so today is the last day of 2011 and i have spent a while reflecting on some of the major points of the past year and how much life has changed since january. its been a rollercoaster for me, just like the last few years, but i think possibly this year the coaster finally came to a stop and let me off.

so here is a recap of what this year has brought me, shown me, and taught me:

in may my mother suddenly passed away. it was a shock but in a way it also kicked me in the ass, that hey i am not getting any younger, and i need to start paying attention to the world around me, not just what is displayed in front of me on a monitor.

in june another death, my cat had seizures and died. he might have been saved if my brother hadn’t been cruel and refused to let my sister in law take me to the animal hospital. i lost the last thing i was clinging to in that house.

in august, i turned 30. when i was a teenager i never really expected to live this long. hell i don’t think i expected to make it to being 20, let alone 30.

the end of october came about the decision that we could no longer live in our family home. there were no jobs available where we lived that we could find, and so we moved up to the mountains with a family friend and her family. it wasn’t the best idea, and it didn’t really last that long.

the drive up to this new home brought about the biggest change in my life to date. i found my heart again. after 4 years of waiting on someone who was never going to show up, i decided to give ben another chance and see where it would take us. november 2nd we officially became a couple again after 12 years apart.

so much has changed, lots of bad stuff happened, but in the end i think some things changed for the better. i have high hopes that 2012 is going to be a good year. and hopefully all the years after that will be awesome.

as for tonight, its going to be a quiet celebration. ben’s stuck in a truck and i won’t see him again until tomorrow night, so we’ll probably spend new years eve on a phone while i wander around second life aimlessly with my friends.

what are you doing for new years eve?

phew, its about time i wrote something about the holidays. ben was here from the 20th to just a few hours ago (he left for work somewhere around 11 something). i’m a bit lonely without him here… got kind of used to him being around every day. now we have to go back to the crappy 2 days a week thing *insert oversized pouty face here*

our holiday week was awesome and i really got a chance to see just how much he’s changed since we were kids.

he took me to visit my parent’s graves, and stood there holding me while i tried (and failed) not to be emotional. then he took me to red lobster which i haven’t been to in a long time, and we stuffed our faces full of unhealthy deep fried fish. then he took me to the mall so he could try to figure out something for me for my presents, cause i honestly couldn’t think of anything i wanted. we went into hot topic and i just felt so fucking OLD… and fat… ugh.. why do all the cool clothes only come in size zero? and since when is justin bieber appropriate for hot topic?? we also went to spencer’s which was fun and i was pretty surprised that they now have a wall full of adult toys just right out there in the open.

we stopped at a photo booth and took some goofy photos. this is my fave of the 4 on the little photo strip.

unfortunately we don’t have a scanner so this is a bad photo of a photo but we look cute and we were laughing our ass off the whole time.

we failed at getting presents at the mall so we went to barnes and noble where i got this amazing apple caramel coffee thing that tasted like liquid pie, and we found a cool witch book for his mom. then we picked up the bunny suicide books, and he got another zombie survival manual. this one is about combat. yes we are prepared for the zombie apocalypse. then we went to target, where we found a cool vincent price dvd set. we then tried to find a naughty store but it was closed, and we decided we were too tired to go on. so we went home, read books, ate left overs, and fell asleep watching movies.

a couple of days later we went down to my family’s home and rummaged though boxes of stuff in the storage shed. i found all my old vhs tapes, music cassettes, cds, books, and the thing i was looking for…

all the old mushy teenage letters ben wrote to me when we were in high school. they embarrass him to look at now, because he wrote them back when he was a dorky 15-17 year old but i think they are adorable, and its nice to be able to read them without getting upset and thinking about bad things that happened. we’re still dorks, but he is much better at writing mushy love letters.

xmas eve we visited his mom, gave her the book we found and she loved it. she made awesome dinner and gave us some nice presents. i got a fluffy bathrobe and fluffy pants and some other cool stuff. then ben took silly photos of us while we sat on the couch. i’ll spare you the majority of them, but here’s my two faves that i put on facebook:

yeah i know we are cute and its gross…

xmas morning we woke up and ben told me i had presents.. which he must have bought before he came home from work, because we never got anything while we were out! he handed me a sims 3 expansion pack (world adventures) and i was all happy that he paid attention to my rambling about videogames i liked… then i went to sit down on the couch and he told me to watch out cause i might sit on something, so i looked around and he’d bought me another expansion pack (pets) and half hid it in the blanket on my side of the couch.

the rest of the week was filled with us being lazy, and watching a lot of movies, and other stuff that i’m not going to talk about on my blog

so now after being spoiled on having him around all the time i’ve had to let him go back to work, and i know this week is going to be hard on both of us after all that. we’re not going to get to spend new years eve together which sucks, but he should be home on our two month anniversary at least, which will be nice.

i guess i should get some rest before he calls to wake me up!

its a week until xmas and i have been having such a wonderful time in real life that i’ve neglected this blog, but i wanted to write and say happy holidays to all my readers and friends who have stuck with this blog for so long!

i have received some awesome cards over the last couple of weeks and i’m pretty sure there are more on the way

i put them on the mantle of the fireplace we don’t really use so it would be more xmas-y. we still need to decorate for the holidays but that’s unfortunately going to have to wait until he gets home from his run before we can grab the tree from his mom’s and grab my ornaments from the trailer. i’ll have pictures of that when we finally get it done.

my holiday plans are kinda boring i guess you could say, but for me they will be nice. its my first year without either parent for xmas and its going to be kinda sad. especially since dad died on the 20th and i still get really sad the week of xmas. we are going to go visit their graves on the 20th if possible, and then maybe some dinner and a little mall shopping. i’ve already gotten most of my presents, since he’s a bit of an addict with online shopping lol. mostly dvds, but also my motel hell shirt! and of course…well… he is the best xmas present i could have ever asked for

so that’s what’s going on in my little world. i’m still stuck on a layout for this place. i dread using a pre-made one but i have a bad feeling that’s what its going to come to :/ my creativity is on hold.

so today marks 1 month since i decided to step out of my little cave and walk the path i was meant to walk.

its been an adventure… learning how to function in a “normal” relationship where there is a person there next to you in bed, or sitting with you on the couch… i am overwhelmed with this ridiculous happiness that has left me looking like a psych ward patient.

since making this decision, and moving here, i’ve felt slightly more grown up. my stress has totally lifted off my shoulders. i don’t feel sick or sad like i had been for so very long… and every time he’s around fear just completely dissolves… i might even be able to learn how to drive eventually if this keeps up!

true happiness really is a wonderful feeling… and i feel so lucky to have a chance to feel it again.

i know i keep saying i’m going to blog and then i don’t… i’ve been caught up in the real world away from the computer so its been a bit tough to stop myself and sit down at the computer to write an update on life.

things have been good so far with the exception of stupid people bugging us, but i’m not going to waste my time writing about those people. i’ve been running around being a little domestic goddess cleaning up the man cave and making it fit for human life. we have a floor! ok i’m kidding. he isn’t slobby.. just hard for a truck driver to come home and clean up his mess when he only gets a couple days off.

we’ve been hanging out with old friends and all that good non-internet people stuff that real people do. i hate when he has to go back out on the road.. wish i could just sleep until he comes back home

giftmas is coming soon and i’m going to go back down to the trailer and try to salvage our xmas ornaments so i can decorate a tree and if all goes as planned, he’ll be able to take off for giftmas which will be nice, since its really a very touchy time for me since dad died. it’ll be nice to have someone there for it for once…

but anyway that’s an update for those of you who have been curious.