Happy Thanksgiving

In just a few hours I get to go home and my weekend officially starts!! I am so excited that tomorrow is Thanksgiving. All my family will be coming to our house and I can't wait to see them! I probably won't be posting til the weekend or maybe even Monday so I hope you all have a great holiday!

Obsessed

I caved in. I didn’t want to but I couldn’t resist. I bought Twilight. I’ve read 200 pages in about 2 hours. I can’t seem to put it down. As soon as I finish, I plan on racing to the theater to see the movie. I cannot believe I caved and now I’m as obsessed as everyone else. It is really good, totally filled with teen angst but I love books like that. If you like books like that I suggest you read it.

I cannot wait for thanksgiving!! I can already smell the turkey and all the other goodies. I just need to get through my half day tomorrow and it will be the weekend for me!!

Christmas is exactly one month from today. Seriously? Where did 2008 go? This year has flown by. Crazy that it will soon be a new year. I’m excited because I love new beginnings and the New Year is perfect to start them. Are you excited about the upcoming holidays?

Completely random but I think I may have a ghost. Let me explain. I have a fan in my room. In the summer it is always going, but now since it’s cold and my mom doesn’t believe in leaving the heat on at night I’ve had little use for it. However TWO times this past week I’ve woken up to my fan going. I keep on trying to remember that I may have woken up a little warm and turned it on, but I cannot remember doing so. I should note that I have a remote for the light and fan so if I want to put it on I just have to lean over and press the button.

So I either A. put the fan on in my sleep or B. I have a ghost and they noticed I was warm and was kind enough to put the fan on. What do you think? If this were just a one-time occurrence I would just shrug it to me forgetting, but twice in one week? I’m a little freaked out.

Long Lost pal

This past weekend was amazing. I had a blast. It was so good to see my friends. Best of all, my friend whom I haven’t seen in 2 years actually came!! I was so happy. We all had a great time catching up and celebrating. This was the first time in months that I went out and time flew by! It was like I blinked and it was already last call. I really needed a night like this.

The drive down was good. I picked a good weekend to drive down because there was no traffic. I made record time in getting there. I tried one of those audio books for the ride down and I did not like it at all. I don’t know if it was the book not being that great, the reader voice, or the fact that I was acutely aware that I was being read to. The whole thing was just bad. I stopped after 45 minutes of listening to a woman drone on and on. I really thought I would like it, but it was not good. Thankfully I bought the thing on super sale so I’m not that mad at wasting the money.

Seeing my friend who I haven’t seen in a while was good. I’ll call her, Country because she of where she lives and how she acts sometimes It was good to catch up on everything but at the same time I felt really old. It was like she was still a kid and I was a grown-up listening to her drama filled stories thinking to myself, “I really can’t relate to this anymore. Thank God.” When she dropped out of school she moved back to her tiny little town. To this day she still hangs out with everyone she hung out in high school and is still experiencing the SAME exact problems she had years ago. Instead of dumping her friends that cause her nothing but problems she still hangs out with them just because. There is no reason.

I grew out of that mentality a LONG time ago. I don’t stay friends with a person just for the sake of being friends. If you’re hurtful to me and cause me nothing but pain why the hell would I continue to be friends with you? Every time she started a story it involved the same girl who she was bitching about back in our sophomore year of college. She would say, “You know Steph the girl you don’t like? Well…” I wanted to be like, Hello? There is a reason why I don’t like her. She is awful to you!

While I commend her on finally finishing college, having a good job and a very nice boyfriend, she is still stuck in that high school mentality about so many things. I just wanted to shake her and tell her that she is deserves so much better then that. I’m afraid that until she moves out of that town she won’t ever really grow up.

I do hope that now we will stay in better contact with each other.

It was great seeing my other friends. They are one of my closest friends and I miss seeing them all the time. We always have such a great time together. They are one of my few friends where I feel like I can act like myself completely, it’s too bad they live so far away.

Also I am so excited about having a short workweek!!!

On the road again

This week has been never ending for me! It’s Thursday and I feel like it’s been 2 weeks since Monday! Work is slow right now due to the holiday coming up. This is the calm before the storm, because come January I will be super busy again. I like being busy because even though I want to pull out my hair, the week goes by faster.

This weekend I am going to Maryland to visit my friends from college. At first the thought of driving 3 hours made me feel sick and I was dreading it. Now? I realize that this weekend is perfect and I really miss my friends.

Since it is a random weekend I’m not too worried about traffic. There will be some in places where I always hit traffic, but for the most part it won’t be like last time.

It’s good that I am going this weekend, because even though I won’t get a lot of sleep, I have a short workweek and a 4-day weekend following so I can catch up then! Also the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I found out that I get a half day so yay for that!

I mentioned before that I had to do PT for my foot. I made an appointment for this coming Saturday early morning and I found out yesterday that they don’t take my insurance! So while I am back at square one of finding a place, I am secretly really happy about getting a few extra hours of sleep before I hit the road.

What I’m most excited about this weekend is one of my friends who I haven’t seen in TWO years is supposedly coming!! Now I’m not holding my breath because last time we were supposed to meet up she totally bailed at the last minute. But I’m hoping that she will make the effort and I can see her.

We were really close in college, were roommates for a year and went on vacations together, she was like a sister to me. However, after she dropped out and moved back to her tiny little town, we lost touch for a little while. She went right back to acting like she was in high school and I just could not handle that stuff anymore. We talked sporadically but I do really miss her and I hope by seeing her this weekend we can revive our friendship.

Either way it will be a fun weekend and a nice break. Plus after this weekend the holidays will officially start and I cannot wait!

Speaking of which, I was supposed to go shopping for Christmas gifts last weekend and that was a total FAIL. I need to get moving on that immediately.

Sigh of Relief

I feel so much better. After that post yesterday I felt like I could let out a huge sigh. I have never told any of my friends in real like that before. It felt good to finally tell someone about how I feel. And thank you so much for your thoughtful words, it comforted me and made me okay with keeping that post up.

In other news, CC at Fork in the road gave me another award!! Thank you! I really appreciate this!

The award says: "This blog invests and believes in proximity" (meaning, that blogging makes us 'close'-being close through proxy). These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbon of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!

So I am giving this award right back to CC because we share a lot in common and here are the rest of my recipients. Defiantly check them out!

CC – Fork in the Road
Karen – Smiling through it all
Emily – No Matter how it starts
Ashley – Turquoise Ribbons
Alexandreena – A Toast to Shoes
Rachel – Three-Point-Five-Years

Enjoy!

My secret

Before I start let me preface this by saying that I’m not depressed this week. I wrote this post a while ago but I just haven’t had the guts to post it. I felt like today would be fitting. But there is no need to be worried about all these melancholy posts I’ve put up. Fun ones will soon resume.

Today is blog secret day and although I didn’t participate in it, I decided to post my own secret. Even though I guess you can’t really call it a secret if you know it is coming from me. Anyway here it is. I can’t trust people. I seem to always be waiting for the day for a person to let me down.

This started with my dad. I’ve mentioned him before but I wanted to give a little background in order to explain my problems with trust.

I tried to start a relationship about seven years after he left. I was tired of being angry and I just wanted to move on. So I started e-mailing him. I asked him a lot of questions. He never gave me a straight answer. Or he would twist my words around until they were the complete opposite of what I said. The best part? Was that he told me that he doesn’t trust his daughter and didn’t want to be manipulated by me. Me! The man who left my mother for another woman and then didn’t try to have a relationship with me, was scared that his 19 year old daughter was going to manipulate him.

Here is an excerpt from one of his e-mails to me. And yes I’ve kept them all

“Not to sound cold, because that is not how I feel, but as much as I love you, and I do. I am keenly aware that I don’t want to be manipulated by my daughter at this late date. Call me skeptical, because I am. After all Carolyn, it's been seven years of me missing you and for what? You have been scared of me? I guess this is a good time to say thank you for the fathers day card. Thanks, it was touching but it would have meant more if it was accompanied by a Philip Margolis book like the old days. I miss you giving me a book."

Let’s break that down shall we? First he actually says he doesn’t want to get manipulated by me, but conveniently forgets that he is the one who cut off communication in the beginning. Then, while he does thank me for a card I get him, he actually has the audacity to say that it would have meant more if there was a gift accompanied. What the hell. This was at the very beginning of the relationship. He was lucky to get a freakin card. Not to mention that throughout our whole relationship he accused me of being spoiled and that the only reason why I talked to him was to get money from him.

If that were the case I would have started talking to him a long time ago. Other then pay for part of my college education (he was supposed to pay for it all), I never received one dime from him. I never asked for one dime from him. Even when I was supposed to get more money for school, I just ended up taking student loans then have to fight with him for more money.

Anyway, I am getting off track. I could talk about the things he did for hours. I can’t trust people, especially the opposite sex because of my father. More then anything else, I hate him for this. I purposefully date men who I know things won’t work out with. If a guy does hit on me, I think that he must be making a mistake and/or there was no one better around. Worst of all? I use my weight as the number one defense mechanism. A guy doesn’t like me? Well it’s because of my weight not who I actually am. I hate that I do this and yet I don’t know how to stop.

I’ve been to therapy but this is one topic that I tended to avoid. It’s something I need to figure on my own. If I don’t figure it out on my own, I fear that I will never be able to truly trust a person. It saddens me that I’m 24 and have never been in a serious relationship that I have never truly loved a guy before. I am so scared of getting hurt that I prevent myself from getting those feelings. I know in time this will eventually happen, but I am scared that I won’t let it happen.

So here is my secret. I am afraid of falling in love.

Pain in the A**

When it comes to family genes, I have gotten the worst from both sides of my family. In particular when it comes to my joints. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had multiple surgeries on my knee and my shoulder and a few other things. Well for the past year, I’ve had a heel spur. Which isn’t so bad, until it started to affect my ligaments. I now have full-blown plantar fasciitis. I’m in a lot of pain and the worst part is that the doctor can’t really do that much about it.

I’ve gotten shots to help reduce the pain. The shot was extremely painful and the relief was only temporary. I’ve done at home exercises, gotten splints and taped up my foot, and taken any type of anti-inflammatory medication known to mankind. Nothing is working. If anything, it’s getting worse.

Normally, I would just deal with it until it got better eventually. But these are my feet and I walk a lot every day. I can’t just ignore it. Also because of the pain, I am walking funny and it is causing my knee to be in pain. Basically, it’s a mess.

This past Saturday I went in for a check up and the doctor told me that we had to really step this up. One he gave me a six-day pack of steroids to take to reduce my inflammation. Steroids. I defiantly freaked out a little bit when he said that. He also told me that I had to find a way to go to physical therapy. This was unbelievably hard for me to do. Because of my work schedule and commuting I don’t get home until 8:30 at night. Most places close way before then and since I leave so early a lot of places are closed.

I thankfully found a place that is open until 8 pm each day and has Saturday office hours. Even though I will have to leave work 2 hours early to make the appointment, it will only have to be one day a week because I will go on Saturdays also. I have my first appointment this Saturday. The only thing? I don’t know if they take my insurance. They told me that they accept most, but will have to put it through the system to see. So fingers crossed that this lady accepts my insurance.

I started the six-day pack on Saturday. It defiantly made me feel a little funny the first day, but it’s been fine. Well, besides being unbelievably hungry 24-7. On the upside? My pain is almost non-existent right now. Too bad this is only temporary but I’ll take what I can get.

I’m just so over having all these medical problems. I just wish I could be normal person and not have to worry about things like this. It’s saddens me that in the past 5 years I’ve never had a pain free day. I’m only 24; I shouldn’t have to be worried about this yet.

Sorry about the woe is me post, but I haven’t slept in the past few days and I needed to get this out so I can hopefully have a sound sleep tonight.

Hodgepodge

After I revealed who I was, I kind of freaked out and had to fight every urge to not take it down. I am now finally okay with what I did. I am happy that now you can put a face to a blog.

However. The other day I changed my background of my blog and I ended up really liking it. Then when I changed my name on the side bar it would not stay on one line! What the hell? It said Caroly and the N was under the C. I tried everything I could think of to make it stay on one like but alas as I’ve mentioned before I am not tech savvy. I ended up changing my background again! And I don’t like this one nearly as much as the other. But what can I do? I don’t want people to think my name is Caroly and my last name is just the letter N.

The good thing about revealing my actual name is that I can tell you about something that happens to me on a daily basis. At my job, I have to talk to a lot of people on the phone. When is rings, I say, “Hello, this is Carolyn speaking.” I’m not really sure what is wrong with these people but about 40 percent of the time they answer back “Hello KAREN this is blah blah blah.” Karen? My name is not Karen this is CAROLYN.

It happens all the time. I don’t know why it is. It’s not like I’m mumbling or talking really fast. The girl who sits next to me can attest to that. It’s like they hear the first syllable I say and automatically think my name is Karen. It happens so often that I’ve stopped correcting most of them.

Even at the train station that I wait at every morning, there is one guy that thinks my name is Karen. Every morning, he says to me “Good morning Karen!” It’s been months. It’s too late now for me to correct him. So I just let him call me that. I fear for the day I see someone I know and they say my actual name. He will feel like a jackass. I feel like I’m Chandler on Friends where the guy at his work thinks his name is Toby. It’s just to embarrassing now to change it. What’s funny is that when I first met him he said my name correctly. Then somehow it morphed into Karen.

It gets very tiring after a while. I almost want to take an earlier train just to avoid it. And when I answer the phone? I try and say my name as slowly and carefully as possible. It still doesn’t work. I’m not I will ever be able to find a solution.

Switching topics, I wanted to let you know that my hair is darker and redder now then in the photo. And yes I do realize that I look much younger then 24 in the picture. I have somewhat of a baby face that people love to comment on. But I like that picture. With the holidays coming up I should get an updated photo of myself and I will post it.

Speaking of holidays, I can’t believe Thanksgiving is in less then 2 weeks!! I am so excited. It is by far my favorite holiday. Good food and great company gathered round. It’s great. We have it at our house every year and I love that. Our family is there for the day and at night family friends stop over to visit. Oh and the food. There is so much food. As if a 25-pound turkey wasn’t enough, my mom also makes a ham and since we are Italian we have to have a pasta course to begin with. It is ridiculous. I feel full after the appetizers.

This weekend I decided to get an early start and try to do some Christmas shopping. Wish me luck!!

What about you? Have you gotten a head start on holiday shopping??

100th!

This is my 100th post!! I cannot believe I kept up with this for so long. Usually when I start something like this, I get bored fast and end up forgetting about it. This is different. This is a place where I can really be me and that’s why I have kept up with it for as long as I have. Also, I really appreciate everyone who reads this and also I love every single comment I get. That’s another reason why I keep up with this. I defiantly feel like I have bloggy friends, even if we’ve never really talked before. I get a deep personal look into your lives and I feel close to you guys. But I’m start to sound creepy so I will move on.

Before I mentioned that to celebrate this milestone I would either A) say my real name or B) post a picture of myself. I went back and forth for a really long time and finally decided to do both!!!!

I can’t stand using a fake name anymore; it makes this blog feel foreign. Also, I figured that if anyone I know ever came across this blog they would know it was me in a second so it really shouldn’t matter if I post a picture. Plus, even though I am terrified of a person in my personal life finding this blog, at the same time it would probably be a blessing for them to really see the real me.

So without further hesitation my name is actually:

Carolyn! (pronounced CaroLYNNE not CaroLINE)

This is the only picture I could find of me by myself. This was taken over the summer when I was in Mexico.

Updates

I decided to change up my blog a little bit. The pink was just too overwhelming for me. I'm not crazy about what I picked, but until I find something better this will have to do.

My mom's birthday was a success!! She loved my gift. The day was pretty nice, we didn't do to much but it was a nice relaxing day.

Nothing seems to be going right at work today. Our e-mail is all messed up, I can't send anything out. Plus I can't really make any calls because most people have off today. Apparently my company likes to torture their employees by making them come to the office, but not giving them any work to do. It's a blast sitting in a cubicle of 9 hours with nothing to do.

Counting down the hours til I can leave.


How's your day been?

Pet Peeves

One of my biggest pet peeves is when a person doesn’t act like themselves and/or pretends to be someone they’re not. It drives me crazy. If someone doesn’t like who you are, don’t change yourself. You’ll never feel comfortable in your own skin if you do this.

I mentioned a while ago that my best friend is dating a guy who is just not right for her. Well, sadly they are still seeing each other. I told her my concerns and she just told me to not worry that she’s just having fun and this won’t ever get serious. Even though from the looks of things it is getting really serious really quickly.

Anyway, last night she asked me if I wanted to come over and watch the football game with her and RM. You could have knocked me over with a feather. My friend? She HATES football. She thinks it’s boring and doesn’t even know what is going on half the time. Now she is voluntarily watching football with this guy? What the hell? I know more about football then she does and occasionally goes to games, but I don’t pretend to be a huge fan or know more then I do. I think it’s lame to do things like this just to appease a guy.

I never thought she would do something like this. I have never seen her pretend to be into something just because a guy is. I mean she hates football so much that she refused to go to games when we were in high school. Even now, when the homecoming game happens and thousands of alumni show up for the game each year, she refuses to go. Even to just see people from high school. I can’t believe she is not acting like herself. You better believe that when I talk to her today she will be made fun of for becoming THAT girl. I just hope she doesn’t keep this shit up.

Also I wanted to note that I understand when girls do stuff just to spend more time with a guy. I get that. Especially when you’re still in the get to know each other phase and you want to spend as much time as possible with the person. What I don’t like is going over and above and pretending to love something that you hate. There are other things you guys can do to spend time with one another, one that would actually make you closer to one another.

I love free stuff!

Today in my office the HR staff had boxes of free beauty products from a really nice brand. A mass e-mail was sent out to get it while you can and there was a mad rush to stock up. I ended up with a great face wash and a bunch of samples of other stuff. I am soo excited. What a nice way to end the work week. I have NO idea why or how we even got this stuff as we have nothing to do with the company, but whatever I don't normally question free stuff. Just when I start to think this place as my own personal hell, they do something really cool like this and all is forgiven. For now.

Also, we are quickly approaching my 100th post. I made a decision about what to do, but I am keeping it a secret!

Happy Friday!

It’s the thought that counts!

This weekend is my mom’s birthday and she is the hardest person to buy a present for! My mom is defiantly one of those people who judge’s the gift and not the thought behind the gift. There has been many times when she made me cry because she didn’t like the gift I gave her.

Example one: When I was about 7 or 8 my dad took me to a jewelry store to pick out a present for my mom. Obviously he was going to pay for it, but it was going to come from me and it was my job to pick it out. Needless to say I was very excited by this. I ended up picking a bracelet that had different charms on it. That night I gave my mom her gift. She opened it up, took one look at it and said: “It’s ugly”. Seriously. She actually said that right to my face! I was crushed. I spent the rest of the night crying in my room. To really put salt on the wound, the next morning we went back to the place where I bought the bracelet and she returned it and she bought herself a silk scarf. She still wears that thing to this day, and every time I see it I cringe just a little.

Example two: I’m about 12. My dad is no longer in the picture so I save up a little babysitting money and get my mom a gift. She specifically told me that she wanted a Bob Seger tape (this was before CDs got popular). So I went to the Wiz, seriously dating myself here, and bought her TWO Bob Seger tapes. Her birthday comes and I give my present to her. She takes the tapes out of the gift bag and is very happy. Finally! Then she put the tapes down and looked back into the bag. She looked up after searching and asked me, “Is that all you got me?” Umm hello?? I’m 12. I’m not really rolling in the dough here. Again, I am crushed that I didn’t make my mom happy and go to my room and have a good cry.

After those 2 incidents every time her birthday comes, I freak out because I have to find the perfect gift. Of course when I ask her what she wants she tells me that there is nothing she needs or wants, and whatever I get will be great. Yeah, right.

This year I bought her a citrine necklace (pictured), her birth stone, and two sweaters from a store she shops at all the time. I really hope she likes them!

Halfway through the week…

Yesterday was just one of those days. Nothing went right for me. I couldn’t sleep the whole night and ended with me waking up at 5:30 in the morning. I can usually make myself go back to sleep but I just sat there looking at the ceiling. Finally at 6:30 I just decided to get up and start my day. The good thing about being up early is that when I went to vote I was done in about 5 minutes. Awesome. What’s not cool? Not getting an “I voted” sticker so I could get some damn free Starbucks or any free stuff that multiple companies were offering to people who voted.

Since voting took 5 minutes I took a much earlier train then usual. I got into work an hour and fifteen minutes early. Can you say overtime? I was the first person in the office. Everyone came in late because they were voting.

Around lunchtime, I realized that I forgot my lunch and it is at home sitting on my kitchen table. I had very little cash on me and ended up with a cup of soup to last me the rest of the day.

THEN, I realize that there is a huge hole in the crotch of my pants. I spent the rest of the day paranoid that while walking someone would see the hole. Good thing I had underwear on. lol. I would never forget to wear underwear.

The rest of the day, it just seemed like nothing went my way. It was all little stuff, but it quickly added up and ended up being a pretty sucky day. Which is weird because it should have been great. I told my boss that I hadn’t voted yet and he let me leave 2 hours earlier then usual! I guess it was just one of those days. Though I will say getting home from work at that time last night was awesome. I actually had dinner at a normal time for once!

Am I missing something?

This past weekend was kinda strange. A really good family friend gave birth to a little girl on Saturday. My mom and I went to the hospital to see the baby. She is adorable. We only stayed a short time and then we all went out to lunch while the new mom rested up. It was great seeing them since it had been a while and felt good to catch up. I have known these people my entire life; they are more like family then friends. Whenever we see them it’s like no time has past. There were no awkward lulls in conversation; it feels like it was just yesterday since we last saw each other.

Then on Sunday, a really good friend of mine called me to tell me that she is engaged! They have been dating for over six years (since high school) and he finally popped the question. While I’m not surprised that they are engaged, I still can’t believe it. She’s a year younger then me! I feel like it was just yesterday we were playing with our Barbies in my basement.

I feel old. With these two events that happened this weekend I feel like a grown up. Actually scratch that. I feel like a kid trapped in an adult’s body. All these people I know who are around my age are reaching these huge milestones in their lives and I’m nowhere near reaching them. It’s not that I am jealous or feel left out (I do a little) it’s that I feel way to young to even be thinking about those things, let alone actually doing them. I have no urge to grow up that quickly.

However I am an adult, I feel like I should be thinking about these things. Why aren’t these things even remotely close to my list of priorities? I cannot even adequately express my confusion with this matter. I can’t describe how I feel right now. I couldn’t be happier for these people, truly, but it makes me worry about why I’m not thinking about these things and why I’m not being proactive to grow up. Am I making any sense right now?????