And Jack Continues~

I haven’t blogged overly much about Jack – partly because I wanted to savor it all to myself, but mostly because I didn’t want to jinx myself or get your (my) hopes up over something that would probably eventually burn itself out. To be honest, that is what I thought would happen in the beginning. I thought it likely that Jack was just fascinated with the girl next door now that she is all grown up and has breasts and knows how to use them – and that fascination would fade over time once he realized that I am really that exact same girl next door with a bit of polish and life experience shining me up all pretty at first glance.

Instead…three months later…I find myself fascinated – with him, and with us, and with how smooth this is going. It is something that is so completely unexpected that at odd moments it still catches me by surprise. Jack? Really? I am dating….Jack? The same Jack that I had a crazy school girl crush on through the majority of my teenage years is now cuddled up on the couch rubbing my back? Where did this come from? It is slightly surreal….but very nice.

The very coolest thing about dating Jack (besides the fact that he is hot) is that I feel like everything is easy when we are together. Life is simple….no drama, no crazy, no worry. We grew up in very similar ways and sometimes when I walk into his house I feel like I have re-entered my childhood – except of course that we get to be the adults. But I immediately recognize that this is a world I am familiar with – I am comfortable and know where I fit and I have nothing to worry or stress over. Because I know his background, I already know he is someone that I am safe with – and safe is a very sexy word to a jaded divorcee. It's like I get all the exciting, butterfly-inducing feelings of falling in love with someone new combined with all the additional solid, comfortable feelings of knowing someone forever. Nice.

So life with Jack is good, very good. And although I am sure he is still fascinated that I have breasts, I am no longer worried that fascination is going to fade anytime soon or that his fascination is solely focused there. There is depth here and hopefully I will have many more Jack stories to share down the road.
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Coming Next…..the youngest member of my clan, Lucy, takes on a guest blog…tune in soon for words of wisdom from the teenage version of me!

Thankful~

Thankful~
“Life is relationships; the rest is just details.”
~Gary Smalley

This weekend something happened that made me think of this quote. I won’t get into details because it is not my story to tell – but someone told me that I couldn’t understand them because I had an amazing family and a great relationship. This wasn’t exactly true (because of course I know and understand all) but the part about my family and relationship is true.

It is especially relevant this time of year as we all sit down and think about all the things we are grateful for. How many times during the course of a year do we worry about things? All day long, our to-do lists are full of things. We take care of things we have, we shop for new things, we wish we had better things, we hate the things that are in our way….and sometimes it is necessary. But when I look back and see how much time I spend worrying about things….all that crosses my mind is how silly it was to get so worked up over a thing. Tomorrow when I celebrate Thanksgiving, a thing won’t be on my mind. (ok, this is a slight lie – I will be very aware of turkey, bread, and wine – but those are necessary for life, I require sustenance.)

When it comes down to it, if I think about what I am truly thankful for….only people make my list. I am thankful for my amazing, chaotic, noisy, loyal, nosy, dependable family. I am thankful for my fantastic circle of friends that feel like extended family branches. I am thankful for Jack and all he brings to my life. I am thankful for my people-like animals that think I am the most spectacular human on earth simply because I give them kibble daily. And I am truly thankful to God for giving them all to me.

Watch Me Win A Pedicure~

It. Is. On.

Lola has challenged me to a weight loss contest. I, in turn, extended the challenge to Leah. And now there is a three way sister battle for calorie counting dominance. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It all began because Lola was whining about her stomach. Here is what you need to know about that - Lola is the thinnest sister by about thirty pounds. She whines like she is overweight when in reality she routinely rocks her bikini. (I am hoping that she is so happy that I said that about her bikini that she doesn't whine about me calling her a whiner.) When I said that I really wanted to lose some, too, she issued the challenge. Here are the rules - from now until Dec. 20 whoever loses the most pounds wins. Super easy rules, huh? And then we are doing a second round from Dec. 20th to Jan. 20th. So there are two chances to win! The first round prize is a pedicure and the second round prize is dinner. Both prizes will be awarded at the end of January when we go out for a spa day and dinner to celebrate our birthdays.

I am going to win - at least the first one. Not because I am super strong willed or a great exerciser....but because I have the most to lose. So it will be much easier for me to lose than it will be for the other two. I also have an elliptical machine right in my house staring at me, making me feel guilty if I don't use it. And I work out of my house. So it would seem that this contest is made for me. However, I have awful, terrible willpower when it comes to things like pizza, chocolate, and...mmmmm yummmy..... bread. So keep your fingers crossed for me and I will let you know periodically how much I am rocking it!

Illness and Other Items~

I have been a bad blogger. You are all out there probably starving for news of my ultra exciting thirtysomething life….and I have failed you for the last two weeks straight. Here is what you missed:

I have been sick. In multiple, varied ways. Every time I thought I couldn’t possibly be sick another day – I was. Nausea, phlegm, sore throat, dizziness, headaches, and now….now I am left with this crazy cough that lingers like an unwelcome guest. None of it was so awful that I couldn’t function, but it was all just enough to make me consistently miserable. So for two weeks I have done the bare minimum. No extra cleaning, no extra socializing, no shopping or dinner dates or mosh pits. Every time I go to Jack’s house I fall asleep on the couch after whining that my head hurts. He probably is thinking in his head that he picked a defective girlfriend and is wondering if he should trade me in or if this is just a random one-time event. (For the record I am actually always whiny when I am sick – see? Aren’t you glad I didn’t blog through it? I saved you from myself.) However, I haven’t caught him rolling his eyes at my whining once yet – and he continues to feed me chocolate and pets my hair while I doze and he channel surfs, so I am thinking that I am going to have to keep him.

I bought a new phone even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with my old phone. However, Lucy needed a new phone so it did serve a purpose. (Lucy killed her phone when she jumped into the lake with it in her pocket – who knew you couldn’t do that?) So Lola, Lucy, and I did some switcheroo-ing and now everyone has a new phone….and I got my Droid X. I love everything about it – except texting on a touch screen keyboard which is taking a little bit of adjustment. I love it so much that I was staring at it happily as I rear-ended a mini SUV last week. Whoops.

Daylight savings time has motivated me to be healthier. This is simply because it gets dark so freaking early that I am likely to spend more evenings at home now than when there was pretty sunshine to run around in. So now my elliptical machine and I will become closer frenemies than we have been in a while. The goal is to let it abuse me six days a week. Stop laughing. You are supposed to be encouraging in the beginning. You can laugh at me later when I whine about my second stomach because I continue to ignore exercise and embrace all the Halloween candy I can find.

So that pretty much sums up the last two weeks: I have been sick, ate a lot of Halloween candy, hit some guy while mooning over my new phone, and continued to get cozy with Jack on his couch and watch a lot of TV. Consider yourself caught up and I will be back soon….right after I go find my hidden stash of Snicker bars.

Julia's Online Disenchantment~

Our second, and final, guest blog from Julia on her adventures in online dating...rumor has it she has met a nice man in an old fashioned way and is taking her time to make sure he is worth her truly amazing self. Go Julia!

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Guest Blog #2 – Online Dating, be gone!

So, last you heard, I met a guy from Michigan, who was very fun. The problem with MI man, is that he is not at all attractive in the least bit. This was a sad realization for me, because I really enjoyed going out with him, and I was disappointed that he wasn’t hot. Needless to say, we have not been out since that initial date.

I did however, meet a very sweet guy from Durham. He seemed really fantastic on paper…and then we met. First of all, he was dressed better than I was, and when we had dinner, I had dinner. He barely ate because he was so busy talking about himself the whole entire time. I can appreciate a man who likes to talk, but only if he talks slightly less than I do – not more. We went on three dates, because I felt like I owed him a fair chance. The last date was over before it even started. Poor guy…we had dinner at my house and then went to a movie. As we were cooking dinner, he had to point out every darn tip he could think of…I guess to impress me? I was not impressed. Instead, I was thoroughly annoyed. So after dinner, we head to the movies, which he graciously paid for. Before the movie began, I asked his chatterbox self if he was a movie-talker. He replied ‘yes, does that bother you?’ to which I retorted ‘uh, yes, I hate it’. So here I am, thinking he is going to take my opinion into consideration during the movie, but no. He talked through the whole entire thing! And then, every time a funny part came on the screen, he annoyingly over laughed. I was like ‘geez, shut the hell up’! So the date ended. Game over, no goodnight kiss, not a hug, not a text, just end of story.

I was feeling kind of badly about it the following week, so I sent him a text that said ‘hey you are really sweet, but I just think we’d be better off as friends,’ and he says ‘sure we can be friends, but would you mind if I asked why?’ of course I’m thinking well, if you’d just shut the hell up and be a MAN…but I say ‘I just think we are both very social, and we would drown each other out’ his response ‘so you’d be worried that I’d flirt too much?’ ‘no, I just think that in a relationship one person needs to be the listener’ ‘ok, now I don’t think I understand, but its ok.’ Should I just have said “SHUT UP!?!” LOL. I mean really.

Last, this will be my last guest blog as an online-dater. Crazy Jeff from SC messaged me this week. The message in my e-mail inbox had a subject line of “?” and a message that said “Megan?” I did not respond, so in my dater inbox he sent the following:
“Are you seeing someone? is that why you didn't respond to my email. Or am I just completely lost. I want to talk to you. Face to face. I don't want to screw up something wonderful. I hope I haven't already.”
WOW. He deletes me from his whole entire life, acts like a douche bag, and then expects me to be nice?!? Some guys truly are idiots. And that, is the end of online dating for this woman.

Perfect Day~

Today was a perfect day.

I woke up headache and hangover free after a fantastic night out with Jack and Leah and her future husband, Hercules.

I went to Mass at my church, where my family has gone all my life and where I know most people’s faces if not their names. I sat in the choir and waved out at my nephew in the congregation where he sat with several members of my family. He didn’t wave back, but the kid in front of him did.

I went to McDonalds for lunch with my family after – which we have been doing since I was about seven. I ate apples instead of fries to be healthy and they actually tasted better than the fry I snagged from my sister. I felt vindicated.

I went to my Moms, harassed my Dad, and refreshed my memory on my fantasy football players and their game times- all the while flirting with Jack via text.

I played with my dogs, pet my cat, and read while they played outside for a while.

I went to Jack’s, where he had a fire and the two wick candle burning and I curled up on his sofa in front of the fireplace watching football and catnapping.

I had a super great steak dinner that Jack made for me – while I was catnapping and watching football.

I went for a walk with Jack and his puppy and got to kick at crisp, bright colored leaves like a school girl.

I played a few games on the Wii that I was no good at, but for a short enough time that it was just funny and not frustrating.

I got teary eyed watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition – and enjoyed harmless lustful thoughts about Ty Pennington.

I finished roughly eighty percent of the Sunday crossword puzzle while Jack and I watched random tv and read the paper. The other twenty percent was incorrectly organized I am sure.

I scored a big fat win in fantasy football, hopefully boosting me up a rank or two.

I spent a satisfying amount of time making out with Jack by the door when it was time for me to go home – satisfying enough to make me smile as I sit here thinking about it on my couch listening to the tail end of the thunderstorm, which also happens to be one of my favorites.

I drove home singing to the radio and thinking about how lucky I am to have found Jack at this particular point in my life – how I needed to be here in this time with this amount of baggage and this amount of life experience so that I could see the wonder in a simple beautiful day with a man that makes me feel like all my past heartache was worth it to get to here and now.

And now, I end my perfect day blogging about it. So good.

In The Kitchen~

I admire any man that attempts to impress a woman with his culinary skills. I especially admire a man that tries to impress ME with his culinary skills. Not just because it is me that gets to eat or because it means he still wants to impress me; but because I am the pickiest eater ever. Ok, maybe not ever – but close. (I blame my mother for not forcing me to eat vegetables when I was a baby, but she refuses to acknowledge that argument and usually just rolls her eyes at me when I bring it up. I try telling her she will just feel better if she would just admit it, apologize, and then make me a batch of chocolate cookies…but she still resists. One day…) Included on the list of things I don’t like: eggs, rice, vegetables, all noodles, any meat with a bone in it still at time of cooking, all salad ingredients including lettuce, any ethnic food that has its own kind of restaurant such as Chinese or Mexican, anything with a squishy texture except orange segments, and papayas. I just can’t do it. This means it is slightly difficult to plan a meal with me in mind. Even toddlers eat noodles and carrots.

Let me rein in my storytelling here for a moment. The point of the blog is not that I am a freak about eating things, but rather that I appreciate a man that can work within those constraints and feed me – not just because I like to eat but because it shows effort, and I appreciate effort in all things. Super bonus points if he feeds me well. Not only did Jack feed me well this weekend, but he only made fun of me twice for insisting that I wanted my chicken plain and boring and I was happy with it that way. And he made cookies for dessert – that sadly I was too full to really thoroughly enjoy. However, I appreciated the effort and love that he understands the importance of dessert. That is something you really can’t teach. It bodes well for the future that he already understands that desserts are a priority. Consider me impressed.

Chocolate Update~

Ok - so the night I wrote about Death by Chocolate my stomach felt so awful that I ended up getting sick at like three in the morning. Apparently I can't eat a dozen chocolate cookies in a one day now that I am in my thirties. However, this did not stop me from finishing the five or so cookies I had left the next afternoon. Also, in a related note...today I am baking more. It is a sickness.

Death By Chocolate~

One of the most useful functions of mothers in my opinion is to let us know when we have had enough cookies. When I became an adult, I went nuts with cookies. Cookies for breakfast? Sure! Cookies before I eat all my dinner? Hell yeah! Cookies in place of dinner? Double yeah! Look at these cookies Mom!! When I was in my twenties there was zero adverse side effect to this. So naturally, I believed that all that 'too many cookies are bad for you' nonsense that my mom had been spouting through my childhood was just that - nonsense. I didn't gain a ton of weight. I didn't get sick. If I ate cookies before bed I didn't have nightmares that giant cookies were going to eat me. I was fine. But now? Now I don't eat cookies for bed....because I won't get any sleep. I don't eat them in place of meals (normally)...because I can't help but think how many extra minutes I am going to need to be on my elliptical machine to burn off that one chunk of chocolate. And I usually don't over-indulge when I do eat them...because I know they will give me a belly ache. With this exception - chocolate drop cookies.

These cookies fool my adult brain into thinking they are the equivalent of brussel sprouts. I could eat a dozen of them and still my mouth will be watering because I know, somewhere in my cupboard, there are more just waiting to come live in my tummy. I could eat an entire pizza (not really, but roll with me for a moment) and smell them...and still be hungry. They are literally the best way to bundle chocolate, sugar, and flour that man has ever invented. Thus why I am typing this with my jeans unzipped, slumped in the chair like I just swallowed a watermelon whole.

I don't know why the rest of the world seems to be unaware of their existence. My mom has made them since I was little from this recipe shoved into a huge cookbook that she probably got for her wedding shower. It barely holds itself together anymore. For the good of the planet - and for all my lady friends that believe chocolate really is better than sex - I am going to share the recipe here with you. Enjoy. And if you eat more than three....I told you so.

Chocolate Drop Cookies

1 c. shortening
2 c. brown sugar
2 well-beaten eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 oz. cocoa

Mix all those ingredients into a big bowl and then mix the following ingredients into a smaller bowl and sift them.

2 1/3 c. flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Alternate pouring the dry ingredients into the larger bowl with one cup of milk until all is mixed well. Bake for approx. 10-12 min at 350 degrees.

The frosting is a learned skill with no exact measurements. Do your best and if you have problems - call my mom. She makes it way better than me.

Frosting ingredients:

Powdered Sugar
Milk
Cocoa
Butter

Grab a small bowl and add about 2 cups of powdered sugar. Add about 1 tsp of cocoa and then add milk and blend until it obtains the consistency of smooth frosting. It should still be a bit liquid-y. Use a spoon or so of butter to thicken it up. When you put it on the cookies it should pour on, but stay in place on the cookie without running all over. This is a difficult skill that I have yet to master completely. But I will soldier on...or beg my mom for help.

Wick Down~

I wasn't going to share this story because should Jack ever find his way to my blog, I don't want him to think I am throwing him under the bus and mocking him over the entire internet - especially after he was so clever and candled up his living room. But then I thought that all my readers are awesome and would never mock him for this - and that very few readers actually know who Jack really is. Also, this isn't that embarrassing in the grand scheme of things. It is just funny. And since I have been fairly close-mouthed (for me) about Jack so far...I get to tell this one.

The pretty three wick candle with the pretty little stand that Jack bought for his living room table? It is now a pretty two wick candle. The first night that I went over and saw the candle I told Jack that if he 'hugged' the candle at the end of the night when he blew it out then it would burn down better. Hugging means you literally hug the top, warm wax of the candle with your hands and kind of curl it back inside itself a bit. That makes it burn more evenly and use more of the wax instead of burning straight down the middle and eventually splitting. In case I haven't mentioned, Jack is a tough guy. He plays with bricks all day long for a living. When he hugged the candle he ended up putting his hand through part of it, spraying hot wax all over himself and things in the immediate vicinity, and burying one of the wicks in a mini avalanche of creamy vanilla wax. So now, we watch tv (make out like teenagers) by the light of two candle flames - not three. And for those of you that are thinking about how nice it must be to 'watch tv' with a man with all those hunky muscles.....why yes...yes, it is.