New Year's Resolutions

2011 is approaching quickly. It seems the older you get the quicker time goes buy. Well, I guess its that time of year where I start picking my New Year's Resolutions. I first want to go over things I am thankful for, and glad I have:
-Sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles
-Electric blankets
-Slippers
-Health Insurance
-Trilyte alternatives, such as Miralax
-Those cute little popcorn tins that have cheese, butter, and carmel popcorn
-Healthy people
-Doctors
-Starbucks
-Good people
-Jamba Juice
-Fry sauce
-Internet
-My laptop
-My camera
-My hubby
-My pets
-My family
-My friends
-Online message boards
-Shoes
-Jetted tubs
-The health procedures I will get/have got done
-My contacts
-Snow
-Sunshine
-Humor
-Rosetta Stone
-Movies
-Door knobs that are not broken

Now what on earth I am going to make my New Year's Resolutions? Hmmm....any ideas? Here's what I can come up with off the top of my head:
-Get G.E.D.
-Get a good paying part time job
-Look into starting midwife schooling
-Get at least one more car (with 4 wheel drive)
-Put money into savings
-Pay off some debt
-Move
-Have a "real" wedding
-Get Corona's surgery done
-Upgrade my fish tank
-Get more organized in our living spaces
-Finish learning French
-Freshen up my American Sign Language skills
-Get blog sponsors
-Get at least 50 followers

I think those are good goals. Don't forget to follow me, so you can see how my New Year's Resolutions are going! Well lovelies, what are your New Year's Resolution?

Keep on rollin'

How was every one's holidays? Good, I hope. I disappointed myself yesterday. I woke up all stoked for Christmas, I enjoyed it very much until about 1 o'clock. At noon I took my medicine and on top of making me put on like 5lbs every month, it has the fabulous side effect of giving me migraines, like the migraines that no pain med helps. I took pain pills every 6 hours trying to get this migraine to go away. Anyways we had breakfast with my in-laws, then we went to my mother-in-law's family's house, after that Joe and I went to my grandpa's. It was hard for me considering I have this way of torturing myself mentally. As I sat on the couch I pictured in my head everything Mama did last Christmas. I realized that this time last year I had no idea that would be the last time I would see Mama healthy. All the sudden a ringing phone brought me back to reality. My grandpa answered the phone and told my mom's husband to call the house phone. He calls and my mom answers, all I hear is my mom saying things like "Are you serious?" and "Where are they taking her?" and "Are you in the ambulance too?". I instantly remembered Joe telling me in the beginning of November, that he really doubts that the "one person dies every year" curse will continue in 2011. I go back to reality where we find out that my aunt keeps blacking out, not breathing, and convulsing. We left my grandpa's and went back to Joe's family gathering. I called every hour for updates, things aren't looking good. My aunt is in the ICU, and will be there for at least a week or so. The doctor wants to meet with the family tomorrow to decide what to do. I am worried and my mind just keeps flashing back to the past years where someone dies every single year. I am down to 3 close relatives, of course I have others, but most of them I don't talk to for personal reasons or they live out of state. As I sit there on the couch with this massive migraine, in a loud room, I sit there and think about last year. Last Christmas I was planning on moving, having a great job, having a "real" wedding, and continuing our future as a family. Most importantly I thought I would for sure have "the thing I want", and I would have a year where no one dies. Needless to say we can see that not one of those things happened. I am going to be honest, I not only went to bed for my migraine, I went because I felt betrayed and hopeless. I feel better today, or trying to at least. I was checking the news like I do everyday. I ran across a story about a paralyzed woman whose car was stolen and then found. It gave me a link to her website, which had a link to her blog. We all know, I love blogs. I read blogs of people from all walks of life. So I read every single post she made and I cried. I cried, because she is amazing, and even though she has had some bad stuff happen to her she "keeps on rollin'". I want to link you all to her blog. She is so inspiring and I think you all will love it... Mega-Stories

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays my lovelies! I know I have been M.I.A., I have been so busy with the holidays coming up. I just wanted to thank you all for reading! I have readers on every continent now! I am quickly approaching 1,000 views and getting so excited! I plan on doing some giveaways once I reach 20+ followers. So don't forget to follow me! Anyways, I thought I could update you all with everything I have been doing lately. Last weekend my in-laws and I went to my sister-in-law Brandy's dance performance. They did the Polar Express. Here's some pics (they aren't the best quality, my camera seems to be having an issue that I need to fix)...
This one is Brandy.













We also had my cousin-in-law Tony's daughter Jordana's 1st birthday party. Jordana is seriously one of the best behaved babies I have ever met, she is so calm and happy almost all the time. She is making the "I am going to barf" look because she doesn't dig certain textures of food. Here's some picture of that...







And here is a bunch of random photos I took for the hell of it...













I also want to congratulate my cousin-in-law Amanda and her spouse Mike, on their new baby due in August.

Thanks for reading everyone! Enjoy your holidays!

Hope

Don't worry, I am alive. I know I went 4 days without posting, I am sorry. Do you forgive me? I hope so. I have kind of been in a weird place, the past few days. I am going to enter the honesty zone here and tell you lovelies the truth. You know the angel and devil that sit on your shoulders? Well the devil has been awfully convincing the past few days. I don't even know how to explain the mood I have been in lately. I guess the best way to put it is, I have been questioning myself lately. 98 percent of the time I know what I am doing with my life, but there's always that 2 percent sneaking up on me and asking me if I really know, or if it's all in my head. Needless to say today I was an emotional mess, it was one of those screw-you-diet-eat-a-tub-of-ice-cream-and-watch-movies-in-pajamas days. One of the movies I watched was You, Me, and Dupree. In the end Dupree is talking about your "-ness", you just add ness to the end of your name, and it describes/is who you are. It got me thinking where did my "Jaz-ness" go? And I quickly realized I was letting the devil win. It occurred to me that hope seems to be the cause and solution to my 2 percent. When everything seems to be bursting in flames around me, I hold onto hope so damn tight it's eyes bulge. When I end up standing there in piles of ashes I realize that hope I was holding onto didn't do shit for me. Shit is still in ashes and I am still royally screwed. But what if hope, in some crazy way did help? I had never really looked at it this way before, but what if holing onto that hope so insanely tight is what stopped me from bursting into flames and ending as ash too? Just like that, everything I do, everything I am, made sense again. If you give up hope when you have nothing else, than really you just lost the last thing you had to hold onto, except the difference is you did it deliberately. Yes, I may pull a Homer Simpson some times and strangle hope because I am mad, but in all reality hope is why I am here, hope is what got me through the fire and made it possible for me to save everyone else. It is so crazy how these weird little things that most people don't think twice about some how snap me back into reality. In the end I think that's what life is all about, remembering who you are and staying strong no matter how bad things seem.

Thanks for reading!

The Struggle

Have you ever wanted something, that you go to desperate measures to get it? I have been wanting something for a long time now, and I am beginning to think about desperate ways of going about getting it. As a kid I wished for my dad to come back, so I could have a normal family. That was my wish for birthdays, Christmas, new years, and any other time I could wish. It got to the point I went around looking at men trying to figure out which ones would be a good daddy for me and thinking of crazy Parent Trap ways of getting my mom to marry this potential daddy. I now have an awesome father-in-law, so needless to say I eventually got my wish. As an adult I have been wishing and praying for something that I can not control whether I get. I now look back on my childhood and realize that things don't always come to you the way you expect. The thing I want has made me a different person, I have learned a lot and have gained respect for people who earn the thing I want. It's not easy but I know I am not alone and that helps. I know that even if people don't want the same thing as me, we all have that one thing we want in life and we are willing to put ourselves through hell and back to get it. It's insane the lengths I have gone to capture my dream, and yet I end up with the feeling that I am sure we all know, where you feel you are so close to your goal and yet so damn far away. I feel like my mother-in-law's jack russell, Charlie (aka Harley), he is obsessed with chasing his tail, and every time he tries he gets within an inch of catching it. He can see what he wants, but its just barely out of reach. I think the hardest part of situations like this, is when others get what you want so easily and yet you are working so hard. I know how you feel believe me. I will be the first to admit, I get insanely jealous, angry, hurt, and any other emotion out there but then I remember something someone once told me... "At least you know it's possible to get it, if they got it." This is so true, because at times I think we all feel, life is unfair and that some things just aren't possible to get, well guess what? They are possible to get, and life is fair to some degree. I think what we aren't looking at when we say life isn't fair is that, when we go through struggles we learn from them. I realized that the struggle I have gone through to follow one of my dreams has made me into a better person, but the person who got what I want without trying will learn the lesson I learned in a different way. Think about it this way, there's 3 types of learning: Seeing, hearing, and experiencing. We all learn in different ways, I learn best from experience, where as others learn lessons in other ways. Remember this, it may be a big struggle to get what you want, but at least you will appreciate it, when you do get it.

The Unfortuneate Ones

Yesterday, I noticed something that kind of really pushed my buttons, someone on Facebook was bitching about how bad their life was. This just really bugged me. I am noticing that some people act like their life is so terrible, I just don't see it though. I am not saying bad things don't happen to these people because I am sure they do, but if your life is so bad then why are you so happy? I see it often, these people that get everything they want with little to no effort, don't appreciate it. Can anyone please explain to me what is so bad about being healthy, having a roof over your head, having kids, having a secure/stable job, having a two income household, having loving family surrounding you, being able to afford nice things, etc? Maybe I am missing something but to me that's a lot to be happy about. I am not saying you can't complain, everyone does at some point, but why do people say things like "When is it my turn for something good to happen?" or "My life sucks!" or my personal favorite "F*ck my life, I just want to crawl up and die!". Am I crazy or are they? I personally have stuff to bitch about but I choose not to. I have been through hell and back, and to be 100% honest with you, I couldn't be happier with how things have gone. Obviously I wish somethings didn't have to happen but if those things happening means I get the privilege to enjoy life to it's fullest, and be grateful for what I have than by all means I am happy with my struggles. I have some medical issues as a lot of you know and yeah it really sucks that I am stuck with them, but by having one of them I have met some of the most amazing people that will be good friends for the rest of my life. I hate to think about not having these people in my life, and to me having loving, caring, excepting friends is very much worth the struggle. If you are offend, angered, or hurt by me posting all this, then maybe you need to take a good hard look at yourself. All you people with kids that bitch about it, or are about to have a kid, imagine how you would feel if your child got ripped away from you and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it? I know how it feels and I can tell you I would take a million more tantrums, sleepless nights, and I would be more than happy to give up all my hobbies (etc) just to get my baby back, but I can't, and I most likely never will. So I will take what I can from the experience and grow from it. All you people that bitch about your job, be damn happy you have it because this is a f'ed up economy and most unemployed can't get jobs. I will allow you to bitch without any judgement if you can give me a list of the good and the bad (and the bad has to be legit, not shit like your favorite shoe broke) and the bad out-weighs the good. Even then I will still pity you because you focus on the bad and can't realize the stuff you have that most people would kill for. Just remember everyone, appreciate what you have while you have it because it could be gone at any moment.

The Frenchest Loaf of Them All

A few days ago I bought some active dry yeast, I have been dying to use it. Last night I decided to tackle my urge. I looked forever, trying to find a good beginners recipe for bread. I remembered my super awesome friend Merissa is great at making bread and once gave me a link to a recipe. I asked her for the link again, she was more than happy to give it to me. I got all the ingredients out, and dug my mother-in-law's bread maker out. After washing the bread maker and my hands, I started. I put all the ingredients in the machine then turned on the "Dough" cycle which surprise to me takes one and half hours. So while waiting for that I decided to go to my grandmother-in-law's to fix her laptop. When we get back Hubby tells me his brilliant idea for a new type of porn. I am totally up for it, I have always wanted to do something uber creative like that, not to mention anything that pushes boundaries usually has something to do with me. So while the bread was rising, we brainstormed different ideas and had a lot of fun. Once the bread is done rising I put the egg whites on the top, throw cheese on top and watch its deliciousness bake. Once it was done, I cut a tiny bit off to make sure it was cooked, then of course ate that tiny bit. Then I cut off more, threw some butter on it and moaned as the scrumptious bread released its cheesy, buttery flavor in my mouth. Here's some pictures. And the link to Merissa's page with the recipe.













Bread Recipe