I cried more than once yesterday, and other random musings

Jeez louise, I am a ball of hormones this week.  I am not exaggerating when I tell you I cried probably three different times yesterday, and teared up again just now when writing a thank you message to my now former trainer.  Oh, how lovely it is to be a cliched girl.  :-D

Life is good.  Truly.  :-)  I am a pretty happy Bluemoon right now!  Spring is lurking and I'm loving it.  Even the cooler days are better than winter, so I'll take it.  I love occasional days for light jackets, open windows and walks around the neighborhood or over lunch.  It just makes everything seem brighter and happier.

I'm madly in love with the newly adopted cat.  R is a big ball of love and cuddles.  He is so sweet and I'm so glad we were able to give him a good home.  His owner was sick and had to give up her three cats, including R.  She brought some of his old toys and his food bowl to the woman who was going to foster him (but never had the chance since he got adopted so quickly).  That woman contacted us to see if we wanted those things and we said definitely.  I think it will be nice for him to have some things from his previous home.  She said the owner was so torn about having to give them up and doing this made her feel better.  I'm happy to do what I can to help his past life live on in our home.

I can't wait to introduce him to our other cats.  Everyone is so curious about one another.  We're trying to switch out beds and blankets to familiarize everyone with all the smells and giving treats on either side of the door to create a positive association with one another.  One of our cats has spent most of her free time since we got R sitting vigil outside the door, and they've taken to occasionally pawing at each other under that space, or sniffing at one another through that crevice.  I'm taking that as a positive!

Beyond that, my trainer is officially done being my trainer.  He originally planned to finish out the month with me, as he recently moved and his schedule was just no longer permitting of the PT job in addition to his regular job.  However, I found out last night that he got laid off last week (the week AFTER he just bought a new house with his wife and three kids), and I was so sad for him!  He filed for unemployment while he job hunts, but working part time at the gym only hurt him on that front, so he stopped our sessions after last night.  We worked with the gym's new trainer shadowing us and he will take over next week for my remaining sessions.  I doubt I'll renew after that, but I guess we'll see how it goes.  New trainer is nice, but I'm not sure I'll ever find anyone as positive, encouraging and lovely as the other.  He was such an amazing motivator.

In other news, a couple of weekends ago marked one year since I moved in with BF.  Craziness!  I came home that Friday night to a BEAUTIFUL bouquet of tulips (my favorite!) and a card from both BF and J.  It was such a nice surprise and made me feel so loved.  This past weekend we went out for appetizers before our firepit dinner of turkey sausages on a stick and s'mores.  ;-)  While out to eat the subject of engagement came up, and I was surprised how gamely BF entertained the convo with J. She was listing off meaningful places he could propose, and he was even joining in.  We joked about going looking for rings, and J volunteered to get an idea of what I liked and my size so that when the time comes, she can help him pick.

I had joked the previous week that we needed to get married by mid-April since my ex-H is getting re-married then.  I'm still weirded out by the notion that once that happens there will be another person with his last name.  I kept my married last name because I identified with it more personally and professionally, but have always said I'll change it when I re-marry.  BF said that if we did that I'd lose out on the time of being engaged, and that he wanted the proposal to be special for me.  I reminded him that I don't need anything crazy or complicated and that the most important thing for me was to be with him.

Yesterday he face-timed with his family to show them the new kitty (it was his telework day), and apparently his sister and mom were asking him when we were going to get engaged and when we would get married.  He told me about this when I got home and I asked why they were suddenly asking...was it because we adopted a "kid"?  :-p  He said no, they were just asking and assured him that they wouldn't say anything to me about the convo.  He told them that it was nothing we hadn't already discussed, LOL.

I reminded him that it's just the thing people do, asking about things like this after a certain point of time.  He's previously expressed the sentiment that these kinds of things make it seem like we've been dating for an eternity and that he's slow to propose.  I assured him that's not the case and that he's fine (at this point, HA!).  I do think he's been caught off guard with how much it's come up lately, and not only from J.

In many ways I think it's a good thing for him to be reminded that we have, in fact, been together long enough to merit engagement.  We have been together for over two years, we've lived together for a year, we just adopted a pet together to add to our menagerie, his kid loves me.  She told him again this weekend that her friends and family keep asking when we are going to get married and that they all want us to get married, including her mom and her mom's mom (whom they live with).  J told me this weekend that her grandma really likes me even though we've only met once.  I'm sure she likes that J likes me so much, and that I've probably balanced things out in some ways  when it comes to BF and his dynamic with J's mom.  I really get along with her and it makes things so easy! Anyway, it will happen when the time is right, but ultimately it feels really good to know that everyone in our lives supports it so much!

What else, what else?  A week from Thursday I leave for Omaha.  I have to say I'm looking forward to the trip home.  I'm a little nervous about seeing my grandfather, as I know he's deteriorated a fair amount since I was home for Christmas, but it will be good for me to see him.  I'm also looking forward to seeing the rest of my family in a non-holiday, non-crazed situation.  The next visit will be in May for the family reunion and that trip is always a whirlwind!  I'm bummed I'll miss out on the R bonding and integration time, though.

J is planning to spend most of her spring break next week with us.  We're going to start the cat integration this weekend, and continue it into next week.  Hopefully a week of supervised time together will lead to everything being good to go the following week for them to all be left alone together!  I'm also glad J will be around to keep BF company for awhile while I'm in Omaha.

One last item of note....I made a large credit card payment Friday (tax refund) and am making another one today (pay day!). After those two payments, the higher interest credit card will be down under $1K, which is AMAZING.  That means that card will be fully gone and paid off by April 15th and I'll be down to the last card, which has a super low interest rate and a really reasonable balance. I am getting so excited about the notion of being debt-free the closer it gets!  I can almost taste the sweet freedom of ZERO CREDIT CARD DEBT!!!  I am going to be doing the biggest blogger happy dance on that day.  :-)

Time to wrap up this novel of a post.  Happy tuesday to all!  :-)