ahh, summer

it's finally here!

i spent pretty much the entire weekend (when i wasn't working) at mom's house on the lounge chair next to the pool. it was great to read a book, lie there and sweat and become perfectly bronzed. of course, this also means flipping over - which i need to work on. if you look carefully i definitely have a tan line difference between my front and my back. oops!

last night my bff steph came to town for a little girl time. we ate pizza, drank champagne & ended up where k works (drinking more champagne and eating more pizza...). it was so much fun to cut loose for a night and spend the night gossiping with my girlfriend. i miss girl time, i realized, and i am vowing to get some more in this summer.

i also got asked on a date, i think. it's hard to tell since steph & k pretty much made him ask me for my number. but if he calls, i'll go. it's all about meeting people in my new little town!

i have a few summer goals:

- read, read, read

- start getting the condo to feel more like a home (there are still boxes in the living room for goodness sakes!)

- get a really great tan

when i was in nyc a few weeks ago we went to my new favorite store anthropologie. i had been there before, but i think that owning a place to decorate made me fall that much more in love with it. i would like my whole home to be a combo of anthro and crate and barrel. think this:

combined with this:

that's what i'm thinking for the home office. let me know your thoughts!

the most important things to get are shelves for the living room and my bedroom. and a tv for my bedroom (but thankfully, i know a family that has a couple in their living room). i am hoping that i can paint this summer too. this living room definitely needs a little color!

there are no words

once i finish (read: start) cleaning my place up nice and purdy, you my readers will get to see:

• pictures of the pad, with wall decor & a couch!
• pictures of what i want to put in the pad, eventually.
• pictures of nyc: the sibling vacay.

so i promise, by june 1st all of this will occur.

i'm not depressed, really

i thought i should let you all know that i am NOT depressed. the last post was just some emotion...i am really fine (for the most part). i am human and have moments of sadness where i wish i could make everything go back to 'normal' or what was 'normal' a month or two ago, but i know it will pass.

so, time to focus on the future. medical student, dental student, law student. this is my mantra for the summer.

"when they don't love you anymore, they don't love you anymore. and they move on, and they move on fast." - nyc housewives on bravo on break-ups

my house is coming together! i have internet & cable & kaeli has moved in! look for a post in the morning with more pictures with (gasp!) a couch.

hopefully someday (soon) a med student, dental student or law student will come sit on the couch with me...

the break-up

it's funny when you tell someone that you and a significant other just broke up. some things always happen: a look of disbelief/shock followed by the question "are you okay", they offer up their son/grandson/cousin to you with the promise that they are looking for a relationship, cute and don't want 'just a fling', tell you all the things that they didn't like about the significant other or say something along the lines of 'finally! i thought we would never get rid of them!'

i guess all of those things are normal and good reactions to news that no one knows how to react to. even the person going through the break up is a little confused, shocked and in disbelief.

if you told me 6 months ago, i would be sitting in my brand new condo feeling a little sorry for myself, listening to sad music and alone i would have reacted in one of the afore mentioned ways. probably laughing the whole time. 6 months ago i was planning summer trips to chicago & wineries. talking about getting a dog. talking about moving in. seriously thinking about the 5 c's of diamonds.

it's all so bizarre.

when he & i broke up, we promised we would still be friends. easier said than done because now even though i want to call him & tell him about the crazy bride i just worked with or some juicy gossip i can't. because of the evil-ness that is facebook and it's newsfeed. because i can't stop thinking about the girl he is probably hanging out with that isn't me.

i can't stop thinking about his future, never thinking about my own instead. i'm more worried about him accomplishing his dreams than focusing on my own. i want to scream at him for making choices that i know he wouldn't be making if i was there.

it's always easier for me to choose sarcasm than to be honest about the way that i feel. the truth? i am doing fine. i know i made the right decision. i don't regret it at all. but i still wish that it didn't have to end the way it did.

maybe we promised each other too much. maybe we didn't give each other enough of a chance to grow. maybe we didn't fight hard enough at the end. maybe we shouldn't have joked about dating the next person five seconds after deciding it was over.

there are too many maybes in this world.

i know, i promised pictures.

they will come, i promise!

i'm currently stealing the internet when i can - which hasn't been often. i will post them when i can really use the internet without it cutting out in the middle of an upload!

(and family, your change of address cards will go in the mail on tuesday. i know, a week late! if you should need my address for any reason, feel free to email me!)

home sweet condo

hello everyone!

i feel like every time i blog i end up apologizing for not blogging; and today is no different - it has really been a crazy time for me!

since we last chatted, i finally checked into my hotel room in columbia and had a fabulous weekend celebrating the love shared between my good friends deanna & mike. it's officially, they can now be referred to as mr. and mrs. ford! it was a fabulous weekend.

during said weekend the chef and i also broke up (not so fabulous). it was completely mutual & natural. no one said anything horrible and we left 'hugging it out' as friends. hopefully when i make the journey down to columbia before mr. and mrs. ford move down to georgia and see my other good girlfriends down south we can meet up for a drink and catch up on life. we had a pretty wonderful three years (three and a half, actually, from the first date) together and i am so thankful and blessed that he was such a large part of my life.

let's not dwell on the downer of my life at the moment. since coming home from the weekend of love, i spent the two weeks in between preparing for the big move. (read: thursday night before the move i put everything i could fit into tubs and called it good.) but mentally, i was preparing everyday! i also have been working my butt off on work. but you already knew that!

i was going to post pictures of my condo on here, but i've decided to wait until my couch gets delivered on tuesday so things feel a little less empty. (i have posted some pictures on my facebook account if anyone wants to check those out!) let's just say that i love it! i owe a HUGE thank you to the gparents, tom, ben and my mom for helping me these past couple of days. i feel like i am settling in and i am so excited for kaeli to move in on friday!

because i haven't set up cable yet, i've been enjoying online tv & redbox movies. i think i could be going a little stircrazy since there is NO one here to talk to, but mostly i am relishing in the fact that i bought my own house and i can do whatever i want in it and to it! i keep find myself thinking of paint colors, looking at furniture and dreaming of the end result (read: in five years) when i can afford it all. i am so happy that i made the decision to buy and feel completely at home already!

my neighborhood is pretty cute. everyone has a dog! (i definitely have dog envy and have started research on dogs that weigh 55 pounds or under.) and there are a few small kids that i see running around in the patch of grass between the buildings (i definitely don't have kid envy). north liberty is definitely a growing, young community and i am excited to explore it this summer. hopefully i can meet some fun people to start having dinner parties with!

tonight my game plan is to get some work done, watch everybody (or thing) is fine with robert dinero and drew barrymore, paint my nails, and make a to-do list for tomorrow. sounds pretty fun, huh? i also want to take another looksy through the jcrew catalog before i recycle it tomorrow. everything in there is so pretty. one day i hope i can afford a $50 tee-shirt. just kidding. kind of.

oh! i forgot that my first non-family visitors came to the house today! steph & sean (soon to be mr. and mrs. wolterman) stopped through ic and came to my house! it was so fun to have visitors, but hopefully next time things will be a little more...put together. after their tour we went to dinner at the airliner - delish. it made me miss undergrad, mostly. everyone looked so stressed out about finals!

until tuesday...

monica faye