...and the greatest is love...

Well another Valentine's day, or as I like to think of it..."Happy Single's Awareness" day, has come and gone.  If there is one day of the year that I dread, it is this day.  The day I have to go to the dentist?  No problem.  The day I have to go see the gyno?  Not even close.  The day I have an IEP meeting with district personnel pouring on the pressure?  Nope.  Valentine's day takes the cake.  You know, it wouldn't be so bad if people just took it in stride, shared their love with each other or whatever in a modest way, but it's such a show, a production of the flowers and the chocolate and the romantic dinners.  Blah.  Why can't couples do this for each other not on a designated day, all-at-once, so that people not involved in wonderful relationships feel badly about themselves?  I think worst of all, it just seems like this exclusive club...only people with significant others can get into.  Oh, I know, everyone always says, "Well, but it's a day to show how you care about all special people in your life."  Let's face it.  It's a day for romantic love and this year I was not a member of the club.  Last year, well, last year was great.  Thus, making this year's single awareness holiday doubly hard to swallow.  Staying true to my New Year's resolution of positive thinking (which is sucking the life out of me by the way), I did my best to comfort myself by having friends over to dinner and trying to keep the focus on them, not on me.  This worked fairly well, at least until the dishes were cleared and the company had left.  Then, the typical valentine's day darkness settled in and I had to go to bed immediately.  

At least I was able to scratch together a pretty cute meal for my friends.  In the past, I have been more on the "anti-valentine" kick.  This year, I was on the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," kick.  So, I made Cupid's chicken tamale pie, with roasted asparagus and tomatoes, and for dessert I served pudding on cloud 9.  Yeah, pretty cute.  I know.  My friends appreciated it more than any boyfriend ever would probably.  I should look at it that way.  I think Sarah (one of my dinner guests) was just impressed that I thoroughly cooked everything this week.  Last week, I served her stuffed acorn squash with uncooked rice.  It was a little on the chewy side to say the least.  She humored me and ate her portion, however, which is why she continues to get invited to dinners so I can try all these recipes I want to try.  All recipes, that are, presumably gluten free for her benefit!  Overall, I think both of my dinner guests enjoyed the menu and were very appreciative.  And, for that, I thank them.

The past weekend was pretty low key.  I got to do a lot of resting and sleeping.  Friday night was a stay at home night, which was wonderfully relaxing.  Saturday night I met a friend, Tall Paul, from Portland at the brew fest.  He brews for Bridgeport and I'm still kind of confused about his role at Bridgeport because I thought he would have to be working at the brew fest.  Apparently, it's run by volunteers?  He hung the signs at the Bridgeport pouring station, which he was quite proud of.  I was confused because he's very tall, and the signs were nowhere near being straight.  All in all, it was a very fun evening.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed spending time with him.  He just has a good energy.  He is not high strung, or seemingly stressed out.  He's just chill.  Laid back.  Fun.  He laughs all the time.  It's just easy to be around him.  No work required.  Man, I miss that!  I had so many laughs, and enjoyed getting to meet some of his friends.  They were all very kind and did a nice job of striking up conversation, which I always appreciate!  The funniest thing of all was how early this crew retired.  Back in the day, my friend would have wanted to party all night.  When he said he was ready to go home at midnight, I could not believe my ears.  Wow!  Somebody is getting old...and it's not me.  I've always been old, and I can sleep at any hour of any day, so I was fine with turning in early.  But, to hear him say he does his partying from 5-10 pm now absolutely scrambled my brain.  I'm still actually trying to get my head around it.  It was a terrific night and I'm so glad I left my house to go hang out.  Oh and by the way, if women wanted to be serious about meeting men, they would hit up brew fests.  That place was a mecca for men.  Note, I am not saying a mecca for stunningly attractive men, but men, nonetheless.  Speaking of, I saw another old high school friend at the brew fest.  Good ol' Brian Mahoney.  That was a blast from the past.  I had a great time talking to that guy.  We chatted for several minutes, and I ended up running into him later at The Jackalope.  I hadn't been to the Jackalope since my college days.  I remembered that place as being really fun and having a good vibe.  It still seemed fine...but they could really use a shuffleboard.  That's all I'm sayin.  I was pretty amused with myself for playing pinball against one of Paul's friends because I played on the machine with a broken flipper and I still beat that guy.  He had a perfectly good machine, with 2 working flippers!  Also, he kept insisting the reason he wasn't good at it was because he wasn't good at games from the 70's.  Get outta here...   (Insert diabolical laughter), I love winning.  Sunday brought the Truffle Shuffle.  My favorite race day out of all the year!  It literally is a shuffle.  There are so many people that do this race, and it is confined to a tiny path, with runners AND walkers, so you definitely don't get to move very fast.  This was my second annual race with my friend Sarah, and all went off without a hitch.  At the end of the race, everyone is rewarded with a truffle from Eugene's premiere chocolatier, Euphoria chocolates.  I went with the mint truffle this year.  Delicious!

Today a student said, "Judy is the nicest teacher I'll probably ever have."  Hahahahaha. Yeah, probably.

Well, the big weekend is upon us.  This weekend we are heading out to Sunriver to play in the snow.  I'm pretty excited about it.  Sadly, I don't think Vince will be able to come up, and that puts a slight damper on my plans.  It's better that I just start planning for him not being there now, so I can come to terms accepting it.  It should still be fun, just might not be as fun as I had planned it in my head.  Oh well, you know me, with all my big ideas!  Hopefully, someday I'll have a guy who shows up for everything...and won't that be something!?  So, be prepared next week to have loads of stories, and pictures from the trip!

Today's List:  Things to get done before the trip:
1.  Sell old college course books
2.  Get the car serviced
3. Grocery shopping
4. Pack
5. Organize my room
6. Workouts
7.  Pedicure?
8.  Sleep
9.  Eat
10.  Pray