30 Week Picture Challenge - Week 13

A picture of your favorite band or artist

(Does she not remind you of Sharla?)



Hands down.  Pink wins

I can blame Becca for this since she is the one who got me hooked on her in the 9th grade.

Yes I love bands like Linkin Park (who was the runner up here), Bowling for Soup, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga and a ton of others, but Pink just stands above them all.  I have rarely come across one of her songs I didn't like and didn't have to flip flop between good and bad albums like some artists put out these days.  I never stopped liking her or came back to her later.

As corny as it sounds, I totally feel like I can relate to most of her songs.  I often use her lyrics as one liners or as a quirky status on my Facebook page.  It's kind of cheating but I love the words in her songs and usually want to post them for everyone.  Sometimes just for the shock value ;-)

I got to watch a 3 hour special about Pink on the VH1 channel some time ago and I loved it.  It told her personal story and showed a lot of music videoes as well as video from concerts I hadn't seen before.  I loved seeing her progression and learning about who she is when she is not on stage.

I use most of her songs to describe mine and Jeremy's relationship because her songs are not the picture perfect love songs.  They tell about pain, hate, love, loss, and that false courage everyone tries to have when things go wrong.  Her song "So What" was primarily about the break up between her and her fiancee and was written shortly after the engagement was called off.  If you watch the music video, you can see how upset she really is about it, even though she'll never admit it or show it in the tabloids.

I can't explain how much I love Pink.  It's probably borderline obsession.  I am still collecting all of her CDs (even though music has gone digital I still like hard copies); I have her as some of my ringtones; I am constantly looking for her videoes on YouTube; and I would probably give my right arm to have tickets to one of her shows.  I'm just saying.

30 Week Picture Challenege - Week 12

A picture of something you love

I love arts and crafts.

I am addicted to coloring/sewing/painting/sculpting/drawing/cutting/pasting/printing/etc...

I knew I liked doing artsy craftsy things as a kid.  I had a ton of coloring books and beads and paints and activity kits.  I think it was an easy gift idea for my family for birthdays and Christmas.  It was my favorite part of school to learn different projects to do.  When I got to high school I got to take different drawing and computer graphics classes.  In college I took more drawing classes and a sculpting class.  I wasn't any good at either one compared to all the other students, but I enjoyed them anyway.

Now as an adult, it depresses me to know I can only do my fun creative things in my spare time.  Sometimes I get to color at work or I find an hour in the day to paint at my desk.  I rarely get to sew anymore, unless it's for a store order.  I don't have a reason to sculpt or build things, so I rarely get to do that either.

I'd love nothing more than to quit my job and sit and home all day with my craft projects.  I've gotten a sneak peek of Dr Phil's book "Self Matters" in which he talks about becoming the 'self' you are supposed to be, and not the 'self' you've trained yourself or thought you had to be.  I feel like I've made myself become the workaholic customer service rep who can type and answer phones.  I've trained myself to be good at this persona to get by in life and do what I have to do to survive.  But what about the self I am supposed to be?  My 'art' self.  My creative self.  Can I stop doing what I am told I have to do in order to do what I want to do?

With that in mind, I have a whole box of cross stitch materials someone gave to me.  Needless to say, I am super excited about it.

An Ugly Duckling Revelation

I want a neck lift.

I know.  It's crazy.  Plastic surgery.

What am I thinking?  I feel like such a hypocrite!  All my life I've knocked people for getting plastic surgery for their own selfish gain and when half of them didn't even need the surgery.  I understand if it's reconstructive or medically necessary, but I'm pretty sure I don't fall into that catergory. 

I've battled with this 'neck waddle' that my family seems to have all my life.  I think it got worse after my cancer treatments because the tissue was damaged and fatty deposits settled there.  Now I have a neck waddle and miscellaneous neck fat.  I don't think much of it until I see myself in photos or in the mirror.  Any time I've looked sideways/down/around in a photo you can see my double or even triple chin come out.  In my own wedding photos I have shots of me looking sideways and having this blob of skin hanging there.

I don't feel sexy.  I don't feel pretty.  I don't even feel remotely good looking.

I don't care about my boobs. Or my butt.  Or my thighs.  Or my hips.  Or anything else.

I just want my neck to be normal.

When I caught myself Photoshop-ing my chin and neck before posting a picture of me on the web, I knew something was wrong.  I started hating my pictures had very few I would even post of Facebook or MySpace.  Even on this blog I chose a photo that did not show my face or chin.

I don't know what I was doing but I remember being instantly relieved and excited at the same time as a ton of bricks fell on my head.

Plastic surgery. 

We even have a local office with the hospital I work for.  It suddenly seemed within my reach.  I began to cry driving down the road.  I'm crying now as I type this blog.  I could fix this problem that has been plagueing me since I was a child and the one thing that has kept me from truly liking myself.

So I looked up the various prcedures that could be done.  I thought if I went in there the DR would look at me like I was nuts or tell me they've never done anything like it before.  I was so scared that what I wanted from them would seem outlandish or even impossible.  But then I found information about neck lifts.  I read the articles, I looked at the diagrams and even looked at before and after pictures.  Again, I started crying.

Is it wrong of my to say I want this so bad?  Is it wrong to want something this bad that cost so much money?  I want to fix this thing about me that is supposed to make me more unique but instead is just making me miserable.  I know it is not a cure all and it won't make me look like a movie star.  But I don't want it to look like this anymore.  I want to feel pretty when my husband says it to me.  I want to believe I make a good photo when a family member tells me.  I want look on the outside as great I normally feel on the inside (as cliche as it sounds).

Is it wrong to want to change myself for my own selfish reasons?

30 Week Picture Challenge - Week 11

A picture of something you hate

Ok I didn't have a photo of my own, so I swiped this one for educational purposes...

I hate prejudice.  Of all kinds.  Race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, IQ, height, weight, hair color....whatever else man can think up as a good reason to hate someone.

No I'm not saying we all have to live in world peace and that there is no hate or meaness in the whole.  We all have things against someone else, but let them be for good reasons.

I hear it all the time.  Someone shouts a stupid name out or someone will make a smart comment about someone else.  They make snap judgments and use stereotypes against others which, as the poster suggests, just shows a person's ignorance and sometimes their stupidity. 

Dumb blondes.  Fat slobs.  Midgets.  Homo.  Cracker.  Nigger.  Sand Jockey.  "Mixing the races". Chink.

God there is too many to even list here.

I have a friend who openly admits to not liking other races (for that sole purpose) which makes me ignore half of the things she says.  She then became angry because a news story came on about the persecution of a jewish church a few towns over.  "They shouldn't be punished just because of their religion," she exclaimed.  Shocked, I turned to her and said "So you openly admit to hating other races, who DO NOT have a choice in the matter but not against the group of people WHO CHOOSE THEMSELVES to be part of a religion?"

Honestly, tell me what is wrong with that statement.

I have another friend that keeps asking why I don't go to church anymore and "how wrong" it is of me to be openly against churches.  Then she screams at the "stupid nigger" who cuts her off in traffic.  Seriously?  This is what this oh-so-awesome church is teaching her?

Don't give the dumb excuse about "We're an older generation" or "That's how I was raised" or "That's what someone told me".  Well now the time has come to grow up and think for yourself.  Think about the hate and mean words you are putting out in the universe.  If I remember correctly it was the 'older generation' who coined the famous phrase "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all."

My favorite dumb prejudice are the ones against gays and lesbians.  Mainly because it brings out everyone's hypocritical sides and I have yet to come across ONE PERSON who can give me a GOOD reason why homosexuality is wrong. 

"Because it says in the bible that it's wrong" - The bible also says that murder, rape, foul language and lying is wrong, but I do not see anyone taking rights away from the murderers and everyday liars?  No one is telling them they can't get married or that they can't walk down the street holding hands.

"Murder is different from being gay, Stina" - True.  So why aren't murders and rapists banned from marriage or adoption or smeared across the front page of the paper?  You care more about the two people in California minding their own business who just happen to be gay then the asshole chopping up people and dumping the bodies in the river!

"It's not the way God planned it" - According to...?  The previous mentioned Bible that left out pieces about the other 999,999 things wrong with the world?  Maybe not according to you?  So the phrase in the Bible that says Thou Shalt Not Judge doesn't mean beans does it?

I suggest everyone watch the movie Hate Crime. This movie is about two gay men who live next door to a church pastor.  The film focuses on the church the men go to, Church A, who preaches about God's love and forgiveness, and the church his neighbor preaches at, Church B, that teaches about God's wrath and damnation.   In the end the pastor from Church B murders one of the gay men "to save his people from the likes of him."  Murder.  For what?  'Doing God's work?'. There's a lesson we want to teach our generation...

Frankly, when I see or hear people using these types of prejudices against other people, it makes me question their IQ myself.  You look dumber yourself by applying these labels to people you don't even know.  I can't stop the world from feeling this way, but I can flat out say I will not put up with it myself from those around me.  Stop acting stupid and think about things before you say them. 

I'm just saying...

30 Week Picture Challenge - Week 10

A picture of the person you do the most f***** up things with

Wow this is a horrible picture...I definetly need better pictures of me and Becca.

Ok...I've done some pretty weird stuff with my friends.  I TP'd my principal's house with Casi and a group of friends and Sharla and I used to torture the emu farm behind the trailer park (all while trying to build a clubhouse out in the woods).  Yeah..

But, I'd have to say that Becca takes the cake on this one.  I can only explain by making a list of our disasters:

1.) She was my French partner in French class for 3 years.  I have to admit that we came up with some of the dumbest and outrageous french dialogues to recite that even the teacher gave us funny looks.  Ugh

2.) When Becca got her car I felt the freedom too because we got to do a lot more together and I usually had a ride to/from wherever we were going.  So it was super easy to tell my mom that I was riding home with Becca and that we were going to the *random school function here* later together and she would bring me home, when in actuality I had hopped a ride home with Jeremy.  I got to hang out with Jeremy all day and then he drove me back to the *random school function here* and Becca would bring me home.  Now I realize how much extra planning that took just to go hang out with my boyfriend for a few hours.

3.) I spent many nights out at Becca's house and often stayed up late or hung out when no one was home.  We had a horrible habit of talking to most any stranger that IMed us (way before AOL had all these spam blockers).  One man IMed us and wanted to swap photos/talk/meet up.  He was so hitting on us.  We played along and really strung this man on.  Eventually I told him I was married and that he had to ask my lover Tina if we could go out.  I can't remember if we gave him a fake number or a phone number to someone we hated, but we forgot all about it and logged off.  The next time we logged on he was online and immediately IMed us "WHERE'S TINA?!".  We totally freaked out and were scared to log back on for a few hours. 

4.) We had the awesome opportunity to go to France on a class trip when I was 15.  To raise money for the trip we decided to have a garage sale, but only had about 2 boxes of stuff.  But we still took off walking down the highway to post signs for it, getting many honks and whistles on the way.  In France, we had a pretty awesome time seeing the sights and trying to piece enough of our french together to read a menu or figure out the stupid metro map.  I think our favorite hobby was chasing the pigeons that often lurked nearby.  PIGEONS!  We even caught that on video.  And of course at the end of the day we had the brilliant ideas of making "reenactment videos" of our day, meaning I got up in our hotel room and did a one man show of the events from that day.  Also on video.

5.) When I was 17 we double dated a lot with our boyfriends since we were all close friends.  We hung out at school together and would do stuff after school sometimes; mostly hang out at each others houses or at church.  Well one weekend we were hanging out at her boyfriend's house and thought it would be a great idea to go take a walk.  This was a rural area that had a small energy plant/transformers nearby.  Once over the road, the entire field was flat, except for like 10 feet of brush off to the side.  As a joke, Becca and I took off running from the guys thought to play something like hide and seek.  So what did we do?  Went to the corner of this open field and squatted down.  I remember telling her "Shhhh they can't see us!"  The guys took one look at us, as if to say "Seriously?" and started walking toward us.  We knew the jig was up...but my genius self took off running to the brush patch.  I got half way through the brush before I realized there were probably snakes and spiders and what not living in there and took off screaming.  My boyfriend grabbed my hand and shook his head like he was looking at a 5 yr old.  We still pass that field and laugh at ourselves.

6.) Probably one of my favorite stories involves a mailbox and half-thought out schemes.  When the previous mentioned boyfriend broke up with me, I turned to Becca to help me deal with my teenage angst and "loss of love".  We had these talk sessions where we would talk about the break up, how crazy he was, how sucky he was and all that good stuff.  In one of these sessions I talked about writing a final letter to him and telling him how I felt and getting a lot of things off my chest.  She told me to do it.  Once I wrote it and read it she said "Oh why don't you let him read it" but I told her I couldn't deliver it in person since we weren't speaking.  She asked why I didn't mail it, which I turned down also.  "Why don't you just leave it in his mailbox?"  I was so excited by the idea that we drove out to his house in the middle of no where and she crept the car along the road up to the mailbox.  "I don't know if I can do this" I said.  "Just throw it in!" she insisted.  In a flash I had shoved the letter in the mailbox and slammed the flap shut.  Becca pulled a 180 and sped out of there.  Within 10 seconds I was second guessing myself but she kept telling me it was too late and there was no going back now.  I spent the next 3 days on pins and needles wondering what he would say and how he would react, only to find out later that the letter was lost somehow and he never even got the damn thing.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of crazy events we had together and will probably think of them later.  But even thinking of these past memories has made me smile and wonder how we did manage to do it all in so little time.  Even I have to ask myself sometimes "What in the world were we thinking?"

April 6th

I spend every April 6th celebrating.

In April of 1998 I was diagnosed with cancer.  I spent the six months in treatments and outpatient clinics.  But the following summer, I relapsed and had to have a stem cell transplant (which is why I fully support stem cell research, despite the damn government and activists groups).  April 6th of this year marks 13 years from the day I was diagnosed.  My mom calls it the Lucky 13 year.

On April 6th 2008, it was 10 years after I was diagnosed, which is a big mile marker for any cancer survivor.  And it happened to fall on a Sunday, which made it a great day to get married!  I married my husband on my 10th year of diagnosis.  So the date was 4-6-08 and it had meaning behind it, so if he ever forgot our anniversary there would be real hell to pay.  Of course it was a big crying fest because everyone kept saying how they never thought I would make it this far.  I'm not sure if they meant because of the cancer or because I hated boys as a child and swore I would never fall in love.

So today marks 13 years from my diagnosis and 3 years since I've been married.  It feels as if we've been married longer since we've already been through so much together.  We celebrated today by spending the day in another town and just walking through the different environment.  It wasn't extravagant, but it was better than sitting around and staring at each other all day.  I also received lots of praises and congratulations on our facebook pages.  I can't wait until we're older (and married longer) and we get to have big parties for our anniversary.  My grandparents were married for voer 50 yrs and I hope we can make it at least that long.  In the meantime I'll also keep marking another year on the calendar in which the cancer has not returned, which helps squash my fears of it little by little.  I don't believe it's a "when" it returns situation, I feel it's a matter of "if".  An "if" that is slowly shrinking over time.



Happy Anniversary baby.

30 Week Picture Challenge - Week 9

A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most

Ok....so I never was any good at following directions...or making up my mind....

This is a picture of the three people who have gotten me through the most.

On the far left is my mom.  Besides being my mom for pretty much all my life, she was there for me during all of my chemo treatments and hospital stays.  She held the bucket while I barfed in it; she unplugged my machines so I could race to the bathroom; she ran down to the vending machines to get me that Reese's peanut butter cup I was dying for, only to have me throw it back up again; she even got me that damn ICEE I wasn't supposed to have and eventually had to duke it out with a nurse about.  I know she had to sleep in the uncomfortable fold out chair/bed many nights and had to spend a lot of time away from home and from my sister.  But I'm glad she was one of those mom's who stayed with me day after day, instead of those parents that go stay in a hotel nearby while their child lays up in a hospital bed....jeez.

In the middle is my sister.  How I hate her for being the pretty one and the talented one out of the two of us, and I will probably never forgive her for all the crap she made me believe or did to me as a child.  But, after we grew up I looked up to her and depended on her for a lot of things.  About the time she moved away I started having the teenage angst with my parents.  I confided in her about a lot of things I couldn't go to my parents about.  She gave me rides to where I needed to go (since she was so cool and already had her license) and let me stay at her place when I needed to (and swim in her apartment pools during the summer!).  She even offered for me to move in with her during high school when I thought I had reached the end of my rope. Plus, she introduced me to Cosmo and let me read all of her past issues....enough said  lol

And of course the big guy behind me is my husband.  While he did cause me more grief in high school than any other person I know, he did come through in the end and has been there for me ever since.  Let's face it; he is my rock...my sanity.  Without him I would be lost in this world.  I moved in with him right out of high school and we made our rocky start.  I was terrified when I started TJC but he would go with me and sit outside my class and support me.  When we didn't have a car, he rode the bus with me to work only to ride home by himself, just so I wouldn't be alone.  When I had both of my hip surgeries, he was there beside me to help me get out of bed and get me what I needed.  He even took care of my wounds when I got home and put up with my bad bedside manner.  He holds my hand when I go to the DR and goes out at 3am just to get me ice cream. He's there when I'm angry/sad/happy/frustrated/annoying, etc.  I don't think I can handle my own life all on my own, which I'm sure is why I have Jeremy :-)