Overwhelmed

When things happen, good or bad, it can cause stress. When many things happen all at once, it can create even more stress as small things add up and become big things. This is happening to me. Let's recap:

1. I've fallen for a man who is amazing (good stress).

2. My boss isn't going to be my boss anymore and I'm unsure how this will play out (bad stress).

3. I can't plan for the future because 1 and 2 just threw everything up in the air (good/bad stress, its fun imagining life together with my amazing man, less fun imagining all the best/worst case scenarios at work).

4. I'm still trying to lose weight and that has either stagnated or gone the wrong direction, sometimes leaving me feeling like Jabba the Hutt (bad stress).

5. I'm also trying to save $ but life is expensive and I'm often raiding my savings in order to "float" me until payday (sheepish bad stress, I can plan better). 

6. My windshield just got a smattering of about 20 "divets" due to an 18 wheeler with unsecured gravel passing me on a 2 lane rd. 

2 Of the nasties.

Obviously there is a lot going on, and most of it is out of my control, which is not my favorite. I'm usually pretty chill, but when things go wrong with my car I get SUPER stressed... the damn thing is my life. Sigh.

Nice crack after 8 hrs. Sigh. So today I got pad Thai, came home, ate half of it, had some wine, and watched monster movies until I felt slightly better. I'd like to just SCREAM. Sigh. What a mess things became... no wonder I wanna clean. 

I tried explaining stress cleaning to my fella. Not sure if he understands, but he's very supportive. It's WAY too hot to stress bake. I did get some cookbooks for Mediterranean food and Buddha bowls. Still trying to lose the weight. Sigh. At least my guy doesn't think I look like Jabba the Hutt. He's even seen me in full on goblin mode and he still likes me. Lol. He's gonna meet my Texas peoples this weekend! I'm stoked. And yes, there will be anamias. 

It's gonna be a stressful couple months. I told my fella I was excited for our August 'goblin' weekend and he shot back about a goblin month. This man GETS me!!! We be goblins together and it be great. 😁 someday we can see each other after bad days and get hugs... sadly it is not this day. 

Hope all of you are drinking lots of water, staying cool, and having your own goblin days. Tons of love 😘 MUAH! 

College Friends

This Wednesday I was able to have dinner and catch up with one of my friends and sorority sisters. It's really nice that her job sends her down my way for a couple days and we generally are able to get together for food and drinks. We use the time to catch each other up on life, the universe, and everything. She's pretty excited about my fella, too. I may have done a bit of gushing. Hehe.

Obligatory selfie.

On Friday another friend from college came down for the weekend. T doesn't live too far away, but the drive involves dealing with I-35, which ALWAYS means there will be traffic and stupidity happening. However, he did make it down, and we had a good evening of food (Hawaiian meatballs and chicken casserole a la mandi), drinks (wine, soco/rum with Dr pepper) and shark movies (deep blue sea 1 and 2). My fella was not able to join us because he had to do inventory at work... soooo rude being called in on your day off. Saturday we were able to meet up with my fella, he came over and we went out because my apt is pretty comfy for 2, but not really conducive to 3. We had food at city works, then were gonna see a movie, but the seats were basically all taken, so we walked around, got gelato, and decided to take T to holocron and Free Play (an arcade place). Holocron was fun, as always, and on our way to free play we were surprised at the amount of people in the area. We had stumbled upon the trinity parks Pride Fest. LOL. We eventually found parking and went to free play. We paid the fee to get in ($10 per person) then wandered around the arcade. They had tons of games, and all are free. We then got drinks, some food, and T kept our booth while J and I went to play. He found out I'm actually pretty good at Dr Mario and so my "I don't really play video games" isn't 100% correct. I told him the exceptions are Super Mario 3 and Dr Mario. Lol. Then J decided he wanted pizza, so we went to Serious Pizza. Now, last time I was there we couldn't get by the slice. That's no longer the case, each of us got a HUGE slice of pizza and then we headed home. I got pretty silly because I was up WAY past my bedtime. We decided my sleepy spleen was causing my goofiness. 

All in all it was a nice weekend. Conversation flowed fairly easily, it felt a little weird being out and about so much, but that's probably because T and I tend to be homebodies when we get together. I may need to get a beanbag chair or something for when more than 1 person is over. Lol... please excuse my brain, it just went to "you're all pushing 40 at least and you're gonna get a BEANBAG?" YUP, and we are gonna laugh SO MUCH when people go to get up out of it!! 😆😆😆 comedy always wins.

So next weekend is round 2 of my fella meeting my people in the area. The process of meeting each other's friends and determining compatibility is fascinating. I mean, J and I get along great, his friends are lovely, and my friends are amazing, so there should be no need for nerves and yet... yeah, we both a little nervous. Friendships are so important, its not like a make-or-break situation, but knowing they sometimes see thing that the people in the relationship are blind to can cause some nervousness to the people in the new relationship. I truly think it will all go well, we will have a lovely visit, and plans to go to San Antonio will be made. (We already have some plans for that trip, which should be MUY interesting.) 

A few pix from the weekend 

Blast from the past: 100 proof SoCo and Dr Pepper

A's favorite 😆

Best. Sign. Ever!!!

In case you are wondering about the prices from 1977.

Almost had to get this one.

Drinks at Free Play.

A fresh prince

Snackies

Anywhoo, that was my weekend. T headed home, so im doing my normal prepping for the week (including plans for the gym, which i have been severely lax on) and probably throw on Deep Blue Sea 3 (that's right, they made 2 sequels). Gonna be lazy in the A/C the rest of the day since it's been super hot out. Stay hydrated, friends! Hugs and love

Answering the Voice in my Head

In Korea, my friend J would generally ask me a variation of a question that I absolutely abhorred. You see, she is/was a journalist and as such is used to asking people these questions (and following homeless guys into sketchy rail yards, but that’s another story). What she asked was always along the lines of “How are you feeling?” or “How does that make you feel?” As someone who has spent most of her life denying even HAVING feelings or, if having them, shoving them so far down as to be unrecognizable, this question drove me crazy because it made me THINK about my feelings. 

Now her voice is officially in my head, and I must confront what I’m feeling – the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’m going to take you on a ride with this as well, and honestly my fella is about to get some cheat codes for me because I know he’s gonna read this (hi honey). 

A lot has happened in the last few months, both personally and professionally. Personally, I met an amazing man who I couldn’t help but fall in love with. Why this one, you ask? 

(GUSH ALERT – THERE WILL BE SOME GUSHING HAPPENING IN THE FOLLOWING TEXT!) 

He’s the first guy that I’ve dated whose actions match his words. In the past it always felt like there was a disconnect between what the guy was saying and what he was doing. For example, I’d tell someone that I just wanted a text message at least once a day. Just a little something to let me know that I was on his mind. This didn’t happen and it was because I wasn’t on his mind or he wanted to send me a different message, but it left me wondering if I was being too demanding. I didn’t think it was too much, but apparently it was. This left me sad and wondering why I wasn’t ever going to be someone’s priority. Really, I should have ended things there, but I believed them later when they said they were just busy or really did want to be with me. Toward the end with my last fella, I felt like I was being ignored and I told him that. His response was he was sorry and that he wasn’t meaning to make me feel that way. Then… no change in behavior. I know now that he had checked out of the relationship and was just stringing me along because he didn’t have the guts to end it. So, I did. The thing is, I spent at least a month and a half trying to get together with him because I thought we were still in a relationship. It was only hindsight that showed me the truth. It hurt way more than I admitted it did. And now? Now I’m with someone who messages every day and will message to let me know that he’ll message again when things calm down, who messages in the middle to say I’m on his mind, and then will message regularly when he’s free. I’m not left wondering if he cares about me, or if I’m on his mind, he tells me that. When he has a busy weekend, he makes a point of seeing me at least once. It’s not a case of “oh, well I have so much to do, I just can’t make time to see you” it’s “I’m gonna have to do x, y, and z but we can meet after (insert time here) for a bit before I have to get back to other stuff.” It’s amazing and refreshing and so appreciated. He makes plans for us to do, we have so much fun together, and when we are together it seems like time passes so quickly and I don’t even notice it. Suddenly I’m going “why am I tired” and it’s because it’s WAY past my bedtime, but I never looked at the clock. I rarely look at my phone when we are out and about (which caused a bit of a freakout on A’s part one weekend – sorry hon). Even better, we try to make sure things are as equal as possible when it comes to ‘I’ll get this, you get that’ which is refreshing. However, it turns out I get weirdly uncomfortable when someone is paying for most things, even when I’ve already paid for my portion. I don’t know why this is. Perhaps I’m worried about becoming that which I’ve complained about so much before. I know it all comes out in the wash, maybe it’s just me overthinking. 

I know that relationships progress in stages, but I’ve never really experienced a healthy relationship, so I’m not sure how they progress when they don’t just peter out. We’ve been in the super exciting ‘new’ stage. We’re still in the super exciting new stage but now I feel like I’m (and perhaps we are) in the ‘oh shit, I really hope I don’t mess up’ stage of the beginning. We joke about this when things happen like ‘oh, I thought we were good, but then X happened and that was it.’ X being anything from a slightly embarrassing food mishap to a potentially off-color comment or a slightly awkward attempt at showing affection or an expression of a tiiiiny bit of road rage (guess who had that one). I haven’t cooked for him yet – maybe THAT’s what blows this. Those kinds of thoughts run rampant. It’s the old ‘things are going SO well, I just KNOW I’m gonna mess this up somehow’ issue. I mean, on the one hand I’m going ‘we’ve only known each other for x months’ but on the other hand it feels like we’ve known each other for longer. I’m comfortable with him whether we are in a crowded museum, at the edge of a mosh pit, at his friend C’s house, or in full on ‘goblin’ mode at my place. (For those who don’t know, ‘goblin’ mode is our term for when we’re in comfy clothes and have NO intention of leaving the apartment. Generally we’re watching movies and eating snacks.) He is a planner, so he lets me know what’s going on ahead of time and INVITES me to things, usually with an ‘it’s ok if you don’t want to’ reassurance, which is also amazing. He just ‘gets’ me. Even without ‘cheat code’ blog posts. 

I guess what I’m feeling is fear of the X happening, and hope that when the X does happen, we are able to get through it and neither of us jumps ship. I’m feeling like this is a real, healthy relationship with someone who wants the same things as me and wants them WITH me. I can see an ‘us’ and a future with this man. Is that terrifying? YES. Exciting? YES. Is any of this news to him? No, because we’ve talked about it already. I think part of the point of this post is to work through what I’m feeling, acknowledge it, and share it so that it loses some of its hold on me. I’ll journal about this too. That’s right, this is for public consumption, but my journal is for all those private thoughts I’m not willing to share. Thank you for going along this roller coaster ride with me. I hope it brought back some fond memories of when you were also in the ‘oh shit’ phase. And if that’s not a thing, please don’t tell me. I prefer to think everyone has one. Hehe. 

(GUSHING OVER FROM THIS POINT ON, IF YOU PREFERED TO SKIP THE GUSH, CONTINUE POST HERE)

Professionally, I’m losing my boss. That’s right; my wonderful, amazing, sweet, professional, caring, best boss I’ve ever had is leaving me. Do I blame her? No. Will I miss her? YES. Am I unsure of my own future here? Somewhat. There’s a LOT of changes happening here. I know that my position is not going to be eliminated, because every hospital needs a Quality department. However, I don’t really know who I’m going to be reporting to or how the restructuring will affect me. So, I’m bobbing along, doing my job, and hoping for good things. This is an interesting place to be, and I do still love my job. Here’s hoping that’s still true in a few months. The CNO did try to get me to promise not to leave again, so it’s nice to know I’m still loved. 

I made a mistake and weighed myself today… can we just call it ‘happy’ weight? I’ve got no one to blame but myself. It’s either back to not eating at all 2x a week, taking my weight training WAY more seriously and figuring out how to eat for that, or accepting that it’s just WAY too easy to gain weight and give up trying to lose, instead becoming the Jabba the Hutt type that, apparently, I’m meant for. Sigh… giving up isn’t in my blood so I guess weight training it is. Portion control is also probably something I need to work on. I wish everything was as easy as gaining weight. Time to call in my trainer and talk about the food aspect of things. Damn it… I swear, I am well versed in ALL the jargon and every damn diet known to man… and some only known to woman! Still the weight creeps up… even though my clothes fit the same… well, not true… I haven’t worn jeans for a while and not just because they are uncomfortable in a TX summer. Snarl, growl. The thing is, I’m still healthy! My blood work always comes back with good #’s, and my doc told me that my cholesterol is in the ‘live forever’ range. I just hold on to the lbs in my thighs and butt. Dash it all.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some of the less "omg, so amazing" things I've been thinking/feeling. Its been a roller coaster of a few months and I'm feeling lots of things I've never really felt before, and it helps to write these things out. I'm trying to do like J says and be honest with my thoughts/feelings, being sure to acknowledge them, so that they don't rule me and cause me to do something stupid. (See hon, I WAS listening when you got on your soap box!) I saw this and thought it worked for my relationship:

I'm SO glad I met someone who gets me, let's me be me, and doesn't try to force me to be 'normal.' (That counts as minimal gush.) 

MUAH! Much love, all!! 😘😘😘

Road Trip!!

My fella and I have Fridays and Saturdays off together, so this weekend we decided to go to Houston. We drove down on Friday and came back in Saturday. It was my first road trip with a significant other (eep)! And it was soooo much fun!! In the spirit of partnership, I got the hotel and tickets to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, he drove and took care of food. Turns out a fiat 500 is comfy for road tripping, he doesn't mind stopping at interesting roadside attractions, we have similar music tastes (even occasional country music), and our snacking game is on POINT!

We stopped at a little place called Cooper Farms on the way down. Apparently it's like the West, TX of I-45. They had tons of snacks, drinks, t-shirts, and the like. We were able to try their fruit wines, which they make by growing the fruit, sending it to the winery, and getting back the wine. They had ALL kinds of flavors, we tried the peach, white nectarine, and lime kinds. The lime was interesting. Like a margarita without the tequila. 

I got ice cream!! This is peach ice cream mixed with blueberry/lemon ice cream! 

It was AMAZING. We ran into some traffic outside Houston and ended up going the scenic route at the prompting of Google. We found our hotel, got into the room, and noticed it was a liiiitle warm. Figuring it just needed time, we turned it WAY down and went to find food. We had a mini adventure looking for food. We were gonna try a taco place, but when we drove into the parking lot we thought it looked a little sketchy, so we decided to keep going. We ended up at a local place called Skeeters. It was called Skeeters because they use mesquite wood to smoke their meat. Friends, I had the BEST pork chop of my life. It was big, bone-in, and came with steamed veg and sweet potato fries. SO GOOD I forgot to take a before pic, so here's the aftermath.

hehehe. We also got our customary chips and queso with salsa, which I DID snap a pic of!

We went and got some waters and wandered around a Specs for a bit then headed back to the hotel. The min we walked into the room we noticed it had NOT cooled down. And I put that thermostat down to 59.5!! We inquired at the front desk and the dude got on the phone right away. They said their A/C wasn't able to keep up with the heat because it was an old system, then said that their sister hotel (just behind them) had a room if we'd like to stay there. We took them up on that offer, checked into the new hotel, got into that room, and had our own, perfectly functional a/c unit. We turned that sucker WAY down and enjoyed the lovely, cool air for the rest of the evening. 

The hallway kinda reminded us of a creepy movie... does anyone else get "the shining" vibes here???

I'm mentioning this story because we learned how each of us handle things when they don't really go according to plan. There were a lot of opportunities for one or the other of us to use slight inconveniences as excuses to be kinda rude or super annoyed but we both just kinda took them as they came and adjusted as needed. I think that bodes well for in the future, since we know there are going to be curveballs that life throws at us. I'm glad we have similar coping strategies. We BOTH we really glad we didn't try to "tough it out" in the first room... they didn't even have a FAN!!! 

Anyway, the next day we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We saw the shark exhibit first, then the dinosaurs, then the cabinet of curiosities, then the minerals and gems. We spent a good 3 hours wandering through the museum. Here's just a FEW pix cuz I took a TON.

Apparently HMNS has the largest dino exhibit in the world.

I've read that museums as we know them came from private "cabinets of curiosities" back when rich people would travel and bring back "curios."

And who doesn't love shiny rocks???

I think I would rock this 😁

After drooling over the shinies, we wandered around the gift shops and considered the merits of a $12000 fossil of our own, but ultimately decided that transporting it back and forth between our apts would be too tough.

At this point we decided food was a good plan. We ended up at Taco Bodega and had some REALLY good food. 

Chips and queso to share, the burrito was mine (black beans, pulled pork, lettuce, tomato, black olives, jalapeños, and guac), and he had a Mexican pizza.

I am very grateful that the man doesn't mind me snapping a quick pic of his food to share on my blog. He is very understanding of my shutterbug ways. I also promised him I wouldn't share any pix of us without his permission. 

We headed back to Dallas after lunch (and somehow snagged free parking- go us!). We did stop at a truck stop to stretch our legs and walk around a bit. I managed to get a drive-by pic of the big Sam Houston statue on I-45.

Not too shabby, right??

Anyway, I got to meet his kitty cat before he took me home. Meet Ace. The sweetest kitty who wants all the skritches and all the loves. 

Never mind the bad angle for me. Hehe. The void wants loves and treats.

My fella got the day off on Sunday so he picked me up and we spent a lovely day together. We had lunch with his mom and niece, then stopped by one of his sister's houses, so I'm slowly meeting his family. We found jaws at the movie trading company, so we can eventually have a proper home bound gremlin-style shark movie marathon! 

Most insane grilled salmon salad EVER!!! Soooo good.

So it's official. We travel well together. The next couple of weekends he gets to meet MY people, so that's also exciting. Hehe... I'm genuinely pretty crazy about him, so I think my friends will like him, too. We are all kinda the same weird/nerdy types. I'm pretty excited for him to meet my people. 😁

So that was our trip this weekend. It was a lot of fun, we (still) seem compatible, and I'm kinda excited to see what the future may hold (thinking those thoughts is both fun and terrifying, not gonna lie).  I like our approach to this... we make a good "us." 

I hope all is good with you as well. Stay hydrated out there, friends. It's HOT!! Thank you for continuing to read about what's going in in my world, and for caring about my crazy love life. Even reading my slightly gushing posts. Maybe some day you'll be able to meet him in real life 😃 much love, all 🥰🥰🥰

Bliss

If I'm not careful this post is just gonna be me gushing over my new fella, which I'm SURE would get old real quick for my lovely readers, so bear with me. I'm gonna go for a quick run down of the weekend and minimal gush.

It's my fellas bday weekend, so to celebrate I took him to 903 Brewers in Sherman, tx. He had told me that was his favorite brewery, so OF COURSE we had to go. The have a wide range of beers and a LOT of interesting dessert stouts. Like, these beers taste like the dessert they are named after so trust me, you are good with just 1 of those after a meal. The ABV % ranged from a normal 5.5 to a staggering 16, which is basically hard liquor in beer form.

We had a lovely time and learned that Fridays are their trivia nights, so we must go back with other friends.

Saturday we went to his friends house for his bday party. I got to meet 4 of his friends (C&D, S&C) one small child (4 mo old), and 2 new dogs. We had margaritas, beers, and food from taco casa (they don't skimp on the CHEESE). His friends were lovely but I mostly got pix of the pup who decided I was his new friend, chew toy, and pillow.

Guys with a face like this have 100% chance to steal your girl.

My fella got a tres leches cake and sparklers. 42 is an important # you know!

its very loud when a new friend decides to chew on the chewie next to your EAR!!

It's been a really lovely weekend and I'm pretty much crazy about him. We get along great, his friends are lovely, we want the same things, we have similar goals, and soon he'll get to meet my people, too. There hasn't been one red flag so far... which is both strange and refreshing.

I had the WORST fruit fly eviction so far. I know they have been proliferating in my used coffee grounds I throw away, so on Friday I grabbed my trash can (with the lid down) took it outside, opened it up, and a CLOUD of them came put at me. They had cocoons in the lid, the smell was like wet dirt. I took the trash out of the can and walked it to the dumpster, came back and scrubbed the lid and inside of the trash can, got rid of all the cocoons, and brought it back inside. I then opened my coffee maker and ANOTHER cloud rose up. So I set a trap, left both the trash (with a new liner) and the coffee maker open, put the carafe and filter holder in the dishwasher, and went to the brewery.

the trap is working, I think I've seen 2 on Sunday. I now will be putting old coffee grinds in an empty coffee can, and drinking cold coffee for the next week, until ZERO fruit flies remain. I don't want to go thru the nasties AGAIN!!! Dang things always seem to follow me. 🙄

Job-wise things are a little nuts, since my boss has put in her notice. I'm not sure how things are going to change, but I know I'm gonna trust God cuz this is 100% out of my control. Allergies have been awful for the last week, but I think I'm finally on the mend. It's the start of summer so you know what that means... shark movie watching season is HERE! There are... SO... MANY bad shark movies out there. It's kinda fun to see just how bad they can be. 🦈🦈

So thats that. I think i made it with minimal gushing over my fella. Hope all is going well for all of you. Remember, red wine pairs well with shark movies 😉 have a good week and I'll check back in next week after our Houston trip!