Montana, here I come

So tomorrow sweetie and I take off for our trip to Montana. This will be the longest bike trip I've been on. By far seeing as how I haven't even gone east of the mountains with him on it yet.

The trip we are going on is with his Dad's motorcycle group. To be part of this group you have to be 45 years old or older. We will be the youngest on this ride by at least 20 years! It'll be so much fun though. I won't be back till sometime Sunday. I'll get presents for everyone! As long as I can fit them on the motorcycle any way.

Such an IDIOT

Yesterday was a good friend of mine's birthday. She called and we talked for about half an hour. For some screwed up reason I thought her birthday was today, not yesterday. I even told her that if I didn't talk to her later to have a happy birthday.

Not once did she mention my mistake.

Smacking my hand against forehead, saying "stupid, stupid, stupid" over and over again I whole heartedly apologize to said friend.

I also offer a belated happy birthday.

Happy Birthday!

Goooooood Morning

Well this morning is going much better than yesterday morning. I'm feeling a lot better about myself. Maybe it's because I cut loose a little bit yesterday. Maybe it's because my sweet Ivan fed me aspirin and water before I went to bed/passed out. Probably a combination of the two. Spending yesterday in the sun, drinking beer, catching up with good friends was good for me. Today will be a little different, yet a little the same.

I woke up early with my man, and same thing as yesterday and the day before, made breakfast, coffee and lunch for the guys. Sent them off to work. Then I got started on the chores that I neglected yesterday. It's not even 7 am yet and I've got the dishes done and the first load of laundry ready to fold. I've got some good country music on the radio. I think I'm starting to freak my dog out by singing and dancing around the house. She gets this worried look on her face while she's watching me. Pretty cute if you ask me.

I've talked Ivan into going to the Hal Moe Pool (town public pool) today. Yay!! Something I want to do for a change.

It should be about 75 degrees today. What a wonderful day to be at home. What a wonderful morning. I hope everyone has as good a day as I am.

Ha ha

So, I was watching the clock today. Coffee cup in hand, waiting for the clock to strike noon. Then I would change out of my pj's. I wanted to go for a bike ride today. But Jack and Joey (next door neighbors) weren't home. I got drunk instead.

I didn't mean to. It kind of snuck up on me. I think it is funny. Everything is funny when you are drunk. Every thing is funny right now. HA ha ha ha ha ha.

Wait, what was I laughing again?

Boredom

Ok so I was so bored yesterday I actually put one of those blogthings on my blog. I even spent an hour going from random quiz to random quiz trying to pass the time. Believe me... Some of them are really weird.

Today I refuse to do any chores. As a matter of fact, it is almost noon, and I'm still drinking coffee in my PJ's. Don't be shocked everyone, I did get up at 4 this morning to see the men off to work. Made them both breakfast, coffee and lunch. However, I've decided to appreciate my time off. Especially since it is supposed to hit 80 degrees this week. I'll be hanging out in the sun while my man and the roommate are both busting ass at work.

I have plans with my good friend Casey to go hang out for a couple days mid week in June. Something to help pull me out of the rut I've been in lately. After that week, I think I'll start making calls to random shops and try to get myself hired on. Being a girl has it's advantages and dis-advantages. Some shops want nothing to do with me at all. There have been shops in the past where I don't make it past the secretary to even talk to the shop foreman. I don't want to work in shops like that any way.

Other shops will bring me on just because I'm a girl. I was working out in the field helping build this new jail close by where I lived. I was hired there because of my welding skills. Well at this company's Christmas party, I was dressed up like a girl, and I met the shop foreman. Shop foreman took one look at me in a skirt and immediately decides I should work in the shop. I was eventually pulled away from my job at the jail, having to leave behind a foreman who respected me and my work. I didn't really feel like I "fit in" at that shop. Nothing really to do with my gender, I think it was more my attitude and my desire to do things "my way." I wasn't too sad about getting laid off from that shop. I was sad about leaving the respected foreman behind. But in our trade there are plenty of opportunities to work together again.

I think my girl anxiety is what has kept me from finding a job on my own. Instead I sit and wait patiently for the Union Hall to call me up. I just know that while I'm not working, I feel bad. Then overcompensate by making my life boring.

NOT ANY MORE!!! Ha ha ha ha ha. I'm going to get a tan. One that doesn't need to be paid for!

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored.

You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Its Monday again

Ok, so after a wonderful weekend with Ivan, here it is Monday again. I'm still not working, although I did update my "skills evaluation" form down at the Union Hall. Out of 400 people on the out of work list I'm #250 something. Adding all my stainless steel experience and my welding certification to my list of skills can get me called off the list earlier.

None the less, here I am. Sitting at the computer, drinking coffee. I got up with Ivan, made him coffee, breakfast and lunch, then sent him off to work with a hug and a kiss. Woke Garrett up, made him coffee, breakfast and lunch then sent him off to work. No hug and kiss though. (come on, laugh with me.)

What do I have to look forward to today? Let's see:

• Dishes
• Cleaning our bedroom
• Laundry
• vacuuming
• Clean up random messes made from this weekend
• Mopping
• Cook dinner

I know, I know. Life is so fun and exciting for me. I don't even have a car to go places. Ivan needed it. Saves on gas compared to his truck. I can drive his truck, but I'm not that great at driving a stick yet. Better not chance it without him here.

I hope I get called back to work soon. That list of things to do depresses me. If it wasn't rainy and dreary here it wouldn't be so bad I guess. It would make me feel a lot less BLAH.

I'm thinking I might work some more on my scrap book. I spent one day putting pictures from last summer's road trip into the scrap book, cleaned up my mess, then I haven't touched it since. Doing this little project will hopefully make me feel better. Plus if I time it right, I can go for a run in-between rain showers.

Well time to get started I guess.

Orange you glad I didn't say banana again

Well, I've been pretty busy these past couple of days. I haven't really had that much time to sit and think about how I've been feeling. I did get some good advice from my sister. She thinks I need to call all sisters for a girls night. That way at least I can center myself and find a good starting point. So:

CALLING ALL SISTERS. CLEAR YOUR CALENDAR. WE NEED A GIRLS NIGHT!!!
Keep me posted and we will all set something up.

It's been a couple of really good nights with Ivan. Garrett went out of town this weekend so we had the house to ourselves. We babysat my niece Brianna Friday night. That was a lot of fun. Ivan is going to make a very good dad someday. He helped put her to sleep by rocking her and singing to her. I was sitting in the living room, hearing him sing to her in the bedroom, and my heart melted. He told me Friday that he is looking forward to having kids someday. Someday being sooner than later. Two years or so.

We went out to dinner last night. We've been trying to hit all the restaurants in Snohomish. There are some horrible restaurants in town. Last night it was some sort of English restaurant. Kind of spendy, kind of not. The restaurant was in the back of a store that sells trinkets, and what not. It was one single room. The room was awesome. It had a big dome ceiling, painted to look like the sky. The walls were painted up to look like the country side. A very nice atmosphere.

We order our food and this is where the orange from the title comes in. I order this citrus chicken. BAD IDEA. My original thought is how bad can it be. It has to be better than kidney pie.

WRONG!!!

My food comes and there is this huge pile of rice and four tiny cubes of chicken. Great. Now I'm going to starve. I dig in with relish trying to make my pile of rice smaller. As the food hits my tongue, it freezes there. My eyes start to water. I look around desperately for a place to spit my rice out.

Who ever heard of orange flavored rice? It had a weird spice to it too so I couldn't eat it fast and get it over with. The chicken was equally orange flavored. The peas and carrots on the side were tainted with the same orange flavoring. Thank god I only had four measly chunks of chicken. I ate those up real quick, pushed the rice and carrots around to make it look like I ate some and prayed the waitress would come and take my plate away soon.

To make matters worse, the chef decides he wants dinner and sits down at the table next to us. So all the funny faces me and Ivan are making to each other had to quit. The waitress comes, takes our plates away and we order dessert. I stick to my favorite: Cheesecake. Ivan gets something the waitress suggests to him. Bad move on his part. His tasted like it was made with hard alcohol. Really cheap hard alcohol. My cheese cake looked store bought and was absolutely wonderful.

So $50 later, I'm a little sick to my stomach from all the citric acid, both of us are still hungry, we head out to go find a burger joint.

For me

Ok so the first post today talked about running and stuff. Now I need to write one for me.

While sitting in the hot tub with Ivan we were talking about the gym and stuff. He would really like me to get into going more. He wants to spend an hour at the gym every day taking Sunday and Monday off from the schedule. I'm not too interested in going. So I try a compromise.

I really like the public pool here in Snohomish. I've been going to it since I was a little kid. How about going to the pool a couple times a week, then to the gym the other days? Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Right?

He didn't buy into it for some reason. Something about not enjoying swimming in lakes and rivers but not in public pools. This being said while we were hanging out in a somewhat public pool.

Then I get to thinking. Hockey is something he brought into our relationship. Running, gym, trips to Spokane. The people that are hanging out with us for our birthday are his friends. What things do we do that run along the lines of my hobbies and interests? Absolutely nothing.

I have only myself to blame for this. I started looking back. The friends I hung out with the past year all worked out at the jail. We all lost contact once the job finished up. I spent a lot of my time at the bar or at home drinking. I spent more time hanging out on the couch, eating candy and smoking pot. I didn't really have any fun hobbies.

Now that my drinking has slowed, and I've quit smoking pot (3 and a half months clean!!!) all my old "hobbies" are gone.

I'm feeling a little lost right now. Not working, not having friends around, not having anything that is... Well "ME". I have this need to do some soul searching. I need to do something for me. Everything I do lately seems to be for "us". I don't want to take a break from me and Ivan, I just need to work on my own self image. Everything I do can't be for him. I just don't know where to start.

So here it is friends and family. Please, please, please post a comment or send an email. I need some advice.

Love you all,
Tammy

24 hour fitness

So I haven't set up another thing about tracking our running habits. It turns out Ivan isn't interested at all. Oh well. Looks like it gets put here.

Went the two miles again yesterday. I think that's what I'll be doing for a while. I felt better yesterday than I did the other day. Made it farther before I had to slow to a walk. It's starting to get easier.

Then Ivan took me and Garrett to 24 hour fitness. Had some guest passes so we could check out the gym. I was so uncomfortable there. Having all these sweaty creepy guys staring at me.
EEWWWWW

I had changed into my workout clothes before the guys did, so I hopped on the treadmill to pass the time while I was waiting for the guys. Some creepy guy decides to hop on the one next to me, even though there were like 8 empty ones. Thank god Ivan showed up before creepy guy tried to start up a conversation with me.

We settled for the swimming pool, the steam room and the hot tub. At least I could hide under water there. The hot tub was awesome. It was fun swimming. The steam room felt good.

Still I'm not sure I would buy a membership. I could go swimming here in town if I wanted to.

I thought I hurt before

Two miles later (I seriously don't know what I was thinking) I think I am more sore than I was before. Plus I'm roasting now.

Daisy and I went on a quick jog. Down to the Centennial Trail. There are markers on the trail so you can see how far you have gone. We jogged to the one mile mark, doubled back. I went just beyond the half mile mark before I had to start walking. Did pretty good. About 1.75 miles without having to walk.

I should start a journal. Something to keep track of my jogging and what not. That way I don't bore everyone with the details on how far I'm running. I'll have Ivan write in that one too. If it interests anyone, all you have to do is go to my profile to find the link to our running journal.

Just give me a few days to set it up.

MY BUTT HURTS!

Ok well the muscles in my butt and thighs hurt. I went running yesterday.... TWICE!

I don't know exactly what drove me to such measures of insanity, it cold be the idea of my man thinking we are going to run a marathon sometime in October.

I'm trying to be supportive and positive about this. I even went out in the pouring rain to run around town with my dog. I came home with my leg muscles burning yet my legs soaking wet and freezing. I was sweating under my raincoat yet I couldn't feel my toes with my soaking wet shoes. My body was so confused.

Then after being all warm and dry for a few hours, my man comes home from work. I'm in the middle of cooking dinner and he wants to go for a quick run with me.

"Come on... Only for 10 minutes?"

He also had a bouquet of flowers hiding behind his back to sweeten the deal.

I sigh, turn all the burners on low. Make sure that nothing will burn or catch fire. Put my wet sneakers back on. And off we go.

Now I did enjoy myself on this run. Spending time with my guy always makes me feel good. I even got some good stretches in after the run. But I am seriously paying for it today.

Desperately seeking sympathy

Well Hello there

I really really love Sundays. I'm sitting here enjoying a fresh cup of coffee, my cute puppy is gnawing on a bone from last nights dinner and my good lookin boyfriend is sleeping peacefully in the next room. I have the Rugrats (my all time favorite cartoon) on in the background for some noise and some sausage defrosting for breakfast. Our roommate is out of town for the weekend so we have the house to ourselves.

We have no major plans for today. Maybe grocery shopping. There is also a fair in town. We could go get some cotton candy and an elephant ear if we felt like it too.

I don't know, I just feel REALLY good today. All light hearted and stuff. I have to resist the urge to go pester my sleeping boyfriend, seeing as how he really deserves the rest. I just want to share my happiness with someone.

Maybe that's why I'm blogging right now. Using this as a means to vent my emotions. All happy emotions.

I hope everyone else is having as wonderful as a morning as I am.

Love Tammy

PS. Blogger spell check thinks I spell my name wrong. It suggests I use the words "Timmy" or "Tommy" instead. Weird.

Weekend In Spokane

Wow was it some weekend. Had tickets to a Trace Adkins concert. Went with my sweetie pie, Garrett and Danae. Awsome, awsome concert. I can't believe the voice on that guy.

After the concert, the four of us head over to the hotel that we booked and attempted to check in. Note the word attempted. We booked our room through expedia and those bastards booked us in a hotel that was full. No room for us.

So we leave the hotel pissed off and crying (Ivan pissed, me crying) and went to go find a place to stay somewhere in Spokane. There was so much going on with the concert, graduations, prom and some lilac parade we couldn't hardly find anything. We ended up in some run down motel. Cigarett burns in the blankets, pee on the wall in the bathroom, a train ran directly behind the motel about every 15 minutes waking me up. There was some sort of a church across the block from us that had one of those clocks that gonged every hour on the hour, waking me up if I happened to just fall asleep again.

Yeah I call up those bastards from expedia today, get our money back... we had to pay in advance... and try to get some sort of free goodie from them. I could use a free room somewhere. I'm sure I can.

Saturday was fun though. We all went to the mall and went shopping. I'm not much of a mall person, neither is Ivan, so we didn't stay long. But the time we spent there was well spent. Dragging the guys to Victoria's Secret was probably the hilight of the shopping expedition. I was worried Garrett was going to have a nervous breakdown while in the pink store.

Sunday was mother's day. We went to go see Ivan's mommy since we were in the area and all. I was a little sad I didn't get to go see my mom, but I guess that's part of being in a relationsip. Not every holiday, celebration... what ever.... get's to be spent with my family. I suppose his family traditions mean something to him too. Go figure.

Then we were homeward bound. We didn't get home until almost 1am. Didn't get to sleep till just shortly after1am. Not a good thing to do when I'm taking the most boring class in History.

Speaking of that class. It's time to go soak up useless information. Oh yeah one good thing though. My old class still has kids that are getting ready to turn out. They are in school this week. It was awsome timing being able to hang out with them too.

Pay cut my ass!!!

In previous posts I wrote about this class I'm taking next week. I was really excited because I even had a potential new boss. Someone who was willing to take me in with what little experience I have and make me a new testing and air balancing crew member.

Well we have been kind of sort of talking through a middle person. I saw this middle person at the union meeting last night and let him know I was done with my resume and was just working on the cover letter to go with it. He let me know that "potential boss" was under the assumption that I was willing to go back to apprentice wages while I was learning.

Now that's crap if you ask me. I didn't spend five years in school busting my ass to only be knocked back down because I'm trying to better myself as a worker by learning something new. I don't know exactly how low he wanted to bump me but I won't take it.

I did ask the Business Agent for that division of sheet metal, the guy who put on the class, what he thought of this situation. He told me to under no circumstances accept a pay cut. I am a journey man sheet metal worker and that is what I get paid.

You can only imagine the relief I felt when my feelings were backed up by someone with clout. I also got to find out a little more about this class. This class has horrible hours (8am to 5pm) and is going to be very intense. They are trying to teach us enough in one week to take a test that some guys are spending a lot of time in school to take the same test. I have to take a Saturday test. If I pass the Saturday test, then I qualify to take the same test school guys are taking come June or July. Kind of a little ways off in the future.

So I'm back to square one. Back to finding work. Have a few ideas though. I want to go work with Garrett and his company. He's been offering to drop my name for quite some time now. I've always had another plan I was working on at the moment. So, changing directions, I'm going to try architectural sheet metal. We'll see how it goes.

L-A-Z-Y

There are so many things I should be doing today. For some reason I have a serious case of the lazies. I spent the better part of the morning napping and playing video games. I have this urge to go play more video games right now. I shouldn't though *dissapointed sigh. I should be cleaning the bathroom. Or working on my resume for the Mac Miller guy who wants it.

I could be going over next weeks buget.... yeah right.... or I could be doing dishes.... even bigger yeah right. I guess the least I can do is brush my hair.

I know.... COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!! That is the answer to all my problems. As soon as I drink a pot and a half I should have the required energy to all the chores on my list today.

12K ~ Bloomsday 2005

Yes that's right, I did a 12 K run.

Ivan talked me into doing the Bloomsday run with him. I've been dreading it, while he's been looking forward to it for months. So we packed up some running gear and headed toward Spokane this last weekend.

We stayed with Garrett's girl Deane Friday night. Wasn't too exciting seeing as how we got there at around midnight. Woke up somewhat early Saturday. After an awesome breakfast, we headed out to Ivan's parent's house.

*** I drove by the way. Ivan taught me how to drive his truck. I was never really taught how to drive a stick. It was very funny and exciting having me drive.

We picked up Jenny and went to Spokane to pick up our packets and our race numbers. There was also a spaghetti feed going on along with all the cotton candy, elephant ears and deep fried twinkies you can eat. Yes that's right deep fried twinkies. And for the small price of $2 you too can sample such a delightful experience. I think they tasted like pancakes after they were fried.

After having a blast down town, it was time to head back to the in-laws place. Needed to rest up for the big race. We got up pretty early Sunday morning and headed back to Spokane. I think it is about an hour drive from his parent's house to Spokane. We got ourselves a cheap and quick breakfast on the way there. Once there, we found our places and got ready to run.

The big race

It took us 4 minutes 15 seconds just to get to the starting line from where we were. We ran the first two miles strait through. Then it was jogging and walking the rest of the way. They have bands and radio stations throughout the rout about every quarter mile or so. It helped keep your energy up. I almost died at about mile 6. I was ready to have Ivan carry me the rest of the way. But I somehow got a second wind and kept going. We all ran the last half mile together. I think Jenny was with me when I say I don't know where the energy came to actually run that last half mile. Walking would have been perfectly fine, but you want your picture taken while running.

It's cool you get this t-shirt that says you are a Bloomsday finisher. I also got a sunburn on my arms and face. That contrasts dramatically with the paleness of the rest of my body. I actually felt great after running for 7.46 miles. You wouldn't think so today though. I can barely hobble around the house. My legs are killing me.

I think I need another nap.