when i feel you i forget to breathe

I decided tonight that I'm going to write down all the little things John does that make me fall for him all over again.

Someday, I'd love to be able to tell my children about the man who stole my heart over and over again - the little things he did that meant so much to me.

For example...it's October. My favorite month. Why is it my favorite month? The leaves are pretty, the air is crisp, everything smells good, I get to wear sweaters, and it's Halloween. You knew that was coming, right? Of course you did. I love Halloween, mostly because I love to dress up. For one night, my inner five year old is allowed to come out, and no one will make fun of me. So, since October 1st, I've been bugging John to do all sorts of October-y things with me - hike under the leaves, carve pumpkins...and dress up with me on Halloween. I don't even really ask him to dress up, I just ask him what we're dressing up as - as if he has no choice. He always replies that he's not dressing up. I pout, and ten minutes later we go through it all over a gain. Quite frustrating when you love Halloween, no? Anyway, I wasn't expecting him to dress up with me - he didn't last year and it was fine. I just like busting him about it ; )

Today, when he came home from work, he says to me, guess what! My guess? What!! (Original, I know). I got a Halloween costume, he said. YOU DID!? Yes - I really was that excited. He stopped during his route and got a Joker mask - so I am going to be Cat Woman (because we have to match, of course). Tomorrow night we are off in search of cat ears.

Tonight, before he went to bed, I thanked him for getting a costume and told him that it made my day. His reply? I knew it would.

THAT is why I want to write all of these moments down.

i love you and that's all i really know

I lost five pounds last week, the right way. Yay for me, for once.

It's really cold in this house, my fingers are frozen. Not really, but they are the kind of cold where I have to sit on them to warm them up. Same with my feet, but its harder to sit on those. ;)

I need to get motivated. For what, I don't know. I just know I need to get my butt in gear and feel productive. Which is odd, considering I've been more productive with school this semester than I have in the last two years. I want to start working out again but I don't know where I'd possible squeeze that in. I want to clean out my dresser and closet but that requires lots of hours of my time that I'm not willing to give up on the weekend. Speaking of, I already miss John and want the weekend to be here now...JUST so we can have another pillow fight. =)

It's quarter to 12 and I am not in bed yet. I'm so going to be mad at myself in the morning. I'm too busy downloading music, obviously far more important than sleep. We'll see what I think about that at 6:30 when the alarm goes off.

weekend recap

John carving our pumpkin, who I have yet to name.

Us with our pumpkin. It only took about half an hour to carve him. Yes, it's a him.

Christy and I at the party. We never get to see each other anymore.

Milo, standing guard. No one is allowed to enter his house.

Our pumpkin, lit up. Boo!

We lost cable, phone, and TV last Saturday from a bad storm. A tree limb fell into the wires outside, and ended up just chillin in the wires for a day. Luckily, that wire prevented the limb from falling into my dad's windshield. Everything happens for a reason! The tree people came and cut the limb out so that we could at least leave the driveway, and the cable company came today to restore our phone/TV/internet.

Tonight I asked John a question. It went something like this:

Me: What do you want for Christmas?
John: I have you, I don't need anything else.
Me: -melt-

=)

lucy

Things to be happy about:

1. Tomorrow is Friday - thank goodness for weekends, they keep me sane.
2. My grandparent's inherited a good chunk of money from a relative, and should be able to go to Sweden like they've always wanted to.
3. I cleaned the cats box and scrubbed their food bowls and vacuumed out their food area, which I've been meaning to do all week.
4. I officially have only six and a half weeks of classes left.
5. Lucy has a new routine of sleeping on my belly while I read before bed and it makes me love her even more for being so cute.
6. I get to see Milo tomorrow!
7. I ate PERFECT all week.
8. My car is still clean, after nearly five months of owning her. Impressive, considering I used to let cars get so cluttered that you couldn't tell them apart from a trash can if you tried.
9. Did I mention it's almost the weekend?

i'll hold my breath

My family got some sad news that our neighbor of 18 years passed away unexpectedly in a car accident Monday afternoon. Life is just not fair...I don't understand why these things don't happen to the bad people in the world. Why don't the murderers, child molesters, rapists, and arsonists ever get in car accidents and die? Why is it always the good people?

These kinds of things make me feel so guilty. I truly feel so bad for the family; I wish I could do something to ease their pain. Yet at the same time, I feel so lucky to have what I have...and I feel guilty for feeling so happy amidst this sadness. It feels wrong to feel joy and love and all these good things that I have, but I can't help it - I just feel it. This situation terrifies the absolute shit out of me - that someone just like me could have something like this happen to them and that the good things I do have could be torn away at a moment's notice.  I don't know, these things just suck. I never know what to make of them, or what to say, or what to do. I guess there isn't much you can do for people who are in this situation, because nothing will bring him back. Can you imagine that? What it feels like? I'm doing research on this topic for a class, and none of it makes me understand this any better than I do now. The textbooks say that you can't understand death until you've experienced it yourself, and I suppose that has a lot of truth to it. And if that's the case, I never want to understand death.

And while we're on the topic of death, I took my Death and Dying midterm tonight and I think I did pretty well. We'll see next week. I'm doing really well this semester, I have nothing below a 95. Shocking, considering my lack of effort concerning school for the last year and a half. I hope I can keep it up through December, I'd love to get my GPA back above 3.65.

I have pictures of my new haircut. I guess it doesn't look that different, it's cut a bit different but unless you really studied my hair before you wouldn't notice the difference. I can't believe the election is so soon. I still don't like any of the candidates very much. Especially Palin. Amanda has an glorious captioned picture of her in an astronaut suit with "I can see the moon from my house!" bubbled in. AMAZING.

I am still looking forward to Saturday, despite having to go to the funeral. We are taking Milo for his shots at 11:30, and later in the afternoon we have the pumpkin carving party. Have I mentioned that I LOVE AUTUMN??

New Haircut:

(I HATE my cheeks. Why couldn't I have been born with skinny cheeks?!)

i'm a girl with the best intentions

If you can, you should download a song by Grace Potter & Bethany Joy Galeotti - "I Want Something That I Want." I got mine on iTunes for $0.99 and it's a glorious two minutes and three seconds.

Today I got my Immigration midterm back. I don't remember if I wrote about this, but I took this midterm last Tuesday. It was six short answers and two essays, and it had to be done in one hour and fifteen minutes. No problem, right? No. I took the entire 75 minutes and I had to write the last essay in the last five minutes of the exam - it should have been a five paragraph, cohesive essay proving a point. I pieced together what I could in five minutes, hoping I fit all the main ideas into the argument in a way that made sense to someone besides just me. I was sure I'd lose a lot of points on that essay - it wasn't that logical, or legible, or lengthy. I even told John how upset I was when I got home that night - that I studied so hard for it and KNEW the answer, but simply ran out of time. When she handed them back today, I opened mine up and much to my surprise, I got a 100. It made my entire headache filled day worthwhile.

John and I are going to a pumpkin carving party on Saturday, which I am ridiculously excited for. I love this time of year, and carving pumpkins, and apple cider, and being in good company. Totally looking forward to this.

Oh, and this is what I woke up to on Sunday morning. Be Jealous.

Yes, he cooked me pancakes. They were oh so yummy. He's the best. =)

productive-ness

Today was productive. I love productive days. I wrote my entire Literature Review for Immigration that's due tomorrow, did a bunch of old math homework, cleaned the kitchen, and managed to fit in One Tree Hill.

Tomorrow night I have to be productive and study for my Death and Dying exam on Wednesday, and continue to be productive until I get that paper finished. Shouldn't be too hard, I just need to actually do some legit research on it. I already did my interview, I just have to piece it together with academic proof.

Then I have to be productive and study for my Gender exam and Math exam, both of which are on October 30th.

Then I have to be productive and do my immigration paper, which will be fun because the assignment is to tell my family's immigration story. Totally easy, since my family is oh-so-awesome and keeping all that stuff around. Speaking of, last week I was going through some of my great-grandfather's things with my mom, and she gave me an entire box of love letters that he sent to my great-grandmother, and the ones that she sent to him. How cool is that? My uncles have some of his bank books, and one of them has the original saw that he brought over with him from Sweden. (Kinda crazy that if anyone tried to bring a power tool across the ocean today, they'd be a terrorist). I already know most of my history, so it will be easy to write. Even if it has to be at least 12 pages.

Then I have to write an 8 page reflective analysis of what I learned over 16 weeks in my Race, Class, Gender course. That's not till December, but since I'm making a list of what I have to do before the semester is over, I figured I'd include it.

On a brighter note, I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. Not dyed, yet.  I'm still debating that one. ;)

nobody wants to go it on their own, everyone wants to know they're not alone

I'm loving Nickelback's new single. They are the only band on my top five list that I have not seen live yet. Someday...

But anyway. I heard it on the radio today on my way home. Nickelback is a special band to me, their music meant a lot during a pretty crappy time and whenever I heard their music, it reminds me of that time. Of being heartbroken, missing someone so bad I thought it was the worst pain imaginable, and not even knowing how to put my life together. I listen them, and they remind me of this one person, and this time period, and it makes me feel nostalgic. It reminds me of how naive and young I was. And usually, I don't like listening to the band for that very reason, even though I love their music.

This song is about yearning for that person, that one person who will make your heart beat a million beats per second, that person whose smile can melt your heart. It's about waiting for that person and having faith that he or she will find you and make you whole. It's about how we all want the same thing, how we all need our other half to go on the big, scary, unknown journey of life with. Today, I listened to this song and it just made me so insanely happy... jumping up and down-grinning ear to ear-so happy I could explode-happy. Why? Because I have my person.

The song is about yearning, wanting, waiting, hoping, praying for your person. I have mine. The song makes me feel so good, so thankful, so blessed to have something so powerful and strong that so many people don't have.

My mom told me a month after John and I started seeing each other that she knew something was different this time. After about a year, she told my sister (who then told me) that she thinks I will marry John. And you know what? I never really thought about it that much until recently. I'm not saying I want to get married anytime soon...but I can see myself with John for the long haul. I can see myself marrying him. I knew when I met him that there was something different about him. He chose to stick by my side during some really hard times. He is everything I ever wanted in somebody...and he makes me feel whole.

January 2008

today, i am a slug.

I got my period today. I hate it, for many reasons:

-I get insanely tired. I overslept through my alarm today and missed my first class. And I was just about falling asleep during the classes I actually made it to, and ended up leaving early.  If I could, I'd be able to sleep for 20 hours on the first day of my period, THAT'S how wiped out I get.
-I get cravings. For chocolate. For three days before I actually get my period. And especially bad on the first day. Case in point? Today when I brought Erin to work at the bakery, I caved into my overzealous estrogen levels and bought a giant homemade chocolate chunk cookie. Yes, they are as bad for you as they sound. But ohhh so tempting when chocolate is on your mind. Luckily, it was about as big as Cooper's frisbee and I couldn't eat more than two or three bites.
-I pee, a lot. Which gets to be quite annoying when I try to sleep, you know, because I get so tired.
-Cramps. I feel like someone stuck a knife into my uterus and is pretending to cut up a loaf of bread. OW.
-Migraine. Irritable. Over-sensitive. Sore boobs. Yep. All of this.
-Oh, and did I mention that I always gain about five pounds? Yep. For three days, I feel like I need to be wearing a bigger size jeans just to accommodate the extra five pounds of water taking up space in my body. Thanks, water weight.

This is why guys should be thankful for their testosterone.

My new plan is to start watching what I eat - not necessarily counting calories, because I don't want to go back down that road, but just plain eating healthier. And drinking more water. And making sure I do those dreaded pilates DVDs during the week. Why? Because I've read and heard that eating well and getting enough exercise and regularly drinking a lot of water helps minimize the pain of getting your period. For real. It's suppose to make cramps better, irritability better, all of it. I just feel like a giant chocolate chip cookie eating, extra five pounds, overtired slug today. And if I can NOT feel like that next month, well that'd be just awesome.

do you have a something?

Still working on the hair thing! I have an apointment to get it cut next Tuesday...so maybe I'll attempt dying it on my own, instead of paying a hundred dollars? Cheap = GOOD.

I am tired, cold, and braindead tonight. I need a vacation, or just a day off from everything. My room is a disaster, I have to catch up on so much school work, and I'm just plain tired. I can't wait to sleep in on Saturday!

Here's a thought for you, from Frank Zappa - "Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence."  I think love is that something, for me, for right now. The past year and a half, the right now, the future...it's what gets me through the day in one piece. It's what makes me believe I can do anything, it's what makes me feel good about myself. It makes me smile, and laugh, and want to burst happiness out everywhere for everyone to experience.

What is your something?

brunette or blonde?

I'm recruiting everyone I know to tell me if they think I should go back to a dark brunette or stay blonde.

If it helps, I'm chopping my hair short again. I know it's short now, but I'm gonna take off a couple inches and layer it like it was four months ago.

So leave a comment and let me know what you think...I'm leaning towards dark, but my parents are insiting I should stay blonde.

-------------------------------------------

I had my Immigration midterm today...I knew everything, I just ran out of time and my second essay is kind of mish-mashed, but still has all the main ideas, so time will tell. I hope I did well, because I studied my butt off. I handed in my Race, Class & Gender midterm too...I'll be happy with a C, I didn't put much effort into it. I have a math quiz on Thursday and still have that big paper to write. I feel like I'll never get caught up. I can't freaking wait to graduate.

I miss Milo. And John. There are 80 days until Disney. I ate PMS cake tonight. Yum. I wish it was Friday.

it's a love story

Reasons why I love John THIS MUCH tonight:

-He finally told me he thinks my hair would look good darker for the winter.
-He let a surprise slip tonight, but the surprise was so cute and reminded me how sweet he is.
-He told me I'd get a 112 on my midterm
-He sent me a Happy Columbus Day text this morning.
-He's just so good looking!


Us, last Christmas. I heart him, lots and lots.

It's been a LONG day of studying for two midterms and ugly math homework that I don't understand. And that's just since 5:30! I had a whole day of boring, tedious work before that. I plan on doing nothing tomorrow afternoon until after dinner, and then I'll make myself do some research. I obviously need to catch up on Grey's from last week, Army Wives and One Tree Hill from this week. What a nerd.

a little piece of fall for you

This weekend was the perfect fall weekend, even if it was a little warm.

Friday night we didn't do much of anything, besides go to dinner and watch tv. Saturday we rolled out of bed around 1pm, which was fabulous. We met John's friend for a late lunch at the diner and I got the best chocolate chip pancakes EVER, second only to my mom's. Then we played frisbee with Cooper for a while, which he loooved.

That night, we went to the Portland Fair with two of John's friends. I love the fair, even though it's really small and boring. We saw my uncle's giant pumpkin (497.5 pounds!) and visited my parents at the coffee booth, and split the firemen's french fries. Later, John and I drove my brother back to Qunnipiac and got to see the campus and Andrew's dorm room.

Today we woke up and about a half hour later, John's sister showed up at the apartment. We left from there to go to her house for lunch on the grill with her and the boys. Then we took the two older boys to Wadsworth Falls in Middlefield, which was gorgeous! We hiked around the waterfall with them for about an hour, which was a lot of fun, especially because it was perfect weather.

[gallery]

1. The boys, running.
2. Gorgeous day, gorgeous picture =)
3. Waterfalllll!
4. The boys with Uncle Johnny
5. Gabriel in front of the waterfall
6. My love<3
7. Posing literally ten feet from the waterfall
8. Heading up the stairs
9. With Gabriel
10. With Jacob
11. John took this one of the stream =)

if they can't see you...

I wish I had more time in the day to eat better and exercise more. I have had so much homework recently that has to get done - take home exams, lit review, two research papers, and tons of reading - that I barely have time to shower and do laundry. My newest thing is that I want a recumbent bike so I can multi-task: read and bike at the same time. They only cost about $200 on amazon.com, so maybe my parents will feel generous on my birthday? =) Which, by the way, is in 48 days!

This week went by quickly - it's already almost Friday! The Portland Fair is this weekend and hopefully the weather is nice so John and I can go one night...if only for the hot apple cider and silly midway games. My brother is coming home tonight until Sunday, so hopefully we can do something with him too.

This made me laugh tonight:



...because Milo now recognizes the flea-spray bottle and runs like a mad-kitty when he sees John take it out ;)

its my favorite time of the year

First, to answer Jen's question: Starting around April, I began feeling nauseous ALL the time. I went to see lots of doctors, who couldn't explain why I felt sick constantly. I had procedures done, and still nothing was found out. In September they sent me to a stomach-emptying-study. This required me to fast for one day, and then go to the hospital for a 2-hour test. They fed me scrambled eggs that had radioactive ions in them, and they I laid under a big x-ray machine for 2 hours while it took pictures of how my stomach emptied its contents.

Come to find out, I have gastroparesis, which essentially means my stomach muscles cannot push food out (hence my term "paralyzed stomach"). They tell me it is a result of years of starving myself and throwing up. (Figures, right? After being healthy for a year, and on top of it all, THIS happens!) So now, I have to take a little pill thirty minutes before each meal, and it stimulates my stomach to contract and effectively digest food. Annoying, but so far it's working.  And it kicked my metabolism into gear and I've lost eight pounds. Yay!

---------------------------------

Today I realized that I never let myself live in the moment. I am always focused on some kind of agenda. Get work done, get homework done, get to class on time, pay my bills on time, do this, do that. Today was such a beautiful day and I realized an hour ago, once it was dark and too cold, that I missed out on a gorgeous fall day.

I was outside a lot today, walking between classes, but I never noticed the day. I knew it was sunny; I knew it was nice out. But I didn't stop to appreciate it. I think I should start doing that more - appreciating things while I have them, and not wishing differently or being too busy to really notice.



I love autumn. I love the leaves, the cool air, the cinnamon smell, the pumpkin carving, the mums, the crisp blue sky. So far, the weekends have all been rainy and I really hope that I get at least one good weekend this month. To go pick pumpkins, or go for a walk in the leaves, or just enjoy how GORGEOUS it is this time of year. And wear a sweater! A new sweater, preferably ;)

And I'll just repeat this, because it makes me happy to repeat it a million times: I am so lucky to have someone like John in my life. I love him so much I could burst and shoot happiness out everywhere. He's the best <3

october 6th, 2008

+Today is a very important day. It is John's 25th birthday. Unfortunately, it is also Monday, so I didn't have much of a chance to do anything special for him on his actual birthday. This weekend was full of birthday festivities, though. We went bowling with Josh on Friday, had a party at his sister's on Saturday, and a party here on Sunday. Tonight I took him out to dinner and gave him three wishes for anything he wants - but it has to be something I do for him, not something I buy. That makes it more meaningful right? =)

+Today was also the day I started my new job. I think it will be a good job. I like the people that I will be working with, a lot, and the work seems like it will be fairly easy once I catch on.

-I have school tomorrow and feel like I haven't done any school work in forever. I really have to get started on my Death and Dying paper which is due in four weeks. And my immigration paper. Ahhhhh!

+I weighed myself at John's tonight and lost eight pounds since starting my anti-paralyzed-stomach pills. YAY!

+Ohhh! And almost four weeks after the keying of John's mustang, Misty is finally home and looking brand new! Just in time for his birthday =)

best cat ever

I think John and I should start our own LOLcats business.

Milo passed out this weekend (literally...passed out) and we took advantage of the moment to capture some LOLcat worthy photos:

i smell birthday cake!

This weekend is going to birthdays, birthdays, birthdays! Saturday we are having a birthday party at John's sister for John's 25th and his nephew's 6th. Sunday we are having a birthday party here for John, my mom's, and my grandpa's birthdays. I went to the mall tonight to finish getting John's presents and have all but one wrapped.

I ordered a cake from C for Sunday, and they are delicious, mouth watering, fabulous cakes, so hopefully everyone likes it.



Speaking of, I hope I can actually eat the cake. I woke up today feeling kinda crappy, and now I'm sick to my stomach, achey, and my eyes are burning. I think this means I'm getting sick. John was just sick, so I most likely caught it from him.

Oh, and today, I was in the women's room at school, and there was a girl who DIDN'T WASH HER HANDS after using the bathroom. GROSS. I read somewhere that like, 1 in 6 people do not wash their hands after going to the bathroom. I cannot believe that. Maybe I caught something from the germs that must be on all the door handles from the 1 in 6 people who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom.

one more day

I went to work today, dreading it, but looking forward to it being my second to last day there. I went about most of the day just looking for something to do, because I dont want to start any big projects only to leave them hanging. Around 2:30, my boss comes up to me and says "Your last day is Friday?" and I say "yes."

He goes, "Have you thought about what you're going to do?....[insert awkward pause here]..."you know, as far as when you can pick up more hours?"

I didn't know exactly what to say. My first thought? Doing what??? I just resigned from my position. Apparently, when I gave him my letter of resignation (that he handed back to me without reading), he didn't stop to think that MAYBE, just maybe I'd taken another job. If he'd read the letter, he'd know that, of course.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to cause any unnecesssary tension, so I just was like...yeeeeah, I'll get back to you on that one.

Most people at work know I'm starting another job on Monday. How word didn't get around to my boss blows my mind, but I'm sure he will find out sooner or later...because we all know gossip spreads like wildfire at PCRC.