49ers game!

I believe we have started a new yearly tradition. Make it to one 49ers game. The first game either of us went to was the Park Opener 2 years ago. Than this last year I got Joey tickets for the last game of the season. We went with Harold and Erin (she got him tickets too, we are such good wives). We had a blast and can’t wait to do it again this year. We will tailgate this year and I hope the lockout really doesnt last because it would be a shame.

It was suppose to rain all day and never even a drop hit us. But it was cold!

In Love

I don’t think there is a limit on how often you fall in love in life. I believe that falling in love is very different from loving something, even loving something a lot. Falling in love involves loosing a piece of your heart and not minding that you have. Sometimes you lose a piece of your heart but you gain a piece of someone elses heart. That would be me being in love with Joey. He has a huge piece of my heart and I have a piece of his. Than sometimes, you fall in love and you lose a piece of your heart and you might or might not get an exchange. Sometimes that can hurt if you have fallen in love with a person who hasn’t fallen in love with you, and sometimes it’s a dog and it’s wonderful regardless.

I am in love with Nala. I can’t not have her in my life. She is the perfect mix of me and Joey and something extra.

We waited on getting a dog for a long time. We wanted to be the right type of dog owners. We wanted to do everything right for her and take care of her the way we loved her. Well the more we fell in love with her, the more spoiled she has gotten. It has gone from regular dog food to the best all natural, dog park almost everyday with at least 2 long walks, a new bone once a week, take her everywhere we go, let her make us uncomforable in bed, this just isn’t normal owner/pet behaviour for an 80+ pound dog.

She has completely taken over our lives and we love every moment of it.

When we got her, she was 23 pounds. She was sweet and we had to carry her because she hated the stairs where we live. She could sleep right in between us and not make us uncomforable at all. You could tell she was a puppy and she played like a puppy. I could easily rein her in on a walk and not strain my wrist.

Now we aren’t stupid, we knew she would get big and that we had to train her, so we started immediatly on all the basics. We got Dog Training for Dummi’s. Best investment for her. We worked on everything with her to ensure that she would be a great big dog that we assumed would top at maybe 80 pounds by the time she was 2.

Now she is a SOLID 80+ pound dog that plays like a puppy, looks like a adult,  has a full set of huge teeth and could very well pull us down the stairs to a tumble.

She is beautiful and sweet and the best dog ever. She is huge and is only 8 months old. We have only had her for 4 months and we are both completely in love with her. I would say she loves us too but she loves everyone. She loves to kiss everyone and jump up hug them. She loves the kids in our building to hold her and pet her. This type of love might now be a return of how much we are in love with her, but thats okay.

Meet Nala!

She was Joey’s must have christmas present. He didn’t know that I had already bought him 49er tickets and so he got both. In this photo she is 13 weeks, 14 pounds, and so curious to our life. Now she is 5 months today, 45 pounds and completely adjusted. She fits us so well and even though she has the puppy rebellion, she is so smart and trains so well. She is half american bull mastiff and half german Shepard. She will be a big girl.

She is amazing. The best dog that either of us has ever had.

We both have a bit of past dog guilt in which we feel a little guilty that our old dogs didn’t always get the best. She is absolutely spoiled. The best all natural dog food, all the vet necessities, real bones, treats, balls, long walks, dog park everyday, love, love, love, love. She gets it all. We both put in about 10 minutes a day in training her and take her on potty walks at least a dozen times. She is crate trained only for when we are not home and has only ever soiled our home but a few times. The effort we put in her has had a direct result for us in how she is. She is perfect.

What I love the most is that I can take her on hikes with me on the weekends. This is our special bonding time. She walks in heal and after an hour of such a nice hike, she is tired out. She has been trained by me to ignore other trail users and their dogs unless I have her acknowledge them. This has her pay attention to me only and know that if I’m not comfortable with who or whatever she will know to react defensively. Otherwise when people want to pet her and im fine with it, she wags her heavy tail and greets them. Again, she is so smart and has this behavior down perfectly.

I am so excited to have her as a part of our life. It’s like the 3 of us are a family and we are perfectly fine with that. I know owners outlive their pets and so one day we will be sad. However, hopefully we will have many many great years with her. I am so glad she was Joey’s must have christmas present.

burdon

I keep thinking Im over it until I realize I still can’t come up for air.

Im fine until I’m asleep and I’m tired of it replaying in my head.

I can only hide things behind my wall for so long until it gets bigger than the wall.

Lord, again and again I ask, fix it. Make it go away

Mid Year Review

I told Joey January 1, 2010

“This year is going to be different. Not Better, Not worst, just different. I don’t know why  I am telling you this but I know it.”

It is now August 4, 2010, and oh how I was so right.

2009 wasn’t as bad as 2008, 2008 wasn’t as good as 2006. However every year is unique. But the difference in this year is everything that’s never happened is happening and a real path is starting to form out in front of Joey and my life.

I can’t say that 2010 is bad. In fact I prefer it to last year.

There has been some real low points and some really bright God shining points and I think it’s those God shining points are what makes it better.

I decided that I wanted to adjust the kind of woman I was turning into. There was some qualities about myself that I just did not like. I felt that not only did I need to change these things, but if you were the reason I was like that, you needed to take a backseat in my life while I worked on these things so I would never be like that again.  The whole process was hard. Try and tell yourself and another person that we have some messed up qualities that I just don’t like and need to be ditched. That we are hurting me and I’m done with it. Some things just don’t have a nice way of being said.

And this was  just the beginning of the year.

I’m sure you read that my dad died is April, a week later my maternal grandpa died. I have two very different feelings towards these men.It was a mixture of feelings that I was trying to match, but then God decided that all the feelings that I had towards my dad that I never let myself feel, came rushing in and confused me crazy. 

What I ended up realizing is that not only can I hide my emotions and feelings from you, but myself. And I’ve been doing this for years.

So this realization starts this whole new thought in my head. What are my real feelings? How do I really feel regardless of what I think I should feel?

So I start analyzing relationships. Am I a good friend like I should be or do I even really like you? Some people I turned from friend to just friendly hello’s now and then. Some other’s I realized that I want them in my life because I could see how much I love them. I basically started to edit my circle. I was not brash about anything but why should we live a life where we act like we like to be  someones friend up close when we can love them from a distance and move on.

I also realized that I have 4 sisters. Becky is the oldest and was an important figure when I was growing up teen years and has such a huge beautiful heart. She is always just a phone call away and loves me regardless.  Natalie is 10 years older than me and is one of the strongest women I know. She has become one of my best friends since I’ve become an adult and such a tower for me when I need her. Ilyssa has been my best friend since the beginning of highschool and I could not imagine my life in 20 years without her. She is always there for me and always so honest. She holds all the perfect qualities you would find in a sister and she is too important to me to just be my friend. And than Erin. She was also in the room with Becky and Natalie when I was born and like the relationship I have with Natalie, my relationship with Erin grew strong once I was an adult and even though she is a great friend, I honestly see our relationship like I do with my sisters. I don’t see much difference in the love I have for these 4  amazing women. I would gladly dive in front of a bus to save them and there is a limited number of people I would do that for.

I had also decided that I needed to know the real version of some people. I wanted to be their friends but only if I got the real them. I wanted to know that our relationship would be one of substance. The real people I met where not disappointing. I liked the real them better too. It’s not that they were fake before but they were withheld a little and I didn’t want the withheld version as my friend because than I would find myself withholding. 

It was real solid changes taking place in my life. I can see where God was preparing us in the past years for these changes. The patience we had to learn to be able to handle other things. The desire we had to gain to obtain other things.  It all came into play and the year isn’t over.

I have had a lot of fun as well. My 21st birthday was in May and that was perfect. Ilyssa came to visit for a week and it was perfect. Our nephews were here for Easter and it was lots of fun and they are about to be here in a week for a week again. I have enjoyed a lot this year.

But than I start to have this conversation with other people, and they agree that this year is different, but not like I see it.

There is more low points for more people this year and that what makes it different for them. I see it like the low points are the same but I still don’t see this year as bad at all yet. I feel like I have figured out a way to start learning and figure out how to use it in life. God had taught me that if I don’t learn the lesson the first time, he will repeatedly put you in the situation until you learn from it. Well, I don’t want to do some things twice so I am trying to look into things that are different and learn from them.

I have maybe touched on half of what has happened around me this year. There is an equal share of both good and hard times that I left out due to dragging on. But this year has so far not been a disappointment. So far I feel that 2010 will be the year that I can say was the start of whatever God has planned ahead.

My mid-year review grade= A

what’s your’s? Are more low points this changing year a D?

words for my father

Recently my father passed away.  It’s been one of those times that I saw where God’s hand almost everyday. I saw it in myself that I called to Him instead of turning away and I was thankful. However it was still hard. It was still hard because my dad left my life almost 10 years and I am pulled in out of nowhere to take care of the end of his life. At no point did I ever mind taking care of things in this last week, it was nice to honor who my dad was to me at one point in my life.

Tomorrow is his memorial that I have set up and I wanted to share what I will be sharing.

Thank you all for coming to pay our last respects for my father Thomas Joner. I’m here today to remember the dad that I knew as a little girl. To remember his big belly and loud voice. To remember his heart that was completely mine when I was a little girl.

When I think of my dad,

I remember a loud swede who didn’t mind being in your face.

I remember my dad always feeling free to visit anyone at anytime without any notice.

I remember sums, sizzler’s and lucky dragon for their buffet and hour long meals.

I remember him coming home from work and always having a small gift to spoil me.

I remember him calling me Kookos and flashing his croked smile to me.

I remember driving until we saw snow and pulling over to play in it.

I remember laying on his lap in church when i didn’t want to go to the kids program because Phil was making me sleepy.

I remember getting Thrifty’s Ice cream with him after church.

I remember all the pancakes he made me in shapes of mickey mouse and in the letter K… with lots of butter.

I remember anytime it was his birthday, it was mine as well even though mine was 2 months away.

I remember camping and every time I burnt my marshmallow, he’s eat it and give me his perfect golden brown one.

I remember house sitting at the Veblin’s and swimming in their pond with him when it got to hot.

I remember him leaving Star Trek on all night and his huge snore.

And I will always remember that same snore I heard from him the day he went to Heaven.

My dad was someone who I know loved the Lord. It is the most peaceful feeling that I have to know that he is in heaven right now next to my Abba.

I don’t know very much about my dad, and that’s okay, because what I do know is that I had his heart all his life. It seems selfish of me but thats all this daddy’s girl ever wanted. I didn’t always know it, but now I do and that’s better than never. I can be so lucky now that he will always be with me in his best state ever.

Later this summer, his ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay and Santa Monica…

Appreciating Your Parents True Colors

and this in general is not really always a good thing.

I never liked the word parents with the S. I never had parents. I had a mom and then somewhere a dad. So randomly today I had a thought about parents with the S.

Joey and I just about have the same situation with our parents but very different in small ways. So when I thought about this, it was something that applied to both of us.

I realized that maybe for the first time, we have parents with an S and more than 2.

We have parents that are new, grown within the last 3 years. We have parents that we adopt and parents that adopt us. Now most of the time, when you become an adult, you no longer care about parents and see other adults as just other adults.

I think it was just in us that we knew that certain vitals were never taught and that we still needed to learn and follow other men and women that seemed like good parents. We mimic what looks right and can learn from what seems wrong. We have started to learn a different type of love that we didn’t know, and with that came the “whether you like it(s) or not(s)”.

And we learned (in a non odd way), that men do love their children and do love us. That other than our Perfect Father above, there are men here that love us and it’s so foreign.

Okay, so my point. In realizing that we were having parents who were other peoples parents, do they see their parents like we saw our parents?

Ya know (and try to follow me here) because what I didn’t learn from my parents I wouldn’t expect someone else to learn from them. So if a someone came along and learned that my parents even though I didn’t, was I just closed off or is that someone just that messed up too?

But with the kids of the parents we adopt, do the kids think that we are stealing or so they think that we are just as messed up too? Do the children of the great adopted parents we have, appreciate their parents like we do, or is it just something in children to reject parents?

I admit, I rejected a lot and learned only what benefited me at the time. I was (am) spoiled and selfish and thought (think) I knew it all. So if I was being grounded for something or in trouble for something, I didn’t pay any attention to the lesson or any meaning of it all. The only mistakes that I think I learned from are the ones that I had to really personally suffer from. Not the ones that I got in trouble for from my mom.

Now I’m married, now I’m thinking about children and how I want to raise them. Now I need to learn and so does Joey. Often am I realizing another mother or father figure that I’m pulling from. I know that I have not much to offer them and they might not realize that they have anything to offer me but I’m pulling from what I’m seeing works. I pray I’m like the couples that are still together and like the mother that had a real relationship with her kids. I see it in so many people and I respect and appreciate them like a child would a parent.

I’m mumbling on and on. So this is what I think about the true colors part. You must recognize the colors and if they aren’t bleeding through to you, find colors that will.

I come from a dysfunctional family, and so does Joey. So now we are trying, with all our power not to carry on the dysfunction. I’m sorry to our family if it seems like we aren’t happy, because truly, we are. We love the way our family’s are but we know that the way the world is, it almost seems okay that our family’s are torn apart. It’s not and I want a rock solid family, strong in faith and agape love. I want my kids to really know all their aunts and uncles. I want my kids to never know what it’s like to grow up without a dad. And so we love our family, but we are in the situation to pull from other sources.

I’m sitting here, watching Joey be around a father he never had. I’m watching his eyes light up like a childs and I’m seeing him record every moment in his head so he doesn’t forget the feeling. I love this. I love that this moment might effect how Joey is with our future children. I love also knowing that I had this moment too today. A moment when I got to just be, and be accepted and loved as I ate popcorn and relaxed on her side. I’m just excited overall that God had given us amazing parents and that I can be so blessed to have so many.

P.S. now if only they would know that I’m family and send over the cupcake recipes… ; )

my (bad) ode to football

Normally, when I wake up, hearing SportsCenter is the worst thing to hear. I hate it, I get grumpy even more and then yell at Joey to change it.

Well for the first time this morning, I woke up and while getting my coffee, Joey had SportsCenter on. And get this, I was listening and paying attention to what these men were talking about. Almost shocked in my head to hear that the steelers sucked now.

It hit me what I was doing when I walked over to watch. The normal mess of men running around on a field made sence to me. I could see where the Steelers were messing up and what they should be doing.

This isn’t right.

I was never into football. I married into it. I have no choice to what team because “I’m already a Niner fan”. I used to watch the games and just get lost in what was going on because none of it ever made any sence to me. It was a whole 2 years of confused watching before my sister Natalie finally explained it in a way that made sence.  Apparently a whole other 2 years to understand and/or care in the slightest about what was going on.

Here’s a good example. The first year I was with Joey, he made me watch the draft. I spent time trying to decide who I would date. It was the start of the draft boyfriend. That year was Brady Quinn. The 23rd pick to some team somewhere in the north. Now this past year, I was waiting to hear who we (niners) got. I did choose a draft boyfriend who was the last pick in the first round, Michael Ohre. But I knew I didn’t want certain teams to get better players, or the players we should have.

I don’t do this with basketball or baseball. I really could care less but somehow football is growing. This year, I’ve noticed how my family is into it. Each person is into the team they live closest to and so there is about 4 teams we are all against. Niners must beat the Cardinals, GreenBay, Raiders, and New Orleans.

I can’t explain much else and can’t really explain the game but I think I’m going over to the dark side.

Black Socks & Brown Underwear

this is all you get for christmas

DENTIST (dun dun dun)

Once upon a time, in a land all the way in Los Angeles. There lived a mexican who never ever went to a dentist or doctor for any reason for I don’t know what reason. His mom never took him so he never went. Than one day, after meeting his future wife, half of one of his teeth fell out and he was in bad pain. A couple months later, the same tooth on the opposite side did the same thing. Because he had no dental insurance and him mom never took him as a child, his tooth looked something like this when it was pulled out this morning…

I don’t mean to gross anyone out but honestly, it looked pretty similar. This stupid tooth has put my mexican in so much pain I hated it with everything in me. It is the one part of him that I didn’t love. I rejoiced to see it go.

So here’s the real story. I finally found a way for him to go. We were suppose to go last Wednesday but as you read, I had Christmas desserts. So we were set for yesterday and Joey popped out some stupid excuse as to why he couldn’t and so we didn’t. But I don’t give up that easily on what I believe NEEDs to be done. So we were set this morning.

He asked me about 100 times not to go. He isn’t fond of doctors or dentist. He can only relate bad things to them from past family experiences so I understand but don’t really care to let that be a good excuse.

Erin was going to go with us, she used to work for a dentist and it calmed Joey with her knowledge. I was late to get her because Joey procrastinated at every opportunity he saw. The drive was long and the suspense built as we drove to the dentist. We got there and I filled out all the piles of paperwork.  We constantly lied to Joey telling him that if doesn’t hurt at all. That you are so numb you don’t even notice. After an hour more, they finally called in the mexican. I don’t remember how long the wait was because we found so many things to laugh at. A guy names Matthew insisted on being called Macho, We got Will Smiths Getting Jiggy Wit It stuck in our head from the TV we didn’t realize we were listening too, and we waited for a better parking spot because parking in Sac sucks.

He finally came out for a moment before he went back to get rid of the bastards. We got the whole room to ourselves. Random people made us laugh by their rudeness and magazines kept us occupied. At one point we heard a loud scream and giggled but it wasn’t my manly man.

Once he came out, oy vey. As you can already imagine, he couldn’t talk well and him mouth was stuffed with gauze pads. I went to pick up the prescription while he just kept trying to say I’m gonna kick you both in the ass. We drove the half of the way home trying to disifer was he was trying to say and the other half with him asleep like a child in the back seat. My amazing mexican survived the dentist.

It was another first in his and our life again. Not one that I’m happy to be apart of though, but glad I could. It was a big day in our house. I’ve made soup for him and drugged him up. Now he’s napping and isn’t in as much pain. I’ll keep drugging him for another day and giving him sweet kisses on his huge cheeks, but the best is that those teeth that brought so much pain are now gone.

Now that I’m the lady taking care of him, I’ll never let it happen again. However, I have a good story for kids when they don’t want to take of your teeth.