I like getting presents, sure. Who doesn’t? But I really like giving them. I like figuring out what the recipient might like, wrapping it, hinting at what it may be, letting them guess what it might be, and finally seeing the look on their face when you’ve picked out a good gift. It’s nice to know that you may be brightening someone else’s day!

This time, the recipient of gifts is Matt. Some of you may know, some may not, but next Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the day we became man and wife. I know it’s not as big as, say, 10-year, 25-year, 50-year, what have you, but I look at it a different way.

This is the only first anniversary we’ll ever have. Next year, it’ll be our second year. It won’t ever go back to being 365 days past the date that we said “I do” so we should celebrate it anyway.

I’ve brought up the suggestion that we go to Mexicali Rosa’s. We went there the day after the wedding, on what I suppose you could call our honeymoon. We stayed at a hotel in town. They upgraded us to a suite for free, which was fantastic and easy on the budget! We went shopping (picked up Monopoly and my fantastic robe!) and laid around in the hotel eating our leftovers from our dinner and watching racing on TV while playing Monopoly. So, I think it’d be nice to visit that place again, to kinda relive the memory of eating there that night!

About reliving memories, one of the things on my 101 things list is to visit the place we got married. I want to go there and take pictures (not many, since I have a tiny little memory card in my camera, hehe) and just enjoy the fact that we made it through our first year of marriage practically unscathed.

Sure, we have our fights. Probably more than a lot of couple, because of the state of affairs that my mental health is in. But we have a wonderful marriage. I am quite possibly the luckiest woman in the world to have found the perfect man for me and to have had him fall in love with me! I can only hope that I can make this first anniversary special enough to show him how much he means to me.

I’ve pretty much figured out a lot of what I’m giving him, and some of it is already wrapped out in the living room. However, I wouldn’t mind suggestions! If you want to contact me (via the contact form and give me ideas, or ask what I’m getting him/give me feedback, be my guest!

That’s right, I’ve crossed yet another thing off of my 101 things list.

Matt and I went out for dinner tonight at a Chinese buffet, and I decided to have a classic martini. One more thing off of the list sounded good to me, so I went for it. I was not at all prepared, though. I didn’t expect it to be as bitter as it was. This ended up being pretty funny, though. I passed it over to Matt to have him smell it, to get an idea as to how strong it was, and just then the waitress walked up with this horrified look on her face. She said “Oh my goodness, does it taste bad?!” and I told her “Oh, no! Not at all, I just wanted him to smell it.” This probably sounded insane, but it was the truth, so whatever. I spent the rest of the meal only drinking it when she wasn’t looking!

Does anyone have any good recipes for wonton soup? I could google it, but I’d like to hear first from people who’ve made one and tried it. I love it, but it’s hard to find one you like, and I don’t want to order Chinese food for just the soup!

I made the decision at dinner, though, to stick to fruity cocktails from now on. No more of this bitter stuff. Like the one I had at Jack Astor’s. That was delicious!

Also, today I started back up on something that I tried a long time ago, but never actually went all the way through with. It’s called the Change Your Life Challenge. Here’s an excerpt from the site, explaining what it is.

The Change Your Life Challenge is a 70 Day Program created by lifestyle expert and best-selling author Brook Noel. The Challenge is designed to help women makeover virtually every area of their life.

Over fifty-thousand women have come to this Challenge in the past eighteen months, some as skeptics–wondering if this program could work for them. You can read their testimonials by clicking here. These women are now enjoying the positive, unparalled benefits offered by this well-researched, comprehensive, step-by-step, proven Program.

If you think you have “tried everything” and there “isn’t any hope left,” think again. That is what hundred of “challengers” thought prior to completing this 70 Day Step-by-Step Challenge.

I’ve decided that going out is important, even if it is by myself. So, I went to the lake today and laid out on the beach! It was a bit weird, alone, but it felt nice anyway. So nice, in fact, that I intend to go back many times! I still have a month of hot days left, right? If not more! So yeah. The more I get out, the better I’ll feel. I hope.

Speaking of going alone… I suppose I should preface this with something. I love my online and offline friends. I love you all, very much. You’re all fantastic people, and I’d be crazy if it weren’t for you!

That said… I’m going through a bit of a rough patch in my life. It’s like a pre-mid-life crisis or something. I’m at an awkward age. Everyone speaks of awkward ages like it’s the years you go through puberty, but this one feels much more awkward to me than I did then. Everyone who knows me well knows that my baby fever is insatiable. But I can’t get away from all things baby! All my friends have children, and people online have children, and I swear if I didn’t know better, I’d think there is not one woman my age that is baby-less at the moment.

Now this isn’t meant to offend anyone, but I need to get it off my chest. I just have a hard time dealing with trying to find excitement and happiness while being childless when in my face constantly there’s the reminders of what a joy it is to be a mother. I’m so happy that all my friends have this joy, and I support them fully. I just think I need to figure out how to meet people more like me, who already know how to enjoy their time without constantly thinking BABY BABY BABY.

This isn’t being said because I intend to cut anyone out of my life. It’s not being said to hurt anyone’s feelings, or object to anyone’s life decisions. I just wanted to give an explanation as to why I have been (and possibly will continue to be) so distant lately. It’s nothing personal.

I’m officially going to be more exciting from now on. I promise. Well, sorta. I promise to post, even if I’m not exciting.

Yesterday, Matt and I went out for Mexican food. We went to a little place called Mexico Lindo. We were going to go out for Indian, since it was something I wanted to try, but we decided that without actually knowing what to order, we’d go to somewhere Mexican. It was very good, though a bit odd. The salsa had a lot of heat to it, but the beef in the actual meals tasted suspiciously like a pot roast, shredded. All in all, though, it was worth going! Going there completed my “Try three new restaurants” item on my 101 things list. This is a good thing! I’m getting things checked off.

About that list, every time I go swimming, I’ve been checking off one of my “Wear a skirt or dress in public” times. It totally counts. I usually stop somewhere on the way to the pond/lake/wherever and the whole time, I am, in fact, wearing a skirt and a tank top! I love my skirt. It’s so comfy and it feels like a towel. So yeah, that counts, in my eyes! Only two more to go!

I think I’m going to do a DITL today. Though I’m not very interesting, so it may not be very exciting. Oh, well!

My new theme rocks. It’s a totally different style than the last one, but I love it! What do you think? There’s still some work to be done behind the scenes, but for the most part, it’s set.

Yesterday, as I posted, was an awesome day. I was exhausted, so I didn’t really elaborate on much of anything, but I can now!

Katie and I went swimming, like I said. We went to a different lake than last time, and it was raining and cold out, but we were determined to have some fun and swim anyway. It was nice because there weren’t many people there.

Before we went to the lake, we went to Sobeys so I could pick up a couple things for dinner. I made tacos. I’ve been on a tacos/quesadillas/fajitas/enchiladas kick lately. Basically Mexican food, really. It was delicious, though. A big thing about the trip to Sobeys, though, is that I went out in public with a tank top and a skirt on. No jacket covering up half my body, no baggy pants to hide my stomach. Just a tank top and a skirt. I felt very happy with myself for doing this and not freaking out.

Also, I want to share a song that Matt introduced me to. It’s fantastic! It’s Tiësto with Christian Burns and it’s called In the Dark. Go watch that video. It’ll be stuck in your head for days!