boston day three

today was a fabulous day at the convention. the sessions seemed much more applicable to my business and i even did a bit of networking. i also picked up some fun little trinkets for the kiddos from some of the exhibits. i'm sure they will be excited about the things i plan to bring them. i didn't get to talk to them tonight, they were already in bed when i called. i miss the little buggers already and will be happy to see them on saturday. i bet it will only take me a few hours before i am ready to leave again though! : )

i met up with my friend K again tonight after the conference. we went to a cute little restaurant down by the harbor. there is NOTHING like fresh seafood. it was incredible. fantastic. awesome. my mercury levels are going to be severly elevated by the end of my trip here, but i don't care. it was amazing. i also had a strawberry daquari and the best sangria ever. because i am such a lightweight, i was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy by the time dinner was over, which definitely helped in my decision to smoke not one, but three cigarettes thoughout the course of the night. i stink again, and my mouth tastes gross, but i don't care. this will be the last time i will smoke again in a long, long, long time. i enjoyed partaking in this "forbidden" fruit on this my last night of "freedom".

after dinner, K and i headed over to a divey little bar that sells $2 tap beers. i had two more drinks there and enjoyed some good conversation with K. she is one of those people that not everyone likes or "gets". she is jaded and cynical like i am. she is also very confident and knows what she wants. i know this comes across as arrogance to many people, and maybe it is. but i really have enjoyed my time here with her. she has been wonderful to me during my stay here, serving as tour guide, friend, cigarette supplier, transportation guru...she has been totally awesome. she LIVES the work hard, play hard philosophy like no one else i know. my experience here definitely wouldn't have been the same without her. she has hung out with me as little or as much as i wanted and has totally respected my desire for alone time. she is definitely a girl that is wise beyond her 25 years. it's been really fun talking with her.

the bf is arriving here tomorrow afternoon. i have mixed feelings about it. part of me feels like i still need more time alone. this stay has gone so fast! i wouldn't be opposed to another day or two of "me" time. my visions of me sitting on the beach, staring at the water and contemplating life never really materialized. perhaps i will have to save that for a solo trip to duluth or grand marais this fall, becuase i have a feeling i will be taking solo trips a lot more often from here on out, if i can swing it.

not sure when i'll be updating you all on tomorrow's bf reunion, it tends to be a bit difficult to blog with the bf around. i have never let him read this blog or told him the name or address. i'm sure he could find it if he wanted to, being a tech guru and all, but so far he has respected my blogging privacy.

goodbye for now, hopefully i will have wonderful news of a romantic reunion soon! if not, i will at least have a tale of wild, passionate, sex...which is probably better anyway, right?

boston, food, wine, walking and...smoking

i am LOVING being in boston. more than just being in boston, i am LOVING being alone. independent. i love the feeling i got from being able to navigate boston public transportation with three station switches to get to the conference this morning. i love traveling alone. i just do. it's something i've never done before. i get an odd rush from it. maybe it's the small town girl in me, proud that i can go it alone in a very large unfamiliar city. whatever it is, it's good.

i actually haven't been completely alone though... yesterday i met up with an ex-coworker who moved to boston about six months ago. she and i did some walking and went on a quick overview of some of the sights. we met up again tonight and did the same thing. walking, dinner & drinks, talking. it's been fun catching up with her. i did something very naughty tonight though: i smoked. i had one cigarette. i haven't touched a smoke in well over a year. my friend K is a very casual smoker, a pack can last her two weeks or two days, depending on what is going on. K and i first bonded at work over the discovery that we both (at the time) smoked and hid it from our co-workers. i don't plan on ever starting to smoke again. i don't plan on telling the bf or anyone else (well, besides my blogosphere friends) that i smoked. it's just something i felt like doing. and i did. and it wasn't gross, but i hate the smell and the way my mouth tastes right now, and the way my hair and even my fingers stink. i'm glad i quit, but i'm glad i tried one tonight. just for old time's sake.

the kids and the bf are surviving in my absense. the kids are driving their dad nuts already, i'm sure he will be more than ready to push them out the door when i get back. the bf says he's still surprised at how much he misses me, which is good. i miss them all too, but i wouldn't give up this experience for the world. i have one more full day and another night alone tomorrow. another day to savour this wonderful independence and "aloneness". after this trip, i think i'm going to have to repeat it, though likely on a smaller scale, every 6 months or so. it's absolutely refreshing.

solo

i love traveling. i love traveling even when it means i have to get up at 3:00 am after three hours of sleep to drive my rental car 1.5 hours to the airport. in the rain. alone. blissfully alone. with the radio cranked and singing at the top of my lungs to whatever the hell i feel like listening to.

i cried when i dropped off the kids yesterday. i cried when i left the house and the bf this morning. i'm weird like that. i was very much looking forward to this trip and to the alone time, but i always have problems with saying goodbye to my loved ones. i'm fine now. i miss them all, but i'm enjoying this time in a new city on my own.

right now i am hanging out on my king sized hotel bed, apple ibook on my lap and my ipod singing in my ears. i talked to the bf a little bit ago. he misses me. he didn't expect to miss me so much. that feels nice. i miss him too, but i wouldn't change this. i need this. we need this. it is good.

32 hours and counting

have i mentioned lately how ready i am to leave??? bf and i made up but are still both very irritable and easily annoyed by each other. i'm not entirely sure wtf is going on, but i really do feel like time apart will be good for us.

tonight i am thinking about how much i will miss my kiddos, though. this will be the longest i have ever been away from them. i will take them to their dad's tomorrow afternoon and then won't be picking them up until next saturday afternoon. that's ONE WHOLE WEEK away from them. granted, they can surely be little monsters, but i know i will miss them terribly. which will probably be good too, in the long run. it doesn't hurt to have a bit of time apart to make me appreciate what i have even more.

overall, i know the trip will do me good. hopefully i'll come back refreshed and happy and maybe i'll even have cheerful, happy things to blog about. seems like that is somewhat of a rarity for me lately.

three, two, one...blast off!

three days from now i will be heading off to boston on my very first solo flight. i will be staying alone in a strange city for three days. i will be getting my very first glimpse of the ocean. as i listen to my kids fighting in the bathroom right now, i look forward to all this with great anticipation.

truly, this couldn't come at a better time for me. the bf and i have gone through another rocky patch. definitely not as severe as past ones, but rocky nonetheless. i have been craving alone time, and i am finally going to get it!

the trip is for work, and i am flying out early sunday morning. my conference goes from monday-wednesday. then, the bf is flying out to meet me on wednsday to stay two nights - a mini-vacation for the two of us. after my three nights of alone time, i'm sure i will be very happy to see him. it such a great feeling, seeing someone again after missing them for a while. because the old cliché is true really, absence does make the heart grow fonder.

root canal part II and other good news...

so today i went and had my root canal finished up. it took two hours! and it was just as horrible as the first visit. plus it's costing me boatloads. i wonder if i should just have them all yanked out and get dentures? okay, maybe not, they aren' that bad, but i HATE spending my money on getting tortured in the dentist's chair for hours on end. i had expected i would be able to go back to work, but i look like i am paralyzed on the left side of my face and i don't feel like being the butt of jokes there, so i'm working from home this afternoon. i'm in pain, but no vicodin for me today. just good old fashioned advil, once i'm sure i won't swallow my tounge trying to take it. i'm still pretty numb.

bf and i sort of made up last night, but there was no dirty fun involved, and things were definitely not back to normal. then today he got mad at me again when he came home for lunch. i was giving him crap for having a photo of an ex girlfriend in our photo file on the computer. i said it in a kidding tone, or so i thought. but perhaps it didn't actually come out that way. and now we're in a heated im conversation. i'm not good at fighting. i never really have been. it makes me want to curl into a ball and cry. and i'm generally not a wimpy or emotional person.

why do i write such detail about our fights? no one else does! i guess i find it oddly therapuetic, to blog about my problems, to "air my dirty laundry" so to speak. then i am usually embarassed when i go back and read them later.

honestly, i would rather be writing about things that are funny.

pet peeve of the day...

people who fight dirty.

because i know i am wrong sometimes. or, make that a lot. i know i say dumb things. but is it necessary to throw it in my face? is it necessary to be so stinking MEAN?

i forgive easily. why can't you?

Vicodin + DDG = Very Bad News

so...friday found me crowing about the vicodin i received to cope with my root canal. mmmm...good, strong vicodin would make me very happy, i thought. i bragged to my blogosphere friends about how cool it was that i had vicodin in my possession. the root canal pain was bad friday morning, so i took two vicodin shortly after i arrived at work. the night before i had taken a few, it seemed to take care of the pain very well. no big deal to take a couple, i thought.

at around 11:00 am, i started to feel weird. i was a bit dizzy and out of sorts, and not making a ton of sense as i tried to help my fave co-worker, BBMG, work out a problem. it was kind of funny. then the nausea kicked in. it was intense. i sat at my desk with my head laying on my arms, taking deep breaths and trying to get rid of the horrible feeling. BBMG was sweet and brought me some bubbly soda, and encouraged me to eat a bit. nothing was working. i was disappointed when i realized i would not be able to join BBMG for a nice relaxing lunch. i was going to have to head home and lay down a bit.

both my boss and BBMG offered me a ride home, but i figured i would make it home just fine. i grabbed the bag out of my garbage, just in case. i hopped in the car and rolled down the windows. i made it about a mile when i started feeling that horrible sensation of vomit on the way. there were several cars behind me with no where to pull over. so, i did the only thing i could. i grabbed the garbage bag with one hand and held the steering wheel with the other as i very violently tossed my cookies. thank God i managed to get it all neatly in the bag, and even better, the bag appeared not to have any holes in it!

when i got home i was like the living dead. every time i moved an inch i felt rolling waves of nausea. bf called at some point and urged me to try and eat. i grabbed a bowl of shredded wheat and managed two bites. my reaction was so strong that i had to lay down on the bed, the bowl of cereal and milk at my side. i couldn't even muster up the strength to take the bowl to the kitchen.

at some point in the afternoon, i spent some time laying on the bathroom floor. i don't remember the last time i have been that ill. and the worst part of it all? bf had no sympathy for me. he said it was my own fault that i didn't eat enough before taking the pills. (that morning i had half a donut, two 100 calorie packs and a bottle of green tea, but whatever.) so besides being violently ill, i was sobbing because bf was being so mean.

only later i found out that both my sister and my grandma have had the same reactions to vicodin. both are considered "allergic". that sure would have been nice to know.

now, i am dealing with the pain in this way: good old fashioned advil.

and the bf? well, i finally forgave him for being a dickhead. but next time he is ill i might just decide to kick him in the teeth.

sweet relief in the form of vicodin

why is it that even when you have your mouth cranked and propped and your face half numb, those fools at the dentist's office STILL try to get you to carry on a conversation? root canals suck enough the way it is. i don't feel like small talking with you mr. dentist, even if you are a TOTAL hottie. (new dentist, and MAN is he adorable!)

the appointment took forever, and they are still not done with my root canal. they sucked up all the nerves and relieved the pressure. i go back next week to have the cavity drilled and filled. the best part of the whole thing? they gave me vicodin. mmmm....good stuff. i was one happy girl last night.

anyway, i am feeling much better today. my mouth is tender and bruised, but i no longer feel like my tooth is going to explode.
and it's a beautiful, sunny day. and friday. and i get to go to lunch with my fave co-worker. and i just took two vicodin. life is good.

agony

i am in absolute agony today. i have had toothache for about a week now. i've been popping advil like it's going out of style. and i mean, like, 2-3 every 2-3 hours. today i finally have a dentist appointment. so i decided i should probably lay off the painkillers so that i can explain exactly where the problem is coming from. OMG! it's BAD people! it radiates down my neck and up to my ear. i want to cry but i think my coworkers would be scared.



i, like many i know, hate, hate, hate going to the dentist. and i'm pretty sure that today is going to be a root canal day. i hate the needle, hate the shot, hate having my mouth pried open like a large mouth bass. but most of all? i HATE having half of my face numb. i can't stand the way it feels. for me it's the worst part of the whole thing.

maybe they could just give me some of these instead?

my little darlings

just had to share this pic of my little darlings at the wedding over the weekend.



and this close up of my little man, in a tux no less!



and last but not least my little self-proclaimed princess:



that's all for tonight, folks! tune in tomorrow for more exciting news from the land of the domestically challenged.

i think i'm alone now...

tonight i am essentially home alone. the kids are asleep. the bf is away at a twins baseball game two hours away. he won't be home for a few hours yet. me? i am in heaven! it has been a long time since i have been without the bf past 8:00. he hasn't been doing as much freelancing lately. and he is home. every. stinking. night. granted, when we first started dating, i whined and pissed and moaned about him being gone so much and home so late every night. now? well, it's nice that he's home more, but...i am very much enjoying some "me" time tonight.

i purchased a six back of beer tonight. getting drunk, you ask? oh no. here is a true sign of aging: i bought the beer specifically to make beer bread. in fact, i tried to drink a bottle. i had one swig. it was all i could handle. determined to ingest some sort of alcohol, i settled on a bacardi silver strawberry that has been in the fridge for months. and hey, one of those on an empty stomach? well, it's just enough to make me feel warm and fuzzy. give me another and i'll probably pass out on the kitchen floor.

i am going to milk this night for all it's worth. i am going to eat crackers in bed. and drink my bacardi. and crank my music. and read some trashy tabloid websites. maybe i'll even turn on the t.v. because hey, i'm wild and crazy like that.

the "m" word

maybe it's just because we have so many weddings coming up, and we just had his dad's over the weekend, but the bf has been talking more about marriage again.

"are we going to have to do this for our wedding? are we going to have to do that?"

i. am. freaked.

i mean, i know he would probably marry me today if i wanted to. that's not a secret really. but...i'm still not ready. not to marry him or anyone. not really even ready to think about it.

and there is still that little matter of trust...it's been a mere four months since the whole "cheating incident" unfolded. although things have gotten better i still don't fully trust him. and i really don't want to marry someone i don't trust.

the bf is so different from anyone else i've ever been with. he is much more independent. he has TONS of friends who are girls. he is uber outgoing. he has a lot of things going on in his life that i am not a part of. this is all both good and bad, but mostly it's just different. and sometimes it's hard to trust new and different. especially when new and different cheated on you with one of his "friends" at work.

i love him, i really do. i know he loves me too. and i definitely see us together for a long time. but forever? i don't know. i've been burned before. i'm afraid to be optimistic. i am incredibly cynical.

how will i know? how will i really know i am ready? because i thought i knew once, and then it ended. in divorce.

the skinny

this morning after my daughter got dressed, she came to me and said her shorts were falling down. sure enough, they were hanging off her tiny little body.

"you're just so dang skinny!" i said. "we'll have to find you a different pair."

ky looked at me and said "mom, are you skinny?"

"i don't know, what do you think ky, am i skinny or fat?" i replied.

"mom, fat is a bad word, isn't it?" she said gravely.

so i guess i won't be looking to her for any confidence building anytime soon...

10 things you may or may not want to know...

so, i got tagged by the wonderful ms. whiskeymarie to write 10 interesting things about myself. i've had a hard time coming up with good post ideas lately, so what better than to talk about me, me, me! i'm not sure i can come up with 10 things that are all that interesting, but i'm game to try!

1. i was married in vegas. unlike whiskeymarie's story, there was no fat, singing elvis invlolved. just me and my husband-to-be. we actually took one of those buses that goes up and down the strip to our little chapel. i was wearing a black dress. go figure, the marriage didn't last.

2. i truly hate weddings. it doesn't matter whose wedding it is. they make me uncomforable and squirmy. i'm not sure when this began, but certainly prior to my own vegas wedding. this may be related to the fact that my parents have both been married and divorced multiple times. i guess you could say i don't have a whole lot of faith in marriage. i watch these people saying their vows and am completely cynical about the whole thing. forever? ha! if forever means until you have an affair with your secretary, maybe.

3. i used to be fat. size 14-16 fat. i mean no offense to anyone when i say it, this is just my own assessment of myself. in high school, i was one of those skinny little prom queen types. i was best friends with the queen bee. i had the hottest boyfriend. then came college. i gained over 50 pounds during the first couple of years and the weight stayed on throughout most of my 20's. i hit an all time high of 222 when i was pregnant with my 1st child. i lost a lot of weight about two years ago, and am now down to 6-8. i feel much better about myself, though sometimes i think i will never be happy with my size. i have managed to keep the weight off but it is a daily struggle for me.

4. i am thirty years old and have not yet seen the ocean. i have done my fair share of traveling within our fair country. the land-locked states i have traversed number in the twenties, and i have even been to our northern neigbor of canada. but my trips to a nice warm sunny ocean beach equal zero. me, who absolutely LOVES water and was born near the beautiful lake superior. i will catch my first glimpse of the ocean in two weeks when i go to boston for work. it won't be the same as sitting on a warm, sunny florida beach. but it's the ocean. and i'll take it.

5. i have almost never been single. i surely haven't been single more than six months since the age of 15. i'm not entirely sure why this is. in some cases, i literally went from one boy to the next. i'd dump one for the other. i've had some pretty long term relationships, too. never really took the opportunity to just date, date, date! i'm not sure why this is. some sort of deep-seeded insecurity and fear of being alone, i suppose. i like to think that right now, i'd be okay with being alone. but i am dating a great guy who is my best friend. and i'm okay with that, too.

6. i ran away from home once. i was fifteen. i was living with my mom and horrible minister step-father. it was hell. one sunday, while they all went to church, i played sick and stayed home. i had arranged for my boyfriend at the time, who lived two hours away, to come and pick me up. i quickly stashed clothes into a duffle bag and met him on the street behind my house. i moved in with my dad and evil step-mother. i guess you could say it was the lesser of two evils. i spend ages 15-19 bouncing around between homes, never really feeling like i belonged anywhere.

7. i was drinking, smoking, stealing and sneaking out by age 14. i was living with my mom and abusive step-father. i did anything i could think of to cope. i'd steal cigarettes in cahoots with the "bad boys" in our little town. i'd sneak onto the roof at night to puff marlboro lights and swig from a stolen bottle of tequila. i cut, carved and burned my arms. i remember hiding my cigarettes in the pants of my cabbage patch doll. i started things on fire and made "torches" with hairspray and matches. i was a total mess.

8. i attended full-time college my senior year of high school. despite my crazy life, my grades were actually pretty decent. i left the high school crap behind and forged ahead with my future. i started out majoring in marketing and then switched to social work. i graduated with a social work degree and then worked in that field for two years. now i am in marketing and never want to go back to social work if i can help it. go figure.

9. i quit smoking for good over a year ago. i had been a smoker since fourteen. not a serious smoker at fourteen of course, the hard-core stuff didn't kick in till about age sixteen, when my dad starting buying cigarettes for me and allowed me to smoke in the house. (no lie) the day of my divorce was the last day i had even a puff.

10. i have actually grown to enjoy single parenting. granted, i'm not completely on my own, bf is there a lot. but i enjoy my alone time with the kids. i like taking care of them. it can be very stressful, don't get me wrong. but i actually enjoy the responsibility of taking care of these two little lives all on my own. and i'm determined to do a much better job of it than i did of taking care of myself over the years. i want to be someone my kids can be proud to call their mom. i fully embrace that challenge.

two is better than one

so, my children met the lesbian couple and their daughter for the first time over the weekend. i wondered if my daughter would ask me any questions about it. nothing at all was said until sunday morning at the breakfast table, said couple was sitting right across from us.

"mom, does olivia have two moms?" she asked in her loudly curious little voice.

"ah, yes ky, oliva has two moms. isn't she lucky?"

silence

"i want two moms!"

sorry honey, no can do...

modern day family

the wedding event this past weekend was delicious fare for all of the small town gossips in attendance. you could just see them soaking it all in with delight. i bet they had a very good response rate to their invitations. here are just a few of the highlights:


1. the bf and his sister are Korean. they were adopted together when the bf was five and his sister was two.

2. the bf's adopted mom passed away about six-seven years ago.

3. the bride left her first husband for the groom about four years ago.

4. the bride has a daughter who is a lesbian.

5. the bride's lesbian daughter is "married" and she and her partner have a two year old daughter.

6. the bride's lesbian daughter's partner is pregnant.

7. the bf's ex-wife was at the wedding.

8. the bf's ex-wife and her boyfriend manned the guest book at the reception and were listed on the program as the "host and hostess".

9. the bf's ex-wife took a picture of the bf, her kids, my kids and i. i returned the favor and took a picture of her, her bf and the kids.

10. the bf's ex-wife stopped over and chatted with me for a bit, you could almost hear the strain of one hundred pairs of ears trying to catch what we were saying.

and the winner is...

none of the options below. the bf vetoed my desire for all the zappos options. i mean, i could have just purchased them anyway, but thought i'd keep the peace...so i ended up with this lovely pair from target:

no, they aren't wedges. they are pretty much cheap-o basics. less than $20. yes, i gave up the shoe battle. but no one can make me cancel my manicure and pedicure for tomorrow. and i'm keeping my fancy hair appointment too!

there is a bright side...

shoes, shoes, glorious shoes!

as you may have seen on a previous post, this is the dress i am wearing to the godforsaken wedding:

next up? shoes. the bf is only 2 inches taller than me, and i don't like my men shorter. so...i am somewhat limited as to my selection. the heel cannot cause me to tower over my beloved.

here are some of my shoe options, courtesy of zappos.com:




thoughts, comments, opinions, votes?

can't...do...it

i can't do it. i can't go to the wedding. i just want to crawl into my bed and hide under the covers. the bf isn't being sympathetic. i want sympathy. i need sympathy. i need understanding. this is worse for me than it is for him. really, it is. they all love her. think she's just effing perfect. i will be on display. the whole day. i look better than her, but that isn't the problem. and i'm not being arrogant, that's just a fact. but i'm not good at being stared at. i didn't have a wedding for that very reason. when i got married, i went to vegas. they were married for ten years. everyone knows her. no one knows me. we will both likely be in the family pictures they are taking. i don't want to do this. i can't do this. i won't do this. i quit.