Spring has sprung.

Thank God! It's supposed to be in the 70's this week! You'd think, with all my whining about the cold, that I live in the snowy tundra of....Erie, PA? Michigan? But no. Just Virginia. Where it averaged about 55 degrees right up until Christmas. So I suffered through about 60 days of somewhat cold -- but not Michigan cold -- temperatures before I hit my limit. What? You have no sympathy? Fine.

Along with the weather, life in general is starting to pick up. After about two straight months in town without much going on (perhaps a record for us), we've got lots of fun stuff coming up. An informal business school reunion with friends to watch the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament, my 10th year college reunion with my best girlfriends (and no husbands), visits from parents and grandparents, and.......(drum roll)......a trip to Europe in May! Perhaps not the wisest decision since my husband is in his 3rd year of grad school out of 5, meaning we're not going to see a second income anytime soon, but what the hell? If we're broaching the kids thing soon, when the hell else are we going to bum around Europe for 2 weeks? And, God bless our good friend who is getting married in London which kickstarted the whole idea. And, God bless our US Air dividend miles which are getting us to London and back from Venice for "free." You know, this is our second European wedding in under a year. Thank you, friends, for broadening our horizons and allowing us to get drunk celebrate your love in faraway lands.

I'm also feeling great about keeping up on the exercise front. I've been going to the gym 2-3 times a week to do some classes, lifting weights with a friend once a week, and playing soccer on the weekends with a rec team. Just had our first game Sunday.....ow. I am definitely proud that I've been treating my body better and feel marginally in shape for the first time in 2 years. Blah blah, doing it for me, blah blah, exercising because my 10th year reunion is in 4 weeks for all the right reasons. I've also been getting up earlier every morning to make the most of my day. You know, another whole hour to read blogs do work. Really, whatever my true motivations may be, I'm glad that I'm actually doing, instead of just talking about what I should be doing.

So, woo-hoo March, is all I have to say. Hopefully, I will actually have something more entertaining to say after some of these fun things have actually occurred. 'Til then, fill out your NCAA brackets and GO BLUE DEVILS (even though we're not that great this year and may lose in the first round for the first time since '96 and everyone else in the world is overjoyed because of it)!

Blech.

Hey, wow. Look at that last post...that was, like, 6 weeks ago. Ahem.

Do you ever get to the point where your every day looks and feels exactly like every other day? This isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes, the familiarity can be comfortable and easy. Sometimes, there's nothing better than a nice, normal day which includes waking up, doing some work, walking the dogs, doing a couple of errands, going to the gym, making dinner, hanging out with my husband when he gets home, and then vegging in front of the TV until it's time for bed. No deadlines, no appointments, no meetings, and nothing to do beyond the day's basic responsibilities.

And, then there is that stretch in late winter when everyone is hibernating, your husband is especially busy with school, and your work is not exactly thrilling when it feels more like Groundhog Day. Is this Thursday? Monday? Oh...it's Saturday? Great, thank God for the weekend. Working at home definitely contributes to this feeling. When every day pretty much consists of sitting in front of the computer in your pajamas for hours until you finally feel inspired to eat, or shower, or, I don't know, use more muscles than those in your mouse-clicking finger, it's easy to get in a rut. People, I just managed to wear out a pair of slippers that I have had for less than a year. Literally, the fuzz is worn off the inside of the slippers, perhaps because I wear them about 53 times more than any other pair of shoes I own.

Anywho, those are what my last few weeks have felt like. But, there's hope... It's starting to warm up here in the sunny South, my daffodils are beginning to bloom, I got out of the house (and the state, actually) this past weekend to have a girls weekend with my Mom. And, while shopping with her, I bought these. Surely, wearing those with my pajamas, instead of my broke-down slippers, can liven up my days, just a smidge?

Pain makes you stronger, or something

Since I have declared 2007 the "year of me" (in a good way, not a narcissistic, fuck-the-rest-of-you way), I have been giving serious thought to my resolutions. I have never been much for resolutions...oh, sure, in years past I scrawled something down on a notepad like "eat healthier." Which meant, "try to work in an actual vegetable between Lean Cuisines and wine so that I can lose 10 lbs."

But, this year, for some reason, my resolve seems stronger. I feel ready to be thoughtful about what I want for myself in the coming year. Add to that the fact that there is an outside chance that I might be with child at some point in the next 12 months and, all of a sudden, actually striving for a more healthy way of living seems more important, more worthwhile. Maybe also because this year, for the first time in a decade, "eat healthier" really isn't code for "lose weight, dammit."

So, I rejoined the university gym and have been poring over the classes, looking for something that won't bore me to tears within the first 10 days (see: running, swimming, and cardio machines that are never available anyway because of all the 19 year-olds bouncing away at any given time of day). This week is "promo week," which means you can try out any and all of the fitness classes for free.

For my first, I picked some kind of cardio/circuit training combo class. I walked into that room yesterday ready to kick some ass. It did dawn on me, almost immediately, that I was at least ten years older than every other woman in the class. But, the voice inside my head said, "Screw these other girls, I'm fit. Well, at least sort of active. I mean, I walk the dogs once a day. Hell, I look a lot better in these yoga pants than I did last year. That being said, I guess I should probably take it nice and slow...I haven't really worked out in a couple of months."

That changed as soon as class started with all sorts of boot-camp-like tasks like bounding across the room like frogs, doing minutes upon minutes of squats and tricep dips and push-ups. My competitive fire ignited. I was squatting as low, if not lower, than those teenagers. I was sprinting back and forth just as fast as they were, and looking damn good doing it, may I say so. Hubris, pride, etc. etc.

Several hours after class, I was having those tell-tale twinges in all of my major muscle groups and the little voice inside my head said, "Dumbass." Fast forward to today. If I sit longer than 15 minutes, standing up sets every muscle in my legs on fire. It took my 2 minutes to crouch down and actually sit on the toilet this morning and I almost cried doing it. I just "walked" the dogs, looking like I had a pole shoved up my ass and making faces and little grunts that surely don't add to my neighborhood reputation. I can't walk up or down our stairs without propping up 75% of my body weight on the banister and even that hurts like shit.

Being 31 sucks sometimes. (But I still kicked ass yesterday.)

Ode to 2007

Oh, 2007, I welcome you with open arms. For the last two years have been, in a word, shitty. I have tried hard to work through all of the sad, hurtful, and upsetting experiences of the last two years. I have begun to listen to and trust myself. I have worked on living for myself as much as I live for others, on maximizing my experiences, on honing my priorities and bettering myself.

We started with a bang - New Year's with good friends, a meager but relaxing vacation, bookended with 14-hour drives which, though tiresome, provided the opportunity to talk, dream, and plan for a different kind of year.

Here's to the good stuff to come. 2005 and 2006, you can suck it.

Holy 68 degrees, December 1

Hello, you people. I may live in the south (though not the very deep south), but there is something very odd about two solid weeks of weather in the 60's and 70's in late November. Not that I'm complaining, especially since we just had all of our windows replaced this week. It would not have been very awesome to take conference calls in a parka and mittens with the wind and snow whistling around me due to the gaping holes in my house.

In other news: today, I discovered that my computer is once again allowing me to read Blogger blogs. For three weeks I have not been able to access any blogs hosted by Blogger (or, strangely, Dooce) which means I could not get to my own fucking blog. However, my computer has apparently decided that it is not quite as pissy now that it is December...perhaps it is joyful about the advent of the holidays and has decided it is not necessary to act like a little bitch. Seriously, three weeks. So damn weird.

Moving on, December 1 has brought with it my typical pre-holidays trepidation. I thought I was going to avoid it this year. You see, we didn't have to travel for Thanksgiving this year. My mom and grandmother came up here and my husband and I cooked and hosted, along with my brother and his wife, for the long weekend. It was fantastic! No loading up the car with all of our crap, our two dogs, and braving the worst weekend of the year for driving.

Because we didn't have to go anywhere, for once in my life, I was not feeling true panic over the approach of the holidays. That measly five days seemed to present oodles more time to prepare for things like sending Christmas cards (uh, we've managed to do that exactly once, 3 years ago), buying presents for everyone (including my husband's family because, as he says, "Isn't that why I got married? So I don't have to shop anymore?"), and hosting our second annual holiday party (I am no Martha Stewart which means hosting party = anxiety attacks).

Until I realized that family coming here for Thanksgiving means cleaning the house top to bottom, figuring out a menu, shopping, cooking all that food, trying to keep the dogs from humping grandma all weekend, and generally playing the pleasant hostess, meaning no retreating to the bedroom with a good book and a bottle of wine, as I might do if I were at my mom's house.

So, December 1 brings yet panic again. I shall grin and bear it, because that's the kind of woman I am. A full-of-shit, cheesy, neurotic martyr. Be my friend.