Yes Ladies, I Dance.

Well well well, here we are again at long last. Just you and me, the reader and the writer together again. At Last. At Long Last. Ok, moments over.

I miss writing so much, I just dont get the bug to do it much lately. I used to blog a ton, tapering off here and there, but never like the last 6 months. I kind of feel like I started living my life more, really stepping forward.

Could you say I was a patient man? No, but I survived lol. I was a nervous wreck. I guess I might not be being specific enough, but what Im talking about is my actions and attitude after Nicole left me.

I was obviously an emotional wreck, but part of me knew I would be and part of me knew how to handle it. There was no way around it being hard, there was no way around all the hurt. But there was a way to go through all of it and not just come out the otherside feeling used and abused.

I came out the other side on top. I came out guns blazing, and so far so good.

I don't have the right temperament for the way I currently make decisions and take actions, but I think that is why it is working. Ive taken very slow and deliberate steps forward, and I keep taking them. Emotionally and Socially, with my work and my education.

Is everything in my life perfect? No and if it was, what would I have to strive for. Even if I felt that way it wouldn't be true, but I would stay that way instead of getting better.

Did I mention how good it feels to be writing again. Hell I havent put much thought into this blog, but just sitting here typing again inspires me to write on.

Ok, down to something I am very proud of. Its not just a clever title, yes I went dancing for the first time.

I went out drinking with Samantha and her family. Samantha's grandma passed away, so we were all out on the town celebrating her life.

The night I met Samantha back in June, I got really drunk. I had like 6 or 7 Long Island Ice Tea's and two shots of Tequila (yes, I had a hangover the next day, but didnt get sick).

Apparently I was a pretty smooth talker, even while hammered, I guess the way I act while drunk makes me even cuter or something. Anyway, I flirted with her all night, and I even very smoothly kissed her right in front of everyone!

My point is, while I dont quite trust alcohol, I know I would have been too 'Up in my Head' to do any of that, EVER.

Well alcohol did it again, when we were out drinking last month I got just drunk enough to not only get over myself and get on the dance floor, but I got drunk enough to want to do it, to do it alot, and supposedly to do it pretty well. Dancing that is, I dont recall much of the night, but I remember having A LOT of fun.

I dont think I could dance again without a few drinks in my though, Im still the same nervous overthinking spaz you all know and love. But strip me down to the basics and you'll have a hard time keeping up with me.

Then I went dancing again, but this time it was in a class learning some kind of West Coast ballroom stuff. Im not really sure what it was exactly, but it was difficult and fun. I tell you right now I hated it for the first 10 min. I didnt know enough yet to jump into the middle of what they were working on, but what sold me is how much the guy and girl teaching the class not only answered my questions, but loved them, they seemed to really appreciate how interested in getting it right I was being.

Im hoping to learn more!

I looked over my last blog and I talked about my grandma a bit, and her birthday. Its come and gone now, it was a difficult day. I did alright until I had lunch with my mom and then I couldn't get my mind off of it so I went home early.

My mom was a wreck, just a couple of days later she was cleaning her house and she heard a loud crash from the dining room. She had inherited a large nice wooden cabinet and all of my Grandma's crystal. The sound was the little tabs that hold up shelves breaking and the top two shelves full of crystal falling down onto all the other Crystal. about 60% of it all broke. :-(

My mom freaked, she said it felt like losing my Grandma all over again. She called me in tears, I felt so bad for her. I found out she joined a Grief counceling group that has really been helping her. This christmas will be really hard though.

I put the boys on an airplane to Phoenix today, they are spending this christmas with their mom, they will come back on the 3rd of January. Samantha is out of town too she and her sister rode the bus home yesterday, her sis will be gone for 3 weeks, but I am bringing Samantha back up here with me after I go down to southern idaho to spend Christmas weekend with her and her family.

I was feeling kind of down and kind of lonely, but hey, now that I've had a chance to talk to all of you, Im feeling a lot better!

I hope everyone is having a happy holidays!

Its Been Awhile

Wow, its been quite awhile since my last blog. A lot has happened in that time, Im not sure even what my last blogs were about, so I hope I dont repeat myself at all.

Id like to start off by dedicating a small portion of my blog to my Grandma. We're quickly approaching the 6 month mark, life feels so different without her around. I sat down with a cooking question yesterday, flipping through my betty crocker cookbook. I question I wanted answered was a simple one, one that I would have asked my grandma about.

I still miss her so much, it was particularly hard when the boys came back from Arizona. Almost every dinner they spoke about her, it was unbearable at first. Tears would come to my eyes at the dinner table. After a week or two I started getting used to it, even though it effected me I encouraged the kids to keep it up.

They have so many wonderful memories with her, fond memories that they will never forget. It keeps her alive in many ways, the dark side of this is that it keeps her death fresh in our minds as well.

Here and there, generally about once a week, Tristan still has breakdowns about her, he just starts crying and comes to me and tells me how much he misses her...

Still whenever I bring up her death, my eyes glaze over, tears beginning to form, then I let out a breath that I feel I have been holding for months, and I go about my day.

What else can we do but go about our days. This is not over though, the effects of her passing will remain sensitive for quite some time, this december in particular will be very difficult to bear.

My grandma's birthday, I believe her 68th, will be coming up on December 1st. She was born 6 days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. I believe her birth name may have been Kathleen Rae Harris, Harris was her biological fathers last name, but I dont know if it was the name she was given at birth. It may have been Long, which is my Great Grandmother's maiden name. Later she was adopted and I believe her name became Bircher after that, but now I feel as though I am rambling. We'll save family history until after I have researched my grandma's papers a bit more.

I started school, Im about halfway through my first quarter. I am taking just one class this quarter, my advisor suggested I start small so that I get used to doing things online and get used to being in school again. I've been doing decently, Im a little behind on my homework at the moment, but I havent exceeded any deadlines yet. Ive done very well on all of my quizes so far, the only negative thing would be my first major test. I didnt do very well on it, I was very frustrated and disappointed.

Forgive me, I must rant about this. Is it more important that I learn how to use formulas or how to remember formulas? Ive always been really good at math, but never good at remembering formulas. I find it frustrating that some Math Teachers give you the formulas for Tests and some dont. Shouldn't the point be for me to know how to use it? I could have scored much much higher on this test if only there had been a small non-descript listing of the formulas we had learned in this section.

Its not like you're giving out the answers. The formulas are merely tools, the goal is to figure out how to use those tools effectively and properly. If I ever needed a formula I guarantee I will be in a situation that I can easily find it on the internet or in a book, in which case through my Math Classes I will remember how to USE the formula.

But my current teacher doesnt seem to think that same way. And while I passed my math test I estimate that I could have scored 15%-20% higher if I hadnt had to summon the formulas from memory.

Either way I am just going to put extra effort into getting those formulas into my mind, hopefully they stick long enough to take the next two tests and the final. But I can honestly tell you I wont have any need to remember these formulas at any given time in my life. Im not saying I wont need to use them, I may need to.

Next quarter I will take another math class and an english class. I wanted to start with some basic courses as they are generally very structured and that will help ease me back into school very well.

I've been getting more into boardgames this year, I've purchased several really good ones that I recommend. Here is a quick list of 3 that I very highly recommend that are sitting right next to my desk: Carcassonne, Smallworld, Ticket to Ride.

Ok, so I will be just talking about random things for a bit.

First off, Michael Bumpus, former Cougar player was dumped from the Seahawks at the beginning of the year. Brandon Gibson was picked up by the Philidelpia Eagles in the draft, he saw some good play time in the preseason.

The Cougs are having another bad year, but we found a new person to lead our team. We have started a True Freshman Quarterback, Tuel, the last 3 games, he has a long way to go but he is showing some serious promise. WSU hasnt started a True Freshman since Drew Bledsoe, that shows us all that we have some faith in him and that we are also desperate for some improvement.

We are getting excited for Cougar Basketball to start up soon, Bennett left us for another team, so this will be our new Coaches first year, we'll see how things go.

My reading started to really slow down again, I had been doing good for awhile, but it started taking me months to read a single book again. Finally I finished a book and I decided I needed something easy to read that I know I enjoyed. So I picked up some Star Wars books. I hadnt read any Star Wars since High School, its the male equivilent of romance novels. I got through about 5 star wars books in 7-8 weeks and now Im taking a break from those to read the new Dan Brown novel that just came out.

I loved the Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, I've been eagerly awaiting Brown's latest novel. I am only about 60 pages into The Lost Symbol so far, but I was hooked by page 20. I can't wait to get through this book.

I like the movie The Da Vinci Code, its not nearly as good as the book was. I also like the movie Angels & Demons, I think it was alot more exciting than the first movie. After watching the Harry Potter movies, when I read those books I always pictured the characters as if they looked like the actors from the movies. Even though I think Tom Hanks plays a great Robert Langdon, I dont picture him when I read these books (yes, The Lost Symbol followed the same character, but this time in Washington DC).

Something I learned recently has really piqued my interest. I did not realize the the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra was not Egyptian. I was shocked to find out she was Greek, or more specifically Macedonian. She was apparently a direct descendant of one of Alexander the Great's captains. I also did not know that her first born son was said to be the son of Julius Caesar, prior to her love affair with Marc Antony.

Well I guess I should talk about Television. The shows I am watching right now are Fringe, Castle, Supernatural, Flash Forward, Heroes, Californication, Smallville, and Dollhouse. In a couple of months I will add Lost to that list as well.

Fringe is still going strong, more interesting than ever actually. Castle has been hit and miss so far this season, but the episodes that have been a hit have been on par with the best episodes from last season.

Supernatural is still an addiction for me, Samantha watched the whole series on DVD with me and Ive got her hooked on it too now.

Flash Forward is a new show this year, I get more impressed with each episode, I like the actors, I like the characters, I like the mystery, so far so good.

Heroes I like better than the last two seasons so far, but I still dont think they have recaptured the magic. I half think they have the ability, but are held back by the mistakes they made the last two years with their continuity.

Smallville is going good, Im surprised its lasted this long, I still think it suffers from the lack of Lex Luthor, he was a huge part of the puzzle for Smallville, both the actor and the character. So many of the storylines they have used would be enhanced if he was still involved.

Californication has been F'ing awesome this year. The first two seasons are just plain amazing and the third is shaping up to be just as good or better.

Dollhouse is ok, I want to like it more than it deserves. I am behind on episodes, I have 3 on my DVR waiting to be watched. I may drop it soon, depending on how those episodes go, we'll see. He has made some amazing shows in the past, this one has potential.

Overall recommendations, I would say first and foremost Supernatural. The actors and storylines are great, it gets better each season. second I would say Californication, this show is serious, hilarious, sexy, and just plain awesome from beginning to end. Then I would say a 2 way tie between Flash Forward and Fringe.

Ive seen lots of great movies this year, but im not going to talk about that right now. A brief statement about the 2nd Transformers movie that came out recently though. Visually this movie is amazing, I was throuroughly entertained by the action in it. The storyline was enough to keep me into it, but when I sit down and think about it, I think they pissed all over anyone who is a fan of the 80s transformer cartoon, they could have done so much better. I think the movie was cheesy as hell and while I still like it, I also find it insulting.

Gosh its been so long since my last blog Im having trouble remembering everything I want to talk about.

Things are still going really well between Samantha and I. We are coming up on 5 months soon. She is spending Thanksgiving with my family and I am spending Christmas with hers.

We went out to eat on our three month and we dressed up, my profile pic is from that night.

She gave me an amazing gift. Let me start by saying that shortly after my grandma passed we all met up at my Great Great Grandma Long's grave to spread my Grandma's ashes, along with my family I was fortunate to have the support of my friend Sarah as well.

My mom brought roses for all of us to lay on my grandma's grave, before laying mine down, I plucked a petal from the rose and kissed the petal. I wanted to keep it. Well it dried in my car and I was afraid of touching it, so I would warn people about it so they wouldnt crush it accidently.

Samantha got a little tiny wooden box and decorated it and snuck this dried rose petal out of my car and put it into this box and gave it to me as a present on our 3 month anniversary. It was an amazing gift. Mine didnt even hold a candle to it.

But just to mention what my gift was, we weren't planning on eating anywhere fancy, we just wanted to basically go out and have a date night to celebrate our 3 months together. But I developed a plan for my gift. I waited until I believe either the day before or the day of and half suggested we dress up all fancy-like for our date, even though we weren't going anywhere fancy. It was all part of a bigger plan to get a staff member at the restaurant to take some pictures of us all dressed up, I gave Samantha a really nice picture from for our 3 month, and a card with a little something written in it.

The boys are doing really well, they are both in cub scouts now. Tristan is going to start basketball in just about 2 weeks. Jadon's age group starts in January.

I just had parent/teacher conferences today, both the boys are doing really well.

Jadon has been struggling with his reading, the way they measure reading, Jadon was at a 14 reading level at the end of last year, they want the average 1st grader to be at lvl 18. He made some good progress last year but he struggled quite a bit. Well, after summer time his teacher said he had dropped from a 14 to an 8 reading level, it was an alarming difference.

We worked hard, I rearranged our home study schedule, and now he has jumped up to an 18 level, almost a 20. Not quite where he needs to be yet, but we have been amazed at his progress and we think he is starting to get on track. He just finished his first chapter book and he is really really excited.

He is most excited about Math and Writing.

Tristan is doing well, his teacher said he is one of the best readers in his 1st grade class. His scores on the various reading assessments showed that he was at more than double the skill level of the average 1st grader. Tristan only reads chapter books at home now, he has been doing really well.

Im not sure Ive got much else to say tonight, between school, family, work, and that special someone I cant say Ill post another blog soon, but I want to keep posting about once every week or two if I can fit it in.

Levante el vaso para muchos sale el sol más, beben de muchos conjuntos de más sol

Boys r Back

Well, in just under 3 months I've managed to put 8000 miles on my car, not too shabby!

The boys got back on Sunday, the summer flew by ultrafast, I guess because I was busy instead of just waiting around counting the days. They were sad to say goodbye to their mom again, but super excited to be home, in the first hour they were already talking about being excited for school.

Jadon was particularly excited because he will be in the 1st/2nd grade combined class again which he liked a lot last year, he will have the same teacher and this time he gets to be the older kid :-).

Life will be a little easier this year, they will be in the same age group for sports and now I will only have 1 drop off before work as oppose to taking one of them to school and one to daycare.

It doesnt sound like they did much over the summer except go see movies in theater. It was a far cheaper summer for me because they didnt have to attend daycare, Nicole's boyfriend watched them every weekday because he isn't working right now. I know they love their mom and like to see her, but I know that someday they will start to understand that she chooses to be away from them like this and when that day comes it will break my heart to have to hear their questions or feelings about it.

The boys are super excited to see some Cougar Football, and basketball but I told them they have awhile longer to wait for that.

I saw this new book on the shelf at Barnes and Noble today that really piqued my interest. It is called "Pride and Prejudice" its this brand new book by Jane Austen. Oh wait, I mean its called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. It sounds hilarious:

In what’s described as an “expanded edition” of Pride and Prejudice, 85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem.” For more than 50 years, we learn, England has been overrun by zombies, prompting people like the Bennets to send their daughters away to China for training in the art of deadly combat, and prompting others, like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to employ armies of ninjas. Added to the familiar plot turns that bring Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy together is the fact that both are highly skilled killers, gleefully slaying zombies on the way to their happy ending.

There is also a book coming out called "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" Brilliant.

My left shoulder is still getting to me after that whole falling down the stairs thing. Its not dibilitating but it sure gets to bothering me by the end of every day. Doc said it could take a long while to fully recover.

Well, its been about 3 1/2 months since my grandma passed. It still hasn't sunk in. I think about her a lot still, esspecially with the boys being back, they've talked about her several times already. My mom has been having an esspecially hard time, my grandpa is living with her now and I think its made it worse for both of them. My mom is a lot like my grandma, and says a lot of the same stuff to my grandpa that she would have said to him. I think it will be hard for quite some time.

Well, I got some pretty bad news last week, I woke up Friday morning and my mom called, my Great Grandma Esther just found out that she has Breast Cancer. She will find out more information this week. Later that day during my lunch break my mom called again, we just found out that my cousin Tiff has multiple skelrosis...

I dont like to say that one person is more important than another or that one condition is worse than another or anything like that, I love them both very much, but there was a sharp difference in my reaction to finding out each of these pieces of information. Its very unfortunate and sad that my 84 year old Grandma has Breast Cancer, I love her very much and I hope we can rally around her and be there for her as much as she needs, or can handle lol.

But there was something about hearing that my cousin, who grew up very much like a sister to me, has MS. She is only 25 years old, she is a stay at home mom with 3 beautiful daughters and all life has done is crap on her. It upsets me, she cant even do many of the things she dreamt about doing growing up. She developed some kind of bad joint issue ( like carpol tunnel, or really bad arthritis or something) awhile ago making it very painful for her to continue playing the many instruments she had mastered, she has been living with Crone's disease since her late teens and now MS. It physically upsets me, I was in tears at work after hearing the news.

I love Tiff and I love my Great Grandma very much and I hope they know that they have a lot of love and support. Tiff is coming home for a visit soon, I got to see her brand new baby girl when my grandma passed away and now I get to see all 3 of them together, reunited with my boys at long last!

On to happier news. Things between Samantha and I are going really well, we are almost to the 11 week mark lol. She is primarily the reason I havent blogged as much in the last 11 weeks. I just dont spend as much time on the computer as I used to. Which is fine because half the time I was sitting on here feeling bored out of my mind just browsing the net the way many people flip through channels on their TV.

Soon after my last blog post she and I went on a trip to Seattle. We had a really good time, but we didnt hit every attraction we had planned, just too much for one weekend. We did plenty to get our money's worth on the City Passes though. I spent waaayyyy too much money on lunch at the Cheesecake factory and then we did one thing we hadnt planned on doing, we went to Gameworks and played a ton of video games.

That weekend was a blast, when we got back it was time for Samantha to move out of her apartment, her mom, 2 sisters and one of her brothers came up to help her. I made dinner for them two of the nights, and I think they all liked it quite a bit.

Ultimately she had a hard time finding an apartment she really liked, she ended up having to move her stuff into storage and bunking with me for a couple of weeks. She found a cool place in Moscow and she is getting set up in there now.

We went to silverwood a couple of weekends ago, I hadnt been there in awhile and it was awesome! I was there in 2006 but I couldnt ride a lot of rides because I only went on ones my kids could go on. I hadnt been on a real rollercoaster in quite awhile. After the fair in Samantha's home town I had started thinking I was losing the stomach for real rides, but I still had it in me! Though I took some motion sickness medicine just to be sure.

They have 4 rollercoasters at Silverwood now, I went on 2 of them and when I got to the 3rd I just couldnt make my ass fit in the seat. I was really embarrassed. I need to lose weight, this is ridiculous. Technically I fit in the seat, though it was uncomfortable. THe problem was that I couldnt get the left hand side of the seatbelt up over my leg high enough to latch on to the other side of the seatbelt. It wasnt even that the seatbelt didnt fit me, it DID fit me, the problem was just that the left side was too short. If it was 4" longer on the left and 4" shorter on the right there wouldn't have been a problem.

We drove down to Samanth's dad's house again this last weekend to pick up her sister Misty. She goes to school at the UofI too so we were bringing her up to start school.

The boys start school next week, they are totally psyched! I am paying for my class tomorrow and it starts on like Sept 23rd or something like that. I am really excited to get back into it, esspecially with such an easy class.

This weekend we're hitting a BBQ at my Uncles, then the boys are going camping the following weekend. Jadon has 2 dentist appointments and an Orthodontist appointment in the next two months, Tristan and I each have 1. I havent gotten tickets to Wicked yet, hopefully they are still available, too many other things to worry about financially right now though. The lentil festival is coming up, maybe this weekend? anyway, I hope everyone had a great summer, mine was amazing and very unexpected, a good start to something that I hope can stand the test of time.

I've Fallen In Love

Thats right, I said it! But before I get everybody caught up on the things that have been going on this last month with Samantha and I, I'll get some other pieces of information out of the way first.

I was messing around on the stairs and I slipped and fell down the stairs. It totally sucked. I spent the next 4 days trying to just walk it off, but ultimately I wasnt getting any better so I went to see a doctor. I had two giant bruises on the top of my ass that just got bigger and bigger each day (the size of a coaster each). My butt her off and on, but mostly felt numb, which the doc said was normal. My butt feels better now and the bruises are starting to heal up into a nice shade of yellow instead of just being solid black.

I caught myself with my life arm about halfway down the staircase and about 24 hours later my shoulder started hurting, this is ultimately why I went in to see the doctor. They put me on a weight restriction of 15 lbs and gave me a note for work then scheduled a followup appointment.

I messed it up even more over this last weekend and today the doc bumped my weight resriction down to 5 lbs max and no repetetive lifting, which screws me out of my current job since I tend to lift 100-200 boxes per day that range in weight from 1 lbs-50 lbs

I turned the big 2-9 yesterday, the countdown until I turn 30 has officially begun. I asked Nicole to make sure the boys call me on my birthday and not make me call them, she said she was 'try' and remember. By about 5 o'clock though I called them to talk to them, she hadnt even told them it was my birthday.

Things like this happen all the time, its total bullshit and pisses me off like you wouldnt believe. Actually if you've ever ridden in a car with me you might believe it lol. Generally I go off on a rant about how I always have the boys call her and I always remember important dates and Holidays for her and try and include her and that I can stop doing that if she doesnt want to do the same for me.

But I do my best to try and remember that I dont do that for HER, I do it for the boys, and that is what upsets me the most, she should do things for the boys but she doesnt, she never makes decisions or remembers things for them, she does things for herself, she wants things for herself and she never has thought about them, their futures, whats best or given any thought to making even a fraction of the sacrifices Ive made for my children.

In my view she has voluntarily sacrificed 10 months of every year of being their mother so that she can be happy down in sunburn land. Anyway, at least I got to talk with them. I miss them tons!

July 4th was Samantha and my 1 month. It felt good to hit that milestone. We went to the Pullman fireworks display and we had a lot of fun. It sucked before that a little for her though because she had just gotten Pnumonia, it was cool though because when she got sick I was like "I think you might have Pnumonia" and then when she went to the doctor and they said she had Pnumonia I was like "Im sorry your sick, but I just want to let you know how good it makes me feel that I was right about the Pnumonia" lol, she wasn't as appreciative of my diagnosing abilities :-)

We've been together for over 6 weeks now and every moment has been amazing. She planned a trip down to her hometown to visit her parents and go to their local fair and she invited me to come a long and meet her family. I met a lot of people this weekend, they were all really great, very welcoming. We had a great weekend together, we were gone for 4 days down in Southern Idaho over my birthday weekend.

my birthday was really very sweet, Samantha and her sister made me breakfast in bed (but she woke up after me so I convinced her to let me eat it at the table lol), then they made me a delicious chocolate birthday cake with chocolate frosting and a secret filling that I managed to guess, HUCKLEBERRIES. I went huckleberry crazy this weekend, they are soo good.

We went swimming too which ultimately is what did my shoulder in, it was a ton of fun regardless, but the doc said it wasnt a good idea and that I need to start using my shoulder a lot less while it heals. Then we went to the fair that night, we had a lot of fun, but I started getting motion sick right away so I was a lame ass as far as rides went. That dissappointed me a lot because I love going on rides and I normally dont get motionsickness.

We are heading to seattle this weekend to do some fun stuff, Ill blog about that trip once its all over and done with, it will be a crazy amount of fun and Samantha's first time to Seattle!

I wanted to mention one more thing before I sign off. I got a birthday present from my Grandma.

My Grandma was so amazing, the last few weeks have been esspecially hard because I know just how much she would love Samantha. Well, my Grandma had started making me a birthday present before she passed away, my mom finished it and gave it to me for my birthday. It was a miniature scrapbook type thing filled with a lot of my favorite recipes that my grandma made. I cried like a baby when I opened it, its just so amazing and means so much to me, I feel like Im about to cry right now just talking about it.

I guessed it had something to do with my grandma and I kind of prepared myself for liek a little picutre book or something like that, but this present was just so amazing and so unexpected, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I love it, thanks Mom!

I love you grandma, and I miss you, you were better than any grandma I could have dreamt of having and you prove that in my life daily just through the memories I have of you.

Jason

Who's Going to Turn the Bathroom Light Off?

The title of this blog as a question I just heard fly down from my bedroom upstairs. I yelled back "You Are", and the reply was, "Im in bed already". I heard all of this while trying to think of a title to this blog, TA-DA Thats how blog titles are created! A little behind the scenes glimpse.

Its been a full week since my last blog post and things are still going great between Samantha and I. I couldn't be more excited, she is amazing. She's been hanging out with me a lot, which has been a lot of fun, and I wish I could steal her away more often.

We went out to Chinese Food for our Date on Thursday night. We've been watching some movies together and I am getting her hooked on my favorite TV show Supernatural, which I think is bad ass!

I made Fajitas for her and I to eat on Friday, it was my first time making those and I think they turned out great, I used Pita's to put them in, but they fell a part too easy, so unless I find a better quality Pita I will probably just use soft shell tortilla's next time.

The boys came back on Saturday, I invited Samantha out to meet my boys and my mom that day, and things went really well. My mom definitely liked Samantha and she wasn't too hard on her lol. The boys ignored her for the first day like I had warned her about, but they started warming up to her the next day.

The next day was Father's Day, I convinced Samantha to spend the day with us. We played some Wii Tennis and Wii Bowling with the boys, I got her to try out the board game Carcossonne and she said she liked it, she seemed to have fun. Im always nervous about introducing girls to my geeky side.

She got to see the boys and I in our competetive smack talking best while playing Wii, it came together quite nicely.

Then while the boys watched a movie and went to bed upstairs, Samantha and I watched some more supernatural and stand up comedy.

We talked and we've decided to be Boyfriend/Girlfriend, we're both really excited. I've enjoyed every moment Ive spent with her, I want to spend more time with her, I think about her all the time. We get along really well, we have a lot of mutual attraction and chemestry. I like to learn about her and tell her all about myself lol.

Im hoping to spend a lot more time with her this summer, I wont see her much this week since its the boy's last week here before Phoenix.

I am hoping to take her up to Silverwood, she has never been. Im planning on taking her to Seattle to do the tourist thing, and she has invited me to go down to her home town in Southern Idaho and meet her Parents in mid-july over my birthday. I am hoping to be able to go down with her, but my Supervisor won't give me the time off until he gets back on that Monday and reviews if he can spare me or not.

Anyway, things have been great, she is at work right now and I miss her, I almost packed my kids into the car to head over there to say Hi, but ultimately they were both really tired, they just went to bed actually.

Well, Im going to bring this blog to a close for now

-Jas

An Interesting Turn of Events Part II

Its Monday Night. Didn't feel like a Monday today though, work flew by fast, which is always nice.

I finally got my Wii hooked up again, found the cable I had been looking for.

I've put right around 2500 miles on my new car already, and I already have at least three more trips across the state planned. One each month for the next three months.

I spoke in my previous blog about going out drinking on a Saturday night, 9 days ago now. I mentioned meeting this amazing girl named Samantha, we've been seeing each other ever since that weekend.

Things feel like they are going really well, there is definitely a lot in common and a lot of chemistry. We txt each other all the time and constantly stay in touch.

Im a fairly busy guy this time of year, lots of stuff going on with the boys, but we planned to have a date last thursday, but the feeling was pretty mutual that we didnt want to wait that long to see each other again, so last tuesday Samantha made me lunch and we met up on my lunch break. She made me a really good sandwhich and brought some other stuff to eat, we were really excited to see each other again, but my lunch break was far too short.

Our date on thursday was amazing, I was not suprised as she is a very amazing person. I made us some stir fry and made a Thai Peanut Sauce for dinner, I didnt get the noodles right, but it was still pretty good. After that we went out to see the movie The Hangover, which was Hilarious, damned Hilarious!

Afterwards we went back to my place and... attempted to watch Silence of the Lambs. Yes, thats right, I found a woman who is both beautiful AND interested in Horror movies, its like a dream come true lol. Somehow she found a loophole in the system and has watched all of the Sequels and Prequels to Silence of the Lambs without watching the brilliant original. There is already quite a list of movies for us to watch together lol.

Unfortunately we couldn't see each other over the weekend as I was up in Bellingham helping my friend Russ move up there. We watched The Hangover in theater, 2nd time for me obviously lol, Just As Funny as the first time, this movie is ridiculously awesome. We unloaded his Uhaul, I drove him around so he could buy a couple of things since he doesnt have a car, we BBQ'd some really awesome steaks and then a saw an SUV burning on the freeway on my way home.

As much fun as Russ and I had, it was torture going so long without seeing Samantha, so we planned to see each other not long after I got home Sunday night. Now we have plans to get together tomorrow and hang out, I'll probably be cooking tacos because I want to use some of the stuff I've got for them. Then we are going out on another official date on Thursday, dinner for sure, and maybe a movie in theater as well. We are planning on getting together on Friday too!

As I said above, things are going really well and the chemistry and everything are just off the charts. Im really excited about her. I've really been trying to calm that side of me that tends to come on too strong and focuses on where I want to be in 5-10 years as far as marriage and kids and such goes. Its working out fairly well, like Ive said a thousand times in this blog, I dont want to jump into anything and go too fast, but at the same time I dont want to hit the breaks too hard and go slow, and I know there are no set rules for how this works and each situation is unique. It feels like we are doing fairly good so far in this regard.

My kids are gone all week, camping with my mom. They come back saturday afternoon, just in time for Father's Day on Sunday. I dont really have any plans for Father's Day, mostly I just want to spend it with my boys. Im thinking I might buy something cool for us to cook together and eat. Then sit back, play some board games and video games and just do some of the cooler activities we do as a family. Maybe if its nice we will have a squirt gun fight, but I think Ill wait and decide spontaneously ;)

Next week is a busy one, we have the last week of baseball and then we are going to watch the new Transformers movie one of those nights as well. That saturday, June 27th, they fly down to Phoenix. I'm going to miss them a ton, but I have a really good feeling about this summer.

I am hoping to take Samantha to Seattle, it will be her first time! If we can only go for a day then my plan is to hit the Zoo, but if we can go for the whole weekend I want to pick up the City Pass and hit all that stuff. Space Needle, hour long cruise, Science Center, Zoo. I think the aquarium might be part of the City Pass too, hopefully, then you can either do the Museum of Flight or the Music Experience thing, neither of which I have ever done.

Im thinking a good weekend for that might be on my Birthday, July 18th is a Saturday this year. I wanted to try and hit silverwood around that time, but we'll figure it all out.

I have a really good feeling about my birthday this year overall, I've been getting a little worried I would just be depressed, my first birthday without my Grandma. I honestly say it still hasn't hit me yet, she's gone. I still feel like she is a phone call away, the next Holiday I would have seen her on is coming up fast, July 4th. We would have all sat outside playing cards. I miss her.

My grandpa is being moved back up here, he is going to live with my mom. She is going to use his retirement and Social Security and stuff to hire a nurse or something to help him when she isn't home. She is really hoping this works out so that he doesn't have to live in a nursing home.

We found out that there is a possibility that he doesn't have Alchzimers. He definitly is suffering the symptoms of that, but it looks like the cause of those may actually be several strokes that he had. We are going to be getting a more in depth examination done once we have him up here.

So as I said, my July trip across the state is hopefully going to be a cool seattle tourist date lol. Then in August I plan on coming over to take my boys to visit some cousins down in Vancouver. In September I am coming over no matter what! The musical based on the book Wicked! is going to be in Seattle most of that month, I've been wanting to see that for awhile!

All in all, its been a very unexpected and amazing 9 days since Samantha and I met. Its such an interesting turn of events that I decided to use that title for my blog again. :)

Goodnight all

-Jason

An interesting turn of events

Bloggin' time! Just sitting at home doing my laundry and thought I would post a quick blog.

Im going to be honest, I want to be in bed right now. Ive got a bit of a hangover after last night, but I think what is really getting to me at the moment is not sleeping much. Ill be up for at least another three hours doing some laundry though.

For my first bar outing of the year, last night was pretty awesome. I've literally never had that much to drink, maybe my night of tequila crazyness, but this rivals it!

We started the night off at Mingles, I had a shot of Tequila, a long island iced tea, some pineapple drink that was ok and then a Rum and Coke. They were stiffing us on the amount of alcohol in the drinks, so we changed bars. I went to CJ's for the first time, its a pretty decent place!

We played some pool, or attempted to, and I got to meet a very pretty girl by the name of Samantha that I hope to be seeing more of very soon!

At CJ's I had another shot of Tequila and then 4 more Long Islands. So I got messed up pretty bad! For the most part I think I can remember the night, its definitely hazy though and I know I've heard a couple things that I dont recall.

Apparently I was shamelessly flirting with Samantha, which I do remember. We joked around about it today, some of the 'flirting' I did is just plain hilarious in retrospect. I got some credit for an ingenious way of giving her my phone number and giving me hers. She had somehow got ahold of my phone and she pretty much had it most of the night, but I managed to get her phone for a bit and I used it to call my phone! Instant number exchange! Well, as smooth as that sounds, I cant take credit for the ingenious part.

At one point Russ took me aside and told me to 'take a break', then he went and apologized to Samantha for how strong I was coming on to her, he told her that he had put me in 'Time Out' lol.

The night just kept getting better, which is why I never really slowed down on my drinks, even though I feel at the moment that I should have. I feel like Samantha and I clicked really well together, we ended up spending a majority of today together as well.

I know Im keeping it all kind of vague, vague is mostly how i remember it at the moment lol. I'll keep my blog up to date a bit. And while I will be keeping most of the information to myself, I'll keep my blog up to date on how things progress with Samantha, I have a really good feeling about her. :)

On a more serious note, my uncle and his wife may be facing a felony charge of embezellment. The lawyers they have spoken to dont think it will go anywhere and they think someone is just after a plea bargain to get a settlement. But just in case this does end badly, my uncle spoke to me today about the possiblity of his three year old son Braydon coming to live with me, in the event they did do prison time.

They've narrowed it down to either me or Braydon's Uncle Tim. He and his family are really nice and Braydon would be well taken care of there. I think that Braydon would drop right into my life nicely, there would be no financial impact as my support would scale with the increased costs. I already have a lot of confidence in the teachers at the daycare that watch braydon's age group. Braydon would still be around all of our family, and most important of all, I think I would be best suited to give him the love and attention he needs. Ultimately, they are just trying to plan for the worst, they dont think it will actually become a criminal charge.

Well, im going to go lay down and try to not fall asleep. I only had a headache when I was first waking up this morning, but Ive had that woozy vertigo feeling all day, motion sickness has been a huge problem. Fortunately I haven't actually gotten sick, but its still not been pleasant.

Somber

Wow, Im very very tired right now. Just not ready to go to bed yet though. Crickets are going crazy outside my window.

I was doing a survey on myspace and there was some question about my birthday and it really hit me hard. Im never going to see my grandma again. Today marks one month since my grandma passed and I still feel like it hasnt really hit me yet. Monday was her 36th AA Birthday, or would have been.

I miss her, I was wanting to call my friend Sarah earlier today (who I also miss), but instead I just scrolled through my contact list, assessing who everyone was, when I came across it 'Grandma'. I so very much felt like just hitting the dial button to give her a call. If only she was just a phone call away still.

The world is a lesser place without her. She defined a new direction for a family very much following the wrong path.

Her kindness knew no bounds, her convictions were strong, she let her ideals guide her actions, and her mouth lol. She helped so many people to realize they had a problem with alcohol, she helped them to become sober and to stay sober. She helped those people with their houses, their gardens, their weddings, thier children and grandchildren.

She would take injured people into her home and nurse them back to health. Wether injured in body, mind or in spirit. She would visit prisons to run AA meetings withint he walls to help inmates. She volunteered for many things, she stayed very active within AA, Garden Clubs, Avon. She morally supported and guided so many.

She liked hunting and camping. She loved gardening and quilting. She made all sorts of crafts, cooked all sorts of different foods. She did things only on a large scale. She had a garden so massive that I doubt I will ever see another of its kind. She always had massive decorations out for christmas. Each holiday she completely redecorated the house to make it look festive for that holiday. She would always have parties with 50 people coming out to her house. She could never make food for just a couple of people, she always seemed to make enough to feed an army.

She never did anything half way, she always showed passion for the things she was interested in.

I have my grandma's passion, locked deep inside of me. I feel like the way I was raised prevented me from ever doing anything. I put walls up all around me and I bang on them and bang on them until I explode out of them at some point.

My opinion never mattered growing up, it was just my mom and I at home, and I can remember so clearly I would say so many things that she wouldnt even hear, she wouldnt even listen. Then when I was 12 I started Making an Argument. I started pounding on the barriers around me saying that I had had enough. It was time for my voice to be heard, it was time for my opinions to matter.

And one day my mom just looked at me, yelling that my opinions meant something, and she looked suprised. It was like she had an epiphany. She suddenly understood that my opinions did matter, and she explained that up until that point she just ran under the assumption that kids are not meant to be heard.

I broke out a little, but now I feel like I see a pattern in my life. I want to do something so badly, I end up putting up walls preventing me from getting there. I start to pound on them and pound on them from within myself until I finally explode. It could be the most simple of things.

Sometimes I dont understand how some people see me. Even some of my closest friends, on one hand they will say Im a pushover, but then in the same conversation they will say I am the most stubborn person they have ever met. I dont let things go, I dont like to be wrong, I do love to learn and grow, but its difficult when I think Im already right about something.

I do admit when Im wrong, or when Ive finally been convinced of that. I am obsessed with knowing why I am wrong about something, I feel like I need to discover the root of my misinterpretation.

There have been a ton of women in my life and only one of them was ever able to really control me, my Grandma. Control may be too strong a word, you just didnt defy my grandma. I never even really questioned that, I didnt want to try. She was the Matriarch of my family, she was a powerful woman. She could be so intimidating, her opinions, even amongst strangers, carried more weight than I could imagine possible.

If anyone ever tried to stand up to her, they were put in their place. A good example was my uncle bob, when he was a teenager, he played football, he got all big and tough and decided he didnt need to listen to his mom anymore and he was going to go up the stairs and show her who was boss. Well, thats about the time she knocked him back down the stairs, end of story.

She brought everyone together, she was the glue the bound us as a family. And damnit, I want to pick up that phone right now and call her, tell her how much I loved her, respected her, looked up to her. Now all I can say is that I will remember her, honor her, and hopefully we can all work together to keep this family together.

Im not a pushover, but I did anything for my grandma. Sometimes she got pissed at me, and sometimes she frustrated me, but ultimately she got her way because there was no way to challenge her, no one had the will to go up against her. Not because any of us are weak, but because she was sheer strength of will and personality.

My mom didnt have much control over me, she didnt instill that in me at all growing up. I did my chores, and I was a really good kid in general (mostly because of those walls I built up around myself), so she didnt have to really tell me much. But she got very frustrated with me, because I just didnt listen much to her, by the time I was about 16 I was pretty much tired of living at home. I love my mom very much, I think she did a great job with me, but Im sorry, I have my limits lol.

Nicole couldnt much control me either. I went into detail on her method of controlling me in my last blog, Ill try not to be so graphic here. Lets just say, I was a difficult person to live with at the time, it was my first relationship, we were both young. She relied on me to make all the decisions, and I did. I decided on where we would move, where we would work, where we would eat, where we would shop for groceries, I decided what we did for holidays, I cooked most of the time, I did most of the major cleaning while she did most of the upkeep cleaning. I did all of the disciplining. She didnt make me do all of these things, she was practically incapable of doing any of them on her own.

The fact is, most of the things she convinced me to do, or that she tried to exert her control over, were meaningless things, and she quickly put me into the habit of denying these things to her so that she would "convince" me to do them, even though they were things I probably would have done anyway. So while I was 'pussy-whipped' I still wore the pants in the family, I still wore all the responsiblity.

The last person I would say is my friend Sarah. Sometimes I dont know exactly what she thinks of me. I know she thinks I am a good dad, and I hope she thinks I am a good man. But I think she is under the impression that I am a pushover. She hasnt really said that to me, but she lumps men in her life into two different catagories, and I definitely fall into the "easy for her to control" catagory it seems like.

Well, Im not a pushover, as almost everyone of my teachers and supervisors would attest to. I challenge authority, I make my opinions known, I dont give respect when its not deserved.

I have very specific opinions about Religion and Politics, and a very specific mindset on morality. The way I raise my children is specific to me, and while it has grown and changed a lot, and I do accept feedback and criticism from people I trust, it is my own way.

Im trying to figure out what exactly Sarah, or anyone, thinks they could control about me, or thinks I am a pushover in regard to? Is it someting that even matters, is it something that is a part of who I am, because I have a feeling that I would feel very sorry for anyone who tried to butt heads with me on one of the subjects I just listed. I am a very critical person of myself and of others, and I am very opinionated.

Everything else about me is putty, meant to be shaped and molded so that I can adapt to the people I want in my life. Just look at how I live at the moment, a simplistic bachelor lifestyle. I dont want to invest myself into an apartment when ultimately I want to be making those decisions with someone down the road.

The fact is, Im not fucking crazy. Part of me has always been very adolescent and not grown up, but another part of me has always been an adult. Ive always fit in with adults, Ive always hung out with adults almost exclusively. I tend to be the voice of reason, caution and safety. I try to be pratical.

I would argue I haven't lived as much as a lot of my peers, but all I know is that when a moral situation presents itself, I dont as myself how much fun it would be, I ask myself what decision I would want my children to make in this same situation.

We'll take tomorrow night for instance, Im going out drinking with some friends. I dont drink very often, mostly because I am a single parent and I will only drink when I know I wont be around my kids at all, so Mostly it is a summer time thing for me. But tomorrow I am going out. Ive thougtht about how we are getting to the bars, Ive thought about how much I plan on drinking, Ive thought about how late Ill be staying up, Ive thought about how I will be getting home.

Im going to have fun tomorrow night, and im going to do so without having to worry about anything because I already took the time while I was sober to arrange for all of that and figure it out.

Im more afraid of next weekend, Ill be going out drinking in unfamiliar territory, Bellingham. And i know that the people we will be drinknig with are a little crazier and I will probably need a cab home.

Ive come to the realization that a lot of people drink and drive. It genuinely scares me. These fucking idiots really dont know what they are doing. Its something you have to learn the hardway I guess. But if a situation presents itself next weekend that I am in disagreement with, the fun will stop.

I already have a lot of things I would say to someone, Im not trying to make any friends when it comes to dressing people down about the bullshit things they dont think about or the danger they place others in. You think you know how alcohol could affect your life, or the lives of others, why dont you try being a seven year old kid sitting in on closed AA meetings.

Why dont you try hearing horror stories about drinking rubbing alcohol, beating your children and spouse, running your car into a house, why dont I tell you how it affects a little kid to hear a story about what it does to your life when you make one drunken mistake too many and end up killing someone. Sure, those are things I probably shouldnt have heard, but its given me an appreciation for life and responsiblity that few seem to recognize in me.

Or how about the 'accidents' thick with Irony, like a car full of Students, all members of AA having realized they had a problem and getting help before they ruined their lives, then getting into a head on collision with a drunk driver. Or a man and a woman, sober for years, meeting each other in AA, falling in love, getting married, and then on the day of their wedding as they ride off into a sunset, they get struck by a drunk driver while riding their motorcycle, killing the new bride.

So go figure why I might tell someone to go fuck themselves if they even think of doing something so stupid while they are around me. You want to know why i am so careful in my life, too careful, it is because I know and understand how my actions can effect the lives of others in both positive and negative ways. So sure, my plan is to have fun next weekend in Bellingham, and Im not going to run my mouth off about any of this, but you know what, Im thinking all of this just in case I have to bust it out and put some dumb drunk mother fucker in his place.

You wonder why things between Sarah and I have never worked out, its this exact mentality. She knows full well that almost every time Ive seen her she has essentially been forbidden fruit. The barriers I put up around my feelings for her were so thick it was ridiculous. And then she wonders why I dont make a move on the rare occasion that she is around me while she is single.

But this blog isnt about Sarah, its about the important women that I have had in my life, and she is definitely one of them.

Im hoping for at least one more to add to that list at some point. Someone special that I can wake up to every morning. But until then, this is my list.

One of the reasons I decided to blog tonight is, tonight is the 2nd to last Movie night I get with my boys before they leave for the summer. They are gone the next two fridays camping with my mom, so I only get the friday right before their flight.

Technically its 12:30 in the morning, so Ill say its June 6th. That means my kids have only 21 days left before they leave, and they are camping for 8 days with my mom, which leaves me with only 13 days left with them, thats less than two weeks!!

Tristan just had his Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony, it was a lot of fun. He is pretty excited to get to be a first grader next year. Both the boys have come a long way with their reading this year, it just amazes me. I would not be suprised if they were both on small chapter books by the end of next year at the pace they are going.

Well, I think that is long enough for now. My last three blogs have all been private, my friends will be able to see this one though.

Have a good weekend everyone, I know Ill be having a fun and safe weekend.

And just remember, I hold the passion for life and love in my heart that my grandma held in hers, I just have more layers to get through before I can let it out.

loneliness

Every night right now I just feel so lonely. I long for some regular companionship. Im feeling really depressed, I feel like I dont have any friends I can talk to regularly anymore.

I feel like all I do is push people away from me. I think its only going to be worse once the boys go down to Phoenix too. I've never really had a core group of friends, and in less than two weeks the last friend I have in the area that I hang out with will be gone.

Im upset. Every night Im upset and lonely. I dont cry or anything, but I do feel on the verge half the time now. This feeling was enhanced after my friend Sarah's visit was over, but its always been there.

I love to be alone, but I need to be with people. I feel like I dont know how to make friends, and other than long distance, pretty soon I wont have any here. Its driving me crazy. I just want people I can hang out with a chat with, people to come over to the apartment and play games with and have dinner with occasionally.

And on top of that I want a girlfriend, someone that I can hang out with all the time, someone I can care about and who can return those feelings. And while I want to jump ahead of myself and talk about wanting to be married again, and wanting to have more kids or something, at the same moment I am deathly afraid of ending up in another doomed relationship.

I just need someone who I can do activities with, clean my house with, or at the very least talk to while I clean my house. Im so tired of just being alone on the time.

I feel like I am trying to be the best father I can be, but I dont feel like I know how to be anything else anymore, I dont feel like I have anyone in my life regularly that is just for me.

Ive wanted to call my grandma a lot this weekend. I miss her so much and I just want her to be proud of me, but right now I dont see how she could be, I cant even find how to be happy. I mean, I have my ideas, like the one in my last blog, but that seems more like a distant dream at this point.

Im miserable and unhappy and depressed and Im so tired of sitting down after my kids go to bed and feeling like there is just nothing more to my life. Why is it so hard for me to make/keep friends? Other than Russ, who will be gone in two weeks, I dont know anyone that lives anywhere near me that I could just call up and ask to come over and hang out. And I dont know how to change that.

I can barely get anything done because this feeling of loneliness is so oppressive. Its taken me three days just to re-organize my kitchen, when that should have taken a single night.

I feel unwanted.

I dont want to be alone anymore.

Diario de un loco

Today is Sunday May 31st, the last day of the month. In exactly 27 days my kids fly to Phoenix to visit their mom for the summer. During that time I have the last day of 1st Grade for Jadon, the last day of Kindergarten for Tristan, Baseball pictures for both boys, 10 baseball games (5 for each of the boys), a trip to bellingham, the boys go camping for 9 days, I'll go drinking with Russ and some other friends for the last time before he moves, I'd like to take the boys to the new pixar movie 'UP' and hopefully Transformers which starts right before they leave. On top of all that, I will be hearing if I will be awarded my work benefit to pay for school. I registered for my first class that I will be taking in the fall.

And thats just the stuff I've thought about so far. I'd like to do something fun for Father's Day and I am certain a couple other things will come up as well. Then I also need time for dating, which is slowly but surely becoming more trouble than its worth.

I want to share my life with someone, Im so tired of being alone, but I also feel like Ive mostly been careful, I dont want to jump into anything too quickly. I guess when I say I've been careful, most would say too careful.

My main issue is that I feel time starting to slip away from me. I'll use the 'backup' plan that my friend Sarah and I have for fun as an example. Its not real, but it makes me think, When Sarah is 30, I'll have just turned 33, which is still really young, close in age and all, no problem. But at that point in my life I will have a 12 year old and a 10 year old. When I think about it like that it just blows my mind.

My kids are already so old, there will be a huge gap in the age of the kids I have now and the kids I still want to have. Im getting to the point where I could have kids that end up being closer in age to my grandchildren than they are to my oldest.

This in itself isn't entirely unusual, its just not the way I wanted it to be. I think Im still holding on to a lot of the concepts I put into my mind when I first got married. This does not dissuade me in the slightest from wanting more children, its just a new perspective on a life I never expected to have.

Waiting 4-5 years to have kids is completely fine with me because its vitally important that I develop a good relationship with the girl that is potentially going to be their mom, I dont want to just find a Mom for my future kids, I want to find a partner in life, someone to share my future children with, not just someone to provide children for me.

In all honestly, I'd really like to date someone for a year or two, then get married and then after we get settled into that, have a couple of kids. At this point with my kids getting older, and closer to getting out of the house, Im not sure I even care how many more I have, I'd put a minimum of 2 on that comment at least, but the rest would just be open for discussion, its not my sole decision afterall.

So I guess it comes down to the fact that Im not even in a relationship right now, which puts me BEFORE the very beginning of the above process. Or perhaps AT the very beginning of it if it ends up being one of the girls I am interested in at the moment.

Like I said, I dont want to jump into anything, Im not going to be in an exclusive relationship for awhile, even though I want to be very clear, That Is My Goal. Right now I am very much in the 'dating' phase, and Im not too big on it, Ive had some fun dates, but overall I know that I will enjoy an exclusive relationship that much more, especially knowing we are building something powerful with a lot of potential.

Right now I am mostly seeing my friend Theresa, we work for the same company but we really just met 3-4 weeks ago. We've gone on one full length date, which was a lot of fun, and we've gone out to lunch 4-5 times as well. We have some similar interests, we chat a lot. Things are progressing really well, but I find myself feeling guilty because I just dont feel excited about her, I think we could be good friends, but I dont feel us clicking like I think we should.

Another girl I have seen lately is Heather, she is another girl from work. Heather is awesome, I really like her, she is very cute and fun to be around. We've actually been on five dates, a mix of dinner and long long lunch dates. The only real issue is that she and I are not on the same schedule and its a shame.

We went on 5 dates in like 5 months or something like that. Our first date was way back in December, then I think 2 in January, then one in March and another in April or so. We've rescheduled a couple of those dates as well. There are a lot of scheduling factors involved with Heather. She works night shift and I work day shift, and the way that works out is, almost anytime I am awake and not working, she is either asleep or at work, and vice verse.

Also, she was in bowling league, and she kept pretty busy on Sundays, which only left Saturdays for us to go on dates. She uses some of her Saturdays to spend time with other family and friends and of course the clincher is that I am a single parent and need to spend some Saturdays with my kids.

We recently talked about going on another date, bowling league is over so Sundays opened up, my kids are going to be gone for the summer which frees me up a little as well, and I stay up late nearly every night so we might be able to have late night plans after work if we can figure out anything cool to do. The main problem is that, we don't even have a chance to talk much really, but she is cool enough that the trouble is worth it and I think I should see if there is real potential with her.

The other girl on my mind is my friend Sarah. And in my opinion, we've really messed things up in the last week. I'll delve into things a little bit more in the next few paragraphs, but the reason I say we may have messed things up in the last week is because for once in the history of our friendship we really let ourselves get very close, so close that it felt like we were together in the short couple days she was visiting. We had a very meaningful talk and even addressed how we would react to this after the weekend was over.

We acknowledged how we act after these kinds of moments, which for Sarah is withdrawing, becoming unavailable, and taking some time to think. For me I guess you could say I lash out, while she was here I would say I let my heart and mind speak together, she had my emotions tempered by our reality, but once she was gone and I felt that huge hole in my heart, I could look around, see, feel, hear and smell her presence in every facet of my home... when I write in this state of mind I write directly from my heart, I don't control what I say and it gets me into trouble, especially with Sarah, because that is the opposite of what she needs in that moment.

The issue I feel that really messed things up in the last week is that, by acknowledging we would mutually react this way, I think deep in both our minds we may have developed a hope that we would both react differently this time, or at least that the other person would. I know I really hoped this silence wouldnt happen, and I am certain she hoped I wouldnt lay my entire heart on the curb for her in text. We make things very difficult for each other.

I've talked about Sarah, either directly or indirectly, in this blog alot. She and I met not long after I started this blog. It was the end of fall/beginning of winter time, probably November 2006. I loved the book The Da Vinci Code and the movie had come out on DVD and I wanted to see it. I went to blockbuster to rent it and the girl behind the counter was somehow both astoundingly beautiful and easy for me to talk to. We talked about the Da Vinci Code since I was renting that at the time.

I thought about this girl and i didnt even know her name yet, Im not the best at looking at peoples name tags, and even if I had, Im not the best at remembering names unless Im around someone a lot. I was very very intrigued though, so I started dropping by to see if she was there after work.

I got off work literally right before she started work. It became clear to me that she was very easy to talk to and I developed a crush on her very quickly. I think she was weirded out by me visiting her a lot at first, but I think she got kind of invested in the story I was going through at the time and that ended up leading to us becoming friends.

We started playing Tennis together a lot, when I would go across the state to visit our cousins, she became my road trip buddy and would go visit her friends and family that same weekend. We had dinner a couple of times and watched a couple of movies in theater. The main clincher was that for quite a while I saw her almost everyday, I went in to make sure she didnt get any work done the first hour she was there lol.

She was dating someone at the time, and I was going through a rough time with my divorce. Despite that we ended up getting very close and I developed feelings for her, and I think she had some feelings for me at that time as well.

Things kind of flew into overdrive a little bit as her boyfriend was about to graduate which signaled that she was about to move away, possibly far far away, but fortunately it wasnt too far. We went on one final road trip together up to Coeur d'Alene. I invited her to come up and celebrate a bunch of stuff with a friend of mine and I. I had gotten a new job, I had finally filed for my divorce, and my friend Russ had just recently had a baby.

So we all went out drinking and I had told my friend russ that it was open season, I was going to let him get me as drunk as he wanted and I left my inhibitions at the door, or as much as I can anyway lol.

Well, Sarah and I had both been drinking, I had had an inordinate amount of Tequila, when I woke up I had my very first hangover LOL. I could also barely remember most of the night after a certain point. I did have a vague recollection that Sarah and I had kissed. Probably not long before I threw up and she cleaned me off, which I unfortunately remember very well.

We talked about the kiss briefly, and Im not going to delve into our conversation, but we did kiss again before leaving couer d'alene. I have honestly never been able to get that kiss out of my mind. Kissing Sarah was so much different than kissing anyone before or since and I think that is because I had developed more than a crush on her.

Things got weird between her and I, she let me back in a little bit after I sent her flowers, we got together to play Tennis and we discussed things a little bit. I went too far and I told her that I Loved Her, which at the time was not yet true.

She ultimately decided to stay with her boyfriend and they moved away together. I remember being devastated for a long time. With my divorce happening, I wasn't ready to be with her as much as I wasn't ready to be without her.

After that she came back to Pullman to visit a couple of times, one of the times she came for Jadon's birthday which was really cool. We pretty much kept things on a Friend basis, we talked a little bit about stuff, but for the most part I think we kept the kiss and the feelings out of the equation. Id like to note I still cared about her in this way, but I honestly felt she was just no longer interested in that, she had made a very clear choice to stay with her boyfriend.

She and I started talking more and more, online sometimes on the phone, or just through blogs and messages. She and her boyfriend also broke up during this time. Ultimately we went through a short time period at the end of 2007 where we talked about dating, and I dont think either of us ended up being ready for that idea and it fell through. We went through another one of our downtimes where she doesnt talk to me and I have one sided mass conversations with myself in her message inbox lol. Its a cycle.

Well, ultimately she was going through a hard time and we started chatting again and we left the whole interest part out of it and I felt like we really built a stronger friendship in that time period. She was trying to figure out what was next in her life, things had really gone down hill she felt and she wanted to get back on track. We were chatting on MSN almost daily at that point.

She decided to move home and she found a cool job, I think it was her Carson Cars job that she found right away. It was right around that time, maybe before she started working that job, that I got a girlfriend and Sarah and I went through another downtime because she had started developing more interest in me, and it was mostly because we had gotten close as friends again and she had been going through a really hard time and was starting to come out of it, but it was hard knowing she still had interest.

All through this I fight with myself on whether to pursue her or whether we should just be good friends and I really feel like whenever Im convinced it just the friends thing, she wants more and whenever I want more then she wants distance.

Ultimately things with Kim didnt work out, what I thought was there was not and Sarah and I had gotten through our 'rough patch' lol, our cycle, and started talking again.

I wasnt really sure what to expect, especially knowing she had just had interest again. So I just kept it at the friend level, we flirt outrageously with each other, but I didnt make any advances. I had gotten tickets to go to the Cougar Football game in Seattle, they were a fathers day present from my mom and kids. The original idea was for me to take Sarah, then while I dated Kim, Sarah and I weren't talking at first, but those plans stayed alive.

It had been over a year since I had seen her, we made big plans for our weekend, a cougar game, lots of standup comedy at bumbershoot and then seeing stone temple pilots while we were there. We also wanted to try and go to the zoo if there was time. Ultimately Im thinking, Sarah and I are both single, I am very interested, at this point my feelings for her have only grown, and I know that she had expressed interest in me just a few months previous.

I wasnt thinking we would start anything like a relationship, with the long distance between us, I wasnt sure what to expect, but I was thinking we might end up being pretty close over the weekend and that some of our normal barriers would be down.

Ultimately she had essentially just started dating this guy over in new york within the week or two prior to my coming to visit. We had alot of fun while I was there, we spent a lot of time together but overall it was the opposite of what I had expected and hoped for. There were more barriers between us than ever.

I was dissapointed and a little hurt, but I realized it was best just to maintain the friend thing, before that weekend it had been over a year since we had seen each other, as I said a couple paragraphs above, and I think I underestimated just how long of a time period that is.

She lost a bet to me, she ended up knowing way more Stone Temple Pilots songs than she thought, and that meant she had to buy us tickets to go to the Apple Cup in Pullman together.

Ultimately she and I had had a fun but awkward weekend together and we werent talking very much, things kind of got worse before they got better, and then the final week before the Apple Cup comes along, she didnt tell me she had bought the tickets, she wasnt calling me back, she wasnt answering my texts or messages at all, I couldnt find out if she was planning on coming the night before the game, or the morning of the game, I couldnt find out if she was leaving after the game or staying the whole weekend. Basically it was just complete radio silence until I got a text literally one hour before the game started saying her mom was in the hospital.

We started talking more and keeping more in touch with each others lives and I feel like our friend ship grew a lot. Then came spring break earlier this year, im heading across the state so I make plans to visit Sarah.The first weekend I pick her up really early and we take the kids to the airport together, then we spend the rest of the day together before I have to head home. We went to the IKEA store, which was amazing. I really felt like our friendship was better than ever, it felt so good to be around her again.

I couldnt wait for the next weekend to go and pick the kids up, we were going to hang out with Sarah again and I had started getting the impression that she might be interested again, but I wasn't sure if that was the road to go down. I felt a longing to go down that path, but considering our history up to this point, I felt like I was just fooling myself.

That second weekend was even more amazing than the first, and my kids were there for most of it. The main thing we did was go to Seattle Center, we took the kids up the space needle, then we spent some time playing with Ice and sitting by the fountain.

We clicked really well, Ive always felt like our chemistry was amazing together. I feel like I could tell she was leaving me some openings to make a move, but ultimately I held back, she had talked a lot about this guy she had just met and I just felt like we were leading different lives and it wasn't time.

I convinced her to come visit me finally, I had wanted her to see my 'new' apartment for awhile, and she quickly worked out that she was going to be coming over. It happened very fast. She kept dating the new guy, who seems really great, since we're just friends we kept on doing what we had started doing after Bumbershoot and we stayed fairly up to date on the phone with each other and I knew she was really into this new guy, despite being different then her normal list of interests.

Well, I guess I didnt even think about what our weekend was going to be like. I made plans for my friend and his wife to come over to have dinner and play games the first night, I wanted us to play sports the next day, like Tennis, have a watergun fight, we would make some food together, watch Angels and Demons (which would tie directly into the first conversation we ever had), then spend Sunday with my family spreading my grandma's ashes in grangeville.

Ultimately we did do all of those things as planned, plus more. But what happened that I wasnt expecting was, at some point after my friend left on the first night, we started slowly letting barriers down that we had almost always kept up. At this point I would like to note that this is NOT a public blog, not even all of my friends can read this or else I would not be going into so much detail.

It started simple, cuddling with each other while we watched movies and then the night culminated in one of the most passionate kisses of my life, and even right before that I remember hesitating because I was afraid of where this would lead, and how this would end. After that night I thought back to a lot of times we had been together, even back before our first kiss more than 2 years before this, there were so many moments that in my mind we seemed like we could have just been on the verge of letting these same barriers down.

It seemed like we kind of chalked the first night up to mostly a curiosity thing, but the next day I couldnt resist, I felt like I had just unlocked a floodgate and all my barriers were down, we became very open and honest about our feelings for each other and the state of our lives, but ultimately it was clear this was just going to be a single weekend together.

We got closer than ever before, we allowed ourselves to really experience what it was like to be together on a romantic level. And when the weekend ended I think we both longed for things to be different, but we both understood that this is ultimately not our time, we are still following different paths.

Now flash forward to the beginning of my Sarah story, where we fell into our normal cycle like after every time we felt close to each other, and ultimately we both just got hurt again and kept going forward with our separate lives.

I very much consider Sarah the tragic love story of my life. Tragic in that, I have incredibly strong feelings for her, I can picture her in every facet of my future, I feel like I can see exactly what our children would look like, and yet I just have this feeling that if we remain friends, this cycle of getting close and then backing away will continue and we will keep getting hurt.

Ive never felt for anyone what I feel for Sarah, and I know deep in my heart that whomever I end up marrying and having children with someday, I need to feel this way about that person. I do wish that person was Sarah, for me, the feeling is there, but the timing is just not right and Im starting to think it never will be. No matter how much I want that, our paths have never truly crossed.

I dont want to lose a friend, especially one I care about so much and that has been so important to my post-divorce life. But if she and I can't be together, do we really want to keep hurting each other? And on the opposite spectrum of that question, Why, if we care about each other so much, are we not together?

Our recent weekend together will always be very special to me, Sarah is very special to me.

Romance and Dating aside, the future is looking brighter and brighter. My Grandma has passed, but her legacy remains. I can't wait to start school again, Im extremely confident about getting my work benefit and in addition I think I will continue to do well working at SEL.

Right now I am going through my house and completely finishing it. There were lots of spots left incomplete, places where I just stuck stuff and so forth. I already finished my hall closet by my kitchen, its completely organized now. That frees up a lot of space in the kitchen itself, which I am going to make look a lot nicer. Sarah nudged me in the direction of making space to put some of my Grandma's chickens out and the more I thought about it the more I think my Grandma would have wanted that, especially in the kitchen.

My Grandma's death is so fresh in my mind that I flip flop back and forth between not wanting to be reminded she is gone, and wanting to remember her and honor her. I wish she was here now to talk some sense into my foolishness with women lol, Im sure she's upstairs glaring out me now trying to Will me into knowing what she would want me to do!

After I get done with the kitchen I will move on to my bedroom. My bedroom is in good shape, if I keep any room in the house completely simple, it will be that room. I do want to put a couple of pictures up, and organize my gaming closet a little better, but overall it wont change much. After my kids are gone I will completely go through their room finally and get it all sorted and stuff, get some shelves up and posters.

At this point, or sometime during all of this, I will go through and finish my living room. There are a couple of posters I have had my eye on for awhile that I will probably get put up in there and then I will finally get my pictures put up that I want in there as well.

last I will go back through my storage unit, which is vastly over burdened with Nicole's belongings (approximately 1/3 of the storage space is her stuff), hopefully Ill get her to ship it to herself this summer, otherwise I will ship it down at my cost and have her owe me for it the next time I pay my portion of travel costs.

I'd like to touch on my writing progress. There is none! I really got into it, I was working on my writing habit, the number of ideas I was getting at any given time literally doubled just from the activity, but then my grandma passed and I just stopped completely in my tracks with a lot of things, including reading and writing. After chatting a lot about storylines and different things on the car trip with Russ this weekend, I think Im ready to sit down and work on that habit again.

Im going to start walking to Exercise again, I tried it out a couple of nights ago when the boys were staying at my moms house, I went out for a walk at like 9:30 at night lol. Ill hopefully try to do it in the mornings, but I am more of a night person so I might go as the sun is setting instead.

I walk down the Chipmen trail for 30 minutes (an alarm on my Phone tells me when the 30 minutes have gone by), I walk that 30 minutes as fast as I possibly can while maintaining regular breathing and without stopping. And it freaking hurts like hell. Then after my alarm goes off I turn around and walk back home as fast as I can again, trying to beat my original time if possible, this works out to be an average of an hour long walk.

Once the boys are gone for the summer I am going to try and do this as often as possible, Ill probably try and do it while they are gone camping as well.

When I lived in Bellingham and lost a shit ton of weight and dropped a whole bunch of pants sizes, I was walking a minimum of 1 hour each day, and that was just to and from work. With the amount I walked over all to my friends houses and to work, I was walking a minimum of 40 miles per week. I can and will get back to something similar again. I remember feeling so so good doing this once I got a couple of weeks into it. I want to see if my slightly older body can handle it and also see if I can lose weight as easily as before.

Well, I am certain I have more to talk about, but Ive spent nearly three hours writing this blog and I really need to get some other stuff done.

-Jason

The Weekend

So this friday Im planning on leaving the Pullman area by around 2pm. Im totally psyched about a long road trip with the new car, will be sweet. I should be passing through my old digs in Everett by around 8pm at the latest.

Jen is hooking us up with a cabin again, this time I think she said it has a single, a double and a bunk bed, sounds huge.

Tristan's first T-Ball game is today, then Jadon's first Rookie League game is tomorrow. Im bringing my camera.

I hope everyone likes all the pics I just put up, found those in a box while I was cleaning out my Hall closet. Going to finally get through it all and start using it for dry goods and kitchen supplies and stuff. My cubbards doubled their contents in the last 2 weeks so it got crazy unorganized fast.

Yes, I am actually dancing in one of the pics lol. That was a fun wedding.

Anyway, Im feeling kind of down right now, maybe Ill talk about it in a blog after the boys go to bed.

-Jason

My Weekend and My Future

I don't recall the last time I blogged or what it was about. Im fairly busy this evening or I would go back and read it to find out, but I think I'll just wing it. Shouldnt have to use my own blog as research right? lol Believe me, Im not afraid to repeat myself.

I finally got my friend Sarah to come over and visit my new apartment, it was a freaking awesome weekend too. We watched some movies together, we played a game with a friend of mine, she cooked some meals, we had a water gun fight planned by myself and then the next day we had a crazy spontaneous water gun fight instigated by our guest.

We went out and played some sports, we played a game of Tennis, Sarah is now back on top, she beat me by what I would refer to as a slight margin. Then she taught me a little about how to hit a golf ball, how to stand, how to hold the golf club, it was really neat. Then we tried a little baseball, pitching, catching hitting and so forth. It was a very active day.

On the sunday she was here we actually went on a mini road trip to a town called Grangeville, its in Idaho. This is where my mom and Grandma were both born and it is where my Great Great Grandma Long is born. My Grandma wanted her ashes spread on her grandma's grave, so we got some immediate family together and did that.

Sarah went with us, which meant a lot to me. Losing my Grandma has been very hard for me. Sarah got to meet a lot of my family, I wonder if she realized just how much of a Redneck I really am lol. Im definitely not quite as extreme as the rest of my family, but you can really see it. Esspecially when I get giddy about my car and its Sunroof, heated seats, fog lights and other little things lol.

We also went to see a movie together in theater, it was originally the plan but most of my babysitters were unavailable the first couple nights. We went to see Angels & Demons, which I thought was really good. It was a very interesting movie for Sarah and I to watch together because the Da Vinci Code was the movie that I rented at blockbuster from Sarah that ended up sparking a conversation between us. I then proceeded to stalk her LOL, and that is when we ended up becoming good friends.

On Monday morning she went home, it was very sad to see her go, it always is. Afterwards I went out to hang out with my Uncle and his family, we rode his ATVs around Boville, also in Idaho lol. The weird profile pic I have right now is actually my face covered in dirt from the ATV riding fun. Looks like I grew a mustache, but no. lol

Well, it looks like my friend Russ and his wife have decided to go their seperate ways, its not my story to tell really, so thats about all I will say about it, well that and that they must have just thought that my divorce was so cool that they wanted one of their own! lol

Russ and Yvonne only have one car and he asked me to take him to Bellingham this weekend and help him find an apartment. It looks like that is where Yvonne with move and he wants to stay close to his boys. Im using this an an awesome opportunity to get my kids up to see their cousins one more time before they leave for the summer.

And then it looks like I will also be going up to Bellingham again the weekend of June 13th and 14th, which is just three weekends from now. He is hoping to have a place by then and the whole deal is that he wants to move his stuff that weekend. My kids wont be with me this weekend though, they will be camping with their Grandma!

Honestly Im also hoping to get to see Sarah again one or both of those weekends, but it is kind of last minute and I know she is busy with school and life in general.

I was going to turn in my Essay and Application for my work education benefit today, but I realized over the weekend that the filetype for the new application was for the newest version of Microsoft office, currently I use Google Docs and it doesnt convert those files yet, they do the older '.doc' files so while I was at work today I saved it in that format.

Im completing the new version of the application right now and I will be submitting it for approvals tomorrow. The deadline is Monday, so I feel like im doing pretty good on time. Registration is in two days on the 28th so very soon I will be registered for a Class!

Its going to feel very good to be a student again, to be progressing my education and finally reaching out for my future again. I feel like I have very slowly, but very methodically rebuilt mine and my childrens lives. Life cant be as spontaneous as it used to be, even for a calculating and over thinking guy like myself. Hell the first time I went into college I literally saw a brochure one day, had a meeting at the school the next day and by the following Monday I was a student picking up books for classes.

Well I have a new car, I think Ive already mentioned it a few times in this blog. My old car was having some serious transmission problems and it was going to cost way more to fix than the car was worth. The new car is a 2008 Chevy Cobalt, Ive put 400 miles on it in the first 4 days so far and within the next 3 weeks I will be taking it to Bellingham twice, so Im really breaking her in!

Well, Ive got some laundry to catch up on. I had a massive gum explosion in the dryer while Sarah was here, one of my kids left a whole pack of gum in his pocket and I didn't check! I was wondering where that gum went LOL. It was actually pretty easy to get the gum out, so now Im back in business.

g'nite everyone

Im On a Boat!

-Jas

Hope I remember to go to my Dentist Appointment in the morning

I am very concerned that I may not remember to go to my dentist appointment in the morning. I even emailed myself at work to give myself a reminder that if I am in fact at work on time tommorrow, leave immediately and get to that dentist appointment!! lol

Im pretty tired right now, but Ive been meaning to blog for a few days. Ive been working on getting my house all cleaned up, and my car. My friend Sarah is coming over this weekend to visit! I think she is coming over to visit so I can teach her a little something about the game of Tennis. Bring It!

Forgive me jumping back and forth with this, Im really am pretty tired. On sunday we are all driving to Grangeville ID, we are spreading my Grandma's Ashes on her Grandma's grave. That is also the town my mom and grandma were both born in.

I had three dates with Theresa last week, two over coffee and then on Saturday night we went out to a movie and then kicked it at my place with a bottle of wine and some stand up comedy. They were all a lot of fun and we are going out again tomorrow for lunch.

The transmission on my car needs to be replaced, its going to be pretty expensive so we're trying to figure out my options.

Well I think I had more to put in my blog, but Im super tired so Im just going to finish up my laundry and then hit the sack.

g'nite all!

Work yet to be done

Well, Im already up way to late, so what the hell, might as well write a blog to top it off right?

First I would like to say, I miss my Grandma, I think about her everyday. She helped raise me, she was a major part of my life and I only hope I can continue to do right by her.

Her service went very well, I read my last blog just about word for word. I did add a few things, but most of that went unchanged. I started out needing to take a lot of moments to collect myself, it was hard to clearly speak, but letting everyone hear the raw emotion in my voice, painted on my face, for once in my life I was not nervous at all to talk in front of a large crowd.

And large it was, our initial estimates put it at around 200, but that was wrong, it was closer to 300 people. Right around 15 people spoke. I went first followed by my cousin Bryan.

Im not going to talk much more about my grandma right now, I just dont feel completely ready to. But I do want to mention that she LOVED the card game Pinocle, and I wanted to mention something really weird that happened the day of her service. In the first 6 hands of Pinocle I played that day, my partner and I made 300 pinocle 4 times. This is something I rarely accomplished once per day of playing pinocle, and yet we did it 4 times almost back to back. It felt like she was right there with us.

It was weird going back to work today, the first half of the day was ok, went kind of slow. The 2nd half of the day kind of wore me down a bit, I felt kind of emotional and I felt shaky too. Fortunately the 2nd part of the day went by fast.

I'd also like to mention I had a lunch date today that went really well, I dont want to blog too much about it right now, dont want to jinx it! lol. But we have some plans coming up and I'll tell you about her really soon.

T-Ball Started today! Tristan was really excited, he was placed on the Yankees, one of the boys from our Angels team last year is on his team again. Tomorrow Jadon starts Rookie league and from then on out I will be doing baseball 4 days per week until the boys leave for the summer!

Jadon and I practiced catching, I only hit him in the face with the ball once, right on the nose, he was ok though. Didnt even cry, though if I had handled it any differently he may have lol.

My Grandma knew how much I loved history and she (totally on purpose) sat me down and told me some things about our family that piqued my interest quite a bit. My mom let me take a bunch of the family history items home that she had, and some family tree information. Im going to record them digitally and begin creating a more detailed and better laid out family history, though I am going to get in contact with some distant relatives who may already have more concrete information for me to work on.

I have also begun a massive undertaking, the scanning of my grandma's photo albums. I just did a quick count of all the photo albums on my couch, right around 65. Plus I have 4 photo boxes (and I believe there are more coming). Ive already scanned about 50 photos so far, but the goal is to get as many as I can in the next 2 weeks before the collection starts breaking up.

I agree that many people deserve to own some of these albums and I have no problem with that. But this way we can all share them, this way we can better preserve our history. Once the originals get split up, we will never see them together again.

My mom gave me an amazing present today, she gave me my Grandma's 1 Year AA coin. Each year of sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous they give you a coin to symbolize your accomplishment. My Grandma was sober for just 1 month shy of 37 years, my Grandma has been sober for about 36 years and they just celebrated their 34th or 35th wedding anniversary (and they met in the program, can you track the progression lol).

This coin was also my Grandpa's one year coin, as my grandma passed it on to him when he achieved his 1 year mark. This coin means a lot to me.

Oh yeah, also, Jadon finished the last two requirements to obtain his Tiger Badge, the main focus of this year of scouting. He will recieve it on Friday, the last day of scouting this school year. Next year his brother will join in as a Tiger and Jadon will move up to be a Wolf! I started as a Wolf when i was a kid!

Im also really thankful that my cousin Amy and I were brought together at last, though I wish under better circumstances.

I want to thank everyone again for all the support you've given during this last week. Losing my Grandma has been a massive blow, but I know deep down inside that we can do her memory Justice.

I love you Grandma!