at last.

Ahhh....I've been looking forward to blogging all day. Please go look at the cool blog challenge thing I posted earlier tonight. Then come back up and read this post :)

First of all, welcome to Ken, mystery commentor!!! I love a mystery. I think Perry is probably happy that another dude is commenting on my blog (even though Perry has been strangely absent from comments as of late...Perry....I see you on my statcounter....where art thou?). So welcome Ken, and thanks for the comment.

Regarding that comment, Ken makes a great point. I think it is SO so important to be fully comfortable and happy with yourself and your life as a single person before you involve yourself with someone. That is exactly why I took a four year break from dating after my college relationship. In law school I didn't date. I had one very close relationship with a guy, but he was my best friend, and the fact that it wasn't completely romantic made it a safe place to try and work on a lot of my relationship skills. In addition, I got to spend a lot of time figuring out what I liked to do with my time (something I have written about before here). That time was really important and meaningful and it served its purpose. I think it made me a better, happier, more well-rounded person. I am interesting! I have interests!

If I were to stay this way forever, living this somewhat solitary life, I think I could be quite happy. I have an active social life - plans nearly every night of the week and every weekend. I have a great job and family that I love. I have a lot of varied interests that keep me busy. I love my life.

I love my life, but it isn't the life I dream of living. Even though I have created for myself a life that is very busy and happy and comfortable, I can't help but want more. I have. I am almost totally in a place where I can see myself sharing my time with someone else, and that is not something I could say for myself in law school. I still have some work to do on myself before I will feel 100% there (or 90%, whatever, close enough). But I'm moving in that direction. I am craving the intimate companionship that you only find with a romantic partner. Can I live without it? Absolutely. Will my life still be great? Sure.

Do I want to?

Not on your life.

I know that I have my moments of self-pity and weakness - you have all witnessed that here on my bloggy blog. But I have tried hard to keep my head up high and to keep a positive attitude, even if it means letting myself wallow for a few days and then pulling myself out of it. I read blogs of other single ladies (not any of my friends/commentors, other random people) and sometimes I am so depressed for these people -- always dwelling on the negative. Always a pity party. Always raining on the parade of their friends who are coupled up. I so totally understand, but I don't want to be that person. I don't think being that negative person will get me anywhere.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I truly am happy. Right now, I am happy. I had a great day at work, and a productive evening. I worked out and I'm getting back into great shape, and it feels AWESOME. I am in my cozy bed, laundry is done, Lucy the cat is here. I had a fun dinner with my roommate tonight, and fun plans fill out my week. I am not sad, I am not depressed, and right now I don't even feel lonely. This is good, this is peace.

But I am ready for the next step. Ready now more than ever, getting more ready every day. And I guess, in response to my Dr. Laura blog, I should say that I plan on taking the next steps more carefully than I have actually been practicing this past year. I'm going to be a little choosier, a little more careful with my heart.

I'm excited. I'm excited about a lot of things.

did this blog make ANY sense?

night world!

- Em

futureme.org - a blog challenge

I know I am not usually the poster of blog challenges, but I have one (of sorts) for you.

Last week my friend P. was telling me about this really cool exercise she did at this spa she went to with her mom about 6 months ago. In one of the workshops she attended, the instructor had each participant write themselves a letter about how they were feeling, what they were thinking, current events in their lives, hopes for the future, etc. Then the spa sent the letters to the participants 6 months later, so they could see where they had come from. My friend was raving over how cool it was to get the letter now, see she was in a better place for some things, and to remind herself of things as well. We both thought it would be cool to do this more regularly - maybe every six months.

We tried to come up with a way of doing it -- first we thought we could just write letters, send them to each other, and then send them back in six months. But what if a letter was lost? We tried sending ourselves e-cards in the future, but most of the sites have a word limit. Finally I did some googling and came up with this REALLY cool site - futureme.org. This site lets you write an email to yourself as far into the future as you like - days, weeks, months years. You can make your email private, or you can make it public (its fun to read through some of the public letters on there). It is a REALLY cool service and exactly what we were looking for!

P. and I came up with a set of 10 questions to answer, and sent out our e-mails. We are extending past 6 months this time just to get the first one close to New Years, and then will go six months from there. Our e-mails are being delivered December 30, 2008.

So my challenge to you is to write yourself an email to be delivered on that date (12/03/08). You can choose to answer the questions we came up with, or you can write something else entirely. For those of you who want to answer our questions, here they are:

1. what are the best and worst things that have happened since 2008 started?

2. what one thing are you looking forward to most between now and Jan 1, 2009?

3. what one thing are you looking forward to least between now and Jan 1, 2009?

4. name one goal for yourself between now and Jan 1, 2009.

5. what is something you hope happens in this time

6. something you hope does NOT happen in this time

7. who will be president?

8. what do you hope has happened for (name someone close to you) in the past 7 months?

9. name the top 5 most important people in your life

10. what are you most afraid of right now?
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I think it would be really cool for those of us who do this to post our letters on our blogs in January (maybe slightly edited). I for one plan to make this a regular thing.

So who is with me? Comment if you want to join in, and please feel free to link to this if you think other readers of yours might be interested.

I think it will be very interesting to see what I think about my letter once January comes. I almost wrote myself something to get 5 years from now...but that almost seemed to scary!!

- Emily

Daily Plan - 5/12/08

To do:
- file everything on my desk in the office
- put away my clothes (if the raccoon is out of the house and my closet is available)
- 45 minutes of cardio
- finish laundry
- take dry cleaning (tomorrow morning)
- do the dishes

self-help

This is the e-mail I just sent to my two single cousins who are both struggling with dating right now (as am I). Please note that I only agree with about 70% of what Dr. Laura says, and I completely disagree with about 20% of what she says...but sometimes she gets it right.
------
K&N,

So I was just listening to Dr. Laura in the car on my way back from lunch. Some woman called her sobbing because she didn't know if she should stay with her boyfriend or not, and Dr. Laura's response was REALLY good and I wanted to share it with you guys.

The woman kept saying "I feel....etc." And Dr. Laura asked her to stop saying what she felt, and to tell her what her calm, rational thought was telling her to do in regards to the guy. The woman couldn't really say anything - and Dr. Laura said to her "the difference between you and a person with a happy life is that you are letting your feelings stand in the way of what your rational mind is telling you to do. If you would listen to the part of yourself that inherently and distinctly knows right from wrong, that absolutely knows what is good for you and what isn't, then you would be on your way to a happy life. By letting your emotions get in the way of your rational self you are denying yourself all of the opportunities that will make you happy."

When the woman expressed how hard this was for her, Dr. Laura told her that when she started working out recently, she could only do one pushup. Now she can do 30 on an incline. And the only way she got there was by practice, repitition, and through that practice she gained strength.

I think that is a REALLY good analogy for all three of us to think about right now. We all know what it feels like to gain physical strength - the work you have to do in the gym/dancing to get there. And we all know that it makes you feel better to gain that strength - improves every aspect of your life!! Unfortunately it is a lot easier to hit the gym and lift weights or run then it is to force yourself to do things that your BRAIN knows you should do, even if your HEART is telling you differently. There is a reason the heart is one of the strongest muscles in your body!

I just found this to be very inspiring and insightful. I am going to practice making decisions that make me stronger, and that will make it easier for me to say "no" to the wrong guys and "yes" to the right ones. I'm going to start by taking Daniel S. off of my gchat list :)

Love you ladies, Emily

productive Emily

What a weekend! I got a lot done, which felt great.

Friday I left work early, came home and had a great workout. Then I spent the evening working on the office. I got rid of several bags of trash and recycling, and moved my roommate's furniture out of the office and my sewing stuff in.

Saturday I slept in, which felt GREAT! Then I got up and headed to the farmers market and whole foods for mother's day treats and plants. I planted my tomatoes, had another great workout, showered and headed to my monthly dinner party, where I dined on wine, aoili, veggies, lamb, and other goodies. Came home and made a dozen cupcakes for mother's day, prepped other stuff, and headed to bed late.

This morning I woke up, frosted my cupcakes, packed up my car, picked up my cousin, and headed two hours north to my parent's house where we had a great bbq celebrating all of the mommies in the family. This included my cousin, who has a 2 year old and is pregnant again.

All in all I got a LOT done! I got a great start in the office and I feel good about it. This week I need to focus on getting a ton of stuff filed and put away so that I can start doing some more organizing - right now I have bags and boxes of stuff that needs to be dealt with. Also I'm happy to have my tomatoes in, even if they are a few weeks late. I took pics of my garden and will try to do a weekly post on those. I also took some before pics of my office, so you can see the full transformation!

This week is going to be good...I don't have much in the way of social plans. Maybe a date, but we'll see. I want to get more done in the office, get some sleep, and get things organized at work. The big case I've been working on has gone to mediation, which is awesome, so I need to spend some time organizing files and putting things away so that I can work on other projects.

I have something else I need to blog about, but its really meant for the secret blog, and I'm not sure I have the energy for it right now. Sigh.

I hope everyone had a great weekend.....and happy mommy day to all of my favorite moms out there (moms to kiddos AND moms to kitties).

much love,
Em

Office re-org

I'm in the midst of an office re-org. I should say I'm at the beginning of an office re-org, because I haven't really started doing anything. I bought a desk and took some "before" pictures, thats it so far. I need to have the office completely done by August 24, because my roommate is having her wedding reception at our house, and people will be going in and out of the backyard through the office. And right now....it looks AWFUL.

My thoughts are as follows:

- paint the walls a really nice smooth yellow. The color in Jodi's office is perfect, so I might ask her what she used.
- paint the trim white. Ideally I want the ceiling white too, but there is no molding on top to separate the wall from the ceiling. Can I still paint them two different colors? I don't WANT to paint the ceiling yellow unless there is white molding. Maybe I will see what it costs to have someone come do molding. Hmmm.
- paint my new desk a really great green color.
- maybe buy this rug?
indoor/outdoor is good because the office is how you get to and from the backyard. I like the rug....I think. I'm going to call the berkeley outlet and see if they have it - maybe I can go see it in person on Saturday when I'm in the east bay. Any thoughts on the rug?
- I already figured out the layout using a very nifty room design tool from BHG.com. I need some more furniture -- a corner shelf for supplies and my tv, some type of armoire/storage for my fabric and sewing stuff, and a new desk chair. I'm hoping to find the shelf and the chair at the flea market in June.
- I need some other accessories - lamps, floor pillows, shelving, etc. Ikea here I come.
- PLANTS. Its such a sunny room, it really needs some plants.

Here is my office re-org schedule:

May 8-May 18: clean out office. get rid of crap, garbage. Sort through books and figure out which ones to give away (I will post what I'm getting rid of here before I give it away). Sort through fabric/yarn/craft stuff. By May 18 that office should only have in it stuff that is staying there - which also means that my roommate's stuff needs to be out of there YAY.

May 18-May 31:
- paint desk
- clean walls/floors
- tape room
- purchase paint

June 1-8:
- paint room and trim - all of it!!!

June 8-30:
- get everything back in the room in its new spot.

Then I can take the rest of the summer to put finishing touches on it, buy more storage, etc.

I can't wait to show you pictures. Its such a great room, and I think it is going to be a really amazing transformation!!!

- Em

Daily Plan - 5/7/08

Ugh....last night sucked in terms of getting things done. Because there is a raccoon living in my attic. This is all for another blog...I promise one this afternoon (but not about the raccoon!).

To Do:
From last night...
- unpack from trip to LA
- clean out 2 bags in office
- upload pictures from the reunion and put them on facebook/send out albums
- make a schedule for re-doing the office

For tonight....
- find Michael's mail
- hang stuff up in closet
- clean off top of desk
- clean out fridge

Daily Plan - 5/6/08

I didn't get home until 10:20 pm last night....so after an hour workout and then dinner, I basically did NOTHING. Sigh. Tonigh I'm having dinner with my grandmother and her cousins, who are visiting from France, but I should at least be home by 8.

To Do:

From last night...
- unpack from trip to LA
- put away clothes in bedroom
- sort mail
- clean out 2 bags in office

For tonight...
- 45 minutes of cardio
- upload pictures from the reunion and put them on facebook/send out albums
- order CB2 stuff before they don't have it anymore
- make a schedule for re-doing the office

Daily Plan - 5/5/08

To Do:
- unpack from trip to LA
- put away clothes in bedroom
- sort mail
- clean out 2 bags in office
- 45 minutes of cardio

Stuck in a Moment

Getting on my plane yesterday and realizing that I am probably the only person in the airport carrying on both a Nintendo Wii, and a pair of manolos.