Simply Said

"You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there." -Bob Marley

Time Away

So, I have been away from the blogger scene for awhile now. As the end of the college semester reared its ugly head I resigned to focusing on it. I also started a new job that has been quite the challenge to get used to; with its crazy hours and physical stress on my body. I have found new muscles and aches and pains in my body that I never had before. I have found that I have new smells to experience that I don't quite enjoy so much. I have so many funny stories of things that happen at night with the resident that I take care of. The lady that told me that she was going to call the police on me because I was taking her out of the building even though I was only taking her down the hall. The man that told me I was the sherriff and putting him in jail. The woman who got picked up in a red firebird on Easter morning by her pimp boyfriend in his canary yellow suit and white patent leather shoes. The stories keep happening and I keep laughing. Thats all I really need in this crazy time of readjustment. A good laugh.

But now that summmer is here it is time to wind up again; to enjoy the time that I have to myself and with my family and friends. I was in a wedding with one of my best friends in the world a few weeks ago, to see her and her new husbands excitement and love was such an encouragement and a blessing. I get to enjoy seeing my friends more who live only 4 hours away, but that distance is longer than it ever should be. I get to be with my husband more and go hiking and enjoy uninterrupted time and focus on him and our house. I get to go traveling, go to concerts, read some great books, make some tasty meals, all of this I am just utterly excited to do. No stress and no time management with school involved. All free of burden. I love summer!

Done with that

I can't be further from done with that past blog or the season that it fell into. I really wish that people did not have to get so uptight or judgemental over feelings that I, personally, have. So what if I wanted to write about what I just went through or the fact that I was hurt and saddened by the events in my own life. Goodness knows this blog doesn't reflect exactly who I am or my traits or flaws. This blog to me is merely a reflection of what is going on in my life and my thoughts from time to time. My friends know that, and they come to me if they have something to say from these words that I write out and post on the world wide web. I want to be able to show my cards and explain to you if you have a problem or offense.

Why would someone put themselves out there and say some really nasty things to me that are only trying to bring me down without having any contact or want to contact me? What makes a person do that? I'm not sure. If someone takes offense to what I say they should come to me straight away and find out about me before making judgement calls. Life works that way. You don't shy away from confrontation if it is needed to resolve things. Yeah, whoever it was that said some things on my past blog; it hurt, it really sucked. So good for them! I'd like to know if they feel really proud now because I never got to respond to their comments.

It is my personal belief that people should never make others look bad just to make themself look good. Life and people are too good, time is too precious, and friends are too few to be hurting each other.

Suprise Ending

As many of you have heared, I lost my job at the Encore Cafe last week. It was a sudden shock, to say the least. I knew that since the cafe opened it was always hurting financially. It seems that a new cafe in Columbiana is just not what people are able to spend their hard earned money on. The past 2 months the daily take at the cafe went down to half of what it had been.

I understood that; we made drastic changes, but nothing seemed to do the trick. I knew it was hurting. Even though the head cheese never really gave me any indication of where things were, I knew we were hurting bad. I tried to do everything that I could to make things work. I developed recipes that were cheaper for the cafe but also gave some tasty scratch recipes, took care of jobs that would let people get out of there earlier on their shifts, any thing that I could think up, I did. I had a pretty strong suspicion.

My plans were to quit after this semester at college. To work through the semester and find something in the medical field to get my foot in the door since I will be graduating in May of 2010. I knew that I didn't have to put up with the place too much longer. My heart wasn't in it anymore. I never really had control over the place and it was slowly released from me over the past year anyways. Why was I there trying to make good of something that really didn't treat me right in the first place? Lots of promises were made, none of which happened. Ideas were thrown around only to be taken back at the last second. Trust was placed in me and things asked of me, but when I went to take care of them my toes (and trust) were stepped on.

I am glad to not be there anymore for the fact that I never had a worse boss, I never had so much mistrust placed in me. I was never lied to this much for something so simple as coffee, salads, and sandwiches. My faith in people, in friends, was shattered...I lost friends, I gained friends, it was the most trying year of work that I ever had. I have never been hurt so bad and I will never get hurt like that again.

In fact I will never do it again.

Bleak Outlook

So I'm just sitting at the Cafe waiting for Sam to get done with his new job at 4:30. We drove together this morning (as Sam pointed out, it was the first time that we ever have been able to drive to work together) to save on some gas and because the roads were pretty horrendous that we didn't want to venture 2 cars out there.

We turned onto the side road about 1/10ths of a mile from our house and Sam ran over a black lid to a trash can. I think that our car has a decent amount of clearance under it but that darn lid stuck under the car and we started dragging it. It was so loud! Sam stopped and tried to back up to lose it and it still stayed with us. So we had to pull into a driveway and somehow the gravel in the driveway loosened the lid and it popped out from under our car. It was like a mini snowplow under our car. Goofy, but at least we had a good laugh on the way to work.

I am so glad that we are starting to see some longer days. I think that this winter has snuck up some depression in me that started silently but has recently reared its ugly head. Seasonal Affective Disorder, maybe I need to get some spotlight and sit in it, drink some milk for vitamin D and soak in some rays of artificial light.

We got to go to Hocking Hills right after the new year with some of our best friends. I really had a good time, but it went entirely too fast and it stayed busy the entire time also. I was expecting a little down time, but I didn't find it till about 1am every night, when everyone was trying to stay awake. I loved the Lodge we stayed in this year, it was beautiful and the lay out of the huge cathedral living room/dining room/kitchen was just about perfect to spend our time with each other. We ended up getting into some closets that were closed to our viewing:) and we found some amazing white graduation gowns and prom dresses. From there we made our own fun. As always good friends, good food, good hiking, good sleeping, good dancing. Pictures will be posted soon I hope!

Random thoughts, but thats how I do.

Reminiscing...

Do you remember the first concert you ever went to of your favorite band? I was looking thru things of mine the other day...and I found some ticket stubs from Pearl Jam concerts I have gone to in the past. I remember my first time seeing them. We were in Pittsburgh at Post Gazette Gazebo on the lawn, I'm not even sure of the year? Maybe 1999? I'm sure Sam would remember the exact date since he is good with those things. We were waiting for Iggy Pop to come on the stage and play. A single man comes on the stage and says " I am Iggy Pop" and starts singing this:

I will come to you in the daytime
I will raise you from your sleep
I will kiss you in four places
As I go runnin' down your street

I will squeeze the life right out of you
I will make you laugh, I'll make you cry
And we may never forget it
As I make you call my name as I shout it to the blue, summer sky

And we may never meet again
So shed your skin lets get started
And you will throw your arms around me

I will come to you at nighttime
I will climb into your bed
I will kiss you in 155 places
As I go runnin' round in your head

I will squeeze the life right out of you
I will make you laugh, I'll make you cry
And we may never forget it
As I make you call my name as I shout it to the blue, summer sky

And we may never meet again
So shed your skin lets get started
And you will throw your arms around me...
("Throw Your Arms Around Me", Hunters and Collectors)

As he starts singing I realize that it is Eddie Vedder, the lead singer from Pearl Jam. All the years of waiting to finally see him live and in person wash over me and I remember the feelings. The song, the moment, it all fit together perfectly. All of the other Pearl Jam concerts that we went to, he never did that. He never came on stage and played an acoustic song to start the night like that night. It was one of a kind. I thought I was going to cry, I thought I was going to faint like one of those silly girls you see in the old Beatles videos. The crowd went wild as everyone realized it was Eddie all at the same time and that made the emotions even headier. But I will never forget how special that moment was. All the other concerts I have ever been to, none of them were as memorable as that one, and that moment.

Man Down!

We took a hard hit from Hurricane Ike last night. Of course being on top of a hill we always get the most extreme elements of each season. We have had some pretty wild storms on that hill. The straight line winds that come over the hill have torn down trees and knocked down our tall garden sunflowers and blown away trash cans galore. In the spring we don't get leaves on our trees for another 2 weeks after everyone else because of the elements. Its just something that we are used to laugh at anymore.

Last nights storm was in the top 3 of the worst we have had since we moved there almost 10 years ago. We had Megan over for supper and planned on watching a movie or just chilling for the night. The winds were wild the entire day & they picked up around 8pm. We sat on the porch for awhile watching everything unfold; it's always a great show out there. Winds picked up and the electricity went out. We went inside for a moment and we noticed that cars were stopped on the road in front of our house. A large locust tree fell onto the road and was blocking it for traffic. People were trying to move the branches onto the side and into our yard so Sam went out with the chainsaw to try and cut it smaller. When we got out towards the road we noticed that the electric pole was bent at an angle towards the ground and leaning into our yard. Yikes! I called 911 to let them know the situation and of course it was busy. I finally got ahold of them and they said they would put it on file, to call if it caught on fire or sparked. Whoa whoa wee whoa!

Megan drove her car to the end of the driveway to shine lights on the tree in the road. It was so huge there was no way of it getting cut. While I was out there I got smacked in the ear with a flying branch and it hurt for the rest of the night. A huge branch rolled right into Megans car and scraped along the side of it while she was parked there. We watched it rolling towards us and Megan said that it came at her so fast she forgot to roll up her window as it rolled past the drivers side. Today we looked and her car is all scraped up from it. Electricity is still out now over 24 hours later and not supposed to get turned on possibly for a couple days.

I had to work today, but Sam took the day off to clean up everything. I went home and our great friends Megan and Jonathan were there. I worked the morning with Brad and he came over as soon as we got off work. We picked up and burned 5 truckloads of branches and leaves in the firepit in the afternoon, the yard probably looks better than it did before! We emptied the refrigerator and freezers and brought everything over to Jonathans house to store there. Tonight we are staying with the Wilsons since we possibly won't get electricity for another couple days, at least not till that electric pole gets fixed. But at least I got a shower tonight and I am comfy in a house with great friends who are hospitable and love to help us out.