Merry Christmas~

We are forty nine minutes into Christmas as I write this. To help alleviate my mounting tally of sins, I sing in the choir at church. Also because I love it. And midnight Mass on Christmas Eve is my very favorite Mass of the entire year, although technically it is now eleven o'clock Mass instead of midnight. We always end with Joy To The World and after we are done I am always, always super keyed up and hyper. It is just such an uplifting experience - one of my favorite Christmas moments.

Anyway...the point of my rambling is that I just got out of Mass and am wound up and decided to gift you with a blog! So...Merry Christmas! I am writing at my Busia's house right now, where I am all alone waiting for my other female relatives to get out of an actual midnight Mass. We have a relatively new tradition of Christmas breakfast at sometime around one in the morning because apparently being hyped up after late Mass is a genetic marker passed on down my mom's side. I am the first one here - which entitles me to first shot at the meatballs and rolls AND I got to pop the top of the bubbly to make the first mimosa. Life is sweet.

In all seriousness...life is super sweet right now. I am in love with the most amazing man and it just makes everything about this holiday seem effortless and fun and hopeful and a ton of other fantastic words. I am celebrating with all my family, my friends, and my 'kids' and their families. When I started this year out my big goal was to be patient, to let God put me where I needed to be in the time that He wanted. I prayed on the Bible passage from Jeremiah where it says that God has a plan for me - even though sometimes (many times) I was still impatient and eager to move things along. And I feel as if I have been rewarded; like God has seen me struggle with it and noticed my growth and given me this great present. Being patient this year, especially in this relationship with Jack, has made so many things more meaningful for me. Things carry a certain weight when you know they have been considered and thought over - I have more faith in these things because of that. So I am ending this year in the best possible place, with the best possible people. Best. Gift. Ever.

Pretty Feet On The Horizon~

I love to win. I mean I really, really, really love to win. Anything. Everything. The hardest part of my day is fighting the urge to beat the kids in Candyland every day. Ok...maybe I am not that bad, but it is a close call.

Anyway- I won round one of the weight loss challenge with my sisters. (Feel free to applaud here) I lost seven pounds and earned myself a free pedicure, courtesy of Lola and Leah...aka 'The Losers'. I am going to bask in my glory through Christmas and then it is back on....they should prepare for a January defeat as well~

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

New Addition~

Quick update to my cast of characters! My brother and his wife very kindly gave me a brand spanking new nephew last night! If you are an alias junkie, then this would be son to Popeye and Olive, brother to Peewee. He has a very studly new baby name, but we need to give him an appropriate blog name. In a nod to my mom, we will call him Olaf. (Just for the record, my mom's name is not Olaf..she is just pushing that name for any future male offspring- which is never going to happen in reality so I will give it to her here)

Olaf was a little over eight pounds, nineteen inches. He looks like his brother and very nicely opened his eyes last night and looked at us all. Olive was a trooper and handled herself like a pro. I am sure that should I one day be pregnant, I will never handle myself as well as she does. I will be the whiniest, neediest pregnant woman ever. So congrats to my super tough sis-in-law, my baby brother, and their cute little family!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Test blog~

Ok- this blog is about to go high tech! Well....if this test blog actually shows up then it may go high tech. Basically that just means I can force all my daily drivel down your throats because in playing with my new Droid phone I discovered this handy dandy blogger app. Lucky you.

This will in no way replace normal, full blogs...but maybe this will make me a more consistant blogger. Maybe. I still wouldn't expect too much out of me until after the holidays, but you never know!

Ok...time to press post and see if this actually goes where it is supposed to! If you are reading this then I am a techie genius. If not, then at least no one will see that I am a techie failure....

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Lucy's Guest Blog~

Quick update on Lucy's blog - it will show up eventually...I think. In typical Lucy (and teenagers all over the world) fashion - it is lost. Yup. She wrote it, showed it to me, it was awesome....and then she threw it somewhere in the black hole that is her bedroom and it has yet to reappear. So you are forced to wait until her room spits it back out or she rewrites it - whichever comes first.

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.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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!

*************************************************************************
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.