Right or Wrong, We'll Write Our Own Storyline

The second day of class has been completed, Ilysa and I heard back from another potential group site, my hair cooperated this morning, and Peter gave me a card for absolutely no reason other than he wanted to ^_^

I also won a free smal plate as part of Carabbas 1 million meals giveaway. Is this a sign that I should play the powerball? I'll think about it some more tomorrow while I'm at work. What is interesting about today is that there has been lots that's gone well. I know that sounds odd to find that interesting but it's true. Things don't usually go well all day and they have and I am grateful for that.  Now I just need to get back to the goals I wrote in my planner and survive practicum on Thursday. We got this

Now, I should probably explain why I chose today's song lyrics. I'm a firm believer in choice and you get what give. Today reminds me of that in some ways. For instance, I gave a homeless man a cookie and he was thankful; I'm thankful for today being a good day. The lyrics don't fit 110% but I feel like Mr. Hayes' words remind us that no matter what choice we make, it is making the choice that counts. I choose to have the rest of the week be a good one. 

What Are Boundaries?

On a happier note, today consisted of lots of nephew time and new makeup which I will probably post about in depth within the next few days. I was able to snag the face products from the Katy Perry Covergirl Instaglam/ Ready Set Gorgeous collection which is supposed to be pretty neat. I'm really excited to try it!

Ab challenge is going to happen in a little bit and I'm hoping it goes okay.  I did exercise yesterday so I don't think my body is out of the routine but we shall see. Storyline line challenge for today is about boundaries/guardrails. I'm not actually sure I possess these to be honest with you. I don't really have personal boundaries until it comes to my nephew and crawling on me. There's nothing I won't talk about if I'm asked about it and I try to experience everything at least once. I guess my main boundary (if you even consider it one) is that I don't like to break social rules in front of people. I also don't like to break the law which I have been taunted for but that doesn't really bother me. Good choices get you good things, bad choices get you bad things. 

To Adventure Island

... And Back Again, A Hobbit's tale by Bilbo Baggins.

Obviously not but this post has to wait until tomorrow because home girl is exhausted and this post is a doozy.

Updated 7/10

I haven't been to Adventure Island in about a year and when I went last it was for a five year old's birthday. I had no one to really do anything with and I didn't want to do a lot on my own so I only did like four things. This visit to the water park was way more productive! Alexis and I got there around 1:45 because I had to work 6am-12 and then we had to go buy sunscreen. When we got there, all of the slides unfortunately had to close because there was lightning in the area. Eventually all of the rides were shut down and it remained that way for about an hour. In that hour, pretty much half of the people at the park left which worked in our favor because lo and behold, everything reopened. 

In the 4 hours we had left at the park we were able to ride all of the tubing rides and do three of the slides. I also walked up enough sets of stairs to make up for the fact that it was an ab challenge rest day. That's pretty productive in my opinion! It was Alexis' first visit but she had tons of fun! Can't wait to go back!

Now, on to the reason I call this post a doozy. 

The Storyline challenge for today is to write about something you've over come. My initial reaction to that is: "Where do I start?" I think that's a fair question to be honest. Do I talk more my childhood in relation to growing up with a single mother, on welfare, who was a hoarder and who was ridiculously manipulative? Do I talk about the crackd dealers who lived down the block in the projects? Do I talk about being the first one in my family to graduate with a highschool diploma or to go to college? About being an orphan?

And then I came to realization that I haven't *really* told the story as to how I became an orphan which is honestly the biggest thing I've overcome.  If you've made it this far and you want to continue, you rock. 

On with the story:

I was 8 years old when my mother first started to show signs of being sick. I can't remember what exactly her symptoms were but I remember many doctor visits, hospital visits, CAT scans, MRI's, tests, second opinions. I went to each one, there was no where else to go. First they said it was MS. Then they said it was dementia. No 50 year old thinks dementia is the cause of their problems. An 8 year old barely knows what that is. But, when you give it the name Alzheimer's then it starts to click a little more. The doctors explained that the form of dementia my mother had was really rare and that it had been seen in people as young as 38. And this form of dementia was not a pretty one. 

Essentially, what was going to happen was plaque was going to start forming over sections of her brain for things like language, motor skills, memory, and eventually involuntary functions liks breathing and digestion. She was going to go backwards from the 50 year old that she was to behaving like an infant. And she did, for the next eight years. I help her take care of herself until I was 10. This meant that I helped her remember to do things like take her medicine and what ever else I could do.  I don't know what all she did while I was at school everyday, but I do remember her being late (really late) to pick me up quite a bit. 

Her sisters (she had four at the time) tried to help but from I knew about them (from my mother) they didn't actually want to. I later learned that my mother was a difficult person to help and that eventually you just had to stop trying. We eventually ended up in government housing and my mother was slowly losing her ability to speak which is where I picked up my stutter from. 

This is where my sister comes in. She had moved to a different state about two years before my mother got sick. And from what I know of the situation, she hadn't really been aware of how bad things had gotten. When she found out exactly what was going on she packed up her life, said "I have to go, my baby sister needs me and I have no idea if we'll see each other again" to the man who is now her husband, and moved back here. That's when the dynamic changed a little. I went from having to be a parent to not having to be a parent and having someone else taking care of us. At first it was just trying to help with a better quality of life but then my mother forgot how to drive.

 We moved in with my sister when I was in 7th grade and when she relocated my mom, my mom got worse which we were warned could happen. Things started to happen quicker after that. She started to lose her ability to make meals for herself, bathe herself, and her speech changed even more, At this point, she was trapped in her mind and that is really frustrating. So she would scream and cry, for hours. And then, right before my sister got married, she forgot how to use the bathroom on her own.

Quicker and quicker she got more and more child like. Think The Curious Case of Benjamin Button but without the physical regression in age. I remember being 14 years old and dancing with her in her little house behind the main house and asking her if she remembered who I was. She didn't answer me, she just smiled and kept bopping about. So I asked her if she knew my name. All she did was dance.

She had to be moved into a home soon after. i only went to cisit her once, i couldn't stand iseeing her there. She died on November 30th, 2008. I had been 16 years old for 28 days. 

I left out a ton of details but the take away for that is, I lost both of my parents. Yes, I had my sister but she wasn't my mother. Technically speaking, I should have been a ward of the state and then put in a kin home which would have been my sister's but I fell through the cracks. This ended up working to my advantage when it came to college but that doesn't make up for the fact that I only got 8 real years with my mother. That she wasn't there for my high school or college graduation and she won't be there for any of the other milestones I've yet to come across. But, I don't think I would have been as strong of an individual as I am if I hadn't gone through that. I wouldn't be so eager to help others and I wouldn't be so protective of people. 

My Best Friend(s)

**It's a long post but if you actually read it you'll learn something? maybe? have fun**

Other than work and the my dramatic guilty pleasure of "Teen Wolf," I would have literally nothing to post about if I wasn't doing these challenges. Ab challenge from yesterday was difficult. That rest day threw me for a loop in the plank and in the sit up department. I am hoping that today's goes a little smoother.

The Storyline challenge for today is to write about my best friend. What if I don't have one?






Obviously I have friends. Who else is going to read the ridiculousness that is this blog (self-deprecating sense of humor friends will laugh at this) but what if I don't have a "best friend?"

You know how people say they have their best friends and then they have their BEST friend? Well, I've never quite understood that. If a person is more/less than your best friend, label them as such. Best friend makes people feel like they are the best i.e. there is no one better than them so technically speaking you can't have more than one with the label best friends. Best of friends maybe. I like to think of your best friend as the first person you, without a doubt/second thought/ moment of hesitation, make your maid of honor/best man and/or the godmother or father to your child. That, in my opinion, is what your "best friend" should be. Up until a year and a half ago, I would have answered the question "Who is your best friend?" with "Amanda. Hands down Amanda," but things and people change. We're still friends but we're not quite where we used to be, at least not on my end. And that is both of our fault's as much as she would venomously disagree with me. I promised a post about her a while back so this one is the day I guess.

 Amanda and I were what best friends should be considered. We were sisters. There wasn't anyone else, FOR 16 YEARS, that could hold a candle to this girl on my friend scale. She was the most trusted, most fun, most EVERYTHING friend. We were Fred and George, Batman and Robin, CORY AND SHAWN, Mario and Luigi, Mary-Kate and Ashley! We were planning each others weddings and dreaming about college and our careers. We were the constant to each others' inconsistency. We were each others routine when our families didn't offer one. Then things went a little wonky. I'm not going to sit here and type out the whole story; it's four hours if I tell the last 6 years of  it out loud. I'm also not going to sit here and say " she did this and this and this and then I hated her and then this happened" because, even though for quite a long time I viewed it that way, that isn't what happened. I can tell you that some of our problems started with me being possessive. I hadn't quite figured out yet that she was above the level of your typical best friend and I heard her call someone else her best friend and that mildly freaked me out. So, I started acting really weird until I could resolve all of it myself. She contributed to our 'falling out' with her own issues that I am not at liberty to disclose because they are not my issues. My reactions to the consequences of her issues wasn't what it would be now and so it put us on edge. I did what I though would help and then things got really shakey. And then the real trouble started. Three years worth of people and passive aggressive-ness and websites and nonsense and lack of medication and more trying to help and bullshit and drama and moving out and not talking and more bullshit later things have changed. We're still Fred and George but its not like it was. I don't know if she can feel it but I can. We've been friends since kindergarten so I knew (even when I TYPED THE WORDS "I don't think we're friends anymore") that we could never not be friends. No matter how furious I was with her for (at the time) what I considered was throwing her life away I knew that I would get over it eventually. And I just knew that she had to as well. Will she end up being my maid of honor at the wedding that I will most likely never have? Probably. But if I'm being honest, I will probably choose her because I feel obligated because I've known her the longest and because I wanted it to be her for so many years. Will I be hers at the wedding she will also most likely never have? I have no idea. We're working on things. It's like fighting with a family member, unless you're a stubborn ass of a person you can't keep fighting with them forever. You love them too much. You've been through too much and you sure as hell can't imagine life without them.



Now that her story has been told, I do have to add that when you use the everyday version of "Best Friend" I have so many of them. Alexis, Brandi, Brett, Ilana, Luis, my amazing Big and Littles, the brightness of life that is Catherine, Greg, Kayla, and Brianna have all been called my best friend at some point or another and that is because they represent the best of my friends. I think the reason I have such a hard time with that label is because I'm a fan of loyalty and I feel like I'm cheating on every single one of them as a write the this post. I won't lie and say there isn't a hierarchy among those friends (which is really based of my weird loyalty to when I met these friends) but even with that being said, these people have changed me as a person. They have impacted the way I think, feel, and act. I adore each and everyone of them because they are my best friends and I couldn't have made it as far in this world as I have without their endless support and love. I trust and respect and love every single one of them and I can't imagine what it would be like to lose even a single one.

Even as I finish this massive wall of text that I have left for the poor readers, I still feel like there is more to say, like I haven't gotten my point across about the best friend thing but I am going to chalk that up to me not wanting to step on anyone's toes. If any of the people who are mentioned in this post read it and feel offended that it isn't solely about them then I guess they didn't know as well as I thought.

Fourth of July

Was spent at Amanda's and shopping/movies with my cousin. I also did some work for the twitter account I am co-owner of and so far it is going okay!

I did another make up look today but none of the pictures really came out well.

This selfie though makes me laugh. So there's that. 

Our Fourth of July nonsense consisted of movies and shows and these: 

The Storyline challenge for today is doodle your feelings but I can't do that on my tablet and I have no paper but if I could it would look like the Jimmy Neutron symbol. 

First of Four?

Besides ab challenge and the storyline challenge, July is also when I decided I would play with my make up and dress up and what not at least once a week. This is one of the dresses I bought with Ilana a couple weeks ago and I'm absolutely in love with it! I like how my makeup turned out but I wish that I was able to picture it better. My eyes are really hooded so its a little difficult to get a good picture of the eye makeup.

Also, I am visiting Amanda for the next two days!

Storyline challenge: 10 Likes and Dislikes

Likes:

1. I can dance

2. I tend to think before I speak

3. I can say the alphabet backwards

4. I want to help people

5. I've grown since high school

6. My relationship with my sister has gotten better

7. I believe in myself and others

8. My nose

9. I can kind of sing

10. The way I do my makeup

Dislikes:

1. I'm not better at doing my makeup

2. I'm 40 pounds heavier than I want to be

3. The way my neck and my chin meet

4. My handwriting

5. My lack of self-esteem about the way I look

6. I never feel like I take a good picture

7. I'm easy to sneak up on

8. I can be obnoxious 

9. I'm clumsy

10. I don't think I'll ever get married 

Day Number One

Day 1 is complete! July has 31 days so I decided to start the an challenge today so that I finish on the 31st. The first three days are really easy but it will be the second set of three where I start to have problems because of the plank. The ten second plank today was already a little challenging and I am not really sure why. I can bench 80 pounds (sooooo impressive right?) and I can curl 50 but when it comes to push ups/planks my arms turn to complete jello. I don't anticipate having any other issues until the 5th set of days.

Another challenge was started today as well! A really cool fan account for Hunter Hayes made this project for fans(or anyone really, you don't have to be a die hard Hunter fan to want to feel better about yourself) to use the next 30 days to write their own storyline. The first day is "how you see yourself." This blog has had many a post about my feelings and how I see myself but I guess today I shall re-live some of them. How I see my self fluctuates. One day I feel like a superstar and like I am capable of anything and then other days I feel ridiculously inadequate. This is normal. the people you surround yourself with do have an impact on how you feel about your self but fortunately for me and envy one else the final decisions is up to us. Do you let yourself feel belittled and weak or do you tell you sparsely that you are strong and capable? That is your choice. I tend to pick the latter.

Aside from restarting ab challenge and starting the storyline challenge, today has consisted of lots of Facebook and Twitter. I also returned some items at Walmart and babysat for a little bit but that isn't of any real importance. I was supposed to see some of my sisters today but due to some scheduling errors those plans did not happen. Plans are being made with other people for the rest of the week though. 

A Wild Card

HUNTER HAYES THREW ALL OF US ONE TODAY!!! 

Last night on his VLOG there was a message that said a special announcement would be coming today. I figured it was a new single but I'm never that lucky so I brushed it off. When I woke up this morning I discovered that there was a new single, the album is available for pre-order, AND you didn't have to pre-order the album to get the single!! The single is called "Wild Card" and it's very early Keith Urban. It's up tempo and very fun to listen to although a bit juvenile. Regardless, I bought it and you should too!!!

iTunes-> Hunter Hayes-> Storyline-> "Wild Card" and "Invisible" (IT'S FOR CHARITY!!) 

ALSO!! I HAVEN'T HAD SODA IN 70 DAYS!!! SHDKFUJFKCUSJJ. And on the 70th day of blogging I got really really sick. I went to work and dis my job but I feel awful :( If you would like to make me feel better, please donate here: 

Http://noles4kids.kintera.org/katibowen