Another Year Older - Birthday Adventures and FL Apartment News

Once again, I haven't updated in a while. I've been busy riding the birthday train all week.

Thursday was my birthday - 20! I'm no longer a teenager. ;) Although, I also don't get to use being a teenager as an excuse for my bratty behavior anymore. :/

My lovely Lemon birthday cake, courtesy of my dear Gramma

I spent Thursday with the family and my good friend Brandon.

After a huge battle and fight about groceries and healthy foods, I finally convinced my Gramma to have something semi healthy for the birthday dinner.

The menu changed from chicken and burgers with baked potatoes to shrimp and crab with french bread to it's final incarnation:

Top Sirloin Steak

Grilled Veggie Kebabs

Zucchini, Squash, Cherry Tomatoes, Onion, Mushrooms, Red and Green Bell Peppers

Couscous Salad

Couscous, Lemon and Olive Oil dressing, Feta Cheese, Cherry Tomatoes, Fresh Mint and Basil

Salad

Baby Spinach, Gorgonzola Cheese, Dried Cranberries, Walnuts, Light Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing

I made a concession on the meat front and, in return, I was granted a variety of vegetables and couscous instead of bread or potatoes.

My mom and little brother and the aftermath of the birthday dinner.

I got some lovely presents I was not expecting and Wii Fit, which I was expecting.

My mom is notorious for being a horrible gift giver and she had previously asked me if I would want a nice watch for my birthday. I suffered through an hour long conversation with her trying to explain why I wouldn't want a watch, how I would never use it because I always use my phone for the time, and how I wouldn't wear it because I don't particularly like the look of watches, etc. It was nearly impossible to convince her that I didn't want a watch for my birthday.

In the past she's gotten everything from energy efficient light bulbs to toothbrushes for people's presents.

To say the least, I was not expecting much from my mother.

This year, however, she surprised me. Yeah, one of the gifts was a monogrammed lunchbox - it's nice looking, but it's still a lunchbox. And another gift was an intimidating looking board game, but I'll attempt playing it and perhaps it won't be so bad.

Despite the lunchbox and board game, the overall gift turned out well. She bought me a really spectacular edition of Emma by Jane Austen with illustrations inside the front and back covers and a journal-like binding, two cookbooks (I absolutely adore cookbooks), an adorable desk organizer, and a wine bottle opener - in the words of my mother, "Not that I'm endorsing underage drinking or anything..."

As some of you may remember, the boyfriend bought us a Wii a few weeks ago and I had attempted bargaining with my Gramma in order to buy her Wii Fit and Balance Board. She refused and instead promised to just buy me Wii Fit and the Balance Board for my birthday.

The day of my party, as my Gramma is making up a grocery list, she says, "Well, I guess this dinner will be my birthday present to you this year because you can't really take much with you to Florida."

Wait. What?


Okay, cue spoiled brat mode.

I should trademark my bratty face. It's suuuuper attractive, amiright?

Um, uh, well, er, Gramma... Didn't you... I mean. Before. Uh. Well. I think you had said. Um. I thought you were getting me Wii Fit for my birthday....?


"Oh my god! That's right. I completely forgot. I guess I'll get you that, too. Thanks for reminding me."

Her senility amazes me sometimes...

I don't mean to be a spoiled brat, but, seriously? I get promised an amazing present and if I hadn't been bratty and straight up asked for it I wouldn't have gotten anything for a present?

Sometimes I feel like being polite and humble gets you nowhere...

Unfortunately, the boyfriend had to fly out Wednesday to go apartment hunting in Miami with his parents so he wasn't in attendance for my birthday.

The good news, however, is that the day of my birthday the boyfriend finally found an apartment and they signed the lease and got all the paperwork worked out.

I consider it an extra birthday present.

The apartment is fucking awesome.

It's only a one bedroom, but it has a separate dining room, brand new washer/dryer in the apartment, brand new floors, screened-in porch, walk-in closet, and a breakfast bar in the kitchen.

Apartment floor plan

Model apartment layout

The complex has two swimming pools, a hot tub, two lighted tennis courts, a lake that they keep stocked with fish if fishing is your thing, and a free gym for residents.

The lake the apartments surround

One of the two swimming pools

The free, residents-only gym!

It looks like a swanky little place. I'm incredibly excited!

After scouring apartments.com and Craigslist for seemingly forever, we finally have our own little place in Florida. It's much better than I expected and a lot nicer than many of the places I looked at online.

Our actual apartment overlooks one of the two swimming pools and is literally just feet away from the gym. There's no excuse! I thoroughly plan on spending all day in the gym and at the pool.

I can wake up, roll out of bed, and walk 15 feet from my front door the gym and, since it's so close and open 24/7, I can fit in extra workouts throughout the day whenever I have free time or feel like burning more calories. It might be dangerous living that close to the gym. I'll probably become some exer-exic gym rat.... Okay, there's nothing wrong with that. ;)

The biggest selling point of the apartment for me is that we can paint, so it's not some sterile, unfinished-looking white monstrosity like my last apartment, AND WE CAN GET A CAT.

Well, we have to pay a $100 refundable pet deposit and a $400 non-refundable pet fee, but who gives a fuck. I get to live in swanky-land and they allow adorable, furry little friends to live with you!

I think it will definitely help with any loneliness I'll feel while the boyfriend is busy with med school during the day and I'm definitely happier when I have a cat around. I hated my last apartment because I couldn't have pets. I ended up feeding all the stray cats and desperately trying to temporarily cat-nap them and play with them in my apartment. It was the saddest desperation I've ever experienced.

With all of the new apartment excitement, most of the party was spent showing off the new apartment to my mom and Gramma and letting them explore the apartment website and look at the floor plans and amenities.

I think they found it reassuring to see that I wasn't going to be living in some slum, crime-ridden, super-urban area. My mom has been terrified that we'll move to Miami and I'll get killed in some Cuban drug deal gone awry.

My little brother was completely and utterly adorably jealous.

You get two pools? We don't even have one pool! That's so unfair!


While we were eating dinner, my mom was talking about my last name.

My parents were never married and, by the time my mom was giving birth to me, her and my father were no longer together. Instead of giving me just my father's last name or just my mother's last name, my mom decided to give me a hyphenated last name.

[parisienne.love] Mom's last name-Father's last name

At the time, she thought she was doing something really hip and cool and different. Well, it's definitely different. And definitely annoying. Teachers, doctors' offices, schools, anything involving paperwork - it's all hell. They never know what to alphabetize me by, they oftentimes treat it as two last names even though the hyphen makes it one last name, my credit card doesn't even have a hyphen in the name because hyphens aren't one of the characters allowed for names.

My mom was telling all of this to one of her coworkers and her coworker said, "Well, with living with a last name like that all her life, your daughter will probably end up marrying someone with a terribly plain last name like 'Smith'."

My mom chuckled and responded, "Well actually, it's starting to look like she's going to marry a Russian with an equally long and difficult last name, if not moreso."

Blahblahblah, it was a cute little story, etc. etc. I was more surprised that my mother was comfortable enough with my relationship with the boyfriend that she was openly saying that he was marriage potential.

After that little story, my mother slyly looked across the table at me and started making circles around her ring finger.

Um. Mom. Reallllly? I'm pretty sure that if I was engaged you guys would know. That is something I would tell you....

Her treatment of the boyfriend is incredibly strange. She has never liked any of my boyfriends. That's an understatement. She has actively hated all of my boyfriends. 

My first serious boyfriend was the son of two lawyers and drove a brand new Volkswagen. She hated him because he was rich and spoiled me, etc. 

My second serious boyfriend was the son of an affluent engineer that ran a multi-million dollar company with hefty government contracts. She liked him at first because his grandparents went to her church, but she quickly began hating him as well and would trash talk about his parents and their money.

The current boyfriend is the son of two wealthy psychiatrists and drives a brand new BMW. He's whisking me off to Miami to live with him while he goes to med school. And my mother loves him?

For as much as my mother resents people with money, I guess her love of talking about herself and her psychological problems overcomes any reasons she might have for hating psychiatrists and their spawn.

After the birthday festivities on Thursday, I felt like a pale, doughy beached whale. Oh, but the festivities were not over.

So. Much. Cake.

Friday night, my friends from a couple of towns over threw me a small party.

There was a chocolate fountain and I, amazingly, showed restraint and didn't have too much heavenly chocolate-coated fruit.

There was lots of Svedka and rum-soaked pineapple.

I got rather drunk, started feeling nauseous, and my friends decided that smoking pot would cure my stomachache right up.

They weren't wrong.

We smoked, we danced, we were merry.

Cheesiest picture IN THE WORLD.

Saturday, after my friend Emily and I finally woke up, we got Mexican food.

Then smoked more and my friend drove me home.

At least I wasn't too blazingly stoned when I arrived home.

And thank god my little brother was staying at my mom's house for the weekend so I just had to navigate being stoned at home around my Gramma. She's fairly oblivious to the world around her anyways, so it wasn't too difficult. I just wore my glasses, averted my gaze most of the time, and spent a long time in my bedroom on the phone with the boyfriend.

As far as I'm aware, she doesn't suspect a thing.

Tonight, the boyfriend comes home from Florida.

He's given me a few small hints about my present because I was continually pumping him for information.

I'm fairly certain he bought me jewelry from Tiffany's - not an engagement ring, mind you. You're just as bad as my mother for thinking that! ;)

We leave the Midwest on the 11th and should be finished driving to our new home on the 14th.

That gives me less than two weeks to step it up and get back on track.

After living at my Gramma's house for some time and all of the birthday festivities and leftover cake in the house, I've ballooned to 124 lbs. I'm supposed to be at around 118 lbs by this point.

I took my Vyvanse today, ate under 250 calories for breakfast, and took a laxative. Hopefully once the boyfriend is back, we'll start going to the gym again.

115 lbs by the 15th may be unattainable at this point because of my little screw up and weight gain, but I'm determined to get as close to 115 as I can by the move.

A bientôt, lovelies.

- parisienne.love