Okay, it's been two full weeks since my last real blogpost. It really doesn't seem like that. I'd say a week tops. I've never let it slide that long before. It wasn't on purpose, it just happened. I've had a bunch of things going on and I realized that they were really taxing me. I know that when I have too much stuff going on, I tend to shut down and that's apparently what's happened, even though I didn't realize it. I've had the hardest time keeping in touch with people, I've not been blogging, I've fallen way behind on my blog reading. Looking back over the last two weeks, I've spent about the same amount of time on line as I normally do, so it's not that I haven't had the time. I've been playing at Facebook, taking the various stupid quizzes and gifting virtual junk to people and updating my status and posting pictures of my sneakers. I've been playing with my iTunes. I've talked about this before, how I'll start organizing things and before I know it, four days have passed. I should be embarrased to admit this, but I spent two full nights organizing and reorganizing all my Cher songs. And that's just my Cher songs, not my Sonny & Cher songs. Yes, I'm that pathetic, but if you've read this blog before, you already knew this. And you know what? I had the best time doing it. It was an escape for me and I needed it.
So what's been going on the last couple of weeks? Well, a few things. House things. Relationship Things. Social Things. Health Things.
House Things: I'm laying this all on Ken because he's the more pro-active one in this department. I'm too laid back and none of this would ever happen if I was in charge. Ken wants to sell the house next year and get into a new house. A better house in a better neighborhood. I want to do this, too, don't get me wrong, but if left up to me, it wouldn't happen anytime in the near future. I HATE moving more than anything. I'd be just as happy to stay where we're at for the forseeable future. But I'm also from the school of CHANGE IS BAD. But I agree that we need to be in a new house. Our house is from the 1930s, I believe. It was a HUD house when we bought it. Looked like a seriously bad crack den, but we both saw the potential in it. We had the energy and the drive to fix it. Unfortunately, we lost that drive a couple of years in. There are many things that have gone unfixed the six years we've been here. In getting ready to sell the house, we are going to need to address these issues. The housing market is tough right now and we really can't afford to let any of these things slide if we want to get a decent price for the house. The thought of all the disruption to our lives is freaking me out. Seriously freaking me out. We need to have our floors redone. When we bought the house, this was one of the things on our list that we ran out of time for. Area rugs do wonders when your floors look like shit. Our ceilings are all in disrepair. At one time prior to us buying the house, there were a bunch of pipe leaks. We did have the ceilings patched, but nothing since then. Our downstairs ceilings are going to need to be redone. The rooms are all going to need a fresh coat of paint. We have two full bathrooms in the house, but both are miniscule in size. The upstairs bathroom is a disaster. That's the larger one and the one we use 99.9% fo the time. Bathrooms are a huge selling feature and this one is enough to turn potential buyers off. We're going to need to give it a complete makeover. The ceilings upstairs all need a quick once over. The floors upstairs need to be addressed as well. We're not sure if we have those redone or just carpeted. The basement needs attention. The front porch needs attention. Luckily we have a year to accomplish this, but just thinking about it make my stomach churn. We had good intentions when we bought this house, but good intentions lead straight to hell. The next house will not be from the 1930s. If we can swing it, we'd love to build. If not, we want a newer house. It's still too soon to figure that stuff out, but we've been kind of looking at what's out there now. If I make it out of this whole process without an ulcer, it will be a sucess!!!
Relationship Things: It's no secret that our Governor has reintroduced a gay marriage bill. We've got a Democratic majority in NY right now, so the odds that something like this might pass is better than it's ever been, but I'm still not convinced it's going to happen. There are just enough Democratic douchebags in power right now that are against this. Supposedly there are some Republicans who will vote for it, however. I don't know if it's going to be enough, but I can still hope. Anyway, there was so much talk of this in the news that it weighed heavy on my mind. So heavy, in fact, that I did something way out of character for me. Rather than agonize over every detail, ever scenario, every iota first, I asked Ken if it became legal, would he marry me. I got caught up in the moment. In my perfect world, he would say yes, the bill would pass and we'd go down to town hall and make it legal. End of story. But this is what happens when I get caught up in the moment. I don't think of things from Ken's perspective. So here's how things happened. I got caught up in the moment, asked him, he said YES and I thought that was that. Until the next day. Ken spent most of the night wide awake in bed planning things. He said his mind was going a mile a minute all night. He was trying to work out a guest list for the event. He was thinking about where he wanted to have the ceremony. Where he wanted the reception. Did he want it local? Did he want a destination? Apparently he wants a big ta-do. He's requested estimates from a number of places including the Ritz Carlton Orlando and DisneyWorld. He's thinking of having a ceremony in Germany at EPCOT and a reception inside the Great Movie Ride at Disney Hollywood Studios. He's planning on inviting every single person he's ever met. This is the complete opposite of what I want. I want a quiet little ceremony at Town Hall, get my certificate suitable for framing and then life back to normal. I've been chastized for "not knowing Ken well enough." And this is precisely why I try not to act in the moment. When I don't think things out completely and fully, this is what happens. While I think going to Disney and doing something like this is kind of cool, I absolutely HATE the idea of being in the spotlight. I have since rescinded my offer of marriage, but he's not having it. So I guess I'm engaged and stressed out about where that's going to lead.
Social Things: I can't believe this, but I've had social obligations the last few weekends. "Social obligations" sounds so negative and I don't mean it to be. I've actually gotten out of the house. I posted about my double date with Sean & Jeffrey a couple of posts ago. I also posted about my one-on-one comic con date with Sean. Last weekend Ken and I headed to Woodstock to hang out with our friends Lynn & Lori. They were looking for some landscaping advice from Ken, so that was as good as an excuse as any to go hang with them. It's been too long. That night we ended out at dinner and had a brush with reality television. The restaurant we went to is owned by one of the contestants from that bad show (that I didn't watch, but still...) Married By America. I think it was on Fox a number of years ago. He was there and tending bar. Too bad it wasn't owned by someone cooler (like Becky Buckwild), but it was still a brush with reality tv. I'm one step closer to being on Survivor now.
This weekend we had plans with cute Eric and his husband. They drove up from the city and we drove down from here and met about half-way. It was the first beautiful weekend of the year (FINALLY!!). Sunny and in the 80s. Amazing. It's been months since I've seen the sun. And I was stoked about not having to wear a jacket. Like always, it seems like we stepped straight out of winter and directly into summer. I'm sure we'll have a spring day in a couple of months. Not that I'm complaining. I love this weather. It's only going to suck bad when it ricochets us back from the 80s to the 50s. Ugh. That's when everyone gets sick.
Anyway, the boys drove up and met us and we had a great day together. I made Ken come up with a list of things we could do and presented it to them. What we ended up doing is visiting the Roosevelt mansion in Hyde Park. I did this once, years ago when I was in my early teens. I didn't really remember much about the place, so it was mostly new to me. I love doing tours like this. As much as I love history, I don't really do much about learning about it. Books tend to be too dry and I don't ever seem to find the time to watch the History Channel. But I'm fascinated by it. And especially going to experience it hands on. I love seeing how people lived and try imagining it. We all had a great time.
For lunch, Ken researched vegetarian restaurants since the boys aren't meat eaters. I'm sure it gets annoying for them when they go to normal restaurants having to search out the vegetarian fare on the menus. We ended up in Rosendale at the Rosendale Cafe. I ended up with some sort of rice burger that I need to tell you was one of the most amazing things I've eaten in a long time. Delicious. I'm sure the fact that it was dripping with cheese didn't hurt! I used to live just outside of Rosendale and I don't know that I ever spent more than 10 minutes in it ever. I didn't realize what a hippie little town it was. Very tiny town, but it makes Woodstock seem like Albany. Hippier per square inch, it seems. We also bummed around New Paltz for a little bit and more importantly had ice cream. It's been a long time since I've had ice cream and trust me, I paid for it on the scale this week. But it was worth every bite.
It was great hanging out with Eric and Comic Boy. We (and by we, I mean me, mostly) need to motivate and go hang out with them in the City more often. They're such good guys.
On the down side, socially speaking, my online friend Diane is going to be in NYC next weekend and I really, really, really want to meet her. She's from Austin, TX and one of the sweetest people I've had the pleasure of knowing. I've been trying to figure a way that I can swing it financially, and I just can't do it. I'm really bummed out by it. The one up side, if there is one, is she's from Austin and I know a few people out there, so the possibility of meeting her there is not out.
Health Things: Well, I'm off from work today. I needed to have some blood work done for my doctor's appointment next week and didn't see the need to work at all. So today has been mine. I've been working my ass off at work and deserved today. Next week's appointment is a simple one. I'm having my cholesterol checked again. The last time I had it checked was the first time in a long time that all my numbers were in the "normal" range. My cholesterol has been just over the line into the lower end of high for quite a while. I'm hoping that the last time wasn't just a fluke. If it's still in the normal range, I'm hoping I don't need to have it checked again for a while. I'm kind of getting sick of going back repeatedly. The last time I had blood work done, all my numbers were in the normal range with one small exception. My sugar was something like one point above normal. I was told not to worry about it. What I had for dinner the night before could have been enough to bump it up. We'll see if that's back in check this time, too.
In the last week or so, I've been having some problems. My sciatic nerve has started acting up again. It's pissing me off because the weather has finally changed to where I can get out there and walk again. It seems that every few months it starts giving me trouble. Last time it calmed down on it's own. I'm hoping it does the same this time. I really don't want to be on medication for anything. But if that's not bad enough, this weekend my foot started bothering me. I'm feeling pain whenever I walk. I can't tell if it's another neuroma that's giving me trouble or if it's joint pain. Again, I'm hoping it calms down in the next day or so. Luckily I do have a doctor's appointment next week, so I can talk to my doctor if it hasn't calmed down by then. It's just killing me that now that the weather is perfect for getting out there and walking, my body is betraying me. Again. I can't stand that my body is doing this to me. I'm only 42 years old. I shouldn't be having all these aches and pains.
Oh, and that reminds me of one other thing. Actually two, but they're kind of connected. Since my last real blog post, I got notified that my 25th High School Reunion was coming up this summer. I didn't go to my 20th (hell, I wasn't invited my my 20th or any of the others, actually), but I was told by my friend Maria that I don't have a choice in the matter of this one. So I told her to start bullying me already. I'm not quite sure why I'm going to this one. I didn't really have too many friends in high school. Most of the ones I had were in either the class before me or the class after me. There are some people I'm anxious in seeing though, so hopefully they show. I do need to tell you that the second I got the email about the reunion, my stomach turned sour. I just don't do social well and this is going to be uncomfortable. But I'm going to do it whether it kills me or not.
And how talking about my aches and pains brought this up. Through the wonder of Facebook, I've managed to reconnect with a lot of people from the past, as well as meet new people. I've recently gotten in touch with someone who fits both categories. This guy Jon from high school recently friended me. I knew who he was when I saw the request. But I found it odd because we didn't know each other in school. I remembered him but I'm not sure if he knew who I was. We had a little contact a couple of years ago when he emailed me out of the blue after seeing my profile on our high school website. But recently we've been talking and getting to know each other and it's been fun. He just posted a note about how he kicked cancer for the second time. Reading something like that really forces you to look at things in a different light. Yeah, I've got foot and sciatic problems and there are times when I want to scream and cut my leg off, but neither are going to cost me my life. Jon's fought back from cancer. Two different times. I feel ashamed for complaining.
Damn, this is going to be long, but I'm all caught up and I feel damn good about it. I wish this didn't take me as long to write as it did, but now that I'm done, I'm heading outside. It's 82 degrees right now and sunny. Can you say "nap in the backyard?"
So what's been going on the last couple of weeks? Well, a few things. House things. Relationship Things. Social Things. Health Things.
House Things: I'm laying this all on Ken because he's the more pro-active one in this department. I'm too laid back and none of this would ever happen if I was in charge. Ken wants to sell the house next year and get into a new house. A better house in a better neighborhood. I want to do this, too, don't get me wrong, but if left up to me, it wouldn't happen anytime in the near future. I HATE moving more than anything. I'd be just as happy to stay where we're at for the forseeable future. But I'm also from the school of CHANGE IS BAD. But I agree that we need to be in a new house. Our house is from the 1930s, I believe. It was a HUD house when we bought it. Looked like a seriously bad crack den, but we both saw the potential in it. We had the energy and the drive to fix it. Unfortunately, we lost that drive a couple of years in. There are many things that have gone unfixed the six years we've been here. In getting ready to sell the house, we are going to need to address these issues. The housing market is tough right now and we really can't afford to let any of these things slide if we want to get a decent price for the house. The thought of all the disruption to our lives is freaking me out. Seriously freaking me out. We need to have our floors redone. When we bought the house, this was one of the things on our list that we ran out of time for. Area rugs do wonders when your floors look like shit. Our ceilings are all in disrepair. At one time prior to us buying the house, there were a bunch of pipe leaks. We did have the ceilings patched, but nothing since then. Our downstairs ceilings are going to need to be redone. The rooms are all going to need a fresh coat of paint. We have two full bathrooms in the house, but both are miniscule in size. The upstairs bathroom is a disaster. That's the larger one and the one we use 99.9% fo the time. Bathrooms are a huge selling feature and this one is enough to turn potential buyers off. We're going to need to give it a complete makeover. The ceilings upstairs all need a quick once over. The floors upstairs need to be addressed as well. We're not sure if we have those redone or just carpeted. The basement needs attention. The front porch needs attention. Luckily we have a year to accomplish this, but just thinking about it make my stomach churn. We had good intentions when we bought this house, but good intentions lead straight to hell. The next house will not be from the 1930s. If we can swing it, we'd love to build. If not, we want a newer house. It's still too soon to figure that stuff out, but we've been kind of looking at what's out there now. If I make it out of this whole process without an ulcer, it will be a sucess!!!
Relationship Things: It's no secret that our Governor has reintroduced a gay marriage bill. We've got a Democratic majority in NY right now, so the odds that something like this might pass is better than it's ever been, but I'm still not convinced it's going to happen. There are just enough Democratic douchebags in power right now that are against this. Supposedly there are some Republicans who will vote for it, however. I don't know if it's going to be enough, but I can still hope. Anyway, there was so much talk of this in the news that it weighed heavy on my mind. So heavy, in fact, that I did something way out of character for me. Rather than agonize over every detail, ever scenario, every iota first, I asked Ken if it became legal, would he marry me. I got caught up in the moment. In my perfect world, he would say yes, the bill would pass and we'd go down to town hall and make it legal. End of story. But this is what happens when I get caught up in the moment. I don't think of things from Ken's perspective. So here's how things happened. I got caught up in the moment, asked him, he said YES and I thought that was that. Until the next day. Ken spent most of the night wide awake in bed planning things. He said his mind was going a mile a minute all night. He was trying to work out a guest list for the event. He was thinking about where he wanted to have the ceremony. Where he wanted the reception. Did he want it local? Did he want a destination? Apparently he wants a big ta-do. He's requested estimates from a number of places including the Ritz Carlton Orlando and DisneyWorld. He's thinking of having a ceremony in Germany at EPCOT and a reception inside the Great Movie Ride at Disney Hollywood Studios. He's planning on inviting every single person he's ever met. This is the complete opposite of what I want. I want a quiet little ceremony at Town Hall, get my certificate suitable for framing and then life back to normal. I've been chastized for "not knowing Ken well enough." And this is precisely why I try not to act in the moment. When I don't think things out completely and fully, this is what happens. While I think going to Disney and doing something like this is kind of cool, I absolutely HATE the idea of being in the spotlight. I have since rescinded my offer of marriage, but he's not having it. So I guess I'm engaged and stressed out about where that's going to lead.
Social Things: I can't believe this, but I've had social obligations the last few weekends. "Social obligations" sounds so negative and I don't mean it to be. I've actually gotten out of the house. I posted about my double date with Sean & Jeffrey a couple of posts ago. I also posted about my one-on-one comic con date with Sean. Last weekend Ken and I headed to Woodstock to hang out with our friends Lynn & Lori. They were looking for some landscaping advice from Ken, so that was as good as an excuse as any to go hang with them. It's been too long. That night we ended out at dinner and had a brush with reality television. The restaurant we went to is owned by one of the contestants from that bad show (that I didn't watch, but still...) Married By America. I think it was on Fox a number of years ago. He was there and tending bar. Too bad it wasn't owned by someone cooler (like Becky Buckwild), but it was still a brush with reality tv. I'm one step closer to being on Survivor now.
This weekend we had plans with cute Eric and his husband. They drove up from the city and we drove down from here and met about half-way. It was the first beautiful weekend of the year (FINALLY!!). Sunny and in the 80s. Amazing. It's been months since I've seen the sun. And I was stoked about not having to wear a jacket. Like always, it seems like we stepped straight out of winter and directly into summer. I'm sure we'll have a spring day in a couple of months. Not that I'm complaining. I love this weather. It's only going to suck bad when it ricochets us back from the 80s to the 50s. Ugh. That's when everyone gets sick.
Anyway, the boys drove up and met us and we had a great day together. I made Ken come up with a list of things we could do and presented it to them. What we ended up doing is visiting the Roosevelt mansion in Hyde Park. I did this once, years ago when I was in my early teens. I didn't really remember much about the place, so it was mostly new to me. I love doing tours like this. As much as I love history, I don't really do much about learning about it. Books tend to be too dry and I don't ever seem to find the time to watch the History Channel. But I'm fascinated by it. And especially going to experience it hands on. I love seeing how people lived and try imagining it. We all had a great time.
For lunch, Ken researched vegetarian restaurants since the boys aren't meat eaters. I'm sure it gets annoying for them when they go to normal restaurants having to search out the vegetarian fare on the menus. We ended up in Rosendale at the Rosendale Cafe. I ended up with some sort of rice burger that I need to tell you was one of the most amazing things I've eaten in a long time. Delicious. I'm sure the fact that it was dripping with cheese didn't hurt! I used to live just outside of Rosendale and I don't know that I ever spent more than 10 minutes in it ever. I didn't realize what a hippie little town it was. Very tiny town, but it makes Woodstock seem like Albany. Hippier per square inch, it seems. We also bummed around New Paltz for a little bit and more importantly had ice cream. It's been a long time since I've had ice cream and trust me, I paid for it on the scale this week. But it was worth every bite.
It was great hanging out with Eric and Comic Boy. We (and by we, I mean me, mostly) need to motivate and go hang out with them in the City more often. They're such good guys.
On the down side, socially speaking, my online friend Diane is going to be in NYC next weekend and I really, really, really want to meet her. She's from Austin, TX and one of the sweetest people I've had the pleasure of knowing. I've been trying to figure a way that I can swing it financially, and I just can't do it. I'm really bummed out by it. The one up side, if there is one, is she's from Austin and I know a few people out there, so the possibility of meeting her there is not out.
Health Things: Well, I'm off from work today. I needed to have some blood work done for my doctor's appointment next week and didn't see the need to work at all. So today has been mine. I've been working my ass off at work and deserved today. Next week's appointment is a simple one. I'm having my cholesterol checked again. The last time I had it checked was the first time in a long time that all my numbers were in the "normal" range. My cholesterol has been just over the line into the lower end of high for quite a while. I'm hoping that the last time wasn't just a fluke. If it's still in the normal range, I'm hoping I don't need to have it checked again for a while. I'm kind of getting sick of going back repeatedly. The last time I had blood work done, all my numbers were in the normal range with one small exception. My sugar was something like one point above normal. I was told not to worry about it. What I had for dinner the night before could have been enough to bump it up. We'll see if that's back in check this time, too.
In the last week or so, I've been having some problems. My sciatic nerve has started acting up again. It's pissing me off because the weather has finally changed to where I can get out there and walk again. It seems that every few months it starts giving me trouble. Last time it calmed down on it's own. I'm hoping it does the same this time. I really don't want to be on medication for anything. But if that's not bad enough, this weekend my foot started bothering me. I'm feeling pain whenever I walk. I can't tell if it's another neuroma that's giving me trouble or if it's joint pain. Again, I'm hoping it calms down in the next day or so. Luckily I do have a doctor's appointment next week, so I can talk to my doctor if it hasn't calmed down by then. It's just killing me that now that the weather is perfect for getting out there and walking, my body is betraying me. Again. I can't stand that my body is doing this to me. I'm only 42 years old. I shouldn't be having all these aches and pains.
Oh, and that reminds me of one other thing. Actually two, but they're kind of connected. Since my last real blog post, I got notified that my 25th High School Reunion was coming up this summer. I didn't go to my 20th (hell, I wasn't invited my my 20th or any of the others, actually), but I was told by my friend Maria that I don't have a choice in the matter of this one. So I told her to start bullying me already. I'm not quite sure why I'm going to this one. I didn't really have too many friends in high school. Most of the ones I had were in either the class before me or the class after me. There are some people I'm anxious in seeing though, so hopefully they show. I do need to tell you that the second I got the email about the reunion, my stomach turned sour. I just don't do social well and this is going to be uncomfortable. But I'm going to do it whether it kills me or not.
And how talking about my aches and pains brought this up. Through the wonder of Facebook, I've managed to reconnect with a lot of people from the past, as well as meet new people. I've recently gotten in touch with someone who fits both categories. This guy Jon from high school recently friended me. I knew who he was when I saw the request. But I found it odd because we didn't know each other in school. I remembered him but I'm not sure if he knew who I was. We had a little contact a couple of years ago when he emailed me out of the blue after seeing my profile on our high school website. But recently we've been talking and getting to know each other and it's been fun. He just posted a note about how he kicked cancer for the second time. Reading something like that really forces you to look at things in a different light. Yeah, I've got foot and sciatic problems and there are times when I want to scream and cut my leg off, but neither are going to cost me my life. Jon's fought back from cancer. Two different times. I feel ashamed for complaining.
Damn, this is going to be long, but I'm all caught up and I feel damn good about it. I wish this didn't take me as long to write as it did, but now that I'm done, I'm heading outside. It's 82 degrees right now and sunny. Can you say "nap in the backyard?"
4 comments:
Aww, you called me cute. ;-)
It was LOVELY seeing you. How wonderful that this new social side of you is coming out!
Also: marriage offers, once extended, can not be rescinded unless you kill your fiance. Hop to it. ;-)
You are going to make a beautiful bride!
Our place is the perfect Destination Wedding place. It has charm, beauty, a pool if you get married in summer..
oh and it has held up well after our 3 ceremonies!
Oh and I am a great Cook!
And make Fabulous wedding cakes
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