2013 will forever be THE YEAR WE WILL NEVER FORGET

  First off. I hope everyone had a great and magical Christmas and a safe New Year's Eve. Our little family had a pretty easy going holidays. I was an emotional mess for some of it but that is to be expected.
With that being said now I will wish a Happy New Year's day and here is to a great new year for us all!!

          The year 2013 has brought on a lot of things for us as a family.
We have realized how close we really are and how we a strong, no matter what obstacles we come across.  We have experienced a lot of downs and a few fantastic ups in 2013.
 

        Zooey was our first true test of our faith and strength. I will never know what life will be like not having that constant nagging feeling of losing a child.  My life changed, something that many people will always have a problem understanding. Some would say that if I didn't go through the whole pregnancy then I wouldn't have had to go through all that pain, or question, "This isn't going to change you, is it?" Those people are no longer in my life. But with the bad there is good too. I made a lot of wonderful new friends. People who have a strong belief of faith and have special caring for others, and hopefully I can learn from that and continue growing myself. Zooey's life brought a lot of changes to us but I think they were great changes. Andy and I are stronger than ever and the girls feel that. Zooey was meant to be our little guardian angel and she was also meant to be the seal on our family cohesion. She lives in us. I am planning her birthday party and will need her strength to get me through it all. I would love for a lot of people to be there to help us celebrate her first birthday.

  

This year, 2014, I will do better with my friendships. I will find time to spend with some of the girl friends I still have. Friendships do change, it is a part of life, I am coming to realize this truth. It has been hard but I am learning not to take it too personally. I will always have friends to surround myself with, I just need to take advantage of that. Spending time to listen to them as they have listened to me and to make new memories to laugh at.       

 Andy and I aged to 40 this year, we look at it as a good/bad event. I was given a surprise birthday party by my sister in law, that made my day really special. Andy doesn't like surprises and doesn't really thing that a birthday warrants a party, ( he feels about the same for any holiday too lol ) so, his mom made him a birthday dinner and we celebrated with family. 

After it was said and done for both of us, I started to worry about our future.  We got married in December, something that was along time coming, so he is stuck with me. I just want to make sure we have many more years to be stuck together :)

 For 2014, I have decided that we have to really start taking better care of ourselves. This doesn't mean I am making a resolution to lose weight but to change our lifestyle. I do need to lose weight, but I know that if I focus more on the stuff we put in our bodies and the amount of time we spend on our butts, this will become just one of the payoffs. These few turn a rounds will also help us in our everyday attitude toward work and will keep us from being stressed out. We always have goals at work that we work to accomplish and if we start to feel better physically than I know the mentally will follow.

I am also going to work toward some new goals as far as work is concerned.  Work is always a challenge that I think many people forget to improve on. It's work, no one wants to have to do it but we should be grateful that we have our jobs. We should also make it a challenge to "like" what we do. Remember, others have to work with you so why not make it better for everyone by trying to better yourself. I just know I will be praying for this particular part of my life.
 I will also be asking for prayers to get us in a home this year. It is hard to get financed for a home and I think this year it will get even harder. If we can get in a home than I know I will feel like anything else I set for myself will be possible.

My last goal for myself is to find more time to listen to my girls. I know that I do a decent job but I know that it will get harder the older they get, why not get a head start. Victoria has dealt with a lot of changes this year such as bullying, losing a sister, girls acting older than they are, her first crush on a guy, getting into the gifted program, and becoming a little woman. She still has so many more things to look forward to this year and I know it will be a hard one. She is a tough little chick and I know if I am there for her she will make it. I think more families should do this for their children, they are the future and we hold the key to making it a better world.

 
So, here we are. The start of a new year, or a blank page if you look at it like I do.

What am I going to do to fill those pages? 2013 held so much for us that I could write a book about it, 2014 has a lot to live up to.

1. Better physical lifestyle
2. To better my work place
3. Listen to my children more
4. Enjoy my friends company more often
5. TO MOVE INTO A HOME
6. Find more time for life in general :)

 Good luck to you all with your blank pages............

The couple finally tied the knot!!

             We did it!! We finally got married!!

It was such a long time coming, but we knew that we were not going to be leaving each other.
  The smile on my face in the picture below tells you how happy I was and still am. I really can't believe how much I wanted this. We wanted it, I should say. Even though he doesn't say it, he still showed it in his own way.

  We had a small wedding, one that I planned in two weeks. We were going to go of and get married by ourselves, but we realized that some of the family would be upset. The one thing we didn't want was to hurt anyone's feelings, so we had to hurry and plan. I think it worked out great. I have been married before and it was a larger wedding, and this still felt better than any day in my life so far. It is so true that it doesn't matter how big the wedding, just matters how happy the couple is to be doing it.

  We had the girls with us. I had Tori be our ring bearer, just so she would know how much she is a part of all this, even if her last name is different. I think she really enjoyed it. In some of the pictures you can see the same smile I was wearing, on her face as well. It really made me so excited to see her happiness.  Of course, Mya, she just went on being the cute little devil that she is. We brought Zooey along too.  She is always in our hearts and this time I carried a vile of her ashes in my bouquet. I know she was proud of her parents that day.

 We had as much family as we could invite with us, my mom and brother couldn't be there, both due to travel reasons. I know they would have been there if they could.  I thought it was great to have his grandparents there, especially since none of mine are still living. It felt right to have such a loving couple there, one that had been through many years of ups, and a few downs.
 I also had two of my oldest and best friends there.  One of them did most of the pictures on here, my sister in law did the others. 

 It rained on our wedding day and people keep telling us it's good luck. I don't know if it's true but I will say that we were lucky before, we found each other, that's pretty lucky in my book. It also rained all of our honeymoon, is that a good sign too?
 At first, I was pretty upset about the weather but then I decided it wasn't going to matter about the weather. I just enjoyed a quiet four days with my new husband. We both just took it all in stride, and enjoyed each others company. We walked, shopped, and ate!! We do love good food!!!

 I pray that our happy days remain but I know that if we are tested again, we will make it. One thing we were asked, when we went to get our marriage license, was if we had gotten any marriage counseling. In my mind, I thought, we have been through a lot in almost four years. I have lost a job and got it back,  we lost a child, we sometimes aren't always the richest people in the neighborhood, and we work our life away.This life we lead isn't perfect but we have made it through these things and never once looked back. I think that counts as life counseling, so it should count as a type of marriage counseling. Oh well, it didn't count but I know that we will make it, no matter what :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello everybody! It's been a while since I have been on here. We have been a busy family, but most important we have been a happy family.
 I woke up this morning very happy to have my little family with me. Andy had to work his full shift but he finally came home to us, he will be grumpy later ;) The girls and I are doing our tradition of warm sweet rolls and milk (mommy has chocolate chai tea) and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. When I was younger my mom and I always watched it, I love that I can carry this over to my little girls.
Next year , when I finally will be in our house, I hope to be able to cook Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. I miss the smells that go with the parade, my mom always cooked a great Thanksgiving dinner. Don't get me wrong, I did get some of the smells yesterday.
I got to cook yesterday for my dinner with my Dad, brother, sister in law, and the kids. We had a great night with lots of food and love, and that's what it is about. I love spending time with my family no matter what day it is on. Today I get to spend the day with my other family, the Masons, so, more food and love for me, I think I will need to go on a strict diet after these two days of good food!!!

  I am only missing one thing, and that is Zooey. I really didn't think that it would hit me till Christmas but I have had a few things that set me off. One was while I was doing wedding dress shopping. I was at Belk and they had a tree with beautiful "Baby's first Christmas" on it. I teared up right there, if someone had seen me they would have thought I was skitzo. I went from smiling to crying in two seconds! Then this morning while enjoying the girls and the parade, Johnson & Johnson had a commercial of a baby talking and telling it's mother that she was doing okay. UGH, talk about pulling at my heart strings!  I will have to change the channel every time it comes on or I will have puffy face for the whole Christmas   season. I miss her very much and that will never change. No matter how happy I am, that hole is there and it really keeps me centered. I would love to find something for Christmas that is a special reminder of her, something that will make her part of our celebration. I guess I will have to get looking.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, and you soak up all the laughs and memories that come from this holiday and the next. I will be!!
The next time I write I will be Mrs. Mason, so I am  sure I will have a lot to share :))

The melt down moment of clarity

Having a complete melt down is kinda new for me, but it happened. I have decided that it had to happen for me to realize a few things in my life. One is that I have not finished my grieving and I HAVE got to let myself do it. Even if it means that I curl up in a corner with Zooey's blanket, hair brush , etc., and just let it all fly out, it has to happen and it has to happen often.
 Second thing is I can not please everyone and I will just have to piss people off even when it is not my real intent. If they can't handle what I have to do, what I must say, or that I can't bend to fit their needs, then it isn't my problem. I like to be able to say that most people get along with me but it isn't true and I know it. There will always be someone who must talk about me or dislike me. That is just life and it doesn't make me a bad person, it just means I am being myself and they are just being who they are.
 Third thing I learned from this is that I like to write. I had very old friend, Erika Blackmon, who posted not too long ago about this. We both grew up HATING to write. She now loves to write and she is very good at it. I loved to read but I hated to try and put a story or feeling on a page. Strange that I find out now ,as I get older, that it does make me feel. I don't think I am fantastic at it because usually I feel like I am all over place. I try to get down everything that I am thinking at that moment and, believe me, there is a lot in there! My mom just told me, after my melt down, that it seemed to relax me when I write. It does.

 When I was younger I loved to take pictures. I took them all the time of my friends and when Tori was little I would take a ton of pictures of her. It's a little harder for her to stand still long enough now for me to get a good one of her. I now have Mya as my muse and I still love to catch a good shot. But, sometimes I see things and wish I could capture that moment forever but I don't have a camera or I do and it doesn't come out just like I saw it. It is still there but just in my mind.
 I can still keep those images, I write them down how I see them. Just like the image of Zooey when she she grabbed my finger. It was just a second in time, like it stopped for everybody but her and I. It took me just that second for my mind to realize what was happening and that my brain said "Don't take this for granted, remember it all, just like it is now." I have those moments a lot. When I was 21 and lived in North Chattanooga, I was going to work, and I saw a little girl standing on her porch. Her house was on a hill and if you stood there I bet you could see all of downtown. She had to be about Mya's age and only had a towel on. Something about the way she stood there, looking out at it all, struck me. I remember I wished, again, I had had a camera. It was such a pretty sight to me, and as you can tell, it stayed with me. I remember it just like it was yesterday. I see things like this and I write it down. I see Andy sleeping and in my mind I see it in black and white, just a peaceful picture of a beautiful guy sleeping , stuck in my mind like a real photograph.
 I have decided to use this to my advantage. I will use it to continue writing on those bad days. So, if you see me carrying around an old note pad, you will know I am having a bad day. Don't feel bad, because it has to be this way for a little while. I will conquer it. Just like one of my favorite songs says, 

"And I'll breathe again...

Cause I have sent for a warrior
From on my knees, make me a Hercules
I was meant to be a warrior please
Make me a Hercules"

Some times are so good

 Some times are so good that you don't want them to end!! I have had some good times lately, when I needed them most. I know that I let stress overwhelm me and I have been fighting with this, trying to find answers to make my stress melt away.

 This summer was so fast but I did get to enjoy a little time with the girls, and also got the rest I needed. It is just lately it seems everything was bothering me more than usual. I am talking about being on the verge of tears everyday. This is not me!!

 Then I would look at my Mya and laugh at her crazy ways and admire her preciousness. She is definitely my doer. GO GO GO all the time :)

 I took the girls to the zoo and it was just wonderful to not be in a hurry for once. We just got to hang out and watch all the animals. Mya was amazed by most of it, I think she wanted to get in the cages with them.

She has also learned to sing a few songs....she is just like her sitter in that matter. Tori sang all the time when she was 2. Tori on the other hand was also my watcher. She was controlled and loved to observe. She is still that way, I can't get her to GO GO GO :D
She is in her goofy stage, too!! I can never get  good picture of her. It is a shame because as she gets older, she is becoming such a beauty.

Andy and I have gotten to have a few days to ourselves. We enjoyed a Lookouts game one night and as you can see, we got to meet Sara Bareilles!!! She has always been one of my favorites and I can't believe the luck that came my way. I wanted to go to this concert but wasn't sure how. I just said to myself that if it was meant to be I would be able to find a way to go. Sure enough, Andy's mom's girlfriend at work won the tickets and didn't want to go. Not only did she win those but she also won a meet and greet with her!! My prayers for some luck came through. 

 Miracles do happen and I am seeing it everyday. I just have to keep remembering to take them all in. My girls and Andy are miracles, my family are a miracle, and my friends who are there for me all the time are miracles. I am still really lucky, I just have to stop and smell the roses when it gets to hard.

 The summer is ending, school has started, and fall is my favorite time of the year. I pray everyday, whether it's my rosary or just a small quiet prayer of sanity, it has a calming and reassuring effect. I know my Zooey is watching me and I don't want her to see me suffering so. It will get better, it has gotten better, and it will continue.

 Happy six months to my precious angel.......
I love you and know you watch over all of us. I miss you everyday but I know you are well and in a much better place. It never is easy to know that you were never meant to be here very long, I have days that I wish I could just hold you one more time.

 You are the prettiest angel I have ever seen and I feel so lucky to have had the privilege to be your mommy.

Carrying on

 Here it is, almost August. It seems like time really has flown by the last few months, so different from the last year. I still can't seem to wrap my mind around it all. February is an eternity away in my mind, but really it's only been about 6 months. Zooey would have been 6 months in a few weeks. Something which I wasn't even thinking about this time last year. I had just found out I was pregnant on the Fourth of July 2012 and was going into last August with a great feeling. I had planned on having my Materna 21 test on August 13th, because I wanted to cut out having to go to the specialist OBGYN. Never imagined what I would find out a few weeks later. And, all this was not even a year ago!! It's weird how my mind works all of this together.

  Here I am, carrying on and living each day the best I can. I find myself forgetting things, being overwhelmed by life and work, and feeling like I will never catch up. I get upset about it and blame old age but then I sit back and go "Hey, you just lost a baby six months ago, it will get better but you have to give it some time." Isn't it odd that I have to keep reminding myself to slow down and have patience with myself ? I miss Zooey everyday but I can't dwell on it because if I did I would be useless to my family. You would find me curled up in a corner, crying, or just laying in a daze not being able to move from all the pain that lays in my heart.
It's also hard to see people go on and forget what I have been through. But, again, I am trying to move on and not let it get in the way of my life I have now. So, why would I expect others to be a little more careful and cautious with me? I just have to keep asking all these questions so I can make it all make sense in my mind. People go on, but the mom never can get to far before the heart strings start to tug for a good cry.

 I also surround myself with my two beautiful girls and Andy. They are what REALLY holds me all together, with them I will never completely fall apart. Now more than ever, I wish I could spend everyday showing them how much I love them. I wish I had more time, and money lol, to do more with the girls. I want them to experience life and to be grateful for everyday we have here on this beautiful earth. It is a beautiful plant we live on, too bad we don't treat as such.
 I do turn to prayer on bad days and it helps to keep all the bad out. Grief still comes but that isn't the bad part, I need to grieve. It just helps calm me from all the other worries I have. I need to do more of it, I need to make more time for myself to find some peace in prayer. It also makes me feel close to my Zooey. She is always with me but when I pray I just feel she is close. It also chases away the stress that continues to plague my days!!

 I know this all is going to get a little easier and my days will stop feeling so short. It will take time, time that I hope people will give me. I ask for forgiveness that I don't remember it all anymore and I forget to do something.
I pray for better days to come and more time to spend with my family. We still need to venture out and do things we wouldn't normally do, it may take some bribing on Andy's part ...........like eat tomatoes or yoga :) There is just one thing I have to keep reminding myself.

It has only been 5 months, three weeks, and a few days since I lost Zooey and here I am still carrying on.