HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

To Miss Omnaci...may today be blessed, happy, and most of all STRESS FREE!

Love you lots!

Whoo-HOO! It's done! It's done!

The first issue of the SLIS Descriptor with me as the editor! Yeeeeaaaahhhh!

Hurrah for patient people who waited for me to get this just right (although not completely perfect, because, really, who even wants to be perfect?).

Upon seeing a diamond store catalog oddly placed in the fiction section of Waldenbooks, the boy and I had a funny little exchange.

Him: I guess there is a lot to learn about diamonds.
Me: It's important to know about diamonds.
Him: Why?
Me: In the words of Marilyn Monroe, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend."
Him: So, what's a guy's best friend?
Me: His dog!
Him: Hmm, I think that a guy's best friend is his wife with a diamond on her finger.
Me: That could work, too.

Oooookaaaaayyyyy.

Two months in, and no one has fled the scene. Okay, so yesterday, I experienced my first EVER two-month-aversary (I'll pause while you all cheer for me and this great accomplishment, haha).

It was wonderful. I am starting to get the hang of this whole girlfriend thing, although it does take some practice...hmm...

I always did believe that being a mother comes somewhat naturally but that being a girlfriend takes effort. I think that, for me (and since this is MY blog, I can talk about me, and I usually do...moving on), the maternal instinct stuff kicks in because of taking care of pets and parents :Þ, while I have nothing to which I can compare the boyfriend/girlfriend experience. That's off in its own little world and requires special skills and talents. Now, many of these come with the XX chromosome, but there are some things, like baking a cake and knowing the home prices in most of the U.S. states, that just seem to flow naturally through my bloodline. Other things, like knowing when it's okay to say mushy-gushy things, develop only with practice.

I'm still not used to it being okay to say how I feel. That's what it comes down to...I've had so many non-start relationships, crushes and flirtations, that I'm not used to having honest, open communication in a relationship. I'm not complaining. I'm learning. Little by little.

p.s. Miss I - whatever you need, whenever you need it, I'll be there...and we all break into song.

For the first time in my life, I TRULY know what it means to be ridiculously and completely busy. Yet, there is not one thing I would give up doing at the moment (unless it was working...but then, I can't afford to give that up, haha). I'm happy. My life is full. I don't quite know how that happened.

Now, just so we're clear, I have had those "panic attack" moments when I actually pause to think of each individual thing I must accomplish in the next day, week, month or semester, but those moments pass when I realize that everything WILL get done with baby steps each day.

This does remind me a bit of my senior year in high school, when the whole "honors group" walked around in a daze, overwhelmed with college applications, school assignments, extra curricular activities, sports, social activities, work, family, and any combination thereof. We were all completely swamped, but we all just went along believing that somehow it would all get done, and it did. After a few late nights, some temper tantrums and thrown pencils (hey, it wasn't just me! other people cried!).

I'm hoping to avoid the temper tantrums, but I do believe that this work can all get done. There's nothing I would give up.

But I do need to learn to say no. I think I'm full now.

Long ago, I asked someone, "How's life?"

To my irritated suprise, the reply came, "Full."

I get it now.

So, for some reason, my co-workers were talking about diamonds today...and the size that "certain" diamonds SHOULD be in a given, important time in a woman's life.

Basically, quality matters more than size (aka quantity in this little scenario). This is my eventual conclusion after listening to the woman chatter on about love and whatever (haha, seriously, love is a wonderful thing). Quality in the relationship matters, too, and perhaps, sometimes, a big ole honkin' diamond (whether at that "certain" time or any other, for that matter) may just be an expensive bandaid for a hurtin' relationship.

It's amazing what I learn when I work with people old enough to be my mother!