Guess What? I'm PREGO!

On Thursday, April 28, 2011, life threw me a delightful curve-ball: I would be bringing a baby into the world.  A number of things ran through my mind, the first being "O crap. What am I gonna do?!"  But that feeling soon turned into a happy one.

You see, I was convinced I was unable to bear children at all.  In fact, I already planned on asking my sister to be a surrogate mother, considered IVF treatments (how we would ever pay for those, I had no idea), and adoption.  But later on of course.  When Rick and I were married, and had the means to support not only ourselves but another human being 5 times over.  But, as life would have it, and how it usually works with me, it doesn't care about my plans.  I have "learned" that lesson over and over and over again, and I bet I will continue to "learn" it.

So, finding out that I was pregnant wasn't exactly a JOYOUS occasion at first: Rick and I both were super stressed out the first couple days.  But after I went to the First Baptist Orlando pregnancy center (where the lady basically told me my baby would be an abomination and I needed to give it up for adoption...), and I received the pregnancy confirmation, our excitement grew!  We would be parents! We would be bringing a baby into the world, and though we would be giving up a lot of things: so-called "freedom", spontaneity, late night outs, we would also gain responsibility, the REAL feeling of unconditional love, and JOY! What really helped was the support of our friends and family.  Without that love, nothing is possible.

I am about 14 weeks, according to mine, my mothers, my sisters, and the pregnancy centers calculations..oh and the Droid application on my phone =) But when I go to the doctors this week, I will be certain (I hope). I will get to see the sex of the baby in about another 3 weeks or so.  Naturally, Rick wants a boy. I want a girl. But either way, we will be thrilled.  I have certain things for each sex planned out: name, nursery theme, etc. So it will be nice to finally know what I can follow through with, the navy nautical sailing theme, or Cady Isabella.

What's pregnancy like for me?  Ugh. I don't like it. (Right now anyway) Mainly because the baby is too small for me to feel it, so all I do feel is nausea and fatigue (among other not-so-pleasant things).  I eat all the time too! Rick has learned that when Mama is hungry, Mama is HUNGRY! Funny thing is though, I'm so hungry I think I can eat a whole 10 piece chicken dinner, I get done with a few fries and 2 of those pieces and I'm so stuffed I can't move.  Why is that anyway?  So, needless to say, I will be very relieved once I get passed this first trimester and the baby gets big enough so I can feel what I'm going through all this nastiness for.  (I know, that sounded horrible....but I'm just being honest....I'm sure all you mothers out there can relate!)

I read Jenny McCarthy's "Belly Laughs". O. M. G. That book is hilarious.  I love it because she hides NOTHING.  She tells it just like it is.  It's awesome.  All you prego ladies out there (and even new moms) should read it.  It's great! It really helped me to prepare for what I will be going through and how to get through it.

Am I scared? A little, and I'm sure that fear will grow once I see that baby on the screen in front of me.  I have the FEELING of pregnancy, but I don't think it will actually hit me until I see the first picture of our baby.  Then, I'll probably be even more scared. But, I also know that though it won't be EASY, it will be OKAY. It will be WORTH every ounce of pain and every change I have to go through.  This baby will be the best thing I ever did and I will want to do it over and over again.  I just hope that I don't screw he/she up...too much ;-)

P!NK Is My Hero

I have been deeply inspired lately.  Not by an idea, or a place, and not JUST by a person or a song....but by a person AND their music.  The person?  Alecia Beth Moore, also known as, P!NK!

Now, I haven't always liked P!NK.  Actually in the beginning, when she first came out in 2000, I didn't like her at all.  I thought she was a little "ghetto" to me and I would actually turn the channel when her songs came on the radio.  I know, that's horrible.  But it wasn't until about a year or so ago that I really started getting into her, and I owe that to VH1's Behind the Music: P!NK episode that aired in late 2009.  See, I didn't know that P!NK was a songwriter.  I have an incredible respect for songwriters and artists who are NATURALLY talented.  I didn't know it before, but P!NK is both, and she also has an incredible story. 

Alecia Beth Moore was born in Doyleston, Pennsylvania on September 8, 1979.  Her household wasn't a very "happy" household, what with her parents fighting all the time. When she was 8 years old, her father left.  This devastated Moore, and she turned to music as solace.  Her first solo performance was at age 9, as was the first time she started smoking cigarettes.  Pot followed when she turned 11, at 12 she started acid and by age 13, she was using all the hard club drugs.  She was on the road for danger. In fact, she was already there.  She began throwing "K" parties at her moms house while she was working, and selling drugs on the side.  Though the parties were bad, one party in particular helped Alecia achieve her dream of becoming an international pop star. A few guys overheard Moore singing in her bedroom and approached her with a request for her to be their lead singer for their garage band, Middleground.  Moore accepted, and at the age of 13, she was a rockstar.

Over the next few years, Moore performed in clubs in downtown Philidelphia.  Most of the clubs she performed in consisted of mostly black people and there were many times she would be the only white girl to be found.  It was intimidating for her at first, but once she opened her mouth and everyone realized she could sing, she earned a lot of respect.  Her bodyguard gave her the nickname, Pinky.  And it stuck. 

At age 15, she was discovered at one of the many clubs she performed at and was asked to join the up and coming band, Choice.  The group went all over the U.S. performing for Big Whig record execs to cut a record deal.  In one of the meetings with Big Whig, Tommy Matola, Moore showed her true bad a$$ colors.  Matola wasn't paying attention to the girls at all and Moore wasn't too happy about it.  So she stood up for her and her friends, saying "Can you at least act like you're paying attention and not look out the f***ing window while we're singing? Cause I didn't smoke today!"  That didn't make them get any closer to a record deal of course, but it showed that Moore wasn't taking any BS from anyone.

After only 3 years with Choice, Moore proved to be way ahead of the other 2 girls in the group to the point where her manager gave her an ultimatum: go solo, or go home.  This was one of the hardest decisions she would ever have to make, but it was also the best.  One day, she was Alecia Beth Moore and the next, she was P!NK.  She died her hair a fucshia color and cut it super short and never went back. 

"I never liked 'Alecia' it never felt like me.  Everyone called me 'Pinky' in Philly, that's who I was. I loved it, I didn't care cause my main cheesy point was 'We're all pink in the inside. We're all the same, people, it doesn't matter."

In the year 2000, P!NK's first album, Can't Take Me Home debuted and with her first paycheck, she bought back her father's gold rolex he sold years earlier to pay for child support as a gift to her dad. That says a lot about her character.  She was also excited to be able to give back to her dad, and especially something that had meant so much to him.

After her first album, P!NK was asked to join Mya, Lil Kim, and Christina Aguilera in the movie soundtrack "Lady Marmalade".  It was a great career move for P!NK but it came with a cost.  At the meeting to decide which part would go to which diva, Aguilera's label exec, Ron Fehr showed up and without saying so much as a hello or introducing himself he asked what the highest and most "singing" part was, and told everyone at the meeting that that part would be going to Aguilera.  P!NK wasn't having it. "Hi, how are you? So nice of you to introduce yourself.  I'm P!NK. She will not be taking that part. I think that's what the f***ing meeting is about!" hahahaha! Do you see why I love her now? The song ended up landing P!NK her first grammy for "Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals". 

Soon, it was time for P!NK to start on her next album.  But she wanted to change things up a bit.

"I wasn't getting enough of "me" out and I thought that if I talked about enough "real" stuff, maybe one day I could be a songwriter.  I wanted to do that...I made a conscious decision that I would never repeat myself and I wanted to go find Linda Perry."

Who is Linda Perry?  Well, she was the lead singer for the one-hit-wonder band "4 Non Blondes" in 1992. You may recognize "And so I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and get real high and I scream from the top of my lungs, 'WHATS GOING ON?!" No? Ok, listen to the song.

It was not only a great opportunity for P!NK to fnd Perry but it was opportunity for Perry as well.  To get back to doing what she loved after disappearing after one big hit 8 years before was a huge reward. They saved each other. 

"Linda was the first person that sat me down, put a microphone in my hand, and just said "Here, tell me how you're feeling....Just tell me what's on your mind basically, in a melody." For your childhood idol to be sitting in front of you, making you feel understood for the first time in your life, I can't even explain how that feels."

Perry was P!NK's aid in channeling her troubled childhood and to start the healing process.  "I literally went into the vocal booth, closed my eyes, 20 minutes later, I'm sobbing and "Family Portrait" was written."

"Family Portrait". A song that appears on P!NK's second album, Missundazstood, tells the story of P!NK's childhood, and her parents non-stop quarrelling.

"You fight about money, about me and my brother
And this I come home to, this is my shelter.
It ain't easy growin up in World War 3
Never knowin what love could be
You'll see, I don't want love to destroy me
Like it has done my family..."

Missundaztood almost never happened.  P!NK's music exec, L.A. Reid didn't think it was a good idea for her to totally re-design her image. She had become someone what of an R&B icon, and that's not what P!NK wanted.  So when Reid told her he was giving her the opportunity to fail, P!NK said 'Thank You' and proved him wrong.  Missundaztood went platinum, selling 10 million copies the first week it came out.

"My favorite part was being able to say "I told you so" to L.A."

Soon after Missundaztood's success, P!NK met Cary Hart at a Motorcross race.  A week later, they became a couple and were inseperable. 

The relationship soon ended after only a year because of the stresses of traveling and being on the road. P!NK was devastated.  On top of breaking up with the love of her life, she found out that Perry began working with Aguilera to write the song "Beautiful".

"I took it really personally when she started working with other artists, particularly artists that I didn't like.  I don't think imitation is the highest form of flattery. I think it's annoying."

After asking Perry to help her with her next album, and getting rejected, P!NK shut down.

"I didn't wanna go deep.  I didn't really have much to say."
"It was obvious that she just checked out and didn't really wanna put a whole lot of emotion into it." -Linda Perry
"I was over it. I didn't wanna talk about myself anymore.  So I made a fun record with Tim Armstrong."

Try This came out in 2003. It wasn't a hit itself, but the song "Trouble" earned her her first Grammy as a solo artist for Female Rock Vocal.  But though she was becoming more and more successful, she didn't feel complete without Hart by her side. So, at a motorcross race where P!NK was "pit boarding" she proposed to Carey by writing on the back of a board "Will You Marry Me".  With Hart's "yes", P!NK was more inspired than ever to pour her heart into her next album, I'm Not Dead.

Try This gave me an emotional break.....[when the next album came along] I felt alive.  That's why I named the [next] record, I'm Not Dead."

In that album, songs such as "U and Ur Hand", "Who Knew" and "Dear Mr. President" came. My favorite one is "Dear Mr. President".

"I could not believe that George W. Bush was our president.  No one says anything because everyone wants to walk that line not to piss anybody off. SCREW THAT! I didn't grow up like that..."

Dear Mr. President Lyrics

Dear Mr. President, come take a walk with me

Let's pretend we're just two people and

You're not better than me

I'd like to ask you some questions

If we could speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?

Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?

What do you feel when you look in the mirror?

Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?

How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Can you even look me in the eye and tell me why?

Dear Mr. President, were you a lonely boy?

Are you a lonely boy?

How can you say "No child is left behind?"

We're not dumb and we're not blind

They're all sitting in your cells

While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?

And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?

I can only imagine what the First Lady has to say:

You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.

Let me tell you about hard work:

Minimum wage with a baby on the way

Let me tell you about hard work:

Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away

Let me tell you about hard work:

Building a bed out of a cardboard box

Let me tell you about hard work, hard work, hard work

You don't know nothin bout hard work, hard work, hard work

How do you sleep at night?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Dear Mr. President,

You'd never take a walk with me

Would you?

Absolutely love that song and I'm not really sure why. It's beautiful first of all, but I'm not political at all. I think I just love that it's so factual. I call it the "Forrest Gump-ish" song. You know, everything in that movie was based on fact but it was told in a creative way?

Soon after I'm Not Dead went platinum, she married Hart.  But immediately after the wedding, P!NK went on the "I'm Not Dead" 2 year international tour. Their marriage soon began to fall apart because of the separation, once again.  Of course it did. You're married for 3 weeks and then you don't see each other for 2 months? That's just insane. So, when P!NK came home, she tried to make things better by taking a vacation with some of their friends. On that vacation, P!NK came up with the song "Mean". It came out naturally to her, and it was written and performed in front of everyone. That song didn't go over well with Hart and they announced their split on Valentines Day. For P!NK, the separation reminded her too much of her parents divorce. It was then that she began working on Funhouse.
 

"P!NK once again turned to her music to help heal her pain and began the most cathartic writing experience of her career."- Behind the Music

"From heartbreak comes inspiration. There was nothing on that lyrically that wasn't heartfelt." Butch, the dude that helped her write for Funhouse.
"I wanted to name the record "Heartbreak is a Mother F***er [laughs] cause it is [laughs]." -P!NK

The label wanted to release "So What" as the first single to the album, but P!NK was worried that because the song was written about Hart, it would probably hurt him if he heard it without knowing about it.  So she agreed to release it, only if Hart could appear in the music video.  That was genius because it led the couple to get back together and "So What" turned out to be her first solo number one hit on the charts.

I only wish I had gotten to know P!NK sooner.  She is quite a remarkable woman.  I love her to death.  Her latest 2 songs, "Raise Your Glass" and "F***in Perfect" have become my "favorite songs of the moment". Her writing is amazing. I always said that one of my rules for music was that the song had to have some sort of meaning behind it. Most of P!NK's music has a ton of meaning behind it. Whether it's a humorous, upbeat song, or a heartfelt ballad, it's all beautiful. I admire her greatly because of  her talent and because of the fact that she's so carefree. She doesn't give a rats @$$ what people think of her. She is genuine and REAL, outspoken and intelligent. But behind all the hard-core-ness, she is GENTLE and KIND. Not only that but she is GORGEOUS. I really hope to meet her one of these days.

On her marriage to Hart: "I see a lifetime prescription to Xanax, many broken bones, and a really safe warm yummy place." See? I just love that.

I love it =)

"It's been a ferocious search, me being comfortable in my own skin. I have owned and embraced my integrity and I feel like I still have a lot of fight left in me. I can't explain it without sounding delusional...I signed up for this life before I got here, I chose it. I chose all the obstacles as well. I chose all the challenges, I chose all the pain of my childhood, which would eventually bring me to be able to write the kinds of songs and feel the kinds of emotions and not be afraid of the pain to do what I do."

Well said, baby, well said.

Dear Daddy

He used to be the man I wanted to marry one day. Then he became the man who I looked up to, the person I aspired to be. Soon, he became the man I adored and who I thought hung the moon. He was the strong one. The one that held me as a child, and still called me his little girl as an adult.

But suddenly, that man changed. He became unrecognizable.  The "I love you's" I heard daily started coming less and less often.  The hugs I received all the time happened more rarely that I ever dreamed they would, and the "I'm proud of you's" completely deceased. He was supposed to be the man I knew would NEVER let me down. The one man in the world who I knew I could ALWAYS count on.  The ONE man in the world who loved me UNCONDITIONALLY.  In my head, I know he does, but my heart is a little more skeptical. 

The one time in my life that I need him most is the one time in my life that he disappears.  I don't mean physically, I mean emotionally.  Perhaps it's because I don't talk to him.  We have never really had the "talking" kind of relationship, EVER. When we do talk, it does nothing.  It never has.  He doesn't listen to me, and I fear he never will. 

No wonder I attach myself to the men who hurt me, and pull away from the ones who want to "take care of me".  The one man who said he always would (and who has, materialistically, but has failed horribly in other areas, you know, the areas that matter) let me down. 

I thought that a parent's number one priority in life was to see their children happy.  Didn't matter what they did to MAKE themselves happy, as long as it wasn't illegal of course, but as long as they were HAPPY....I thought that's all that mattered.  I thought that their job was to help them, help them in any way they needed.  Sure, teach them right from wrong.  Show a little tough love every now and then.  But when their children NEEDED love at one of the most confusing times of their life, I thought that as a parent, that would be the one thing they would be most willing to give.  I guess I was wrong....

You would think with the way my parents are acting that I was into some hard drugs or something like that.....but no. I'm just happy. Or I was. I finally had some clarity and contentment in my life. But not anymore.....and it is ashame....

So, to my Daddy....
 I'm sorry I'm not as successful as you want me to be.  I'm sorry that I have somehow disappointed you by being excessively happy.  I'm sorry that I don't do things EXACTLY right, and that by being in your house, the house I used to call mine, I have become a burden to you.  I'm sorry.

Best Friends: Common Sense Not Required

*Disclaimer* PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS BLOG CONTAINS THINGS THAT IF YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR OR ARE EASILY OFFENDED, YOU SHOULD NOT READ!



As most of you who know me know, my best childhood friend is Julianna Cole.

 We have always, and when I say always, I mean the past 22 years, been best friends and we probably always will be.  It's a funny thing though because we are complete opposites.  Granted, we do have a lot of the same taste in music (for the most part; she likes rap and I like oldies and alternative stuff), but we are very different girls.  She is slender, skinny, but very active and athletic. Me, well, I'm curvy and lazy. HAH! She has always had long, thick, beautiful curly hair. Mine was curly as well, but I have cut it through the years, which has straightened it out quite a bit. She was raised with, shall we say PRIVELIGES. I was blessed, but she has been very well off her whole life.  I have been working since I was 17. She hasn't really ever had a real job before.  

But the point of this blog is not to note our differences, it is to note that we are both very smart girls.  But sometimes, we lack MUCH common sense. 

Let's start with the Tanning Bed incident, shall we?

Picture if you will, me, driving in my little red ranger on a beautiful sunny spring day. I'm about 17, listening to the radio, jamming out, when I get a phone call from my dear friend, Miss Julianna.  The conversation goes as follows:

Julianna: Lia, hey I had a question and I wanted to ask you because you're the only one who won't laugh at me....

Lia: Oh Lord, here we go.
(She was always asking me the funniest things. Why she thought I wouldn't laugh at her, I had no idea. But I couldn't wait to hear what she had to say)

Julianna: haha, yea. So, I've started going to the bed recently. I've gone about 3 or 4 times now and everytime I leave, I notice that my back is really really tan, but I'm getting nothing on my front.

Lia: (trying to hold back laughs, only imagining what's coming next) Yes....

Julianna: Yea, and so I got out of the tanning bed today and I had to lean on the bed to put my clothes back on....

Lia: Uh huh....

Julianna: ....and well, the top of it, it moved!

There was a long silence because at this point because first of all, I'm silently cracking up, and second of all I'm trying to figure out what the hell she means by "the top" of it. Then I figure out, to my dismay, she has to be talking about the LID!

Lia: yes....it does that....? What's your question?

Julianna: Well, am I supposed to lower it down over me while I'm tanning?

Oh. My. God. Yea, I couldn't hold the laughter in too much at this point. But, I still tried through laughter to say....

Lia: Yes, hun.  When you lay in it, the bulbs you're laying on get your back, and the top of it gets your front.

Julianna: Okay. THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU!

Lia: Yup, anytime. Love you too.

*click*

Lia: HOWLING WITH LAUGHTER!!!!!! LOUDLY!!!!


To this day, I don't and never will let her live that down.


Proceeding to exhibit B.

I guess I should have started with this first since it happened first....but I couldn't wait to tell of the tanning bed =P (Can't you tell I LOVE my best friend?)

This incident has to do with MY stupidity.  We're about 14 years old at Camp Caswell with our church youth groups.  We were at that age where Mother Nature just started her regular visits.  Now, my mother wasn't comfortable with me using tampons at such a young age, and neither was I. I didn't understand why women wore them.  But I soon found out that they were a whole lot more comfortable than I thought.

Our churches were very close in location to one another in town.  So, since we were going to the same camp on the same week, we decided to follow each other down.  It was about 8 hours away from home....it was on the coast of NC, near Wilmington, right on the beach.  It was July 2003, very hot outside and it was definitely BIKINI season. 

Because Mother Nature had paid me a visit on my vacation, I wasn't quite sure how I was going to go swimming.  How do you swim in a pad? Had I been brave enough to wear a tampon, I could most certainly go.  But again, how do women STAND to wear tampons?  It was totally beyond my belief.

I went to her church's cabin to meet up with the girls of her youth group so we could all put our bathing suits on and go.  Well, except me of course.  The conversation went something like this.

Kim: (Julianna's mom) Lia, sweetie, why aren't you going swimming?

Lia: O, well, I just started my period, so I can't. It's okay though. I can just lay out. 

Kim: What do you mean you can't? Why don't you wear a tampon?

Lia: They're just uncomfortable

Kim: Really?  Why? Are you putting them in far enough?

Well, by this time I'm blushing.  This was just taboo for me to talk to my mom about, much less my best friends mother, and all the other mothers there.

Lia: Um, I think if I put it in further it may hurt.

Kim: (Looking puzzled) Are you putting it in right?

Lia: Well, I think so.

Julianna: here (handing me a tampon) Go put it in, and then walk out and tell us how it feels.

Lia: well, okay then.

I go into the bathroom and put the thing in.  God, this was so embarrassing.  Why were they doing this to me? After being in there for a while, reading the instructions, following them (or so I thought) I walked out, wobbling, with something sticking out from between my legs. Yup. It looked like I had grown a penis.

All the ladies just stared at me like cows looking at a new gate.  I was humiliated.  Why were they staring? And why didn't any of them look like I did?  Where were their fake penises? 

Then it occurred to me that I had to be doing something wrong.  Julianna's laughter confirmed it.


Julianna: NO WONDER IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE!

Lia: What are you talking about?

Kim: Lia, (laughing hysterically), honey you're supposed to push the cotton UP....you're not supposed to leave the applicator in there....

Lia: The cotton? What cotton?

By this time, every girl in that cabin was cracking up at me, the moms included.

Julianna: There's a cotton thing inside the applicator, Lia. You never noticed that?

Lia: No, not really.....

So, needless to say, I had a tampon lesson that day, right there in the cabin.  From that day forward, tampons have been one of my best friends. =)


Fast forward about 6 or 7 years. We were 19 years old. I had moved to Orlando, FL and started working at Walt Disneyworld.  Had just moved into my first apartment and who was my first guest? Julianna of course.  Her mom gave me a 100 dollar gift card to Wal Mart as a house-warming present, and food for the week Julianna would be staying there.  So, among food, and a few other knick knacks, we got some cheap salt and pepper shakers and the cooresponding ingredients. For some odd reason, perhaps the excitement of having my first place, my own kitched utensils and appliances, and getting to do things MY way for the first time ever, I couldn't wait to go home and start using those salt and pepper shakers. 

We ended up getting ground pepper, which, for that particular pepper shaker was the wrong kind.  But, I figured, hey, pepper is pepper.  So what if it's messy when it comes out? We got the right salt, but putting it into the shaker was an adventure indeed.

Picture if you will, two 19 year old girls, standing in the kitchen, yapping away.  Me, opening my new appliances and getting the salt and pepper ready to put in them.  Nothing could possibly go wrong with this, right?

I turn the salt shaker upside down to apply the salt, because the hole was on the bottom, and I couldn't apply the salt from the top, right?  Right.  So, I start pouring the salt in.  Again, Julianna and I are talking away.  At one point, I look down at the salt shaker to see the progress it's making in filling up.  It's not filling up at all.  As I look down farther I see my mistake, but not before I saw a HUGE pile of salt hanging out on my counter. 

I look at Julianna. She looks back at me. And the laughter begins.  I guess I should have closed the holes, or put my hand UNDER the holes....but I just didn't think about it I guess....

This was after we had cleaned most of it up.......

So, yes....Julianna and I are best friends.  We are very different. But when it comes to common sense, we are just about the same; but I wouldn't change it for the world.....=)

CELEBRATE Your LIFE!

22 years ago, my life had just begun.  I wasn't a planned baby, but nevertheless, I was coming, ready or not.  In April 1988, my mother married a wonderful man I am blessed to call, Daddy, and I followed in February.  I was a month and a half pre-mature, and had no thyroid gland. My birthday could have easily been my death day, but God had a plan for my life, and it's for that reason that I am celebrating the big 22!

I have had a pretty BLESSED 22 years. I didn't have everything I wanted, but I definitely had everything I needed and more! Every one of my birthdays have been celebrated. Not necessarily in a HUGE way, but they have always been very much recognized.

Of course, I don't remember my first birthday at all.  The only thing I know about it is that I had a chocolate ice cream cake made by my grandmother, and I didn't get too messy.  And I only know that much from pictures and stories:

The only thing I remember about my 2nd birthday, and I remember very WELL, is my amazing and quite colorful Bert and Ernie cake that was made by one of our neighbors. I still remember how it tasted! Crazy huh? But what can I say? It was a GOOD cake!

For my third birthday, the family went to Chuck E Cheese. But back then, it was called Show Biz. The only thing I remember about that birthday were the characters dancing and my dad doing the Whack-A-Mole game because I thought that was the funniest thing ever!

For my fourth birthday, the family went to J&S Cafeteria. Not really the IDEAL place for a 4 year old's birthday, but it was my grandpa's favorite place, and I guess I didn't really care...after all, I was only 4? And for some reason, I went through a weird ballerina stage that year...needless to say, I had a ballerina cake too!

My fifth birthday was held at my Great Grandmother's house. This was the BARBIE year. And that cake, wow. It was almost bigger than I was! The tablecloth was Barbie, the wrapping paper was Barbie, and a lot of my gifts were Barbie. I really did LOVE Barbie!

For my 6th birthday, we went to Mr. Gattie's in Hendersonville.  I had some of my closest friends who also shared birthday's in February there with me: Roxanne and her twin brother and sister and Julianna, my lifelong best friend. That was a fun birthday! I asked for a MY SIZE BARBIE....I got a My Size Wendy. I took that doll EVERYWHERE!

My seventh birthday was awesome, for me anyway. My mom about pulled her hair out! I invited most of my 1st grade class, including boys. Yea, it was definitely a crazy birthday, complete with a pinata! The girls got to sit in the floor to eat the cake, but the boys had to sit at the table. Of course, all the girls found that totally hysterical!

For my 8th birthday, I wanted to invite all my classmates again. This time my mother got smart and booked the Rec Department for my party! That way we could run around in the gym and it wouldn't matter at all!

 I don't really remember my 9th birthday at all....but I do remember going to Don Pablo's for my Uncle's birthday in January.  Because I was the youngest at the table, and my birthday was coming up, they sang to me as well, complete with a sombrero and everything. I felt so special!

 But one of my favorite birthdays of all was my 10th.

This was my first sleepover!  I invited about 10 girls...which, in the fourth grade, is a BIG sleepover. We went rollerskating first and every girl in my party got hurt somehow, except me. I thought that in itself was a pretty good birthday present.  When we got home, we opened presents, and I got some pretty awesome gifts!

By the time it was time for us to go to bed, we were hyped up on cake and ice cream and soda and candy from the skating rink.  Probably wasn't a good idea to have cake right before bed....but, my mom learned the hard way again.  I remember she peeped her head out of her room and said "the next word I hear out of you girls, you're coming to sleep with me!" With that, we all grabbed our sleeping bags and moved into the den, which was further away from moms room, but closer to dads, who could sleep through a hurricane! We ended up wearing ourselves out and going to sleep at some point....

As I got older, the birthdays were a little more interesting of course.  For my 13th and 14th bday, I took my friends to the mall, one just the Asheville Mall and the other Concord Mills in Charlotte. For that birthday, we stayed in a hotel and had our own suite! It was awesome! We even bought an at-home pedicure kit, and our chaperones (My mother, her best friend, and one of my teachers/youth directors) were the "pedicurists". We also had a karaoke machine. That birthday was definitely one of my favorites.

In the years that have followed, I have had some good birthdays. Whether there was cake in the face, a party that went wrong, an expensive dinner to the Grove Park Inn, or drinking WAY too much at Wild Wing Cafe, I have really had a lot of fun!

I've learned that once a person hits age 25 or so, there are some people out there who get really depressed that they are getting old.  They hate celebrating their birthdays and they have no fun whatsoever.  I don't think I will ever be like that. I embrace age first of all, and second of all, a birthday isn't about getting older! It's not about saying GOODBYE to another year of  your life...okay, well, in a sense it is. But not the way I look at it.  I look at it as a CELEBRATION of that persons life.  Since I was almost gone before I even hit age 2, it's a celebration for me that YES! I made it another year! And it should be that way for everyone! YES! You have survived another year of your life! CONGRATULATIONS! Now, enjoy this day! It's YOUR day! This one day out of this WHOLE 365 day year is all YOURS! Do what you like with it!

And a word of advice from a very wise person I know:  if you don't wanna be another year older, don't be. If you don't want to turn 30, then don't. Be 29 for the rest of your life! It'll keep it fun =)

Why You Gotta Be ANGRY ALL THE TIME?

This is an older song by Tim and Faith, but it wasn't until last night that I really paid attention to the lyrics. It gave me chills! It was amazing how much I related to it, or rather, how much it reminded me of my PARENTS. It's amazing how you don't really pay attention to a song (or a movie for that matter) and then years later you understand it, and sometimes you actually relate to it. Last night, I thought "why didn't I listen to this before?". O well. Anyway, here it goes. Enjoy!




Here we are
What is left of a husband and a wife
With four good kids who have a way
Of gettin on with their lives
And I'm not old
But I'm gettin a whole lot older every day
It's too late to keep from going crazy
I've got to get away

The reasons that I can't stay
Don't have a thing to do with being in love
And I understand that loving a man
Shouldn't have to be this rough
You ain't the only one who feels like
This world's left you far behind
I don't know why you gotta be angry all the time

Our boys are strong now
The spittin image of you when you were young
I hope someday
They can see past what you have become
And I remember every time
I said I'd never leave
But what I can't live with
Is memories of the way you used to be

Chorus

Twenty years
Have came and went since I walked out of your door
I never quite made it back
To the one I was before
God it hurts me to think of you
For the light in your eyes was gone
Sometimes I don't know why
This old world can't leave well enough alone

Chorus

I don't know why you gotta be angry all the time

DANCE in the RAIN

It's been a little over 5 years since my grandpa, Pops, went to be with Jesus. I miss him all the time and he is always in my heart and my thoughts. But last night, he came to see me in my dreams. It's been a while since his last visit, so this dream came as a shock to me.  I woke up this morning crying (since I cry about everything).

Pops passed away when I was 16. He was fairly young: had just turned 70.  The past 5 1/2 years have been some of the most challenging of all for me, and he hasn't been here to help me out.  It saddens me, but at the same time, when I have these kind of dreams (which happen too few and far between), I am reminded that he IS here, just in a different form.

Last night, I dreamt that my family was having a big get together at my house (for a change). Everyone was getting the food ready and talking and laughing. At one point, it fell very quiet.  Someone, not really sure who, said "I wish Pops were here with us right now", and of course everyone in unison said "Yea, me too". 

Nona, my grandma, went outside to get something in her car. It was raining pretty hard outside, so she took her umbrella.  She was gone for a good while, but when she came back inside, she was laughing.  I asked her, "Nona, what's so funny?" She looked up at me with a smile and said "Look outside, Lia." 

I looked and saw my silly Pops dancing outside with a big smile on his face, no umbrella, no rain jacket, no music.  He looked up and winked at me and motioned for me to come outside with him. So, I obeyed.  I left my umbrella inside. 

We danced in the rain together as he sang one of his favorite songs (I can't remember which one it was now), laughing and carryin on.  At the end of our dance, he gave me a hug, kissed my hand and simply smiled. And then I woke up, crying.  You see, it's dreams like this that make me miss him so much.  I realize now he was sending me a message. Maybe that he's enjoying seeing me happy these days (because I'm the happiest I've been in a while). Or, maybe he's agreeing with Nona's favorite quote "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."

Though I am happy, I still have my confusing, trying times.  It's in those times I wish he was here the most, so he could crack a joke or two, or just give me one of his awesome hugs.  But now I know that he really is here, and he just wants me to dance. In the rain. With no umbrella =)