He Says this Song is Mine

 

Foster the People – Waste

I’ll hold your hand when you are feeling mad at me
When the monsters they wont go,
The windows, they wont close,
I’ll pretend to see what you see

How long, I say how long, will you re-live the things that are gone?
The devil’s on your back but I know you can shake him off

And every day that you want to waste, that you want to waste, you can
And every day that you want to wake up, that you want to wake, you can
And every day that you want to change, that you want to change, yeah
I’ll help you see it through because I just really want to be with you

You know its funny how freedom can make us feel contained
When the muscles in our legs aren’t used to all the walking
I know if you could snap both your fingers than you’d escape with me

But in the meantime I’ll just wait here and listen to you when you speak, or scream

And every day that you want to waste, that you want to waste, you can
And every day that you want to wake up, that you want to wake, you can
And every day that you want to change, that you want to change, yeah
I’ll help you see it through because I just really want to be with you

And every day that you want to waste, that you want to waste, you can
And every day that you want to wake up, that you want to wake, you can
And every day that you want to change, that you want to change, yeah
I’ll help you see it through because I just really want to be with you

🙂

Mind Dump: Past, Present, and Future

A new blogging friend of mine gave me some advice the other day when I indicated I was having trouble turning my thoughts into words. She simply said, “Don’t think, just write.” I suppose I will, since I have so many things that are going through my mind and I believe the chaotic thoughts are really preventing me from getting anything out.

In this blog, I wanted to talk more about domestic abuse and the ways that I have been effected by it. The problem with that is I have PTSD, and sometimes when I start thinking about the ways I’ve been effected by domestic abuse, I find myself in the past. I don’t want to push myself into remembering times that trigger flashbacks, but at the same time, I do want to get it all out. I want to address the painful memories and move forward, but without causing an anxiety attack.

This makes me think about my therapist and how she doesn’t focus too much on my past. We might refer to it when discussing current challenges and why I cope with things the way I do, but we never really get into the nitty-gritty of situations that have occurred. This leads me to wonder if it is dangerous for me to re-live old events. I mean, there has to be a reason we don’t talk about that stuff. What’s more interesting, thru my research on PTSD, I’ve found evidence that the way to heal and move away from a PTSD diagnoses is to not have the flashbacks.

Am I harming myself by talking or thinking about the past? Am I supposed to just block all of that out? What if I don’t want to? Should I want to?

Another topic that I want to talk about here that weighs heavily on my mind is Fibromyaligia. There are so many writers who discuss fibro that I wonder if I should even bother to talk about it, too. Sure, maybe my perspective is different, but what do I uniquely have to offer that readers can’t find elsewhere? Just my experience? Everyone experiences the condition differently and what works for me most likely wont work for everyone.

I like to think I have some great ideas about coping with Fibromyalgia, but there aren’t a lot of them. Furthermore, I haven’t lived with the condition long enough to be an expert. Also, having fibro and focusing on it is kind of depressing. I really would like to be on the positive side of the condition, but to be honest, there aren’t many (if any) positive things about chronic pain. Something tells me that I am just not trying hard enough to find them.

I also have a lot of thoughts and feelings on my son, that I’d like to write about. I find this subject to be extremely hard to discuss though. It is a topic that is a little too personal and I don’t even know where to begin. I feel like I might be able to attract more readers when talking about ADHD and ODD, but again, I am not an expert and can only talk about the topic from my point of view. I am also very new to dealing with this child’s personality with a different approach from what I’ve used for 12 years.

I’m still not quite sure I’ve found the exact science to being effective and don’t think I should quite yet be handing out advice. Things have improved significantly, but we are still very far off from where I want it to be, and I don’t have full confidence over this topic yet.

I often feel stressed out because of the topics I’ve chosen to write about. They are all pretty heavy and can be quite negative subjects. And though I don’t think I approach them with negativity, they just aren’t what one would consider fun, amusing or lighthearted reads.

Do focusing on these topics help me grow as a person, or is it keeping me trapped in a once very unhappy frame of mind? If I don’t talk about these things what else will I discuss?

In all the articles I’ve read about successful blogging, I’ve found that most suggest having a niche. That’s all well and good, and really it makes a ton of sense, but what if you don’t have a niche? I mean what is my niche? Abuse, fibro, mental health? Now I’ve begun taking photos?

I feel as if I am all over the place, and though the different topics I talk about do all relate to one thing, that one thing is me. I can’t be a niche. Realistically, that’s just foolish. Sure, if I were keeping a private journal or just tracking my progress as a human being, without trying to attract readers, that would be fine. But that is not my goal.

So what is my goal? I think about this often, and ironically, I tell everyone I know that they need to have a goal they are working on achieving. You can’t get to point Z if you don’t know what that is, after all.

While I do have long-term goals, at this point, they are more or less just dreams. I say this because I haven’t set definitive short-term goals which point me in a solid direction or position to achieve what I ultimately want out of life. And while I think it is good to have big dreams, I also know that they don’t amount to more than a hill of beans if I don’t start actively pursuing them.

Is this blog going to help me achieve my dreams? When I think about what I want to achieve… Yes, I believe it will help me. But, as of now, it doesn’t feel like it is and I am not positive on how to use it as an effective tool. Though my readership is growing, little by little, I am not satisfied with the rate, and I am not always pleased with my stats.

Having a realistic look at the facts, I am told that while I am doing well, I am not doing good enough. 

Am I talking about things people aren’t interested in? If so, what are people interested in and am I able to talk about those topics? Am I not consistent with what I write? How can I stay focused on the topics I’ve chosen? Am I not a good writer?  What am I doing to improve? Do I really even want to talk about this stuff? If I don’t then I am not coming across as sincere and passionate. No one wants to read something that is dry, forced, or ineffective.

What am I good at? I know that I am good at a lot of things and I consider myself very lucky for that. If I try at something I am almost always pleased with the results because I am fairly successful in all I do. The problem is though, because I am pretty good at everything, I don’t work hard enough to just excel at only one thing. I also get bored rather quickly and find it hard to just focus my efforts in one area.

While this might sound like a ridiculous problem to have, it’s not, simply because  it can be quite frustrating. 

Being okay at a lot of things is far from being excellent in just one area. Having a lot of interests and a curious mind is a wonderful way to live, but it can also become a hinderance. Because I often move from thing to thing, I find my desires are often spread thin, and this creates too many distractions.  Not being able to highly achieve in any one area often leads me to wonder if I am even really very good at anything, or if I’ve just convinced myself that I am.

I want a purpose in life and I want to make a difference in the world. But how? What am I doing to achieve that? What am I doing to figure out ways to achieve that?

It is so hard to answer these questions, because again, though I have long-term goals, they aren’t very specific. And because my goals aren’t detailed, I lack focus on creating any short term goals.

Though I know I’d like to help people, I am not sure what I want to help them with. This really needs to be decided if I want to get anywhere. Reality also needs to be weighed into my decisions. I am not going to be able to help anyone if I don’t have the knowledge or there isn’t the need.

I suppose the first step in all of this is hammering down my goals in a realistic way.

Take my long-term goal for instance: I want to move to England. I can’t just say my goal is that I want to move to England. That statement is a dream, not a goal. I can make it into a goal, but more needs to be said about it than “I want to move to England”.

Why do I want to move to England? When? What will I do when I get there? How do I suppose I will get there? Is it realistic to want to move there?

I used to say I was going to move to Italy. Again, why? Why have I changed my mind about Italy?

Do I really just want to travel for a few weeks, months, a year? Am I just saying I plan to move to another country to sound interesting or to escape a life I am not happy with?

I think in the past I just wanted something to look forward to. As time goes by, I find myself still longing to explore another way of living and still think it would be a positive thing for me to do. With each year that goes by though, I realize I’ve done nothing to really get me any closer to achieving my goal than the day I dreamed it up.

Sure, I am looking to the future in high hopes, but they aren’t realistic plans of action. I will say that I’ve taken baby steps in terms of trying to find a job that will allow me to work remotely, but I haven’t been hired yet. Writing would allow me to do the same, but I haven’t made a nickel for my words. What am I doing to make my dreams reality? What is holding me back?

I suppose I’ve gone on long enough about my thoughts for now, but I do feel there is a lesson to be learned.

If I am smart, I won’t just think of this as a mind dump and turn it into a waste of time. If I am smart, I will hammer down some solid goals, no matter how far-fetched they are, and then come up with a plan of action to achieve them. If I am smart, I will set a 10 year plan, then break it down into a 5 year plan, a 2 year plan, and then 1 year plan. From there, if I am smart, I will set monthly goals and decide if this blog, and the direction I’ve chosen to move towards with it is beneficial. If it is not, then I need to come up with a new plan of action to reflect my true goals. If I am smart, I will look at today as the first day of the rest of my life, seriously, whole heartedly and realistically.

Thanks Linneann, for encouraging me to just write. This exercise has helped me realize that my focus has been blurry because I am lacking a definitive goal.

It’s Okay to Not be Okay

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here and I don’t much feel like writing right now, but I do feel overwhelmed with guilt for not keeping up with this blog that I do love so very much. I wish I could say that I’ve been absent from the blogosphere because of being busy with projects, or because of a long vacation to some tropical place or even that I’ve been doing anything productive with my time, for that matter. The truth is though that I’ve just been trying to keep my head above water and survive lately.

Last year was really rough on me and I feel like everything should have fallen into place by now and that I could be moving forward in a new and exciting life, but after a long hard look at what is going on here, my therapist brought me to the conclusion that I am still in transition. I felt relieved after realizing that this is what is going on because for the past two months I’ve been feel terrible, assuming that all of this stress and lethargy and aggravation was going to be the rest of my life from now on.

I feel as though I am climbing up yet another very steep mountain and for quite sometime I couldn’t see the top. While I am still not seeing the top, I do feel a grand sense of comfort knowing that it really isn’t to far off.

Does that even make any sense?

I’ll rephrase it in another way that my therapist related it to me. She said to think of it as a snow globe. Back in April of last year, when all of the issues came to a head it was like someone shook a snow globe and all of the bits and pieces of my life where just swirling about rapidly. Chaos and confusion and unstructured. Little by little as time goes by and I implement new ways to live life and create a peaceful and structured environment for the kids and I, the particles (or bits of snow) are starting to settle into place. While all of the bits and pieces aren’t exactly settled and where they need to be, many of them are. The water is calm, it is easier to see the pretty ornament (my family goals) on the inside, and I am just dealing with the few stray particles that haven’t quite found their place.

There are still so many days that pass where I feel angry, bitter, sad and lost, but it’s not every hour of every day and I can pull myself out of the storm when I recognize that I am falling into the easier place to be. Easier? Yes, easier. Sometimes it is just easier to be sad or angry, and my therapist says that it makes sense. She said I should be more compassionate towards myself though because she knows I would never be so hard on someone else who would be in my shoes. I’m actively working on pulling myself out of the bad moods and thoughts and sometimes it can be down right exhausting, but it is making some difference. On the days when I don’t realize or even feel like pulling out of that mood, I am working on allowing myself those feelings, without being too hard on myself.

A Fond Farewell to My List of 365 Resolutions

I probably should have posted this yesterday but I was very busy reflecting on 2011 and despite it being the worst year of my life, on the last day of the year, I came to the conclusion that I feel really good about everything I have accomplished. No, I didn’t cross off all of my resolutions but I did get pretty. dang. far.

In fact, I got through more than half of 365 Resolutions I set out to do!

Am I disappointed that I didn’t cross them all off? Hell no! I am superproud of what I have done. With that being said, I am crossing off one final resolution from the list:

Be Proud of an Accomplishment

And with that, I am putting the list to rest. Peace!

I’ve decided not to create a new list, mainly because I think I jinxed myself (yes, I really think that) and also because I think it has fully served it’s purpose. I blogged for a year, I dedicated myself and made it through my first full year of being a writer.  The list honestly got me through many of the worst days of my life by giving me something to focus on instead of caving into the pain, heartache, confusion and fear I’d been consumed with for the better part of the year. But I feel it is time to evolve and leave the past where it belongs.

Of course, I can’t abandon resolutions entirely so I thought long and hard about what would benefit me the most in 2012. This year I have only one resolution, one that I will focus on with all of my heart and soul. I am putting my faith in myself and hope to help as many people in the blog world as I possibly can.

My Resolution for 2012 is to build my self-esteem to the fullest.

Yup, you heard me right! I want to love myself and appreciate my worth. Is there is anyone in the world who doesn’t want that for themselves?

I’ll still be cooking, baking, project messing up creating, working on improving my physical and mental health and writing about life in suburbia. I just really hope to truly discover myself, realize and revel in my strengths, and work hard to repair my weaknesses this year through writing. I am determined to find the love I have searched so long for, but instead of looking to outside sources I am going to look inside of myself.

I hope you will read along during my pursuit of happiness and not only learn a thing or two about self-appreciation and self-love but also share with me and our fellow blogging friends your own personal experiences. I’d love to have guest bloggers this year, so don’t be surprised when you receive an email from me requesting some advice. I have some of the kindest, wonderfully talented and lovely readers in the blogosphere and I know that I wouldn’t feel as strong as I do today if it weren’t for all of you; I want to give that back to anyone who can use it and I hope somehow this small little blog will be able to serve that purpose.

Now wrap your arms around yourselves, give a great big hug and say I love you; I just did, and it felt great!

Happy New Year and thank you all so very much for being a part of my life!

Cheers!

Understanding Vunerability

I’ve been terrible with the blogging lately.

I’ve taken a break from the home projects, my body forced me to and my bank account backed it up. I don’t mind taking a break but I am disappointed that I never did finish my bedroom. Good things come in time though and these days it feels like all I have is time, which is nice. I lost the vision of what I wanted from my room, but I suppose that means my original vision didn’t feel quite right.

The floors did get redone and they look beautiful but I’m still working on the carpet for the basement, which has proved much harder than I anticipated, such is life.

I know my posts have lacked heart lately and I feel awfully guilty for it. I’ll write something truly honest soon enough, I just didn’t know where to start so I figured I’d get this bit out-of-the-way.

There is a lot going on in my life, home, heart and head now and the place I’ve found most comfortable is doubting that I ever really knew what love was. Perhaps everyone goes through this at some point in their lives. I haven’t doubted love much ever and I truly believed I had found it three times. Looking back though, I think that through all the years of my life I was just desperate to find it and therefore created it when it felt as if it would work.

I am not that silly girl anymore.

I now understand how vulnerable I really am presently and can’t help but replay the words of what a kind reader warned me of some time ago about falling into misguided arms. He was right but I had to learn it for myself, more than once. Through what I know to be kind intentions, I now know that I have been slightly taken advantage of in some sense or another by a few but don’t believe any of the circumstances to have been malicious intent.

So to make things simple for myself (and others) I’m going into lock down. No dates, no men, no boys; I no longer believe in love and refuse to entertain such thoughts. I’ll be focusing on reconnecting with the me that I lost somehow years ago. The girl who all the boys would love to know but could never get quite close enough. If you are directly effected by this, I am sorry, but it’s what I need to do.  And I do feel so safe… Isn’t that what really counts?

Before I move forward through my journey though, here is a picture of a manicure I gave myself with funky nail colors that I chose in celebration of a date that was quite exciting to the vulnerable me. I went to an Eagles game with Mr. Picnic and painted the team colors on my nails, in an effort to cross two things off my list of course and to be “spirited.”

I’ll be back to write more soon…

Still a Skinny Minnie

Well, I realized a few days late that I met my goal of staying under 125 for a year. When I reached the goal last year, I can’t even begin to tell you how proud of myself I was. I had been working on losing weight for almost a year when I reached this weight. I had started on my own in November of 2009 but didn’t really start to melt away until I joined Weight Watchers in May of 2010.

I cannot tell you how easy and life changing their program is. I know a few of you lovies are in the program and are seeing the same results that I did. It really is wonderful and if you have ever considered joining I would strongly urge you to do so.

So this post is to mark a year of keeping my weight under 125. I have to say that losing the weight was the easy part for me at first. Once I lost every last pound I felt lost. With losing the weight there are rewards along the way, milestones and the feeling of pride and accomplishment. Maintaining the loss is a bit trickier though, you don’t feel a loss victory each week when you weigh in, instead you try to keep the balance. It’s easy to become frustrated and confused and hard to know when to stop with the losing weight mentality.

Looking back though, being able to say that after a full year, I still fit in my 13-year-old daughters clothes is the real reward.

I really kept it off and I am going to keep this as a revolving yearly goal. While I am really proud of myself, I owe it all to Weight Watchers as their program changed  my life tremendously.

Looking back, now that this year has passed, I realized that reaching 125 was the springboard for my confidence that I would need just before just about everything here fell apart. I didn’t realize how much getting through the process would change me as a person. It was surely an added bonus!

Now go eat some veggies and fruit 🙂

Cheers!

A Constant Wish and Clarity

I’ve been stuck, deep in thought this morning over specific conversations I’ve had in the past with the one person in this world who knows me best. We’ve had a ton of arguments over the years and tend to be overly honest with one another, probably due to the longevity of our friendship. Throughout the years I became defensive and outright unreachable when I felt he had overstepped the boundaries or completely crossed the line. Some of our arguments pissed one or both of us off enough to not speak for days, weeks, and sometimes even months. I have felt hurt and betrayed by some of the things has said to me and there have been times he caused me to completely shut down; I often refused to give his words any thought or weight and easily swore to him and myself that he was just trying to hurt and control me.

One of the most painful things he said was that I was living like a battered house wife and would stay in the same spot unless I woke the hell up or ended up severely hurt. I thought the only reason he would say such a mean thing was because he was mad that I wasn’t crumbling at his lines. I proclaimed that I wasn’t battered, that Huz loved me and he had no reason to say such terrible things. We didn’t speak for weeks and when I was throughly convinced that he was insane and spoke with him again we didn’t talk about it much. By then, after I knew how to respond I just blew off any mention of the conversation and stopped crying to him about the problems at home. We finally did talk about it seriously years later though… Once the protective order was in place he offered to sleep on my couch with his gun, just so he would know the kids and I would feel safe. When I refused he tried to insist that we come stay with him, cat and all. I thanked him for the concern, quietly pushed him away and still didn’t fully acknowledge how well he knew me.

Something else he said to me recently was that my medication wasn’t safe and that he didn’t want me to take it because of the horrible side effects. He said I wasn’t mentally stable and throwing the possibility of suicidal tendencies into the mix wasn’t to anyone’s benefit.  I had already confessed to him one night, only a few months before, that I had almost killed myself in March when Huz wouldn’t lay off of me. It was the night before I wrote my Tale of Two Cakey’s post but after the post had gained recognition, I focused on the feeling of success and pushed away the fact that I was so depressed and desperate to get out of the situation I was in that I could do such a thing. I told him I did it just to get Huz to shut up and off of my back during an argument. I tried my best to convince him not to worry about me but knows better. When we were at dinner one night, I accidentally brought up that my pills were making me woozy and he immediately asked me if I was taking the ones he told me not to take. I know he was angry that I didn’t listen to him so I quickly changed the subject, mad at myself for bringing it up. He let it go verbally but the look on his face has since been stuck in my head; it was one of pure concern and disbelief. In my mind, I told myself that he had no idea what he was talking about. He’s a software engineer, not a doctor and surely he was trying to control me. I finally admitted to him two nights ago that he was right, I need to get off of these pills, they are messing with my mind the way he said they would. I tried to ease his mind with my action plans for when such thoughts arise and I promised to wean myself of the pills.

The last thing he “accused” me of was an eating disorder. I swore to him and myself, again, that he was purposely trying to hurt me after he called me underweight and unhealthy. It was a few days after the medication incident, when he brought it up that I had clearly lost more weight since he last saw me the month before when I was already too thin. I convinced myself he said this because I had just told him that I had run into and spoken with Huz for the first time since the incident and we that we were on civil terms. Within minutes he was talking about my weight and for some reason these comments hurt me the worst of all. I felt like he was attacking me and my appearance, my body, of which I felt I had no control. The look on his face from a few nights before when we talked about my choice to take the medications flashed into my mind and I became fully convinced that he was trying to control me, the way Huz had done for so long. I didn’t speak to him for 6 weeks. We didn’t talk about it again until I brought it up the other night, when I told him the realization I faced last week.

There have been a million other discussions and fights about things throughout the years. Truthful accusations that I refused to own up to, some things I don’t remember, and some things I don’t want to disclose. And through all of this time, after all of these years, I believed he was trying to hurt me with each of the “mean” things he’d accuse me of. I pushed him away as far as I could over the years, but I suppose I might have only made him stronger. He is the only one who knows me so well, inside and out, the good and all of the bad. He’s tried so hard to help me all along and never flinched once when I tried to push him away. He has stuck by me in a way no one else could have and I finally see that it’s because he cares and hoped that eventually I’d come to grips with the sad truths I so hated to hear.

I concider myself lucky to have that kind of friend; everyone should be so lucky. I’m grateful for him being around for all of these years, listening to me go back and forth. Listening to me cry in pain and heartache, taking all of my insanity and anger that I projected onto him. Even after I accused him of so many terrible things throughout the years, and outright and openly never trusted him or his intentions. He never gave up on me, even when I made it such an easy thing to do. He could have easily thrown his hands to the sky and left me to my misery, but he never did, not for long anyhow. I really wish I would have listened to what he was really telling me during all of this time. I really wish I could tell him how sorry I am for being such a stubborn wreck and for not trusting him. I really wish that I could explain to him that I have finally realized his unconditional love and thank him for it because it’s so much better than I ever wished it to be.

Don’t Watch This if You’re Squeemish and A Real Life Confession

When I was going through my process of losing weight last year I set myself up with a goal and a reward. The deal I made with myself was that once I reached 125 I could get my navel pierced (so 1990’s, I know, sexy none the less) but when I did drop down to 125 I still was feeling the fat-girl mentality and wasn’t satisfied that I had lost enough weight. I didn’t get the piercing but planned to do it still, once I was feeling good about my body.

In the months following the 125 milestone I lost more weight and joined a gym. The elliptical machine was my heaven. I actually refered to it as my “lover” because of how great it made me feel and how fantastic it was making my body look. I was at the gym religiously every day for months, only taking one day, at the very most two, off each week. I was capable of staying on that machine for an hour each day and worked my resistance level between an 8 and a 20, doing intervals of 30 seconds and 2 minutes. You could not pinch a centimeter of my skin, not anywhere on my body. I looked and felt fantastic.

Although I was still well within my healthy weight range, people weren’t used to me looking so thin. I was all muscle and that made me look much leaner than I actually was. Almost everyday people asked me if I was anorexic, I was too thin and looked unhealthy. It made me so angry, here I was, in the best shape of my life, in control of my body and people thought I was starving myself. This gave me a body complex of another kind and I still didn’t want to get my piercing.

Now that I haven’t worked out in almost a year I have little to no muscle mass. I feel fat again, I haven’t gained any weight, but my skin is far from tight. I miss my lover. Oh, how I hope one day we will reunite.

What’s funny is people sometimes still ask me if I am anorexic and I still take offence. After having a bit of a nervous breakdown yesterday morning and a long freestyle therapy session with my close friend and neighbor I finally admitted out loud to her, and myself, that I do have an eating disorder. It was something I had to really come to grips with. I didn’t even realize that I really had a problem until she flat-out asked me if I was eating. I just cried out “NO” without a thought. My mind was forcing me to be more honest than I was for so long. I wasn’t hiding anything out of shame or anything, I just didn’t recognize that I had yet another issue. It’s been a very long cycle of me going for days where I don’t eat anything, not on purpose, I don’t even realize it’s happening, to be honest. Then when I finally realize how hungry I am I will binge eat anything I can get my hands on and the cycle starts again.

Anyway, what this has to do with me getting my navel pierced… I kept putting it off because I didn’t like my body. Now that my health has changed I hate my body, but finally, it’s not about the way it looks, it’s about how it feels. I thought it was time to give myself my reward because it’s long overdue and I am proud of myself for finally recognizing what I have been doing to my body for so long. I bet once I get my body nourished and take control of this aspect of my life again I will feel much better. I’ve decided that I’m going back to Weight Watchers, not to lose weight, but to remember how to eat, daily, healthy. It’s just going to be another tool in my rather large-sized toolbox I am lucky to have to get my life in control.

My neighbor said, “pay attention to the moment. Not the past you, not the future you, just the present you.” These past few years, and especially this one, I’ve been looking back and forward and neglecting the now. I need to focus on NOW or nothing will get any better. Now is the time. She told me to ask myself when I feel like I am losing my mind, or doing something without knowing why, to center myself in the now. Ask myself how I feel, ask myself if I’ve eaten, ask myself, what I can do to make my life better NOW. If it isn’t going to make me feel better or move me in a positive direction, not to do it. I felt good on that table, last night, and today I think that piercing is more symbolic than I thought it would be. Yeah, I lost weight, that was great, but admitting that I had yet another serious flaw, that took courage, and now I have a lovely reminder.

As I laid on the table to get my piercing I asked my self how I felt. I felt really good. I ate 2 meals that day, I was in the company of one of my dearest friends and I felt the weight of the morning completely gone.  Sometimes people need help with some things. I don’t like to be needy and ask for help but I am really proud to say that I’ve asked loud and clear to multiple people who are all helping me get this life of mine and ours in control and functioning in a healthy and happy way. I have a lot of issues, a lot. Admitting that they were there and real, was really hard to come to grips with but I think I finally know where I stand. I’m a wreck, but I’m not going to be for too long.

And now I have a sexy tummy, one that will get fed everyday.

If Spontaneity Were a Color, It’d Be Reddish

I’ve finally done something spontaneous! I colored my hair and I love how it turned out, too!

It’s hard to really tell from the picture but it’s a ginger color 😀

Ginger… Get it?

Please ignore the zombie look in my eyes, I’m hurting really bad today but I’m still in good spirits. There are a lot of great things coming up, I just know it!

The Baltimore Aquarium Minus Me

Back in the day and I do mean waaay back in the day, before the kids, before the house, and before the 21st century, Huz and I talked frequently of going to the Baltimore Aquarium. I don’t know why I actually had my mind so set on the place, but for whatever reason I did, but then life happened and we never took the trip.

Baltimore is not too far away from Philly and can be traveled to and from in one day but shortly after talking about taking the trip Natalie came along and soon after I found myself pregnant with Isaac. As the kids got older it was made clear that we wouldn’t be visiting the fantastic aquarium anytime soon.

Isaac was a miserable child and from miserable he turned devilish and certianly not someone pleasant to spend all of those hours in a car with.

Through the years I had all but forgotten about the aquarium but remembered it late last year while I was trying to add fun things to my list.

You probably think I am going to tell you now that I finally got down there, to the aquarium that I had wanted to visit for the past 14 (God, time flys) years. Well, I didn’t, but I am writing about this because the kids did get to go.

On one of the days that Huz had the kids, he decided that he was going to take them and afterwards to a Ravens ball game. He tried his best to convince me to go along but there was no chance. I was hurting so bad and just the thought of having to walk anywhere was way too much for me to handle.

Am I upset that I didn’t get to go? Not really.

Maybe a little.

I AM happy that the kids got to go though and I’m glad they had a fantastic time. Even though I didn’t go I am crossing it off my list because well, I’m desperate to cross things off, and my kids are as best a replacement as I am the real thing. So, thanks babes for having a great day and thanks Huz for trying your best to get me moving.

I know he picked that place because he thought if there was any chance of me leaving the house it would be to go there.