Familys are Forever... ish

My Mom got married this week.

I found out thanks to facebook.
Well, actually I found out from my brother texting me telling me to look at facebook.
He found out from one of his friends texting him telling him to look at facebook.
Honest to Zeus truth.

To be fair, she had told us kids that she was getting married sometime in the middle of March.
To be fair, she's been saying she was getting married "sometime soon" for six months. How were we to know she meant it this time?

My grandmother is very big into genealogy. When I was young she used to pay me a few extra bucks to read aloud old birth and death certificates while she copied the info onto sheets and sheets of family trees. She would show me furniture around her house and have me recite the ancestors it belonged to. For better or worse she installed a strong sense of the importance of family in me.

So it's weird to suddenly wake up one morning, look at my phone and discover not only do I have a step dad, but also six step siblings. Who I've never met. It would be easy to say it's not a huge deal, I'm an adult, I don't live at home, none of my siblings live with my mother, so nothing has really changed. But my sense of family is disturbed.Will we spend christmas together? Am I expected to remember their birthdays?

Or hell, maybe I should know their names first.

I'm not sure what to do with these new people. I feel like I should reach out, get to know them. I mean, they are family now, right? But what do I say?
"Hey, your dad married my mom. Let's be friends".

Right.

One of my step sisters sent me a facebook request tonight.
Silly me, why didn't I think of that?

In November Tyson got married. That simple act expanded our family by one.



Now our family is even bigger. By a lot.

We're going to need a wider lense

Nostaglic..

I miss my partner in crime.
My roommate.
My one time fiance
( it was high school, he proposed during math, with a gum wrapper ring. How could I say no?)

I miss the midnight shots of whiskey with sprite chasers. I miss the impromptu dance parties in the living room. I miss cheese crisps and burn notice. I miss pool days and my fabulous tan. I miss crawling into your bed and wrestling and begging with you to let me stay. I miss waking up to music that you put on extra loud so I would wake up. I miss midnight walks to the pool and the hot tub, and running in the early morning back to the house, wet and freezing. I miss post it notes all over the house. I miss getting ready for parties and having you critique what I was wearing. I miss nights on the patio with you and Albin smoking while I sit in the window. I miss drawing tattoos on each other with washable markers we bought specifically for that purpose. I miss knowing there was all someone who was on my sleep schedule and wanted to have an adventure. I miss that weird creepy walk you do when you're trying to scare me. I miss your total lack of conscience. I miss bitching about our weight together. I miss your horrible attempts to cook eggs. I miss phase ten and drinking games. I miss.. you.

"Just in case we don't survive, I want you to know I love you."
Five hours later
"Sooo we survived... well this is awkward.."

We did it for the scars and the stories, not the fame.

Living together wasn't perfect, but good god was it fun.
Ryan, darling. I think it's time for a sleepover. I'll bring the jack. You bring the music. The fun, adventure and trouble will follow naturally.

Things I should be doing:

-Working out
-Homework
-Sleeping
-Running (running is so awful it gets its own space)
-Going out with friends

Things I am doing:

-Wasting time on the computer
-Eating girl scout cookies
-Catching up on TV


Sigh
But really, we all knew Productive Girl wasn't going to stick around.
I've successfully trapped her in the laundry room and don't plan on letting her out until 3 hours before my paper is due on Tuesday. Just cause I'm lazy doesn't mean I'm going to burn all my bridges. Unless Clive Owen finally stops lying to himself and admits I'm the only one for him. In which case I will walk into my classes and tell me teachers to suck it. Burn bridges burn.
Who am I kidding?
If Clive confessed his love I'd probably use his money and influence to get me into Georgetown.


Also, I saw this today. Seriously... who is this mysterious person making these?



Who are you and will you meet me for coffee? Or maybe a little bank robbing?

School sucks.
Well.. Homework sucks.
I actually like school. Shhh.
I didn't realize how much I missed learning. I like the taste of new ideas in my brain. I like forming arguments to support or disprove even when I don't actually have an opinion on what we're learning. I love forming a sentence that is beautiful. Does that even make sense?

The Boy is surprisingly supportive. Whenever we go out he proudly says "one adult and one student" and then hugs me and kisses me on the top of my head. It makes me smile. Although now that I think about it maybe it's not that he's supportive, maybe he's just cheap.

There are few things I regret in life. The break I took from school was partly from choice partly necessary. I didn't have parents that could pay for school. I also didn't have parents who taught me how to find scholarships. So as I watched my friends change their majors three times over and spend money and time on classes they didn't end up needing, I decided to wait until I knew what I wanted to do with my life before going back to school. Which resulted in a lengthy break from school.

But now I'm back. I decided to start with a community college, just to wet my feet. Going to a community college is a lesson in humility. Seriously. For the most part there are two types of people at a community college. The first is the angsty teenager except their adults type. My first day back in class I saw a goth. I haven't seen someone done up in goth since high school. I thought it was a rare sighting, something I should hurriedly snap a picture of and text to The Boy. Only it wasn't a rare sighting. Turns out I haven't seen any goths because they've all been hanging out in the smokers section of MCC. I see so many twenty somethings who are probably only going to class so they can stay on Mommy and Daddy's insurance. Maybe I am assuming too much. But I can't think of any other reason someone would go to class and never do the work. Which there are quite a few of in my class. They're not all goth. Some are punk, some are drunk, but all appear very lost and confused. The other type I see are the middle aged adults who are going back to school to improve their lot in life. They have bags under their eyes from doing work and school. I don't want to rag about them, but I have a hard time looking at them and believing that they will actually finish school. Kids, Work and school is a lot to juggle on one plate. Also, a lot to pay for. The adults have another thing working against them. Things have changed a lot since they went to school. I feel bad for them, but if I have to sit through one more explanation of how a power point works, or how to find one in BlackBoard....

I'm sure there are others out there like me. Other mid twenties who are working full time and would rather be lounging by the pool then doing homework but are excited about what they are learning in class. I'm hoping we will naturally gravitate towards each other. Then we can bitch about how hard it is to do school and work together.

Some days graduating seems impossible. The amount of years, money and homework appears insurmountable. It's hard not to get discouraged. Especially when it's time for my 07:30am class. I'll never be a morning person. Luckily, I love my classes.

I can't imagine how awful it will be next semester when I'm taking science and math.

My little outdated phone finally died last week.
I dropped it one too many times. The Verizon guy actually asked me if I had thrown it under a speeding truck.
Poor thing. Although now that I think about it, it's the first phone that I haven't dropped in the bathtub. Hmm. Maybe I'm becoming more responsible.

So now I have a new phone and unlike all the other phones before it, there was minimum amount of swearing before fully understanding how to use the phone. Sometimes I hang up on people with my face, but otherwise I'm already a pro.

All my data was transferred. Except my saved texts. Texts that were saved whether through sentimental value or because they just made me giggle every time I read them. And even though I'm burying the phone, I want to save these texts. I'm notorious for not saving material items that should be of sentimental value, but I can't throw away words. I can't share all of them with you (cause I'm a lady) but I want to record the ones that made me happy hard enough that I couldn't erase them.

From Jocelyn:
"you have to read the Hunger Games. The main character's spirit reminds me soooo much of you! It's freaky"

From The Boy:
"A UPS bomb arrived today from amazon. It is ticking loudly on the counter"

From Tanner:
"Most kids my age get to say that their first album they ever owned was britney spears or backstreet boys. I get to say mine was weezers blue album. Thanks for being the cool sister and buying it for me for my tenth birthday"

From PJ:
"working until 6am? are you batman? you don't have to tell. Just blink twice if you're batman"

From PJ:
"Did you blink twice?"

From The Boy:
""

From Travis:
"I blame the preservatives in my fruit"

From Sully:
"saw a blog that reminded me of you. It's lovetheliberry.blogspot.com"

From Ryan:
"i've kicked three puppies today because of you. The end"

From Melynda:
"well looks like we're gonna have to be lesbians than...I can settle for being your wife"

From The Boy:
"Bodhi knows you should be home by now. He's been watching out the window for 45 mins"

From Sierra:
"you always seem so confident in everything. Even when you were a teenager. How do you not be self conscious?"

From Liz:
Awesome. But I want to wear it allll the time. Steampunk picnics, steampunk galas, slumber parties, girls night out... the library."

From Sierra:
just looked at your house pics on your blog... you know I turn 16 in two years and would make an amazing housemaid/happy little sister to live with :)

From Me:
Thanks squirt. But who knows where I'll be in two years. I doubt I'll still be living here.

From Sierra:
"oh I know. But I never said I wasn't against being a housemaid / happy little sister in Russia or Ireland :)"

From Me:
"How do you feel about third world countries? cold showers and big bugs? Cause that's more likely then not.."

From Sierra:
"I'd say.. see you in two years!"

Maybe In Another World

I've been dreaming a lot.
Well, I always dream.
But lately the dreams have been filled with a cast of old and forgotten friends.

People I stopped thinking about the minute the door closed.

Or so I thought.

I guess my subconscious had other plans.

More then once I've been dreaming of innocence in the guise of the little kids I was a nanny for on Kona. In my dreams I chase them around in the fields of grass that reach my waist. Their mother is never in my dreams, which I suppose explains the peaceful feelings of the dreams.

Last night I dreamt of a guy that I didn't even officially date. He was someone I "enjoyed" for a few weeks before I left Ireland. It's been years since I've thought about him. Yet last night I dreamt of waking up in his bed. I dreamt that we had a life together. And it was a good life. I wore dresses and heels and he would pick me up, swing me around and kiss me. Often.

A few nights before that I dreamt of a girl that I called my Soul Twin. We worked together years ago and we were inseperatable. We were Will & Grace. For a year. But in my dreams we shared an apartment and watched horror movies and had dance parties in our socks.

Years ago I spent three months in Utah living with one of my favorite people. While I was there I spent two nights talking all night with a guy that lived down the street. Two nights of walking around empty streets and eating bad food from IHOP. I lost my phone the third day, got a new phone, with a new number. I moved out of state two days later. Two months later I found my old phone, charged it and found multiple texts from this guy. I realized I hadn't given him my new number and he had no idea what happened to me. I felt a pang of guilt and then promptly forgot about him. Until this last month. I woke up after dreaming of walking Utah streets with him.


It's been like that all month. People showing up and starring in my dreams that I thought were filed away in a forgotten drawer "of could have been" memories. Thinking about it, all these guest stars that have taken over my dreams, they are all life paths that I could have gone down. If things had been slightly different, maybe I would still be in Hawaii. Or living with someone else.. somewhere else. I believe in free agency, the choice to choose your life. I don't believe in soul mates, or in that we are destined to live our lives a certain way. I do believe there are many paths that we could walk. And these people that are all different paths I could have gone. Not just romantically. But actual lives that I could have lived.

Maybe that's why I keep dreaming about them. I'm feeling restless and nervous and overworked and so my subconcious has been reminding me about these other lives I could have lived with these other people.

Is this what regret feels like?

New House meet everyone. Everyone, Meet New House

Pretty pretty new house.

I just finished my first quiz (online, what a convinence) and aced it. So to celebrate I'll finally post pictures of New House. New House doesn't have a name yet, but give it time.

I had to put this post in two parts because the website only allowed me a certain number of pictures per post and apparently it thinks I'm being excessive. Which I may be, but you have to deal with it.

Ok so first a sneak peek of my library. Cause I love it soo much.

Front of the house. I'm not thrilled with the yard but am grateful for not having to mow grass.

This side view of the house makes it look huge. Which it's not. It's comfy.

So the previous tenants really liked color. We spent the first week painting. All these pictures are the "before" pictures. As you can see, the library was originally green with a blue ceiling. Thank the gods for Erin and Sully and The Boy's dad who all came and helped apply layer after layer of primer.

The stairwell was painted blue and you can see a peek of the loft. Which is a tan-ish brown color. The loft stayed that color, I can deal with tan. The stairwell was painted. I don't do blue walls.

As you can see, the guest room was pink,purple and blue. Now after many many layers of primer it's a respectable white. Jess's bathroom is/was wall to wall neon green.

Jess's room was pink and brown. Brown. Seriously. Also did I forget to mention that bathroom's ceiling was painted neon green too?!

The master bedroom. And our new king sized mattress which I love more then life itself. It's like having my own bed again, only The Boy is still in reaching distance in case of bad dreams. The blue walls were actually all different shades of blue.

And our master bathroom. I'm not a huge fan of the brown, but it does match our cool barren tree shower curtain and frankly we ran out of energy to paint. So it stays. For now.


So that's the before pictures. Scroll down to see the finished downstairs.