I'm having one of those times in life where I am just down. 
I am questioning my entire life.  Feeling very useless in every decision I've made.  And wondering how I manage to get to this place and how I could possibly get out of it.  I feel trapped and very far from "freedom". 
When I was a little girl I dreamed of getting married.  Of finding the love of my life and becoming a bride then a mother. 
I admit I was never really nurturing.  My mother was not very nurturing to me and I was never around small children so when I was thrust into a situation with my Aunt staying with her and her small children I did not know what to do. 
I did not know how to touch much less hold or stop one from tumbling to the floor from their toy so of corse they screamed and cried and my Aunt raged at me.  I beleive I was about 8 or 9.  I never stayed with my Aunt after that time.  And my next experience with a child and "nurturing" was when my brother had his child and I held her (I was in college).  I assumed that I would enjoy being a mother to my own.  That I would love my own unconditionally.  But common sence has set in and I know now that I would not be a good mother. 
I know this.
I still wanted to get married.  However I never had a boyfriend all threw middle school or high school.  I have been literally a loner.  None of my friends while I was with them had one either.  The experience has just not happened for me.  I have very rare contact with other married or "friended" people as well.  It is like I have gone my entire life wanting something and not knowing the real things.  My first date was prom night.  My friends boyfriends roommate from college.  I was 17 he was 24.  My next date was probably 2 years later from his friend.  I did not like these boys.  They were not what I expected.  I expected a companion.  Someone I could have fun with but I felt like I had to be proper.  I had nothing in common with them.  They saw me as beautiful and I saw them as a friends friends friend. 
It is hard for me to make friends.  I feel very disconnected.  And once I connect I will feel you are my best friend until I realize that something is off. 
I've been friend with my best friend (known her since first grade friends with her since high school) and now I feel like we have nothing in common.  Our social standing is complete opposite.  I feel bad that we can't talk anymore.  And we really can't. 
Recently her mother has become very sick and I feel bad that I can't say the right words to her and that I can't give her comfort that she needs.  I feel very inadequate in the relationship.  I am growing apart for many reasons. 
My life is hard.  I have very little fresh freedoms.  I am a hard worker and yet am going nowhere.  I don't know where I'd go if I could but I am stuck and unhappy.  I have to watch my pennies.  They don't go far and I have to weigh the fact that some things will make me have to work harder and is it worth doing these fun things if I have to work another year in my life.
Anyway my one moment where I took the chance made me regret for some time every taking one.  I hate to say it but I wallowed in darkness and misery for a long time.  Thinking of my mistakes and actually I would put what I went threw as more along the lines as going threw greif.  I mourned. 
I mourned for the loss of "me".  Even though I am who I am and no one not even myself can define that.  It's been over 7 years and I have not had one date.  I see no change.  Like I said I have never been an active "dater".  I don't like parties or large get togethers.
I resigned myself for the past few years that I did not want this marriage dream anymore.  I went from wanting it all to wanting to be practical to wanting none of it because I figured it wasn't meant for me.  This was to make "me" happy.  I am not happy. 
My cousins recently asked if I would ever come out to visit them.  I know this is family meddling.  My grandparents recently found out I did not want to ever get married (a lie I knew as I said it sometimes you don't know until you say it that it is a lie).  They live for the wedding.  They have outfits, designs, food, etc all picked out for when they get married.  I know they are going to be meddling with me now.  This is neither a good or bad thing I just know it's going to happen.
My immediate family has never put much effort into my future.  They have only ever teased me about "boyfriends" that never existed.  And to make sure he wasn't "black".  A little racist but I'm telling the history here ok...

So the entire point of this is for the past day I have been watching "Say Yes To The Dress" a marathon where I have watched all these beautiful young ladies getting married and saying and acting like little divas.  Paying 11, 000 dollars for a wedding gown which I would use to get out of my awful job.  I couldn't even imagine myself spending over 800 dollars on one much less into the thousands. 

It makes me feel very disconnected from JOY as well.  Families crying with each other about hopes and dreams being fulfilled for their daughters.  I've never had an experience like that.  Where my family cried with me like that.  Anyway...

I have a picture from another time in my life that I dreamed would have been my wedding gown.  So I leave you with something beautiful.

It's still waiting in my bible for the dream that will never come.  The man that doesn't exist.  And the life that is no more.

I'm feeling a little blah today.
My bday was great and I thank everyone who came to give me good wishes. It was nice. I'm really not one for bdays to be honest.
Today was really hard for my "new" diet/exercise... Week and a half... I skipped last night because you should eat what you want for your bday. But eating what I wanted made me sick as a dog last night. This morning I was happy to be back on the "good food" diet.
I have incorporated fruits and veggies back into my diet.
I'm exercising although I have to say I am really getting tired of the heat. Walking in 90 plus heat sucks. It makes me want to give up everything. Walking all I could think about was the few weeks before I would be laying in bed maybe napping instead I was trudging threw the heat with bugs flitting around me. My whole body hurts.
And every few days I look at my weight (how do you measure a new diet but by weight) and I'll go down and then up and then down and then up. Am I making progress at all?
*grumble*
I went from 175 in January to being sick and loosing 15 pound 160 back to being 165 then 158 and now 162. It's like the economy... Have we recovered or are we just screwing around?

It's my birthday. I'm 35. What have I accomplished???
I'm still as I have always been. Single.
I still live at home.
I still work where I worked for the past 13 years.
The things that have changed have been my attitude.
Nothing going on today. Reading a little tv... And later on we'll be going to eat with the family at a place of my choosing. And I've chosen a 'fine dining' place so hopefully no one bought me too much because I really don't want too much spent on me.

Wants to get back to being the real me.
That girl that laughs and sings and has no worries. Treats herself and everyone around her as innocent beings and doesn't look cross eyed at people thinking they want something for nothing.
I want to celebrate life not endure it.

Here's to better days...
Things are going to change weather we want them to or not so let's just get on board and ride this mf.... (it's one of those moods today lol)
So they caught whomever it was that was pulling people over and shooting them (pretending to be cops etc) and the guy that killed and kidnapped is dead and his acomplice is in jail.
On the other hand I have to go on a diet. My cholesterol is too high. The total and the bad ones anyway... the triglycerides are fine and the good ones are fine. So I have to eat things called fruits and vegtables. I'm planning to get a smoothie from Smoothie King on the way to work.
Is there a cowboy theme going on lately? I'm just wondering....

Dream
I was at work. Everyone gathered in the back room.
This was just a test.
But you had to get 10 of 12 right.
I started around the room. It started getting strange. My co-workers were not performing well. Then I realized they were not human but the undead.
I started looking up and saw 4 horses flying without wings in the air.
One of a different color. Brown, white, red, and one with two sides black and white like a Dalmatian on one side then on the other speckled red blood. I liked this one the most. It seemed to have the biggest spirit.
We went outside in the daylight. And tried to leave this place but no one seemed to know how.

*im sure this dream had everything to do with the turtle that tried to get inside the building yesturday. I came upon one of my guy friends trying to kick it out the door and it upset me. Why not just pick it up from the side and put it in the grass behind the building. Don't kick it senceless*

This week was a little stressful. We had that crazy guy that the FBI was looking for running around my neck of the woods. Heard the choppers going around the neighborhood twice. They also came to the store for our tapes to look for evidence. Anyway soon as that is over I hear about this car a few counties over (that I thought was my neighboring county but turned out was not) *to the point* someone is pulling people over (disguised as a cop) stealing their purse/wallet and shooting/killing them.
Yeah my small community is turning out to be dangerous!
I'm now being lazy (yesturday) and then that night I get a frantic call from my friends mom wanting to know the story about my other friends mom. Which I knew next to nothing about.
But evidentally my friends mom was in the hospital going on about a week when she had surgery on her lungs to get bad stuff out (she has a lung disease) well she was let out of ICU Sunday and then last night coded. They got her stabilized but it shook everyone including me up. So today was check up call and do laundry clean day while trying not to stress.

My friends are so great. Yesturday while on break (working girl here) I checked my fb and found out that one of my favorite authors was going to be in state but 4 hours away (near where my friend lives) and I jumped on the band wagon of wanting to go get a signed book etc. All the stuff I normally make fun of other people doing heheh i'm a little evil lol Anyway half the day later my friend is standing in line for me and getting me a signed book. I'm indebted. Especially since she's a very busy person and didn't have time for much lunch or dinner before going. Hopefully one day I can do something similar for her.

The thing is I do not need any more books to read. There's no way I can finish the ones I've already got waiting for me to finish (on the floor and on the night stand).

But as usually I'm here to record what kind of goody's I've got.

Recently I managed to read a fabulous historic novel The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory (first in a series). It's not a romance!!! It's a novel and is more historical than fiction but there's a couple of twists and play on events to make it also a mystery. It's really good.

Now I'm reading 4 books at one time. I never do this but I wasn't sure if I was going to like any of them so I started reading all of them together so I could flip back and forth if I got bored.
I'm not usually a mystery reader but I started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson because my friend bought it for me. It's actually turning out to be really good except I don't like all the weird names and street names. But it's set in a different country so that's acceptable.
Also reading Chosen by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. Not my favorite series...
Also the Cat Who Went to Paris by Peter Gethers is a flop in my opinion. Cat (pet books in general) are suppose to be uplifting and humorous. This one is neither. It's boring and too long (it's only approximately 200 pages long).
And I'm now on day 5 of the Purpose Driven Life. Some of this book is repetitive and I haven't figured out my purpose and will probably not find it out by reading this book but I did like day 1 and day 2.

There's also about 19 other books just waiting for me to pick them up...

I was meant to write about food today. I tried writing a post earlier today but kept messing my photo links up. Then I got sick and that was the end of it *delete* and in bed the rest of the afternoon.
I'm allergic to fish. I love eating fish. I don't do it very often usually only when I visit my grandparents and we go out to this great little seafood restraunt called the Oyster House. Last time I didn't even get any fish so I was smart. Oyster po-boy. Yum. Love those.
Well today I baked some fish in the oven from a package I picked up from the store. Nothing fancy more like fish sticks you'd get for a kid. I had some tatter tots with it because I was out of french fries and it went better with fish than anything else I had in the freezer. I'm not a cook.
That wasn't the best idea I'd had today. I can now ad Alaskan Pollock to my list of food ills. The thing is none of my allergic fish are related to each other. I'm allergic to Orange Roughy (gotta say it is sooooo yummy), Herring (so not yummy).
I think the rest of the day I'm going to take it easy and read. Maybe zone out to the boob tube.
Oh and my post that I goofed up earlier was going to be about Hamburgers. So related to fish don't you think?
p.s. my cat is also allergic to fish so i guess it runs in the family

EDIT: Ok I have tried my best to fix this post. For some reason I can not get the type with the photos correctly. I do not know why it has decided to be difficult. I still hope you enjoy it. I'll keep trying to see if I can fix it.

One thing about these little guys I had the chance to learn is not to let anything get you down. Also a good nap doesn't spoil anything either.
Had a great time. These little tigers sure did make me feel good. It was not even an hour encounter 30minutes for 50 dollars and 3 days of visiting my relatives. My mother's been very controlling lately. I can only guess as to why she thinks it will do any good to be that way.
Anyway on to cute, pretty, and happier subjects...

These two are only 12 or 13 pounds. When they get to be 35 pounds they stop encounters. Being that their claws and teeth mature quicker than the rest of their bodies. They're skin is also 7 times thicker than human skin so they don't realize what they do can hurt us because it doesn't hurt them at all.

Trying to balance.

Here I am trying to make friends. I used the little palm leaves to become entising for the little one. After s/he came close I tried wiggling fingers and my hand.

A little scratch on the butt makes my cat like me why not the tiger?

There was a little tussles going on occationally. Sometimes not with the other tiger but with my shoe or pant leg. I guess I became one with the tiger at that point

While I was trying to do a photo with a sleeping tiger one jumped on my belly. I really did become part of the pride(?) Guess that's lion speak... :-/

My legs and feet and shoes were a hit.

I wasn't too bothered with them chewing on my shoes. I need to get a new pair. I already had a hole in them. I'm now thinking my shoes were a hit because I have a dog and cat of my own. Maybe their scent was still present.

This looks a little strange. Kind of like I'm looking at my boobs or something but I'm really trying to "huff" at the tiger. The tigers mom normally would be around and "huffing" at it. It gets the mom's scent all over them and they feel safe. My "huff" sounded more like a sneeze/cough. I wasn't very good at it.

This is about the time I got bit. Poor little guy had to get disciplined for it too. You have to teach these guys young to know that humans are the alfa so they don't eat one of us later on.

Good shot of the blue eyes.

Looks like a big tiger to me.

Fell asleep with it's butt in the air.

My wound... only a tiny little scrape.

Love this blue color

I think God did justice to the peacock when he gave him these beautiful feathers.

This is not daddy tiger. The little cubs were brought from La. somewhere.

One of my favorite photos. The little guy looks bewildered to me.

Playing with the palm leaves.

Such cuteness comes in twos

I swear where those little black dots are above the eyes is where the horns will grow in later

Getting ferocious!

They just have oversized paws.

I really loved watching them feed. After drinking they'd fall over (almost drunk like) with their exhaustion. Tried not to post photos of other people. I've learned from facebook and my family that posting things about my family is bad. This girl isn't part of my family but the zoo staff and I'd hate for her to get mad at a complete stranger but the photo is just too cute to pass up the show and tell.

One of my self portraits

Love this photo... you can see all the little details... drunk tiger

Last photo before my camera went dead.... Had to use mostly my mom's camera.

Hope you enjoyed.