boring

So I haven't been a great blogger lately.

Everything is fine; nothing is out of the ordinary but nothing is exciting or note-worthy. Being the token single friend in basically all of my social circles, I feel like people expect me to provide them with exciting tales of the bad dates and random escapades of my life as a exciting girl out on the town. Maybe it's the fact that I'm 30 now but I've got nothing.

Nothing at all.

Eating a fistfuls of chocolate chips while refreshing Twitter and watching episodes of Psych on Netflix on a Friday night doesn't make for very entertaining stories.

The fact of the matter is I'm lonely. I'm tired of being by myself. And I don't have any more ideas on how to fix that.

Anyways.

Thanksgiving was lovely. Just like last year I essentially slept the day away. I slept late. Got up, ate breakfast, and then went back to bed, pretty much up until we ate dinner. I don't know why. I had no business being so exhausted. But I guess I needed the rest. Isaac spent the day playing NBA Jam with my brother. We had a lovely dinner and then I went to bed early.

The night before Thanksgiving I met up with my good friend from college, Nicole and some of her family at an Irish pub. She is from Lancaster and now that is where my parents live, so it's been a nice way to catch up with her when we are both visiting family. I always feel a tiny bit of anxiety when I see her now, just because she (and all of her family and friends) are so successful and gorgeous and thin. The most ironic part-- she works for Weight Watchers (corporate office). The pub we met at had approximately 449045840958340985 people in it. I wore cords and a long sleeved cotton shirt and was disgustingly sweaty within 3 minutes of walking in. Like my hair plastered to the back of my neck, sweat rolling down my spine, armpits straight up soaked, which just made me feel even more self conscious and gross. Aside from that, it was fun to catch up with Nicole. Even though we don't see each other often, she really has been a great friend to me over the years.

Latest obsession: Spotify. I've been on a Broadway kick (probably from my latest visit to the piano bar and catching up on Glee)-- the soundtrack to Les Mis is blasting right now. I've also been listening to the Indigo Girls a lot lately (Staring Down the Brilliant Dream has been playing constantly in the car since I went to their concert). The other day I overheard Isaac singing "Get Out the Map" and when I started cracking up he was like "What?! Some of their songs are really catchy!"

I only have one more class/project and then I am done with grad school for the semester. It's been a good class and I've learned a lot about how to use different software (even though I doubt my district will be able to afford a lot of that software for another ten years or so). I'm glad I was able to work things out so I am only taking one class at a time though. Even one class can be a lot to juggle. I have an advising appointment coming up and then I can register for next semester's class: The English Language Learner. Should be interesting.

In a quest to save some money I called the cable company to have them cut the cable. I seriously never watch TV (Netflix all the way!) and it seemed like such a waste to keep paying for it so that I can let the occasional guest flip on ESPN. Turns out that I get a good deal by bundling my internet and cable, and if I cut out the cable, I will only be paying 10 dollars less for internet. So I figured I may as well just keep it. Seriously, this is how boring my life is. I've resorted to blogging about my cable bill.

Anyways, I should wrap this up and head to church. Have a great day everyone!

only comes once a year...

For all of the drama, 30 has been nothing short of awesome so far. This will be a little recap of the birthday funness I've had so far. I will be my traditional birthday year in review post at another time.

I started the celebrations the weekend before my birthday with a nice family dinner at the Hibachi. I wanted to do it on a weekend when Isaac would be with me. Our chef wasn't quite an animated as some I've seen, but it was delicious and yummy. They brought me out a little dish of icecream with a candle in it and everyone sang. We all started cracking up because as soon as we finished the last night Isaac promptly yanked the dish over to himself and started eating. In true Stephenson tradition, we didn't take any pictures. Afterwards we came back to my place for cheesecake and Dad helped me fix my vacuum cleaner.

I had a long day/night of parent-teacher conferences on my actual birthday. I did have a nice birthday dinner at Applebees with a group of my coworkers. My fabulous classroom assistant Sheree bought this cake (which was delicious!):

When I got home my mom surprised me with super cute placemats. They match the kooky chefs in frames on my wall.

This weekend I had the best birthday ever with my girlfriends. We went to Becca's in Fishtown and had a Stampin' Up rep come and help us make this adorable card:

The party decor was so fun. Becca made me this great banner:

The plates somehow managed to combine my favorite things, pink and animal print:

One of my favorite parts of the party was when Becca's husband Steve brought over a homemade Nutella panini. I order one of these at this great place in the city Tria every year for my birthday. We didn't go there this year, but they still brought me one, complete with a tea light on top.

They gave me some really thoughtful presents, including an awesome Wii game, one of those karaoke ones with the microphone.

(It should also be noted, that I received some *ahem* less thoughtful presents... anyone who knows me knows how I feel about bananas...) The evening ended with a trip to the piano bar where I sang "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid. =) So, so far 30 has been pretty great.

ugh...

I'm freakin' 30.

as much as I hate Glee...

This is so clever!!

I'm an awkward and uncomfortable thing

I can't seem to embed this video (maybe cause it's unlisted) but here is a link to a little bit of Isaac playing soccer. After we were done with soccer he took off with his dad and I headed into the city to meet up with Becca and Jamie. We did the following:

• Rode the El into the city
• Caught up with the Occupy Philly people who were marching around for bank transfer day
• Went to a whole bunch of stores but niether of us bought anything
• Finally decided what I want to do to celebrate my 30th with friends
• Went to Sephora and tried on a bunch of outrageously expensive makeup. (Seriously, who would buy a 30 dollar single eyeshadow?!)
• Ate dinner at El Camino Real (SO YUMMY)
• went to a Barcade that featured tons of video games from the 80s like Ms. Pacman, Tron, Double Dragon, Tetris, etc.
• Ran into someone I knew from Pitt there.
• Made plans for Thanksgiving Eve to see my old friend Nicole.

I finally decided to sign Isaac up for the winter Saturday soccer clinic. If you've talked to me at all this weekend, chances are I probably hashed this to death with you, but it's been weighing heavily on my mind. Isaac was invited to this winter Saturday soccer clinic that runs from the end of fall soccer to the beginning of spring soccer.

• Pros
• it will help him improve as a player
• it is recommended for kids who will probably play travel soccer, which Isaac probably will
• It will give us something to do on Saturday mornings when he is with me
• He loves, loves, loves soccer.

• Cons
• we have to buy him indoor soccer shoes
• it will mean a Saturday commitment for 75% of the year
• it means that our visitation schedule is reduced to only Saturdays for 75% of the year instead of whole weekends.
• It makes me miss having occasional Friday nights to myself.
• And then it makes me feel terribly guilty and selfish for missing Friday nights so much.

I had made the decision to NOT have him do it after I recieved the inital e-mail invitation. There are plenty of other years for soccer clinics. But of course the coach came over and mentioned it in front of M (Isaac's dad) and of course he thought I should for sure do it. This of course made me insist that he shouldn't, just to be contrary and disagreeable. Anyways, his dad agreed that he would take him some extra Saturdays to make up for missed Friday nights. So I think that's a good compromise. And I swear I won't talk about it anymore.

ANYWAYS.

Back to my birthday. The big 30. I will be blogging more extensively about that sooner or later I'm sure. In the mean time I stumbled across this vlog about it that I loved and thought I would share. I thought I found a grey hair the other day, just in time for the big birthday and that freaked me out way more than the age bracket change does. I called Isaac into the bathroom and demanded to know if the hair was white or blond. He declared it to be white and then helped me rip it out of my head. Hopefully ten more don't grow in it's place. I'm not ready for that. Anyhow, I will begin celebrations this Friday with a family dinner at a local Hibachi. We went last year and had so much fun, but Isaac was at his dad's. This year I wanted to choose a time when he could come too, cause I think he will love it. More birthday plans to come.

I guess I better wrap this up and go to work. Happy Tuesday all!

gpoy

via