..And At Once I Knew I Was Not Magnificent

This blog is pretty plain, not much decor or anything going on here huh? I'll have to change that soon. It's a goal of mine for the new year.

Speaking of the new year, I am still feeling quite hopeful. I have many ideas and I've been inspired to accomplish many recurring items on my Lifetime TO Do List (I'm definitely a list person if you cant tell by now.) I have also been thinking about where I want to take this blog. It started out as a public diary, a way of tracking life events, or fleeting emotions and feelings. I often look back at posts and reminisce about what I wrote. I appreciate the fact that I can go back to a certain point in time and recall exactly what I felt because I wrote about it in such detail. Therefore, I know that I want to keep this blog going, even if its just for myself. What I will change is the frequency of my posts. I definitely want to make sure I capture this year because I feel so optimistic about it (so optimistic that I even inserted the quintessential cheesy quote pic in this post), so with that being said, I will make every effort possible to write a post every Friday starting today. I'll make it a habit so it becomes second nature.

I will also continue to post, not only about my feelings at the moment, but my discoveries in myself, in music, in art, in life, and just in general. I want to be able to look back and remind myself of the time where I made a change in my life, whether its a different way of thinking or a new band.  This blog has never been about sharing with the world, it has always been for me and my future selves. So I am making an effort to stop disappointing myself and living up to the things I imagine in my head.

Title post is "Holocene" by Bon Iver

This Year

There is a new year coming and I am feeling optimistic. I feel like this is going to be the year where I make the changes in my life that will lead me to being happy. This is the year where I hope to start the rest of my life.

I plan on paying off all my debt and starting fresh for 2014. I plan on traveling, finally losing those last 20lbs, cooking more, eating healthier, getting a new job, saving money, having fun, and just living. I want this to be the year where I look back and pinpoint it as the start of when things got good. I want to work on having a good and healthy marriage. I want to have fun.

I will try to stay this positive throughout and we will see where this positivity will take me.

2012 A Year in Review

Well I definitely don't write here as often as I did in the past. I truly don't know why because I love to write and I'm sure I could find the time a few days a week. I guess I'll make that a New Year's Resolution then. It's not too early to start talking about the new year since we are exactly 18 days away from 2013.

It really feels like this year just flew by. There are so many things that happen in 12 months but it all just feels like yesterday so it's hard to grasp the fact that so much time has gone by.So I put together a list of all my favorite things that happened in 2012. I think I am gonna try to do this every year going forward.

2012: My Favorite Events

-The triplets turned one

-Made 7 years with Victor

-Saw The Black Keys in concert for the first time

-Visited my godsister in VA

-Started planning my wedding 

-Took Alyssa to get her first haircut

-Went apple picking

-Got a Keurig

-My little brother graduated from high school

-Helped my brother move into his dorm

-Victor got his Associates Degree

-Had the opportunity to spend some time in Argentina and Uruguay

- Got to vacation in Dominican Republic with all my best friends and family

-Got MARRIED in Dominican Republic

-Lost 20lbs and have kept them off 

-Went to a family reunion for a second year in a row

-Voted for the 3rd time in my life!

-Planned a baby shower :)

-Got to see the triplets begin to grow up

I'm sure there is much more but I cant remember it all. This gives me hope for 2013 because so many wonderful things happened in 2012 without me even making an effort. Come next year, I will make an effort and I think it will be a good year :)

New Year, New Beginnings

Here is my first post in 2012. I have been meaning to write but I havent been able to find the time since work was overwhelming for the first 2 weeks of January.

In any case, I have decided to make 2012 the year where I cross as much things as possible off my To Do list in life. I have an ongoing To Do list where I basically add more to do's than I take off, but I want that to change. For starters, here is my list. I have kept many of the same things but have also made a few additions and removed some things as well. I want to keep this list as realistic as possible.

Ongoing To Do's

1. Physical and mental health and well being

2. Dedicate more time to pampering myself

3. Grow my hair long enough to donate

4. Get married

5. Finish decorating my apt

6. Eat healthier and greener

7. Take more pictures

8. Pay off credit card debt

9. Save more money

10. Learn new recipes, cook more/bake more

11. Find a career that makes me happy

12. Travel more (Paris?)

13. Find out info about going back to school for my Master's degree

14.Get new glasses

15. Figure out how to stay happy

I am really going to focus on getting these done this year, but I'll be ok if not all of them get crossed off. Some are more important than others (number 1, 6, 8, and 9 are examples) so I will have to prioritize and just see where life takes me this year.

I Know Exactly Where I Wanna Be

One of my New Year's resolutions was that I was going to treat myself better. I decided that I am gonna splurge when it comes to using beauty products. From now on, I am gonna get the best products there are and I am not gonna worry about the price. This is gonna be my gift to myself. Just a little something to pick me up.

One of the things that I splurged on was soap. Anthropologie sells an organic soap made in France and it is one of the best things I have ever used on my skin. It only comes in a few scents and so far my favorite is Verbane. It has a very fresh, lemony fragrance and it is made from organic shea butter and olive oil so my skin is so smooth, lotion is not even necessary. In fact, it has gotten rid of some dry spots I tend to get on my arms in the winter. I absolutely love, love, love this soap. It is definitely a splurge because one bar i $7.00 but it is sooooo worth it.

I am really happy that I fought through the desire to say "$7.00!! That is way too much for soap! I have rent to pay!" and I actually did this for myself :)

Title of Post is from "My Second Restraining Order" by I Am The Avalanche

Not So Happy New Year

I purposely chose not to do a 2010 recap. I have several reasons for it but it is mostly because I have not been feeling well emotionally and mentally. I have been in a funk and I cannot seem to find a light.

A lot of great things happened in 2010 and I am very grateful for all the little things that make life worth living. However, a lot of unnecessary drama occurred the last two weeks of the year that have made me bitter. I have had much worse years in my life but I have also had much better years.

I know that I should not start 2011 on such a bitter note but I cannot help it. I need some time to come to terms with things and find a way to swim. I have so many things to be upset about but I also have so many things to be happy about. In the spirit of being cliche, I do have a very short list of goals that I want to accomplish for 2011. Here they are:

1. Find physical, mental and emotional well being--
-meaning lose weight, stop being miserable, and just generally smile more often. I also want to take better care of my skin and my hair, take vitamins, use good quality, organic products like soap, lotion, start using make up. I want to generally improve my outer appearance as well as my inner one.

2. Take more risks--
-do the things I hold myself back from because I am not comfortable or because I am scared

3. Live for myself--
-stop putting others first and focus on myself and my needs. I have learned that nobody else is gonna put me first but me.

4. Find happiness in my career...or find another career--
-self explanatory...I hate my job

5. Accomplish one life long, unrealistic dream, big or small--
-I want to convince myself that dreams do come true, no matter how ridiculous they may seem

I look forward to putting 2010 behind and moving on. I want this to be the year where things finally start to make sense for me. I want this to be the year where I can finally say I am happy.

New Blog

I have set up my Weight loss blog. It will be called The Pursuit of Healthiness. It is not final yet, but I do have two posts up. I will be making changes and updates because I am not certain about the background and template designs yet. I am also still working on how I want the blog to work and what I want to gain from it.

You can check it out if you want for now, but there will probably be changes coming soon. I want it to be up and running by Jan 1st, 2011. That is when I will start to post weekly with pics and progress. I will still continue this blog though. My new blog is only for lifestyle change related things, but this one will be for me to post the usual crap that goes through my head. Below is the link to The Pursuit of Healthiness:

http://pursuitofhealthy.blogspot.com/

Let me know what you think

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole

First post of the new year. Ive been slaving at work. For those of you who are financially saavy, we have been reconciling our accounts for the entire year so that we can get release our 2009 earnings to our shareholders. In laymans terms this means: they have been slaving us so that we can tell people who invest in our company how much money we made in 2009.

I dont know if I am overworked and just exhausted, but I feel sad. This happens to me often. I will be just fine and all of a sudden, Im in a "mood." I have no control over it and I often dont realize its happening until I feel the way I feel today.

Let me attempt to put it into words. I feel like I am bored but I have too many things to do at once. I feel hopeless, nostalgic, spaced out, stressed, and just plain sad. It becomes difficult for me to move, to understand what people are saying and to even want to stay awake. Its so hard to make sense of this feeling because most times I have no reason to feel this way and because it just comes and goes at it pleases. I am no fool, I know that my symptoms can be googled and that it would result in some sort of mild depression, but I would rather not go there.

This reminds me of a lyric in "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot" by Brand New. It goes:

"A crown of gold; a heart thats harder than stone
It hurts a whole lot, but its missed when its gone"

Sometimes, for some reason, people like to feel pain and they like to feel sad. I remember feeling that way a long time ago. Thinking that I wanted to feel a little sad and just have a good cry. I guess its because to me pain and sadness has always been more familiar than happiness. That was before I knew what it was like to actually feel genuine, unexplained sadness. I have been depressed. I have known what its like to feel completely hopeless, to feel like you are spiraling downward in a bottomless, black hole. I have known what its like to make the effort to just get up and shower or to eat or to even take the next breath. I have known what its like to want to feel good...to feel normal and happy but not finding the effort to do so anywhere within your whole universe.

I have been there before....

And although pain is more familiar than happiness, I will NEVER go back there again. So I guess I will just continue to deal with my little "episodes" and my temporary periods of sadness because I dont ever want to be that person I was. I dont ever want to feel the way I once felt. And though that person I was may linger within me, to me she no longer exists.

She is merely a ghost of who I used to be...and of who I will never be