The New Year

2010 was not the best year but I do have so many things to be thankful for from the year. I graduated from college which was huge! I hate school so to be done with it feels amazing. I'm even finding things to be thankful for in the bad times.I moved back home when I couldn't find a job in Atlanta. So I am so thankful that I have wonderful parents who will let me live at home even though I'm 23 and a college graduate. I still am looking for a job but God allowed me to work at the elections office full time during the summer and fall. And I've also got a wonderful opportunity coming in a few weeks. I am going to be one of the photographers for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in Beaufort, S.C. So that is EXTREMELY AMAZING!!!! I am so excited about it! I am also thankful that we still have G-mommy. She has been through so much the past month and we thought we were going to lose her a few times but she pulled through and keeps on going. I became single in October and it destroyed my heart. I still wonder if love is even worth the risk anymore. But a I'm thankful that I am no longer in a bad relationship. I have the chance to be happy now and go and do whatever God has planned for me. And I'm thankful for my amazing friends that are still getting me through this. I couldn't have done it without them. I think that out of everything in my life they are what I am most thankful for.

So even though 2010 was a very rough and incredibly stressful year I made it. I conquered fears, doubt, sadness and there was still plenty to be thankful for. I'm looking forward to 2011 and to see what God has planned for me. It's a brand new year and a new start literally.

here, there, everywhere !

Time for another rather long post sorry. It's been a while so I gota get everything out about last week. So here goes. . .

Dad and I got back from Atlanta last Sunday. On Monday I was planing on chilling at the house most of the day relaxing before I had to go to S.C. on Tuesday. So I did some laundry layed around then headed to the grocery store. I didn't even make it half way there! I pulled out on Old Dawson and wam my car freaks out! My check engine light was flashing and my "trac off" light came on. I could barely turn the wheel and the car is jerking and just puttin down the road, and of course there's a car coming so I'm freaking out that I'm going to get hit. I finally get all the way out on the road and I'm barely moving. I make it to Doublegate's parking lot and pull in. I revved the engine and it sounded like it was shooting stuff out. So I figured that it was just junk in the gas. So I sat there a min revved it some more and the engine and trac lights went off. Even though it seemed ok I wasn't going to push my luck so I decided to go home and get dads truck. So trying to pull back out on to Old Dawson and guess what. . . it happens again! This time I had waited till there were no cars at all. So I got down to my street and made the turn got about half way down the street and wam the car stops doing it and acts fine. THIS IS CRAZY! So I'm now mad that my car is messed up but whatever. I get my dads truck and go to the grocery store. I get back home and lay around trying to calm down. I went out to eat with my girls for dinner and it was GREAT! I love them so much and we always have such a wonderful time. I wish I could have hung out with them after we ate but I had to get to bed early. But hanging out with them for that short time did make my day better.

Tuesday I got up at 7am and left by 7:30 in my dads car for Beaufort, S.C. I got there a little after 12. I stopped by at my cousin Brittney and her husband Ben's office. Then I headed to the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition press release, where I shot for it! Because next month I will be one of 3 photographers shooting the Extreme Makeover Home Edition there in Beaufort! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!! It's going to be stressful and crazy but amazing! So anyways I shot that then went back to their office and sat around working on the photos. I spent the night at their house then headed back home Wednesday morning around 9:30.

Wednesday I got home and took a shower and unpacked again. Thursday I rested from all the driving and stuff. I worked on pictures and uploaded them for the ABC to pic which ones they want to put up on their website and facebook page. Which by the way all my pictures have my name on them!! It's so exciting. But anyways then Thursday night dad gets home and says we're leaving for Atlanta tonight instead of tomorrow. So I had to go pack real quick and we left around 7:30pm for Atlanta. We got there and hung out with some of our family at G-mommys house. I streched out and took the whole couch for myself and fell asleep. When everyone finally went to bed I pulled out the the couch into the bed and went back to sleep. And let me tell you about this sofa bed. . . most people think I'm short but on this bed my head can be at the top and my feet still hang off the bottom. But I was so tired it didn't matter.

Friday I hung out at G-mommys house all day and that night my parents and I opened our presents and then went to Callaway Gardens and saw the lights. It was really nice and very pretty.




Saturday Christmas day! Everyone is up sitting in the kitchen talking. I'm still on the couch no longer sleeping just to tired to get up yet though. I finally do and go sit with them. Dad took mom to the hospital to be with G-mommy. Then he left to go to his moms (Mawmaw) because he was going to take her to the doctor on Sunday. Quick backstory on my Mawmaw as if our family hasn't been going through enough with G-mommy being in the hospital my Mawmaw has now had 4 surgeries on one of her eyes and it still isn't better. So dad went up there to be with her. So I sat at G-mommys house till my aunt got back from the hospital because you sometimes need 2 people to get the garage door down. So when she got back and then left to be with her family I let the door down and then I left for the hospital. I stayed with mom and G-mommy all day on Christmas. G-mommy seems to be doing much better, however she's got a rash now pretty much all over. They think it's from being on those antibiotics for so long. Well it started snowing on Christmas and even though we were at the hospital is was still beautiful. I left around 8 to go back to G-mommys before the roads got icy. I made it to G-mommys ok and spent the night.



Sunday dad calls me and asks how's the weather there and I told him that we got about an 1 1/2in of snow but none of it is on the roads. Well he said that they got 4-5 inches of it and it's everywhere so he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to leave. Well here's the deal we were suppose to leave Sunday because dad had work on rental properties he wanted to do on Monday and I had a shoot on Monday. So I was a little bummed. But it's whatever you can't do anything about it so I went on with the day. I went outside and took pics of the snow and froze. I was wearing my tennishoes so my feet were wet and freezing but they were fine. I headed up to the hospital around 12 and picked up mom and we had lunch. We got back to the hospital and hung out with G-mommy. The physical therapist came in and G-mommy sat up on the side of the bed all by herself and kicked her legs! It was impressive. Then the therapist got G-mommy to sit in a chair. She lasted about 3min before she fainted. The funny thing is that we were all saying "good job G-mommy your doing great" cause she was! That was a huge improvement. The first time they tried to put her in a chair she didn't even make it to the chair before she fainted. lol. But they woke her up and then picked her up and put her back in her bed. She was helping them though. She was rolling over and scooting over to help them out. She's working hard and getting better and getting outa that bed and hospital. Anyways dad calls and says he's on his way to get me and we're gonna head on home. So that made me happy. He gets there and he has a cup of snow that he brought all the way from Mawmaws house. LOL. ok so it snowed there at the hospital he could have just picked some up there but nope he drove all that way with a cup of snow hahaha. Well he showed it to G-mommy after I warned him that she'll probably think your giving her ice to eat. And sure enough she tried to eat it! It was hilarious!!!! Dad had to take the cup from her. But dad and I left and got back to Albany Sunday night. So that was my crazy week and Christmas here there everywhere.

SUPPER CRAZY

It has been a crazy weekend. It was already a crazy week. Monday I worked at the elections office and I was going to work all day Wednesday too. I really need the paycheck! But I got a phone call Monday saying that G-mommy was having surgery again for the third time because she got another infection on the other side. This time they said that they weren't sure if she would be able to come off the ventilator . . . EVER. So that was making everyone extremely worried. So my mom said that we would have to leave Monday to go up to Atlanta. So I got home rushed to pack pretty much all my winter clothes cause I wasn't sure how long we'd be there. And then when my mom got home she said we weren't leaving till in the morning.

So Tuesday morning I went upstairs to see what we were doing and she said we were waiting to hear from my uncle. So then we decided that I would just go with my dad sometime later in the week. So she finally heard from my uncle and she decided she would leave Wednesday morning and dad and I would just leave sometime Thursday or Friday. So Tuesday I just ran errands and chilled out but Tuesday night I only slept about 3-4 hours cause . . . I'm not even going to get into that it's so ridiculous.

So Wednesday I worked from 8-5 and it was miserable. I was extremely tired, sad and angry. It could have been so much worse though cause I was alone at the office and I didn't have to do anything. So I had plenty of time to think about everything but never came up with any answers to anything lol. (like why aren't certain people talking to me?, why are other people talking to me? why are people such assholes?, how am I going to be able to do all of this? etc.) Well Wednesday night I get home and mom says that we are leaving that night because the weather was so bad in Atl so we should go ahead and get up there. But that sounded crazy to me so I convinced her that driving at night with icy roads was a bad idea and we should leave in Thursday morning.

So mom and I left for Atl at 8 am Thursday morning dropped off our stuff at G-mommys house then headed to the hospital. We stayed there all day and I left around 8:30 to go run to walmart then went back to G-mommys house to sleep and mom stayed the night at the hospital.

I went back to the hospital Friday at 12 and spent the rest of the day there and spent the night at the hospital with my mom. It was HORRIBLE. I am not a hospital kinda person. They FREAK me out!!! I had to turn around several times and left the room a few times too cause I get grossed out. O and because she's also got a staff infection every time we enter the room we have to wear these blue plastic robes and gloves. Every time we leave the room we have to throw it all away. The room was FREEZING!!! But G-mommy was burning up so we left it cold. So I spent all night with my heavy coat on and scarf wrapped around my neck and head. And of course the chairs that we had to sit in are like lawn chairs pretty much so we were sitting up and put a chair in between us to prop our feet up on. and we shared a blanket which only helped a little, but a little is better than nothing. And I was on the verge of a breakdown the whole time. At 5:30am they kicked us outa the room so they could do an x-ray.

"me at 5:30am in the hospital waiting room lol"

Then from 6:30-8:30am we get kicked out again cause it's shift change. So mom and I went to walmart to get salad stuff for the Christmas party we had later in the day. Then we went to breakfast. At 8:30 we went back in her room and hung out there till my aunt came to relieve us at 10:15. We then ran to g-mommys house got everything loaded back up in the van and headed an hour away to where my dads side of the family was having Christmas. We had a nice time there and left around 5pm to go to my sisters house. Our family then had Christmas at my sisters house and we spent the night there. Apart from not being able to sleep most of the week and especially not at all Friday night. Saturday night I fell asleep on the floor for several hours then moved up to the couch in the room where my one of my nephews pet lizard is and you can't turn his heat light off so it was REALLY BRIGHT in there all night but I was to tired to get up and go into the other room.




"Ansley laying on the floor with me watching a movie. It was SOOO SWEET AND CUTE!"

So today I woke up at 8 cause my mom, Rommie and Evan (my oldest nephew) are in the next room playing with playdoe being kinda loud. So I got up and went to hang out with them. I slept pretty hard though on the couch so it was alright. Most of today was good. I just layed around my sisters house playing with my niece and nephews. My niece was being hilarious today so that lifted my spirits a good bit. Some times she clings to me which just makes you feel sooo loved! It's a wonderful feeling. I mean I feel bad that she cried twice when I left the room but at the same time it felt nice hahaha. So mom left this morning to go back to the hospital and dad and i left around 2:30. We sat with my sister and mom and G-mommy till 4 then left to head home to Albany.

So we finally got home! I'm so glad to be home in my bed. I hate that my mom is still there though. And G-mommy of course.

So as if all that wasn't enough I'm sleeping in tomorrow and gonna try to just take it easy because I have to get up and drive to South Carolina at the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning. I can't leave on Monday cause I have dinner and Christmas with some of me friends which I refuse to miss! So I won't say what I'm going to S.C. for yet but it is REALLY EXCITING and great opportunity. So I'm thrilled in the inside about it but it's really hard to show it right now cause I'm so exhausted. lol. So I'll be back home on Wednesday again though. But then on Friday me and my parents are suppose to be going to see the lights at Callaway Gardens then heading back to Atl. to be with G-mommy over Christmas weekend.

So yea it's been SUPPER CRAZY!!!!

quick random update on everything

So gmommy had a hysterectomy then got a blood clot but that went away. Her kidneys wouldn't function, then got an infection, and had an intestine leak. So they did surgery the first time to get rid of the infection and fix the leak. They ended up taking a lil over a foot of her intestine out cause it had a bunch of holes in it. So then she was in ICU completely sedated and on a ventilator. The infection wasn't completely gone so they had to go back in and clean some more out and put some kinda vacuum thing on the wound. I don't know . . . so don't ask. I don't like hospitals or things like so I told them I didn't need to know how that works. They also started her on dialysis cause her kidneys weren't working. So finally she got taken off the vent and woken up after being on them for over a week and they stopped the dialysis. Then last week sometime they finally moved her to a regular room but they switched all her medicine which has now made her . . . well crazy. Sometimes she knows where she is and whats going on and sometimes she says random crazy things like put that sack of potatoes on the shelf. But apart from that she seemed to be doing alright. Well Friday or Saturday night she has having trouble with her heart. And then it looked like she was getting another infection on the other side. So they put her back into ICU but not the really bad one (apparently there are different levels to ICU). So then they did test and found that her blood/oxygen levels are low and she's got another leak in her intestine. So today they did surgery again to find and fix the leak, but they said they would have to put her on the vent and sedate her again and they weren't sure if she'd be able to come off the vent. . . . EVER. They wouldn't know for sure till after surgery to see how shes doing. So of course that got everyone worried and stressed. So after surgery they said for tonight it's not life threatening so we'll see how tomorrow goes. We're headed back to Atlanta tomorrow sometime. My mom practically lives there now cause shes back and forth so much. And I stay here helping out at my dads office, cooking for him and me, cleaning the house, decorating for Christmas for my mom, wrapping all the presents and I even managed to get our 9' tree up from the basement all by myself. It took me 7 trips up and down the stairs to get all the pieces up. Then took me almost 2 hrs to put it together but it's up! And then I got it decorated too. I made an executive decision that we were not putting lights on it this year, dads back was hurt and I'm to short so I decorated it without the lights. My mom was sooooo happy so see the house done and the tree done with all the presents wrapped under it. So that made it all worth it.

Apart from all that I still don't have a job but I have done a shoot and have another one next week. I did the whole bunch of photos tonight so that I could give them to the lady in the morning before I go to Atlanta. I had the shoot on Saturday and told her I would get them to her sometime this week but then this new stuff happened with gmommy and we'll leaving in the morning so I felt bad about making her wait even though I know she'll feel bad that I rushed to get them to her. She is so nice. But I did them and will get them to her in the morning.

I did worked on them with my finger KILLING me cause I burnt it cooking tonight. So that sucked but I got it done.

My hair still isn't like it should be and I'm still broken out. . . . stress is driving me crazy!

it's like a fat kid getting a taste

I know that the love I dream of is only in fairy tales. But I'd settle for real love :). Today one of my best friends got engaged. I'm sure it was incredibly sweet cause that's how her guy is hahaha. And she totally deserves it. I'm sure she broke down crying, she's probably still crying, and I'm sure it was just wonderful. And I have to say when I got the text from her saying she was engaged I was so excited and happy for her but at the same time I was sad. Cause now in our group of 6 girls there are only 2 of us that are single. And the other girl hasn't ever had a bf and she seems pretty content with it. But that's just how she is. She's wonderful! Me on the other hand . . . . I hate it lol. But in my other group of 3 none of us are married, but one has a baby and her and her bf/baby daddy live together and the other girl is practically engaged so once again that leaves me still hating it. I love my friends and I only want the best for them. They mean the world to me. I am just ecstatic for them when they find someone who makes them happy and when they get married. They all deserve the best and deserve to be happy and hopelessly in love.

It just hurts when you want to feel that too. When you know what your missing out on. It's like a fat kid who's gotten a taste of chocolate cake and then gets sent to fat camp. Other people get chocolate cake but not the fat kid. Anyways. . .

I want some romance for a change. I don't think it's that hard to think of something and there's always the internet, just Google it and get ideas from other people. Or ask someone. I know guys don't like to talk about stuff that doesn't involve sports, shooting something, food, or something incredibly gross, but I think guys should grow some balls and ask each other for help. Get some ideas from friends it's not that big of a deal. I just don't understand. Anyways. . . . .

I think I'm just bummed out. And I'm sick and having a fever is really annoying. I'm just hoping I don't have to wake up in the night to take more ibuprofen to get rid of it. That would suck. Anyways. . . .

I think I've complained enough for tonight. . . . probably enough to last a while.

it's time to listen to myself

Often times we get caught up in what we think we should do, what's important, we listen to others and what they think we should do. We lose track of ourselves. There are so many different voices telling you what you should do. To many peoples opinions playing a roll in your life. You forget to listen to yourself. What is it you want? Is this what you want? This can really be a problem when your going through a lot of changes in your life. Your afraid that you don't know what to do anymore, you don't know the right decisions to make, so you let others make them for you. When you realize that you figure out that this stuff isn't that important. It's just one more thing in life you have to get through. Worse case scenario you make a bad decision and God brings you back on track. He always does. If you get off God's plan for you life He always will bring you back. You might have missed something that He had planned for you but He'll put something new in your life and put you back on path. God will always be there to pick you up when you fall.

So what I've been thinking is what I should be doing what I thought was so important. . . . . it isn't. And I quit. I hate quitting anything that I do. Feels like I've failed, wasn't strong enough, wasn't good enough. And with this that feeling is slightly there but for the most part I feel relief from the stress, the bull shit. It isn't worth the stress that it's taking on me. It isn't what I wanted. I knew it from the beginning but I didn't listen to myself. I listened to everyone else who said this is perfect, exactly what I was looking for and needed. NO IT ISN'T!!! This isn't what I was looking for at all and it's defiantly not what I need right now. If something effects you this much it can't be the right thing. So I quit! It's scary but it is what it is. And like I said worse case scenario I'm making a mistake but God will bring something else into my life to get me back on His path for me. But I really don't think I will regret not toughing it out here. It's causing more damage than it is good. I don't know Gods plan for my life and it seems to change on a daily basis but I know that He has one for me and He will always be here for me no matter what I do.