Anyhow, after talking to and reading some things by friends online, I realized that people sometimes totally don’t get me, don’t understand me or just know only pieces of me. It doesn’t bother me because I know that in a virtual sense it’s hard to see the true me. However, today is going to just be a rambling of what I think makes me “me”. It’s just lil things in no particular order.

My family and friends always come first, I never realized how lucky I was really until this last year when going through the wedding process of how much my family means to me. I love them so much and will never take them for granted again. I went through a lot of rocky times when younger, stuff most people have no clue about. My dad had an affair (this I put 2 and 2 together sometime in high school). My parents were divorced at age 9 and a nasty custody battle happened when I was in 7th grade. We had to actually live in our neighbors house for 2 months because our house was sold in Colorado and our new house was in KC. My dad would’ve been charged with kidnapping if he took us out of state. I made the decision to live with my dad over my mom based on things told to me as a kid. I was lied to by both sides of my parents and nothing really came out until high school when I started putting pieces together and asking. I think that’s about the time I started rebelling some too and questioning my parents. The actual court date was on my step-mom and dad’s anniv. which put some serious stress on them, not to mention my sister Christina had just been born. My brother wasn’t exactly pleasant when younger and put a ton of stress on the family also. He had numerous jail / court visits, including my assault charge. At the wedding, my dad said a lot of things that still brings tears to my eyes about my growing up and how he is proud of me. It was a closure of sorts, of worrying all these years I was letting them down, when in reality their attention was mainly on my brother’s mishaps. I miss my family each day that I’m so far away from them and hope that when we start to have kids that we can move closer.

I love the mountains, I love the outdoors and love being active. Over the past few years I am less active then when younger and it upsets me. I miss the days of lifeguarding where things were simpler and fun. I miss my friends from those times, the parties and just overall being around people or the little kids I taught swim lessons to. I miss my days in Boulder where my bike was my only transportation, when I never worried about my weight because I was so active. I miss going to the lake every weekend with my family during the summer and camping. I really miss having a boat around to waterski. I bought camping gear in hopes of doing it more so we’ll see. We have so many great lakes around here and all I can dream of is owning a boat, yet I know we have so many things (like a new car for me) that we need way more then that.

I love being creative. I wish when I was younger that I was given more choices to do artsy things instead of pushed into science or sports so much. At the time though, my dream was to become a doctor and everything about me was math/science/making me look better for med school and oh, playing every sport I could. I begged my parents to let me take photography elective my senior year. Now, I’m in a graphics communications degree and look back with regret since I never got to do this when younger. I would’ve loved to take a drawing class or painting. I’m not a great artist by any means but I enjoy it. I actually enjoy layout design type of stuff more then actual drawing from scratch. I can visualize how I want something to look but I don’t have the technical skills to accomplish it (yet!!). My professors have always said that’s my strong suit, visualizing and writing it down or sketching it. I just want to use that in an everyday job. One of my big goals in life is to find a job where I can be creative and not be stuck doing the same thing every day. (hopefully after my degree is done!!)

Music is my shopping weakness, not shoes, clothes (go in spurts on that weakness) or anything else. I love buying music, I love listening to it. I can’t live without it. I have such a variety of tastes and yet I’m horrible at song names. Patrick gives me a hard time because I buy tons of cds. He hasn’t bought one in over 2 years I bet and I’m convinced he just waits for me to buy them then steals them! Music just takes any mood of mine and can heal me.

Anyhow, I’ve rambled on but I’m sure I’ll add more as the week goes on.