So this is the New Year.

I am a little scattered brained today. This week has confused the shit out of my sleep schedule and I slept like crap last night. Most likely because I took a two hour nap yesterday while fiancé watched one of the 15 college bowl games on tv (we still don't have cable, so I can't really argue when there is literally nothing else on) but I digress...

I am trying to get to a point....but I'm having trouble remembering what it was in the first place. Oh yes, the standard reflective New Year's blog. That is where I was going with this.

I love New Year's. I actually think it is a semi-neurotic girl's best friend. Here is why: you get a fresh start. The Calendar says so. It is a new year. Right now we all have 363 days in front of us (barring any freak accidents) to do with what we choose. Here is how I choose to spend 2009:

The biggest one that pretty much overlaps with the other small promises I have for myself is
1. stress management. I will strive to get a handle on my stress level and bring my normal state of being down a couple notches on the stress. Along with this, comes the
2. healthy lifestyle I want to continue practicing. Eating right and exercising has a HUGE impact on my moods. Last but not least, I want to
3. find a new hobby that incorporates the first two. As much as I love reading, its competely sedentary, makes me sleepy and hurts my eyes when I over do it. Other than that, I've decided only the extreme OCD truly claim cleaning as a hobby, therefore I will no longer do so (haha), I don't have much in the hobby area these days. There is a yoga studio literally next door to where we live, and in a couple weeks (after I've been active on a daily basis again for a bit...I don't want to hurt myself) I'm going to go check things out and join a beginner's class.

I am excited for 2009. If you can't tell from the fiancé talk, Boyfriend proposed on Christmas night and has transformed into Fiancé, woo! We are pretty much set on the end of August (Tabulous: you will get a full explanation on this at a later date) and I'm getting my first taste of real wedding planning. I have a binder going already with preliminary guest list and timeline of things needing to be done. So one year from now, I will be a Mrs. AND a Step-Mom. I am actually excited about both those things, strange as it may seem. I really do love Kiddo and Little One and can't wait to be an official, legal part of their lives.

Now I know things probably won't go exactly as planned and there will be times where I am stressed over things I shouldn't be, eating deep fried things and sitting on my ass, but we are all human and if I think I'm NOT going to mess up, I would be crazy.

Happy 2009. I hope everyone has a great NEW year.

Lifestyle change update: I've somehow lost 5.8 pounds in two weeks. I'm not entirely sure how I did this, besides the general lack of groceries we have due to the move draining our bank account and having to spend 5 hours at the old apartment on Sunday cleaning like Cinderella, minus the cutesy talking animals and perfect hair. Needless to say, I'm not going about this in the most conventional way, but I'm never too hungry and I don't have a gym membership anymore so I'll take whatever high intensity workout I can get.

Today I am unusually excited about absolutely nothing. (Besides the fact that I'm pretty sure bf went and got the ring yesterday....but I have nothing besides my own keen ability to notice and remember EVERYTHING to confirm this.)

I should be cranky for many reasons. Here, I'll make a list:
1. I'm freezing. My nose is numb, I have on a scarf, hat, short sleeved sweater turtleneck, cardigan and zip up fleece and I'm still cold because the heat is still broke at work.
2. We still don't know how we are going to buy presents for our families, or each other for that matter. If the deposit on the old place doesn't arrive in the mail on or before the 23rd, we'll be working on a $50 budget for both sets of parents, my bro and sis and his niece and three nephews. The joys of Christmas during a recession.
3. There is something wrong with my interweb browser at work. I use Mozilla, but IE keeps popping up with stupid ads. Plus its running slow.
4. I'm hungry but my lunch doesn't sound good at all.

However, for some reason, none of this is bothering me today. Yay.

Randomness: bf's heater has been barely working/not working at all for the past month. This one lady he works with (who he doesn't exactly like, she is sort of a moron and he refers to her as Crazy Lady) caught wind of the situation and forced him to take the car to a place they do ads for and is working out some sort of deal for them to fix it in exchange for ad space or something. Hurrah for random acts of kindness.

PS-I have this beautiful friend who just happens to be pregnant. She is awesome and radiates beauty not only on the outside, but also on the inside. Just thought I would share :)

Rant.

I need to bitch, and since just about all my girlfriends (Tabs, if you want to stop reading now, I will understand) have already listened to the condensed version of this speech, I don't want to annoy them with the long and painfully negative/whiny version so here goes....with a bit of our history before the actual bitching.

On New Years Eve, bf and I will have been together for 3 years, or at least it will have been three years ago that I kissed him for the first time, and since I stopped even looking at other guys after that night (yes, it was that good) I pretend its our "anniversary" since we took things so painfully slow at first and there really wasn't a day when he asked me to be his gf or anything. I am not complaining about how slow things were for us in the beginning, it was what I needed at the time and it worked best for both of us.

This year has been the year of FOUR weddings. One in March, three from Sept. 20 to Oct. 10. Many people I know and love have gotten married or gotten engaged this year. The weddings have been awesome fun, but have given me the insane, crazy, I want to get married as soon as possible, itch.

The M word first came up one Friday night back in February or March. I don't really know how (probably since I was a bit drunk I brought it up, but I can't remember) but I do remember him saying, "it definitely makes it easier for me to ask knowing you will say yes". The seed is planted.
It comes up again in the end of March, when we went to Columbus for a weekend, wandered through a mall and I showed him what I thought I wanted ring-wise. Of course, the one they get out of the case for me to try on is a $7,000 2 carat, round cut solitare. He says, wow that's it? It is sort of boring, then we see the price and I start laughing and his eyes get huge and we say thanks and leave. I later conclude the band must have been platinum and it was in the mall so the mark up is very high. The marriage talk pretty much subsides for the whole summer.....until fall wedding season begins. And we catch the bouquet/garter at his brother's wedding. And his extended family keeps asking me when the next wedding will be. And his brother and friends ask me to marry him because "you're so awesome". And his mom and sister always call me Aunt Sara when I'm playing with the little kids. And just being at friends wedding's makes me all teary because of all of the looooove and pretty dresses and romance. The crazy wedding thoughts continue to build.

Then, the first weekend of November, we dropped his car off to get an oil change and go to lunch. At lunch I ask him what we are going to do after to kill time before the car is ready, and I smile. He says, "no, I don't want to look until I've saved some money" I point out "you won't know what to save unless we go look since I don't really know what I want anymore". He can't argue, ring pricing ensues. I was shaking the whole time we were in the jewelry store. Very excited. So I chose three rings that day that I loved equally. He qualified for financing and I told him to come back whenever he is ready and choose from the three. I almost wish now I would have made him choose that day because the waiting and thinking about it is driving me fucking insane.

My crazy, irrational side is thinking things like, "why hasn't he done it yet? Has he changed his mind? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with me? Are we okay? I am really ready to spend the rest of my life with him if he can't even go get the damn ring and ask me in the timely fashion?"
My logical, rational side replies with, "he hasn't done it yet because he knows how I am and he's trying to catch me off guard. He hasn't changed his mind, we just moved into a great new apartment together and he loves me. He is just being him, and I know he will do it when he is ready. I am just being me, and I need to focus on other things in life besides the proposal. Yes we are fine, our relationship is evolving but that is what happens and we are happy, which is all that matters. Yes I am, he's my lobster, even if he isn't on the schedule that is in my head.

So this is a glimpse into what is going on in my head about 5 or 6 times a day. Its a bit unnerving if I may say so myself.

I am seriously I woman possessed by the thoughts of proposal/wedding/marriage. I NEVER EVER thought I would be like this either. Its ridiculous and I don't really like it, but I can't seem to distract myself from it.

I wish he would just do it and get it over with! All I want for Christmas is ring on finger!!!!!!! end rant.

I don't really feel better, but at least I can look back at this blog and laugh whenever we do get engaged.

I pick my battles...

So yesterday...my lovely bf (of almost three years) basically told me his band is more important than our wedding date....this is the man who wants to buy a house with me...who lets me help him pay his bills, and let me help him buy his car. And it may have been me misinterpreting things, but this is (basically) how it went:

me: "so I looked up OSU's schedule for next fall (yes, I am being kind enough to schedule around OSU football in order to have my wedding in the fall like I want) and they play New Mexico State on October 31 so I doubt it will be an 8pm game, so how do you feel about getting married on Halloween?"
him: "Halloween is a busy time for shows, and I don't want my anniversary that day because then I'll have to turn down shows because its my anniversary."
me: "The 31st isn't always going to be on a Saturday"
him: "well it will be once every seven years" (he said this being completely serious)
me: "so you'll have to turn down a show on Halloween once every seven years...so what?"
him: *ROLLS HIS EYES AT ME* and goes on to say something like, it just shouldn't be on any holiday because people have family stuff........all I can think is....most of the people at the wedding are going to be FAMILY. Plus I've never, ever had a family tradition on halloween, or even known a family to have one.

At this point, I say something along the lines of...I don't want to talk about this anymore because it doesn't even matter because we aren't even engaged. Plus he hurt my feelings but I didn't want him to know that. So I get real quiet and fight the tears and try and not be mad, because if I get mad, he won't feel bad, he'll just be frustrated and mad as well. And I'm way more hurt than mad anyways.
So I get online and I delete my offbeat bride tribe account...and the subscription to the Knot website as well (I didn't use that one much anyway....it overwhelmed me) and I am refusing to talk about it until there is a ring on my finger. I'm going to try my hardest not to think about it either. Then I volunteer to walk the movie we have out from the library back just to get away from him.

I will give him this: he works for a crappy company that is owned by really old, rich, republicans and they refuse to turn on the furnace until the end of November or something to save on money, and he spent the whole day freezing and said he felt like he was getting a cold. Plus a guy he works with, who had been there for 3 or 4 years got fired for financial reasons and that bummed everyone out. So I could have chose a better time when he was in a better mood to bring it up, but still....

If he brings up house buying again, I'm totally shutting him down on it. If we aren't in a financial place for him to be able to afford a ring, we have no business making such a huge investment. And just the fact that he doesn't seem to be making an effort to even go window shopping for them with me pisses me off. I've told him 4 or 5 times now, we need to go look and get an idea of price before anything else but I doubt he has ever heard me.

So I'm pretty sure he knows I'm upset. I cried a little when we went to bed and turned away from him and he rubbed my back without me asking (which he NEVER does).

I just wish he would hurry up and propose. I've definitely put in my time :)

ick. ack. eck.

Do you ever have days where you are just off?

I imagine something is wrong in somewhere in world, or even the universe, and for some reason, its affecting me. I just feel bad, very unhappy and blue. I can't seem to talk myself out of it like usual. I know it will pass, but damn, it sure does make things annoying in the mean time.

Oh and it doesn't help that I am already stressing a smidgen about the wedding I haven't even been proposed for yet. That is probably the most of it. I'm getting impatient, and I can't start planning until he proposes and I honestly don't know when that will be.

Bleck!