Happiness?

Before reading this, take out a piece of paper and complete this sentence with 5 things: "Happiness is..." 

Keep that piece of paper by you until you're done reading this. 

For a while now I have had this obsession with happiness. For as long as I remember, I've been trying to define happiness in my life. I had an epiphany recently about my own happiness and I was finally inspired to write about it because I found an old notebook I kept from the Spring of 2010 to February of 2011. This journal holds a poetry-filled journey of my love life and choosing between Michael and Phil (two major ex-boyfriends), along with my first children's story, and sketches of the tattoo I now hold on top of my right lung. As I was reading through it, I stumbled across two lists I had made. One was made April 16, 2010 and the next June 6, 2010.  Both lists started with the words "Happiness is...", but they were completed by me and either Phil or Michael. We would take turns finishing that phrase with something that made us happy until we reached the end of the page. I'll touch on a few of the points we made...

With Michael and Me:

Happiness is...

• A part of me 
• Warm salty air
• Cool rain on a warm day
• Making someone else smile
• A good hug from my mom
• Floating in the middle of a diving well
• Following your heart
• That feeling after the first kiss.
• Writing
• A Journey

With Philip and Me:

• Being a velociraptor  (Side note: I often act like dinosaurs)
• Winning
• Getting lost in a book
• Coaching
• Being at peace in the water
• Holding Solomon
• Holding any baby
• knowing that we're back to us again.

After reading these lists, I smiled and thought back on the good memories I had with them, but also how my view on happiness has changed in the last two years, and more particularly in the last 9 months. Some of the things in those lists still reign true in making me happy. In fact, my happy place is still floating in the middle of a diving well. However, those lists don't even come close to recognizing what will truly make me happy today and the last 9 months have been spent asking myself what is motivating me to do the things I do and how they will make me happy. 

I'm currently dating someone that has redefined how I look at a lot of aspects in my life. A lot of people have asked what I like about him and I have friends that live far away that ask me to tell them about him. The statement that I use across the board is, "He makes me ask the right questions." I'm not saying that he's a save-all-wonderful-life-altering person, but I am saying that knowing him and picking his brain has, in fact, altered my reality. For example, when him and I first met, the topic of having children came up. As my readers can tell, I have always wanted children. In fact, I have always thought the sole purpose of my life was to have children. When I relayed this to him, I remember the most simple statement coming out of his mouth. I don't remember the exact wording but he basically asked the question, "Why do you want to have kids?" or "Why do people want to have children?" or something along those lines... 

I sure look happy, huh?

At the time, I dismissed it, and answered with some joke statement along the lines of, "How cool would it be to have a mini-me running around?", but as time passed (and as I attended my parenting class at school) that question festered down deep inside me until I had a life-altering moment. I'll never forget where I was because it was as if a huge fog lifted from my eyes, and I was Alice coming back from Wonderland. I was just leaving my parenting class, and I was walking across campus, and all of a sudden the random thought popped into my head: Having children won't make me happy. I actually stopped walking and took a breath, then smiled ear to ear. I had figured it out: having children wasn't my answer to happiness. 

I'm someone to give advice. I love helping friends see things from a fresh perspective. So, when I have friends coming to me saying that finding love is going to be their end-all solution, I always tell them that they're not going to find that peace in anyone but themselves. It's been said that you can't love someone until you love yourself. In a way, this is completely true because you can't equate your happiness to dating, marrying, or being loved by someone. If that person leaves you, where does your happiness go? With them. This is a point that I have always pointed out to people. In fact, I once told the person that I'm currently dating that he will never find that "it-factor" in anyone because it doesn't come from them. He can only find it in himself. But the day I was walking across campus, I realized I hadn't been listening to my own advice; I was just waiting around for a child to come along to make me happy. I was going to equate my happiness to taking care of another human being. That's the reason I wanted a child, and if that's the selfish reason I was going to have one, then I didn't deserve to have children. 

This is where I get into my spiel: 

People go around looking for a meaning for their life. Some find it in religion, hobbies, sports, family, volunteering, substance use, and other life-filling areas. But when it comes down to the nitty-gritty "meaning" of life, is it not to just be happy? Doesn't each one of the things that give us  a reason to live make us happy? If you Google search the definition of "happiness," it gives you the following definition: "state of well- being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy." In that definition, you get an entire range of happiness. You can be content in a situation, or you can feel intense joy. Personally, I would like to live life feeling intense joy. 

There is also great debate over happiness being a choice, or a chanced event. I've flip-flopped back and forth on what I believe, but I'm to the point now that I whole-heartedly know that happiness is a choice. One thing I've learned from my father is that I want to love my job. He works really hard, but I never hear him say anything good about his job. Maybe he's like the news in the aspect that he only reports the bad things, but it has always made me sad for him that he doesn't enjoy his job. I would get so aggravated wondering, why don't you just choose a different job? It may be hard at first and a struggle, but don't you want to be happy? I wanted him to choose to be happy! A goal that I made a long time ago (and one that I am paying for by changing my majors and my many years in school) is that I want to have a job where I am happy. I want to be excited to go to work. I found this excitement in teaching elementary aged students. This is something that I have chosen to do to be happy. 

Make the choice!
Credit: www.toddswanderings.com

I didn't always think I had the power to choose to be happy though. I struggled with clinical depression for a while and thought to myself: I have a disease that doesn't allow me to be happy, so no, happiness is not a choice. I was living life at the bottom spectrum of happiness- I was content. I could get through day to day life and be okay, but what sort of life was that? However, recently I found myself wanting to go off the medication I was on for my depression. So, I did. I made that choice, and through making that choice, I began to have a full range of emotions again. Unfortunately, in the process of going off anti-depressants, I felt like all the emotion that had been held back for the last 6 years hit all at once. There was actually one night in which I spent in hour rapidly switching between intense crying and hysterical laughter. It was so bizarre, but I'm sure it would have been hilarious to witness. Since then my emotions now have their rightful places, but in that range of emotions, I experienced intense joy. But that was the key- I got to choose to be happy. 

Side note: The best, ironic part of all of this? I've always wanted the song "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands" played at my funeral so that everyone can remember me being happy, and to remind them to keep themselves happy. 

The big question here is what gives you that feeling of intense joy? I've led up to this idea, but now I'm going to spell it out for you:

When your happiness depends solely on what you do, and the choices you make, what is going to make you happy? 

Take a look at that list that you wrote at the beginning of this entry. How many of those things have something to do with someone else in your life? Would you still be happy if that person wasn't in your life? 

I know that I have readers from all different walks of life and of all different ages, and I'm curious to know about what makes each one of you happy? How much of your life have you depended on others to make you happy? Are you living life just content or are you experiencing intense joy? Rewrite your list of 5 things that complete the statement, "Happiness is..." Now put it somewhere that you can see it everyday. If you have those things, be thankful and smile when you read it. If you're still working towards being happy, let that be your inspiration! There is no reason that you shouldn't be happy. 

The happiest day of my life
 was spent here: Gruyeres, Switzerland.

Coming to these conclusions personally, has left me excited about life. I'm excited to live. I know what makes me happy: Traveling. Teaching. Experiencing new things. And being in Switzerland. Because I know what makes me happy, I have a direction in my life now. Granted, this doesn't mean I'm going to throw love out the window, because it's nice to have someone I care about along with me, but I'm not going to solely focus on love being the thing that will bring me happiness. This narrows my focus to one thing now: School. It will provide me the degree I need to teach, and the money I need to travel and hopefully someday move to Switzerland. With those things in my life, I know I will be happy. 

Maybe someday I'll get married and have children, but I know that right now, I don't absolutely need that in my life to have meaning and happiness. 

A Sticky Situation: Becoming a Parent

Reader Warning: This is a controversial blog. There is the subject of teen pregnancy and sex. If you are easily offended, please don't read this. If you go ahead and read it, remember to treat me the way you would want to be treated. 


Recently, I found out someone very close to me is pregnant. This girl is about 4 years younger than me, putting her at a socially unacceptable age to be pregnant. At first I was amazed, shocked, and even a little sad for her. I went on to find out that her and her family were actually excited about this news. I wanted to be really happy for her, and I really do wish her all the best, but as I got to thinking about it, I realized all of the responsibility that comes with a child. 


People can tell you over and over again that having a child will change your life: it costs a lot of money, you have to constantly take care of another human, and your world revolves around someone other than you. Personally, I am obviously not an expert on the subject, and I can't even claim any children as my own, but I think I have a little taste of insight regarding children. Coincidentally aligned with all this news, I am taking a class this semester about parenting in diverse families. The book we're reading is called The Process of Parenting by Jane Brooks. Later, when I reference "the book" it will be referring to this book. 

Anyways, I wanted to touch on a couple subjects and ideas that have come to sprout up in my head. (And for those of you that read both of my blogs, I will be posting this in both because I think that this should act as a lesson as well, thus "sticking with you" i.e. material for Gum Under the table.) I'll mostly be writing with how I view a lot of these subjects and it's going to be very controversial. I am open to opinions though, so if you have an insight please let me know. 


I'm going to start with how babies are made: sex. In this day and age, I really think we've become desensitized to sex. Maybe it's because I'm constantly surrounded by the college lifestyle and I see how these kids just sleep with each other for sport. It's all fun and games, but do we realize that there's major ramifications to having sex? You can get sexually transmitted diseases, become pregnant, and even form emotional attachments to complete assholes. It's funny though- it seems that these days STD's are the big scare. In high school the teachers focus on the disgusting things that you can catch. They use scare tactics of showing you pictures and telling you about the symptoms. I specifically remember being told about gonorrhea and how green junk would be coming out of my hoo-ha; it scared the crap out of me. I was terrified of what people could be carrying with them. Then, the abstinence guy came in and his big focus was the emotional attachments that we would form. He used a great example with two pieces of tape: 

• Imagine that you and your mate's emotional attachment is a piece of tape; when you stick both sticky parts together, they're going to stick and be very hard to get apart. 
• Now imagine that your piece of tape has stuck onto the skin of 5 other people, and your mate's piece of tape has stuck onto 5 different people. Now that piece of tape has the skin cells, dirt, and whatever else was on those 10 people's skin sticking to it. When you stick those two sticky sides together, it sticks, but it's easy to peel apart. 

After seeing that example, I was worried that I would someday never be able to attach myself to someone intimately and emotionally, thereby swearing I was going to stay a virgin until I met someone really special to me. (Unfortunately, that someone ended up not being so special.)

After my tenth grade health class, I knew that pregnancy was a possible outcome of having sex, but it didn't seem nearly as scary as the others. Pregnancy wasn't treated as being responsible for another life, but instead as a severe STD. Actually, I thought it would be a happy alternative to an actual STD. In fact, my thinking got to the point that I was in a very serious relationship after high school, and we didn't use protection. We knew we loved each other; we were living together and in what I thought to be a very committed relationship. Our thinking was that if we got pregnant, it'd be okay because we loved each other and it wasn't that scary of a thought. 

Think about that. Having another human's life directly in my hands wasn't a scary thought. How on Earth could that NOT be a scary thought? I don't care if you're married, emotionally and financially stable, and of an acceptable age; having someone's life as your responsibility should scare the shit out of you. 

I mean, look at this baby! Try not to smile! 

So, now I'll move on to the a big unanswerable question: Why do we want to have babies? Having a child shouldn't ever be an accident. Especially with today's technology; there are so many forms of birth control and a lot of them are relatively cheap. I have come to think that a pregnancy should probably be one of the first things I'm trying to prevent when having sex with someone. However, mistakes do happen and people plan for children. It's part of human nature to want to procreate. In the book it says, "we appear to be preprogrammed to respond positively to babies." Who can resist smirking when they see an adorable baby looking all cute and whatnot? So, it's just natural that some of us "adults" want to have a little copy of our DNA to raise, call our own, and make us smile. 

Then there's those that don't want children; I have a friend who has told me that he doesn't really have an interest in having kids. I laughed and I was a little shocked. I'm a person that wants a baby over anything else. Ever since I was little I wanted to be a "mommy" when I grew up. Love is important to me, and finding a husband to have that baby with would be ideal, but I also feel that there is no greater love than that between a mother and child. I told him this and explained that I wanted children someday. He asked my reasoning and I was stuck. The first reason to pop into my head was, Because they're so cute! Then I started thinking..."Really? I want a child because they're cute? What is wrong with me? How selfish is that?!" So I modified my answer: "I want to be able to watch my child grow and help it discover life." Was that much of a better answer? I don't know. Other than having the natural feeling of wanting a child, I don't know why I should have one. The first section in The Process of Parenting is called "Why Do Adults Take On the Job of Parenting?" Brooks gives a list of the common reasons given for having children:

• to love and be close to
• to feel excitement at children's growth and development of new skills
• to feel a greater sense of self-growth, of being more sensitive, more caring
• to satisfy society's expectations of being adult and responsible
• to feel a sense of creativity and accomplishment in helping children grow
• to meet moral or religious expectations
• to feel greater security in times of sickness or old age

So, these are the reasons? At least three are directly for self satisfaction. I still don't know how I feel about this. I feel like having a child should be a completely selfless act, but I know there has to be a bit of concern for yourself as well. 

When I asked my friend that doesn't have the interest in having children if he'd ever have one with his future wife, he told me that he's been told that when he finds the right person, he'll want to procreate with her. Does meeting the "right" person really make you feel that way? Or are some people just programmed to not have the need to make babies? Which brings me to the down side of having babies, and what this entry is really all about...There are so many negative sides to having a baby, that I believe it takes some planning, timing, saving, and preparation before someone can be ready for a child, and even then the adventure of parenthood will still be completely unpredictable. 

In the book, Brooks mentions three of the most common reasons given for not having children:

1. Restrictions (loss of freedom, loss of time for other activities, increase in work load)
2. Negative feelings in relation to children (worries concerning their health and well-being, difficulties with discipline, fear of disappointments in children or in self as a parent)
3. Concerns about the child being poorly cared for

I think these thoughts cross each soon-to-pregnant or soon-to-parents couple, but to what extent? I brought some of these concerns up to the girl that just found out she was pregnant, and I got the reply, "I didn't even think about that..." So, I'm here to make you think about it. Maybe sometime down the road when you decide to have children, or maybe even right now this blog will stick out to you and you'll rethink decisions or even reconfirm that this is exactly what you want from your life. 

1. Restrictions: 

As soon as I found out that this girl was pregnant, I did the math... When she turned 21, she would have a 3 year old. She would be sending her 6 year old child off to school when she was 23. She'd have a high school graduate when she was 36. But, back to turning 21. When I told her that, I saw her face sink. Who wants to worry about their 3 year old child when they're out celebrating their 21st birthday? I'll leave it at that, but it's easy to see that it is very hard to enjoy life when there is someone else to whom to must answer. 

Also, the girl that's pregnant hasn't finished college, and that task will now become very hard. If she decides to continue with her school, she will have to plan her schedule around times that she can leave her baby to be watched. Then, while she's doing her homework, she will be feeding, changing, and caring for a child as well. 

The restrictions that result from having a child are easy to recognize. Obviously, you have to make time for the baby. You can't spend much time out and about because you have someone you're supposed to be taking care of. You also have to restrict your financial spending because that little bambino will be needing a lot of money as well. 

2. Negative Feelings in Relation to Children:

Under this category, the book put subjects that deal with the emotions that you would have concerning the well-being of the child. Another immediate reaction I had was thinking, what if the child is born with a disability? What will she do? How will she afford proper care for the child? My biggest concern for when I become a parent is being a good parent and giving them all I can to make their life easy, but what if I can't? I'll touch more on this in the next section, but the big negative feeling that comes up with children and me is worrying about their health. 

Another concern mentioned in the book is the conflict with discipline. Luckily for me, I have a step ahead of the game with this topic. I have taught plenty of swim lessons where I've had to discipline students and I've taken plenty of Childhood Psychology classes where the different theories of discipline are pounded into our heads. Yes- I have a step ahead of the game, but I don't know everything. To be honest, I still probably wouldn't know exactly how to handle most situations when it came to my own child. I was up talking with my mother about the girl being so young and I remember saying, "How will she be able to discipline a child when she's just a child herself?" I mean, this girl is directly responsible for how this kid is raised and moralized. That is a ton of responsibility and if she gets even the tiniest feeling of disappointment, she could feel like a failure as a parent even though she's trying her hardest. (I'm not saying she would be a failure, just that I can see how it would be easy to feel like one.)

3. Concerns About the Child Being Poorly Cared for:

Now, I'll touch on the possibility of the child being born with a disability. 

Here's a fun fact: According to CDC.gov, an average of 1 in 110 children are born with autism. Surprised? I was too. That's a pretty intense statistic. 

CDC.gov

Another Fun Fact: From the New York Times, "Direct medical and non- medical costs can add up to as much as $72,000 a year for someone with an extreme case of the disorder, and even $67,000 a year for those on the lower end of the spectrum, according to a study from the Harvard School of Public Health." 

That is a shit ton of money and it's on top of the normal baby expenses- diapers, formula, clothes, toys, etc. That's more than most families even make in a year. I think I've made my point and that's only for Autism. 

Even if the child is born perfectly healthy, they still require a lot of money. Plus, there are always going to be unexpected doctor's visits when the baby gets sick or things that you never thought you needed until you get that baby home and think D'oh! I forgot to get the ______! (socket plugs? baby gates? baby thermometer? and awkwardly enough, Pads?) All those little last minute items add up, and they add up quickly. 

It comes down to this: Will you be able to fully provide for your child? It's a scary thought and it's going to hurt if you realize, Oh shit. I'm not ready. 

However, there's no way to measure if someone is really ready to have a child. I have no right in deciding who should and shouldn't be allowed to procreate, and I definitely do not pass judgement on anyone that is pregnant. I feel that having a child takes a lot of planning, but as I mentioned before, life takes us by surprise and mistakes happen; it's the pure essence of life that makes it magical.

So, I challenge you: Think about you would require of someone wanting to become a parent. What makes someone ready? Should there be restrictions on who can have children? Do you have a plan? 


If you're interested in my own take, read my other blog, Escape Mission. 

Frozen Gum: Lesson One; Rushing Love

This entry begins my Frozen Gum series. Frozen Gum lessons are things that are so hard to learn that they don't automatically stick to you. They're there like a big lump you carry around, but until they thaw out you won't learn from them. For these entries, I'm going to let you in on a little secret so you can stick with my rambling...These are set up

Intro>Lesson>Story>What I learned> What you can learn.

I hope you enjoy these, and please leave a comment telling me what you took from the lesson!

Rushing Love.

In the age of technology, life has become fast-paced. If you want to send someone a document, you can fax it, scan it, email it, or even take a picture of it on your phone and send it to them. Want to talk to someone? Text, call, email, skype...the possibilities are endless. So when you meet someone new, it's easy for relationships to progress faster and for feelings to become public knowledge easier. However, something that has finally thawed out in my brain is that Love cannot be rushed. Think of the great romances...

Did Beauty and the Beast text each other from different sides of the castle to say that there must be something there that wasn't there before? No.

Did Prince Eric look at Ariel's Facebook and see that she was really a mermaid? No.

Did Snow White tweet that some weird old lady is at her door selling apples? No.

Love has to grow. We have all heard of love at first sight, and I'm not going to say that it doesn't exist, but I will say that love at first sight grows from infatuation at first glance. For a relationship to work, it has to last past infatuation. Past the honeymoon stage. And past the hostile stage.

So how did I become the expert? I didn't. I'm not going to sit here and tell you how to go about your love life, but if you can learn from my mistakes, then I've done my part as a writer. Here's my story:

This past January, I ended a 2 year 3 month relationship (speckled with mini break-ups). I had been living with him, and decided that the relationship was not going to work. I decided to move out (Jan. 7) and I began talking to an old flame of mine.

     History:

• The old flame and I only dated a month during one of my mini-breakups.
• I left him to go back to the original guy after the month.
• We originally started dating a week after we met.

Anyways, after we began talking, I told him I needed some time to get my head on straight and focus on me. This was all great in theory, but we continued to talk. And damn technology to hell because our relationship began blossoming through texts, phone calls, facebook, and e-mails. I was becoming infatuated with my rebound. We finally decided to just make ourselves an official couple (Feb. 16) I thought this was great. He offered me such a change of pace. He was kind, sweet....but serious. It was a refreshing change from the old guy. But he was just a rebound. At the beginning he was fabulous, and it seemed to get even better when he proposed (March 6)! *And now for a mini lesson:

1. Boys- Don't propose when a girl is drunk. Or even tipsy. Or even if she's only had a sip. Alcohol has no place in a proposal until after she has said a sober yes.
2. Girls- Just because he is down on one knee does not mean you have to say yes. And if he has already bought a ring, don't worry about the money; chances are that the ring is cheaper than a divorce lawyer. *

I think you all get the point...We moved really really fast. Stupid fast. We moved in together and by the time that I realized that I didn't love him, I had a beautiful diamond ring on my finger and we were making save-the-dates. In fact, I didn't realize how serious my dilema was until I was trying on wedding dresses with my best friend.

We were having a great time looking at all the dresses, and I was sure that I had found my dream wedding dress, but I kept joking around saying that I had guys lined up to come in and stop the wedding when the pastor says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace..." I could tell by the look in my friend's eye that she knew I was being serious. The truth is, I had talked to some guy friends of mine. They all agreed that I was being crazy for getting married, and I even begged some of them to come in and call off my wedding! I was making a mistake, and I was so caught up in proving everyone wrong, that I was denying myself the truth. As I was driving my best friend home that day, she looked over at me and simply said, "Are you sure this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with?" I immediately began crying and spent the rest of the night talking with her and my make-shift mother (an old neighbor) about how I'm going to end the relationship. I had been contemplating ending it for a while, and knowing that people actually supported my decision filled me with the courage to do so.

That night (July 29) I told him that he needed to get his belongings out of my apartment. To this day, it was the best decision of my life.

So what did I learn? Obviously, Love can't be rushed. I also learned that I don't have to feel obligated to stay with someone because of a promise I made or money spent. No promise can bring happiness if you aren't behind that promise 100 percent.

So, ladies (and men too), don't rush love. If the person you're seeing doesn't want to wait, then they're not worth your time. This can seem SO hard to do when things are new and exciting, but guard your heart and try to think rationally about your relationships. There is always a honeymoon stage and until you pass that stage, friends and family can help you see rationally. (However, to the friends and family out there, do so nicely!!!) Another lesson to be learned is to put yourself first if you don't feel like you should be in the relationship. There is NO excuse to stay in a relationship if you do not truely love the person. It doesn't matter how much time has gone into the relationship, if there isn't love, passion, attraction, and commitment, there is no relationship.

Changing Your Mind

I was going to write a blog about changing your mind....but I changed my mind.

12 Lessons I've learned from my Mother.

As I'm reaching a time in my life where I'm engaged to be married, and having to seriously think about not being supported anymore, I'm noticing more and more how my mother snuck in little life lessons while she was raising me.

1. A hug or kiss can make anything better, no matter the boo-boo. I can't count how many times I fell down as a kid and hurt myself. In fact, I'm pretty sure from ages 5-11 I lived with perpetual scrapes on my knees. However, if I ever cried, mom would make sure I was okay, and follow it with a hug or kiss. While these didn't magically heal me, or take the pain away, it was her way of letting me know that she still loved me. To this day, when I get to see her, she gives me a hug, and it takes away any pain I had felt since the last time that I had seen her.

2. It doesn't matter what you're doing, singing a song can make it a lot more fun. Everyday I catch myself singing about something, and I always laugh because it's usually about what I'm doing. When I was little, every time we'd get into the car, my mom would sing, "Buckle up for safety, for safety, for safety, Buckle up for safety because it's the law." It would always just kind of happen, and I can't remember any other songs, but I know that there was always singing. These days, I still sing. In fact just the other night I was singing about taking my dogs out for a walk. I didn't want to leave the comfort of the living room to take them out, but somehow singing about it made it okay.

3. All those embarrassing things that she did? It was only to prepare me for future embarrassment. As a teenager, I can't think of anything more embarrassing than my mom or dad being around me. God forbid, I actually had to go somewhere with them and be seen by someone I know! However, I was always able to laugh with my parents. Being able to laugh with them, helped me know it was okay if others were laughing at me. Looking back, my mother and father should have been the embarrassed ones! When I was a teenager, I went through quite a few awkward stages...and I mean AWKWARD. Just for that, I'm sorry my parents had to witness me growing up, but I've gone through a lot more embarrassing things than being seen with my mom. There have been plenty of embarrassing things that have happened to me (giving a speech with my zipper down, falling down stairs, and stepping in dog poop in front of a whole group of peers-just to name a few...), but after each embarrassing thing, I keep my head up and laugh. I've learned that by laughing at myself, and keeping a light heart, I can get through any embarrassing moment.


4. Tough times never last; tough people do. My mom always had a sign that had this phrase on it. Whenever I was going through a tough time, she would bring it up. My favorite memory of this was when my best friend, Adrienne, was diagnosed with leukemia. As I was leaving for the hospital one day to visit Adrienne, my mom told me to give her a hug and tell her that "tough times never last, but tough people do!" While I told my friend this piece of advice, I took it to heart too. While she was in the hospital, Adrienne was so strong, and she pushed through and healed, but I had a really hard time coping with her illness. When my mom told me to tell Adrienne this little saying, she didn't even realize that she was reminding me to stay strong too. 

5. Always have a plan. Whenever the topic of drugs or sex ever came up, my mom made sure to say to always have a plan. If I ever encountered drugs, or got in a situation where there was sex, I was to have a plan. She made it very clear that I better have a plan before I get into the situation because once in the situation, I wouldn't be able to think straight. She also made sure to say that the plan can be anything from calling her, simply saying no, or accepting. Having this plan has made life so much easier. When I was first offered weed, I turned it down. To this day, I turn it down. I have my plan, and I stick to it. However, this doesn't only apply to compromising situations, but also to what seems like easy situations. There have been times that I'm just going to a dinner that might involve someone that I don't want to see, and I prepare myself for what I'm going to do in different situations. Just having this little bit of preparation helps so much in life. 


6. It's  okay to act like grandma and her. Just the other day I was out shopping for new glasses and I put on a pair of Burberry ones, looked in the mirror, and in a shocked voice, exclaimed, "I look like my mother!" A lady next to me laughed, but I looked again, and I kind of liked the glasses...guess which ones I got? That pair. I've told my mother countless times how she holds her hands just like grandma, and I'll look down and be holding my hands the exact same way. I used to get so mad- I wanted to be my own person, and be nothing like my mom or grandma, but then I realized that I'm proud to have them in me. Why? Because they are kind, caring, compassionate women. Because I have them in me, I help others and care about animals. I love to watch plants grow and I love to shoot a gun. I've got a tough Texan in me and I love to make others happy. I'm just like my mother and my grandma, but that's okay with me, because they're wonderful ladies. 


7. Family is important, but so is adventure. My mom was born and raised in a little town in the panhandle of Texas. The population was a little under a thousand people, and she graduated with 32 other students. Her entire life was in that town: her family, her friends, and even the little Dairy Queen where she worked. She left with her first husband, but ended up back in that little country town again. Some years passed, and she met my father. They fell in love, got married, and his job got transferred to Hawaii. What was a small-town country girl to do? She followed him to Hawaii. Then to Washington. Then to Kentucky. Then to Maryland. Then to Ohio. As a child, I was told that we weren't moving, but having an adventure. Looking back now, Mom was just on her adventure. She took chances, and that was passed down to me. Throughout her entire adventure, she always kept in touch with her family. I can't remember a week that went by that my papa didn't call early in the morning to talk with mom. And how many times did my aunt call in the middle of a movie, but mom still got up to answer the phone and talk to her? She stayed in touch with her family, and if it wasn't for the distance, it would be like we were all living together. Mom was able to keep her roots in that small town, but also branch out to see the world. As I go on with my life, my mom lives in Texas while I'm in Ohio, but everyday I'm on the phone with her, updating her. Now with technology, it's even easier to do this with webcams and picture messages. I would never be okay with living this far away if she hadn't taught me how to do it. 


8. Keep your house clean. So this may seem super simple, and easy to do, but when I moved in with my first serious boyfriend, I found it to be a lot harder. Without a dishwasher, we actually had to handwash all our dishes. Being two lazy people, we had to throw a lot of mold-covered dishes away. So what did I learn? When I left the guy, my next apartment had a dishwasher! My mother helped me move into this new amazing apartment (With a dishwasher) and gave me a lot of tips on how to keep it clean. I had a new puppy and she told me the most effective way to clean up its accidents. She made sure to tell me to rinse off my dishes before putting them in my new dishwasher. (Did I mention I finally had a dishwasher?) She told me to draino the shower drain often because I have long hair that gets caught in the drain, and she helped me unpack boxes and organize my entire apartment. Since she came up to help me move into my new apartment, I notice her all over it. I open my closet, and see a nice little box labeled "TOOLS :)" My bedroom closet has all my shoes organized, and my dishes all have a special place in my kitchen. If it was up to me, all my stuff would still be packed in boxes because I wouldn't have gotten around to unpacking them, but through her helping me move, I've learned that it's easier to just keep your house clean. 


9. Don't be a slut. I can't remember the situation that we were in, and I don't remember what I was wearing, but I do remember my mom looking straight at me and saying, "You're such a slut." Now, I know that she didn't mean it in a mean way, but she meant it in a do-you-know-what-people-are-going-to-think way. It took a couple of my teenage years, and growing huge boobs, but I learned that I needed to be a little more modest and cover up my puppies! It really does matter because first impressions mean a lot. 


10. Trust my intuition. This was the hardest lesson to learn, and it's something that I learned at the expense of my mother. On August 5, 2005, I got on a horse. I looked at my mother and told her that I needed off that horse and that I wasn't comfortable. I remember telling her that something bad was going to happen. However, she insisted that I stay on that horse and that I'd be fine. Well, I ended up getting kicked by another horse while I was riding that day. My leg broke, and I had a 3 day hospital stay, along with months of relearning how to walk. Like I said, this was a really hard lesson to learn, but I learned to trust my intuition. If I'm in a situation and my alarms start going off, I get out. 


11. God has a plan. This is something that my mom probably doesn't know that I've learned from her. She is such a strong woman and she's been through a lot. Her second husband died of cancer, and she's been through a couple divorces. But you know what? Through all of this, she turned to God for help. It's not much, but this is the best lesson I've ever learned from my mother: while I may not see it, God has a reason for everything that happens in my life. While it may seem trivial, I hated moving to Ohio, but looking back, I can see how God was giving me the best opportunity in so many things. For example, if we hadn't moved to Ohio, I wouldn't have been given the opportunity to graduate high school with my Associate's of Arts and Humanities and I wouldn't have my mom cheering me on through my entire high school career. 


12. There's no love like a mother's love. Every child knows this, and can tell you how much their mother loves them. Knowing how much my mother loves me and my brother makes me want to be a mother myself. I know that there's nothing she wants more than for us to be happy, and just being around her makes me the happiest I can ever be.

My Top 5 Most Annoying Animals

 5. Pandas- Pandas only reach the fifth spot because they're just so darn cute! Their cuteness isn't annoying, but what is annoying is their eating bamboo all day. It annoys me that they eat anywhere from 40-80 pounds of bamboo a day. Something else that annoys me about pandas is their teeth. They always look so yellow. I think that since their fur is white, it makes their teeth look really yellow. Other than that, they're really freakin' cute! Which leads me to much more annoying animals like....

 4. Jellyfish- Jellyfish are such beautiful creatures. Some of them glow in the dark, while others are made of all sorts of colors. They all have one thing in common though: they're annoying. These creations just kind of float along in the water, and sting anything that touches them. The reason I think they're annoying is because every full moon they wash up on the shore. So as a swimmer, surfer, beach go-er, you're just walking along minding your own business, when all of a sudden your foot is on fire because you stepped on a stupid jellyfish. What's even more annoying is the fact that if they're washed up on the beach, the jellyfish are most likely DEAD! Anything that can sting you is annoying, but it's also understandable because it's a defense mechanism. A more un-understandable animal is the...

3. Cicadas- For those of you that don't know what a cicada is, they're these huge insects that break out of shells during the summer time. A lot of people in the south call them locusts, but they're actually not related to true locusts which are like grasshoppers. The first annoying part of these things, is that their shells stick to everything. They have these fine little hair things on their legs that make it possible for them to stick to anything. In the picture, the brown part is the shell while the green thing is the actual cicada. As a little kid, when you climbed trees, you had to watch out for the shells (and the bugs!) because they would stick to your hair and clothes and creep you out! The actual live bugs are annoying because they make this awful sound. It's like the sound of a cricket, but mixed with death and amplified times a hundred. While most bugs are annoying, none of them are more annoying than...

 2. Mosquitoes-  I shouldn't even have to explain why these are so annoying. They spread diseases, bite you and make you itchy, they reproduce quickly, and they make annoying buzzing sounds! I was trying to do some research to even find out what the benefits of mosquitoes are and I couldn't find very much. They only reasoning behind keeping them alive is for bat and frog food. A lot of other people said that they keep the people that make bug repellent in business too! Bug repellent has never really worked that great on me, thus I don't really agree with the latter comment, but I'm sure that frogs and bats can find another food source! Plus, the buzzing they make is really annoying. The worst is when they land on your ear to bite it, and you can hear the buzzing, but you don't want to kill it inside your ear. This usually ends with a squished bug inside your ear. (I was going to search for and post a picture of a mosquito, but just looking at them started making me all itchy, so I had to stop) I just really hate mosquitoes, but not as much as...

1. The Canadian Goose- These top my list for most annoying animals for several reasons, but there are five main reasons why they're so stinkin' annoying! Reason 1: They're loud. As you can see with the rest of the list, most of these animals are annoying because the sounds they make; However, I feel that there is nothing more annoying than trying to take a nap on a warm spring day with your windows open, only to be woken up to fighting geese going, "HONK HONK HONKKK." The second reason directly follows this because the reason they're usually honking is because Reason 2: They're SO territorial! I have actually been chased down by a Canadian goose before. It was hissing at me, and not knowing what that meant, I hissed back. I ended up running down a Kmart parking lot in heels and being saved by jumping in the open door of my mother's jeep. For those of you that don't know, when Canadian geese choose a spot to nest in, they make it THEIR spot. There is no fighting with a Canadian goose because they have a ton of tiny, fine teeth that will latch onto your flesh and not let go. So we have all these damn territorial geese moving in, and hissing and chasing people, only to lay eggs and give birth to ducklings. Okay, say it with me, "Awwwwww!" No. I hate their ducklings. They're okay for the first month, maybe, but then they just get awkward! I think teenage Canadian geese are the ugliest things.  Reason 3: Teenage Canadian Geese are awkward to look at. They halfway have feathers and have long knobby legs with really big feet. I feel embarrassed FOR them because I know they probably aren't smart enough to feel embarrassed for themselves. Quite frankly, I don't like looking at them because it makes me feel awkward. Once they move in, and once they have babies, the amount of poop increases dramatically. Reason 4: They poop EVERYWHERE. There's a pond across the street from my fiance's house, and geese live there. I can't walk the dogs in the big grassy field by the pond because there is so much goose poop my shoes get covered in it! For fellow dog owners out there, you know that dogs LOVE goose poop! I don't know what it is, but I can't stop them from eating it! So, how do we stop all this from happening? Hunt them! But.....Reason 5: These damn birds are PROTECTED and can't be killed!!! Even though there are a TON of geese that live in Ohio, they are protected under the Federal Migratory Bird Act of 1918. According to wildgoosechasers.com, "this Act makes it illegal to harm or injure a goose and damage or move its eggs and nest, without a Federal permit. Not complying with the Federal Act can result in fines ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 and this also applies to an untrained dog’s actions." Are you kidding me? This even makes is a federal offense to "accidentally" hit one of your car. 

Overall, while all of these animals are annoying, none of them even hold a candle of annoyance to the torch that the Canadian Goose holds.

Do you have a routine?

Have you ever noticed that throughout the day you follow certain routines? I've been paying attention to a lot of different routines that I follow and I'm scared that my entire life is just turning into a routine.

In the morning, before class, I know that I have to set my alarm at LEAST thirty minutes before the time that I really need to get up because I'll snooze it until I can't snooze it anymore. My morning routine consists of snoozing my alarm until I can't, getting out of bed, taking my shower, getting ready, getting dressed, letting the dog out, then I leave. I have the same way that I drive to school every day, the same path that I follow to classes, and the same things I do once I get to class.

The scary part is this: Within these routines, I have smaller more exact routines, and within THOSE routines, I have microscopic routines. Now, maybe it's because I have obsessive compulsive disorder, or maybe it's because I have created these habits, but they basically control my life. 

Here's an example:
Everytime I take a shower, I have to go through the same steps and if I dont do a step, I have to start over (That's the OCD in me!). First, I have to wet my hair all the way through and shampoo it. After I rinse the shampoo out, I wash my body. After washing my body (which has to be with body wash and a loofah or else I'm still dirty), I put conditioner in my hair and let it set while I wash my face. Now here's the tricky part... I wash my face with either acne wash of bar soap, and have to wash that soap off, along with  the conditioner while trying not to let any conditioner run over my face. If too much conditioner touches my face, then I have to re-wash it. 

I think that my obsession with routines is slightly ridiculous, but do you have any routines that you follow? Are you as crazy as I am? Or a little less exact? 

Just an FYI and a tiny end note: According to the Mayo Clinic: 

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by unreasonable thoughts and fears (obsessions) that lead you to do repetitive behaviors (compulsions). With obsessive-compulsive disorder, you may realize that your obsessions aren't reasonable, and you may try to ignore them or stop them. But that only increases your distress and anxiety. Ultimately, you feel driven to perform compulsive acts in an effort to ease your stressful feelings.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder often centers around themes, such as a fear of getting contaminated by germs. To ease your contamination fears, you may compulsively wash your hands until they're sore and chapped. Despite your efforts, thoughts of obsessive-compulsive behavior keep coming back. This leads to more ritualistic behavior — and a vicious cycle that's characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

So how far do routines need to go before they turn into a disorder? I'd answer that- but that's a whole different subject.