I've got gadgets and gizmos a plenty.

I cannot believe how much STUFF I have accumulated throughout my life.

I've been going through my room getting rid of everything that I can because when I came home from the college dorms, I found that my room looked like something out of the show "Hoarding" or whatever it's called. I'm more of a pack rat than I thought I guess. It's absolutely ridiculous.

The good news is I've been able to get rid of a ton of stuff. I've managed to detach myself enough from some of the random crap I have stuffed away to where I won't miss it anymore. I have a very unhealthy tendency to get sentimentally attached to things, like I've mentioned before, and as a result of this I tend to feel guilty about throwing things away, or even just getting rid of them by donating or selling them. It's really weird but I have clothes that I wore in in the 3rd grade (that still fit how pathetic lol) that I can't get rid of because I feel like they have too much of a story behind them. Slowly but surely I seem to be getting over this feeling of being emotionally attached to random things.

But looking around my room right now I see that I still have a ways to go. Maybe it's just because not everything is organized quite yet and is scattered around my room waiting to find their places, but it still seems like I have way too much stuff. I know I have way to much stuff still. Even though I've managed to basically cut the amount of things I possess in half, I know I have more things than the average person my age probably has in their room. They're all small things, little random trinkets and things that I collect, but it's still pretty bad to me that it's all here.

However, I must say that after purging my room hugely the past few weeks, I feel a significant and definite weight lifted off of me. I was suffocating a bit, I didn't have a room of my own, it just felt like storage. I couldn't live in my room easily, and I'm absolutely tired of having to do the weird stepping over random stuff thing trying to get through my room. I'm ready to be done and organized. Soon.

Summer to do.

I'm making a to-do list for summer. I've gone through a week of nothing so far, and it's not like I haven't gotten anything done, but definitely not as much as I'd hoped. If anyone wants to help me stay on track, let me know :)

-Get my room cleaned out and organized. I have way too much stuff, and I hate that, I always have, but I've never been able to get rid of it all. Slowly but surely I've been getting rid of stuff, but it's not really enough. This time I really just need to clean out anything I can and although mentally that's going to be hard (I get way too sentimentally attached to things) in the long run it's going to make me feel so much better about everything. As for the organizing, I think that having less stuff to worry about will help my case so much. But especially with all the school I want to be doing and with everything that I want to accomplish over the summer and throughout the year, I really need to get all my shit together.

-Start eating right. I am so bad about this. I love junk food way too much and I love to bake, when I get stressed out about something, I go straight for a Dr. Pepper. So giving up junk food is going to be extremely tough for me, since that's basically what I resort to all the time. But I really need to stop eating so badly, it's really effecting my body, my mood, everything. I'm always so sluggish, my skin is getting pretty bad right now, I'm still managing to get sick all the time. If I wanna get fit and healthy I definitely need to start eating so that I can do so. My body definitely needs that. (This includes the goal of drinking more water. That will absolutely help me with everything.)

-Start working out. Weights, running, yoga/stretching, biking, swimming. It's all game this summer. I want to get super fit, especially for marching season. I've never been good with running, I want to be able to run a good amount without dying like I usually do, I want my stamina to be a lot better. I love swimming and I don't nearly do it as much as I'd like to, so I wanna swim laps as much as possible. I'm starting a yoga class soon, that should be fun, but even when I don't have that class, I want to start stretching every morning/night to regain some of the flexibility that I've lost. Weights obviously should help with my stamina in marching, I want to be stronger so I can play better and survive through visuals. Biking is in the hopes of getting my thighs to look good. That's probably the part of my body that I'm second most self conscience about so I want to fix that.

-Take summer classes at pima and start catching up. I don't know if I'm too late for this one, but even if I am, I want to do some sort of online teaching or something to help me with upcoming courses maybe buy some books for italian or math to start me getting prepared for classes I'll be taking in the fall. Hopefully I can get into summer classes and start getting my credits up. I want to not only catch up to where I should be, but also maybe surpass that and get ahead. If I can do that, maybe I can reach my goal of graduating a little earlier or maybe getting my two majors in, within a shorter amount of time. Either way, Pima here I come!

-Take more pictures. I don't just want to do photoshoots for this one. I have several photoshoots that I still want to get done, or finish, but really what I want to try to do more is just take my camera with me everywhere and shoot what I see. Hopefully with more traveling this summer I'll be able to take pictures of plenty of different places and people. I want to try to make a website with my pictures, or at least add some to my photobucket and facebook page.

-Find a church and start going. This is one that I've been working on, but haven't really had the courage to get to the next step. I've found a couple churches that I would like to check out but I haven't been brave enough to actually get to going. Hopefully that can change within summer.

So with that and some smaller goals that I should probably work on, I really hope that I can get plenty done this summer. I really want to accomplish some of my goals and help myself become a genuinely better person all around. We'll see what happens. Keep me on it!

5 am.

This is the third night in a row that I've been awake until 5 am. All three times I've been awake mostly because of the pain that I'm feeling in my side, partly by other things that have been haunting my mind throughout the night. The pain in my side is supposedly going to go away soon, but might come back every month. Something to look forward to huh. The thoughts will come and go as they please apparently, I don't seem to have much control over them at the moment. That's ok with me for the most part.

Tonight it's a mixture of how lucky I am right now and how grateful to God I am right now. I may have some serious medical issues going on right now and they may continue to haunt me for most of my life or even create complications later on but I didn't have to go into surgery today. And it wasn't something deadly. And the pain won't be there forever. Plus, they figured out what the problem was this time on the first try. Last time it took 3 ER trips before they finally got it right.

It gets light out at about this time. Sometimes I wish it didn't get light out until about 10. I know that sounds weird but since I sleep until 10 most of the time it just seems like that's really when the morning should start. Especially during the summer because the sun causes my room to get really hot before I'm ready to get out of bed and escape downstairs where it's cooler. Although this summer I guess I'll be waking up earlier than I normally do during the summer... at least that's what I'm planning on.

Tonight one of the topics on my mind is God. I bought a purity ring the other day. I intend on serving it's purpose for a while at least. I think I'm making some better steps towards him this time and I hope that keeping with it will continue to improve my life. So far, so good.

Right about now my body is finally reminding me that sleep is really neccessary to life and since life is getting a little more hectic for me now sleep would be rather important. Tomorrow I cut my hair. Another subliminal step towards renewing myself. It's the small things that count sometimes. I have some second chances to take up on as well. And an essay to revise. And packing to catch up on. And ice cream to look forward to.

Oh, and I hope you like my new layout. I thought it was more fitting.

Goodnight....er... morning.

Just the way I want to be.

I'm the kind of girl who would rather have espn on the TV in the background than MTV or VH1. I'm the kind of girl who would rather stay in and hang out *sober* than go out and party and drink. I'm the kind of girl who would rather wear gym shorts and a baggy t-shirt with slippers than dress up cute in fashionable clothes. I'm the kind of girl who would rather watch a funny movie that makes almost no sense than watch a chick flick or romance. I'm the kind of girl who would rather wear no makeup at all than make sure that every flaw is covered. I'm the kind of girl who would rather keep her nails clean and chewed short than always painted perfect. I'd rather get a natural tan by playing outside and swimming than fake bake or just sit pointlessly by the pool. I would rather let my hair frizz and wave naturally with no special products or even just pull it in a pony tail than cover it in product, blow dry it, straighten it or curl it to get it perfect. I would rather have an athletic, muscular build than the perfect model body.

Some girls would read this and think "she's hopeless". They might think that I'd never have any fun or that I must look horrible, or have no personality, maybe that I have no good friends, and no hope of a boyfriend. They're dead wrong. I'd never change the way I am, especially not to fit their standards. I have a wonderful life with wonderful people. I have plenty of fun. I'm not fake, I'm not plastic, I'm not a carbon copy of everyone else. And that's just the way I want to be.

Nightmares?

There usually aren't images, just a shower of emotions and feelings. Feelings of hopelessness or fear, feeling like there's no more happiness or that I've lost everything I've loved. Sometimes there are specific people that I feel like I've lost or certain things that I know are wrong, but I can never see anything. Sometimes I feel pain, physical pain. Or suffocations, like for some reason I can't breathe, sometimes I can feel something covering me and crushing me and no matter what I do I can't thrash enough to get it off.

Apparently this dream causes me to flinch and twitch a lot in my sleep, sometimes almost fall off my bed, I'm pretty sure I would have completely fallen off and about killed myself if Jimbo hadn't been there to keep me on a few times. I'm not sure what causes me to have these night mares, but I have them almost every single night. There really isn't anything in my life to make me feel the way that these dreams make me feel.

Hopefully they go away soon.

What do you want to be?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

You know how when you were little, and someone asked you that question... the possible answers could be infinite? You wanted to be a fireman or a doctor or a princess or a buss driver or an astronaut or a teacher or the president or anything you could think up at the time? I remember some of my past answers to that question, when I was younger I wanted to be a vet and a teacher and a artist and a ballerina... the list goes on.

It's a little harder now that I'm almost done growing up. I'm going to school to be able to become what I wanted to be when I grew up... I'm almost to the grown up part. And I still can't decide what exactly it is that I want to be when I grow up. My immidiate thoughts recently have been photographer and music teacher. Those are the things that have given me the most logical interest I guess. I love taking pictures and that's something that everyone's always going to need. There are so many memories to be captured, always and I'm always seeing the millions of ways to capture them for people. Music teacher is something that's grown on me a bit. I considered this one mostly after the end of marching season my senior year. I realized that I had done a significant amount of the teaching and leading and teaching work for the band, and upon further thought I realized that I had actually done quite a bit of the administrative work as well... and I had loved every bit of it. I remember the impact some of my music teachers had on me as I was a growing musician and I would love to have that type of impact on new growing musicians to come.

Something new that I've been considering after a realization that I have a special place in my heart and mind for soundtrack instrumental music is music performance. I realized one day that I would love to be part of the orchestras that played and recorded the music that would be played in the movies. I love to play my instruments and I'm always so moved by the beautiful music that is created, I would love to be a part of that too. I would have to choose between the flute and percussion, but I think I would be happy either way.

Away from school, I've realized that there are some things that I participated in when I was little that I let go of after moving when I was 11 that I really regret not continuing in. I really wish that I could pick these things back up, and maybe I could if I found the time, maybe take some side classes and relearn what I might have forgotten, and even further my skills.

Ballet and dance was something that was a huge part of my life before we moved. I was in at least four different classes at any given time and performed in several recitals and shows. I remember that I loved it. It wasn't like most sports that I tried where I dreaded going to practice or where I didn't like doing the routines. I actually really liked it and wanted to do it for a very long time. Ballet after I moved just didn't seem the same and I quit. Just like that. I want to try to take some classes, hopefully they have some that college students can participate in. Dust of the cobwebs, regain my flexibility and maybe even become a ballerina dancer on the side.

Tennis was something that I was supposed to continue with for a very long time. My lessons teacher once told my mom that I could go pro one day. I apparently didn't have any problem picking up the skills and putting my practice into play. I didn't mind tennis, as far as sports go, I was pretty challenged in most of them. Not tennis. It was the one sport I was good at.

Drawing was something I still don't understand how I picked up. My sister has always been able to draw so much better than I have and she does it with such ease... and no lessons. I took so many lessons when I was younger, shading and sketching and coloring and painting and etc on and on. It was because I liked it... and I think I thought I was good at it. Maybe at some point I realized that I wasn't really cut out to be that type of artist. But I still like to doodle, and sometimes I wish i could draw a little better even if it's just a sketch or too on the side of my notes.


Maybe someday in my future I will successfully be everything I wanted to be when I grew up. That's my ultimate goal. It may take me a while but in the long run it would be so completely worth it to be able to say that everything that I really seriously ever envisioned myself becoming, I had really been able to achieve.

Two months.

Two months. That's officially the length of my longest relationship I've ever been in. That's the longest I've ever really had to call someone my own and to consider myself to be someone else's. And it's definitely not like anything that I was expecting.

The relationships that I've been in in the past haven't been that great of relationships, I'll admit that. Considering something, anything had already gone wrong, there was always something negative enough in the relationship after a month to end it or cause problems, I'm sure that I wasn't choosing the people that were in my best compatibility range, even if at the time I didn't realize it, or wouldn't have liked to admit that. I'm so used to having those types of problems, the feeling of hesitation, that feeling of being really unsure of what was going on, of not knowing what I was feeling... I never was really sure that I liked most of the people that I got involved in, or I put too much thought into it or even had created false feelings. Not the best relationship experiences.

No one can imagine the amazement that I feel now.
I have no doubt in my mind what my feelings for him are. I have no hesitation. I'm not unsure of what I'm doing, I have no indecision at all for him at all. I have found someone that I never doubt someone that I'm absolutely sure of. And it's one of the best kinds of bliss. I look forward to seeing him every single day, no matter what my other emotions about other things are at the time I'm always so extremely happy to see him when I get the chance. My heart skips a beat every time I see him for the first time after a while or if I hear his voice from out in the hall. Even though I'm the one who usually has to initiate our separation every night, it always makes me sad to see him leave. His eyes make me melt, never failing. I love him so much it makes me want to cry with happiness sometimes.

I don't think I've really ever known what it means to be loved like this before. I've definitely had people tell me that they've loved me before. But rarely has it ever been true. And never like this. He says it over and over and I know that each time he genuinely means it. The way he looks at me, and dares to stare straight into my eyes, the way he plays with my hair or touches my face, it all just radiates love.

I don't know if this is too much to be saying after two months. Honestly, in high school, it was so unheard of to be telling someone you loved them after this long, it was always so fake and meaningless. But this is anything but fake or meaningless to me. There's so much that I've thought about or feel that I could write that might be seen as too much to think right now or even consider at this point... I won't write it all. Not yet. We'll see how everything plays out for a while.

But the point I guess I'm really trying to make with all this love sick jibber jabber is that I'm really truly absolutely happy right now. And it's mostly because of him. I've never felt this the way I'm feeling it right now and I wouldn't change it for the world.