80s

Yesterday I got to participate in a service project up on the mountain. I knew that it was possible that the ex-boy would be there - he's not part of the age group that was specifically invited to attend, but he really loves working up at the camp. Well, he was there; it was my first time seeing him since before I left for the summer. I'll not go into detail.

Also, I threw a Labyrinth party on Friday night. More than four people attended, so my roommate and I think is was a success. I looked up the top billboard songs from the 80s and played those leading up to and through the beginning of the party. We didn't even make it halfway through the decade - I love 80s music. And I love Labyrinth, so it was a pretty nice night.

One of the Bookend Boys

I was thinking about how I haven't written a dear friend of mine for awhile. I've talked about him many, many times on here - he's one of the people I admire most in my life. Anyhow, he's a busy boy and it usually takes several communications from me to him before I hear back, so imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I checked my email a few minutes ago and saw that he had written. That should have tipped me off, but for some reason it didn't - he's engaged! Isn't that great?! It looks like he has found the girl who he wants to spend forever with, which is wonderful. I still don't quite understand how that happens, but I think I will sooner or later. I got to spend some time with the girl this summer, and she seems like a peach, so congrats to my friend. And to the his fiance - she's one lucky girl. :)

Elephants

Monday, I received a call from my visiting teacher, asking me if I had plans for Friday night. "No." "Do you want to go to the Josh Groban concert?" Yes! So we did. It was a great concert, although Josh was a bit crass. I was pretty disappointed in Michael Buble for the same reason when I went to a concert of his once. Because of that experience, I think I did not get as upset this time, but I still don't understand.

Also, I was supposed to go out on a blind date this weekend. I feel like there's a line in something Jane Austen that states that when a person gets married, the only thing left for that person is to try to get other people married, and when you're old and single, like me, you know lots of people who just want to help you out. Anyhow, I was actually looking forward to it, which I took as a good sign - up until this point, I haven't wanted to move on and date anyone else, so I think that shows progress. The blind date finally called on Friday and set things up for Saturday afternoon, but then he cancelled on Saturday, due to some legitimate reasons, I believe, but it was still a little disappointing. Oh well.

Not having a date on Saturday afternoon left me with more time to spend with my sister and her family - particularly my niece, who I baby-sat for a little while that evening. Which reminds me - earlier in the day I asked her what animal she would be if she wasn't a person. When I finally got her to answer with an animal, it was an elephant. I wasn't sure why she picked that, but then she started singing, "In the miritary style," and it made more sense. So we spent the rest of the day with me singing, "In the military style," and her replying, "In the miritary style!" She told me that I would be a bird, by the way, so I asked, "If you were and elephant and if I were a bird, could we still be friends?" "Yes." I'm so glad. We also sang Elmo's song several time, which, I'm sorry to admit, I started. It's such an annoyingly hard tune to get out of your head, and I've still had it in my mind today - uggh! We also danced, which was so much fun! What I love about babies is that you can be so stupid around them, and they don't care - in fact, they kind of like it. So I can dance as goofily with her as I want to, which I did. Maybe I'll post some pictures of the weekend here at some point.

The Babies and Me

Could you ever say no to a face like that?
The newest of the clan.

Another Breakup Song

Here's yet another good breakup song.

Kids are Great

What an interesting week this has been. Not that anything terribly exciting on the outside has happened, but it's been a different sort of week for me and my psyche, I guess. I had my first week at school with my kids, and I think that was a huge contributor. I'm so glad to be back with the students and to have that focus in my life. I have almost the same class as I did last year, which is nice. Oh - and my coworker told me that the other class calls me The Terminator, which I'm taking as a pretty big compliment. I'm not exactly sure what they mean by it, but I guess they must think I'm tough. Besides the blessing of being back at school, I got a hug and kiss from my niece last night before she and her family returned to their city. I didn't get to hang out with her, but they stopped by to return a pillow to me (I forgot it at their place last time I was there), so I at least got a hug. I carried her out to the car and then went to the other side of the car to say hi to my nephew, who was all smiley and coo-ie, so it was a pretty nice minute or two.

SuperGirl

Sometimes I write and publish posts that I'm not sure that I should really write and publish. Here is one of them: Today makes four months. What better way to mark it than to introduce myself to the famous ex-girlfriend that haunted me for much of the relationship? I was aware of her even before dating the boy. I know many people who know her, and she has quite the reputation as being this amazing, talented girl. I figured she was the female equivalent to this friend of mine (incidentally, he's one of the people I know that knows her). Well, I heard many references to her while dating the boy. He always seemed to want us to meet; he thought we would like each other and be friends. When we would be visiting the city she lives in, he would often suggest we go see her. I didn't say no, but I was not at all displeased when it wouldn't work out. Towards the end, I started to think that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to meet. Then he broke up with me, and I didn't think it would be appropriate to Facebook her, although I kind of wanted to. When I got back from my summer trip recently, I went to visit my sister and her family for several days. We went to lunch this one day. Awhile into lunch, my sister asked, "So have you ever met SuperGirl? She's here." You see, my brother-in-law knew her through some church education stuff, and now they are all part of the same congregation. It looked like SuperGirl was at lunch with co-workers, so I didn't think that would be the appropriate time to go up and say, "So you probably don't know me, but I thought I'd say hi because I've heard so much about you. We both dated the boy." However, as you see, my world can be kind of small, so I figured it was only a matter of time until we did meet. I just wasn't thinking about it possibly being today when I went to my sister's congregation, so I wasn't very prepared for it. I figured I might as well go through with it, though. It would have bothered me more not to do it. And it's interesting how this person, who has heard about me but wasn't super aware of me, is someone who I have been VERY aware of for a long time. But now the intro is out of the way, and if we are in the same place at the same time again, I can be more at ease. This summer, another mutual friend of ours told me that given any other circumstance I probably would love to know her. If we continue to bump into each other, maybe we will become friends and we will laugh about our connection and my insecurities about dating a boy who dated a SuperGirl before me.

STRESS!

Do you ever feel like just breaking down because life feels so out of kilter? I am getting progressively worse again about missing the boy, which you probably know from yesterday's song. My heart keeps refusing to accept what my mind knows. I wrote my mission president a couple of days ago, and he and his wife wrote back and told me that the way my relationship was makes what I'm going through now kind of like a divorce, which at least sort of validates to me why this is so hard. In fact, isn't divorce one of those "top hardest life experiences" things?

Another thing that I believe makes that list is moving, and that's a possibility I'm facing right now. I love my house. I love where it is. I love the things it has. I love the things in it. However, my landlord is raising rent and there aren't enough of us here to keep rent down to what I think I can reasonable pay while trying to save money for a car to replace my current car that is getting old and sad. Therefore, it might be wise to move. However, I feel so stressed out about moving that I don't know if I can handle doing it right now.

These two things are enough to make me want to break down and cry or curl up in a ball and try to pretend like the world doesn't exist. At least the moving decision needs to be made within the next couple of weeks. Either I will be here, or I will be somewhere else at that point, and then that stress should be gone. As for the other stresser, I'm starting work again and hoping that having that back in my life will keep me from thinking about the boy so much.

Sad Song

If we had any songs, I would say one of them was Parachute, by Sara Bareilles. Here's another of Sara's song that I happened upon tonight.