No, I'm not sick...

As I shuffled off to bed at the early, early hour of 1:30 AM, Michael put the back of his hand on my cheek.

It was very warm, so I asked him, "Are you feeling okay?"

He said, "Are you feeling okay? This is the second night in a row you've gone to bed early!!" Which got a good laugh from everyone standing around because they know it's so true. I'm usually one of the last to go to bed and I'm typically encouraging everyone to stay up late with me!

I replied, "I'm saving up my energy..." I certainly can't meet up with Greg on Sunday night, go out to dinner with my mom, then fall asleep as soon as we get back to his place! Oh no... I'm sure we'll be up late and I've already thanked him more than once for taking Monday off from work. He's brilliant! And a realist!

OK - off to bed I go!

Only a week left

Only a week left until I get to see Greg again and I can't wait!! Luckily, I'll have something to distract me before then, namely payroll for the next day or two and then games... Lots and lots of games...

I'm heading out to Nashville for Gulf Games on Wednesday and staying there til Sunday around lunchtime. Then I'm hitching a ride down to Atlanta, where I'll be meeting up with Greg and we're going out to dinner with my mom before heading back to his place for the next week.

More things I appreciate about him:
I love that he's somewhat of a planner. He already scheduled Monday off, so he can spend my first day in Athens with me, showing me all the sights and basically being my personal tour guide. We have plans to have dinner with his dad on Tuesday, after work and before gaming. I think the rest of that week is lots of friends and lots of eating, which sounds perfect to me! He's already started planning parts of the longer trip in September, in particular the long weekend we're going to spend in Savannah! It's so nice to be with someone who is pro-active and just takes care of stuff. I mentioned to him once that I've always wanted to go there and then we just made a plan to go. It was so painless!

He lets me call him in the middle of the night. Often, he heads to bed around 1 AM and is totally cool with me calling when I finish up *my* evening, also usually somewhere between midnight and 1 AM, so I am often calling him at 3 - 4 AM Eastern, rousing him from sleep. He'll often talk to me for 30+ minutes. It's nice being able to call him and to hear his voice and catch up. He's a busy bee like me, so often it's hard to match up our schedule during the day, which is why I appreciate that he welcomes my middle of the night calls. In fact, he's about to receive a call from me as soon as I brush my teeth and change into my PJs!

Welcome me to 2001

I had heard so many great things about "24" (a show that started in 2001!) and when season one came out on DVD, my sister and I split the cost of it and she took custody of it first. She and her husband ripped through them and then gave it to me to watch. Which I finally started to do on Sunday. I'm at 4 AM and I can totally see why people love it. I totally want to watch another episode, but I really need to get some sleep!

Yes, get ready... 2001, here I come!

My Quarterly One-in-a-Million

I love to post about the weird things that happen to me because it's usually a case of "Whatta small world!" So, drum roll please... this quarter's weird happening is this...

Last week, I got reconnected with some friends from high school, so I decided to comb through a few years of graduating classes to see who was on Facebook. I saw this guy Andrew on the c/o '89 list that I wasn't friends with, but I knew him because he was a few years ahead of me (c/o '93!). I clicked on his profile and saw that he lives in San Diego and thought, "Yea, someone else who escaped Florida to beautiful California!" But I didn't friend him because I wasn't actually friends with him. Knowing who someone is doesn't really qualify you to be "friends" with them, right?

So, I was hanging out with Travis on Saturday and he was checking his email... I peeked over his shoulder and saw a message from Facebook that said, "Andrew has added you as a friend on Facebook..." I asked Travis, "Wait, open that email... do you know that guy?" and he said, "Yeah, he's one of my San Diego friends, he's really cool!" I couldn't believe it! I told Travis (probably loudly and excitedly), "Oh my goodness! I totally know that guy! He went to my high school! In FLORIDA!!!" And then I got the scoop on him because apparently, Travis has known him since 2002! And Mike knows him too. Isn't that just weird?! Chris said that the fact my high school is across the country does make it even weirder. Especially considering our classes were pretty small back then. I think my class had about 250(?) people and his was even smaller.

So I friended him with a message something like this: Hey, this is Stephanie ____ and I went to ____ HS too (c/o '93) and I just found out that you know Travis & Mike!"

And he friended me back. It will be interesting to see him again. I haven't seen him since 1989. Wow... what are the odds?

Sixteen days and counting...

Ugh, there are sixteen more days until I see Greg again. I've been missing him a lot lately. He's been really busy this week, so we haven't had a chance to talk as much as we did last week. In general, I've been feeling more emotional this week too, so I'm sure that hasn't helped. We've had several short conversations and lots of texting/IMing. We finally got a chance to talk tonight for a while which was really nice, but it sounds like he's pretty busy this weekend, so I don't think I'll have much of a chance to talk to him this weekend. And then I'm out of town next week... I just want these sixteen days to fly by!

Twitter

I'm a little late hopping on the Twitter train, but I'm trying it nonetheless! I added the badge to my blog and we'll see how it goes. I guess I've already been slowly adjusting to this type of thing by updating my Facebook status almost every day. Twitter seems to call for more frequent updates though. Luckily, I can update my status via text message! Hurray for unlimited text messages! Not only good for Twittering, but also for having a boyfriend who lives cross-country.

The upside is at least there will be these mini-updates all the time even when I don't have time to write up a full blog post! Should be helpful as I'm roaming around the country for the next two months. I think I'm home for about two weeks during the next two months. Good grief. I really *am* a maniac!

Vanguard is still awesome

I originally opened up my Roth IRA account with Vanguard in mid-2002. In September 2006, I opened up an investment account with them. Both times I was very happy with how easy it is to open an account and how easy it is to get a customer service rep on the phone to help with questions.

So naturally, when I decided to rollover my 401(k) account that I have at my old company, I chose to roll it over into Vanguard. They have a very easy-to-find phone number on their website and I was promptly connected to a live person who helped me set-up an account online. It took all of about five minutes.

I wish all companies were like Vanguard. They really make everything SO easy! I highly recommend them!

Visits are scheduled

It's hard to believe that I've only known Greg for three weeks. It seems like so much longer than that! Unfortunately, it's going to be another three weeks before I see him, but when I do, it will be for a whole week! I'm very much looking forward to it! He has a list of places he wants to take me to and he wants me to meet his dad and some of his friends. It should be really fun.

Following that visit, I'll be gone for a little less than three weeks and then I'll be back to stay with him for two and a half weeks! Now that should be a real test! If we can still stand to be around each other after 18 days, I think we're gonna be juuuuuuust fine...

As an extra bonus, I was able to use 25,000 Delta Skymiles (the cheapest ticket they offer with points) to fly out there, so it's no extra money out of pocket. And I have 25,000 more miles for us to use on the next visit! I've been building them up slowly, but surely over the last few years and now I finally have a good use for them!

I'm so glad I have the job I do... He doesn't have much vacation time left so he'll be working most of the days I'm there which works out just fine for me because I can just work from his house. It's soooooo awesome! He's buying a multi-function printer so that I have it available to use while I'm there. And I set up an eFax type line so that I can get faxes electronically while out of town. It's perfect!

Smitten...

After having an awesome weekend with Greg (his real name), what is the only thing that could make it better? Flowers and a super sweet card! :-)



I am thankful for him every day. And I can't help but to tell him every day how awesome I think he is.

This has just been such a different feeling than anything I've experienced before. It's freaky weird. I mean, he didn't annoy me one single time during the whole weekend. And I felt completely comfortable and relaxed around him. I think this is the first time I've ever felt genuine admiration for someone. He's such a good person. He has an amazing heart. Every time I look at him I feel happy. This is the easiest relationship I've ever been in. Shane commented on Monday after he left that we noticed how comfortable and relaxed we both seemed to be with each other and that she liked it. She said that it seemed different than when she's seen me with other people in the past. It sure feels different.

You know, it's one of those things... People always say that you should try to find someone that you respect and care about and have a lot of stuff in common, but anyone dating knows that it is practically impossible (or at least it feels that way). Because maybe part of it will line up, but then you don't want to kiss him. Or maybe ALL you want to do is kiss him and ignore the little (or not so little) red flags that are popping up all over the place. It's hard to have both. Even when you find someone that maybe shares common life goals, he might not share interests or personality quirks or something else equally important.

Before I was even divorced, I started compiling my "Ideal Husband Checklist." I wrote it up because I didn't want to get carried away by hormones and end up with someone that didn't share common goals/values/interests as me, so I wanted a checklist that I could use. Just the facts, ma'am... More than once, I've been told that I'm "too picky" or that my standards were too high or that maybe I shouldn't exclude guys that already have kids...

I'm so glad that I didn't settle. Because Greg meets or exceeds all the points on my list and even has bonus points for stuff that wasn't on my list! He is the best. I am so lucky to have met him.

Day 3: Saturday

We met up with some friends for a BBQ lunch on Saturday. Davebo brought his kids and I sat near the kids' end of the table and fielded questions (mainly from Kate) like:

• What kind of food you would not want to have on a first date? (My answer: BBQ? but I wasn't really sure if that was a good answer. Suzie had the best answer which was spaghetti. Unfortunately, that was exactly what I had eaten the night before when we stopped at the House of Pies, so not sure if I looked messy or not...)
  
• What kind of food would you want to have on a first date? (My answer: sushi! All the kids agreed that sushi was a good answer and we chatted about what type of sushi we'd order...)
• What was my favorite NFL team? Was Shane upset that Brett Favre was retiring? (That one got a big "oooooooooogggh" from Shane when asked... But nooooooo, she's not upset! [sarcasm])

Those kids are so darn cute. After kissing Athens at lunch, I was teased (again, by Kate) with the "Stephanie and Athens, sittin' in a tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" First of all, I haven't been teased with that particular song in about 25 years. Second of all, there apparently is an updated follow-up verse that goes "...and that's not it, that's not all, the baby's drinking alcohol!" Oh, taunted by an 8 year old... my weekend. Thou art complete.

After lunch, we headed over to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. It was my first visit. It's nice! Reagan is the first President that I really remember and I know surprisingly little about him and his wife. It was interesting to learn more about both of them. They seemed like remarkable people. We also went on board the Air Force One that was retired in 2001. That was neat. We took a picture before boarding AF1, but it's too cheesy to give prominent blog space to... check the flickr account if you're interested.

After the library, we went to the store to pick up snacks to munch on while we were at the Hollywood Bowl for the "Bugs Bunny on Broadway" show. It was so much fun. I haven't been to the Bowl in several years. The show itself was very entertaining too. The music was great and the cartoons were classics. He had a great time too, so I was really happy about that.

Overall, it was a busy Saturday, but fun and relaxing at the same time. While at the Hollywood Bowl, we were talking about how nice the weekend had been. The thing I was most surprised (and pleased) about was that he hadn't done anything to really annoy me! Which is saying something because I can be easily annoyed.

I was sad to see him go on Sunday, but really happy that he came out to see me and that we had such a wonderful weekend together.

Day 2 aka: Independence Day

We went to Chris' house for the 4th and had a fun time. We ended up just gaming and munching all day, but it was nice because Shane came with her dad.

I was in the kitchen with Shane and she asked me how the weekend was going and I said, "It's going really well." (Might I add here that it's so cool to have a man singing in my shower!) OK, back to yesterday... Meanwhile, Athens was sitting in the dining room playing (arrrrrrr) Rrrrum and Pirates with the boys. She said something about how he seemed to be fitting right in with them and I said, "Yeah, it's so nice not to have to worry about him in social situations. Because I know if he doesn't know anyone, he'll start up a conversation and I'm never worried he's going to say the wrong thing because he's well-mannered." Shane agreed and said, "Yeah, that IS nice."

I was with Jason for 10 years and always felt (whether justified or not) like I needed to worry about him to make sure he was having a good time in social situations because he was introverted. I just always wanted to make sure he was having fun, partly for him and partly for me. If he wasn't having fun, chances are, we were going home early. And we didn't go out much to begin with, so... It's just nice to not have to worry about someone in that respect.

He had a blast meeting all of my friends there and then we went to House of Pies so I could have him taste the yumminess that is their pecan pie.

Today we're off to a big lunch with friends and some BBQ! I suspect we will be having fun and I HAVE TO remember to take some pictures today!!! Time is running out.

Day 1: So far, it wasn't a fluke

He's almost been here 24 hours and it's confirmed. It wasn't a fluke, we definitely are still crazy about each other. His flight got in early and instead of arriving at 1:06 AM, he was off the plane, with baggage in hand by 1:06! I was glad to see him. I just love being with him. I swear, he keeps doing more and more things to make me like him that much more. For example, he made it so my second laptop talks to my new printer. It would've taken me forever to figure out how to do it and to be honest, I never would've. Instead, he printed something out from the printer and typed it in and installed the drivers and we were printing in less than 5 minutes!

We had plans to go eat lunch with Davebo because he wanted to meet Athens. Dave was also going to try to go. I got a call from him this morning saying that he was coming and I was getting a bonus Winton in the deal! So we all carpooled out to meet Davebo for lunch and had a great time. It seemed like everyone liked him and he liked them all so that was good!

Then we came home and took a nap and that was even better. Dave called that later and asked what we were doing and when I told him that we were taking a nap, he said, "A delicious afternoon nap! Ahhhh, that's the best part about having a boyfriend!!!!" And really, I don't think I can argue with him. Afternoon naps are the best... especially when you're running on just a few hours of sleep and have a full tummy from lunch.

Our plan for tonight is to go see Hancock at the Arclight and then go get something to eat. We'll be right next to Koreatown, so I think we might have to get some Korean food while we're there, especially since he has never had it before!

Agenda for tomorrow: Din Tai Fung and gaming/BBQ/swimming at Chris' house...