out of the blue final update

just friends - end of story

family stuff and out of the blue update

Yesterday was so fun!  I woke up at 4:45, decided not to wait for the alarm to go off at 5:00, started preparing for the day, and got on the road at about 6:00.  What?  Getting up before dawn isn't your idea of fun on a Saturday?  Oh, but wait, that was just the preliminary stuff!  The day was full of joy and love and laughter and family and friends.  It really started when I arrived at my cousin's house in South Jordan.  Her son just turned eight, and was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints yesterday.  Also, my grandpa - my only grandparent still alive - just turned 94, and so a family party was in order for both occasions.

After the baptism activities at the church, we re-convened at my cousin's house again for brunch, and talked and laughed and laughed and talked some more.  We were telling stories about our ancestors and remembering stories about each other.  At one point we were discussing whether or not hearing loss was genetic on that side of the family.  Cousin Katie asked my dad if it was, and he leaned forward to ask her to repeat the question.  We all laughed.  When we realized he really hadn't heard the question we laughed even harder.  At another point, cousin Suki came into the room and said it looked like we were having a meeting, at which cousin Chelsea immediately folded her arms and bowed her head.  More laughter.  It was just plain fun.

Finally we had to break things up, but with plans to meet again later for dinner at a buffet place to celebrate Grandpa's birthday.  I kind of wish I could have been there for that, but not very much.  I had another appointment.  I took the opportunity to finally meet my new friend in person.  (Reference this post and this post.)

Before I ventured out for the second part of my fun day, my brother handed me one of his pocket knives - just in case.  (He always carries at least 3, in a leather belt case that he made for them.)  No worries, Russ, I didn't even have to reach for it.  I had arranged to meet my friend at a place in Ogden (yes, Ogden again, sigh), and arrived about 45 minutes early; so I sat in my car (about half a block away from the restaurant) and listened to a cd from the library until there were only 5 minutes left.  I got out of my car and locked it, then looked up and there was my friend walking past right in front of me.  (I recognized him from Facebook pics.) When we got to the restaurant there was about a 30 minute wait, so we walked around the little shopping area a bit, and then he showed me the coolest place!  I want to do this some time!  It's a little place called iFLY Utah.  We watched for a while, then went back to the restaurant and had dinner.  I didn't feel at all awkward the whole time.  I don't know if he did or not.  We discussed things that had been briefly touched on in our emails, among other stuff, and just had a fun conversation.  Then I drove home and went to bed.

Like I told my family when I explained why I wasn't going to meet them for Grandpa's birthday dinner, I'm going into this with NO expectations beyond friendship, and if something else develops, it will do so without gossip and speculation.  That being so, I had a good time.  Enough Said.

out of the blue update

Just so folks will stop asking, there isn't much to say.  I haven't met him yet.  We have been exchanging intermittent emails, and I am impressed with his email writing skills - humorous and grammatically correct - but that's all as yet.  (I will admit that my favorite movie at the moment is 'You've Got Mail', and when I see his address in my inbox I start smiling in anticipation.)

out of the blue

Like many people, I don't have a land-line, just a cell phone, which makes it really easy to screen my calls.  If I don't know who's calling, I don't answer.  (Read that to mean if I haven't entered the number in my contact list, I don't answer.)  And my 'I'm not answering right now' message indicates to my callers that if they don't leave a message I probably won't call them back.  Where is this going, you ask?  Well, today after church my phone rang, and I didn't know who it was so I didn't answer.  A minute or so later it beeped to let me know I had a message, so I listened to it to see who had called.  Someone from my ward, I figured, and I was right, but the message was so completely not something I was expecting.

"April and I were just talking about you and we keep thinking, 'We should set Debbie and Jed up on a date.'" He's a friend they went to high school with... yada yada.  They said that when they talked to him he said, "Yeah, whatever, sounds like fun, but talk to her first."  My response was similar, so they gave me his email and I gave them mine to give to him and permission to share my phone number.  They have, of course, denied any liability if things should go horribly wrong.  I assured them that I would still be their friend, but as they're moving to Arizona soon, they didn't really need to worry about me coming after them for revenge or what have you.

Since I'm sure only a few people read this blog - namely some of my family and a few good friends, all of you probably know about the experience I had last fall when another friend wanted to set me up on a date.  Not an experience I'll soon forget, let me tell you, and we'll leave it at that, except to say that no friendships were injured in the making of the experience.

Could be fun... I'll keep you posted.

many firsts

my first serious boyfriend
my first kiss
my first proposal
my first bout with ongoing insomnia
my first emotional melt-down (in several years)
my first 'let's just be friends'

it's been an interesting few weeks

ghost stories

I went with my friend on the Ogden Ghost tour last night.  Kind of bizarre, but fun.  The tour guide is a storyteller who has collected ghost stories from the local business owners.  It starts out from the Union Station in Ogden, where we all get on a bus and hear the stories about the ghosts that inhabit the station, then the bus drives a few blocks and lets us out on 25th street, where we walk (if you can call it walking) for one block, stopping frequently to hear a little bit of history and the associated ghost stories as we look at all the neat old buildings.  Then we get back on the bus and drive past a few other historical buildings, the Egyptian Theatre, the Victorian Mansion, the old Godfather's, etc. on the way to the cemetery.  It's completely dark by this time, of course.  At the cemetery we are encouraged to get off the bus and take some pictures with the understanding that we will of course be capturing evidence of ghosts with our cameras.  I saw the 'orbs' in some of the pictures that were taken by a member of the group.  Another group member stated that she had a special camera that was designed to photograph ghosts, and that she planned to be a ghost hunter when she grew up.  I've often wondered what people interpreted as evidence of ghosts in photographs.  Looked like dust on the lens to me.  Who knows?  Anyway, the stories were very entertaining, and it was fun to learn a little bit about the local history of downtown Ogden.

my own personal roller coaster

What a ride!  The past month has seen me go from having never dated anyone really to being almost kind of sort of engaged.  From being giddy with excitement one day to being almost physically ill with stress the next.  After a very intense couple of weeks of prayerful thought and examining my feelings, I've come to a level part of the ride where I have a good friend I will continue to date for a lot longer before any decisions are made.

As far as roller coasters are concerned, I find I prefer the amusement park variety rather than the emotional ones.

.... shhhh .... this is a library

At approximately 12:55 pm this afternoon, there was a lot of giggling and whispering at the circulation desk of the Logan Library.  So much so, in fact that a staff member was heard to ask what it was all about.  Of course he had to interrupt the gigglers to ask his question, since they were all staff members.  Are you curious yet?

Well?  Are you?

Ok.  The giggling and whispering was occasioned by the fact that my cowboy friend came to take me to lunch today, and he brought these:

I'm not going to tell you what was whispered, though.  You'll just have to stay curious.

to tell or not to tell...

To preface this post - here's a quote from Sleepless in Seattle:

"I am dating her.  That is all I am doing.  I'm not living with her.  I'm not marrying her.  Can you appreciate the difference?  This is what single people do.  They try other people on and see how they fit."

That being said, please don't overreact when I tell you that I'm dating someone.  Yes, I know it's a big deal for me, the oldest living member of the virgin lip club, but please don't read anything into it except that I'm dating someone.  A few weeks ago my visiting teacher (Anna) asked me if I would be willing to "meet" her divorced cousin.  I said sure.  We met at Anna's son's baby blessing last Sunday.  We went on a date last night that included his two-year-old and his four-year-old.  This Friday we're going to the Greek Festival in Ogden.  That's all I'm going to say on the subject for now.