Alright. So here's where I tell you about my weekend. Friday night was a girls' night out. We went to the Harpoon St. Patrick's Day Festival, and it ended up being pretty ugly on my part. I went with Amy and Jordana, and we met up with Caitlin and Amanda and a few of their friends. The problem came in where I didn't get the opportunity to eat for most of the day. Arriving at Jordana's place, I knew I needed to get some grub at the festival, but that never ended up happening. I think it was about eight hours later when I finally got an omelette at a late night diner that food was consumed. Not good. But a fun night was had, and it ended up being all good.

Saturday night was actually a really great night. As hungover as I was (spending most of the day on the couch), I managed to get myself together for a really enjoyable evening. NB took the train up from the city, and I picked him up, and we went to dinner at the local Italian joint with about twelve other members of my family and their friends, and we went to a jazz concert at the Peabody Essex Museum. We saw Monica Hatch play a pretty great show with a really intimate crowd, and we left right after the last song and headed back in to the city to a party at one of NB's friend's places. SO. MUCH. FUN. I had a really great time. We were there for about four hours, hanging out and talking to new people, drinking wine and listening to the Gipsy Kings. I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed myself.

Then Sunday we had pancakes for breakfast (NB's new specialty, especially since he got the chance to buy some amazing maple syrup at the Vermont Country Store when we were in Vermont for Valentine's Day weekend), then decided to venture outside in the sunshine to walk down Boylston and Newbury. It was a bit colder than we expected, but we made some stops on the way -- in CitySports and Marshall's, then Newbury Comics and Dunkin Donuts on the way home), and made it back to his place to catch a quality nap from about four-thirty to six. I popped in my new Thievery Corporation cd, and knitted for a little bit on the couch, then climbed into bed and slept for a good hour. I am loving these lazy Sunday afternoons. We woke up, had dinner, and watched Their Eyes Were Watching God -- yes, I had to twist his arm to get him to watch it, but we ended up having a pretty interesting conversation about literature and high school and such. And I spent the night, and woke up early this morning and did the dishes. So domestic, I am!

It's kind of interesting to me that spending more and more time with NB seems to be making me a morning person. Consistently, we wake up between seven and eight in the morning, and are out of bed and making breakfast and moving around and doing things by about half past nine. This is completely out of the norm for me. In the past, it was hard to rouse me before nine, and to get me to be mobile before ten was unthinkable. Yet, this morning, I was up and washing my face (and the dishes!) before ten in the morning, and on my first day of spring break to boot! It might be that I have to be up at five in the morning on a semi-regular basis that's making it so much more bearable for me to be up at seven. But if you knew me even a year ago, you knew that is was pretty much impossible for me to get up at seven to catch the 7:50 train so I could be at work at nine.

And the most interesting part is that I actually am starting to enjoy being up this early. True, NB gives me a hard time on the occasional Sunday that I actually sleep in until ten in the morning, but those are rare days when he wakes up early and gets on the computer, and I have no reason to be up. Most Sundays, he kisses me awake in the early hours, and we're out and about (having eaten breakfast even!) by eleven. It's actually really great to spend a whole day with him, come back in the late afternoon and nap with him, and get to spend a whole evening with him, too.

This boy is steadily becoming a much more important part of my life. Yet, as this happens, I'm still being careful and watchful that there's not too much given on my part for what's being given on his part. I guess my past has just taught me to be more guarded. I'm aware that actions speak so much louder than words. He was actually really apprehensive this weekend about coming up on Saturday and doing the whole family thing, but he pulled it off beautifully. He's so gracious and funny, and he's such a great conversationalist, that I know my cousin and her husband, and my extended family (who were all there -- no pressure!) loved him. And as I was sitting next to him on Saturday evening, watching him converse with his friend's mother, and making small talk with other people in the room, I was so proud to be there with him. He is just so handsome, and so funny, and the more I spend time with him, the more I become enamored with him. I'm really hesitant to say that I'm falling for him, but on many levels, I think I am. It's a little bit scary.