The Crazies

I feel so trapped in my life right now.

I feel boxed in on all sides, suffocated, locked up. Even in my own house, where I have always felt content and settled, I feel completely claustrophobic. Nothing feels comfortable anymore. I can't relax.

I've gone through periods like this before, but never this bad. Usually there is at least something I can turn to that soothes my restless soul - music, cooking, a really good book - but nothing seems to be working right now. Nothing makes me feel happy or at ease.

I want to get out of here - leave my life for a few days and just get out of town. But at the same time I want to crawl into my bed, surrounded by my blankets and pillows and the smell of my own life, and sleep for days, enveloped in all of it.

I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin.

Forever.

I guess when I pictured what marriage would look like, this is what I would see: I would picture the first few years being all broke but who cares, clipping coupons and trying to save money, spending nights out drinking draft beer specials with our friends. I pictured surprise movie dates, armed with flowers picked out of the garden. I pictured late nights up talking and laughing and making love - being all red-eyed for work the next morning, but not caring in the least. I pictured lying in bed on Sundays, reading the paper together over morning coffee. I pictured rushing home every day after work, so eager to share our day with each other. I pictured hand-holding and giggling and not-so-secret kisses in public. I pictured spending vacations in a little tent, cooking meals over the fire and having sex in the great outdoors - nothing fancy, just the two of us.

I pictured the comfort beginning to settle in, leaving us both secure and grounded in that way that being totally respected and loved can make you feel. I pictured having those secret looks we could toss at each other across a crowded room - looks that only we could read, jokes that only we knew the punchlines to.

I pictured trying for children - excitedly, anxiously. I pictured raising children - excitedly, anxiously. Taking family vacations up north and road trips out west to see the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park, taking silly group photos in front of places like Mount St Helens.

I pictured watching them all leave, one by one, to college and jobs and marriages of their own. I pictured retiring, spending lazy afternoons reading and gardening and doing the crosswords together. I pictured large family dinners filled with warmth and comfort and love.

I pictured a life filled with joy and, yes, some tough times, but nothing that we couldn't handle together. Hand-in-hand, walking through life.

Oh, my aching ovaries

I was talking with Sarah this morning about babies (mostly that she wants me to have babies already so that she can steal them and spoil them with her Auntly affections). Part of me is definitely not ready yet - and too broke at the current time to even think about it.

But there's another part of me that can't wait to have a little baby with Bryce - someone with my nose and his beautiful blue eyes - a little part of both of us walking around in the world. I mean, how cool would that be?

They say you should only marry someone if you could imagine your kids turning out exactly like them and having that be okay. Thinking about that right now, today, I couldn't be more okay with that. I'm picturing a little boy, all arms and legs, a mop of blond hair, total goof-ball sense of humor, plays the drums on every conceivable surface, and absolutely the most adorable person through and through that I've ever known.

Yeah, I think that would be just fine by me.

Mid-summer blues

My husband is watching House in the living room. It's still feels odd to type that - my husband. Can it really be that I have a husband?

I wish I was one of those people who could be happy happy happyeee - just floating through life on a cloud of happy all the time. I've had a little taste, the last month or so, of what it must be like to be one of those people. But the truth is, maybe I'll never be like that. Maybe I'll always have that little chip of sad planted deep inside of me.

It's nights like tonight, when all I want in the world is for B to sweep me up in his arms, like I am his most prized possession, and carry me to bed like he owns me. And to show me how glad he is that I own him. Forever and ever.

But out there he sits, watching tv. And in here I sit, spilling my thoughts to the empty masses, rather than to him. So it's almost like I'm choosing to be sad. Maybe I am. Or maybe I'm just built this way.

It's such a fine line these days.

OFFICIALLY officially off the market

That's right - I'm now Mrs. Robbins.

More later when everything calms down.

Officially off the market

Last night - Bryce is fixing something in my garden and I am baking a Red Velvet cake for my friend's birthday, peeking out at him occasionally from the kitchen window. It's a normal evening, albeit a little warm for this time of year - so warm that I've been forced to turn the AC on already.

He pulls me outside under the pretense of showing me the new soaker hose he has installed. "Stand here", he tells me, while he runs around to the front of the house to turn on the water. I watch as water starts weeping out of the hose, just as it should. He comes back and stands next to me and we watch the water soaking into the ground around the vegetable plants for a minute.

"I need to ask you something", he tells me. "It's really important." I look away from the plants and wrap my arms around him. "What's up?", I say. He unhooks my arms from behind him, hanging onto my hands.

"Carolynne, you make me a better person and I can't imagine my life without you. I want you to spend the rest of my life with me. I love you. Will you marry me?". He is kneeling in front of me, pulling a red box out of his pocket - a bulge that I hadn't even noticed earlier.

I almost can't talk because I'm looking down at the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. It sparkles in the evening sun. I'm crying.

"Hell yes!", I say. He stands up and wraps his arms around me. He is shaking like a leaf. He tries to put the ring on my finger and is so nervous that he almost puts it on the wrong hand. We're laughing and then I'm crying. He's kissing me all over my face and neck. "Thank you", he keeps saying. "Thank you, thank you."

As if I could have said no.

Looking on the bright side - or, rather, the side with booze

What is it about The Biggest Looser that is so addicting? I'm watching a Looser marathon on Bravo right now and I forgot how much I love this show. There's something about a boot camp mentality that I just really enjoy. That's the kind of workout I love - something that is really going to push my body to its limits. That's why I wanted to run a marathon in the first place. It's why I love spinning classes and kickboxing. I love a workout that is going to kick my ass.

This weekend was suppose to be a crazy intense kick-my-ass kind of a weekend, as I was suppose to be running 26.2 miles on Saturday. Instead, I'm going to make the best out of things and just enjoy an amazing weekend up in Traverse City. I raised almost $2500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, and part of that included a 2-night stay at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa. So Bryce and I are going to go up, root my other team members on, and enjoy the weekend in Michigan wine country.

I'm not even bummed anymore about the marathon. I'm just so excited about this vacation . Just me and my wonderful boyfriend and some good wine. Does it get any better than that?

Plus, I'm going to run this freaking marathon in the fall I've decided. Yes, yes I will. I'm signed up to run the Detroit marathon in October. And I will make that marathon my bitch!

On a side note, I just saw a preview for a horror movie with Kevin Costner and Dane Cook. WTF?

On keeping EPT in business

I get so freaked out about getting pregnant that about once every 4 months I panic and buy a pregnancy test, only to have it come back glowingly negative and obviously mocking me. But still totally worth the $9.

Today was one of those days.

Life has just been incredibly stressful lately, what with the marathon that I'm training for that I just found out I won't be able to complete due to a knee injury that just isn't healing in time, and finding out that my friends have been saying not-so-nice things about me behind my back (what is this - high school?), to the fact that my boyfriend is planning to ask me to be his in a permanent, forever kind of a way and I want to be over the top excited but I can't act like I know anything and I can't talk about it until it happens. And so life goes - when it rains it pours.

My best friend Sarah and I had a girl's night on Tuesday. We drank wine. We watched the Gilmore Girls Series Finale (and cried, of course). We baked cupcakes (ok, when I say "we" I mean that she baked and I watched and tasted the batter - I like to think I'm the best kind of cooking co-pilot). It was great.

Sarah has been my best friend since college, when we roomed blind and ended up together. She thought I was going to be freakishly obese because I told her, in the first conversation we ever had, that the year before I had broken my bed (which was the truth, actually. I broke my bed. And not from hot sex either!) And so it began. 8 years later and still going strong.

Hey, maybe I should make us matching sweatshirts that say: "Carolynne and Sarah - Rocking it since 1999".

Anyway, here I sit. Not pregnant. Not engaged. Not running a marathon. Not much of anything besides overly stressed. But life could be a whole lot worse. I could be freakin pregnant, right?! And at least it's Friday. So I'm officially going to stop whining and start enjoying the weekend. ... Right after I eat this cupcake.

I love rainy days

Things I am loving right now:
- grilled ham and provolone cheese and tomato sandwiches

- working from home

- spending my "lunch hour" finishing my book and starting a new one

- smelling the rain through the open windows of my house

- my dogs head in my lap as I type this

- a vase full of blooming lilacs on my kitchen table

- thinking of my boyfriend and I, curled up on the couch, watching my newly purchase copy of Stranger Than Fiction later this evening

Spring Fever

Churchill Downs has comfy grass. Especially when you've had a few Mint Juleps.

This weekend the boyfriend and I drove down to Kentucky to watch the most illustrius of horse races - The Kentucky Derby. We only decided to go about a week ago. I'm like that sometimes. I hate to plan anything, I'm more prone to last minute "let's get the hell out of here", pack up and leave style of travel. As you can imagine, the airlines love me. But not for this trip. For this trip we drove the 6 hours down to Louisville, arriving at about 4am Saturday morning. We slept a few hours in the car and then headed over to the downs. We spent all afternoon drinking whiskey and betting on horse races and speaking with Southern accents.

We didn't actually get to see the big race because, by the time the actual Derby came on, the infield was insanely crowded with sweaty, drunk people and we couldn't even see the track. Plus we were sweaty and drunk ourselves, so we headed out to a restaurant to ring in Cinco de Mayo with margaritas and yummy Mexican food.

And even though we got pulled over because Bryce was going 35 in a 45 (seriously? who pulls people over for going too slow?), I had a great time.

I love running away for the weekend.

Eeee ...

I just bought a MacBook!

Quiet brain, or I'll stab you with a toothpick

I wouldn't say I'm high-maintenance, rather I'm high-energy. That sounds worse than it is, I guess. I just am one of those people who starts 5 projects to every 1 that I actually finish. I'm always moving, always working on something - usually more than one thing at once. I'm constantly changing courses, depending on what's holding my interest at any given moment. I've been known to change trains of thought in the middle of a sentence even.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Anyway, my boyfriend just got off the phone with me to take a nap. The whole concept of a nap at 6:20 in the evening doesn't make any sense to me. It's benefit eludes me. I can remember a period in college when I got my best sleeping done during the day, but that was when I didn't really have a set schedule most days and was up at all hours of the night. Besides, I didn't really sleep all that much in college - mostly I drank a lot of coffee. Sometimes I used to nap on the couch in the Natural Science 4th floor lounge in between classes. That couch seriously rocked. Although, now that I think about it, god knows what nasty business went on there when I wasn't napping on it. Ew. But I digress.

I've been feeling really antsy lately, and more scattered than usual. I go through periods of change like this from time to time. I can usually tell that my mind is working on something in my life that needs to change because I end up awake at 2 in the morning cleaning out my closets or organizing my junk drawer (like, seriously, why? I mean the whole concept of this drawer is that it's suppose to be in shambles). It's like my mind won't let me in on what it's working on, but yet at the same time won't let me sleep, so I clean. I know most people would watch tv or read a book, but I clean. Don't judge me.

In the meantime, I'll be over here - alphabetizing my DVD collection.