Who's next!? and what????

One thing I've found true, and a little scary, is that if I think about or talk about a long lost acquaintance, they show up. POOFFFF! There behind me in the line at the grocery store, at the gas station, the park, everywhere!

I'm the sort of person who believes that human interaction and paths crossing happens for a reason. I just can't figure out the reason. Maybe it's just as simple as the closing of open ended interactions with these people. So much of my life was changed abruptly between 14 an 25. And there is something about my personality that doesn't let go of ideas, memories, intentions.......

I feel like I'm here on the Central Coast for a reason bigger than just going to school. Not that school isn't big. It's huge for me. But it feels like the clouds will break and there will be this unnamed thing I've been working so hard for.

I want a husband and children and a home. I want this struggle of life not to be fought alone. But maybe those things won't come for me. Maybe there is something in this latest path I've chosen that will make me feel whole. I'm taking steps in the dark........ Hoping and trusting that there is light ahead....

“Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.” -George Iles

My 1st Children's Story

How Tatum and Payton

Learned to Move Again!

Every morning when Tatum and her little sister Payton woke up, they rushed to the big comfy couch in the living room.

Tatum was big enough to turn on the TV and she would find all their favorite shows. Until their mom brought them each a big bowl of rainbow cereal, they would watch four funny creatures sing and dance. This made the girls laugh.

After they were all done eating they would watch cartoons about the amazing adventures of other little kids.

The sisters would sit side-by-side all day long watching daces, hearing stories and even learning a little bit here and there.

By the time that it was dark outside again, they would become bored and first Payton, then Tatum would fall off to sleep on the big comfy couch.

Day after day the sisters sat, eating rainbow cereal and watching TV.

One day when Tatum tried to turn on the TV,

IT DIDN’T WORK!

The sisters looked at each other.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Payton.

“Maybe” said Tatum, “Maybe, we could have adventures like the ones we always see on TV!”

Payton smiled a big smile but then she felt sad inside. “Tatum, in all those adventures, the kids run and jump and climb.”

“So what?” asked Tatum.

“We’ve been sitting here on this big comfy couch for so long, that I don’t think we can move enough for an adventure!” said Payton

“Let me think” said Tatum as she looked out the window.

While she tried to think about how to have an adventure when she couldn’t even move, she watched their neighbor Jasmine roll out a pink mat on her deck and sit down.

While Payton tried to get up off the big comfy couch, Tatum watched their neighbor Jasmine stretch her arms high over her head, then bring her hands together in front of her.

“Payton! I know what we have to do!” said Tatum, filled with excitement. “We have to MOVE”

“But how do we start?” asked Payton.

Tatum took her hand and led her sister out the door and straight to their neighbor, Jasmine’s deck.

“Excuse me?” said Tatum, in her most polite voice. “We have sat and watched too much TV and now we don’t know how to run or jump or climb. We can never have the adventures like the kids on the TV have if we don’t know how to move.”

Jasmine smiled at them both and said, “I think I might have an idea. Before you can run and jump and climb and have all of those adventures, you may just need to learn how your body can move.”

“Can you show us?” asked Payton.

“I will show you how I learn to move and stretch my body. I do something that is called Yoga. For a very long time, people have done Yoga to help their body stretch. But Yoga helps you breath better too and makes your mind calm and happy!”

Jasmine showed the sisters how she practiced Yoga. After just a few minutes, the girls began to feel like they could really move!

From that day on, Tatum and Payton ran, and jumped, and climbed. They had more adventures than even the children on TV had! And they always remembered to do at least a little Yoga every morning.

A new month, with no mistakes in it......yet.....

Time has gone by so quickly! Just trying to keep up with classes has been hard enough but then to keep up with the bills too!!!!

There was the most amazing storm hit on my first day of class! I had so many awesome pictures of the flooding on my phone, but then my phone died yet again so all of them where lost. (speaking of, if you want to hear from me, you should text me your number cause they were lost as well)

The latest leg of this adventure has me scared out of my poor little mind! The fates have brought all the circumstances together in the prefect way to leave me penniless, insuranceless and STRESSED out all together. I had 4 panic attacks in 4 days. It's shocking how stress impacts the human body. But today I looked outside and saw the blue sky, breathed the fresh and very clean air and realized that even broke I'm free, alive, following my dreams and it will all come together when it's supposed to. In the mean time I can keep my chin up, talk to people about possibilities, and ride this ride. The things I really want will come to me when it's time.

If I don't take a step I'll never move in any direction let alone forward.

first day of school down!

It's been a few weeks since my last post but the core of this adventure here has begun today! this afternoon I had my first meeting of Child Health, Safety, and Nutrition where I will relearn how to check children for lice and how to eat a balanced breakfast!

This evening I started Curriculum for Children! I learned the Barn song and I got to make sounds like a horse. =0)

And to top it all off.... When I was laid off from my office job I SWAR not to go back to an office.... ALL THE MIND NUMBING CRAP!!!!!! In a curl twist of irony, today I found myself in front of an IKON copier, page by page, coping the text books at the school library in order to save money. But get this! Due to my office experience, I knew how to unjam all 4 paper jams and set the function to "1 to 2 sided, job build" thus saving time and resources!

That's right! I Rock!

I'm 28 in 4 and a half hours.....

This is an amazing time of year for me. It all comes at once. Halloween is so big for me, then Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years...... and then just as the year turns for everyone, I find that I'm another year older.

As a kid birthdays were the biggest day of the year. Not just a day but "your birthday week"! Another year older and closer to the freedom of adulthood. Old enough for my first bike, old enough to babysit, old enough to get my ears pierced, old enough to drive, old enough to tell my dad HELL NO I'M NOT PARTICIPATING IN THAT CHURCH, moving out, falling in love, moving on, falling out of love, falling in love, and out again.........

One day I started to get to this day of the year and spend it realizing the things that didn't happen as I thought they would. At 26 I was single, aware that I had an extremely messed up idea of what a loving partner should be and was 50 lbs. heavier than 10 years before. At 27 I found that I'd been a smoker on and off for 10 years and hadn't successfully kicked the habit yet, I was still single with no sign of a family of my own on the horizon and my metabolism is never going to be what it was.

(give me a second, this will get better)

Tonight, just before I turn 28, all of the above still apply. I'm on day 3 of quitting smoking again, I'm single as the Pope (although I don't believe that the Pope is single in the full since of the word), I'm filled with the desire for a loving boyfriend at the least, but more a husband, home of my own and children. I want a dog, a cat! I want to be so busy caring for a family that I don't even have time to remember that this is my birthday. And if I can't get that, I want to have a career that I really love. Why have I not been preparing!?

Rather tomorrow I wake alone and unemployed.......

So tonight I'll cry. I'll feel this hurt inside of me that NEEDS to be felt.....BUT....

Tomorrow I'm 28! I'm leaving this sad and unfulfilled woman behind. Rather than hurting, I'm going to tell you how AWESOME LIFE IS!

1. I'm FREE! No one has the power to make me bend to their will because of some twisted belief system.

2. I KNOW what I believe in my heart and I feel NO GUILT anymore! I am the most powerful force in my life and it feels SO GOOD!

3. I WANT TO LIVE! I will never be Girl Interrupted again!

4. I have put everything in place to start a career doing what I love. If the family thing never happens for me, I'll still be loving my life every day.

5. I've started to work on becoming that health nut, earth hugging, yoga and meditation practicing, nature loving, adventuresome FREAK that I haven't been brave or strong enough to let myself be before now! And guess what! It shows me who my true friends really are. Cause they are loving me for it and encouraging me every step I take, even if it's not what they'd chose.

I'm 28 and I'm LIVING! I'm HAPPY! I'm following my dreams and taking care of MYSELF. What happens in the world around me only effects me as much as I let it. Every day is a chance to be that woman that I can see in my minds eye. Sooner or later you'll see her too!

I'm 28! SWEET!