I love Google products. . . .Nexus 7 anyone?

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_7_8gb - Yeah so I just pre-ordered.  I am excited.
I know I have blogged about this before, but I seriously have an obsession with Google.  It's not just Chrome, and it's not just all of the apps, it's not just the operating system, It's everything.  I can almost RUN my life using all Google at the moment.  I LOVE GOOGLE.  I know that it's weird to be obsessed with anything. I love Samsung, too.  I love gadgets and geeky stuff.  I have been doing a lot of soul searching lately.  Trying to figure out what makes me the most happy.  Honestly, I like toys and being in charge.  I like technology and how it has transformed everything.  Everything is so fun and easy these days.
I use Google to make Forms, my Business Website, Docs for sharing documents, Calendars for sharing, and my operating system of choice for my mobile device is Android, of course.

There are three kinds of technology geeks to me these days.  The ones that are stuffy (Apple) and think they're better than everyone else.  The ones that just do (Microsoft) and don't really know much about technology, or middle of the road techno geeks.  Then there are hippy geeks (google) that want to have everything relaxed and cool (also the more democratic geeks).  I am definitely a Google.  I'll bet so is Jon Stewart - and Colbert would probably act like he is an Apple geek, but really would secretly love Google.

I also though think these technologies are all necessary. Google is not really all that user friendly for non-technical people and Apple is.  Microsoft is again more for business folks and middle of the liners.  All three are necessary, but I just choose to live my life with Google by my side.

Dreams vs. Reality

Do you ever incorporate something real that happened with a dream and then wonder, did that happen or was that just in my dream?
I'm not talking about something big, but I've been having a lot of trouble with memory lately. I thought it was drinking wine, so I stopped drinking alcohol (okay so not completely, but I only had a few drinks Monday after a rough day.  Other than that, I had a can of kool aide at the concert Sunday, but I haven't even been drinking my regular glass of wine a night - I thought was affecting my memory the night before).  I have now decided that it is not the alcohol, so it has to be one of the everyday drugs I'm taking.  When I try to remember the evening before - EVERY morning..I have trouble remembering what happened from about 9pm on.  (And NO it's not because I'm sleeping, you sarcastic weirdos)  Anyway, last night a friend of mine was texting me about 9:30, and I went to sleep at about 11 and had a dream where the texts happened and I was talking to my mom about it.  Weird thing, this morning, I could not remember if I actually did text or if was in the dream.  I remember other things from that timeframe, but not that.  I had to look at my text logs today.  I'm starting to think I have early onset Alzheimers or something.  This kinda freaks me out, but on the other hand, I don't really mind not remembering things as long as I am not hurting anyone.
Back to the dreams thing.  Gary tells me that he rarely remembers his dreams.  He can even scream about something and I wake him up and he doesn't know what he was just dreaming about.  This does NOT happen to me.  I have very vivid dreams and always have.  I wonder why that is for some people.  In times of stress, I have nightmares, and I mean nightmares to the point of not wanting to sleep anymore.  Back when my parents divorced and my mom moved in with us, I had some of the worst nightmares ever and there were times where I would dream, and wake up and something horrible would happen, and then I would realize in my dream that I was still dreaming.  This happened for weeks, and it kind of got to a point where I didn't know if I was sleeping or awake even when I was awake.  Anyone ever have that happen?  I've also had issues before where I'm on the edge of sleep and think I hear something in the house and try to wake myself up and panic because I can't move but I can hear things around me.  Scary stuff.  I don't like it. But on the other hand, some of my dreams are AMAZING and sometimes I do want to stay there forever.  For instance, last night, Gary and I recently were talking about unicorns verses Rhino's and I dreamt that I had a pet Rhino named Charlie.  (I gave rides to kids on his back) definitely weird and in the middle of it, my mom and I were talking about the texts I received last night about a bed and how getting a bed tied to his back might make it more comfortable kinda like they do with camels and the platforms.  Yeah whatever..but I wonder if it is common to have such vivid dreams or more common to be like Gary and rarely remember them.

Wondrous, Crazy, Weird Emotions

Emotions are very interesting, and being emotional isn't always bad. In the past few years, I have gone through a lot.  I have learned and grown a lot.  I have decided that love is the utmost important thing for me.  People are great.  Friends are fantastic. Family is wonderful.
I'm not sure that everyone fully understands how busy I am.  I work a full time 8-5 job (IT Support Center Manager for Wabash National), I started a new business with Emily Wolfgang in Lebanon called the Little Black Box Theatre Company, and I'm a full time Indiana Wesleyan student.  I also, make sure that I do things for people or with people in my life all the time, like tonight walking in Relay for Life, having a cookout for family, watching my beautiful baby niece overnight Saturday (excited totally), hanging with my daughter while she's with us, being there for Gary and Zach still, etc. . . (I'm not telling you all of this, because I don't want you around or because I feel like any ONE thing is overpowering another, so don't you go getting all emotional on me.)
Anyway, I feel overwhelmed at times, and then something like I find my cousin happens.  The same cousin that my Grandmother asked me to find 18 months ago on her death bed to tell her a few things.  My heart still breaks at the thought of my grandmother and my grandfather.  In looking through my cousins Facebook page, I see that she's friends with some of the extended family, so maybe someone has informed her of their deaths.  I hope I'm not going to be the one to deliver that news. So noticing some of the extended family, I add them as friends, even though I don't really know them.  They have old pictures of my grandparents, and know them and miss them.  This adds so much sadness and happiness all at the same time.  The mixture of my emotions is so crazy.  I'm thinking I need a frontal lobotomy sometimes.
I upset someone close to me last night by telling her that she was emotional.  I didn't realize that this was going to hurt her, but it did.  Emotion is something I understand well.  I also understand that we can control them, so that if we don't want to be upset, we can be happy.  Sometimes people just want to be sad, and that is okay.  I have trouble controlling mine, but I know how to do it.  I do not do sad people well, and I know that.  I do not handle upset people with kid gloves.  My kids know, that if it is something really REALLY bad, I'm there to hold and comfort, but usually, I push them to smile and be happy.  I push them to find an outlet like this blog to make things a little easier to say to the world.  This blog to me has become sort of a diary, which is kind a cool, but that means that I'm again wearing emotions on my sleeve.  It also means, that you all know me VERY well by now.
Some days I feel like I have it all together, and that I am growing up so well.  (heehee)  Other days, I feel like I'm so confused and messed up.  Oh well, I will smile through it.  I refuse to spend a day moping.
Hey -  It rained a little in Lebanon last night..it was only a little..but it smelled wonderful.

Today's Thoughts. . .

My brain never slows down.  This was a music morning because I could not concentrate on listening to a book.  I think there are so many things going on lately, that I have trouble concentrating on just one thing period.  So. . . 


Friday night, I walk in the "Relay for Life". http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY12GL?px=29651568&pg=personal&fr_id=38352
So there are many reasons and people I have known with cancer, but personally the reason I said yes this year to walking it, even with my busy schedule, is because of my grandma.  A lot of you know this, but November 2010 went like this for me.
Nov 1 - Gma admitted to hospital
Nov 3 - Found holes in bones and masses all over body
Nov 4 - Biopsy of Liver mass
Nov 5 - Gary’s mom admitted to hospital
Nov 6 - Zach’s bday party (bowling) found out that Gary’s mom had bone holes and masses in organs.
Nov 7 - Visited June (Gary's mom) and then visited gma - Gma optomistic - June not.
Nov 9 - my gma - it is cancer
Nov 10 - my gma another MRI
Nov 11 - my gma getting PICC line for chemo - result from MRI showed fast moving - waiting on results from gary’s mom
Nov 18 - my gma home from hospital - only radiation no chemo
Nov 22 - my gma in hospital again on life support
Nov 16 garys mom moved to nursing home
Nov 25 my gma off of life support
Nov 28 - visited gma very thankful and loving seems in better spirits
Yeah this was an actual log I kept that month of all the stuff going on. I'm not sure why I did it then, maybe so I'd have it for now.


My Grandma died Wednesday December 22nd. She was 74 years old. Gary's mom passed away on Christmas morning and she was 80 I think. Anyway, it was a tough Christmas season. There is not a day that honestly goes by when I don't think of my Grandmother. My grandpa died a few months ago, and my heart is with both of them all the time. Enough of this sadness. Tommy recently said to me that when a person dies, they are never really gone, because you see them in ever memory and it makes them still there. I wish I had Tommy's wisdom. He's the only guy I know that is my age, and seems much more mature than me. - Love you Tommy.


Another thought I had this morning on my drive in, was how lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. There is not one place on earth that makes me feel bad about where I am. I can honestly say that from morning until night, I am not doing anything that I don't want to do. I mean seriously there are times when i get into a conversation or a situation that warrants a moment of uncomfortably but for the most part, I am so happy in my life right now.


Also, a thought. . . I miss rain. I want it to rain and I want to smell the wet grass...then I want to smell cut grass.

Relationships, my thoughts

Often times people blur the lines between reality and fiction.  Actually this happens for so many reasons.  I think some people chose fiction because it's easier to deal with.  I know that I sometimes do.
It would be nice to be able to just have everything "your" way, but it doesn't work that way when you have responsibilities and other people to think about.  When someone is no longer "in Love" with you, which happens all the time, you should be able to let them go.  You need to love them enough to say, "okay, be free of me."  I do understand that hurts and it's so much easier said than done.  I believe that there are so many "right" choices out there for you, not just the one and only.  People fall in love and they fall apart and out of love.  I know that sometimes you find a special someone that changes and grows with you, and you can decide to stay in love with them and your fondness for them grows.  This does not mean that they will always give you good vibrations, but that you will adore and love them through it all.  But there are other things that can happen...As a person matures and grows in their own life and decisions, they can decide that you are maybe not growing the same way as them.  They can decide that while they still have fond feelings and memories of you, that they no longer have the being "in love" feelings with you.  This doesn't make them a bad person; it just means that they don't want to hurt you and they still love you, but not romantically any longer.
 I think it's important to talk about how many options are out there for people.  Attraction is a great thing, and every person has a lot of people that they can connect with.  Sometimes you find a few people that have a greater connection to you than the person  you are currently with.  It does not make a person bad, if they feel some sort of attraction towards someone else, we are human. Shoot when I was 18, I was attracted to all kinds of guys, and I'm pretty certain it was because I didn't know who I was yet.  As I've gotten older, the attraction has changed.  I am specific about the kinds of people that are attractive to me.  Like George Clooney and Matt Damon (only in We bought a zoo) for instance, I am attracted to them.
I used to be scared that Gary would some day fall out of love with me.  I used to worry that what happened between my ex-husband and I would happen with Gary too..Like someday I would just wake up and be repulsed by him, but that would never happen.  I truly love him, and if ever I fall out of love with him, I will expect him to let me go without a fight, because he's that mature.  I will also expect that he will always love and have fond feeling towards me.
This blog wasn't written towards Gary, I do love him and am still "in love" with him.

Interpretation is such a funny thing. . .

So isn't it interesting how you hear someone say something and you can be in a room with someone else and they completely hear something differently?  Communication is what everyone preaches and teaches, but I am thinking we need to start taking classes on interpretation.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could all be in the room and hear and see the same things and get EXACTLY the same message out of what was being said?  Recently I heard a story about a girl I know that got really upset about something that was supposedly meant completely different than the way she took it.  My first reaction was, geezz, sensitive much. . .But then, I thought about how often I do exactly the same thing.  I am sure I do it even more than I realize.  There are obvious times though, like when Gary says something and I think he has a tone to it that isn't nice.  He obviously didn't mean what I thought he meant, because he wouldn't just go on to the next subject like nothing was said.
This morning Zach and I got into it, because I said I was tired of him yelling at me.  He said, "I wasn't yelling" - And this is TRUE.  He was just getting mouthy, but I used "yelling" cuz that's what Gary has said when voices get raised at all, and now I said it and didn't even mean it the way I used to.  A yell used to mean a scream to me, not just raised voices, but since he's said it so often whenever there has even a slight influx in tone, I now think of that as a yell.  Well, I'm taking my meaning back, cuz I like mine better.  I explained to Zach that what he was doing was actually talking back, and I can't stand that, and that he doesn't need to contradict everything I say all the time.
I think we need to come up with a standard and stick to it, so everyone hears the same meanings.  Just thoughts for today.

The Little Black Box Theatre Company

Yeah! So isn't it interesting how things change in your life so rapidly sometimes.  I wonder if that only happens to me.  I can only tell you that I can't remember a time when I have been this busy.  Gary and I had a night last night where no one came over and we just relaxed (no fixing on the house, or going anywhere).  I can not believe how wonderful that was.  I think I need at least 2 nights like that a week.

Sunday night we had the Cabaret, and I was a bit nervous that we would have no one show up.  I was pleasantly surprised by our large turnout.  We actually filled the upstairs of Arni's.  Our camp kicked off this week and we have a few less kids than expected, but I think it will all be okay come next week.

David Marden and Sheila Wilson have been a HUGE help and I love them so much.  I'm going to post our classes on here, and if anyone is interested I can send more information.

We're doing a Pop and Show Dance Class on Monday's and Wednesday's.  An Improv workshop on June 22nd.  We're going to decorate a float and be in the July 4th parade.  We have 4 weeks of camp this summer. I just found out last night we're going to have a Writing Scripts class in July and I am hoping to start some music lessons of some sort. We also believe we're doing something for the Lebanon Red/White and Blues and hopefully something (Flash Mob) at the Back to the 50's festival.  If you have any interest in any of these things, Let me know or check us out http://www.littleblackboxtheatrecompany.com/.