Home

It seems like a simple enough word.  Four letters.  One syllable.  Home.  It really shouldn't be complicated.

Well, mine is.  My family is in northern Indiana.  I lived there for the first 19 years of my life.  After that, it was on to North Carolina for college.  And, now I live in Colorado.  

That means that I am over 1,000 miles away from my family.  And, I'm about 1,600 miles away from some of my very best friends.  Sometimes I get incredibly homesick, for both my Indiana family and my North Carolina friends.  

My awkward sleep schedule, living so far away from work, and living in a very small town of families (Philip and I are the only couple without children in our neighborhood) hasn't been very conducive to making friends.  I have made a few really awesome friends, but it doesn't take away the homesickness.  

I am really close to my family.  And, my college buddies were the first true friends that I ever had.  They understood me and were there for me through some crazy stuff.  So, I'm just going to always miss them.

It may seem that a simple solution would be to move back to Indiana (or North Carolina).  It's not that easy.  I don't like Indiana.  The only reason I really go back to the state is because of my family (and the racetracks!).  Indiana has cornfields, cornfields, more cornfields, and some bean fields thrown in to add a little flavor.  It's also really humid (no me gusta).  I also spent a lot of my childhood and teen years feeling like a freak.  As I said earlier, I didn't have any real friends until college.  

Indiana has a lot of people who I'd just as soon forget exist: closed-minded, ignorant people.  While those people exist everywhere, I've found a whole lot less of them in Colorado.  

Colorado is also breathtakingly beautiful.  I have lived here almost a year and I still can't believe the awesome views I get on my way to work every morning.  The mountains are absolutely gorgeous.  

(Source)

Denver is an amazing city.  It's just a wonderful place to live.  

(Source)

I just wish I could transplant everyone I love to Colorado.  I'm sure they'd see what a wonderful place it is!  

I am not your psychiatrist.

Friends come to me when they are having hard times. It has happened as far back as I can remember. I'm a good listener. I enjoy helping people through hard times. Don't get me wrong; I hate hearing that my friends are down, but I love being able to help a friend make it to the other side.

However, I am not your psychiatrist. I am not here to just be your friend when you need something. I am tired of "friends" who only seek me out when they are down. I love that you trust me enough to be your "shoulder to cry on" and your "wall." That doesn't meant that I don't want to be a part of your life during the happy times as well. Also, where the hell are you when I'm down??

I was always told that friendship is a 2-way street. Apparently I got the one-way friends.

I do not trust easily. It's just the way I am. In fact, I'm rather a loner. I always have been. I have only a few people that I really trust. And, I'm usually pretty self-sufficient. That is not to say that I don't like people. I really do like people. I'm going to be friendly with just about everyone... I'm just not going to count all of those people as my friends.

Anyway, since I do not trust many, when I extend that trust and friendship to people, I expect to have it returned. I'm getting jipped. I'm tired of it. Those "friends" are the reason that I don't trust people to begin with. If I open up to you, don't leave me hanging. Especially when I have been there for you 100% of the time.

If I'm there for you at 4 AM when you are feeling desperate, remember to say hello to me at normal hours. If I spend hours talking you through a dilemma, remember to at least ask me how I'm doing. If I spend months helping to boost your self-esteem and mend your broken heart, don't abandon me when you're feeling better. If I encourage you in your dreams, remember to at least FIND OUT what mine are.

Again, I am not your psychiatrist. I am not here for you to use me as you wish until you no longer need a shoulder. I am a person worthy of more than your bad times. That is NOT friendship.

The next time you find yourself down in the dumps and are looking for consolation, I hope that you will realize that I was a good friend to you. I am not going to be there to pick up the pieces. I have gone off to find REAL friends. Good luck to you.


**Note: This is not for all of my friends... just a select few.

The Big Day

We are moving in 30 days. We will be leaving for Denver on June 26th. It is now May 27th. Less than a month to go.

Honestly, I am getting a little scared. However, I'm also SO ready to do this.

I cannot wait to live with my pups again. I know I can probably find a job pretty quickly. I know that Philip and I will be okay.

It's just the fact that we are leaving for good. I will likely never live in North Carolina again. It hasn't been perfect for me here, but it has become home.

I know that Colorado will be a better fit for me. I have just had a lot of good times here. And, I've made my only true friends here in North Carolina. However, most of those friends have now moved on as well.

The only things that are really tearing at me are the memories. And there have been so many. Good and bad. But, either way, they have been my life for the past 6 years.

I know that I will miss North Carolina. Just as I miss Indiana. I will miss them for the memories that I have of them. But, I know that neither can be my true home. I need to go out and find that place that is perfect for me. And for my family: Philip and my pups and our future family. I think that I will find that in Colorado.

My Gloriously Fantastic Life :)

My life is wonderful. Sometimes I am just in complete awe of it. I have the most wonderful man in the world as my partner in life. I have four beautiful pups. I may be jobless right now, but I know that it will look up. I have amazing friends. I have a slightly crazy but incredible family.

Vacation is in 2 weeks now. That's 8 days in Denver and then coming back to go to the beach for a few days. Two full weeks spent with Philip without him having to go to work. That's hiking, exploring, swimming, and wonderful bliss. :)

We are moving in 64 days. That's a new start in a new state 1,600 miles away. That's new friends and new places and new experiences. And it will all be shared with the love of my life.

My life is absolutely amazing.

You wanna talk about betrayal??

People cannot be trusted. People who you think are your friends will stab you in the back. People will be nosy and ignorant. People will do more harm than good.

Everyone knows by now that Joe and I broke up a few weeks ago. That is between Joe and I. We were working things out just fine and trying to stay friends until people butted into that. Joe and I couldn't work it out. We both knew it was the right decision. End of story. After it all, Joe told me that he wanted me to be happy and to move on. Not that it's any of your damn business, but I am.

Someone who I thought was my friend really messed with Joe's head this weekend. Talking about how I betrayed him and that what I was doing was really messed up.

First of all, I never betrayed Joe. I never cheated on him. I haven't been anything but honest with him about everything since the break-up. He has supported all of my decisions (that you can verify with him).

I think it's really funny that this "friend" wanted to talk to Joe about betrayal. First of all, he was hanging out with me this weekend and never said anything about it to me. He just pretended that everything was fine. That seems like a fucking betrayal on his part. He betrayed me by going behind my back. If he has a problem with what's going on, he should say something to me. Not bash me to other people.

Second of all, his current relationship status is messed up. He has done more betrayal than I have. He's lying and possibly cheating and certainly misrepresenting himself. And I told him upfront how I felt about that. But he couldn't say things to my face?? I would say that what he is doing is the pot calling the kettle black, but I haven't cheated or lied. He has no right to talk about betrayal. Joe and I are still honest with each other. He's the fucker.

And, to all of you other jerks out there, mind your own damn business. You're just making everything more complicated than what it is. You're making things harder on Joe, not me. I've been honest and up front with everyone about everything I've done. I've got Joe's support in what I'm doing. None of you other "friends" matter.

A few good things have come out of this. I've been able to find out who my true friends are. Thanks for being there. You have made this easier and you've been wonderful.

This note is aimed at the few who have been back stabbing. You know who you are. Go fuck yourselves.

Wonderful weekend...

My weekend was wonderful. Joe said that it was probably his best birthday ever. Saturday morning, Jon and Aileen called him from Korea. He was so excited. He kept telling everyone about it. He thought it was the coolest thing ever. Philip was the only person to arrive on time. Everyone else arrived at about 4:00.

We went to play Ultimate Frisbee at the park in the cold. It was only about 40 degrees. It burned our lungs, but once we started running around, our bodies didn't feel quite so cold. Joe had a great time.

Then we came home and hung out. Philip got Joe a Wii game where you fight people with light sabers, so they did that while I finished dinner. They played Epic Duels as well. I made vegetarian lasagna and my ravioli from scratch. It was really good.

Then we played Mario Kart for a while (Joe loves doing Mario Kart competitions) and those of us who weren't a part of the current race, smoked the hookah. It was fantastic. We had banana split shishah first and then we did mint chocolate (my favorite). Dan and I won the Mario Kart competition despite it being Dan's first time playing. :) Later on, we played Cranium Wow. It was girl's versus boys (Kelli and I versus Joe, Nate, and Philip). Later, Haney joined the girls team. lol :) The girls won. As usual.

At 8:30, pizzas arrived from Papa John’s. They were Jon & Aileen’s present to Joe. So, pizzas from South Korea. ;) Joe was thrilled about that as well. Late that night (or early the next morning) we went to Denny’s. Haney started getting sick despite the fact that he hadn't drank anything. We went to bed about 3:30. I woke to the sounds of vomiting not much later. Poor Haney. We got up at 11:00ish the next day. Then we played more Mario Kart and goofed off some more. They were getting ready to go when I realized that we hadn't touched either of the 2 cakes I made. (haha... only us). So, they ate some cake and then went on their merry way. They left about 4:30. I spent Sunday doing some cleaning. The house was a disaster! Lol

Then, last night, Joe and I watched Closer and ate black bean soup. And I didn’t want to get up this morning even though we went to bed at a decent hour. I couldn’t fall asleep.

Joe loved his presents. He got a harmonica, a lap harp, wooden spoons, a guitar (from me), the Wii game and the light sabers, and a bunch of guitar picks and other accessories. And he is awaiting his musical presents from my mom: a tambourine and maracas. If you can't tell, we went with a musical theme. Joe has a "Music Room" in our new house. However, we didn't have anything musical to put in it. So, now he has plenty of stuff to put in it! :)

If you're ever thinking about remodeling a house...

DON'T DO IT! It's not worth the pain!

Buddy has promised us for the 537th time that today will be the last day and our tile will be finished today. I'm not holding my breath.

Rudy came out on Friday to set up the electrical on our hot water heater because the plumbers lied and didn't hook it up how they were supposed to. We now have hot water. However, the plumbers messed something up when they were working on our house and so our shower does not work. The sink and the toilet work, but the shower has no water running to it. They didn't call us back until today. They're going to try to fit us in today. If I have to pour water into my tub via Solo cups from the sink again tonight, someone is going to pay for it. Well, actually, I'm just going to take it out of their pay. For my suffering. People sue for those kinds of things all the time! :)

Also, we were paying the plumbers over $4,000 to replace all of the cast iron pipes under the house (~$2,000 for the pipes going into the house and ~$2,000 for the pipes going out of the house). They told Joe that they didn't replace a few of them because they were in such good shape, so they offerered to take a few hundred dollars off of the bill. First of all, we told them to replace all of the pipes no matter what condition they were in (cast iron will rust and deteriorate and PVC will not... we didn't want to have to worry about it down the line... just get it all over with now). And next, when the shower didn't work, Joe crawled under the house to check to see if they forgot to turn something on. They haven't replaced ANY of the pipes going out of the house. So, a few hundred dollars is not going to cut it. Try a discount of over $2,000. I think that they were counting on Joe not checking to see if the pipes were replaced! I mean, anyone could look and tell that they haven't been replaced. They are still cast iron instead of being PVC pipe! These plumbers are obvious crooks. Also, we paid them to install a shutoff valve in one of the closets because we didn't want to have to turn it off from under the house. Well, they installed one but it DOESN'T WORK!!! Why is everyone we hire so damn completely incompetent!?!?! It doesn't make any sense at all.

The house is a complete mess. It's covered in a thick film of dust from all of the work that's been done. I sweep and I dust and it just doesn't help. Our stuff is still sitting in the garage until everything is finished so that we can actually move in. That should be by this weekend. Should be. Of course, it should have been over 2 weeks ago that we SHOULD have been able to move in. But here we are. Still living out of boxes sitting in our garage.

Also, I decorated my house like crazy for Halloween and our neighbors promised lots and lots of Trick-Or-Treaters. I bought over 30 pounds of candy. Good candy. We had 13 Trick-Or-Treaters. THIRTEEN. That is not lots and lots. I totally got jipped. And now I'm going to gain 10 pounds by eating that 30 lbs of candy. Hopefully it will make me feel better about the lack of Trick-Or-Treaters at my house. I also went to Walmart and got a lot of Halloween stuff half off on November 1. So, I will be prepared again next year and still hoping for lots and lots of Trick-Or-Treaters. :)

Also, one of my bestest friends came to visit me yesterday. :) Everyone needs to go see the play that he's going on tour with for 14 months. You can go here to get tickets: http://www.annieontour.com.

ROOOOAAAAARRRR!

That's my angry roar. :( Things were starting to move along. The tile in the kitchen is almost finished. The kitchen cabinets were supposed to arrive tomorrow and the countertops on Thursday. The upstairs floors should be completely refinished today, and the downstairs will be finished this week as well. The drywall will be finished today which means that bathroom work can commence.

Well, bathroom work can't get started because people can't walk on the floors until at least 48 hours after they've been refinished. Well, you have to walk on the hardwoods to get to the bathrooms. So, they're on hold until probably next week. The electrician came in today to look at our kitchen. Stuff has to be torn out to rework the wiring for our new appliances. Thank goodness we haven't put in the cabinets yet. He is hoping to have stuff done tomorrow (HOPING), so that we can just delay the cabinets for one day. I hope that goes well. We can't afford any more delays.

We're supposed to be completely moved in by October 31. I'm really starting to lose hope that that is going to happen. If things get delayed anymore, we may not even be able to walk on the floors by then! :S

At least we have wonderful, fabulous, fantastic friends who helped us move in a bunch of our stuff this weekend. :) That stuff is waiting in the music room until the floors are finished and we can move it where it goes... Except for the couch. It's waiting on the screened in porch. Joe thought that this would be a good idea. I disagree, but oh well. It's out there now. We'll see what it smells like next week when we bring it in. lol

The tile guy was supposed to be finished by last night with the tile in the kitchen. He promised he could do it. He lied. He originally told us that he could be finished in one day with the kitchen. Definite LIE. He worked on it Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and yesterday. It still isn't finished. He only finished the place where the cabinets are going to be. He arrived yesterday at 7:00 AM. He didn't leave until after 11:00 PM. He finished like 3 more rows of the tile and he grouted what he had done. He did that much on Saturday when he wasn't there for nearly as long. What the hell is taking this guy so freakin' long?!?! I'm ready to scream and pull all of my hair out. I'm sick of all of this crap. Just do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it! It's not that hard!!

Schools Out Forever...

In a few days, students will be moving back into the dorms or into apartments in Salisbury. A few days after that, classes will be starting. And I will not be a part of it. For the first time in 17 years, I will not be starting another semester. And it makes me sad.

When I left Catawba in May as an official college graduate, I was so excited. I thought, no more homework, no more papers, no more reading books that I don't want to read. No more school BS. I was really burnt out. I thought that the real world would be simple compared to Catawba.

Well, I was right. I don't have homework. I have free time at night where I don't have to worry about writing papers or reading books that I don't care about. I don't have to do lab reports or projects. I work about 48 hours a week. And I still have lots of free time. I have my nights and my weekends to do whatever. It's a hundred times simpler than Catawba. However, I don't know that that is a good thing.

I miss my friends. Some of them are still around, but there are so many missing links (haha, double entendre for my Link Friends)... My life is boring. Even though there was always so much to be done at Catawba, it was at least always different. I do the same things every week at work. I always had multiple jobs and lots of schoolwork, but at least it never got boring. Joe travels a lot. When he's gone, I mostly just hang out with Jack, Cody, Jippy, and Daly. I love my babies, but they don't have much to say.

My birthday weekend was the most fun I've had all summer. I had so many of my friends together at one time. We talked and hung out and it was wonderful. It was like what I had most every weekend while at Catawba.

I'm hoping that now that school is about to start back up, I'll at least get to see some of my younger friends more often (and the super seniors, of course), but I can't just hang on to Catawba forever. Sooner or later, all the people I know there will be gone.

My parents always told me to enjoy college because life gets rough in the real world and there's always so much to be done. That's BS. College is WAY more work than the real world. It's just that the real world is not nearly as interesting.

I am hoping to find a book club or something to join. I just don't want to have to drive all the way to Charlotte. I'm sure that things would be easier for me to adjust to if I didn't dislike Gastonia so much. We live in Crackton and there is nothing to do in Gastonia. It's dull and dreary. It's a depressing place to live.

But Joe doesn't want to buy a house. I don't blame him, but we won't find anywhere else to rent where they'll let us have 4 dogs. So, we're stuck until we decide to buy. I hate it. I just want to be less bored and live in an interesting (and not depressing) place. Life in the real world is ... I don't even know. It's certainly not like life at Catawba.

Today

I woke up this morning feeling great. I wanted to go back to sleep, but other than that, I thought it would be a good day. Well, it's still early, but so far so good.

I miss Joe. He won't be back until Friday night or Saturday. He still seems to be in a good mood despite all the driving he's having to do (from Minnesota to Massachusetts, then to Virginia, then home -- he hates driving, or riding in a car).

Some pictures from my birthday have surfaced. And a video. And despite the fact that I look ridiculous in my camo TEAM KETCHAM t-shirt and my candy g-string, and holding a beer despite the fact that I was NOT drunk, they made me very happy. I have awesome friends. That is all. :)