Starting Over

A lot has changed for me in the past month. I quit my job because I was unhappy and wanted to make my graphic design degree usable so I decided to start a small business by designing graphics on shirts, mugs, cards, and etc. Believe me, I felt like a failure for a while because things weren't happening the way I wanted them to. People seemed uninterested in my work and I felt discouraged but just kept faith in myself that I could eventually get it going. My family has been supportive of me the whole time. I had worked for a long time and for me to quit my job and start out on my own was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm used to working for people above me and working by myself isn't easy but I am starting to get used to it and feel better every day that I keep working on things I create. Besides graphic design, I'm working on arts/crafts where I make things by hand and sell them. So far, I've sold 2 Christmas wreaths and already have two orders to fill. When I sold them, I felt overjoyed at the thought that I made something and I got to sell it to someone who appreciated my hard work and loved my art. When I tell people what I do, some are happy for me but others just act like I'm trying too hard and setting myself up for failure again. I guess it is part of having your own business. Without encouragement and support, I don't think I would be able to go on. I try so hard to advertise my work everywhere by word, Facebook, and other social media to get it out there to be known. This is new to me and I hope that things will get better for me. For those reading my blog, I could appreciate if y'all could spread the word about what I'm doing. I am working on setting up a page on Facebook once I get my business to get better and selling more things. If y'all have tips about what I can do to improve things, let me know. Thank y'all for your support. :)

A Split America

As we know it, Election Day is tomorrow and it's been agonizing for me when I see people fighting on Facebook constantly over politics. I'm going to tell you a secret: I haven't voted. Surprising, isn't it? Just because I have liberal views doesn't mean I'm gonna dance my way to the voting poll and check the box for Obama. I thought about this for a long time and it was hard for me. I voted for Obama four years ago believing that he would actually change things and make them better for us. Yes, he did end the war in Iraq and did a few good things but at the same time, I'm disappointed. Unemployment rate is still bad and we have a real high debt. And I got a real bad feeling about Obama. While he might seem charming on the outside, I see something inside him that bothers me. I see pictures of him disrespecting the American flag by not placing his hand on his chest and the whole Libya coverup scandal has opened my eyes. He seems to not care about the true meaning of being a proud American and defending us. I don't want a president who ignores the American flag and his country people. You might disagreed with me but it's just my instincts telling me that there's something wrong about this picture about Obama. Hard to explain. If I could pick anyone over him, I would go for Hilary Clinton but unfortunately, I don't think she's going to run again.

And if you're wondering that I decided to vote for Romney. You're wrong again. I hate him. He wants to take women's rights and equal pay rights away. He wants to set our country back to the 1950s and have us become freaking housewives. He also doesn't believe in gay marriage which I do. I know some of you would hate me for believing in that. I have several friends who are gay and lesbians and they're wonderful people. It seems unfair that I get to be married and they don't. I wish they could have a legal marriage and be viewed equally. I believe that Romney doesn't really care about what he calls the 47% which are some of us. I'm part of the 47% because I'm on disability benefits and don't work right now. I don't expect you to sympathize me for that. I didn't ask to be deaf and struggle to find a good paying job without being discriminated. I'm a full time mom taking care of my son and trying to make ends meet by making crafts and cards to sell so I can make extra money. If I were to meet Romney, I'm sure he would look down at me and think I'm lazy and relying on government money. Pretty pathetic, isn't it?

So you can see why I don't like both of them. That's why I decided that for the first time in 8 years, I'm not going to vote. Why vote for people you don't like or trust? And if you tell me to vote for the 3rd party, I won't. I know nothing about the other parties than democratic and republican. What's the point of voting? Both aren't right leaders for us and whoever wins, we are screwed either way. Now I've said enough and all I can do is hope that our country bounces back from a bad economic time and have changes made to get better. And if I keep seeing people complaining about whoever wins this election on Facebook, I'm going to delete the posts. We have to move on and keep hoping for the best. We are split as a nation and need to unite again.

May God Bless America....

30 things to Do Before I'm 30

I was going through some old blogs on my MySpace profile and came up on this blog about things that I wanted to accomplish before I turn 30. I'm 27 years old and only have done a few things of them. The list was actually written in a diary when I was 19 but put that in my blog. Here's what I wrote in my blog 6 years ago and you'll see which ones I've accomplished so far in bold pink words.


"This may sound unusual of me to do this but I thought I could share with everyone about what I wrote in my journal when I was 19. In this entry, I wrote down 30 things I felt like I wanted to do before I turn 30 in 9 years from now.
Jan 14, 2004
Dear Diary,
Hey, thought I'd tell you 30 things I would like to do before I'm 30....
1. Learn to play the bass guitar
2. Learn to rock climb
3. Go on a trip to New York City -I came this close to going but a knee injury and pregnancy kept me from going. :(
4. Write a children's book
5. Learn to be a better cook
6. Go to my 10 years' high school reunion
7. Work out to keep in shape -I did for a while but stopped. I have no motivation or a friend to work out with now.
8. Meet a few wrong guys before I finally meet the right one -I did and I'm marrying him in a few months. :)
9. Go on road trips to Seattle, New England, wherever I want.
10. Adopt a couple of kittens and take good care of them. -I adopted one and found another one that was wandering around at my old apt. I still have them and their names are Snickers and Reese.
11. Finish college and get my degree. -I graduated with two associate degrees but still want to pursue a bachelor's so I'm not really done with college.
12. Learn to snowboard -Done that and it was hard!!!
13. Take pottery classes.
14. Take dancing classes.
15. Get a makeover -I did so many times changing hair colors and trying on new clothes styles. It was fun.
16. Find a good place to live
17. Go yachting
18. Pet a dolphin
19. Ride a camel
20. Get a telescope so I'll look at the stars better -I had one for a while but stopped using it because I couldn't figure out how to use it properly.
21. Go camping with friends
22. Being in two places at once
23. Have the best sex ever  :) -no comment, lol.
24. Meet up with old friends -did that and it was great. Would love to do that again!
25. Find the happiness I've been waiting for -I did and hope it'll stick around for a long time.
26. Run in an marathon
27. Go out in the country to watch a sunrise with the true love of my life.
28. Get a heinie (a fake tattoo)
29. Get a great massage -yep and it was a good one.
30. Find out who I am really. -sort of did but still learning more through life experiences

All those things I've just written are what I would like to do but I think half of them will happen and the rest won't. Well, I'll wait and see what I do in a period of time."

So you can see what I've done and I hope I will get to finish the other things in 2 years before I turn 30.

The Life and Death of a Friendship

This is a difficult topic similar to losing a family member but with a different perspective. Friendships are part of your life. You make friends that come and go as you grow up. I started making them at the age of 2 years old when I was enrolled into a deaf preschool program that let us start early before any other regular programs. I had several friends that I grew up with from that age til high school. Then some of them started to go other paths in their paths: college, getting married and having kids young, and working. I went to college and met several more people along the way. Some of them were interesting people and others were well, crazy. Unfortunately, I lost two friends who died while I was in college and it was real sad because I never got to know them more if we did end up being good friends til old age. I did have a few childhood best friends that lasted 20 years or less and recently in the past few years, I lost them because we had changed and didn't spend as much time together as we used to. I learned that life happens and you can't expect people to be around forever. Then there were frenemies (friend/enemies) who were quite a challenge for me and I would constantly have a love/hate relationship with those kind of people. I experienced a couple of friendships that were very toxic to me because of how they treated me or made me bad about myself and yet, I still found myself glued to them. It took me a long time to unstick myself from them. Their betrayal and cruel actions opened my eyes and I realized that it would be unhealthy to continue being friends with them so I had to end them. My mom always tells me that I will have at least 1-3 close friends in my life. Well right now, I feel like I have maybe 1 or 2, but that seems to be going down slowly to one. I had one friend who I considered as one of the bestest close friend ever. We were like sisters and talked all the time via texting or emails. I confided in her about anything and we shared life advices. We had almost everything in common. It was an almost perfect friendship. Then one day, it changed forever when we got into a fight that pretty much ended our friendship. I cried so hard and that was the most heartbreaking thing to go through since the death of my friend years ago. I don't want to mention what the cause of the fight was but it was awful and I still feel guilty about it. I tried to fix it by apologizing thru emails but she distanced herself from me and told me not to talk to her again. It hurt me real bad and it was hard to let that friendship go. So I distanced myself and never spoke to her again til one day she was in town visiting and invited me to come see her. I was reluctant to go see her because I still had those hurt feelings hidden but I told myself to suck up and go. When we did meet up, I was glad to see her but at the same time, it was awkward. I even had to keep a happy face on when I really wanted to cry and hug her which didn't happen. Thank goodness. I would've looked like a fool. We talked as if nothing happened and then I had to leave. She gave me a hug and bid me goodbye. It didn't feel the same as it did once. Then I left feeling like crap afterwards and wondered why we didn't bother to fix this. I felt like it was really over between us. Since that day, I had moved on and occasionally, I will still look at her Facebook page and hope she's doing alright. We still haven't spoken and I miss her terribly. There's nothing I can do about it now. I tried to talk and apologize but she never spoke to me again. So it feels like I'm grieving over the death of a great friendship and I don't know how to get over it. If you think I'm being a crybaby about this, then don't bother talking to me. You should understand that friends are like family to me and I cherish them so much that it hurts when I lose one of them. It takes me some time to heal and move on with my life but I'll never forget those people that came and went. They left footprints in my heart that I will never remove for as long as I live.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

This is the last month of my pregnancy and I'm already impatient! I'm due on the 31st but want Aiden to come early. I'm tired of being pregnant and I'm also ready to be a mommy! The doctor says that so far Aiden is in excellent health and his heart rate has been great too. It gives me a relief knowing that he's healthy despite of what I went thru with him in the first 4 months. I was very sick and lost 20 pounds as a result of severe morning sickness. I gained 30-35 pounds and now I'm big as a beach ball thanks to him. Lol. I'm thankful that he's ok and active. :)

As for the baby stuff needed for when Aiden is here, I have almost everything but still have a few things left. Things need to be put up in the nursery and I need to order a special baby monitor for myself so it can alert me at night when Aiden is crying. This alarm has a light flasher and a bed vibrator. I do have another monitor that's for John mostly to hear his cries and that monitor has a light vibrator I can carry around with me during the day. I have quite a big challenge ahead of me as a deaf mother but I can do it. Oh, you should see the nursery! It looks great so far with walls painted in red, blue, and white. The theme is Texas Rangers/baseball. I have some wall decors like pictures of Ranger baseball players and a little Louisville slugger bat to go on the wall. Can't wait to see how it turns out when completed. :)

Some of you might know that my son's middle name will be named after my friend, Troy, who lost his life in Iraq 5 years and half ago. Last night I was sitting in the nursery by myself when I started thinking of Troy and talked to him as if he was in the room with me. I told him how much I missed him and wished that he would be here to see Aiden. Then I asked him to show me a blue camaro. You're all probably wondering why I asked that. When he was alive, he drove this 1987 blue camaro which he loved so much and it was his fave car. And when he died, I visited his grave two weeks after his funeral to pay my respects. During the visit, I asked him to appear to me as a blue camaro to let me know he was saying hello and with me. Over the years, I would see blue camaros almost every year on my birthday like he was wishing me a happy birthday or whenever I was going through hard times, I would see one and know he was reassuring me that things would get better. Last night, I asked him to show me a blue camaro to let me know if he was listening and would watch over Aiden. The next day(today), I was pulling out when I saw a blue camaro go by me. I smiled and cried. I knew he had listened and was going to watch over my son. It meant a lot to me seeing that car. Thank you, Troy.

Well, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and I'm waiting to see it when Aiden comes. I can't wait to see what he looks like and what kind of personality he will have. It's going to be an awesome experience being a mother and I'm looking forward to it. :D

Health Update

It's been a while since I've made updates on my pregnancy's progress. I wanted to let y'all know what's been up with me lately. I had a huge fallback with my health starting back in December when I began throwing up a few times which is normal because of morning sickness. Then it escalated to a point where I had such severe morning sickness, I mean, I was throwing up every 15-45 minutes and bad smells had been part of why it got so bad. One night I had enough and literally had no fluids in my body that I decided I needed to go to the hospital. I went and got hooked up to 3 bags of iv fluids. After that, I was given anti-nausea meds and released to go home. I was doing ok for about 3 days til I got sick again and threw up almost 3 days in a row without a break. It was horrible and I thought I was dying. I texted my mom one morning to tell her that I wasn't feeling real good and sent her a picture of my face to show her how sick I was. I had sunken eyes, a blister on my lip from dehydration, and skin was very white. She was horrified and left work, drove a hour to help me. When she got to my house, she tried to feed me food and get me to drink fluids but none of them would stay down so it was time for another visit to the hospital. I was there most of the day on iv fluids and went home afterwards. I was fine for a week and the next week didn't go well. Bad smells, lack of meds, and not much eating were big contributions of why I was getting sicker and sicker. I had struggled to get a doctor for a while but decided to just go ahead and get one anyways because I felt it was enough for me being sick almost everyday. My first appointment was last Wednesday and I was shocked with the horrifying results of what being sick had done to my body. Back in December, I was 125 pounds and when I stepped on the weight scale, it revealed I weighted 103 pounds. My heart stopped when I saw those numbers and that's when I realized how serious it was. I'm almost 4 months along and should be gaining weight at this stage instead of going backwards and losing 20 pounds. I look thin now but hope to get my weight back to normal and work on feeding the baby. Now I'm beginning my path to recovery by drinking fluids and eating every 2-3 hours. I also have left my house for a while to avoid bad smells and go stay with family. I care more about my health and the baby's that I need to do what needs to be done. All I want is my life and appetite back! Once I feel totally better, the first thing I would eat is a huge frosty! :)

Baby Names

I've been coming up with names for my little monster and it seems complicated. I mean, it is becoming real that I will actually name someone who isn't here yet. The name I pick has to be the perfect one for him or her and I want it to mean something. I have thought about if I have a boy, I want to put the name Troy as a middle name to name him after my friend, Troy Cooper, who died 5 years ago in Iraq and I want to honor his memory. I still haven't decided on the first name yet but I do have several ones that I like: Ben, Ian, Aiden, or Finn. If it is a girl, I know for sure that I want to keep my Italian heritage alive in my kid so I looked up Italian names for girls and found: Alessandra, Gisella, Graziella, and Domenica. You know, Domenica is the same name as my great-great grandmother who came through Ellis Island in New York City as an immigrant from Italy. I do like Leighton which is American and my middle name is Leigh-Ann so it would be cool if she did share a similar middle name to mine. We will see what I have in February or March. I know I will come up with a great name for my little monster. :)