7.25.2011

Dalo...

The world lost a great man today and while I'm thankful he is no longer suffering; I am filled with sadness. You see I don't have as many great male figures in my life like I do women. So when one enters my world I hold an extra special place for them in my heart! I feel blessed to have been given the chance to get to know this spunky WWII veteran who could tell a story like no other. Who had a sense of humor along with a contagious laughter...oh how I will miss that! A man with fierce independence that I'm positive kept his 93 year old self quite active and kept him around for as long as he was after his fall. I'm certain that I'm doing no justice to his character, but he was a good man!

The time that I've known him was all too short, but will be forever cherished!

Dalo(my adopted granddad)...I love you and will miss you!

7.22.2011

Music Therapy...

My brain is crowded...overflowing if you will. The words won't come out and in times like these I find that music is the best form of therapy and often find that some lyrics express my thoughts better than I can. Anyone else feel the same way?

Not only the words, but the melodies speak to me and I really feel it (of course I feel it in my interpretation of the song)! Treating myself to some music therapy tonight and sharing some lyrics too...of course if I could link I'd share the actual song, but alas no such luck!

Enjoy...

"Lately I've been hard to reach
I've been too long on my own
Everybody has their private world
Where they can be alone

But you'd have to walk a thousand miles
In my shoes, just to see
What it's like, to be me
I'll be you, let's trade shoes
Just to see what it'd be like

To feel your pain, you feel mine
Go inside each others' minds
Just to see what we'd find
Look at shit through each others' eyes" ~ Eminem...Beautiful (especially loving these lyrics right now)



"So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost Lovers always do" ~ A Fine Frenzy Almost Lovers


"What a night for a dance, you know I'm a dancing machine
With a fire in my bones and the sweet taste of kerosene
I get lost in the night so high I don't want to come down" ~ Kings of Leon Revelry


"When it's good then it's good, it's so good till it goes bad
Till you're trying to find the you that you once had
I have heard myself cry, "Never again"
Broken down in agony, just tryin' find a friend". ~Pink Sober


Also, wildly in love with the entire Mumford and Sons album...I would quote most of their lyrics, but instead I'll just advise that you listen to it...

7.11.2011

Bruised coccyx...

If you read my post on skydiving you will know that I had a rather hard landing. If you didn't read it, not so long story even shorter...I crash landed onto my ass. I felt the impact of the ground smashing into my tailbone and the pain ran up my back. But, I was all smiles and did not shed any tears. I was high! High on the adrenaline of falling/parachuting 10,000 feet to the ground.

After the adrenaline wore off the pain increased, but I am no stranger to pain and can play it off pretty freaking well. I found sitting to be quite uncomfortable and that if you laugh really hard it will hurt your bruised bum. Which made me laugh even harder. I'm not sure why I found it hilarious, but when you get the madre, sister, and myself together we typically make every situation into something funny.

We are on day three of my bruised coccyx and let me tell you it is not fun and rather annoying. I make funny noises when trying to get up after sitting and it's just uncomfortable. So, I decided to google "bruised tailbone" and found this helpful site that gives you 6 steps on how to care for your broken bottom.

You have the obvious; take an NSAID to reduce the inflammation, ice the hiney, wear comfortable clothes. Pretty obvious stuff because I mean really there is not too much that you can do for it! Except let time and your body do its thing and heal. But advice #6...oh helpful #6...avoid constipation!!!

Seriously...thank you Captain Obvious!?! This had me doing some serious belly laughing. I'm such an immature and inappropriate girl when it comes to my sense of humor, but come on...it's funny! I don't think too many people try to get constipated and I know it happens from time to time, but I'm quite positive we all pretty much want to avoid constipation. Bruised coccyx or not!

I now really enjoy the word coccyx and will be trying to throw it into my vocab from here on out...

7.10.2011

I summersaulted out of a plane yesterday...

Yup...sure did. Paid a nice chunk of change to have some strange man strapped to my back, flown 10,000 ft in the air in a tiny plane, only to have them open the door and then fall out of it. And it was the BEST f-ing experience of my life thus far!!!!

The madre had told my sister that she would take her skydiving for her 21st birthday and they were so kind to include me on this trip. It is something that we all talked about wanting to do. To add to this day the madre told us she wanted us to think about our fears, write them down, and then we would release them as we were falling from the sky. Pretty symbolic don't you think? I totally loved the idea. And as you can tell from some of my past posts I've been thinking about my fears. Fears that I will not share with you...today at least. But, after this experience I do know that putting energy into those fears makes them real and once you realize your energy is being invested in the wrong places those fears don't seem as scary. Not that they will disappear overnight, but they don't have as tight of a grip and if you continue to work on diverting those energies they just might go away. Life is short and you need to enjoy it!

As the weeks and days got closer our nerves grew and then there was THE day. We awoke early and you could feel the nervous excitement in the air. The madre seemed more terrified, sis really nervous, and I was more excited than anything. Maybe I was overcompensating my excitement to help ease their nerves? I mean don't get me wrong, I was definitely nervous, but the excitement overpowered it.

Anyways, we arrived about an hour early (we don't like being late) and walked into what appeared to be an empty building with a cute, but "not sure if you're friendly" dog attached to a leash. Unsure of where to go we kind of just stood there until Mike happened to walk by. Mike, who would be my videographer and the madres tandem buddy, is a retired military man who has been jumping out of planes for years. He had something like 5,000 jumps under his belt. Also, had the right kind of sarcastic humor to put us at ease.

I was expecting to have an hour or so long class of skydiving safety, but it was really a 15 min crash course of here is the plane, this is how you sit in it and turn around to attach to your buddy, and when the door opens sit your butt on the edge and let your buddy push yourselves out. Okay who is ready to fall out of a plane? This is not even an exaggeration it was that quick.

I nominated myself as the first person to go. Again, surprising myself at my bold "let's do this shit" attitude. Who is this girl and can I keep her around? I think I will! Anyways, I was introduced to Brad my tandem buddy (who would end up being so close to me he really should have bought me dinner afterwards) and he harnessed me up. I'm sure I was completely inappropriate with my comments in front of a perfectly good southern gentleman stranger. Saying things like, "this is the one time I'm glad I have small breasts" as he is politely explaining to me I may want to adjust the strap across my chest because for females it could be uncomfortable. It's okay though...I'm pretty sure Brad ended up having a little crush on me (mind you he could probably be my dad).

So, we were geared up and ready to get on the plane. My excitement is bubbling over at this point. I sit exactly as I was told, Brad climbs in and sits his legs on top of mine, Mr. Pilot is doing his thing, Mike jumps in next to pilot with his helmet video camera capturing it all, and in jumps another guy! Okay y'all this plane is small and I was quite shocked to see homeboy jump in. Me: "well hello stranger are you going to be jumping with me as well?". Turns out stranger (Brian) is one of the guys who is getting his license and will be jumping at 5,000 feet.

The entire ride up Brad and I are discussing shouting what we are about to do and mastering our handshake for the camera(which didn't make it on video sadly). He also kept saying that this would be lots of fun because I'm a really cool girl and didn't seem nervous at all. Brad knew how to get brownie points by telling me how awesome I am. Thanks Brad! I also was trying to make best friends with the other guys in the plane and was having a blast (my sisters experience was quite different as her peeps weren't so much fun...sorry sister).

5,000ft in the air, the door opens and we say our goodbyes to Brian. It was pretty freaking cool to watch someone fall out of a plane (I say fall because there really is no jumping involved).

9,000ft and it's time for me to turn around and snuggle up to the back of the pilots chair as Bradly attaches himself to me. We got close...very close and I kind of felt like I was a baby attached to his chest with one of those baby carriers (what the hell are those things called?). To which he laughed at me when I expressed this. I also made Brad promise me that we could do a flip out of the plane because that sounded like more fun.

10,000ft and it's GO TIME! Mike opens the door and makes his way out so that he can capture my experience. Brad and I scoot to the door and I sit as close to the edge as I can, the excitement out of control now. I failed to thumbs up the camera as I was concentrated on arms crossed. ONE...TWO...THREE...and I felt Brad summersault us out of the plane.

I kept my eyes open the entire time and I wish I could do justice to just how phenomenal the experience really was. No lie when I say it is by far the most amazing experience of my life thus far. Freefalling is exhilarating, but it didn't seem to last all that long before you do feel the jerk of the parachute opening. Then you are just floating in the air. Pulling the strap left when you want to go left and right when you want to go right. You can even twirl and twirl we did! We even went through a cloud. I was the happiest little girl in the sky! I could have stayed up there for hours.

Now comes the landing. We are getting close to the ground and I thought I heard Brad say "flare", so I began to pull the straps. Not what Brad said! We ended up crashing our asses onto the hard ground. I'm pretty sure I broke my ass from that land. But, I was a champ and brushed it off, getting right up and laughing it off. I think I was just high from the adrenaline rush. Despite the not so great land, I would totally do it again! Like I think I can become addicted to this!

In fact, Mr. Brad was so impressed with how much of a natural I was he said that I should come and take classes to become a tandem master or do the competitions. At first I thought he was blowing smoke up my ass, but after hearing him say that the entire float down and before I left, I can only assume that I am, in fact, a natural ;) Holy conceded...but I'm just excited that I did a good job! I'm also seriously considering taking the classes.

I should add that the madre and sister LOVED it as well. Also, the madre was the only one who landed on her feet (to which Mike said: " you know you're standing because of me right?"...haha loved Mike)!

Now I need to go ice my ass...

7.07.2011

On not accepting fear...

I recently answered the first of my "50 ?'s to free my mind" and I'd love to link you to that post (still figuring out blogging on an iPad...not so successfull), but it revolved around fear and my nightly meditation is also based around fear. I also happened to run across a great post on fear today and you can find it below (again prob won't be able to link, but I think it's worth a copy paste).

I think that God is trying to tell me something here! I'm not sure what I fear...okay I do!!!
But, it is not worth fearing and it's only holding me back from happiness. Got it...working on it!

So let's meditate on this:

When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is treasure also. You believe in what you value. If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly.



THAT is good stuff. Now to actually attempt to meditate...





http://www.lcweekly.com/the-best-life/2134-its-your-choice

7.06.2011

Meditate on this (dos)...

Oh yeah night numero dos of thoughts to meditate on.

I've learned that I currently suck at meditating and my mind goes a million different directions. But, practice makes perfect...right?!


Also, I'm thinking I should post the thought to meditate on before posting because I totally thought about what I was going to write during. I'm pretty sure that's not how you're supposed to do it.

On finding satisfaction in reality...

"What can be fearful but fantasy, and who turns to fantasy unless he despairs of finding satisfaction in reality?"



Hmmm...I'm a total daydreamer! Like on my way to/from work I often find myself arriving at my destination having no real recollection of the drive. I guess this daydream believer needs to work on remaining in the present more often...

7.05.2011

Meditate on this...

Part of my 101 in 1001 involves less stress and learning to meditate. Being the book lover that I am I stumbled upon this gem: Meditations from A Course in Miracles. I've been reading though this each night before bed to hopefully help shed some light and maybe bring inner peace. We shall see how it really works out (truth be told it gets my mind racing again, but in a good way...I think).

Anywho, I thought I'd share some of my nightly choices with y'all, but I'm not going to promise that I stick to posting one each night. Knowing me...I won't! Or maybe I will!

On the lessons of life (this was a good one for me y'all)


"Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought you."

Enjoy and share thoughts if you'd like...

7.04.2011

Happy 4th...

What a great drama free weekend! Spent it on the river with wonderful friends new and old. Now, I'm giving my liver a break and will probably enjoy some fireworks from the dock tonight.


Fun facts:

Letter John Adams wrote to his wife...
The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.[6] (he was off by two days, but celebrate we do)~wikipedia


In a remarkable coincidence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. ~wikipedia

A big THANK YOU to those who serve to protect our Country so that we can continue to celebrate our independence with fireworks, good friends, and good food/drinks!

The definition of insane...

Is ME and my addiction to falling for complicated!

I say it is an "addiction" because I always do it and I know I'm doing it (hence insane) and I tell myself to stop falling for complicated, but I don't and the ending is usually the same. Which involves me being sad and then angry at myself and complicated in a relationship with someone else!

I'm trying to figure out why I do this. Maybe it's just another way to protect myself from really falling for someone and having my heart shattered again? Not cool self...not cool at all! I really need to learn my lesson.

Also, for any guys who may actually read my amazing ramblings. Do a girl a favor and don't play with a girls heart. If you tell her you're not ready for a relationship, but you really mean you don't want to date her (just sleep with her and be her friend)...tell her the truth. Truth hurts sometimes, but it's much better than stringing her along until you find the girl you do want to be with.

And in related news...I completely adore Mr. Complicated from over a year ago new girlfriend! Which makes me and new gf completely amazing. Seriously, how many people can say they are friends with their ex and the love of their life?! Not too many. At least I don't think. It's awesome to see him so happy! Eventhough he was a complicated he really is an amazing person and he opened my eyes to what kind of man I should end up with. New gf is a lucky lady, but I think she knows that!

I don't think I will feel the same about new complicated and his "girlfriend", but I'll be happy for him because he too is an amazing person and he deserves happiness (a whole lot of it)!

Man, I'm a fucking awesome person (haha)! Now if I could just find uncomplicated who does not watch dancing with the stars (or current complicated realize he made a stupid for getting back with homegirl...I mean a girl can dream right?...or something).

Also, if any of you 5 readers want to take a shot at being a therapist go ahead and give it a whirl on my addiction with complicated. Cause i'd like to figure out why I do this and not always end up being the friend...cause I'm pretty sure I'd be a good girlfriend!