Constraints.

Constraints is a funny word, isn't it?  Universally thought as negative (time constraints, money constraints -- all limiting), constraints is a word last night used by Mary's mother to discuss why now was the time for me to start my Ph.D. program.

"You'll never have any less constraints than you do right now," she said. 

Constraints meaning a husband, children, a mortgage.

She's right.  With that one turn of phrase, she made my mind whirl in a thousand directions -- all making me realize that sometimes "constraints" aren't necessarily negative.  I wouldn't ever say a husband, children and a mortgage are negatives, but yet, defining them as constraints does make me think.

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I'm applying to Florida International University in Miami for my Ph.D. in Public Administration, with a minor in Political Science.  I need to retake the GRE (horrors!) but am steadily compiling my info to send in to them.  I should be completed by the end of February, then just waiting to hear.  I hope I get in.  On the work front, I have permission from my boss to adjust my work schedule accordingly, which makes for that commute to Miami once a week much more doable.

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In other huge, unbelievable, Thank-God-I-Am-Living-Where-I-Am news, Mary's dad offered to work with me to get a paper published.  I am absolutely floating above myself today at the thought.  I am where I am supposed to be.  The stars have aligned.

The purr-monster hath awakened.

This morning I woke up around 5.  Insomnia is a weird thing for me, strikes at odd times and often, like today, it strikes when it is conceivable that I *could* be awake but I so don't want to be.

And then there is Caesar.  Sweet, 10 year old Caesar, who is a true loverboy when he wants to be.  He is purring so loudly I can barely hear myself type.  I need to put him on tape (boy, that just aged me) or something because his purr is something I cannot imagine doing without.

Loud, growly and almost symphonic in its tonal changes, his purr transcends the average happy cat purr.  His purr is that of a much bigger cat but he works it nonetheless.

As soon as I'm up, I turn on the bathroom sink for him (just a little bit) so he can get a fresh drink of water.  After I do this (and today, I crawl back into my cozy bed), he starts his happiness symphony which resonates throughout my bedroom.  He is lying on my "guest" pillow, just purring away.  Ahh, the sounds of a happy kitty make my heart sing.

It is a part of the soundtrack to my life and I love every moment.

Taxes and breathing

The only two things I can count on that will go on and on.

Okay, so maybe not *my* breathing, in particular, but some thing, somewhere, drawing breath. 

I received my W2 from my employer on Wednesday.  This only made me more paranoid about taxes this year.  When I packed my office, I did an okay shitty job of it, so I think I kinda know where the items in question could be.  Maybe.  Sorta.  I mean, there in a box somewhere, damnit.  Fuckety, fuck, fuck, fuck.  I'm hosed.  Just take me to tax jail now.  I look like hell in orange or stripes too.  Fuck.

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I've been thinking about my life lately.  A whole lot about it, in fact.  I would call it Deep Thoughts, but they've mostly been pretty shallow.  Not kiddie-pool shallow, but not exactly mind-blowing either.  Mostly the thoughts have centered around: travel, real estate, going back to school, relationships and sex.  Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily the same amount of thought for each.  I wish I knew as much about life as I seemed to know at age 15.  I was a rock-star genius (or so I thought).  Now I'm just one more tangled mess of emotions and thoughts caught in the tidepool of life. 

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And so it goes ....

(thanks, K.V., for being so eloquent ... )

Total Brain Dump

Some stuff has been stewing in my brain this week, so this won't be a logical progression ... just a moment where I empty out what has been cluttering the dark recesses of my brain.
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Today is Hex's birthday.  He's 46 today.  I've been thinking about this all week, as six years ago today I threw a hell of a party for him (and his identical twin brother) with friends and family surrounding us.  So much time has passed, so much water under that bridge.  I wish him well ... and hope he finds what he is looking for AND is willing to make the changes necessary to bring about happiness in his life.

Today is also my friend Steve's birthday.  He would have been 63 today.  I'll be calling Luana today to tell her I am thinking of her and that I miss Steve too.

I am apparently super duper hot to men in their 50s.  Last night was a guy who is 51, a couple of kids ten years younger than I am.  Great guy, rather cute but too old for me.  I did wrangle him into a donation for my employer, so not all was lost. 

I head off to Tallahassee next week for four days.  I travel on Monday, super-shmoozing on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday in a conference, then return Thursday night.  I've never been to Tallahassee, not sure what to expect, but can mark off another state capitol off my list.

I need to up my 401k contribution.  Maybe writing this down will finally trigger me to get that done.

I am shocked and amazed that a man was pulled out of the rubble in Haiti on Tuesday.  Two Freaking Weeks in the rubble.  WTF are the odds? 

I heard someone use Whiskey Tango Foxtrot for WTF the other day and laughed.  Hard.

Lots of outside-the-immediate-family drama going on right now.  Nothing really to say about that except: 1) not unexpected and 2) not surprising.

Ate some crazy good food yesterday at lunch in LaBelle, FL.  Flora and Ella's restaurant.  Down home cooking and pie, OMG, the pie.  I had peanut butter pie yesterday and nearly had to excuse myself to lie down.  It was that good.

Work continues to go well.  I still love my job, still love what I do.  I'm super blessed.

Received the blessing of my boss to go ahead and apply to grad school for my Ph.D.  She said we'd work out my work schedule so that I can go.   I have been turning mental cartwheels ever since.

The tug, the pull ...

I don't know what it is lately, the pull of parenthood is driving me insane.  The term "biological clock" always seemed to me like mine was permanently on snooze. 

When I was with Hex, we had intended on having children.  A couple of kiddos or so, in fact, was what we discussed.  As the marriage entered year 2 (and when we started thinking more seriously about having kiddos), the problems that arose made me more and more determined to not only be on the pill, but have an IUD, spermicide, female condom ... you name it, to avoid pregnancy.  After the marriage imploded in so many millions of pieces, I concentrated on me and putting *me* back together.  I was more concerned with not torturing some poor soul who happened to wander into my life, let alone bringing an innocent child into the full-on mess that my life had become.

So here we are.  Four years post marriage, no closer to having children than I was when I first got married 7 years ago. 

Lately, though, I have to say, I've been thinking about kids a lot.  Like whether I do want them (I do) and what it means that my time to have them, sans major industrial tinkering with my body, is limited.  For years I'd joke with my mom that if she pushed for grandkids too hard, she could give me $20 and I'd go out to the bar and buy drinks for the future father of her grandchild.  

I don't want that.  I want the whole deal.  Marriage, kids, family, life.   I don't have any interest in being a single mom.  I don't want to go through what my mom did -- and believe me, she went through a lot.

The thought process on this always comes to the forefront of my mind after seeing the newest baby pics of family and friends.  Today it was a picture of a coworker's baby.  He and his wife met when she came into his office.  Less than a year later they were married, and just had their baby girl in November.  I saw her picture today -- she's gorgeous.  And the tugging began in earnest.

The clock is ticking.  Kinda loud, in fact.  I better buy some earplugs.

Visitors, visitors, visitors

In all of my 15 years of living in Indianapolis, I did not have visitors as I have had living in Florida.  Amazing, isn't it -- move to a warmer climate and visitors come out of the woodwork. 

This is not a bad thing, not by any means, I enjoy hosting friends and family.  Just wondering if I should just buy a small motel and call it a day :)  I pointed out one to Jay this weekend, told him I ought to buy it and all my friends that I want to retire with in the future should buy their "time share" now -- and then I can say I'm booked 30 years in advance :)

This weekend, a friend from my Ivy Tech days is coming down with her husband.  They are not staying with me, however, I'll catch up with them for a meal and/or beverage while they are here basking in the Florida sunshine. 

The following weekend, I'm free (so far), then the next two are with Mom (here) then another week off, then a few days with some more coworkers from Ivy.  Yes, I keep a calendar.  It is the only way I can keep track of this.

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Gained another blog-follower yesterday.  Don't have any idea who it is, but welcome to you "booklist."  Always glad to have followers although I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would follow my blather, especially those that don't know me.

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Big meeting tonight at work, so no Zumba tonight.  Instead I'll go to the Friday night class.  No comments necessary on how I have no plans other than Zumba for Friday night, thankyouverymuch. 

So much on my mind.

I shouldn't have napped so long today, as my sleep schedule is now officially "off."

I talked to Jason tonight.  This past Saturday was his 37th birthday and I sent him a care package of a few things I found for him.  Nothing pricey, mind you, just a few things I thought he'd like.  He left me a long message on Saturday night, thanking me for the stuff and telling me about his birthday celebration.

We talked tonight, a half hour, the longest time we've talked by far since I called things off back in July. 

I realized tonight that I still miss him.  Our Sundays spent in jammies, watching football and eating snacks -- our trip to Wisconsin -- his trip here.

If it was meant to be, it would have happened.  It didn't and I know that's for the best.  That doesn't keep me from missing him.  *sigh*

Athena's Great Adventures

Jay of Plays With Sirens

Angela and I on our Everglades Tour

This weekend was chock-a-block full of activities.  Seriously, I took a nap today when Jay left. 

Okay.

Angela came down on Thursday night.  We went to the Sandy Parrot, my local watering hole, for some oldster sightings, dinner and beverages.  All were accomplished and then we headed back to my place for more talking then sleep.  Friday was all about the Everglades.  Angela had asked to go to Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, but the park was closed on Friday, so we elected to head south to the Everglades and see what was going on.  We ended up at Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Wildlife Refuge.  Both were incredible, the sights are fabulous.  I highly recommend a tour down that way.  After a full day of merriment, I ended the day with her by taking her to Stan's Idle Hour Restaurant in Goodland, FL.  Stan's, as you may remember, is stuff of legend.  Angela was most impressed by the sights at Stan's and was absolutely shocked out of her mind by Flair Hair.  For the uninitiated, Flair Hair is fake hair, sewn onto a visor.  I laughed until my sides hurt.  Following Stan's -- where we were absolute babes despite smelling like wild hogs and looking like hags (but 30 years younger than the rest of the crowd) -- we grabbed some fast food and headed home.

On Saturday was our trip to Ding Darling, Sanibel and Captiva Islands.  We had a great day checking it all out, despite the preponderance of oldsters that I threated to take out repeatedly.  In an interesting note, I believe I sighted the woman who was the inspiration for the Maxine character in the Hallmark ads.  She had a purple sweatshirt, big glasses, poofy gray/white hair, khaki pants, surly attitude and a cigarette.

Maxine at Captiva Island.

Sunday was a little more relaxing, with the morning spent getting breakfast and a pedicure.  Our one good deed of the day was when we were looking for a pedicure place and happened upon an older gentleman who had fallen on the pavement -- cutting his head and ruining his glasses.  I stopped the car and we both leapt out, asking if he wanted us to call 911.  He did not, and fortunately, another gentleman came running up to us and this allowed me to get some napkins from my car, as well as a antibacterial wipe, to help clean him up.  He was pretty shook up (as we were after) and the gentleman that helped us assisted him into the sheriffs' station, which was in the building right behind us.  Although we did help him, I honestly don't know how people do this every day.  I was so shook up and sick to my stomach after, I'm not sure that I have ever been meant to do that line of work.  The gentleman was probably late 80s and clearly had fallen a few times before, as he told us: "sometimes he gets dizzy."   I may stop by the sheriffs' station to see what ever happened to him.

Following that, we went home and sat for a bit, waiting for the pedicure place to open.  After our pedi, it was time to meet Jay, as he arrived for his two day stay just as Angela was leaving.  We all went to Miller's Ale House in Gulf Coast Town Center for food, beverages and the Colts game.  Unfortunately, the place was "lousy with Jets fans" as Jay put it, so after I took Angela to the airport, Jay and I changed locations to the World Famous Cigar Bar in GCTC for the second half.  Our first impression of the place was a good one, as one of the guys was dressed in full Colts garb.  Turns out he was the marketing director for the WFCB and he was from Muncie, having moved to FL in 1996.  We each enjoyed a cigar as we drank a Presidente beer and cheered the Colts to victory.  It was a tremendous day.  After the game ended, we traveled to Mary and Lee's house so I could introduce Jay to them.  After all, they had gotten crabs for him, which they had passed to me, which were then to be passed from Jay to his wife, Jen. 

Stone Crabs, that is ;)

After some good convo at Mary and Lee's, we headed to the Sandy Parrot for dinner.  We managed to get in some of the Saints/Vikings game, then retired to my lanai for some Spotted Cow beer in our new beer mugs (Thanks Jay!) while he enjoyed another cigar. 

This morning was supposed to be golf, however, with thunderstorms in the forecast and lightening flashing, we elected to pursue other plans.  We had breakfast, went to the downtown FM marina, went to the original World Famous Cigar Bar location in downtown FM and met the owners.  Jay will soon be the proud owner of a signed Rocky Patel cigar box, which I will be retrieving from the GCTC location.  We also toured a couple of firehouses at Fort Myers Beach.  We attempted to ship home the stone crabs, but after looking at the prices, I sent him on his way with some dry ice and a cooler, for hauling on the plane.

After Jay left, I took a four hour nap.  I was exhausted (but in a good way). 

I think I've got to go back to work to get some rest.

Four Day Vacation.

I hadn't really planned on taking tomorrow (Friday) or Monday off work -- I figured I'd take a few hours here, a few hours there and take one day total. 

Then my coworker, TV, told me that was silly, I wouldn't want to come to work for only a few hours on Monday and that Friday, I'd be ready to leave a little after today. 

She's right.

And now I have a plan for tomorrow with Angela, and a plan for Monday with Jay, and life is quite good.  I'm thinking tomorrow is a tour of a local state park, Saturday at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sunday is some golf & cigar bar touring, and Monday is a tour of a local cigar factory.  Two different friends, two different agendas, one hell of an awesome weekend. 

Blogroll ... thinning of the herd

For those of you that have not blogged in 6+ months, I'm deleting you off the blogroll as of today.  Should you come back online, let me know, I'll add you back.