I'm 35 Fingers
Is it REALLY wierd that I keep forgetting how old I am? I'm continually telling folks that I'm 36 - BUT I'm really 35. What's up with that?

*Sigh*
I just got done reading This entry and now I want to cry. For a lot of reasons.

1) I'm very happy for the two of them, and I've enjoyed being able to take part in (observe?) their budding romance.

2) I want to go to the UK! For reasons beyond the fact that N and I will be getting married there. Because I think I'll love it.

I want to wander through a place that has buildings older then our country - has been a country! I want to be surrounded by voices speeking in accents forgien to my Americanfied ears. I want to be immerced in a culter that is similar and yet so incredably different from our own. And most of all I want to do all these things while being guided by the man I love. I want to see these sites, feel these things, breath this air all the while his arms are wrapped around me and he does the same.

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I got home at about 8:00pm last night. I was working late again - YUCK! I was met at the door by the most wonderful man in the world. Actually he was standing on the porch as I drove up. We he spent the last 30 minutes on the phone with each other with him asking every 10 or so "Are you home yet?"

As soon as I dropped my bags off inside I found myseldf wrapped in his arms and his lips on mine. We kissed, and hugged, and then kissed some more. Then we petted and panted and then the clothes started flying!

He fell asleep afterwords and I slipped out of bed to grab something to eat and sit on the couch cruzing the web. He was dissapointed later to wake up and not find me beside him. I should have gone back to bed and snuggled I suppose because it kind of left a sour note to the evening. He made a comment about me sneeking out of bed to 'chat with a boyfriend' and it frustrated me. I thought we had moved beyond these kinds of comments. When I tried to dig deeper into this he brushed it off. I wish I knew if he was seriously worried about those sorts of things or if he really is just him teasing as he's wont to do. If he IS seriously worried, what do I do? I know he was hurt in the past. I'm pretty sure TWICE. So I can understand his fears but I don't like them.

Pinning this man into serious conversation is always a challenge.

Squirrel Names?
Topic: Quizes
My squirrel name (Ok - so I hopped on the bandwagon) is: Scampy Bushman
N is: Countess Puffy-ears HUH? heheheh

Money - or the lack there of
I think I need to prioritize. It now takes me nearly all damn day to read the blogs I have tagged! It's not doing much for my work ethic. But then my current job doesn't really demand much work ethic.

As you may have summized the weekend was GREAT! We spent every single day hiking and WOW did we see some amazing countryside! N's alergies acted up the entire time, but he went with us anyway and seemed to manage to enjoy himself. It was just really really nice to spend a relaxing weekend with everyone who's important to me, and to have them all get along.

In other news N seems to be really really bothered by the fact that we are probably not going to have the money to go to Scottland this year. I can't figure out if he's more bothered by the fact that we can't seem to save enough money to take a decent vacation, 0r the fact that we keep putting off getting married. He actually askesd me last night "If we don't get to Scottland this year, are you going to leave me?"

I'm truthfully not worried about it. I know he loves me and wants to marry me. In fact, in my heat and mind we are already married, already joined for the remainder of our lives. I gave my heart and soul to him long before he ever proposed. I really don't need some cerimony to make it 'real' for me. It already is. As for the vacation part of the deal, yeah, I would LOVE to do it, but I guess I never really believed that it would happen. I won't until I have plane tickets in my hand. I'm just that way. So, if that falls through I'll live.

I think, for N, living this way is hard for him. He grew up having money. He's never really wanted for anything. His family took European vacations every other year and they always lived well above the 'comfort' level. Until recently apartently so did he. He had a serease of good paying jobs and not only got to do what he wanted but also built up a savings account. Then he desided to change carreers. To start back at the bottom of the ladder... the the bottom fell out of the job industry and he STUCK at the bottom of a ladder that suddenly has a LOT less rungs. It's been frustrating to him to say the least. At least that's how _I_ see it. Last night he was talking about taking a second job. I, as always, am against it. and NO I won't leave him if we don't get to scottland this year, nor if we don't the year after, nor the year after...

Can't say for him though *grin*

10 Reasons I'm now sure my son has forgiven me for divorcing his dad and finding someone nicer...
1) When his dad pulled up on Friday night to drop him off, he jumped out of the truck, ran toward me and deposted a wooden basket in my hands that he had made in woodshop while calling out "Happy Mother's Day!".

2) Telling N "Isn't this a cool basket? I'll bet YOU wish you had a basket like this."

3) Everytime we had to go anywhere (both of our cars only hold four people) he would shout "I get to ride with N in the JEEP!"

4) Spontainous hugging at various times during the weekend.

5) Sitting next to me while we worked on the computer and leaning against me without pulling away in horror when he realized our knees were touching.

6) Asking me two nights in a row to play a computer game with him and when I asked him "Which one" saying "You pick, I don't care, I just want to play" (did you hear the uspoken 'with you?' I did)

7) Not arguing with me when I told him he couldn't be on the internet after I went to bed.

8) Begging me while we were in the store for Digorno pizzas and then when I said yes, going to pick some out and THEN coming back empty handed because he felt they cost too much (I used to be the cash cow, who's only purpose in life was to buy him whatever he wanted)

9) Conversation on Sunday Afternoon
He: Who was that on the phone? Dad?
Me: Yeah
He: What did he want?
Me: He wanted to pick you up early.
He: When?
Me: Now.
He: But! But! I'm having FUN!
Me: I told him no, that we had plans.
He: Good!

10) Hugging me TWICE in front of his dad and the girlfriend when I dropped him off.

How to start a three day weekend right
We were all sitting around at the end of the day at work on Friday BSing as usual. F-Wad was going on and on as usual. This time it was about how the bank now requires a fingerprint to cash a check and how more and more places are going to this kind of security. "Some companies use your finger print to inditify you and log you into your computer"

ChurchLady asked "That's not good! What if you burn yourself or something like that? Then you would be locked out."

F-wad, ever confident says "Well, that why companies do a rectal scan of their employees."

During all of this I had been sitting in my little corner, 'working'. But at that, I couldn't take it any more! I stood up and peered over the cube walls and HAD to say "I'm sorry, but not not dropping my drawers for ANY job!"

of course everyone had realized that he meant Retnal scan but I couldn't leave it be. It was a GREAT way to start the weekend.

Imagine
I alluded to this on Michele's blog a few days back and thought I would include additional information here.

Imagine, if you will, that you are back in High school, and that you attend a high school that is large enough to need the services of a group of people called `campus supervisors'. (or as they were called in `my day' NARCS.) These are usually middle aged, overweight men who get their kicks out of bossing high school kids around, or body building meatheads barely out of high school, who get their kicks out of bossing high school kids around. Their `job' is to watch the halls for kids skipping class, or talking on their cell phones, or to break up fights...

Now, imagine that you live with your dad and that he's over protective and has really high expectations for you. And, that when your parents separated, your Dad lost his job, and after almost a year of not working he gets a new job. But not just ANY job. He gets a job as campus supervisor. And not just at ANY school. He gets a job as a campus supervisor at YOUR school!

You are now living my daughter's nightmare. She's sixteen, soon to be a Jr in High school, and her DAD is a NARC at her school. I DREAD her going to college!

No really, were you her, what would you do with YOUR first year of REAL freedom?

The day I got a CLUE
Last night the moodiness started again, but I realized FINALLY what was causing it...

As I've mentioned before N is sick. Well, not sick per se, but he has allergies. We're not talking garden variety allergies either. Yes, he has itchy watery eyes, sneezing and all that other stuff, but he also, on occasion starts having trouble breathing. Asthma like symptoms. On top of all this, and it's a rather weird `allergic reaction'. (even the Dr's can't explain it) he gets acid reflux. If you've never had acid reflux, DON'T bother. It's like heartburn only much much worse. For one, antacids don't help. And you know those burny icky burps everyone gets once in a while? He gets those EVERY time. So, he lays down to sleep, having trouble breathing through his nose, struggling with his chest tightening up, and then.. "urp". Up comes the acid. Then because he's having trouble breathing, he'll usually involuntarily takes a breath and breaths IN that acidy air which burns his lunges and he starts coughing, gagging and struggling to breath even MORE! Luckily he only suffers like this for a month or so during allergy season. The other months of the year, he's fine.

Now, anyone who's been ill for any length of time, realizes what this does to you. You get wrapped up in yourself. Especially when you're struggling to breath, and you feel like someone has shoved a blow torch down your throat and turned it on. Pain does things to a person.

That's not to say that he's been ignoring me. He tries really hard to keep things `normal', but I'm not getting the level of attention I'm used to. And it's left me feeling a little vulnerable and insecure. (Ok - so I'm a child.. sue me!) One thing we do REALLY well 90% of the time is make sure our world revolves around the other person. It's a mutual arraignment that I like - a LOT - thank you very much! And he's been slipping on his end of the arraignment. What's funny is as soon as I thought through all of this I felt TONS better. It's not me! It's HIM! He's not reacting normally because he's not well, not because he isn't head over heals in love with me as always. HELLO!!!

Needless to say, these revelations have helped a LOT. I immediately tipped him into the nearest bed and made sure he was having a LOT of difficulty breathing.

Do you ever...
Lay in bed, kept awake because you can't remember if you took your birth control pill? Or tip-toe into the bathroom in the middle of the night and CHECK to see if you took your birth control pill?

Is it more obsessive compulsive that I DO or that I feel compelled to blog about it?

Heh

More 'compulsions' I have:

I cannot stand for something that should be closed to be open. Sometimes I feel like Leslie Caron's character Catherine Freneau in the movie Father Goose when, she while admitting her personal faults confesses "I'm a picture straightener!" For me it's doors, drawers, the first aid cabinet at work... If it's open even a small bit it MUST BE CLOSED! And lights - if there is no one in the room the MUST BE OFF!

Luckily for me, I'm with someone willing to put up with such quirks. He didn't even comment when I crawled out of bed at about one in the morning last night and tip-toed into the bedroom to double check that I had taken my birth control pills.

Come again!?
I remember watching television as a young child. As a matter of fact, I'm sure Sesame Street had MUCH to do with the fact that I could read before I started school. I realize it's not ALL bad. But when I moved to Wyoming at the tender age of six, we stopped watching TV. "Why?" I hear you saying as you start to go into convulsions at the thought of being separated from your 'beloved'. Well because 1- Televisions were expensive and we couldn't afford a new set. 2 - Of the two 'used' sets I remember us having both of them stopped working within weeks of purchase 3 - even when we had a TV set that WORKED we were miles from any station so the only way to pick up a signal was with a satellite dish and we CERTAINLY couldn't afford one of THOSE.

So, for ten years I grew up in a household that instead of being filled with the blue light of the TV screen and canned TV sitcom laughter, was lit by reading lamps and music from either my step-dad's VAST record collection or the radio.

The Christmas before my sixteenth birthday my mother the family a Brand New TV as a Christmas gift. We didn't watch much more then movies on it due to the afore mentioned reception problems. A few months later, I moved away from home.

I spent the next 15 or so years IMMERCED in TV culture. My grandparents (who I lived with as I finished high school) watched TV non-stop and after I married there was rarely a moment that the TV wasn't on at our house. Life revolved around what shows were on and Dinners were consumed by its flickering blue light.

When we separated I was once again faced with the fact that I could not afford a television. Almost immediately I realized, I didn't CARE! I would come home and open the door, not to the raucous overbearing noise of some Television show or commercial, but to the sounds of whatever radio station or CD I had left on before I left. I found myself, for the first time in YEARS comfortable in my own home.

When N and I moved in together he DID have a TV. Luckily it wasn't on very often. Our home didn't revolve around it 24/7... UNLESS.. the kids were over. Then it was back to - turn it on when we wake up and leave it on until we go to bed. I think N could sense the difference in me those days. I was jumpy and irritable. So we turned off the cable! And once again life is sweet.

That's not to say that we're freaky technophobes We still have a television set in the house. We often watch movies on it but it's on OUR terms (Thank you Lord for NetFlix) We have a PS2 that the kids play on and more then a few computers in the house with internet access. But we do NOT watch TV in our house.

So last night while talking with my daughter, I asked her if she was coming over this weekend. "Probably Not" She answered.

Now, understand that we had this conversation because I realize that she's a teenager - with a life of her own. One that can get complicated with me living 130 miles away. So I try to be considerate of such and let her pick which weekends to come over. (within limits) That being said, I asked "Oh, so you have something going on this weekend?"

Blithely she answered "Well, there's this program on VH1 this weekend...."

I think my silence spoke volumes, but next rather then come unglued I handled it via my usual mode. I laughed...

"Oh, I see how it is! Mom or TV, Mom or TV, I see where _I_ rate!"

And what happened? Rather then get huffy, or scream and me and tell me how much I don't understand her, she laughed too, and by the end of the conversation she slipped in "I'll probably be over this weekend"

She's a good girl!