I think today is a good day for another 15-minute entry. I need to make out the menus and grocery lists for March today and that always takes a couple hours. It's an investment of time when I do this but it saves so much time and a bit of money over the month. It's so easy to make dinner when the humming and hawing is eliminated. I was going to do it yesterday but I ended up going out with M. I've called them a couple times over the past month and sent a couple emails but there hasn't been much response.

I'm not one to judge on the lack of a response, I know just how bad I am about calling people. I guess all I personally expect is some acknowledgement of my standing and what's going on. I figure in my case, I'm very clear about how poor I am at responding to emails or phone calls so someone having an expectation that I would be anything else is unreasonable. I'm usually the one that never calls, but I do try to be better at it.

Some of my relationships it's flipped and I'm the one that calls the majority of the time. I'm ok with it as long as I know I'm not considered a nag or someone to be avoided. All I need to hear is that I'm calling too often, they're busy, please go away for a bit and I'm ok with that. I was kind of assuming with the silence from the boys over the past month and change that I was being too pushy and they were being non-confrontational.

Turns out they've been busy and I wasn't clear enough that even a phone call would be cool. I seem to have given the impression that I'm not up for simple phone conversations, that it always has to be an outing. Which is true to an extent. I prefer face-to-face interactions. I find a phone creates a distance there that I stumble over at times. But I also understand that a phone call can be the easiest way to get some interaction without disrupting an evening.

So I need to be clearer about what I want. Make clearer plans and intentions. When I phone to suggest we do "something this weekend", make it "let's go to the market on Saturday?" and say that I'd like to hear back either way.

I suggested to Mike last week that we should start having our friends over for dinner on the weekends we don't have Sara. We have one planned for March and I'm really looking forward to that.

And that's 15.