Look, Fall...

We can hear the Salem High School band practicing from our house. I friggin' LOVE that. It's just starting to get cold and the leaves have long been falling...

It's FALL!

I love Fall and Spring because they are the transitional seasons. They are periods of the year that I can really relate to. Fall doesn't know if it wants to be cold or warm, rainy or sunny, crisp or muggy. It is completely unwilling to commit to any one weather pattern and I love its ambiguity.

Anyways, the change in season, but more particularly the sounds of the high school band drifting over really made me nostalgic for high school football.

I remember going to the games and the sounds of the fans and then the band playing and all of the excitement. And I really had the urge to go to a game.

And then I remembered all of the climbing of the stands and the cold, cold stand under my butt. And the not really knowing what's going with the football game and the just waiting for it to be over. And waiting and waiting and waiting.

And then THAT made me think about what high school football games were like when I was in high school. For one, they were actually at the high school and now I think they are at a local mini sports arena. For another, one of the reasons I would get so tired of being at the games was all of the walking. Remember that? How you had to walk and walk and walk because you were trying to find the person you went to the game with in the first place? But, you got separated when he/she went for just a minute to get some popcorn and next thing, you can't find them anywhere. And you walk around in circles forEVER and then just give up and sit next to someone who at least looks vaguely familiar.

Yeah, high school football really sucked before cell phones. :) Now, I guess you could just text your buddy with your location and be good to go.

Am I too old to make out under the stands now?

I stole this from Lori's blog... (with slight modifications)

If you want to respond, just cut and paste into comments.
Part I

1.Your Middle Name:

2. Age:

3. Single or Taken:

4. Favorite Movie:

5. Favorite Song:

6. Favorite Band/Artist:

7. Toilet paper over or under:

8. Paper or plastic:

Part II

1. How do we know each other?

2. Whats your philosophy on life?

3. Would you help me hide the body?

4. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?

5. What is your favorite memory of us?

6. Would you give me a kidney?

7. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:

8. Would you take care of me when I'm sick?

9. Can we get together and make a cake?

10. Have you heard any rumors of me lately?

11. Do you/have you talk(ed) crap about me?
11.5 Would you admit it?

12. Do you think I'm a good person?

13. Would you drive across country with me?

14. Do you think I'm attractive?

15. If you could change anything about me, would you?

16. What do you wear to sleep?

17. Would you come over for no reason just to hang out?

18. Would you go on a date with me if i asked you?

19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?

I'm not a freak. I'm surprisingly not overly disappointed by this.

I mean, maybe I wish I was freakier. Maybe I could have been freakier if I had come from a different gene pool or had different life exposures.

What brought on this not-so-shocking revelation? We decided to go to the sex store tonight. It was totally random but Scott suggested it and I was like okay.

They've got weird stuff there. Things I am pretty sure I would not want to meet the person in whom they would fit. Like a life sized rubber fist.

Man sized fist.

Scary big fist.

And why are the costumes so darned expensive? I mean, they're really cheap quality and it's not like you have them on long. Do they charge that much because they can? Because they have to make up in price what they lack in volume of sales? It's puzzling. But it's just not worth $60 to me to be a naughty nurse.

I mean, maybe if I could charge someone whose money doesn't share a bank account with mine...

And then there was the porn. Wow. 7 levels of scary there. Old lady porn, porn filmed by secret camera, anal sex porn, fat girl porn -- who wants to see this?

Don't tell me -- I don't want to know.

Right now the only porn we have access to is the soft core Skin-a-max kind. Not enough sex and too much really bad story line. And I think I'm the only person lame enough to actually get sucked in to the bad story line and want to know how it turns out.

Speaking of which, Emanuelle and The Alien Sex Slaves is about to come on -- so I've got to dash.

That's SOOO Funny/It's funny, because...
aka Conversational Tics you didn't realize you had

I am hoping to get organized AND motivated enough to write about this past bachelorette weekend. The problem with the motivation is that no one really GETS what we are like (and WHY) when we are together, so there is always background information that goes in to it.

So, instead I am going to tell you about a little conversational tic I like to call "that's SO funny."

Have you ever been around someone who said something that was funny enough to note the amusing factor, but not funny enough to laugh out loud? Or worse, have you been around someone who really felt that what they were saying was funny, you wanted to go along -- so you felt the need to acknowledge their attempt at humor?

Have you ever noticed how many times you say, "That's SO funny!" I think you will now. I've been studying it. Not sure how it got started or why it continues, but I really want to break it from my vocabulary.

There are many snafus to this plan though. One being -- what do you do with those amusing anecdotes that ARE amusing, but not quite amusing enough to laugh out loud? How do you get someone to discontinue a story that only they think is funny without being rude? It's a quagmire.

Second tic: "It's funny, because..." We open stories with this phrase, which I think is used in order to tie someone else's story into the story you actually wanted to share. After all, my favorite quote, "It may be us they wish to meet, but it's themselves they wish to talk about" works both ways. OR you need a reason to introduce an anecdote, but the only way to do so is by explaining that it's supposed to be funny and therefore somehow worthy.

Or that's all I can come up with so far as a reason.

This post isn't finished, but Julia demanded I put something else up. (See previous comment.)

I'll try to finish or write again this month.

History, revisited.

2/28/05 -- I posted this story about my past and a pair I called Derrick and Vidalia. Here's the link http://thereisthat.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_thereisthat_archive.html


Vidalia's been creeping back into the edges of my life lately. She and Derrick did indeed get married. Scott and I ran into her and her husband at a mutual friends barbecue a few months ago. Got to thinking about the people that we know whose lives intersect. And I took a leap and called to invite her and her husband to our housewarming this weekend.

She responded warmly and was pleased that I had invited them.

I figured they'd come to the party and we'd exchange polite party banter and then we'd run into each once in a while and it would be far less awkward.

Turns out the running into each other happened sooner than the party. I was at the local college where I am planning to transfer this fall (VWC, for you locals) and she comes in almost like we had planned to be there at the same time and is paying for her classes and whatnot. Crazy! So, I'm getting ready to go meet with my advisor and she's telling me what classes she's enrolling in and what's available.

When I meet with the advisor, it turns out that the only class it looks like I'm fit for IS (who doesn't see THIS one coming) is a class that Vidalia is also going to be enrolled in.

Well, I just had to call her on the way home. It was too funny. (After all these years, I still know her number by heart because of a drunken night when I recorded her answering machine message.) I was like I know that you're not going to believe that I'm not stalking you, but...

We laughed. And it was nice to laugh with a friend that I had laughed with so many times in the past. I had a big smile on my face when we hung up.

The Vidalia story has always been one of the ultimate conundrums in my life. Why didn't she come to me? Why didn't we work it out? Why didn't I give up my pride? I didn't want the man, he wasn't right for me. It was NEVER, EVER about that. (No offense meant to the man, but whatever.)

And I think that I may have figured it out. V and I were good friends when this went down, but we weren't OLD friends. Our friendship wasn't strong enough to the withstand that level of drama. We couldn't have a fight and just brush it off. When we had a fight, it meant the end. It was the high school level of friendship, I guess.

Do I think we're going to become tight buddies again? I doubt it. It's water under the bridge and the bygones are definitely gone, but I think there's going to be too much awkwardness between us to ever get back to that level. I don't know.

I don't know.

You never know where life will take you, eh?

and just one more quick thing before I let you go

After I posted that Arnold quote (about the duct tape), I realized that the reason that I don't just completely go off and say any old thing out here in the world wide web is because of Arnold. Because I WAS Arnold. I was (and am) weird and don't completely fit in. And not even in a way that I can put my finger on. I just do not know how to relate to people, to get close to them, to bond to them. I just don't get but so close.

I've never been quite weird enough for anyone to wrap me in duct tape and throw me in a dumpster, but I also have always known that I was really close to the line. I really understand that I walk the line.

And this prevents me from going off completely. It's the underlying notion that even if I metaphorically cover someone in duct tape and throw them in a dumpster by just unleashing all of my unfiltered opinions on them, it doesn't do anything but relieve the tension I feel because the person is different than me. Doesn't quite fit into my view of "the picture." I can go off and walk away, but then how about how the Arnolds feel? How to deal with the fact that this act has changed them in a negative way? How to deal with the fact that my name and vision will forever after be associated with something horrible and unkind?

Who am I to judge? Who am I to determine someone's destiny?

I am but a speck in the face of the universe and all I really want to do is to make sure that when I am gone, the speck that I occupied is not worse for it.

HPL

Julia is trekking through Europe right now. Maybe she will stop at an internet cafe and get a wild urge to check on my blog. And I will say, "Remember that thing you told me to tell you not to do? You're doing it again."

I wonder if she remembers this?? I tried to teach this to my godmother, because she is the one who instituted the "just one more quick thing before I let you go" phrase. She'll call for a quick minute and before you know it, it's an hour gone by and your ear is hanging by a thread. I tried to teach her about the above phrase, but so far it's not meeting with much success.

I'm thinking about giving up blogging. It's all but a shadow of it's former self anyways. I don't go into much detail about anything overly person and there's rarely even a sense that I should be posting.

I remember when I used to keep a regular journal. The need, the craving to sit down and dump out all that was INSIDE OF HEATHER'S HEAD and get it out, out, out. While I still feel that way in some respects with the blog, I feel that level of censorship because it's out there and it's so public that I never, of course, had with my journal. (Even after learning my mom was reading my journal...)

Plus, there was that satisfaction of having the pen feverishly scratching over the paper, the side of my hand black with the ink of my writings... And being able to go back and tell just from my handwriting what my mood was like.

Now that I'm blogging, my handwriting is 10,000 times worse than it ever was because I rarely ever write much of anything down.

I want to believe that I'm still writing for myself, but I know how much I censor. I can't show off all of the ugly side of my personality, my opinions and my life. For the same reason that women fear having their journals read -- the fear of scorn and judgment. I want people to think I'm nice and sweet and yet sarcastic and salty and yet never think any of that has anything to do with you.

But the truth is -- I do not understand you and your life anymore than you can ever understand me. I do not get the choice you make because they are not the choice I would make. I do not understand how you cannot see yourself the way other people see you -- anymore than you cannot understand how I do not see myself the way other people see me.

So, I don't know. Maybe I won't come back. Maybe I will. It's just not the same for me anymore. And look back at the old stuff: http://thereisthat.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_thereisthat_archive.html

This stuff was good stuff. Classic Heather stuff. Pre-marriage and just have other shit to do that is too mundane to blog about. Bridezilla stuff.

I urge you that if you are a Heather fan, during my potential forever hiatus, take some time to reread the archives -- EVEN Scott did that and he started using one of my summaries as the tag line for his emails. (Yeah, I do brag about this a little -- I mean, dude, I got to replace Lex Luthor!) The quote he uses is, "To always suspect that people think you're a little weird is one thing, to have them affirm it by covering you in duct tape and throwing you in a dumpster. Well, that's just something else, isn't it?"

Don't get thrown in a dumpster and holla!

So, we've just about finished moving into our new home. And just got internet TODAY -- my marriage may actually last another 2 years after all! (Today is our 2 year anniversary -- we gave each other the internet as a present.)

I have to say that move has been pretty successful over all. We definitely had some bumps, but nothing that was majorly dramatic in the grand scheme of things. The big delay in having the satellite and internet installed was a potential cause for divorce due to the stress and strain Scott was feeling over not being able to communicate with the outside world.

But, we're just about up and running and we may be able to tear ourselves away for long enough to appropriately ring in our anniversary.

I mean, I can stand to be away from the computer for 2 or 3 minutes, no problem. :)

Then and Now

You don't know how far you've been, until you can see where you came from.

This was taken April of 2005 at my friend Theresa's house. Notice how I am putting food in my mouth while bonding. Touching.

This was taken last month at Scott's sister's graduation dinner. Yes, I know my eyes are not open, but I don't have many full body shots as I'm still not really a fan of having pictures taken of my whole body.


And what REALLY gets me is that as sassy as I've been feeling (I mean LOOK at what I got my body to do!), I know that I will look back on this picture and think, "Good LORD -- I can't believe how far I have come since then."

Because the amount of weight I need to lose to fill in the blank for the final picture is the amount I have lost to get to the middle picture.

Crazy, isn't it?

That's right -- I'm halfway there.

Meetin'

Tonight Scott and I went to our first "Meet In Va Beach" event. It's a local organization he found online as a a way for people to, well, meet. The way he initially described it, I was a little apprehensive that it was going to be a swingers thing, but luckily that was not the case. (Not being swingers and all, sorry Lori.)

Anyways, it was at a martini bar in town. When we first got there, we were a little late, so wound up at the Newbies table. We were kind of holding on to our seats a little and waiting to get our toes wet, like the first day of junior high. I think people were a tad surprised when we finally burst out of our shells and started mingling.

Alcohol has a way of doing that sometimes.

Particularly to people who have recently lost weight and don't know their limits, which we both fit in to.

We met tons of people whose names I sort of remember and whose faces I also sort of remember, but I doubt I will be able to put them together again if/when I see them again.

I just can't reiterate enough though how INCREDIBLY exciting it is to have an organization devoted to helping people meet people. It seems like forever that we have been griping that we wish we had a way to meet new people to find fun things to do. While we are occasionally sort of good about generating the fun thing to do, we can't always generate people to do the fun thing with and then it's just me and Scott drunk in a bar. Well, shit -- we can drink at home much cheaper and have the same amount of fun.

We still didn't meet another couple to hang out with, which is the ultimate goal.

That's the thing the single people don't realize. They believe that once you get married, the dating is over. And it sort of is, but then the couple dating begins and that's even harder. Think about how hard it is to find someone to meet your own particular needs and demands. Then multiply that times two to meet the needs and demands of both you and your new soul mate. It ain't easy. It usually turns out that the kind of people you are attracted to in friends are not usually attracted to the same type of mate that you are -- so it's an uneven match. Game over.

Hence all the tv watching that occurs. It's often easier than trying to match up all the parts with other parts.

But, I was talking about the meet-in. (Can you tell the martinis haven't completely worn off yet?) We met a wide variety of people and had quite a few nice but shallow talks with them. I found someone to latch on to (which usually spells disaster) but we also met just other generally super nice people who make us want to go back out and try it again.

I mean after all, aren't we just a group of people who have such a hard time meeting people the traditional way that we resorted to the internet as a way to win friends and influence people? If nothing else, we have that in common, eh?

The Cottage Cheese Conundrum


I have been wanting to introduce a good protein source into my daily diet for a while now. It's important that I mix up my Weight Watchers activity by ways other than cheating sometimes, you understand...

Cottage cheese is excellent source of protein and calcium and so on and thought this would a simple way to reintroduce this into my life without having to use up a lot of daily points. The problem is that cottage cheese looks like cottage cheese and it tastes like cottage cheese and it IS cottage cheese.

I could find something else but really I just have this freakish thing with food. It really goes back to Julia taunting me about an imaginary list that she and her family thought I had. It was a list of 17 things that I would eat -- and only those things because they were the only things I had ever eaten in my life. So, sometimes when I encounter foods that I am not fond of, I feel the need to prove to an imagined audience that I AM willing to eat other things, and that I will even grow to like them -- much to my own surprise. (Frankly, there are many circumstances where I am not willing to test this theory, but this is mostly to do with the portion of the vegetable family known as The Greens. Collard, mustard, kale, in most cases spinach... You get it. And you can have it when you get it, because I'm not going near it.)

Such has become the Cottage Cheese Conundrum.

Because of this thing, I have recently focused my radar on wanting to eat cottage cheese. I think about it more than is normal. (I really need to get a hobby.) I ask people how do THEY manage to eat cottage cheese. And let me tell you, people do STRANGE things with cottage cheese, and I'm not even talking about that really weird sight I found on the internet... No, I have a friend who eats hers with Catalina dressing. I wasn't even willing to consider that.

Here are a couple that I was willing to attempt in my first few attempts. Salt and pepper was suggested and I thought this would play up the cheesy aspect of the situation. Turns out, I must have gotten too free-handed with the salt packet and it just tasted like salty cottage cheese with a dash of pepper. No good.

An earlier attempt almost cured me of the pursuit entirely. Scott had been required to eat mushy food during his early post-operative days, and I had purchased cottage cheese as one of those items. A short time after, I decided to try the cottage cheese and a friend had suggested dried fruit was a good mix-in. I couldn't find that, but I thought blueberries might be a good complement. Turned out that it was more than a short time before when the cottage cheese had been purchased and the last time it was put in the refrigerator, the lid wasn't exactly put all the way on. Let's just say that while I at least finally figured out where that awful smell coming out of the refrigerator was coming from, I was turned off of cottage cheese for a while.

My latest attempt was at the suggestion of a WW friend. Now, I should have taken the suggestion with a grain of the excess salt from my last cottage cheese experiment, but I'm not that smart. (She's given me past suggestions and swore they were so amazing and they were not as much so.) She suggested the direction to go is sweet. Put a dash of vanilla and a bit of splenda and blend it up. It's the best thing ever, you will swear you died and gone to Heaven -- this is what she promised.

Huh, if that was what Heaven was like, think I'll stay on Earth and stick with Heavenly Hash. Granted, the first bite was pretty good but not quite sweet enough so I added a dash more vanilla and that turned out to be too much and then it was a balancing act (add MORE cottage cheese, add more Splenda, etc) to get back to the first almost okay bite... But, who wants to work this hard to eat something that was only moderately okay??

So, that experiment basically used up the last of the tiny experimental container that I purchased.

And then tonight I learned that in order for a serving of cottage cheese to count as a daily serving of dairy (one of WW's good health guidelines is that you should have two servings of dairy a day) you have to consume 2 CUPS! I mean, Jesus -- are you serious? I can barely gag down 2 tablespoons and they're saying I've got to come up with 2 cups? Just the thought makes me want to hurl.

I'm afraid that cottage cheese is going to be headed the way of collard greens on my list of acceptable foods.

hugs,

Heather

PS -- One of the reasons for the long delay is that we just got back from a week long vacay to California. We got to sit like THIS close to Bruce Willis at Koi in LA and I got a tattoo in Venice Beach... I will put up a picture once it heals.

Things are going pretty well in my life these days. I am always a bit reluctant to talk about that, because I really don't want to tempt fate. I think whenever anyone looks over their life, it will often seem as though some of their happiest times are accompanied by some of their saddest. I believe this is just the way life is, though. It rolls up and down and you just can't get too mired in either one of them because it just won't last. And that's not always a negative way of looking at things, because if you believe the good things won't last then it is only natural that the bad things won't either.

The reason that I am talking about this here now though is not to wax philosophic about how important it is to appreciate these things, but rather to talk about the enviers. The haters, if you will. Into every life haters must come, but I really want to know how to get them to go.

Scott and I both have friends who envy what we have and seem to want to have a similar niche of their own. A place to call home, a person that makes you feel at home -- as a friend of mine recently wrote me,"you really do have it all now, the man, the house, the horse, the sunset, the picket fence, the vineyard..." (Don't worry, she wasn't one of the "haters", she was just being facetious.) But these other friends, they wistfully mourn their station in life, but seem to make NO moves to trying to improve the situation. I mean, my feeling is that at least you could start by improving your attitude. Just try being happy for a minute, see if you like it. If you're not, why not fix it? Why are you envying what other people have instead of trying to get a life of your own that fits you and makes you happy?

I do not understand this.

I'm not going to put myself on a pedastel. I didn't work incredibly hard to get where I am and have what I have. It's not like I had to skip by a pair of shoes I desperately coveted in order to get my credit straightened out or to by this house. I did have to live with my parents for a few years, but hell I needed to get straightened out a little bit. And while I married a man who believes he is Superman, he is no more perfect than I am. Or you are. He's just perfect for me. And the thing that I learned is that you have to be open-minded in who you think is right for you. Most of my closest friends are married to people that I deeply believe that if someone had told them a year before they met them that they would be the man they married... They would have laughed. Outrageously. One of my best friends is relatively old-fashioned and has an "old soul" and she married someone 8 years younger than she is. Another's politics lean so far to the left that they almost circle back around again and she is married to one of the biggest Bush defenders I have every met.

So, you just never know.

I don't know... I guess no matter how hard I try, I can't fight the feeling that I am doing something wrong by being happy and revelling in how good things are right now. It really makes me feel guilty... Is that crazy? I mean, why should I tailor my emotions to not make other people feel bad? Is it wrong that I want to climb every mountain and all of that other crap out of musicals??

I just want to gloat, is that so wrong?? :)

The Fairytale Birthday Story for the 2 people who hadn't already heard...

It would be difficult to fathom that there is anyone left who has NOT heard this story, but just in case... (Copied and pasted from the email I sent out to all my peeps.)

For those of you who have heard the story ad nauseum, my apologies and you can skip to the link at the bottom.

My birthday was Thursday. (33 for those of you counting.) There was a lot of build-up going into it, because Scott was tense and worrying over my present. He was really worried that I wasn't going to like it. He was so worked up about it, that I was really getting anxious with anticipation. I kept throwing out things that it could be and they got wilder and wilder. My first really wild guess was a car. Scott just laughed and said, "Yeah, I got that witht the 30,000 I've been keeping under the mattress."

My second wilder guess was a house. We've been shopping for houses extensively over the last few weeks and we're pretty fried. Scott says, "Are you just adding 0's to the ridiculousness? And another thing, just WHO do you think you're married to?"

Then, on Wednesday night I had a dream that he bought me a vineyard. Yes, you read that right -- I said vineyard. Look, I had a lot of wine the night before, and I have always loved the movie French Kiss. Well, you can only imagine just how amused he was about that. He couldn't stop laughing about it, and he seemed to be really concerned about my mental state.

All in all, my day was good. I took the day off of work and had an appointment with a psychic. I won't get in to that, because that's a whole OTHER email. I almost managed to fit into a size smaller jeans and dress size AND found a dress to wear to Scott's sister's graduation the end of this month. Spent some time shopping with Mom and then Scott and I met up with some friends at Outback for dinner.

Now, I should have guessed that something was up when the sanctity of our marriage was threatened if I even shuffled the bag the gift sat in on our kitchen table. I should have further suspected when Scott casually suggested that some of our out of town friends should come in for a Thursday night dinner.

So, we're sitting at the table in the restaurant and he presents me with the bag of gifts. The first a tiara, because every Princess needs to have her tiara. Ever since the house hunting began and my list of demands in a home grew ever longer, I have been referred to as The Princess. I hate to admit that this title is truly far more fitting than The Queen, but what're you gonna do? We all have a good laugh over the tiara and then I was directed to pull the next gift out of the bag. That was this beautiful crystal castle. The castle was sitting up on a bluff and there was a mirror below it that reflects this magnificent amount of light. I really thought it was quite awesome and was very pleased that I finally had my castle.

I assumed this was The Gift.

I was wrong.

Scott said to reach in and feel around the bottom because there was one more gift. There was a rolled up stack of photographs printed off from the computer, and the first page said, "Princess Heather's New Home -- Happy Birthday!"

It was THE house. My amazing, wonderful husband had bought me THE house for my birthday.

THE house that we had looked at two previous times that when I walked in my heart sang and danced because I knew I was home. I had found a place that we could really build our life together in and enjoy and savor. The first time we saw it, Scott didn't like it as much as I did, but after all of the red-headed step-children we saw after the first time, suddenly he was able to appreciate the beauty of the home. But, we were going through a bumpy time getting the loan end of it straight, and Scott thought it would be best if we waited to make an offer until we were SURE that it was going to work out. The next day, after our second visit, he called me at work and broke the news that the sellers had already gotten one offer and were also entertaining a second offer that they really liked. I was heartbroken, but he convinced me that we would find another house. When it was meant to be.

Sneaky, eh? Yeah, he was the second offer they liked better. Turns out, we made quite an impression on our second visit because we actually got to meet the sellers. When they received the first offer, they had their realtor call our realtor to find out if we were going to make an offer because "they really liked us and wanted us to have the house." ( Allegedly, this is an unusual occurrence in the real estate world. Sellers vying for specific buyers.)

So, Scott gave me a house for my birthday and it must have been quite a spectacle to behold. I don't even remember much because as soon as I saw the title of the photo, I began weeping uncontrollably. Non-stop sobbing that I am sure must have alarmed many of the Outback patrons, not to mention my dining companions.

And that is the story of my fairytale birthday and here is the link to the house at the REIN sight. You can't read the description without buying the pass, but the pictures are out there and I'm sure that's what most folks want to see anyways. We close on June 30th and hope to have the blender whirring for a housewarming by early fall. We'll see what develops! :)

love and kisses to all,

Heather
Link: www.hrmls.com

PS: Turns out the crystal castle was brought to me in part due to the overwhelming generosity of Scott's dad and stepmom. Special shout-out to Pops and Linda -- thanks for being such an amazing part of the day, it truly is a story to share with your grandchildren one day.

Grandchildren?! Wow, this house really is messing with my head! :)

(PS BLOGGEES: Perhaps moving into and furnishing a new house will FINALLY give me something to blog about!)

If you're happy and you know it...

Today is my 33rd birthday, and I'm giving myself a present. From today on, I am going to accept being happy -- truly, deeply happy -- when I am happy and really learn to enjoy it and appreciate it. For too long in my life, I have downplayed the happiness I frequently feel in my life because of my various self-esteem issues. But, from today on I will enjoy being happy when I am happy -- especially knowing that it's never promised.

I think many people down play their joy. They feel undeserving or they feel arrogant or they just don't want to jinx it. Too much of the good stuff goes by because I don't stop to even realize how happy I am when I am. It's so cliche'd about stopping to smell the roses, but it's true.

Because when I'm not happy, because I'm angry or sad or bored or frustrated, Lord knows that I revel in that feeling and do not act like I don't feel that way. But for some reason, I feel almost shameful in my happiness, like it's wrong for me to appreciate the wonderful gifts that I have in my life.

Clapping my hands...

I'm not going to promise that I'm going to be a faithful blogger and that I'll be true. I can't give as much to the relationship as I used to. There's only so much of me to give and there's only so many stories.

We've been house-shopping, which is frankly terrifying. In the last week, we were dating a house but it left us for a higher offer. Who could blame it?

The house wasn't great, but it had lots of potential.

Now, we've found a house that has lots more than potential, but I don't know if it's going to work out. We're trying to get our ducks in a row with the financing after our mortgage rep shit the bed, as Scott says, and don't want to make a move on a 3rd house until we get something straight on our other two. We're old-fashioned that way. :)

But, I am really praying that things work out with this house. I just love it. It is our home. I just walk in and my heart does a little dance. It's a decent size but not huge. It's cozy and the kitchen is off the hook. If it doesn't work out, I may never meet another kitchen that inspires me as much as that one.

I mean, I actually WANT to cook.

And then after I cook, I could go relax in our amazing hot tub on our 3 layer deck.

Sigh.

I'm really trying not to get my hopes up, because apparently there's another offer out there.

Someone is vying for the hand of my house.

And I can't blame them.

I hope it doesn't become the house that got away. I've had that experience before and I was so let down that I wound up settling for this house. I mean, my street name is indicative of that, for pity's sake.

Keep everything you have two of crossed and I will let you know how it turns out.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

-James Madison, fourth US president (1751-1836)

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. -Edward R. Murrow,journalist (1908-1965)

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

-Margaret Mead, anthropologist(1901-1978)

Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they refrain from.

-Honore De Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

Here's something I never expected... It really makes feel weird the way people react to me losing weight. It's becoming more noticeable (I would hope so, since it's almost 40 pounds now), but it's strange how people react. Mostly as though my weight loss were some kind of statement about where they were in their own weight loss journey.

If I had had bunches of smoker friends when I severely cut back on smoking, I think I would have some expectation that this was going to happen. People feel judged because they think you are commenting on their own limitations, even though you're not. I'm not.

I know how hard it is to start fixing your bad habits. I had to get pretty far into the 2's before I realized that. I didn't want to watch my portions and I didn't want to eat more fruits and vegetables. I didn't want to bring my lunch to work every day. And I damned well didn't want to exercise.

I didn't want to change.

And I know I probably reacted to other people changing in a similar way to how people react to me. That's weird too.

There's a woman at work who was going to go with me to WW a while back and wound up changing her mind. Now whenever I go up to say hello to her, if she is eating anything she tries to explain why she's eating it. Explains why she isn't going to a meeting this week. Whatever. I don't get it. If you're not ready, you're not ready.

Even when people are happy for me, their happy comments are generally followed with, "I know, I need to do something..." Or the newly popular, "I think you're sending it my way." Come on now, is that right?

Does anyone care how hard it is to stay motivated to keep losing weight when I can't even drop a pants size??

Let me say this once -- I have lost weight, this is not a comment about you. I mean, seriously -- have you met me? Don't you know it's all about me???