500 Days of Summer

Just watched 500 Days of Summer and loved it. One of the best movies I have ever seen. I related to it on so many levels and at the end I just wanted to cry.

For one thing the music in it was amazing. The Smiths, Regina Spektor. awesome.

Also, the line about hating someone and knowing they are the only one out there for you. I so remember that exact feeling with an ex boyfriend. We had a horribly destructive relationship and yet I think I forgot how to be me without him or that there could be someone else out there for me. When we were good we were good but the bad was horrible and hurtful and destructive.

At the end, she rips him apart at his favorite spot. My spot was ruined by my former best friend. That conversation still burns.

I can't describe how the movie made me feel eloquently at the moment but I had to get it out. I was literally blinking back tears at the end. Mostly because I miss my former best friend and it's been over a year since we've spoken and longer than that since we've had any sort of meaningful conversation. Sunday was my birthday and I was hoping he'd call. I called on his birthday and left him a message when he didn't answer. I didn't get a birthday call.

My sister said I should write in here more often...

It's been while since I've posted anything. Life's been busy but let me see if I can bring you up to speed...

Last time I wrote I was feeling very lost. I can't say I feel a whole lot better but I did quit my job and I begin a new job next week. What finally brought me to my breaking point? First, a teacher at work saw a parent at a bar without his wedding band talking to other women. She told a few of the other teachers at work, one of which felt because she was "friends" with the mother/wife that it was her moral duty to tell her. She asked the director of the center for permission to tell the wife. The director said it was fine. I felt that was a huge conflict of interest and moral issue. The teacher didn't see anything more than talking and this could potentially cause tons of problems or even destroy a marriage. Apparently the wife was already suspicious but I still don't agree with it. The director shouldn't have said it was ok and it should not have happened at work and while the teacher was on the clock. Just my opinion. The second issue was over the treatment of a child. The child was put down on the floor very hard and the teacher was acting out of anger. I felt the teacher should be written up or at the very least talked to but nothing happened. I was very upset that my concern was going unheard. So that was that, I started aggressively looking for another job, talked it over with Mike and gave my 2 weeks notice. There is a lack of respect and appreciation towards the teachers, the center has become money focused and not child focused.

My new job is at a brand new center that is only 15 minutes from my house. I will be a lead teacher in my own classroom! While I still don't know if working at a daycare is the right choice for me, this is a step up and should resolve a lot of the negative issues I was having.

We are settled into out new home. The cabinet doors are hung in the kitchen and we are hoping to get the hardware on this weekend. We are now getting ready for our Housewarming Party in a few weeks. I'm excited because a lot of people haven't seen our house yet and those that have saw it after we moved and hadn't settled yet so it's a lot different now that there are pictures on the walls and our touches throughout the house.

Mike and I did book a honeymoon for our anniversary. We went to Lake Geneva for our honeymoon last year. We were there for a long weekend but it was November and a lot was closed since it was off season. It was so cold and while we did enjoy ourselves it wasn't the honeymoon of our dreams. We will be going to St. Lucia this November and staying at a Sandals resort. I'm super excited to lay on the beach, swim, read, relax and enjoy some romantic time with Mike.

I think that's all for now. I'll try to write more often Missy!

Dreams

Lately I've been having a re-occurring dream. It's almost the same every time. I am at college, my mind says it's UIUC but the locations aren't locations on campus. I'm always super bundled up like it's freezing outside and carrying several heavy books. I always start inside a building, frantically trying to find an exit to reach my next class. I'm sweating since I'm so bundled up but I'm still inside. Everyone I ask for help is mean to me and in one dream I ended up on the floor outside a classroom crying. It's like the armory or altgeld with hallways that just end or go up to a single classroom. In one dream, I made it outside and I was just as lost and people were still just as mean.

I've decided that it can be decoded to describe my feelings about life. I feel lost, career-wise. I can't find anything in the theatre field. I'm not particularly happy working at the daycare. I'm not sure what my other options are, what would make me happy. I worry that it's pointless to go to grad school because by the time I finish I will want kids and what's the point of a degree if I'm not going to use it for a few years? I think people are mean because I am looking for directions and no one else can really give me the direction I need. I'm not sure why I'm bundled up and carrying heavy books though. Perhaps just to make the frustration that much greater?

So I'm feeling horrible disappointed and upset. Maybe it's the stress, excitement and exhaustion of packing up and moving but I'm very frustrated. I don't feel that it's too much to ask for my family to be excited for me and want to see my new house, my first house. I know that they have busy lives, I know mom has been sick but I stop and at least listen, and care about their lives. I am excited for them. Why can't they share my excitement? Why can't they make time to come see the house? It's an hour away. Mike's parents are 5 hours and they are so excited and are already planning to visit. So frustrating. I don't think it's too much to ask.

End of rant.

Move in Day is Tuesday. I have all next week off to get things done in the new house. Our paint colors are picked out and we spent the day packing yesterday.

As Mike works for PPG, we're using Pittsburg Paints. I used their online paint thing to decide which colors would work together. These are the bedroom wall colors. The brown will have a Victorian Baroque wallpaper Styled Stencil in the blue over it. That will be the wall that the bed is against and should just give it a little extra special touch.

This is a pre-designed kitchen so ours won't be the same. The brown of the fridge, tile, etc is not what our kitchen is. Our back splash is blue and our appliances are white. The cabinets are getting painted the blue gray and will be accented with the light blue wall color. I think it will be much nicer than the salmon and orange cabinet colors that are there now.

This weekend has been wonderful. Yesterday we slept in late, made homemade pizza for lunch, packed up the office and then curled up on the couch with the pooches watching How I Met Your Mother. Today we slept in, in fact Mike and Baron are still in bed and Duchess and I are having some girl time this morning. My sister and her friend are coming later today to go see a concert at Summerfest. I bought her tickets for her birthday. We are also going to have to stop by the house this afternoon and go eat some sushi before the concert. It will be a nice day!

What's been on my mind...

We are officially home owners! It is so exciting but now we have to wait a week to move in. We all know I am not so good at being patient. It's an awesome feeling but there is a lot of other stuff going on in my life too.

This weekend Mike and I went and saw Kiss at summerfest. Mike thought that we should both see them at least once in our lives and this is the 35th anniversary tour so we got tickets. Mike enjoyed it but it was very much not my thing. I don't care to see Gene Simmons stick out his tongue for the entire show or to see him puke up blood. Chevelle opened for Kiss and they were good. They made me think back to high school a bit and left me missing old friends, more about that later. We saw Barenaked Ladies and the Bodeans too. They were both very cool.

My mom has been in and out of the hospital lately and I wrote a long entry about my feelings towards it all. It felt good to get it out but I wasn't able to hit that post button. It seems to private to just post out to the entire Internet and I don't know how to make this subscriber's only or whatever. I'll have to figure that out. Hopefully, she'll go home sometime this week. It was pretty scary though. Her blood pressure plummeted and she was hallucinating.

So, back to missing old friends, I don't know if it was Summerfest or the fact that it is summer but I am very much missing my friends. I'm still really struggling to make friends here. People at work are either parents and living lives revolving around their kids or still in college or single. I want to hang out with friends, go to dinner or go shopping. I want to sit on our new deck and cook on the grill and relax. I don't want to drink 'til I'm drunk, I don't want to sing karaoke and I definitely don't want to do drugs with you. I'm missing my high school best friend. We used to be so close we could finish each other's sentences. Towards the end of high school are relationship was strained and it only became more strained in college. Romantic feelings got in the way and later it was that the friendship wasn't working both ways. Eventually I called him out on it. I couldn't take listening to his problems and never being able to talk to him about my life. I know regret that because instead of fixing our issues it ended our friendship. He tried for a few weeks but then our friendship just crumbled. I was so hurt I almost didn't invite him to the wedding but I did and I'm glad. That was the last time we spoke. I called on his birthday but he didn't call back. It's sad but I don't know what to do about it. We are in very different places in our lives.

So that's what has been on my mind.

Quick Update

We found a house! We close the 29th and move in July 7th. If all goes as planned, details and pics soon!

This weekend I planned my first Doxie Platdate. I found this great doggie daycare and we had a great turn-out. They had baby pools for the puppies to cool off in and they had ramps and obstacles for the puppies to play on.

And the house hunt continues... We put in an offer on the house described in the last post and they counter offered and we counter offered and they counter offered. It still wasn't low enough so we rejected the offer and had to move on.  We have a new realtor and saw some great homes on Saturday. We have our eye on one but I don't want to jinx it. 

Other then house hunting, Missy is home from Prague! I missed her lots but she's having a hard time finding a job for the summer and an apartment for next semester. I think it's been a hard transition for her. Work is going well. There's a lot of drama but I'm still new so a lot of it happens without me knowing or being involved at all. My mom is ok, she has had a headache for a couple of days. It's hard to feel so helpless and there's a lot of old feelings that come back up. I had lunch with Missy yesterday and it was really good to have some sister time and talk about stuff. 

We visited Mike's parents over memorial day weekend. I went into it with hard feelings because we were not so much asked to come visit but told that either we were visiting or they were visiting us. However, it was an ok weekend. For 4 years we've avoided going to see the Abe Lincoln Presidential Museum but we ran out of excuses that weekend. Luckily it wasn't quite as bad as we thought it would be and it didn't take that long, just a few hours Sunday morning. 

My dilemma at the moment is that Mike's second cousin (who threw my bridal shower in Springfield) is having a baby shower the same day that my cousin (and bridesmaid) Sara is having her graduation party. I want to go to Sara's but I feel like I should go to Tina's shower. I've feeling torn. I have a couple weeks to figure it out though. 

New House?

Today Mike and I put an offer on a house. We will know by Thursday at noon. It is a beautiful home in Franklin. It needs some work but it is a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath. The first floor has a living room, formal dining room, family room with french doors out to the deck and marble fireplace. The kitchen has a large pantry and the laundry is also on the first floor. Upstairs are the four bedrooms. The master has it's own bath and a large walk-in closet. The basement is finished and has 3 rooms and another bathroom which isn't counted in the total count listed though I don't know why. The bathrooms and the kitchen need new cabinet doors at the very least. It is an odd sized yard because it it on a cul-de-sac but it is pretty big. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

This has been a week of deep thought, of hope and despair, a week to change the weeks ahead. This has been a week of pleading, of memories, of loneliness, a week of excitement and a week of sadness. This has been a week of growth and reconnections, with myself, with Mike and with God.

I wish I could say more and explain but I can't put it into words at the moment.

A friend from high school and his fiance started writing and recording songs. I love their music, it's great for thinking. "It's You" brings tears to my eyes. You can listen hear:

http://www.myspace.com/timothyandabigail