like the other side of the pillow...

...it's cool.  I was really struggling during our little heat wave.  3 days of 95-100 degree weather was more than enough and I felt like I was melting the entire time.  Now it's partly cloudy and 58, and I'm loving it.

I have my second hockey game tonight...should be interesting.  We lost our first game, but I barely noticed as I was just trying to focus on having a good time and scrubbing the rust off.  My knees hurt by the middle of the second period, and I wasn't feeling well due to the lupus and the heat, but overall I did ok.  I made a few good plays and I didn't screw up anything that resulted in a goal so that's a plus.  People gently job me for using a wooden stick...what can I say? I'm old school.  Preference aside, I refuse to fork over $100 ($200 is more common) for a stick thankyouverymuch.

Dante and I are most likely going to adopt a dog from a rescue where one of my teammates volunteers.  I have wanted a dog my entire life; Dante and I collectively have wanted a dog for...let's see....exactly 5 of the 5 years we've been together.  Finally, we make enough money to make sure a dog will be exceptionally well cared for, we have everything planned out in advance for when neither of us will be home for extended periods of time (which won't happen often anyway), and we live in a dog-friendly place with an acre for the dog to run, not to mention the 234982348 hiking trails within walking distance AND dog parks nearby.  I even know what food I'm plan to feed our future pup (pending Ada's approval, of course).  We won't get a dog until we find the one that's exactly the match for us, so hopefully it pans out soon.

I'm headed to CO for about 9 days (May 9-17); Eric is getting hitched.  Dante's last final is on 5/11, so he'll be coming out the day after.  One cool thing is that Dante's folks are coming out for the occasion.  His parents have met my parents several times, but it's never been where both sets of parents have been able to hang out without one person missing.  

Overall, this trip should be a good time.  Hopefully I'll get to see some of my friends and whatnot.

I'm pretty tired...a couple weeks ago I was playing hockey 4x/week, then when that slowed down I started moving, and as soon as I'm done moving I should have a few days of down time, and then it's off to Colorado.  Things will definitely calm down after that.  I miss blogging and I'm waaay behind on personal emails - personal anything really.  I should work on it.  Oh.  And a blackberry was finally forced upon me.  I am now one of those people.  

Allow me a petty moment

After realizing awhile ago that being a size 12 and relatively healthy is definitely better than being a size 8 with violent, life-threatening flare-ups, I haven't really had body issues.  However, allow me this:

I've been eating very well and exercising once or twice each day for the past two weeks (with the occasional day off) and I somehow managed to gain 5 pounds.  Effing prednisone.  I'm doing all the right things...let me have my body back.

Susan Boyle

I could not go without posting this.  Sham sent it to me to help cheer me up, and it did the trick.  I started tearing up here at my desk, and then Kim came in (after just watching it herself) and started tearing up with me.  I am so amazed and proud of this woman I don't even know.

Here's the URL of the official video: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Unfortunately embedding is disabled on all the youtube videos I found, but definitely click the link and enjoy Susan's performance. You won't regret it.

Wow. Wowowowowowowow. Wow.

Billy Bass/Winky

H'okay so.  Some of you know about my mild obsession with the McDonald's Filet-O-Fish commercial.  For those of you who haven't experienced its glory, here it is for your enjoyment:

Moving on...I'm a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they recently made it to the playoffs and are currently playing against the Philadelphia Flyers.  I'm actually going to Sunday's game where the Pens come to Philly...I will be wearing my Pens jersey.  I mostly have the stones to do this because no one will bother me with Dante there, though I won't be wearing nice clothes in case a beer storm brews over our heads after the Pens win.  Anyway, here's a stirring rendition of the fabulous commercial jingle, performed by Pittsburgh's own Winky the one-eyed penguin:

I hope you love it and laugh as much as I do.

I'll try to make a real post later.  If I don't have time today, I will probably try to hunker down in the library and blog from there because it fills me with peace.  I've had a busy week (stressful and at times, shitty) so I haven't really had any free time to write...or do other stuff in general.

Sunday Secrets

I haven't been too inspired by Post Secret over the past couple of months or so.  I mean, I love reading the secrets and certainly appreciate people sharing bits of themselves, but about a year ago there was a long stretch where every single week at least one of the postcards seemed to look me straight in the soul and speak to me.

Folks, the silence has been broken.

By this (especially after a topic my Ada and I were discussing not long ago):

And this...I was wary for a very long time, but he just held my hand and waited patiently:

Details of the weekend later (today, probably)...it was fantastic and the best anniversary yet.

FTW.

playoffs bound

Go Pens, a la mah chzfrend Joh!

 

 

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playoffs bound

via LOLgwins by noreply@blogger.com (LOLgwins) on 4/8/09

 

 

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1825

The anniversary of Dante's and my becoming "official" is upon is.  Our first date was December 11, 2003, but we didn't become a declared item until April 11, 2004 (Easter!).  I can't believe it's been 5 years since then...it's so exciting, and I know we're young but I consider 5 years of coupledom a pretty significant milestone.  At first we hadn't really planned on doing anything other than maybe a nice dinner because Dante works on the weekends, but when I found out that Good Friday is a holiday for me we spontaneously decided to go to a Bed and Breakfast for a two-night stay.  Woooo.

One thing that is surprising is that he and I have never taken a holiday together that didn't involve at least one set of parents.  That's the thing with both of us being from outside of Philadelphia: when there are breaks, we usually just go home to be with our families because that's the only opportunity we have to see them.  I wouldn't trade time with my family of course, but it will be cool to do something on our own.  Anyway, this will also be a special occasion as it marks our first destination vacation for just the two of us.

We will be staying at the 1825 Inn in Palmyra, PA, which is right outside Hershey, tomorrow night and Friday night.  It's going to be fantastic.

I'm headed out...I'm going to try to get to the library tonight because it's open until 9 on Mondays and Wednesdays.  More on the sick computer saga on our next adventure.

hark! i bring you good tidings of a holiday weekend

I just found out that Good Friday is a holiday for us...I HAVE A THREE DAY WEEKEND!

The past weekend was nuts.  I'm gonna go ahead and count Thursday as a weekend day, per the college philosophy: the "weekend starts on Thursday!"  Thursday I played my first real scrimmage with refs and everything for the first time in 6.5 years.  What a rush.  I did way better than I thought and I was surprised to find that knowing what I was supposed to do was still second nature; my main problem was that my body would take awhile to react to what my brain was telling it to do.  I had a great time playing with the handful of my ladies who showed up, and met a few really cool women from other leagues who actually invited me to play in their 4v4 summer league (which made me feel good!).  Friday, I led a practice for spring league as a player/coach - teaching the drills then jumping in as a regular player - and we scrimmaged at the end.  Again, I exceeded my own expectations.  Yesterday, the same thing.  I feel sorta bad because I begged the league to let me play at the beginner level because I thought I'd basically have to relearn the game after not playing for so long, but now I realize that I really belong with the more advanced skaters.  Why did I lack so much confidence in myself?  My skills are intact, I'm just going to have to take some steel wool, silver polish, and a lot of TLC to them.  Soooo yeah.  That was the hockey portion of the weekend.

Saturday I brunched with Christine and her crew...met a couple really cool people and generally chilled over a scrumptulescent breakfast and a bottomless cuppa joe.  Then I went to the gym to be personally trained...my abs still hurt.  Not just regular I-haven't-worked-out-in-awhile sore either...I feel like I got pummeled in the gut and when I look down I expect to see a bruise.  To my surprise, I like that feeling in a sick sort of way, because I know I've officially embarked upon the road to getting back in shape.  Sunday, I went to yoga before hockey to try to loosen myself up a bit, and the class was actually a really good one.  It was more advanced that I thought it would be, because I've been doing yoga for long enough that if I'm going to be doing sun salutations for an hour, I might as well do it at home.  We worked on a few poses that are awesome, but not safe to try on your own without getting an instructor's guidance first, like shoulder stands and intense backbends/inverted poses.

Last night Dante and I went to the Trolley Car Diner and spent a whopping $7.95 on a nice dinner, thanks to the sizeable gift certificate we earned last Sunday after winning Trivia Night.  I just got an email from the TCD...and we won again last night.  Looks like my edumakashun is paying off.

I'm bummed because my computer is very sick.  Maybe even terminally sick.  I came home on Friday, and the screen was black other than the words "Operating system not found" in the upper right hand corner.  I don't understand...I take really good care of my computer and stuff in general, yet I seem to have a knack for killing computers in record time.  Of course, without fail, the problems first start to occur about a month after the warranty expires.  I have close working relationships with a few people at work, two of whom happen to make up the entire IT department.  Trav and Ant are going to check out my computer and if needed, give me a new hard drive.  But keep that on the DL, k?  I might also get a blackberry, which would be pretty cool I guess.  There are definitely pros and cons of having a work blackberry, the biggest con being that when I go home at the end of the day, I still have a live link to work.

For months I've been exhausted and "blah" but getting back into a fairly hard core exercise routine really turned things around.  Since Thursday night, I've gotten incredibly restful sleep.  I don't remember the last time I woke up feeling fresh and ready to face the day 4 mornings in a row.  I didn't even hit "snooze" this morning!  For once, I don't peel myself out of my bed looking like Lewis here:

Thanks for the demo, Lewis.  Fingers are crossed that this will remain a pattern and that Lewis gets into an exercise routine too, so he doesn't have to be tired while he disapproves.  Hasta la pasta.

"I walked farther into the room and knelt in front of a small bookcase.  J.R.R. Tolkien.  C.S. Lewis.  J.K. Rowling.  More and more fantasy titles.  A shrine to escapism."

- Richelle Mead, Storm Born