All of a Sudden...

It's been 8 days since I've last contributed to the blogosphere. I've been out and about lately. It's funny how the whole summer I've had almost nothing to do and yes, I complained about it to whoever would listen, that I've got hundreds of things to do now. It's not that I was looking for a pity party but just a venue to vent my frustrations out. My problem isn't lack of interest in things - God knows I'm interested in LOTS of things. My problem is being alone. I hate hate HATE being alone. How do I cure that? No clue.

Now that summer's almost over, I'm finding myself with lots of things to do. Last week, I was pretty concerned about finding things to keep myself busy (and not being alone). The one and only person that I spend most of my time with was going out of town so I was feeling a bit lost and wondering how I would ever pass the time. Even though I never said anything, it seems that my concerns were heard by many. All of a sudden, I've had people contacting me left and right - inviting me over to their homes, spending the night, going out to dinner, etc, etc. My head was spinning trying to fit everybody in.

Now I know how J feels. Trying to accommodate everybody and everything and still try to do what I want. I haven't slept in my own bed in a while. I can't remember the last time I ever slept someplace else. It was probably a few months ago and it was at a hotel. It seems that every time I go out and sleep someplace other than home - it was at a hotel. Now I am finally sleeping over at other people's houses. It's weird. Lately, I have come to hate my apartment. The walls were starting to close in on me. But now, I'd be grateful to be back in my own bed.


The way my plans are going right now - I won't be back in my own bed until Sunday night at the earliest. I THINK I'll be home after that, but a friend's trying to convince me to go up and visit him for a couple days. So that means maybe I won't be back in my bed until the 6th or so. Oy veh!

I can't complain. Right? I'm not complaining now, but I do have one little wish. I wish that everything would balance itself out to where I'd be going out plenty and still be at home at times. It'd be nice to do that instead of being at home for 2 straight months then going out for 3 straight weeks.

Anyway, I better get going here. There's 6 of us here sharing one computer and I think I've used up my time. I'll be back in a few days, hopefully, armed with pictures from the camping trip and much more interesting things to say.

An Unexpected Dinner

Last night, I encountered an unexpected surprise. Well, aren't all surprises unexpected? Surprises are fun - especially when I don't know it's coming. I'm not one to wait patiently during Christmas season or when it comes to a planned surprise. Whenever someone tells me, "I have a surprise for you," I will want to know right away. I have absolutely NO patience when it comes to waiting for surprises. That's why it's best whenever you have a surprise for me, don't tell me. And that's exactly what my friends did.

My birthday was on the 22nd. I did not plan on doing anything during the week, but I did want a small get-together with a few friends on Saturday just to hang out. J said he was going to take me out to one of my favorite restaurants for my birthday on Friday. Although I wasn't expecting anything, I started to look forward to it. On Wednesday, he asked me "why don't we go tonight instead?" Later, he ended up saying "let's just go tomorrow." I thought, "ok... whatever."

Wednesday night before going home, J asked if we were still going to Escalante's. I said, sure... and didn't think anything about it at all. Thursday, he came over and asked "you still want to go to Escalante's?" Again, I said "sure" and well, I thought it was a little weird... I'm not the type to change my mind often and I consider myself very laid back and easygoing so I was wondering why he kept asking. But - I didn't begin to suspect anything.

On the way to the restaurant, J was on his sidekick often. That was unusual. When he's around me, he doesn't touch his sidekick for hours. Sending messages back and forth was pretty unusual for him. Assuming it was work (maybe some issues) or about his dad, I casually asked if everything was alright. He threw me off when he said "oh, I just have headache." But again, that didn't tip me off. I just thought he didn't want to tell me what was going on. I was really curious but didn't want to press him.

Things started to get really weird when we got to the restaurant. We go in and ask for a table for two. Jon says he has to go to the bathroom. That isn't unusual, he's a lean mean peeing machine. Always peeing! But what really bugged me is that he went the wrong way. I thought he was just an idiot and didn't know where the bathroom was. I ALMOST chased after him to tell him he was going the wrong way. After a while, he came back and said... "I have a really cool picture I wanna show you in the bathroom! Come look!" I thought to myself, boy - he's a moron. A cool picture in the bathroom? AND the bathroom is the other way.

I didn't want to argue and just followed him. I didn't see anything until he stepped away and pointed to the table. I saw 4 friends sitting at a round table with two empty chairs. Two balloons were tied to a chair, two cards and a chocolate cake in the middle of the table. I was SHOCKED.

I enjoyed the evening. I ate really good food and chatted with friends. It had been a long time since we were all together in one place so it was really nice to have that. You know what? Another really cool thing is - I got an awesome PINK card! Thanks P!

I'll remember this birthday for a long time. Thanks for making it memorable!

Free At Last

For the past couple of weeks, I have been super busy during the week trying to do this and that while feeling very overwhelmed. I save my weekends for myself and fun with friends, which causes my weeks to become crazy... I'm happy to say that finally, today, I got caught up on everything I needed to do. My To-Do List is never-ending... but at least for now, I can breathe, sit back and relax knowing that other things can wait a day or two now with a peaceful mind.

I have so many things to gripe about. Today, traffic was horrible so I was 15 minutes late to work. Thankfully, my boss is ultra understanding and super nice. When I move to another job, I kinda wanna take him with me. I was almost hit 3 times on the freeway (yes, 3! and NOT my fault), in less than a minute. I was minding my own business traveling down my lane when three separate cars tried to move out in front of me from their lane (cuz their lane was super slow). Geez! And there's someone at work that EVERYONE in my department doesn't like... she gives us problems (does a crappy job), we get upset (because we have to fix her mistakes) and she gets mad cuz we're upset. This has been going on for several weeks. I'm just really surprised she hasn't been fired yet. OH - and she goes to the bathroom at least 2-3 times an hour and stays there 5-10 mins at a time. You can imagine just how much work she does during the day. Today, she tried insulting me and my friend - saying our "hand gestures" bother her so please stop talking. Very interesting because where she sits, she can't see us at all - we're talking behind her back (literally). I wanted SO much to say... "Well, your face bothers me." Yes - I know that's mean. Of course, I didn't say anything. So unfprofessional, right? But I feel much better now that I've made it public here :)

I have much more to complain about BUT it's such a nice day and have been really nice lately, so I'm going to stay in a happy mood and enjoy the weather. It rained a lot last week.. some thunderstorms and some sprinkles. It was mostly overcast all week and I actually enjoyed that. It was calming and soothing to me for some reason. We were welcomed with cool winds and sunny days after the rain went away so that was nice too.

This weekend, I'm going to the Texas Renaissance Festival with a friend. SO looking forward to it. We're going to try and dress up this weekend for the festival. I've never dressed up for that before so it'll be fun and interesting. Maybe do a little bit of role-playing... I suck at acting, so we'll see.

Maybe I'll chicken out and just go as myself.. and try to keep my friend from tipping over too much. I think he plans to go as a drunk jester. THAT will be interesting to see.

Friends vs. Acquaintances

I got another one of these fun chain emails where you have to answer a bunch of questions so your friends (who already know you) will learn things about you (that they already know). Sometimes I ignore these things because really, who cares? But sometimes if the questions are fun and I’m bored, I’ll fill them out and send them to friends. I even send them to friends who I KNOW don’t like chain emails – just to make them read about ME! Yeah, I’m conceited.

This particular survey just asked you to list two things about yourself in different topics… pets, favorite food, what you’re wearing at that moment (I’ll bet you that a guy came up with that question) and so forth. Nothing special. But it reminded me of another survey that I filled out a couple years ago. One of those “Vs.” emails. You know the type. Would you rather drink water or milk? Would you rather have loved and lost or have never loved before? You get the point. One of these questions were “Would you rather have a few friends or many acquaintances?”

I’ve always been shy, but I guess people probably wouldn’t know it. When I’m asked why I don’t have more friends or I don’t have an easier time getting to know people, I always reply with the same boring monotone expression “because I’m shy.” “What? YOU’RE shy?” Ha, as if you didn’t know it.

With people that I’ve known for a LONG time, I’m not really shy. And yeah, because of church, I’m always around people that I’ve known FOREVER, but do I really know them? Do they really know me? For people that I know casually and have seen in various places, I usually have a difficult time coming up with something to say other than “Hi, how are you?” So I tend to avoid them. Sad, huh?

For people that know me well, I feel bad for them. I can be a bit outgoing, I guess. Maybe even crazy. But hey, it’s all fun. Lately, I’ve started to spread my wings a little bit. I’ve started going out more often and going to places where I don’t know anybody (except the one or two friends that I went with). This weekend, I’m going to a wedding where I will only know three people really well. I’ve just started to get to know the bride and groom and I definitely won’t know most of the 250+ guests. But you know what? I’m looking forward to it.

And my birthday. I got a crazy friend who I probably shouldn’t have trusted to plan my surprise bash. Surprise? Yes, surprise. Even though I know something is going to happen, I don’t know what. He’ll probably invite a bunch of acquaintances that I have only seen maybe 2 or 3 times in the last year. But that’s ok with me. I’m looking forward to it, I think!

I am enjoying meeting new people so far. I think I feel happier. I’m getting the adult interaction that I need. Being a mom and a housewife, my only source of real interaction is pretty much my kids… 24/7. So it’s nice to get out on the weekends. Of course, it never hurts to have a guy buy me a drink :)

While it’s all fun, I guess it boils down to whether I’d rather have many people I don’t really know well or a few people that I know well and they know me well. Right now, I can only count on one hand and one finger the number of people that I consider real friends. Pretty much 6 people. You know who you are. Sure, if I add in a few more people that I consider friends but not CLOSE friends, I guess I can count on two hands. But I’m talking about the people who really know me and the people that I know well. Knowing many people can be fun, but it can also be lonely. When you need someone to talk to or someone to trust, you might not want to trust a casual acquiantance. I know I would feel weird talking about my problems or my feelings with someone I've seen twice a year, once a week for an hour, or once a month for a few hours.

It’s been great meeting new people and seeing acquaintances. I will probably keep going out with friends and hang with new people I’ve met. When I meet someone new, it takes me a long time to become good friends with them. I’m picky. But when it all comes down to it, I’m happy with the friends I got. I’m happy with the fact that when there’s something bothering me, I got someone to go to and REALLY talk. He’s probably sick of me by now but I’m grateful. I’m also happy with the three girlfriends I’ve got, as well as the other two guys. With these people that I can count on 6 fingers, I know I can make a fool out of myself (and boy, did I really!) and know that they’ll still love me.

And that’s all that matters.

Thanks for being my friend.