The on-call friend.

It seems like most single gals have what I like to call the "daily girl friend." This is a friend who you talk to almost every day and you probably hang out a couple times a week. The "daily girl friend" may not even be your best friend, but often they're a close friend who lives nearby. Given the circumstances in your life you can have several "daily girl friends" over the course of your single life (such as a roommate). The "daily girl friend" provides a listening ear, a movie or shopping date, and someone you can share meals with. This arrangement can work great, until one of the women gets into new relationship mode. Suddenly the "daily girl friend" can get bumped to the "weekly girl friend" or even "monthly girl friend."

One of my good friends is in a new relationship. She met the guy last summer, and throughout the fall and early winter they had a very casual and gradually progressing relationship. In the past month or so, the relationship has become more serious and she now spends most of her free time with him. In this situation, I feel like I'm the "daily girl friend" who has now been bumped. I barely see or even talk to her anymore. She has cancelled plans with me more than once so that she can hang out with the boyfriend. She doesn't call me or text me anymore (unless she needs my help with something). When we are hanging out, she is constantly texting and/or talking on the phone with the boyfriend. I find this quite annoying (especially the part about how she has cancelled plans on me).

I was venting about it to my best friend, who kindly pointed out that what was happening was a phenomenon she likes to call the "on-call friend." This is when a friend is so sucked into a new relationship that spending time with their signifgant other is their top priority. They will keep their close girl friends on-call to hang out only when it is convenient for her and does not interfer with the boyfriend's free time. I thought that was a great way to describe it. That's me, the "on-call friend."

Time to out myself...

For a full explanation, please visit my other blog:

http://www.phinneyfamilygrows.blogspot.com/

Cheers!

And....exhale.

Ever feel like you've been holding your breath for weeks at a time? That's how I feel lately. Time to exhale....

More on this later.

Can YOU keep a secret?

A while ago I told a friend a bit of personal information (a secret). I swore her to secrecy and trusted that she would stay true to her word. A few days later she admitted that she shared my secret with her mother. I was a little annoyed, but explained that she better make sure her mother understood the importance of the secrecy since there were other people in their family I was withholding the secret from.

The same thing happened again with another friend. I told him something personal and let him know how important it was for the information to remain private. He went on about how honored he was to be in "the inner circle" and that I trusted him enough to divulge such personal information. A week later, he confessed that he had shared the secret with his brother (someone I barely know). Again, I was thinking, "WTF?! Can't people keep their mouths shut?" I recently saw this friends brother, and it felt really uncomfortable to me knowing that this guy knows something so personal.

These experiences have had me thinking about secrets and human nature. Can people truly keep secrets? What makes people share the private information that others have shared with them? Is it a need to gossip, to hear someone else's opinion, or just the fact that knowing you're "not supposed" to tell makes you want to tell even more? Or something else?

I've wracked my brain trying to figure this out. In each of those situations, there was no need or relevance for either of those people to tell the people they did (it's not like my friends mother or my other friends brother have any interest or stake in knowing things about me). I still have yet to ask each of my friends (if they can even remember now) why they chose to divulge my secret. The more I've thought about it, the more curious I am about this topic of human nature and the art of keeping secrets.

Last weekend I was in a situation where I was having a conversation with another friend and for a moment I had the urge to tell her a secret since it was relevant to the conversation. However, I was able to stop myself when I realized that it was quite possible she would do the same thing the other two people did (tell someone else). Also, I was remembering my New Year's resolution I made to be better at keeping things private and not allowing myself to be such an open book.

More Travel.

Over the next month we are taking 3 weekend trips. Normally we try to space them out a bit more, but it didn't work out to do that this time.

The first one will be this weekend. Sunday is Mr.P's birthday, and since I am not throwing him a party this year (we did have a pretty awesome surprise party last year. He really was surprised!) This year we'll be taking a weekend getaway. Two of our close friends gave us a very generous gift card for Christmas to a resort/spa on Hoods Canal. We're looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend. I'm also super excited that the room comes with a large soaking tub (if you remember my previous blog about my lack of a tub at home).

Later in the month we'll be taking a trip to Portland to visit one of my cousins for a day and a half, and then spend another day and a half visiting an aunt and uncle. Mr.P is excited about going wine tasting in the Willamette Valley with my cousin (he's a big fan of Pinot Noir, the premier grape for that area). I am excited about hitting the outlet mall in Woodburn.

The beginning of March we'll be heading to San Francisco. Usually we go down there a few times a year (to visit my dad), but he has been up here a few times this past year, so we haven't made a trip down there in almost a year. One of our good friends who was a groomsman in our wedding now lives there, so it will be a good time to visit both of them (and hopefully it will be a little warmer there than it's been here!)

A boring Friday night.

I'm laying on the couch with an ice pack on my back right now...so I thought it would make sense to write a blog post (nothing like pulling a muscle in your lower back while frosting cupcakes, ha ha. I wish I had a better story for how I hurt my back tonight).

Last weekend we went out for dinner with one of our favorite couple friends, D and V. They have a 1 yr old daughter, and are expecting their second baby this spring. While the guys were talking tech talk, V and I discussed babies. I was surprised to learn that when she had their first baby, she had a totally natural childbirth. That's impressive, especially since she gave birth to a nearly 10 lb baby!

I'll admit, I am kind of a whimp when it comes to pain. When I have my first child, I do not intend to go natural. I'm all about the drugs, specifically the epidural. Sure it involves a spinal tap, but that's a small price to pay for comfortable childbirth.

I also learned that V lost a lot of blood during childbirth and nearly had to have a transfusion. Scary! While blood loss during childbirth is common, losing enough blood to warrent a transfusion is pretty rare, but not outside the realm of possibility. This gave me pause for thought. I can't really explain why, but the thought of someone elses blood being put in me completely freaks me out. I'm a big fan of blood donation, I faithfully donate every 56 days at the Puget Sound Blood Center, and I am happy to be helping other people out by donating my blood. However, I cannot stomach the idea of other people's blood being put in me (unless of course it was a life or death situation). I found out that people are allowed to donate their own blood to be saved for their own surgery/childbirth in case a transfusion is necessary. It costs a small fee, but to me it is worth it. When the time comes, I am seriously going to look into banking my own blood in case it is needed during childbirth.

Getting in a good cry.

I am not really an emotional person. I'm sensitive to insults and slights by others, but rarely to the point of crying. I almost never cry during movies or sappy events (I didn't even cry at my own wedding!)

Yesterday I was supposed to go see "Bride Wars" with my best friend H. She decided she didn't want to see it anymore since she heard it got terrible reviews. I was a little bummed, but willing to see another movie. H picked "Gran Torino." I went into the theater knowing nothing about the movie other than the fact that Clint Eastwood was in it.

It was such a great movie! I really liked it, it was very moving. The ending though - it really got me. I didn't just tear up a little, I was bawling. Unconsolably crying my eyes out. My friend H, who knows I am not a crier, looked at me like I was crazy. After the movie I was in the car driving to our next destination (dinner) and while on the phone with Mr.P, he asked what the movie was about. I couldn't even explain it to him without bawling again. Finally he was like, "Um, maybe I'll just look up the synopsis online..."

The point is, it was a really good movie. It also felt good to get a good cry in. "They" say it's good to cry once and awhile to release toxins.

Sunny with a bit of a chill.

This weekend was nice, I got to spend a lot of quality time with Mr.P, and we also spent time here and there with a few good friends. In recent weeks I've been thinking a lot about friendships and what I value from my friendships. Mostly this stems from me hearing about some gossip other people have said about me. It definitely makes me feel angry, frustrated, and sad. But it gives me time to think about who my real friends are.

Today is a paid holiday for me! I love having a day off, and being paid too :-) I've spent most of the day so far being lazy, but it's been relaxing at the same time. In a little while I'm off to hang out with my oldest and closest friend. But first...I need to get my car washed, it is so dirty!

Resolutions.

We're nearly two weeks into the new year! Usually it seems that January drags on and feels slightly depressing after the holidays have passed. This year I feel like January is flying by! Despite the dreariness of the weather and bare trees, I've been feeling pretty happy and content with life.

Tonight Mr.P and I were eating a quiet dinner together after church. We were talking about our resolutions for the coming months/year ahead. He just finished a training this past week which helped him learn a lot about his leadership and management style. It gave him a lot to think about as to how he presents himself, and it gave him time to reflect on how he'd like to change certain aspects of his communication style. He'd also like to start presenting himself better - such as making sure he's shaved, wearing clean/ironed clothing (ha ha...he's going to need to learn to help with the laundry if he has this expectation!)

As for my resolutions, I feel like I would like to be better at keeping secrets. I've never been very good at keeping things to myself (at least things pertaining to my life), I tend to be an open book to those who know me. But as I've gotten older I've felt an increased need for privacy about certain things. This past week I learned that something I had wanted to keep semi-private was leaked by one friend to some other friends and so on....when I heard that several people knew this piece of information about me I felt somewhat violated. Not that I wouldn't have shared the story with some of those friends, I just felt like I should have been the one to tell people, not them hearing second or third hand. Also, since there is more to the story than I was willing to share, I felt slightly caught off guard.

However, that situation aside, I am currently holding onto a big secret. It's been a lot easier to keep my secret than I thought it would be, and now that I've been holding onto it for awhile I feel so protective of it that I don't know if I want to share it with anyone but Mr.P!

Allergy attack part II.

I took it easy yesterday after returning home from the ER (which really sucked because I badly needed to be at work, but with my hands swollen it hurt to much to do anything requiring my hands). The meds they gave me made me sleepy, so I curled up on the couch to watch tv which inevitably led me to falling asleep. I woke up around 3 with my symptoms returning. My hands were getting more swollen then they'd been to begin with, and I was starting to develop swelling and a rash on the bottoms of my feet (which made it painful to walk). I hadn't really eaten anything but crackers, sprite, and water all day, so we were sure it wasn't something I ate.

Mr.P reminded me that Thursday evening his boss had dropped by with his dog (they live a few blocks away from us). Mr.P's boss and his shepard mix came in our house and hung out for an hour or so, with the dog moving around various spots on the floor near our couch. Was that what was bringing on the symptoms again? My bare feet were on the floor where the dog had been, and my feet began swelling within a few hours of being in that room. At that point I took a shower and relocated myself to the bedroom while Mr.P cleaned/vacumned the living room to remove any sign of dog. I dozed off again in bed, and when I woke later in the evening my puffiness had not subsided. We went out for dinner, and right after we got to the restaurant I began itching like crazy again. Mr.P noticed the rash/hives had developed over my neck, chin, and next to my eye (let me tell you how NOT attractive this looked!)

We went home and called the ER and they suggested I take another dose of the benedryl/zantac they'd given me, and if the symptoms didn't get better to come back in. An hour and a half later I was feeling worse, so we returned to the ER. This time they gave me prednisone in addition to an IV of benedryl. The itchining went away shortly, but the swelling wasn't any better. They kept me there for several hours, and finally they let me go home around 4 AM after they'd run a series of blood tests to check for other issues. This morning I woke up feeling better with my hands looking better (though they hurt like crazy, all the areas that were swollen now have this bruised sensation when I touch them to anything).

I'm going to make an appt tomorrow with my allergy clinic to get some new testing done, and in the meantime I'll be stearing clear of any homes that have dogs/cats. I feel bad because we have many friends who have animals that they love like children. I hope not to offend any of those friends, but until we figure out for sure what caused this severe reaction, I don't want to take any chances.