Tuesday, and it's already a bad week.

My best friend has been not talking to me for over a week. It possibly has been longer than that, because I haven't seen her in more than a month. She keeps having excuses as to why we can't hang out. Then last week all went to hell. I've called and texted her approximately 30 times (not an exaggeration) with no response. I'm 6 weeks out from my wedding and she's refusing to talk to me. I've never been so lonely as I have been this last week. I don't know what to do at this point. I cry all the time, at my cube, in the bathroom, at home, in the car, at my mom's house ... It never ends.

Then yesterday Christen's best friend lost his job.

Selfish you

You never are a person I can lean on. You're so preoccupied with your own problems. Is it selfish of me to wish that you'd care about me? That you'd answer my phone calls, or call me back? I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm just asking for you to listen. I'm sick of listening.

Yay for prez day!

I'm so happy to have a 3-day weekend. You don't even understand. The regular weekend went by pretty quickly. Saturday we ran errands and tried to help my mom replace her sliding glass door. No good. We also went to get our sample cake, which turned out okay after only a mild breakdown by yours truly. Sunday we spent most of the day at home, cleaning and addressing invitations.

Today I have a very busy day planned. Taxes, hair dye, dinner with the almost-hubby, and more invitation addressing. Sounds delightful!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Christen's working tonight so I'm having dinner with my mom and siblings. I hope you have someone to share the day with that you love, no matter in what capacity!

News

Don't you hate when you pinkie swear you won't tell on news that you found out and then once you found out you really want to tell people? Especially when you planned on telling people before, but you didn't plan on getting pinkie-sweared into not telling.

Arg.

Dear you,

I miss your friendship. I know I shouldn't, it's been a long time. But somehow I keep getting sucked in to wondering what it would be like to still be friends. We were, once. After love was dead and before spite got in the way. I wonder now if we'd even like each other if we hung out again -- we've both changed so much. I've realized that I like being girlie and professional and I've dropped the little kid act. You ... well, I don't know you anymore. You spend your time with people I don't know (and likewise) and have interests that I don't know. I've found my own interests and realized that I don't enjoy most of what you did.

Still, I find myself dreaming about you. You babysitting my kids, us hanging out and being silly, you finding the one of your dreams. I want that for you the way I found it for me. And maybe then it would be easier to call you and say, "What are you doing tuesday? I need a friend."

Truly,
me.

The fates are alligned in a plot to keep me from getting to work on time.

That's all I'm saying.

37 cents.

We had such a terrible dinner last night. We were all out in Orlando- Shea, Kyle, Christen and I, and wanted to go to our very favorite restaurant out there -- Jungle Jim's. They have fantastic burgers, and not ones that we can get out here, so we always make the effort to go there. So we get there around 6:30 and THEY'RE CLOSED. No note on the door, no "We've moved our location", just gone. So we drove out to the Church St. Station location, which I haven't been to in 6-7 years, and we couldn't find them either. So back to Crossroads, and we ended up eating at Buffalo Wild Wings, and the food was terrible, the service was horrible, and the manager didn't give a rat's ass. All around bad, bad experience. Although none of ever leave bad tips, we snuck out with only leaving a 37-cent tip because we were all just so mad. I've never done that -- usually I will just round my dollars down instead of up if I'm unsatisfied. This time -- well, I'm never going back there anyhow. Not to the one here either, actually. Other April said she's never had a bad experience there but I'm not chancing it. If you work for BWW, please don't try to bribe me with coupons -- I don't even want them.

Other than that, though, it was a pretty decent weekend. As I mentioned, I was drunk on Friday night. Actually, I went to happy hour at Bar Louie, and although I really wasn't that tipsy while leaving, I opted to get a ride home anyhow, and by the end of the ride I felt trashed so it was a good thing I got a ride. It was way fun, and I was so glad I went.

Other highlights:

-- Went to dinner Saturday night with Christen's parents and my dad. Leaving, I was talking to my dad and he goes, "I've never noticed how green your eyes are", and I said, well, I'm wearing contacts ... and he was aghast that he didn't even notice! :) It was very funny. I'm not wearing colored contacts, but my eyes are a dark hazel so they range from more brown to more green.

-- Went to the outlet mall in Orlando w/ the crew on Sunday. Fun, and I got two shirts for very cheap. Downtown Disney yielded a bath bomb (incentive for me to clean the bathtub) and almond soap. We also stopped in to Ragland Road for a beer and appetizer which was very cute, but next time we'll opt for the outside "Hole in the Wall" bar. It seems to have a bit more character. There is a Guiness Hat picture floating hereabouts of Shea and I. We also played minigolf, and I came in last. Great fun!

Work now, but it hasn't been too bad. I'm looking forward to the three-day weekend! 1/2 day down, 4 1/2 left!

hehe

Been drinking.

Fun.

I sleep now.

:)

Better

So last week was bad. Like, bad, bad. Bad. By Friday night my face hurt from frowning and I was falling asleep on Nana's couch during cake and ice cream for her 82nd birthday. Everything came to a head: work sucked, wedding things weren't getting done, Christen was going to start working nights, stress was falling out my ears.

So this week I've decided to make an about face and stop worrying. As for work, I can only do what I can do. Other than that, I'm done worrying about it. As for the wedding, since Christen is working nights anyhow, I can start working on everything on my own and not have to worry about what's not getting done. If I do it myself, I don't have to think about it so much. Tonight I'm going to stop at JoAnn's and get things for favors and see what I can figure out on that front. I haven't really decided what I want to do, which makes things difficult. I've been skimming through Frommers.com and tripadvisor.com to find hotels in our price range that are nice so I can make reservations pronto. Does anyone know of hotels in San Francisco, the vineyards, Yosemite and Vegas that are nice and stay around $100/night? I don't need a lot of amenities, just clean and cute work for me. And for the longest stretch, in the vineyards, clean is my biggest thing. We plan on staying in San Fran for 1 night, Sonoma or Napa for 7 nights, Yosemite for 2 nights and Vegas for 2 nights.

The weekend was good but busy. Saturday I worked at the library in the morning to make up for my Mondays that I've been taking off, and then I had a cake tasting. I really liked the chef and the cake but he was so busy. We ordered a sample cake to see if what we want will work out, and we'll have to decide on that later. I'm not too concerned, because at least we've started on it. The afternoon was dedicated to taking my mom up to Spring Hill to get a bike. That worked out well, but it seems there is an issue with the battery that now needs to be resolved. Because nothing's ever easy, right? That night we went over to Charlie & Katie's new place (a wonderful 3 block walk) and brought Lola to mingle with their dog Holly. That was a trip -- Holly kept running from Lola with her tail between her legs.

Sunday I made guacamole and we ordered wings for the superbowl. S&K and S&R came over, and we had a great time. I'd venture to say that it was one of the best time that I've had with the six of us. We had a fire in the pit behind the house and Shell and Rich stayed until very late having s'mores and listening vaguely to the end of the game. And it was a great game! I have to say, I didn't really care who won, but I love turnovers. They're so exciting! And I was technically rooting for the Colts (Kyle was the only pro-Bears rooter of the day) so things went well.

Respondent

We spoke in whispers of poetry
Stolen lines of script
Glimpses of melody
Traces of memories.

Notes from the past are now buried
Between old pages
Lost like old friends
Pulled out for a sweet smile

Happiness forgotten in the shadows
Of a bitter voice
Once there was joy and hope, but
You gave up and I moved on.

These are the keys to doors that no longer open
Drafts of feelings no longer felt
Hope for lives no longer joined
Poems of moments since forgotten

Once we spoke in poetry
But I’ve stopped believing in it
Stuck to writing the stories of my life
And I’m coming up for Air.

Alone

Sometimes I feel like even if I found someone to talk to, there's no one willing to listen.

Like a whole new ring

Yesterday was a bad day. That's all there is to it. I called out at the library in favor of lounging on the couch and being waited on by Christen and catching up on shows from last week. There were, however, highlights:

I paid for our invitations, and those should come in 7-10 days from now (hurrah!). This is what they look like.

And I stopped at Jared's to see if I could get my mom's ring fixed, as it was missing a baguette. My mom gave me this ring a couple years ago, and it was the first ring she ever bought herself. It's not generally in my style (it's gold where I prefer silver, it's a baguette setting and I stay away from those), but I love it dearly. Since I got the ring, it's been missing a stone and I've been too lazy to get it fixed. It was also filthy from 20-odd years of never being cleaned. So I took it in the get it fixed, and the lady seriously cleaned it. Like 5 minutes in the steamer cleaned it. And guess what! There weren't any missing stones -- the ring was just so dirty that you couldn't see the one stone anymore. So she cleaned it and polished it and now it's like I have a whole new ring. Mom says it probably looks like when she bought it :) That makes me super happy.

The last gift for my bridesmaids came in. I can't say what it is, because they read this too, but they look so cool! I ordered one for myself too, and it has my soon-to-be name on it, so I brought it to work and put it on my desk so I don't feel the urge to show it off to my girls ... now, I just need to get them spelled right and we'll be good. They spelled mine and Autumn's correctly, but misspelled Shea's and Shelley's names so I have to send them back and get them redone. Thankfully, there's plenty of time for that. Yay for getting stuff for people!

I also started looking for something to get the parents. I found these sappy sweet framed poems that you put a wedding picture in that is a definite possibility. Parents like that sort of thing :) I need to make a list of everything I need to finish so that I can get it done -- my goal had been to finish getting everything done this week, but that's obviously not going to be the case so maybe by next week? Hmmm ... if I don't go nuts by then, we'll see. :)

Toodles!

Rains down in Africa

It's a shame that GTA Vice City has completely killed my love for Toto. It's still on my iPod, and everytime I hit that song in the shuffle, I can't hit the forward button fast enough. I walk into the library and Christen is listening to it on the computer (yes, he puts it on repeat). I walk into the living room and he's driving the car in GTA listening to that same station .... I just want to reach out and wring Toto's collective neck!

In other news, I am adjusting to life without glasses, slowly. It takes me less time to put them in, and Saturday I forced Christen to take me to the flea market to get a very hot pair of designer knock-offs. Everybody has good things to say about my lack-of-glasses, which worries me about how I looked with glasses, because I do still prefer them. I need to get new lenses because my prescription has gone up, so I'm stuck in contacts for at least the next two weeks, but I would ultimately like to go back to glasses full time and contacts only part time.

We finally picked out our invitations this weekend. They are very nice and way sophisticated -- and a tad expensive, but not as expensive as if we had gone to Crane or such. We stuck with Party City, because among the cheesy castle and roses invites they had a number of classy cards ... and they were 30% off, which made them much more affordable. Once they come in I'll probably post a picture so you can see what great taste we have. Ha!

Also drove down to Ellenton to putz around the outlet mall for a few hours. I got a couple pairs of jeans (the whole reason for going down there -- for some reason I fit the weird sizes better than standard), a pair of jean capris and two blouses. Christen came away with two tee-shirts, two pairs of jeans and a wool peacoat. He's wanted one of those damn coats for months, and I don't like them on men. But he could not be persuaded to stick with his leather jacket, so I am now the proud owner of a man with a wool peacoat. Hmmm.

Dinner was at Red Lobster last night as we had a gift certificate from Christmas still, and it was very tasty. Somehow we were there for almost 2 hours, but still it was tasty. I had shrimp scampi and coconut shrimp. Ahh, shrimp. Tasty little buggers, they are. And leftovers for tonight -- hurrah!

One drink or two?

I got contacts yesterday. Which is not to say I won't generally still be wearing my glasses, because I will. I love my glasses. I think I look good in my glasses. Boys like my glasses ...

But I wanted contacts for the wedding, and I figured if I got them now I could wear them a little bit and get used to them beforehand. They were a kick at work -- everyone loved them. :) Tonight, happy hour.

Knot my fault

My back is killing me (literally, slowly). Last night I worked at the library organizing the stacks of newspaper (they keep 2 months of back issues of 4 major newspapers) and for three hours I was stooped over a table fixing them and now I have a knot right in the middle of my back (right where I can't get to it myself). It's quite frustrating, really. I've been hunched today to keep it from throbbing, but when I get up I have to put my shoes on and the heels aren't helping. Thank god for my purple socks:

(note: not my socks).

I made a fresh pesto sauce last night and mixed it with penne pasta and shrimp -- it was tasty. I brought the leftover pasta for lunch today. There weren't many shrimp left (they were the extras from Sunday's dinner) so we gobbled them up last night. I could seriously eat shrimp everyday and be blissfully happy.

Orgasmic

This is the best bottle of wine I have ever had in my life. Slightly sweet with berry and heat, dry finish, with hints of mocha and coffee -- seriously, I gushed over this bottle the whole night. Served with bacon-wrapped shrimp, asparagus and green beans, and white rice. Because I drink red wine with anything I possibly can. So amazing. Go buy a bottle. Now.

Ahhh, shopping

Took the man-child and the evil sister shopping today, him to the used bookstore and her to get a dress for her 8th grade dance. That's all I've got. Tonight's for relaxing.

(note: not my dog. Cute though, even if it is a spaniel.)

I wish I could make the same sound the dog makes ...

... when she lays down to sleep. It's sort of a sigh through the nose. She keeps alternating between passed out and chewing on her leg. That I don't care to do. Christen is asleep in the chair, though I don't think he knows he's asleep yet.

I was in a terrible mood today. I had a dream that the wedding was a mess, and then I got a text from my MOH that she wasn't able to come to the dress fitting this weekend, and I just got into this funk that was hard to break. Luckily, there was plenty of wine here and Charlie and Katie met us for wings at Winghouse, so I was nice and loose and fun by the time they got here. My legs are still a little tingly, but I might just sleep that off.

Wrap me in designer sheets ...

I boned up on my sleep, and not in the dirty way. I've been going to sleep between 9:30 and 10:30 every night, and it has rocked! Except that yesterday I had a reeling headache and moped about the house eating frozen pizza and mac & cheese (Annie's organics, so at least I was trying to be a good girl) and doing laundry and cleaning. When my head wasn't throbbing, at least. Thankfully, the house is cleaned and my head has finally stopped doing the polka behind my eyes. La de dah ....