It's a new year.

I can't believe it's 2010. 2009 flew by. So much happened; and it was the best year of my life. :)

I left my crappy job.

I started dating the most wonderful man in the world.

I found myself again.

I had an absolutely AMAZING time.

And, I'm going to try to make 2010 even better. I'm going to be making some changes that I hope will make my life even better:

I'm going to go back to school.

I'm going to move out of NC.

I'm going to have a house where my pups can all live with me. :)

It's going to be wonderful. :)

New Years Resolutions

I always do New Years Resolutions. And, I, unlike a lot of people, actually complete most of my resolutions. There's one that I never ever manage to stick to. It is, of course, the fitness resolution. However, despite my past failure, it will again be on my list for 2009. :)

1.) I have decided to write a book. So far, it's only in my head. But, everything has to start somewhere. Okay, don't laugh. It's going to be about aliens. Hahahahaha... yeah, I know. Sounds like a best-seller, right?! But, I'm sure that J.K. Rowling got the same crap about wizards, and Christopher Paolini about dragons, and Stephenie Meyer about vampires. So, I'm sticking with my aliens. :)

2.) I will work out at least 3 times per week.

3.) I will read at least one book for fun per month (this is always my favorite resolution).

4.) I will add at least one new word to my vocabulary each week.

5.) I will meet new people in Shelby, so that Joe and I will have friends closer than an hour away.

6.) I will volunteer at least 3 hours per week.

7.) I will pray/meditate at least every other day.

8.) I will work to make my relationship with Joe stronger. I will be positive and supportive.

I normally have at least 10 resolutions, but I figure, with writing a book, I can probably knock a few resolutions off. I won't have time for much else! :)

And I wish you luck with all of your resolutions. :)

News in my life

After spending the last several days laying around and forcing myself to drink inordinate amounts of juice and water, I am starting to feel better. :) I still have a bit of a cough, but I can breathe and I feel human again.

New years was nice. We spent it with Philip and Richard. ha... that makes it sound like they're some gay couple that we know. I'm sure they would appreciate that. :) Anyway, we didn't even drink. We played some games and goofed off. We got some pizza at the Italian restaurant near Philip's apartment. Joe and I crashed there. We spent all day there too, until Philip had to go to work at about 6:00. It was very relaxed. :)

Next, sad news. I don't remember if I blogged about this or not, but my ex-boyfriend got married last month. Mid-December. He got his teenage girlfriend pregnant and his mom pressured them into getting married. Anyway, she was 4 months along (into her second trimester). They told my parents that they could be grandma and grandpa, too, since they've been there for them too. Which, I am fine with. My mom crocheted 3 baby blankets. The first one was unisex but my dad thought it was ugly (I thought it was very pretty though!), so she started making a boy blanket and a girl blanket for whichever sex they had (which I think is unneccesary - a girl can have blue and a boy can have pink... grrrr.). Anyway, they bought toys and were excited about it despite being disappointed that Michael was marrying this girl. Even more excited than Michael's parents. Michael's mom wasn't excited at all. She was dreading it. She says she's not finished with Michael, so she shouldn't be having grandkids. I told her that she'll never be finished raising Michael, so she might as well start moving on now! :)

That actually wasn't the sad news. Here it is: Thursday Ashley started having pains. Tawnya (Michael's mom... who happens to be a nurse) told her that it was probably gas an to ignore it. Well, Friday, she started spot bleeding as well. Tawnya again told her to ignore it. Later that night, Michael ignored his mom and took Ashley to the emergency room. They did an ultrasound. The baby is tiny but fully formed. They could see it's arms and legs, but it had no heartbeat. For some reason, the baby died inside of her. They don't know what happened. Ashley and Michael were heartbroken, but Tawnya continued to be cold about it. They told Ashley that she could wait 2 weeks to see if the baby will abort on its own (it's better that way because there is less chance of infection), or they could do a D & C to remove the fetus. She went in last night with more pains. So, they will be doing the D & C today.

I can't imagine knowing that my baby is dead inside of me. And then to have to deal with them basically scraping the baby out is just awful. A D & C is what they do in the case of a first trimester abortion. It's disturbing to me. I don't believe in abortion, so the fact that the baby would be removed in the same way just seems degrading. This baby was unexpected, but wanted by its parents.

My mom was heartbroken. I sat on the phone with her and cried for a while. I feel for Michael and Ashley. This would be hard on any marriage, but especially hard on one that was entirely based on the child who no longer exists. I hope that this will bring them closer together and not further apart.

Christmas

First of all, I want to say that today is Cody's birthday. He turns 2 years old today. :)

Christmas was good. Our drive to Indiana went well. We ran into some heavy rain for about an hour, but other than that, no problems. We got there about 3:30 AM. It took about 10.5 hours. Not bad. There was snow on the ground when we got to my parent's house. It was covered with ice though, so we couldn't actually play in it. The next day there was an ice storm. Lots of accidents. My parents took us shopping and out to dinner at my favorite restaurant (the day after Christmas).

We went to see 2 movies. Yes Man and Seven Pounds. Both were pretty good. Other than that, we pretty much just lounged around. It was relaxing.

We opened one present when we arrived very early Christmas morning. Then we went to sleep for a few hours and then got up and opened presents. I got the Twilight Saga collector's edition box set, Edgar Sawtelle, and a beautiful, huge purple vase from Joe. I got a bunch of movies, books, candy (as if we need any... I still have the candy from Halloween!), games, and a Roku Netflix player from my parents and my sister. Joe got a toothbrush sanitizer, bongos, a rain stick (musical instrument), movies, candy, and a beard trimmer from my parents and sister. I got him the Absolute Batman Hush book, a tea infuser with loose tea (he's been on a tea kick lately and he thinks that the loose tea with the infuser is better than the bags), and a handheld sudoku game for his traveling (he likes to do Sudoku while on planes and while he's waiting).

While we were at my parents we also played Trivial Pursuit and Mad Gab. Trivial Pursuit or at least the edition we played, is much harder than I remember. They were a lot of really obscure questions! I had never played Mad Gab but it was a lot of fun. My mom is insanely good at it!

We had a good time, but it's good to be home. We sleep in the spare bedroom there and it's just a full size bed so it's smaller than we're used to and also, my parents keep their house a lot hotter than we keep ours so it was hard for us to sleep. My parents heat their house with a wood burning stove, so the air is really dry. I got laryngitis. I still can't really talk. I'm just glad that it's all I got. I haven't been sick in over two years. However, I forgot my vitamins and my parents don't drink much juice (no vitamin C) and I wasn't eating very well because my parents don't have a whole lot of vegetarian food on hand (they normally stock up when they know I'm coming, but it was a surprise, so no food for me!). And all of that combined with the dry air, my defenses were down. My nose and mouth were dried out so there was nothing to stop the cooties from coming in and then I wasn't taking very good care of myself, so my body didn't fight it well. I'm already getting better though, so I don't think it's going to go anywhere other than my throat. It didn't make it to my nose or my chest. Isn't that weird? I'm still going to insist that because I didn't get any worse than what I did, it's because I'm not poisoning my body with meat. :)

Well, it's back to work today. It's quiet though. We have the day off on Thursday for the New Year. Joe said we might only work a half day on Wednesday or have the day off on Friday if it stays slow. Unfortunately, we won't get paid for that, but a day off is a day off! And the way it's looking so far today (only one phone call all morning), we are likely going to have a day off. :)