw my sister's apartment for the first time... SO CUTE. It's right in downtown Iowa City and is just awesome. I really like it a lot! Then we actually went out for Thai food, yumalicious. Only not so much, definitely there is better Thai to be had in Oregon. Oh well. Then my sis and I went on some secret shopping missions for our parents and then to see Oceans 12. DEFINITELY not that great of a movie. Oh well, I wasn't expecting it to be. I got to have a super fun day with the lil sis though! Then we came home and had steak and twice baked potatoes... YUM YUM YUM. My mom's steak is one of my favorite foods in the WORLD. YUM. Then more Friends!

Tuesday -- Went to Panera again (I need to go like 8 times while I'm here), and then went and visited Christine at work. Then went to various random stores at the mall with my mom. Then we went to this wine store (really a grocery store with a good wine and beer selection) that actually had wine from a vineyard I've been to in Oregon. I was impressed. And they had beer from a brewery in Portland, but not a very amazing one as far as I'm concerned. I love Oregon. Anyway though and we went to a pretty cute scrapbooking store which I enjoyed, because you know me and the scrapbooking. With all of this free time (and being in IOWA) I really have wished that I had my scrapbooking stuff, but you can't take all of those scissors and stuff as a carry-on and I wasn't about to check it. Oh well... so then we came home and my mom made lasagna... yay. Seriously I love being home because it is super yum. Then we watched Friends and played dominoes, and anyone who knows me knows I'm into the dominoes. So yeah, it's been a good day. I need to work on wrapping Christmas presents and packing for New Mexico tomorrow.

So the lowdown... I miss Portland. As much as I say I hate it and have no friends, I so DO have actually a pretty good amount of friends. Being on shift actually is reasonably hard in terms of having time for people, but when/if I'm on shift 4 (the front half of the week) I'll have TONS more time to be able to see friends on weekends and my two really good girlfriends are on shift 4 so I can see them more too. So I'm totally praying for that to happen sometime in 2005. And I love all that there is to do in Portland... the coast, the gorge, the vineyards, Seattle, the breweries, the movies, PCG, Corvallis, scrapbooking, hiking, the river, etc. Some of that isn't Portland-exclusive but I think the point is it's really starting to feel like home. And that makes me smile. I guess in the best of all worlds my parents would still live in Chicago and I could see all of my friends and family at the same time, but a co-worker told me the other day "you win some, you lose some". It really humbled me, because I tend to get really mad and upset when things aren't just my way. I don't just accept how true that statement is... we don't get everything handed to us on a silver platter in life, so the sooner we learn to just chill and accept that, the better off we are. So I'm trying to accept that, and I know that soon enough I'll visit Chicago and see everyone that I so miss and love. :-)

If I don't blog until then, Merry Christmas everyone. I really do miss and love you all.

Nothing kewl

So not really much going on... my teethies are feeling a lot better! Work is going REALLY REALLY well this week, I'm busy and having a lot of fun, so that's great! I'll be home in 36 hours so you can imagine I'm SUPER excited about that one. Iowa City, here I come (that's a joke from about 2 or 3 years ago, before we moved). Don't know if there's too much other excitement going on here... we have a new guy at work. I'm excited for Christmas... can't believe it's in like a week! And that's it. So hopefully I'll have more gottems for you this weekend. :-)

The Great Condo Hoax

NO ONE bought a condo. Patrick wanted me to "slip that in there" to see if anyone would notice we said we bought a condo. Apparently he thinks people just skim blogs or something. But this isn't Crime and Punishment, this is pleasure reading.

I went in this morning and got my teeth fixed up... he took the gauze out forever, which means it hurts more but now can officially start to heal, which I think is a good thing. Hopefully it really will heal and I will be a happy girl! :-) Ummmmmm other than that, I think I'm just chillin'. I'm going to try to put some good music on my iPod and then get some sleep in anticipation of my big 3 day work week... and then glorious 10 day vacation. :-)

Anyway, last night I watched The Day after Tomorrow at Vin's, which was fine but the second time I've seen it. It was sad because I won't see Vin again until after Christmas... boo to that. :-( Unless he's nice enough to take me to the airport at 6:30 AM Saturday, but he's already spent too much time awake in the middle of the night when I call him in pain.

Monday with Patrick was way fun. We had a great breakfast at Hale's in the morning, then went to Tillamook for an afternoon of cheese and ice cream and the Pacific Ocean. Good times. Boo to the rain, that was not the cool part of it. I definitely did not appreciate that. Then we went to Widmer and Patrick had the sampler, so he now knows exactly what types of beer he likes and doesn't like (he likes ambers and hates IPAs, just like me!). Widmer is the best for learning your beer tastes, and then you feel like you at least know something after that. Same with going to the wine tastings at the vineyards, it helps make you more knowledgable. So after that we went to Vin's to drop off this mug he's been wanting from Widmer for 2 years that I finally got for him, and then we went to Old Chicago for beer for Vin and Patrick and dessert for me. :-) Yum. It was a SUPER night. Well, not really because my mouth was really hurting so I was whiney, but in theory it would have been a super night. Check Patrick's blog for the low-down on Vin.

And I think that's all... I'm going to work on the iPod now. Catch y'all on the flip side.

The Dual Blog

Hello from Kelly and Patrick in the Portland. Here's our day:

Patrick woke up, went to the airport at like freaking 4 in the morning or some nonsense. Kelly slept until almost 10 and was almost late picking up Patrick. So I picked him up at 11. Then we went to Burgerville. Patrick had a delicious Tillamook cheeseburger and Kelly had a shake and fries. Then Patrick got to drive the Jake. We went to the Nike Factory Outlet and Patrick got some shiny silver kicks -- tax free!! Then we went looking at houses. Townhomes / condos, actually. All of the realtors thought we were a young married couple with a dual income, however Patrick has no income. We put a down payment on a condo. It was the one that was only $109,000, one bedroom reduced from $125,000. Stainless steel kitchen and granite countertops, and they paid $3500 toward our closing costs. Then we came back here and chilled. Actually I'm lame and needed a little jaw rest so Patrick watched the televisor while I didn't talk. Then we went to the Portland City Grill and had beer and a variety of different appetizers, some of which were delicious. Here's the ranking, for Patrick: tuna, tenderloin, brushetta, chicken. Kelly: brushetta, tenderloin, chicken, tuna. Now we're trying to think of something to do so I'm making Patrick blog. But he's not being funny enough. So I'm going to go beat him. BAM!

Commenting on the comments

So, first of all, I'm glad you peeps like your Christmas cards. :-)

Second of all, I'm NOT PUFFY at all... everyone thinks I'm all chipmunky and I wasn't. I iced for like an hour or two the first day right away, and that was it. I was never swollen at all. Just in lots of pain. And it's weird cause it's pain like up through my jaw and ears and stuff. It feels like someone punched me REALLY HARD on both sides of my face. Does that make sense?

And Adds and Em, thanks for babying me. :-) Online is better than nothing!

Reporting on nothing

So here's the lowdown... the latest I stayed at work this week was 1:30 AM, which is only about halfway into the shift. I was basically worthless. I felt bad for my teammates, but they were really sweet to me. So anyway, Friday morning I broke down and called the dentist, and they had me come in and treated me for dry socket in both of my bottom teeth (gums). They stuffed some gauze covered in clove oil or some such nonsense in my gums and I did not like it! Ugh. It was supposed to make me feel a lot better within a few hours but it did not, so I called back Friday night and got a different pain medicine because the first one that I had didn't make me feel so good. So then I went to work and was just miserable the whole time... I finally left around 12:45 (I've had lots of meetings in the beginning of the shift this week that I've needed to deal with). I tried to sleep but around 2 I gave up because I was just crying the whole time and went over to Vinnie's. He was so sweet and rubbed my back and took care of me a little bit. I just couldn't stand to be alone last night, you know how that is when you don't feel good? Around 4 I FINALLY fell asleep. Thank goodness. I woke up at 9:30 and called the emergency dentist number, they didn't call me back until like 11:30 or so. So then at 11:30 they told me that with dry socket it really is just painful for several days until it heals and I sort of have to deal with it. So I'm taking 2 painkillers every 4 hours which is the max I can take, but it is the only thing that makes it even tolerable. Vin is at my apartment with me now, he's being a good little worker bee at the table doing tons of work, and I've been on my couch all day watching TV and movies. But at least he is here... it's a huge cycle... it feels okay for about an hour, then gets worse and worse and then I finally get to take my medicine, and then it feels bad for about another hour to hour and a half, and then kicks in and YAY it's good for a while. It's just a strange little cycle.

Also, Patrick was nice enough to delay his trip for one day, which is nice because it's let me have some time to recover a little bit and hopefully I'll be better off for his trip. I'm really excited and hope that I can be fun for him.

I guess that is all for now. Not a fun update... just telling about my yuckiness, probably in too much detail... oh well. Goodnight.

My teeth hurt

So all I've done is slept the past 3 days. Oh that and went to Vinnie's house this morning to babysit it while the hot water heater guy came. That is all. More to come when I have a life.

LAME

Did I really just post two posts with practically the same title? WhatEVER.

Here's the weekend:
Saturday we went wine tasting. Super fun. I really had a good time, and finally I have some wine at my apartment! Now I feel like I'm seriously a real adult! I didn't sleep in the morning after work so I fell asleep about 9 PM Saturday night. The wine probably helped in that process as well. But yeah I'm really big on these Oregon vineyards now, I'll have to go again. Let me know if you want to join me!

Sunday we went to breakfast in the morning, then we went to Lowes, Home Depot, Target, and Big Lots to get bins and stuff so I could organize his office. I did and it looks way better! He has some papers he needs to go through but that's not so bad. Then Sunday night as a treat he took me out to Portland City Grill as a "thank you" if you will. Oh how I heart the PCG. :-) Patrick and I will definitely have to go there next weekend.

It was just a super good weekend... we had a lot of fun and I was happy. Haven't been so happy in a month or so... the whole "funk" I'm in, ya know? So it was good and Vin gets major bonus points for cheering me up.

Tooth update:
They hurt, a lot. I thought everything was great but that was still when the local anesthetic hadn't worn off yet. Now that it has I'm feeling NOT SO HOT at all. So poo on that. :-(

Yays and Nays:
Nay to wisdom tooth extraction
Yay to Vicodin

Nay to my wireless being down and having nothing Tivoed for the weekend
Yay to still having the OC, the Apprentice, and a few other shows from last week to watch

Nay to pain
Yay to milkshakes


Okay I'm not good at yays and nays... I'm not in the mood to do it right now, because my teeth hurt. And plus I'm not sure I can live up to Addy's fabulous yays and nays. Perhaps I will try again later!

Quicky update

So the wisdom tooth extraction went fine. He said I was a perfect patient! My friend Beau picked me up afterwards (he was SO CUTE, I was going to call him and he was already there cause he didn't want me to wait!!!) and took me to Walgreens to get some Vicodin. Yay for that, I think I'm going to like it.

So they were just like starting and I was like "umm is there going to be nitrous oxide?" and he was like "oh, do you want it?" So I'm glad I said something. I don't think he realized how scared I was until he really got started and I was so tensed up and crying my eyes out. I wasn't trying to but getting the shots REALLY hurt especially on the inside of my mouth. But his assistant was so nice and held my hand and talked to me and I swear she saved the day. I really really liked her.

Haha Emily just IMed me and goes "are you going to blog while numb?" And I'm like yeeeeeah I am! Okay no more. I need to lie down now, and I'm using two computers (one to blog, one to IM, long story) so I'm going to say goodbye. More tonight I promise.. Well I don't promise cause I don't know how I'll feel, but soon enough.

Quick Update

So I don't have much time to post because Vinnie is harassing me, I'm just saying hello. I have LOTS to post about, we went wine tasting yesterday at a bunch of local vineyards and had the best best best day ever. :-) I feel better about Oregon and I thank you guys all so much for your sweet comments. I was just having a crabby day. And Patrick is coming to visit next weekend so I'm SUPER excited! I keep thinking of fun places to take him, like Widmere or wine tasting or Tillamook or PCG or who knows?! YAY FUN VISITORS. Yay Chicago. Yay Oregon. Okay off to breakfast and then buying stuff for his house which I'm organizing.

Blogs to come...
- Details on my day yesterday
- Information about my new business
- Yays and Nays

It's a good day... and a bad day.

So it's a good day because we have had 100% bloggage update in the last 50 hours! 60% in the last 14 hours! I really like blogging... it brings people together, and it's like we're having one grand conversation with each other, just with a little time delay. I like blogging the way WE do it, as a conversation among friends!

It's also a good day because I talked to my friend Joel from UPS... it was good to catch up. We made sure we had each other's current numbers and are going to talk on the phone soon. He's one of those quality people that just makes you smile and miss him every time you talk to him. It's also a good day because Vinnie came over to cheer me up, and that was just super sweet of him. I have some serious weekend plans, which include wine tasting and salsa dancing on Saturday, then cuddling and organizing (which I love) and church (which I really love) on Sunday. And MAYBE Portland City Grill for happy hour Sunday, woo hoo! Those things just all make me happy.

Do you think I could start a business as a professional organizer? Have you ever seen the show Clean Sweep? I'd be like that... people would hire me that just have some sort of a messy or unorganized situation going on, and I'd swoop in and make it awesome for them. I do it to my parent's house all the time... not that they're messy, but after moving they still had some unpacking and stuff to do so I swoop in and do a great job of organizing it. And I LOVE organizing, I find it relaxing and fun. But honestly, do you think that could be an actual business? I see potential but I'd appreciate feedback.

It was a bad day because I slept from 8:30 - 9:30 but then I woke up because my stalker called me like they do 4 or 5 times a day. Then for some reason I went into this big melodramatic fit which I carried on with myself for about the next 5 hours. I don't know what my deal was. I was like I hate Oregon, I have no friends here, I want to move back to Chicago, etc. I talked to Vin and Patrick about it and they were both like chill out. I think I'm just getting excited about going home for Christmas and the anticipation is killing me. I guess I'm just in a little funk. Hopefully I'll snap out of it and get on with my life soon. :-) I'm cheered up just being at work, I'm one of those people who can just go to work and feel much better about things, which is great.

YAY for updates

FINALLY, some updates on people's blogs. And when it rains, it pours! 80% of the blogs I read were updated today, after a very low Thanksgiving turnout that ran through the weekend.

The best part was seeing Jenni's comment on Ryan's blog, meaning that I'm bringing together the world of bloggers. His entry was about his new car and quite interesting. He said he doesn't have heated seats and that he's anti heated seats, so I left this comment -- "Congrats on the new car. I was always VERY creeped out by heated seats too. But they came on Jake (just kind of one of those "it was an option on the car they had that had every other option I want" deals) and I'm ADDICTED. I used to make fun of my ex (before he was my ex) because in Southern California when it'd get to be 50 or 60 in the mornings he'd have them on. But I do the same thing... those chilly Oregon mornings where it's 40 or 50, they're on. Don't know how I could live without them anymore. "

Jenni's blog was about who she would kill if she could kill anyone, so I don't really know what to say to that one.

Emily's blog was AWESOME because it had a shoutout to me in it, YAY. It was also just interesting overall because she talks about liking to shop when no one else is shopping, which is clearly my favorite thing to do especially because I have Mondays and Tuesdays off so I can get away with that. So that just made me excited. And she talked about how she's bummed about being a grown-up, which I go through all the time. I'm like super excited sometimes but sometimes it really does just sorta suck. Especially because it's so hard to make really good new friends so you just sort of feel like you're lost in the world.

Addy's blog was quite entertaining. It got me all excited about Dave. I miss Dave and can't wait 'til he's back, especially for Addy's sake. And then she talked about Keith's birthday which so made me miss Keith. I don't get to talk to him nearly enough anymore. :-( And Addy's blogs just make me laugh because Addy makes me laugh.

So I guess we're going wine tasting and working on Vinnie's house this weekend. He's upset for some reason, I don't know why. I don't think it has to do with me but I'm just giving him space. Not sure if I'll see him this weekend or not, but that's the plan. I might go salsa dancing with some people Saturday night too, I need to see about that and who's going and stuff.

Then for the Kelly weekend I have a lot of stuff I should get done but I'm not sure if I'll be able to since I have to get my wisdom teeth pulled... any tips?

And Kendra was in my class today (yes I worked all day and I'm working tonight) so I got to see her which was GREAT, plus her husband is going to pick me up after my wisdom tooth appointment Monday. Awesome.

Final pic... the view from the guest bedroom. You get to enjoy the pool, hot tub, gym, and the forest/park area. Come visit me!!! 

The guest bathroom... again, this is all yours when you come visit! 

My scrapbooking territory... I guess it's a little overwhelming, but it's nice to have a set place I can go to scrapbook. 

Guest bedroom... this could be YOUR room if you come to visit. Look at those beautiful Oregon trees outside!! 

My bathroom... hard to take a good pic of, and not very interesting anyway. 

My bedroom... I need to hang my curtains. For now just that ghetto black blanket (don't forget I sleep during the day people... we need to keep the light OUT!!!) 

View from my bedroom door. (Too many view pics "for perspective?") 

Other view of the dining room. 

The "infamous" dining room table!! This is the table with the only 2 chairs I have so far and without the leaf (which stores conveniently under the table). And the pool in the background! 

View looking out to the living room / dining room from the kitchen (not a great pic, just gives some perpsective.) 

What the kitchen really looks like. 

Zoomed-out view of the kitchen. 

Other angle of the living room. 

The living room. 

Pretty much the view when you first walk in my apartment. 

The final, totally done dinner pic. YAY for great Thanksgiving dinners! 

The pre-Thanksgiving dinner pic... weren't totally finished with everything yet. 

Not too much to say...

So not too much going on... I slept until 4 (YIKES) today which was unnecessary but fun. I had set my alarm for 1 and I pretended I got up then but pressed snooze for 3 hours because I am a pile. I had stayed up late in the morning reading and so I just let myself sleep. Vin called about 2:30 AM and said ix-nay on the wine tasting because he was still out and had lots of work to do today. So I just enjoyed my day being a pile. When I got up I went to church and it was fabulous as always! When I got home I made myself some dinner... mac and cheese. I talked to my mom, my sister, and my aunt on the phone. My aunt told me all about houses and stuff. I didn't buy a house when I first moved here because things were up in the air with Doug and moving to LA. But now that I'm settled and everything I'm ready to buy a house, as soon as my silly lease expires. In August. So I have tons of time... but I'm ready to get acquainted in the market. So I've been looking at lots of houses and my aunt recommended that I go to open houses so I can start "dating" realtors but not one on one dates. (She's a realtor, I guess I forgot to mention that part). So I'm looking at houses... trying to decide between a townhouse and a single family home. And that's about it. I'm working on some random crafty type projects, scrapbooking, and getting my apartment set up just right. I got my tables and then had Thanksgiving all at once so it's kind of messy. I need to clean up and take pictures for all of you so you can see the fabulousness. I guess that's all I have to report. Maybe more later.

Post-Thanksgiving Wrapup

So Thanksgiving was awesome! My table is awesome... pictures for serious Monday or Tuesday, as soon as my apartment is spotless and ready to be photographed. :-) Dinner was great. My green bean casserole and his sausage stuffing were great (we both tried each others but really mostly enjoyed our own). And we had filet, chicken, and shrimp fondue, along with peppers, potatoes, broccoli, and onions. And 10 sauces! We had butter, sweet and sour, lemon butter, teryaki, dill, spicy, Asian, Frank's, garlic butter, and sour cream. Yuuuum. Seriously best Thanksgiving ever. I took pictures of the table so I'll put those up tomorrow if I have time. We're going wine tasting in the morning, yay. So after dinner we just chilled... I scrapbooked per usual and he worked on his website per usual. He stayed FOREVER... I was going nuts, I'm not even kidding. That's why I think I liked my relationship with Doug so much. I had space. I could see him for a while, and it was fun and great, but then I could leave for a month and breathe. Ugh. I can't stand being around someone all the time like that. Maybe I just have not found someone yet that I really like being around all the time.

Thursday night I had one of the scariest dreams I've had in a long time. I was at my apartment... only outside it was definitely my house in Palatine. Cause there was a front lawn and everything, only it was definitely my apartment inside. Weird. But this guy came and each night while I was in there sleeping would take something from my house/apartment and put it outside in the front lawn. The first night it was an old Tivo (not like the one I have) and he left it there. I thought nothing of it because I didn't know it was mine (although it was, but I don't own that in real life). The second day he got my attention though because my Tivo (the one I really have) was there with it. So I took them both and put them inside. Then the third day it was both Tivos and something else. It was freaky. And then I'd wake up in the middle of the night and start to hear him and wonder what he was taking, but I'd stay in my room and hope he wouldn't come in there. He never really stole, he just put stuff outside. And he never came in my room. It was just very psychologically scary!! Yiiiikes.

Then Friday I was crabby ALL DAY. Don't know what my problem was, but Vinnie had come over to hang out (we were going to cook leftovers) and I was like temper-tantrum girl to him the whole time. Ugh. So then I decided to go to bed (which was good 'cause I had to work that night) and I told him to just let me know when he was leaving so I could lock the door. Well, being the sweetest person in the world, he just stayed and worked on his computer the whole time I was sleeping so he didn't have to wake me up. Then he cooked dinner. So that was definitely way nice and undeserved.

Today I just slept all day, had a baked potato for dinner, cleaned my kitchen (it was SO GROSS), payed some bills, etc. Now I'm at work of course. And tomorrow morning as mentioned we're going wine tasting. Hopefully I'll get some sleep in in the morning before we go! :-)

Tis all for now. More soon. Especially more analysis of my "independence".

What Nonsense...

Nonsense I tell you! Going a whole day with blogging, what is going on?!

So here's the scoop: I went to bed around 11 PM Tuesday night (Remicade always makes me tired, so it's understandable). I woke up around 7:30 AM Wednesday morning thinking "I should get up, it's been 8 hours and I have things to do, but I'll just sleep another hour or two". Woke up next at 3:00 PM. That's right folks, I slept 16 hours. That's enough sleep for TWO NIGHTS. How in the world does that happen? Oh well, I'll let it pass I suppose. :-) Just meant that instead of taking my afternoon nap in the afternoon I took it all morning and half the afternoon. I was definitely good to go for night shift tonight! So at 3:00 I got up, went to Furniture Depot to see Carl and my "fixed" table. It looked okay but still pretty shady... so I made a deal with him that I'd get this table now and he'd order me a new one. Apparently they're in stock now so I should have the new one fairly quickly. Also, he likes my table so much that he's going to start having it as a showroom model, so that's exciting! (I'd only seen it in the catalog beforehand) So anyway, I told him I needed it before 6:30 because that's when I leave for work. Then I went to the grocery store to get a few things for my green bean casserole, then went home to do some random stuff. Oh, I stopped by Starbucks on my way home for some coffee, and the guy was like "HEY, how are you?!" like we're best friends. Granted I've seen the guy a couple of times before but didn't know he was all about me. So now I must go back soon! About 6:10 the table guys still hadn't come so I called Carl and was like "WHAT'S THE DEAL?" The driver was "stuck in traffic" so luckily my darling Vinnie came over to wait for me. HUGE THANKS to him... I totally owe him. So he says my table is there and fine... I have no idea what it looks like in my apartment. He didn't seem all about it so hopefully it's actually okay. He hates light wood so perhaps that is part of the problem. We'll see. I'll report back tomorrow... and hopefully I'll post some pictures sometime in the next week (maybe on the Kelly weekend).

For Thanksgiving since the vineyards are actually closed (we were GOING to go wine tasting, but to no avail) we're going to have fondue instead! We're both making our favorite Thanksgiving dish (me the green bean casserole and him sausage stuffing) and then we're having steak, chicken, and veggie fondue with several sauces that I'm making. I'm SO SO SO excited. I can hardly wait... only 3 more hours of shift so that is AWESOME! :-) It's not like we need "side" dishes for the fondue, but we both have our Thanksgiving favorites so we're eating them. I seriously can hardly wait though. It's going to be the best Thanksgiving ever. I told my mom and she said she wished she could come to my Thanksgiving instead of hers. We had fondue one Thanksgiving and it was definitely my favorite so far, so we'll see if this one passes it. I'm going grocery shopping for all that we don't have this morning and Vin is bringing over wine and pie. So it should be fabulous. Like I said, I'm super excited. :-) Every time I think about it I get even more excited.

So have a lovely Thanksgiving everyone and I will report back hopefully sometime tomorrow night. :-)

Table, teeth, and Remicade update

So the table guy called today and they "fixed" my table. One of the pieces of wood was broken (I saw it) so I have go to in tomorrow to see if it's "adequate". Funny, after 4 months of waiting I don't want an adequate table, which is why I waited 4 months... I want an AWESOME table. We shall see. I'll report back tomorrow.

My tooth appointment was good, got the sealants fixed up and I'm good to go.

Got some good scrapbooking done today... my pages are looking better because of all of my fun new Creative Memories tools!

The Remicade was good... for those who were wondering, Remicade is the medicine I take for my Crohn's. I get it every 8 weeks as an IV at the hospital. It takes about 2 hours and it's AMAZING. I had a really bad flare up and was in the hospital about 2 and a half years ago, and they pretty much tried every other drug they can try. They finally went to Remicade (the most extreme Crohn's medicine) and it did the trick! :-) I've been in remission for about 27 months on it, so hopefully that will continue. I'll post a whole thing explaining about my Crohn's some other time.

That's all for now... off to Bible study with my friend from work (he's letting me come to his since mine doesn't start back up until January!!!)

Palatine!

Oh how I miss thee Palatine. :-) I would love to be at Nellie's this Wednesday, joining the rest of the Palatine High School alumni drinkin' it up in that fine pre-Thanksgiving tradition. If only my parents hadn't moved to Iowa, if only I hadn't moved to Oregon, if only I ever went home for Thanksgiving! Yes, if only things were COMPLETELY different I might be able to be there.

So onto the table info... GRRRRRR!!! So they brought the tables, and my table was BROKEN. I kid you not, the dining room table I've waited for since AUGUST 6th was BROKEN when it arrived on NOVEMBER 22. Does that nearly 1/3 of a year strike anyone else? And they only brought 2 dining room chairs instead of 4, though I guess it doesn't really matter at this point. But I happily have my coffee table, 2 end tables, and 2 dining room chairs. I'm going to go talk to my good buddy Carl Wednesday to see what he can do to remedy this tragic situation! So much for eating Thanksgiving dinner at my house...

Today I watched ABC Extreme Home Makeover, scrapbooked, made zucchini bread, saw Bridget Jones, hung out with Kristie, and took about a 3 hour long nap. And that's about all the excitement in my life. Tomorrow I aspire to be more productive, but I have my sealant fixing at the dentist office and then my Remicade to look forward to. So I'm not so sure about productive other than taking care of my dental and health needs. :-) I'll keep you updated on how that goes. YAY for the return of people's blogs after what seemed to be a very long weekend!

The Table Saga

Sooo... the table guy (Carl) said we were getting close when I called him on October 29. He had my coffee table and end tables in, just waiting on the dining room table which is the one I really want. (if you haven't read the story before, the tables were all stuck on boats in the Port of Long Beach because it takes a long time to get through security. There were hundreds of boats stuck there, so mine just had to move to the front! So I was like YAY, this is good, they'll be coming soon. So lalala, time goes on, and I'm just waiting for him to call. Friday I get a LETTER in the MAIL saying "Kelly, been trying to call but I get a 'disconnect'. Your tables are in so give me a call so I can deliver them. Carl" WHAT?! He's had my number since August 6 and he's called me multiple times before. So I give him a call and he has had the tables for a few weeks! So if only I'd called him the week after Halloween I would have had them, but oh well. He also had my Chicago phone number with a Portland area code (don't know how or why he switched the area code in his records, but oh well). So they are being delivered today and I can't WAIT!! Then I can finally take and post some long awaited pictures of my apartment! :-) Expect that in the next week or so. Hopefully sooner rather than later!

And now I must go begin my rigorous daily schedule which begins with watching ABC Extreme Home Makeover, followed by making zucchini bread and scrapbooking, a short trip to the theatre with Kristie to see Bridget Jones Diary, and finished with me making dinner for Kristie and/or Vin to eat on my BRAND NEW TABLES!!!

Back home

So Vin and I went to see National Treasure while Addy was at Civil War (OSU won... go Beavs!). VERY good movie. Then we went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday which was AMAZING because I had not eaten all day because my tummy hurt in the morning. So then we went back to Addy's and chatted for a while but then Vin and I decided to just drive home that night because all we were really going to do is sleep there and then get up and drive home. Since Addy had to work in the morning, we thought it would be a lot easier on her in the morning not to have guests. Plus it was nice to sleep in our own beds! :-) We had a GREAT weekend though, so much fun and nice to get away!

This morning we made the trip to Costco... oh my. I always feel like I shouldn't join Costco, but sometimes I think I should just because there are *some* good things there. It's definitely a great place to buy meat, wine, and paper products. Other things are debateable. But it was fun anyway. Then I went home and got a LOT of work done around the house! Lots and lots so that was really great. Then I went to church... by far one of the best services I've been to in a long time. It was on "The State of the Church" so it was really good. I was happy. Then I went to Vinnie's house for dinner. SO GOOD. We decided to make chicken but we had to let it marinate, so we decided to go grocery shopping (for other stuff, just in general) while that was happening. We got lots of good groceries (seperately) and then he made YUMMY YUMMY teryaki chicken and a teryaki noodle side dish (actually I made that) and it was GREAT. We watched Shrek 2 while we ate and then had pecan pie that he bought at Costco. GREAT NIGHT. Seriously so much fun.

I had something so interesting that I was going to blog about that I thought the masses would find interesting, but now I can't remember. Maybe tomorrow...

Visiting the Addy!

Sooooo Vinnie and I are visiting Addy. YAY for Addy! We left about 4ish yesterday and got here at 6:30 or so. Lots of fun Portland traffic. So we went out to eat Mexican food and it was SUPER FUN. We had margaritas, yum. Then we went to a Corvallis bar... good times. :-) After that was the really amusingness though. Just chilling at Addy's apartment... she and I cannot be in the same room for more than 5 minutes together without going into hysterical fits of laughter. It's so fun!

Soo much blog fun

These are the five blogs I read on a regular basis, assuming they exist and have been updated:

Ryan: ryanboyle.net/weblog
Addy: osuaddy.blogspot.com
Emily: honeynuts.blogspot.com
Patrick: pidat420.blogspot.com
Jenni: irishjenni.blogspot.com

Sooooooo fun. :-) They are all quite interesting. But the sad thing is that blogs have taken the place of actually interacting with people on a regular basis. It's like it went from in person to on the phone to AIM to away messages to blogs. Tears. BUT I think we have a ray of hope in the world through commenting and responding to other people's blogs on our own blogs. I love my comments and I TRY to comment on other people's blogs, though I'm not always the best at it. I'm working on it.

To respond to Jenni's comment: keep commenting, my life is crazy and I realize that. And I changed from pink because I thought it was too hard to read. If you really don't think it is, I can change back to pink I guess but I'm trying to do something for the greater good.

And to fill you all in on Craigslist boy, we talked for an hour and a half last night. It was one of those conversations that goes late into the night and you have so much to talk about and you don't ever want it to end. So that was excellent. I hope to meet him this weekend. I have so much to say about him but I'm trying NOT to analyze him in my head so if I start writing it in my blog that will first require doing it in my head so I'm just going to not do it all together! :-)

The Vin Saga: Part Two

So Vinnie and I are back together.

Woah woah woah, before you FREAK OUT, let me explain why I'm not *quite* as fickle as it seems. Last night I stayed up all night thinking... I wasn't trying to, but I had to proofread Vin's paper, then I wrote Heather a GREAT long email (at least I thought it was great, it definitely made me think a lot), then I had a quiet time. But then I couldn't sleep for an hour or two after that, so I did a lot of thinking. I just didn't feel right about the whole breakup... I told Vin when we broke up that "this isn't the end of our story" and he said "maybe our story is to be best friends", but I didn't fully believe that. I realized last night that I want what I had always wanted... to be dating. I didn't want to act like we were married, I didn't want no space, I didn't even want to be so committed to dating only him. I wanted to explore the possibility of a relationship with him and see what happened. I planned it out perfectly in my perfect little head like I always do... and then came back down to earth and realized there's no way in the world that would happen.

So tonight he was like "what are we doing for dinner" because clearly we're incapable of eating alone. So we went to this fabulous little Thai place in Beaverton and had a wonderful meal there. As he said, the place had ambiance and would be a great place to take a date. We were flirting during dinner and have a generally good time. It wasn't at all meant to be a date but it sort of turned into a date, so on the way home I told him my little plan. He was like "what the heck are you talking about?" but once I explained it a few times, it made since to him. The only thing that's interesting is that there has to be the possibility of a future (read: marriage) sometime in the future in order for me to even ever-so-casually dating someone. So we talked about this, and he was like "yeah, it's probably not probable... but it never is... but anything is possible." He has this theory that your odds of actually marrying any one particular person are minute (which is true... think of how many relationships you've had, add one, and that becomes the denominator. The numerator is 1... and those are the BEST odds you have of getting married in your next relationship... clearly we're assuming you're single now). Okay we're math people... we're dorks. But anyway, as long as we've determined that the possibility is still there, I can so handle this and it's very much what I want.

Addy FREAKED OUT when I told her this and didn't seem too happy. I haven't had a chance to talk with her more tonight, since I went out with Kristie and Anna. I think she's freaking out because if the reason we broke up is really that important to us, it doesn't seem that logical that we would be dating. But it goes along with my whole really thinking about that whole Christian/non-Christian dating thing and how I still refuse to believe it's not possible. So as I continue to explore that I will continue to date Vinnie, though not exclusively, and see where it takes me. When and if I see a dead end, I will clearly define that with him and no longer pursue a relationship with him. I hope this makes some sense to you skeptics. :-)

As far as the non-exclusive piece... I've been talking to this guy from Craigslist (don't hate, don't hate) and I REALLY like him. I know, it's really easy to like a guy online. He's going to call me tonight, so we'll see what happens. He's a law student but I think we might get together this Friday or Sunday to have coffee or something. It's a small world too because a friend of mine from work went to high school with him! The work guy's sister even dated the Craigslist guy "back in the day". It's so weird. Buat anyway, so I'm going to try to get together with him.

I'll keep you posted on the ongoing saga, epic adventure... of Kelly's love life. :-) (and of COURSE of American History!!!!!!!!)

Quick shoutout and random "God" stuff and a note to all of you

So, even though I should be in bed, I wanted to give a quick shoutout to Laura, Randy, and Emily. I learned recently that they all read my blog and I love to hear that people are reading it! It definitely gives me an encouragement to keep writing, even when sometimes it's absolutely ridiculous. I really appreciate that you guys care about me enough to want to read about my life no matter what I'm writing and how insanely personal it is.


----------- This part is about God and optional but if you don't read it read again below the dashed lines. --------------

A few thoughts that made me smile last night and today:
I get a Bible verse sent to me every day, and it comes in the middle of the night. Last night after Vin went home I was like "God, I know you're going to make it an amazing verse tonight" and it was "He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us." 2 Corinthians 1:3, NLT. To me that was THE MOST COMFORTING thing in the world, and right when I needed it.

Then today I was thinking about this song that I always used to listen to when Julius made me sad, because it always made me smile. It's sort of an unpopular song and NEVER played on the radio (like literally I've never heard it on the radio). Later this afternoon I turned on the radio and after like 5 minutes THAT SONG came on. How awesome is that?

And that, ladies and gentleman, is why God has my whole heart. :-)

------------------------------------------------

So I realize that God/Jesus/Christianity has been a big topic on this blog as of late, but I'm not trying to discourage any of you from reading it because of that. It's just ME and this happens to be my blog. I have a pretty personal relationship with God and so it doesn't end up on the blog much (especially because I know my readership is so diverse and I want to keep it that way!!!!!!!!). But it was an important part of my breakup with Vinnie and I wanted to share that with all of you. It's been a big topic in almost all of my conversations today so it was on my mind, and I wanted to share some stuff with my readers who are Christian. But I just want you to know that I am conscious of it and I should be going back to my regularily scheduled "non-partisan" blogging tomorrow. :-)

And one more thing... it really is SO nice not to be dating someone, because I can stay up as late as I want and I have time for myself. I so need time for myself... I love emailing and IMing and talking on the phone to all of you and already in the past few days I've had more time to do that!! :-) (Plus I have made more time to do it, which is what I SHOULD be doing!!!)

No real update tonight...

Nothing really new to report tonight. There's some interesting commentary going on in the comments section of "The Vin Saga" so feel free to check that out. Tonight I met Kristie and Vin for dinner, and then Kristie and I went to B&N, Starbucks, and a movie while Vin worked on a paper. Then I talked to Addy, proofread Vin's paper, sent an email to HMG, and had a quick quiet time. :-) More tomorrow perhaps.

The Vin Saga

Alright, so here's the low-down. (I'm actually typing this "tonight" instead of "tomorrow", but I may update or add some stuff tomorrow, because it's 2:30 in the morning and I don't want to say anything I'll regret). (Note from "tomorrow"... I haven't even read this over, but I'm going to post it and just trust myself that I wasn't too psycho last night).

Just as a warning, this will be somewhat personal and perhaps reflective, so if you don't want to hear the "drama" and my reflection, don't read this!

Anyway... kind of some history, which as Vin and I learned tonight, matters! First of all, I told him in the very beginning that we should have been friends... I thought the relationship would be better platonically. He liked me though, so he wooed me and I was like "eh, whatever, I like guys who like me, this will work". Never thought anything so intense would happen. Then a week or so later I was kind of like "hey, we need some space" and he said "if we enjoy spending so much time with each other, I don't understand why we can't spend each and every minute of the day with each other". Whatever, dude. I don't care, and I have plenty of time to myself while you're at work, so whatever floats your boat. I found out tonight that he finally realized that those things were true... we are better off as friends, and you can't rush into a relationship like that. He said "you're way smarter than I am, and you know yourself way better than I know myself". Yup. (and all of this is not saying anything negative about him, I heart the boy, but it's just interesting)

So last Wednesday we had that good talk, kind of aired our grievances, etc. Then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, he BARELY talked to me. He didn't come visit me at work, didn't meet me for dinner before work, talked on the phone only a little, sent only one email which sounded like he was irritated, etc. I knew something was up, just didn't know exactly what and didn't really worry. Today I woke up at 3 PM (ugh, I like to wake up closer to NOON on my first day off!) and gave him a call. He was like "thank goodness you're up, I can finally go get lunch now!" So we went to Red Robin for lunch, had a lovely meal, discussed the weekend. He said he was crabby because Bush won (I kid you not he's been crabby since the election) and was just really irritated with Christians in general. Then we came back to my apartment while he did work. He did work and I journaled and talked online and just relaxed. One thing I journaled was "God, I don't really understand why things aren't really going as well with Vinnie as they were before, are you trying to teach me not to date non-Christians?" Just kind of a thought, eh, whatever. So then, and I don't know how this happened, Vinnie and I got into this big long conversation!!! We were talking about all sorts of stuff and he was talking about Bush, etc, etc. and basically how stupid Christians are and whatnot (for the record, I happen to have voted for Kerry... Russ don't kill me if you read that). But anyway, that's irrelevant... so he's all "I don't think you're stupid, but you haven't personally tried to pass a law because of your own moral values". He also said that someone told him long ago that he gets too committed... meaning he tries too hard to make a relationship work, even when he shouldn't be. So I said "maybe we should break up... you sound like you're just too scared to do it because you want it to work, but it sounds like deep down inside that's what you know you want". We talked some more, talked about going to Barnes and Noble and he was like "it's open 'til 11, we can still break up and get back together 4 more times before then!" It was one of those nights where you kind of know you SHOULD break up but you don't really want to so you go back and forth just discussing. He said "what if I said I do think we're better off just being friends, because we can be best friends because you being a Christian doesn't effect our friendship"? I don't know what I said, but that was kind of just the moment. I cried. I got over it. I'm too rational to cry about anything for long. I kind of have this pattern when I'm upset about something: cry, then talk logically for a few minutes, cry, then talk logically for a few minutes. Then I give the brain-dump to Julius, who is patient enough for me always to listen. Vin just kind of sat with me while I talked to Julius, which was sweet of him. Then we decided we were going to be best friends. He made me promise, which I almost didn't, and then I realize that I'm in a position that I CAN be best friends with him.

We've probably always made more sense as friends, but we were both (and probably me moreso) in a position where we're alone in a new state that we're going to live in indefinitely but don't know anyone in. And we're both people that want to "have someone" to be around all the time (even though I haven't in 3 years) so it was "convenient". There were so many convenience factors to the relationship for me. I like him yes, but as he says he's nothing that I ever wanted. Which is weird, because the relationship seemed to WORK so well, but obviously it just wasn't meant to be. It's hard to explain at this point, my head is still in overdrive analyzing. The last two relationships I've had ended because of a single reason. For Doug, it was the distance that was a deal-breaker for him. For Vinnie, it was me being a Christian. Interesting that they both call the relationships "perfect except for _____". Guys seem to have these things that are just deal breakers. I look for the big picture, and for me neither of those things was a deal breaker. I don't know.

So Vinnie was way nice, and stayed at my apartment until 12:30 AM, even though he has to work in the morning. We just talked, and I kind of explained a lot about the way I feel about God that I'd been sub-conciously filterting before. Now I didn't care how it made him feel, so I just told him. I cried maybe once more, but since he left I haven't cried. I don't cry when I'm alone, because I have the time to think and be rational. Around other people sometimes I just feel like this "pressure" or something so I cry because I don't know what else to do. I don't know, that doesn't make any sense. So I don't know when I'll see him next, but I'm sure in the next couple of days sometime. He said he'll call me tomorrow, and he obviously will.

Random musings from the evening:
- He was kind of funny when he was like "how would we raise kids? You'd want them to be Christians, I'd want them to be atheists, and neither of us would even CONSIDER the other possibility!"
- I always talk to Julius whenever I'm super emotional. And he always listens. He's detached, but he's so patient with me. I know he thinks I'm crazy for it, but he has no idea how much I appreciate it. He lets me just give him the brain dump of all of the "heat of the moment" insanity, and then I tend to get over it. Thanks Julius. :-)
- I was way more upset about breaking up with Vinnie than I was about Doug.
- He said he's not sure how I can be a girl because I’m so put together and rational (when he was leaving and he hugged me goodbye, and I just hugged him back).
- We both wanted it to work, and yet he decided it couldn't. I find that interesting.
- He explained to me that he was a Catholic who became agnostic who became athiest, but when he met me he wanted so badly to believe that he became agnostic again. The past 4 days he talked to lots of his friends who made him realize that he's really athiest. (great.) He also said that he is depending on his friends to teach him about himself.
- He realized that I know myself very well and I'm very secure with myself and know what I need. Like I need reflection time about relationships and stuff so I'm very careful to take it. He wasn't as deliberate about that time until the past 4 days, so he ended up getting himself hurt because he let himself get too attached before he realized I'm not what he wants. That made me feel really good about myself, knowing that I know myself well enough to know what I need, how I work, and how to take care of myself.
- You can't be in a successful relationship with someone else until you know yourself well enough, and the only way to get to know yourself that well is to take the time to yourself!
- I still don't know exactly what God is teaching me, but no doubt he will show me. I don't believe he's teaching me not to date non-Christians, but we will see. Vin thinks it actually is a good idea that I date only Christians, which is the first time I've ever heard someone who's not a Christian say that.


Added this morning:
Just kind of amusing, I took myself out to breakfast this morning after my dentist appointment (whenever I'm sad or break up with a boy, which are not necessarily the same thing, including in this case, I spoil myself... I go shopping and generally tend to let myself do things I wouldn't do, like get breakfast by myself). So anyway, I'm just finishing up breakfast and I go "sooooooo good, so worth breaking up with Vinnie for". I said that to myself (or maybe Jake) but it was so funny for some reason, I just started cracking up. Maybe it's not funny when I repeat it back, but I found it quite amusing. Okay I'm done now. :)