2012 Photo Challenge Week Three: Breakfast

Week 3: Breakfast.

Yep, sad but true. For breakfast every work day, and most weekends, I have coffee. 

Hey, in my defense, I'm a busy lady.

I've become quite weird about how I like my coffee too. I use two packets of sugar and one packet of Equal, two french vanilla creamers and one hazelnut. It makes it just perfect, as weird and particular as it may sound.

Hey, at least if I ever have an assistant I will be too embarrassed to ask her to get my coffee for me. Lucky for her.

Monday Momisms: Lainie, Over the Years

In chronological order, from age 2:

Good God, how the time just flies.

A Date Weekend

On most weekends, Bill and I stay in. 

Over the past five months of official coupledom, we've created a pretty reliable routine of hanging out every Saturday, and being as laid back and chill as possible.

We stay home, we kiss through movies, we get take out or fast food and we enjoy the moments where we feel like blissed out loved birds as much as possible.

It's been lovely.

But every once in a while, we venture out and brave the big bad world. In other words, we go actually do something. 

This was one of those weekends.

And to my pleasant surprise, it turned into a lovely, relaxing date weekend, with a pretty stellar guy.

Chambord Margaritas, shrimp guacamole tostada bite apps and delicious hot corn bread at Z Tejas Saturday night, and then an afternoon drive up to Cave Creek, for lunch at the Horny Toad and some exploring through the eclectic shops in downtown Cave Creek. 

As you can see, they love their cowboy boots up in there.

If you'd been a fly on the wall this weekend, you may have heard one or two of these gems:

"We quit while we're ahead in this relationship!"

"You have a bigger elbow bone than me. That's good to know." -Bill

"One of us is sitting in the middle seat when we fly somewhere on vacation, and it's not me." -Bill again

"I'e always wanted baby pigs" - Me, "That's funny because I've never wanted baby pigs" -Bill "We have everything in common" -Me

"You don't have to worry about me leaving you. I hate first dates." -Bill

He's a funny dude, that Bill.

Cheers, to a lovely date weekend.

The Friday Diary: My Week in Pictures

After what WebMD diagnosed as my bout with testicular cancer last week, aka an ear infection, and the absolutely draining week that this one was, I just have no words for y'all. Hence, a Friday Diary in pictures.

Enjoy.

Getting off work. It's a good feeling.

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The cleanest this room will ever be

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A self portrait while watching tv when I should be sleeping

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Homemade beef and broccoli. Yummm.

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Jack and I just can't get enough of glow stick baths. They're way too much fun.

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Look I made this.

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As of Today, Bill and I got back together 5 months ago. Pretty cool Here's a picture of us smooching, on my computer at work.

It makes me pretty happy to look at it every day.

Happy Friday everyone.

Carpe Momentum

On Saturday night, Mr. Becker and I went to see Extremely Loud, and Incredibly Close based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer. As soon as I picked up this book, I couldn't put it down. I read it in only a few days, laughing and exploring with the main character Oskar. Feeling my heart break for his heartbreak, and crying my eyes out over the love, the pain, the loss, the confusion and the beauty of this story.

Naturally, I had high expectations for the movie, which is always a mistake when you've read the book first. But a girl can dream.

The movie was good, and if I'd never read the book I probably would've loved it. But I have read it, so instead I just liked it, but it still made me cry and that's always a mark of a good movie.

The thing that touched me the most about the movie, which is a slightly {and maybe surprisingly} less prevalent point in the book, is how short life is. 

How we never know, we just never ever know when someone we love with all our hearts could be ripped away from us in a split second. So fast, we're left reeling, wondering how they were just there one second and gone the next. Trying for months, even years to make sense of it all.

We are not guaranteed a tomorrow, or a next day, or a two years from now, and I think that's why the dreams we dream and the plans we make for the future are so precious to us.

The possibility, the hope, the feeling that tomorrow may not come so if it does I want to make it beautiful.

Sometimes we wait too long to make our lives as beautiful as we want them to be. We put things first like work and money and responsibility, which are essential to surviving, but somehow not to living, and that's an important distinction.

And there lies the rub, doesn't it? We put so much off for the sake of work and money and our careers, so we can live in a house, eat food every night and put clothes on our backs, but when the swiftness of our final scene fades to black, there's always that feeling that those things didn't matter. They shouldn't have come first, and the contradictions are endless:

Don't put work first, live your life, but make money so you can eat, but don't focus on money, your career should come second, but take your work seriously, do a good job, move up in your company, provide financial stability for your kids, save for their future, but you aren't guaranteed a future so enjoy what you have now, work can wait, blah blah blah  until I have an overwhelming sense of CARPE DIEM ANXIETY.

How much carpe should my diem consist of? 

How do I enjoy every moment and still have a good career, provide for my kids, take care of us financially in case we do live 100 years?

I have no idea.

But, what I try to do and am constantly reminding myself to do, is to find a little joy in every day. Something small or simple to be absolutely in love over. 

Taking a walk after dinner with my kids to get ice cream from the corner store, watching them hold hands and count the passing cars as the sun sets over the city in the distance.

Laughing in bed with my boyfriend while we watch inappropriate stand up comedy and cuddle away a stupid fight and a rough day.

Getting a sweet and loving text from completely out of nowhere, that melts my heart and makes me pause for a minute to smile like a dork to myself, in the middle of my super busy day.

I hope it's enough.

I hope it always lasts.

I hope that when my time comes, I will look back at those little simple sweet moments, and feel like I lived a good life, a life I enjoyed and made the most of in whatever ways possible. 

Bob Dylan said "Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast".

So I think you have to find little ways of slowing down the blur, even if you can't always make big gestures every day, like skipping work or going on a 6 month vacation through Europe. You can still enjoy bathtime with your babies, or kissing your man hello, or a quiet night with a good book that makes you cry like a baby. 

I can't deal with all this Carpe Diem. I prefer to Carpe Momento.Seize the moment, and make the very fucking most of it.

2012 Photo Challenge Week Two: Pretty

Pretty Lainie.

Monday Momisms: Making a Budget

 One thing my upbringing severely lacked, besides structure and functional communication, was any type of domestic education. 

My dad was a mechanic so he did teach me things like how to check my tire pressure, change my oil and fix a flat, but he never went over things like organization, bill paying, grocery shopping or how to make a budget. 

All of that stuff I more or less figured out on my own when I moved out on my own. I will say Lainie and I ate a substantial amount of Cocoa Pebbles and frozen pizza in that first year on our own together.

My older sister tried to teach me some stuff, like how to cook a whole meal and the basics of a budget. But while her recipes are all ingrained in my memory forever, the budget thing took a lot of getting used to and some serious customization for my particular lifestyle and personality type. {read: spending habits and shopping addictions}

Now, I will say this: I don't like shopping. The crowds, the lines, the annoying sales girls always looking at me like I might steal shit, trying stuff on, keeping my kids from knocking everything over or getting kidnapped. Oy. I kind of hate it. And online shopping isn't much better because I think the shipping fees are way jacked up, and I don't like buying something unless I can look at it in person, hold it in my hands and see that it's what I want. Plus, I hate waiting for shit to get here.

I digress.

I don't like shopping, but I do like other things, such as having new shoes {if only they could just appear without the shopping part} and procrastinating, and using my debit card instead of cash.

All of those things combined eventually equals: me being out of touch with my money and spending habits, paying bills late, and eventually running out of money before my next check.

When you have two little kids who are walking pathogens and could need a trip to the doctor at any moment, or a car with four tires that could so easily go flat at any moment, and you're the ONLY one who can cover those expenses, running out of money is not an option.

So for those of you who are trying to create a budget, learn to budget or embrace living on a budget, here's how I do it. It might work for you, it might not, but I haven't overdrawn a bank account in 3 years since I made this budget if that tells you anything.

Step one: know how much your checks are going to be after taxes and deductions each month. Sounds simple, but do you really know how much a standard, 40 or 80 hour {depending how often you're paid} check is after everything is taken out? If you make $12.00 an hour, you may need to make a budget based on 10 or 11 dollars an hour depending what your actual take home is after tax and health insurance.
You can use this calculator to get an idea of what should be if you don't feel like looking at your bank statements, or you're about to start a new job.

Step two: add up what your total bills are for the month. That means knowing how much you spend on gas, groceries, electricity and any other variable expenses. Things like rent, internet and your car payment should be fixed expenses that are the same every month.

Step three: bust out a calendar and figure out when your pay days are and what bills need to come out of which checks. For example, your rent is due the 1st so that comes out of either your last check from last month or your first check of the new month depending on your pay periods, but will you get paid again before your phone bill comes due on the 15th? 

You need to know where each check is going.

Step three: Pay your bills FIRST. That means before you buy a single pair of jeans or eat a single meal from the drive thru, or whatever you use your spending money on, pay your bills, even if it means paying them early, and then stash 10% of your net pay for that check away for savings. It adds up quickly, and it's so little usually you hardly notice it. 

Step four: Pull out whatever you have left over after bills are paid and your 10% is contributed to savings, as cash. That way you'll be more in touch with your spending money, and you'll start to feel that pain when you hand over a whole five dollar bill for a cup of coffee and get no change back. It will make you start spending less, I promise you.

Step five: keep receipts for a month or two from the gas station and the grocery store so you can get a better idea of how those variable expenses are average month to month. Maybe you think 200 dollars is a good bi-weekly food budget, but if you look back at your receipts and find you're really spending closer to 400, it's either time to adjust the way you budget, or the way you shop.

There's something super satisfying to me about knowing all my bills are paid, my savings is hidden away, and the cash in my wallet is all mine to do whatever I want with. My spending money doesn't always last me until my next check, but I have savings set aside for emergency doctor's visits or flat tires, and my groceries and gas are budgeted out, with money set aside for them that's separate from my spending money.

I don't have any credit cards, and I support both my kids on one income, including a $750.00 a month daycare bill. I think a lot of that has to do with budgeting, saving, and sticking to it even when it means I can't buy any new Sharpies that month. 

And I really fucking love new Sharpies. 

Gentle

I am not used to such a calm and graceful love

The only love I have ever known has been violent, overpowering and forceful

Tearing through my scenery like a strip mine,

Knocking over all my precariously stacked responsibilities

Leaving purple and blue fingerprints on my heart as it clutched and ripped it away

And not for any good use either

I have always been loved out of another person's curiosity for what was inside me

Only to be left reaching for a ghost, 

Once the mystery was solved, and it was discovered that my insides served little purpose for them anymore.

I have never known such a slow and gentle love

Like poured honey, migrating slowly over me until I am enveloped in it instead of caged by it

Adored instead of demanded

A love that is complete and warm, 

Passionate and accepting

Constant and strong

Understanding and deep

Running the entire depth of my soul

Reaching gently with nimble fingers into the tender and most tucked away soft corners of myself

The parts of me I had always kept hidden, saved just for myself

Now offered up eagerly to your kind eyes 

As you love me in such a lovely way.

The Friday Diary pt. 5

Happy Friday everybody!!!! 

As usual, let's have some boozy ice cream and round up the monotony that was my week....so that one day we can all look back and remember fondly that time I went to the dentist.

So this was a short week for me, having Monday off and all thanks to good old MLK. When you were little and you saw MLK Day on your school calendar, did you totally think it meant Milk Day, or was that just me? 

Anyway....

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I've been listening to this:



Do you remember that song? It's the one that Juliet walked down the isle to in the 90's remake of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Absolutely beautiful song.

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I've been hanging out at Costco eating free samples and sitting on the new couches they have there. P.S. when did Costco get couches?!
After I move I want this one:

It was drool inducing comfortable.

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I've been reading the book, P.S. I Love You. Considering the fact that I have seen the movie, you'd think I would know better than to read the book. And in case you were wondering, the book will make you cry way harder than the movie, and way sooner too.

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I've been a little more hardcore this week about my diet than I was being before, but then I had a huge attack of ice pick like headaches Wednesday which only went away after eating bread. Turned out I had an inner ear infection. But for the two days that I thought it was from carb withdrawal, I started being a total asshole and eating absolute shit food out of rebellion. Last night I ate an entire box of Perogies by myself.
I fucking love Perogies. 

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Since the New Year I've been super obsessed with getting organized. This is the year, I've decided. I'm gonna do it.  

My first project is going to be the kids room because that room makes me the itchiest. Once we move the kids will have their own rooms, and organization will be easier. Thanks to Pinterest, I have all kinds of neat ideas, starting with this one:

They're Ikea spice racks used as bookshelves. Fancy that.

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I've also been working on two new series that will be emerging this month: the 2012 photo challenge, which you can find details on in the tab above, and another one that will be called "Monday Momisms" or something like that. It won't necessarily be a weekly thing, because I'm not disciplined enough for that, but it will be entirely mom-oriented posts. Don't worry, no giveaways or contests, or obnoxious begging for you to vote for my kid in some stupid photo contest. Just stuff about being a mom. Stuff like the challenges that each of my children come with, getting organized, living on a budget, what being a single mom is like, and the occasional advice when I feel qualified enough to offer it, on how to make minion raising a little easier. The first installment is this Monday, so I hope you like it!

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And last but not least, I leave you with this awesome video, thanks to Tales of Me and the Husband, inspired by Shit Girls Say:

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Sarah and the Terrible, Horrible, Completely Piece of Shit Day

Do you remember the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?

Well, if you somehow missed that literary gem when you were growing up, it's basically about a boy who has the most shit day in the history of ever. He wakes up with gum in his hair, his best friend acts like an asshole, his mom forgets his dessert for his lunch and then has the audacity to give him Lima beans for dinner. 

The nerve.

Anyway, the kid goes grumping around through the whole book, while his day goes from bad to worse in the smallest, most infuriating ways possible. 

And that has been the last couple days in the life of me.

I am mother furking Alexander.

It all started Monday evening, when I got a horrible headache. Well, really the terrible headache started with me getting these short, sudden, intense stabbing feelings in the side of my head above my left ear, which then progressed to both my ears hurting, and then my whole head. 

I took some Excedrin, a hot shower, and felt much better. 

But not for long. 

The next day when I woke up for work, the stabbing pains continued. They last maybe 2-3 seconds, but were so intense, almost white hot, that I couldn't help but actually make a face of agony when they occurred. As my work day went on, they got more and more frequent. At one point I was in a meeting and started tracking them. They were happening every 2 minutes or less, and they hurt like hell. 

By the time I got home, I was tired, hungry, and the stabby feeling was really pissing me off-and starting to worry me. I made the terrible mistake of going to WebMD for help, and after logging my head pain into the handy dandy symptom checker, I was told I could have a migraine, or a brain tumor. A tension headache, or an aneurysm. An ear infection, or meningitis. Fuck my life, and queue anxiety face: 

Anyway, Bill came over later and semi-convinced me I didn't have a stabby brain tumor, and told me stories and made me take medicine. It helped. At first. 

After he left though, I proceeded to be up until 3:30 in the morning being repeatedly stabbed in the side of my head and both my ears with an ice pick. Which lead me to this neat article about ice pick headaches, which I thought I might be having.

And that all night pain marathon, is what started the shit fest that was today.

Instead of waking up at six a.m. after I finally passed out on the couch praying I would make it through the night, I woke up at 7:15 which is exactly the time I need to leave the house to get to work on time after dropping off the minions. 

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

I started barking orders at the kids to get dressed, find their shoes, getouofthefridgetheresbreakfastatschoolfortheloveofGODgetinthecar NOW!

Poor kids.

After all that stress, yelling, and not eating, my head was absolutely killing me. My ears throbbed and ached, my head was feeling stabby on BOTH sides now, and the surges were coming so often it seemed like they never stopped. 

After suffering through two hours of work and the longest meeting ever with my boss who's response to my migraine was "You won't need to take a lot of time off for those in the future, will you?" I was in agony.

Finally, one of the admin girls found me huddled in the break room feeling on the verge of certain death, and thrust a piece of bread at my face.

"You're doing that low carb thing, right? Eat this." She said. I was in too much pain to argue. I stuffed it in my mouth and instantly. felt. better.

I was having carb withdrawals.

Fucking bread now has complete control of my life. If I eat it, I will be fat, but if I don't I will suffer the worst pain imaginable until the end of time.

I choose fat.

The rest of the day went by in a hectic blur, but pretty much pain free. 

Until I got home.

I made dinner, picked up a bit, broke up a few fights between the kids, and within two hours, I felt like hell again. 

Muscles ache, skin is tender, cheeks feel hot and my stabby head pain is back, although not nearly as bad.

I dropped and spilled a huge bowl of cherry tomatoes all over the kitchen floor-twice, Jack left the fridge door open for two hours before I noticed, and now everything in there is hot, and I'm pretty much at the end of my emotional/physical discomfort tolerance rope.

I think a hot shower, a huge bottle of water, some Advil and a dark and quiet house is in order, followed by a solid 8 hours of deep deep deep as the ocean sleep.

Fuck this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

The Upside of Anger

What an awful thing: to know that you can be so angry over something for so long, only to find out in the end that you were wrong. 

That your anger was never really all that justified. That you were not as right as you had envisioned yourself being. That you had spent such a great amount of time being hurt, and mad at someone for how they mishandled your relationship, only to find out you were the one who broke it in the first place.

That you're at least 50% to blame...but really, that's being too fair, and you know it was probably all your fault.

There is no more infuriating question than "which came first, the chicken or the egg?", except maybe "who started withholding first, who stopped caring first, who started being deprived of what they needed first, me or you?" 

When you had been so certain it was you who had gone without, and you had justified a terrible unkindness based on that self righteous confirmation. 

"We all must suffer from one of two pains: the pain of punishment or the pain of regret. The difference is that punishment weighs ounces while regret weighs tons" -Jim Rohn.

What if you have to suffer the pain of both? 

What do you do with something that heavy?

2012 Photo Challenge Week One: Morning

 Morning me.

Find the full list of photo subjects for 2012 here.

Confessions of a Former Bad Girl

When I was younger I may or may not have been a bit of a rebel. A bad girl. Whatever you want to call it, I fancied myself a bit of a badass. 

I had the black hair, the lip ring, the worn out Vandals T-Shirt I bought at Buffalo Exchange like all the trendy kids do, and I had this one pair of ripped up jeans that had a series of safety pins holding them closed instead of a button and a zipper.

I talked like a punk ass with street cred who occasionally dabbled in gangster rap, and I pretty much had a 'fuck you' attitude about authority altogether.

Even though I would never admit it at the time, and I cringed when I heard people put it this way, I did like bad boys and I had a pension for guys with slow mischievous grins who would buy me booze and treat me poorly.

I used to be wild, and reckless and obnoxious to the point that the people who knew me then, can't really believe I live the life I have now.

I have two kids, I drive a minivan, I work an 8-5 job in a corporate office, and I have business suits in my closet-that I actually wear!

My life is vastly different.  Around the time I had Jack I stopped dying my hair black, I took the lip ring out, I bought a few shirts in colors other than black and that didn't have band logos on every one, and I started thinking about relationships with grown men who would be good to me. I wanted to be treated like a lady....well, more than that I wanted to be someone that a guy would consider a lady. A classy one, too.

For a long time after I "cleaned up and settled down" I boasted smugly to myself that I never stay out all night drinking anymore, I don't blow through two packs of cigarettes in a day and I have a vocabulary that spans far beyond using Fuck as a verb, noun or adjective in nearly every sentence. I was proud of myself for growing up so much. 

And then, a while back I got a little derailed.

I reconnected with some old friends from high school after my relationship with Bill fell apart over the Summer, and I started thinking that I wanted to act a little closer to my age again, at least on the nights when I didn't have my kids and I felt I could afford to have a little more fun. I became Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Party Animal. During the week I was responsible, I took care of my kids and I did my job, but the word fuck started creeping back up to it's old usage count and I was developing a bit of an attitude again. On Friday nights when I didn't have my kids, I acted like I did when I was 18 all over again. Sitting for hours on apartment balconies with people the same age as me, but who had completely different lifestyles. People with no kids, no serious relationships, most of whom worked at convenience stores, call centers or fast food joints if they worked at all. I drank too much and talked really loud and drunk dialed people at 2 in the morning like a giggling teenager.

And I started to see the divide forming.

This line between the life I had begun to cultivate for myself and my kids. The life where we had dinners with 3 different food groups that I cooked myself, where I acted like a mom even when my kids weren't around, where I spent my free time in the arms of a grown up guy who lived a life similar to mine. A life where I was responsible and reliable and honest and stable. There was a divide between that, and this former life, this history I could have so easily slipped back into where tattoos and hair dye and free drinks at bars from sleazy guys who couldn't remember my name five minutes after I told it to them, were all that mattered. A life where Lainie's teachers looked at me like I was "the young mom" at her school, in a bad way. The young mom who still acted 19 instead of being the mom who was such a good mom despite being only 16 years older than my child. 

I remember the night that I felt like I had to make a choice.

It was the night I went to Zombie Prom with one of my friends at a bar in south Scottsdale. {zombie prom is essentially a night in October where people dress up like rock-a-billy prom goers who have been turned into zombies, listen to music and get smashed}. I ended up drinking too much, and experiencing that awful feeling of being too drunk too fast and having no idea what was going on. 

And then I realized I couldn't find my friend.

The bar was crowded, we'd taken a cab, I had her wallet and couldn't leave without giving it to her or she'd have no ride home, but I was wasted, I was tired, this creepy guy kept hitting on me and I couldn't find her anywhere. 

In teary eyed desperation I called Bill at 1 in the morning. I sat in the parking lot crying and telling him how sorry I was for acting like such a child lately. I told him that this wasn't my life, I wasn't this person anymore and I wanted to go home. I didn't want to be out bar hopping with my single friends, I wanted to be at home watching a movie and cuddling on the couch with him. Going out for girls night is one thing, but going out to sleazy dive bars with all single people who want to meet guys and get hit on, is another. I had no reason to be there and in my drunken moment of foggy clarity I could see this path I was on and how it would inevitably drive Bill away. The one person I truly loved more than anything. And how it could potentially screw up everything I had started to build with my kids. 

Don't get me wrong, single mommies who have one night off a week where their kids go to their grandma's house or their uncle's house, have every right to relax and have fun, but I had no business being drunk and lost and alone in a bar with no way to get home and no idea where I was.

Bill calmly listened to me and told me over and over that he loved me, and that understood what I was going through, and he stayed on the phone with me until I sobered up and found my friend. 

Over that tumultuous summer I felt like I was being torn between two worlds, between two possible versions of myself. And at first the bad girl rebel world looked so very appealing and fun. But I realized that night sitting on the ground in my prom dress with fake blood all over my face, that it had been fun while it lasted, when I lived it at the appropriate time in my life: when I was 18. But I had two kids, and an amazing boyfriend, and a very exciting future full of so much love and contentment and happiness, that the bad girl thing just wasn't so appealing anymore. I didn't want to wake up hungover on my friend's couch. I wanted to wake up in my bed beside my 3 year old son who wakes up giggling every morning, or in the arms of the man who loves me and supports me, and patiently waits for me to figure out my path, even if it means letting me make mistakes that are hard to watch.

I used to be a bad girl, because I didn't know yet where I belonged or what I wanted for my life, so I bounced around trying it all and having as much fun as possible.

But now I know what I want, and where I belong, and where I stand with the important people in my life.

And I would rather have one more day with these kids and this man, than another 40 years of careless irresponsible freedom.

Jealousy

So, let's talk for a minute about jealousy.

It's such a shitty feeling emotion, especially when it's completely unfounded and without basis,  and I am unfortunately terrible at controlling it.

I have a past, I have exboyfriends, in fact I am pretty sure I have more exboyfriends than Bill has exgirlfriends. I have a history, I've made mistakes and I've probably done more to damage the fragile trust between Bill and I than he ever has. 

But still. 

Jealousy flares up and takes me over and I become that girl who starts mentally tire slashing every girl that her boyfriend has ever even looked at, so much as dated or kissed or.....etc.

And it's not even the girls in his past, it's the medical tech at his vet's office that liked his car and made a harmless comment about it, it's any girl that he becomes friends with on Facebook until I find out she's his cousin or the wife of one of his friends, or something like that. And it would definitely be any girls number I found in his phone if I went through it, which is exactly why I never have. 

I trust him, I know he would never be with someone else while we were together, but if I went rifling through his texts and emails, even harmless innocent small talk with another human who happened to have a vagina would make me pouty and sulky and all kinds of green eyed monstery. 

Why is jealousy an issue if we love someone truly, and believe with all our hearts that they love us back? Why does jealousy still arise if we trust the person that we're with immensely? If we have faith in our relationship, if we're blissfully happy? 

Is it insecurity? Possessiveness? Or fail safe built into us that keeps us from getting too comfortable in a relationship, keeps us from taking our loves for granted, reminds us that there are other people out there they could be with, and that we should always keep doing the little things to make them feel loved and special?

Whatever it is, jealousy embarrasses me. It makes me feel childish, whiny and clingy. I want to be that awesomely cool girl who totally doesn't care if my boyfriend has 20 million female friends, or if girls hit on him all the time, or if he's still friends with his ex's. But I'm not. I would never ask a guy to stop being friends with a girl he was good friends with before we started dating, just for the sake of my ego, but I wouldn't find it particularly awesome if Bill was all of a sudden BFF's with some chick who wanted to have movie nights all the time at her house....wow I just got a little pissed off thinking about that completely hypothetical scenario....

SEE?! 

Ugh, I can be such a jealous asshole.

But like the picture above says, I am holding myself to the standard of grace, not perfection.

Which means I may not be able to help the fact that I am a jealous asshole, but I can do my best not to let it drive a wedge between me and Bill by flying off the handle when a girl {who's more attractive than I consider prudent} friends him on Facebook, and make him think I don't trust him at all.

But it does also mean I might sheepishly ask who she is, hoping she's his functionally retarded 3rd cousin who drools and walks with a gimp.

A girl can dream.