Just messing around
Did some research today into blogging tools and all that fun stuff. Found a few interesting articles and even read up on MSN's new "Spaces." In the interest of...well...me... I figured I'd mess around a bit in there too. And thus, CurlingGoddess's web presence has spread -
My MSN Space. Don't quite know how I'll use it yet. Although I intend for it to become slightly more creative than this one has become. Perhaps slightly more focused as well, instead of bouncing from one topic to another.
And...uhhh....probably less ranting about the people I date.
I've done it...
Finally earned a degree worth bragging about. Rather accurate too...Well, except the community promotion part. Where did THAT come from?
The University of Blogging
Presents to
CurlingGoddess
An Honorary
Bachelor of
Psychotic Ranting
Majoring in
Community Promotion
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Real Estate...bah!
Well, here I am in the midst of a real estate transaction. Little old me, buying a condo. Oh, for those of you who haven't been the recipient of an excited MSN message from me - the offer was accepted on the fancy schmancy place. Putting me in the middle of more paperwork and phone calls than I really wanted. Ooooh, and faxes. But hey, as a bonus, I've figured out our fax machine. Technology - almost as much fun as realtors.
Last night my realtor stopped by my house bearing a thick envelope full of condo documents I need to read as one of the conditions of sale. Balance sheets, meeting minutes and by-laws. Thankfully there isn't a test at the end of this. This morning I finished faxing the pertinent documents to my mortgage broker. Just a pay stub and the relevent portions of my separation agreement. Next step once my mortgage is approved is the home inspection. Then all my conditions are cleared and I can breathe easier knowing I will have a home to move to when all is said and done. It was getting a little scarey there for a bit.
On an even more personal note ;) I've now had two dates with a guy. Considering that's nearing my recent record of...well 3, I figure I might as well not get too attached. We took a wander through the Mill Creek Ravine. Nice night for it too, what with the wind and the snow. We were out for about an hour, then home to a warm bath and bed for me. Well, after NCIS, that is.
I dunno about this one. He's really nice and very sweet - opened car doors for me and all that. But...well, yikes. He's 38. Yup, you read that right. And I typed that right. Don't worry, I checked. He makes me laugh and enjoys a lot of the things I like. But...
But. It's funny how things change in a couple months. I've gone from fearless to terrified. Scared to get close to someone else who, once they get to know me, is going to want to be just friends. Relegated once again to "just one of the guys" status. So, I hold back. Tell myself to just go out and have fun, but don't get too close.
Well, anyway :) enough about me and my little paranoias. Besides, in the next....less than a month, I have a lot of work to do packing, cleaning and painting :D May 24 - possession day. May 28 - Moving day. May 24-28, painting days. Anytime between now and May 24 that I'm not working or packing - shopping days. A girl needs furniture! And lately, this girl needs an excuse to shop.
I'm clearly not bitchy enough
If nice guys finish last, I want to know where nice girls finish...
Last night I wrote an offer on a place. The one I've mentioned previously? Double garage, 2 storey, 2 bedroom, blah, blah, blah... I made my offer, my realtor called the other realtor and his client countered with a value that was still too high for me. So, I countered again. In the last year, only one other 2 bedroom has sold in this complex. And it sold earlier this month. So I countered with that amount, thinking the sane and logical in the world would accept that value. Apparently the woman I'm dealing with is neither sane nor logical. She countered again with a value slightly too high. Last night, I declined, but asked my realtor for the night to think about it.
Today, I accepted her counter offer. My people called her people and her people can neither confirm nor deny that she'll accept that amount today. I laughed. When I told my realtor I'd take it at that amount, I'd joked that I hoped she'd take it and not counter with a price OVER listing price. Her realtor isn't even sure she'll take it today. IF she does counter with a higher price, I'm walking away....or countering with my original offer then walking away. It's too bad the place is so perfect.
But hey, if I'd been bitchier selling my place maybe I would've sold it for a better price.
Want more proof I'm too nice? The medic...the unreliable one...is chatting with me yesterday and he's telling me he's not sleeping well. Having weird dreams. Same one three times, about a girl he dated in high school. Who he still "has feelings" for. WTF? It gets better...few seconds later, he asks if I'm free this weekend to go to a movie. Uhhhhhh....
Being me, I said probably.
While I'm happy with guys who want to be friends - the more friends the merrier when it comes to moving day - it's going to get really old really fast. The scary thought is that I may have walked away from the one guy in the world who wanted to be more than friends. Why is it guys prefer the high maintenance women...then complain about them all the time?
ow ow ow ow OW
Another gorgeous day, another dumbassed idea for Erin. I packed myself a lunch this morning, a pretty darned good lunch at that - ham and swiss sammich, some yogurt, some pineapple. With the forecast calling for 24 and sunny skies, I figured a little wander over to the edge of the river valley was definitely in order. A perfect day combined with a need to get out of the office for a bit to think and make decisions. So far so good, right? Peace, quiet, sun and a nice breeze. And a pair of the least comfortable sandals ever inflicted on a woman.
My girly side took over when I bought them. They're pretty and they go with a lot of the clothes I own. The heel on them isn't too high for my klutzy self. All in all a surprisingly good fashion decision made by yours truly. And they are wonderful sandals - if you don't plan on walking very far.
Today, I made the not-so-fatal mistake of wandering not only to the edge of the river valley, but after lunch I extended my trip slightly. I knew I should've switched to my hikers before I took off.
But, I managed to think through a couple of my decisions as well as talk myself out of a bit of the fear of doing this on my own. Tonight I'm meeting with my realtor to make an offer on my first choice of condos. 1400 sq feet of space for myself and the cats. A gorgeous ensuite with a soaker tub, ceramic tile, 2 bedrooms and a double garage in a very nice community. The remaining question is when I want possession. It's vacant with a 15 day, negotiable possession. I think May 9 is a bit early for me, but I guess we'll see what happens. How fast can I really pack up all my stuff?
That decision made, hopefully I can get some sleep tonight. Between the condo, the cats, and the county cleaning the streets last night, I doubt I got better than 5 hours of much interrupted sleep. Heh, that and wondering not only how I managed to get a second date with that guy, but what I can do to top my amazing lack of grace.
My weekend...
Trip to Calgary was good. Great even. Saw some good friends, got a great haircut and had some good sushi.
Came back and today I had a date. Hell, the guy wants a second date even though I completely embarassed myself as we left the coffee shop. Pretty impressive. And no, I'm not sharing what stupid thing I did.
Found two places in the north that I like. I think I'm going to offer on the one for sure. It was a hard decision between the one with hardwood, and the larger one with a double garage and a better ensuite. But hardwood isn't going to make up for the huge difference in size and quality of the second place. It is a bit longer to work on bus/train, but for $10,000 extra, I get a much nicer place.
Also heard some sad news this weekend
When I lived in Carstairs, my neighbors were friends of mine and the wife of one worked with my ex. We got to know them and their oldest son quite well. In the past few weeks, they've learned that their oldest son was molested by a 14 year old boy in the neighborhood. He's 7 years old. He was the sweetest little guy. Those friends tend to be closer with T anyway so I've just heard from him and my hairdresser. Don't have all the information, just bits and pieces, but I feel for the little guy and what he's been through.
It's Spring
The sun is shining, trees are leafing out, even my perennials are popping up here and there in the back yard. So today at lunch I figured it wouldn't hurt to go for a little walk. Grabbed a sub at subway and wandered over to the edge of the river valley. I left early so there was even a bench left to sit on while I ate...and tried to hold on to everything. Typical Edmonton - it was a little breezy out there. But totally worth it. There was even a boat out on the river. And no, I don't mean the Queen.
I think R and I need to find us a patio tonight. At least until D gets into town.
Homeless
The house sold tonight. Possession...June 1.
Holy ____(fill in an appropriate expletive), I'm scared. and happy...and scared.
Waiting for an offer
Well, another weekend, another bunch of people through the house. The good news, one realtor has called mine twice since to make sure the house is still available. He thinks his clients are wanting to make an offer on it. I just hope it's a reasonable offer.
Of course, then I have work to do. I have to find a place to buy. Or rent. Or decide what I want to do with my life. A friend suggested that because my grandfather was born in scotland I could potentially get UK citizenship. So I looked into it (hey, the javascript course covered what I'd already learned working with it!). The bad news, only first generation descendants are eligible for it. I can't remember now if the rule had recently been changed or not. However, I can get a 4 year work permit if I have an offer from a UK company. So there's another option for me. The problem - it appears tech jobs in the UK are lower paying. $27,000 pounds/year for the one developer position I looked at. So we're not just talking help desk staff being low paid.
So, it looks like my little chicken butt is going to be staying in Canada for the time being. I've been keeping my eye on real estate in the city and in the park and I just haven't found anything I'd be happy with in my price range. So, do I lower my standards so I can buy somehting now? Or do I suck it up and move in with the newfie for a year and save up for a down payment. And some travelling. Can't beat the rent he's charging. Pay off my car and I'll have some extra cash. It's just another option, I guess.
I went out to a movie last night. A real nice guy here in the park who's just getting separated. And it was probably one of the best dates I've had. The guy, surprisingly, wasn't looking for sex. When we talked he said he was looking for friendship. So I went, I wasn't going to just because it's sooo recent for him. Oh yeah, and they're still sharing the same house lol. We went for a drink, caught a movie and just had fun. First time I've ever been in an empty theatre. I don't see this being anything more than a friendship, at least for the next little while...but I did enjoy his company.
But, I've got me a day off to go waste. Hmm, sleep or read? Don't worry, I'll get out this afternoon - car needs an oil change and my winter tires taken off before I head south next weekend.
Wow, two posts again today
I don't post for a week, then all of a sudden I have tons to say. This is more to help my thought processes so again it could be emotional and highly sensitive. If you are involved in a sushi night with me in the next few days, you may not want to know the following information. And no, that doesn't mean make sure you read it!
Last night I was upset and T was online. My ex, T. Well, I guess I should back up a bit...
On Wednesday, my brother had his surgery to get his thyroid removed. Yesterday afternoon, I finally tracked down my parents to find out how it went, how he was doing. Good news, of course, but still there's always that worry. Especially when they tell you they'll call, get your cell number so they can, and they don't. So... back to the good news. I was happy. I had two people available to tell at that time (online, don't really get into this with my coworkers). So I told both. One was my ex.
Then I sat there and suddenly felt like crying. It was the realization that I really had no one to share the good news with, or bad news, anymore. When I got home, the only hugs I'd get would be from the critters. How alone does that make a person feel? Yeah, I know, some people live like that all the time. It's an adjustment for me.
Bored and alone last night, I saw my ex was online. So I said hi. From there, the conversation left me in tears. We just talked about stuff. The house, the cats... and reconciliation. On second thought today, maybe I shouldn't have had those couple drinks...
Yeah, we talked about reconciliation and trust. He doesn't trust me. That much was clear before he ever moved out. Not because I ever cheated on him, or lied to him. He just got suspicious as we went through counselling. Felt I was pulling away and wanted a reason for it. A reason to get angry at me. And now that he knows I've been on a couple dates, that trust won't be any easier to come by.
My anger at him for the way he treated me for all those years. That's not going to just go away. We both realize that. And the additional little bit of trust I lost in him during the brier. I know he says nothing happened with her, and she is married, but dammit, why was she calling him on his cell phone to find out how the curling was? Why did he take HER to the semi-final and final instead of me. Yeah, I know....hypocrit that I am. But I never lied to him about having dates. And I'm not sure yet that he's been completely honest with me. Would I be angry at him for seeing other people, no. It would feel weird, but we both have to move on sometime.
Then he asked what I missed about the marriage. I answered - I missed having someone to share stuff with and do stuff with. I asked him the same - he misses cuddling with me, having my head on his chest. Hmmm, both are kinda person irrelevant. Do we actually miss each other or just the comfort and closeness a marriage brings? So I asked that. And he didn't have an answer.
At what point did we stop loving each other and just become friends? Well, I'm pretty sure I know when that happened for me. But when did it happen for him? The least he coulda said was he missed my giggle or something ;)
Learning Javascript
I am quickly learning that I have been spoiled working with Notes. The notes objects make dealing with data soooooo easy and it takes little to no thought to move things around, set fields, check data in fields.
Tonight I start my Javascript course. It's a weekend course, but this week I've been pre-learning a lot of stuff through the project I've been working on. I am now very familiar with the if statement and the alert statement... oh and those fun little curly braces {}
And this morning, I wrote my first for loop. Sooo much like C++, I felt like I was home again. You know, that slightly uncomfortable feeling you get when you used to live somewhere, but now you take your shoes off at the door and hang your towel up after a shower instead of leaving it on the floor. It's home, but you're not ready to start digging around and making a mess.
The first thing I learned this morning was that radio buttons and check boxes in Javascript are not nearly as easy to access as they are in Notes. In Notes, I do a wonderful little field(0) reference and voila, I know what the radio button is set to. For a checkbox, that gives me the first selection if more than one item is selected (arrays, gotta love 'em).
In Javascript however, field[0] only tells you if the first value is selected or not. Therefore, for my little radio button to be validated as a required field, I have to loop through the options in the field to see if any are checked.... field[0].checked. Which is cool, but annoying when one is used to more simple field referencing.
One last thing on my little project
I let my PM know that I've finished the changes and am just finishing up a few tests on it. She wanted to know when I was done so she could check everything over before it went to the client. The first thing she does is send me an email asking if the emails to the helpdesk have been disabled because she doesn't want to flood them with a bunch of test emails. Huh? What did she think I'd been doing? How did she think I tested my changes without completing the approval process?
Ahhhh yes, there it is, that refreshing feeling of being a respected developer. Oh right, I don't get to feel that because I'm just a notes hack.
Drowning in bad coding practices
Well, I'd hoped I wouldn't be back to comment on this, but here I am. These past two weeks, I've been tasked with revising a major application in our corporation. The problems I came across earlier were annoying and made code maintenance difficult. The problems I encountered yesterday and today have the same qualities - annoying, difficult maintenance... with an added bonus. They're funny.
I'll admit maybe they're only funny to me because I'm at that point working with the code. Or maybe it has something to do with the downright giddy mood I've been in for the last couple days. Maybe it's because someone might actually buy my house at some point in the near or distant future. Maybe it's just that sense of absolute futility finally setting in. Regardless, here I am with an application with so many design and coding rules not just broken, but smashed and walked all over, that I can't help but giggle.
General overview of the system - it's used to request stuff, which means it's got a large amount of workflow surrounding it. Couple levels of approvals, emails sent, links sent, etc. You know the drill. Oh, one other thing...for all you RDBMS guys and girls think of a document being like a record in your world. Similar concept. A view is like a grid for you guys displaying records.
One task I was assigned was allowing a specific group access to the database to change the approver for a document. So I did this. I changed the approver, any approver information stored in the document, the status, and gave the new approver proper access to the document. Managed to get the code working changed a couple approvers to myself and take a peek at it on the web... hmmm, these documents aren't showing up in My Approvals. Interesting. So off I run to check the documents again, yup, status changed, my name set as the approver... Odd. I open that web view in designer and take a look at the view selection. Hey, wait a second... it's using a different status field than I set. Odd...
By the time I finished poking around, I ended up having to set no fewer than THREE status fields in my code. THREE. All of which are used to track the same thing - the status of the request through the approval process. THREE fields, THREE columns in a table, used for the same purpose. Sigh.
At the same time, while giving these users a pretty little button to change the approver and resubmit the request, need to resend an email to the new approver. So off I go to steal the code from the agents that were created originally for this purpose. These are the same pieces of code that gave me nightmares last week with their bad coding practices. But, optimistic as ever, off I run to steal the email code from there (yup, in one of those pretty gosubs). Copy and paste and low and behold...an error. Something not declared. By the time I'm finished yanking the teeth that are variables used throughout the creation of the mail message, I learn something.
Whoever wrote this code didn't understand variables and scope. This is where I began to laugh the laugh of the insane. They declared several global variables (Even now I can't keep a straight face) for a chunk of code that is essentially all at the same level. But wait...one of the actual subroutines written is written to just set some of the global variables. Yup. You read that right. A subroutine (not one of those gosub dealies) written to set global variables that are used in the main body of the code and do not need to be global.
It gets better. Another of these global variables is used in the one other subroutine written outside the main body of code. This subroutine essentially get's a value and then sets one of the global variables with the value. To be used...yup, you guessed it...in the main body of the code. What's funny here is that a global variable didn't need to be used if they'd just made the subroutine a function that returns a string. One less variable. Oh wait, if they did that, and realized that the little "initialize objects" routine is pointless...the agent would just be one long badly written, spaghetti code, subroutine embedded in subroutine, chunk of code. And I wouldn't have gotten the laugh out of it that I did.
But hey, as I wait to find out how my brother's surgery went yesterday, it's good to have something inane to laugh about.
Code maintainability, people. Think about it!
The only thing more painful than 5 pages of code containing the counterproductive GoSub function is the realization that the next requirement for the project is to modify another script...that is a copy of the aforementioned 5 pages of horrible, hard to follow, pain in the butt to maintain code making extensive use of GoSubs.
Yes... a direct copy. The "author" didn't even bother changing comments to reflect the slightly different functionality of this new chunk of code. In fact, the following comment "This sub is called only if the approver is the same as the submitter" is laughable in this case and if accurate, this sub would never be called.
This is a perfect example of where, in Lotus Notes, one may want to implement a script library. Inside this script library would reside all of these pretty little Sub's. Of course, this would require thought and planning re: variable types, passing values to and from subroutines/functions and code reuse.
The scary thing is I've heard comments from the web side of the team. The appear rather surprised that I've been put on this project rather than some of the more senior team members. I've heard my project manager reassuring one of our web contractors that the changes are small. Yet apparently I'm more capable of writing clean, maintainable code than the folks they originally had on this project.
Hmmm, I may need to start a technical web blog about some of the higher level, object oriented programming concepts out there.
Frustrating Geek moments
And yes, sushi boy, I called myself a geek.
There's a lot to be said for code re-use and avoiding hardcoding values. Heck, there's a lot to be said for a lot of coding standards that I never really thought about until faced with poorly written code.
First, I had a tiny little run-in with the old "GoSub" function. 5 pages of code for one subroutine in a notes agent. Even worse, all of this code is stuffed into the Initialize event. And I need to make changes to it. So, off I go, sure that this will be an easy process - after all, it is written in lotusscript and LS is one thing I understand.
But wait? What's this? GoSub? Hmmmm...I can still remember being taught about GoSub and other statements like it. Typically bad practice to use them. I sigh and continue on...How bad could it REALLY be? So, I jump my way around the code trying to figure out where the code exists that I'm looking for. Trying to mentally step my way through this. When I find a subroutine embedding inside another subroutine I stop and suppress insane laughter.
After sharing my pain with a couple friends who would understand. I print the code and head out for lunch armed with my pen and the code from hell. I finally make enough sense of the code - which for the record contained 9 subroutines, not counting error handling which is to be expected. Find where I need to change the code - woo hoo, I managed to eliminate an entire sub. 8...8 examples of bad coding Ha Ha Ha! (Wow, weird Count moment.) I seriously consider fixing at least the part of the code I had to work with and moving it into a proper subroutine. Then realize I don't want to mess with the additional testing that would involve to make sure I'm sending all the right values to the new routine.
So the bad code stays.
Code reuse. Two words that will forever be burned into my brain. Maybe I should get a tattoo to that effect. A heart, but instead of a name in it... "Code Reuse". Heh, how geeky is that?
I am currently working on a lovely piece of Javascript that validates a form submitted on the web. Inside this little script we have a ton of lines of code that basically create an array of values to display to the user if they neglect to fill out any of the required fields. Now this little piece of code is valuable. How often do you have forms you need to make sure contain all the required data? All the time. Most of our apps have some form of this. So what do we do? Make a new script each time and hard code the fields we're validating. Sigh.
I may not have agreed with everything my product manager came up with back at Roam. But I did learn a lot from him about code re-use. And Validation scripts are a great place to reuse code. What we did back then was create a function that would take an array of field names, process it, and spit a list of empty required fields back to the user. The array could be set in an admin section by the end customer, or it could be set in code and handed to the function depending on the needs for the app
It was a thing of beauty. And today, as I try to add and remove required fields from our application, which uses multiple forms resulting in multiple places for the changes. I wish I knew more about Javascript so I could write the function myself and be done with it.
Code maintainability. What a wonderful thing.
Saskatchewan Smurf
AKA Sask Smurf, Rider Smurf, Gapper Smurf, and that little green *&^%$#!. Sask Smurf is a result of too much imagination and a need to describe that pounding one gets in one's head after a night of drinking too much. It all began when a friend told me to get rid of the smurf kicking the inside of his head. He likes to bug me about being from Saskatchewan, so that smurf quickly turned green and put on a Roughrider's jersey.
He has since starred in many creative discussions between the two of us, and I felt I should explain his presence before he ends up in a posting. I wouldn't want anyone to think I see small green and white smurfs running around in...or out of...Riders jerseys. Now...where'd that pink elephant go. I hate pink.
It's spring
I woke early this morning, don't ask when - I didn't want to look at the clock, to hear rain falling. I don't really remember being awake very long, but like the farm girl I am, that brought a smile to my face. If I had to worry about driving to work this morning, the sound might've concerned me, but since I take the bus, all was well.
When I finally did drag my butt out of bed and started my walk to the bus, I couldn't believe how spring like it felt outside. Ok, so I could see my breath, but many a time while camping out west, I've crawled my way out of the tent and been able to see my breath. The sun was still giving off an orange glow as I walked along, listening to the birds. I don't know what bird it is, but it's one I hear every time I go camping.
Ok, you might be seeing a trend here - I'm thinking about camping. Except for the small amount of snow still hanging around (don't get me wrong, I've camped in snow before too) this morning just felt like a perfect day to be camping. And fishing, but...well...that won't be happening unless it's stream fishing I guess. It's just not quite the same as being out on a smooth as glass lake as the sun comes up.
So, with camping on my mind...hmmm, it was on my mind before I left the house. I remember waking up and thinking about the coolers. Anyway, with camping on my mind, I thought I'd check with my ex to see if he knew what happened to the coolers we lent to NASAP last year for homeless animals day. I made the mistake (I know, I know, dumbass) of mentioning I wondered where they were because I wanted to go camping this summer.
He said he hadn't heard from them - NASAP, not the coolers. Then MSN showed typing for a bit...then nothing and a message wasn't posted. I know what he was thinking. Same thing he asks when I tell him I'm going out to a movie or for dinner. "Who with?" It was kinda refreshing that for once he managed to restrain himself. I decided to be nice, and reassure him I'd be camping on my own. Besides, I don't have anyone in my life I'd go camping with aside from my family - and I think that would be a little too much contact with other people. And I really don't want him thinking that I am seriously seeing anyone. Yes...I'm still too worried about hurting him. But the truth is my plans are to camp on my own and if that makes him feel better, then is telling him that the worst thing I could do?
I'm still not sure where I'd like to go camping. I might even poke around the Yoga In the Rockies site to see what she has going on this summer. I have more than enough time to figure something out. Besides, any of my plans will depend on when I end up selling my house and moving. I'd hate to book a yoga trip then end up moving on that weekend.
Ok, enough about camping which won't happen for another couple months. Spring is here and what's it known for? Hmmmm? Anybody? Yup, that's right - love. It's the season where we're all supposed to get twitterpated (gotta love Thumper) and find Mr. or Mrs. Right. As you know...I've been looking, although I'm fairly certain I can wait for Mr. Right.
The dating thing is interesting for someone who's never done it much. There have been dates. Good and bad, but they've been there. On one dating site, I met a police officer. Nice enough guy, for a guy just finalizing his divorce. His wife got their 2 kids. I'm fairly certain he was still bitter. I've talked to all kinds of people online. Some are nice, some are odd... there are only a few I've ever actually met in person. And you've seen the results of the one nutcase I met. Luckily he seemed odd from the start and I never met him.
I've been smiled at by a cousin...that's just icky. Although, I give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn't recognize me. I've had men from 44-56 sending me smiles and flirts. The sad, depressing part of that is I probably get more interest from that age group than the ones closer to my age.
The medic is unreliable, the law student wants to be friends. The corrections officer seems nice enough - for someone from BC. The masseuse is related to people I grew up with. The loans officer in the bank is bothered by the short period of time I've been separated, and the other geek might feel better if the divorce was final. Some don't like sushi - sorry, that's required. Others don't like cats - another requirement...I have two. I'm sure some think I'm serious when I joke about becoming a crazy cat lady.
Some people I talk to just disappear. Others have been married - yes... married. Not separated. Just married. Some are just looking to fool around and make that clear from the start. I've been asked if I like sex in public. I've even been asked for phone sex. Ooohhhh I was even asked to be part of a threesome with a guy and his fiancee. I've also received pictures that would've been better off never sent. When it all comes down to it, there are a lot of nuts out there.
I've had smiles from Calgary, Edson, Grande Prairie, Peace River, and Nunavit. I've been to a Starbucks, a Steeps, a couple BP's and some movies. Oh, and a Tim Horton's. There are guys who don't seem interested in anything other than chatting online. Others who don't want to chat, they want to meet ASAP. Most are in the middle somewhere.
I've gotten to the point where I'm not all that nervous anymore. Ok, so I'm not totally relaxed, but in some ways it just doesn't matter. I enjoy their company, and if we make it to a second date fine, if not... oh well. Maybe I'm already bitter enough that I don't expect it to make it to a second date. And certainly never a third. I definitely am at a point where I won't trust easily. It seems for a lot of guys, a woman in my situation makes a convenient target. And I need to keep my butt out of that kind of trouble.
And here I thought I had nothing to say
These past couple weeks have been good for me. Learning experience really. In a way, it was helped along by the fact my ex and I hadn't been talking much. I didn't even notice until he messaged me later last night wanting to chat and I asked him what he wanted. I was just a little surprised to see him chatting with me. Even when he came over yesterday to check the bear rugs and stuff I took down - to make sure the cats couldn't get at it - I had nothing to say to him and just wanted him to leave. Not because I was angry, but because I had other things I wanted to do, and I was just uncomfortable with him. Nothing to say, certainly nothing to do.
Emotionally, the last couple weeks have been a little hard on me. Going through all of that stuff... Trying to figure out what I'm really thinking. I really haven't been sleeping well. Like last night, fell asleep right away, then at 1am, like every other night, I woke up and had a hell of a time falling back to sleep. But at least it was better than a couple nights ago.
In yoga, I've learned that there are certain meditative practices that bring up a lot of emotion, and I think that's the effect all of my reflection the past little while has had. a couple nights ago I woke up and as usual, started thinking. Next thing I knew, I was reaching for the box of tissues. I still don't remember what, exactly, brought that on. Probably a little thinking of my brother, thinking about my life, and...mistakes.
It's weird though. Sometimes I feel like I'm losing my mind. I can be an emotional girl, but not like that. I've never had that happen before. Maybe I was meditating in my sleep. Anyway, whatever it is, this waking up between midnight and 1 has got to stop. I'm losing too much sleep.
It's interesting. After he first moved out, I was a mess mentally. There was no way I could even start sorting things out. It all made me feel so guilty. I think my close friends noticed, but no one else. Other than I was a bit crankier than normal, and my patience level had hit a new low for me. No one even guessed that we'd separated where I worked. In fact, that rumor just kinda got started last week before my friend there squashed it as best he could.
But now, after the initial shock of the whole thing, I'm pleasantly surprised. Ok, call me heartless if you will. Trust me, I'm wondering that about me as it is. But let's face it - if I hadn't been ready for it to end, I never would've (not in a million years) even considered the separation. And, sure, the guilt's still there. Probably always will be in some form. A reminder to think things through in the future, maybe not jump into big things with both feet. That's a bit of a deviation from what I've said in the past week about taking chances and living life.
Marriage is huge. It's not like learning to snowshoe, buying a car, or skipping out on the pink fashion trend. It's not something easily undone, nor should it be. I will say this much: I will never look at someone going through a divorce and suggest they took the easy way out. It isn't the easy way out. At least not for me. I'm only a couple months from the 6 month mark. Another 6 to go before the final divorce papers go through the court. Halfway there.
I do consider it somewhat a miracle that I don't hate him. I didn't think I'd think about him and feel little to nothing at all. Well, ok, there's guilt. Other than that, I think things had deteriorated to the point where I just didn't care anymore. And that sucks. I know what I did wrong. I've come to accept that and I'm working towards changing so I don't make the same mistakes again.
Wow, so this turned into a pretty serious post. I guess it's a pretty serious topic, but it's still a bit of a surprise. Nothing I could even make fun of.
Mmmmm Pizza
I made myself pizza for supper tonight. Right from scratch. Crust and all. Haven't done anything with yeast in awhile so I was a little worried. But it was good. Very good. Even made the sauce, and I have some left so I'm making spaghetti tomorrow night. Whoda thought fennel seeds would be that good in a pizza sauce?
Yup, that's all I've got to say tonight. It was pizza and movie night. And since the pizza was so good, I might just make this a habit for sunday nights.
