As I scrawled the date in a rush to write a check yesterday morning, a flood of memories came rushing back. Most years, I can't help but think of my sophomore year of high school when I see the date March 18...... Gordon's class of '95 lost a member that day, I lost a friend and my sense of invincibility. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was a blur then, like we were caught in a whirlwind, knowing full well when the wind died down, life would never be as it was ever again. The sights, sounds, and smells of those days haven't ever left me. It's funny how the brain will hold onto not only the memories, but will release the flood of emotions to go with them. If I stay here, I can be 15 again. Has it really been 16 years? It never occurred to me as I walked thru the days then that anything like that COULD happen, much less that it would. My heart was broken in so many ways, it affected me deeper than I ever made known. I felt betrayed, but I didn't know where to look for the one who'd betrayed me, where to place the blame for the robbery I felt had taken place.
It's like seeing thru two different sets of eyes now, that 15 year old Krista's eyes, and looking back thru the eyes I have now (which don't see nearly as well as they used to, by the way!) I watch my own daughter and can't help but think of Jenny's mom. I can't even go there, to that place where she must have been, to even catch a glimpse of what she was going thru, what she still goes thru on March 18 or November 19....Jenny's birthday. I cannot imagine life without my daughter. The gigantic hole her leaving this earth would leave in my life.
There will never be words to explain well enough to me why tragedies happen, why beautiful people are taken before we're ready to let them go, why everything can change in the blink of an eye, or why it sometimes takes my world being shaken and torn to make me appreciate what I've been blessed with......and it's too late to say how grateful I am sometimes. I truly think the class of '95 was closer after that, we seemed to realize that this life was bigger than our differences, and definately too short to dwell on them.
Overall, I have fond memories of my classmates and my time at Gordon High. I laughed, cried, kicked, and cussed with some really great people, people I'm proud to have known. Regardless of how we felt about each other, it took all of us to make up that class and all the memories, good and bad, that go along with it.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Friday comes so much faster when you call in sick on Monday!
Well, we made it to Tulsa, found the Spelling Bee site wonderfully....didn't get turned around once. Oh, wait, yes we did...we had to TURN around after discovering Josh had left his wallet on the toilet paper holder in the Quick Trip on 71st!!!!! He's was cussin' a blue streak about me drivin' like his gramma and as calm as I was trying to be, I couldn't resist reminding him that he does this EVERYTIME we go somewhere. It's almost predictable, to the point that the kids usually ask him, after a public bathroom visit, where his wallet is!! He is so dang lucky, too. As he was panic-strickenly walking into the store, a cop was walking out with his wallet in his hand.
A few years back, we had been to Worlds of Fun @ Kansas City all day and had whipped into the first Long John Silver's we found which just happened to be on a not-so-good side of town. Josh had to do his business and did. Then we left town for the motel we were staying at about an hour away. Forty-five minutes later, he can't find his wallet and freaks, knowing exactly where he's left it. Only, all our cash and credit cards were IN the wallet and we were on empty, couldn't exactly write a check for fuel 6 hours from home.... I tried to be rational. He was irrational enough for 5 people at that point. I found my receipt from dinner and called information for that LJS location, called them, but to no avail. The wallet was no where to be found. We accused everyone of those clerks & everyone in that restaurant (in our minds), went thru every possible scenario...they took the cash and trashed the wallet, etc, etc. OH! And here's a treasure, my little husband also had his birth certificate AND social security card in there! He had set someone up for a new identity with some credit cards and cash to boot! I was SO impressed with him at this point, but saying so would only have caused WW3 so I shut up.....mostly. We called and cancelled cards (not the first time for this either!) and applied for new documents, shopped for new wallets, none of which impressed him in the least (the wallets, I mean. He has an unnatural attachment to this particular wallet...)
Then, one day I couldn't get in touch with Josh on his job location and I got worried. I'd left him message after message and he hadn't called back...not like him at all. So, I checked his messages to see if anyone else was frantically trying to reach him or if it was just ME he was avoiding.... and there was a message from a man in Mulberry, Arkansas saying he'd picked up a wallet in a bathroom about a month earlier and was trying desperately to get in touch with its owner. I couldn't believe it! Mulberry happened to be on Josh's way home that week, so he drove over and got his wallet....the man was a trucker for Walmart and had picked it up and took it with him, afraid to turn it in to the teenagers working the front counter that nite. Every dollar was in it and Josh tried to give it all to him for his trouble (he'd had to call the DMV in Colorado to try to get a number, I guess he really had a time trying to find us since we'd moved back to Oklahoma....) but he wouldn't take it. Sometimes, people amaze me. Kinda' like Josh not learning from past experiences.... :). Oh well, life is more exciting this way, I reckon.
Anyway, poor Matthew got out of the state bee on the first round. He was #7 and two little girls had just gotten out before him and I think he was so nervous he just didn't know what to do. "Meticulous" did him in! I stayed for two more rounds and I was floored at the words these kids could spell that I had NEVER heard! He felt bad cuz we'd all driven up there to spend a whopping 15 minutes, but I'm still proud of him for even making it that far. There's always next year and besides, it was fun watching Josh squirm all the way back to that Quick Trip to find his wallet!!
A few years back, we had been to Worlds of Fun @ Kansas City all day and had whipped into the first Long John Silver's we found which just happened to be on a not-so-good side of town. Josh had to do his business and did. Then we left town for the motel we were staying at about an hour away. Forty-five minutes later, he can't find his wallet and freaks, knowing exactly where he's left it. Only, all our cash and credit cards were IN the wallet and we were on empty, couldn't exactly write a check for fuel 6 hours from home.... I tried to be rational. He was irrational enough for 5 people at that point. I found my receipt from dinner and called information for that LJS location, called them, but to no avail. The wallet was no where to be found. We accused everyone of those clerks & everyone in that restaurant (in our minds), went thru every possible scenario...they took the cash and trashed the wallet, etc, etc. OH! And here's a treasure, my little husband also had his birth certificate AND social security card in there! He had set someone up for a new identity with some credit cards and cash to boot! I was SO impressed with him at this point, but saying so would only have caused WW3 so I shut up.....mostly. We called and cancelled cards (not the first time for this either!) and applied for new documents, shopped for new wallets, none of which impressed him in the least (the wallets, I mean. He has an unnatural attachment to this particular wallet...)
Then, one day I couldn't get in touch with Josh on his job location and I got worried. I'd left him message after message and he hadn't called back...not like him at all. So, I checked his messages to see if anyone else was frantically trying to reach him or if it was just ME he was avoiding.... and there was a message from a man in Mulberry, Arkansas saying he'd picked up a wallet in a bathroom about a month earlier and was trying desperately to get in touch with its owner. I couldn't believe it! Mulberry happened to be on Josh's way home that week, so he drove over and got his wallet....the man was a trucker for Walmart and had picked it up and took it with him, afraid to turn it in to the teenagers working the front counter that nite. Every dollar was in it and Josh tried to give it all to him for his trouble (he'd had to call the DMV in Colorado to try to get a number, I guess he really had a time trying to find us since we'd moved back to Oklahoma....) but he wouldn't take it. Sometimes, people amaze me. Kinda' like Josh not learning from past experiences.... :). Oh well, life is more exciting this way, I reckon.
Anyway, poor Matthew got out of the state bee on the first round. He was #7 and two little girls had just gotten out before him and I think he was so nervous he just didn't know what to do. "Meticulous" did him in! I stayed for two more rounds and I was floored at the words these kids could spell that I had NEVER heard! He felt bad cuz we'd all driven up there to spend a whopping 15 minutes, but I'm still proud of him for even making it that far. There's always next year and besides, it was fun watching Josh squirm all the way back to that Quick Trip to find his wallet!!
Friday, March 7, 2008
I love Fridays!!
Friday has finally arrived! I awoke to my world being blanketed in snow. It's prettier that way but it sure makes me want to stay at home in my sweats and watch movies all day. Yet here I am...workin! What a trooper, eh? :)
A couple of months ago, Matthew, my middle son, popped off, "Hey Mom, you gonna give me a hundred bucks if I win the school spelling bee?" "Sure, Matt.", was my answer. Didn't think twice about him actually winning. Not that I doubt my son's intellectual ability at all, but he's a 6th grader and most of those competing were 8th graders. He ran in a few days later hollerin', "You owe me a hundred dollars!!!!". That'll teach me to make a split second bet.... Taylor wasn't impressed in the least.....not only did her little brother BEAT her in the bee, but now he had money to burn too.
So, a hundred dollars later....he has also won the regional spelling bee and we are on our way today to Tulsa to the state spelling bee held tomorrow. He's more excited about the indoor pool in the motel! Okay, maybe I am too, a little.
A couple of months ago, Matthew, my middle son, popped off, "Hey Mom, you gonna give me a hundred bucks if I win the school spelling bee?" "Sure, Matt.", was my answer. Didn't think twice about him actually winning. Not that I doubt my son's intellectual ability at all, but he's a 6th grader and most of those competing were 8th graders. He ran in a few days later hollerin', "You owe me a hundred dollars!!!!". That'll teach me to make a split second bet.... Taylor wasn't impressed in the least.....not only did her little brother BEAT her in the bee, but now he had money to burn too.
So, a hundred dollars later....he has also won the regional spelling bee and we are on our way today to Tulsa to the state spelling bee held tomorrow. He's more excited about the indoor pool in the motel! Okay, maybe I am too, a little.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Did I say paradise? I mean winter wonderland...
It's MARCH...and it's SNOWING, I mean snowing in OKLAHOMA!!!!!!!!!! I'm usually in shorts by this time of year!
That beautiful man I'm married to is on his way home from Louisiana so I'm goin' home and fixin' chili and cornbread and making him pile up on the couch and watch chick flicks with me!!
Life is good, don't ya think?
That beautiful man I'm married to is on his way home from Louisiana so I'm goin' home and fixin' chili and cornbread and making him pile up on the couch and watch chick flicks with me!!
Life is good, don't ya think?
Life begins when you think it's ending.....
Oh, I am in a FOUL mood. There are days when I just don't like people....period. I don't even like myself right now. I'm staring, no GLARING, at the world today thru furrowed brow (shoulda' slathered on a little more anti-wrinkle something this morning). It has to look ugly from the outside, but y'all should see it from in HERE. I think it can safely be said that I might have some "issues". But anyway....
I've been so out of touch with the world the last year or so. Been anti-myspace and yahoo....no just anti-social, really, for way too long. I was jolted back to reality yesterday by a beautiful poem ( I guess it was a poem) posted on another friend's brand spanking new blog. I realized, quite suddenly, just how fast time flies, how easy it is to lose touch with people in your life that really mean A LOT to you, how insensitive I can become and not even realize it, and just how truly gifted I am at putting walls, thick walls, around myself and becoming quite self absorbed. So, I figured, a blog would be a wonderful way to keep everyone up on my comings and goings and who knows? It just might help me to sort out some of this junk floating around in my head!
Where do you start when this much time has lapsed? Sometime in the last year, I gained another 30 pounds, turned 30, got married to the man of my dreams (nightmares too!), entered back into the working force, started a diet...for REAL this time, and became the mother of a pre-teen daughter. (sorta sounds like I gave birth to a 12 year old, huh? That would explain some of the weight gain! )
My life was pretty calm a year ago. Coulda been cuz I was living inside those 4 self-constructed walls. How bad can things get if you're shut off from the world anyhow? As we all have learned, what goes UP, must come DOWN. In my case, the walls came crashing down and ya' know, false security is, well, FALSE!
We'll start with the weight gain. I have had a weight problem aaalllll my life. I filtered everything about myself and in my life thru the fat I saw. I could find nothing to like about myself. I hated what I saw when I looked in the mirror, refused to look at pictures of myself. I'd joke about it, but it was killing me. But if I didn't look, I could still sort of deny it, or at least not have to deal with it. Until I had to look at pictures taken the day I got married. I couldn't believe the person in the pictures was ME. Had I realized that is how I looked, I'da never gotten married. I broke that day, could deny it no longer. I was disgusted and sickened. I don't ever remember actually loathing myself like I did at that point....
But why did I ever think that one crisis at a time would be enough?
Josh and I began to have all kinds of problems about this time. Funny, we didn't have them before we signed any legal, binding documents....:) My weight was triggering every insecurity I have and I was making mine AND Josh's life a living hell... Sometimes, I wonder how he doesn't crack under all the pressure of my issues. Guess that's why God gave him to me, He knew I needed some stability in my life, someone who can deal with all my problems and still love me at the end of the day. Doesn't stop me from convincing myself that he's on his way out the door with the next cute, skinny, SANE thing that walks by. She couldn't be more real if she walked thru my front door. But I ain't goin' down without a fight....
I promptly made appointments with two different diet doctors. My theory was: I could go both places and rack up enough prescribed crank to lose all the jello...and maybe not lose all my teeth in the process....
Dr appt #1 rolled around....only the doc had hired some help so I got the new addition. Ya' ever met someone who just made your skin crawl? Yeah, me too. He lectured me on drinking cases of Mountain Dew, eating donuts by the dozen, and eating one of everything off the dollar menu at Micky D's. Did you know that you will NOT lose weight if you do these things????? He apparently thought I did not....WHAT??!!! He hurt my feelings and made me mad all at the same time! WHY are there people out there who think that just becuz you are FAT you must stuff your face from the comfort of your couch while watching your soaps all day and WHY are they allowed a license to practice medicine? Could he NOT tell I was a woman on the EDGE? Well, I started bawlin' and left his office with a prescription for prozac in one hand and a brown bag of diet pills in the other.
I was in SHOCK! So, I called my rock, my voice of reason, the one who lifts me up when I am down, to hear him tell me he loved me even if I had lost it a little and now needed to be medicated....he LAUGHED. Told me to pop a prozac and go eat a cheeseburger. Sometimes laughter is the best medicine....I couldn't cry for gigglin'. I kept that piece of paper with the Rx for Prozac on it for months so I would remember just how low I can go if I let myself. Don't misunderstand me tho', I will not judge another for how they best see fit to deal with their own life. I obviously use food. It just freaked me out to actually be prescribed something to control my emotions. That freaky little man was a turning point in my life.
I did go to Dr. appt. #2 but have since put the diet pills behind me. I have been on the Medifast program since November and have lost 50 pounds! The scales and I still have a love/hate relationship and I have a long way to go but I AM in process. Instead of my "fattest ever" jeans, I can wear my "bigger than I was @21 but I'll take it" jeans! I like the food plan becuz I'm learning HOW to eat, how to be disciplined, how to deal with my emotions without food. It still sucks most days.... :) but I can deal.
I heard someone say that once you're an addict, you'll always be an addict, whether or not you're using. Some people are addicted to drugs, alcohol, tobacco....my monkeys are food and shopping. I do still struggle with smoking, but that one gets easier every day.
There you have it...a little slice of my life. I promised myself that this year, I was gonna get real. As Beth Moore says, "If I have to go thru the trials of life by fire, then I at least want the fake burned right outta me!!" I'm tired of changing to be who I think I need to be to fit in at the time...it's exhausting! I still struggle with liking myself, but I am learning more about who I really am. I'm THIRTY dangit, I'm ready to put all this emotional roller coaster stuff behind me, tired of the waves of life knocking me down everytime I get on my feet! The waves are never gonna stop but I wanna be strong enough and secure enough in who I am to stand!
Thank goodness Tim McGraw saw fit to write me a theme song for "my next thirty years".....
I've been so out of touch with the world the last year or so. Been anti-myspace and yahoo....no just anti-social, really, for way too long. I was jolted back to reality yesterday by a beautiful poem ( I guess it was a poem) posted on another friend's brand spanking new blog. I realized, quite suddenly, just how fast time flies, how easy it is to lose touch with people in your life that really mean A LOT to you, how insensitive I can become and not even realize it, and just how truly gifted I am at putting walls, thick walls, around myself and becoming quite self absorbed. So, I figured, a blog would be a wonderful way to keep everyone up on my comings and goings and who knows? It just might help me to sort out some of this junk floating around in my head!
Where do you start when this much time has lapsed? Sometime in the last year, I gained another 30 pounds, turned 30, got married to the man of my dreams (nightmares too!), entered back into the working force, started a diet...for REAL this time, and became the mother of a pre-teen daughter. (sorta sounds like I gave birth to a 12 year old, huh? That would explain some of the weight gain! )
My life was pretty calm a year ago. Coulda been cuz I was living inside those 4 self-constructed walls. How bad can things get if you're shut off from the world anyhow? As we all have learned, what goes UP, must come DOWN. In my case, the walls came crashing down and ya' know, false security is, well, FALSE!
We'll start with the weight gain. I have had a weight problem aaalllll my life. I filtered everything about myself and in my life thru the fat I saw. I could find nothing to like about myself. I hated what I saw when I looked in the mirror, refused to look at pictures of myself. I'd joke about it, but it was killing me. But if I didn't look, I could still sort of deny it, or at least not have to deal with it. Until I had to look at pictures taken the day I got married. I couldn't believe the person in the pictures was ME. Had I realized that is how I looked, I'da never gotten married. I broke that day, could deny it no longer. I was disgusted and sickened. I don't ever remember actually loathing myself like I did at that point....
But why did I ever think that one crisis at a time would be enough?
Josh and I began to have all kinds of problems about this time. Funny, we didn't have them before we signed any legal, binding documents....:) My weight was triggering every insecurity I have and I was making mine AND Josh's life a living hell... Sometimes, I wonder how he doesn't crack under all the pressure of my issues. Guess that's why God gave him to me, He knew I needed some stability in my life, someone who can deal with all my problems and still love me at the end of the day. Doesn't stop me from convincing myself that he's on his way out the door with the next cute, skinny, SANE thing that walks by. She couldn't be more real if she walked thru my front door. But I ain't goin' down without a fight....
I promptly made appointments with two different diet doctors. My theory was: I could go both places and rack up enough prescribed crank to lose all the jello...and maybe not lose all my teeth in the process....
Dr appt #1 rolled around....only the doc had hired some help so I got the new addition. Ya' ever met someone who just made your skin crawl? Yeah, me too. He lectured me on drinking cases of Mountain Dew, eating donuts by the dozen, and eating one of everything off the dollar menu at Micky D's. Did you know that you will NOT lose weight if you do these things????? He apparently thought I did not....WHAT??!!! He hurt my feelings and made me mad all at the same time! WHY are there people out there who think that just becuz you are FAT you must stuff your face from the comfort of your couch while watching your soaps all day and WHY are they allowed a license to practice medicine? Could he NOT tell I was a woman on the EDGE? Well, I started bawlin' and left his office with a prescription for prozac in one hand and a brown bag of diet pills in the other.
I was in SHOCK! So, I called my rock, my voice of reason, the one who lifts me up when I am down, to hear him tell me he loved me even if I had lost it a little and now needed to be medicated....he LAUGHED. Told me to pop a prozac and go eat a cheeseburger. Sometimes laughter is the best medicine....I couldn't cry for gigglin'. I kept that piece of paper with the Rx for Prozac on it for months so I would remember just how low I can go if I let myself. Don't misunderstand me tho', I will not judge another for how they best see fit to deal with their own life. I obviously use food. It just freaked me out to actually be prescribed something to control my emotions. That freaky little man was a turning point in my life.
I did go to Dr. appt. #2 but have since put the diet pills behind me. I have been on the Medifast program since November and have lost 50 pounds! The scales and I still have a love/hate relationship and I have a long way to go but I AM in process. Instead of my "fattest ever" jeans, I can wear my "bigger than I was @21 but I'll take it" jeans! I like the food plan becuz I'm learning HOW to eat, how to be disciplined, how to deal with my emotions without food. It still sucks most days.... :) but I can deal.
I heard someone say that once you're an addict, you'll always be an addict, whether or not you're using. Some people are addicted to drugs, alcohol, tobacco....my monkeys are food and shopping. I do still struggle with smoking, but that one gets easier every day.
There you have it...a little slice of my life. I promised myself that this year, I was gonna get real. As Beth Moore says, "If I have to go thru the trials of life by fire, then I at least want the fake burned right outta me!!" I'm tired of changing to be who I think I need to be to fit in at the time...it's exhausting! I still struggle with liking myself, but I am learning more about who I really am. I'm THIRTY dangit, I'm ready to put all this emotional roller coaster stuff behind me, tired of the waves of life knocking me down everytime I get on my feet! The waves are never gonna stop but I wanna be strong enough and secure enough in who I am to stand!
Thank goodness Tim McGraw saw fit to write me a theme song for "my next thirty years".....
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