Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Surprise Weekend

A couple weeks ago, I was distinctly instructed to keep last weekend open due to a Christmas surprise coming my way, courtesy of Ty. I love surprises!

I took last Friday off, and we headed up the hill to his family cabin in Truckee. We were greeted with a nice little snow storm, which was absolutely gorgeous.

Chateau de Peters

We spent Friday relaxing, eating and watching "Friday" (go figure) with cocktails in hand in front of the fire. Bliss!

But it got even better on Saturday - Ty drove me to Carson City for a local production of my favorite musical of all time, "Phantom of the Opera"!!! I literally almost shed tears, I was so excited. And that little bastard had thrown me off a couple weeks prior when I brought up wanting to see it in Vegas, to which he went on about how it wasn't that great of a show. Sacrilege!

We were by far the youngest people in the theater (all blue hairs in Northern Nevada - not surprising). Ty chatted up the old lady next to him, and I tried to ignore the snoring old man to my right (I didn't know what it was at first because I leaned in to ask Ty, "Who has the oxygen tank near us?").

The show was awesome!!! The music is seriously the best, and we were both singing it for the rest of the day (yes, even Ty belted some notes). We then headed up to Reno for dinner with my sis and her boyfriend. Yum! And the surprises didn't stop there. Ty actually agreed to go see the new "Twilight" movie, which paired with Phantom, means I owe him like a month straight of watching Anthony Bourdain with him.

The four of us watched the movie, at which my sister and I laughed at all the wrong parts. It was one of the cheesiest pieces of cinematic crap I've ever seen. I mean, you go into it expecting it to be campy, but lord. This one outdid itself. Best line of the whole thing:

Edward: See you at the altar.
Bella: I'll be the one in white!

Kill me now.

Nonetheless, it was an amazing day full of surprises and good times (just don't ask me how my Ducks did that day. I'm still recovering).

The next day, I accomplished a first - I actually shoveled snow! The driveway had about 6 inches of powder, and with the snow blower out, we were tasked with doing it all by hand. As someone who quits easily, I really wanted to give up after the first few scoops, but Ty kept me motivated. In fact, he said he really enjoyed us just doing manual labor together. Yes, nothing like elbow grease and profuse sweating to bring a couple closer.

This was the beast of a driveway we mastered.
Ty, snow shoveler extraordinaire
Overall, it was a fabulous weekend of relaxing, cooking, eating and spending time with my guy. We are doing really well, and even after 3 full days with him, I missed him the minute he dropped me off at home on Sunday! (I know, sorry for inducing the gagging). I think this trip was good for us since we got to spend a significant chunk of time together with few people around. Definitely a magical weekend - and even though I can be jaded when it comes to the romance fading in relationships after awhile, I can assure you the honeymoon is still here.

Friday, November 4, 2011

The Sucky Side of Solo Living

I seem to always hoot and holler about how much I love living alone. And don't get me wrong - I still do. I love coming home to a clean place just as I left it. It's quiet every single time I go to bed. The DVR only holds my crappy TV shows, and I can sprint around the place in my knickers if I so please.

But then there are those times when I wish I wasn't living alone:

1) Fear factor. The day after Halloween, I was stupid and read a blog where readers submitted their true ghost stories. I thought if I read them during the day I'd be fine. Nope! One of the stories involved a cat reacting to something while it was curled up on a girl's bed. So when I woke up at 4 a.m. last night and Cammie perked her ears up over something, I was all freaked out and couldn't go back to sleep. And how's this for a grown, 25-year-old woman: I was so thirsty, yet I was too scared to get up and go get a glass of water! I've also had a couple nightmares recently, and it would be really nice if I could wake up and (Dad, look away) be next to Ty. Sadly, he works out of town during most weeks, so it's just me and my ghost-detecting kitty.

2) Money honey. My car is one heap of crap. I mean, it gets me from Point A to Point B, but it has all kinds of weird quirks about it. This is where extra money (i.e. someone paying half my rent and bills) would come in handy. I work for a nice firm in a nice downtown building. Yet here I come hauling through the parking garage in my hoopty, with my brakes making some awful noise. Oh, and there's that fun part where I have to open my whole door just to scan my card for entry and exit (window doesn't roll down anymore). So yeah, some more sheckles in my pocket - going toward a new car - would be stellar.

3) Bored Broad. This past week, I've been getting some extra social interaction - Halloween night with Grams, dinner with the boyfriend's mom and brother last night (yes, without the boyfriend being there. I might love his family more than I love him. Sorry, honey!), and tonight is Girls Poker Night with my best friends. But other than that, I'm usually home just tooling around. Sometimes it's great, but other times I'd really like to chat away or have someone to run errands with. Not to mention, cooking for one is not too exciting. I can only handle a frozen piece of chicken from my Crock Pot for so long.

I read some advice somewhere that said your 20s are a special time in your life when you get to be alone. Once you're married and have kids, you're never alone again (unless you're a divorced empty-nester or a widow, but I'm banking on being married forever and dying first, dammit). So really, this is a unique time when I need to soak up this peace and quiet while it lasts. I just need to keep telling myself that when it's 3 a.m. and I'm scared the girl from "The Ring" is going to pop out.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

A Little Bit of Guilt, A Little Bit of Halloween

Not sure why, but recently I've been getting these urges to reach out to estranged people in my life and catch up. One was this guy I was friends with for two minutes in college - I stumbled across a bunch of emails we wrote back and forth freshman year, and he was so nice! I remember he admitted to liking me, and I had to break it to him that I had a boyfriend. That was pretty much the end of that. Oh, and I kind of avoided him because it always felt socially awkward between us.

So it was odd for me to recently get the urge to write him again and say hello. I quickly refrained, simply because I decided there was no point. It would only be to soothe my guilt, and that's not a good reason to reach out.

The other urge (fleeting urge) was to write an old friend who was a complete and total asshole to me. I thought if maybe I reached out and apologized (I can be seriously deluded sometimes), that maybe all would be hunky dory. Ummm, thank god I came to my freakin' senses. The only thing I'm sorry for in that situation is that I ever became friends with this vile human being.

Now on to a new subject.

I went to a costume party this past weekend and actually won Best Dressed! I felt a little guilty though because my costume (Maid Marion) was store bought. Some people put all of their accessories together and were much craftier and more original. But hey, I wasn't about to turn away my prize :) I got a big Halloween gift basket with all kinds of goodies in it.

Halloween was pretty uneventful. I dressed as the Orbit gum commercial girl at work and then headed to my grandma's house to help her give out candy. I just adore that woman!

Oh, and I forced myself to read all of these creepy ghost stories. Just what a girl who lives alone with her cat needs.

All right, that's all for now. This was an officially random post.