Looking Back: End of the Year Musings...

Some women learn about themselves through their jobs, some women learn about themselves through movies, and some from their friends. I just happen to be the type that learns from men. There is no type that is "better" than the other, or even easier. What makes one easier than the other is being able to see, accept, and understand who and what you are; causing you to make a few less repeated mistakes otherwise. Yet sometimes, it is impossible to walk the long road to who you are without stepping on a few toes, and sometimes even hurting them.

There are times when I can't breathe because of how much I know I have hurt someone. 

{Yeah, you can tell this one's going to be personal with that one line}

A year ago, I was engaged to a man who I thought was the "one."

He wasn't the one, hence the past tense.

I wanted so badly for him to be the "one,"because all of my friends had found their "one" around the same time; planning their weddings was killing me. I wanted it for all the wrong reasons. 

I'd like to clarify: he is an AWESOME man. He's going to make a world class husband someday to a very very lucky woman. Don't think that just because I'm not marrying him that he's not amazing.

Our problem was that we just weren't right for each other.

There wasn't any one reason, just like anything else that fails. It's many reasons pressing down on the roof of the relationship until finally the reasons become so heavy that the roof collapses. 

We could have tried to fix our metaphorical roof, but all the reasons wouldn't have gone away. They would have just filled up the rooms of our relationship house, and eventually causing serious, irreparable damage to all of our antique furniture. 

Did I take the house metaphor too far?

---I digress--- 

When I broke it off, I hurt him.

He wasn't able to see the reasons, because he wanted the happy marriage even more than I did. I'm not sure if he's even able to see them now, or if I'm still an insensitive bitch in his book. 

{I'm not being rude with that last comment, I broke off an engagement not a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. I wouldn't blame him if he felt that way}

We've both moved on, me to the wonderful gorgeous Godsent BF, and him to a beautiful girl that he's known all his life; that seems to fit what he wants and what his family wants. I couldn't be happier for him, I WANT him to be happy, with or without me. I did love him.

It is because of this love that I still feel pain over how it hurt him. I still wouldn't change anything at all about how or why it ended, but I do wish that I could have saved him from the pain that it caused him.

People are always afraid of asking me how it ended; if it was a sore subject. So pay attention, because  here it is once & for all:

There were major irreconcilable differences between his family and I, as well as issues between the two of us; barring us from having a heathy marriage or relationship. If necessary we can have good, solid conversations without being awful to each other. We've both moved on to wonderful people and are both doing very well.

*sigh*

Love is so messy. Disney did not prepare me for the harshness of relationships fraught with love.Yet I can say with a clear head that each relationship teaches you something new about life that you wouldn't otherwise had known, as well as teaching you something about yourself that could have remained a mystery forever. I actually wouldn't change any of my past relationships; even though some of them were a new kind of terrible...they were each important keystones in my life. 

I know that without any of them, I most likely wouldn't have found the man who I can't imagine living without. I realize that there is always a chance that perhaps he isn't "THE ONE." But there is a feeling, deep down inside me, that tells me that he is; this feeling, this voice, I have never heard before. 

Yet even IF someday we don't work out, I know that I will be a much better person than I was before I met him...because of him. 

Looking back on the last year or so has only forced me to look ahead, and be excited for what God has in store for me...I can always rely on Him to make things interesting, and I can always rely on me to make them dramatic 

:)

“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.”

{Audrey Hepburn}

The Black Death

Who's got two thumbs and passed all their classes this last semester?

Well you're just going to have to trust that I still have both of my thumbs, because it was me!!

Add to this excitement that my little brother will be home in about two hours, {thanks to the Anglins} DRIVING all the way from Abilene, Texas. 

 yuck.

SPEAKING OF YUCK:

I am currently {knock on wood!} the only one in my house that isn't sick with what I'm assuming to be is the Black Death. I come to this conclusion because of the noises they're making; the sneezes, coughing, and the sounds of falling over due to dizziness. 

{My family is all really tall, so when we fall we make NOISE.}

I very much hope that I won't get said Black Death, being sick in California is one thing; being sick in the freezing cold of Pennsylvania on New Years vacation is, {I can only assume, as it hasn't happened to me} a far worse thing. 

Not only that but I need to finish Christmas shopping... :(

We'll see if I can avoid it!

Finals, meet Procrastination.

It's finals week, kids. Which of course means that I've visited every single website that pushes my bfffl procrastination to its limit, filling my currently sad existence with funny memes and more than necessary water marbled nails. Here is the result of both:

Water Marbled Success!

AAAAAND the meme that has been stuck in my poor brain:

{{HERE}}

OK look it's a really long picture and it would kill all space that I have, filling your screen with hilariousity that should be given it's OWN page. Hence: the link. That, and I am lazy. I blame finals. Or past Courtney for causing me to be in such a state. 

Either one sucks sometimes. 

SOOO to cheer you up from the previous sad depressing statement and because my brain is too fried to think of anything further witty to say.... to cheer you up, here are the outtakes for the picture {^} above. ;) 

ridiculous?

yes.

awesome?

...perhaps. 

insane? 

silly question. 

you are welcome.

have a lovely week my dears, I'll write you again when there is homework to be done or another test that needs to be studied for. 

'cause that's how I roll. 

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when we grow up"

{{Pablo Picasso}}

love, me

also, you should know that I don't actually know what a meme is. I'm ASSUMING that I've used it correctly. If not, don't correct me. I'll accuse you of being a nerd.

Historical Significances. Significansies? Significance...es

Yikes.
It has been a WHILE!!
I keep trying to think of things to blog ABOUT! I figure I could talk about everything I've been thinking about, everything I'm feeling...but that just sounds boring for anyone else besides me. 


By the way the "inches" loss thing is going well! I've lost TWO inches so far, and thats exciting :) I knoooow I originally said something like 8 inches in 4 weeks, but I did not take into account that I'd be having finals and stressing my butt back ON.
But there is nothing that can keep me from being excited about going back to Pennsylvania for New Years. Living in Southern California my whole life has been a wonderful blessing, but the history that occurred in PA is ahmazing. Sure, in SoCal we've got some crazy history, but it's nothing like PA. I remember last time my man candy {{yeah, that happened}} and I went, we visited Philadelphia. On our way there {or was it to the cabin we stayed at?...I digress} we passed an exit called Valley Forge.

VALLEY FORGE. 

Me: "wait..is that THE valley forge?? As in George Washington's valley forge??"

Bf: "oh, yeah."

Seriously. When I told any of his friends and family about the fact that we drove near Valley Forge, their only real response was, "When I think of Valley Forge, I think of terrible traffic."

Allow me to explain why that physically hurt my soul.

La Jolla Children's Pool

I'm a nerd. Plain and simple. Stuff like being able to SEE Valley Forge is like a dream come true. I completely understand the fact that when you live somewhere, the exciting light of all the special, neat things about that place dims significantly until it's no longer as important. 

For me, its the beach. I've lived 30 minutes from the beach my whole life. Not just any beach, the beaches of San Diego. Stuff like this ------------>

is pretty normal for me. 

So I GUESS I get why that wasn't as exciting for them as it was for me. When I think La Jolla, or Del Mar, I think "bad traffic" as well...

SOOO I leave the day after Christmas...BF leaves a few days before me. It'll be good for him to get some quality time in with his family before I come crash the party. :)

I am so excited its all I can think about. It's a beautiful state, and I can't wait to see his wonderful, loving family. {{Not sucking up. There's no guarantee that any of them will read this, it's just completely true. I got really lucky to be able to date a man with a family that's as cool as mine :) }}

"A mistake is simply another way of doing things."

{{-Katharine Graham}}

GOAL!!

Yup, you read right. Goal... I've made one.

As of right now...I'm HOPEFULLY going back to Pennsylvania the day after Christmas to see my boyfriend's family. Which I am exceedingly excited about...they are a wonderful group of people!
Not so excited about all the weight I've gained.

Yeah, yeah. I know every single male out there is shaking their heads saying, "Not this again..." Cut me some slack! I'm female! I've got crazy social standards to live up to!
To clarify: I'm not saying I'm FAT or anything, I'm just saying I want to be healthy. One might even say sexy. I've always had an athlete's body; it can shape up real fast, but it can shape down even faster. My overweight limit can be reached far faster than most people's. I don't LOOK larger than the standard human being, but compared to my ideal body...it's a little scary how unhealthy I am. It was easier when I was doing sports, which I've done in some form since I was 3. Now that, because of my brain injury, I cant: run/jump/put too much pressure on my brain/do anything that could jar my brain, staying healthy is difficult. It's been 4(? maybe 5...TBI sorry) years, and I still haven't gotten the hang of this yet, mostly because I refused to accept the fact that my life is the way it is now....
but I digress...

When I said "weight" earlier, I wasn't referring to a number. If I were to go by numbers....well supposedly I'm supposed to be around 160 pounds and I haven't been 160 pounds since the 7th grade. I'm all muscle! Heck, I come from a family who's history is filled with strapping young farm girls and award winning body builders. I've never had the chance to be anything but muscular, and everyone knows muscle outweighs fat.
I'm not really looking to be the body builder type, either. To each her own and all, but no thank you.

SO! After all that talking around myself, here is my goal:

4 weeks, 8 inches all around lost. So...about 2 inches a week. I think I can do it! And to all you nay sayers...you have never seen me actually lose weight. When I really push myself...you'll see. 

Here's what I'm focusing on: hips(h), waist(w), thighs(t), and arms(r/a, l/a). 

   Now  vs  4 weeks! (in inches)

h: 43              40

w:34              32

t: 25&1/2       23

r/a: 13            12

l/a: 12 &1/2    12

Yikes. Writing this out and putting it up for the world to see (and judge) is TOUGH!! Stuff just got REAL!

Ok, here's the thing. I'm aware that my goals are a little...lofty. But I need to push myself. I want to look good! I want to feel good about myself again, be able to look in the mirror and feel healthy. The idea that my internal organs are slowly being suffocated in the fat that my inactivity creates...well...it just grosses me out. And 40 year old me is kicking myself for not taking advantage of being 22 year old me, so if I do it for no one else, I'm doing it for her.

So here it goes....I'm going to work out every day, while eating healthy foods and eating them in a healthy way...by no means to I intend to starve myself. That's ridiculous.

Let the countdown begin...day one...4 weeks and 27 days to go!

One and Only

I'm currently wearing my excited face.  

My brother has been at college in Texas since what seems like forever...and he is coming home tomorrow. TOMORROW!! I can't wait to have him back in the house; making noise and being a general 18 year old male. :) He bugs the crap out of me like nobody's business, and I make him more mad than anyone else on the face of the earth, but I couldn't believe how much I missed him when he left. He's never been more than a few hours away from me the last 18 years, I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was for the space between us. I can't wait to have a fun-filled Thanksgiving break with him home!! We're going to go camping and eat WAY too much food!

baby brother :)

Switching to my happy and in love face, I thought I'd post a few pictures from the Ball last Thursday...

 It was SO much fun. Getting all dressed up and getting my hair done by Summer at Head East Salon in Alpine, and seeing my man in his sexy uniform...

"We want YOU for the US Marines!"

Seriously, the best part of the night was when I helped him get the jacket/blouse/thing {{I have no idea what the dress blues jacket is called}} on and he turned around to face me...holy moly. I've always wanted to call up all his ex-girlfriends and the girls that stood him up in the past and gloat about how much they missed out on, and how "you will never get this!" But that moment I felt like I was the luckiest woman on the PLANET! He is so handsome. And all of his friends {{who are all very near and dear to my heart}} also looked exceedingly dashing!!

I'm sure I'll have some fun and interesting topics later on in the week, but for now my brain is shutting down...


"Beauty is not caused. It is. " {- Emily Dickinson}

Perfectionist, Control Freak, Me

My biggest struggle in my life at the moment is getting a hold of my control freak side. I like everything JUST SO, and no one can do anything as well as I can. In my mind, I'm not being a jerk; it's just a fact of life. Letting anyone else try is just going to end up in an enormous failure and I'm going to have to pretend that I like it, and won't fool anyone.
For example:
This morning, my boyfriend was nice enough to want to make me coffee and eggs for breakfast. I couldn't let him touch my coffee, he doesn't like it as light as me by far; and my eggs....well I'm super picky! I only like a certain type of cheese, they need to be mixed a certain way so as to be the perfect amount of fluffiness, need to be cooked with either Pam or butter, I don't like stuff mixed in, can NOT be any form of runny, and burned is just sad.
But here's what I did:
He let me do my own coffee because he's the sweetest man alive.
And then I saw him preparing the pan for eggs. He was lining it with olive oil and putting some sort of herb mix stuff in it and I may have started to internally hyperventilate...
me: "Hey babe, are you making eggs for yourself too?"
Jim: "Yeah, there's enough for both of us."
I almost asked if that pan could be his. I almost made him make mine exactly the way I wanted them; no...I'll just do it myself.
And then he looked at me.
Yeah, sounds cheesy, but he had this look on his face like he almost knew I was going to correct him. Again.
Jim: "Is that what you were worried about, that there wouldn't be enough? Or was it something else..."
Me: *sigh* "Nope, that was it. Thanks honey."

For all of you people out there that aren't control freaks, this was HARD.
I'm not being intentionally mean, I'm not saying that he isn't amazing at everything he does. I just like things a very certain way. Both my parents and my brother are the same way.
When I was growing up, it was just my mom. She liked to keep a VERY clean house....I'm talking floors cleaned with a toothbrush by 9 am every day. My dad and I were almost completely Sanguine. {{for those of you who don't know what that means, here is a link to the four personality types: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Temperaments we are all primarily a mixture of two of them.}}
My brother was much more like my mother, but I usually ran him over with my sanguineness, and me being his big sister, he wanted to be just like me.
After my brain injury, the sanguine in me died a little, bringing my choleric side to the forefront. With age, my father's sanguine has done the same thing, as well as with my brother.
My mom went from being in control of everything, to being run over by all three of us at the same time.
But I learned something really important from her. It was letting go.
She LET us be who we are. She stopped trying to push having a clean house on us; because it wasn't that important to us. It's still very important to her, but she pulled it back so that we could have some peace in our family. (NOT to say that our house isn't clean, it's just not scrubbed-with-a-toothbrush-by-9-am clean)
It's important in a relationship to let the man BE the man. Not to push him, not to tell him what to do; even if sometimes you really do know better than him.
It is SO hard for me, just because of who I am. God thankfully blessed me with a man that won't LET me run all over him; he's helping me be the kind of woman that God wants me to be, while still being who I am. I am so lucky.

And let me tell you: that was the best omelet and potatoes that I've ever had. I don't think I could make them better myself, and thats not me being nice. :)

"Too often we don't realize what we have until its gone. Too often we're too stubborn to say sorry I was wrong. Too often it seems we hurt the ones closest to our hearts, and we let the most foolish things tear us apart." 

my furry love

I have been sick. 


I have an intolerance to wheat and dairy, and a sliiiight intolerance to soy, but I can normally ignore it. Dairy used to be the worst, but wheat's reaction has surpassed dairy's reaction by leap and bounds. Now, after eating just a little, I get very ill later that day, then am stuck with flu-like symptoms for another few days. 
I am not the happiest of campers. 


However, my super sweet cat Lola has hardly left my side for a moment. She has been taking care of me: constantly touching me to make sure I'm ok. :) So sweet! She always takes such good care of me...she is the greatest cat ever! She has never bitten me or anyone else out of anger, and she lets you do almost anything to her. Well...without biting you. She will run away. But she always comes back. She's very true to her name...a bit of an attention whore...

kitty butt warmer

I make her make funny faces :)

Still. The Ball is tomorrow and I refuse to let this get in the way!


food for thought:
"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."
{{Albert Einstein}} 

Di Amare

This morning, while I was enjoying a heathy dose of Kix cereal with sliced banana {(side note: it's delicious)} I did something that in the past has always given me interesting results:
I held my bible with the spine on the table and the ends of the pages up, chose a place I knew would be somewhere in the New Testament, and let it fall open. It opened to John 17:1-26. Jesus was in the garden, praying to God, knowing that He would soon be taken to be brutally murdered.

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. ² For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. ³ Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. ⁴ I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. ⁶ I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.²⁰ My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.²⁴ Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.²⁵ Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.²⁶ I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”


I have been around the bible my whole life. I have read the books of the bible countless times; some more than others. I know the stories by heart. I knew that Jesus prayed to God in the garden, I knew it was hard for him, etc, etc. I never actually gave this passage any thought. 
Think about it, Jesus knew that within moments, one of his followers would betray him, and he would be lead away to a shameful, embarrassing, slow tortuous death; so that humans for hundreds of generations could live their inherently disgusting, hypocritical, sin-filled lives and still have a chance at living in heaven for all of eternity. He knew all of this, and yet he prayed to God his father that we would have the same glory that God bestowed on him. 
What amazing love. 


Here's another amazing thought: In Ephesians 5:25 God told men to love and cherish their wives the same sacrificial way that Jesus does the church. Now, the church isn't a building. The church is the people. Men, you are to love your wives the same way that Jesus loves us: deeply and unconditionally. 


God has done some amazing things...from the creation of the world to the human psyche, my favorite thing that he created in this universe is LOVE. True, deep, love. Not the love found in high school, the love that Jesus had for us, and the way that God modeled the relationship between a man and a woman in a biblical marriage to be the same deep emotion, the love that is felt when first meeting your newborn child, the love that keeps families together, the love between true friends; love binds us all together. 


Perfectly. 

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

{{-Louis De Bernieres}} 

Tim McGraw

My dearest most amazing boyfriend Jim is stationed at Camp Pendleton at the Wounded Warrior battalion due to a motorcycle accident. {Here's a link to the Wounded Warrior Project...some of the stuff they're

doing for these guys is amazing...http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/}

While this is a really really terrible thing...just like anything else bad, there is a silver lining.

:)

The battalion gets really cool opportunities for the Marines and their families, like tickets to sports games, celebrities coming to visit and show support, free dinner every few weeks...and today; a special meet and greet with none other than Tim McGraw.

I was, as you can probably imagine, so excited. Tim McGraw is AWESOME! He's an amazing singer, treats his wife SO well, is such a great person...I couldn't wait to shake his hand and take a picture with him.

Tim McGraw!!

Unfortunately, it was less of a meet and more of a greet. But still, I got to see Tim McGraw a little bit closer than a lot of people.

It was interesting to learn about Tim McGraw's foundation, named after his father, the Tug McGraw Foundation {link here: http://www.tugmcgraw.org/home.asp} dedicated to Tim's father. Here's their mission:

"The Tug McGraw Foundation was established prior to his death in 2004 to enhance the quality of life of children and adults with brain tumors. In 2009, TMF expanded its programs to include Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The Tug McGraw Foundation collaborates and partners with other organizations so that they can accelerate new treatments and cures to improve quality of life in areas of physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual impact of those debilitating conditions." As a survivor of a brain injury I think this is AWESOME. It's really great to see stuff happening with brain issues, a lot of it was still a mystery, even 3 years ago.



{in other news!}

In 5 minutes it will be tomorrow, and we will have a countdown of 4 days {THURSDAYYY!} until Jim's MC Ball!! I am so excited!



“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”
{Audrey Hepburn}

Blessed beyond measure

I have found myself incapable of successfully keeping a blog in the past. When I did write posts, it was to evade homework that was most likely due within hours of the post.

I find myself needing to find an outlet to vocalize my thoughts in a way that I won't be the only one hearing them. Well, me or whoever is around me to hear my lunatic-style mutterings. That doesn't present a very good first impression.
So, we'll try again and see how it works.
I'm determined to have more self control. Maybe doing something like this and creating a routine for my life might help.


My life recently:
{School}... is taking forever. The ins and outs of the system keeps changing! As soon as I know whats happening and I get comfortable...BAM! Add on another year until I can get my bachelors!

{Work}... Well I'm currently a "stay at home daughter" (term coined by my dear friend Brittany) doing dishes, cooking dinner, and cleaning up once in a while. For some, probably nothing different than their day to day, but as I was gone all the time previously, this is new for me.
This upcoming week I'm finding myself in a spot where due dates for bills are coming and I have no income....so I think its to the unemployment office for me until I find a suitable job that God wants me in. He will provide, He always does.

{Love life}....
Oh, I have been so blessed. God has given me the most amazing man. Eight months has flown by, but I feel that I've known him for years. He has always been the "take care of dates" type, but since I was laid off, he has taken on the role of taking care of me. No one really asked him to, he just did. I have no idea what I would have done without him. I love him so much, just thinking of seeing his face gives me butterflies. I had no idea I was capable of this much love...and then the next day comes and I love him even more :)


Speaking of love, tonight is my church's Thanksgiving potluck...I can't WAIT to go eat a little bit too much of everyone's amazing food and spend time catching up, laughing, and enjoying God's blessings. :)


{Psalm 67:1-2}
"May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations."