It’s been one hell of a year. But in the end, I have to say, a really good year. One glaringly significant event stands out, but looking beyond that I have some pretty good memories from 2008. I visited Minneapolis, New York City and the Caribbean. I successfully completed three semesters of graduate school. I spent a lot of time with my family and friends, which really, that’s the biggest blessing of all. I helped elect a new president who will hopefully do a lot of good for this country. And I turned 28, an age which I believe will serve me well.

I quickly pulled together a little photo collage of the year - one photo from each month. This is just a snapshot of the many things I did and enjoyed in 2008.

It was about the middle of the year that I experienced the worst heartbreak of my life so far. When my relationship with Brad ended, I was miserable and depressed for months. I hate remembering that feeling, but I know the experience made me stronger. It has been five months now, and I can honestly say that I am happier and that I feel better than I have in a very long time. Sometimes it seems so recent that I was curled in a ball on the laundry room floor, alone, unable to control my sobbing. But five months is a long time and I’ve come a long way.

This last month has been the perfect way to end this year. I spent my birthday with a large group of friends and family; I spent the holidays surrounded by so many of the people I hold dear; I’ve been having fun with someone new; and I’m spending tonight, the last night of the year, wearing pajamas, drinking champagne and hanging out with two of my sisters.

Despite learning the hard way what heartbreak feels like, I have to say…

It’s been a damn good year!

I hope you all can say the same, and I wish everyone a wonderful new year!

For lack of better blog material, I’m going with the holiday wrap-up. Though I had quite a few christmas parties this year, they were all low-key and casual. Just my style.

It started a couple weeks ago with an extended family get-together where I lost miserably at a beanbags tournament and only hung out for about an hour. The next evening was a dinner party slash christmas party with friends. We did it potluck style and exchanged white elephant gifts. I walked out with a new photo frame and a hideous orange Aztec-y ceramic vase (which I have already managed to re-gift (thanks Amber!)).

The Saturday before Christmas I was at my dad’s, celebrating with more extended family. It was at that party that my little (half-)sister received this scary robotic cat:

I swear it’s possessed. She tried to name it Whiskers, but her older sisters shot that down and forced her to come up with something better. Aren’t we lovely? In the end she settled on Winter, which is only a slight improvement over Whiskers, but sometimes you just have to let kids be kids. I received a t-shirt that says “You have died of dysentery” and shows the image of a covered wagon. Get it?

On Christmas Eve, I went over to my aunt’s house to celebrate with even more extended family. At this party we had a Euchre tournament, games, pizza and snacks. For gifts we each brought a $5 red gift and played a game to exchange them. I ended up with a pair of red Coke boxers. I also won the “Spirit Award” during the card game. Apparently I’m a good sport (meaning I lose and don’t give a shit).

It was for that same party that I made this lovely cherry pie:

There was so much food that the pie was still about 75% intact when I took it home. No matter, I’ve been enjoying the rest of it myself over the last few days.

On Christmas day, we first went over to my brother’s to celebrate with Mom. We drew names and did $15 gifts, so I got a sweet red hat and a movie. Each year my mom gets the girls an antique gift, and this year we all received mirrored perfume trays and two glass perfume bottles. I didn’t get a picture, but they’re very cool. Also, it must be the year of creepy gifts because my niece was playing with this all day:

Her arms, legs and even torso were detachable. I don’t get it.

Later we headed over to Dad’s for the evening. We did Goodwill Gifts - I got two old purses, a laptop cushion and a nail grooming set. What I gave was a giant wooden fork. I haven’t uploaded those photos yet, but just know that it was pretty awesome. Dad also gave us all a $50 gift card to JCPenney, and best of all, he is starting a family account at kiva.org so we can all help alleviate poverty through microloans. Check it out, it’s pretty cool.

Finally, I got an mp3 player. As we were all packing up to leave the last party, my sister Andrea asked if I had an iPod. Nope. Next thing I know she’s throwing a gift bag at me that contains a 2GB SPI mp3 player. She had bought it for someone else who apparently already had one, and for some reason Andrea couldn’t return it. So she gave it to me. Don’t you love her?

Oh I forgot to mention. The morning of Christmas Eve someone gave me some Oregon Chai Tea and made me homemade cherry pancakes. Smiley face emoticon.

Happy Holidays everyone!

I just want to go on record and say that I’m really happy right now. In this very moment, I feel really damn good. Remember how miserable I was four months ago? That sure was a fun time around here. I wondered when I’d ever feel happy again without having to try so hard. I’ve felt good for awhile, but sitting here right now I am so thankful for this crazy excitement tingling in my stomach. For this smile that I can’t wipe off my face. I know this giddy feeling can’t last forever, but it’s here now, and I’m loving it. Here are a few reasons I’m so happy:

• Today is the last day of my hardest semester yet. In August I thought about dropping a class because I wasn’t sure I could get through two difficult classes, especially given the circumstances at the time. But now I’m almost done, and I think I even kicked a little ass. By 5:30 tonight I will officially be done with this damn semester.
• I have been spending a lot of time with my friends. Part of the reason I moved back to GR was to be close to all these people, but I worried we’d all be too busy to hang out much. However, I think we’ve done a pretty good job. Especially lately. On Saturday everyone came out to celebrate my birthday; Sunday we had book club; last night we had a pizza and movie night; and this Sunday we’re having a dinner party.
• Tonight I have a date. And I am really excited. That is all.

In my excitement to plan my Single and Lovin’ It birthday celebration on Saturday, I neglected to make plans for tonight, my actual birthday. Luckily my grandparents called and want to take me to dinner. Sounds good to me! Then maybe a drink with my sister.

Despite only getting a short two hour nap last night, I’m feeling pretty good today. All the happy birthday wishes are pouring in, which I love about birthdays. Everyone comes out of the woodwork. Thanks for that by the way.

This is actually going to be a really good week. I kick if off with this birthday, then I get to go to my final classes on Tuesday and Thursday and finish out the semester (I am giddy about this!). Wednesday I’m hanging out with some friends, Saturday I have a family christmas party, and Sunday I have a casual dinner party. And I can actually enjoy all these things because: LAST WEEK OF CLASSES!! (At least until January.)

Oh and one more thing. I have a date Thursday night with a guy I think could be really cool. So far things look really good, but Thursday will be our first time meeting. I hope email/chat/text chemistry translates into real live chemistry.

I realize I was being pretty selfish the other day. Sometimes you get upset about something and you think “Grr…I’m going to blog about that!” And then you hit publish and later you remember that people actually read this thing. Oops.

Sorry friends if any of you felt guilted into coming out Saturday night. That was not my intention. I was just being a big fat crybaby.

My Single and Lovin’ It birthday celebration actually turned out to be really great. Five people couldn’t make it, but I was still amazed by everyone who did. We had an awesome dinner, then hung out at my apartment for a couple hours. We were laughing so loud that when my friend Erica left, she called me to say she could hear us at the other end of the parking lot. It was a good night.

So thank you to Andrea, Blake, Kelli, Josh, Megan, Michelle, Angie, Erica, Brooke, Rob, Amber and Andy for celebrating with me. And thank you to Emily, Drew, Mom, Jess and Melissa for trying to make it.

You may have noticed the time stamp on this and wondered if there was an error. Why would I be posting at 2:45am on my birthday? That would be because my body hates me and refuses to sleep. Again. However, I spent almost three hours chatting with someone interesting. So it’s not all bad.

Update: In fact there was a mistake. It says 3:44am. Hopefully I’m sleeping by then.

I hate having a winter birthday.

For about a month I have been planning a big birthday dinner with friends and family for this weekend. I invited close to 30 people, selected a delicious restaurant, made a reservation and grew increasingly excited as the “yes” responses poured in. As it stands, there will be 19 people gathered around a huge table to celebrate my birthday with me on Saturday night.

I did something similar last year with a much smaller group, but this year I decided to have a Single and Lovin’ It Birthday Dinner and surround myself with all the many people whom I love. This is the worst weekend for a birthday celebration because it’s serious crunch time with the homework right now as everything is due next week Tuesday. But I wasn’t about to miss having a kickass 28th birthday party just because of some silly assignments.

However, it looks like something else threatens to stand in my way. The mother effing weather. This morning several people casually mentioned the huge snow storm that we’re supposed to get today and tomorrow. As in nonstop snow and ice for the next couple days on top of the several inches that fell last night. This does not bode well for my guest list.

I have people coming from other parts of the state to celebrate with me. I even wonder if those in other parts of the city will want to make the drive. I wouldn’t blame anyone at all if they had to cancel due to weather - I definitely prefer my friends alive and safe. So I won’t be mad at them. But I’m fucking pissed at the snow.

I hate the snow. HATE! THE! SNOW! Hate it hate it hate it. I really hate snow. A lot. I mean I seriously, really, very much hate it. Snow, you better not ruin this for me you little bastard. I swear I will hunt you down and make you regret the day you were born.

This morning I was incredibly thankful for two things: new snow boots and my garage.

I’ve spent the last few winters with cold, wet feet - not to mention wet socks and pants - because I didn’t have proper boots for trudging through the snow. A couple weeks ago, in anticipation of the snow to come, I used a TJ Maxx gift card to buy some ugly old lady boots. The kind you’re embarrassed to be seen in except for the fact that you don’t give a shit because at least your feet are warm and dry. It snowed quite a bit yesterday and last night, and our parking lot hadn’t been cleared by the time I left this morning. Thank you ugly old lady boots for protecting my feet against the evil snow.

As I was trekking through the messy wet parking lot this morning, I heard a medley of scrapes and brushes all around me. People attempting to clear their cars enough to drive without killing anyone. Scrape scrape. Brush brush. All I had to do was hit the button on my garage door opener and my car was magically clear of all snow and ice! Thank you garage for protecting my car against the evil snow.

(I should also thank Robin for agreeing to take the larger bedroom with the private bathroom and full shower so that I could have smaller bedroom, the public bathroom with the stall shower, and the sweet mother-effing garage baby!)

The Rockettes show was… wow. Pretty cheesy. At one point I leaned over to Erica and said, “This is a little more cheesy than I bargained for.” It was the point when there were about 15 people in giant teddy bear costumes dancing around the stage. Yeah. The Rockettes themselves were pretty impressive - it was everything else that made me barf. Like the 30 dancing Santas. Gross. We had fun though.

At least it was a good break from all this other stuff on my mind. Mostly it’s the daunting task of researching and writing that is occupying my thoughts lately. But other stuff too. I am having fun right now, but I always feel like it’s not enough. Maybe it’s because there is so much I want to do, but I never feel like I have time. I don’t like being a super-busy person with plans every night that keep me out late. I like to balance busyness and relaxation. So if I start to get too busy, I cut things out in order to have time to just sit and read or watch tv. I need that down time.

But right now I have two huge school projects hanging over me, I have about 12 friends I keep saying I will hang out with but never do, I have family things I want to go to, I have other people I want to see, and I have about 73 thousand projects I want to start or finish. I realize everyone has this problem, it’s just life, but I feel particularily frustrated by it right now. I know the things I want to do, but they never seem to match up with the things I have to do.

I had such a good time Friday through Wednesday, but the last couple days I’ve just been in a bad mood. I feel like kicking the crap out of something. I wonder if Robin would let me hang a punching bag in our dining room.

Tonight I’m going to the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular with a friend. I got free tickets and I’ll pretty much do anything that’s free. I told Erica, the friend who is joining me, that I invited her because she was definitely the person who could most enjoy something this cheesy with me. When she called today to confirm plans, I assured her that I had seen a few promos for the show and it looked sufficiently cheesy for us.

Luckily I’m feeling refreshed today. I was so right about last night. I was done. Shortly after I posted, I sat down to watch tv and found nothing good. So instead I did a little reading for class. I was tired so I laid my head down for a little rest and quickly fell asleep. I was trying to stay awake for the ANTM finale, but it wasn’t worth it. I got ready for bed and was fast asleep by 8. And I actually slept pretty good last night, which, how often do you hear me say that? I got about 10 hours of sleep, and I think I really needed it.

Why? Well, I went on a little spur-of-the-moment road trip Tuesday. I was gone a little over 24 hours, getting home around dinner time last night. The circumstances of the road trip were the main reason I was so tired. The trip was to nowhere exciting, but it was really fun. I want to go again!

I hate cleaning. My mom and two of my sisters are clean freaks—their houses are always spotless. I, however, am from a different school of thought. If it looks relatively decent, it’s clean enough. That means I only occasionally dust and vacuum, I wipe down the kitchen after cooking but it rarely gets a deep clean, and my bathroom never really sparkles. While I try to keep things picked up for the most part, I only really clean clean when I’m having company. And “company” does not include family or close friends—they get to see the real me.

Fortunately Robin is generally of this same school of thought. Our cleaning philosophies are about the same. Whenever one of us hosts book club, for instance, we usually do a little dusting and vacuuming. Otherwise we just try to keep the kitchen sanitary (we almost always stay on top of the dishes and the trash) and the junk put away.

So the other day when I got home and noticed that the apartment had been cleaned, I was befuddled. Did you clean? I asked her. Yeah, a little bit, she said.

Um… why?

She had no reason, just felt like cleaning. Thought it could use it. I’m not sure that I’ve ever cleaned just because I “thought it could use it.” There was the occasional Cleaning Day that Brad and I would declare when we lived together, but we had to feed off each other to get anything done. I’m not self-motivated with the cleaning thing.

So basically Robin was sitting home alone on a Thursday evening and she thought, “I’m going to clean the house.” Not screw around on the internet, not get lost in bad tv or a good book, not call up a friend to hang out. Clean. For no good reason.

I’m still having a hard time comprehending that.

A couple months ago I mentioned to a friend that I thought I might be ready to start dating again before the end of the year, but that I worried it would be impossible to even find good people to date. At this age, everyone is either married, seriously involved or completely undateable by my standards. She concurred and added, “When you get to be our age, you kind of just have to put it out there. Tell everyone you know that you’re interested and looking. It’s either that or online dating.”

I tried putting it out there, letting everyone know that they should inventory the single males in their lives and let me know if any might be of interest to me. Well, that was an utter failure. The most common responses were, “I honestly don’t know any single guys. They’re all married.” and “I know single guys, but nobody I’d set you up with.” I’m pretty sure that second one was a diss on the guys, not me. I hope.

One friend finally approached me and suggested a double date with her, her husband and one of their friends. I agreed. Then I heard nothing from her. I waited for about a week before saying Screw It! Finding decent single men in this town is impossible, how can I make it easier for myself? And these words rang through my head… “It’s either that or online dating.”

Online dating? Why the hell not? My goal right now is to enjoy being single, and I think a fun part of being single is dating. I’m not out to find the love of my life (though no complaints if that happens!), but I’m also not out to find another long-term relationship that dissolves into nothing. I either want to fall in love or I want to date around and enjoy myself. I’ve never really done the dating thing before. In high school I just had boyfriends, no dates. Through most of college, it was all just hanging out. I went on one date with Brian before it turned into a relationship, and I hung out with Brad “as friends” before that turned into a relationship. I’ve never done the “let’s meet for drinks and see how it goes” thing. And now is the time, now I really want to.

So I signed up on match a couple weeks ago. I don’t think I’ll be discussing my dating life on this site very much, unless something gets serious. Or if I have a horror story I can’t not share with you. I know some people write about their dating lives online, and I love reading about them, but at the moment it doesn’t feel like something I want to write too much about.

But for now let me just say this: I am having so much fun.

I hope it continues.

I went to my last counseling appointment yesterday evening. I was last there only a few weeks ago, and even then I was still wondering how I was going to get out of the mire. I felt better for sure, but I also felt like I had to work really hard at it. I worked every day to feel good, but I could remember a time when I was just happy without all the effort. I felt good without thinking about it and trying at it all the time. A few weeks ago I wondered if I would ever feel that way again.

Something happened since then. Maybe the Celexa took full effect, maybe the counseling helped, maybe enough time has passed, maybe all my “trying at it” paid off, or maybe it’s a combination of all those things. But I actually feel good. Happy even.

I’m in a good place with Brad too. We have emailed a few times and I think one day we might even be able to form some sort of friendship. I think we both feel good finally, and hopefully with enough time we’ll be able to figure out what it means to be friends after a break up. I still stand by my statement that Brad is too good a guy to not have in my life at all. Eventually I think we can figure it out.

After my appointment last night, I still had one more free session available to me. The counselor asked if I would like to schedule something and amazingly I said, “No I actually think I’m doing pretty well now.” Long-term counseling would definitely not hurt, but since that’s not an option right now, I didn’t feel like the last session was necessary. I think I can do this on my own now.

(Except not really on my own. I still need the support of all of you – friends, family, readers – so don’t abandon me okay? You guys got me this far, for which I’m incredibly grateful, and I’m not done with you yet.)

Last night I went to my monthly book club at a friend’s house. We usually do a pretty good job of staying on topic, but last night there were only four of us in attendance. We were discussing A Thousand Splendid Suns which we all really enjoyed, but after about 40 minutes of good conversation somehow the discussion turned to beer. I casually said, “I could really go for a beer right now” and two of the others concurred. Within minutes we were in our shoes and coats and headed out the door.

Our first stop was a bar and grill right down the road. We walked in and the place was completely empty. After the host gave us a strange look and said he’d be right back, we figured out they were closing. At 8pm. So we left and tried an Applebee’s, figuring they could at least supply us with a decent beverage. Robin asked if they had any drink specials, and our server admitted, “Actually we don’t serve any alcohol on Sundays.”

What. the. hell. I live in conservative west Michigan, and there are whole counties that ban the sale of alcohol on Sundays. But the county we were in doesn’t have any such ban that we knew of. Turns out these things can be decided on a township level, and that particular township thinks that it’s morally damning to even think about alcohol on the blessed holy day. Even for those of us who don’t buy into that.

We apologized to our server – it’s not his fault he works in an alcohol-banning township – grabbed our stuff and left for home.

I’m not even a big drinker, but it’s very frustrating to be told that I can’t have a beer on Sunday just because a majority of voters in that township don’t want to have one. That’s fine, don’t drink on Sunday, don’t buy alcohol on Sunday, don’t even think about it on Sunday. But why can’t I? It’s not like I’m asking to buy cocaine or kill someone or do something else illegal. I’m over 21 and I want a drink. I don’t care what day it is!

I’m pretty sure my township doesn’t have this kind of Sunday ban though, so maybe next time it’s my turn to host book club we’ll have to try again.

Here’s one thing I miss about having a boyfriend: having a bug-killer around. I’ve been fine with taking over most of the things Brad used to do. Like getting my oil changed, taking the trash out, cleaning the toilet. But I miss having someone to rescue me from the bugs. I do not do well with insects and spiders. In fact, I’m a downright crybaby when it comes to the creepy crawlies.

My biggest bug battle right now is the spider who has taken up residence outside my garage door. One day I noticed a small web gracing one corner of the door frame. I didn’t pay it much attention until later when I noticed it had grown and now held a smattering of insect carcasses - a spider’s dinner. When my sister Emily was down visiting last month, she bravely (well not bravely really since she’s not a wimp like me and isn’t bothered much by this stuff) pulled the web down with her bare hands.

Well, by the next morning the resilient spider had not only rebuilt its web, but it built ANOTHER web too just to piss me off. So for the last few weeks I have had to walk beneath two giant spider webs every day to get to and from my car. One morning the damn spider was dangling, yes dangling!, from the web right where I needed to walk. I ducked, squealed and ran beneath it as fast as I could.

All I really want is for someone to kill the spider (or transport it if they’re the humane type) and remove the webs. But Robin’s just as frightened as me, Emily lives two hours away, my other sisters are no fans of spiders either, and my dad and brother both live too far to make a trip just to save me from a little (HUGE!) spider. I asked Robin’s boyfriend to help me out, but he lives out of town and is only here a couple times a month. Last time he left before we got around to Project: Spider Removal, so the the nasty bastard remains outside my garage.

This is when I really miss having a boyfriend. I know not all boys are fearless spider-killers, but most of them would be willing to help me out if I explained how not cool I am with the whole spider thing. I know Brad, at least, would have been out there long ago taking care of this matter for me. I should probably just buck up, grab some bug spray and a broom and get rid of this problem myself, but it’s one thing I haven’t been able to bring myself to do. Getting my own oil changed? Fine. Wrangling scary spiders? Just can’t do it.

Robin suggested I start dating and hook a guy at least long enough to come over and kill Mr. Spider. I’m thinking it’s not a bad idea. Do spiders die in the winter though? Maybe I can survive until the weather does the deed for me.

Okay no fucking joke you guys. As I’m writing this, a little spider just crawled down the windowsill near my desk. I’m not really sure what to do, so I’m going to stop writing and run away.

I was thinking about dying my hair black and cutting bangs. What do you think?

I spent halloween with my niece and nephew. I donned my Undecided Voter costume while we trick-or-treated, but they had fun dressing me up even more later. Hence the wig. And also this:

I’m pretty sure my evening was better than going to any crazy costume party. We had fun.