So Sad to Say

I can't help it...it's just been on the mind. Why you ask...because it's all around. No, not love. Death.
No this isn't going to be sad sappy entry. It's just on the mind.

I've been around death more than some people I know. I don't say that to brag or anything, it's just something that I grew up with. I know some people that hadn't gone to a funeral until they were in their 20's. My first funeral must have been with I was 5 or 6...maybe even before that. Just some distant relatives that I went to with my family.

Anyways...it just got me thinking. My next door neighbor died when I was about 7 (maybe younger) he was 21 and had a really bad asthma attack. Then his mother, who so happened to be my godmother died this past November because she was in a wreck with a drunk driver.
I watched my only grandfather die of cancer for a good 5 years. That finally ended when I was in the 8th grade.
Then when high school rolled around I had a friend die every summer I was in high school.
Freshman year it was Garrett, he was drinking and driving.
Sophomore year it was my neighbor Gregory, he was leaving his graduation party and took a turn too fast, hit a tree. (No he wasn't drinking because he had a heart problem).
Junior year it was another neighbor, Brandon, he was buried alive doing construction.
Senior year it was Kevin, he drowned. That year was also my best friends grandmother. (which so happened to be my friends first funeral).

Year after that is was my grandmother who had an enlarged heart. Can you believe that. Dying because your heart is too big. That seems odd to me.

There were a couple more. Jeff, a girl from TLU that I can't remember her name right now, Pedro...
Then last month it was Liz's mom who had a type of cancer.

Anyways...I won't get into all the other funerals I've been to. Plus, most TV shows I watch have some type of murder or patient that is dying. How can you not be around it?

My feelings on death come and go. Sometimes I'm not scared and I think, I could go peacefully right now. Other times I think, I want to live 60 more years so that I can get married and have a family and see what that's all about.

We talked about death in Bible Study a little last week, for more of a comfort. We believe in something after death...Eternal life, God, Angels. For Christians it's almost something to look forward to. Forever is a long time, but it's going to be so great once we're all together.

But what if you don't believe in an after life? I don't know. I had a good friend that I met in Ju.Co. that grew up in a non-Christian household and it made me sad when we talked about religion and faith. He believed in just living a good honest life was good enough and that when you die...that's it's you're gone. Sad.
Yes I think we should all live a good honest life, but what about Jesus. He is our gate we pass through to get to heaven. We need him in our lives. Listen to me being all preachy...that's not like me. I guess this is just my way of "evangelizing" because I'm not good at that in real life.

I don't know, it's just something to think about. We all need to be prepared because we all know that something can happen in a blink of an eye. I just want to comforted and know that I will get to see all my friends and relatives when I leave this earth. I have some family that don't go to church or believe in anything and it just makes me really sad. I'm not saying you have to be a preacher or anything. Just look into it and open your eyes to all the wonderful things God has given us.
I could go on an on but my hands are aching from typing....
Blessings to you all.

"I'll let you in on how I'm feeling
you've got a lot of nerve
you'll get what you deserve
granted this feelings unappealing
I'm bitter, I'll admit
now I've gotta deal with it
just one more thing okay
it so s-sad to say, it's,

so sad to say
what we had has gone away
ya could say its sad
think of what we could have had"
-Mighty Mighty Bosstones

What to Say...

I didn't think my stories on my blog were ever that fascinating. It was just a way for me to get things off my chest. But here lately I've been getting a lot of suggestions of what I should write about. Last month Chad asked me to write about a funny life story, but I still haven't thought of one. Last week Kyle wanted me to write about him and how awesome he is, but I still haven't thought of any words for him. And my bother thinks I'm a loser for even having a blog.
So where to go from here...

I had an awesome weekend. It really was. Friday was my...well, I always shop on Friday's. Not for anything in particular, just to get out of the house. I should have gone grocery shopping because I'm pretty much out of food. Oh well. But anyways...I got to go out Friday night. Yea me! It starts off with a phone call from Kyle saying that him and Brandon are going downtown and inviting me along. If you read between the lines its more of: Brandon and I want to go downtown, will you drive us? Sure. So I call Lauren to meet up with us so that I'll know more people. It was great. We went to a couple of places and we just had a great time. I was just excited to be out of the apartment.
It was kind of funny because a couple of times that night I had mentioned to Lauren that it would be neat if we ran into someone we knew...well, I did. As we were walking back to the car I ran into my oldest brother Cory and our friend Jared. . (Sorry you missed meeting him Lauren). I hadn't seen him since Christmas, so it's always fun to see family. So we chit-chatted for a while, but they had to go home and go to sleep. (On that note, I got a funny picture from Jared of Cory sleeping that night...hee hee)
Anyways...we drove back him and then I went to Whataburger for some taquito's because I was Starving. So I sat on my living room floor and ate both tacos and watched some TV before heading off to bed at 3:00.

Saturday was another amazing day. I got out of bed at about 11:30 and plopped myself down on the couch for pretty much the rest of the day. It was ridiculous. I stayed there, in my pajamas until about 11:00 before heading back to my bed. I think I need more days like that. Just do nothing days.

Then Sunday was pretty laid back. Nothing too crazy. I hung out with Maggie because her parent's are out of state on a vacation. So we went to the mall and then to youth group and had a sleep over that night. There's just something about sleeping in a bed that's not yours. I didn't sleep very well at all last night. I woke up at least 13 times and woke up soooo tired. Anyways...it was a pretty sweet weekend. Now it's back to work...

"Aw yeah, alright,
truth hurts inside
Aw yeah, that's right,
you go around once in life
Everybody wants to be a part
Everybody loves a situation
Who would ever want to play the part
Of anonymous numbers on a governmental chart"
-Better Than Ezra

Grey's

I love Grey's Anatomy. It's just a great show and there's always a "lesson" that can be taught or learned...or whatever.

The last line of the show from last night was: "The truth hurts, so we lie"

True True True

That's all there it to it. There's no point in going deeper into it or explaining why. But we lie because we don't want to hurt people's feelings, or make ourselves look bad. Whatever the case may be...we lie because sometimes the truth just hurts. I could say so many stories pertaining to this, but I couldn't just choose a couple. So there it is...if you wonder why you have been lied to over and over again and why you do the same thing to others...

The Truth Hurts, So We Lie.

SNEAKY

Peanut has gotten a little too comfortable in her surroundings lately. She thinks she has free reign of the whole apartment. I find her in the most random places: The "drawer thing" under the stove, shelves in the pantry, she's managed to make her way behind the cabinets in the kitchen to climb up the wall and into one of my drawers in the kitchen. Weird. Sunday I found her running across my hanging clothes in my closet. How does she do all this? Goodness sakes, I have no clue.
She's even gone missing for a while. What if we could do that? Make our way into random places, places where people could never find us? Places where we could go and just not be found for a while.

I think we need places like that. To just give us time to be away from everything and not be bothered. OK, yes, I already live by myself, so is that like "getting away from everything"? Sort of. But I think it's good to not be somewhere that you're always at.
Growing up, I would just go some where on our property: a tree, swing, roof, ground...something.
Now my only place to get away is to drive. The world now is a little scary. It's not like I can just go sit in the park, or take a walk around the neighborhood. As trusting as I am of everyone, I'm a little scared at times. How did the world get this way?

I give off a very strong persona-like no one can touch me. But believe me, I'm all talk. I'm just as scared as the rest of you. Scared of lots of things: the future, strangers, commitment, being attacked, spiders, failing...
When did people become scared? Did people always have all these worries? I just think it would be simple if there was nothing to scare them. Well, Duh! Life shouldn't be scary. Are we the ones scaring ourselves? I feel like I'm just going off on tangents right now. But each question leads you some where else. It's true, life is full of questions.

Life is also full of...living. My neighbor once told me that's all that life asks of us, is to just live it.

How do you live it? How do I live it? I don't know... Be Happy.?!
How do you become happy? Where do you find happiness? I wish I knew.

I can tell myself to look happy and put on a smile...but it feels very fake to me. I can "make" myself happy when I'm around people doing things I love...but even then I feel like I'm putting on a show. I absolutely hate that feeling. I have absolutely no reason to not be happy. Maybe it's just a chemical imbalance...
This is just me venting. I'm not doing this for sympathy, I'm going this because I don't like to actually talk about it.

Back to Reality-
I wonder if I found something to make me happy-would I truly be happy? Who knows. I just don't wan to fake anybody out. I also don't want to fake myself out.

As I sit here writing, I'm thinking- I wanted to share something fun and silly about my rat and here I am complaining about something. That's how my personality is. I seem to be able to complain about anything and everything. My apologies to everyone who has had to hear me complain.

Something else that is on my mind. I watched Friday night as Eminem got married. How sad did that make me?!! My chances with Mr. Marshall Mathers are now gone. Although, he's divorced Kim once, maybe he'll do it again. But I do think they should stay together, for Hailey's sake. I guess that means that Chris Carraba needs to hurry up and fall in love with me!!
I'm waiting...

"And you know it's not so easy when you're all alone,
And I wonder if, I'm alone in your head."
-The Early November

Futures

I've been thinking about the future a lot lately. Like, what does it have in store for me, what direction should I be going in, where will I be in two year?
I'll be a quarter century old in a couple years, and I look at my life, and I think I've accomplished a good amount of things. Good friends, finished college early, I have a good job, I can support myself. Are things still going to be the same in a couple years. The plan is to be married and have babies sometime before I'm 30...that only gives me 7 years. Then what? Then I have to stay in one place. Not that I move around a lot right now, but I could if I wanted to. I haven't really lived in the same place for a more than a couple years since high school. I like getting to be free and have options. Not that I always jump on them, but it's nice to know they're there.

I want to keep having those options. Move if I ever wanted to. Get a different job if I wanted to. I don't know. It's just going to be weird thinking that soon I'll have to "settle down". I know it will be awesome once I do, but right now it's weird to think about. My parents have lived in the same house for over 27 years, and my dad has been going to his same for job for over 20. It sounds lame, but their happy. I just can't imagine myself doing that. But I guess one day I will. I especially see it after this weekend. I have a friend from college that lives in Round Rock who is my age that I visited. She's been married for a while and already have a 4 month old daughter. My best friend from back home was also there and she's been married a while and 6 months pregnant. I felt so awkward sitting there, we were all grown up. What happened? It's just weird to see it all happening right in front of my face. Sometimes I just don't want to be a grown up and I want someone to take care of me...but then again, I love the independance of not having to worry about anyone but myself....

"I, I always could count on futures
That things would look up, and they look up
Why is it so hard to find balance
Between living decent and the cold and real
Hey now, what is it you think you see?"
-Jimmy Eat World

My Apologies

I'm sorry Chris...it's taken me a while to get a write up out about my White Elephant gift. I had been sad for so long that I had never received it...well...it came over the holiday's while I was out of my apartment and it had been held in the complex office for the few days that I was gone.

I picked it up on January 2nd or 3rd, I can't remember because last week was kind of shady for me.

But as soon as I walked in the apartment office and saw the pile of boxes that had been delivered over the holidays, I saw my special box that was right on top. Becky Moczygemba was scribbled on it. Not really, the hand writing was very nice. It was a nice box, cute in size. (sorry, I just like boxes for some reason).

Those three flights of stairs to my door took a while because I was excited and carrying a bunch of stuff. As soon as I got in the door I put my stuff down and picked up Peanut, she sat in my lap as I opened my box. I had to get up and get some scissors because it was taped pretty good.

A note was the first thing I saw as I opened the box, an artistically drawn reindeer with the words Merry Christmas written above it. "Yea!" I said.

Under the drawing was my gift.
Now this is no ordinary gift. It was something that my brother's and I had tried to do growing up and never really had success.

I'll give you clues:

It's round





It's about 5 or 6 inches in diameter






It can bounce really well, my neighbors underneath me most likely weren't happy that I was bouncing it on my kitchen floor.





It's pretty heavy




OK....I'll tell you what it is.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
...it's a rubberband ball.

It was amazing. I had never seen one this big in my life. Peanut enjoyed crawling on it and sniffing around on it. It was very interesting to her.

Thank you Chris for this lovely gift. It has hours of intertainment rolled up in it.

Life in the Fast Lane

I don't even know where to begin. Life has been throwing punches at me for the past couple of days and I just feel the bruises coming up. I just need to sleep for 24 hours, because maybe when I wake up everything will be fine.

I had a nice visit at home with my family. It's always nice to see them and be around people that I love and that love me. That's just an awesome feeling.
Coming back...now that's another story.

Work has made me nervous, uncomfortable, weary, ganged up on and at the same time, I'm excited to be back and start a new year. I have had some uncomfortable situations come up while meeting with my youth. I had some "adults" observe and intervene with my night. It was, to me, really rude and un-called for. I don't like that people just assume they can come up and interupt my group because they want things done a certain way. I was so upset and just steamed Sunday night and it really isn't getting any better.

I have been having meetings non-stop it seems. I'm scared of my meeting tomorrow. It's with my Committee chair and then apparently whoever else just feels like showing up. SCARY. From what I've heard around the way...I should be a little scared. Apparently I'm not pulling enough weight around here. Whatever that means. I've been working like crazy the past couple months. I'm sorry to all you families that don't have children that don't see all the work I do. My evaluation has also been postponed. It should have been last month and I haven't heard any talk of when it is going to be. Yuck...now, that's a scary feeling. Hopefully I'm just analyzing things too much and it's not going to big of a deal. But then again...maybe it's good that I am so that I can prepare myself. What a sinking feeling.

I also mentioned to my boss today about the "lonliness" feeling. I don't think he took me very literally...or maybe it was too literally. He suggested that I go on eHarmony.com to try and find someone in the area to meet. I'm looking into it. Mostly just for grins.

Anyways...things have been a tad stressful the past couple days and I've really been shutting myself out because I just don't really know how to deal with everything that is going on. But I ask you all for prayers of strength for my meeting tomorrow, and just for support for whatever happens.

Spell It Out

Well it's almost midnight and I just arrived back home in the great...well, the town of Floresville. It's a nice place to come and visit. I haven't been up this late in a while, except for last night when Kyle and Brandon and I went to see "The Family Stone". I'm tired, but I know I won't get to sleep, so I might as well be a little productive. I'll start by why I'm back home.

Last weekend (Sunday the 1st to be exact) I talked with my mother about my work I did over the Holiday season and she begins to tell me about Liz's mom. Liz is married to one of my Best friends, Keith. Keith's mom and my mom have been best friends since the 8th. Long time family friends. Liz's mom has cancer and the doctors said she was getting better. Turns out, she wasn't. On Sunday my mother told me that it was so bad that they were only giving her a couple WEEKS to live. That's bad. I watched my Grandfather die of cancer, but that took about 6 years for it to actually take him.

My mother continues to tell me that she just HATES the word "CANCER". So much so that as she is talking, her voice is cracking. Now I consider my mother to be a very strong person (and she is) but certain things really get to her. Such as, Cancer. She was 47 when her dad died of Cancer and she was just very upset that a 21 year old girl was having to watch her mother die of it.
Anyways...
Liz's mom died on Wednesday. A couple of weeks turned into three days. How rough is that?

So I had two hours of driving to think about this.
I'm 23, and I don't know what I would do if I had to watch anyone of my parents suffer/die from cancer. That is a scary/horrible/sad thing to have to go through. Then I thought how different I would act if my parents did have cancer. Why is that? Why should we only be good and share our appreciation with them only because they're sick? That is something that we should do daily and not have to think about doing. I love my parents to death, but I can't even tell you the last time that I said "I love you" to either one of them. We just don't do that in my family. We all know that we love each other, but we just don't actually come out and say the words. Isn't that sad?

I think it's terrible. I definitely take for granted that my parents are healthy and there for me whenever I need them. I hate that. I don't know what I would do if I lost one of them right now. I wouldn't be able to function for a long time. I sometimes have a hard enough time as it is now, but I can always call them, or drive down if I need to. I wouldn't be able to do that if they weren't here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need to start telling people how I really feel about them. Not just occasionally, but all the time. You never know what is going to happen. I love all you guys out there and I appreciate everything about you.

I hope no one has to go through was Liz is going through right now. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day, just because I am so sad to see someone so young lose a parent. Her children won't have that grandmother, Liz won't have her mother. I could go on and on. I just need to be thankful that I have a healthy and loving family...

God Bless...

What's the word?

I don't know how to explain it, the feeling just comes and goes. My first year of being on my own was awesome. I was strong and independent and didn't let things get to me. Boy has that changed. I still consider myself to be a very strong person-I have to, I'm on my own. But there are just days where I feel completely alone. Maybe it just has something to do with being a girl. We always need that sense of security, to know that we're wanted or supported (I don't really know what it is).

I grew up with three brothers and so I've always had many guy friends. Even in college, most of my friends were guys. Which was great, I never had to impress them. There wasn't the intimidation factor and so there was no competition like there is when you're friends with girls. Well this past week at the youth gathering that I helped plan I got to hang out with my old boss. Now we're friends because we're colleagues, and every summer I get to see him at camp and hang out with other former staff. Girls don't really get in on this group for reasons I won't get in to.
Well last week we got to play poker (which is something they usually do anyways). Something came up about playing a certain poker game in the future and I asked if I would get to be a part of it because it's usually a guy thing, and my friend says: "Of course, you're one of the guys".

For being such simple words, they kind of hurt. Why am I always just "one of the guys"? Sometimes it would be nice to be a "Girl" and treated like one.

But back to my lonely story, Last night was just one of those "lonely feeling" nights. I think it's more of a personal thing that needs dealing with because I had stuff I could have been doing-but it's also one of those things where I needed to be alone.
I would just sit on my couch thinking-I need to get out and meet people and so something with my social life, or get a Hobby. Something. But Austin is a little far to go sometimes because there's no social scenes in my area.

So if there are any offers or suggestions to get me out....lay 'em on me.

My mom got a frame as her white elephant gift and wanted a picture of all the kiddo's to put in it. 

TOO MUCH...

So much has happened in the last two weeks that I'm not even going to go into any sort of detail until something majorly exciting pops into my mind. So I'll just recap my last few events.

• Went home for Christmas. Got to hang out with all of my family. Didn't really get to run into any old friends, but just as well. Didn't get much sleep because I now live in the living room when I go home.
• My uncle tries to set me up with a 37 year old friend of his brother's. I say a big NO to that one.
• Got to see the Polar Express for the first time...in 3-D at the Imax no less and it was awesome!!
• Went to my first Fondu party. YUM!!
• Left home the day after Christmas to go to the Senior High Gathering.
• Got an incredibly rude "yelling" from my male sponsor. I'm not talking to him at the moment.
• Had an awesome time staying up until 1:00 every night and waking up at 6:45 every morning to work my 18 hour days. But whatever, I think everything was a huge success.
• Got back home from the gathering and slept for hours.
• Went to Laurens for New Years!!! Good Times! Good Times!
• Bought a bigger TV with my Christmas bonus and have been watching movies for the past couple days.
• Met a college buddy to watch the Notre Dame v. Ohio State game. Bad game, but GREAT company!!
• Now it's off to purchase "Wedding Crasher's" and sit in my apartment and do nothing for the rest of the day!!

Working hard at our Senior High Gathering!!