Burlap Soul

I am ready to kill the previous owners of this house. We have been trying to paint the small upstairs half-story since Friday. But oh no no, it's not happening. First of all, the sheer amount of their disgusting messy crap that we've had to clean up is astonishing. I honestly cannot believe the amount of filth that I've had to clean off the walls at every turn. Grease, gunk, grime, more grease, permanent marker, scotch tape marks, hair spray residue, and did I mention grease? What the hell is wrong with these people? It's one thing to let your house get dirty, but to then never clean it in ten years? Yo. This homey don't play that shit.

But let's just say that the cleaning is finally done. And let's pretend that painting the ceiling did not nearly kill us physically and did not require multiple gallons of paint to cover up their hideous brown ceiling. Whatever, let's get ready to paint those walls. Of course, taping off the trim and all the massively weird closets and awkward windows up there took an entire day. Now, it's time for spackling! Guess what? Yep, another day. I finally spackled the last (of 1,500) dents and holes and screwed up what-the-hells? in the wall at about 4am and went to bed. Sunday morning, it was time to start sanding! Oh, the tedious, tiring and time consuming fun! There were so many dents and uneven spots on those walls, you would've thought you were roving over Mars.

Now, remember that the previous owners decided that bright, offensively dark and dirty neon yellow was all the rage. Bring on the primer! It has taken two coats of primer to cover that nasty-ass Yellow Hell so far and we have just run out of it about 2 minutes after the store closed. We haven't even started painting yet and this has already been hell.

I'm somewhat of a painting guru. I'm great with color and I can paint and prep a room in no time and really have it look awesome. But this place? Making. me. insane. I have never had this much trouble painting anything in my life. And this is only the half-story upstairs with short walls and ceilings you can reach! What the hell is the rest of the house going to be like?

Someone please tell me where the previous owners moved to, because I would really like to smack the living crap of them for being so damned insane.

We had a nice Easter weekend in eastern Kentucky with my family. Lots of laughter, home-picked bluegrass music, and then a Surprise Couples Shower for me and J! How fun! Plus, I now have three bridesmaids again. None of that previous Maid of Honor drama, but instead my sister standing up at my wedding along with her 3 year old daughter as a flower girl. Something I was definitely not expecting. My sister is not the most dependable person on the planet, but my dad is promising that he will ride her ass and be sure she is there (which is easier for him as he lives in the same town). Ironically, this gives me hope. Best of all, the skirt that I already had for Previous Maid of Honor fit her perfectly. No exchanges necessary. Woohoo!

We had always wanted to use Gypsy as our flower girl, but our ceremony site does not allow pets, so we were kind of crushed over that one and decided we would just go without. However, now that I will have an actual live human flower girl, I'm absolutely stunned at how much I'm enjoying looking through all these frilly dresses.

What happened to me with all this white and black and hot pink and femininity? Oh, that's right. I'm finally comfortable in my own skin. 76 days. Let the countdown begin. :-)

Some people that go home for Easter and get a surprise couples shower bring home candy and chocolate and presents.

Me? I bring home Strep. Yayyyyy. Bring on the endless bowl of soup and crappy tv!

But hey, I'm not at work. And honestly, that's something.

Kat has given me honorable mention for what she calls "resilience." Funny, that term. Every time I hear the word "resilient" I get this automatic image in my head of a three-legged dog with cuts and bruises all over its body, wearing an eye patch, a name tag that reads "Lucky." Maybe that's just my humor coming through, my undying love of irony. Maybe it's something else. I've never associated myself with "resilient." If you were to describe to me someone that has lived a life like mine, I would think instead, "Wow. All that life experience. That person must be incredibly wise." Yet at the same time, I've seen others like myself who have not gained intelligence from their experiences, rather only anger, insecurity, martyrdom, hatred. I honestly cannot tell you what has allowed me to sustain my humor or my sanity throughout my vast life experience. On the other hand, I believe it is my humor that has allowed me to sustain my sanity most of the time. People who know me in real life will tell you that I am incredibly funny and that I am always the first person to laugh at myself. On this site however, most of you probably do not see that. Writing is where I go to be taken seriously. It is where I go to process all that "life experience" - sometimes while it is happening, other times when it has happened long ago and I am just beginning to understand the repercussions.

On the flip side of that, people that know me in real life will also tell you that "Staz can think herself to death sometimes." This does not mean that I am an anxious person, but rather I will analyze the meanings and nuances of a situation until I reach some sort of enlightenment. I live for those "ah-ha" moments. It is those moments that allow me to climb higher up the ladder of understanding - and the more I understand this life and myself, the more I can let go, the happier I can be, the more I can achieve in my short time on this planet. It is ironic to be as lazy and easily distracted as myself, while at the same time having such a drive to "be something important" that it determines everything I do, every decision I make. The truth is that I have been the one full of anger, the one so full of insecurity she will do anything to be accepted, to be loved. I've been the martyr, the hater, the hated. I've been the depressed, the forever unenthusiastic, the one about to step off this crazy train because she just couldn't take the numbness and the pain anymore. I've been them all, I've worn the masks, I've transformed into more people than you can even imagine. I think the only thing that makes me different - "resilient" if you will - is that even as I was undergoing the changes, I knew that's all it was. Change. This will pass, you will be a different person next year, two years from now this will all be memories and molding and something else will be important to you. Just wait - it only gets better.

Honestly, after the life that I had lived before I was 17, the only way to go was up. I am now almost 30 years old and I'm starting to realize that life does not happen to you, but rather you happen to life. You make your own choices in this world, determine your own destiny, walk your own path. Yes, Divine Help certainly makes an appearance now and then, but is only presented to you as an option. You are the turning point in your own path. No one else, just you. I have this phrase that I say to myself often. "You have a limited number of days on this planet. What are you going to do about it? Will this shit matter when you are gone? If no, then why the hell worry about it anymore? If so, then get off your ass and get to it already."

Making decisions, getting through it, not allowing others to tell you who you are or who you've been. Is that resilience? Or is it something else? Funny, as I'm writing right now, that word resilience is dancing and changing before me - its connotations twisting and falling like water. I'm seeing it now in a new meaning. Resilient. Hey, if you're resilient, then that means you have survived, right? That means you continue to survive and thrive through adversity. Strange, I'd never thought of that before.

My life has just always "been there." It's my life, my past, my experience - just my life. I guess I never realized that I had survived it, that I have become resilient. Mostly because it is still happening and I am still changing. Once you stop changing, stop learning, then you're dead. But see, in another year, maybe I'll think completely differently and this current cycle of thought will just be something I "survived." Someone I was "back then." So there you have it. Call me resilient. I could be something else tomorrow, but either way, I'll still be grateful for who I was. How else would I have gotten to Point B if I hadn't stumbled unknowingly through Point A? Exactly.

Maybe you should call me Lucky after all.

I decided it was time to push things forward a bit. The blue butterfly was nice and all, but I'm ready to start putting on some boots and kicking some ass. Plus, I thought it only appropriate to give our beloved Guinness the face time she truly deserves.

However, the ass kicking might have to wait. I'm two months from this wedding and I couldn't be more motivated to get lots of stuff done, but this illness is kicking my ass. I've worked a grand total of two days this week and will most likely be missing tomorrow as well. Strep throat it may have been in the beginning, but it's turning into a bigger badder monster right quick. I cannot breathe, I'm dizzy, I'm weak and every orifice in my head seems to be a never ending flood of sickly goo. Even the dog looks at me like I am something to be feared and examined only from afar. The cats? Eh, they don't care. Who's changing the damn box? Yeah.

Night all. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Wish me luck.

The past few days have been an incredibly frustrating and agonizing reminder that yes, indeed, I have Asthma. Apparently on top of battling Strep Throat, my asthma decided it didn't like its new guest and flared up something awful. I seriously considered another trip to the emergency room Saturday night, but instead just doped myself up good and went to bed. The thing that sucks is that this did not hit me in January - as I was half expecting it would - but rather two months before the wedding, when every weekend and spare minute is crucial. I return to work tomorrow for a half day, but it's debatable how that will go. My glands are so swollen that I cannot hear out of my right ear, my nerves are shot and my hands are shaky from massive stimulants and inhalers, and best of all - my nose is rubbed so raw that it now bleeds when I sneeze and/or run a tissue across it. Lotion tissues are nice and all, but apparently there isn't enough lotion in the world for all this sickness. I've never been on so many inhalers and prescription meds in my life and Nyquil has become my new nightly drink of choice.

Someone please tell me that it will get warm soon and that this sickness will leave my body soon. I do not want another replay of last February and I certainly do not want to be croaking my vows in June.

I have lots of new Before and After pictures of the bedroom to post - because guess what? It's painted!! The yellow is gone!!!

But alas, that will have to wait until later tonight. The sun is shining, it feels like spring again and my head is actually somewhat clear for the first time in two weeks. The cough is still there, but hey, it's Spring! And seriously, how can I stay inside on the computer and be forced to resist this?

Yeah, I'm headed outside. You should be too.

The After pictures of our bedroom are now up and done. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

(Don't have the password? Email me and I'll probably give it to you.)

My days are filled with to-do lists of late. It's insane really. The past week, I've either been unable to sleep through the night or when I do sleep, it is filled with these insane stress dreams that make no sense and only wake me with anxiety.

An example: Last night, I dreamt that it was our wedding day, but no one was telling me when to walk down the aisle or doing anything else that I had planned on. First of all, we were inside a strange little church (um, I thought we were having an outdoor wedding?) and then the snippy, catty girls from my work were wearing these odd red velvet apron things and deciding they were going to sing gospel hymns for my walk down the aisle - only they sounded horrible and kept talking amongst themselves between songs. Then the kicker? Our officiant was suddenly no longer participating and we were at the end of this strange red velvet aisle being married by Marion Berry. What. the. hell.
Then someone gave us a truck filled with cabbage and we had to empty out all the cabbage so that we could get a free truck. However, the truck was J.'s current old beat-up truck so we didn't quite understand. But we still got it and then and only then were we allowed to eat cake. However, the cake was black with purple icing and said "Happy Hauntings!" on it.

Great. This is just great.

I am at a point now where I will wake up and try to purposely shake my head clear so that I can have normal sleep again. These dreams are killing me... and let me tell you how not fun it is to totally wake up with a ball of dread in your stomach thinking you were just married in a red velvet chapel by Marion Berry.

Is it June yet?