Is it August already?

It's been a long time since I've written, and I feel like I miss writing so much. I really want to get doing this again every day, but it's so hard when you're not in the rhythm to make it a priority. I'll try for September's challenge I suppose. Though, we're going to the shore Labor Day weekend, so I don't know how that will go (if we'll have wifi or not).

Life is going quite well. Things with Dylan are great, I've been having fun with friends and coworkers, I'm actually genuinely excited to try new things at work, and I'm about to go see my family for the third time this summer. I've decided to stay in my place for another year or so, even though Dylan got into the University of Pennsylvania. Both cats have been to the vet and are healthy. And I've been great with going to the gym and have even dipped below 200 pounds, though with eating a half a pizza last night, we'll see how I fare on the scale today!

So all these good things ought to make me the happiest girl in the world, right? Well, for the most part I am. But I still feel really anxious some days (usually Mondays), and I had a day on Saturday where all I wanted to do was sleep and sleep and sleep some more. I didn't want to watch shows or do things, I just wanted to nap. Dylan gave me kind of a hard time about it, and I don't know if it was from exhaustion or from a minor bought of depression, but it was hard for me to snap out of it. This upcoming weekend, going home for the summer picnic, is going to be more busy and crazy, so I won't have time to sleep the day away, but when we come back, I want to make an effort to get up by 9AM on the weekend and maybe do some light exercise to get my body going. Maybe write! Wink wink nudge nudge. I'd love to get into more of a routine on the weekend and maybe get stuff accomplished, but it's hard when Dylan's there and there's not much for him to do at my house except watch TV.

Anyhow, other than my anxious days and the occasional super sleepy day, life has been good. As I said, Dylan got into Penn and I couldn't be happier for him. He's already invested in lots of Penn gear - 2 sweatshirts, a polo and a cute sporty T-shirt for me! We decided to put off moving in together for the time being, since he doesn't have a job aside from tutoring and it could put a strain on us for him not to have an income and us having all sorts of expenses. I think it's smart, but there's still part of me that's yearning to come home from work each night and get to see him. Even if we don't hang out all night, just to be able to give him a kiss or make him dinner would be lovely. But all good things come in time. So I'm sure whenever it does happen, it'll be worth the wait. And by then, we'll be even more sure that it's right.

Work has been pretty exciting, as I said. I've been spending lots of time after work with other coworkers as well as investigating new avenues of work itself. I rented a car and took a trip up to Morristown to meet with our resident social media expert on Monday. She told me a lot about what it is she does - profiling and auditing clients social media presence, sometimes in a crisis, to find out what people are saying (good and bad) and then making recommendations based upon this to help them engage with their customers or investors, whoever their audience might be. It's all incredibly interesting to me, and it's in a space I feel very comfortable in, since I've been involved in social media for the better part of 10 years on some level. I'm going to have one other chat today, with someone else in a different department. But I'm actually getting excited about new opportunities to learn and grow and work with different people!

I'm about to dive into my last full work day before my trip, and there's a lot to do, but I'm glad I could take a few minutes to write. I've owed it to myself, at the very least :)

Growing Up with Bob

Well today is the first time I might be pulled away from my 750 words while I'm writing them. I'm starting at 6:22 and Dylan's supposed to be here to pick me up at 6:30. We're heading to a town called Audobon (I belonged to the Audobon Society when I was younger, and received a book about birds for my membership fee- is it the same Audobon?!), to a restaurant on Egypt Road (MUMMIES?) called Chadwick's.

Originally, the plan was to meet Jess at a restaurant in Ardmore called Firinji. I picked it because it was close to me so Dylan wouldn't have to drive much further after coming out here. But Marie emailed me this morning, asking if we'd join her in supporting her friend Joel and his band tonight. I politely declined, but come 4:00, Jess IMed me asking if I wanted to change our plans and go. I was a little torn even saying I would check, since I had told Marie we had dinner plans, but not with Jess. I guess I figured in the end that she'd be happier to see us (she really likes Dylan) than upset that I hadn't told her about Jess and our dinner plans.

So I called Dylan and asked him what he thought, explaining the situation and where the restaurant is. He asked if I'd like to go with just Jess. I haven't seen Dylan for four days, so I said, "NO WAY JOSE." And that I'd rather tell Jess we can go to Firinji with her or reschedule completely. I love seeing Jess and I adore Marie, but I guess in this case, I was choosing Dylan before the girls. In this case, it worked out, because Dylan said he'd go, but that it was just a lot of driving.

But overall, I have Bob's words hanging over my head that I need to maintain my own life and not get sucked into coupledom. Am I sucked into coupledom? I'm happy in coupledom. Should I be capitalizing that? Is it a proper noun? Coupledom, USA. Nah. Too official. Anyhow, I'm trying to do things with friends. Last Friday with Dani was perfection. Amazing food, flowing conversation that seemed to carry us late into the night without realizing it. And then, late in the evening Dylan, and eventually Bryan, met up with us, and it was a ton of fun. I love being able to incorporate Dylan into my friendships, since he gets along so well with everyone I love.

I think I do need to schedule some Bob time in the near future. Oh! We have our wedding weekend coming up. I like that we're going to have Thursday all to ourselves to hang, maybe grabbing a drink with the girls Thursday evening. But it'll be nice to have some quality Bob and Amanda time. I just have to make sure not to max my credit card out that weekend. It'll be in the name of friendship and love!!!! I think that's forgivable, don't you? I think investing time into Bob is a lot more worthwhile than investing money into him, since I feel like I can never match the generosity of his gifts.

It's important for me to remind him how much I adore him, and love that he's always tried to be there for me...except of course, when I don't do a great job of telling him I'm coming home, and he gets pissed at me for a month and a half. Boy, I'm glad that got worked out. I love that man, and I never want to see him leave my life. I am so psyched for Chicago, because, yes, I am there for Jenny and seeing my college friends all in one place will be awesome, but it means a lot to me that Bob is coming to see me through this. Just like in the old days.

Except this time, I won't get drunk and go to work, or rip his wig off at the Burger King. We're grown ups now. At least, most of the time we are. We try to be. Our friendship has evolved so much from where we started, yet, somehow we're still the same teenagers who hung out at Steve's Place. We just have a lot more money and responsibility now. And live fancier lives. And have careers and relationships to think about. And aging parents. And debt. Ahhh, growing up and growing old. It's a joy. But I'm happy I get to do it with Bob.