“Your couch it sucks, mine is better…” yours? It goes. Mine? It stays.

And once more, I join the co-habitation merry-go-round.  Tom and I decided (with a bit of a push from unplanned source) that we needed to merger our household into one because a) we will save lots of “mooola” and b) he now MUST take out the trash and fold the laundry every time. 

In my relationship background I have done this twice before.  The first time I was so green that I actually accepted living with the family of the boyfriend at the time - Yes, I WAS CRAZY in love and apparently a few screws loose in the head.  That lasted about 1 year (with the family) and about 2 more years without.  What I learn?  I hate to share a bathroom with a guy, and leaving the cap off the toothpaste drives me bat-shit.  

The second time I was a bit older, more mature and this time no family in sight!  This one lasted 4 years.  What I learn? I hate to share a bathroom with a guy, unless it’s a BIG bathroom and leaving the cap off the toothpaste still drives me bat-shit.  The kitchen is my domain, I hate to do laundry and no matter what I say, if I cook, I don’t do dishes. 

For the last 6 month Tom and I have shared houses… he stays at mine, I stayed at his …and overall we have been polite in the sharing of households… hidden translation: at his house the cap off the toothpaste? Not a matter of life and death (I still count to 10)… At my house? All hell breaks loose, fortunately, that boy has been able to keep up. 

So this past week I have been in major freak out mode.  Packing up your house and making the decision of what goes, what stays and how to tell convince the boyfriend that the ugly chair is not making the cut in the furniture war has been a horrible ordeal and my mind is about to explode.  In times like this I wish I had the super powers to wiggle my nose and make things happen NOW and sit back and just baste in the fruit of others labor.

And since Tom and are just up to our brains in pressure and stress, we have decided to add to the mix and remodel his house.  So in the next few months, we will be tearing up about ½ of his house and redo bathrooms, kitchen, master bedroom and closets plus dinning/living room - in order words ALL of the house.

I will continue to freak out, but this time while choosing tiles, paint colors, cabinets and handling power tools at the same time.

I say we are moving in the right direction in the relationship… if we can survive this, I pretty much can let the cap off the toothpaste episode go… (most of the time).

The Best Sci-fi movie in years

In a movie season that’s overpopulated with tired superhero movies, remakes and sequels, it’s incredibly refreshing to see a movie that stands on its own as a completely new and unique creation.

It’s safe to say you’ve never seen anything like Wall-E, and you might not see anything like it again. Go. Go see it as soon as you can.

And to prove my point… a teaser

Simply put, Wall-E is a masterpiece

Morning back up plan

This is what happens at 6AM at my house every morning… after the alarm clock and I battle it out:

The only differences? I have TWO cats that do this.

Re-grouping

There has been a bit of family drama and issues and I been feeling a bit side-blinded and overwhelmed about the whole thing.

I been backed into a corner and its not feeling good to be there, so I trying to access how to best move out of the situation and at the same time try to keep the peace with everyone involved.

Its messy, as most decisions about family are bound to be and there will be consequences to those decisions… I’m keeping the faith that we have a strong bond to look pass it and to let it heal, funny, that I’m keeping the faith on this because I know that if I let that little bit of faith slip, I will shatter into a bunch of pieces.

So for now, I’m taking a bit of break, since I pretty much don’t have anything happy to blog about, and since I respect the privacy of my family, and have promise in the past to keep them out of this medium as much as I can, I cannot use this spot to vent, and rave about what is going on right now.

I will regroup and come back.. promise.

The pretty things that make me smile

If you have been reading me for a while, you know that the fauna world has a wanted poster out for my head.  I don’t have a green thumb … I have a very dark, dark thumb, one that kills anything that has to live in dirt or needs water to survive.  I have so many bad experiences with anything in the form of a plant that I have pretty much given up in even being successful at it.

But, this past weekend, walking around the market… I came across this pretty plant, and I just could not contain myself and plucked the $8.00 faster than speeding bullet.  Brought it home, and I actually put it in a pot, with dirt!  And here it is.. sitting pretty by my doorway…

I taking bets in how long I can keep it alive… but, I’m given you fair warning that I’m going to make such an effort, because just looking at it makes me smile, and anything that makes me smile coming out or into my house, deserve special attention.

Tag! you are it…

Hold on to your hats people. 2 post in one day!… but, while reading my blog list, Diane, over at Martinis For One Two tagged me… Because apparently after a long vacation in the red sea, she is fully relaxed and in need of a good laugh!

But, who am I kidding?  I love Meme’s… so here we go, “Five Habits Meme”

What was I doing 10 years ago?

• This one is so hard, since I don’t even remember what I was doing yesterday! But wait, let me see if I can remember… 10 years ago.. ummm that was 1998, let me see, work: I was working with Ericsson Mobile phones (now Sony-Ericsson) as Product Marketing Administrative Specialist & Coordinator… my job was beta testing the phones that were to hit the market and report back to the R&D department, I also organized and conducted the market research once those phones hit the markets .  This was super fun for me because I’m a gadget person… I love gadgets, and the more buttons to push the better!  Personal: I was 10 years younger and still like to party the town, I was the dancing queen of the Miami Beach night life.

Five Snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non-weight gaining world:

• Cake
• Cupcakes
• Chocolate (can you see the theme here?)
• Nuts (specifically: walnuts, Almonds, Peanuts & hazelnuts)
• Prosciutto (and its San Danielle or Parma.. OMG… I would die happy)

Five snacks I enjoy in the real world:

• Everything above but in moderation, except the cake part, that I can always consume until I can’t no more.

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Built my dream home
• Own homes in the mountains and in the coast (an island!)
• Travel, Travel & Travel (to find the perfect location to built and own those home)
• Give back by donating to causes close to my heart (ONE, Habitat Int’l, 3-Day, Humane Society)
• Relax and enjoy the fact that I can do whatever I like and not worry about where to get the money to do it with.

Five Jobs I have had:

• Fileroom clerk (the best JOB EVER – we did not do anything and got paid enough in order to go out and party and drink lots of beer!)
• Special Event Coordinator (I organizing the inaugural events for the new Royal Caribbean Cruise ships)
• City-Tour Guide (in Italy… I was the girl in front of the bus giving you the city tour – I did this in Miami as well)
• Nightclub event organizer (Again in Italy - girl had to make some money!)
• I was an Au-Pair (glorified babysitter) for an Italian family for about a 1 year (again, one of the best jobs, specifically because this family was loaded, so I got to travel and live rent free for a year during my stay in the south of Italy)

Five Habits:

• I play “who can win the wake up wars” with my alarm clock every morning – sadly the clock always win.
• I stop by the cafeteria on my way to work and always order a medium café-con-leche (and wave at Tom, who happens to work across the street from the café).
• Like Diane, I also read my list of subscribed blogs
• I count the hours, minutes and seconds until I get OUT OF WORK
• I always read before I got to bed (if I don’t do this, its like my universe is out of funk)

Five places I have lived:

• Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela
• Fort Collins, Colorado
• Torino, Italy
• Alba Adriatica, Italy
• Florida (St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Sarasota, Tampa)

Five people I’d like to get to know better:

• This is where I would tag other people, but since I’m always clueless as to which other bloggers read my stuff, I’m going to leave it up to them to tag themselves and then link it back to me… so, go shake it!

Bed-Side Conversations

Me:  So are you going to take a shower?
Him:  ummm, don’t know
Me:  Did you take a shower when you got back from work?
Him:  No, did not have time, I changed and rushed right out
Me:  ah, yeah, ok… you are NOT going to get in bed with me like that
Him:  HEY! You did not take a shower
Me:  I took one this morning… and unlike you; I work in an OFFICE, with A/C low enough to freeze a polar bear… so the sweating thing… yeah, not happening
Him:  Are you telling me I smell?
Me:  No, I’m telling you that you need to shed that work skin before you come to bed
Him: duly noted

Extended Family

Tom and I have been in a relationship together for six months, and approximately sixty-five thousand kisses. We are a pretty affectionate couple, and tell each other how much we love each other about seven or eight times a day, give or take a million. I will always fondly remember the first time he told me he loved me, but recently I had someone say those three magic words to me that may have even topped the first time he whispered them to me. It was … get ready … his mother! My possible future mother-in-law.

I wouldn’t say that Tom’s mom and I are especially close or anything - I mean, I think she is a wonderful mother and a great and very kind person and has never been anything less than thoughtful and supportive of me and Tom.  We see her at least once a week, and have spent many weekends with her since Tom and I started dating.  Tom lost his father only a week after him and I started dating, and he is very close to her and the rest of his family, and while I never really had any problems “wining” the parents of any of my ex-boyfriends…this was different, I mean here I was meeting what could potentially be my extended family in the future and well, the pressure of this is always a tiny factor in back of my mind every time we see her or I meet any member of his family…and, that man, he has A LOT of family.

Tom has been telling me how much his mom loves me, but I never really paid attention to it, I mean loving someone is a big deal, and I knew that she had been very close to Tom’s ex, and it was very difficult for her when they separated and ultimately divorced.  And being a woman myself, I knew that bonding for us is usually a bit harder to do, we tend to be more guarded and skeptical.  I was prepared to accept that it would take time and lots of sucking up patience .  Even when she handed me a sweater as a gift that she herself knitted, I was a bit doubtful, regardless of Tom’s assurance that her giving me a gift like that was the equivalent of THE ultimate acceptance into the his family fold.

This past weekend Tom and I spent most of the day with her and some of her family that were visiting down for the summer  Most of the day was spent hearing their family gossip and catching up on the years that had gone by.  Tom had just met one of the cousins for the first time, so they had tons of stories to share. It was a relaxing, fun day, filled with homemade pizza and lots of laughter and love.

As we were leaving, his mother leaned over to me and told me that her son was very lucky to have found me and that she was so glad that he had someone in his life that love him so much, and then as she gave me a huge big loving hug goodbye, she told me she loved me. And I, well I just stood there dumbfounded while fighting back emotions. But I gained my composure, and hugged her back really hard. It was such a special moment, one that I will always remember. If Tom and I ever take the big walk down the aisle, I can know that my new family will love me and treat me just as well as my current one.

As soon as we drove away I turned to Tom and said “YOUR MOM JUST TOLD ME THAT SHE LOVES ME!”  Typically male, Tom looked at me confused and said … “So?”

Dream a little dream….

Dreams are defined in Webster’s Dictionary as a “sequence of sensations, images, thoughts, etc., passing through a sleeping person’s mind”. Dreams have been a topic of study dating back to 4000 B.C. One may say that dreams have been around as long as the first civilization came to be and are just a normal part of human existence.

In our dreams, we can go anywhere, we can be anybody, and we can do anything. When we dream, we are like passengers on a moving train, unable to control our actions and choose surroundings. We let our mind take over.

Having said that… I’m a BIG dreamer (out of bed too, but that’s another post). I can actually fall asleep and bring forth any dream that I want, it’s like writing my own scripted dream - which it’s kind of cool in a freaky way. I also have those dreams that I don’t ask for… as in visits from dead family members, some are nice: my maternal grandmother and I? We play cards all the time in my dreams, we have important conversations, while all that card playing happens… she tells me what I’m doing wrong in my life and I tell her she needs to give me the lotto numbers. Basically, we have the same relationship that we had when she was alive and well. Some not so nice, my uncle keeps coming up and just sits and stares at me, which freaks the shit out of me, those dreams I tend to wake up pretty fast. Then there are those dreams that pop out of nowhere and have no sense at all. Last night I had one of those, and it went a bit like this (excuse the lack of descriptive narrative, since I’m still trying to remember most of it myself:

It took place somewhere in the middle of a body of water, I was never able to figure out if it was the ocean, or lake, just that it had lots of water all around. I was me, and 2 other people, and while in the dream it felt like I knew them… in reality, I had never seen them in my life. We were all sitting in a platform, which stuck out in the water - sort of like a dock of sort. We were renting flippers and mask and were ready to jump in the water to do a bit of diving. But the diving attendant of the place would not let us go in the water. In fact, he was the one in the water, talking on the cell phone while he was swimming back and forth in front of us. In my dream I was frustrated and keep yelling at him (the attendant) to come back and let us in the water, but he was to busy talking on the phone. The dream went on and on like this for a while. Finally, I and my unknown “friends” had enough and threw the flippers in the water to get the attendant attention, so he could come over to the dock, where we were. After a bit of more yelling and waiting, we finally caught his attention and slowly swan to the edge of the dock, where I properly, gave him a piece of my mind, telling him that I was not going to sit around and wait, that I wanted to get in the water NOW and I was going to do so with or without his permission. Then the attendant looked up at me and….

I woke up! Yes, WOKE.MYSELF.UP (or better yet, the alarm woke my ass up) ! Talk about anti-climatic!

And while most of my dreams go up in smoke after I wake up, this one has just stuck. I thought about it while I got ready to come to work, during my commute to work and now here while I write this. And it’s DRIVING me nuts! What does it mean? Why could I not get in the water? Who were those 2 people with me? Why all the yelling and waiting?

So I went to the internet to see if I can find out what it means, I broke it down to the things that stuck out the most about it:

Water: I know that water usually symbolizes my emotional state of mind (I look it up!). And according to the internet, “it signifies that I’m in tune with my spirituality. It denotes serenity, peace of mind, and rejuvenation.”

Diving (sort of) of the attendant: Represents psychological and emotional balance.

Dock: suggests that I have successfully gotten through some tough times and emotions.

Yelling (there was a lot of that): represents repressed anger that needs to be expressed, and I feel like my voice does not matter.

Waiting: is indicative of issues of power/control and feelings of dependence/independence, especially in a relationship. Since I was a bit patient, then it means that I know things will happen at their own pace, but alternatively, it denotes my expectations and anxieties about some unknown situation or decision

Cell Phone: indicates that I’m being receptive to new information.

People (as in those two that were there with me): To see people I don’t know in my dream denotes hidden aspects of me that I need to confront.

So as you can see, if I want to interpret this the right way: My emotional state of mind is at peace with its self, after going through some shit, which gives me the right to have a bit of repressed anger that needs to be articulated even thought I’m having problems getting people to hear me, but I’m still receptive in getting new information even thought I still need to confront crap that is hidden inside of me, and somewhere in there I need to work on my power/control feelings.

See? I have no clue why people need to see a shrink anymore. The path of finding ourselves is to dream a little dream and then hit http://dreammoods.com and the best part? It’s FREE!

Halfway Point

Next month Tom (the BF) and I hit the 6-month halfway point of our relationship. Can I just say something: SIX MONTHS have gone BY ALREADY?

Either, I have been way to busy to notice or having way to much fun to keep track.

With the halfway point comes lots of headway, as in WE HAVE NOT KILLED each other yet - good times! It also marks the points were we have fallen into a comfortable daily routines and observations about how to NOT KILL EACH OTHER.

He wakes up first in the morning. Ok, ok… I do have to nudge him about a gazillion times, after snoozing the alarm button a trillion times more. (Yeah, we are NOT morning people, I think I love him more for it)

He brings me a glass of water every night when I’m getting ready for bed, the way I like it, filled with lots of ice, all crushed, because he knows I like to chew on it while I read in bed.

He puts up with my reality TV shows and my obsession with Law & Order CI marathons. He knows (and accepts) that I cannot stand to watch his cartoons network fascination and late night TV more than 10 minutes into them.

He automatically got the take-out-the-trash duties, and also the folding of laundry. He knows I’m good for the cleaning of the bathroom and all major cooking duties.

He does know how to cook… as in the “lets fired up the grill and COOK!” The outside grill is getting major usage the last couple of months.

We have couple friends now! We have weekend plans!

He calls to find out if I need anything before coming to the house - can you say how awesome this is?? The fact that if I forget to pick up milk, ice, cake on the way to work, I know he will do it for me in a heartbeat.

We get each others jokes and totally sarcastic come backs.

He loves dogs. I have inherited 2 of his: Rufus, the Bull Mastiff, and Maggie, the rut. I love cats. He has inherited my 4 cats. Yes, can you picture the zoo? The animals still have not met each other yet; can you picture what is coming?

He takes my girly-girly, prissy attitude in stride and I take his caveman attitude under advisement.

He understands my loss of hearing, I totally get his ADD.

He needs to draw pictures, play the guitar/drums at least once a day. He knows that I need to have him do this (specially the music) in another part of the house.

The nonsexual physical affection - hugging, kissing, holding hands - totally ROCKS. (The other part, yeah, that rocks too.)

He is a great father. His son is just as great.

He forgets most of the time. He knows I make list, and knows to follow them.

We both pay attention and the little things? They count.

He loves me as I am… I love him just as much.