A Fantabulous Weekend- Part 2

Saturday was a big day for me! I got to go to Soulard Farmer's Market for the first time ever. I know I've lived here for like 8 years, but I was always busy on Saturday mornings. That's just kind of sacred horse time. Anyway, I went with my friend Joline and her husband. Her exact words were, "DH will be psyched because I hate to go there." I have to say I was a little disappointed. Lots of the produce did not look home grown. However, I did get some great tomatoes, a couple lovely yellow bell peppers, two kinds of delicious pasta, some yummy apple pie jam stuff, and this incredible Amish goat cheese from Baetje Farms. I cannot express how fabulous this stuff is. I got the Three Peppercorn and Herb de Provence. Mmmmmm. Looking at their brochure, I see that they will be at both the Maplewood and Webster Groves markets this summer too. That's dangerous!

Also on Saturday, my favorite local pet store, Treats Unleashed, was having an ice cream social for the dogs. I should have taken a picture of the ice cream cups before we started. They were dog cookies in the shape of a cup, filled with yogurt, and then frozen for their delight. The edges were also dipped in carob and they were topped with peanut butter chips and crumbled dog treats. What do you think? Were they a hit?


Finally, that evening I went to the grocery store. Now, let's be clear that I DO NOT like bugs. My general rule of thumb is that if an organism has fewer than two legs (i.e. snakes) or more than four (here is where bugs fit in,) I am not ok. However, there are some amazing things in nature that always make me pause and wonder at the amazing things evolution has given us. One example of this is the leaf bug. Isn't that cool?

Yes, there is a third part to this weekend that will be coming along shortly.

Some People

WTF? DH and I went to dinner with another couple friend of ours a few weeks ago. Her parents have a house on Cape Cod where she spends a lot of her time in the summer. Anyway, we asked her when she was leaving and she said she wasn't going until the 16th. We then agreed that DH and I would hose 4th of July at our house.

With this in mind, we talked to a bunch of our friends and started inviting people. Another friend invited us out to her place, but we said we couldn't because we were hosting at our house. Well last night I sent out e-mails to our friends with details for Saturday. Guess what? Original friend who set up plans for the BBQ? Yeah, she e-mailed me back today that she had never heard about getting together at our house and now in fact has other plans.

How freaking irritating! That is just so f-ing rude. We turned down several invitations because we thought we were hosting this thing. Don't get me wrong. I love having people over to the house and being the hostess, but with a whole bunch of other stuff going on, planning a party isn't the easiest thing in the world. Now it looks like it will be a very small gathering, which is fine, but I am still mad at this woman. This is not an isolated incident. She is regularly inconsiderate about stuff. Grrrr.

Bar Louie

I went to Bar Louie in Kirkwood last night for a Happy Hour with some of my internet friends. It's a small national chain, but I do enjoy going there. I had no idea their happy hour was such a good deal though! Draft beer is $3, $4 wine, and $5 martinis! Plus they have half price apps. The biggest deal last night was the $1 burgers. That's right, ONE DOLLAR! I had a burger with wing sauce, blue cheese, and grilled onions. Yummy. :)

I arrived around 4:30 and didn't leave until after 9:00. I was super excited to meet Mia. She is just as cute in person as she is in her pictures. It was a great Tuesday night, and I can't wait to see most of these girls next weekend!

Movie Reviews

Please excuse me. I have a hard time convincing myself to watch really dark depressing movies very often. Thinking can sometimes also seem like too much. :) Therefore let me review/recommend two very light films.

Horton Hears a Who

Soooo cute! I love Dr. Seuss to start with, and this was very well cast and, er, acted. I loved the fact that the narrator was the CBS Sunday morning guy. Carol Burnett was also at her Ms. Hannigan best. If you haven't seen it yet, totally check it out.

Monsters vs. Aliens

Again, the voices made this movie. I am in LOVE with Stephen Colbert, and his portrayal of the President in this was hysterical! Reese Witherspoon was also great. I didn't realize the roach was Hugh Laurie until I saw the credits though. I think that must be because I am pretty much only used to hearing him as House.

So there you go. That should be some nice fluff for a holiday weekend. It's rainy tonight, but we are going a friend's house to cook out. It should be a good time without being too intense. I never mind an evening that is both social and relaxed. I just have to make sure I grab a jacket since she keeps her apartment at like 10 degrees.

Who your friends are

It's interesting. There are a few people who I met/reconnected with immediately after I moved here. A couple were through work, and I definitely still keep in touch with them. It kind of bums me out not to see them on a daily basis any more, but we talk and that's nice. Then there are some people who I met at the barn early on in my time in StL. Two in particular were there when I arrived. One, M, was a trainer, and one, N, was an amateur who taught a few lessons to help defray costs. Within the last year they have left the barn.

Within the last year, N had been driving me a little crazy. She was clearly unhappy with her situation, and I got to the point where I didn't really want to see her outside of work. This fall she behaved a little inappropriately, our boss reacted A LOT inappropriately, and N quit. I was sorry to see her go in such a bad way. She was a very hard worker, was often treated unfairly, but she was not without fault in the relationship. These days, N has a lot of bitterness and she is just something of an angry person. While I never considered her my best friend, I feel it is pretty clear that our friendship is over. While I may not mourn its loss too keenly, I feel for N. She really let a shitty situation damage her. She is broken. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

M was another story. She began to realize how bad things were for her. So instead of taking it, she actively found another job. She gave her resignation, the boss told her not to work her two weeks, and she moved on. Since leaving, there have been many stories about things she did or said. Who knows what is true. Many of the things the boss says just don't jive with what I saw in the years I have known her. I will say that I saw one sketchy thing happen in the aftermath, but it is just so hard to reconcile the person I knew with the stories I'm hearing now. I have tried to maintain a friendship with M, but the boss is so paranoid about her that I feel like I can't really be close to M any more.

Out of all this I have gained what I think is a really close friend. C is also a part-timer like me. She watched the craziness go down this year and has felt many of the things I have regarding M and N. We have really leaned on each other for support over these past months. I hope that even when we have moved past this part of our lives we can stay close. I only worry that we are like disaster survivors: tight to keep each other alive but unable to have a relationship afterwards because of painful memories. We went to lunch last week, and it was nice to be away from the BS and just enjoy a salad and a drink together.

Considering I am already living in a place where I feel lost and friendless, I am just beginning to understand how hard it has been for me to feel even more isolated. I am grateful I have had some social outlets in the past six months. (Thanks to StLWed girls.) I just know myself. I can't handle being a one woman show. I need friends and to see and talk with people. I don't want to turn into N. DH wouldn't be ok with a bitter wife. I know I need to get out of that toxic work situation. The question is how. Boss has screwed herself into an untenable situation. I'm all she's got, and she is taking three people I like very much to an out of town horse show next week. I think I just have to hold my shit together until they get back, and then I have to take some action. I refuse to make it my fault that boss has backed herself in a corner.

PS- I'm digging the new Jello sugar free Boston Cream Pie pudding, Tasty!

K had her baby!

Remember how I went to San Antonio to help K drive back to Virginia before she had her baby? Well, the baby came on Sunday morning! Her name is MacKenna Izze. The middle name is at the insistence of K's husband. He liked the name of those fruit sodas. Silly boys. Anyway, here is the obligatory picture.



I think she is beautiful. Like for real beautiful, not just I tell anyone who has a new baby that it is cute. :)

I feel like I've lost a friend

For the past five or six years, I've considered my mom to be one of my best friends. I felt comfortable telling her honestly how my life was going and how I was feeling. A couple days ago though I feel like I lost that friend. While it is true that this year is turning out to be hard, I am struggling and working through things. My dad has never supported my decision to try this business, but at least I knew my mom was supportive in the sense that she wanted me to be happy.

Fast forward to two days ago, and I get an e-mail from my dad that he co-signed with my mom's name. It is all about how there is a job opening in their town (halfway across the country,) and how I should hurry if I want to apply for it. WTF? First of all, while I don't love St. Louis, DH is from here and we are clearly not going anywhere any time soon. Top that off with the idea that they are all ready to count me as a failure, and I was spinning. I've never felt so put-down, unsupported, and basically crappy from them in a long time. It reminds me of when I asked my dad if he thought I was pretty, and he responded that I wasn't a model. That one still haunts me.

There goes that friendship. I'm literally sitting here crying about it. I know they love me, but their current way of showing it is not what I would call positive. I don't need puppy dogs and rainbows. We all need reality checks from time to time. But let's be realistic here. Telling me to move across the country is not constructive in the least. It is only negative and hurtful, and right now I am feeling VERY hurt. I guess my family has now been relegated to the "everything is fine" category.

Random Thursday

• It's raining. Thank goodness it isn't snowing.

• Why is Bread Co.'s Soup for a Group (3-4 servings) almost the same cost as two bowls of soup? I realized tonight that I could get almost a whole week's worth of lunches for $9.99!

• Speaking of Bread Co., soup in a bread bowl is now the same price as just a bowl of soup. Now, if you eat at the restaurant, you get less soup in a bread bowl than you do in a regular bowl. However, if you get your soup to go, you get everything separate, and you end up with the same amount of soup PLUS the huge bread bowl. More bread than I need, but I'm always looking for a value, and they usually give you a side too. What I did last week was take the bread bowl home for our bread with dinner and ate the apple as a side dish.

• I leave for San Antonio on Sunday!!!!! I'm so excited on several levels. First, I get to see a woman, K, who is more like my sister to me than my brother is like my brother. Does that make sense? Second, I am totally having dinner at Papasito's. Mmmmmm. Fresh, handmade tortillas, amazing margaritas, and salsa that doesn't take like catsup. God I miss Mexican food. This also means I get to take a couple days off. I haven't had one of those since Christmas. I'll be helping K drive to Virginia, but it will still feel like a vacation.

OK, so this wasn't totally random since half of the post was about Bread Co. Let's see, what bizarre thing can I find on the interwebz.

This website details so much of what is wrong with society. Not something I can look at every day for amusement, but does at least deserve a smdh.

How old am I again?

Yesterday was crazy. I mean crazy. I was at the farm all day. Things were nuts. They bought me a cake because I had won an award for my riding, so I had a piece of cake for breakfast. It was a small piece, but nevertheless, it was a piece of cake. Then I took a potty break at about 11:00. I had another piece of cake and a couple kisses. By this point in the day I had been on my feet for four and a half hours and all I had eaten was two pieces of cake, two kisses, and about four cups of coffee. Yum. Around 3:30, I had one last small piece. As I got off work at 5:30, I looked at the day and realized my food intake was three pieces of cake, about six kisses, and six cups of coffee. No wonder my stomach felt like it was eating itself!

I went home to make tuna steaks with squash and mushrooms. Alas, I fell asleep before it finished cooking.

So yes, yesterday, I ate like a six year old. Only consuming cake and candy. I think I still came in under 1500 calories, but I don't think that is what nutritionists had in mind when they set those numbers. :P

Today I'm going to the circus. No really! My friend got a box for a bunch of us to go see Cirque du Soleil - Saltimbanco. I can be a kid for another whole day!

Good Luck!

My friend is going on a job interview today. She was a stay at home mom, but her husband lost his job over a year ago. He hasn't been able to find anything, so she's been working part-time for crap pay for the past ten months or so. She has an interview at a hospital where she can get benefits for her family, and they will help her go back to school. She wants to get an extra degree so that if something like this happens again, she is better able to help her family.

So, if you're reading this, please think good thoughts for my friend. She is super loyal, smart, and works very hard. I really want her to get this job so she can feel better about her situation with her family and her life.

Life in General

I am feeling pretty positive about life right now. While sales at the store are slow, I feel like good things are happening. And I mean, come on, it IS January after all. I'm stressed about getting taxes done though. Ugh. I HAVE to do sales taxes this week.

On the personal front, my horse is sound again. Hooray! I felt so bad the entire time he was off. I feel like I'm making progress on the friend front too. I've gone to a couple of events with some women from a local online community and had a blast at both. In fact, one of the ladies invited me to join a supper club group later this week. Woohoo! I get to try a new restaurant too. Mmmmm.

I'm feeling connected in terms of my spirituality as well. I decided to go to a new church on Christmas Eve, and I was floored by the welcoming feeling. Even on that busy night, people went out of their way to make me feel welcomed. I've attended about half a dozen times since then, and every time I find new reasons to like the place. The sermons are thought provoking and in line with my beliefs. The community is also very accepting. One of my big problems with organized religion is how exclusive it can be. My belief has always been that we are all welcome in religion, and it makes me mad that people use it as a way to judge exclude people. Judging is not my anyone's job. I firmly believe that. I'm really excited about continuing to explore this community and become more involved.

In terms of fitness, I've joined a gym. Wow. I haven't done that in a lot of years. I really am doing it for myself, but I'm still getting myself in a program. So far, I've only lost two pounds, but, I've also had some food slip-ups. I find that I am much more likely to focus on my fitness than I am my food. That clearly needs to change. I must deal with both. I'm not a cow (I don't think,) but I really would like to slim down. My husband thinks I'm great the way I am, but I know I could be better. I actually saw one of the ladies from online at the gym last night. That community had helped me feel accountable. There is a section all about fitness/weight loss goals, and that helps me feel like I am answering to someone for my behaviors.

There are a couple other things I'm working on too, but they are still super secret. :) My fingers are crossed though that my life will continue in a positive direction. I hope that my positive attitude will help that happen. I am all too willing to fall into the negative spiral, so I have to keep reminding myself that how I approach life can really impact how things happen.

Here ends my sappy post for the day.

WTH is wrong with people?!

Seriously, we are adults. High school was a long time ago. To that end, get over all the bullshit. I don't have the time or the energy to play these ridiculous games any more, and I don't think most other adults do either.

It hasn't been so much of an issue for me this week, but I just read a story on a message board about it happening to another girl I know. What a joke. The whole concept of the game is crazy to me. Just be a freaking adult!