Like A Bombshell

I don't always wake up in the morning and feel fabulous, but when I do I cherish that feeling because it doesn't happen all the time.

I wasn't able to get a picture of today's work makeup but after waking up feeling pretty awesome and then doing really awesome things to my face I felt like a bombshell. I wanted to good a photo shoot for a magazine I had so much confidence in my appearance at that moment in time. Now, I have no idea if  it all stayed that any though out the course of the day but that is not the point :)

I get to see Catherine tomorrow and I am just so beside myself with excitement! I have no idea what we are going to do but I am sure it will be fantastic!

Storyline challenge: I am supposed to include the lyrics to my favorite song to complete today's challenge but I'm not even sure what my favorite song is so I'll be cheeky and use to lyrics to ONE OF my favorite songs!

Bombshell Blonde-  Owl City 

That blonde, she's a bomb, she's an atom bomb.

Rigged up, and ready to drop!

Bad news, I'm a fuse, and I've met my match.

So stand back, it's about to go off!

That vixen, she's a master of disguise!

I see danger, when I look in her eyes.

She's so foxy, she could lead to my demise.

So I'm running, 'cause I've run out of time.

She’s a bombshell blonde, wired up to detonate!

I’m James Bond, live to die another day!

Bombshell blonde, high explosive dynamite!

She’s all I want so I, I’m on a mission tonight!

(I, I'm on a mission tonight!)

Her love is a drug laced with ecstasy,

And her charm is spiked with a spell.

A hot mess in a dress gets the best of me.

She's ice cold, but she's making me melt!

That vixen, she's a master of disguise!

I see danger, when I look in her eyes.

She's so foxy, she could lead to my demise.

So I'm running, 'cause I've run out of time.

She’s a bombshell blonde, wired up to detonate!

I’m James Bond, live to die another day!

Bombshell blonde, high explosive dynamite!

She’s all I want so I, I’m on a mission tonight!

That vixen, she's a master of disguise!

I see danger, when I look in her eyes.

She's so foxy, she could lead to my demise.

So I'm running, 'cause I've run out of time.

She’s a bombshell blonde, wired up to detonate!

I’m James Bond, live to die another day!

Bombshell blonde, high explosive dynamite!

She’s all I want so I, I’m on a mission tonight!

That vixen, she's a master of disguise!

I see danger, when I look in her eyes.

She's so foxy, she could lead to my demise.

So I'm running, 'cause I've run out of time.

She’s a bombshell blonde, wired up to detonate!

I’m James Bond, live to die another day!

Bombshell blonde, high explosive dynamite!

She’s all I want so I, I’m on a mission tonight!

I, I'm on a mission tonight!

I, I'm on a mission tonight!

(I, I'm on a mission tonight!)

I, I'm on a mission tonight!

(I, I'm on a mission tonight!)

I, I'm on a mission tonight!

(I, I'm on a mission tonight!)

I, I'm on a mission tonight!

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.

This is Routine

But I'm too tired to finish the post so ill do it tomorrow


So I was given a mini-vacation from work for three days. And then I went to work for 6 hours. I came home and I was so exhausted I barely made the "I'm too tired to write this" post above.

Anyway, I know that I previously posted about routine and how I've never really experienced it. I know that now that I am home I've been thrown into routine and that I'm getting restless hence all the challenges I gave myself. It was rest day for ab challenge which is fantastic because I would have died. Anyway, the lack of routine that came from those three days off threw me for a loop. I ended up going to bed like 4 hours later than usual and then waking up at odd hours and then I was tossed back into work life. I will definitely be more careful next time.

Storyline challenge: Favorite Hobby

If I am being honest, my favorite hobby is probably paddle making which is something I picked up from my sorority. I won't have the opportunity to that. probably ever again. My next favorite hobby would be stalking social media and writing this blog. My third would have to be anything and everything Disney related.

Starting Something New

- www.big-apple-red.blogspot.com

I include this today because today is many things. For one, today is the First of July which means I am starting ab challenge again and I am planning out makeup looks to post about and I'm going to walk my dog everyday. I'm excited for these new challenges. They will give me SOMETHING to do other than the normal "Work, kids, boring" post. I can only post that so many times before I want to blow my own head off.

Today is also the literal half way point in the year. There are 365 days and today is day 182. Technically, if you were to divide 365 by 2 it would equal 182.5 so the post comes late in the day so that it is almost to the 183rd day. I know I posted about it being halfway over at the beginning of June and that was because June was 6 of 12 months. Today is literally halfway over. Whoa.

I have learned so many things about myself through this process and I really think that I have grown in these last six months. Yes I'm still afraid for fifty years from now but I am not so worried about my life right now and graduate school and my possible career options. I am strong and I have the abilities to accomplish what I want to do and I know that I am capable for achieving greatness.

Work Real Hard

"The ONLY way to get what you want in this world is through hard work!"- Tiana- Princess and the Frog- 2009

Clearly I couldn't decide on quotes or pictures today *however* I did decide to try cooking real food today! It is one of my goals to learn how to cook. I understand how to make things via instructions on the back of boxes and I REALLY like how I make corn casserole (its really fattening and has a ton of carbs and butter and cheese and its delicious let me tell you) but I want to be able to make something from memory or scratch without following the back of my mac and cheese box. Today I took a first step and baked some chicken. It's a small effort and not really that hard but I'm the kind of cook who decided she would rather figure out how to make bean burritos than fajitas. How long cooking can take drives me insane. I don't want to wait two hours for my old to be done. I barely want to wait fifteen minutes! And that is why actually taking the hour and ten minutes to prep and cook my chicken is a big deal to me. 

I have an interesting relationship with being patient. It would be better for my physical and mental health if I could be patient all the time but when it comes to food my patience flies out the window. Gone. It tells me "what you actually want to wait? Uh uh, no, not happening. Goodbye girl, you're on your own." This will be something to work on. The only way I am going to get better at cooking and gain a knack for it is by working at it. Hard. So I would like to add the challenge of trying three new recipes a month to my ever growing list of activities and things to accomplish. I believe in me. Blue skies and sunshine! 

That was literally my face when I finished my chicken. I officially understand Tiana's pride in this picture.