Off On Tangents

I've been reminded that this blog exists, so I will go ahead and update it now. Yay!

1. I'm watching my calories, again! I yo-yo a lot, because once I stop counting calories I gain weight. If I don't have this device in front of me telling me I'm eating a 2100-or-so calorie s'mores cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, then the calories don't exist. You understand.

2. I'm simulating a Dot & Bo room in Pinterest because Dot & Bo is hosting a sort of a contest with a $5000 grand prize shopping spree on their website. They have some pretty neat stuff, and I wouldn't mind using that money to buy some dining room furniture. The thing is, once they narrow down finalists, it's up to friends and family to go and "like" the rooms so whoever has the most likes wins the moneybags. Expect that, if I somehow make it that far, I will be soliciting help.

3. The other night I had the weirdest and grossest dream. My skin was really stretched out for some reason and I must not have had any abdominal muscles because my intestines fell into the skin sack that I could literally palpate my bowel loops. It was really, really gross.

4. My cats have started to get super snuggly in bed at night. Mia lets me wrap my arm around her and tuck my hand under her belly and she sleeps like that. So cute!

5. I took the time to get together with an old college friend to see The Avengers. I'm usually really evasive about getting together with this guy because I know that he likes me (he asked me out once back in college, oh, 7 years ago), but I'm just not into him at all. So, the time we spend together is really awkward for me, especially when he is contacting me after break-ups. I'm pretty sure I've always been on his mind, and after confirming that he was attempting to make this get-together like a date, I've finally put my foot down. I literally had to repeat myself three times before he got the message, and it made me feel bad. Of course, he doesn't want this confrontation to ruin our friendship, so once he cools off we will see more movies down the road, just without pretenses. Maybe now I can be more comfortable around him.

6. I ordered some tickets to see a musical in June and a concert in October: My Fair Lady with my mom, and Ben Howard & Daughter in Berkeley with another old friend from middle school. We so excited!

7. Besides the new Avengers movie, I also saw The Age of Adaline and Ex Machina. Both were really interesting. The Age of Adaline was adorable, but I could tell that it was based on a novel. Sometimes plots work better for novels than movies, as in this case, because the little extraordinary occurances seem more far fetched in films than books for some reason. As for Ex Machina, which was quite thrilling, had an expected and yet unexpected ending. I want to say more, but I feel like I would spoil it!

8. Even before the confrontation in #5, I've been thinking about relationships some. My mom struggled with codependency in her marriage and she had me review the characteristics of codependency to see how I fared, too. Now, I only had one serious relationship to use as a reference, but I was certainly codependent to a moderate extent during that time. I fear that this codependency won't go away for future relationships, as if I'm ruined by my last experience. If I do come across the perfect man who happens to think I'm perfect too, then great, I will do my best to be mutually happy. However, I don't intend to wait for that person to drop in my lap (I don't expect them to, anyway), and I don't intend on making it my life's mission to search for them either. I live better for myself when I'm on my own. Sure, it's nice to love and be loved, but I take better care of myself when I'm on my own: I'm not stressed over a relationship, I'm not obsessive or jealous, I don't have to compromise on anything, and (hallelujah!) I don't have to share a bed (suffer from lack of sleep) or shave my legs in the winter (at least until I start feeling like a woolly mammoth wearing a sweater made from its own fur). I have the love that I need from my family and from myself, and it's more than enough to keep me happy. I've been single for two years now, and I can honestly say that last year was one of the best and happiest years of my life. Don't need no man! Ain't nobody got time for that!

Where is the snow?

Well, if you haven't been able to tell from my instagram feed above, the trip to Tahoe was photographically successful! Hooray! I was so pleased with how everything worked out weather-wise and timing-wise in each location. I'm just used to seeing more snow there in the winter; there was hardly any due to the drought this past year, I would assume. Booooo.

But wait, there's more!

My mom finally got to check off three of the major stressers off of her to-do list. 1.) Divorce! Sounds terrible, but it's really not! This process has been going on for 2.5 years and it's finally over and the relief is visible. 2.) Our old home on sale has gotten an offer (two, actually!) the same week we put it back on the market after our fixing it up some more. We did good, sirs, yes, we did. 3.) Ben is moving in tomorrow, and we finally figured out the logistics. Phew. I was wondering how we were going to pull it off.

On the drive back from Tahoe, there were many discussions about what to do for my birthday in two weeks. Originally we wanted to go to San Francisco to one of the restaurants participating in Restaurant Week, but we would want to do something else in SF besides just eating dinner, BUT that means we either couldn't bring my brother along to do something funziez OR not do anything funziez at all. He can't walk around anywhere, really. It's very restrictive and makes us sad about doing fun things when he can't join us. Anyway, the other option we were discussing was a flight down to San Diego for the weekend, but that also seemed silly. I don't know what we'll do.