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 :)

Beyond the Grey Skies.

I have somehow mentally convinced myself to stop being in such a shitty mood. Go me. I am a bit surprised how easy it was. Most of why it is working centers on this: a majority of things I've been worrying about are things that either aren't worth worrying about because they are so minuscule (like, where to put this or that at the apartment) or they aren't worth worrying about because there is nothing to be done about them (having to pay ANOTHER $200 deposit for our utility account for the new place while not getting the other one back until January)

I am nothing but excited for the impending engagement. I know it is going to happen sooner than later and that is enough for me. I mentioned the whole wedding thing recently, in passing and how excited I am to see Shelby's ring Friday and he goes "I need to go shopping by myself soon" and I asked him if he wanted me to get started on Kiddo's and Little One's shopping Friday and he said, yeah but I still need to go by myself to get your stuff but I'm convinced he is getting the ring then as well (!!!) because the comment was triggered by me mentioning Shelby's.

Yay for being happy again.

I also made another pretty:

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.

Credit needs to be given

Saturday, while we needed a time waster for his car to get an oil change, we went to look at rings. At first he said, "no, I don't want to look until I save up some money" but then I pointed out he doesn't even know how much money he needs to save and he couldn't argue. Plus I reminded him it is only looking and nothing will be bought because I do not want to be with him when he picks it out.

So I picked three. One of which he actually found in the jewelry case and I really liked. Now he will pick one (hopefully not by price, but by how much he thinks I will like it) and it is all up to him as to when.

He couldn't have made up for what happened last week any better.

Yay.