Going Live Ya'll :P

I've decided it's time to step up my blogging bit, and take Xanax for a run.... if you love the blog, you can find all the new ones over at http://xanaxorrunningshoes.com/

Caio!!

Bloggidy Blah

Yesterday I went to the orthodontist. They replaced my wires with the largest wires they have and added 4 rubber bands to my mouth so that it no longer opens even wide enough for a spoon to go in. This is a problem for me. I love food. I need it. In addition, the pain is so severe that I actually feel like I was in some sort of accident. Now I didn't start this blog to whine on and on about my braces or the communists that torture me by adjusting my braces...

I started this blog to let you know, that when I am on Valium (given to me by orthodontist for pain and muscle relaxation in my jaw) that thoughts no longer form into valid whole sentences. Everything kind of floats around. My brain starts processing things about 5 minutes after they actually happen. I look for the right word to say, and by the time I think that I have found it, I no longer remember the sentence it was supposed to go with. Hmmm...

Medicines have always had weird affects on me. Most people can take a Loratab for pain and go on about their day, I take pain medicine of any sort and it puts me into a 12 hour coma followed by a 6 hour fog.

The only enjoyable part being that it actually slows my brain to the point where I no longer feel frantic and stressed because of all the other things on my plate. So my goal, is to find a way to chill out and mellow down when I am not actually injured. What good methods unstress you? What do you wrap your mind around when you want all the daily junk to just take 5?

This is as far as I can go tonight, mostly because right now, I honestly don't care, about a whole lot at all. Russell made dinner and cleaned up last night and tonight, managed to get the 2 little ones in bed, and make sure I didn't need anything in the process. I'm liking his new knight in shining armor bit, it looks great on him. :)

I am feeling so mellow that this is the song that popped into my head to share... enjoy.
Before you listen to it though... let me tell you what I see when I hear this song. Picture a hot June night, deep in Southern America. A field full of wild sweet grass and dandelions. Girl standing in a yellow sundress with bare feet staring up at a sky full of more stars than you could ever count. Picnic basket and blanket on the ground near by, where her favorite boy is laying watching her in awe.... that's what I see when I hear this song. (oh and of course this girl is a rocking brunette that slightly resembles yours truly) hehehe

Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta....

Office Space anyone? Still probably my all time favorite movie.... and today I have been humming the theme song, damn it feels good to be a gangsta and replacing gangsta with Warrior... in honor of this weeks warrior dash and a meek attempt to make myself PUMPED UP....

Thus far it isn't working, but it is a constant reminder of my favorite movie :) So to close out Friday... and to end that FOREVER long work week... I hope you're wearing all 15 pieces of your flair....

Oh... and Damn it feels good to be a gangsta... I really need to order this movie.... no idea what happened to my copy.

AND LASTLY...

Wish me luck... cause the next time you hear from me... I will be a warrior... think I can get some cool theme music to play when I walk into a room? Someone work on that for me would ya?? hehehehe 

Vacation? Erm.... Didn't That Just Happen?

Yes, I just took a week long vacation in April... after much stress and frustration over the beginning quarter of this year, I would honestly say, it was much needed. I come home from vacation to find myself facing a change of heart between Russell and I... then some ohhhh smallish F5 TORNADOES.... then us moving his house and merging it with mine.... us selling a ton of furniture on Craigslist that means us running back and forth at all hours of the day and night, my home builders finally getting around to some of the things there were supposed to fix 3 months ago, the girls getting ready to leave for Colorado, softball season.... and um.... all I can say is THANK YOU GOD I AM DONE WITH SCHOOL RIGHT NOW.... and not still fighting with that mess.

I am sure that sounds like a bunch of whining... and in all honesty, it probably is. Hey, welcome to my blog... you don't have to endure the whining... but I have GOT to get it out of my system. Oh not to mention somewhere in all of that mess I have been trying to maintain eating healthy and training for a 5k through mud... right... cause the ones on pavement aren't a challenge enough... I add mud and obstacles.

Yep. That's me. Go big or go home...

Sigh.... there is chaos all over the house as we try to sort and get things in order... decide what's going where etc... so there is no "peaceful tranquil haven" for me to hide in currently. The bath tub... maybe my next blog will be from amidst bubbles and wine...

I am over the whining, and I apologize. I am just ready for things to ease up a little and slow down some. It is already middle of MAY!!

June is upon us, and June is a month I truly hate to rush through. It is my favorite of them all, it requires much savoring. Strawberry shortcake, flip flops, and the smell of ribs on the grill... oh yes sweet June. Just thinking about that is calming my anxiety an insane amount. I think I may very well find some rest in June.

In the meantime.... I need a little bit of this:

The Sound of Silence

When the girls finally lay down their heads and fall asleep, and the dogs all find their happy places around my feet, and the cats snuggle in the chair beside me, and Russell is off on a pool night... the house goes quiet. It's a strange quiet that I am pretty unfamiliar with. The only sound to be heard is the soft whirl of the ceiling fan and the steady ticking of every clock in the house.

It never ceases to amaze me how loud quiet actually can become. The clocks... they make me crazy. Tick and then tock... and click click click... the seconds... they fall away... fading into the past... and when the silence is so loud with the passing of time, I find myself looking for things to do. I must do something... listen to the moments passing by!

I am currently working on my very first novel. I found a writing contest called Operation First Novel, and the winner gets a check for 25k and published... It must be at least 75,000 words long, and it is due in September. I feel like the seconds that are sliding past are chances that I need to be focused on completing it. However, I find I cannot write on it all the time. I have to be in a certain mood... imagination has to be pouring out of me. I find I am usually not stuck in front of a computer when those moments hit me. Maybe I need a voice recorder... ideas? Sigh... the clock... it's relentless tonight. I must get up and focus on something...

I think the looming 30 year mark is also affecting me somehow... I have accomplished much... but there is much left to do!! :) I hope all of my readers are not sitting anywhere near the gosh darn clock in the room.

Here's a cool pic I snatched on my way home from work... cloud junky... that's me.

oh and if you have forgotten... here's a classic reminder of the Sound of Silence.

Mom...Mama, Mother, Mommy.... to you

Today I planted roses, tomatoes, blueberries, and blackberries... I watered, and fed... and prayed over my little plants hoping that they will grow into fruit producing giants :) You know... kind of like my mom did me as I grew.

My mom is without a doubt my very best friend. She knows KNOWS me... inside and out, and still loves me to pieces... not an easy thing to do I assure you. Not only that, my mom... well she didn't just raise me, feed me etc.... she put in the time... she asked all the questions, had all the talks, worried, cried with me, got mad with me, stood beside me, behind me, and when I was falling... under me to ease the crash.

My mom made me believe that as a woman... my possibilities are endless. She instilled value in me, for myself... to make sure that I didn't let people trod across me. She painted pictures across my mind of open fields full of golden wheat and soft sunsets when as I child I woke to terrifying dreams. She told stories, took me camping, taught me to ride a bike, belly dance, bandaged skinned knees, and eased broken hearts. She was amazing to me, as a child..... but now?

Now my mom listens to me, she cheers for me, coaches me, and takes the time to know me.... really know me. I don't know where I would be without her as a sounding board in my life. Mother's Day will never pass by without her knowing exactly what she means to me, even though words seem to small a vessel.

So this year, as in all years past... and all to come... I wish you a very Happy Mother's Day mom... thank you, for being you.

Carpe Diem- Life Lesson of the Day

I have this ability to see things... hmmm... not like what's his face from that one Bruce Willis movie.... I don't see dead people.... but in polar opposite, I see life in things. Let me give you an example... I enjoy my drive home (understatement) I love my car time... it's ME time... and I happen to live in one of the most beautiful green, flowery, every kind of tree, horses, llamas, and farmy areas in Alabama.

Daily on my drive home, I watch the sun start to fade behind this gorgeously rusted metal barn. It's a beautiful old building, and my mind runs through how long it's been there, the livestock that has run through it, and the love stories kindled in the hay loft. I'm a writer by nature, it's what I do.

This barn... was damaged by our recent tornado events... and it kind of crushed me that I had never stopped... Never captured that picture that I had wanted to so many times. It's kind of a hard road to stop on, there's not much shoulder and the ditches are really deep.... but I do not know what is in store for this barn... another couple weeks it may be missing all together.... with no record of its existence at all. Isn't that the way it goes?

So today, I am all about Carpe Diem... stop waiting... GO DO. Here's my lesson... in all of it's glory.

Random Nothing

There's a nothing moving in on me. It chills me to the core. It's shady and deceptive. I cannot remember who I am when I'm standing in this place. I walk along aimlessly searching for the light, stumbling and colliding with all the darkness of my night. It seems I've placed a question on my tongue, but my mouth won't open to ask it as the pages all get turned. I write about this nothing as if it's clouds across my sky, because I know my soul will move into the dawn of your tomorrow. Right now I just sit waiting for the mood to leave my mind.

Here is one of my favorite photos that I've taken... EMERGENCY EXIT

If I Could TAP Dance for You.... I WOULDN'T.

It's been that day... the one where someone says something about you... that they cannot ever take back or undo... where you sit there staring at them.... glaring a hole in the middle of their forehead to prevent you from grabbing them by their stupid ugly face and beating them into the wall. Yep, it's been that day.

Oh... and it wasn't Russell. lol. Guess that's important to get out of the way to start with.

Anyway... some allegations were made toward me today that left me in a state of shock... once that wore off I was absolutely more angry than I think I may have ever been at another point in my life. Anger is a very difficult emotion for me to contain.... I normally get pissed to the point that HOT tears well in my eyes and burn down my face only to make me that much more PISSED off that now someone has made me mad to the point that I am crying over it. If you ever have the ability to make me cry in public.... I highly suggest you follow it with running... because WRATH is following....

To put it lightly it has ruined the remainder of my day... which has also seriously ANNOYED me. I hate feeling this way, but I also know that it is time for me to move on and this is just more proof of the same. Hopefully I can get my brain back to the E side of the pissed off-ometer shortly. DEEP CLEANSING BREATHS.

I need an angry song... hmm...yes this should do NICELY.

Um Did I Sign Up for This???

My life has been absolute crazy.... MAYHEM...lately.... to the point they called to see if I wanted to do my own Allstate commercial.... (okay that was a lame joke... sorry) but in all seriousness, the last several months. WHOOOAAAA.

What I am getting at is that when I started all this and God sent me out after my little pair of RUNNING SHOES... over my Xanax perscription, I did something completely crazy and signed up for a 5k run through mud and obstacles called WARRIOR DASH.... Check it.... www.warriordash.com

UM... WTF was I thinking???? JEANNA.... testing... testing.... is this thing on?

It is May 14th.... ummmmm 11 days away. I haven't been to the gym in 3 weeks.... I went to Las Vegas, went to Florida, came home to work on my relationship with Russell, got hit with tornadoes... OMG and now BOOM.... I have 11 days to train... well strike that... 10 days because hahahahaha we all know my butt is on the computer right now and not doing anything with the rest of today.

So.... starting tomorrow... it's back to the gym immediately after work....I have 10 days to make May 14th hurt just a little bit less.... oh and in any hope to actually cross the finish line.... because BWAHAHAHAHA right now? It's a fantasy.... you know... not just a regular fantasy... but the one where Brad Pitt and Robert Downey Jr. drive up in my 2011 red Camaro convertible with white pin stripes fantasy to deliver me the keys and their services for the day. It just AIN'T HAPPENIN PEOPLE.

The next few weeks I will keep you posted on how I progress.... yes I am still smirking.... all right, time to cowboy up and get down to business.

Here's a little inspiration for you... cough cough... I meant me.

SMASH MOUTH, ALL STAR

Yes, I embedded the link... because all the kinks aren't out of my internet yet, and it doesn't have the guts to pull from YouTube like normal.

Tornado schmamado

Well it's been 5 days since tornadoes went BUCK wild through Alabama, and it will be many months before people even start to realize the magnitude of what actually happened to the state. People have come together, other states have stepped in to help with our power, there's been a lot of kindness through the disaster... but there are also looters and crazy people that do not have the capacity to be civil kind human beings. Alabama actually stated... those people can be shot on scene. I wish that was always the rule. Honestly.

I am a bit disappointed in the way some of this is being handled, but hey... I suppose that's life. Let me tell you about the good parts.

When the weather was about 30-45 minutes out, the schools called (at 11:30 am) to tell us kids needed to be picked up from school by 12:15. We had coworkers in town from Washington D.C. and we were at lunch (we had taken Russell's truck). I relayed the message that I had 45 minutes to pick up the girls, so we haul tail back to the office. As we are getting there to drop of our coworkers, the sky is turning a freaky black/green color... like a week old bruise.

He looks over at me... he still has a meeting to go to.... he asks if I will be okay driving in this... I look a little nervous towards him... and he jumps out of the car and goes and collects his things from the office. We leave my car in the parking lot and head towards the kids school.  This is what is moving toward us at a scary alarming pace:

As we start to head down the highway, the first wall hits us, hail starts pelting the truck, barricades from the road work are flying across the street and then flying back the other direction as quickly as the went right... they went left again. Signs began blowing down, trees bending at alarming lows. I was so incredibly thankful he left with me and we were in his truck and not my car. After the remainder of the day panning out in similar terrifying moments followed by a break in the clouds and spots of sunshine... we were left totally in the dark with no cell service at all.

It wasn't until the next day when we got up... we started to realize how close we had been and what was complete devastation around us in both directions. Here is what one side of our main street looks like... and within a half mile on the other side of us... it looks the same. This is so close to us it's still freaking me out.

Now I am not one to throw out that, "God was looking out for me line..." because then it sounds like He wasn't looking out for any of those other people who are experiencing an insane loss in their life right now either losing family members or their homes and all they own. I do believe all things happen for a reason though, and we'll leave it at that. It could have been us. That's the real reality of it. But it wasn't, and I feel very humbled in that fact.

Since the storm... we emptied the fridge and freezer into the garbage, and headed south where there was family and electricity. The last couple days have been a really great bonding time for Russell and I as well. I cannot imagine going through that without him. He was absolutely there for me and the girls. He calmed us, prevented any panic, and made sure we felt secure. Drove to Florida until nearly 3 am in the morning... woke to make us breakfast Saturday morning.

Then he did something that maybe I shouldn't share... but made me feel... that warm sweet girlie feeling that I have thought was hopelessly locked up in my head somewhere and unachievable.... I was feeling dirty and grimy from the past two long days... very stressed out but relieved we were all together and safe.... once i was in the shower he washed and conditioned my hair  for me. He took his time, rinsed it thoroughly, running his fingers over and over again... the stress poured off of me... as I relaxed...  we spent Sunday checking in with friends and making sure all of our peeps in Alabama were doing ok... but we were also able to take a nice little walk and dig up some blackberry bushes to take home to our yard... Headed back to help our neighbors out, now that we won't be hindering them. Keep Alabama in your thoughts, cause you really never know when it will happen wherever you are standing.