Ahh, friends...

Okay...it has been brought to my attention that I have once again neglected my blog.  It's shameful really, but since I don't exactly have an army of followers I thought it would go unnoticed.  Apparently I was wrong.  The good news is that I've been MIA because life is going rather well and I haven't had any gripes to share.  One thing that I have struggled with a bit is figuring out how to mesh my group of friends with my boyfriend's group of friends.  To date, that hasn't been a very successful endeavor.

Let me start by saying that I was always a big fan of shows like Friends.  I think that was because I really liked the idea of a tight-knit group of friends that are always there for each other.  They spend tons of time together and yet somehow manage to get along and have a great time.  The group of friends is small and they don't always take kindly to outsiders trying to get in, but they're all good people.  When I went away to college I had visions of what my life would be like in the dorms or in my first apartment.  It was supposed to be like my own version of Friends and it was supposed to be amazing.  Reality squashed that idea pretty quickly.

In the dorms during my first 2 years of college, I had a single room, but shared the bathroom with half the girls on my floor (about 60 of us or so) - not exactly the embodiment of fun, especially when only one of the five showers actually worked well!  Despite the bathroom predicament, life in the dorms wasn't so bad.  It was a co-ed dorm (by floor) and I ended up making several good friends in my first and second years.

When I transferred schools and got my very first apartment, it was one of those places where you have a couple roommates but you all have your own room and bathroom while sharing the common areas.  Roommate matching is an interesting thing.  The first year I was there I had one sweet roommate, but she never liked to go anywhere.  I also had one very selfish roommate, who actually caused me to say "f*ck you!" to someone for the first time ever.  Needless to say, it wasn't quite the "Friends experience" I was hoping for.  My second year in the apartment was slightly better, but I still wasn't very close with either of the girls I lived with.

Law school was the closest I came to the "Friends experience."  I lived by myself, but about 95% of the people that lived in my building were law students too.  Some of my best friends ever lived in the same building and we were constantly hanging out.  It was an amazing few years...until we all had to graduate and go our separate ways.  Since law school, I haven't really found that core group of friends again.  The people I do spend time with are often married, or have kids, or have other obligations, so it's an infrequent affair.  But when I do get a chance to reconnect with my law school friends, I'm reminded of how lucky I was to meet such a great group of people.

I'd definitely like to be more social these days, but now there's the added issue of trying to mix two friend groups.  My friends and my boyfriend's friends are very different people.  We've tried to combine the two groups on a couple different occasions but it ends up being like a high school dance with the groups divided down the middle and G and I flitting from side to side trying to include everyone.  It's exhausting!  Now, we typically end up just hanging out with "my friends" or "his friends" instead of all together.  It's not ideal, but at least it's not awkward that way.  Any suggestions for combining friend groups are more than welcome!

This weekend will be a night out with "my friends" for a Halloween party.  I never used to be a big fan of this holiday, but the last few years have changed my mind.  This year both G and I will be going as pirates.  I have a pirate costume for my dog, Oreo, too, but I don't think we'll take her along.  Speaking of Oreo though, I'll finish the post with this picture...her in her costume last weekend for Dogtoberfest at Metro Park.  It was a blast!!!  Notice how excited she looks to be wearing the costume.

Does that make me a bad dog owner???  :)

Oh, that's right . . . I still DO have a blog!

Admittedly I've been absent.  Very absent.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), I don't have very many readers so I'm fairly certain I haven't been missed.  As a side note, I still don't get how some people have so many readers/followers when the content they put out is a snore-fest.  Perhaps my content is an even snorier snore-fest?  At any rate, I'm back and I shall try to be better about posting.  No promises though; I hate to break them and who knows how long my commitment to blogging will last this go-round?

Lately I've been struggling a bit with satisfaction at work.  I've been feeling as though my efforts aren't always recognized and/or appreciated.  But even worse than that, I feel as though not everyone else around me is putting in the effort their jobs require.  It's not that I'm trying to be into everyone else's business; rather, many of the people that have frustrated me lately are actually people that I oversee and whose slack I have to pick up along the way.

For as long as I can remember, I have always felt driven towards success--even if that meant a lot of hard work along the way.  I struggle to understand why that isn't the same for everyone else around me.  When I'm faced with a task or challenge, I am going to give everything I have to make sure that it's not only accomplished, but also that the result is the best one possible.  More and more I'm finding that I'm in the minority in taking that approach.  Why is that?  I don't think it's a generational thing (because there are plenty of people both older and younger than me that seem to be less motivated to achieve excellence/success).  Perhaps it's a nurture thing?  I was raised with very high expectations placed upon me.  As I've grown up and joined the workforce, those expectations that others used to place on me are now the same expectations I place upon myself.

I'm also the person that tends to feel,

"If you want something done right, do it yourself."

That isn't the best mentality when you're in a managerial role because at the end of the day there are not enough hours in the day to do everything yourself.  And if you try to do it all, you're probably going to go insane . . . or at least stress yourself out much more than is necessary.  That's about where I am right now.  I'm more stressed than I have been in a long time and I need to do something to dial that back.  In an effort to get to a better place mentally, I've decided to take a couple days off and it'll be a 4-day weekend for me.  To just have some time to relax and not think about work is sure to be helpful.

I'm still curious to know whether anyone has other theories on the lack of motivation that seems to be so prevalent in today's workplace.  Thoughts?

Staycation Update

Just a few more days until Christmas and I'm officially on my 4th day of this whole "vacation to nowhere" I'm on...and I'm loving it!  Yes, admittedly it would be nicer if my boyfriend actually got time off for the holidays so we could spend some extra time together, but as a substitute this time off has provided a chance for some quality time with my family, particularly my mother.  Yesterday we did our annual "big shopping day" at the surprisingly empty mall.  I managed to finish up all my shopping, save for one thing that I will get at Target later today.  Hooray for that!  We'll likely go back next week to take advantage of the post-Christmas sales.

Yesterday was also my younger brother's 30th birthday.  Talk about making us all feel old when the "baby" of the family has now left his 20's behind!!!  Still, it was a nice chance to get the family together for dinner last night - something we only seem to get to do for special occasions anymore.

Today I'll be playing hostess to my mother and aunt...I guess my aunt has been bugging my mom about not ever seeing my house since I really moved in an decorated (THREE years ago) so today we're going to put that complaint to rest.  Currently, the A/C people are here doing their bi-annual check-up of the system.  Once they leave it'll be off to the store for me to stock up on supplies and perhaps a snack or two so I can be a good hostess later.  That's a new role for me to play so I guess a little practice is in order.

Here's to another great day on my vacation to nowhere!!!

The Holiday Season in Full Swing

Okay, so yes...I've been beyond lax in keeping up with my blog (and yes, I realize I've started posts this way in the past!) but when things get busy this blog is the last thing on my mind.  I hope that everyone reading this is having a great holiday season thus far though!  Sure, Christmas music has been on the radio since before Thanksgiving, but it's only once we're into December that it really feels appropriate to get into the Christmas spirit.

So far I've been (and dragged my boyfriend along) to a masquerade Christmas party and a work holiday party--if there was a contest between the two, the masquerade party would have won hands down.  It's not that the work party was terrible, the company we were with was great, it's just that the party committee tried to implement a group game that was a total bust and completely killed the mood.  Plus, only giving everyone two drink tickets (regardless of if you were bringing a guest or not) was a buzz kill...no thank you to the $6 domestic bottles!

This year is also the first year I've had a Christmas tree at my house.  My family has always been an artificial tree family, but my boyfriend's family has always been a real tree family.  In the debate-that-wasn't-really-a-debate, it was decided that we would get a real tree this year.  (I'm still holding out hope that we'll do artificial next year, but I'm not too optimistic)  I dubbed the tree "Steve" (much to the chagrin of my boyfriend) and we proceeded to make him beautiful:

As you can see, we didn't start off small with my first household Christmas tree.  Nope.  Steve comes in at about 8' or so and is quite full.  He did turn out very pretty though and I'm kind of in love.  :)  I'm definitely looking forward to exchanging gifts and sharing quality time with family, friends, & loved ones in just a couple weeks.  I'd love to know what you and your loved ones are doing to make this holiday season special so please feel free to share in the comments.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Getting back into the swing of things...

It's been a while - too long really - since I've posted anything here.  I'm going to have to shift the blame for that to someone other than myself.  Why would I want to blame myself?  Silly thought, that.  Anyway, it's probably a combination of things that has kept me from getting back to this blog.  First and foremost would be my new boyfriend.  It's been a little over a month since we started dating and I couldn't be happier.  I think he put it best the other day...when you're single, you get to a point where you're content and happy so it's easy to forget how much happier you can be if there's someone there to share things with.  I'd had my eye out for a good guy to date, but things just happened so naturally with this guy that it really didn't take any effort to go from single and doing our own things to intermingling our friends, activities, lives, etc.  It always "happens when you're not looking," right?

I've also had some not so great things going on lately - namely health issues.  It's nothing life threatening, but it will affect my life for sure.  I've known for a while that I had an unusually elevated heart rate.  120 bpm is pretty normal for me.  I also have trembling hands from time to time.  I was keenly aware of how NOT normal that was when one of my friends who has Parkinson's commented on my shaking hands.  Not a great sign, hmm?  So at the urging of both my mother and boyfriend I decided to get myself checked out.  A blood test later and I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism - and a pretty severe case at that.  The doctor put me on a couple different meds for it...a beta blocker to slow my heart, and another one to work to calm my thyroid down.  Unfortunately, my body had a really bad reaction to the thyroid medication - my glands in my neck almost immediately (about 90 minutes later) swelled up to the size of limes, my fever spiked to 101.5 at the height of it, and I felt AWFUL!  By the next morning, I still wasn't better and felt awful so I spent 5+ hours in the ER trying to figure out what was wrong.  A CAT scan, chest x-rays, cultures, and blood draws (yes, multiple) later I was diagnosed with tonsillitis. 

The ER doc claims it was unrelated to the drug...I find that hard to believe since it started to go away by itself before the antibiotics were even in me.  There's no way it was "coincidence" like he claims!  So, what to do now?  I don't doubt my diagnosis...the thyroid issues run in my family and a blood test is pretty accurate...but I also don't really care for the doc that gave me the diagnosis.  So, I'm in the process of getting scheduled with an endocrinologist soon to see if I can't find some meds that will work better for me.  In the meantime, I'm just taking the beta blocker for my heart and staying away from the pills that gave me such a terrible reaction.  Fingers crossed that I never have to go through that again!!!

So that's pretty much it.  Now that I'm feeling a bit better I have the always fun task of cleaning house ahead of me today.  Thanks for reading and enjoy your Labor Day!

Another reason the single life sucks...

Dear Mom & Dad,

Thanks for reminding me of Reason #428 why it sucks to be single.  It sucks to be single because when something happens (like when an idiot friend tries to go all 'Dukes of Hazard' and slide across the hood of your nearly brand new Lexus...leaving behind a dent and several scratches) you don't have anyone to ask for help but your parents.  Said parents are then sure to make underhanded comments about what an inconvenience you are...which only serves as a reminder of your sad, pathetic life as a single adult.

I'm sorry that my loser status negatively impacts your RETIRED lifestyle.  I'm sorry that even though the two of you never go anywhere without each other, I'm still going to deprive you of one of your two cars for a whopping 2 days while mine is getting repaired.  I'm sorry that this is just another example of the times it would really come in handy for me to have a boyfriend or husband to go through life with and who could help out in situations like this so it wouldn't affect you.

Believe me, oh critical parents of mine, it's not for lack of searching/trying that I'm single.  If you'd really like for me to find someone I'm sure that I could go whore it up somewhere, get myself pregnant, and maybe land a baby daddy.  Wouldn't that be lovely?  Probably not.  So I'm single?  So what!?!  Maybe instead of always saying you're there when I need you, you could actually practice what you preach without the guilt trip hanging overhead.  That'd be great.

Sincerely,
Your Single Daughter with a Car in Need of Repair

Sometimes it's better to skip the reality...

Why is it that reality rarely ever lives up to perceptions or expectations???  When you first meet someone, it's natural to fill in the things you don't yet know about them with bright, shiny ideas of what they must be like, of who they really are.  Because of COURSE you would only be attracted to great people, right?  Unfortunately, (at least in my personal experience) once you find out the truth about that person, it's usually not half as good as the idea you'd begun to form in your head.  And once that reality begins to set in, where do you go from there?  Do you compromise your own "must have" list to bend to the reality of the person in front of you or do you chalk it up to another life experience and continue your quest for that white whale that's surely out there somewhere?

Ultimately, I suppose the answers to those questions depend on what end game you had in mind.  Was this someone that you wanted to stick around for a while or were you just enjoying the moment and taking things as they came?  For me, in this case, it was the latter - I was simply having fun and enjoying someone's company with the knowledge that it was definitely not a long-term thing.  Still, taking the shiny off has made me wonder whether I even want a summer fling.  I can't go back and unlearn/unhear the things I've learned/heard, but do they really even matter in the case of a fling?  I really don't know.  I think they might.  It doesn't matter how attractive (hot even) you are...if you're an asshole to other people (even if I'm not the one on the receiving end), that's a really ugly trait.

Why can't people just live up to my unattainable expectations???  :)