i miss my family

after talking with my sister in law last week, i decided to go down to visit my family. i left monday after work. got to kazoo around 11pm. jen and i went to the local bar and got a few beers, talked, played those bar games, and played some pool. we had a lot of fun and it was good to just spend some time with her. we haven't hung out like that since high school!

tuesday we went shopping. got lunch, met up with my mom, etc. in case you wanted to know, this is what i look like with long hair:


creepy!

after shopping i went to go see my gpa. he just got out of the hospital and moved to a new nursing home. he slept a lot while i was there...he honestly didn't look good. then again he also has pnemonia now. he's lost a lot of weight. his limbs are like sticks and his ribs sick out about four inches. his skin is loose and bruised. it was very hard to see him like that.

after that i went to watch caleb at his tae kwon do class. he's so cute it's sick! there was another boy his age and they got to spar. caleb kept saying how he was the strongest person ever! and "feel my muscles" hahah. it was adorable.







then we just went back to moms and we had dinner and hung out for a bit before i went home.





i miss the kids already. they're so much fun to play with. i wish i had more time to see them and hang out with them.



she looks exactly like me when i was little except with dark hair. she found a picture of me and my brothers and she points me out and says it's her, and points shawn out and says it's caleb. it's totally weird.


cuties!!

POLL

i need help with a decision:

sunny day reunion tour

or

weekend vacation to ocean city maryland for a car show

I CAN'T DECIDE!

i love me a good picnic

and i've been on several lately.

i also love me a salad with avocado. mmmmmmmm




there was a petting zoo at an art fair we had a picnic at. this is a baby alpaca. i want him. he was sooo sweet and funny and adorable.


we also went to northville to have a picnic with red pepper deli. so good. got nori rolls and collard rolls. i wish they had more things on the menu. or maybe they need to open more raw food restaurants in the area!

why can't i be young again OR why does getting older change things?

what is it about getting older that changes things?

do you remember when you were 12? when you had a best friend? how did you share things with that person? what did you do with them? how did you act around them? didn't you know every detail about their life, good and bad? didn't you love them no matter what because they were your best friend? you talked to them constantly. you cried with them, laughed with them, had fun and got mad at them? but everything always worked out.

i have a "best friend". we work together a couple times a week. we go out to the bar once a week. and we occasionally text each other. we have no idea what each other does throughout the week (for the most part).

i have other "best friends". people that i'm really close to. people that i connect with, that i feel comfortable with. people that i share parts of my life with.

i do not however, have a best friend like i used to have a best friend.

something changed when i got older. people build walls. they dont have time for the little things anymore.

one of my "bffs" pointed out to me recently that people "get busy". lives get in the way of friendships. jobs are demanding. significant others want attention. families grow and change and now your "best friend" has other things to do.

my question is: why does getting older do that to people?

i still very much care about every detail of all of my friends' lives. sometimes i guess i just wish someone would reciprocate...

today's note from the universe makes total sense today

Yesterday I watched a small bird, flying very fast, disappear into the canopy of an oak tree. So dense were its leaves that it was impossible to see what happened next, though I can tell you it remained inside.

I wondered how the little bird found its opening through the leaves at such a speed, and then managed to gently align its fragile body on the branch it chose to land upon, all within a fraction of a second. Not to mention the impossible to imagine flying maneuvers required: the banking, the curling, the vertical and horizontal stabilizations, the deceleration and landing.

Memory? Calculation? Not in that tiny brain. Instinct? Maybe, but how does instinct know which way the branches of a tree have grown when no two are the same?

lisa, that little bird just knew. It had faith, in spite of not being able to see how things would work out, that if (and only if) it stayed the course the details would be taken care of; that an opening would appear and a twig would be found. In fact, had she slowed down enough to carefully and logically inspect the tree first, the prudent thing to do, she would have lost her lift and fallen to the ground.

Kind of like reaching for your dreams. Neither memory, nor calculating, nor instincts are the deciding factors, but faith coupled with action.

Tallyho,
The Universe

why does it always feel so difficult..

two things i'm REAL excited for

1. jason mraz in august

2. europe next year

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i didn't feel like getting out of bed today...now i know why

got an email from my mom. my gpa has been having problems with his hip still after the surgery. he was admitted to the hospital yesterday. they need to replace the rod in his hip with a longer one. while he was there they did a cat scan. they say his lung cancer has spread to his leg.

i just want him to feel better. i want him to go home. he's depressed from being at the nursing home. it's been hard on him and my gma. she's lost 15 pounds because of the stress. as much as i dont want him to go, i feel like he's ready. just let him go home already! let him rest at home...

this is not typical july weather

i should not be wearing jeans and hoodies in july. i should be wearing sun dresses!

grrr to you, michigan!

cotton candy, i miss you!


tiniest horse ever! i named him prince (he looks like the artist formerly know as.....!)

the universe works in mysterious ways. and other updates.

i didn't have to work all weekend. it was nice to have three days off in a row.

i have this friend, brian, who i haven't heard from since late 2007. this is a common thing to happen with us...this talking/not talking. anyway, he was the first person i met that i realized i was soul-connected to. we always had this great bond and connection. i've known him since i was 17 i think. anyway, from 2004 to 2007 we had constant communication. he had a terrible accident and was hit by a semi, leaving him brain damaged (i found out in 2004). from then on i think we realized we'd have to try better to stay in touch...we'd write and call and all that. i witnessed him slow-talking, with no real memory of certain things..growing and changing to the brian that i remember when we first met. he started processing things again, verbalizing better, and remember the little things that people should never be able to forget. 2007 was when i got my last letter from him. he lost his phone, his email, and apparently the ability to write back to me! ;) i still wrote him anyway. updating him on what was going on with me and all. sometime this year i started getting really worried. i felt like something wasn't right and i started looking in the obituary to see if something had happened to him or his parents. i found nothing so i had to assume that everything was ok.

well, on friday i decided to call his old phone number. every time i've called it before there was no one to pick up...no answering machine or voice mail. but i tried again friday and after SEVERAL rings, i was about to hang up when a boy answered the phone. he, of course, told me "wrong number" but i did think it was interesting that after two years of calling the same number sporadically i finally got someone. but that's not the weird part.

i figured after that it was obviously not the correct phone number so i could finally get rid of it and never try again. and that i would try one last letter.

tony and i decided to work on our kitchen this weekend. saturday we started painting and all that, and sometime during the day i get a text message. it's from brian. wishing me a happy 4th.

i dont think i will ever understand all the synchronicitys that happen in life. but i do get that feeling that things are supposed to happen for a certain reason. sometimes i just wish i knew what the purpose was...either way, i'm lucky to have them happen to me!

in other updates, i mentioned that we worked on the kitchen this weekend. well, it's almost done. just a couple little things here and there. i loooove it. i want to spend all my time in there.

before:





after:











i look at it and i cant believe it's finally done. i've wanted to redo the kitchen for a looong time. i'm so glad it turned out so nicely!!

hi.

i've been in a crummy mood lately. which is the reason i've been so silent.

yesterday was me and tony's anniversary. i had to work till 5 or so, and then we went to seva for a delicious dinner. really low key, but nice. we had a long talk about some things that were really important, and i believe we are moving forward. we spent a good part of today together and we had a lot of fun, even though we were just kind of running errands and stuff.

sunday we went to the livonia fireworks. it was cooler than usual but they were really nice, as always. well, minus the guy yelling "FREEDOM!!!" constantly. hah!

ugh

i've been really emotional today. one minute i'm fine, the next i'm crying in the corner of the shower. it's very frustrating. i have a lot on my mind. i wish i could just get it all out. maybe i just dont know what i want anymore...

i hate cell phones/sprint

two weeks. still a broken phone. no one knows what is going on with it. very frustrating.

i'm currently avoiding doing my homework that my therapist gave me. so unmotivated.

i go to 5th ave every thursday nite. have been for over a year. developed some great friendships there. last night was the last time they were opened. it was extremely sad. i dont even want to think about it. so it was an ok night...met some cool people, said "later" to some great people, and tried to be cheery as hard as it was. it was pretty much hard on everyone.

kat, joey, and me. joey is one of our faves.

also, while i had kat's camera i found this gem from last month:

seriously, how great was my hair?! i gotta say, i do miss it like that. i'm getting bored with what i have now...hmmmmmm. maybe it's time for a change!

damn it feels good to be a gangsta

i love being able to speak my mind. express my feelings, get things off my chest, etc. i feel like i have my friends back. it was very hard for me to say certain things to certain people, but communication is huge. and thankfully my friends felt comfortable enough to open up to me and communicate their feelings to me.

life is good.

kat and i went out last nite. had an awesome time. met some cool people. she met some guy from the wings that she's in love with and he ended up being super cool. i'm so proud of her that she put her insecurities aside and approached him on her own!! i broke down and had a beer last night too. it was fucking delicious! it's been almost six weeks and i just dont want to live my life depriving myself of things that i enjoy. and i gotta tell ya, my health has not suffered from that one little beer today. so i think i'm good to go!

there are a couple sites that i've really been enjoying lately. one being thoughts become things. the website is based on the premise that "thoughts become things... choose the good ones!" if you sign up for their daily emails, you receive "notes from the universe". they are cute and inspiring and i really love getting them every day.

also, paperbackswap is awesome. i'm addicted. basically, you swap books. i've sent out seven books this week. which means i will get seven credits towards other members books that i will get for free. it's such a great concept and being the avid book-reader that i am, it works perfectly for me. i keep the books i love and want to keep in my collection, and i get rid of the ones that didn't do anything for me. could there be anything better??


loving you more today than yesterday,
lisa

yesterday in photos

i had a long, stressful day. therapy was hard, but helpful. when tony got home we decided to grill. i looove asparagus grilled..yummy.



after dinner i decided we should go teeter tottering. well let me tell you, that was very hard to do since we couldn't find a teeter totter anywhere!! we were on a search for over an hour..trying over ten parks in the area. i couldn't believe that no one has teeter totters in parks or at schools anymore! are they dangerous or something? i dont understand! it was very sad.

because we couldn't find a teeter totter we decided to look into buying a big trampoline. which was just as hard to find as the damn teeter totter! so we went home empty handed. although, while looking for a trampoline at meijer, we did find this gem:



i thought it was hilarious because i have never heard of anything of this nature until a year ago when i was in niagara with my parents. my dad got out of the shower and was blow-drying and i asked my mom what he was drying...because he doesn't have much hair! she told me he was drying his private area so he wouldn't get "the wolf". well, according to this product, it's not called the wolf, it's called monkey butt. awesome.

aww..love on sale

tattoo, frustrations, etc..

i got some more work done on my tattoo yesterday. shit's taking forever. i've already sat for eight hours and it's a little over halfway done. i have another appointment in august, after aaron gets done with tour. he'd like to think it's going to get done in one more sitting but i know it'll be at least two more. just sucks...i hope it's done before the end of the year. i was originally hoping by the end of summer but it looks like that wont happen. i guess thats what happens when your tattooist is in a famous band. hah.

so i've been trying to stay positive. this week has been exceptionally hard to stay focused and grounded. these are just a few things i've had to deal with:

1. grampie is doing real bad. i dont even want to get into it. but he's not good at all. and my fucking grandmother is being a selfish bitch. i wish there was a way for me to make her see that this is not about her. THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU, GRAMS!

2. my brother's gf went to atl this week and we kept her car at our place so she didn't have to pay for airport parking. well, i wont even go into all of the annoyances surrounding that situation, because there really are too many. i'll just say i ended up spending a lot more time with her than i would have liked (because we dont get a long. i do NOT like this person). also, we ended up with a shitty car situation on our way to pick her up from the airport (i.e. some idiot in front of us just bought a big plastic storage garage thingy and did not make sure it was secured in the bed of his truck..wind picked up the top of it and it flew OVER my jeep, landing right in front of my bro's gf's car (that tony was driving) and punctured a hole in the radiator.) Basically, it was a big fucking mess. and we had to deal with it for six fucking hours.)

3. my friends...or should i say "friends"?? i am at a loss for words to describe the hurt and anger i feel towards people that i thought were really close to me. i have literally made my stomach ache from obsessing over what to do about these people. i cry when i think about how things used to be, and i cry more when i think about how things are now. i feel like i am not cared for by people that i care the most about. and that, that is a horrible feeling.

i wish i could ride my scooter today. it's nice out and i'm wasting it being inside sulking. well, not just sulking...i have been super busy doing shit that needed to be done a long time ago.

thank you sunshine, for coming out and sticking around on my gloomy day.

"remember that time when we was walking home from school and we stopped by st. nick park to sit down for a minute and kiss? remember that little white butterfly that came and sat on the back of the bench for a minute, then flew away when i tried to catch it for you? you told me that was the first butterfly you had ever seen in harlem. it was the first one i had ever seen uptown too. i haven't seen one since."

"right now, it looks like the whole sky is filled with white butterflies. i'm standing at 158th and the george washington bridge, right at the walkway looking down at the water. i ripped all the letters you ever sent me up in little pieces, so small that anybody who finds a piece would barely be able to read the words. little by little, i'm letting the wind carry the pieces away. they're flying and dancing and soaring like that butterfly we saw that day. i'm letting you go, i'm finally letting go."

fucking bullshit

apparently my "best friend" has decided to ditch me for her new drug lifestyle. after two years of being clean she started using again when i was in florida. she's been weird and distant to me. she just pretty much ditched me at the bar to go hang out with her other drug friends. it doesn't help that i cant drink anymore...i guess you have to be drunk when you hang out with your best friend in order to have fun. i'm so pissed off and so hurt right now i dont even know what to do. i cant believe she is acting like this.

it also doesn't help that i am having issues with other "friends" in my life. i just wish people could be fucking real with me. would stop fucking using me. and quit playing games. i am much too old for this.

isn't there anyone genuine out there? maybe someone with their head on straight???

today is a good day

i'm ready for it to be over...

you bring the drinks,
and i'll bring the fuck-yous

i am

super disappointed in the pre...


i am also currently phone-less. because this stupid fucking thing wont turn on. i dont even know why i bought this.

feeling weird about shit

but i did get a new phone today. which isn't working. so i currently have no phone. i really want to play with it (the new palm pre) but i cant. hopefully my plan gets switched over soon so i can explore.

i had my first bride today. really cute pregnant asian girl. could barely speak english. i did better than i thought i could (and i suck at updos). i was proud of myself.

i wish i could shake the mentally exhausting feeling i've had the past couple weeks. i dont think i can do this anymore.

i did have a wonderful day to myself yesterday. spent a good four hours at henry ford estates taking photos, meditating, and just hanging out enjoying nature.


see?

i was really pleased with the photos. i have some cool dreamy type shots of flowers that i adore. i'm feeling tired and lazy so i wont even bother posting them now..soon, soon...

ride on

although i love my family dearly, being with them for over two days straight is a bit much. regardless, we had a good time at cedar point.

adorable.

he's getting so big!

favorite irises that were at the detroit zoo