Why Summers Aren't Made For Blogging and Why Paying Attention During Those 9 Years Of French Class Might Have Been A Good Idea

Well kids, its that time again when the N.A.T. goes on her merry way and gallivants in countries far and wide. This time the FBF and I are returning to his Motherland (well, he's already been there for something ridiculous like 8 days or something poor guy...everyone feel sorry for him now by joining me in a completely unsympathetic waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh). Anyway, I leave on Thursday and will be joining him in my favorite city for the weekend. No, sillies. Not LexVegas, not even Columbus, and not DC. Guess that means my favorite city across the Atlantic, the most wonderfully romantic and delicious place of all...yes, I'm going again. I AM SO FREAKING LUCKY!

It's been a year and a half since the last time I stood in the City of Lights, and its been beckoning me ever since. The first time I went to Paris, I went with a man I had just married but never really loved. The second time, I had just left that man, and I went alone but made a friend. The third time, I went with a man who taught me to live again and who showed me how a city can make even the most deadened heart fall in love. The fourth time, I think I will see Paris with brand new eyes. Because this time, when I arrive I will be with my best friend and my soul's perfect mate...I think it will be more than I have ever known it to be.

On Sunday we'll head to new territory for both of us and we'll explore BarTHAlona for a few days. I'm pretty much looking forward to swimming in the Mediterranean and drinking Sangria. The FBF will probably have me on 20-hour a day tours because vacations were not meant for rest, but made to explore endlessly until you're so tired you beg to go back to work. He is a man made after my mother's own heart. She's the only other person who turns into more of a slave driver away from real life than he does. Oy. So after he's made me a certifiable BarTHAlona tour guide, we'll head a couple hours East, to a small town on the Southern coast of France to visit FBF's parents. This is why I should have paid attention to the grammar Madame Brill tried to beat into my drunken brain at GC. It's times like these when it MIGHT HAVE COME IN HANDY! I'll just probably spend a lot of time saying "oui," "merci," and "cette une probleme," because that's about all I remember at this point. The nerves are really unsettling. Wine usually helps that.

So, I am pretty sure I won't be blogging before I go. Most likely not while I'm there (unless to shamelessly gloat about how great my life is at that precise moment in sweet vacation bliss), and probably a few days after I get back and well, given my current blogging habits, probably not before I manage to buy a house - which in my situation will likely be never. Oh, I pulled the offer off of the green monster. It'd been 3.5 months. It was just time to be done with it. When I get back, the FBF and I will look for a place to live. Maybe somewhere swanky for a year or so. Like, somewhere above the 2nd floor of a deluxe apartment in the skkkyyyyy. Hell yeah, we're movin' on up. You know I finally got a piece of the piiiiiieeeehhhhhaaahhhhh.

This is why I need a vacation.

Witty rhymes just aren't that cute unless you're in my tired twisted brain to enjoy them.

Until I'm back again, remember to put your kids in a foreign language class early!

Mucho love-o from BarTHAlona! A bientot from Paris!

Cheers friends,
N

Checked Out

But I probably need to check-in somewhere. Somewhere where the candle doesn't burn at both ends, and where a heavy dose of sleep is a must. I've not only been a bad blogger, I've been a bad friend, and a bad daughter, and sister, dog mother, and well you get the point.

It's pretty much been the crux of hell for me at work lately. Yeah, okay, I had a five-day hiatus where I took time off to go to the every-three-years family reunion in New Hampshire and spend a few days in Quebec with the whole family. Somehow, it didn't feel like a vacation and I came back exhausted and apathetic - only to bust my rear getting ready for an impending sales event that left me in Miami for the better part of last week and weekend. Miami is great. When you're not on your A game for 17-hours a day. When you are, and when you times that by 5, you not only get perspective on the number of alcohol units your colleagues forced you to consume, but the number of hours you are deficient in sleep, and the number of times you think to yourself, God, I just wish I could take a break. I am so tired right now I don't know what to think. I've also been working on budgets, revisions of budgets, cutting more just a weeeeeee bit more, and then a weeeeeee bit more again, while intermitently training a new employee who was here for just 2 days before I set her out to conquer an entire worldly region on her own. SHEESH.

Also, I don't mean to be redundant, but it was 3 months ago today that I put an offer on the townhouse I will begrudgingly refer to as "the green monster." And the answer would still be NO, I still don't know if that damn house is coming to mama or not. Freaking bastards. There is no joy left.

I'm tired and I'm neglectful of all of my most favorite people and I swear, I wasn't always this bad of a friend. I don't think I was, anyway? Oy. I don't even know anymore.

because i need you to know

rebekah and gavin,

you are two people, cut from the same cloth, who are the greatest blessings in my life. i think of you every day and i wish that we were closer in the number of miles between us. i love watching you as gavin's mother, and i could have never expected to fall in love with anyone the way i've fallen for him. seeing you this past week, and talking with you on saturday...i don't know why i haven't told you more often how wonderful you are and how much i love you. i am with you in every step of your journey...

FBF,

thank you for being my best friend, and for loving me the way i was meant to be loved. i am so thankful for the last six months, and for the day you unsuspectingly walked into my life (even though you dressed like you were 45). you make my heart overflow with love and joy and happiness and high-maintenanceness and princessness. thank you for knowing me like i know me, for your stupid nervous laugh, and for those damn dragons. you are my balance and my center of gravity. i can't wait for paris, for barcelona, and for all the places our dreams will take us. bisous mon bubba.