I adore hanging out with my dad. He's my best friend and makes every day insanely fun. We do the most ridiculous things and cry so hard we laugh at our silliness. He's one of the only people I can truly be myself around & it always ends up being a great day with him. I've got girlfriends who just don't understand being able to spend the entire day with your parent and not want to claw someone's eyes out. Dad and I've always been close every since I was a little girl.
Today of course was not any different. We went to drive around, which usually entails getting a drink at the convenience store then heading to Watkins Mill to let the dogs run around. Of course as we're headed back home dad tells me to take a left instead of right (which lead to the house) I immediately knew it was a off the beaten path day. Dad LOVES taking back roads and seeing where they go. I however am not as adventurous as he is plus I'm slightly terrified of gravel roads that I don't know that well.
So off we went. We finally arrived home around 2 1/2 hours later but we had a blast. We ended up at Wallace State Park where we sat on the bench by the water trying to capture a gorgeous blue butterfly on camera that kept flying around us. It was determined to land on dad. Bella on the other hand was determined to eat said butterfly. So enjoy some pictures from today :)
Here's the full poem: HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis
If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.
We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.
There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke).
And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.
And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.
Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals.
The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.
Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.
When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.
Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community. And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.
Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself
Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.
You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.
Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay.
It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach.
And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that communitie's not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.
you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it If your heart is bleeding make the best of it There is heat in freezing, be a testament.
Has been extremely difficult this last few weeks. Dad however has been amazing, which I had no doubt about, with keeping me up & making things ten times better than they would be. I had a couple of co-workers come to work sick & I caught what they had. Last week after taking Friday & Monday off I came back to work Tuesday thinking I'd got over the cold. WRONG. Tuesday night I started coughing up blood & went back to the doctor Wednesday. Well I have strep throat which caused everything to be swole so bad that when I coughed I popped a blood vessel. I got put on amoxicillin for the strep & went on my merry way. Saturday I started Yaz for my PCOS & started having stomach issues. These have continued til today when finally I got fed up and went back to the doctor. It seems that I now have bronchitis PLUS the amoxicillin and yaz were causing the stomach discomfort so I had to switch medications. Hopefully that will help my stomach settle down & make the stomach problems go away. *fingers crossed* I'm extremely tired of going to the doctor and/or having some sort of illness. I just want it to be fixed. Which I know is easier said than done. Here's hoping that the next few days brings a happier stomach to me :)
Blogging for the last few months has been difficult, to say the least. I don't want to be a negative nanny so I just don't blog. I try to think of something I could blog about that would be interesting but I just can't. Things are nutso right now and hopefully they'll calm down soon. I just don't want to blog daily about things that have gone wrong ya know? So I just keep it off of here then it kinda looks like I've disappeared when I haven't. I'm just choosing not to throw it out there and have people think I'm a pessimist when I most definitely am not. In this case not sharing is caring :)
On another note I started reading again, I had about a month or 2 lag where I just didn't want to read anything. I do that sometimes but this was a tad longer than norm but onto the books!
Such a great book! I can't wait til the 3rd one comes out. It left you on a cliffhanger which I figured was going to happen however I loved it. This is a series that sucks you in from the first page and just won't let you go. The characters are amazing and you can't help but love them.
This is the 3rd book in the series and I just skimmed it to be honest. I was still getting out of my non reading phase and I've found myself over historical romances for the time being. I think I've just read so many of them they all seem about the same now. However with that said I love this series (LOL). The Hatahaway's crack me up. They're a family that's real & you can relate with them because they're not perfect. They're not a everyone is sunshine and roses family which I love. Each one of them have their problems and they love each other unconditionally. Definitely a good series to read!
Ah the Bride Quartet. Nora & I have been hit and miss lately so I was hoping this book was a good as the first one and it was. Four women who are best friends started a wedding planning business and each one manages something different in the business. The first book was about Mac who is the photographer of the group. This book is about Emma who is the florist find her true love.
I accidentally read this book first & it's actually book 2 of a series. Don't you hate when you do that but it seems like any book now a days is a series & I hated it until I went back and read the first book. Ha. Shame on me. tsk tsk.
I'm a huge JR Ward fan, I loved the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, however this book was just too long. It felt drawn out and I couldn't get into it at all. I skimmed through it and got the gist of the book but it just didn't grab my attention :(
This is the book before Hunting Ground & I loved it! I love Patricia Briggs's ability to make the characters seem everyday and amazing at the same time. Charles and Anna are another couple who you just want to stand up and cheer for. Can I have the 3rd one yet please? Kthksbye!
Today was amazing! Tanya came over first thing this morning & she'd made me a carrot cake. Yum. Her, Dad & I then went to Jose Peppers (my favorite restaurant) to have lunch then it was off to the movies to see New Moon. We had a blast just hanging out and goofing around. They're my two favorite people in the world & they made my day amazing. Tanya got me a copy of WOZ & a candle. Then Dad got me Snow White on DVD. I couldn't have asked for a better day.
I've made mistakes in my life. I've let people take advantage of me, & I accepted way less than I deserve. But, I've learned from my bad choices & even though there are some things I can never get back & people who will never be sorry, I'll know better next time & I won't settle for anything less than I deserve.
It's officially fall and I'm drinking some amazing mint cocoa. I love the fall, the leaves, the smell, the fun, but I hate the cold. It's 50* here today and burr! We had to fix the basement window from where the lightning shattered the glass. We've been lazy and ignored it, but the temperatures have made it where we needed to fix it today or else. So we went out to the local hardware store, got some glass and put it in. Unfortunately I don't know how I did it, but the glass cut the bejeebers out of my finger. It hurts, to say the least.
I need to get some pictures, but the other day I forgot to take my camera with me on my walk. Figure right? I usually do that. Other than that I've just been busy planning for story times at work & working. I'm trying to catch up on my reading but I've just not been motivated to do so. I need to get busy because some of the books are coming due in a few days....
I have a question so be sure to leave comments galore! I want to know what your favorite children's book is? What did you read as child? What are you children reading now? Lemme know.
Let me tell you a story of a girl and her father who were driving down the highway and went to go through the traffic light that has a newly installed camera on it. If you pass through the intersection while the light is red it takes a picture of your vehicle and mails you a ticket. So she diligently made sure she didn't even come close to driving through the light whenever it's red. Today the girl went to go through the light & it turned yellow so she hit the brakes. Hard. The anti lock breaks promptly kicked in which scared the bejeebers out of said girl. The break pedal sunk to the floor which freaked her out even more and somehow she managed to hit the horn with her elbow. After returning home from the trip she realized she'd somehow managed to hurt her back in the process of making a fool out of herself. Now she's in pain.
The other day I mentioned Bella gets really aggravated at the fact that she cannot catch Beethoven no matter what she does. Today after mowing I sat out in the yard with them, busted out the big boy Nicholas the Nikon & took 184 photos of them.
I didn't do too bad, out of those I kept 94! It's funny to flip through them quickly and see the action but here are some of my faves of today. Enjoy. You can click the pictures to make them bigger :)
Contemplating her move. Attack!! Mad & rolling about. Readddy... Blast off! And the race is on. Sometimes she had to just sit and watch as Beethoven ran around like a mad man. Then Helen came along, and she reveled in her power! Domination then occurred. But then she spotted bigger prey... & she was off!
Bella's loving lazy Saturdays just as much as I am :) She's slowly getting bigger! She's definitely got slightly taller & a little rounder. Plus she's doing extrememly well on the potty training issues. This morning she got up out of her bed & shot into the kitchen & I was like what in the world is she doing? (Which isn't a abnormal question to be asking about her since she's absolutely bonkers sometimes) So I was keeping an eye on her and she got to the corner of the stove and turns around to look at me with a "WTF come on I gotta go" look on her face, I got up and ran to the front door where she was waiting and she zinged outside to go! I was so proud of her :) She's only 2 days short of being 10 weeks old & I'm amazed at how well she's doing.
Her personality cracks me up. She's a zinger that's for sure. She romps constantly throughout the day especially in the morning and at night. Poor Beethoven is like "Leave an old man alone!" but they're getting along really well. She gets so fired up & aggravated easily so we're trying not to play with her too much because we don't want her to get mean. She loves being by someone and sleeping, which is extremely adorable.
Man I needed a break this week. It wasn't one thing that made me feel this way it was just anything & everything. Therefore I'm extremely thankful I have a 4 day weekend, I don't go back to work til Wednesday & I'm reveling in the fact that I can hole up until then. So far I've been enjoying my families company & catching up on some reading. There's nothing better than relaxing and knowing that there's not going to be some sort of drama around the corner. I'm enjoying it a ton, can you tell? ha!
I recently downloaded Ingrid Michaelson's new cd, Everybody and I love it! Here's a song from the new album.
We also got a new puppy & here's a video of her being absolutely nuts.
