It's not all flowers and romantic dinners

Yep, that was made clear to me last night. Yesterday, I came home from work and was getting ready to make diner for us. However, there was an unexpected twist to the evening. My toilet was clogged. I got out the plunger and worked on it forever! It was so gross and I kept cursing to myself that I was going to make a horrible mother. JP called to tell me what time to expect him and, by this time, I was pretty pissed. He told me not to worry about it and that he would take care of it when he got there.

Now, the issue wasn't that I was embarrassed that he was going to have to take care of this mess. No, it was an issue of me not being able to do something. Something that I'd have to figure out if I didn't have a boyfriend / dad / 24-hour maintenance man at my disposal. No, this was something that any homeowner (hopefully me soon) would need to know how to do. How am I going to rule the corporate world if I can't unclog my own bathroom? I am fiercly independent (sometime, admittedly, to a fault), so this really bothered me.

When JP came over, he gave me a big hug and went to help me out of this mess. About 30 seconds later he came out of the bathroom. Problem solved. Seriously!?!?!? I worked on it for about 2 hours and nothing. Then, he said, "Hon, where do you keep the cleaning stuff? I'm going to clean it for you so you don't have to worry about it." Okay. So here is my loving boyfriend who not only unclogged a very gross toilet for me, but he is offering to clean it for me to boot! If that's not love, I don't know what is. I fell more in love with him last night... and all because of bad plumbing.

Status: In a Relationship (Really)

So. Valentine's Day. A holiday I don't normally celebrate. In fact, it's usually either a.) just another day, b.) just another day to remind me that there are millions of people in the world that are in love... and I'm not one of them, or c.) a good day to drink. This year was different. Not that I need a silly holiday to make me feel respectable that I'm not flying solo, but it was nice to actually have someone on this once hated holiday. It's been more years than I care to share since I've actually been in a relationship on Feb. 14.

Since both JP and I didn't brave the roads yesterday, we were both working from home. Mid-afternoon the roads were better and I decided to go over and surprise him. I got dressed up (I wore a skirt on a day when I could have been in sweats all day. If that's not love, I don't know what is.), ordered lunch, picked it up and headed to his house. I felt guilty for a nano-second for going to my boyfriends, but not the office. Okay, actually a bit longer.

So there I was, all decked out and bearing food. He opened the door and I wish I had a camera to capture his reaction. It actually took a second for the look of confusion to hit his face because he was so shocked. He was actually expecting the maintenance guys. He said it was like the movies -- he started looking at my shoes, working his way up. His first thought was, "what kind of a maintenance guy wears high-heeled boots?"

I was so excited to surprise him! We had lunch and then we both jumped back on our laptops to continue working for the day. It was nice being able to at least be in the same room. Now, like I said, I don't usually celebrate Valentine's Day. And, I find it silly to buy flowers that were 10x cheaper the previous day. But, he surprised me with a beautiful basket of flowers and took me out to dinner. Our seats were close enough to the bar, so we were both watching the Piston's game. Suddenly he looked at me and said, "You're the best girlfriend ever. It's Valentine's Day and you're more glued to the game than me." That being said, we had a very nice first Valentine's Day together. :)

Snow Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

After a horrible 2 1/2 hr. commute home last night, I opted to work from home today. I turned on the news at 6 a.m. and the roads were a mess and traffic was pretty slow. At 6:45 a.m. it wasn't getting any better and I decided to not go in. After all, that's why we have remote access, email and cell phones.

So, I'm sitting here in my PJ's, with my coffee and phone attached to my ear. I couldn't do it every day (I do not have the dedication -- obviously since I'm blogging already), but it's nice once in awhile.

Anyway, better get back to work. Happy Valentine's Day!

"Pencil me in"

I've been looking forward to this night for a while. Why? Because for the last month, all JP and I have been doing some whirlwind traveling. We flew out to Vegas on a Thursday, he flew back on the following Tuesday and I flew back on Thursday. That weekend was filled with birthday celebrations with his family, my family and our friends. He flew out to Lake Tahoe on Sunday and came back on Thursday. We left for Pittsburgh on Saturday, came back on Sunday. He flew out to LA on Monday, I was suppose to go to Chicago yesterday (not disappointed that I ended up not going), and he's flying back tomorrow. So, I've been looking forward to this night because tomorrow he will be home and neither of us are traveling for a few weeks. Whew. Makes me tired just looking at it.



We have dinner plans on Saturday night with some of my friends and some tentative plans with some of his friends. Not that I don't love getting together with friends (although my last post said I don't look forward to social engagements, I generally do. Sometimes it just get in a funk and don't feel like leaving my house.), but do you ever feel like you're constantly making appointments? My PDA is filled and everything has to be color coded: green means work, blue means personal. Okay, I'm a little geeky and super anal (hence the color coding)... Seriously though, why is it that we're constantly scheduling lunches, dinners, drinks, coffee, etc.? And, I actually had to decline two other invitations for Saturday night since we've had these dinner plans for a month now. Again, I fully enjoy spending time with good friends so it will be a good weekend.


As for running... tonight my stomach just hurt to much so I couldn't go. I really wanted to go running, but I knew I wouldn't last long if I did go. So, here's hoping that tomorrow brings a change and I'll be able to go. I miss being at the gym and need to figure out my race calendar for the year. JP and I looked into "Hike for Discovery." He doesn't run, I don't play soccer, so we thought this would be a good thing for us to do together. It's a wonderful opportunity to see some sights and to help raise money for cancer research. We wanted to do the Grand Canyon tour, but just don't have time to dedicate some more into fundraising. Hopefully another time it will work out!!!! So, I guess I should stick to running. :)

Blah Tuesday

It's only Tuesday and already it's been a rough week. Today, I found myself thinking about what's going on with me and wondering if this is really my life or just a funk phase I'm going through. I don't mean for this to sound like my life is horrible and I have nothing in the world -- far from it -- but it's just something that I don't like what I see.

(Hahahahaha... No, that isn't my ass, but the picture made me laugh and helped me to cheer up. How freaking funny!)

Granted, a great deal of this is coming from the meds. The side effects are horrible, but now that it's actually helping a little bit I don't know if it's worth just dealing with. Depression. Check. Anxiety attacks. Check. Losing interest in activities. Check. Muscle weakness. Check. Mood swings. Check. Memory loss. Check. See, this list isn't a good one and making my life not how I always envisioned my 20's to be.

I dread most of my social activities. I hurt too much to work out, and frankly, I don't really feel like it anyway. My mood swings are something else, and these anxiety attacks come out of no where and really scare me. The memory loss is effecting my work, and my career is very important to me. Sometimes I can't say a word correctly and it's like my tongue is all tied up. My balance is still off, but at the moment, that's the least of my worries.

As I'm writing this I'm thinking, "well, duh. How hard of a decision is this? Clearly the long list of side effects aren't worth it." But... I had a couple of weeks with the least amount of pain I've had since the ordeal started. Seeing it written out doesn't seem like much. But, it's more than you'll ever know.

Anyway. That underwear picture really made me laugh and I'm actually feeling better already. I'd erase this whole blog, but I want to use the picture and nothing really exciting happened to me today. Now I just have to get some of the days of the week underwear. I looked online and this set costs $70.00. That's $10 each day. No way!!!! I think I'll stick to my VS's.

3rd Annual

This weekend was the 3rd annual wine and cheese party. A friend of mine started this while she was in vet school and the tradition has since continued. The first party was a ton of fun, and not quite as classy as you would think of when you hear, "wine and cheese party." In fact, there wasn't much cheese beyond the basic cheese cubes you find at Kroger. Of course, none of us really knew wine very well, if at all, but it was a good reason to drink a lot.

After my friend graduated, she went to work in a clinic in Pittsburgh. This was a good reason to visit her and, again, drink a lot. There is a market strip in downtown Pittsburgh that has wonderful little shops, where we got fresh pasta, fruits and vegetables, awesome breads and cheeses from all around the world. Both the choices of cheese and wine really brought the 2nd annual party to a new level.

This year we were all looking forward to the annual bash. My friend's college roommate is still in vet school at Michigan State, so she drove down to Novi early Saturday morning to meet JP and me. We carpooled down and made pretty good time (under 5 hrs.) despite the strong winds. After visiting for a while and helping with the spread, we got ready for her expected 40 guests. Again, everyone had a great time and the wine and food was delicious. It was an interesting mix of people -- high school friends, college friends, co-workers, her boyfriend's friends and parents -- but everyone mingled and got to know everyone else. It wasn't filled with the drunkeness of last year, but there were still A LOT of empty wine bottles the next morning. Tons of fun and looking forward to next year!