There's always next year

My big goal this past 4th of July weekend was to see fireworks. Although I had ample opportunity to do so both Friday and Saturday night, I didn’t see a single fireworks display, although I did hear plenty in my neighborhood on both nights.

Thursday night J and I went to see Blues Traveler at Arlington Heights Frontier Days. It was a gorgeous night, and we laid around on a blanket, talked, laughed, and drank wine with a friend of J’s and his girlfriend.

Friday I worked out and ran some errands, and then J and I went into the city to go to a party that a friend of mine was having. The party was a lot of fun, and it was great catching up with some of my former coworkers. We left in the early evening for the sole purpose of getting out to the suburbs in time to see the fireworks display at Arlington Park. However, we were both kind of tired and hungry, so we decided to eat and watch TV, with the understanding that we could always catch fireworks the next night.

Saturday was incredibly stressful, but enjoyable. I met J’s family for the first time—his parents, his sisters, his brother-in-law, and his nieces and nephew. My whole week was spent worrying about the meeting, but they were incredibly nice and I had a great time. However, the situation took a lot out of me, and I was exhausted by the time we got home in the early evening. J and I contemplated going to see the fireworks in either Palatine or Buffalo Grove, but instead decided to just relax. J cooked me an awesome dinner (he’s nice like that), and then we watched Slumdog Millionaire, which we both loved.

Sunday morning I got up at 6 AM (another reason why we didn’t do much the night before) and ran in the Arlington Heights’ Stampede Run 5K. I had my best 5K time ever (34:07) and actually had to slow up a bit after running my first mile in just 9:30, which is a really fast pace for me. I was nearly spent at the end when I started my sprint to the finish too soon, but J was near the finish cheering me on, so I finished strong. The rest of Sunday was spent napping and shopping, followed by hanging out with J’s friends for dinner.

So, no fireworks this year, but I don’t even mind since the weekend was so full of fun. Now back to the grind… :(

I’m not as young as I used to be

Saturday was a whirlwind day for me. Although it was a lot of fun at the time, it pretty much wiped me out and resulted in a Sunday in which I accomplished nothing. Saturday J and I went into the city in thee early afternoon for a birthday party. After that we went to see Up in 3D. The movie was amazing, and I highly recommend it. There were a couple of parts that were so poignant that I nearly started balling, but I managed to control the outburst by adjusting my 3D glasses and taking a few deep breaths. Whenever the movie got a little too sad and I was on the edge of breaking down, it would switch gears a bit and become very funny. Then there was a delicious dinner at Heartland Café followed by Evita at the No Exit Café. It is the second time I saw the show there, and it richly deserved all of the Jeff Awards it received. The show ended around 10:30 PM and then we drove back out to the suburbs and went to a birthday party for one of J’s friends, where I proceeded to have a couple of the strongest margaritas ever created by man. I was about halfway through the second one when the tequila hit me and I realized it was time to switch to water. We got home around 3 AM, completely exhausted. I slept until almost 1 PM yesterday, which I don’t think I’ve done since my early 20s. My big plans of working out, running errands, visiting my brother, and doing laundry turned into just visiting my brother and playing with my nieces. Of course, part of this is because a water main in my neighborhood broke and I didn’t have any water, so laundry was out of the question. Hopefully I’ll be able to make up for my slacking and recover over the next couple of days, which is good because the upcoming long weekend is already filling up.

Stupid storms

As I have made clear before, I hate thunderstorms, and it seems like this summer has been an unending series of storms. I can’t sleep if it’s storming out. Tabitha is as afraid of storms as I am, so we hide under the covers together and cringe with every lighting strike and clap of thunder. This weekend the storms were messing with me non-stop.

Friday we had a summer outing at work, so I planned on taking a later train home. I just made the 7:30 PM train and should have pulled into my station at 8:30. But, tornadoes in the area made us leave late, and then we had to stop twice because there were trees on the train tracks. Eventually we were on the train so long that we had to disembark and board a later train because our conductors couldn’t work overtime. I ended up pulling into my station at 9:45 PM, completely exhausted and ready to relax in front of the TV… but then my cable was out. The cable eventually came back on Saturday afternoon, but for some reason the HDMI hook-up on my cable box got screwed up, so I had to hook it up old school, which of course took me forever because I am not good with technology.

Then on Sunday morning the power kept going out, which was weird because the weather was fine, and now my internet is totally out and it appears my modem is dead. Being without internet yesterday was not fun, and I’m hoping J can fix it tonight so I don’t have to call Comcast out to look at it, which will probably take forever.

Then this morning the storms started up again just after 4 AM and I was wide awake, cuddling with Tabitha and worrying non-stop. And don’t even get me started on what these storms are doing to my hair and my poor flowers.

An ego boost gone too far

When I first met some of my boyfriend J’s friends a couple of weeks ago, a lot of people in the group took the time to tell either myself or J that I was charming, beautiful, and witty. At first I took very kindly to the compliments, yet wondered why my own friends suck so much because they are not nearly as generous in describing me. (I kid… maybe…) This past weekend I met even more of J’s friends and a few of them gushed over my beautiful eyes, high cheekbones, and flawless skin--their words, not mine. All of this is in addition to J repeatedly telling me that I am gorgeous and that I somehow become even more beautiful every time he sees me. I told J that all of the compliments are getting to me and my ego was swelling to uncontrollable levels. But the compliment-a-palooza went on for so long and with such gusto that I eventually became suspicious. It started to remind me of how on the school bus we would tell the slow kid that she looked pretty whenever she managed to button her shirt correctly or apply her makeup in such a manner that she didn’t look like a clown. I guess I won’t start to worry until somebody starts to gush about my ability to walk and talk at the same time.

Having a social life is nice

I used to complain that dating and trying to have a social life was too much work. However, I have discovered that if you are doing things with somebody you actually like, then it can be quite a bit of fun. That probably should have been obvious to me, right?

The boyfriend (J) and I have been pretty busy. We see each other several times during the week and make sure to do something fun every weekend.

Three weeks ago he took me on a road rallye (yes, the “e” is meant to be there). It is basically a scavenger hunt performed while driving that is designed by Mensa members to both exercise your mind and slowly drive you insane. But, there was beer and pizza at the end, so it was worth it.

Last Friday we went to see Evita at No Exit Café in the Rogers Park neighborhood. We enjoyed it so much that we are actually going again at the end of the month. I normally don’t enjoy musicals, but this is a totally stripped down version where you can really envelop yourself in the characters and the story in a small, intimate atmosphere. The next night we went to a birthday dinner for one of J’s friends. Finally, on Sunday we went to the Arlington Heights Promenade of Art and picked out original art pieces that we would like to have, but didn’t actually buy anything. It was just nice to be out together on such a beautiful day.

Tomorrow night we are going to Party in the Park at Arlington Park.

This doesn’t sound like me, does it? All happy and busy all the time? It’s all very confusing, but I’m enjoying myself so much that I really don’t care.

Life is good

It's been a while, huh?

I haven't had much time to even think of writing on here because things have been very busy lately, but everything is going very well. I got a promotion at work and am currently doing both my old job and my new job. Plus I have a boyfriend now, and things are going really well between us. If I'm not working or working out, I'm probably hanging out with him.

So, things are going very well right now. I'm not going to read too much into it other than to say that I think I deserve this happiness after all of the stuff I've had to deal with over the past year, so I'm going to enjoy it as much as possible.

The perfect ending to an otherwise crappy day

I had a very good day at work yesterday and was looking forward to my workout with my trainer at the gym. But the moment I stepped off the train, everything just kind of fell apart. First of all, I forgot where I parked my car at the Metra station. I generally park in one of two areas each day, depending on which train I take, so I was perplexed when I couldn’t find my car, and of course I couldn’t find my parking payment receipt which I always carry in my pocket in case I forget where I parked. I finally found my car in one of its usual spots—I must have walked by it three times during my search.

Next I pulled out of the station, but instead of taking my usual route, I turned the other way for no apparent reason. Instead of a speedy 10 minute trip up the expressway to my condo, I was stuck taking side roads and missing every stoplight. 20 minutes later I arrived home and frantically got changed and got my gym bag together, but forgot to grab my water bottle.

So I get to the gym and buy a bottle of water. Then I notice my hands are super dry, so I fish out some lotion in the bottom of my gym bag and slather it on my hands. Five minutes later I had a rash on my hands and had to wash the lotion off.

Then it happened. Now, keep in mind that my workouts have been going great lately. I’ve been jogging about 3.5 to 4.5 miles three days a week, and twice a week I go to the gym for an elliptical warm-up of about 25 minutes followed by an hour of my trainer pushing me with strength training exercises I would never do on my own. I was finally on a good schedule, dropping weight again, and feeling good.

Last night I went down for a lunge at the start of my training session and felt a tear in my left quadriceps. We tried to go on with my training session and focus on the upper body, but my quad was really bothering me and I couldn’t concentrate. Eventually my trainer called it quits when my arms started to give out and I developed a limp. He recommended ice and compression, so off I went to Target.

Target did not have any Ace bandages… but they did recommend band-aids, so that was completely unhelpful. My next stop was Walgreen’s where I picked up ice packs, but they didn’t carry Ace bandages at that location. Did I mention it was bring your screaming child night at both Target and Walgreen’s? Yeah, it was great. I was going to try CVS or another Walgreen’s, but by this time my quad was spasming and getting in and out of the car was seriously the most painful part of the whole thing, so I called it quits and went home to ice my quad and have a pity party.

Sitting at home on my sofa, with an ice pack strapped to my leg, I received a call from the guy I’ve been seeing. I told him of my injury, and my failed attempts to procure an Ace bandage. He offered to cancel his plans with his friends to help me out, but I wouldn’t let him. A couple of hours later, thinking I was asleep, he sent me a text message telling me to look outside my door in the morning. I hobbled down the stairs to find a gift bag with an Ace bandage in it. Forget jewelry and fancy dinners… this is the true way to a girl’s heart.