Advice taken

We are hosting Thanksgiving. Josh, my sisters, Danielle's boyfriend, Josh's parents, and his friend coming to town accidentally while his parents will be away, and me.

We have a tentative menu going.

1. Organic turkey
2. pumpkin soup
3. cranberry sauce
4. green beans (probably with pearled onions and mushrooms)
5. brussel sprouts with bacon or pancetta
6. maple bourbon sweet potato pie
7. garlic bacon mashed potatoes (excessive since #4 exists, but strongly requested)
8. ciabatta stuffing with chestnuts and pancetta (I am not sure this will come out well, but again, requested)
9. chocolate burbon pecan pie
10. apple pie
11. whipped cream

For eight people I think this is a bit much. Too many people put in requests. But since Danielle wants to learn how to do this, we may as well make all this stuff so she learns. I worked all weekend so tomorrow I just go in and wrap up little things, then Tuesday meet with the manager on the project and then in the afternoon Danielle and I are meeting to order all the ingredients (turkey was already ordered). 

Spring cleaning in winter

I'm not really clear how long it's supposed to take to do spring cleaning, but it takes me two to three days. Last night we took a break for New Year's and this morning I took a break for ... well, having a hangover. After that though, I went to a yoga class with my sisters and then we hydrated and got back to work.

One of the things that had fallen off schedule was prepping food for the week. We made pasta, laying out sheets on the backs of the dining room chairs, we cut up fruit, we cooked and then cut up chicken breasts to toss into salads, we made granola, made and froze gravy.

Alex was sous chef and head (only) dish washer, while Danielle was seamstress. Almost all day Danielle sat at the table watching tv, with a huge pile of clothes next to her, each with a little scrap of paper pinned to it saying what it needed.

It's a little bit of a bummer that this is what we did for the last few days of my winter break, for the New Year, but we also were really productive and that kind of feels good.

Resolutions

I'm not really into things like New Year's resolutions. Except the last few months, I keep thinking of things that fall into the category of "Really gotta get on that..." Since that list is kept in my head and my head is stuffed, I keep forgetting so I'm always walking around triple-checking that my keys are in my pocket, my professor's email address was typed correctly when I emailed in my paper. It's exhausting to always feel like you're forgetting something, to consistently have a low-level of panic that something is slipping through the cracks but you're not sure what.

1. find the book about inspiring through motivation instead of fear professor suggested
2. do better with making friends and doing stuff with them
3. make sure to buy fewer black clothes when buying
4. get everyone to help more consistently
5. find replacement word for retarded
6. help Dani plot out college calendar
7. eat more consistently
8. work out most days

That's it. 

Change is not my friend

Most of the time I feel like the world is spinning too fast and I am barely running fast enough to keep up, to keep from falling. Like a treadmill that's going so fast you have to sprint. If anything goes wrong, it feels like the world spins faster and I am falling. Change causes faster spinning, even good change.

This morning even though Laurie was in midst of getting ready for her 50-person Passover extravaganza tomorrow, she invited us over for brunch. We went and Tom gave me a "planning for the future" talk. He explained that I need to start preparing now for getting a job after graduating. In two years. Does everyone else at school already know this? Tom said I need to consider getting a summer job more directly in the field I want to be in after graduation. That lots of people get job offers from places they work over the summers. It feels rude to Arnie to leave, but Tom swore everyone understands, and unless I want to go into real estate, or just become a bookkeeper rather than a CPA, it's pretty much expected.

The world just started spinning faster again.

Rules and packing

It was pointed out that my sisters need rules for while we're gone. So I typed up rules while I was at work (I did a not of not-working today).

1. Dani is to hit work both weekends unless she is sick with 100 or higher. Same for school. 
2. Alex is to go to school every day unless she is sick with 100 or higher. If anyone gets sick at school, suck it up until school ends, then go home and call Laurie. 
3. Members of the geek squad can come over and have to leave by 11pm.
4. Any of Al's friends from school who have been over before can come over and have to leave by 10pm on week nights and 11pm on weekends.
5. No more than one friend can sleep over and it can only be on nights when there's not school the next day.
6. No leaving the city, but go to Brooklyn both Sundays.
7. No going anywhere you haven't gone before.
8. No going to anyone's house you haven't been to before.
9. There can't be more than four friends over at any time. 
10. No parties. No friends are allowed to invite any other people.
11. Both go food shopping together both Sundays after Dani gets home from work. 
12. Both do laundry next weekend. 
13. Dani will take a taxi home from the sweet sixteen this Saturday. If there is an after-party she can sleep over if it's okay with Alex, but still has to go to work on time Sunday. 
14. If anything breaks and someone needs to come in to fix it, you are to leave the front door open, keep phone in hand and if anything goes wrong, go for the balls and then run to the nice lesbians who work from home. 

Thank you for all the packing tips. Laurie called me and when I told her what Josh said about packing she laughed and said he is full of shit, and he will pack a full week's worth of clothes, and he'll pack two umbrellas - apparently it rains a lot in Florida. She said I don't need to take any towels at all, and should not pack any toiletries - Josh and I will stop at a drugstore in Florida and buy whatever we need there. So I am just going to do what Josh is doing, since he travels all the time. He always comes back just fine so I guess it works.

How far are you supposed to plan in advance?

For the year there's a general plan. For the month, there's a pretty tight plan. For the week, everything is planned down to $100.  That is enough money for one doctor co-pay, two period emergencies, and two food emergencies. There's three months of expenses in savings that never gets spent (and took me over a year to save).

Josh plans in a totally different way than I do. I plan money and time and school and housing and food. Josh plans time with friends and trips and school, in that order for the most part. I am done with school in two and a half years (except I'm thinking of signing up for summer classes this summer). Josh is done with school in five and a half years.

Tonight we were talking about planning for both of us, and Josh was saying we need to plan for each other. I do not know how to do this. I know how to plan for my sisters, who can tell me what they want, and I will like consider it but ultimately do what is most affordable and best for all three of us. If I say no to something they want, they shrug and give up and move on. I don't know how to plan for Josh. So I asked.

me: what do you want me to plan for you?
Josh: time for me.
me: okay like how much?
Josh: two weeks of vacation a year, a month when we graduate, a month after I finish law school, and two weeks together somewhere after college
me: for what?
Josh: our honeymoon!
me: we're getting married?
Josh: aren't we?

And that's how we wound up discussing marriage, this totally foreign concept to me. Josh has brought it up before, but I always thought he was joking around. I was shocked he wants to get married for real, and he was shocked I didn't see myself getting married.

Josh: didn't you grow up planning your wedding when you were little?
me: no
Josh: don't you secretly have colors and themes and flowers picked out?
me: no!
Josh: really?
me: look, my nana wasn't married. my mom wasn't married. they were great, and they were my role models. to me, they are what girls grow up to become. girls don't grow up to become women wearing sweater-sets and pearls, who join the PTA and have dinner on the table when their husband comes home.
Josh: wow.
me: okay that's not true - my mom was in the PTA for a couple of years.

We probably spent a half hour with Josh half playing himself, half playing a shrink, working up to him asking if I could see myself NOT being the third generation of females in my family to be single, but instead getting married, even if that means I wear black tank tops rather than sweater-sets. Eventually, I sort of could.

My style is kind of direct.

me: so when do you want to get married? i want to graduate first.
Josh: well yeah. but we have to get engaged first anyway.
me: okay so when do you want to do that?
Josh: actually I sort of wanted to talk to you about that...
me: what?
Josh: I want to make sure of us, that we're like solid.
me: how?
Josh: I mean without your sisters. I want to be sure we're solid without them around always being a distraction.
me: is that why you sent them out for dinner tonight?
Josh: well yeah.

It felt like I'd been slammed in the chest with a hammer. The only worse thing Josh could have said was that he wanted to break up and I need to move out by Friday. I could feel my face completely fall, and was blinking back tears.

Josh: nobody's being kicked out Sam.
me: .... (i couldn't talk because if i did, crying would happen)
Josh: it's not unrealistic to want to live with my girlfriend without her two little sisters around all the time
me: your family barely ever talks to your sister
Josh: I don't want to banish your sisters. they don't have to move across the country and only call to check in once a year.
me: so what ...?
Josh: maybe when Dani goes to college she and Al could get a one bedroom? Dani could do for her and Alex what you did for the three of you when you were starting college.
me: did you tell them already?
Josh: no, I'm talking to you first, now.

I basically hyperventilated through the whole thing. Josh was really calm through the whole thing. I can't explain his reasoning, but he talked and talked and it got to the point where I agreed eventually that it made sense, and by the end I was laughing when he said, "I want to be able to joking tell you 'go get me a beer, bitch' and not worry that when your sisters see it they think they should put up with that shit, or allow themselves to be talked to that way by their boyfriends."

I can't believe I remembered enough to paraphrase - the entire talk turned into such a vague whirlwind after Josh dropped his bomb. Even though if I were honest, he's sort of made noise about not liking living with Danielle and Alex. Danielle has wanted to go to sleep-away camp and an away college, so she might like the idea of her and Alex moving in together. I am exhausted, and I guess, just agreed to get engaged. Or something. I need my mom.