Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Motivation.

Britt asked me a very interesting question this afternoon: "What motivates you in your relationship?"

I had to think about it. The word motivation was an interesting word choice--not what makes you happy, or why do you love him but what motivates you. So here's my answer in three parts.

When I first met Ken I knew it would be different. After our first few dates I was totally in love and I had a very good feeling that our relationship would be going somewhere. (Side note: it was not love at first sight for him. Apparantly I grew on him. *sigh* boys.) So that was my motivation in the beginning to really have this relationship go somehwere.

Now we've lived together for a year plus and we know each other ridiculously well so it's all about mainting a healthy, happy, and fun relationship. The most important part of that is trying to not let the ruts or occasional disagreement get to you too much. And being able to talk to each other about the ruts and problems that arise.

The last and most important part of my answer is that what I get from him also motivates me. It doesn't have to be a compliment just the fact that he gies me a kiss every day when I come home from work. Or when he says "I've been wanting to tell you about this all day!" It's a good feeling when you realize someone's been thinking about you all day. Things like that just make me love him more which is the ultimate motivator.

This answer might not be complete but it's a good start.

It's funny-- I was thinking lately that I wanted to have a blog entry just about Ken but I kind of chickened out. Well, not chickened out but in a way I didn't want to put out something so mushy and cheesey and have him not know. (He never checks my blog.) But I think this is the perfect replacement.

Monday, April 28, 2008

This Past Weekend

I was in NJ for Mom's birthday. We went to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the art museum. I really liked it. She had such an interesting life. I love her self portraits and how she expresses so much just through painting herself. (Interesting side note: She was a Cancer July 6-week of the unconventional) Below are two favorites"
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Other than that I hung out with family and saw Jess on Saturday night.
My grandmother's house on the east side of cherry hill finally sold after being on the market forever. She got a pretty good price for it I think: $369,900. It's sad that she doesn't really know what's going on anymore. For the first time in her life my mom wants her mother to have the same personality that used to drive her crazy. My grandma is missing the gene that bakes you cookies, tells you to eat, and is generally on your side no matter what your parents say. Instead she was very critical, super religious, and just generally weird. Not to give the wrong impression-it's not like my mom and her sisters weren't on speaking terms with their mother or anything but let's put it this way-there was a reason that at one point none of them lived less than 6 driving hours away from her. And she definitely mellowed in her old age. Apparantly she used to be quite the battle axe. But, now it's strange to me that she can't remember I'm out of college or that I live in Virginia. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the year brings for Grandma.

This weekend we're going to Richmond for the NASCAR race. It better not rain! I'm excited to drink some beer from my soft sided cooler and get me a Carl Edwards shirt. Whoo!
It would be awesome if I got my rebate and could buy a new digital camera to take pictures. Maybe I'll just buy a new one anyway so I can put up some awesome pictures from the track. Yeah, you would love that wouldn't you blog?

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Working Girl

While it's nice to not deal with psychos all day it's a little unnerving how not busy we are and this is still supposedly the "busy spring season". Further confirmation that I need a new job. It's hard to get the motivation back. I was so sure that I got that job up in Bethesda and then when I didn't it was slightly crushing. Plus I had used up all kinds of time off to go to all the freaking interviews. That's definitely the worst part- lying to your boss, getting dressed up, going all the way out to wherever the fuck, attempting to put your best foot forward and impress the pants off of some strangers, and then getting rejected. It's like the worst date ever.

I am SO not interested in a career anymore-working sucks- I hate it. It eats up all your time, stresses you out, never pays enough, and generally inserts needless bullshit into your life.
me=bitter betty.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Death and Iraq

I don't know if I've mentioned this in any of my past posts but my cousin Greg (who is two weeks my senior) is an officer in the Marines and is in Iraq. Luckily he is not in a very dangerous area and his deployment is pretty short-about 9 months. However, his commanding officer was killed in Fallujah a few weeks ago. It's very sad for him because this was his mentor. According to his mom he doesn't want to talk about it yet. It's hard to describe what I feel for him right now. It's like a combination of my heart being torn out and just not knowing what to say, being numb.

For me it's gradually hitting closer to home. First-Greg joined the Marines, knowing full well he was going to Iraq. Second- He actually went. Third- His mentor dies and now my aunt is going to the funeral for Greg since he can't attend and she is staying over night with me.

Just last Friday Ken was talking about a 6 month job in Baghdad he is considering taking. He asked me if I would "let" him go. I told him if he really thought it could benefit his career then I guess I would be OK with it. I'd rather at least know where he is then have him be deployed and have no idea where he is. And the big plus is it's only 6 months- not these 12 month 15 month deployments. However, since it's so short it makes me wonder if the job is really difficult or time consuming or something. Ken then asked me if it would be worse if this job meant he would miss my birthday and Christmas and I told him to just come back. He just has to come back.

Nothing is set in stone, thank God, and he may not even go. But, this situation is the epitome of what bothers me about the military- lots of talk and random action. I know there's no need to get upset until it actually happens and for me that's big. I like to know everything in advance... way in advance. But with the military it's just a lot of talking and a lot of waiting. So I guess I will wait and see what happens.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Back on the Wagon

OK, OK, so I broke my own rules. The important thing is, I'm not giving up right? Right.
Last night we had dinner with Ken's mom and her fiancee (number three step right on up!) and his son and his wife. Maybe this is a silly trait to not like in people but I just can't take picky eaters. The son-Micheal (NOT Mike) would not eat anything green, potatoes, mushrooms, etc etc etc. So as soon as I heard him rattling off rainman style what he wouldn't eat I knew my lemon tart would not be up his alley. This guy was not only picky with what he would put in his mouth but what came out of it as well. I think he said a total of 10 words all evening and really only perked up when the cat came to visit us. I can understand enjoying animals more than people, in fact I agree with that that statement most days, however make an effort! His wife was very personable, NOT a picky eater, and was perfectly happy to get to know us. Maybe this guy has issues with his father getting remarried. I think he was past the teenage years once they got divorced-I suppose that can be worse because at that point you realize that your parents are in a relationship. I don't mean to be too critical of this guy but people like this truly baffle me. In a way I feel like I should have made more of an effort to reach out to him to get him to chat, but the weird thing was not even his father or wife really reached out to him. It's almost like he wasn't there. Maybe with time he will open up-they get married in June, hopefully that will give him time to think of her and us as "family."

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

It is only me???!!!!

That has occasional meltdowns for no reason? And NO, I'm NOT PMSing-kthanks.

Mary once told me that she thinks I'm an emotionally strong person. I'm pretty much laughed out loud when I heard that one and I think I told her, "I bet Ken would debate you on that point."

Ken was complaining to me about his job, and how his college work is piling up, and how he will have to work well into the evening the next two Wednesdays in a row, etc etc etc. I started doing a mental inventory of all the thing coming up in our lives and I kept thinking, "God we're going to be busy. God, we're going to busy." For instance- our next three weekends are booked- hell, most of JUNE is booked. I guess all the things started to weigh on my teetering emotional state and I just started crying. Ken, being a guy, thought I was all upset because he was leaving to go to the gym. I told him I didn't know why I was upset and at the time that was the God's honest truth.

So, I'm sure he is at the gym now assuming that I am a big crying mess. But, in reality I am (mostly) over it, I blogged it out, and now I'm going to walk to 7-11 and get a huge beer. Who's down?

I'm a believer...

Back before I began this kick of blogging every day I wrote a quick little entry about trying to lose weight in the new year. Surprisingly enough, Ken and I have both stuck to it and I've lost 16 pounds since Jan 2. My waist is back in action!

I will admit that I was a hater when it came to those articles in women's magazines about how regular exercise will help your mood, and make you more motivated and jump start your metabolism and have better periods, and make you lunch etc etc etc. Well, it may not make me lunch and I'm not 100% convinced on the "easier period" theroy but my moods are much much better and I'm more motivated to clean up around the house, or read a chapter of my book, or take a walk on a nice day. I've learned a lot about myself through the losing weight experience (which is far from over btw) the most amazing thing is how quickly your body "redistributes" itself. Even after only a week of working out you feel a shift in your body. Suddenly it's easier to suck it in and in my case my legs felt much much stronger.

I've heard many times that the body is "an amazing thing" and now I am truly a believer in that phrase.

In case anyone was wondering my goal is to lose about 3 pounds per month which would equal about 36 pounds lost for the year. I'm thinking about upping that goal to 4 pounds per month which would be about 48 pounds for the year. Either was I'm pretty close to a half way point of 20ish pounds by June.

(I just re read that paragraph and it definitely sounds like something out of a weight loss reality show, but I'm OK with that)

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Blog Thoroughly or Don't Blog at All

The subject of this post is stolen from another blog that I read regularly and it made me realize... I've been wanting to blog regularly but made excuses to myself- what do I really have to say? What if I reveal too much? Ect, etc. That one line made me think- what's the point of even having a blog if you're not going to use it? And if you really do want to be a writer then you MUST write. You NEED to write. I can't count how many times I heard that phrase in college.

It's interesting how certain things stay with you- my first non fiction class the professor was awesome- totally open about her own life and gave great writing advice. She told us that after she completed her grad program at Emerson she got really depressed about writing. She was afraid that she couldn't hack it without the workshop environment. It took time but she had to rely on herself to give the good advice and learn to work with editors and (most important) not to take things too personally. It is very true that the workshop environment is an easy "drug" so to speak. You get assignments- you complete them and discuss. Without that kind of routine it's very hard to keep it up on your own( at least for me).

One thing I am kind of proud about is that I didn't stop reading after college. One of the smartest people I have ever encountered (Maria-she's pretty famous in the Emerson College Lit World-trust me) said that in order to write you must read. Not that this is uncommon advice but she could tell me that aliens would come out of my skull and I would probably believe her.

Enough with my "brain storm" on writing. I feel like making a list so below, is a "Cast of Characters" who will probably be regulars in this blog:

Ken- My boyfriend (typical, maybe) but we live together so it's like family. (I hope that doesn't sound creepy)
Mary- Co-worker, friend, and Pisces. If I ever say something like "I don't really remember parts of Saturday night" chances are I was with her.
My Boss- I don't feel the need to mention him by name. Boss sums him up pretty well.
Britt- Dear friend and college roommate who moved to California. Very sad, but we talk online.
Jess- High school best friend. I actually see her once in a while now that I live only 2 hours away from home.
Holly-former co-worker, roommate, and current friend
Shannon- see above, minus roommate
Nina- Cat #1
Keira- Step-cat, Cat #2
Mom, Dad- Self explanatory

PS I plan to delete some of the super depressing/whiny enteries in the very near future. This blog needs a makeover!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

I've been meaning to post this for a while

Grandma died 3 weeks ago. When a family such as my father's is closeted dysfunctional all of that dysfunction suddenly surfaces when there is some sort of crisis, like a family death. My grandfather, though he loved his wife, refused to have her embalmed because it was more expensive (please note: Grandad is not poor, he can afford it) so it was a closed casket. My father's youngest brother, who has had issues since the day he was born, took his mother's death very hard and did not come to the funeral. It was truly heartbreaking to see neighbors and friends ask my grandfather where Howard was. My father and his other brother in true awkward form kind of stood around at first when people started arriving, not thinking that maybe they should stand by the door with their father and greet people-this is even more important because grandad is losing his hearing and refuses to wear a hearing aid. Finally my mother dragged all three of them to the door and said, "Don't move, greet people, help your father."

Despite all of this weirdness, the strangest part for me was going through her things after the funeral. It definitely did not take the "few hours" my father promised. Grandma was a pack rat and still had magazines and newspapers from the 80's. She had drawers filled with buttons-Just in case! Empty pill bottles, at least 10 incomplete china sets, and even an unopened gift from HER wedding.

I took a two green salad plates, 4 multi colored ice cream bowls, a vintage purse, and the silver set. My mother said to me, "You know, it's really nice of us to let you have that." I'm not so sure what that means.

To add to the twilight zone feel, Ken was there. I was very grateful that he came with me and having his support felt really good. But when I looked in the living room and saw him there with my dad, my uncle, and grandad it dawned on me- this could be it. He could be family.