My Life is a Soap Opera

Hello mid-morning viewers,

My Life is a Soap Opera...sort of. It's currently 11:37am and I am sitting at my dining room table in my North Seattle apartment, which I share with my boyfriend, Chase. I sit & type wearing a gray Norwalk High School football sweatshirt, black yoga pants (hooray!) bebe black-framed needs-new-lenses-glasses, in need of a shower hair thrown into a messy bun, texting a friend back on the Olympic Peninsula, contemplating what I could possibly say in this first blog of mine. Getting a visual? I'm "People of Walmart" worthy, folks, though I prefer Target.

Better tell you a bit about myself & why I decided to start this blog: FAME, my friends. Attention, & FAME. No...I'm kidding. Sort of. I'm a Group Fitness/Dance Instructor. I teach a lot of classes, but they're sparatically spaced throughout my week allowing me to make my boyfriend breakfast, lunch, & dinner most days. He's a Mon-Fri (sometimes Sunday) 9am-6pm worker, and I am a 2-4 classes per day Fitness Instructor with dreams of becoming an NFL Cheerleader. My first year auditioning (this past May 2011) for the Seahawks Cheer Squad, I made it all the way to finals, but am hoping to actually make the team this coming year.

I was one of the few Norwalk High School graduates to leave the state of Iowa upon graduating. I moved to the Olympic Peninsula, more specifically- Port Angeles, WA. Yes, Twilight fans...to exotic PORT ANGELES. This, of course was before Twilight was even written.

FUN FACT: Did you know that Stephanie Meyer typed in something like "most depressing city in the US" into Google to get her book's location?

It certainly WAS depressing the first few months of relocation. Mostly, because two days upon my move to the Pacific Northwest, I met the one person I have been infatuated with for over 6 years. He is my current boyfriend, but it took a long time & a lot of money to get us where we are today, which I mentioned above- our shared (currently freezing) apartment in North Seattle. I'm sure someday I will write a very detailed book or screenplay about our courtship, but for the long-&-not-so-short of it, read on:
We met at a dance club in West Des Moines, IA called Club Energy (it's something else now). I was immediatly attracted to his chin length, dark, perfectly spiral curly hair & sideways smile. One of my HS friends introduced us & we were inseperable for the entire night. Dancing, & yelling over the loud music to find out any information we could about one another. By the end, he tried to get my number but I didn't have a cell phone & had to admit the horrible news that I was moving across the country in a few days. We said our sad goodbye's & I went home unable to get him out of my mind. The next day, I recieved a friend request & a message on MYSPACE (haha, myspace...) from him about how great he thought I was & how he was really upset that we hadn't met sooner than we did. I shared the same regret, but there was nothing we could do except remain in contact & hope for another meeting in the future. It would be 3 years, 9 months, & 13 days before we would see one another again. We remained email/aim/myspace message & comment friends for about half of that time but eventually lost touch as we entered into different 3 year romantic relationships with other people. I planned on returning to Iowa in May of 2009 to surprise my mom for her birthday. As luck would have it, about two weeks before I was going to return, I recieved a totally random email from Chase worndering how I was doing. Our online friendship was re-united and we made a plan to meet up during my visit back home. We hung out a few times during that visit & texted pretty much all the time upon my return to WA. We spent Christmas 2009 together, I made my first trip to visit him in Iowa City February of 2010, then again for his graduation from the University of Iowa in May of 2010. I moved to the Seattle area from Port Angeles in August of 2010 & planned on returning to Iowa for Christmas 2010, staying with Chase at his mom's house, making this the 2nd year we would spend Christmas together. Chase & I never missed a day of talking to one another somehow whether it be texting, talking on the phone, or emailing for over a year. Many people asked if we were dating during that period & while it may have seemed that way, we officially were not. After attending a midnight Christmas Eve service at the Wakonda Christian Church, we had THE TALK. We established our official relationship December 25, 2010 and I couldn't have been happier. Chase braved his fear of flying to come visit me in Seattle February 2011 over Valentine's Day weekend. He got to meet my friends & I did my best to show him around my city. Upon driving to the airport, he confessed that he would move to Seattle to be with me. I have never felt that kind of love before, viewers. To know that you love someone with your entire heart, & have been thinking of moving back to the midwest yourself to be closer to them...& that love is returned x100 by them telling you THEY want to move to be closer to YOU?! It was intoxicating & this was the only time I let him see me cry at one of our many airport drop-offs. I went back to Iowa City late-April 2011, then we met in Chicago in June 2011. Chase LOVES Chicago. He eventually wants to end up there someday & from what I saw/who I met in Chicago in those few days, so do I. The month of July was spent with me trying to find us an apartment. We decided on one in North Seattle. 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 1000 square feet. It wouldn't be ready until September due to renovations, but we chose it anyway. I decided to fly out to Iowa & drive back with Chase so he wouldn't have to brave the over 1800 mile drive alone. His mom threw us a going-away party, but here's the REAL kicker: The day we set out on our cross-country drive to start our life together was the same day we had met one another 6 years prior!!! Was it was fate or destiny? (quick plug: Check out S.G. Browne's book FATED) It took us two days to make the trip & the only bad parts were A) me letting Chase's car (Stella) run out of gas & B) Sleeping in the car at a truck stop. We had to stay in my apartment in Newcastle for 3 weeks before we could move into our new apartment & in that amount of time, Chase was able to find a job at PNTA (Pacific Nothwest Theatre Association) where he is currently & I am still at home in my pajamas...in need of a shower...still. We adopted a 5 year old, 140 lb, black Great Dane named Apollo at the end of September & he is like our child. We love/hate him as he love/hates us. He's a mama's boy as I am his primary care-giver, but Daddy plays soccer with him when he gets home most days :)

It is now 12:43pm & I told myself not to let this blog take over an hour. WOOPS! I plan on taking this blog in every direction that I can: Love, Fitness, Food/Nutrition, Beauty, Pets, Humor, Social events, TV/Movies, Sports, all the good (& bad) stuff that goes into a young, unmarried-yet-in-a-serious-relationship-professionals everyday life.

A facebook friend & fellow Norwalk HS graduate, Gabby Bevel, was the reason I decided to start this blog TODAY as her relationship is very similar to mine :) Thanks Gabby!

Tune in for more of my life...my sort of Soap Opera Life!