Monday Musings

First of all, thanks for all the sweet comments on my post this weekend about that dress I wore to the wedding! $80 at Marshalls…so it’s making another appearance at a wedding in 2 weeks because I’m not made of money!! Sheesh. I had a very interesting and confusing weekend:

  • Fitness stuff first: I’m down 5 pounds. I’d like to lose another 5. I think it’s doable. Running and Jillian’s 30 day shred seem to be a good balance for me. I’m in a pretty good place. I still don’t know if I want to sign up for the Omaha Half Marathon. When I can’t seem to pull the trigger on races I find that it always is for a reason..which is usually revealed to me later. We shall see.
  • The wedding I went to was the BEST. The bride is Argentinian by birth and her mother is a part time dance instructor. The bride and groom did an Argentine Tango for their First Dance. That dance was EVERYTHING. Forget swaying to some soft rock love song. They slayed the dance floor. And she even changed to a special dress, and then back again to her bridal gown after the dance. AMAZING.
  • Want a love life update? Let’s put that after the break again!

  • Friday night date with the Man friend was good. I’m confused because I’ve never felt this level of comfort with ANY other guy I’ve ever dated before. And that’s saying something. I’m confused because it seems too easy. It’s not that he seems too good to be true, because neither of us are hiding our true selves here. He is honest about who he is, and so am I. Like he knows about my weight loss and stuff that I generally don’t tell someone for a long time into a relationship kind of honest here. But that this thing between us just seems so effortless and I just don’t know what to do with that. 
  • He’s making so much room in his life for me; I told him I didn’t know how he could function without a clock in his living room/kitchen area and he didn’t have the microwave clock set. 2 days later he had to show me that he set it!
  • We spent most of Sunday together, brunching, doing errands, and enjoying the lake. He has Satellite radio in his car, and while we were driving to the lake he gave me control of the stations. In fact, he gave me my own presets on his radio!!! He said I could have 6 of them for any stations I wanted. And if that wasn’t enough, there were 6 more. I feel like that’s a pretty big deal for a man. 
  • He offered to take my dress to the dry cleaners with his clothes that needed to be dropped off. I forgot to give it to him on Sunday, but still! How sweet is that?? 
  • Have you seen this quote: 

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This is what I kind of feel like is happening. It’s not work. It’s not hard. It’s this easy intimacy with him. And I like it. I like him. Why am I trying to fight it? I’m taking things day by day and we’ll go from there.

Two posts in one day? What the wha??

A humid and sunny afternoon off calls for a quick run in temperatures that gave me a bit of heat exhaustion…I had goosebumps in the sun! It was not a good situation. But I came home covered in ALL THE SWEAT. Feels good.

I ran errands and bought a few household things. Time for Jillian to punish me in the 30 day shred, then dinner and who knows what with Jr. Mint man!

Have a great weekend friends!

Happy Friday Friends!

Let’s Chat!

  • My organization was audited this week. It went well, so my boss said yesterday that we’re leaving at noon today! I love my job!
  • Day 18 of the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. It is getting easier. I have noticed some sweet definition my quads and I’m down 4 pounds. Hooray!
  • Want a Love life update? I’m putting it below the break!

  • I told the man that I’m seeing that I am a creature of routine (he said he noticed) and that I like my space (he said he noticed that too). I say I’m an introverted extrovert…and the introvert part of me just needs my space at least a few nights a week. He understood, but says he just enjoys spending time with me. I just need him to slow down.
  • So I love Jr. Mints. I have a problem. It’s fine. On our second date last week, my man friend showed up with the above bag full of Jr. Mints! How adorable is that?! (side note, he’s not the first guy to bring me those…in fact, he’s the 4th guy to do so! Maybe I talk about them too much???) He said he had to bring me 10 boxes to out-do the other guys!
  • I bought a new kitchen table the other day. I really liked the sun streaming in through the kitchen windows on it. 

Happy Friday Friends!!

I’m Still Here!

Do you find that when you step away from your blog for awhile you have a hard time getting back into the groove? No? Just me? Well, my life is always a little bit crazy…but I’m working on it! Let’s catch up, shall we?

  • First of all a big thank you for all the comments on this post. You all are just the best and the reasons that I love this place. Such amazing friends and support can be found here. Thank you.
  • I bought the above postcard for my office while I was in Denver last week. It is my new mantra.
  • I discovered a place called “Sexy Pizza” in Denver. That name is 
    PERFECTION.
  • I bought this wicked awesome shirt at the Tattered Cover bookstore, but they also have them online. As a book lover, it was perfect for me.
  • My love life is a strange thing. I think I’m seeing someone??? We had our first date Friday night, our second date Saturday night, and Sunday morning he helped me move my new kitchen table into my house. He even borrowed a truck (a stick shift) that he couldn’t drive very well, to help me! He has wanted to see me each night this week and already is talking about me being his date to weddings in July and August.
  • As you can imagine, I’m FREAKING OUT! Apparently, I’m afraid of commitment. Or maybe I just need him to slow down. Just relax and breathe, Mel.
  • Working out is good, I’m running shorter distances just for fun. I’m not 100 percent sure if I want to sign up for the Omaha Half in September. We shall see. I’m in the midst of the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred and so far I’m down about 4 pounds. I consider that a victory.
  • Thanks for sticking around guys! I promise I’ll do better at life updates!

Hey…I went through a similar size transformation when I joined the Army and many people who hadn’t seen me since I was fat didn’t recognize me at all. Did you experience the same thing?

YES. I’m answering this publicly because I don’t know that I ever told you guys about my 10 year high school reunion. I was heavy enough in high school that when I went back for my reunion no one really recognized me if I wasn’t friends with them on Facebook. The cute boys that wouldn’t give me the time of day in high school, were suddenly falling over themselves to buy me a drink. It was FANTASTIC! The pretty popular girls were shooting me evil glances across the room because they couldn’t figure out who I was! BEST REUNION EVER!

I will say, that sometimes I don’t recognize myself when I look at photos from back then…I’ve been this size for awhile now, and the brain tends to want to forget the past and hide your mind from painful memories. This weekend I went shopping for a dress for some weddings I have this month. I found and bought the dress below because it fit like a dream. It hugs my curves in all the right places and made me feel like a million bucks. Juxtaposed against the photo on the left from 10 years ago…I don’t even recognize myself! 

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What a difference a decade can make, right?!?!

Skype Sessions with running-matt

Matt’s flat (hey, that rhymed!) is a construction zone so he’s sleeping in his sleeping bag on his living room floor. Since I’m 6 hours behind him, when we were skyping last night it was about midnight his time…so it was bedtime for Matt. He snuggled right into his sleeping bag, and I thought it was the funniest thing I’d seen all day! I kept laughing at him, and when I told him I was going to screenshot the convo he thought I was nuts!

I was sitting on the couch for our Skype session…so I thought it was only appropriate that I lay down too! I’m pretty sure Matt just thinks I’m a big dork. Whatever, it’s fine. 🙂 

Phoenix 2015

Hi friends! I’ve missed you all and hope I didn’t miss too much over the past 10 days. Life has been insane since May 17th. 10 days, 3 states, 3 time zones, 4 flights, 1 work conference and 1 best friend’s wedding later, I’m EXHAUSTED!!

Let’s chat, shall we?

You guys, I never travel anywhere and think, “I should live here. I COULD live here. I WANT to live here.” But that happened when I went to Phoenix last week for a work conference. I love love love hot weather and sunshine. And the desert delivered. They told us that it was about 20 degrees cooler than normal for this time of year. I was still happy with highs near 90 most days and abundant sunshine.

My friend and co-worker Rob and I say that we’re dating because we go to so many weddings together…and we always get caught in pictures together dancing and it looks like we’re dating. So we decided to take fake engagement pictures! We’re pretty adorable if I do say so myself! He’s a blast and we’re just friends, (EVERYONE CALM DOWN! I’M NOT ENGAGED!) But how much fun are the walking off into the sunset photos and the waterfall photo???

We went to Topgolf where I embarrassed myself. And then, on the way home, we decided to upgrade to First Class, because YOLO? He’s 6′5″ and I’m 5′9″ and we were in the front row right and had so much leg room! They brought us pre-flight cocktails, and we snapped a pic, pretending we were coming home from our honeymoon!! LOVE IT! We’re jet-setters now! So fancy! They gave us pre-flight cocktails, warm nuts, a hot meal (I had mushroom ravioli) a warm towel, during flight cocktails, and after dinner mints. First class FTW! I could get used to that!

It was a pretty fun few days…and then I jetted home for 11 hours to sleep, unpack and repack for Denver for my best friend’s wedding…but that’s another post in itself!