I want...

WHEW!! Happy New Year!!

Muffin, Puppy, and I just spent the last several days disconnected from the world at the ocean and it was a lovely feeling. We spent several days reflecting on our past year and the year to come with no distractions or even any wifi (I DIDN'T EVEN TURN ON MY COMPUTER!!). It was super nice and helped us to recharge and come into this new year with all the excitement and voracity that we could generate. I spent a lot of time reading books about making myself more beautiful from the inside out by eating better, being kind, and understanding other people's needs. It was much needed and very enlightening.

During our off time, I came to recall that I was perusing Facebook the other week in a bit of a sleepy coma. We had spent the day with Molly, laughing, prancing, and eating festive foods. It was a day full of love and delight that was being wound down in my snuggly bed with the puppy nestled between my gorgeous husband and me. In my sleepy haze I found an article that made me a little weepy. It was an article that I immediately had to read to Muffin and share with everyone I could. It is a beautiful article that is encouraging, uplifting, and that stuck with me for weeks.

I prompted me to almost instantly begin a list of things that I want. It is a list filled with things that I want, things I've been craving and searching for for years. Things that I would like to see come beginning this year, this new year. Things that I will push for to make not only my own life better, but that of the people around me that I care so much about. This is a bit of a resolution list, but more of a list of things, tangible changes, that I would like to see in my life. Things that will make my life better and more magical than it already is.


I want for Molly to be comfortable and happy. To not feel alienated or like she has to fight to please or justify her parents. It isn't fair for her to feel embarrassed because she loves her father, mother, or step-parents and I want to cultivate it within her to have the strength to love whomever she wants without having to feel shameful. I want for her and Muffin to build a relationship so strong and beautiful that it cannot be chipped away by anybody. They deserve to have a safe and enriching relationship that will grow into something of trust and happiness as they both get older, and nobody is entitled to try and take that away. Not me, not her friends, and not her maternal family. Nobody.

I want for all the adults in her life to start acting like normal people who can act like the respectable adults she will look up to for guidance on how to act with their loved ones (or even enemies). I want for us to be able to communicate and talk and endeavor to make these two houses fluid and open so that Molly will grow up with more good memories than bad surrounding family. I wish that she grow up to be someone who respects people and knows the right and wrong way to treat people to avoid breaking hearts or disappointment. I don't want for her to grow up thinking she can just ignore issues or spread lies about them to make them disappear. I want for her to be accountable, realistic, and empathetic. All of this so that she could live an abundantly blessed life filled with love and happiness.

But I want her to see some disappointment. Not debilitating disappointment, but just knowing that people don't always need to win and that they can learn something about themselves, other people, and the world by losing. She is smart and that will get her so far in life, so long as she knows how to distinguish between broken and bent. Things can be fixed. Arguments can resolve. And we can move on without having to harbour guilt and shame. It is okay to cry, so long as we pick ourselves back up, forgive, and move on with life. Make decisions that are not going to hurt the people who love you, make decisions that will make you a better person.

I want to be kind. Kinder. Warm and loving even to those who do not offer me the same courtesy. Because those are the people who need it most. I want the people in my life to feel valued and appreciated. Loved. I want to validate feelings and concerns whilst still preserving valuation for my own feelings and needs. Those are just as important, and need to be contained, but not at the expense of other people. It is not my position to alienate or hurt other people, I am not God and cannot punish people. People will be hit by the karma that they are entitled, so I need to love and provide kindness in an effort to realign people who maybe just lost their path.

But I also want to be kinder to myself. My body hurts an indescribable amount pretty much constantly, and I want to find out why and make changes to stop that pain. I want to begin training to run no less than three 5k's in the next year. In that training, I want to begin eating healthier, smarter, and at home more. I want to put things in my body more for fuel rather than to stifle emotions or out of boredom. I want to begin creating a body that I can enjoy and feel proud to live in. I also want to cultivate a healthier mind. I want to focus less on negative shit and more on the abundance of beautiful things I have to smile about. I want to stop taking on the shame that others try to bestow upon me because of their own insecurities or issues and validate my own feelings and needs as often as I can.

I want to let go of the people in my life who seem to not care about having a place in it anymore. I try so hard to make people love me and please everyone. Much of the time, at the expense of my own sanity. I need to let it go, move on, and rebuild without those individuals in my life. Their exit from my life was not my fault and I did everything in my power to keep their position in my world, but their mysterious needs prevailed, and it is not my place to try to change that. Perhaps I will be fortunate enough to one day have them back in my life, and if not, I have so many other beautiful people in my world to keep my soul bright.

I want Muffin to feel secure, in every way possible. I want him to feel secure in his job, his marriage, and his self image. I want for him to see himself through my eyes. Eyes that love him more every single day because of the things I've seen him do, not just with me, but in his life. His history is rich and has made him the person he is today. A person who, like everyone, wants to fix things that they've done or could have done better. He has that ability but it is scary, and I want to be strong enough to help shine a light when he needs it and be his rock when he may only need someone to lean on.

I want to learn to be grateful of the many things we have. To be less petulant and actually appreciate my bounty of stuff. I have limitless love, countless things, and enough. I need to focus on the enough that I have and not need to get more, which has the tendency to lead to disappointment. Muffin and I are getting better, but we really do have a tendency to not budget well and over-spend, leaving us with too much junk and too little money. We always seem to make it through by the kindness of others and some sweet bargains, but I want to do more. I want to live consciously with delight in the things that I have. I literally have eight hundred books on my Kindle. Have I read them all? Nope. Not even an eighth of them. I want to read more voraciously, consume information, and spend more time in worlds crafted by other people's imaginations.

Finally, I want to craft more often. I want to journal, draw, paint, crochet, bake, and generally create. The tail-end of 2014 saw me make a lot of wonderful things, and I want this year to mark the re-ignition of my love affair with crafts. I plan to create things with Muffin, Molly, and anybody else who I can rope into it.

Hopefully, this will be a year of abundance, gorgeousness, and glee. I hope that my days are filled with more happies than sad, and that I can fix some things that are broken. It's as promising as I make it! 

Baked and destroyed

well, for the love of god i took long enough to update, didn't i?! for anybody who actually takes the time to read this, i really, honestly do apologise. i promised myself every morning that as soon as i left work that evening i would come and get on the computer to post a blog. obviously, that never happened... but here i am now. has it really been three freaking months?! i actually can't believe it! let's re-cap what has been happening these last few months, shall we?

March

• i generally just slowly bobbed along, trying to make sure i didn't bump into anything that would make my life more horrible than it needed to be.
• i got a letter form Dr Denny in response to my previously posted letter, which generally said i was lying and that he was referring me onto a new consultant. YAY!
• Satankim went off work for a month! her holiday began march 17th and she went to Australia on a holiday she did nothing but complain about for the two months prior to her flight-date. her holiday featured TWO cruises and endless tours all over the land i oh-so-badly want to visit.
• i was introduced to the glorious band that is Andrew Jackson Jihad who as just the most witty, funny, dancy, fabulous band ever! look them up immediately!

April

• Jerryfest FINALLY happened and it featured a massive amount of glorious dancing, prancing and eating.
• i baked 100 cupcakes at the Aga shop for Jerryfest and made everyone happier than they knew it was possible to be.
• had an unexpectedly longer visit from claire and mark due to Ryanair being satan (they got to the airport and checked in then waited for their flight. the boarding call occurred, everyone began boarding and then the flight people just STOPPED boarding with six people left. the flight was not full, they just didn't feel like boarding anymore people, i guess.). so they came back to ours and we pranced for several days in a musical flurry.
• we got a new guinea pig who is a stupendously precious creature who i bought only on a whim when i saw her cowering in the corner of an entirely empty cage. the backstory of her life is as such

once upon a time, there was a tiny princess-like guinea pig born who was yet to be named. she was ginger and incredibly cuddly but she was also the tiniest little guinea pig of the litter. all the other pigs hated her and made fun of her tiny face and her even tinier feet. she just continued to prance and dig in the hay, knowing that one day she would be loved.
-ENTER DANIE- 4:45pm, Pets at Home, Derby, UK

the shop had been open all day, all her brothers and sisters had been sold within a timely manner and an excitable american pranced in and sees her tiny, beautiful red eyes and knows that she must be hers.

and to be honest, that was the end of that story and the beginning of a new one. she is tiny and we called her Chopper... named because of her tiny ears which had been mostly chewed off by her siblings due to her small size and bizarre social habits. initially, she was tiny and awkward with the other two ladies, but she has now become one of the family. she is the noisiest of all of our pets and the most fabulously lovely as well (bar chevy, of course!)

• the show that was filmed last JULY finally aired and it was exciting. it was only an hour-long show that was meant to be a look at the drinking habits of females of all ages but our bit was about twelve minutes long and oh-so-fabulous! i had a lot of air-time due to my being american and having the ability to discuss the difference in drinking habits between here and the states. it was incredibly exciting.
• i was harassed constantly with phrases such as 'hey, aren't you that girl from the telly?!' and 'didn't i see you on t.v. the other night?' to which i always blurted in the most excited manner that i could that i was, indeed the female from telly and they should all fawn after me as i am now famous.
• Satankim returned from Australia with nay a postcard or foreign treat. bitch.
• we celebrated Easter in a very special fashion by having a brilliant easter-basket swap and meal. the meal was bountious and i baked a cake that ended up actually being the greatest carrot cake that has ever been baked or eaten by anybody, ever.
• i got my newest and most loved tattoo of the moment for Jerry.
• we got a new printer/scanner/photocopier which has made it possible for me to FINALLY put all my lists up and print things in colour! be jealous!

MAY!

• i had my very first appointment with my new consultant, dr gillespie. he is a REALLY lovely man who immediatly apologised for the problems i have been having with dr denny and said that it is clear i need help and he is going to give it to me.
• i had an interview as directorate secretary for surgical services at the hospital which went incredibly well but i did not get the job for.
• i went out on a stupendous evening with jaacq, powers, lee lee and everyone else. an evening which was amazing for many reasons.... 1) i LOVE seeing my jaacq! 2) i got to see ali's new band, dulcinea, play for the first time (fabulous!) 3) it was like EVERYONE was out and i just got to prance around and feel normal for a while. overall, it was just the best night in a while. i loved it.

• EUROVISION!
• we got a new video card which has made my life about 800,000,000,000 times better. this is because i can now fully immerse myself in games such as spore (!!!), Sims 2 (PLUS expansion packs), stubbs the zombie and diablo 2 (which isn't really as a result of the video card, we just remembered to download it again)
• i went to see 'drag me to hell' with powers. that film is actually a bag of crap and i have never been so disappointed with a film in my life.
• i started a new anti-depressant. we shall see.
• we got the new fishy!! husband and i had a random outing to a big fish shop near our house and saw a flurry of oscars (a breed we have been lusting after for some time now. the only reason we have avoided getting one until now is because they get HUGE and need a big tank.). we pretty much instantly fell in love and picked the most handsome of the bunch to come live with us. he was put into the old tank and named Chikatilo (after my favourite serial killer)
• we moved into the new building at work. it was a sad day, but the new building is REALLY huge and lovely. i like it a lot!
• i emailed augusten burroughs on the off-chance, to see if he would be willing to write me a list and HE REPLIED!!!

JUNE!!!

• i went to see 'coraline' with powers and lee lee. it was fairly exciting, mostly due to the fact that it was the first 3d film i have ever been to. i wanted to steal the glasses but they had glasses nazis at all exits so at to prevent miscreants like myself from popping them into my bag.
• i had my first appointment with my new CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse) who is rather lovely. she says that although it seems it is clear i have depressive problems, i appear to have control over it and knowing when i need to get help and there is not a lot she can do for me. she will keep seeing me for another month and then see where we are.
• we got a new, giant fish tank which has made our lives about a million times better. we have put Chik in it and the giant catfish.
• i have started taking chevy out into the garden with a lead on. he is mostly delighted about it. i am attempting to train him in the art of being well-behaved so i can take him to the park on the lead eventually. husband will have no part of this.

and that's it. my life in a general nutshell.

i PROMISE i will keep you up-to-date more often and better from now on, i PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE!!!!

you're beautiful... shame about your face. other things too.

i have been full of a lot of horror and bummed-ness the last couple of evenings... despite an amazing series of days which involve work and swimming and generally getting my fucking life in order. ali and i have been really working on making ourselves better people. it has been really refreshing to get a new look on life and things and have someone from outside of my house to talk to.
he has really offered me a lot of support and light and general 'weeeeeeee!' over the last week, which is what i have needed. he and i have been planning a lot of things regarding his work and i have been taking on some artsy crafts for one of his graphic novels, which will be incredible. it has just been nice to have something in my life that is almost exclusively beautiful.

but you know, it doesn't matter how beautiful and splendid my life is, it seems that i just HAVE to have something to shit on it. unfortunately, that something is husband. he is making me want to die at the moment and i fear that this show may be ending its final act. he and i just don't get on anymore. we just fight and he just hates me all the time for everything i do.

i just cannae deal with that. i am really on a mission to destroy all bits of ugly in my life. i really want everything that might resemble negative, horrible filth to just leave me alone. as a result, i have been helping those things out. just getting rid of them. i just don't have it in me to deal with any of it anymore. i hate how unhappy and miserable i have turned out since living in england. i need to fix it and i don't think i will be able to do that whilst here with husband.

jane and theo have been here the last couple of days and despite the high hopes i had for their visit and the positives it would bring... i have just been feeling worse. chris has been treating me really badly and generally taking the pee out of me in front of them, not really regarding anything but his own delight and feelings.

i don't need it. it really hit me last night that i think this is it. i think that once they go we will have a bit of time apart (and by 'apart' i mean, separate rooms) to just sort out our heads... time i will use to start some new medicine, work more on my crochetting project and work out more with ali. i just feel like, at the moment, there is no point in bothering with our relationship. if it works out because of our love for one another then it does, if not... then it was not meant to last. i do not feel like i have control over it anymore. it all just hurts too much.

i feel like an empty shell at the moment. everything i am doing and saying and thinking is just a big mechanical part of a day that i have no control over. i feel irrational, miserable and listless.

i don't really know what to say.

mostly

well, me and my blogging has been made of fail as of lately and i apologise. it appears i am apologetic to nobody though, as noone reads this, which is neither sad, nor pleasing. i will continue to post (or not post) regardless of interested parties.

the last couple of months have been relatively brilliant. i went back to america for a visit and was thoroughly delighted with all things 'memory.' it was amazing to see everyone and everything that i remember and to investigate things anew that have been created withouth my prior consultation.

it was just generally so nice to feel like i connected. that is what that trip was about, to find where i needed to go and do something about it. it made me realise that america, cheyenne, is NOT my home anymore. england, derby is my home and i would never trade that for anything. the life i have created for myself here is so special and has made me flourish as a human being and the thought of leaving any of that behind is just incredibly upsetting.

going back to cheyenne also made me realise how much i care about my sister and how close we really are. we have a tremendous amount in common and all the things that i had initially fretted over regarding her and me going back were swept away in a flash when she looked at me like i was a real person and not just some zombie. i feel like in the time that i have been in england i have morphed into this reasonably responsible and mildly respectable person who my sister likes to spend time with. i have always been envious of people who had close relationships with their siblings and hated them secretly because my sisters and i were never close. i realise now that it is possible for us to be and that is so special. i have experienced this closeness with my sister and i would never take that back for anything.





coming back home... it was exciting and frightening all at once. i went to america with the sole purpose of finding myself again and i DID! i found myself in a huge way. as soon as i stepped into our front door i realised that i am not the person i have been acting like the last several months... i am the person i always have been and i need to retrieve that so i can be REALLY happy again.

and that is just what i have been doing. husband and i went through a bit of an insane phase once we returned, trying to decide what we were going to do to make something of our lives.... our options were completely open and we were willing to try anything. we contemplated dropping everything here and moving down with his dad and just starting a whole new life... being completely self-sufficient and uplifting all of our lives. our minds spun around things like that over and over for a week and it all became clear... we want a baby!

in light of our new revelation, husband and i are preparing... well, it is more about me preparing and him watching with an active opinion from the side-lines. it is very exciting and a whole new world of things to prance about and plan for. i have been packing clothes aside that would be suitable for maternity, making lists of people who have had babies recently who we could get baby things from at a cheaper price than our souls and just generally swooning over photos of pregnancy.

all in all, the world is delightful at the moment. we shall see what happens... i will keep you posted.

you know what i love?

the fact that everyone my husband speaks to hates me. why, do you reckon they all hate me? most of them have never met me... most of them never will, but they all have this intense dislike for me and the things i do.

i just spoke to husband on the phone and he said that whilst speaking to my sister-in-law yesterday she advised him that i am crap and all of my tattoos are stupid and she thinks all of my decisions are ridiculous. she also took it upon herself to decide that i am getting tattoos as a form of self-harm.

it upsets me so much when people are so ignorant... people think it is alright to just sit and judge others because they make decisions that are different from ones they would make themselves. yeah, i like tattoos... i like them because i like having pictures on my body. i like remembering certain parts of my life in a different way than SHE does. does that make me a bad person? i would like to think not. i am a person who makes personal decisions regarding things like i like myself, not what everyone else likes. i do not sit and think, 'hmmm... should i do this? what would maria (muh-reeah, n, sister-in-law, person who only cares about money and how she can spend it) do?' i just don't get why people have to meddle in other people's business. what i eat and cook and get tattoo'd on my body has NOTHING to do with her and has no bearing on her or her personal life, so why does she have to call my husband up and whinge? why does she never call ME and say stuff to me!? GOD it makes me angry.

today was nice otherwise, i have been spending a lot of time lately doing stuff to promote recent
problems that have been running around a shop that a couple of my friends own called
hello darling. because gem and mel have been so busy lately i have been going to some of the local council meetings and participating in a local
cleanup... it feels really nice to be taking part in something and trying to make a change.

well, i am going to prance off and eat some more maltesers so i am pumped as full as sugar as possible before i am off work as i am getting more tattoo done tonight THEN going to see husband play at a gig.

more later.