Day 31 {Quickie}

Day 31

I'm not feeling very inspired today, plus I've been cleaning the house, and need to get ready for work. Just a really quick self portrait before I finish getting ready for work.

Day 30 {Hug}

Day 30

"Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism." ~Leo Buscaglia

Day 29 {Snow}

Day 29

“To appreciate the beauty of a snow flake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.”~Unknown

Yesterday everything was melting and today we have a blizzard warning and -30 wind chills! Brrrrr! I so wish I were on the beach somewhere warm.

Back at it again

I've decided that it's time to get back on Sparkpeople and start exercising and using that treadmill that we bought last year.

I noticed that my clothes were starting to get a little tight and my double chin has made an appearance again. I'm not liking it, so I decided that starting today I'm going to start following my plan again. Well the only plan before was eating between 1200-1550 calories a day. I'm going to do that again and also use my treadmill.

I haven't weighed myself yet, but I should do that tomorrow morning. Also measure myself again. I was doing so good too, and then I started to indulge too much into the sweets and snacky stuff and not drinking my water.

When all is said and done today I will have had 1264 calories, 214 carbs, 23 grams of fat, and 47 grams of protein. All of them are within my recommended ranges at Sparkpeople, except for fat. My fat there was 27 grams for the low end. I'm not going to worry about that though, it's only 4 grams off.

I actually had to add a couple snacky things in today since with my meals, I was under on calories. Which is a good thing, since when I work until 10 p.m. I tend to snack to stay awake.

I hope this works again, especially with the added exercise in. :)

Day 28 {Caught in a thought}

Day 28

And no, I'm not going to tell you what I was thinking. ;)

Day 27 (Some days}

Day 27

Some days you just want to hide from everyone and everything and taking a picture is the last thing you want to do.

Day 26 {Caught you!}

Day 25 {Jumping on the bed}

Day 25

This didn't turn out how I envisioned at all. It turned out that the ceiling in the hotel was too low and I couldn't jump high at all without fear of hitting my head.

I will admit that it was fun jumping on the bed again. Sometimes you just have to act like a kid again.

Day 24 {Happy Birthday}

Happy Birthday to me today!

Day 23 {Best gift to give}

Day 23

The best give to give is the gift of life. Give blood. Each donation saves 3 lives and takes hardly any time.

Day 22 {Beauty is pain}

Day 22

Back from the salon and getting my brows waxed. Ouch. At least I am presentable again.

As I was going through the pictures I took, I noticed a sadness in my eyes in every single picture.

He denied it

I've been putting off writing this entry for a few days. Part of me doesn't want to believe it.

Last Friday night, Ma, Jules and I went up to C. County and Jules was questioned a bit more. They needed a few other questions answered, and I was shocked when we found out that P. County didn't answer them. Now I'm not a police officer or anything, but I would know enough to ask the questions.

After the Officer was done with Jules, they went and interrogated the Bastard. They said that they questioned him hard, but he denied everything. Deep down I knew that would happen, but I was hoping and praying that he would admit to it.

Now it is up to the County Attorney's office to decide whether or not to pursue this and take it to court. I'm torn on that. I want the Bastard to pay for what he did to Jules. He deserves to be behind bars and I'm afraid that he will do this again. No, I know he will do this again. He needs help so he doesn't do this again. NO ONE deserves to be through this. On the other hand if it does go to court more than likely Jules would have to testify against him. I don't want her to go through that.

There is really nothing more we can do right now except to wait and see what happens next.

I wish there was a way for the Bastard to know what all this has done to us. How much it hurts to have your 13 year old sister go through this. She has never been one to be afraid of the dark, she has never, ever slept with a light on. Last week, she asked me where a good spot for a night light be in her room. We got found one, and got one put up, but it wasn't bright enough, we ended up putting a small light in her room. She said that the night before she woke up and thought the Bastard was in her room. I can't tell you how much that tore me apart. The next day I asked her now she slept and she said not good, I'm having bad dreams. It kills me to know that she is going through this. Ma is too...Ma blames herself for this, and she shouldn't. I wish he knew how much this is effecting all of us. That his little "fun" that he thought he was having is going to stay with all of us for the rest of our lives.

Day 21 {All about me}

Day 21

This isn't a "good" picture, but I like it. You can tell a lot about me by this one picture.

~I love my music. I have Itunes up on my laptop here, and either the ipod of my laptop is always playing music.

~Even though I'm 24, I still wear bright clothes, and fun shirts.

~I'm always fussing with my hair. It doesn't matter if it's wet or dry, I'm always messing with it. I wish I didn't have curly hair.

~Somedays it's just fun to watch it snow out the window.

~The picture in the background is Kenny Chesney. It never hurts to have some eye candy around. ;) I'm also a huge country music fan, though I listen to just about anything.

~Right behind the calendar on my desk is a Dwight Schrute bobblehead. That is my all time favorite TV show.

~I'm working on trimming down my pictures that I printed out today in hopes to scrapbook them.

~To my right in the cabinet is a bunch of scrapbooking stuff. One of my hobbies.

~Peeking out behind my laptop is a ruler which I always seem to lose. I try to be organized, but sometimes it just doesn't happen.

~I have to have pens, markers, and scissors nearby. I always seem to be grabbing them.

Great deal!

I got a great deal at Hy-Vee today. Since I was gone all last week, we moved that food up to this week and didn't really need to go grocery shopping. I peeked at the Hy-Vee ad and I'm glad that I did.

For a whopping $6.57 I got:

1 box Captain Crunch Cereal (Crunch Berries, one of Jason's favs, I learned!)
1 box Quaker Variety Pack Granola Bars
1 box Quaker Chewy Chocolate Chunk Granola Bars
1 box Quaker Simple Harvest Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
1 container Quaker Quick Oats
1 package Kotex Ultra Thin Pads
4 Oranges
1 head of lettuce
1 bunch of bananas

I thought I did pretty good! I love finding good deals on things we can use!!!

Day 20 {Hold my hand}

Day 20

Hold my hand
Want you to hold my hand
Hold my hand
Ill take you to a place where you can be
Hold my hand
Anything you wanna be because
I wanna love you the best that, the best that I can

~Hold My Hand by Hootie & the Blowfish

Day 19 {So Happy Together}

Day 19

Back in my loves arms after being apart for 5 days.

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be
The only one for me is you, and you for me
So happy together

~Happy Together by The Turtles

Day 18 {At the bar}

Day 18

For those of you that know me, I'm not a drinker at all. This day I was at the bar with Ma and seen all the cases of beer lined up in the back. Of course I couldn't resist this for my self-portrait today.

Progress!

I finally feel like we are making more headway here!

Ma got a call back this evening from the Officer in C. County where the case was transferred. I feel like we are making progress!

Tomorrow the Bastard will be served with the restraining order and he will be interrogated for what he did to Jules. This is great news, considering that they still do not have the paperwork from P. County, other than what the Victim's advocate group sent to them when the case was transferred.

The officer is having everyone step up the investigation on the other case against the Bastard and hopes to have him behind bars no later than next week. That is still too long in my opinion, but it's better than nothing. I have a feeling that if P. County was still handling the investigation we wouldn't be even close to this far.

Progress is being made. I can't tell you how wonderful that feels.

Day 17 {Part of me} and a Bonus photo!

After this this week, I dont feel like I'm totally here. I feel like only part of me is here.

Update on Jules

I feel like we are making progress today.



This morning I called the C. County Sherriff office and got the name of the person who is handing another case involving the Bastard. All I did was call the general Sherriff's number, and say I had some information involving *insert the Bastards name here* that the Office might find helpful and would like to speak to the officer. They coudn't find a recent case, but an older case and gave me the officer's name, a number to reach her at, and the case number. Ma seemed to be shocked that I was able to get that much information, but I felt that was progress. I called and left a message for both the officer and the police chief and this evening I got to speak to the officer.



She was *shocked* that he hasn't been arrested yet, or even QUESTIONED. She was not happy at all. We went through everything with her over the phone, gave her the case numbers, and any and all information we had. She said that was going to work on the tonight, be in contact with the offier/investigator from P. County and give us a call back tomorrow with what she has found out. She sounded like she was disguested with how P. County was handling these things and I'm hopeful that things will be progressing now.



In other news we got the Order of Protection signed and the judge said that the Bastard can not request a court hearing to dispute the Order for Protection. I thought that was a VERY good thing.

I finally feel like we are moving forward.

I don't know what to think.....

I don’t know what to think right now. This afternoon we picked up the girlies at school at 3 p.m. so we could run down to Hinckley to pick up the signed copy of the order for protection for Julie from the WINDOW office. We picked them up at school because we were also going to go and see Alvin and the Chipmunks with us girls in the family. It was going to be kind of a girls night out. Ma’s thinking was that it would be to kind of get back into a normalcy around here, and try to interject something positive in with all that’s been going on. Even growing up, going to a movie was a big treat, because we don’t do it often at all. It’s still that way.

While waiting in the theatre parking lot for the theatre to open at 4. (We had a 20 minute wait for the theatre to open and then a 20 minute wait for the movie to start.) Sue basically snapped. I don’t know how else to put it other than that. She turned into a yelling, screaming, raving, mad woman. I know that sounds cruel, but I honestly don’t know how else to describe it. Ma gave her the choice to either calm down and go into the theatre with us or to go home, and then her cell phone, camera, going to the game tomorrow night, and computer time would all be taken away for a week. She kept changing her mind every 5 seconds as to what she wanted to do. If she would go in or not. It was like a flipped switched. I couldn’t believe she was acting this way. Then she continued her yelling and screaming. She blamed Ma for her AVN. She told me that I’m up on a pedestal, and that I don’t know how it feels to be an underachiever. She blamed Julie and I for getting good grades and then making her feel bad about it. She just went on and on. I flat out told her that this isn’t normal and that she needed help. She then went off on a triad about how when she needed meds 2 years ago that no one listened to her. She doesn’t even take the meds she has now. I couldn’t believe how she was yelling and screaming at Ma and I, not so much at Julie thankfully. I knew that Ma and Dad have been struggling with her, but I honestly didn’t believe that she was throwing temper tantrums worse than a 2 year old. She even hit the window of the truck in her anger.

I don’t know what to think. I know that she needs to take her meds. In my opinion, it’s almost like she flipped a switch, in less than 2 seconds. I think that she needs to see a counselor, take her meds on a regular basis, and possibly even go to anger management.

I truly don’t know how Ma puts up with it. I really don’t. I hate to even admit this, but if I had my own vehicle here, I would be back on my way down to Rochester right now.

It kills me that she is treating everyone with no respect. I know she was raised better than that. It kills me that I don’t know what to do. That I know I can’t help with this. I simply don’t know what to do. All I want to do is cry and go to sleep right now. I honestly don’t know how the family deals with her moods and anger like this. I couldn’t live with it. I know I couldn’t.

I just hope and pray that things get better. I don’t know what more I can do.

Day 16 {Brrrrr}

It's cold outside today! After being fairly warm in the 30's and 40's today's 8 degree windchill felt very cold!!

Day 15 {Reading}

Sitting on the couch at my parents house reading a book. Trying to kill a bit of time before we headed back to things again.

Hard

Today has been a whirlwind. I got up at 9 a.m. this morning and by 10:30 Jason and I were out the door to head to Forest Lake to meet Ma. I was able to call work, talk to one of the secretaries and the manager and with a few tears shed, I was able to get the two days off I was scheduled to work this week.

I shocked the girlies with my presence here. I made Julie cry, even though I didn't mean to. I told them that they are stuck with me until Saturday.

We still haven't talked to a deputy in person. We are told that will happen "very soon." Tomorrow we are going to file an order of protection against the Bastard that did this to Jules, and I printed out the forms online, so we would have all the information needed. Jules had to sit down and write out everything that has happened to her. It killed me to read that. How in the world could someone do this to her? Why would he? I managed to read through, and get a few more details from her, dates, etc. I also found a form for Ma to fill out to get the fee waived. They thought it would be waived based on what happened, but if not, Ma will have everything needed to fill out this separate form. While we are at WINDOW, we are also going to ask about a lawyer. I believe that they will be able to point us in the right direction. I also believe that Julie should have someone to talk to about this. I don't know if she is ready for that yet, but I think that she should see someone....I could be totally off base there, I don't know.

It just kills me that someone could do this to a 13 year old girl.

So far, I've been good, and haven't cried much at all, and when I have, it wasn't around Ma or Jules. I have to be strong.

The high point of the day was cooking supper with Jules. We made French Toast and sausage. It was just fun. Despite everything, I'm happy to be "home" for the week.

Day 14

Day 14

On the way up north to help support my family for the week.

Day 13 {Pain}

Day 13

It's funny how things can change with one simple phone call. This was taken shortly after I received a phone call with bad news. This picture is hard for me to post for many different reasons. It's not a perfect picture of me, but I'm posting it because this is how I feel today.

Hurt. Angry. Devastated. Crying. Furious. Helpless. And a million other emotions.

I can not even describe how it feels to receive a phone call telling you that someone in your family has been molested.

But this is me. This is the real me today.

Blogging

Do you ever start a blog entry in your head, while you are in the middle of doing something else, and swear that you are going to remember what you came up with to post it on your blog and then you never do?

I do this all the time it seems. If only I would break away and start writing, right that second, I would have many more blog entries?

Do you find that you "censor" yourself on your blogs? I do. I'm finding that I sit down to blog, type up and entry, and then decide that it's too personal to post here. Not many people read my blog, but yet, I still find that I censor myself. Some days I think it's good, but other days I wonder if it is a good thing. Should *my* blog be about me? About what I want to say? About what's on my mind? I'm guessing that those of you reading this, would say yes, but for some reason I can't do it. I can't bring myself to post what is truly running through my mind. I keep it all inside me. I've tried writing elsewhere, but I don't do that often either. I find all of this interesting to me....it's kind of funny how these realizations are coming forward.

Before logging into the computer and blogger, I was reading a book, actually just finished it, and was thinking about the different aspects of the book. Now, when I read, I tend to get emotionally involved in the book. I tend to laugh, smile, and cry. The end of this book, I ended up crying. It's a typical romance novel about how two people fall in love and live happily ever after. Sometimes I wish that true life was like the romance novels. I'm thinking it's time to take a break from reading them for a while.

Day 12

Day 12

"Savor life's tiny delights---a crackling fire, a glorious sunset, a hug from a child, a walk with a friend, a cup of soup, a kiss behind the ear." ~John Anthony

Baking biscuits this eventing in my cherry apron. It's the simple things that make me the happiest.

Day 11

Day 11

Sometimes a nap with a favorite blanket can make everything better.

One Word.

Ali Edwards is huge in the scrapbooking world for those of you not familiar with the name. I have been following her blog for quite a while and get her newsletters as well. I just love her.

I'm not sure how long she has been doing it, but she chooses a word for the year. Here is a link explaining more about it. Basically you choose a word that sums up what you want for the next year.

I didn't do this last year, and I wasn't sure about doing it this year either, but it keeps getting brought up in my mind. Something is nagging at me to do this, so I'm going to.

I've spent a lot of time pursuing Ali's past blog entries and newsletters trying to think up a word. If your having a hard time, she has some lists on her blog of words people have chosen. I went through and thought of close to a dozen words that seemed to fit. One word kept coming back at me. Almost haunting me. I feel like the word chose me, rather than me choosing the word, since I can't seem to get it out of my mind.

cultivate

Yes, it's not your typical word that you would chose to define your year by. But I have come to the realization that I'm not your typical woman anyway. It seems to fit.

{Definition adapted from www.thefreedictionary.com}
cul·ti·vate
To improve and prepare
To grow or tend
To nurture; foster
To form and refine
To seek the acquaintance or goodwill of; make friends with.

This word fits me. It so fits me and where I want to go in the next year.

I challenge you to find your One Word. To journal it for the next year. To find inspiration in your word. To look for your word.

Ali has some great ideas on her blog for this. Check it out. It's linked in the very first occurrence of her name here.

Day 10

"The eyes are the window of the soul."

~English Proverb

That's all I wrote on my flickr page. I'm not one to wear much make up. Honestly, most of my pictures for my self-portrait a day have been with me wearing no make up. I'm not a huge fan of it. But today I decided to put on some foundation, powder, and do my eyes up. I very rarely do that.

Day 9 {Driving}

Day 9

Out and about driving from one craft store to another in search of the ever elusive journal.

Day 8

Day 8

Quit taking my damn picture!

Oh wait, I'm the photographer....

Day 7

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know

How to say

How I feel

~"Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol

Quotes

I signed up to get the quotes of the day from Real Simple magazine. Actually, lately it seems like I've been collecting quotes. Here are some of my favorites that I've stumbled across.

"Beauty comes as much from the mind as from the eye." --Gary Livingston

"With lies you may get ahead in the world -but you can never go back." --Russian proverb

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit." --Peter Ustinov

"A man isn't poor if he can still laugh." --Raymond Hitchcock

"A hug is a great gift -one size fits all, and it's easy to exchange." --Anonymous

"When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be that they take better care of it there." --Cecil Selig

"Kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that they can't see anything wrong with each other." --Rene Yasenek

"Patience is the companion of wisdom." --St. Augustine

"Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success." --Swami Sivananda

"No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap." --Carrie Snow

"My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require." --Edward Elgar

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." --Joseph Campbell

"Look at yourself, like yourself, and find the positive." --Dana Buchman

"Look back and smile on perils past." --Sir Walter Scott

"Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of the sunbeams." --Helen Keller

"I am beautiful no matter what they say." --Christina Aguilera

"Life is too short and too amazing to spend time worring about imperfection." --Ali Edwards

"A day without laughter is a day wasted." --Charles Chaplain

I know that there were more I wanted to share, but I don't remember where I put them right now. Enjoy. :)

Day 6 {Cold Feet}

Cold feet in the snow.

Day 5

Frizzy, curly, out of control hair tonight. That's what I get when I don't use my hair product.

Target

I love Target! I have always liked it but since getting more into coupons, I've been loving it even more. You can find so many good deals there.

I did today. I got roughly $360 worth of stuff for $105. I think that's pretty damn good. Here is a picture. Yes, there are TWO vacuums in there!!!

Day 4

Playing with the light coming through a window in the living room and wearing my boots that I need to wear more often.

Day 3

Fresh from a nice, hot, and steamy shower this morning. I love my love hot showers, especially on a chilly winter day. It's the perfect way to wake up, especially after a restless night of attempting to sleep.

Day 2

Favorite pair of jeans. I have a thing about socks, I hate them. I would much rather be going barefoot around the house. If and when I wear socks, they have to be fun and different. I love tihs pair. Nothing says sweet like a skull with a bow on it.


In other news my Expedit shelf has been moved into my scrapbooking room. I'm feeling very overwhelmed with all the stuff I have and finding homes for all of it. Wish me luck!

Glamour Shots

Way back in 2000, the summer between my junior and senior year of high school a bunch of friends went and took Glamour Shots. We lived in a real small town and had the traveling Galmour Shots stop by and of course we had to go. Here are the hilarious results.

Intro & Day 1

I've started using Flickr! a lot more (it's a photosharing site) and they have groups that you can join. While looking at pictures, I stumbled across a group there called 365days. Basically you take a self-portrait each day and post it on Flickr! and send it to the group.


Here is my entry for today.
























There is nothing like a Starbucks Vanilla Latte on a cold winter day. It's like heaven in a cup.

2008

It's January 1, 2008. Wow, where in the world did 2007 go? It seems the year flew by.

There is something about a new year, that is like a fresh start. You can leave the last year behind and move forward. That's what I hope to do.

Some of my favorite bloggers have done a year in review on their blog either written or with pictures. I thought about doing that, but decided not to. It just sounds like too much work right now, lol

Here's to a good 2008. :)