Change Friday - October 10, 2008

:bullet:”We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance.” “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves.” “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” “Change is inevitable.”

:bullet:I don’t know where to begin. So much is different. It’s difficult & sad. But it’s also a new beginning & a hope for a better time ahead. While I will miss the past, I look forward to the future. At first I was really worried & even scared, but I know everything will be ok. Things happen the way they do for a reason. Who knows exactly how things will turn out, but I do know that I will survive. Finding the words to express what I’ve gone through, what I’m going through, & what I will continue to go through is very hard. So much time has passed. All I can do is try to explain…

:bullet:Well to start, after almost 8 years, Terry & I are no longer together. I don’t want to say anything bad about him because I do still love & care about him; I think I always will. But over the past few years, a feeling of loneliness & dissatisfaction has been growing. I didn’t feel needed & wanted or feel the love & affection that I needed. I tried to talk to him about it, but I could never seem to make him understand. I don’t think that he didn’t love me, but I feel like maybe it wasn’t in his personality and/or he took me for granted. I just think that there should be more to a relationship than there was. I don’t feel like what I wanted & needed was too much to ask. I don’t think that for things like that you should have to ask; they should come natural. I feel like we weren’t going anywhere; we were at a standstill at best. So this has been building for a few years & I tried to make it work & I tried to fix it. But it got to a point where I had to come to the realization that I just might not get what I need (& deserve) with this relationship. It was hard to figure that out & I’m going to miss him, but I think I’m doing the right thing. Terry says he now realizes how much he loves me & doesn’t know why he’s been the way he has over the past years, but he wants me to come back. A part of me wants to, but a part of me says “Why now?”. I think it’s best to move on. I don’t think there’s a point to hold on to that dream any longer. So many things will be different. He & I have been through & done so much in our years together. I won’t forget it & I will miss it.

:bullet:I’m not living with him anymore & I’m in the process of moving my things out of our house that we’ve lived in for the past 4 years. Over the past few months, I’ve become really close with a friend of mine. He and I really enjoy each other’s company & get along really well. We have a lot of fun together. We decided together that we wanted to start a relationship. I’m really excited about it. His name is Jon. I didn’t mean to rush into another relationship (and I didn’t leave Terry for Jon), but it just happened somehow that we really feel something for each other. Jon left a couple of weeks ago to go down south to work for a few months as he had been planning on doing. He has always said he wanted me to go with him, but until a couple of weeks ago, just before he left, I had been saying that I couldn’t. But then during his last week before he left we had such a great time together & I finally realized not only that I could, but that I should. I didn’t want to be without him & it’ll also be good to get away from here for a while. I’m going to fly down to meet him in the middle of November. We’ll stay where he is for 2 months after I get there & then we’re going to travel around the U.S. for 4-5 months. It’s going to be so much fun & we’ll get to see so much. It’ll be a really great time together & I think it will be a good experience for our relationship. We are both really looking forward to it & are very excited. I also thought that this was a perfect time in my life to do something like this, this could be the only chance I’ll have to travel over this long of a time period. I’ll write about our experiences & post pictures.

:bullet:This may seem like a lot all at once, but it’s happened over a long period of time. We’ll see how things go. Like everyone always says, things happen the way they do for a reason. I don’t know how things will turn out, but however it does I will be fine. I guess I have some editing to do with my website. I’ll get to that when I can. Well I’m gonna go for now…

Thanks: Frankie, Nancy (VA), ~Donna~, Judy, Meredith, Lissy, Jenny, Libby, Rick, Sara, Matt, Christy, Aurelia, Ciel, Cecilie, Zoey, Gwen, Lishy, Nayana, Christine, Kristen, Tiffany, Linda, Jodie, Meredith, Iveee, Aichee, Jenn~, Ellie, Olivia Kitty!

Hot & Cold Wednesday - February 13, 2008

:bullet:Warm, hot even, weather in the middle of February is what I got to enjoy over the past 5 days. How? you make ask… Well my boyfriend Terry & I traveled down to the Lone Star State of Texas to visit his family. He lived there for a few years when he was young, so when his parents retired 4 years ago they decided to move back there because they liked it so much. His sister & her husband moved down there as well, in the same neighborhood as his parents. They’ve had 2 daughters since then & they wanted Terry to spend some time with his nieces. That & they hadn’t seen us in a while. Since we couldn’t come there for Christmas since we went to Utah (as I wrote about in my previous Diary entry), they wanted us to come in January or February & suggested that we come down while the Stock Show & Rodeo was going on. I love Josh Turner as you may know & I already knew from seeing the tour dates on Josh’s website that he would be at the rodeo. I thought, hey, how perfect!

:bullet:When we arrived at the airport we immediately noticed the temperature as well as the number of people walking around with cowboy hats. His parents picked us up & were very happy to see us. During the next few days we got to experience what it was like to be around young kids. While they’re very cute, I’m not quite ready to take on that responsibility just yet. One day, but not yet. Tori, the almost 2-year-old could say a few words & loved seeing new things. We took her to the rodeo on Saturday morning & she had a blast looking at all the animals. The rodeo grounds are very similar to county or state fairs if you’ve ever been to one. I bought a nice cowboy hat at one of the vendors there. When I get a picture I’ll show it to you. I also bought a souvenir rodeo shirt.

:bullet:Every day of the rodeo they had a rodeo show in the afternoon followed by a performer & one in the evening followed by a performer. So we bought tickets to see the 1pm rodeo & Josh Turner concert on Sunday, February 10th. I had never seen a rodeo in person so it was a lot of fun. There was bareback riding, steer wrestling, mutton bustin’, tie-down roping, calf scramble, team roping, saddle bronc riding, barrel racing & of course bull riding. Very neat. Josh’s performance was great as always! (I’ve seen him in concert 4 other times.) He came out across the arena to the stage in a black GMC pickup truck (it was the sponsor of the rodeo or something) & it was great to see him step out of it! He performed many songs from his new album Everything Is Fine. It was so neat to hear them all live for the first time since this was the first concert of his that I’ve been to since the new album was released. He’s such a great singer & it’s always nice to hear & see him live. He’s very cute, nice, & humorous too. Love that deep voice, beautiful eyes, & great smile!

:bullet:It was nice to share the Josh Turner concert experience with Terry this time. He’s not a big country fan; if anything he’ll listen to a little bit of traditional country singers. I’ve been wanting him to like/appreciate Josh more, so it’s great that I had a chance to get him to a concert. He actually said he had a good time & said that he was a really nice guy, good singer, he liked some of his songs, & that he wasn’t an idiot (lol). He then said how could you not like him, really. I think he said a few other things, but I can’t remember them. I’m happy though, because I haven’t been able to get him to go to just any Josh Turner concert, so with visiting his family & seeing a rodeo too it worked. Yea!

:bullet:Other than the rodeo, we all went out to dinner, spent time at each of their houses, walked around the town where Terry’s brother-in-law works & fed the ducks at the river, & had a nice dinner one night at his parents’ house. We had a great time down there & it was nice to have a break from work/school & the cold weather we’re having here. It’s funny going from freezing & wearing coats to wearing short sleeves & sweating. In fact, the day we came home it had snowed here earlier in the day & it was freezing rain the whole way home from the airport. Fun. Despite the cold weather, it’s nice to be home again, as we all know there’s no place like home & I really missed my dogs!

:bullet:Speaking of dogs & cold weather… it’s been a fairly mild winter as far as snowfall, with only a couple days of it, but on January 17th we finally had our second day of it actually snowing all day & accumulating on the ground. I got to leave work early & class was cancelled so I took my dogs out to play in the snow. Kaycie loves snow! After a few laps around the field in my neighborhood with Tyler at her heels, she & I had a great time with a game of fetch while Tyler licked the snow. Even though I had a sweater on Tyler, he still got cold pretty quickly due to the fact that Papillons don’t have double-coated fur & he’s only a 7 lb. dog so I took him in & then went back out with Kaycie. I took some pictures so check it out!

:bullet:Anyway… There have been some updates to my site: I’ve added a Calendar to The Girl section, updated the Upcoming Concerts/Festivals in the Visitor section, & updated My Music, Concerts/Festivals Attended, & My DVDs/Games in The Girl section. Well I guess that’s enough for now. Take care, later!

Thanks: Sheryl, Jenn~, Lissy, Shanice, Brook, Aurea, Brenda, Gina, ♥ K, Jaz, Lauren, Gwen, Cecilie, Aurelia, Steffani, Helen-Marie!

Holiday Season Monday - December 31, 2007

:bullet:Well I must say it’s good to be back. It’s so nice to have a place where I can write about the things that are going on my life. It’s a great way to keep track of all my memories. Thanks to everyone who has welcomed me back! A lot seems to have changed in the online world since I’ve been gone. A lot of people have taken down their websites. However I do still see a lot of the same people – with great websites too! It’s nice to catch up with you as well.

:bullet:I know this is going to be very hard trying to remember everything that has happened in the past year & a half, but I’m going to try. Right now though I’m going to talk about more recent events. For the first time in years I actually have a job where we get the winter holidays off. This allowed me to spend Thanksgiving with my family – the whole [almost] family. My boyfriend Terry had to work unfortunately, but I went over to my parents’ house to celebrate with my Mom, Dad, sister Allison, brother Michael, Mom Mom, Nana, Aunt Linda, cousin Joe, cousin Jen, her husband Joe, & their kids: Zoe, Ellie, Mesa, & Kiki. Somehow we all fit in the same room with 2 tables pushed together. It was really great though because I hadn’t seen a lot of them in a while. We always have a really funny time together too.

:bullet:I’ve been working at this great white water outfitter since April 2007 (which I will talk about in a future entry) & we had our Christmas Dinner Party on December 19th. I was really excited about it because usually Terry can’t attend my work events because they’re at a time when he is working… but this time he could. And it wasn’t just any party, it was an important company dinner. We went to a really nice Mexican & Spanish restaurant (The food was great! I had salmon stuffed with crab meat, yum!). It’s the off-season for our company so only the people (managers & directors) that work there all year round went to the dinner. There was Matt, Angie & Shayne, Amanda & Rob, Jeannie & Rodney, me & Terry, Ben, Ed, Bill & his wife, & Adam. I love the people I work with so it was great spending a night all together. :heart: Thanks Matt for dinner! After dinner we went out to a bar & had a few drinks… I usually don’t drink, but I did have a couple to celebrate the occasion & for once I wasn’t the designated driver! After that I had to drop Terry off at home because he unfortunately had to work in a few hours, but I went over to Amanda, Rob, & Adam’s house to hang out with them & Ed for a little while. It was a fun night.

:bullet:Christmas day was celebrated early this year with my family because our trip to Utah was during Christmas & we didn’t want to bring presents on the plane. On December 20th Terry & I packed up our things for the trip, then he went to wrap a few things up at his work & I went to drop our 3 dogs off at the kennel. After that he & I went to my parents’ house where we had Christmas dinner with my Mom, Dad, Allison, & Michael. Afterwards we exchanged our presents. It was a small gift exchange this year as we were all very busy in the weeks before Christmas (& rushed with celebrating early) & didn’t have that much money. But that’s not the point of Christmas anyway; it was just nice to be able to spend it with the family. I did get a Peripheral iPod adapter for my car (that connects directly to my factory radio to charge my iPod while playing the music through my car speakers & is controlled on the car stereo buttons), a Magellan Maestro 3225 GPS thing for my car, incense, a gift card to Best Buy, $30 for clothes, & $150 for whatever I want.

:bullet:The next morning we had breakfast, got ready, & then we all headed to the airport. Everything at the airport went smoothly, our flight took off on time, & we arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah with no problems. After a 40 minute shuttle ride to our condo in Park City, UT we were pretty tired after our day of traveling. :O My Aunt Terrie, Uncle Vince, cousins Sarah & Mark had arrived there a little bit earlier. The next couple of days we spent snowboarding/skiing at on the Park City slopes. The first day I ended up being pretty sore since it has been about a year since our last trip snowboarding/skiing, but I did still have fun that day & after that I felt warmed up & the next few days wer great! I really like that resort; it has a nice mix of intermediate & expert slopes. It was a fun vacation with the family & it was great seeing Terry interact with my family too. The rest of my family members stayed in Utah until the 28th, but Terry & I had our flight back on the 24th. We got to the airport around 3:30pm & our flight was supposed to take off at 5:30pm. Just as we were getting to the airport it started snowing pretty hard, but when we checked in I asked if they expected any delays & they said not if the snow didn’t get any worse & that they win awards for their snow removal. Well we boarded the plane on time, but we were delayed leaving the gate because the runway was backed up removing the snow. Once we finally left the gate, we went to the airplane de-icing & antifreeze station. After they had finished to process they noticed that the cockpit windshield was overheating to the point where it burned to touch it so we had to go back to the gate to have it check out. After another long time they said that we had to switch planes because the windshield had de-laminated during the overheating & needed to be replaced. So finally after a little bit over 3 hours total went by since our scheduled take off time, we were rolling down the runway. Instead of getting back at 11pm (east coast time – 9pm Utah time) like we were supposed to, we got back at around 2:30am. :pissed: Needless to say we were very tired & a little aggravated. After getting our luggage, taking a shuttle to the parking lot, & finding my car we were too tired to drive back to our house so we stayed at my parents’ house that night.

:bullet:The next morning Terry & I went back to our house to spend our first Christmas together in our own house (the past Christmas’s have been spent at other family members’ houses). We had our Christmas dinner of ham, corn, mashed potatoes, & garlic toast. I gave Terry a really nice painting of a beautiful wilderness scene of mountains, forests, & a river. He gave me a gift card for day at a spa. It was a nice time together. :heart: On Friday the 28th Terry, Ed, & I went to a Dark Star Orchestra (the best Grateful Dead tribute band) concert. It was a fun time although they didn’t play many of the songs I wanted to hear & Ed was sick. There was also a weirdo guy sitting behind us who kept trying to touch us & say weird things in our ears. :sick: (We finally ended up moving to another place & standing.) I think Ed got me sick because that night I started sneezing & my nose started running. The next day (this past Saturday) was my first day back at work in 10 days, but I was starting to feel more & more sick. I really needed/wanted to be back at work, but because I got worse & was completely miserable, I didn’t go to work on Sunday or today. I’ve been feeling like complete crap the past couple of days. I hope I feel better, or at least well enough to go to work tomorrow or Wednesday. I was planning on doing something tonight to celebrate New Years Eve, but because I’m sick I’m just sitting here writing this. Oh well, no biggie. :/

:bullet:Anyway… I guess I need to wrap this up. I hope you all had a great holiday season with your friends & family. I hope your new year starts out great & I wish good things to come in the 2008 year! Wow this year has gone by fast, but I guess it always seems that way. Well I still have more things to tell you about from the past & I will be going with Terry to visit his family in Texas in February so that should be fun. But I’m out for now, take care!

Thanks: Anya, Jenn~, Lissy, Meredith, Sheryl, Shannon, Nanda, ♥K, Ciel, Christine, Ellie, Brandi, Iman, Aichee, Gwen!

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