Wrapping up Christmas

Today T had to ride down to take a look at a site we are thinking of using for one of our medieval events, so I'm home alone.  Mom came down and lent a hand - my son and his friend did the final sanding on some mudding they had done.  This house had a ton of wallpaper, all from the 1970s or 1980s and totally not my taste.  We had a small hallway that needed the walls completely mudded after pulling off the wallpaper and a bathroom where we decided to simply mud the seams. 

Unfortunately, the mud my son bought was NOT of the dust free variety.  Mom came down and gave me a hand with the cleanup as well as starting to take down Christmas decorations.  T and I are flying out to visit with friends in Reno, leaving home Wednesday evening, so I want to have the house clean and the decorations put away before we head out.

Right now things are pretty hectic with the holidays, upcoming vacation, and a new dog who is not yet house trained.  We adopted Susie this week from the shelter.  She's a 2.5 year old Shepherd mix.  T's ex kept their dog and he couldn't bring the cats (I'm allergic and we have a pet door they could have easily gone out).  My big dog Mya passed away 3 months ago, and I wanted Jordan to have a companion dog plus I wanted T to have a dog that was "his".  Susie adores him, but we have to keep an eye on her to get her trained. 

Once we are back we will start tag teaming the gym and for now we are counting calories and making sure we get plenty of veggies, water, etc.

I had a wonderful holiday season - gifts, family, food, being with someone who loves the holiday!  My son & his girlfriend came up and it was so nice! 

My ex broke up with the woman he was seeing (the one started seeing either 5 minutes before or 5 minutes after he left me) on Christmas day.  Which was pretty crappy, especially since she has a 6 year old daughter and B has been in her life for 2 years AND they are locked in to a lease for another 6 months.  So yeah, I hate it for the little girl.  So, he continues to be the same self absorbed goober.  He did agree to pay half the cost of a train ticket so his mom could go up to Maryland to see her sister and grandkids, so he is at least helping her out.  I still remain in the mix on that, simply because Jan remains a part of our lives.  Ironically, Jan is crazy about T and is so happy for me - so that's nice. :-)

So this weekend is all about getting the house in order before we leave town.  We may stay up until midnight but we aren't going anywhere. 

Pictures of the house before we moved in:
Back:

 Bath 1 (seams are mudded so we can paint over wallpaper)

Bath 2 (wallpaper is removed and bath is repainted)

 (Guest room)

 (Master bedroom.  Sadly, we haven't touched the wallpaper or curtains yet.)

 car port and storage area in backyard - which is now fenced in.

 Former garage which was converted to a den.

 Dining room.  This wallpaper is still up.

 Three season porch out back.

From the street.

 Knotty pine kitchen.

 Living room.  It's 30 feet long, so we have it set up half as a living area and half with a formal dining table.

Updated pictures to come!

A little background

I am going to do a couple of brief recaps just to set the stage for where I am now.

I am a member of a non profit which is about recreating and sharing knowledge about the middle ages - everything from making clothing and accessories to armor to combat.  I first got involved back in 2000 and T was one of the first people I met.  We hit it off immediately - we had so much in common and enjoyed being around each other.  We dated for a while but we were both a little afraid of taking our relationship to the next level and didn't realize that our feelings were reciprocated, so we ended up breaking off our relationship.  While we remained friends, we gradually drifted apart, he quit the organization and moved on to other hobbies, and I moved to Florida. 

Fast forward to January of this year: I was 10 months out from my separation and in October of 2015 his wife admitted to an affair and asked for a divorce.  Apparently the marriage had been in trouble for quite some time, but as I can attest - a separation is difficult.  In any case - he began reaching out to old friends to build a support group - one of the things that had occurred was that he became isolated from "his" friends, and the joint friends weren't folks he felt he could really talk to.  He reached out to me via facebook, and we began chatting.

It quickly became apparent that the chemistry was still there.  We spent a LOT of time talking about our goals, our beliefs and values, our priorities: in short, all of the things I never was able to discuss with my spouse!  We realized that we were very much in the same place, shared core values and priorities, and that our feelings hadn't changed.  Within a month we were dating and when I purchased my house in July, he moved in.  He had been wanting to move back to this area (he was about 2 hours away) to be closer to his family - so it was logical as well as being what we both wanted. 

We're getting married this year - we know where, who we want there, we haven't picked a time.  We aren't in a huge hurry but know that we want to be together and married.  Crazy, right?  I had reached a point where I was cool with being alone - I still missed the idea being married, but not being married to my husband. being alone was far preferable to being unhappy in a relationship and the dating scene was beyond frustrating.  So once I was okay with where I was and wasn' looking - there he was.

I don't have a style.

Insomnia stinks.  Just read this article and I thought I'd share it:

http://www.theestablishment.co/2016/07/15/toddler-grandma-style-the-fashion-approach-that-will-set-you-free/

"Why not dress for the second-birthday/retirement party you want your life to be? You have nothing to lose but your self-imposed wardrobe restrictions."  Indeed.  I haven't had a personal style in years.  My style is whatever fits with a side of yoga pants (I have lived in workout clothes for years).  Maybe 2017 is the year to figure out my style.

 

A return to blogging (probably)

Well, good morning and happy holidays.

Apparently it's been nearly a year since I updated this thing.  Wow.  Where did that year go?  I can tell you I have crammed a tremendous amount into it!

In the past year I have:

1. Gotten a divorce
2. Reconnected with an old boyfriend and gotten engaged
3. Been laid off
4. Bought a house
5. Had my house in Florida on the market since April (under contract since May) and it still hasn't sold!

As you can see, this year has been a year of major stress - some very good, some really bad (as least financially).

I haven't made fitness or weight loss a priority - mostly it hasn't even been on my radar.  But T and I sat down last night and discussed our goals for next year, and we both agreed that weight loss and improved fitness was on both of our lists. 

He's been through as much as I have this year, so status quo has been okay as we navigated the rocks and shoals, but now we are both ready to do better.  We have begun simply - with maintaining a daily calorie goal and sticking to that.  He's dropped about 8 pounds and I've dropped a couple.  We did NOT want to wait until January 1 - why not start now if we really want to do this? was our thought process.  So we did.

It's been a crazy wonderful, crazy frustrating year.  Hopefully 2017 will be a year where we have a chance to regroup and spend less time reacting to what life throws our way and more time making intentional choices.

Take care!