the perks of living with another person

she has impeccable taste in music, and buys every good album. she also watches horrible television and can talk about it with a straight face. any given saturday night she will chug an energy drink and go to a club or take a tylenol pm and fall asleep to the television. she always asks how i'm feeling and then asks again if i lie to her. as i was writing this, she sent me an email asking if we could make a fort out of my bed when we move in.

Look at me

Things I learned this week:

• Don Draper likes to sleep alone because when he turns to the other side of the bed in the night it's cold and feels shockingly nice.
• When I'm visiting my home state I miss my current home state. It's a settling feeling.
• Sometimes "moving on" really means just coming to peace with the way you feel
• Peace comes from adaptation.

I ain't from Dallas but I D-town Boogie

I wouldn't consider myself very rebellious as a teenager. In fact, there were very few things I did that deviated from my parent's expections of me... That standard was hard to maintain as I got older, but up until I was about 17 I was the poster child for obedience.

My biggest 'rebellion' stemmed from a group a boys who lived in Dallas, about 3 hours away from my home. I don't remember if I was in love with any certain one of them or with the group of them or with the idea that they were very infatuated with me... All I remember was that in between my busy social calendar senior year I would always try to find time to drive up and see one or all of them... Sometimes with.. and sometimes without my parents knowing.

This memory stems from the fact that today I am headed to Dallas. In 2004, if I was going to Dallas the days leading up to my trip were filled with fervent anticipation. Although this is a work trip, the city that in my adolescence caused so much trouble for me still gives me a bit of excitement to visit.

super

Someday, somewhere, some man is going to look at a picture of me and say "I'm so glad I wifed that woman."

Thoughts on thoughts

When you ultimately make that decision to be with one person forever, you are signing up for not only their love, but their trials and vices. You are consenting to help them through the things that they previously had a hard time getting through on their own. As I've begun to go down the road of progressing with my relationships, I am finding out what trials I am willing to sign up for. I don't need to allow myself to suffer the consequences of decisions that I haven't made.

The Atonement encompasses everyone and the power to change is real. Admittedly, more real to me right now is my power to choose what I want to take on from my partner.

got marriage (aversion) on the mind

Upon learning that Carly and I were going to be living together again, my mother said "do you think that will hinder you from getting married?"

I'm going to let you take a moment to ponder that....

I eased my mom's concern by saying Carly and I are both very independent and will still do things separately. Although we did just book flights to Hawaii together so that delays marriage another couple months. Is this a good time to announce my 5-year plan that does not include getting married?

when life gives you lemons, pack your bags and take a trip with your BFF

I took a trip to Chicago this weekend to visit my Brother and Sister-In-Law. With all the craziness going on this year it was good to just relax, eat, site-see, and sleep with a view of the Chicago Sky Line. Rodney and Kylee are moving in a couple of months so I'm glad I went to see them once more before they leave. We saw everything there is to see about the city and ate at 11 restaurants in 3 days... So.., the indicators that I had a good weekend are a camera full of pictures, and a way too tight pair of jeans. Let's ignore the jeans and focus on the pictures.

• Major highlight, hanging with my little love muffin, Carly. This is on a Water Taxi we took to get home one afternoon. Does your city have water taxis? ..because they are magical.
• When Rodney and Kylee were engaged they were known to photo bomb EVERY picture they were in. We thought they grew out of it. Really ruined this picture of us four at The Bean in Millenium Park. They are too funny.
• On Monday Carly and I had a "competition" to see who could spend $100 in Nordstrom before the other person. I left empty handed and Carly hit the jackpot. Definitely a first for me.
• Everyone must visit Bijan Bistro downtown- preferrably after midnight when the crowd is reallly having a good time. I am normally not that much of a night owl (or a night carnivore- we ordered the Ribeye) but #YOLO and #VRA (vacation rules apply). Going out late on vacation is a must-do because we ended up laughing the entire time, mostly because Carly would say funny things like this.
• And of course, the beautiful Chicago Skyline, accompanied by unseasonably warm temperatures made this the perfect weekend getaway!