Anticipation of what's coming next

It's finally here the very last day of 2007. This year has gone by so quickly but so many things have happened. I for one am glad to kick 2007 out to the curb and welcome 2008 in with open arms. Here's to you 2008! You are warmly welcomed.


This year I want to (in no particular order):

• DATE! A lot. As much as possible.


• Build a patio.


• Finally unpack each and every box in my house and find a proper place for everything.


• Finish painting the interior of my house (kitchen, hallway, bathroom, bedroom, den).

So what are my New Year's Resolutions? To fix up the house so it feels cozy, welcoming and lovely. To keep being social and dating as much as absolutely possible. To not hide away from anything ever. To embrace who I am, every piece of me. To fix the things I have power over and let go of those things that I don't. How I react to this year is my choice; take care of it and take care of myself.

Tonight will be spent @ Britten and Brooke's which is where I spent last New Year's with him. He'll probably be there with his girlfriend. I'm not going to hide from that but it will be tough. But I'm tough too.

Here's to 2008! I'm so glad you are here.

2007, What did you do to me?

One of my very favorite bloggers, Sundry, has created a list of questions to try to sum up the year that was 2007. I thought I would participate since this was quite a year for this gal.

So here goes:

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Bought a townhouse in Seattle, went speed dating, tore out a wall.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Is it bad that I can't even remember if I made any resolutions? I'm sure I will make some this year and this time I'll post them here so that I can keep track. Accountability, perhaps that will help.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Heather and Jess both had babies this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die? A former co-worker.

5. What countries did you visit? Does Texas count as another country? Feels like another country.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? A better outlook on my personal/dating/love life.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? January 19th, had my heart broken that day.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Tearing out a wall in my new townhouse.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not recovering from the break-up and having to go back into therapy to get myself back.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just to my silly little heart.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Townhouse or perhaps my digital camera. Both are very cool.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
"His" friends for wanting to keep me in their lives.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
His.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Townhouse

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Moving to Seattle!!!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
"The Underdog" by Spoon and "See the World" by Gomez

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
 a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer?
Sadder, fatter, poorer. Holy crap that sounds so bad but I'm working on the sad by going back into therapy and the fatter by going to the gym. The poorer is because of the house so that one's not all bad I suppose.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Dating.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Being sad about him.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With mom, sis, bro-in-law, niece, nephew, bro and grandpa at mom's house.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Nope.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Chuck, Pushing Daisies

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope. Don't even hate him.

24. What was the best book you read?
Family Baggage by Monica McInerney

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Gomez "How We Operate"

26. What did you want and get?
My townhouse, an LCD TV, a digital camera

27. What did you want and not get?
A Roomba.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Juno, hands down. Others I loved Knocked Up and Hot Fuzz.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Had a few friends over to my new place for all of my favorite snack foods and I turned 33.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
To have spent at lot less time being sad about him.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Same as every other year, Eddie Bauer-esque, sweaters, t-shirts and jeans.

32. What kept you sane?
Moving into Seattle, Anti-depressants, friends and therapy.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Zachary Levi from Chuck

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Protecting a woman's right to choose.

35. Who did you miss?
No one stands out.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
No one stands out.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
In order to be truely happy in a relationship I have to be truely myself and not be afraid of what might happen.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. "And when all's been said and done it's the things that are given, not won are the things that you want." Gomez - See the World

Happy Holiday

I spent Christmas Eve "working". Job was open today but I was the only one here. I got a grand total of one phone call and let me count them up... 2 emails. So busy I could hardly stand it.

How did I spend my day? Doing nearly nothing. Ah bliss.

Tonight I will be picking up brother and we will be heading down to mom's. We'll be coming back up tomorrow evening at some point. Should be quite the full house down at mom's because grandpa is in town too.

So here's hoping you are having a glorious time with your family and friends this Christmas. I shall return again soon.

Will music soothe my car driving soul?

I seem to feel the most anxious when I'm in my car. Many of my anxiety related "ticks" seem to pop out while I'm behind the wheel. The hand flexing , hand shaking and overall pins and needles are often in full force.

It's not all of the time, of course, but often enough that I'm searching for a solution. I talked to my therapist about it yesterday and she suggested listening to music that has good associations. Songs that remind me of certain people or situations. She even suggested an album that she loves by called Prose Combat by MC Solaar. He's a french Rapper. My therapist loves Rap. If you knew her you would find this as funny as I do.

So now I'm on the hunt for a version I could buy locally instead of over the internet from someone in Arkansas. If I can't find one then I'll enlist the help of our friends at Amazon. Until then I'm going to try to find one on my own. Perhaps SonicBoom might be the best place to start.

I'm also open to other suggestions, since I'm not sure how much Rap I'll be able to handle. Let me know what songs make you happy and I will be forever grateful.

Where have you been?

I've been avoiding this little space for the past few weeks. Why? Because I don't know what to do with it. I feel like I want to use it as a place to put my in-between therapy session thoughts. But that feels overwhelming. Putting my thoughts out in the electronic jungle for anyone to find seems wrong, odd, strange, selfish, and an invitation for pity. I don't want pity from the electronic ether. I do want to feel like a part of something larger than myself, however. That's what a blog seems like to me.

All of those blogs that I have discovered in the past several months have entertained, inspired, and entranced me. They have put their lives out there for us all and seem to love it. Why can't I?

I suppose this is part of why I'm in therapy. All of my self-esteem issues all rolled up into an electronic manifestation. What do I hope to get out of putting my thoughts here for you to read? Do I want your praise and worship? No. I want to feel like a part of something more than myself.

But how do I get over the doubt and fear? How do I just write here and not worry about what you might think? Sundry mentioned this morning that she still feels this way and she's been blogging forever. She's actually one of my blogging idols. Her real approach to the world and the words she writes are inspiring every day. I would stalk her, and sort of do, if that weren't ridiculously creepy.

Shall I resolve for 2008 to let this blog be whatever I want it to be with no fear and worry? I'd say that sounds like a very good idea. Love it when a plan comes together.

Thanks to my therapist I am now Digital

I took the plunge last night I went to Best Buy last night and bought a digital camera. I spent the rest of the evening taking pictures, well after I charged the battery for the first time that is.

Here are a couple of pictures of the scarf I am knitting. I took these in two different Macro Modes.


And now the much anticipated pictures of Darby and Troy.












So Britten, what do you think?? :) Don't pay any attention to the fact that I didn't clean up or stage the pictures at all.

I spent most of the evening playing with the multitude of settings available. I'm still very confused but I think I'm starting to understand how to use it I had to try a variety of lighting options to get the couch picture to look as good as it does. So far I'm not very impressed with the indoor pictures but overall the camera is great. It's a Canon PowerShot SD850 IS.

So the reason I finally bought a digital camera was because at therapy yesterday we decided that I need to get some really good pictures up on my eHarmony and Match.com profiles. I'm even going to bring in printouts of my profiles from each site for her to look at. Hopefully with some assistance from her we'll be able to get a great photo and tweak my profiles to actually make them work for me. Right now they are just not cutting it.

I'm tired and Seattle is a small town

I am so very tired this afternoon. I saw my therapist this morning and then came back to work. That has proved very difficult on poor little me. I'm yawning and my eyes are burning. I suppose the burning eyes are from the tears shed in the therapists office. Annoying either way.

Since I was with you last the following situations have occurred:
- On Saturday I ran in to Jess, Josh and Jackson @ REI. I had been there looking for a new warmer coat and was about to go home when I saw them drive by me. I then got to spend time playing with Jackson while his mom and pop shopped for Jackson packs. You know those backpack baby carriers? Well they found one that they liked and decided to then try loading the little man into it. He was a complete trooper! While they were just loading him in this little girl came up to us and looked right at Jackson and said "That little baby in there is very cute." So adorable!!! It was about that time that I realized I was probably going to get a parking ticket because I hadn't planned on being there nearly that long. So I said goodbye to the J's and headed outside where it was now snowing like the dickens!
- On Sunday I was trying to find a free parking spot to go to the Urban Craft Uprising. As I came around the corner of Mercer and I think it was 5th I spotted Mel's car. I was nearly certain that she was at the UCU too. I tried her cell but it went straight to voicemail. I slowly made my way through the amazing booths and kept an eye out for her. About half way through my wanderings I heard her laugh and there she was with Ed talking to one of the vendors.
- On Tuesday I had a fit of motivational energy and decided the time had most certainly come to fix the closet in the den. I can't stand to even look in there anymore, let alone go in the room because it is so overly full of crap! The floor is barely visible. Since good organization can fix any ill, I had to take advantage of this rare motivated moment and go to Storables. The gal who worked out the dimensions for the shelves I needed asked if I was planning on buying the shelves today because if I wanted to wait their 25% off sale started on the 26th. So I decided to wait. Rather than go home completely empty handed I looked around Storables for something else that I just had to have. As I was searching I ran into my therapist and her 4 year old son. I have never run into her before and wasn't sure what to do. I had a quick "should I or shouldn't I" conversation with myself about if I should say hello. I decided that I should. So I did. She was very sweet and even gave me a hug. Then for hours afterwards I was wondering if I had done the wrong thing. If I should have just left her alone. Jess said that if she sees patients out and about she doesn't approach them but is totally fine if they approach her. I was so glad that she said that. And then today when I saw my therapist Storables was the very first thing that we talked about. She was totally fine with it too! Made me feel so much better.

See what I mean about Seattle being a small town though? I ran into three people I know in the span of four days. Oh and I also saw a story on "Evening Magazine" about a Christmas tree farmer who's daughter was in my dorm freshman year. So that's sort of another one.

What else do I want to tell you? Perhaps that's enough for right now. I am planning on finally buying myself a digital camera so pictures of the new living room are coming soon. I'll tell you later what pushed me over the camera buying edge today. It's pretty funny. But that's all for now. Hasta luego!