Weekend Recap

Friday- I didn't do a darn thing Friday night, and that was just how I liked it. I saw my Dad, played Wii with my 'lil brother and went to bed semi-early.

Saturday- I slept in, then went on a hike with M and her friend. It was good times. We weren't really motivated to tackle the summit or anything but we did do at least a mile or two. And we had a makeshift picnic at some point and talked about life. It was very enjoyable. After that I canceled plans with Steve because I wasn't feeling up to it. We did reschedule though for tomorrow. We're going to a Murder Mystery play. I'm really excited! Saturday night I didn't feel up to doing much either, so I stayed home with my family and talked on the phone with boys. It was relaxing.

Sunday- I slept in again. I swear I got so much sleep this weekend, it was great. And I feel 10x better! I think the drugs I took helped because I'm not sneezing or coughing or stuffed up anymore. Yay! Then I went to my cousin's baby shower, where I was forced to have a shot of tequila. Seriously, not worth drinking anymore. Basically, I didn't even feel it, it made me so sleepy. But I made it through the shower, and then went to church with my mom. If she hadn't gone with me, I would've skipped it and slept instead. After that we went to Panera and got dinner and then came home.

Overall, it was a low key weekend, but definitely relaxing with all the sleep I got.

How was your weekend?

TGIF

I'm sick again with a cold because weather here is changing from summer to fall. I'm about to knock myself out with some drugs.

Anyways, I'm excited it's Friday because my dad is coming home today for a week!! Yay! That and I have no work tomorrow. Yay! And I have plans again this weekend like a normal human being.
Plans include hiking with M, post bday celebrations with Steve, and my cousin's baby shower where I hope there will be booze. Wait, did I just say booze? I'm not drinking anymore. I meant water. Yes, good 'ol water better be there.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I can't wait to hear all about it on Monday!

I'm not obsessed, ok?

Things I'm currently liking alot:

1. Cupcakes. Blame it on Yum Yum's, and Tee & Cakes, which is near my office. I tried their White on White cupcake last night complete with pink sprinkles and it was so good. Therefore, I'm thinking I might need one a day for the rest of this week.

2. Larabars. Now, I'm not into soy, or cliff bars, or anything that tastes like it has protein powder in it. But these ones have always been my favorite. They have good flavors, and I finally got to try their newest one: peanut butter and jelly. I kid you not, when I ate it I felt like I was 5 again. Yum. My other favorites are their cinnamon roll and apple pie.

3. Reading. I just finished Emily Griffin's Love the One You're With last week. Yesterday I finished Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead by Saralee Rosenberg. And today I've started Zora & Nicky, by Claudia Mair Burney, and I want to finish it already. I spent my lunch hour on the couch in our lobby reading, and I only got about 75 pages in. But it's good so far.


What are you currently liking alot or obsessed with?

Pre-Birthday Weekend Recap

Friday- I had a rough day. So I fully intended to get a drink, or two. I went to the Rockies game with Just a Girl, where we mixed Mike's Hard Lemonade with Firefly's Sweet Tea Vodka. Needless to say, after the game we apparently went out to three bars, where she hit on cops, I threw up, and we almost got kicked out of the bar. She did get my a cab home, which I have never done, but I made it home.

A view of Coors Field

This stuff is so good, it's dangerous.

Saturday- I felt like death warmed over. Seriously. Never drinking again. Was definitely hungover. My mom woke me up at 7 to make me go for a walk. "You need exercise, it'll make you feel better." Liar! I did make it through the walk, even if I was walking like an old woman. After that I was tricked into going to pick up my brother, where my mom proceeded to tell his friend's parents that I was hungover. Thanks mom! When we got to my brother's football tryouts I literally face planted in the grass and felt like gravity was sucking me into the earth. I laid there, threw up some water, and passed out again. After that I came home and showered, because I reeked of alcohol. While I was showering, my mom took my cell phone, because apparently hers was dead. Okay. Well, turns out some (boy)friends called and she freakin' answered my phone! And, guess what she did? She proceeeded to tell them all that I has HUNGOVER and had to take a cab home and that I'd been puking all day. Score. I'm never letting my mom use my phone again.

After laying around and finally being able to digest 1 tortilla chip successfully, I got ready for my birthday dinner with friends. We had originally planned on going to Tuk Tuk Thai, but the one downtown is apparently more of a fast food type place instead of the legit restaurant type scene that I had been to. So thankfully we found a hibachi and sushi place two doors down. We went there, talked, did not drink, and had the most wonderful cupcakes ever from Yum Yums! I was just really happy to have my friends there to celebrate with. It meant more to me than having a huge bash and inviting random people, that's for sure.

Happy Birthday to me!

My new 'do with Kristen at dinner

I heart cupcakes! Onomomomom....

Sunday- I owed my mom for coming up to Boulder and waiting with me till the Pop-A-Lock guy showed up to unlock my car, so in return I spent all day yesterday running around like a crazy woman and feeling like a soccer mom. Basically we went all the way up to Ft. Collins, which is an hours drive away, to see give my brother some stuff from Costco and to get back my Dad's truck, which he had been using. Once we did that, we took him to Sunflower market and taught him how to pick out vegetables. And I totally flirted with the produce man, who was so freakin hot. And probably like 20. My bad. After that I raced back to Denver, picked up my lil brother from my uncle's house, ran to Target and bought a Hannah Montana doll and a Hello Kitty card, wrapped the gift in the car, and then dropped him off at the birthday party. Then I ran back home, unloaded groceries we bought at Sunflower, put on some more perfume, and then went back to the party with my mom. I got to witness the chaos of kids hitting a pinata and grabbing the candy, and then ate dinner and cake. I was so exhausted last night but I couldn't sleep at all.

....but today's a great day because it's my birthday!!! Yay for being 25!! I'm going to the Rockies game again tonight with my family and no, I'm not sneaking in booze.


How did/will you celebrate your birthday this year?

Am I Settling?

I meant to write about this on Wednesday, but alas work+friends+life got in the way, so I'm writing about it now.

As I've briefly recapped before, B and I are were exclusively dating, because that's what I wanted. I also wanted him to do something for my birthday. Turns out he can't make my birthday dinner tomorrow night because of work. Even though I'm disappointed, I get that. Of course I wanted to see him this week, but lately I've been planning all the times when we hang out and this week I just didn't feel like planning anything. So I texted him asking him if he would mind planning out when we're hanging out this week. I wanted him to put in some effort, but he never texted back. So I texted him again asking the same question, and got a reply. "Sorry I've been running around all day. My phone is dying, come online."

I went online, and when I asked him the same question, he suggested tomorrow, as in Wednesday. I said sure, given that I had plans for the rest of the week. So we confirmed that, and I went to bed. Fast forward to Wednesday, after work I decide to go home and change. I call him and leave him a message saying that. Then I text him as I head downtown to his place, because we ALWAYS meet at his place and then usually go out to dinner. So I call him again, to let him know I'm near but he doesn't answer. I figure he might be sleeping, because he's always tired after work. I pull into his parking lot, and as I'm about to turn off my car, my key gets stuck in the ignition. FML. So I call him again, with my intention being that he could come out and fix it for me. Only he doesn't answer. So I fix it myself, walk to his apartment, and knock on the door. His roommate answers, saying he's not there and is probably still at work. "Can you tell him I stopped by?" 'Sure.'

Obviously I'm irritated right now because it's already almost 7 p.m., not to mention that if he was still at work, he should have told me so. Especially because I MADE THE EFFORT to drive alll the way down there when in reality, all I wanted was to be at home in my comfy clothes cleaning my room. So at this point, I've decided I'm going to just order pineapple curry to go at this Thai place downtown. As I'm headed there, guess who calls? B.

"What's the emergency miss? You called four times."
"Where are you?"
"I just got out of meetings. Is that okay with you?"

"Hello?"
"I'm here. Are we hanging out tonight?"
"Okay so I'm going to stop by the bar and say hi to the trivia team and then I'll be home in 45 minutes. I'm not staying long. I'm just saying hi. You can come along."
"All I want to know is if we are hanging out tonight."
"Well why don't you make that decision for me?"
"Have fun at the bar."

I was just so mad that I couldn't even speak. So I drove to the Thai place, and in the car I just started crying. I was hurt that he would choose his coworkers over me. He sees them ALLL THE TIME. Secondly, he was the one that PLANNED this evening. Third, he didn't even apologize for not calling, not communicating, not for making me wait for him. Nope. Nothing.

So as I'm crying by myself in my car in front of the Thai place, I get a text from Bryan. Bryan is the new guy I've been talking with but lives in Vermont. Anyways, he asks if something is wrong because I haven't really texted him all night. I'm about to text him back when he calls me. And he ended up listening to me vent and cry and basically admitted that guys are stupid but that my guy is an idiot, because I'm a great catch, etc. Obviously it's nice to hear compliments, but it's even rarer that a guy is sincere about them. After talking for a good 20 minutes, I finally need to order food. So I let Bryan go, and order my pineapple curry.

Then I get back to the car, and Bryan calls again, just to make sure I'm feeling better and we talked until I got home, even though it was already 11pm EST, and he had work early in the morning. I definitely appreciated the talk because HE MADE EFFORT. I can't say where things are headed with him, but I can definitely say that I'm over B.

I'm ready to move on to someone who actually deserves me, puts in the effort, and actually cares. I am excited to turn 25, because that means I'll have a new age, a new haircut, a new (boy)friend, and hopefully a new job.


Have you ever settled before?


{Btw, he never called}

TGIF

Thank God it's Friday. Work today has been crazy, since we're on deadline and my boss is out traveling. I had my phone interview today & I think it went pretty well. I made it through to round 2, so that's something. Oh, but of course after I hung up, I locked my keys in my car. FML.

But besides that, I got my hair done today, and I didn't go blonde...you'll just have to see pictures when I post them.

This weekend I am going out to dinner with friends tomorrow to a Thai restaurant to celebrate my birthday, and I'm going to sleep in. That's all the plans I have.

What are your weekend plans?

Paranoia, Paranoia

Oh, sometimes I get paranoid about the stupidest things.

Take today for example. My boss is out for the day so I took a short break outside to read "Love the one you love" by Emily Griffin. Her books are addicting, because I always feel like I'm the main character. Anyways, when I came back into the office, my co-worker let me know that a client called for me but couldn't leave me a message. But the funny part is, my phone has the red light blinking and says I have 1 new message. So I go to dial my voicemail, only when I hit the shortcut button, it rings another person I work with who's based in Cincinnati. And when I check my voicemail, it says I have no new messages. All very odd, but it all made me paranoid that I'm the next one to get laid off within our office. I mean, hypothetically if I was the next to go, my phone calls would be forwarded to one of my coworkers in my office, not anyone in Cincinnati. But still. I'm paranoid.

What else am I worried about? My hair. I know, I've probably lost your attention now, but seriously I need to get this out so that I can sleep tonight and not have this nervous energy when I wake up tomorrow. So here's the deal. I'm turning 25 on Monday, and in celebration I want to do something drastic, unpredictable, etc. So I'm going to go from brunette to blonde. Not Barbie-doll-fake-blonde, but blonde in some form or fashion. I haven't told anyone besides M and my mom, who of course said don't do it. Whatever Mom, you're no fun. I just want people to be surprised when I walk into dinner on Saturday night sporting my new 'do.

This is my natural hair color.

This is what I was thinking might look good.

I used to have my cousin cut my hair, only because of family stuff going on, I'm not really on speaking terms with her. I have an old family friend who's cut my hair on and off for years, but I think she's too traditional, and I want to be different, modern, and dare I say--sexy. Can a haircut be sexy? I guess I'll find out. I didn't know where to go, but I knew my old coworker Ashley, whom I hated for awhile, is blonde by artificial means, so I manned up and texted her last week to see who she goes to. After several back and forth texts, I booked an appointment with her stylist for this Friday at this salon in Cherry Creek, a very affluent part of Denver. I know it's gonna cost $$ but I figure it's my treat to myself. And I want it done right. And apparently I need to bank on it taking 3-4 hours, which is how long it takes her when she goes in--only I have way more hair so I might be there forever. So back to my point. Now that Friday is a mere 3 days away, I am starting to become nervous and anxious. Anxious in a good way. In a way like "omg i can't believe you're actually doing this." But I'm also nervous. What if I hate it? I don't even know exactly what I want. I never knew there were so many kinds of blonde. I just want it to look good. To not look so fake. I hope it turns out okay.

Have you ever made a dramatic change in your hairstyle?

Weekend Recap

I'm still trying to wake up as I type this but suffice it to say, I had a pretty damn good weekend.

Friday- I came home early from work and watched Rescue Me and Entourage. Then I went through some of the junk mail that has been stacking up and shredded that. Believe me, I wanted to be home then. It was good to just relax and text a new boy. New boy and I went to high school together but he was one year ahead of me. We recently reconnected on Facebook and have been texting ever since. He lives in Vermont so there's no way I'd date him, but he's a good friend for now.

Saturday- Woke up semi-early and went up to Boulder with M for a hike. Only it started to rain, so instead we grabbed yummy breakfast sandwiches and sat in my car until it stopped. Then we hiked for an hour or two, took a break and people watched for awhile in this beautiful garden. And then hiked back to the car. I had an awesome time being outdoors, hiking, and having good company. I definitely want to go more often. After that I came home and rested for awhile and rented Bride Wars with Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson. It wasn't great. I'm glad that I rented it for $1 from McDonalds.

Sunday- Slept in a bit, then went out to breakfast and church with the family. Then went to Crate & Barrel with my Mom to buy new mixing bowls. After that I went and hung out with B. We watched I love you, man. It was pretty funny. Then I left and came home, and as soon as I got home, I got a text from Aaron, who wanted to go out to dinner. So I met him for dinner at Steuben's, where I got mac & cheese and tried their hush puppies, corn, and french fries. Out of all the sides, I would have to say that my favorite was the hush puppies because they were coated in sugar :) Oh, and we tried their peach cobbler and this crazy apple dessert, which was so good. It's basically an apple coated with carmel and granola, drizzled with chocolate with a big scoop of ice cream in the middle of it topped with a strawberry and more chocolate. Yummmy! I'm glad I went, and we got to catch up. It was definitely something different to do on a Sunday night when I'm usually just at home.

I definitely had a very busy, but fun-filled weekend. How was yours?

TMI Thursday: The X-Rated Version of Family Guy

***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s! For more TMI's head over to Lilu's!****

Trust me, I have plenty of TMI's to write about China but this one needs to be shared today because, it happened on Monday night. Yeah, as in three days ago. So here's the background info. I have a younger brother who is 20. He's been on and off with his gf of 2 years, and before we left for China, he met a new girl named Carly, who's a sophomore. She apparently saw him on Facebook and decided to message him. I'm guessing the conversation went something like this:

Her: Hey you're hot
Him: No, you're hot
Her: *giggles* No, you are
And so on...

Anyways, apparently he met up with her before we left and while we were away he did webcam and Skype with her, along with his ex-gf.

Fast forward to Monday night. I get home from work and am on my way inside the house when I see him going to his car.

"Are you leaving?"
"Yeah pretty soon, I have a date."
"A date? Where are you taking her?"
"Chipotle."
"Have fun."

As I'm ending the conversation his phone rings and turns out she's at our house. Specifically in our driveway. So of course I sneak a peek to see what she looks like, but can't see much. About an hour later, they came back to the house, formal introductions are made, and I'm not really a fan of her mainly because she wore a super short jean skirt and slutty black shirt & her nose is pierced. Oh that and she's really ditzy, and she's not blonde, she's brunette.

Instead of small talk with them, I head downstairs to the 3rd level, where the computer is at. They head downstairs to the basement where my Mom and lil brother who's 9, are watching TV.

About an hour later, my mom finally gives up the TV because my Dad called, so she heads upstairs to her room along with my little brother. I'm still applying for jobs. My brother and the girl watch Family Guy, and I zone out.

That is until I start to hear what I think are moaning sounds. No, that can't be moaning. It's probably just a funny part in Family Guy. I keep typing and log onto Facebook and start FB chatting with some friends. But the moaning starts to get louder. Like, I'm talking porn-esque type loud. I freeze and my mouth drops, because it's suddenly hit me: Family Guy is not on anymore, and the moaning certainly isn't coming from the TV. So I immediately IM my friends saying there's something going on in the basement, and I don't wanna know about it. And then I hear "Holy Shit" and hard hard breathing coming from my brother. At this point, I think I'm going to hurl, because they must be finishing whatever they were doing on THE COUCH THAT MY MOM AND BROTHER HAD JUST BEEN SITTING ON.

So what do I do? I know they have to come upstairs to exit the house. I know that if I see them in passing I'm going to give them the "I-know-what-you-just-did" stare which will be so awkward. So instead I bail. I don't even bother shutting down my computer, I run as fast as I can upstairs to my room, where I locked my door and hugged my teddy bear tight and thought of anything besides my brother and girls and willed myself to go to sleep.

The worst part is that we use that couch everyday. My mom has no idea what happened. And the last thing I want to do is tell my brother I heard EVERY. SINGLE. THING.

Happy TMI Thursday!

China Stories

Life is a little better today. At least it's Wednesday and not Tuesday. Ahem, anyways, since I haven't told you any stories about China, I thought today would be a good day to start. I'm going to chronicle my trip by city. I figure that's the easiest way to tell my stories.

The places I visited while I was there were: Dalian, Shanghai, Xi'An, and Beijing. I totally felt like a jetsetter while I was there because we were always moving and doing things and before you knew it, I was off to another city. Oh, and it was interesting to know that while you can take the train to different cities, it's actually cheaper to fly. We flew everywhere, and I didn't mind a bit. Although, that reminds me now that I still need to see if I can get those miles credited to my frequent flyer account.

Dalian is a beautiful city. It's full of young people, and it's by the coast of China, so they have really fresh seafood and beaches. The average age there is 30 and younger, and it's definitely up and coming. My dad's based there for a year. His assignment should be done in December.

At the beach

While we were in Dalian, we tried many different foods, including this fish, and a hot pot restaurant, where the table turns into a pot and one side of the pot is spicy and the other is mild. And you basically drop in the raw food and watch it cook and then use your chopsticks to fish it out and eat it. It was fun.

This was some fish and the sauce tasted like sweet & sour.

Hot Pot time!

Stay tuned for more stories.... I still have tons to share!

WTF Tuesday

Seriously I don't understand why my Tuesdays always feel like Mondays and my Mondays feel like Tuesdays. It makes no sense.

Here's the deal kiddos, I'm in all sorts of a panic right now. I don't know exactly why but here's the deets:

1) I'm freaking out about finding a new job. HOLD ME. Yes, I have a job. I'm lucky to be employed right now, especially in this crapastic economy. But there's been more lay offs at work (mainly when I was in China) and it's got me really thinking it's only a matter of time before I'm next. And I don't want to be that person that just sits around and waits for it. I want to be the person that says "see ya suckas, I'm outta here!" and beat them to the punch. So I've been saying for months I'm going to start looking, start applying, yada yada yada. Only now it's becoming a reality. I applied for three jobs last night, and all I kept thinking was, "did my cover letter suck?" "do I really want do to this?" "what if I get an interview?" "what if they don't like me?" and so on. It really wasn't the best of times. That and I've learned that I really hate writing a cover letter. Like I have real hate for it. So much hate for it that the last real cover letter I wrote was oh, about three years ago. That's not good people. Not gonna do. Which means someone needs to liquor me up so I can write a proper one. Any takers?

2) Moving on....I'm also freaking out about B. Yes, I know I said I wasn't gonna see B anymore. I know that. But hear me out. We had dinner and a walk last week, and it was great. Like just really relaxing and I felt like myself (even tho I wasn't, I was so nervous and so I talked the entire time until the beer I drank made me normal again) and he told me he missed me while I was gone and I think he meant it. After our "date" or whatever you want to call it, I realized that I like him again. Which is not good because before I left for China, I was just having fun with no strings attached. Now all of a sudden I care if he's seeing other people (which he isn't).

I talked this over today with Linda over gchat, and basically this is what I've come up with. I blame my hormones for liking him again, but with my birthday coming up at the end of the month, I expect him to do something for my birthday. Which isn't good because I'm not his girlfriend. I guess we're dating? I have no clue. But here's the deal. I figured out that I like him and I want him to be reliable, but I don't want to call him my boyfriend because then I feel the added pressure of being in a relationship. But I definitely don't want him seeing other people, because I'm not either. So where does that leave me? I have no fucking clue. All I know is that I can't shut my mouth so I'm going to ask him about where he sees us at tomorrow when I see him for dinner.

Speaking of boys--I've been texting a guy I knew from h.s. lately. He's definitely been hitting on me which is flattering but he lives in Vermont, so there's no chance of that working out. But still, a compliment is a compliment.

3) I had something happen last night that was terrible, like TMI terrible, so stay tuned to TMI Thursday, because you're gonna wanna hear this one. It's disturbing.

I know I've been complaining all this time, so to lighten things up a bit, here's something that made me actually smile today. We all know how much I heart Taylor Swift--here she is playing a prank on the hot, hot, Keith Urban:

A New Perspective

Oh how I love to travel. I was lucky enough to go to Paris for a week last year, and now this year China. China. As in that country on the other side of the world. I still don't think it's quite hit me that I was there for two weeks. I have to say, after about a week there I was sick of Chinese food and ready to come home. But, by the time I knew it, I was coming home. And honestly, I had mixed emotions about that too. On one hand I was happy to come home to fresh air, sunny days, and friends. On the other hand, I felt sad leaving China and kinda disappointed to be home. Maybe that's because home means I won't be around my Dad anymore, and it means back to reality aka working and having real adult responsibilities.

But I'm happy I went. I'm so so thankful that I was able to go, even if my visa came in last minute. I think whenever I travel, I come home with a new perspective. This time I came back with a feeling of comfort that everything will turn out okay, in terms of relationships, jobs, and life in general. I will survive my 20s, even if they suck. I will find another job that actually challenges me. And I will eventually find someone special enough to call my boyfriend.

Another new thing I'm trying to institute in my everyday life is about being in the moment. I'll admit before my trip, I was definitely not in the best of places. I kept looking for direction, for something to talk about, and most of all, was definitely envious of others. So now I'm going to try and just be in the moment. If I'm out with my friends, I want to remember that time we went to the movies and laughed till our sides hurt. Not the time when I was the only single person in the group.

I realize this is going to be hard to keep up, but I want to try. Because I know I'm going to get sucked into the same routines I had before I left, and I don't want that to happen. I want to resist that as much as possible. I figure a new outlook on life is worth a try, right?

I'm back

I'm back safely from my China trip, and don't feel as jet lagged as I did when I returned to the States on Sunday.

I have some things to catch up on- i.e. sleep & laundry, but I've decided this week I will post about my trip. Think of it as the China edition of my blog.

Stay tuned!