Co-Worker Camaraderie

Last week I was invited to the grand opening of the new office of my former employer. I'm so grateful to still keep in touch with everyone there despite my moving on to a new agency. It was a spectacular event - and best of all, I got to see two of my previous co-workers and catch up!

Admittedly, it did make me a bit sad that I'm now on the outside and not as close to them as I used to be. When you work somewhere for years, you really get close with people there, and being around them again made me see how much I miss that closeness. I'm still getting to know everyone at my new job, and I know keeping it professional is more of a priority, but gaining friendships out of it would be nice too.

Thankfully, last Friday our office had our holiday celebration, which was a walking tour of eateries in downtown Sacramento. It was fabulous! I ate what could feed a small village, and walking to each location allowed us all to chat and laugh.

I loved having that personal time with my co-workers, and it made me realize that instead of being sad to leave old friends, I should be happy to have a whole slew of potential new ones. Also, one co-worker had a jewelry party at her house on Thursday, which was a blast! So I feel like I'm slowly getting more comfortable and becoming less of the "new girl" and more of a permanent member of the team.

This weekend was awesome! I performed with my tap class at our studio's Christmas show, and thanks to the boyfriend's mom bringing a crew of friends, I had quite the cheering section. Plus, my best friend came, which was a nice cherry on top. After the show, Ty, his mom, her said friends and I went to dinner and a taped concert for the band Blame Sally. It's going to air on our local PBS affiliate, and the intimate show was incredible! I'd never seen this band, but they are Ty's mom's favorite, and they were great - a nice folky, rock, country girl band. Then yesterday was just my average productive day of running errands and cleaning.

Tonight I'm going Christmas shopping - at home! Ahhh, gotta love the Internet. I plan on not stepping one foot in a mall this year. Last year, I waited too long to do my shopping, and doing it last minute was a nightmare. I loathe crowds when I shop, so buying all my gifts online this year is the perfect solution.

Here's to another lovely week - and to getting closer to Christmas! Woohoo! Love this time of year.

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.

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.

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.

Don't Give Up So Easily

As determined as I am about some things, I tend to want to quit when the goin' gets a little rough.

When we were going to jump in the deep end in swim lessons, when my ballet teacher told me I ruined the Christmas show because I had the stomach flu, when I was copy chief of my college's newspaper for 2 weeks but couldn't handle the working-til-1-a..m. schedule. All times that I quit.

So even though I keep on truckin' when it comes to succeeding at major goals, I really want to work on not giving up so easily when it comes to the small stuff.

This all came to mind this past weekend after getting into a couple "tiffs," if you will, with the boyfriend. A couple times, I felt compelled to just get up and leave. Avoid the situation. Get away altogether. All of these thoughts went through my head, such as, "What's the point of being in a relationship?" and "It's so much easier being alone," etc. (For the record, this was me being dramatic. In no way am I looking to end my relationship. The best is yet to come!).

This whole being in a real relationship (and by real, I mean one where I could actually see it go somewhere) is tougher than I thought, I'll admit. Not because of anything having to do with Ty. It's all me. I'm the head case who's gotten too used to being single. So now I've got to learn how to mesh my nearly 26 years of life with someone else's two decades of experiences, goals, habits, expectations, hot button issues.

Here I thought meeting the right guy was the hard part. Now I think the hard part is learning how to be the right girl for the right guy.

I don't want to be a quitter. I don't want to get up and storm out the minute things don't go my way. Because really, these minor disagreements mean nothing compared to arguments over mortgages and raising kids - you know, real stuff.

Sure, sometimes you have off days and just want to be alone. It doesn't mean you should run off and never look back. Then you'd never be with anyone.

Ironically, it's when we have tiffs that I realize how good for me Ty is. He always assures me that everything will be OK. And best of all - he fights for me. He doesn't let me just walk out, and he makes great efforts to talk about everything and resolve it all. That's the exact kind of person I should be with.

I have a lot to learn, and I'm looking forward to the time when I can just let things roll off my back. I don't want to be overly sensitive or give up at the first sign of disagreement. I'm an over-achiever in other parts of my life, so dammit, I'm going to excel at my relationship too.

Gymmin' It Up

I hate gyms. Hate them! All I see are germs, sweat and people fitter than I am. Plus, I find them boring as all hell. Yeah, you can watch TV or listen to your iPod, but I can do that at home, on my comfortable couch, in my bright pink pj's, and not feel like I'm having an asthma attack. Oh yeah, and I don't get a tomato face when I'm at home, which is all too common when I exert any sort of physical energy.

Gyms have never been my comfort zone. Walking into one is like when I walk into a church or a super ritzy restaurant - I can't help but look around and think, "Do I really belong here?"

That said, I was a bit hesitant when I won a drawing prize at a work event that gave me 2 free months at a local gym. Two free months at this place is a $120 value, so I'd be stupid to pass that up. But I was nervous going to this place for fear that the employees would prey on my gullibility and magically get me to sign up for a lifetime membership. These meatheads are like vultures at these gyms - car salesmen with biceps! I've been known to be talked into a lot of stupid things, so I'd rather not go into the lion's den and have to get sweaty while doing it.

Well, Ty goes to this gym, so I figured it'd be safe to bring him along so we could work out together. We went last night, and I was severely dreading going. I'd worked non-stop all day, my commute was annoying and rainy, and all I wanted to do was watch Kim Kardashian's Fairy Tale Wedding on the E! Network. But I dragged my butt over there.

It started off annoying because the membership manager couldn't fathom why I had a 2-month pass (apparently they're rare at this place), and he was unsure how to redeem it. Then he brought me back to his desk to try and tell me how memberships now are the "cheapest he's ever seen." Riiiight.

Anyhoo, I finally got to the working out, which was boring at first, but then I was able to watch my own personal TV on a bike, and "Rachel Maddow" was on. Nothing like some political news to get me distracted and not thinking about working out!

The night ended well after Ty showed me how to use some machines (I especially liked the rowing one....I'm a regular Winklevoss twin), and we played some basketball. OK, "played" might be a bit of a stretch, but it was fun! Overall, it was a good experience despite my hatred of gyms. I think I just need to find what works for me and go with that. Because I'll never be one of these people who jogs on a treadmill for 45 minutes and pumps some serious iron. I'm more of a zumba and yoga girl. And now maybe a rower too.

I'm interested to see what other people's gym routines are - how in the hell do people get so motivated to go? And once they do go, how do they not keep from feeling like a zombie after one repetitive activity after another? Sure, I love the feeling you get once it's over. That's the best part. But I want to find a way to like the journey too.

Oktober Cluster F

I spent this past weekend with Ty and his family in their new Truckee house that he and his dad have been building. The bulk of it is completed, and now the only things left to do are decorating and finishing up a couple minor things here and there. The house is gorgeous! A true Tahoe-esque cabin with high ceilings, log siding and an enormous wooden truss inside the great room when you first walk in. I'm so proud of Ty for building it with his dad - he really put his career and life on hold these last 3+ years to help his family, and now he has this amazing home (not to mention new skills and memories with his padre) to show for it.

On Saturday we (as in Ty, his mom and her two girlfriends) worked on decorating the house a bit, which I admit is not even close to being my forte. My sister got the HGTV gene, while I'm more of the passive observer-type decorator. But I did my best and helped with little things.

Our group took a break and decided to hit up the Oktoberfest going on at Squaw Valley. The place was packed with lederhosen and beer mugs galore - as well as a whole boat load of drunk 20-somethings. Eh, not so much my scene. I would have been much happier if all kinds of annoyances didn't ensue, such as:

1) The beer lines were long as hell. You had to first get in the mug line and THEN get in the beer line. Umm, no.
2) Ty spotted a girl he's friends with and gave her a big ol' friendly hug hello. Did I mention this girl could have passed for Sarah Michelle Gellar's doppelganger? And did I mention that I wore no makeup and had on a frickin' hoodie for crying out loud?? It's not that I thought Ty liked her or anything. It was more that I was just having one of those low self-esteem days where you don't feel on top of your game looks-wise. I know I should be secure in my looks since in all honesty, I pride myself in being low maintenance. But we girls all have our moments when we just feel frumpy.
3) Ty got all hot and bothered when his mom entered him into some contest where you had to hold up beer mugs at shoulder height for a long time. Apparently he doesn't like when people enter him into things, so he stormed off in a huff. Oh, boy. We sure could have used some beers at this point, but alas, refer to #1.

Despite Oktoberfest being a bust, it all ended well because Ty snapped out of his little hissy fit, he assured me that he thinks I'm beautiful no matter what, and we drank our own damn beers (sans waiting in line) once we got back to the cabin. We broke in their new kitchen and ate a mouth-watering dinner of pot roast and veggies, and I passed out on the couch in my fleece pj's feeling happy as a clam. Overall, a lovely weekend to open up my favorite month!