Red Pencil Diaries

Dave is in Boston this week for a conference for work. They’ve been having a great time (see the pics in our photo gallery—http://www.emays.com/gallery2/v/album/

The last few pages show Dave and the guys at the Barenaked Ladies concert. For those of you who don’t know, the Barenaked Ladies are my favorite band in the whole universe. So, yes, I am a bit jealous of his attendance at this concert. But he did manage to snag me some great pics and…. a guitar pick! He didn’t say if it was Ed or Steven’s guitar pick, but I don’t care. Did I also mention that Dave is a wonderful husband?

Tonight Zack and I had dinner with Keli and Chili at The Taste Of Jamaica. I hadn’t had really good jerk chicken since I was in Jamaica, and let me just say… the stuff I had tonight was really good. Perfectly spiced… juicy. And the “rice and peas” were wonderful on the side. Some sticky fried plantains… mmm. It really took me back to a vacation from a few years ago.

Earlier today, Zack and I met our friends Natalie and Lydia at the park. Lydia and Zack were all over the place. And Natalie and I were chasing them. Up the slide, down the slide, catch them, back up again. Swing swing swing. They have such energy—even when neither of them had a nap! They are so cute together. They jump and run and follow each other. I just wish we lived closer so they could hang out more. Zack has been acting so shy lately. I’m hoping it’s a phase, but I’m afraid that spending all his time with just mommy has made him timid of other people. So I’ve been trying to get him out and around people more. I want to raise a social butterfly, not some timid little mouse.

Tonight Dave and I are going out on a date. I feel sort of bad about going because my mom agreed to watch Zack, but my dad had a car accident yesterday and now their truck is dead… but we’ll figure something out. I really need to go out. Dave is going out of town for work, and I’ll be stuck here and I’ve been spending so much time at home lately with being sick and all… This should be a great night out!

Friends of ours went to this fondue restaurant recently and gave it a good review, and I decided we should go there too. So I made a reservation for tonight. This is the first night we’ve been out together, just the two of us, for months. So I am very excited. Plus, an evening of feeding each other cheesy dipped morsels will most certainly be fun. I’m sure we’ll have some laughs and a really good time.

I just hope Zack is good tonight. And I hope my dad is feeling better after the wreck. Guess I should call and check up on him this morning…

I’m trying to get my healthy meals back on track. So I got out a couple of cookbooks and I’m reviewing recipes that get more veggies into our lives. I’m considering making at least one night a week a “meat free” night for all of us. I’ve tried to do it for myself, but I think it might help us get away from fatty meats. We are already using our grill more. I want to start grilling some seafood too. I have some fish in the freezer. I saw a show on cooking scallops the other night. I’ve never made scallops. I have to try it! Ohhh, and I have salmon in the freezer. Maybe I’ll have some for dinner.

I’ve also been noticing that I have a real attraction to anything shiny or sparkly. Yesterday I went to Old Navy and I saw this cute summer top that had some trim with a few sequins and shiny buttons on the top, and it was only $5.99… so I had to have it. I even put it on last night and wore it around for awhile just to admire the glittery top.

I love making jewelry. I have tons of sparkly beads in little containers. Sometimes I just love getting them out and looking at them and seeing them all sparkle in the light. And I love jewelry. Even costume jewlery. I have these hooks on the wall in my room that hold dozens of bracelets and necklaces. I need to go through them all and get rid of some stuff that I really don’t wear. But when I see something sparkly on clearance… I have to have it. lol… It’s a strange addiction. Good thing I don’t get out to shop too much… now isn’t there something I need at Target today? ;)   Darn… it’s thundering outside. Guess we won’t go afterall.

I like to think I’m a likeable person. That I get along with people. That I am helpful. That I am considerate. That I give good gifts. That I give good advice. That I listen well. But every once in awhile, someone makes me question myself. I had a friend—make that group of friends—a few years ago. I really liked them. But things in my life went bad. Looking back, I can see that I wasn’t myself then. But at that time, I didn’t realize how fragile I was and how it was affecting those around me. I didn’t see how the stress and my lack of ability to handle it had made me pretty much intolerable.

And then my life changed. So many parts of it changed nearly at once. Within a year, I wasn’t working, had a new house, got pregnant again, etc. And I look back to that time in my life, and wonder what happened to those people I knew back then. I’ve always been afraid to really ask any of them. I know most of them stopped talking to me because I wasn’t too pleasant to be around. But things changed. I changed.

And now I’m still afraid they won’t like me. That they are sitting there from a distance, feeling good about their decision to drop me as a friend. A friend who really needed some friends. Who still does.

Maybe this will make sense to some of you. To most who read this, it will seem a bit rambling and confusing. But it’s something I was thinking about and had to get it off my chest. I wonder… do they still read this? Do they care what happened to me? Or was it just a clean break and move on? Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder. I think about whether they will ever be part of my life again. Whether our paths will cross again. And if they do, what will I do? What will I say? sigh

So I’ve been sick for two weeks now. I generally feel I can recover from things pretty quickly. And I was feeling better than last week, but still hadn’t totally kicked this ick. So with Dave’s urging, I went to the doctor today. And I’m glad I did. It seems that not only am I recovering still from the flu, I have a sinus infection, bronchitis, and allergies. I received 4 prescriptions. Luckily, I have no fever, and the doctor said that I seemed to be on the recovering side, but she gave me more medicine to help me get over the hump. I did a breathing treatment and could suddenly breathe deeper again (the doctor had said my chest seemed tight and my breathing was a bit rattly and not as deep as it should be).

I’m already feeling better than I did this morning. I can even breathe through both nostrils (this morning, I was only able to breathe through one). Yay

I love when it’s warm enough to open up the windows and let the warm breeze in. Zack and I went outside for awhile today. Daddy mowed the grass the other day, but didn’t bag it, so Zack was picking up handfuls of dried grass and handing them to me to hold. When we go outside, he’s always investigating things he can’t touch unless he’s outside. He brings me rocks, sticks, flowers, leaves, and grass. It’s fascinating to watch him discover all this new stuff.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll go to the park or something. I know it’s supposed to rain at some point though. That’s the other fun part of spring.