say for me love

If anybody asks you where your coming from

Say love, say for me love

today i went to one of my best friend alex's volleyball game at slu.  she plays for xavier and they were playing against slu this weekend so i thought it would be a perfect opportunity to see her play before i leave. it was a great time, even though they lost and alex wasn't able to play due to her bum tail bone...and while i was there, surrounded by her family and our friends and her boyfriend, i was just in awe of the love that people can have for one another. her elderly grandparents flew out from sweetwater, texas so they could see her. her boyfriend drove all the way from xavier (which is in cincinnatti) for six hours just to come to a game that he knew she probably wasn't going to be playing in.  many of the parents of old team mates from her highschool select team came to watch her.  no one was mad that she didn't end up playing.  no one complained about how far they came to get there.  everyone was watching intently...not because they're all volleyball fanatics but because they knew that alex would want them to.  and when alex came over to the bleachers after the game to talk to us, everyone's faces lit up and we were all so ecxited to see her and hug her and talk to her.  it just hit me that people have such a large capacity to love others.  and even though that can be forgotten and abandoned a great deal of the time, it's moments like this that give me so much hope in humanity. yeah sure, the world has a hell of a lot of problems....but people DO love each other. people DO care. i love seeing people and especially families love on one another. and it makes me excited that someday i might be so blessed to create a family that loves each other and takes care of one another.

canon av

my beautiful mama

clare frances up to no good

why so serious, katie rose?

you make this face a lot more than you think

man of integrity

rock me mama like a wagon wheel

he's here to party...denim jumpsuit n' all

lady in red...unassuming

feet outta water

meet gus...his band 'strong-tar' ( he calls guitars 'tars') will be releasing their first EP

"we heavy like this" later this year.

two of my favorite women

perfectly lonely

nothing to do
nowhere to be
a simple little kind of free...

ever since i hit adolescence, i wanted a boyfriend.  someone to hang out with all the time, someone to make me feel beautiful and special whenever i didn't feel beautiful or special, someone to take me out on romantic dates, someone that was crazy about me...security. only now, with my profound wisdom and exponential life experience ( italics allude to sarcasm) can i look back and pinpoint exactly what i was yearning for all this time...besides the obvious companionship that comes with being someone's "significant" other, i desired security. i thought i knew who i was, what i wanted, what i stood for, but i needed someone to solidify those things for me so that i would be certain about them. turns out, i didn't fully know who i was, what i wanted, what i stood for.  and i still don't perhaps...afterall, we're always changing.  but the difference for me now, is that i don't need someone to solidify anything about myself for me.  i don't need to feel needed or wanted...although that is a great feeling, i don't need it. i think the biggest reason why i feel this way is because i've found myself in my relationship with god.and i know that a lot of people don't have the same views as me on the big G man, but he is the one constant in my life and as cheesy or hokey as it may sound, he loves me no matter what...hands down...no exceptions or if, ands, or buts. infinite love for such a finite being. i don't know why or how but i just know. it's weird how he's the one being, thing, idea i am one hundred percent sure about, yet he is the biggest mystery of all to me. but this is getting slightly off topic, no offense yahweh. back to the whole needing and wanting of a boyfriend...i just don't. and it's the first time in a long time where i feel this free and excited about being, well, alone. i feel like a kid again. just excited to be playing on the playground and not worried about which boy is going to tag me. i'm just running around, without a care in the world...okay well maybe some cares, but not about the fact that i've never had a serious boyfriend and that i'm not currently in any type of romantic relationship right now. i just LOVE that i don't care about that right now. i mean sure, i'll have that occasional moment where i'll be watching some sappy movie like the wedding planner(which is by the way, one of my guilty pleasures) and think to myself, "man, i wish i had someone to watch this with...and cuddle with...and maybe our love story will be so great that somoene will make a movie about it and jennifer lopez will play me!" but i think that the desire to have that someone to cuddle with is a part of human nature. i've even heard a good number of my guy friends say, "i just want someone to cuddle with!" but those short moments of longing for a companion aren't enough to keep me from this new state of enlightenment and euphoria i am currently in. and i will let no romantic comedy or sappy commercial or intoxicating love song shake me! but enough blogging about the thoughts of my soul...time to update the few reading this sad excuse for a blog about my exciting life!

1. the whyte family dog of 16 years, shiloh, is nearing the end...don't be sad, because honestly we aren't. or at least i'm not. i'm sure that sounds heartless and cold but i just really don't like animals that much. the only one i've ever loved was my dog yadi who died last year.she was the only pet i ever felt a connection with.once in a lifetime kind of love i gues...so no, this is not a really big deal to me that we're taking him to a farm in collinsville i'm pretty sure tomorrow. me and libby started feeling kind of bad about our lack of respect for this old friend of the family as i like to call him so we took him on a "last walk" of sorts. pretty magical.

2. i've been taking pictures a lot more lately. and i've been using this old canon that my dear friend kate seaton gave me and i really like it...i like real pictures so much more than digital. i'll probably put some up for you guys to peruse but don't get too excited...i don't really have any experience or skill so they're not anything to write home about.

3. physical therapy is frustrating for many reasons and i will list them now:
-i don't like working out...i like being active but not like work out machine, pumping iron style
-i'm weaker than a fetus
-i don't really feel like i'm making much progress
-sometimes, while i'm doing balancing exercises, i fall over...and it's a tad embarrassing.
-my physical therapist is a forty-something year old man who is still revelling in his college days...sorry jared, but i don't really care if you LOVED the PKE partiez or about how smashed you would get at them!

4. i'm making a new kind of friendship bracelet and i love it...so watch out, you might be the next one to get one in the mail!

5. i want to send a lot of mail before i leave but haven't yet...i really need to start buckling down and getting things done before i leave.

6. my beautiful mother and i have had a marathon of lunches and breakfasts with people that we love since she's off of work for a couple of weeks due to her toe surgery? she's really great and one of my best friends...that's okay to have your mom be one of your best friends right?

7. i've been really weird lately...weirder than usual. like the kind of weird where i myself am even questioning things that i'm saying/doing. i just find it humorous how obnoxious i can be...i think/hope it's a charming kind of obnoxious though...and i hold onto that notion purely because even when i am being entirely obnoxious, the family still cracks a smile and/or slips a laugh or two so i don't think i'm in the danger zone yet...it is kind of alarming though that i've spent most of my time lately trying to be as weird as possible to my siblings and parents.

8. i am so incredibly entertained, intrigued and weirded out by my sister's sleep talking. i mean, libby talks more in her sleep than she does while she's awake. and i'm not just talking words here and there...no, she is spouting out entire conversations and paragraphs.it's well...creepy.

i need to sleep...that's another thing, i've become a night owl again which i do not enjoy because i loved when i went to bed at 10 and woke up at 8...i need to get back into that routine...especially since in less than a month i will be waking up every morning at 6 am! i'll leave you with some pictures i just got developed. goodnight my loyal followers...whoever you are!

i wish that i knew what i know now, when i was younger

first off, i would like to say that the title of this post is a line from my number 1 favorite song of all time which is ooh la la by the faces. now i know that's a very bold statement to make, especially for those who love the world of music, but it is.  always has been, ever since the first time i heard it sometime during grade school.  my dad introduced it to me, like he did many other songs and artists that have come with me on this journey called life.  so i have him to thank, for giving me this beautiful song that will forever be loved by my soul. but this post isn't about music, although i could talk about that topic for quite sometime with a great deal of passion. nope, this post is about learning from the youngins of today.  i babysat for one of my good friend from gradeschool's little brothers this entire weekend while their parents were out of town.  i'll be honest, i was a wee bit nervous about taking up the job because while i love kids, i wasn't sure if the boys would even want to be around me and i anticipated it being a lot of me trying to have fun with and talk to them and them kind of just looking at me as if i had three heads or something. luckily, they did not react in this way. they were actually really talkative and taught me a lesson or two during our conversations. one of the boys was telling me about his girlfriend and how he likes her but he doesn't understand some of the things she does. i was immediately speeding down memory lane and reflected on my early "relationships" and how trivial but at the time catastrophic the issues of each one were.  at one point though he mentioned something about how "we'll be talking on the phone and i'll say that i have to do my homework and she'll say yeah me too and then completely spin it around and before ya know it, i'm on the phone for another 20 minutes!"  that one got me. why? because that is EXACTLY what i do all the time. i'll have someone on the phone, they'll say they have to go and i'll agree and before i know it, i'm rambling about something else for another 20 minutes! how frustrating that must be for the one on the other end of the line. it was then that i realized that while i can talk your ear off on the phone, when i think about it, i don't for the most part really enjoy talking on the phone. i mean, there are always those exceptions but generally speaking, no. and maybe i just don't like myself talking on the phone for an extended amount of time because i'm always the one to start tlaking about the most meaningless things. i've really been trying to work on that lately. talking only when i'm in a good conversation or when i have something of worth to say. i've never tried that before so it's definitely been a challenge but a good challenge nonetheless. some of those close to me probably think when i practice this that i'm either upset or in a weird mood or don't want to be tlaking to them but i'm simply trying to find more meaning. silence is a good place to find it if you ask me. silence says a lot more than you think it does. kind of ironic that i'm on basically a rant about silence. see, even when i try and be quiet, i ramble. but what i'm trying to say is that we should listen more to ones that are younger than us, because sometimes their child simplicity is all that we need to find out something about ourselves.

a new knee and an old soul

you might be puzzled by the titel of this post but rest assured, it will all start to make sense as you read on.  well a lot has happened since the last time i blogged...i'll give those of you who don't know a brief update but knowing me i'll ramble for a good four paragraphs.

so i had been having some knee pain recently and so after about two weeks of my knee randomly giving out in innapropriate situations for it to do so such as running, walking up the stairs, and dancing in the kitchen with my sisters, i finally decided it would be a good idea to tell my mom about it. she, being the responsible adult in the situation, called to schedule an appointment for me to see my orthopedic surgeon...the reason why i already had one of these is because i had knee surgery in 7th grade due to an oh so tragic basketball injury.  needless to say, that incident ended my soaring basketball career and ended my dream of ultimate becoming a WNBA balla.  but let's be honest, if it wasn't the knee, i would eventually have realized that my skillz were not all i thought they were and that very rarely does a gangly white girl from the suburbs make it in the big leagues. but my once upon a time basketball anecdotes and dreams are neither here nor there. what i was trying to say before i was rudely interrupted by my stream of consciousness is that my mom called the orthpedic office only to be told that i can no longer go to my surgeon because he only deals with pediatrics and that i was going to have to be the one to set up an appointment because i'm considered an adult apparently by the world of medicine. talk about a slap in the face.  not for cheryl (mom.i often refer to her by her first name) but for me. who are these people to say that i'm too "old" to go to dr. bassett? i liked doctor bassett. i was familiar with doctor bassett.  and what's up with me having to make appointments?  i mean i do when my mom tells me to but when she's offering to call, i gladly accept. now she can't even speak for me when she offers?  personally, i think it's bogus. but i'm not about to get on a soap box about me rejecting the idea of becoming an adult which is a new development by the way, i used to want to grow up as fast as i can. but anywho, i called the doctor's office and set up an appointment. when i got there, they looked at my knee, moved it in very uncomfortable positions and with worried looks on their faces, they said "we need to get you into an MRI as soon as possible."  so MRI we did.  when the results came back, i was happy to hear that it wasn't a meniscus tear but disappointed to find out that the freaking MRI couldn't read whether or not my ACL was torn or not...whatta buzzkill. so basically the doc looked at me and said "listen kid, either you don't see what's wrong and just go about your business.go to california on the 28th, live your life, and just see what happens. or you can get 'scoped' and that will tell us if we need to repair anything.if we do, we will. and if we don't, we won't. simple as that...BUT you won't know when you can leave for california until you wake up. and it could be as little as six weeks from now or it could be as long as six months depending on the state of your knee...blah blah blah"  i sat there thinking about what choice i would usually make which would be to just go and roll with it and about how bad my knee hurt and the gut feeling that i had that something just wasn't right.  i decided to go with the surgery and by the following monday i was in a saint mary's hospital bed wearing booties, a hideous hospital gown, and a hair net/cap thing. 

i'm going to be honest, i was pretty nervous. like, i want to puke everywhere because i'm so nervous but i can't because i haven't had anything to eat or drink since 12 a.m. due to surgery protocol. but i just wanted to get it over with.  when i woke up i was in a complete daze...thank you anesthesia and vicodin.  the nurse told me in recovery that my acl wasn't torn which made me laugh from happiness because that meant that i didn't have a six month recovery. once i stopped giggling, she told me that my meniscus was torn after all, along with some cartilage.but they repaired everything and i would be able to leave for california in 6 weeks! i felt so blessed that i got the best possible outcome i couldn't believe it.  here i was, complaining about how i had a dark cloud over my head and that nothing was working out for me and it was just one small thing in retrospect.  i wish i could have this kind of perspective while i'm actually in the think of the situation.  isn't that annoying?  that you can't really think as rationally as you want when something's going "wrong".  honestly, i'm glad this happened because it was just another reminder that i'm not in control of everything.  the big man's in the driver's seat and i'm just along for the ride. 

so on october 16th, god willing, i will be on my way to san jose!  but until then, i need to stay busy for not only my own sanity but the sanity of my family.  i have been so completely annoying to them sinc ei've had my surgery.  i've been very bored and i've had limited mobility so i constantly want them hanging out with me, talking to me, watching movies with me, just sitting in the same room as me.  i swear this is making them so ready for me to get out of the house!  so i've decided to take up some hobbies, either discovered or undiscovered, while i'm still home to keep me busy and active.  so far i've decided that i'm going to learn how to knit, make many friendship bracelets, brush up on spanish, and volunteer at the karen house for a few hours a week.  i honestly feel like i'm retiring and trying to figure out how i want to spend my time (well, minus the friendship bracelet making...i don't think that's a regular pastime of the elderly.  i've also started going to go to physical therapy twice a week at a place where i am practically the only patient under the age of 65. so there you have it...a new knee and an old soul. and ya know what? i feel damn good about it.  i like doing activities that are perceived as old geezer things to do. and i certainly like having a knee that doesn't give out on a whim...that's nice.

welp until next blog, adios!