What a fun day! Almost my whole family from FSJ came down for it!

After my graduation we had a four-course dinner on my patio. It was catered by this company, a local catering company that uses only food from within a 100-mile radius OR that’s fair-trade and organic. How cool is that?!

We had an amazing dinner! And I ate the Salmon since it’s local salmon from a place just outside of Kamloops

And we had lots of wine and champagne! I have a bit of a headache this morning.

Of course, I got spoiled:

New running sunglasses with polarized lens from Eric. A black pearl necklace from my aunt and family. Some money and awesome cards from my mom, dad and grandma

It was a fabulous day!

I’m off to spend the day with my family – they are heading back to FSJ tomorrow and taking Eric with them!!! I’m so sad. We’ll be apart for an indefinite amount of time now as we both start pursuing our careers in separate cities. However, it’s in the works for him to move back down here permanently in September 2011 to go to school! And I’m sure I’ll see him in a few weeks or a month. Now that it’s summer driving home is much more manageable than in the winter!

Have a fabulous day and weekend! Thanks for keeping me going over the last eight months when the going got tough. XO

Can you believe it’s been almost seven months since I wrote this post.

I can’t.

It’s like I blinked and Eric is back living with me. It’s like he never left at all.

Except for when I walk into the bedroom and see dirty socks lying on the floor, two feet from the hamper or when the toilet seat is left up in the bathroom or the pillows messed up on the couch, I could go on…

All jokes aside, with only a few minor glitches we have managed to mold ourselves back into living together pretty well. One thing that is both a blessing and a hindrance is that our schedules are completely opposite. During the week I’m at school/work/gym from about 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Give or take a few hours depending on the day and my class schedule. Whereas Eric’s school goes from 3:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Hmmm. If you think that means we never see each other, you’d be right.

In the last week I’ve morphed from being a morning person to an evening person and I’ve switched the early morning workouts that I’d come to love for evening ones so that I can spend an extra couple minutes cuddled up with Eric in bed in the morning or eating breakfast together before I leave for work. This hasn’t been a super easy adjustment, my body is used to the early morning workouts so by mid-afternoon I hit a slump and I feel exhausted. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to then drag my butt to the gym a 5 or 6.

But I’ve been doing it.

And, you know, I think my legs like those afternoon runs. I sure am a lot speedier in the afternoons. On Tuesday I set out on my first run in four days and still managed to average a 9:00/mile and that’s with walking breaks. Also, my gym offers way better classes with way better instructors in the afternoons then they do in the mornings. Except that also means they fill up way faster, last night I showed up at the gym at 5:30 for a 6:10 spin class!

So, we’re juggling our schedules around and we’re making it work. It sucks that we can never eat dinner together but on the other hand the fact that our schedules are opposite allows us to see just enough of each other that we’re still wildly smitten and don’t reach the point of wanting to bite each others heads off, which would happen quickly with us, trust me.

If you have a SO, how do your schedules balance with each other? And if your schedules are opposite, how do you make that work? If you’re single, how did you balance your schedule with your last SO? Or, ya know, lucky you

Also, morning or evening worker-outer?

PS: I was interviewed by the Globe & Mail after the reporter stumbled upon this blog post. Check out the article here.

PPS: Exactly one month from today we jet off to Europe!!!!!!!

If you want, become a fan of Girl with the Red Hair on Facebook!

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I’m actually really glad that I didn’t have it in me to write this post on Monday night because yesterday’s Ten on Tuesday questions – and all the comments – inspired a lot of this post.

Is it fate that I waited to write this post today and that the Ten on Tuesday questions inspired me? No, it’s a coincidence.

If you missed yesterday’s post, basically one of the questions was “Do you believe in fate?” And my answer was:

Nope. I believe that things happen because of choices we make, not because they were “meant to be”. I also believe that sometimes bad things happen simply because someone is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A few people mentioned meeting their significant other and how it was fate that they met each other when they did and if one or two things hadn’t happened the way they did then they may not have ever met their significant other.

I don’t think that’s fate. I think it’s a coincidence.

For example, in the first year that Eric and I were dating we were very on-and-off. At one point, we hadn’t spoken for almost a month and were both moving on from each other. One day I went to the bank to deposit a cheque. Well, who would be in line at the bank that day but Eric.

Was it “fate” that brought me to the bank that day? No, it was the fact that I was on the way to the gym and the bank was there. It was pure coincidence. If we hadn’t ran into each other that day and started talking again who knows where we’d be today. But my point is I don’t believe that was fate, I believe it was a very lucky coincidence.

Now, I’m going to go into the topic of soul mates and love, which is the deep topic I was originally pondering the other day.

Lately, I’ve heard a lot about friends/bloggers/people I know ending their relationship. In some cases, it’s people who have been together for a long time and on their surface they seem to have a very good, happy and healthy relationship.

Obviously, not everything is the way it appears, so just because I think these people have a wonderful relationship doesn’t mean all truly is wonderful.

But here’s my internal dilemma: I bet to all of you, Eric and I have a wonderful relationship. I rarely, if ever, write about our problems. But that’s not to say we don’t have any. If we ended it, you’d probably all be very surprised (don’t worry, we are both very happy right now and have no plans to end it anytime soon).

I guess what I’ve been wondering lately, quite simply, is why us?

Why are we able to make it work when others cannot? We have our problems, too. Some that seem very daunting and difficult to overcome. We are both young with our whole lives before us. There have been times when breaking up may have been easier then staying together. But we made the choice to work through the hard times.

This is where I touch on the subject of soul mates. Do I believe that Eric is my soul mate and that there is no other person out there for me? No.

I don’t believe in soul mates.

I believe that there are probably a number of men out there that I could be perfectly happy with. Once again, this all comes back to choices, coincidence, and being in the right place at the right time.

I love Eric. A lot. A lot, a lot, a lot. So much it hurts sometimes. It’s hard to imagine that I could feel that same amount of love for anyone else. But I think if situations were different, I probably could.

Our relationship works because we make it work. The reason I don’t believe in – or particularly like – the idea of soul mates is because it makes it seem like love is fine, dandy and easy. It’s not. It takes sacrifice, it takes making hard choices and it means going through a bit of hurt.

So, to wrap this incredibly long post up, I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in soul mates.

I believe in coincidence and making choices.

And I believe in love. I believe that love takes hard work, sacrifice, and making tough choices. I believe that the right kind of love is worth all those things.