Me... A to Z

A. Age: 32
B. Bed size: Queen...  Soon to be King.  ;-)
C. Chore that you hate: Laundry.  The chore from hell.
D. Dogs: Chorkies!  (Yorkie/Chihuahua breed.  Sooooo cute!)
E. Essential start to your day: Facebook.  I'm sadly addicted.
F. Favorite color: Brown.
G. Gold or Silver:  Silver.
H. Height: 5’0”  I'm a shortie.
I. Instruments you play: I'm really good at Guitar Hero!  LOL
J. Job title: Blogger, photographer, Special Education Aide
K. Kids: None.
L. Live: Polo, Illinois.  Soon to be Wyoming, Illinois!
M. Mother’s name: Karen
N. Nicknames: My boyfriend calls me Princess (can I get an 'awwww'?  LOL) and pumpkin and when he's really dorky, 'snookums'.  LOL  Everybody else calls me Sarah.
O. Overnight hospital stays:  I've had a few.  I was in a coma when I was 3 years old for a few weeks.  (Swimming pool drowning, nearly died, had 7 cardiac arrests and currently have a traumatic brain injury.)
P. Pet peeves: Way too many to name!
Q. Quote from a movie: “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.”- The Godfather
R. Right or left handed: Lefty
S. Siblings: 5 younger brothers, 3 younger sisters
T. Truth or Dare:  Truth...  Always truth!
U. Underwear: No thanks, I have some!
V. Vegetable you hate: Asparagus!  *gag retch vomit*
W. What makes you run late:  EVERYTHING!
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Head, teeth, back
Y. Yummy food that you make: Chicken enchilada casserole.  Yummmmm!
Z. Zoo animal: I love the elephants!

Frosty December is Fast Upon Us...

Season's Greetings, everybody!

I hope that everybody's Thanksgiving was a good one.  We had lots of family and TONS of food.  Needless to say, everybody was in a food coma all weekend!

Did everybody brave the mob and madness on Black Friday?  I didn't go out in the morning, but I went out later in the day.  Brent, however, went out 10 pm Thanksgiving night.  He went to Wal*Mart and got himself a new laptop, television, and printer.  He also picked me up (at my request) a Kodak EasyShare digital camera for $49, so yay me!  I have a new camera!  I'll be seeing him on Saturday so I'll get it then.  I am so excited!  The camera's red and it looks super cute!  This time, if I go back to Lake Michigan, I'll carry it on a neck strap, that way it won't get dropped again.

I've got just about all of my Christmas shopping done, I only need to get my parents and then I'm done.  I had a hardbound book made for my Grandmother of pictures of the kids and my parents.  She loves pictures, but she's got so many frames everywhere, I thought a book might be something nice for her.  For Brent, I bought him the Dale Earnhardt edition of Monopoly as well as a copy of the Daytona newspaper from the day that Dale Earnhardt died.  (He's a HUGE NASCAR fan, specifically the Dale's.)

Thirty-Three more days till I move out and move in with him!  So excited!!!

Hopefully I'll be able to post some more pictures now that I have a new camera.

That's all for now, I'll post again before Christmas.

Take care and love one another!!

XOXO

Giving Thanks

I absolutely cannot believe how fast this year has just flown by!  Here it is, a week before Thanksgiving ALREADY!  It seems like just yesterday it was Christmas and now Christmas is slowly looming over us!  This year, I have SO much to be thankful for!!

I thankful for my parents.  They have loved me unconditionally for almost thirty-three years.  They have supported me, encouraged me, and stood by me, even when I was in the wrong.  They are my best friends and biggest champions.  I am so unbelievably blessed to have them in my life and I cherish them.

I am thankful for my boyfriend who has also loved me unconditionally.  Even though we have only been together for six months, I feel as though I have known him for my whole life.  He gives me the 'girly butterflies' everytime he looks at me.  He has been a huge gift to my life this year and I absolutely adore him.  I am so excited to start our life together in January.

I am thankful for my grandmother, the crown jewel of our family.  Her history and life is truly an inspiration for all.  She is my most favorite people on this planet.

There are so many people in my life whom I am thankful for...  Family, friends, strangers who have helped me over the years..  It would be impossible to name all of them. 

My life is overflowing with love, I have never felt so much.  I am excited about this upcoming year.  I am excited about building a life with someone who loves me as much as I love him.  (On a purely selfish note, the man is giving me an entire ROOM for my scrapbooking!  I mean, that right there is cause for celebration, yes?  LOL)

My wish is that everybody can feel the happiness and love I feel.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.  May you all be surrounded by the warmth and love of family and cherished friends.

~XOXO

*Tapping the mic...* Is this thing on??

Woooooooooooooooooooooooow, long time no see, right?

Life has been crazy busy for me.  I was hoping to be photographing and scrapping like mad at this point.  Autumn is my all time favorite season and the trees are absolutely gorgeous right now.  Sharp oranges, vivid yellows, warm reds...  so why no photos, you ask? 

Because when I went to Door County last summer, some idiot (yours truly) dropped her camera on the banks of Lake Michigan and busted it.  After a very long mourning period (one of which I am STILL going through), I have yet to replace it.  Sooo much is going on!

Okay, remember that guy I told you guys about way back last summer? (Check my post from August 8.)  Well, things couldn't be going more beautifully if our relationship was scripted by Hollyweird itself.  Brent and I are so ridiculously, crazy in love.  We see and talk to each other all the time and he's asked me to move in after Christmas.  Cha-CHING, baby!  Sarah's got herself a man!  So instead of focusing all my time and energy on photographing and scrapping, I've been focusing it on moving and getting the stuff that I want/need for when I move down there.  (He is a man, after all, so he's got the bare minimum in the kitchen...  No mixing bowls, baking stuff, crappy cookie sheets, even crappier pans, etc.  LOL)  Hopefully next summer I'll be able to get a new camera.

Wanna see a picture of the happy couple?  I thought you might!

 

It was taken with my iPod, hence the crappiness of the picture, but I love it anyway.  He is a cutie, yes?

I can't even begin to describe how wonderful it is to be loved and needed the way he loves and needs me.  It really makes a woman feel her value!

I wish all of my friends the best of holidays.  I hope all of your dreams come true and I will check back in before Christmas!

XOXO

Reflections of September Eleventh... On September Eleventh...

Good morning, friends!

Welp, here it is, 5:36 in the damn morning and I can't sleep!  I've been dreading this day for the past ten years...  Who am I kidding?  I dread this day every year.  Nine Eleven is one of those what I call "JFK Days".  People who were alive when JFK was killed will never forget where they were when they heard the news.  I will never forget where I was on Nine Eleven, ten years ago.

I was living in Sedalia, Missouri.  It was a gorgeous Tuesday morning and I had plans to meet a friend for shopping and lunch.  I woke up and got my shower and went to the kitchen to grab a little bite of something to eat.  As I walked to the kitchen, I had to walk through the living room.  Doing this, I caught a glimpse of the television.  The Today Show was on.  Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were talking and there was a live shot of a towering inferno, literally, with the words "Disaster at the World Trade Center" emblazoned across a graphic at the top.  My parents were talking, a lot of the chatter was something along the lines of, "What kind of idiot would fly a plane into a tower that big on a day that clear and blue?"

I had immediately thought back to '93 when the bomb went off in the basement of one of the towers.  (If you asked me which tower it was, I wouldn't have a clue, I still wouldn't.  I never knew which tower was which.  I was a Midwest girl.  I'm sure if I was a New Yorker, I could easily rattle off which building was which in the World Trade Center Complex, but I honestly had no clue.)  I didn't quite grasp the severity of how bad the tower was hit.  I seriously thought, "Oh, that's a huge tower.  Yes, the fire is big, but the FDNY are somewhat super heroes, so they will have no problem getting people out."

Boy, was I stupid!

So, I'm in the kitchen, pouring a bowl of Grape Nuts when I hear my dad scream, "Oh my god!"  I run in and see what was going on and a huge--and I mean HUGE--orange fireball exploded on the screen.  The second tower had been hit.  My mother echoed my thoughts when she said, "What the hell is going on?!"

My father was the first to say it...  "We are under attack.  This is deliberate.  Someone is out there to get us."

According to MapQuest, Sedalia, Missouri is 1,136.35 miles from the heart of New York City.  I felt a chill run down my spine.  I was terrified.  Sedalia was about 25 miles from Knob Noster, which is home to Whiteman Air Force Base.  WAFB was where they housed the B-2 Bombers.

I couldn't move.  My cereal got soggy in my bowl of milk, but I didn't care.  I was glued to the television.  My mother tore herself away to go blow dry her hair when it happened.

A tower crumbled to the ground.

Seeing that huge plume of gray smoke, the ash, the concrete, the glass...  It was unreal.  Stuff was falling from the other tower.  Windows were shattering, papers were flying out, papers that contained social security numbers, bank account numbers, passwords, peoples' whole lives were on those papers and they were being thrown around as if they were feathers bursting out of pillows during pillow fights.  Something else was coming out of the building too, but what?  What was that?  Was it...?

It was a body.  People were jumping.   People were saying, "Yes, we are going to die, but we are not going to die like this.  We are going to die on OUR terms."  Thinking about it now, I have goosebumps on my arms.  People were JUMPING!  One hundred and ten stories and they were jumping...  It's unreal.

The second tower fell...  I felt as if I were going to throw up.  Then came the news of the Pentagon.  Where was Bush?  Where was Cheney?  Where were our country's leaders?  Why weren't they up there reassuring the American people?  Oddly enough, I looked at Mayor Guiliani as our leader.  He became America's Mayor. 

I don't agree with Rudy Guiliani's politics, nor do I agree with the way he has lived his life.  I am a staunch and proud Democrat and I abhor those who commit infidelity (yes, that includes you too, Bill Clinton, Demmie or not), however, I felt a sense of calmness watching and listening to him.

United 93.  Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

An odd location, what did this have to do with America?  It wasn't until days (or weeks?) later that we found out the heroism on that plane.  "Let's Roll" became the catch phrase for America at that time.

I was glued to MSNBC, I couldn't tear myself away from watching Ashleigh Banfield with no makeup, soot and dust and ash all over her, her blonde hair a mess, her clothes covered in grime.  She was so not the news anchor I was used to seeing.  I was used to seeing them all perfect, flawless makeup, not a hair out of place, pressed clothes...  Miss Banfield was down deep into it.

I lost it when Tom Brokaw choked up.  Tom freaking Brokaw! 

Pretty soon, the time came and went and I had completely forgotten about my friend, but she had forgotten about me too.  Suddenly, there was a hell of a lot more important things than bad Chinese food and shopping malls.

I was watching CNN and MSNBC all the time.  I didn't want to miss anything, I even got to the point where I would get up in the middle of the night and watch it, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Before September Eleventh, Two Thousand and One, I had never heard of Osama bin Laden, I had never heard of al Quaida, I had never heard of the Taliban...  I was twenty-two and living in a bubble of oblivion.  I had the, "This is America!  Land of the Free!  Home of the Brave!  We are loved and revered all over the globe!  We have friends in other countries!  Nobody wants to hurt us!  We are bulletproof!" mentality.

Again, I was an idiot.

I never knew a soul on any of those planes, or in the buildings, nor did I know anybody who knew anybody in those planes or buildings, but I was so affected, you'd think that my entire family came down when those towers came down.  I had nightmares for months afterwards.  To this day, I will not step foot in a tower, or a building that is over twenty stories tall.  I can't.  I'm too afraid.

My heart goes out to the husbands, the wives, the mothers, the fathers, the sons, the daughters, the brothers, the sisters...  everybody...  Everybody who lost someone on that fateful day, and in the days since.  The weeks and months following September Eleventh had the highest suicide rates this country had ever seen.  It's unreal.

I plan on doing a lot of reflecting today, and I plan on honoring those who were killed that day, and those who have been killed in the days since avenging this travesty against our country.

May God continue to bless us all.

XOXO.

Aloha, Friends!!!

I thought I'd give everybody a shout out so you guys wouldn't think I was face down in a ditch somewhere!

Haven't done a bit of scrapping this summer, but I just got a bunch of vacation photos developed so that will keep me plenty busy in the fall and winter months when the cold is just too frigid to go out in.

This summer has been a summer of change and transformation for me.  Since joining WW, I've dropped five pant sizes, four top sizes and a bra size.  I'm having such a blast walking into stores and completely bypassing the plus sized clothes and getting the cuter clothes that women who were smaller than me were able to wear. I've lost a total of 29 pounds since May. 

In addition to my weight loss, I've also met a really great guy.  We've been seeing each other for a little over a month now and to say that he's amazing is truly an understatement.  He's very supportive and encouraging of my weight loss and, SURPRISE!  He's got a great job, which is a lot more than my ex had!  LOL 

Life is going beautifully for me right now.  Also, three weeks ago we got back from vacation, we all took a family trip up to Door County, Wisconsin.  Let me tell you, that is truly God's Country up there.  It's breathtaking!!  Lake Michigan had a funky smell and there were lots of dead fish that had washed up on shore during the tides, but actually, it was beautiful!  I'll definitely be posting pics of my trip in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately, while up there, I dropped my camera on the beach and it's toast.  Grr.  So I'll have to get another one, hopefully around Black Friday when the sales and bundles come out.

That's my summer in a nut shell!  I hope everybody had as wonderful of a summer as I did!!

Take care, my friends. 

XOXO

Happy Summer!

Just wanted to check in and see how my friends are doing.  :-)  Things are going good for me on my end here, I bought my new iPod Touch 4g about two weeks ago and I'm LOVING it.  I've also been sticking with my diet and I'm proud to report that I've lost 10% of my body weight.  Yay me!

I also wanted to report that I probably won't be making many more posts this summer.  I'm sort of at a creative stand still where scrapbooking is concerned, so I'm going to be taking a break to recharge my creative batteries, take more pictures, stock up on some more supplies and just enjoy summer.  Hopefully by this fall, I'll have tons of new supplies and pictures and ideas to scrap.

So, this is a "see you later", not a "goodbye".  I wish everybody a very happy, fun and safe summer and I'll see everybody in September!!

Love each other!!

XOXO,
Sarah