Behind These Hazel Eyes

The final wedding post.

2011-07-20T21:52:00.000-05:00

Well, almost nine months after our wedding, I'm finally winding down the wedding posts. I still love going back and looking through our photos from the day and I'm sure I always will!

I wanted to show some of the details that Tall Guy and I put together for our day. We really were a DIY couple during the nine months we were planning the wedding.

Our colors were navy, gray with accents of apple green and peacock feathers.

First up, our centerpieces. My mom, sisters and I knocked these out one afternoon after a few months of me trying to decide what I wanted to do. Since we were getting married in November and I didn't want to pay for a lot of flowers, I decided to do a branch based centerpiece that ended up only costing about $6 each!

We also made three centerpieces for our ceremony location that were a bit larger. I used split peas in the base to tie in our apple green accent color.

I also made all of the boutonnieres for the guys, our dads and grandpas along with the wrist corsages for our moms and grandmas.

Our invitations were also done completely by us. I designed them in InDesign, we printed them at home, embossed the peacock feather and made the wrap around labels. Invitations weren't really that important to me as long as they had the info everyone needed to get to the wedding so we saved a lot of money by going this route!

Front of envelope (all the paper was from Paper Source)

Back of envelope

Invite (the bright green is the belly band that held together the invite and RSVP card)

The RSVP card

Again, we kept these really simple and clean to save time and money. I was really happy with out it all turned out in the end! We also had people RSVP via email (minus a few old school family members), so we didn't have to pay for the extra stamps either!

The biggest labor of love that we created were our favors. After going back and forth about what we wanted to do, we decided to make coasters with our colors on them and a little sticker with our names and wedding date in the corner. While they turned out wonderfully and were really cheap (less than $1 per pair), they were a ton of work! We made 450 coasters! But, I still get comments from people on how they use them all the time and how nice they turned out. We still have about 80 left over so our coasters are making an appearance all over our new house :) Tall Guy was a huge help on this project!

They also served as the escort cards and meal indicators for the wait staff.

I also designed and printed some simple programs for the ceremony, even though at first I thought they were unnecessary. But once we decided that we weren't going to do a grand entrance with all of our bridal party into the reception, I figured it would be helpful for the guests to know who was who in the bridal party. It also gave us a chance to recognize those that couldn't be with us that day or who left us too early. I also created the little monogram that we used on a few of our items.

We had quite a few signs that I worked up as well to make it easier for people to know what to do. I like to make things as simple as possible for people to figure out!

For the kids at the wedding, I made little bags for each one with a few pieces of candy, some glow bracelets, temporary tattoos and a few other small things. I also put out some coloring books, crayons, stickers, pipe cleaners and some little games on the tables to keep them entertained. I think they were a hit!

As part of my bridesmaid gifts, I gave each girl a personalized hanger. Tall Guy did most of the work because my attempt at bending the wire into letters was pretty pathetic. I had to blur my sister's names, so they look weird here, but they turned out great in person! Tall Guy also made me one and I got some photos with my dress hanging on it.

And, as a final farewell to the wedding posts, here is one of my favorite photo booth pictures of the night!

Yay for marriage!

Another wedding!

2011-06-10T23:28:00.000-05:00

My sister got engaged tonight! It was her and her fiance's 4 year anniversary today and he gathered about 20 of their closest friends and family at their house for a surprise engagement party. It was so awesome and I'm so happy for them! Now I can pass along all of my words of wedding planning wisdom!

Congrats M + G!

Wedding PIctures, Round 9- Winding Down.

2011-05-20T20:25:00.001-05:00

At the end of the night, we had one last dance to Don't Stop Believin' and Piano Man. Everyone who was left at the reception got in a big circle surrounding Tall Guy and I in the middle while we slow danced. It was amazing! Unfortunately, our photographers were long gone by this point so I don't have many photos of those moments, but it felt awesome to be surrounded by our closest friends and family!

Once we were getting kicked out of the Metropolitan Club at the end of the night, we took our rented shuttle 3 whole blocks to Cosmos in the Graves Hotel. We actually had quite a few people show up to our unplanned, informal after party. People were just hanging out and having a good time winding down from the day's activities. It was daylight savings night so the bar was open an extra hour too!

I later found out that a lot of people stayed down until bar close so I'm glad our guests kept the party going! Tall Guy and I were beat after a long, exciting, emotional day so we ended up heading up to our room around 1:00.

When we walked in I was surprised with our entire suite filled with lit candles, a hot bath drawn, champaign, chocolate covered strawberries and other baskets of goodies from both my sister and her boyfriend and Tall Guy's brother and sis-in-law. Tall Guy had commissioned two of his groomsmen to go up to our room and light all of the candles a little while before we headed up. It was a sweet gesture.

After spending 5 minutes taking out all of my hair pins and clip-in extensions and another 5 trying to get my dress's corset undone, we had a nice bath and promptly fell asleep, as we had a brunch to get to bright and early the next morning!

Next up, the details.

Sold!

2011-05-05T21:12:00.000-05:00

I interrupt the wedding updates to make a big announcement:

Tall Guy and I bought a house!

One Sunday about 5 weeks ago Tall Guy had woken up a bit earlier than me and was playing on his phone in bed. When I woke up, I glanced over and realized he was looking at houses in the area. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was thinking we should start looking at buying a house sometime this summer. Giddily, I asked him what had made him decide that since we had been thinking we wouldn't be looking for another year or so.

We decided just to check out the pricing and take our time with looking. It's such a great market for buyers right now that we knew things were lining up well for us. We looked at 7-8 houses and liked them, but nothing was screaming out at us as 'the one.' When we had reached a dead end with houses we wanted to look at, our realtor said she'd look around for us within our desired parameters.

We went out looking on a Sunday morning at those and we went to one that was a little bit out of our desired area, but other than that, it was perfect. After we viewed it with our realtor and went to another house, we went back to the first house because they happened to have an open house that day as well. After looking at it again, we made up our minds to put in an offer. We put in the first offer at 6:00 and by 9:30 it was ours!

Now we're just going through the underwriting process and we'll be closing on June 17! We are so excited to be taking yet another step in life together!

Wedding PIctures, Round 8- Time to party!

2011-04-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

Once dinner, speeches and special dances were over, the Photo Booth opened up.The Photo Booth was a hit of course. It was something Tall Guy really wanted to have so I figured I could handle it. There weren't many things he insisted on so I had to let him have the few things he wanted!

The DJ was pumping out the tunes to get everyone on the dance floor. I was so happy with his music selection and his ability to keep so many people on the dance floor all night! I hate when weddings don't have good music and nobody is on the dance floor except the bridal party (and it's usually just the women) so I was a little nervous. But, knowing that I come from a family that likes to dance and knowing our DJ was good, it was no problem keeping people on the dance floor and having a blast!

Up next, we wind down at a bar after the reception ends.

* The photos in this post are either from Era Photography, Inc or our videographer's assistant.

wedding PIctures, Round 7- Dessert and Other Snacks

2011-04-15T21:15:00.000-05:00

We opted to go with mini cheesecakes for our dessert because 1. I'm not on most cake, 2. I've never really had a great wedding cake and 3. We love cheesecake. We had 6 flavors: Triple Berry, Lemon Drop (my fave), Pumpkin Swirl, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Caramel Swirl and Chocolate Toffee and people could choose the flavor they wanted from the little display we had. They were a huge hit and I'm so glad we did it! We even had some leftover to enjoy for a few weeks after the wedding.

We didn't do a cake cutting or anything because we didn't want to buy an extra cake to cut and we think the whole feeding each other thing is corny and didn't want to do it.

In addition to the cheesecake, we hand made some chocolate dipped pretzels and had them out by the bar all night so people could eat them during cocktail hour or as part of dessert.

At 10:00 pm, after we'd all been dancing for a few hours, we had a nacho bar set up as a late night snack. Tall Guy or I never actually got any nachos because we were too busy mingling and dancing, but from what we were told, they were really good. I glanced over at the nacho bar at one point and remember thinking that it looked much more robust that I thought it would be so that was a plus! I don't have any pictures of it since our photographer was gone by then.

Now that dessert was finished, it was time to boogie down!

Wedding PIctures, Round 6- Special Dances

2011-04-08T16:58:00.000-05:00

After dinner and the speeches were over, it was time for Tall Guy and I to have our first dance. We chose the song 'You Make It Real' by James Morrison as our first dance song. I absolutely love this song!

Ended with a dip!

Then we had a combined mother/son and father daughter dance to Forever Young.

I love this one because Tall Guy is sneaking a glance over at me.

Now it was time to get everyone on the dance floor and boogie down!

Up next: the party continues!

*All photos by Era Photography, Inc

Wedding Pictures, Round 5- Cocktail Hour and Speeches

2011-02-16T22:07:00.000-06:00

Once all of our guests exited the Champion's Club and went through the receiving line, Tall Guy and I (and the photographers) had a moment to ourselves to be in the moment and reflect on what just happened. We wanted to be able to mingle at the cocktail hour so we quickly hustled up to the Metropolitan Club.

Getting bustled.

Ran into an old family friend on the way.

View of the reception room.

The kids enjoying all the goodies I put out for them!

View outside of the Metropolitan Club.

We had 5 speeches total, but thankfully they were all fairly short and spread out. My dad started it off.

Tall Guy's mom followed.

At this point our salads were served and everyone started chowing down.

Then, my youngest sister gave her speech. I started crying immediately.

Next up was my middle sister. Everyone in the room was crying by this point! Both of them did such an amazing job. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Tall Guy's best man finished the speeches with heartfelt words.

I love this picture because of my cousin's head poking up in the background!

Next up, time to dance!

H-Moon.

2011-01-04T20:17:00.000-06:00

Tall Guy and I are off to St. Lucia for our honeymoon tomorrow! I am so excited and so ready to get out of this Minnesota weather for 9 whole days.

We have 4 excursions planned- Snuba, Land & Sea Adventure with a visit to the active volcano, sulphur springs and snorkeling, zip lining through the rainforest and a sunset cruise. We're hoping to be able to take a helicopter back to the airport on the day we leave as well.

See you on the flip side!

Wedding Pictures, Round 4- The Ceremony.

2010-12-28T14:59:00.002-06:00

4:45 finally came and it was time to come out of our hiding spot and make our way toward the Champion's Club for our ceremony. The Best Man and my younger sister signed the pretend marriage license while we were waiting and I took a little sip out of a flask to warm my belly and calm the nerves a little.

Tall Guy and I stopped for a picture in front of section 116 (our wedding date was 11/6 and we thought we could maybe use the picture for our Thank You card, but it didn't happen). Our entire posse walked behind us as we made our way and I was starting to get butterflies in my stomach. Tall Guy had to leave me to walk the parents down the aisle and get ready for my entrance.

The bridal party walked in to a piano version of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance as a nod to our love for Lady G. It was a hit!

My dad and I walked in to Chantal Krevaziuk's Feels Like Home, which you would recognize from How to Lost a Guy in 10 Days.

The ceremony was so emotional and personal and I loved every second of it. The room was so warm and cozy and we could really feel the love from all of our guests.

One thing we wrote into our ceremony was us taking a picture of our guests from our point of view. We saw this done at another wedding and really liked the idea. Tall Guy took a panoramic shot of all the guests and it turned out really well!

Tall Guy and I wrote our own vows which was a major tear jerker for both of us and our guests. After the ceremony, almost everyone told us how emotional and beautiful they thought our ceremony was. One person even said they'd never cried at a wedding in their entire life but did at ours. I'm really glad we were able to write our entire ceremony and wrote our own vows.

We also had Tall Guy's dad and my Grandma each do a reading that we had chosen. Tall Guy's Dad read What is Love and my Grandma read The Apache Wedding Prayer.

Then, it was time for the rings! The ceremony flew by and I tried to take in as much as I could so I could remember it forever.

We're married!

We walked out to Uncle Kracker's Smile and of course were all giddy with love and excitement!

Next up: cocktail hour and speeches

*all photos by Era Photography, Inc

Wedding Pictures, Round 3- Bridal Party Shots.

2010-12-21T19:32:00.001-06:00

After our first look, we headed up to the 5th floor to get the rest of the gang and start group pictures. We started at the Graves in the same area where we had our first look.

Then we headed outside to take some pictures downtown and at the First Ave wall of stars before heading to Target Field. We had an engagement picture taken at this wall so it was fitting that we had some taken here in our full wedding garb as well.

When we got to Target Field, we first went to the Metropolitan Club to check out how things were progressing so far and to take a little break from the chilly wind. The first thing I noticed was that they were setting up the tables wrong. We had wanted long tables of 12 with 6 people on each side, but they were setting them up as more squat rectangles with 4 on a side and then 2 people per end. Some of the tables already had silverware on them but I made them rearrange the tables. It wouldn't have been a big deal in the long run, but our centerpieces were created with the long rectangular table plan. Plus, we spent way too much money there to not have the room set up how we wanted. Our day-of-coordinator would have caught this for sure, but she had been setting up for the ceremony up to that point so she hadn't seen the room yet. I'm just glad it was caught before everything was set!

So, after that little hiccup, we headed outside again to take pictures around the stadium. We started by standing in the bleachers and getting shots of the field behind us. Then we went down to the dugouts for some fun group shots and then headed onto the field for some more fun. It was a nice day out, but the breeze definitely had all of the ladies shivering a little. I had given the girls all gray pashminas so they had them on for quite a few of the pictures. But, everyone was a good sport and didn't complain much.

The shots of us in the stands with the bridal party scattered around us are a few of my favorites. I love the one where everyone has a grossed out look on their face because we're kissing and my one bridesmaid has her bouquet covering her face so she doesn't have to look!

Once we were all sufficiently chilled, we headed inside to the Champion's Club to take some individual pictures with our bridesmaids and groomsmen and family pictures. I'll admit that I really dislike the standard, posed pictures. They are boring to me and I just didn't want to spend a ton of time on them. So I got one picture with each of my bridesmaids, a few with me and my sisters and one of each of the different families (my mom and dad are divorced) and I was good to go. Tall Guy and I basically stood in the same spot and smiled while everyone else posed around us. It was the easiest and took the least amount of time.

Before we knew it, it was 4:00 and we had our first guests show up even though the ceremony didn't start until 5:00. We figured we should get out of there so we weren't in the room while guests arrived so we went into our hideout with our entire bridal party, our parents and the officiant. I was getting a little nervous at this point because I knew that soon we'd be walking down the aisle. It was the longest 45 minutes of my life. Thankfully, a few of the groomsmen had flasks in their suit coats so I took a little shot to calm my nerves and warm my belly before taking the plunge!

Up next: Down the Aisle we go!

*All photos in this post were taken by Era Photography, Inc.

Wedding Pictures, Round 2.

2010-12-15T12:12:00.000-06:00

Once I was all dressed and ready, it was time to go from the 19th floor to the 4th floor of the hotel to have my first look with Tall Guy. One of the photographers and I headed to the hallway and took a few pictures along the way.

Up until getting in the elevator, I was calm and collected, but as soon as the photographer and I got in, I was all nervous and jittery. I wanted Tall Guy to love my dress and the whole look and I was so anxious to see his outfit all put together. Once we got off the elevator, the photographer and videographer made me stand around the corner for him for what felt like 5 minutes, but it was probably like 45 seconds. Once I got the go ahead, I rounded the corner and started bawling and my heart was racing. I got to Tall Guy, grabbed his arm to turn him around and when he faced me, he was already crying too, which made me cry even more! We hugged and kissed and giggled and hugged and kissed some more while the photographers snapped pictures.

It was an emotional 5 minutes and I'm so glad we did the first look! It was awesome to have those few moments alone (besides our photographers and videographer)!

Up next, bridal party pictures.

Wedding Pictures, Round 1.

2010-12-09T21:27:00.000-06:00

Well readers (the few I may have left after falling off the face of the Earth for the past nine months), the time has come. I'm coming out of hiding. That's right, I am going to post pictures of myself. Since we've gotten our wedding pictures back, I've been obsessed with them and want to show them to anyone who will look at them. So why not paste them all over the internet?

So, without further ado, here is Round 1 of our wedding pictures. I'll start with getting ready pictures since I really didn't take many at our rehearsal dinner. We had our rehearsal dinner at Famous Dave's in Uptown because it's super close to our house, it was fairly inexpensive and it was tasty!

The morning of the wedding, I woke up at about 6:45 even though I didn't have to get up until 7:30. I had tossed and turned all night (well, since I went to sleep at about 12:30) and just couldn't sleep anymore because of the excitement. Plus, I was starving! So my sisters and I took quick showers while we waited for our Mom to come to the hotel room. We stayed at the Graves 601 hotel and thankfully they had a Starbucks on the main level. Even though I was starving, none of the sweet pastries they had sounded good at all. The only thing that looked appealing to me was an egg salad sandwich. So at 7:30 a.m. on my wedding day I ate an egg salad sandwich.

Around 9:00, the rest of my bridesmaids came to the hotel to get their hair done. I had one person doing my hair and make-up and we had another girl doing all of their hair.

Gotta have champagne!

Getting started...

My sister getting her hair done.

Almost done!

It takes a lot to look good!

Final touches

This hankie was a gift from my sisters with my new initials. Unfortunately, I lost it the night of the wedding!

One last finishing touch. This photo and all following are by Era Photography, Inc.

Getting into the dress.

Lacing up..

In the next post, I'll show some of the individual shots of me around the Graves and maybe our first look pictures. I will try to post these somewhat frequently, but no promises! It'll take some getting used to blogging often again.

Gone Too Soon.

2010-11-23T16:32:00.000-06:00

Early yesterday morning, a high school classmate and friend of mine passed away in her sleep unexpectedly. I heard about it from my sister, who noticed all of the Facebook statuses saying that she was gone. Later I found out that my mom, who is a 911 dispatcher, took the call from her boyfriend who woke up to find that she had died in the middle of the night.

When you find out that an old friend has died, your stomach sinks. We weren't best friends or anything, but we had some of the same friends and would hang out on the weekends in a group once in a while. The past few years she worked at a bar in my hometown while she was finishing school and pursuing a career in corrections. I 'll always remember seeing her behind the bar, a little blonde with a bright white smile. Even though we had lost touch after high school, she'd always ask how I was and we'd make some small talk before she had to get the next customer their drink. She was so nice to everyone.

Since I found out, I've found myself staring off into space thinking about her and how sad it is that such a vibrant, young, healthy woman could just die in her sleep. I know it happens, but it's never happened to someone I know.

She just turned 26 on November 14 and posted pictures on Facebook of the party bus she rented out to celebrate with her friends. She had just gotten a new dog and posted pictures of that, too. It's weird that the day before she passed she had so much exciting things going on in her life and was on Facebook posting them. The next day, her wall is filled with notes from friends and family who lost someone they loved too soon.

I'm going to go through my old pictures tonight and find the ones I have of her so I can remember how fun and happy she was. The funeral is on Saturday and I think that's when it will all hit me. Seeing all the people I went to high school with mourning the loss of one of us is going to be really hard. I think it will also bring us all together though. Hopefully it can be a celebration of Erin's life and all the good memories we have of her.

Rest in Peace, Erin. You will be missed by many.

We're Married!

2010-11-10T12:57:00.000-06:00

The day was absolutely amazing and perfect. I couldn't have asked for anything more perfect for me and Tall Guy! I can't wait to get our the professional photos and video back! Who knows, maybe I'll finally reveal my identity :)

Um, hi.

2010-10-28T21:41:00.000-05:00

Well hello there! It's been 3 months since I last blogged and obviously I didn't miss it much.

Um, I'm getting married in 8 days! That's pretty exciting. All of the final payments are made, dress is altered, Tall Guy has his suit and aside from printing the programs and getting a mani-pedi the day before, we're all set! I AM SO EXCITED!

The past 9 months of planning have flown by and really, it hasn't been that stressful. We did all of the planning while working full time and going to grad school and we were able to accomplish it all without problems. A few times I freaked out at the amount of stuff we had to do, but after stepping back and looking at the issue, I was able to get over it.

I can't wait to marry Tall Guy. We are saying our own vows and I'm so excited to hear what he has written. Hopefully I can get through it without completely bawling! It's going to be an amazing, emotional, fun day that will go by entirely too quickly but all of the planning we've done will pay off and in the end, we'll be married!

Maybe once it's all over I'll pick up blogging again. I don't know what I'll do with my free time once it's over...maybe spend more time on homework? The next semester is sure to be a doozie- I have to take Business Law and Data Analysis (stats). Fun times!

The next time I log in I'll likely be Mrs. Hazel Eyes Tall Guy. (I'm keeping my last name in my name since there are no boys in my family to carry it on and I'm pretty attached to it I guess it will become like a second middle name.)

See you on the flip side!

Where Has the Summer Gone?!

2010-07-23T23:12:00.000-05:00

Whoa, it's almost the end of July. Holy crap!

My summer has been filled with school work so far. I finally finished my summer class Monday and I'm so glad to have some free time now! I didn't think taking a 7 week class this summer would be that big of a deal, but 6 hours of class per week plus reading and papers turned out to be a ton of work. Now that it's over, I can finally focus on some wedding details!

There are only 106 days left until the wedding and I feel like there is so much to do. Now that I have about 7 weeks off of school, I plan to get as much wedding stuff done as possible. At this time we're working on finishing up our favors and printing the invitations. We go in for our tasting next week so we will be able to print that part shortly as well. Things are coming along nicely and we're mostly just figuring out details now. Exciting!

Montana.

2010-06-24T22:18:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity to travel to Kalispell, Montana this week for work and I am so glad I've been able to see this amazing state!

I arrived on Tuesday and went straight to Glacier National Park in my little rental car. I was amazed at the beauty I saw throughout the park! The entire Going to the Sun Road wasn't open, but I got about 3 miles from the top before it was closed off due to snow. It was absolutely amazing. I have never seen anything so awesome. On the way back down, I stopped off at Avalanche and decided to do a four mile hike. It was a two mile hike to the "treasure" at the end, but it was already about 5 p.m before I started. I knew it would take about 1.5 hours to do the whole thing and it's not recommended that you hike alone. So about a mile up, I figured I should probably turn around so I wouldn't be alone. These three women came up as I was going down and asked why I wasn't finishing. I told them I was a little nervous about being alone and they invited me to finish it with them. They were probably in their 50s, but one was from Minnesota and they were nice so I decided to finish. It was so worth it! This is what we saw after the first two miles:

Um hello gorgeousness!

The past few days were spent in a customers office. I was commenting that I wish I had more time so I could do some more exploring, and the owner said I should just take tomorrow morning to do something instead of going into the office. He recommended Whitefish to go zip lining so I'm going to do that in the morning before heading to the airport.

I'm so glad I got the opportunity to come out here. I will definitely be back for a vacation with Tall Guy soon!

Update.

2010-04-21T16:08:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been over a month since I've blogged last. Bad blogger I am. I've been so busy lately with grad school, planning the wedding, work and life in general that I really have not thought to take the time to blog. Things are going really well though.

I'm almost done with my first semester of grad school! It's been great to flex my brain a little and start using it for something other than figuring out who will be voted off Survivor next. I'm taking one class this summer that will finish mid-July and then plan to take the rest of the summer to get most of the wedding details out of the way before starting up again in September. I'm also just taking one class in the fall because I don't want to be too overwhelmed with school during the last few months before we get married.

Now that it's spring it's biking season again! Tall Guy and I have gone out a few times since the weather has been beautiful around here lately. I love that we have an activity that we love doing together. Plus, it's a great workout!

Wedding planning has moved quickly and steadily since we only have about 6.5 months left to go. We have all the major stuff booked--ceremony/reception location, photographer, florist, DJ, photobooth, officiant--and we have all the guys' suits ordered and my dress ordered. Bridesmaid dresses will be ordered in the next month or so. I think we're in pretty good shape! It's a little stressful to think of the things we still need to do, especially the DIY stuff, but I know we'll get it done.

To add to all that excitement, we are also going to be moving into a bigger apartment sometime this summer (just to the one below our current place) and I have to study for the GRE because I'm taking it on June 26! Plus, my BFF is getting married on June 12 and I'm the Maid of Honor. Throw in an out of state wedding, bridal showers and bachelorette parties and other life events and I'd say we have a pretty busy 6 months ahead of us!

But I'm so happy right now. I love being busy and having stuff going on and homework and wedding planning all on top of each other. It's a crazy time, but it's great!

25.

2010-03-18T06:50:00.001-05:00

I'm a quarter century old today. I joked with Tall Guy that once midnight strikes, my boobs will drop to my belly button, my butt will droop, I'll get many more wrinkles on my face.

As you can tell, I'm not really looking forward to hitting the mid-point of my twenties. But, on the bright side, I'm getting married when I'm 25 so that's a definite plus :)

Unfortunately, I have class tonight so I won't get to do much celebrating, but, my co-workers and I are ordering lunch in, AND I get a free Caribou drink. I can live with that.

I Ordered A Dress!

2010-03-13T21:08:00.000-06:00

I ordered my wedding dress!

I went out shopping today with my mom and sisters to a few places in the Twin Cities. Everyone kept telling me to make sure I try a lot of dresses on and to not buy the first one I try on. Well, I did end up ordering the first one I tried on! Although, I did try on a bunch of other dresses and went to another store just to be sure that the first one was really THE ONE.

The sales woman at the second store asked me if I had been anywhere else and if I had found something that I really liked. I said I had and she pulled me some dresses based on my description of my favorite dress. They had some dresses that had SOME of the qualities I liked and wanted but nothing could compare to the other dress at the first shop. The woman even went as far as to say that I probably wouldn't find what I was looking for at this store because it was obvious that I was really excited about the other dress.

I would post a picture, but the future Mr. knows how to get to this blog and I don't want him to see it, obviously! But, it's an Allure Bridal gown and that brand just happened to be having a trunk show at the bridal salon we went to this weekend so I got 20% off the dress! (We got my dress at the Wedding Chapel in Crystal.) My mom generously offered to buy my dress, but I knew I didn't want to spend a lot on my dress from day one. It's just not worth it to me. So I was excited when the dress was only $479 with the 20% off!

I'm so excited about it and can't wait for my dress to come in around mid-July!

I Heart Discounts!

2010-03-03T20:14:00.000-06:00

Since we are getting married during the wedding off-season in Minnesota, we have been scoring deals left and right! Off-season in Minnesota is any time between November and March for the most part.

So far, I've scored $200 off our photo booth, a free guest book and CD of images from the photo booth ($140 value), $200 off our day-of-coordinator and $250 off our photographer! I'm thinking that we may also score some deals on flowers and cake/cupcakes, whichever we decide to do.

A few of these discounts I got automatically for getting married in November, but for the photographer, all I had to do was ask if they had any off-season discounts and they gave me one!

We have a winner!

2010-02-18T22:32:00.000-06:00

And our venue will be......

Target Field!!

I'm so excited about it too! The glass on 3 sides room is the Metropolitan Club where the reception will be. The ceremony will be in the Champion's Club.

Oh, but now I have less than nine months to plan a wedding. Yikes! Better get moving!

Shopping Rant.

2010-02-13T17:22:00.000-06:00

Today my mom, sisters and I went shopping at Mall of America. I wasn't really looking for anything particular, but my sisters both like Forever 21 a lot so we headed in there. I usually browse there, but I typically don't buy much. Maybe a shirt here or there.

Today though, I was quite disappointed and sort of annoyed with that store. First of all, they are now carrying sportswear, which is great, but when I held up a pair of large workout pants, they looked like the size of a normal size small. And their large sports bras looked like they would maybe fit a C cup at the most.

Then, I noticed that they have an "extended size" section with is basically anything larger than their standard large. But, everything in that damn store runs so small that their "extended sizes" would have probably fit a size 8 body, which in my opinion and most other people's is not plus sized!

Now, I'm not a skinny girl by any means but I hardly would say I'm plus sized. These days I typically wear size 8 pants and have pretty big boobs. So when I can't even fit into a size large pants/skirt at Forever 21 and would have to go into their 'extended sizes,' it's annoying. I held up a shirt that was in the extended sizes section that was size XL and it looked like it was a normal sized shirt I would wear.

I know Forever 21 is sort of a teeny bopper store and that their clothes are probably cut for straighter body types and less for the curvy, voluptuous body types. But seriously, when they are saying that someone who is an 8 or 10 should wear extended sizes, that's pretty lame. Don't they know that the average size of a woman in American is a 12 or 14? When I was a little heavier than I am now, I wouldn't even go into Forever 21 because their sizes run so small that I could barely fit into anything there.

Anyone else think that store is just ridiculous? It's awesome that they're cheap, but they are probably losing a lot of business because so many people in this country are bigger than a size 4 or 6.

The Venue Hunt.

2010-02-10T19:57:00.000-06:00

Tall Guy and I have known for a while now that we want to have our reception at the Metropolitan Club at Target Field. Once we were engaged, we pretty much immediately filled out the Contact Us form on the Twins website to get more info. Slowly there has been more info on the room, but since the field isn't open yet, not everything is clear cut.

We had also decided that we were going to shoot for a late May 2011 wedding. That way, we'd have plenty of time to plan, we'd be done with school for the semester and we would have a pretty good chance of decent weather here in Minnesota. We're also considering Memorial Day weekend because I have a lot of family that lives in Michigan and Illinois and the long weekend would give people an extra day for traveling.

We were contacted by the Twins yesterday and were basically told that if we want a guaranteed date, we'd need to book something between November of this year and March of next year, also know as the off season for the Twins. If there was a game scheduled on our chosen date, we wouldn't be able to use the Metro Club because it's used as a restaurant on game days. The 2011 schedule doesn't come out until this September and I personally don't really feel comfortable not knowing if my date is secure until then.

So, we agreed that we would still tour the place and if we absolutely fall in love, must have it, we are willing to be flexible with our date and move it to sometime between November and March. But, we are going to look at other places too.

We decided to take next Tuesday off work to look at venues and hopefully get the decision made by next Friday. We will still have it in May if we fall in love with another venue, but the Metropolitan Club is still our number one choice. It's unique, urban, cool, hip, has amazing views of downtown Minneapolis and the field and is overall just awesome. I've never dreamed of a hotel ballroom or country club reception. I want something different.

Here are the 5 places we are considering and are visiting next week:
1. Semple Mansion
2. St. Anthony Main Event Centre
3. Profile Event Center
4. Target Field, Metropolitan Club
5. McNamara Alumni Center (I actually got this idea from Minnesota Girl)

I'm trying to keep an open mind and not just focus on the Metro Club because it might not work out. But, I already love the space even though I haven't seen it in person!

I just want to have the venue locked down so I can breathe a sigh of relief about one thing.

February 6, 2010.

2010-02-07T10:34:00.000-06:00

As you may have seen on Twitter, Tall Guy and I got engaged yesterday!

About three weeks ago, Tall Guy asked if I wanted to go ice skating and use a gift card we got for Christmas to go out for a nice dinner. I thought it was weird that he was planning a date that far in advance, especially a specific one like going ice skating, but realized that it was our first free weekend in a while so maybe he just wanted to plan ahead so we could actually go.

So, the date finally rolls around and we went ice skating around 4:30 yesterday. We went to Centennial Lakes in Edina, which is an outdoor skating rink that we went ice skating at in December 2008, right when we started dating. We skated around the different areas for about 45 minutes or an hour and Tall Guy was being a little suspicious. For one, he kept putting his hands in his pockets while skating. I don't know about you, but I like to stay balanced while on ice skates and having my hands in my coat pockets wouldn't help! Secondly, he'd randomly just stop skating and kind of look around and hug me, but would only hug me on his left side or wouldn't fully press up against me since the ring box was in his coat pocket.

We reached on end of the rink and were hugging and kissing and Tall Guy was saying our favorite sayings to each other and I was reciprocating.

I'm so glad we met.

I love you.

You're my favorite.

At this point, we were still hugging and kissing between each phrase, but Tall Guy was fumbling with something in his coat. This is when I realized what was about to happen. Once he got the box out of his pocket, he was trying to open the box behind my back while we were still hugging.

You're always going to be my honey.

I took the bait here and said Yep, I'll be your honey forever.

He pulled back and got down on one knee! I kind of pulled back a little more, put my hands up to my face and said something like Oh my gosh! Are you serious honey?!

Even though I had known for the previous 30 seconds what he was about to do, when he actually got down on one knee it was like it was a complete surprise all over again! I started tearing up and looking at the sparkly thing in a little box. Tall Guy finally said Will you marry me? Then, the thing that got me, his chin was trembling as he waited for my answer. Ugh, it was so cute!

Of course I said YES!!

We skated around the rinks one more time while I kept staring at the amazing bling and figuring out how he planned everything. On Christmas Eve, he asked my mom for her blessing and on Christmas day he asked my dad. I couldn't believe this because I felt like we were in the same room pretty much all the time over Christmas, but I guess not! Then, he went through a family friend jeweler of mine to pick out the ring. He actually just got the ring on Friday. When I left for work, he went down to my hometown pick it up and left it in his coat until we went skating.

We called a few friends and family while still on the ice and then headed home to get ready to go out for a nice steak dinner at Pittsburgh Blue. We even got a free dessert for just getting engaged!

I am just so unbelievably excited and happy right now. Tall Guy is the perfect guy for me and I can't wait to be his wife! (That is so weird to say!)

Now, what you're all waiting for: THE BLING!

It's a round center stone with a ring of diamonds around it. There are two small diamonds on either side of the 'halo' and diamonds about halfway down both sides of the band. And there are some more hidden diamonds underneath the halo if you look at the ring from the side. All I can say is that it's really sparkly, amazingly beautiful and looks great on my stubby fingers! Tall Guy did an amazing job! I gave him a few ideas what I liked and he picked something that wasn't exactly like them, but a ring that I love nevertheless! It feels amazing to be wearing it!

The Next Giada? Rachael? Paula Deen?

2010-02-01T21:11:00.000-06:00

No, not really. I have been trying to branch out in my dinners lately though. For six months, I swear Tall Guy and I ate the same meals each week. Mostly because we know how to make them and they are easy: homemade pizza, spaghetti, stir fry (a few varieties), chicken breasts and veggies, tacos. Basic stuff that pretty much anyone could make. If we wanted to get crazy, we'd (ok, I do most of the cooking) I'd make enchiladas or tater tot casserole.

For Christmas I got a recipe book and have just been more interested in making new things lately, so I've been branching out a little. First it was the healthy onion rings from this post. Then, we tried the taco meatloaf from the Hungry Girl cookbook. (amazing! I highly recommend it), then I decided to try baked mac and cheese (sorry, I don't remember where I got the recipe for that one).

I took the day off work today to get some last minute things taken care of for school and decided that since I'd have some extra time, I'd make Tall Guy a nice dinner and dessert. So, I looked around online last night and decided to make this Pasta Primavera recipe from Ellie Krieger on the Food Network. I also made this chocolate chip cheesecake.

The veggies waiting to be cooked: carrots, red pepper, mushrooms and asparagus.

Veggies and sauce.

After adding chicken and noodles.

Plated with garlic bread.

For the pasta, I decided to add chicken to mine to make it a little more hearty. The sauce took longer than I expected to thicken, so I added a little more flour to speed it up. The flavor could have been a little stronger, but that could have been my seasoning error. The veggies were crisp and flavorful so that was good. I read online that this is good as a leftover and cold so I think I'll take it for lunch tomorrow!

The cheesecake was actually very easy to make. I'd never made one before so didn't really know what to expect. But it turned out perfectly and tasted really good. Tall Guy said he could eat the whole thing! The chocolate topping however? Well, I didn't buy any heavy whipping cream because we had some in the fridge. I just didn't realize it expired over a month ago. So when I opened it and measured some out, it was chunky. So, I just skipped the topping.

Yum, Yum!

Overall, I'd say this cooking adventure was a success!

Where do you turn for recipe and meal ideas?

Crap.

2010-01-31T14:47:00.000-06:00

So, as you know, I start school in two days. I'm all prepped and ready to go and on Friday, I got some great news. My boss finally agreed to give me tuition reimbursement! It will go on a class by class basis so each semester I will have to present the classes I plan to take and he will evaluate whether or not I'll get reimbursed. But, for this semester, I am getting 80% paid for! That's over $4K in loans I don't have to take out. I am so happy and relieved. I already have about $25K in loans from undergrad so any help I can get is awesome.

As happy as I am about this and as excited as I am about going back, there is one little thing that keeps coming up that is making me dread it. Remember when I wrote about the co-worker who got fired for posting about her new job on Facebook without even quitting her current one at my company? (Let's call her Hope) Well, a few weeks ago I had orientation for school and she showed up. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, Hope also enrolled in the program after she heard me talking about it. I was surprised to see her since she had been let go from her job after her Facebook stunt and I hadn't seen her since.

Now this woman is 37 years old but honestly has the emotional maturity of a 13 year old girl. She is needy, clingy and desperate in her attempts to make friends. If other co-workers and I were to do something without her, Hope would get offended that she wasn't invited. And she didn't even work in my department so it wasn't like my other team members would go out to lunch and not invite her, it was like the five of us would eat lunch together and she would be none the wiser since she worked in a completely different part of the building but would get upset once she found out.

She also has NO filter. She says the most inappropriate things including asking a co-worker if she was pregnant, even though she's not and is like the tiniest person ever, and then when the co-worker said No (in a snotty manner, which I didn't blame her for), Hope said Oh, it must just be the sweater you're wearing. It seems like everyone is pregnant these days.

Hope has a boyfriend and they like Indian food. My co-worker, let's call her Tina, is Indian and Hope wanted to go out for Indian food with my Tina and her husband who also works at our company. Tina invited me and Tall Guy to go with too because I'd never had Indian food, but also because Tina didn't want to be alone with Hope and her boyfriend because Hope grates on Tina's nerves like nobody's business. So I agreed to go as a favor to Tina and Tina was only going because she felt bad for Hope and Hope constantly talked about going to Indian food with Tina.

Tina had recently found out she was pregnant and wasn't showing or anything at that time. At dinner, Hope had the nerve to ask Tina if she had always been that busty or if it was because of the pregnancy. In front of Tall Guy and Hope's boyfriend who we'd never met! Tina was pissed and was short with Hope the rest of the night. It was totally awkward for everyone and we couldn't wait to get out of there.

So, I got a little nervous that Hope was at my orientation and could potentially be in some of my classes. I do not want to be in her group, work on projects with her, study with her or really even talk to her. As we were leaving orientation she said that her, Tina and I should all go out together again and I sort of just smiled and nodded when she told me to email her the next day. (Hell no!) So I just don't want to deal with her at school.

Well, imagine my horror when she popped up on the class roster for one of my classes last week. I freaked out and immediately changed the class to another day. That's how much I do not want to deal with this woman. I thought all was good even though I now have class on Tuesday and Thursday instead of Wednesday and Thursday like I originally did. (And I accidentally signed up for a class on the St. Paul campus instead of Minneapolis so I have to drive from EP to St. Paul on Tuesdays! Ick.)

Today I checked the roster for my classes like I do every day to make sure Hope isn't on the list and now she's in my OTHER class! I have been safe for the last three weeks since registering and now, four days before that class starts, she's on the roster! I swear she is stalking me. It's too late to change the class now and the one I would change to is full anyway. So I'm going to have to suck it up and have class with her. FML.

I am NOT going to work with her. And I am NOT going out to dinner with her and her boyfriend ever again. If she tries to cling to me and wants to do everything with me, I'm just going to have to put my foot down. I cannot deal with this emotionally immature woman who is a freak show!

Checking In.

2010-01-21T21:14:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything of substance. I don't really have much to write about tonight, but wanted to post something.

January has been sort of a slow month. I think part of it is because I'm waiting for school to start on February 3rd. Tall Guy started this week so he's been gone a few nights this week so I'm ready to get started now! I ended up registering for two classes, Marketing Management and Management of Organizations, which are both pre-requisites for many of the classes I'll be taking in later semesters so I figured I should just get them done. It also worked out that we have class on the same nights this semester so that's nice too.

I've been on a major shopping spree the past few weeks. I've been using all my gift cards and money from the holidays and have been scoring some great deals! Last night I purchased two pairs of boots, a pair of shoes, some leggings and a shirt for $75. Then tonight I got two new couch pillows, some cute towel hooks for the bathroom, two shirts, a pair of jeans, gloves and earrings for $100. And it's mostly been stuff I need. My work pants were all loose and in bad shape so I bought three new pair of Editor pants from Express. I'm always scrambling for shirts to wear to work so I bought a few of those, too. And some other stuff, like the new purse, is just something I wanted and had the extra cash for it for the first time in months. So, I don't really feel guilty about all of my shopping because I hadn't gone in so long that I really did need some new stuff.

But, other than that, January has been a pretty uneventful first month of 2010. Things are going very well in my life and I can't complain about that!

Swoon.

2010-01-12T21:42:00.000-06:00

I heard this on the radio on my way home tonight and I'm in love. Potential wedding song?

Mmm...Onion Rings!

2010-01-10T19:30:00.000-06:00

I got this book for Christmas and found a ton of recipes I want to try out.

Tall Guy and I really wanted to try the onion ring recipe they gave because it sounded good and it was way healthier than any recipe for onion rings I'd ever seen.

Here's what ours looked like:

And here's what the book's looked like:

Ok, not quite the same, but they tasted really good and were very easy to make.

Here's what you need:
One large onion (we used yellow)
1/3 cup egg substitute (Egg Beaters)
1/2 cup Fiber One cereal
Salt and Pepper

First, cut the onion into about 1/2 inch rings (we ended up cutting ours thinner and wished we had cut them a little thicker). Then, pour the Egg Beaters into a wide, shallow bowl and crush the Fiber One in a food processor or blender until it's bread crumb consistency. Put the crumbs on a plate.

Dip the onion rings into the Egg Beaters, then coat them entirely with the cereal. Place the coated rings onto a baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees.

I was really impressed by how well they turned out. Plus, the recipe for a whole, large onion is only 157 calories! We probably only used about half the onion and it made plenty of onion rings for the two of us.

I also cooked up a batch of Chicken Wild Rice soup that my dad gave us as part of our Christmas present. It's basically a frozen bag of soup, so very non-domesticated people friendly. I can't wait to eat it for my lunches this week! It reminds me of being a kid because we used to sell it as a school fundraiser.

Mmmm, Mmmm.

Back to School.

2010-01-08T21:21:00.000-06:00

Guess what?

I'm going back to school in about three weeks. Ahhh!

I found out today that I got into St. Thomas' Master of Business Communication Certificate Program, which basically means I didn't take the GRE or GMAT yet so I'm not actual in the MBC program, but could take up to six classes and receive a certificate in a specific area.

I decided not to take the GRE right away because I didn't know if I'd end up liking the program enough to go through the entire thing, but wanted to get started on classes. So I'm going to take one class this semester, see how it goes, ease into the whole college thing again and go from there. I intend to take the GRE and get into the actual MBC program, but I'm not quite ready to make that big commitment yet.

So yeah! I'm going back to school! I'm pretty excited. Now I just have to convince my company to pay for the class. That should be fun.

Trip Recap.

2010-01-07T19:49:00.000-06:00

Wow, is it already January 8, 2010? Time is already flying this year.

So I know I said I'd put up pictures and a recap of my trip to Mexico, but honestly I haven't had the desire, energy or time since I've been back.. I got into MSP Airport at 11:30 p.m. on Friday, woke up at 8:00 Saturday morning for breakfast with Tall Guy's newly engaged best friend and his fiancee then headed straight up to Tall Guy's parent's to celebrate the holidays with them. We got back late Sunday afternoon and I was still exhausted from the trip. Then Monday was back to work and it's been a busy and hellish week as you've probably seen in my tweets. I had people ticked off at me, tell me that the mistakes I made are the mistakes my former co-worker made and got fired for. Yeah, it's been a great week. I'm so glad it's Friday tomorrow!

But, since I'm blogging anyway right now, I will post some pictures from my trip. These are the times I wish I wasn't anonymous because I want to post fun pictures of my sisters, mom and I, but I still haven't gotten the courage to come out and reveal my identity. But I am thinking about it, so stay tuned.

Anyway, the trip was a good time. I was a little love sick because I missed Tall Guy, but it was nice to lay around in the sun for four days, read some books and see a new part of Mexico. We went to Cancun and stayed at the Park Royal. It was a really nice hotel, clean rooms, great food, awesome beach and excellent service. The only thing they needed more of was entertainment. They did some activities by the pool each day, but by 8:00 it was pretty dead. We mostly hung out in the lobby in the evenings with some people we met and played drinking card games like Circle of Death (or Categories to some people) and Straws (Spoons with straws instead). But, I would definitely recommend the hotel.

There is also a lot of night life outside of the resorts in Cancun, but we decided to stay at the hotel since we'd already paid for the all-inclusive package which included drinks and food so it was hard justify paying for them at a bar. We were there on New Year's Eve and all of the bars in town were charging in excess of $100 to party there that night!

We went into town on the city bus one day since it was way cheaper than a cab and hit up the flea market. It was pretty typical for Mexico, in the sense that all of the shop owners try to get you in their shops and harass you the entire time you're in their shop. I ended up getting a cute little bathing suit cover up and a hand painted bowl for Tall Guy's mom. My mom was overwhelmed there since she'd never been to Mexico and didn't know what to expect.

It was nice to get away for a little bit and for my mom to get to experience a tropical vacation since she'd never been out of the country. She really enjoyed it and even said that she might want a destination wedding if she gets married again!

One funny thing that happened was that on Thursday, I was sitting under a cabana to get out of the sun and had my headphones on with my back to most of the people up by the pool. All of a sudden, my mom ran across the pool area yelling my name and telling me to look in the sky. I turned around and a plane was flying by with a banner that read [My name] I love you, will you marry me? Except it was a different spelling of my name. Well, everyone in the pool area saw it and was staring at me because my mom made a big scene, thinking I was the one who was getting proposed to! Then my mom was saying stuff like What if Tall Guy is going to walk up here right now? What if they just spelled your name wrong? When I didn't really react, people around the pool were a little disappointed that it wasn't me and I had three people ask me if I was the girl getting engaged. Haha, I wish.

Flea Market

These guys wandered around near the pool daily.

Some ruins right next to our hotel.

When we were at Tall Guy's family farm, I got to hold a couple of these cuties!

hola!

2009-12-31T17:31:00.000-06:00

i'm writing this from the lobby of my hotel in cancun because i have 9 minutes left of my purchased 30 minutes of interneting.

cancun is great, leaving tomorrow and am ready to get home to my honey! i'll do a recap post when i get bac.

until then, happy new year! holy cow it's 2010!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T08:52:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas to all my readers! I hope your holiday is filled with love this year.

We ended up coming to my hometown yesterday to avoid getting stuck up north at Tall Guy's parent's until Saturday. The snow storm ended up not hitting us too badly here, but I think it was the best decision in the long run. Of course, that's just me being selfish and wanting to be with my family on both Christmas Eve and Christmas. :) We'll see his family next weekend when I return from my trip.

Oh yeah, did I mention I leave for Mexico on Monday morning!?! My sisters, Mom and I are going to Cancun for a girls trip!

Merry Christmas!

Me and Target, We're Tight.

2009-12-21T07:33:00.000-06:00

I bought these Mossimo jeans at Target about two weeks ago.

When I went to Target that day, I was looking for jeans but didn't really expect to find much there because I normally don't. I grabbed these from the Junior's section even though I can rarely find Junior's jeans that fit my body right and was delighted when they fit absolutely perfectly! They were only $22.99 ($20 online) so I snatched them up and have worn them like five times since then.

What I like about them is that they are really fitted in the booty and thighs, but aren't skin tight the entire length of the leg. The ankle has a little bit of a wider opening than most skinny jeans I've tried on, but they still fit into slimmer boots easily.

So if you're looking for some great skinny jeans, check these out!

(Hmm, does this sound like a paid product review or anything? It's not! I just really like these jeans!)

What a Pain in my....

2009-12-19T16:49:00.000-06:00

..Foot.

In October, I finally got my butt off the couch and joined the gym again. It's been going really well; in fact, I've lost about six pounds since then without even trying too hard. I've maintained a four to five workouts a week habit and have been feeling pretty good all around.

Except for one place: my right foot.

If you've been reading my tweets (@hazel318) you probably saw that my right foot has been bothering my since about two weeks into my new gym routine. When I first started back, I was pretty hard core and was taking classes like Step and Body Works about three times a week and doing the elliptical and biking the other days.

I noticed my right big toe started bothering me about six weeks ago. It was mostly after I did the classes that had me bouncing on my feet a lot. I kind of ignored it for a few weeks and just dealt with it, figuring it was just strained from working out a lot in short period of time.

After a few weeks, it started getting worse and moved from just my big toe to the ball of my foot. I did some research online and found out some info on stress fractures. The signs and symptoms I had pointed to a stress fracture and said that I should take it easy with the working out and do things like biking or swimming for 6-8 weeks.

Being the stubborn person I am, I didn't listen to that advice. I kept going to my classes for a few more weeks just hoping that nothing else would happen. It was getting to the point where my foot hurt whenever I worked out, wore heels (almost daily at work) or wore looser fitting shoes. Tall Guy kept telling me to take it easy or I'd end up in a cast once I finally went to the doctor. But, I am too into working out now to just stop and I don't like swimming!

About two weeks ago, Tall Guy was rubbing my foot and when he went over the ball of my right foot, there was a piece of something floating around in there and it was really tender to the touch. I figured that was not a good sign, so I vowed to stop taking the classes. I still do the elliptical and bike, but the damage is done in my foot and it still hurts pretty much all the time.

I know I should probably see a doctor about it, especially now that there's something loose in there, but the thing is, I can't afford it and I don't know if they'd be able to do anything anyway. I will go to a doctor after the new year because then I get my 2010 Flex Spending money for my health insurance and that will cover my deductible, but until then, I don't have extra money to spend on a doctor bill. My insurance at my job kind of sucks so I try not to see a doctor unless I really need to.

I was telling my friend about my foot in the locker room at the gym and an older woman, probably in her 50s, overheard the conversation. She said that it's better to just go to the doctor and get it checked out than to put it off. Then she showed me her knee, which had long scars up and down both sides. She said that because she didn't go to a doctor about her knee, she's had to have four surgeries on it! I doubt my situation is that severe, but it did sort of give me a wake up call that I should take it easy.

So what did I do today? Well, I went on a four mile walk around the lake on uneven ground. Yeah, I'm smart.

Friday Five.

2009-12-18T08:33:00.001-06:00

It's been a long time since I've done a Friday Five post, but I'm hoping to revive the trend now that I'm back in the blogging business.

1. Today is my interview! It's at 3:30 so I had to make up an excuse for why I will be leaving work early. I decided to say I have a meeting for the grad program I'm planning to start in February. I knew my boss wouldn't question it and I was right.

2. Tall Guy's parents are coming to town tonight and we're planning to watch the Holidazzle parade and head over to the Macy's exhibit. I've only been to the parade once about four years ago and it's supposed to be around 25 degrees tomorrow so I'm looking forward to it!

3. This year I really got into the giving spirit of the holidays and decided to participate in the Salvation Army's Adopt-A-Family program. I asked Tall Guy and his family if they wanted to help out, too, and to my surprise, we ended up collecting enough money to 'adopt' a family of six and a family of seven! We were expected to spend $25 on gifts per child and put $10 per person in the family on a grocery store gift card. We drop the gifts off on Sunday and I'm really excited! We went to Target last Sunday to buy the gifts and found great deals, so we were able to get 3-4 gifts per child with our $25.

My sisters, dad, his wife and I decided that instead of getting gifts from my dad, we were going to spend that money on getting other's gifts. So this Sunday we're going to shop for Toys for Tots since they are way under the amount of toys they need this year.

I definitely feel like the money we are spending towards others who need it is a much better use than giving and receiving gifts to each other that aren't needed.

4. Since I'm in a serious relationship for the holidays this year, I've had to make decisions about where I/we will be spending which days throughout the holiday season. It's been hard because I've spent all holidays with my family for my entire life, but now that I'm with Tall Guy, I have to miss some of my family's events. This year will be the first year I haven't spent Christmas Eve with one of my parents and my sisters. We're going to Tall Guy's parent's that night and then heading to my hometown Christmas day. In the end, it doesn't really matter which day we see our parents because we'll spend time with everyone no matter what, but it has been challenging to think that because of us, my family won't open presents on Christmas Eve this year. I guess that's what happens when the kids of the family start getting older and have significant others to take into consideration, too. I think we'll just have to switch each year to make it fair for everyone.

5. For the first time ever, I did most of my holiday shopping online. I got my mom, dad and Tall Guy's mom photo calendars from shutterfly.com, I ordered my sisters some adorable bags from a Minnesotan etsy seller and got my dad a blanket he's wanted for a few years (it has a picture of him with the elk he shot on a hunting trip embroidered into it..yeah, it's weird, but he wanted it!) on personalthrows.com. The only gifts I didn't buy online were Tall Guy's. I have to say, it was really easy and quick to do my holiday shopping online, so maybe I'll keep it up in the future!

Have a wonderful weekend! One week until Christmas!

Interview.

2009-12-14T21:37:00.000-06:00

Remember like three months ago when my job really sucked and I was dead set on finding a new one?

I applied to a hand full of jobs back then and didn't really hear anything back. I wasn't too upset about it because my job ended up taking a turn for the better and as of now I'm actually pretty happy with how things are going.

A few weeks ago, a local community college that I applied for a position as a Marketing and Communications Coordinator called me about my application (2.5 months ago) and said that I was selected for a phone interview. I had that and it went really well and today I found out that I made it to the next round of in-person interviews. That is on Friday.

Since I'm pretty pleased with how my current job is going, I'm not getting too excited or nervous about the interview or the job. But, I won't lie, if I were to get offered the job and they are going to offer be better pay/benefits/more tuition reimbursement, I won't hesitate to use that as leverage with my current company to get more money/tuition reimbursement. I'm not feeling extremely tied to my current company and will do what is best for me if the situation arises.

I have a feeling that if I were to tell my boss that I had another offer, they would take some steps to get me to stay. I'm not trying to sound cocky or arrogant about how awesome I am, but the fact that they wouldn't even let me move to a different department in the company shows that I'm valuable to them. Plus, I'm currently running a program that I have taken from the ground up since my other co-worker was fired back in September. If I leave, they are back to square one.

We'll see how it all goes!

One.

2009-12-09T07:19:00.000-06:00

Today is me and Tall Guy's one year anniversary!

We actually consider the first time we met as our anniversary (Remember back then?). I guess technically, it would be December 16, since that's when Tall Guy first told me that he wanted to be exclusive, but neither of us went on any other dates within that first week and we knew we really liked each other pretty much right away. We just ended up celebrating on the 9th every month so we're sticking to it!

Last Wednesday, Tall Guy sent me flowers at work to celebrate the one year anniversary of the first time he emailed me from match.com. I think he sent the flowers last week to throw me off and surprise me, since he probably thought I would have expected them this week. I was totally surprised and probably had a silly, giddy grin on my face the rest of the day!

The note was really cute:
One year ago today I emailed [ my match.com user name] and what a year it's been. I hope these flowers make the ladies at work jealous :) I'm so happy we met, I can't wait for many more years together. Love you, [Tall Guy]

I like the part about making the girls at work jealous because all women know that the best way to receive flowers is at work! Then everyone sees what a honey your man is and you can bask in the happiness.

The past year has been wonderful; I really can't imagine how great the next year will be! We've had such great experiences this year: we went to Mexico only 3.5 months into our relationship, helped out at his family farm, hit the Vegas strip in August, went on a quick getaway to Chicago in May, road biked all summer, moved in together, made financial decisions, talked a lot about our future/wedding, started cooking often, we each met each other's extended family and spent lots of time cuddling, kissing and loving.

It's pretty amazing how much can happen in 365 days and how much your life can change just by meeting the right person. I am so happy!

And if you all remember, way back in February, Tall Guy figured out I had a blog. Ok, maybe I told him with my big mouth and he just did a little digging and found it. Back then, I told him that if we hit one year together, I'd let him read it.

Well, today's the day, so honey, if you're reading, welcome! I love you!

Back in Action.

2009-12-06T18:34:00.000-06:00

I'm back and the blog is public again!

I went through ALL of my posts and ended up deleting some that I wouldn't want certain people reading. It sucked to have to do it, but in the end, I don't want to hurt any more relationships than I already have. If my friend who found the blog does end up coming back, I want her to be able to read it without having to worry if I'm writing about her or her relationship.

That being said, I've decided that I'm probably not going to be writing much about my friendships anymore for obvious reasons.

Thanks for everyone who stuck around while I've been figuring out what to do with this blog of mine. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Closed.

2009-11-15T13:54:00.002-06:00

A close friend of mine found this blog randomly and as a result, was really hurt by the things I wrote about her relationship.

I was not expecting a friend of mine to tell me that she found the blog randomly and as a result, has re-evaluated our friendship and didn't really speak to me for about three weeks. I had no idea at the time that she had found the blog, but found out today and I feel really terrible.

I also feel terrible that my other friends have been pushed away too because of what I did. We are a close group of four friends and because one of them was mad at me, the others got dragged into the situation as well.

When I wrote the things I did, I was emotionally charged up about certain things that had occurred and didn't filter myself when I wrote about it so I was very honest and frank in the post. I told my friend how I was feeling in an email, but I also was less harsh and a little more sensitive about the situation.

I've always been very honest on this blog because I'm anonymous and don't let real life friends read it or know the URL. I never thought that my writing would affect a friendship like it has and I never thought that I would feel so guilty about my feelings.

The friend isn't mad that I expressed my feelings and understands that this is my place to write, vent, rant and get my feelings out and doesn't want to ruin it for me. However, I can't keep this blog open knowing that two of the other girls in my close group of friends knows where to find it. I don't want this to cause any more problems than it has and I know that I've written other things that would hurt people's feelings.

So, with that said, I'll be making this blog private starting tonight. I need to go through and evaluate my posts and decide if I want to take some out in the chance that I make this blog public again. I do not want to hurt my friendships any more than I have so if I need to stop blogging about certain things, I'll do that.

For now, this is an end to Behind These Hazel Eyes.

How to Get Fired.

2009-11-10T21:55:00.003-06:00

As you may have seen on my tweets tonight, a woman was fired from my company today for doing some really stupid things. So, here's my tutorial on how to get fired:

1. Be very unproductive. Get up from your desk as often as possible to chat with co-workers, go to the bathroom, wander around the building, etc.

2. If you are given a project on a tight deadline, call the person who gave it to you bawling saying that there's too much pressure and you can't handle the unrealistic deadlines.

3. Do not bond with your teammates/co-workers.

4. Give hints to co-workers that you are interviewing for other jobs. Ask for luck around 4 p.m. (or whatever your interview time) and tell people you have a secret but can't tell them until a certain day.

4. Take a week of PTO saying your mom had a heart attack and you have to fly to California. The next day, post on Facebook that you start your new job tomorrow and make sure your profile is public so ANYONE on Facebook can see it, especially co-workers.

5. When your co-worker texts you, admit that you only took the PTO because you didn't want to lose it when you left the company.

Yes folks, a woman who is 37 years old did all of the above at my company and was fired today when people saw her Facebook status saying she was starting her new job today but told everyone else she was taking care of her mom in California. Now, I'm pretty sure that most people know not to do the above things, especially someone who's been in the workforce for 20 years. How could she be so dumb?! Did she think that co-workers weren't going to see her status or that they wouldn't figure out what was going on?

The lesson here: don't post stuff about work on your Facebook profile, especially if you are friends with co-workers! Word gets around faster than wildfire. Not only did she burn bridges at our company, but she probably burned bridges for future jobs in the Twin Cities. Minneapolis/St. Paul is not that big, and it gets even smaller when you're talking about the creative world of web and graphic design, which is what she does.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The Ring.

2009-11-09T21:26:00.004-06:00

(No, I didn't get one yet!)

In my last post, I mentioned that Tall Guy and I have been talking about rings and that I had showed him pictures of rings I really like. Jess asked me to post a picture of my dream ring and I'm finally getting around to it (Sorry Jess!).

So, without further ado, behold, THE RING:

This is a Tacori ring that I fell in love with long ago. I've gone back and forth between loving this ring and other rings, but I always come back to this one as the one I'd want to wear forever.

I absolutely love and Tall Guy knows it, so let's hope he puts it, or something very similar, on my finger some day soon!

This Post is All Over the Place.

2009-10-23T19:49:00.002-05:00

There has been a ton of stuff going on lately that has been good and bad.

My job has been crazy lately. You all remember how I was trying to get another job within the company right? So after that post, I was stuck waiting around to find out what the decision was. I was pretty sure that I was going to be staying within my current marketing team, but I was really hoping that my boss would have listened to my concerns with my current position and help me get into a position that I am happy with. After not hearing anything as of this Monday, I finally went into my boss' boss office on Tuesday morning and asked him what was going on (I really shouldn't have had to do that; they knew I was waiting to hear what was going on with me!).

My suspicions were correct when I thought I would be staying where I was. But, he and my boss agreed that I could change my position to make it into something that I was excited about doing and would be happy with. So, now that the replacement for my fired co-worker has started, I've passed along the marketing planning to her and I get to do the workshop planning like I want to. Basically, I get to be in charge of the workshop program, which is great for me because I like being in control of it. I know what's going on and who's scheduled when and I don't have to worry about anyone else messing it up (and since my co-worker got fired, I've realized that it was really messed up when she was in charge of it. I've spent the last month organizing and fixing it). It's going to be a challenge because I will be accountable for the entire program for my brand, but I also like it because I know I can do the job well.

I'm happy with the outcome of the situation even though I'm still working for the same boss, the one who fired my old co-worker in the first place and acts holier than though. There is a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that my boss just told me I could do the job I want to appease me and he'll rip it away a few months down the road. One reason is because they are still hiring someone for the position I was trying to get. How are two people going to do one job? My boss insists that the new person will be doing back-end parts of the job, but I don't really trust him. If he is lying and doesn't keep his word, I'll be out of there as soon as I get another job.

Another thing that I'm getting really frustrated with is tuition reimbursement. I am trying to start an MBC program in February and am in the process of applying. When I first asked my boss about tuition reimbursement, he didn't handle it well and denied my request almost immediately. At my company, if your manager doesn't approve the reimbursement, you can't go any further. Unfortunately, my boss, who doesn't have an education, doesn't see how me continuing mine will help him and the company (how dumb is that? the education would directly correlate to my current job) so he isn't willing to help me out. I've decided that I'm going back to school no matter what, but it's really frustrating when there are other people in the company whose managers are paying 80% of their tuition for their Master's degrees. See how unfair that is and how infuriating it could be? That's part of the reason I wanted to get the other job--that manager is approving tuition reimbursement for other employees.

Although that is really frustrating, I am VERY excited to start school again. I went to an "experience session" last night, which was supposed to be like a mock-class to get a feel for how a grad level class would be like. Well, I was the only person who showed up for it so the director of the program and I went through his little lesson and then he answered all of the questions that I had about the program, classes, tuition, etc. And it totally pumped me up! I learned like five things that I could apply to my job in the one hour presentation. I am ready to start school now!

Through all of this drama, Tall Guy has been an amazing support for me. He encourages me to speak up when my boss is a jerk and supports me in the decisions I'm making. It shows me that he's always going to be there for me through good times and bad and I'm so thankful for that! We've been going strong for close to 11 months now!

One of the exciting, fun things that has happened lately is that Tall Guy and I have seriously discussed RINGS!! We often talk about weddings and say things like When we get married... but the type of diamond/ring I want hasn't really surfaced much. He knew that I liked round diamonds and that the aquamarine ring I got in Mexico had a band that I really like. He also knows that my family has a friend in the jewelry business and that he should buy at least the diamond there because he'll get a great deal. BUT one day I decided to email him a few pictures of rings that I really like and would LOVE to wear on my finger someday. He was at class when I sent them to him and he got them on his phone. When he came home, he jokingly said Real subtle honey.. Then, he opened up his computer, pulled up full size images of the rings and asked me what I liked about them, went to the website of a local jeweler that carries them and asked me how I like about 10 other rings! We spent a good half hour just looking at rings and me telling him what I liked and didn't like about each one. It made me giddy and got me thinking that he'll be shopping soon. I can say fairly confidently that I will be engaged sometime in the next six months based on our conversations. AHHHHH!!

Ok, so this post is already way too long, but it feels good to get all this out!

There's No Way I Am Going to Get This Lucky.

2009-10-12T18:21:00.003-05:00

So, as many of you saw on my Twitter last week (I'm @hazel318), there is a position at my company that opened up and I'm really interested in it, but my company has a policy that you have to be there a year before transferring positions. Thanks to the encouragement on Twitter from many of you, I sent an email to HR asking if it was even a possibility for me to be considered for the position. That was on Tuesday and when I left for New York, I hadn't heard back yet.

I went to work today and had an email from HR saying that there are exceptions to every rule and that it was a possibility to be considered for the position. And wouldn't you know, the hiring manager is in town this week (he works remotely from Colorado) interviewing for the position. He got wind that I was interested and got very excited and called me today to make sure I was actually interested and to talk about the position. The new position would be very similar to the one I'm in now, so it would work out perfectly for me to transfer because I would require minimal training. I (discreetly) tried to convey my interest without letting everyone else on my team know what I was talking about and the hiring manager said he would discuss it with my boss.

Then, the recruiter from HR emailed me and asked if I would call her on her cell phone after work so we could discuss this more. I did, and we had a good conversation about the position and my interest and she went through the rules and regulations of what the process would be like. She said that unless my manager "releases" me from my current position, I can't go anywhere and they can't do anything about it. Now, there are several reasons why my boss wouldn't allow me to take the new position, BUT I'm hoping that when he said he would support us in our decisions and help us reach professional goals and wouldn't ever stand in the way of opportunities that he meant it and it wasn't a big bunch of bull. I wouldn't put that past him because my co-worker has tried to transfer in the past and he basically said, You can apply, but I doubt you'll get it and she didn't.

So if, and that's a big IF, my boss would let me leave my current department, the Director of HR would still have to approve the move. But, he's aware of the situation so he wouldn't be blindsided by it if my boss does approve.

It sounds like I will know if this will happen or not by the end of the week, so the next few days are going to be torture! I will keep you all posted, but please keep your fingers crossed for me! If I could get this position, I would be 20 times happier with my company, especially since I'll be under a new manager and not my evil, huge ego, nose in the air current boss.

NYC!

2009-10-09T16:04:00.010-05:00

I'm back from NYC! I had a wonderful time, even though I was only there for a little over two days. We/I did a lot; shopped, saw a lot of major sights, ate at great restaurants, went on a bus tour, saw Billy Elliot and got pulled on a little card behind a bike around Central Park.

I think the fact that we were there in the middle of the week made it better in terms of the amount of people so that was nice. I never had to fight for a seat on the ferry or the bus tour and we didn't wait at any restaurants, either.

The high points of the trip were definitely the bus tour and the ride through Central Park. I paid $60 for the bus tour which included a tour of 23 stops through downtown and the ferry ticket to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was great because I could get off at any of the stops and stay in the area as long as I wanted. When I was ready to continue the tour, I could hop on any City Sights NY bus and continue on my way. The only time I got off the bus was to get on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty because I didn't really want to explore the different areas on my own, just wanted to see a lot of things in one day. I ended up taking about six hours to do the tour which was perfect. I took tons of pictures and got to see tons of areas of Manhattan! The tour guides gave us tons of information about the different areas of the city and I ended up talking about all the things I learned all night.

Rockafeller

China Town

Pier 17.

Naked Cowboy!

View of Manhattan from the ferry.

There she is!

Empire State Building.

The cart-pulled bike ride was great, too. We paid $50 for an hour ride that included three stops in the park where we could take pictures and stretch our legs. The guy riding the bike gave us a little history lesson at each of the areas of the park and was really funny, too. I loved learning random facts about the history of the park, the meaning behind statues, places where famous people lived or died. It was really fun.

An interesting singer in Central Park.

The back of our cart! RIP MJ.

John Lennon tribute.

We also ate at some wonderful restaurants. Wednesday, after we got ready we asked the concierge for a recommendation for a good bagel place since NY is known for their bagels. He recommended Ess-A-Bagels. It was delicious! I had an everything bagel with jalepeno cream cheese, turkey, tomato and lettuce. Yum.

For dinner, we headed to a Mexican place that was only a few blocks from our hotel. We got picked up on another bike-pulled cart for the few blocks to the restaurant and drank our wine out of a paper cup on the way. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it had the word Tequila in it. It was definitely authentic Mexican food and reasonably priced, too.

Thursday we stopped at Bread & Company for lunch and had some great paninis. I had one with mozzarella, basil, tomato and olive oil. Delicious!

Last night we had a late dinner at Gente, a small Italian restaurant on 44th street. We had caesar salad, handmade ravioli stuffed with spinach and cheese and chicken breast stuffed with proscioutto, cheese and spinach. All of it was very good. My only complaint is that their wines were ridiculously over priced!

Really the only disappointing part of the trip was the show we saw on Broadway. We decided to see Billy Elliot after hearing and reading great reviews of it. We paid $75 for our tickets, which were in almost the last row of the theater. Compared to other Broadway shows I've seen like Wicked and my former boss' reviews of Rent, Jersey Boys and Lion King, Billy Elliot didn't even come close to the caliber of performances those shows had. The story line was very slow to pick-up. So slow, that I actually almost fell asleep a few times! Once the dancing and singing started it got a little better, but I still wasn't impressed by the intermission. Overall, it wasn't really worth $75 and we wish we would have seen something like Hair or Jersey Boys. Heck, I even would have seen Wicked again because I loved it so much.

I'm glad to be home, but I would definitely go back to NY and check out some of the other areas of the city. I was only in Manhattan and really only in the downtown portion, so I'd love to see everything else! Perhaps Tall Guy and I will make a trip there next spring.

Last Straw.

2009-09-22T18:38:00.002-05:00

Today was the last straw for me at my job. One of my close co-workers got fired.

If that wasn't bad enough, my boss felt the need to call the rest of us into his office and threaten that if we made any mistakes like my co-worker did, we could get fired, too. He acted so arrogant and tough because he fired her and made us feel like one wrong move and we'd be asked to leave as well.

I am so beyond mad right now. I can't deal with that kind of boss. One who thinks he knows it all, does it best and his crap doesn't stink. One who doesn't even have a high school diploma, so he doesn't see the value of me going back to school. One who says he supports us and has our back but then complains that he gets the calls from the dealers and has to defend us.

I am officially on the job hunt, so if you hear of any jobs in the Twin Cities in marketing, communications, event planning, advertising, etc. please let me know!

Changes.

2009-09-07T23:02:00.002-05:00

I've never been a fan of big changes in my life.

I'm a traditionalist and like things to stay they same. When my parents got divorced, it was terrible to have to get used to being at two different places all the time. When my dad decided one year that he wanted to get a fake Christmas tree instead of the real one we'd gotten every year prior, I about had a fit because it was something new and I liked the old way. When my dad moved out of the house I grew up in, I cried and insisted on being able to walk through it before the people moved in. When he was looking for new houses, I sadly walked through potential new homes thinking that they could never be 'our house,' the one I'd lived in for most of my life.

Tonight I had a slight breakdown, tears and all, over Tall Guy starting his MBA program tomorrow. It's a big change for him to be gone a few nights a week plus spend time doing homework or meeting with his groups to work on projects. I'm used to us eating dinner together every night and always going to bed at the same time.

I'm just nervous about how things are going to change for us because of school, and am scared that this it's going to be going on for the next four years (he's doing a part-time program). Perhaps this is why I've taken such an interest in going back to school all of a sudden. I'm going to need something to occupy my time while he's gone!

I just hope it doesn't put a strain on our relationship. I know we're solid and everything will work out fine, but still have a slightly bad feeling in my stomach that things are going to change. And I don't like change.

Four Days.

2009-09-04T16:33:00.002-05:00

Happy long weekend!

I am so beyond ready for these next four days that will be spent doing anything but working, thinking about work, getting up early for work, or wearing anything that I would normally wear to work. I need these four days to refresh myself and try to get charged up so I don’t dread coming in to work every morning.

So, as you can probably tell, I’m a little burned out on the new job. It started out well, but it’s gone downhill quite quickly. I don’t like my job. I really try to. I get pumped up in meetings with my boss where he tells me I’m doing a good job and that he’s glad I’m part of the team, etc. but the next day I’m back in the dumps about it. I know a job is what you make it, but I’m running out of ways to look at my job with excitement or happiness. I like the marketing team, but everything else-not so much. The marketing director and the managing director of my brand are both men in their 40’s. All the sales guys are men in their 30’s and 40’s. They all have this ‘boys club’ mentality and don’t include anyone else in their ‘club.’ The managing director doesn’t even know what I do for my job. He walks through the marketing dept. every day to get to the sales dept. and doesn’t say anything to any of us. Not even a ‘Good Morning’ most of the time. On top of that, he won’t let anyone spend any money on anything, yet he and the sales guys go on hunting trips with our dealers and spend $50,000 on just the hunt alone. That doesn’t include airfare or hotels. WTF?! How is that even fair?

My co-worker couldn’t even get InDesign so she could do her job but Big Boss takes all the sales guys out for happy hour on the company’s tab. The squeaky clean image that this company had when I started is so tarnished that I can’t even see why I wanted this job in the first place anymore. Part of it was because I hated my old job so much, but part of me really wanted to get some new experiences in marketing. Yeah, this is not what I meant when I was thinking of new experiences.

Coming into work each morning has just become a hassle for me. I am thrilled on the days when my boss is gone. I stare at the clock every day and leave at exactly 5:00 or earlier if possible. I don’t like the type of work I’m supposed to be doing. I can only make so many phone calls to unresponsive, selfish, rude accounts before I want to stab myself in the head with a blunt object. There are the ones that I do like talking to, so I make it a point to call them more often since they don’t make me feel incompetent.

I want to start looking for a new job, but I’ve only been here for almost five months and I feel like I should give it at least six months here before I jump ship. Plus, I know there’s not much out there right now, but looking wouldn’t hurt. I’m actually the first on the list for a position that might open up at my former boss’ new company, but I’m not holding my breath on that. They’ve been talking about the new position for months now but haven’t made a move to hire anyone. So we’ll see.

Since I’m so over my job, I’ve been looking into going back to school again. Back when I first started this job, I asked my boss about tuition reimbursement and he immediately shot me down. He and big boss don’t have college degrees so they really don’t see education as an asset because they got to where they are without any. I personally can’t think of any way more education could make me WORSE at my career, but hey, that’s just me. He also made a snotty comment to me about how he thought I wanted this job because of the job, not to get someone else to pay for my education. And he was clearly irriatated that I hadn’t told him about my plans to return to school. Yes, he really said that because I asked about our company’s tuition reimbursement that they advertise on EVERY piece of new hire literature. Sorry I want to take advantage of an awesome perk that the company offers. Unfortunately, the manager’s approval is the first step to get tuition reimbursement so without any support from him, I’m stuck.

I’m fully prepared to take out more loans if I have to because I really want to do something more with my time outside of work than watch tv. And since Tall Guy is starting school again, I figure I should find something to keep myself occupied with while he’s off at school two nights a week plus whatever homework time he has. I am going to an information session at a local college in a few weeks and I’m really excited about it. They offer these certificates in specialized areas like Marketing Communications that are six courses long. It’s a way to test the waters before jumping into an MBA or other grad program and you don’t have to take the GMAT to get into the classes.

So I’m thinking that’s what I’ll start with to see how I will deal with being back in school before committing to an MBA or other graduate program. I’m really excited about that and Tall Guy has been very supportive as I go through all of this with my job and wondering what the hell I want to do with my life. I’m just looking forward to not thinking about any of this for the next four days.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!

Last Night..

2009-08-30T13:05:00.003-05:00

I can't wait to marry you, Tall Guy said as we were drifting off to sleep, my head on his shoulder, our legs intertwined.

That comment, along with his girl friends telling me how much I fit in with them and how they can't wait for me to join the "family" while we were all at a friend's wedding last night had me grinning ear to ear as I drifted off into my dreams.

Vegas Recap.

2009-08-17T19:31:00.006-05:00

I’m back from Vegas and man, am I exhausted! Going to bed at 3 am, 2 am and 4 am three nights in a row really does a number on your sleep schedule. I slept for four hours Saturday night, got up to go to the airport, slept the entire flight home, took a one hour nap on the couch and went to bed for the night at 8:30 and still could barely get out of bed at 7:15 this morning. And I can’t wait to go to bed early tonight! But it was definitely worth it for the fun we had in Vegas!

We flew into Vegas at about 6:00 pm their time on Thursday. We went out to catch a cab and Tall Guy surprised me (and the other couple we were with) with a Hummer limo to take us to the hotel! So instead of waiting around for a half an hour to ride in a stinky cab, we were riding in style in wonderful air conditioning in our chauffeured Hummer. It was delightful. We checked into the Imperial Palace, dumped our bags and set out to get some food. We settled on Battista’s Hole in the Wall and proceeded to get drunk on the free house wine. We stumbled around the strip for a while to let our stomachs rest from all the Italian we just ate and watched the Bellagio water show, the Mirage fire/water show and checked out a few other hotels + casinos on the strip. Everyone wanted to start gambling so we went back to the IP and I watched while the other three played blackjack until 2 am. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about gambling in Vegas since I don’t really gamble that much and blackjack is really the only casino game I know how to play. But after watching them for a few hours, I got the itch and decided I would play the next day.

The adorable accordian player at Battista's

Saw these once every five minutes down the strip.

We slept in a little on Friday before hitting up the buffet at Planet Hollywood. It was yummy and ended up being the only buffet we went to all weekend. We ate at 1:00 and were so full we didn’t eat again until almost 10:00 that night! After the buffet, we wandered up and down almost the entire strip in the hot, stifling air. I knew it would be hot this time of year, but holy cow! Thankfully it’s a dry heat and I really didn’t get sweaty from being outside so much, just hot. We headed back to IP to get ready to go to downtown Vegas and check out Fremont Street. That was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. We made the cab driver stop at a little chapel on the way so we could take some pictures and send them to my parents as a joke. The cab driver was kind of confused but obliged and it was worth it!

It’s definitely a different pace and attitude downtown. The casinos + hotels are older and it’s not all glitzy and glamorous like the strip. We spent most of our evening at Golden Gate playing blackjack and I won $50! I was pretty pumped about that since I hardly ever win gambling. The dealers were all women wearing slightly skimpy outfits, but they were all super friendly and fun! One of them wasn’t too bright and kept counting the cards wrong and paying us when she shouldn’t have and not taking our chips when she should have. Obviously we weren’t going to object to that though! We headed back to IP around midnight and gambled a little more before hitting the hay around 2 am.

Downtown Vegas

Really cool show on an overhead screen!

We laid around by the pool for a bit on Saturday before hitting up Margaritaville for some lunch (fyi, great nachos!!). We wandered the strip a little more and then settled at O’Sheas’s for an afternoon of gambling. Tall Guy, his friend and the other girlfriend played craps while I went and played some more blackjack. By the end of the afternoon I was down $100 and not feeling too good about it! It’s hard for me to think about losing that much money. Money that I could spend on other things like clothes or shoes! But I was expecting it so it wasn’t too bad.

Inside Margaritaville.

The Venetian.

We got tickets for the Cirque de Soleil show KA for Saturday night so we gussied ourselves up and headed over to MGM to see the show. It was AMAZING! The set and stage were so awesome. The stage raised and lowered and turned to make a wall type structure and the actors did crazy acrobatics from it. I wasn’t expecting there to be a story line; I was more expecting just an acrobatic show, so I was pleasantly surprised by the humorous touch that was put into some of the scenes. And the music was so fitting for each scene; I just loved it! We were in the very last row and the tickets still cost us $80 each, but it was totally worth it and we could still see everything perfectly from the back row. Definitely check out KA if you’re going to Vegas!

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so this is all I got for Ka!

After the show we went over to the Hooter’s Casino because we’d seen an ad that said $3 blackjack 24/7. Well, basically that meant they had one table of $3 blackjack and of course it was full. We were starving since we hadn’t eaten since 1:00 that afternoon and it was going on midnight, so we just decided to eat at Dan Marino’s in the Hooter’s Casino. Big mistake! It was the weirdest place ever. Kind of like a Denny’s + Perkins + Applebee’s. The food everyone got was gross-thankfully I had gotten a grilled cheese so it’s pretty hard to do that wrong, but my fries were soggy and the sandwich was so greasy! We high tailed it out of there ASAP and went back to IP to gamble for the last time. We ended up all getting at a $5 blackjack table and had an awesome dealer that basically told you what to do every time you were unsure and he was right almost every time, too! I put $60 down and walked away with $140 two hours later. I was thrilled since that meant I had only lost about $25 the whole weekend!

It was about 3 am by that point so we decided to get a little sleep before getting up at 7 am to get to the airport.

So that was my trip to Vegas! I had a lot of fun and am so grateful that Tall Guy planned it for us. I’ve never had someone spend that much money on me for one weekend and it felt really nice to be pampered. He’s definitely a keeper (not that I didn’t know that already)! Now it’s time to move the rest of my stuff out of my apartment and start “officially” living together!

Viva Las Vegas!

2009-08-11T20:16:00.002-05:00

I'm going to Vegas in two days!

Four of us are jetting off to Vegas on Thursday evening and staying until Sunday afternoon. I'm so excited! This is my first time there so I'm all about the sight seeing, laying by the pool, checking out a show and some fun restaurants and of course, lay by the pool at the Imperial Palace.

Keep an eye out for lots of tweets and twitpics from Sin City while I'm gone!

Hola!

2009-07-27T17:36:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone!

Have you missed me? Honestly, I haven’t missed blogging that much since I took a hiatus a few weeks ago, but today I got the urge to write about what’s going on with me. No, I didn’t get engaged (but will talk a lot about it in this post).

Things are still going fabulously with Tall Guy and I. We are so happy. I’m sure some people want to throw up when they see us together because we’re always so affectionate and kissy and such, but I really don’t care! I’m happy and I’m going to show it. I waited 23 years to find my “one” and I’m going to enjoy it!

My sister and co-workers and friends all think he will propose soon since I am moving in with him officially at the end of August. You all know how I didn’t want to move in with someone until I was engaged, but that all changed with Tall Guy. And even though I’m completely ok with moving into his place in a month (and putting half my stuff in his basement until we move into the bigger apartment downstairs next June), they think that he’ll propose to take any guilty conscience or nervousness away (I’m not nervous at all since we’ve practically been living together since May). A lot of people also think he’ll propose when we’re in Vegas, but I don’t. Knowing Tall Guy, and I think I know him well, he will do it on a completely random day when I would least expect it, not when we’re on vacation or on an anniversary or something predictable. And since he knows I have my radars out for any clue that it might happen soon, he’s going to try to make it a complete surprise.

We’ve had some serious discussions about marriage and I’m pretty certain he won’t propose until next summer and we’d get married in 2011. I’ll admit, that seems like FOREVER to wait, but we’ll only have been together a year in December and 1.5 years by next summer and that’s obviously a perfectly acceptable time to wait to get engaged. I was pretty discouraged at first when he revealed his timeframe to me and I even told him that I didn’t want to talk about marriage anymore because I get my hopes up every time and don’t want to feel like that for the next however long it is until he actually proposes. So we haven’t been talking about it. Of course that doesn’t mean I’m not still THINKING about it. When you know you want to be with someone, and they tell you they know they want to be with you, another year seems like a billion years away!

We were driving by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis on Saturday and I randomly said, We should have our reception there (there goes my idea of not talking about marriage or weddings). I think it’s a cool building and they have an awesome rooftop that we could use. Well, apparently, Tall Guy has been doing some research of his own because he said he wants to look into this new room they’re building at the new Twins Stadium. He loves the Twins and is super excited for the new stadium so he knows all about it. I would totally entertain that idea. And I’m glad to know that he’s still thinking about the day we’ll get married and didn’t just store it off in some corner of his brain to get cobwebs.

Anyway, that’s just a tidbit of what’s going on in my brain these days. I’m officially obsessed with Twitter, so if you want more of my rambling, follow me! I’m @hazel318. I’m still trying to stay mostly anonymous, but one of these days that could change. Who knows. I've been blocking people who follow me but I don't know at all, so hopefully I haven't blocked any of you!

official tweeter.

2009-07-12T21:08:00.002-05:00

hi peeps.

i finally jumped on the twitter bandwagon; mostly to follow you guys! if you want to add me, i'm

@hazel318. i don't know how much i'll update, but i look forward to reading your tweets!

(knowing me, i'll get hooked and update 235698 times a day.)

A Sorta-Kinda-Half Goodbye.

2009-07-08T21:56:00.011-05:00

I've been thinking about this post for a long time and just kept putting it off because I couldn't make up my mind on whether or not I wanted to do it.

But in the past few weeks, I've decided that I'm kind of over blogging. It has become more of a chore than something I like to do and I've been having a really hard time coming up with things to write about. I'd really hate for this blog to become a boring day to day recap of my life so I want to quit before it gets to that point.

I've been blogging for about five years now. It started on Xanga and then I moved to Blogger in 2006. I had my former blog for about two years before I changed over to Behind These Hazel Eyes. I've always been mostly anonymous with only a few real life friends knowing about my blog. That was something that I got even more strict with on this blog because I liked the freedom of writing what I wanted without offending any of my friends or family who may stumble upon this site. That was a good decision for me and I definitely don't regret being anonymous.

Some of you have been with me since my previous blog, but most of you have found me through various other sites at this blog. I've really loved getting to know all of you through your writing and a few of you in real life. I've laughed out loud at your posts and have felt sympathy, heart ache and anger at some others. You all have given me so many words of wisdom that have helped me in situations that I didn't know how to handle. Anonymous commenters have angered me to no end, but I know that they were mostly just trying to help and were being honest, which is what I would expect from anyone who is commenting on my writing.

You've been with me through sadness, anger, jealousy, happiness, love, heartbreak, excitement and so many other emotions that I've had while writing posts for the last few years. I can't believe how much I've gained from your comments and words of wisdom. I truly appreciate anyone who has taken the time to read my little space of the internet. I never got to the readerships and huge numbers of comments that a lot of your blogs have but I really loved getting a comment on a post. It made my day that someone was willing to say something on a post that I wrote, even if it wasn't a positive comment.

This is what I've decided: I'm going to keep this blog live and active. I'm going to write when I feel like I have something to write. But if that only happens once a week, then so be it. If that happens once a month, well that's ok with me too. I used to be able to write a post every day and have them be a different topic and in different tones, but like I mentioned before, I've been struggling to come up with ideas. And I don't want to have to force myself to sit down and write something if it's going to be crap. I want to live my life and write about things that I'm excited to share. Maybe someday I'll get the urge to do a daily post again, but for now I don't have the desire.

I'm planning to keep reading all of you though. I love reading blogs and still enjoy taking a half an hour to catch up on your lives each day. So I'll still be around commenting and reading like always.

Again, thank you so much for all of your thoughts, comments, well wishes and words of advice. Until next time!

WES=Devil.

2009-07-07T21:45:00.003-05:00

I just watched The Bachelorette from last night and I am so glad WES is gone! What a f-ing tool bag. I really hope he's embarrassed by his actions on the show.

But I really can't believe that Jillian fell for his crap so much! Even after Jake came back and told her that Wes had a girlfriend, she didn't listen and just went to meet his family like nothing happened. And I wonder if his family actually knew he had a girlfriend and were just acting like he didn't. And where the hell did this Laurel (his girlfriend) think he was for the past month?! Did she tell him that he should go on the show to promote his career? What kind of woman would do that?!

Either way, I'm so glad Jillian finally realized that Wes was only there for his career and that he was lying about having a girlfriend the entire time.

UGH, guys can be disgusting.

The Best.

2009-07-06T21:01:00.003-05:00

My weekend was wonderful.

After the pool party on Friday, we headed up to the farm and went over to Spicer, MN to listen to a band. There were tons of drunk people running into us and spilling their beer everywhere so needless to say, I was annoyed. It's hard to put up with drunks when you're not drunk.

The rest of the weekend we just sunned, played bocce, ate and drank. The girls gossiped and cooked while the boys did some farm work; sort of the typical male/female roles but that was fine with me!

When Tall Guy and I got home last night we went for a long, hard bike ride to burn off some calories and then lounged around watching the Tour de France.

I think the best part of my weekend though was getting a back rub and lotion rub down from Tall Guy. He is so good at it! He doesn't miss one inch of my body when he lotions me up and gives the best back massages. He gets really into it, which is great for me.

Does your man give a good massage or like to lotion you up like Tall Guy does to me?

His Beard Is Good.

2009-06-30T20:31:00.005-05:00

Tall Guy usually grows out his facial hair for about two weeks at a time and I really like it when he has some stubble. When he shaves, he looks like a 12 year old boy and although it's smooth, I don't like it as much.

I guess I like it when he looks more rugged.

What do you girls like on guys? Freshly shaven or a little scruffy?

Celebrity Sighting+ 30 Day Shred+ Weekend Recap.

2009-06-29T20:47:00.005-05:00

Tonight while I was riding my bike to meet Tall Guy at the kickball fields (yes, I found them this time!), a runner crossed the bike path. First I noticed his blond, faux hawked hair. Then, his tan, muscular legs. Then, his short stature. And to my surprise, it was Sven Sundgaard! For those of you in the Twin Cities, you know him as a weatherman on Kare 11 and an avid runner around the lakes in Minneapolis. He's a local celebrity, so I was pretty pumped to see him!
------------------------------------------------------------------

In other workout news, I finally did the 30 Day Shred for the first time after my bike ride and I have to say, it wasn't as difficult as I was expecting. Granted, I did the first level, but I was expected to be crying out in pain the entire time. The moves I did have a hard time with were the ones the incorporated squats + arm moves with weights. The cardio was kind of lame, although I do understand that it's hard to get cardio moves in with just a mat and hand weights.

As of now, I feel like 30 Day Shred would be a good supplement to my bike rides, but not enough to be my main workout. Maybe that will change once I get to the 2nd and 3rd levels, but we'll see.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Finally, my family absolutely LOVED Tall Guy! We had a wonderful time in the U.P. and Tall Guy easily held his own in conversations with people he didn't know. It was really great to see because it just solidifies how much I want to be with him and how he fits into me and my family's future. He was great and the way my family treated him like they knew him already made me love them even more!

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!

Stupid Hormones.

2009-06-24T22:27:00.005-05:00

Bad directions + Tall Guy not answering the phone + Period Hormones + Try to ask people where something is that you don't know the name of + Dusk = Pissed, Grudge holding Me.

Tonight, Tall Guy had a kickball game and I had plans to meet up with my friend KS to get a bridal shower gift for our friend KG. I told Tall Guy that if I got home early enough, I'd bike over to his kickball game if he left me directions how to get there on the trail.

I got home early enough so I grabbed my bike and headed out, trying to follow the directions Tall Guy left me as best I could. Well, I understood maybe the first three parts of the directions, but I thought I could figure it out.

I was wrong. I had been to the park one time before in the car, so I thought I could remember how to get there. I didn't know the name of the park but was trying to ask people where this place was by describing it. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy so I was growing more and more frustrated and upset.

I called Tall Guy about five times but he didn't answer, even though is game was over by that time, which really made me upset.

So after about 30 minutes of riding my bike around the neighborhood I thought the park was in, asking people where a park was that I didn't even know the name of and trying to call Tall Guy without any answers, I was pissed. So I turned around and started to head back home because it was starting to get dark and even though I have lights on my bike, I was uncomfortable riding on wooded trails alone.

Finally, Tall Guy called me back as he was leaving his game asking what was up, and I was really short and quick with him telling him that I'd just see him at home because I was annoyed. I got home and jumped in the shower as he was walking in because I didn't want to cause an argument over something that wasn't really his fault. But it wasn't mine either and I wanted to blame someone.

Yeah, he could have written better directions and could have answered his phone or called back sooner, but he didn't. And there really wasn't anything I could do about the situation, but I couldn't help but feel angry. I got out of the shower and Tall Guy apologized like seventeen times for the bad directions and not answering his phone right away, but I was still peeved.

I'm blaming my time of the month hormones. Aunt Flo is a bitch.

Milk Maid.

2009-06-23T18:11:00.004-05:00

I’m still sunburned, sore and sleepy from this weekend. Thankfully, I only have a 4 day week!

What did I do Saturday that left me sunburned, sore and sleepy?

1. Pulled nails from a dairy barn with a tin roof:This is where the soreness and sunburn came in! 4 hours on a reflective roof will do that to someone!

2. Held a two week old calf:
I named her Francine. Isn't she cute?

3. Went on a 4-Wheeler Ride:
Tall Guy did most of the driving, I just held on!

4. Milked a cow:
I didn't get kicked in the face or pooped on so I call that a success!

Who knew a city girl like me could be a farm girl, too?

Father's Day.

2009-06-21T10:58:00.003-05:00

Happy Father's Day to the guy who calls me every other day, sometimes more, without fail just to say hi and texts me almost every morning to wish me a good day and to tell me he loves me. To the guy who can't wait for my sisters and I to have kids so he has grand kids. To the guy who grills the best chicken and steak I've ever had and always lets the girls and company eat before he does. To the guy who has supported me in every decision I have to make, even if he tries to play devil's advocate on occasion. To the guy who will do anything for his girls.

Love you dad!

Annoying.

2009-06-17T19:31:00.004-05:00

Tall Guy and I watch quite a bit of tv and there are some reality show personalities that I can't stand. Either their voice is annoying , they're a bitch or something about them just irks me. Here's my top 5 list of tv personalities I hate.

1. Tyra Banks.

Sure, I watch the Tyra Banks show if I'm home sick or catch a few episodes of ANTM when it's in one of its 357 cycles, but I can't stand Tyra Banks! Her talk show is one of the most awkward and uncomfortable things I've ever seen. She asks the dumbest questions and then basically repeats what the person said as if the audience didn't hear it. Yet, I'll still watch it if I'm around when it's on. Smile with your eyes!

2. Paula Abdul
Straight up now tell me, Paula is a whack job. I don't even watch American Idol anymore, but when I have I can't stand her. She's just so weird. Apparently she was in a plain crash several years ago (I saw it on a show called Celebrity Medical Mysteries) that made her be in a lot of pain and ruined her vocal cords, yet there is no record of this plane crash anywhere. Odd. She's just crazy.

3. Janice Dickinson
This woman is a crazy bitch. Tall Guy has been watching I'm a Celebrity, Get me out of Here (Why? I don't know) and she's on it. She is such a nasty, lying, crazy lady! They caught her peeing on the ground right next to her bed on camera in the night and then she totally denied it and saying how gross is was that someone would do that. Then she stole someone's granola bar and would not admit to it. Then she took another one even though she just stole one and scarfed it down. And let's not even talk about the plastic surgery she's had. Gross.

4. Coral from Real World and Challenges
Coral is a bitch. I've never liked her. But now that she keeps coming back to the challenges even though she's like 37 years old and just intimidates everyone all the time I dislike her even more. There are other people who are way too old to be on the challenges and need to get a life too, but she takes the cake for me. Grow up and get on with your life! Your 15 minutes of fame are over.

5. Mary Murphy
The whole reason I thought of this post was because of her. I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance right now and I can't stand her high pitched voice, her screaming and her HOT TAMALE TRAIN performances. Is this woman on drugs? She's crying right now. Two minutes ago she was screaming. She's a whack-a-doo that's for sure.

So who are some of the most annoying tv personalities to you?

Smooches.

2009-06-15T21:05:00.004-05:00

If spending my life with Tall Guy means I'll get to keep having random make-out sessions before going to work, after coming home from work, while making dinner or sitting on the couch watching tv, I'll take it.

I can only hope that our love stays fresh and fun and we'll always want to kiss each other as much as we do now!

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In other news, Tall Guy got into the MBA program at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota! It's a great program and his company is paying 100%, so as of September, he'll be a student again. I'm proud of him!

30 Day Shred.

2009-06-11T07:54:00.000-05:00

I officially jumped on the bandwagon and ordered the 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels. I wanted something to add to my biking routine and I've heard so many reviews about this program that I had to try it.

BFF has been doing it and she's lost inches just by doing it a few times a week!

I'm really excited to try it out, although I'm sure our downstairs neighbors won't appreciate me jumping around for 30 minutes a day on the hardwood floors. Oh well.

So what has everyone whose done it thought of the program? Have you seen results? Any tips?

Surprise.

2009-06-10T19:44:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, it was me and Tall Guy’s six month anniversary! And as I wrote about in my trip recap, we went to Giordano’s Pizza when we were in Chicago and enjoyed a delicious pepperoni pizza. Tall Guy raved about it on the phone all week while he was in Chicago, has been there several other times and when the day came when we were going to eat there, he couldn’t stop talking about it.

While we were eating there, he informed me that they will actually ship their pizzas anywhere in the country and it got my brain’s wheels turning. So, as a little treat for my honey on our half-year milestone, I ordered a pizza from Giordano’s and had it shipped to my office yesterday.
We went on a bike ride after work and then I locked him in the bedroom so I could bake the pizza and set up our living room table like the table looked at the restaurant.

I led Tall Guy into the living room with his eyes closed and fed him a bite of the pizza. Surprisingly, it took him a minute to figure out what it was, but once he opened his eyes and saw the pizza, he knew right away that it was Giordano’s. He was really excited and ate half the pizza (they are huge slices to that’s a lot)! Then we just snuggled on the couch watching The Bachelorette and Here Come the Newlyweds that we taped on Monday.

It was a great night! The past six months have seriously been some of the best for me and I’m so happy that I was able to meet Tall Guy in such a short time on Match and have it work out so well. He always jokes that I’m the best thing he ever bought on the internet and I respond by telling him that the $60 I paid for him was the best money I’ve ever spent! (That’s how much the Match subscription was for three months.) And it’s totally true. That membership was some of the best money I’ve ever spent, but meeting Tall Guy and having it work out is priceless.

Six Months.

2009-06-09T07:54:00.001-05:00

Tall Guy and I have been together six months today.

I'm the happiest I've ever been in a relationship.

I am so lucky to have found a man like Tall Guy. He is such a catch!

Stay tuned for the surprise I have in store for Tall Guy tonight!

Road Bike.

2009-06-04T17:37:00.002-05:00

Last night, I got to pick up my bike! The weather here has been amazing the past few days so I’ve really been itching to get out on a bike ride. Tall Guy and I plan to head west on the Midtown Greenway tonight for about a 20 mile ride.

I’m so excited that we can go on bike rides together now and can plan weekend rides around the Twin Cities. There are a lot of great bike trails around here so we’ll be seeing a lot of the area and getting a great workout! I’m interested in getting a heart rate monitor so I can find out how many calories I’m burning and what my heart rate is during a bike ride so that might be my next purchase once I recover from the cost of the bike and the accessories I already bought for it.

Side note: Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. I had mostly made up my mind and had already told Tall Guy that I wouldn’t accept his offer, but I wanted to get other people’s take on the situation. It will be a big accomplishment for me when I do pay it off and as most of you said, things could get too messy too easily.

Paying Down Debt.

2009-06-03T17:38:00.001-05:00

I’ve never been a person who likes to borrow money from people. If I have to pay for something and don’t have the money, I’ll put it on my credit card and slowly chip away at the balance and likely take five years to pay off a $300 purchase. But it would be better than owing someone in my life money, whether it be my parents, my friends, whoever. The only people who have ever given me money are my parents and that wasn’t because I asked. My dad has a habit of just writing us checks for $100 or $200 because he feels like it or because he knew I was a college student not making much. And I greatly appreciated it because of course I needed the money, but never had to ask for it.

In college, I used my credit card to support myself when my work study job salary couldn’t. My parents, more specifically my dad, paid for my gas, cell phone, car insurance and other bills that I couldn’t afford, but I was on my own for rent, food, clothing, fun, etc. I would take out extra student loans to pay my rent each semester and tries to not use my credit card unless absolutely necessary. But I soon realized that it wasn’t the necessities that I was using the credit card for; it was clothes and entertainment. By the end of my senior year, I had about a $6,000 balance on my one credit card.

After I graduated, I stopped using the card as a crutch, but was only making the minimum monthly payments and the balance wasn’t really going down as much as I’d hoped it would. So, I went to my bank last summer and transferred all of my consumer debt from my main credit card and a few store cards to one low interest credit card and vowed to not use it unless it was an emergency. And that plan has worked really well.

When I got my raise at my old job, I began making weekly payments to the card and have been doing so since then. I pay off at least double the minimum payment each month and the balance has been steadily dropping, much to my satisfaction. I’ve only had to put a few things on the credit card in the past year, like my six months worth of car insurance, so I’ve been really pleased with my progress in paying the balance down.

I’ve been honest with Tall Guy since the beginning about my consumer debt. He’s never asked how much it is or how much I pay off each month, but I know at first he was a little concerned when I told him I had quite a large balance on my credit card. He uses his credit card for every purchase but pays off the entire balance each month and carries no debt except for one small student loan. Talk about extreme opposites! In addition to my large credit card balance, I have about $20,000 in student loans in my name that I’m paying off!

Recently, when I was whining to Tall Guy that I’d had to put my car insurance on my credit card and it was going to take six weeks of payments to pay that off, he asked if I would let him pay the balance of my card and then I could pay him each month with no interest. I immediately said no way and he just said that the offer is always on the table. It has come up another time since then and again I said thanks, but no thanks. I really don’t want to owe someone in my life that amount of money. What if something happened where Tall Guy and I broke up and I still owed him $3,000? Or what if one month I decide I need to take the extra money I normally put toward my card into something else like new tires or another emergency issue and can’t pay him the full amount I’m supposed to?

The situation reminds me of when Carrie is trying to buy her apartment on Sex and the City and Big offers her the money, then her friends do, except Charlotte keeps mum. She doesn’t think friendship and money go together but in the end Charlotte loans Carrie the money for her apartment, but only after insisting that Carrie pays her back.

I’m not going to lie and say that the thought of being paid up with the bank and not getting charged anymore finance charges or interest doesn’t make me want to do it. But I’m just not sure if I can get used to the idea of owing Tall Guy $4,000 or so. I think I’ll feel like he had to rescue me and that I can’t take care of myself, even though it’s clear that I can and am taking care of the issue as best I can. And I know Tall Guy has the money and won’t miss it which is the real kicker because if I had $4,000 wouldn’t miss it, I would have paid the dang thing off already!

He says the fact that I have this debt isn’t a big deal as long as I’m working at paying it off and he knows that I’m doing that. It’s not like me having this debt is going to change our relationship because he’s known all along. And really, it’s not even that much debt compared to the national average of credit card debt. There are people out there who are in way deeper than me.

So what do you think? Would you entertain the idea of taking the money and paying it back? Or do you feel like I do and have a hard time accepting money from people even if you do plan to pay it back?

Lovey Dovey.

2009-06-02T17:48:00.001-05:00

Last night as Tall Guy and I were lying in bed, all his long legs and arms all wrapped around me, he started listing the reasons he loves me.

I love that you get along with my family so well.

Kiss.

I love that you are so fun to be around.

Kiss, Kiss.

I love that you let me be a nerd.

Kiss.

I love that you like to cook with me.

Kiss, Kiss, big squeeze.

I love that you love to make-out.

Mini make-out session.

I love that you got a bike so you could bike with me.

Kiss.

And it went on and on for about five minutes. I was getting a little suspicious because although Tall Guy tells me he loves me about 20 times a day, this was a little out of the ordinary. It was getting to the point where I was thinking Ok, what’s going on here? Are you about to pop the question or something?

(He didn’t.)

It was a really sweet moment between us though and those are the things that I always remember and smile when I think about them.

Next Tuesday is our six month anniversary. Can you believe it!? It seems like it was such a short time ago that we met on Match! I’ve got a little something up my sleeve that I’ll write about next week.

Sleepy.

2009-06-01T20:50:00.003-05:00

I've always had some issues with sleeping. In the past, I've written about my crazy dreams and sleepwalking. Thankfully, the crazy dreams have subsided now that I'm used to sleeping with Tall Guy. It really only happens if we're sleeping in an unfamiliar place.

But lately, I haven't been feeling rested at all. If I sleep for 10 hours a night like I did over the weekend, I get tired by 9:00 that night and am yawning all day. If I sleep for 7.5 or 8 hours, which is a typical week night's sleep, I don't feel rested when I wake up and start dragging around 3:00 in the afternoon.

I'm not sure if it's because I do typically change up my sleeping habits over the weekend and that messes up my week or if I'm not getting quality sleep during the night. But I sleep like a rock and don't wake up much in the night anymore so I don't feel like that's it.

I'm going to try getting to sleep a little earlier the next few nights to see if adding a half hour or so to my sleep will help. But otherwise, I don't know what to do!

Any suggestions?

PHHHHHTT.

2009-05-26T20:53:00.003-05:00

Everyone poops. Everyone farts.

Tall Guy knows this and I know this. But I can't fart in front of him even though he's done it in front of me plenty of times and they don't smell pretty, that's for sure. My tactics to avoid farting in front of Tall Guy have been to do it in the shower, go to another room and do it, hold it in or do it while going pee.

Why can't I just let one slip? I guess it's not all bad; a little mystery in a relationship is good, right? But it's not really a mystery that I fart or that they wouldn't smell like roses.

What was the first time you let one fly in front of your significant other? Did you both laugh or did you run and hide from embarrassment? Did he/she get embarrassed for you and make it awkward?

Back to Real Life.

2009-05-25T20:53:00.004-05:00

This weekend was a much needed break from work and well, work. I had a packed weekend and it was great!

Friday night, Tall Guy and a bunch of my friends went to the Twins vs. Brewers game to celebrate a birthday. The birthday boy was the only Brewers fan in the bunch and needless to say, he wasn't too thrilled when the Twins kicked some major Brewer ass 11-3! My girlfriends and I were drunk by the time the game started at 7 p.m. so it was an amusing time, for us at least. We even got chatting with the older couple next to us and they told us their love story and how they now have three daughters together. Then we somehow got on the topic of baby names because my friend KS got bored in a meeting one day and wrote down her baby names on a page and had that notebook with her at the game. So we all got silly and started writing down "our names" so the other friends wouldn't steal them. It was an interesting game to be playing at a baseball game!

Saturday Tall Guy and I rented a road bike so I could try it out to see if I'd actually be interested in buying one. We ended up taking a 20 mile, 3 hour ride around Minneapolis-St. Paul. We went over to Minnehaha Falls and back and even though my ass hurt after about five minutes on that seat, I really enjoyed the bike ride. It was the perfect day outside and I'm so glad I tried the road bike! I think biking is something that Tall Guy and I will really enjoy doing together. He said he's always wanted someone to bike with. The bike I rented was worth $1,300 and I'm definitely not looking to spend that much money, but we're going to go look at some bikes tomorrow night to see if there's something in my price range that I like.

On Sunday we mosied around, cleaning the house and getting ready for Tall Guy's brother's BBQ later that evening. I made some taco dip and we headed downstairs and enjoyed an evening of me drinking lots of wine, him lots of beer, sitting on the porch and laughing with Tall Guy's bros and sis-in-laws. I got pretty giggly, which is a true sign that I've been drinking a lot and a few snorts came out my nose, too.

Today we went to the zoo with two of Tall Guy's brothers, one wife and one girlfriend. It was a perfect day for walking around the zoo, even though it was crowded.

Baby prairie dogs!

Monkeys!

After the zoo, we headed over to one of Tall Guy's friend's places for another BBQ. I had only met two of the friends that were there and even then it was only for a few minutes so I was a little nervous about meeting everyone, but it was fine. One of the guys brought his wife, so I wasn't the only girl there and everyone was friendly.

I was ready to get home so Tall Guy and I could just spend some time alone lounging around, watching the Bachelorette. We stopped at DQ for a treat and did just that. Now it's back to the real world, but at least it's a four day week!

How was everyone else's long weekend?

Memorial Day.

2009-05-22T06:51:00.000-05:00

I know most of us think of Memorial Day as an extra day off work or an excuse to get drunk on a Sunday night (yeah, I'm guilty too), but I hope everyone will take a minute to think about the real meaning of Memorial Day and those who have lost their lives serving our country!

Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the civil war), it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action.

Have a great long weekend everyone!

Slacker.

2009-05-21T07:21:00.000-05:00

I'm going through one of my "I don't want to workout and am feeling flabby but I can't stop eating junk" stages. I want to start working out more, but I cancelled my gym membership since I left my old job since the gym was right near there. I figured that since it's warmer out now I'd start walking more and was hoping to have a bike by now, but that hasn't happened yet.

I feel like I do eat pretty healthily for breakfast and lunch, but then Tall Guy and I make a homemade pizza for dinner and I go all out. Or I munch on snacks that are laying around my workspace. And it always seems like something comes up where I don't have time to go for a walk or Tall Guy's sis-in-law's bike I was going to borrow is broken, etc. Now it sounds like I'm making excuses and I know I am somewhat because working out should be something that I make time for.

I am determined to start getting active again because I have a lot of weddings to go to this summer, including one I'm in, and will probably need to get in a bikini once or twice and want to look good. Plus, I hate feeling flabby! I can always tell when my physical activity has dwindled because my tricep area gets jiggly. When I'm working out regularly, my triceps always stay firm so I really hate when those are going south.

Anyway, that's how I'm feeling. I want to move! I need to settle down with the eating at night and make our dinners healthier. I feel like I need to just join a gym again because if I'm paying money I'm more likely to actually go. I just need to find one that's near me or near my work.

Mother Lover.

2009-05-19T19:57:00.003-05:00

I know I'm a little late on this, but did you guys see the SNL digital short Mother Lover?! I saw it last week and I was laughing my ass off.

Chicago Recap.

2009-05-17T18:32:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm back from my quick trip to Chicago and it was great! We had really nice weather and a perfect day for being out and about in the Windy City.

I got on an earlier flight Friday night and got to my Aunt and Uncle's around 8:00. We headed over to Moonshine for a quick bite to eat since we were all pretty tired and just wanted to get to bed early.

Tall Guy and I got up bright and early on Saturday so we could head down to Wrigley field and catch the Cubs game. We got some tickets from some people selling them near the field--15 rows up on the 3rd baseline. Now, I like baseball, but typically wouldn't pay $80 for a ticket, but Tall Guy likes to get good seats when he goes to new stadiums so that's what we did. The sun was warm on us until it fell behind the stadium around 2:00 and we didn't realize until later when our faces and arms started hurting from being sunburned. We had failed to even think about wearing sunscreen so we're both feeling it now. My nose is really red and Tall Guy's forehead got a lot of sun, too.

We were starving by the time we got to the field so we grabbed some stadium grub. Tall Guy tried the Chili Dog Nacho because one of the concession workers said it was "off the chain." It was basically nachos, chili and a sliced hot dog, but it was actually good!
The Cubs won, but not before allowing the Rays to score four runs in the top of the 9th inning. Thankfully they pulled through.
After the game we took the train downtown to check out Millennium Park, one of my favorite places in Chicago. Turns out the the Chicago Art Institute was having a little party sponsored by Target so they had music, free food and drinks and other stuff going on. Spot, the Target mascot even made a visit!

Cloud Gate (aka the Bean) was busy as usual, but no matter how many times I've seen it, I love going to it! It was especially nice on Saturday because the sun was shining and it was great people watching at the park.
This is probably the closest thing you'll ever see to my true identity. Tall Guy and I went under the bean and took a few photos of us. I figured I could give you all a little glimpse into what we look like (I'm in the blue shirt).
After the park, we headed over to Giordano's Pizza because Tall Guy loves the stuff. He's been there a few other times and had been raving about it ever since he knew he was going to be in Chicago.
The stuffed pizza was really delicious! So cheesy. Definitely not for those who have aversions to cheese!
On our way back to the train station, we walked by the Flamingo statue and ended up having a really romantic make-out session for no reason. Thankfully, there weren't many other people around :)

Photo credit

Finally around 9 pm, we hopped back on the train toward my Aunt and Uncle's. We were exhausted from being in the sun all day and walking quite a bit so we just watched a movie and then went to bed.

It was such a quick trip, but it was really great. Tall Guy and I were in Love Bird status all weekend since we hadn't seen each other in five days and we had a lot of fun being tourists for the day on Saturday. I was telling him that I'm really glad that we are able to afford doing things like that. Taking a quick flight to Chicago or renting kayaks at Lake Calhoun (which we plan to do next weekend) just because we have a few free days to spend together. I love traveling and sometimes taking a little weekend getaway can refresh a person, even if the weekend itself is tiring and constant go, go, go.

When we got back, we vegged out and caught up on all of our tv shows we missed over the past week and ordered in Chinese because we had no groceries and were too lazy and tired to cook anything. It was the perfect ending to the weekend.

Unstoppable.

2009-05-13T07:06:00.000-05:00

I just bought Rascal Flatts CD Unstoppable.

I'm going to have to agree with the title of the CD. I absolutely love RF and this CD hasn't let me down! They still have the great love ballads and the catchy bar tunes.

Hopefully they'll be coming to Minnesota again this year!

I'm Still Here!

2009-05-10T19:41:00.003-05:00

Well kids, I survived my long week of hell. While I'm completely exhausted and don't want to go back to work in the morning, it actually all went very well and was a lot of fun.

The 70s party last night was a blast. People were dressed up in crazy costumes and I was on the dance floor from 8:00 to 11:00 when the party ended. I danced with the different dealers I had just met two days before and we all had a great time! I think the fact that I showed my personality and had fun with the night helped the relationships solidify and now they can have something to talk to me about besides marketing when they call.

Today I did a 5k walk for breast cancer with Tall Guy, his brother and sis-in-law and then spent time with my mom and sisters. We all got pedicures which was much needed by me since I'd been on my feet in heels non-stop since Thursday night. My sister moved her stuff into my apartment and we went to an early dinner at Olive Garden.

Tall Guy and I finally get to spend some time together tonight. The most I've seen him is when he came home after I'd already gone to bed Friday and Saturday since I had to get up early the next morning. Plus, Tall Guy leaves tomorrow evening to go to Chicago for the week for some work training. It will suck having him gone all week but the good news is that I'm flying there Friday after work to spend the weekend in Chicago!

We're staying with my Aunt and Uncle and hope to catch a Cubs game on Saturday. Then we'll be flying back together Sunday afternoon. It will be a quick trip, but we got a good deal on my flight so it will be a nice little getaway!

Since I've been so low on time the past few days, I've had no time to read and comment on blogs. I've skimmed through most of them today but unfortunately, I just don't have the energy or time to comment on everything. I still love you all!

So that's a quick update from me. Hopefully I'll be posting more this week since the commotion has died down!

Long Week Ahead.

2009-05-04T21:20:00.001-05:00

I had a great weekend, which is good since this work week is going to be long and sucky. Don’t expect many posts or comments from me this week as I have work functions tonight, Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.

All of our dealers are in town for an Owner’s Rally to get trained on a new product so between their classes, we basically have to entertain them. Plus, since I just started, this will be my first time meeting all of my accounts face-to-face. Friday night we have a party at the owner of my company’s house and Saturday night we have a 70s costume party at a hotel. It’s going to be a lot of schmoozing and making small talk. Thankfully the parties only last until 10:00 pm because I’m going to be beat after working from 8 am to 10 pm.

Then on Sunday morning I have to get up at the crack of dawn to do the Walk for the Cure at Mall of America with Tall Guy, his brother, sis-in-law and some other people. The sister in law’s mother died of breast cancer so they do the walk each year and I was planning on doing it with my mom and sisters again, but something came up and they can’t now.

Needless to say, it’s going to be a long week and an even longer weekend with no break from work or a chance to sleep in. Yuck.

Anyway, Tall Guy and BFF met for the first time on Saturday and BFF told me that from the moment we walked in together she could tell Tall Guy was perfect for me and that I had a glow about me that she’s never seen before. It’s nice that me, Tall Guy, BFF and BFF’s fiancee all get along so we can do things together more often now!

It's FRIDAY!

2009-05-01T11:27:00.003-05:00

I'm so ready for the weekend!

Tall Guy and I are headed down to my hometown tonight for a nice home-cooked, grilled meal from my dad. Tall Guy hasn't been to my hometown with me yet so this is a nice, quick trip so he can at least see where I grew up.

Then tomorrow, we're headed even further south to hang out with BFF and her fiancee at their new house! I haven't seen BFF since December so I'm really excited for the trip. And she hasn't met Tall Guy yet so it's perfect reason to visit. We're planning in grilling out, having a bonfire and drinking. I'm sure we'll be talking about wedding planning a lot, too, since BFF is getting married in a little over a year.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dreamy.

2009-04-30T17:48:00.003-05:00

Last night I had the oddest dream.

I was having sex with a black man I think it was Jamie Foxx.

Except he said I couldn't touch him below the waist. Only our 'sex parts' could touch. I was on top. And then I realized I had my 'time of the month.' So I had to wipe off his man parts but he didn't like it because that meant I had to touch him.

WHAT THE HELL?!?

I woke up and told Tall Guy and he said, Well, as long as it was a celebrity, it's ok.

Big News: Revealed

2009-04-29T12:04:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I have some pretty big news to share. And good job to those of you that guessed that I'm moving in with Tall Guy.

I am officially moving in with Tall Guy at the end of August. I say officially because I've pretty much been staying at his place every night since we got back from vacation. I've started getting ready there in the mornings as well, so my apartment has really just become a big storage space for my things. Half of my clothes are in his closet and drawers, and we go grocery shopping for the week together since we make all our meals at his place. We have basically morphed into a cohabitating couple without even really talking about it. It just happened.

After Tall Guy moved and I started spending even more time at his apartment, I started thinking about how much I wanted to live with him. And I know, it was a surprise to me, too. I have always been adament about being engaged before I would live with someone and I never really knew where that idea came from.

Part of me thinks I had that thought stuck in my head because I didn't want moving in together to put a stop to any engagement plans. You know the old saying Why by the cow when you get the milk for free? I think I thought that if I moved in with someone without being engaged, we would never get engaged because of the fact that we were already living together and there was no rush. But with Tall Guy, I know he wants to get married and I know he doesn't plan on waiting five years to pop the question. We are on the same page in that respect and I know that moving in together won't stop any progression toward marriage.

The only reason I'm waiting until the end of August to make it official is because I already told my sister that she could use my apartment this summer while she's completing an internship. But it's fine because that gives me four months to move instead of the 60 days I'm required to give my landlord. Plus, I can slowly move my things throughout the summer as I need them and really decide what I'll actually need and what Tall Guy already has. And by the end of August, we'll have been together almost nine months, which I think is a decent time to be together before moving in together.

The only downfall is that Tall Guy just moved from a two bedroom to a one bedroom (in the same house) and the two bedroom will be leased until June 2010. Since Tall Guy owns the house with his brothers, he plans to move back to the two bedroom in June 2010, but didn't want to be stuck paying two rents by himself until then. So we'll be in the one bedroom, which might get a little cramped with all my stuff, for 10 months before we can move back down to the much more spacious two bedroom. It's really not a big deal because there's storage in the basement so I can put all the stuff I don't need down there until we move back into the two bedroom.

But I'm really excited about this!

Big News.

2009-04-28T21:02:00.002-05:00

So I have some pretty big news.

And based on previous posts I wrote about this topic, you are probably going to be really suprised.

Anyone want to take a guess?

A Note.

2009-04-27T19:47:00.003-05:00

As I was getting ready for the wedding on Saturday, I got out my Coach wristlet to store the essentials: lip gloss, ID, camera and phone.

When I opened up the wristlet I saw a scrap of paper tucked in the little pocket.

Love you honey! I hope you're having fun! I miss you and can't wait to see you on Sunday.

Tall Guy snuck it in there sometime after I left for work Friday morning.

I got a big grin on my face and of course praised him for his small gesture that made a big difference in making my day!

Posers.

2009-04-22T08:19:00.001-05:00

Obviously most people have heard about the plagiarism scandal that's going on around the blogosphere and I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I did want to say that I feel totally duped by the alleged copy cat. I read her blog daily and often commented on her lovely photos and stories and sometimes was even jealous of the thoughtful posts she wrote, wishing I could write something so nice.

I have never read any of the blogs she stole from so there really was no way for me to know that she was plagiarizing the words of those people, but I still can't help but feel badly that I believed everything she wrote. I'm glad she was called out and has since taken her blog down, but who knows if she'll start another one and continue to do the same thing? From the way this whole scandal panned out, I'd hope she's learned her lesson.

I've always liked the way that the blogosphere works: people write amazing things. If someone else likes what they wrote, they write about it in their own blog and link to the original post or at least use quotes and give the url to the original blog somewhere in the post. I've done it myself several times. I like giving other bloggers mention in my posts because I think there are bloggers who are brilliant writers. Some are funny (like pee my pants funny), some write lengthy posts that are filled with deep insights and some are short and sweet. Some people write about their day-to-day lives and things that happen along the way and some focus on a certain topic. All of these things are perfectly fine, which is the beauty of blogging. You can write what you want, when you want as long as you use your own words or give proper credit to the persons words you use.

It's really not that hard, but if you can't follow the rules, then don't bother playing. You will get called out. People are very loyal to their blog friends. If you cross a blogger with a large following in the wrong way, you will feel the consequences. I think yesterday's plagiarism scandal taught everyone a lesson.

MBA Chatter.

2009-04-21T07:07:00.004-05:00

So part of the reason I took my new job is because they offer tuition reimbursement for employees who want to continue their education as long as it pertains to their job or a future job they may have at the company. I've thought about going back to school for my MBA for a little bit now, but knew that I had to get a few years of work experience under my belt before even applying. Plus, I wasn't really ready to take the GMAT and jump back into school, especially if I had to pay for it myself.

But since my new company will pay 80% of tuition, books and other supplies, I've started thinking more seriously about going back. I have to be there for at least six months before they will start reimbursing tuition and even then you have to get each course approved and you don't get reimbursed until the class is finished and you've earned at least a C.

I'd preferably start in January 2010 which means I'll need to take the GMAT, write my application essays, get letters of recommendation and then actually apply by October 1. My six months at new company would be on October 13, but since I wouldn't get reimbursed for the classes until after the semester is over in May 2010, I would be in the clear.

So I've been researching all of the MBA programs in the Twin Cities area and think I have narrowed it down to a few schools that have what I'd be looking for. I want to do a program where I can emphasize my course work in Marketing since those classes will most likely be approved by my company based on my job and I want to stick with marketing in general anyway.

It's definitely a big decision to head back to college. The nice thing would be that it would only be one or two nights a week or maybe even Saturday classes since I'll still have to work while in school. Plus, Tall Guy is applying to start his MBA this fall at the sole expense of his company so it would be nice to be in school at the same time. I would probably get done before him though since he plans to take about four years to do his.

Anyway, that's a big thing that's been going on with me lately. Do any of you have an MBA? Has it significantly helped your career? Was it hard to balance school while working full-time if you did that? Is it worth the time and effort?

Photo Meme.

2009-04-20T18:50:00.004-05:00

Amy tagged me for the photo meme and although I'm anonymous and want to stay that way, I still wanted to participate in some way. So, without further ado....it's me!

Ok, so it's not really me, but it is my eye!

I'm not going to tag anyone in particular since I'm sure most of you have already done this, but if you haven't done it and want to, have at it!

Belgian Waffles.

2009-04-18T13:52:00.003-05:00

When Tall Guy was moving a few weeks back, we found a Belgian Waffle maker that he had forgotten about. I told him we'd have to make some waffles soon and jokingly he said I can't make you those until I know you're the one for sure.

I laughed it off and rolled my eyes at him and pretty much forgot about that comment, since we so often make jokes about marriage and our relationship.

This morning he made me Belgian Waffles.

Still Here.

2009-04-17T07:43:00.001-05:00

Thanks everyone for the supportive comments on the creeper post. I did get to the bottom of the story and everything checks out for the most part. I kind of know the person who has been writing the comments, although not very well.

To the person who writes them: obviously I'm trying to stay anonymous on this blog so any comments that use my real name or Tall Guy's real name aren't going to be published. Plus, it really freaks someone out when someone knows their real identity but they don't know who you are.

Creeper!

2009-04-16T19:55:00.004-05:00

Well, it's happened again. An anonymous person made a comment on my blog that creeped me out (I swear I stopped allowing anonymous comments!). It said:

Missing your daily post. You and [Tall Guy's name redacted] must be spending a lot of time together at night since you aren't writing then either.

When this happened last time, I threatened to shut down the blog because I was so creeped out. And I'm doing the same this time. I feel like there's someone out there who is creeping on me through my blog.

First of all, if you know me and are reading my blog, then why are you posting under Anonymous and why are you using Tall Guy's real name when you know I'm an anonymous blogger? Only like three people in my real life know the URL to this blog. Other people know I have a blog, but they have no idea of the URL and have no idea which alias I use.

Secondly, if you are the same person who left the comment using my real name, why are you trying to freak me out again?

So, if you don't want to be part of the reason I close this operation down, you need to email me at hazeleyes318@gmail.com and tell me who you are by tomorrow. Otherwise, I'm out. I don't like feeling creeped out by random comments that use me and Tall Guy's real name when I have no idea who they are from.

I really hope this isn't my last post as Hazel!

First Day.

2009-04-13T17:59:00.003-05:00

I started the new job today!

I don't even have internet access yet because you have to get a form signed by your manager to say you have a reason to be online (lame!) and I haven't gotten that yet. It's going to be very weird to get used to not being able to go online and do what I want like I could at Old Company. They definitely monitor computer usage at New Company and actions will be taken if you abuse your internet privileges.

Anyway, the day went well. My team members are really nice and friendly. It's five girls and our boss, who is a guy working together. Then I work with three sales guys who have the same territories as me. I'll be working with people in the West, Southwest and Central territories mostly over phone and email but sometimes they'll come to Minnesota to meet in person with me, too.

I have a lot to learn, but it's nice because they are reformatting the entire team so I'm not the only one who has stuff to learn. My hours are the same as before so that's good, too. Plus, I get a Mac (with two monitors to work on) and a PC and can work from them both simultaneously! It's nice to have access to a Mac since that's what I own but had to do all my design work from a PC at Old Company.

Unfortunately, the strict monitoring of internet use will limit by blogging capabilities so I'll either have to do scheduled posts or post after work each night. Oh well. It will be nice to be at a job where I don't have time to sit online all day and actually be challenged!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T11:59:00.001-05:00

Got 'Em.

2009-04-09T09:24:00.002-05:00

Franco Sarto, $39.99 at Marshalls.

I get my vacation and mileage reimbursement tomorrow so I plan to do a bunch of shopping in the next few weeks! Yay!

Busy Bee.

2009-04-08T09:51:00.002-05:00

Wow, this week has been a busy one so far.

It's my last week at my current job so I've been rushing around trying to train my intern on as much stuff as I can while still keeping up with the projects I need to finish before I leave and have three tenant meetings, too, which take up like two hours of my time!

(Side tangent: My boss is such a lazy p.o.s.that he's hiring my part-time, not even a year out of college intern to take over my job. She's been here six months and doesn't even know how to do half of the stuff I do, but he keeps saying "Well, there's not much you do that someone couldn't pick up quickly." Oh, I see what your opinion really is of my job now. Jerk. So yeah, I'm trying to train her on the stuff that she doesn't know, but it's not like you show someone something once and they're going to remember it perfectly. Especially when there's 50 different things you're trying to learn at once. But, she says she's ok with it, so whatever. Not my problem.)

On top of that, Tall Guy and I have gone to the Twins game the past two nights and haven't gotten home until after 10:00. Then we get ready for bed and by the time we get to sleep it's 11:30ish.

So yeah, I'm busy and sleepy and just want this week to be over. I'm planning on leaving early on Friday since it's my last day and really what am I going to do on my last day of employment here? Nothing I can imagine.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks.

2009-04-06T11:15:00.005-05:00

It's officially baseball season here in Minnesota and tonight I'm headed to the home opener with Tall Guy, two of his brothers and their wives. We always have a good time together so I'm sure this will be no different!

My friend JR got four free tickets to the game tomorrow and she invited Tall Guy and I to tht game, so we'll get lots of Twins action this week!

It's kind of weird that we went to a Wild game on Friday and three days later we're going to a Twins game, since those hockey and baseball are typically played in completely different seasons. I don't think I've ever been to a Twins game this early in the year. It's only going to be about 38 degrees today--thankfully the Twins have this last season indoors. Next year, we won't be so lucky if it's cold out (they're building a brand new outdoor stadium that will open for next season).

My ankle is still swollen and pretty painful to the touch, but at least I can walk normally now and won't have to limp up and down the stairs at the stadium like I did on Friday at the Wild game. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Wedding Talk.

2009-04-02T09:57:00.003-05:00

Scene: Cuddling in bed with Tall Guy last night

Me: Ugh, my apartment has just become a dumping ground. My bed is full of crap and I have bags lying all over because all I do is go there in the morning, get ready, pack a new bag and come to your place most days.
Tall Guy: I know a solution to that…You could move in here….
Me: Stop it! You know my rule (I won’t move in with anyone unless we’re engaged)!
Tall Guy: I know…
Me: And besides, it’s not really up to me.
Tall Guy: Oh really?
Me: I just get to decide what my answer will be.
Tall Guy: Well, what if I asked you right now?
Me:…..
Tall Guy: That would be awkward! You’d have to tell people “We just get done fooling around and he asked me to marry him!” I think I can come up with something a little more romantic than that.

This is a pretty typical conversation that Tall Guy and I will have when we’re going to bed. We usually just talk about stuff that happened that day and joke around as we’re cuddling and falling asleep. But we openly talk about getting engaged and married, which I know is taboo to some people, but it just comes up in our conversations easily. Mostly, it’s talked about as something that will happen in the future and most of the time it’s in a light hearted manner, not me telling him that I want to get engaged by June or something ridiculous like that.

We talked a lot about our future in Mexico and both of us know that we want to marry each other. My sister and I were talking about this and she asked So you know that you want to marry him? And I told her that I’ve known since about a month after we started dating.

I realize that we’ve only been dating for about four months, but sometimes you just know when something is meant to be. I have never met someone who compliments me so well and I am completely head over heels for Tall Guy. We joked that one month to us is like three months to every other relationship because of how things have progressed. So in our time, we’ve been together almost a year ;)

With Bry (the Ex), I think I was so obsessed with getting engaged because I thought that was the thing that might finally bring us closer and into a real adult relationship. That’s a terrible reason to get engaged, but I wanted things to work out so badly with us that I didn’t care. I wanted the permanent commitment so I would know that he was in it for the long run.

With Tall Guy, I’m happy. I’m not aching to get engaged because I know it will happen eventually and I’ll be thrilled when it does. I’m being more in-the-moment instead of in-a-year and am really enjoying our time together now. I’m not worrying about what will happen in the future because I know that he isn’t going anywhere.

I used to say that I wouldn’t marry someone unless we’d been together for years. Now? I would marry Tall Guy right now if he asked me. Some people think that’s crazy, but it’s like the quote from When Harry Met Sally:

I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

I’m ready for the rest of my life to start, but definitely don’t need a sparkly rock to make me enjoy life. Plus, I bought myself this gorgeous aquamarine (my birthstone) ring in Mexico to hold me over:
Tall Guy said it looks like an engagement ring and it kind of does. The fact that I only wear rings on my left ring finger doesn’t help, either. And the more I look at it, the more I love it. I’ve realized that it’s the setting I would love to have for an engagement ring someday, and I’ve been dropping hints all over that I love it!

(Of course I don't expect a diamond that big...)

Cheerful.

2009-04-01T09:11:00.004-05:00

About once a week I get a Sugar Free Vanilla Iced Coffee from McDonald's since it's right next to my office, it tastes good and is cheap (only $2.03 for a medium!). Almost every time the same guy takes my order and takes my money at the first window and every time he does, he's very friendly, polite and smiling when I get to the window. He always says Thank You and You're Welcome and tells me to have a nice day.

I know that fast food isn't the most glamorous job in the world (I worked at an A&W for four years in high school) and some people who work in fast food can be crabby and downright rude, but honestly, this guy takes his job to the next level with customer service. He makes me feel good as I drive away with my coffee.

It's amazing how little things like a smile and a Thank You can do for someone's day.

Details.

2009-03-31T07:21:00.001-05:00

So the trip was amazing, like I said before. We relaxed a lot, ate a lot, lounged by the pool a lot and drank lots of fruity drinks. Everyone thought Tall Guy and I were newlyweds, too, so that was fun to pretend :) We were at an all inclusive resort so we really didn't have to lift a finger or spend any money so that was nice, although we did end up tipping the servers and bartenders quite a bit.

Tall Guy and I ended up taking nightly walks on the beach and went to the same two beach chairs each night. There was almost never anyone else on the beach so it was very romantic. We talked a lot about how happy we are with each other and never though that we'd find such a great match through online dating. We talked about the future a lot, too. He told me again that he wants to marry me someday, which of course melts my heart into a little puddle. As he always jokes, I'm the best thing he ever bought on the internet :) On Tuesday night when we were out on our chairs, the sky suddenly lit up like a firework was going off. We looked up and saw what can only be described as a fireball zooming across the sky before it fizzled out. It was truly amazing and probably a once in a lifetime sight. We also saw several shooting stars during our time on the beach.

Another highlight was our snorkeling trip on Thursday. We got to go to three different reefs, all at different depths: 20 feet, 35 feet and 100 feet deep. The second one was probably the most cool because we saw two nurse sharks! There were fish swimming all around us and tons of different varieties. We had some underwater cameras that we still need to develop but I'm excited to see the photos!

One negative thing that happened was that a guy died right in front of us on the beach. An older couple were snorkeling in front of our hotel while we were lying on the beach when the woman started yelling at the man to get up. When he didn't she started yelling and a bunch of people went down to the beach and pulled the man out of the water. He already looked like he was dead, but a few guests started giving him CPR. The most disturbing part was that the ambulance didn't show up for over 30 minutes. And since he wasn't responding to CPR, it was obvious that he was dead so they did nothing; just stood there. A sheet was grabbed from the hotel and was draped over the man's body. The dead man was lying there for over an hour before the police showed up to check out the body. Guests of the hotel had to see that! There was no sense of urgency from anyone at the hotel or the paramedics or the police. It was obvious that they had no training on how to deal with the situation and that the guests of the hotel were more trained on CPR and how to handle the problem. I just felt so terrible and helpless seeing the whole thing unfold. It was also disturbing to see how many people ran down to the beach and then just stared at the poor guy even though they weren't doing anything to help. It's like, come on! Give him and his wife some respect! If you're not helping, get out of the way.

So that put a damper on most of our day and night Tuesday. But, there really wasn't anything else we could have done for the guy. We guessed that he had a heart attack or stroke and then drowned because he was unconscious. How sad.

But overall, it was a great trip. I think Tall Guy and I proved that our relationship is even stronger than we thought. Remember when I thought it was an accomplishment if Bry and I didn't fight over a weekend? Well, Tall Guy and I didn't even get in a minor argument the entire week we were together. It was all smooth sailing for us. It's a big step to go on a week long vacation with someone you've only been dating for about four months, but then again, our relationship has moved along quite quickly and is not what I'd call a typical relationship. My point is that being with someone 24 hours a day for six straight days can be challenging and I'm glad that we were able to get through it without so much as a pouty face.