Thursday Thirteen #10

Thursday Thirteen

13 People/experiences/things I am grateful for happening over the last 24 years.

 

My birthday is this Saturday, I turn 24 years old. In some cases I am much to young to have experience a lot of things. It’s hard to choose just 13 things that have really formed me into who I am. But I did my best and here they are.

 

 

1. My dad – I spent half my life thinking he hated me. When I was at my ultimate lowest my mom “tossed” me aside, but my dad quickly came to my “rescue” and pick me up from the slums. Literally. He gave me a second third fourth chance I needed.
2.  Past/Present/Future Friends – No matter how short or long, insignificant or great, how cruel or blissful, or even how useless of a friend it was I walked away with something. A wonderful memory, a long time friend, wise words of wisdom, and sometimes just the appreciation of being in someone’s life. Even the painful friendships I’ve learned to pick myself up and walk away just a little stronger.
3. Technology – I developed an incredible love for everything electronic before I was 8. My dad used to fix TVs and VCRs. I loved the smell of circuit boards. Not kidding. At 12 I loved HTML. Back in the dial up days I would spend hours on AOL just for angelfire.com if it wasn’t for cable and DSL I have no clue how I would function. If it wasn’t for cell phones I’d be a F/T SAHM glued to my phone at home in case anything happened to my son at school.
4. The Scar on my right eyebrow – A shopping car fell on my head when I was 7 or 8, maybe even 6. It’s a reminder to me that the more dangerous things in life may be the best fun, but it comes at some cost. So live life on the edge and to the fullest, just don’t fall off. And don’t let things fall on you.
5. The Company – As of August 1^st, 2008 I’ve been working for them for 3 years. That’s the longest I’ve ever committed to a single company. The next longest is 9 months at Hilo Hatties. In 3 years I’ve met a lot of people, people that have encouraged me to push myself way beyond what I thought my limits were. I’m able to support my family, my son and I have some pretty amazing benefits, I love the people I work with, and above all I love what I do.
6. Going to College – Now it may have only been a community college and it may only be just a two year degree, but it’s much more than most people have. Especially a statistic like me. I was 3 months pregnant with my son when I graduated high school. No goals, no ambitions, no plan whatsoever. My dad and stepmom pushed me to go. 2 years later I had an Associates Degree in Applied Science for Electronics. Before I graduated I was offered a full time position working for The Company. What made this an amazing feat was that I had my son with me the whole time. I gave birth during finals week my first semester. I aced all my finals. My goal now is taking online courses towards Bachelors in Electrical Engineering.
7. My mom – Sadly she isn’t a great role model in my life. But she is some sort of model. As she’s grown up (or lack thereof) she’s made (and still makes) many “mistakes”. Mistakes she’ll probably never own up to. But in turn she’s has given me many examples on what NOT to live by. Mistakes I’ll be sure to never make. Mistakes I’ve learned from. From her I learned how much I want to keep a bond with my children. How I want them to look up to me and be proud to call me their mother. Hopefully one day, my mother will see my examples and changer her ways.
8. Not quite growing up – When I look in the mirror I don’t see the person that’s about to turn 24 I see a kid. Just a kid. Me. In a sense yes I am an adult and mature, but in a greater sense I’m just a BIG kid. I don’t know if I will ever grow up. Not sure I want to. I love cartoons, anime, manga, toys (e.g. Legos, video games, K-nex, etc.), dressing up, and assortment of other childish things. I prefer watching a good cartoon over the NYSE, Oprah, or a chick flick. I’d prefer to play in a kiddie pool with water balloons and water guns with 6 years olds over coffee with the adult crowd. I’m not trying to remain a kid, I just prefer to enjoy the finer things in life and relax than take every moment so serious. Life is much too short for that. Besides kids have better imagination of what life is all about.
9. Juvenile Detention – Way back when I was a rebellious one I landed myself in juvenile detention. I think I was the least harmful one in there. I met some interesting girls. I was meek and incredibly scared. Scariest 4 weeks of my life. But I made it through. A little braver, much stronger, and with a greater sense of where I don’t want to lead my life towards.
10.  Marriage and Divorce – So technically I’ve been married for 4 years and “with” my husband for a total of 7. Of those 4 years of marriage 3 years were spent fighting a divorce and custody battle. I married for every possible wrong reason and I suffered the consequences. But I never walk away from a mistake with taking away a good lesson. In the end I found someone who I do truly love.
11.  Being Homeless – For the greater part of my senior year in high school I was homeless. I was 18, still a bit rebellious, and left my dad’s house. It was my choice, but in the end my dad didn’t let me back in and it turned out for the better. I lived in a tent on the beach for a few months. I still attended school. I maintained my grades to a B average. I graduated and amazed myself. I was really depressed during this stage. I was making all the wrong choices. I was with the wrong people. It took a huge life changing experience for me to finally step back and fully re-assess my life.
12.  My boyfriend – Preston and I have been through some crazy ups and downs. We balance each other well. Literally opposites of each other. He’s ‘tamed’ my ways and keeps me pretty grounded, some times. He has given me the most unconditional love (outside of my son) that no other non-family member has given me. He is my best friend, my wall to ‘beat on’, the shoulder to absorb my tears and snot, my lover and above all my partner in crime. I don’t know what lies ahead of us, but if he’s by my side nothing seems too bad or hard to handle.
13.  My son, minion, heir, and savior – When I found out I was pregnant in high school the whole world stopped. I looked at what I surrounded myself in and realized it’s not all about me. It’s about us, him. I didn’t want my son to turn out like me. I wanted to give him the best chance in the world that I could possibly give him. I want him to be surrounded with love. Love not just from me, but from important people in my life too. In return my son saved me. Gave the whole world a real meaning to me. If I didn’t have him I promise you I’d probably be drunk in some ditch somewhere, working at some crappy barely paying job, probably on the verge of dying. You know the sad thing of it I’d probably think I was happy. But my son changed that he gave meaning to life. Not just my life, but the life of everything and everyone around me.  

So good, so far, let’s keep this going.

It’s only the 3rd, but this month is turning out to be pretty freaking awesome.

1. My aunts (minus 1) are all down, even a couple of my cousins. More coming down on the 8th. Lots of family dinner at tons of different houses and every event filled with loved. I mean LOTS of love. Loving out the ying yang. Love from people I didn’t even know I was related to, but is so they shove love down your throat. lol. But I almost forgot how amazing it truly is to have a huge family like mine.

Filipino families, well maybe not all but definitely the ones in Hawaii, there is no such thing as extended family, 2nd or 3rd or 4th cousins, aunts and uncles. Everyone is just family. They are “far” family. Don’t even need an ounce of the same blood you are family like they have known you your whole life.

And it’s pretty nice.

To feel wanted. To have people that want to be a part of your life.

Though there is a somewhat sad side to this, but I’ll tell you another day. I don’t want to ruin this great start of a month.

The funeral was beautiful. The food was great too. And man did I mention my family was just huge?

2. We went to my Uncle R’s house to swim in the pool. I went with the expectation that Nyx was just going to be opihi. I general can’t enjoy swimming sometimes because he constantly hanging onto me and I have to carry him.

Lo and behold, I jumped in, he swam to me. Let me repeat. HE SWAM TO ME. My jaw dropped and my heart jumped. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes until he popped back up and was threading water right in front of me. He quickly grabbed and said AGAIN! He held my hand, put his head under water and started kicking to the edge of the pool. What did he do?

He ran and jumped into the water. Over and over and OVER again. He showed me his “starfish” swimming method. Held his breath for LONG periods, over and over again. So we spent several hours poolside and enjoyed every second.

3. The best damn news. I checked my mail today. That doesn’t sound so exciting, except for the fact that I’ve officially be divorced since July 24th, 2008.

July 24th, 2008!!! Single, free, unmarried -ish. I still have Preston. lol.

It’s finally over. I just have to finish paying off my lawyer, but it’s done. I started to read over the decree and started to cry. I was happy. Happy is too bland of a word to explain the utter relief, excitement, and pure joy I had in my heart. But happy was the only word that could find its way out of my mouth when trying to explain to Preston why I was crying.

Preston is stoked still.

So August is looking pretty damn promising for us. I hope it keeps going on for the rest of the year.

4. Oh yea my fortune cookie tonight said “The Evening Will Bring Romance.”

*wink wink*

Finally coming to terms

Today we had our final meeting with Nyx’s teacher, Mrs. T., we brought in his huge list of school supples. Practically all labeled. Minus labeling all 104 crayons. I was totally over that!

Doesn’t mean I didn’t having anything to label. I had 4 bottles of glue, 4 bottles of hand soap, 4 boxes of 10 markers, 2 glue sticks, 2 sets of paints, 24 sharpened pencils, 3 shirts, and a load of other things. We got to let out all the final questions. Questions that have been driving me up the wall crazy. I’m extremely paranoid so I asked ALL the “what if” questions. And amazingly she answered them all. Even Preston’s interrogation questions too.

She really put my mind at ease. She’s incredibly nice to. Better yet she has a daughter going to the same school. Though from the looks of it she’s a couple years older. Nyx also has 2 other, possibly 3, friends from Pre-k in the same class and that’s even better for him. And me.

I got the whole bus thing situated, so he gets to start riding the bus from the first day. Another great fear of mine, but his other Pre-k friends will be riding the bus to the same place as him, so once again he won’t be alone.

I signed him up for the after school youth center, which is free by the way. Had our tour of the place yesterday and Nyx is looking forward to it. Actually he’s been looking forward to going to the youth center for the last year. So yey all around!

And the last thing on my list was the school lunch thing. I thought it was going to be expensive, so I was going to apply for reduced/free lunch, looked at the chart and realized I don’t make the cut. Apparently for a family of 2 I make too much. (Note I’m not rubbing it in your face just stating a fact). So I went on ahead and just put $100 on his lunch card for now. The lunch is $1.25. Pretty cheap I think. So I don’t think Preston and I will bother applying for the reduced/free lunch. I’m sure there is another family that would like our place anyways. Even if we did try with our combined income they’d probably laugh at us for trying to apply anyways. Not a big deal.

During our interview with Mrs. T Nyx got to tour his new classroom. The nice MAC computers, the pretend center, the desks, practically everything. So the greatest ease on my mind is seeing the excitement in Nyx’s eyes. Everything out of his mouth has to deal with Kindergarten. So if he is excited, then I should be too. I don’t want by paranoid/negative vibes to affect him. I want to keep him on this path of wanting to learn.

After the interview I decided to take the rest of the day off. Relax and get things organized. My great-grandmother passed away a week ago and her funeral is this coming Saturday. I have lots of family flying in and they all want to spend some time together. I hardly see them and I think half of them hardly know Nyx exists. Not that they exclude me from their lives, simply that I don’t communicate with them. Nothing is wrong with my aunt, just never had a strong bond with them.

Anyways, there are 4 Great Great Grandchildren and the family want them to play a role in the ceremony. So I’ve been preparing Nyx for that. He’s never attended a funeral before. So I hope he’ll be respectful and follow directions.

In the end, I wish I could have known my Great Grandmother better. I’ve met her a couple times, but I don’t really have a bond with her. It got me thinking, thinking things I should have done a long time ago, I should rebuild my relationship with my grandmother. She is an amazing person. Very funny and I want my son to have a good relationship with her. She’s great and healthy so I know she’ll be around for a long time more. My grandfather is still here too, but has been in and out of the hospital the last year or so. And I know my grandma will make sure he stays as long as she does.

So tonight my WHOLE family is having dinner at my Aunt’s house, N. I never met N. in fact I didn’t know she existed till an hour ago when we were told ordered to go from grandma through dad.

Nyx is taking a nap and this is my opportunity to play with my Wii Fit, DDR, or maybe even *gasp* clean.

I do know something about my Great-Grandmother though, she’s 4 years older than my grandma.

My Many Visual Transformations

I just realized this after post an excerpt on Cafemom, I know I like to cut my hair, but I really didn’t know how often. Or even how much till this post.

Over the course of 3 years I’ve had 3 dramatic hair cuts. Sure I get a trim here and there, but 3 major cuts each year since 2005. Here’s your visual: (FYI: It’s pretty picture intensive)

Climbing my saddle.

I’m not quite back on the saddle yet. But climbing.

I saw my surgeon, Dr. J on friday. Apparently, whatever is holding my incisions closed is dis-solvable ? So he just looked at it was happy and sent me on my merry way.

Which my merry way was jumping on a plane and spending the weekend on Oahu. It was fun-ish. Might I add the first time we went to Oahu and DIDN’T go to a strip club. Not that it matters, but we always go. I think it was because Preston’s friends we went with are kept and a pretty tight leash. Did lots of shopping, mostly for Nyx though. Went to Dave and Busters. Finally got to check out the swap meet at Aloha Stadium.

I’m never staying at the Pagoda ever again. Preston’s friend A. chose the hotel. It smelt bad, crappy rooms, uncomfortable beds, it was all around bad.

We didn’t go to the Ice Palace, even though that was the first place we wanted to hit. I choose going to the swap meet for the first time over kicking Preston’s ass in ice skating. But now that I’ve been there the swap meet is a must when we go to Oahu now.

We came back late yesterday afternoon, oh yesterday was Preston’s 24th birthday too (I bought him an iPod), and anxiously waited for Nyx to come home. I love bring home presents for him. His face is just amazing when he gets anything.

I should get off my lazy but and post pictures, but I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

As for now I still have 2 weeks of TDI. I return back to work on the 16th. So I should be doing something productive.  But here I am glued to the laptop.  I’m feeling loads better. I almost feel like I’m 100%, but then I get that sharp pain in my abdomen to remind me, “that just because you looked healed on the outside it takes longer to heal on the inside.” So I’m more or less 85% right now.

At least I don’t feel like I need someone to hold me when I want to stand, sit or lay.

Since I have all this time on my hands now, still, I think I shall run off and start planning Nyx’s birthday. It’s a big one this year.

It’s not jealousy, believe me.

I just seem to be full of complaints today.

OK only 2 complaints, but complaints nonetheless.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe a select few, but I have a very set way of what a family is in my mind.

Families don’t keep things from each other. They are open and honest. Families do what they can to be there for you. Even it’s it not physically they call, check in on you,  or even send stupid text messages. Families aren’t second best to anything. When you take away the materialist superficial things all you have left is your family and friends that might as well be your freaking family.

You get the gist, I really could go on.

But lately, my sister has been grinding on my nerves.

I mean 100 grit sandpaper grinding.

Since my brother and his girlfriend moved away we knew they were going to be coming back to visit. We found out months ahead of time they were coming in May. We knew many weeks ahead of time the days they would be here. Now before my surgery I made sure I had some days off to spend some time with them. Time I could put forth the effort to see them and do something.

Now since I’m kind of stuck in my house they have been gracious and understanding enough to hang out at the house with us. Spend some time with the nephew, Nyx, BBQ, watch some movies, play some games, and in generally spend some good quality time together.

But my sister? She spent maybe one day. All she did was rave on and on to people about how our brother and his girlfriend were going to come back to visit. Always reminding anyone, even me, that she was taking off two weeks to hang out with them. Sending text messages about how important we, her family, were to her. How we need to spend more time together so we aren’t like our mom. Yada yada yada.

So my brother and his girlfriend have been here for a week. They leave on the 28th. She hasn’t taken off. In fact she’s taking off for a week or so the day he LEAVES so she can spend time with the not-girlfriend-girlfriend’s family.

Sure I’m pretty understanding that she works two jobs. I let that go, but it’s not like she works both jobs everyday. The night she could have come out hang out we were blown off because she “had a meeting with the girlfriend.” When do you have meetings with your significant other?

I brushed it off.

But I’m coming to realize it’s more than that. It’s more than her not spending time with out brother who we aren’t going to see for a while and hardly will. It’s more than her not spending time with me.

It was finally brought to my attention, which I always thought but never believed or wanted to say, my sister is a horrible compulsive liar.

She makes up insane stories sometimes. LOTS of people always believe her and we, family and friends, have to hear about from other people and we know it’s full of SHIT.

She told people the reason why our brother was coming down was to get married. WTF.

When we confront her about her lies she adds on to them. We don’t say anything about it anymore, we just let it go and let her look and sound like a loony. But it’s those lies that drive me insane and I just somehow never made that connection.

I hate it even more when she tells some bullshit about our own family. I got her Myspacing a message about how “our dad doesn’t even know how to be a real dad yet. She can’t drive any where because she crashed the grandparents car. My dad can get us any alcohol we want because he doesn’t care.”

A) My dad does care, sometimes doesn’t know how to show it.

B)  She doesn’t even have a license or know how to drive.

C) My grandparents aren’t even crazy enough to let ME borrow it, let alone her?

She asks for advice, I know she doesn’t care about and ALWAYS replies with “That’s what I said!” Which is bullshit about 99% of the time. That 1% is rare and really far between.

I hate hearing from people that have been my friends 5 times longer than they ever knew my sister ask me about things she says. Especially about our dark past and family problems.

I personally don’t like to hang our dirty laundry out for everyone.  But she loves the attention she gets.

Brings me to issue 2. We - I will not say who that consists of - have come to general consensus that she hurts herself on purpose to gain attention and sympathy pains. I no longer care what she does. I know she isn’t a cutter, so I don’t worry.

But drives me over the cliff insane is the fact that she thinks we are completely stupid to her stupid games and she doesn’t realize she’s doing it all day every day.

She’s like the early stages of our mother.

People who don’t think she’s like that think I’m insanely jealous. That I want her attention. I want her life.

Sorry people, I like being honest, I hate attention, I enjoy NOT looking like Jack the Skeleton King, I love having curves and boobs, and I’m not an attention whore.

I don’t know what to say to her anymore. It all sounds like lies and she turns herself in the victim.

I just want to bitch slap her sometimes.