Happy Holidays

This update is for Stacey, who finally got me to bookmark the site and post...

I'm home sick today. I went home sick from work on Tuesday and Wednesday, so seeing as how I feel the same today, I decided to just stay home and rest. I'm feverish and achy and am very nauseated. I've finally found that I can eat toast without wanting to hurl and sipping some ginger ale is helping as well. This is totally not the time to get sick - December is the busiest, craziest time at work so I'm a little stressed about not being there. I was talking to Julie about it last night - she thinks I need to learn to let go, that everyone gets sick and that the job will still be there when I get back. I know that... I guess I'm just a bit of a control freak.

It is kind of nice to not have to go outside today... it's snowing *again* which means the already slippery, snow covered roads will be even worse. After the blizzard last week that caused us to be stranded until the plows came by (first time in my whole life, btw) the temperature dropped a lot and the weather has been pretty bad.

We bought a new Christmas tree this year and put it up on November 23rd. I realize that is earlier than the norm but I don't care. If I'm going to go through the trouble of decorating it and moving furniture around, I want the damn thing to be up for longer than a couple of weeks! Our old Christmas tree was only two feet tall and one of the legs was lost last year (at our old apartment it leaned against the wall and was pretty pathetic although quite cute) so we threw it out when we moved. The one we have now is 6.5 feet which is a decent size but when we eventually buy a house, I want a bigger one like the one I grew up with.

We have two presents under the tree right now that are from Julie's parents in England and that will probably be it. Julie suggested that since we buy each other little things throughout the year, we don't need to buy each other Christmas gifts. The reason being that both of us would end up spending a ton of money on gifts we can't really afford to show our love for each other - when really, picking up a chocolate bar at the gas station has the same effect. I agreed with her because a) we're trying to pay stuff off and save up money for future stuff, and b) we ordered a new couch and chair that is being delivered on Dec 31st that we've decided is our Christmas present. However, I have strayed from this plan and I have purchased a few things for Julie. I wrapped them and have them hidden and will put them under the tree after she's gone to bed on Christmas Eve. Hey, if Santa brought them, it's okay, isn't it? They are things I know she wants but won't dare buy them for herself so I know she'll like them.

As for the couch and chair we purchased, there's a story to that (of course). The couch we have is sage green and looks like hell. Julie has had it for I don't know how long and the cats she used to have used the ends as scratch posts. The cushions are lumpy and do not hold shape anymore and it's very uncomfortable to sit on because it has no support in the seat or back. Julie LOVES the couch though - it is where she sits at night and where she sleeps half the time*. She clutches the back of the couch possessively whenever I mention that I hate it and I want to replace it. Needless to say, I rarely sit on the couch. We have a...um... what do you call an upholstered chair from the 70's that rocks and swivels but doesn't recline? Anyway, that's what I sit in because although it isn't the most comfortable, it has a lot more support than the damn couch. I have a foot stool in front of it and I push against it to rock the chair back a bit so I can have the laptop propped on my lap when I'm using it (otherwise I sit at the dinner table - our desk goes unused now that it's in a room away from television aka where Julie resides). This 'lounging' position strains my knees and gets uncomfortable after a while but I'm just not the type of person to sit upright in a chair with my feet on the ground. Even at work, my feet rest on the base of the chair (y'know, the leg things with the wheels) or on an ergo foot rest. Soooooooooooo... Julie decided one day that she wanted to buy me a new chair that reclined because she could see I was uncomfortable. I said no because I thought getting a new couch would be much more practical - if we got a couch we both liked, I could sit on the couch instead of the chair. She was adamant about it though so a couple of weeks back, we decided to go to a few places to take a look at reclining chairs. I had also wanted to stop at Sears because they had Christmas trees on sale. We decided to stop at Sears first to check out the trees and on the way to the seasonal section we passed the furniture section. For the hell of it, I tried out a few chairs but they were either too cushioned with no support (I want to sit in it, not be swallowed alive by it) or way too expensive. We decided to move on to the seasonal section at that point but then both of us saw this couch and chair set at the same time. I went and sat in the chair and she sat on the couch and we looked at each other and said "Nice!" at the same time. What are the odds that we'd find a couch and a chair that we BOTH liked that looked decent, had great support and would go with our other furniture/colour scheme - slim to none is the answer. I was praying to some unknown entity that the price wouldn't be ridiculously expensive and wouldn't you know it, they were both on sale. We were pretty disappointed that they are not being delivered until Dec 31st, but at least that gives us time to get rid of the couch and chair we have now. I can't wait - it'll be sooooooo nice to be able to relax in comfort!



(* Some may find it odd that Julie sleeps on the couch a lot but it is in no way a reflection of the state of our relationship. She goes through periods of talking in her sleep and twitching so on nights when I REALLY need to get a good night's sleep or if she's watching TV and I've already gone to bed, she'll just pass out on the couch. She likes to fall asleep to the television and I don't... so yeah, that's why she sleeps on the couch a lot :)

Since November, the relationship Julie and I have has gotten a lot stronger. I think the trip to Banff at the end of August had a lot to do with it. In early-mid September, I wasn't sure if we would still be together by the end of the year because we were at odds with some major issues (marriage, children, some other stuff...) and on some of them I felt I could not compromise on. The biggest one being children, followed closely by Julie wanting to move back to New Brunswick (where she first landed in Canada and lived for about five years - and where her ex wife, ex girlfriend and her/their two twin daughters live). I want a child and she changed her mind and said she didn't. She wanted to move and I did not (at least not in the near future). I thought about marriage and she did not want to get married again. Um... can you see why I didn't think we'd be together for much longer? Slowly though, things started to change... I can't explain how, it wasn't overly obvious... I guess it was just a feeling. We flew to New Brunswick to visit Julie's ex wife and ex girlfriend for the twins' 3rd birthday the week of Remembrance Day. During that week we both spent a lot of time with the twin girls and I think Julie changed her mind that week. She told me she was impressed by how good I was with the girls and how she could definitely see me as a mother. It was on the plane back home that she told me that she would like to have a child with me and eventually be married. I honestly think that since the trip to Banff, we've fallen in love with each other to a greater extent. It's hard to explain but what we have is much deeper now and it's awesome. :)

So... now there is a new, loose plan that involves a house first, then probably marriage and hopefully a child.

Alright, time for a nap... this update has worn me out.