yeah right, kid.

I almost died laughing when Chrissy suggested I buy more "Navy wear" for Justin.

no words left to blog.

I sat down with every intention of admitting just how overwhelmed I was last night, but the fact of the matter is that I am still speechless.

All I can say is, what a feeling.

Happy Valentines Day...

It seems as if starting my diet on time didn't matter anyways because I had my fair share of indulgences today ;)
Thanks for ALL of them, babe.
1. A dozen long stemmed red roses personally delivered to me by this world's cutest boy.

2. Dinner at P.F. Changs... and not even just dinner, but a dinner big enough to last me for about three days.
3. Double dessert because they made two by mistake.
4. My fortune cookie's message: "There's a good chance of a romantic encounter soon."
5. God only knows how many sweet kisses.
6. One fun game of I-Spy
7. And a night spent watching one of our favorite movies, Major Payne.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd say it was about a 35.
....He's just that sweet.

I rode this!

The conversation that took place while we were sitting still at the top, waiting for the others to be seated on their end...
(all while screaming because we were sitting on opposite sides)
Nicole: Jimmy, I just hate you.
Jimmy just laughing hysterically.
Nicole:I just really hate you because you talk me into the STUPIDEST things.
Jimmy: Are you crying?
Nicole: Almost
Jimmy laughs some more.
Nicole: you're a douche bag.
Jimmy: I'm only laughing because you do this EVERY time and you always end up liking whatever it is I dragged you into.
Nicole: I don't care. I hate you.

About 2 and a half minutes later...
Nicole: ahahahahahahahah
Jimmy: what?
Nicole: I changed my mind.
Jimmy: I told you.
Nicole: but I still hate you. My mind's set on that.
Jimmy: I don't care you're weird. No offense.
Nicole: I was kidding
Jimmy: I was too..... I don't really care if you take offense to that.


hahah, what a day.
Waking up at 8
Lunch with my babe for his birthday
I'm really glad Justin's grandmother got her baked potato or it might not have ended up to be such a good experience ;)
Back to his house to rest for a few
Seafood Festival with Jimsey...we ride the spinning strawberries and the VERY first thing that kid asked me before we got into them was...
"Is this going to be like last time where I do all the work and spin the thing and you just sit there?"
I told him no, but that's exactly how it ended up.
It was spinning so fast though that my head was thrown backwards and I was laughing so loud my chest hurt.
I'd say it was worth the hour drive to Everglades City.
After that, we hit up the fair... rode Zipper a couple times, I gave a 30 minute speech on everything you need to know about hog breeds, and 4H, we teased the turkeys, had a powdered sugar fight, watched a wrestling match, petted a wolf, and had a full out fist fight in the fair's parking lot.

All in all, I'd say it was a really good day.

A few truths...

1. I think it's a shame that so many people today are throwing away their morals. Surely they had some. Sometimes I wonder if they gave them away little by little until there was nothing left. It makes me worried that becoming that way seems guiltless at the time because you're never giving up much more than you already have so you never really realize when it gets to be too much.
2. I just learned how to stand up for myself recently. Sometimes I'm nervous that I'll meet a day on which I'm struggling to find the word, "NO"
3. I found something today...something that I think I wasn't meant to ever see...and I loved it.
4. We've switched roles when you really think about it. First you were falling fast and hard, and still waiting patiently for me to do the same...and now I believe that I've lapped you, and I'm waiting patiently for you to feel the way I do.

3 very important life lessons

On the way home from school today Nati and I were talking about another one of our life lessons, a couple actually. (We're known for these in depth life talks on the drive home so get used to hearing about them.) Today's subjects were learning to love the ones that are always there for you, and relying on nobody but yourself... two very contradicting subjects now that I think about it.

N2 Lesson # 3,487 - The ones we should (and most oftenly DO)learn to love are generally the one's that were there through it all:

It is often easy to overlook a friend that's always been by your side to offer you a helping hand, a crying shoulder, a couple of bucks, or anything else you may ever need. You figure that because they've always been there, they'll continue to be there. That's not always the case. It's hard to predict that any one person will always be there for you, so learning to especially appreciate the ones that DO stick around is an important first step.
Many people look for love in all the wrong places. They go out expecting to meet somebody new, somebody that will sweep them off their feet in record times. (The expectation is awfully demanding and I'm sure even they, themselves, will find it as nearly an impossible feat.)
Good friends just never seem like the right person to let into your life as anything more than just a friend, even if they have been by your side through it all. You think they can't possibly love you because they've already seen the worst in you, and that's an image you just can't erase from memory.
Maybe though that's just another reason to let them in as something more. They've seen you at your worst and they still have not screamed and run off. They've been there... in my case, offering advice to get you through rough patches with every one of your boyfriends even if they secretly envy them, at your bed side every day in that Lee Memorial hospital even if it was way out of their own way, coming by to wish you luck before your big swine show at the county fair, inspiring you to keep on pursuing your goals even amidst a pressuring society, and respecting those goals even if they don't always completely understand them.

It was about this far into our conversation that Nati started screaming..."THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT. ALL. THE. GOOD. GUYS... THE REALLY GOOD GUYS... ARE. THERE. ALL. ALONG! IT'S SO PAINFULLY OBVIOUS THAT IT'S SO EASY TO OVERLOOK!"
She pumped her fist each time she emphasized a word, all with my poor, squishy, green octopus, Oswald, in hand.
Somewhere in the middle of her sentences I heard Oswald....
"PFFFUUFFFTTTt!"...(yup. it sounded JUST like that.)
I looked over and green goo and bits of styrofoam balls dripped from Nati's face.
I was driving about 20 mph because I was laughing so hard that I was afraid I'd have an accident if I drove any faster. I pulled over into E's parking lot so I could finish my fit of crying laughter as Nati wiped the thick, slimy, green goo around her face with her jacket sleeve and picked styrofoam pencil-eraser sized balls off the backs of her eyelids.
I honestly thought I might die of laugher as all of this happened.
My sides were killing me, tears were pouring out of my eyes, my chest felt heavy under the pressure of laughing so hard, and my heart felt as if it were beating a hundred times too fast.



Here is what remains of my squishy green friend...




N2 Lesson # 3,488
DO NOT SQUEEZE DOLLAR STORE ...
OCTO-PI? OCTOPUSES? OCTOPUSSIES!?
(If anybody could give me the correct plural form of Octopus I'd greatly appreciate it.)


N2 Lesson # 3,489 (Our final lesson of the day.)- Relying on yourself ensures a job done well.
As good as it feels to have a best friend, a boyfriend, a strong brotherly or sisterly bond, it may also be scary to give any one person so much of your trust. If you're absolutely sure that this person has your back 24/7 then there's no need to tell you that your "BFF" label is insufficient. However, keep it mind that it also feels good to do things for yourself. Sometimes the only real way to ensure a task is completed correctly is to do it yourself... and once it's done you'll feel good about yourself knowing you were able to do it independently.

You know who you are.

You could have just as easily lied to me. You could have gone and partied and I would have never known. Had I even asked about the party, I wouldn't have been so specific and a vague "It was fun" would have left me still clueless. But you didn't do that...
You didn't call me to ask for my advice, my opinion, or even my approval. You just called me to explain the situation and to tell me you decided not to go.
That's how I know you didn't do it for me. You did it for yourself because you're better than that, and you know it.
I know that you're better than that as well. That phone call only helped to prove my point.
Thank you for breaking the mold, and for offering me something better than I could have even imagined.

smile!

Somebody randomly approached me today and told me that I have a beautiful smile.
I wish words could even begin to explain how much that meant to me, and how happy I am now because of it.
It makes waiting for my implant a little bit easier, and it makes these past eight years seem like a little bit less of such a waste of time.
Personally, I think God put me through such a struggle with my teeth because he knew how often I smile and that after all of this, I'd deeply appreciate having an attractive one.
I'm adding it to my list of blessings.

our conversations are always my favorites anyways ;)

It's amazing how all it takes is a deep, good hearted conversation with a friend to settle you down. Sometimes you need to bring out the bad in order to find the good. It may bring up some uneasy feelings but in my opinion, it's better to be hurt by a friends tough love for the moment than to be left with a long term pain from unreasonable problems between the two of you. I don't regret mentioning a damn thing for that very reason. You were the one that taught me to stand up for myself afterall, and you taught me well.
I really am sorry. If I didn't apologize enough earlier, then I'm sorry for that too, but I really should have let you know how I felt. I feel a lot better now though knowing that you and I are the type of friends that may disagree on a lot of things, but we share a common ground... and that's that we care for one another. I especially love that we are each tough, stubborn, and independent, always ready to stand our ground for what we believe in. It makes our arguments twice as meaningful once we are able to reach the lesson buried beneath it all.
Thank you for helping me to become a better person by questioning my beliefs and my intentions, and thank you for offering me the amount of support that you've always been readily available with.
I love you, girl.

life is a road.

I'm laying here, in my babe's arms, blogging from my iPhone. He fell asleep a few minutes ago and so I'm trying to do this as quietly as possible, and without moving around too much. I wish I could curl up and go to sleep too but 1. my mind is racing and 2. I can't help but watch him sleep. His chest rises and falls with every breath, but his arms never loosen their grip around me. It makes me smile. If you look hard you'll even notice the corners of his lips curl up as if he's got his signature smart-ass smirk on. This makes me smile too.

I've been lying here for a while thinking of the sharp curves life has thrown in my direction in just these past couple months.
I'll be the first to admit that I was stubborn in the beginning. I thought I knew what was best for myself, and so I tried to clear my own path for my life. I fought through thickets of denial, excuses, and blame never really knowing that God had a paved road already ready for me to ride along. One step at a time I made my way back to His road as I accepted that God knew what was best for me and would lead me to it.
Laying here today leaves me with not a doubt that this is what I've been waiting for. I can't imagine anywhere or anyone better for myself.

Thinking about this paved road also leaves me wondering where we're headed next.
Will there be lots of twists and turns, or will it be a straight easy trip? Will the road be forked, or will it be one way? If it's forked, will our roads come together again, or will they lead each of us to different fates?
Justin and I are headed towards essentially huge parts of our lives. He's entering the United States Navy in less than a year, and I'll be finishing up high school and moving on to college, and possibly away from home. I don't really know what this entails for us as a couple. We've talked about being together while he's away for those four years, and we're determined to make it through but who's to say we're traveling on the same road hand in hand from here on out? And if we're not, will we fight again to make our own path...will we find a way to be together when he comes home from the Navy?
Will we even still believe we're best for each other?
Sometimes I feel as if we need to talk about it, but what is there to really say? Nobody knows just what the future holds so nobody knows how to prepare themselves.

It's exciting but I'm scared.

Life Is Good.

"It's amazing how you can look at that sticker...Life Is Good...and those three little words can encapsulate the love you have for each day here, and make you think- damn, life really is good."- Jimmy.

FINALLY somebody sees it like I do.
Thank you Jimmy for proving my point.

I'm all talk.

I like to pretend I know exactly what I'm doing, but I actually have no idea. I don't think any of us really do.

i'm sorry if i worried you.

I will probably never know what it is that triggers thoughts suddenly, sending them flying from somewhere in the depths of your brain as far forth as possible and causing you suddenly to remember them with as much detail as if it were the day on which it happened. Sometimes these flashbacks push on the backs of your eyes, making it nearly impossible for you to fight back tears; other times, they're pleasant memories that leave you hiding sudden gigantic smiles... Surely you don't want whoever you're with to think you belong in the loony bin.
Tonight flashbacks merely allowed a blanket of uneasiness to wrap me in a deceitful embrace. The drive home was exactly what I needed, however. Sometimes it does me good to have even a half hour to myself to tuck my worries back into the crevices of me from which they crawled. It allows me to maintain my fearless, independent reputation in front of a crowd... or to try to create one, anyways. Maybe I'm pathetic... I probably am, but it's the only way I've ever known to handle myself.
I also started thinking today how hard it's been for me to open myself up to somebody that's only ever had the biggest heart and the best intentions. Once I begin thinking about that, my mind shifts to how unatrractive that must be on my part. I hate that I put you through this alongside myself. I hate that because it's hard for me to finally accept somebody so genuinely respective of me(now that I've actually found one), it's probably punishment for you because I'm not ever sure how to offer you the same thoughtfulness in return... though you deserve even more than that.
Maybe sometime I'd like to talk about it. Today I should have, but I didn't want to get into it with not much time to spare.
Just know that I'm doing my best, but it's hard not to get overwhelmed once in a while. I'm working on learning how to handle it a little better as well.
I promise.

Welcome, 2009.

It's hard to believe that an entire year ago, I was racing down Immokalee Road, running 4 miles in the freezing cold to a bathroom, only to end up peeing my pants as I reached for the door handle. I still think it was a good way to start 2008.
Although 2009 probably didn't start so energetically, I still think it will be something I'll always remember.
I looked out my window at Gatlinburg...fireworks flooded the sky, cheering roared from the streets at the base of the mountain, lights flashed, noisemakers echoed throughout the mountains, and clouds of bubbles floated everywhere. My entire family was at the New Years Party downtown, but because I had been sick, I wasn't allowed to go. Instead I laid in my top bunk, under piles of blankets, still shivering until I got a call from Justin. He was supposed to be at a big New Years Party as well, but told me he had gotten sick and stayed home in bed... a weird coicidence, right?

We made each other a promise right then at midnight, and so I'm saving my first kiss of 2009 for him.


...It's been tempting though with all these babies here ;)

Scared!

Sitting alone in this cabin at night probably would be actually very enjoyable if I weren't such a baby, pacing the halls and cringing with every tick from the big clock cornered by the door.
The phone keeps ringing, but upon answering it, I am met with a dial tone. As I try to call out, an operator informs me that my own phone line has been disconnected.
I do my best to believe it each time until it mysteriously rings again.
It kills me to admit that I know the story of the one armed man isn't true, but I still half expect to have him come crashing through the sliding glass doors in the absense of my family. It also kills me to admit that I've been calling around, looking for somebody to stay on the phone with me long enough to allow my stomach to settle. Nobody is answering though so I'll either sit here until I get over all of this, or shit my pants... one of the two.

The Dungeon.

"The dungeon," as I like to call it, is the coldest darkest bedroom of the cabin. It is 2 stories below the cabin's main living area, and because the kids of the cabin are not allowed down to that room, the fact that is has no door is usually not too much of a problem.
This morning, however, I laid in bed listening to 18 sets of tiny toddler toes creaking down the stairs. There was nothing I could do, and God knows I wasn't going to jump out of bed to stop them, so I pulled the blankets up over my head and muttered an, "oh shit."
They flooded the room, screaming at the top of their lungs, and pulling themselves onto my top bunk, as well as Jeff's. They jumped on us, and started a chant..."WAKE UP LAZY BUMS! WAKE UP LAZY BUMS! WAKE UP LAZY BUMS!"
Rileigh led the chant, Morgan saddled Jeff's back, Lelaine stood at the doorway yelling threats, Dakota jumped up and down on my bed, Matthew pulled on my hair, and the rest of them just screamed their lungs out.
As irritated as I was, I had to laugh... what a way to start the day, right?
Lelaine yelled, "If you don't get up, we're going to leave you here while we go to Dollywood."
hah... Dollywood's a bore.
"Hey, Lelaine... leave me then. Let me sleep. Teach me a lesson," I replied, and so all the kids laughed and scrambled out of the room to "teach us a lesson."
mmmm, peace and quiet.
I'm alone in the cabin now... sitting out on the balcony, watching the fog roll over the mountain tops. It's quiet enough now to allow me to do some thinking.
So far, all that's come to mind is the time I have left here... only 2 days, and I know that won't be nearly enough.

It's going to require quite an effort to drag me to Naples, from here at "home."

The newest family addition...Marty.

I miss you, already.

As most everyone else in the cabin called it a night, I crept down from my top bunk, as quietly as I could, climbed three flights of stairs, and found myself a cozy corner of the couch in the loft, from which I now am writing. A small retractable reading lamp is extended from the wall bent over my lap, and the TV offers background noise for an otherwise silent cabin. I haven't had the chance to sleep much in the past couple days. I've gotten in maybe a few hours of sleep at the most, yet I can't seem to fall asleep now that I have the opportunity to do so.
I went for a walk tonight...wandered down the mountain side, jumped through a pile of big crunchy leaves, sat on the bank, and watched my breath against the cold night air as I decided I'd love to spend the rest of my life here. Something was missing though... your heart, beating in sync with mine.
Partially unsatisfied, I then walked back to the cabin to spend a while lying down before the warm fire...
All I wish is that you could see the view I've tried to explain to you so many times before. I want you to appreciate this like I do, to stand in awe of such beauty alongside me.
There is an empty spot beside me on this couch, an empty hand for you to hold, and an extra mug for hot chocolate...
It seems so simple, but they will probably always overlook such perfection.

It's going to be a long drive.

Jalapeno potato chips and trail mix generally do not make for a very nutritional breakfast; however, stopping at a Circle K at seven in the morning doesn't leave you with too many other options. I'm not complaining thogh. My tongue's on fire and it's enough to keep me from speaking my mind.
Trust me; nobody wants to hear what I have to say anyways...
I am currently sitting in a Toyota 4-runner, knees to my chest, and my laptop balanced atop. Unfortunately, I'm also watching my father dance to weird techno songs in between singing along with Celine Dion to the Titanic soundtrack. A CD of O.A.R. songs Justin put together for me last night, originally intended to help this drive pass by more quickly, actually has me thinking of him, wishing he were right here with me. My right buttcheek is asleep, but i have no where to shift my weight to, and so it will continue to tingle until we reach the top of Florida and I can get out of here long enough to get a good stretch in.
Ahead of us is a row of cars about seven deep, each of which are occupied by family members with walkie talkies. Each car has a "code name." Ben and Alicia's white truck is, "The White Whale," Brad and Steph's truck is "The White Midget," Kim and Kev's gold Commander is "Gold Digger," Shelly's van is "Party Girl," Kori's Commander is "Silver Seduction," Donna's Buick is "The Gay Mobile," (we still have no idea why they chose to call it this,) and our 4-runner is "The While Mobile." I suppose that our code name is in my honor, as I whined halfway through Florida that I had to pee, I was thirsty, I missed Justin, my dad's music was too loud, his driving was making me dizzy, I was cold, etc. You can't blame me too much though... I'm running on about an hour of sleep... if that.

my baby.