a new day.

(picture hubby took one morning and sent from work... yes, I said "work")

I've been trying to hard to re-motivate myself. I think that maybe I'm finally on the right track. I haven't been writing much, though I've been thinking about it daily. I'm not sure where my motivation went to write, but I just haven't had it in me for whatever reason. I am working on that... I won't bore you all with the details of the past couple of months, mostly because it's just to difficult to "get caught up" when what I really need is a fresh start.

I've been working at home and helping out as much as possible with my husband's business when I can. I do think I am feeling the absence of daily personal interaction with other people. So far that's been the biggest hurdle for me in working at home. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the fact that I don't have to get up at 6am anymore, so I can stay in bed and watch the news/Today show until 8 and then get going on my day. Since I've been home I've also been able to develop a relationship with my treadmill that was previously nonexistent. Thus, this morning I was able to get into the smaller size jeans I've been saving for just this moment. :)

Of course, my very most favorite thing about being home is getting to enjoy my yard and garden on a daily basis. I am able to get up and enjoy the morning sun with my flowers, and take the time to water each one thoroughly and gently without having to rush out the door... or worse, not do it at all. The weather is changing here. Not much, but just enough to feel the weight of the boggy humidity lifting. That in itself is a blessing... humid air and I do not get along at all. I've also been able to take some time to plan for the next season. Shall I dig up bulbs, or should I plow out a new section for an herb garden? Hmm...

Over the past few months I have also undergone some intense emotional revelations. When I moved here after I graduated college, I was so excited about the prospect of a new life, new people, and new things to do. I absolutely love Houston and everything it has to offer. I will always look back on my time here fondly and remember all the memories through the years that have helped me to grow up, and to really understand who I am and what I want out of life. That being said, I'm ready to move on.

It's taken some time but I've finally been able to move past some of the things I've been needlessly clinging to for the past couple of years. I've always felt like I needed to be close to the city- the city is where the work is, and the city is where things "happen"... it's all I know. I no longer feel that way. I think it's because I'm so inspired by my husband who has just gone out there and gotten "it". I can see now life is what you make of it... it doesn't have to be confined to just one area, you have every piece of the puzzle to make a life within yourself without needing the big buildings, fast paced life, and pretentious expectations that a big city like this puts on you.

I feel free. And now I want to go somewhere.

Hubby and I have been discussing moving to the country. Well, here it's not really "country" so much as wooded hills and lakes that you can just disappear into. This is something he's always wanted, but I have always made it extremely clear that I was in no way interested in that. Like I said, I always felt like I needed to be close to the city... and that blind commitment kept me from being able to even imagine what it might be like to be elsewhere.

Our discussion this time was initiated by me. I'm ready, no scratch that, I'm yearning for something else. Something more private with more space and more nature. A place we can shape together to be a home for our family - the kind of place that would be magical for children to grow up. I imagine looking out my kitchen window - not at the fence shared with our neighbor - but at a huge backyard with no fence, and no visible neighbors at all. (Don't get me wrong, I love our neighbors here, but it's just a bit crowded. Nothing spoils your privacy like the neighbor talking to you through the fence when you just want to lay in the sun and daydream.)

The thing is, I no longer feel "connected" to the city. The industry I was drowning in has all but dissolved here, and it was never "my" industry anyway, I was just limping it along because I thought I was supposed to. My friends have all moved elsewhere, so there are really no people in the city that I'm connected to either. It just seems like things are finally falling in line, all the makings of a long-needed "goodbye" I guess.

It's strange to me how much I have changed in the past year. It's so easy to let the unimportant things in life go when you have someone by your side holding you up and reassuring you that everything will be okay. I've always been the kind of person who holds onto things, as if I must cling to them "just in case" something happens. Connections with people who I don't need to be connected to, connections with feelings that should have long ago been flushed, and connections with places that are now meaningless in retrospect. I can let go of past hurts, I can let go of people who are no good for my life, I can take risks that I never would have taken knowing that I have my wonderful sweet hubby standing by my side. It's a blessing that I've never felt, let alone even been able to fathom before now. Every day the two of us get stronger together, and that only makes things easier, better... it helps me grow, which is a fantastic feeling!

So I guess you could say that in the last few months I've been saying goodbye. Goodbye to the big city life bogging me down. Goodbye to the people in my life who may have been holding me back. Goodbye to the hurt memories of things past, and goodbye to all preconceptions.

I am just me, and that is all I want to be from here on out. I want to enjoy life through MY eyes, not through the eyes of someone who says it should be a certain way. I want to seek out the things that are interesting to me, not because I feel like I have to, but because I want to. I want to simplify life, not let it become complicated with unnecessary things. I want to cook, I want to create, I want to garden, I want to have babies, and I want to LIVE - not just get through the day-to-day stuck in a cubicle between 8 and 5 like everyone else I see out in the real world. There's more to life than that and I don't want to look back one day and feel like I missed it because I was blind.

homeowners associations.

Does anyone else despise their homeowners association? I do.

I completely understand why they are in place. Make sure the neighborhood looks nice, that there's no broken down beater cars in the street, and people are not living on a sofa bed in their front yards. Ok. Good enough. 

Why then, must they constantly harass you when your trash can stays on the curb 2 seconds longer than they deem necessary? Do these people not have lives of their own? Do they not have jobs that they go to every day? Why is it that they think in any real situation that I would be at home at 11 am to pick up my trash cans after the garbage man comes on Mondays and Thursdays? Who is home at that time? 

Scratch that... I do not CARE who else is home at that time to pick up their trash cans. The fact is, my husband and I are not doodling around the house all day every day catering to the whims of the HOA. We have jobs. We have responsibilities. None of those responsibilities include making the hour commute home at 11 am to pick up my trash cans and put them back in the garage, and then making the hour commute back downtown to go back to work. 

Apparently life would be easier if that were the case. I would not be getting letters in my mailbox. I would not be getting certified death threat letters from the HOA, and I would not be getting FINED for doing something at MY house that I PURCHASED with MY MONEY. 

I believe that makes it MY property and anyone who wants to tell me what I can and cannot do with it can shove it. Get a life HOA.

By the way... I'm sure they haven't noticed, but HOA's all across the country are coming under scrutiny for this very thing. HOA's are going out of business, getting sued for trying to take people's homes away. (Really?? You're going to take my house that I OWN away from me because my grass is 1" higher than you want it to be??) You'd think they would be more careful about choosing their battles.

I feel that I should also mention that I do not live in a master-planned community, nor is it even a community that has been built in the last 10 years. So I have to feel like this is pettiness, rather than what could be viewed as a concerted attempt at keeping one of the brand-spanking-new "hoity toity" neighborhoods on the Better Homes & Gardens List. 

Needless to say, my patience is running thin. They got an earful this morning, and I will do whatever it takes to make this right. There is no reason in the world why they should be trying to take advantage of homeowners who are already paying them dues. Especially when it's over something as stupid and petty as this is. Something that I absolutely cannot control under any circumstances.

UGH. I'm stepping off my soapbox now...

ode to dad.

Today is for the fathers. And though I'm 600 miles away from mine, I still think about him every single day. 

Until my husband came along, he was "the" man in my life. I compared every other man to my Dad, each one required to be at least as smart, at least as funny, and hold me in the very highest regards. I expected nothing less from any other man who wanted to be a part of my life than I receive from my Dad. I knew within a couple of dates what my Dad would think about the boyfriend of the moment, and it always played at least a minor part in my decisions to move forward in relationships. I'm sure that's why I ended up with such a great husband. ;) I know he was proud the day he walked me down the aisle towards the man who would vow to take care of me for him forever.

My Dad taught me nearly everything I know. He prepared me to be a well-educated, well-rounded individual, and spared no affection in the process. He never let any preconceived macho manly instincts overshadow his affection for his little girl. My Grandma tells me now that he was never that way until I was born. Back then, people just weren't that affectionate I guess. He taught me that no matter what, you should never fail to let the people you care about know that you love them. Hugs were always a priority.

He's spent his life making sure that I did not go without, no matter what that meant for he and my mom. We never knew any of the stresses of being an adult, because they never put that upon us. Even though we never went without we were still raised to appreciate the value of the dollar, and had jobs as soon as we were old enough. We were never spoiled, but were as happy and well adjusted as 2 kids can really be.

I know once I do have my own children, it will be one of the great joys of his life as well as mine. No matter where life takes me from here, no matter how old I am or how many of my own children I may have,  I am truly and eternally his little girl. 

So today, I say thank you to my Daddy. Thanks for always being everything I needed, and everything I could have ever asked for. :)

XOXO

till death do us part.

I found some inspiration from a blog I follow "If I wasn't laughing, I'd be crying..." about marriage, etc. Thanks for the inspiration, K!

I am sick to death of hearing about this John & Kate Plus 8 crap. First of all, these people were given a VERY privileged opportunity to make a great deal of money from their little reality show. Who wouldn't be grateful for that? Apparently they aren't.

From what I understand they were chosen for this privileged opportunity because of their story and their great family values. Now, all I'm hearing about is how one is cheating on the other, all the whining and accusations those scenarios bring, and how there may be divorce on the horizon for them. No mention of the children, (isn't that what the show is supposed to really be about?) no mention of them working things out... nothing. The parents are too busy wallowing in their "fame" with their makeovers, new cars, and paparazzi to care about their children or the future of their marraige. THEN they have the audacity to complain about the media's invasion of their privacy, the constant attention, and the unfortunate situations they've been put in. Boo freakin' HOO! Poor, poor little celebrity. My heart just bleeds for you. Maybe if you had been paying attention to your family, and concerned with the well being of your partner, you would not be in this oh-so-terrible situation.

I think it's just another sad, sad testament to the direction in which our society has gone. Right into the pooper.

Very few people still hold marriage in the high regards that you're "supposed" to. If you don't agree with it - then don't get married! Stop using divorce as your get out of jail free card, and take responsibility for your actions. Marriage is not play time, it's not something you do on a whim, and it's not something you're supposed to just "change your mind about." This is not to say that marriage is not a wonderful, joyous, magnificent expereince. While it is a very serious commitment, it should still be fun and great... if you truly are in love, and truly marrying the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

buried memories.

I sat in my living room last night crying, alone. J was working late and I was fishing through old pictures from my childhood. Last Christmas, for my brother and I, my mom scanned and burned a disk of all of our family photos from when we were growing up. I don't think I had actually looked at it all until last night.

It made me sad for the way things were and for the way things never were.

My parents split up the summer I was 20 years old. It wasn't a huge surprise then, mostly because they had not been on speaking terms for at least a year prior to then. I was somewhat removed from the situation, and easily able to play the idealist because I was off to college already, not living in the thick of it. I never really thought it would happen "for real" because we were always the perfect little family. We took road trips, had movie nights, and always stayed home on Sundays to spend time together. SO many of my friends had divorced parents, and my brother and I could never understand it. We were that family.

Both of my parents confided in me about the situation while it was coming down. Partly because I'm the oldest, and have been mature far beyond my age since I was a child, and partly because since we were such a tight knit family unit, they didn't have alot of outside friends. I became the landing board, but also found myself trying to take care of my brother, and help shield him from what was happening. He took it the worst, I think.

Maybe I just never processed the whole thing.

I only broke down once over the divorce, and it was not a "real" breakdown. I was at a house party with a few friends, and was inevitably drunk as the time period suggests, and some poor guy who had probably just been trying to get in my pants got cornered and unloaded on. Don't get me wrong, he was totally sweet about it and very understanding and empathetic to my situation, but I feel sure it was not what he had planned for his evening.

Other than the one time, I never addressed it before last night.

As I scrolled through those pictures, looking at myself as a child, I remembered things I had forgotten. Places I've been and people I've met that have all but disappeared from my life. I saw myself much as I see myself now- making the same faces, giving the same looks and exhibiting the same mannerisms... all from a tiny little person that I used to be. It was sort of surreal.

I remembered my grandparents, how they were and how they are now. My Papaw mostly, who passed from Alzheimers around the same time my parents split. He was always so jolly and BIG. He was the big man of the family and could pick you up and make you feel like a child, no matter how old you were. He suffered a long and tedious deterioration over the course of about 10 years, so I never really got to know him as a person. I looked through these pictures and saw him deteriorating physically like a reflection of his mental state. But he always loved us. Even when he couldn't remember our names anymore, he still remembered he loved us. I miss him for what he was to me as a kid, and for what he could have been to me as an adult.

There were photos of my little brother (3 years my junior). He was about the cutest thing I've ever seen, and just FULL of laughter and mischief. He was a ham, and he knew it! Of course, I was only 3 when he was born, but much as silly little girls do, I wanted him to be my baby. I loved on him all the time, and he may have been close to 5 before I ever let him get a word in edgewise. We are still very close, but things will never be quite the same as they were when we were kids. That, of course is another blog, but we both certainly had to grow up that year, and I know it was tough for him to reconcile it all... even as we clung to each other through it.

The thing that made me the saddest was seeing how happy our little family once was... all I could think about was that we are never going to be that way again. Seeing my mom and dad as young parents, smitten with their children and congealing as a whole family together. I've not seen that look of happiness in my dad since then, and I so long to be able to go back to the way things were.

I know I've been rambling for quite some time, but it all really overwhelmed me at once. It was in those moments of recollection by myself that the impact of their split hit me in the face for the first time.

My own children will never know my parents that way. My husband doesn't even know them that way. They will always be Grandma and Grandpa separately, but with the same last name. We will never again have holidays, family dinners, or vacations together. I will never get to see them hugging and loving each other as they look at my children and see their baby girl reborn. I will always have to divide my time and the time of my own family, and never will we all make plans together.

I cried for the simple fact that no matter what I do, or where I go, or how much my own life may change, I will never ever have my family again. All I'll have are the happy memories tied up in a CD full of photos from a life I can barely remember.

rainy saturday.

Ohhhhh Tina is hating me this morning. See, it's been raining for the last 2 days straight. Not like, a little sprinkle here and there, but full-on lightning and thunder, dark-as-night rainstorms. Needless to say, I'm a little bored, and because Tina refuses to go outside when it's raining, I decided I needed to buy her a raincoat.

She's lucky I picked her out a cute green and pink with polka dots design, and not just a boring old yellow one. At least she looks cute! The downside is, she hates it when I dress her up. Whenever I try to put anything on her- sweater, t-shirt, reindeer antlers, raincoat... she freezes. It used to be worse than it is now. She would freeze and stand in the same place for hours if you let her. Now, she'll at least follow me around until I stop so she can lay down in front of me and pout. LOL! Silly dog. ;)

Anyway... today it's raining, so I felt it would be an excellent photo op for my little Teeny baby and her new raincoat. Isn't she cute? I do wish it would stop raining as I have lots of things I need to be doing, but at least the inclement weather presents me with the opportunity to get caught up on some writing/picture posting/facebook remodeling.

At least I'm being productive I guess!

baby talk.

I love babies! I always have I guess. I was definitely the little girl who had tons of dolls, and liked to play house, and the whole nine yards. So I guess some things never change...

I see so many of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances having their first babies, and I am green with envy. Now that I'm married, and have a wonderful, stable home life, it's even more difficult not to think about babies all the time. One of the highlights of my day is looking through facebook at baby pictures, and reading the funny/touching stories people are writing about their kids. I totally want that.

Once upon a time I used to freak out if my period was a day late. I would even freak out before then if I felt especially paranoid. But now, I secretly hope for it! Jerry and I are not "trying" to get pregnant just yet per se, but we're not NOT trying either. We figured, we're ready, why not let nature take its course? Of course, planning is my nature, so it is sometimes difficult to keep that part of me at bay. My instinct is to start reading up! Start charting the cycle and planning ovulation days, let's do this. But it feels like planning takes all the fun out of it, so I'll just have to be patient. I do really like the idea of being surprised by a pregnancy... it's more fun and less work than all the planning I hear about.

I guess my internal baby clock has finally started up and is ticking away...