Every time I start a personal entry

I feel like it's too personal and close the screen. Here is the abridged version:

I have baby fever again. This happens every few months. I start feeling jealous and resentful of everyone with their beautiful little babies. My cousin's girlfriend just had their first baby on the 4th. Three days later, his brother's girlfriend announced she's pregnant.

Mike is against kids before marriage, but has no plans on popping the question any time soon.

The whole situation is so stupid and frustrating.

Adventures at Walmart

While visiting, dad wanted to see what a Walmart in Iowa was like. Of course, the one in Davenport is probably the nicest one I've ever been to. He wanted to buy us a toaster oven, because I've always wanted one, but it wasn't so important that we NEEDED one. So we looked at the ones they had, and I decided on a B&D convection oven, which was on clearance for $34. It didn't look like the display one, but it was the last one and the price was right.

I brought it home and opened it, excited to convect something, but it was used and the little pull out tray was oxidized and rusty. I called them back, but it was the only one they had. So I called the Walmart in Moline. After giving the UPC, she said they had two on hand and three in the back.

So after dinner, we ventured to the Moline one. I gave the customer service girl my oven, explained what had happened and she told me to go grab another. There were no ovens available in the small appliance area. There were no employees around to ask for help. I walked up to the greeter at the front and asked her to page someone for me. She did, but nobody came. So we waited a little longer, then dad grabbed a guy from another department.

He was reluctant to help, because it wasn't his section, but he left for a while. Then he passed by and told us to wait a little longer. So we did. It was a while.

Then, I heard him one aisle away and someone was talking to him on his walkie talkie. I heard something about the only toaster oven they had being the one in the front. Then he walks up to me with a toaster oven in a box, RE-TAPED and asks me if this is the one I wanted. I asked him if he got that from the front and he said yes. I asked him if he had taped it shut. Yes. I said it was mine and I was going to exchange it. He looked pretty embarrassed. I asked if my receipt was still at customer service and he said probably. So I took my oven back up to the front.

I waited to be helped by the girl I explained it to in the beginning and told her what happened. She was busy and hadn't seen the guy take my oven, but she did still have my receipt. The customer next to me said she saw him take it, and so did another one of the cashiers. The latter thought he was bringing it back to me and didn't say anything. So I returned it and we went to Target.

About losing my friend

Since that day we "broke up" she and I have had a few more emails between us. I spent a lot of time trying to defend myself, but I guess the things I said didn't come out right and she kept getting upset with me. But she also made some really good points.

Yeah, it was good and freeing for me to tell her those things, but I didn't think about the effect it would have on her. I really hurt her. And I still feel awful about it. And things are past the fixing point, now. But it's ok. This is good for us. We're so incredibly different and we're changing more and more every day.

There were things about myself I was in denial about. All this time, I've felt like I was a great friend, but to be honest, I'm not. And I haven't been in a really long time.

I hate to come back to it, but it was hard for me to pour my whole heart into our friendship time and time again, only to have her leave without a second thought. I started withdrawing to protect myself. It's gotten to the point where now, I assume my coworkers don't want to be my friend and our relationships never grow past the fun and joking while working together stage. I don't want to knit or crochet presents for people because I don't think they'll truly appreciate the work I put into it.

I don't know. She still knows exactly who I am, even if I don't. But this friendship is over now and I'm not that sad about it anymore. I'm just sad I hurt her. I hope she's happy and she finds someone who can be there for her when she really needs it. I was planning on that being me when I moved back, but that isn't the case anymore.

I'm going vegetarian

For nearly a year, now, I've slowly been liking meat a little less.

It all started when I first moved here and was put in charge of cooking, because I hadn't found a job yet. Because it was cheap, we ate chicken thighs 3 or 4 times a week. As time went on, finding the giant arteries in the thighs really started to bother me. So I'd cut them out while I trimmed the fat and skin off my thighs. The times when I didn't were the worst. The arteries would fill up with black blood, explode and the surrounding meat would taste like blood. I stopped opting for thighs after that and we started buying breasts. Then the last time I tried a wing, I picked out a big, delicious one from the wings Mike prepared, sat down to eat. Then I flipped it over and saw a blood bubble nearly the size of a fucking dime on the back of the wing. I lost my appetite. After that day, I decided I didn't want to cook chicken for myself anymore. I still cook it for Mike, because it's his absolute favorite food in the world.

So after that, I still ate chicken at every restaurant I went to and when Mike's dad barbecues every weekend in the summer, but the taste of chicken started appealing to me less and less.

Then, at the beginning of this year, I was rinsing and separating wings for Mike's dinner and one of the little wings flapped. I thought about the living chicken that wing came from, and the videos I've seen of slaughterhouses and decided I didn't want to eat chicken anymore.

Admittedly, I'm really bad at this, though. We still go to chick fil a once or twice a month and I can't pass up Popeye's when we find one. But I opt for the marinated, thin chicken patties from CFA, where I mostly taste the bun and barbecue sauce, and while I do get a chicken wrap from Popeye's, I make my main meal popcorn shrimp. Mike's mom seems pretty upset about my not eating chicken, because I already don't eat beef, so she has no idea what to cook for us when we come over for dinner. I told her to invite us anyway, Mike can't get enough chicken and I don't want to limit family visiting time just because I don't want the meat dish. That leaves more calories to spare on extra garlic bread, anyway! ;)

I have a friend who had to go vegetarian because of health reasons, and she and I went to Exotic Thai, because I wanted an excuse to check out the Davenport one (not as good as the Moline one, even though it's the original) and they have a lot of tasty vegetarian options. I tried the veggie chicken in my pumpkin curry and was really surprised and pleased. She made me try a mushroom and the taste wasn't really that bad! The texture really bothered me, though.

I suppose my main reason for going vegetarian is because I don't eat enough fruits and veggies. Funny, right? So if I make my main food source fruits and veg, and not meat and carbs, maybe I'll start feeling more energetic.

Originally, I was planning on just doing it for the summer, to see if I like it. But I think I'll make it indefinitely. I'll technically be a flexetarian, anyway, because I'm still not going to pass up some Popeye's and I already miss bison burgers. It's actually going to increase our fast food options because since I started counting calories, I cut out most of the fast food places we used to eat at due to the caloric and sodium levels of their foods. But if I start getting salads without the added chicken, we can start going to burger king and hardees again. That is, if they offer salads.

Aside from bison and bacon, I don't think I'll miss meat. When I'm running low on protein, I crave peanuts.

I have two vegetarian cookbooks and one vegan one, I have the basic formula for what my daily intake of fruits, veggies, beans, carbs and dairy is like, I have an optimistic attitude and a supportive boyfriend. Now all I need is money to buy vegetables. Ugh.

I lost a friend yesterday

I had a sort of fight with my best friend, whom I'd been friends with for nearly 11 years. I haven't been talking to her lately because of certain reasons. Mostly, because I've been depressed and homesick for California, and talking to my loved ones makes me feel worse rather than better.

So she flickr mailed me asking if we were still friends. I responded with a long email about the reasons she had upset me. Things I've been holding in.

Our whole friendship has been like that. She upsets me and I never tell her about it. I haven't been harboring resentment, but I never did let these things go. I just bottled and ignored all my feelings. Things about how she would ditch me while she had boyfriends, even though she was my only friend at the time. She would change into someone I didn't like, ignore me and then come back once they would break up.

Once she met her husband, she changed into someone even better than the friend I'd had for the previous five years or so. She and I connected on a whole new level, and became the closest we'd ever been. She was my favorite person in the world. We did everything together and it was so awesome and fun. I did nothing but look forward, and all those bad memories were the absolute last thing on my mind. I don't think I thought about them once.

Then I moved to Illinois, and that was really hard on the both of us. Our friendship waned, she got pregnant and I started withdrawing from all my loved ones because of homesickness.

I would go out of my way to spend time with her when I'd visit, but as time went on, I started getting less fulfillment out of these visits. I think it's because of her daughter, which is completely understandable and I have no issues with that.

So the last time I visited home, in November, I spent a couple nights at her apartment in the very beginning of my visit. Things just didn't feel right. The whole time, I felt like we had grown apart without even realizing it. I think she felt it, too. Anyway, a week later, we were texting and she said she was in San Jose, and had been, at her dad's house. Which is a five minute drive from where I was staying with my mom. I was shocked, and a little hurt. And I kept hoping she'd suggest meeting for lunch or anything, but she didn't. Then I was really hurt. I started feeling resentful, and that's when all the old, bad memories surfaced. I wanted to talk to her about these things.

But of course, I didn't say anything, because I never have. I've never told her when she hurt me. Because there were a couple times when I did as a teenager, and she overreacted, took things out of context and those times really hurt our relationship. Until yesterday, I thought it was me misreading my memories or something. But she really can't take any sort of criticism about herself, which is funny, because she never told me the truth out of fear of hurting my feelings, too. So this whole time, we've been keeping things from each other in order to keep the other person happy.

In her last email, she said the whole friendship was fake, and at first I thought she was being overly dramatic, but it is kind of true. We spent a lot of energy making sure the other one wasn't hurt by our true feelings and opinions on things. It is a little ironic that when I finally do let out everything that has been kept inside, she decides she doesn't want to be my friend anymore. Mostly because she couldn't get over the fact that I was talking about things that happened 7, 8, 10 years ago. But I needed to let those issues out. I never have. And there isn't anything wrong with that, because I told her, now that they're out, I'm happy. I feel better. It's over. Let's let it all go. But I don't think she understood that, because she ended the relationship.

She feels like she can never be honest with me again, because (I assume) of fear I'll just bottle the emotion and bring it out in another decade. But I thought I made it clear that from now on I want nothing but to be honest with her. I suppose I wasn't clear enough. Or maybe she's taking things the way she wants to. She has a habit of doing that. I saw a lot of that in my last email. She put a lot of words in my mouth and got angry about them, even though they aren't true at all.

I just want to make it clear, I don't feel like the victim in this situation. I think we've both been changing in the last few years and we have turned into completely different people. But of course, I'm sad. I feel like a small part of my body is missing, honestly. I felt so empty last night.

After I read her email, my heart was jumpy, I felt really weak and I couldn't stop shivering. I honestly do feel like a little bit of me died. Whether or not we've been close as possible in the last year has nothing to do with how important she really is to me. She's been such a huge part of my life for the past decade and I can't look at a single part of the house without being reminded of her. No one got me like she did. I could tell her absolutely anything, and she would understand. We liked the same weird, obscure, quirky things. I felt like I was almost as close to her as I was to Mike, just on a different level. I felt like she and I were as close as sisters.

I'm hoping that eventually, she'll understand my side of the story and we can be friends again. I don't think we'll ever be best friends again, but I don't want to lose her for good.

Yesterday we went to the Goodwill

Since becoming interested in dolls and dollhouses, Mike and I frequent Toys R Us, the toy sections at whichever store we're at, and local thrift shops for interesting toys. I'm always looking for cute stuff to put in my dollhouse, Mike's always looking for potential bad guys to put in the stop motion videos he always plans, but rarely makes. I do tend to egg him on and get him to buy action figures he only kind of wants.

Anyway, we went to the Goodwill yesterday, killing time before dinner at his parent's house. I had the impulse to check out the stuffed animals, which I rarely do, and found this guy!

What's amazing is I had the exact same gorilla when I was little! He was one of my favorites for a really long time. I got him when I was probably 8, and had him for a really long time. But, sadly, he was thrown away, with most of my stuffed animals and toys, when I would outgrow them and put them in the garage for storage. My stepdad is whatever the complete opposite of sentimental is. The worst part is he throws things away and then denies it. Ugh! It still pisses me off.

Anyway, I found a replacement! And not just that, he's in perfect condition, along with having all his accessories! Which my gorilla didn't have for a very long time. Haha.

I was so happy and excited when we were driving home. Mike is so sweet and understanding, he doesn't think I'm dumb or weird as I lovingly stare at a stuffed gorilla like it's the one I lost. Maybe I am weird. God knows I'm overly sentimental, that's for sure.

But here's the crazy part. Inside his diaper was a ripped up note! It took us about twenty minutes to piece it all back together, but we did. It was dramatic, too! Especially when I pieced together the part that says "have sex" because it's obvious the person writing it isn't older than 9 or 10. We both gasped. And honestly, considering how torn up it was, we didn't think the entire letter was there!

But I have a lot of unanswered questions. Who wrote the note? Who ripped it up? Was it the writer, or the person who received it? Did Summer have sex with Ricky? I hope not. When was this note written?

"Heidi is ok But Summer is a Bitch She wants to have sex with Rikey. She loves him so much she wans (to) kiss him.

P.S. I love Richie and Josh"

It's really hard not to take it personally when your friends are so much more important to you than you are to them.