tomorrow is thursday...

so today has been interesting to say the least. i'm still kind of numb to how i feel about it or even how i should feel about it. i'm borderline ready to cry from stress and fear at any minute...but have been keeping it all in check until it's needed. my "planned" future seems to be crumbling around me. i really shouldn't be surprised because honestly when has anything gone according to MY plan. and i'm grateful for that because in turn it's brought me to a beautiful new city, an exciting new learning experience and a wonderful best friend. but the list maker, time line setter, likes surprises when she knows there coming kinda gal is struggling. jeez...i'm the "there's a method to the madness" advocate but it's hard to buy sometimes.

this is where being a girl SUCKS! kyle's motto seems to be worry when we know there's something to worry about. oh to be so carefree and able to turn off this little brain of mine. the "what if's" have been racing through my mind since 9:30 this morning. the Smith's were a great distraction and my dad (in his guy like fashion) was talking me off the wall...and i'm soo lucky to have them. i really enjoyed my bonding texting/phone call with my pops.

i'm gonna try the kyle and dad approach of not worrying about the future till i need to. i took my day to...for lack of a better word...grieve, but tomorrow i'm gonna just live as i had on thursday. the little girl in me wants to stomp my feet, arms crossed and say "THIS ISN'T FAIR!!" like my dad always says, "when you were born, i never told you life was gonna be fair." UGH! but it looks like i need to just wait till have something to be upset about...or hopefully something to celebrate.

reality just smacked me..."you need to not worry cause you are going to make me worry and i don't want to worry yet"...i hear ya! loud and clear. i've been thinking about how scary this could be for me i forgot that it's ten times scary for him. i'm sorry. mandy said this to me earlier, "god works in mysterious ways (so cliche) but true." and she's right...it IS soo cliche but it IS soo true. i need to stop my worry (it'll give me an ulcer), i need to stop the tears, the fear and anxiety and just live. save my worry for a day that it's needed. but not today. tomorrow is thursday.

terrified...

i was driving home thinking about why i've just been kinda blah. i know a lot has to do with missing kyle since he works a lot. again, he loves his job and it makes him truly happy so i'm not blaming him for that, but it makes it difficult sometimes. on top of it we have some family stresses and worries that have just been weighing on my mind, and kyle's too. it's hard not to feel what he feels- good or bad, happy or sad. but it hit me like a ton of brick last night. what am i doing?

i know that it's early to have a mid-life crisis cause i hope to live past 50 but what am i going to have to show for my life at 50. what am i doing? i've ALWAYS had a plan. though it's changed and taking different shapes over the past 10 years but it's been there. my sophomore year of HS my counselor sat me down and said "what do you want to do with your life?" loaded question for a 15 year old, but i had mini panic attack, gathered my thoughts and decided to make a plan. from that point forward i became obsessed with planning and writing out my future, making lists and re make "plans". before i graduated from Fullerton College i had re made my student plan a dozen times a semester.

i have hit a wall. i am going to school but for what? i have no job and even more so no hint at a career. why? do i want a career? do i want to stay home with a family? do i want both? "what do i want to do with my life?" i don't know. horrible question if you ask me. was horrible then and now. for someone who's always had a "plan" this is a very uneasy feeling. i do have to say that you can see how well having a "plan" has worked out for me. so maybe this going with the flow kind of thing might work better but...it's weird. i don't want to look back at my life and wonder where the time went and if i wasted it.

i feel like i'm limbo. waiting for my adult life to start. NEWS FLASH. it started 7 years ago. i'm longer a crazy high school kid or really even a "young adult" i'm in my mid 20's...smack dab right in the middle! 5 years to 30...NO...15 years to 40 WOW. i say all this in confusion and frustration but not to discount my life. i absolutely LOVE my life. i love where i live. i love my d cole. i love my family. i love my friends. so much about where i am now in life is exciting, new and exhilarating.

i think that being so happy in life is part of the reason that i am so eager to know my future. a wise man once said, "I'll tell you this, when that first piece falls into place, you start to wish the rest would come quick"

outing number one...

Well...we went and saw 3 houses. 2 in Costa De Mesa and 1 in Orange. Lucky Cotter we'd be neighbors...he he he We really liked the Orange one but it's at the top of our price range and still needs some work to it. True for all of them though, they all need new flooring and little things here and there to make it livable. I loooved the windows in the kitchen looking out over the trees and NOT into anyones house. Not too crazy about the closets but there is a second balcony off the master bedroom. Def something I could see us in.

We found one in Costa De Mesa that was 3 bedroom $40,000 below the others and in a good neighborhood...needed a little more work then the others BUT if we are under budget we have room to upgrade. Downside is, it's on leased land and it's near impossible to get a loan from the bank. Our "guy" said he wouldn't buy this property which says a lot. I'm absolutely in love with the other Costa De Mesa condo! 2 bedroom, 2 bath...has a HUGE master bedroom with room to add. High ceilings and a mostly upgraded kitchen-it's almost as if they started the upgrade and ran out of money. Nothing that we couldn't fix and fairly inexpensively. My favorite part of that house is the patio. It's a little patio that opens up to a stream running through it. We even saw a family of ducks swimming by, awww i'm in love. I can just picture us out there, drinking some ice tea, doing homework or reading a book just enjoying the sunrise or even the sunset. awww...it actually inspired me to use our patio here at 3400. I mean I hear the noise of Sunflower, the washer/dryer and the neighbors but hey it's FINALLY a nice night.

so we've decided to keep looking. we don't want to jump the gun too soon and get a house that we really like when we could find one we both love. this whole process is soo weird though. i mean we won't really even know if we for sure have the place we do finally decided for what can be months. i'm soo worried we'll fall in love with the "perfect" home and not get it. i know it's out of our hands and he'll find us the best place but anxious me wants it all!

we are filling out the loan paperwork so when we do find "the one" we are ready to go. I'll keep all 5 of you posted on what haps next. ; ]

Our NEXT great adventure...

I'm soo excited I can't sleep. PLUS it's only midnight and I normally got o bed at 2am, which is when Kyle has to be at work tomorrow. Booooo.

We have set out on our NEXT great adventure, the next wonderful chapter in our beautiful story. We have been meeting with our family friend Jim about options on buying a house. We orginially just kicked the idea around as something we'd like to do but me with no job it seemed a bit impossible. Mainly, we were hoping to see where we stand and what we needed to do to qualify. To our shock and surprise we qualify for much more then we thought we would!!! Oh HAPPY DAY!!

We've been shuffling through some listings and driving some neighborhoods and found 3 so far that we really like and want to see. Here comes the exciting part....we get to go look at those 3 tomorrow!!! eeeeeeee...SOOO excited!! We loved the areas and the community so it's just if we like the actual home!!

I'm excited beyond words to be starting this next part of our lives together. Owning and building a home together just sounds amazing. To put our time and love into a place of our own and our FUTURE family!! awwww.... it sounds soo sweet.

Until tomorrow....

...and so the next chapter reads...

the last few days i have been hit with a lot of reflection and unwanted nostalgic feelings...a harsh realty that i have been aching to ignore seemed to hit me like a ton of bricks last night. my life that i stepped out of, threw my arms up and walked away from has moved on around me. which is good, it truly is, i want those i care and cared about to TRULY and UNDOUBTEDLY be happy and wish the best to all of them in their future, but future that i have chosen to not be part of. that's right, i said i CHOSE. when i walked away that meant i risked walking away from it all...and unfortunately that means i truly did lose it all.

i guess life's funny like that, you really can't have the best of both worlds, have your cake and eat it too, whatever silly analogy you want...but i can say with no doubt that the grass IS greener on the other side for me. for all that i have lost i have gained ten fold. i actively made these sacrifices to better MY life, as selfish and cold as that might sound...i was/am selfish. i am also, stubborn, persistent and a bit crazy. i know this and i accept it. i'm learning to accept the consciences of my actions, good and bad. and learning that it's ok to lose, it's ok to feel loss and ok to say this hurts. this hurts.

that being said. i am closing that chapter in the epic story of kimberly ann. it is time for me to start this new chapter free from the strings of the last. the previous chapters are there to set you up for the amazing novel that is left to be told. the last chapters were just silly like stories to add to the beautiful life that i'm embarking on. we will look back on those first few chapters as the set up to the most wonderful love story ever told. a story of life, love, growth and learning. we will think back about those stories as distant and blurred memories and eventually we won't think of them at all.

they moved on. as have i. i welcome you to join in whatever capacity you seem fit in this epic story. as a writer, an observer, a key player or even just a passer by. the door is open, it's up to you how you choose to come in.

...a first date with your best friend...

sitting across the table from the man i love, my confidant, my best friend i felt a rush of butterflies come over me. a sense of wanting to know everything about this man that i have spent the last year learning everything about.

he took me to a fancy little french resturaunt that we plan on becoming regulars of. we both spent the evening dressed up for our wonderful night off that was LONG over due. sitting down we instantly feel in love with the place, it was quiet and the wait staff was soo welcoming, you immeadiatly felt like you belonged there. we sat down and ordered a bottle of some AMAZING red wine and spent the rest of the evening talking, laughing, gazing and just enjoying each other.

engulfed with thoughts of OUR life, OUR love and OUR past we just gushed over each other. sharing what we were thinking when we had met just a mere year ago, the moment we knew we were in love...the time passed and we were falling more and more in love sitting across this table and had slowly realized we had finnished our bottle of wine and still had dessert and drink reservations at charlie palmer that were rapidly approaching. time didn't matter. it was just me and him, my best friend.

we laughed together, shared our thoughts on GOD, discussed better ways to love him and each other and talked about how we can help each other grow. my mentor.

sitting across the table from a man i love, and have given my all to, but feeling like it was the first time we've ever met. so engaged in stories of our past lives before we came together, and the thirst to know him more...i will spend the rest of my life wanting to learn more.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T...find out what it means to me...

Respect...Respect is defined by the condition of being esteemed or honored.

What does it mean to respect someone? How do you treat someone you respect, you honor?

The Internet says to respect someone you need to be honest, be trusting, be polite, and to be fair. I would like to think of myself as a respectable person. I do my best to be honest (and usually sell myself out when I'm not), I tend to trust people to a fault, I'm polite to those close to me and even strangers on the street, I am there for those I care for and at times the ones I don't and I try to be as fair in all aspects of my life. I would say that I am a respectful person and in turn ask for the same.

When challenged with the thought, "Thank you for respecting me" and not meant in the loving tone that it would seem to be...stings a bit...stings and then infuriates me. In certain parts of my life I have DEVOTED my time and efforts in to loving, trusting, embracing, and building myself to find out that all of that means nothing? It's true in other things too...I can say all day long how great, wonderful, perfect...etc...but one idiot says otherwise and my word is trash?

When will my word, my thoughts, my hopes, my life mean something?? When is it my turn? When do I get to matter?

RESPECT...to me respect is loving, caring, appreciating, helping, trusting, growing and loving. It's that easy...I ask again...Really????

Today...

“Today’s the day my life begins. All my life I’ve been just me, just a lost kid. Today I become more. Today I become accountable to someone other than myself. Today I become accountable to you, to our future… No matter what happens, I’ll be ready, for anything, for everything… Today, our life begins and I for one can’t wait.”

All my life I feel I've been waiting for the other part of me. A part I didn't know was out there or even possible. I find it funny though, as I have found that other part of me...it seems I never get to keep it. I find my true happiness in life and I get to spend such little time with him. I guess it makes me value and appreciate the time I do have. It makes me savor every moment I have, ever night I get to fall asleep in his arms and touch and kiss he gives me.

It's hard not to feel sad though, I do miss him terribly when he's not here but I know how much he loves his job and the great opportunities he's been offered. I will be his strong girl and fight past the lonely nights and how much I miss him and rejoice and look forward to the time I do get.

Soo...needless to say expect more blogs because I have more free time on my hands ; ]

...the here and now...

I guess my life this past year as been...a bit...crazy for lack of a better term. I have learned a lot about my friends, my family, my career (or lack there of) and myself. Most importantly myself. I have learned about my past, my present and my future. Awww...my future. I'm ready for it to start. I'm so eager to move forward in my life that I am forgetting to enjoy the here and the now. I'm soo anxious for the future and so hung up on the past that i've forgotten to live for now. I have what I want and what I've been looking for and more. More then I EVER knew was possible. I am happy and satisfied living in the here and the RIGHT NOW!! 

My right now is as follows:

Kyle

My Family (including my kitties and dunes)

Handful of good friends

God and my faith

That's it...I don't need anymore. All those things will be here now and in the future so why rush?

I need to enjoy life...MY LIFE!! My life that has been provided for me and I have helped build. The foundation is strong I just need to learn better upkeep. That is where I turn to my "right now" to guide me and give me strength. 

I have learned to live well, laugh often and love much...