Ramblings On

So. It has been a LONG time since I've actually put any time into writing in this. It seems such a shame to abandon it after all this time. This blog has carried me through my marriage, my relationship with my husband and then with Bryan, my move to Florida and subsequent job changes...it has really followed my life through some amazing times. There's no way I can click on the "delete" button. And erase all the memories, good and bad, that make me who I am today?

Today, I am a strong person. And wow, do I feel a lot smarter than I did a few years ago. My sense of self is still the same, but it just seems so clear to me that half the shit that happens to you in life is really NOT important. Funny, but true. I remember freaking out over anything and everything. I thought the end of the world was near in damn near every situation. Now, I'm just like....chill. When it comes to people, anyway, I am very laid back. I don't worry about how people will perceive me anymore. I don't care if someone does something wrong to me; that just shows me not to invest any more in that person. A few years ago I would have tried to save the world by investing myself and my time into trying to change someone, but now, I just accept people for their differences. And if I can deal with their differences, then I let them into my life. If I can't, well, then, I treat them with courtesy and respect and let them go their own way. My motto now is let it go. It really works.

I work with such a myriad of personalities, all with their own set of problems and indiosyncracies, that I can pretty much adjust to any situation. Not to mention that I deal with customers ALL DAY LONG, and I do adjust my attitude and personality in order to serve them better. It suits me well because I make good money, and more than that, I get a lot of compliments. Some days are better than others. Some days I just want to stay away from people and all they offer, but it's hard to stick to that.

Bryan and I are still chugging along. We are slowly but surely planning our next move, which will be back up to the Midwest somewhere. I am currently house hunting in Southwest Ohio, but much remains to be seen regarding the future. However, I miss the seasons badly. Fall, with the lush and brilliant colors, and winter, with its biting, yet crystal fresh wind. And then the anticipation of spring.....I just miss it all. I am not a Florida girl and I know now that I never will be.

Bryan and I are working, actually at the same place but different shifts, and all is well. We are maintaining a home and paying our bills...just barely it seems but everyone else is on the same boat as us so we have also learned to adapt. No major issues, no major fighting, certainly no drugs. We are BOR-ING. We work, and we hang out at home. We work some more. We don't go to bars. We don't party. We have nothing to fight about. He pays the rent, I pay the bills. We share the expenses of groceries and gas. Neither one of us ever do anything fun, but the way I see it is that I spent all of 2006 having fun and 2007 was spent trying to stay stable. 2008 has been stable and fine but....oh so boring. I feel married to this man now. Maybe someday, if we ever get the balls. Right now both of us are actually fine with the way it is...except I would really like to change my last name. I still have my ex husband's name, and it's not really fair to me to have to carry it. I feel like a name is everything about a person, and I really want my maiden name back. I can't change it back because the judge forgot to check the box on the petition that says "Allow wife to go back to maiden name" so here I am stuck with it. The only way to get rid of it is to change my last name. Bryan says I can have his last name. I wonder if I'll do it? LOL.

Well, that's it for now. I am going to try and update this more often. In fact, I plan on it. So keep coming back and checking for updates because I'd like to start posting with the same frequency that I did a couple of years ago. This was a nice outlet for me today. Now, I'm off for some herbal refreshment. Ciao!

Lovingly,
Mz. Bowailey

Update

Bryan at work.
Me in the bedroom, experimenting with my phone camera. A lot of these pics are like that.
Cheese!
This T shirt has a big picture of donut spread up against the wall with the cops behind the wall, apparently looking for it...at the bottom of the shirt it says "I'm hiding from the cops"
Daniel and Alexa
Willie in his "Playboy Mansion Security" hoodie. He likes it.
Needs no explanation. Willikers knows how to get himself clean.
This is a pic of me and Alexa's cat, Montana.
Experimenting again, but I don't like how fat I look.

End of the Road.....?

Well, despite my best efforts to keep my life on a positive note, this roller coaster life of mine just will not come to a complete stop. I no longer feel like detailing everything on this website, just because I am tired of venting my pain to no avail.

All that I will say is that things are not as bad as they could be. Nor are they are bad as they have been in the past. Things are....just the way they are, although this time I feel that a major change is coming at me like a runaway train in the dark. I can't help but get run over by it, but at least I have some time to prepare for the worst case scenario. And the worst case scenario....could be...worse. I can't lie and pretend that I never saw this coming, because I did. My sense of people is very keen, and I can usually sense when something is going to happen long before it does, such as what's happening right now. I'm sad, and upset, and angry, and frustrated...but at least I understand it. Well, most of it. I'm not sitting here throwing coke up my nose or drinking my life away or popping pills like candy...but I am devastated, heartbroken, sick with loss. I knew it was coming. Now I just have to cope with it.

All I want is to have my life back. I just want my life back.

Important Information

As most of you know, I read several blogs on a daily basis. Sometimes not so daily, but I always go back and read anything that I may have missed. Today I was reading one of my blogs and came across a post about how important it is to take care of your mental health. My mental health is something I have been neglecting for a while, mostly due to lack of insurance or resources, but I am slowly turning it around and trying to get the help I need. I struggle with major depression and panic disorder as well, I just don't talk about it much for the same reasons that Dooce addresses in her post--the stigma attached to it, and the fear of admitting failure. But her post put things into perspective, and I related to it. If you're interested, please click here.

New Year, New Face

Well, it's 2008. I have been waiting for this year for a LONG time.

BUSHIE will finally be out of office. I am counting down the days.

8 is my favorite number.

I am now well into my thirties.

Bryan and I are going into our second year together.

I hope this year brings us many good things. We are ready for some positivity. Things have been difficult lately, although NOT impossible. We both have positive attitudes and are ready to move even further away from all the negativity that has surrounded us for so long. Now that we are in Florida, we realize that we really should be back up north, so we are slowly but surely preparing for a move closer to Michigan, although we will never again live in Michigan. (I think it's one of the only states in a recession right now.) We are thinking about Cincinnati, Ohio, Northern Kentucky area. This gives us something to look forward to.

This is my year for self improvement. I intend to shed the rest of this weight, get healthier, and tackle some personal issues that I need to take care of. I also intend to continue my education and FINALLY get into a field that's stable, doing something that I truly love. Recruiting is a great job, but in this market, it's hard to convince a client to pay me a fee for finding them an employee that they can find on their own for free. It's sad, but it's just the way the country is right now. When you're paying damn near $4.00 a gallon for gas, it just doesn't make sense to pay a headhunter to do a job you can do on your own. I am going to finish my degree (finally) and get into the medical field so that my family never again has to worry about money or finances. The last two years have been very hard, full of pitfalls and lessons I learned the hard way, so now I'm ready to just take it easy on myself and go full speed ahead on self improvement. The last two months have been fairly difficult for us. I developed an ulcer and have some other health problems. While they're not serious, they are the result of years of neglect, eating bad, smoking, and my little off and on drug binges. I am still a big proponent of weed, but I am taking a break from it for several reasons.

I am really looking forward to all the changes that are ahead for us. Bryan and I are growing closer by the day and it looks like marriage may be in the distant future..maybe in another two years or so. A lot of people ask me when we are going to have children. The answer to that is NOT RIGHT NOW. Even though my biological clock is ticking loudly, and I find it necessary to remind him of that fact, neither one of us are ready for the full time responsibility of taking care of an infant of our own. We love spending time with Isabella and Ro-Man, as I call him, and that satisfies my mommy yearnings for now.

This year Bryan is going to finish high school. He is only half a semester away, and then he is going to try and pursue his passion for music behind the scenes. He is looking forward to learning a trade so he doesn't have to take crap jobs anymore, and I admit it will be nice to supplement my income with another income bracket closer to mine. He is a hard worker and faithfully pays the bills, and now he is recognizing his need for more spending money. The only way he can do that is to educate himself.

Alexa enjoys being in a bigger school, and she is involved in volunteer activities, which she seems to really enjoy. Right now her favorite thing to do is to volunteer at a local nursing home, reading to Alzheimer patients. I am proud of the young lady she is becoming, even though her mouth sometimes gets the best of her.

We have our bad moments when we don't think we will make it. I still struggle with my bipolar disorder and depression, but there is no longer any kind of substance abuse issue and hasn't been for a very long time. Moving to Florida seemed to diminish Bryan's need to party all the time....he seems to know now that it's time to grow up. And even though I sometimes crave mood altering substances, I am strong willed enough to avoid it altogether. I feel that we have too much going for us to ruin it now. Everything is not peaches and roses every day, but the point is that we have learned our lessons from the past and we are not making the same mistakes over and over again.

2006 was our beginning year. If I had one word to describe it, I would call it HELL. 2007 was our year of trials and tribulations. Literally. And 2008 will be just as I described it...the year of the Bowailey.

With Love,
Mz Bowailey

New Addition To The Family!

These are pictures of my new great nephew, Roman Giovanni, who entered this godforsaken world on November 27 at 8:13 AM. He is a cuddly little bundle of joy who hardly ever makes a sound and we just love him. We already have a nickname for him, which is "Man Babe"...since we already call his big sister, Bella, "Babe." Enjoy the pics!
Got milk?

Me, my crazy hair, and this beautiful boy.

What kind of a baby smiles on the first day of life? One in our family, of course!

Me and Roman in his little gangster baby gear.

Mom and Roman. His face looks like that because he has long nails and he scratched his face up a little in the womb, but he's aight. :)

Dad and Roman.

Babe and Man Babe.

The Babes are sleeping.

Catching Up In Pictures

It's been so long since I've updated this blog. I haven't hardly done any writing at all, because I've been so busy. Taking care of this house and working and being a parent really does take up most of my time. WOW. Who would've thought I would have NO time to write?

I decided to update this blog with pics of me and my co workers and Bryan. I can't say where I work or what I do, just because I need to protect my own privacy from haters that are related to me and protect the privacy of these people as well.

I love them all! They are like my family. There are some pics that didn't make it to my blog, but maybe I'll post them later. These were all taken at the very end of September, when we had our picnic. Bryan came and cooked on the big grill for everyone, since no one in the office wanted to do it. We had a blast all day, hanging out and eating and just having fun. We barely worked at all that day! The next day after that, we had a bachelorette party for one of the girls who got married last month. It was so much fun!!!!

All I do is work, take care of the house, and make sure Alexa has what she needs. She made the junior varsity basketball team this year and I really can't wait to start going to the games. She is getting good grades in school and seems to enjoy the bigger environment that she is in. (It's much more diverse.) She is really growing up, and it's kind of scary.

On another note, I got a letter from my other daughter, who was adopted at birth almost ten years ago. She and her mother both wrote me a letter and said they would like to speak to me. I am so nervous! I haven't seen either one of my children for almost ten years. It made me very happy, but I am not sure how to approach it yet. I did get some updated pics of them, and they are so big! She looks JUST like her dad while my son looks JUST like me. I just don't know what to say. Apparently, my daughter has some questions regarding her adoption and since I really don't know her, I'm not sure what to say. She wants to meet me and they think I still live in Michigan, so I have to handle that as well. I will update this blog when I do make that call, which I anticipate doing this weekend.

Anyway, everything is going well. I am very happy and content at this point in my life. I still deal with anxiety and depression, but on a much smaller scale. Now I throw myself into work when I feel myself getting blue, and it works. I use the weekends to reconnect with myself and to clean house and spend time with Alexa, since Bryan works in the mornings on the weekend. Things with him could not be better. I cannot tell you how much I love this little person who has evolved from a major league fuck up to a responsible and caring adult. You would have thought the world was ending for both of us two weeks ago, when I had to go out of town on business for two days. I cried when I left because I am such a homebody and I didn't want to leave my family. Bryan was choked up, too. It was really hard sleeping without him and being without him, but I learned a lot about my industry while I was gone and it helped me revive my career. Everything was that much better when I returned home.

So, that's it in a nutshell. We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of my new great nephew who should be making his appearance right around the 27th of this month. Last week I went out and spent some money on him, buying him clothes and diapers and other essentials. It made me really long for one of my own. I just can't wait for him to get here so I can cuddle and spoil. I love being an aunt, albeit a "GREAT aunt", and Bryan loves the role, too. We are so family oriented! I can't wait until December 8th, which is when Dave is flying down to see us. In the meantime, we are preparing for the holiday season and Alexa's 14th birthday, which falls on Thanksgiving this year. Everything is wonderful!
This is our Admin Assistant. She's a ball of fire, man. Thick New York accent, tough, great sense of humor. I love her to death.
Me and one of my coworkers at the bar, probably after the buzz set in. I have been to the bar TWICE in the last eight months, and this night was different because I was out with the girls from my office and not Bryan. I had so much fun! I drank a little too much but not TOO much. We are going to have to go out again.
Me and another one of my coworkers. We were at a beachside bar, so the wind was blowing out hair all around. It made us look like models. LOL
Me and the bachelorette of honor. Can you say, "Sondra has a buzz"?
Me and Bryan at the picnic. SUCH a change from last year. SUCH a change.

I'm not sure who took this pic, but I love it because Bryan looks so cute in it. I don't know what my deal is lately, but I can't get enough of him, if you know what I mean. He's tired, folks, but I'm still ready to keep on going...and going...and going...and going.

Until Next Time,
Mz Bowailey