Toxic

She emailed me yesterday. It was courteous. It was impersonal.

Just wanted to let you know that the baby is adorable. I think Richard said his name is Spencer? I don't get to talk to him much anymore so I'm not 100% sure on that but I think that is what he told me. At any rate he is a cutie. Congratulations.

I wanted to say so much. I wanted to say that I missed her, that I still want to be friends. That I forgive her.

I don’t forgive her though. I know it’s selfish and I’ve never felt this way about a past friendship before. I usually welcome all friends back with open arms. But with her … well, she hurt me more than anyone ever had before. Anyone I’ve ever trusted. I cried so much when she decided our friendship was disposable that I just don’t feel that I have that kind of emotion left. That break-up crushed me. I thought about her every day, cried every day.

I found that my friendships with other people are so much stronger than I thought previously. April, Stacy, Suzanne, Shea, Theresa, Joy, Autumn, Acie … you were all there for me when she wasn’t. You all proved to be real friends, true friends. And still I felt sorry for myself – I had lost my best friend. I’m almost 30. All my close friends already have best friends. And even though they say they can have more than one best friend, it doesn’t really happen that way. I’ll always be second best. With her, I thought I was first. The one she went to when she needed something, the one I went to when I needed to talk. I thought she’d understand that I’d be there for her no matter what she was going through, but when things got bad she decided to cut me out of her life.

For probably six months I thought about her every day. Then I started dreaming about her. We’d have conversations about the state of our friendship in random houses. Every time I’m out and I see a flash of red hair I think it’s her. I stopped people watching. Me, stopped people watching. I drive by the building she works at every day and wonder if she’s there. I was just saying to her ex-husband that I was glad to move and not have to see it every day.

I’ve finally started only thinking about her at a glance a couple times a week. I can live with that. I’m sick of my heart hurting the way it was. I don’t think I can go through that again. And if she wants to be friends again, she’s going to have to reach out better than that. She’s going to have to own up to her mistakes. I know she’s going through some heavy stuff right now, things that I would never air in this forum even though it would make me feel better. Before we can take baby steps toward some semblance of a friendship, I need to know I won’t be hurt like this again. And I can tell you, I don’t think the trust will ever be there again in order for me to be hurt again.

So I did write her back.

Thanks, he gets cuter everyday. I hope everything is well with you!

Because my heart wants her back even though my brain knows it’s not healthy. And I don’t think it’s time yet. If we are to be friends, it needs to be because she wants a level friendship with give and take, not because she needs someone. In that case anyone would do. I need more. I need to know that she’ll be there for me too. Otherwise I’ll stick with my true friends. I know they really care.

Upload time: three hours

I really wish Blogger would let you change your sign-in email address. It lets you change the address that comments forward to, but god forbid you want to change the actual log-in. The reason this is a problem is because I've only recently gotten a gmail account. I don't use it that much, and I've decided to start forwarding my bills to that email so that they are all in one place and don't get overlooked in the travesty that is my inbox these days. But since Blogger is now owned by Google and so is You Tube, if I log into one I log into them all. Except that my Blogger email is my yahoo email, so if I log into it that kicks me out of all the others.

Which really sucks when you're trying to upload videos of your child to YouTube and blog about posting videos of your child to YouTube. Then all that happens is that you rant about such things because YouTube kicked you out 5 minutes into trying to upload one lousy video (and I do mean lousy since I don't have a real video camera yet so I take video with my camera which looks like I have broadcast tv with crappy reception). Blah.

In other news, I'm uploading videos of Spencer tonight, and I'm getting a video camera this week so I can take better video in the near future. We've (read:I've) decided to go ahead and get this camera for now and we'll get the good stuff when he's running around playing soccer and starring in plays.

Can I slit my wrists with a cell phone?

So the other day I made a big mistake.

A friend sent me a link: Win a year’s supply of diapers!

Really, I know better. I swear I do. But I clicked. And I filled out. And now the phone calls and emails just won’t stop. Ugh! No, I don’t need a new car. No, I don’t want more life insurance. No, I don’t want to be entered in the “Win your dream contest”, “Cute Baby Contest” or “Stay in a Hilton” contests. I don’t need to know more about working from home, I don’t need to be enrolled in a book club or a cd club. Holy Jesus!

I may need to change my email address now. And maybe my phone number. And I might have a nervous breakdown.

I could be playing MarioKart

I left the house in such a rush this morning that I left my wedding rings at home. It’s weird not having them, even though when I’m home I never wear them. I can’t stand not having them in public.

The last few weeks have been a blur. The house stuff has been going well and we close in 15 days. I’m excited, but it still doesn’t really seem real. Once we close and start buying paint I think it will feel more real. But then I won’t have time to be excited, because the plan is that we’re supposed to close on the house at 10am. If all that goes according to plan, we will buy paint after that and go to the house and start taping off the baseboards etc. so we can paint over the weekend. I might have Christen do the things he wanted to do the same weekend, like replace the toilets, the bathroom lighting, the tract lighting in the kitchen, the living room fan and the thing that goes over the stove (what’s that thing called?) ... a range hood. As a matter of fact, now that I look at that list maybe we’ll paint the following weekend.

I’ve set my electric, pest control and lawn maintenance up and I thought I had set up my water until I got home and found the email that told me that the city doesn't take care of my water at that address and to contact county. So that's on tomorrow's list, along with cable and the moving van.

Spencer's doing well. He's sleeping beside me right now; he seems to take a short nap most days when he comes home from daycare. I'm not looking forward to changing his daycare even though I'm sure he'll be fine at the new one (Laura, he's coming to Orien's daycare). He loves the girls and they're crazy about him. I told them today that he was going to be leaving in July and they were sad. It has to be done though; I made the drive from work to the daycare and then past where we'll be living and it took an hour and a half. Blah!

Have you seen this browser called Flock? Christen downloaded it for me yesterday, but I haven't really messed with it. It keeps all your log-ins for all the social networking sites -- Twitter, Blogger, Facebook, You Tube ... really, everything except MySpace, which I can't figure out unless they have some sort of beef with MS. If it works the way I want it to, it'll be pretty neat.

Needed: windless hallways.

I needed tablecloth weights yesterday for my skirt. There's a bit of a wind tunnel effect in the outside hallway between the building and the parking garage at work, and I was on the phone with my mom when up! went my skirt. I was pinned against the wall trying to keep it down, and there was a maintenance guy sitting on the bench on the phone and it was all I could do not to flash him.

I failed.

Wonder if I'll get better service from the maintenance guys now? Or the security guys, since that hallway is on video surveillance ...

*~*

The mortgage is moving forth now. I finally made a decision, and now I'm perfectly willing to hunt down all paperwork needed including reasons for settling a credit card debt 10 years ago. Geez! But that's fine, I'm the queen of writing stupid letters. That's what I do at work!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Thank you to all who texted, commented and emailed to say Happy Mother's Day. :) I'm terrible about writing back because, well, I am. But you all are wonderful.

My Mother's day was very nice. Christen made me breakfast in bed after I had already gotten up and fed Spencer ... but it was the thought that counted, of course. Spencer sat and watched the ever-cheesy 27 Dresses which while not the best movie in the world was certainly cute, and a nice brainless movie to watch this morning. We spent the majority of the day shopping for a kitchenette set and other various things that we'll want when we move into the new house but we instead spent about $30 at Old Time Pottery on a painting, a pretty platter and various cheap household items that will likely break on their first use. It was a nice day.

We got car side carryout of Carrabba's to have with the bottle of wine I got for mother's day. The bottle ... well, it was pretty good, especially as we kept drinking it. I haven't figured out why Christen had to kept emphasizing how expensive it was except because that's his way. It was very alcohol-y at the beginning (unappetizingly so), but after we finished eating I took a cookie with it and it was fantastic. We sat on the back porch and talked about wine and family and all of our trips while finishing the bottle of wine. I have to say it was fantastic by the time we finished it.

Now Christen is snoring beside me so I think I will try to get some sleep. We have the inspections on the new house tomorrow and I have to figure out my financing on the house. Blah. Only a month and 2 days until I own my own home!

Workin' through it

I’ve been meaning to write here, but it seems every time I think about it I'm doing something else and by the time I remember there's no time. Or by the time I open the screen I'm just not feeling it anymore. And once you get behind it's harder to even start again. Even now, technically I'm emailing this to myself from work so that I can get it down before life gets too busy, you know?

Anyhow, work has gotten better. I'm getting used to going to work every morning, and if I rush it in the am I can get to work early (7am) and get off even earlier (3:45pm) to spend time with my baby and my family. I missed working, to tell you the truth. I felt like I was only using my brain to count hours between feedings and to remember to pick up the dry cleaning. I only wish work wasn't quite so stressful. Does anybody have a local bookstore I can buy for like, a dollar and I can manage that?

Speaking of buying, we put an offer in on a house and yesterday it was accepted! So meet our new house: I'm sort of excited, although it really doesn't seem real to me so I haven't been able to get really excited yet. Also, there is a condition per the seller that we have to get pre-qualified through their lender to make sure that our financing isn't going to fall through. We don't have to go through them, they just want their Wells Fargo man to run our numbers to make sure we can afford the house.

So now I have to find a new daycare. I really love the daycare that he's at, so it sucks that we'll have to change, but it would more than double my drive to work in the mornings to continue taking him there. And I'm seriously no good at getting up in the mornings. Last week I was good about getting up in the 5:30am range, but this week I'm getting up just after 6, then I have to get myself and my son ready and leave by 6:25 (sometimes includes giving him a bottle). A 45- or 60-minute drive to work isn't happening. I drove down Memorial Hwy yesterday on my way home to see if there were any daycares on the way home to the new place (it's about a mile west of Memorial Hwy off Hillsborough), and there are a few but I think I'm going to have to check a bunch out next week when I have the inspections done on the place. I only saw one place that had a sign saying they were now enrolling, and I don't like only having one option. If I can't find a place right away, I'm going to have to keep him where he is until a spot opens up somewhere good.

Spencer's doing good. He had a bad cold last week and didn't sleep much (perfect timing, with me going back to work) but we got his mattress on an incline and started running a humidifier in his room and he's doing a lot better. Still the runny nose, but he sleeps better and seems a lot happier. I, on the other hand, got way sicker than him and I'm still very congested. We've been doing tummy time every night and he can scoot his body in a circle without lifting his belly. He only lasts a few minutes before he gets frustrated, but I'm really trying. He's always in such a good mood when I pick him up from daycare, so I've tried doing it right when we get home. He's still not going to bed until 10pm, but it's better than 11-12, like before. Slowly we may get him to a normal bedtime. :)

Anywho, so that's life as I know it right now. I'll try not to be a stranger, and don't you be either!

***update: daycare costs two to three as much near the new house! Spencer will be staying with his usual daycare for now. Even with the 20-30 minute longer commute, it's not as expensive as what those crazy people want to watch my son! We've worked it out so that Christen will take him to daycare and I'll pick him up. Holy cow! $215-272 a week!!!

****update numbero dos: They approved us with Wells Fargo, so we're good to go! Woohoo! I'm going to be a homeowner in less than 5 weeks!