A Year to Remember

As I head into my last year of my twenties (yikes – where did the time go??), I decided it was time to go back to documenting my life. There things that I would like to remember and they may seem like small details now, but as I was looking back at a diary I kept for a few months last year, I realized that it was a lot of those little details that made me smile the most. Cute moments with friends and family, small, passing comments made by co-workers, and changes in my life kept popping up at me, and it was nice to reminisce of the good times (and the bad) and see what has happened since. Are those moments still significant? Were they as important or bad as I thought they were at the time? It’s interesting to see if and how I’ve changed, even in just one year.

So let’s get started on my “first” 29th birthday, and my 29th year of life!

Ghost of Christmas Past

I'm at my parent's house tonight - booking a flight to Dallas for Christmas!!!! That's right! My brother heard that I wasn't able to get a ticket to go down there, and my siblings started a ticket "round-up" and chipped in with my parents to get me a ticket to visit! Such an amazing family!! So more to come on that as it progresses...

So in the spirit, tonight I stumbled across my parent's pictures , and saw some of Christmases past. So bear with me for my trip down memory lane!

2001:
My most memorable Dalmation doggie (no longer with us), Oliver!

And this is a picture outside our house in Plano, the first year our dad actually let us put "colored" lights outside!! (The lights outlining the yard are white and green).

2002:

This is inside the house. I picked one with me in it as proof I was there, but where you couldn't see my makeup-less face. This was my first Christmas home from college!

And this is my brother Brian, with Oliver and my parent's dog Baxter - but Baxter is a puppy here! I forgot how adorable he was!!

2003:

My niece Emma (who is now six) and I at my sister's house. She fell asleep in my arms. I could have stayed like that forever!!

And Brian and I playing cards after all the gifts had been opened!

What will Christmas 2009 look like? You can bet you'll find out - just keep following!!

Memories almost lost...

I was going to Homecoming my senior year in high school, and my mom thought that I needed a necklace to complete the outfit. She lent me her James Avery “I Love You” necklace, which worked perfectly with the dress. You can even see where the silver is wearing off on it:

No one, at least that I’m aware of, in my family is deaf, but my mom had a special place in her heart for a nice deaf family that went to our church. They taught her the sign for “I Love You”, and I don’t know how it got started, but it became a daily staple in my family. Anytime we traveled anywhere, or were in a place where we couldn’t talk, we’d just wave “I Love You” to each other.

I never gave it back. I never wore necklaces before then, but I really loved that necklace. I still wear it every day, and I have since that dance in high school. If I don’t wear it, it’s almost like I feel “naked” without it. I actually bought a new one from James Avery a year or two ago, but I kept the old one and gave the new one to my mom, so I have the original sentimental “version”.

Flash forward to last night. I was getting ready for bed, and taking off all of my jewelry. I reach to take the necklace off, and IT’S NOT THERE. Now, I know I did not take it off myself, but I am absent-minded occasionally, so I thought that maybe I did but didn’t remember doing it, or where I put it.

It was not on any kind of surface in my apartment. Anywhere. So I panicked. Why did I panic?

Because I had just taken Bailey to run around the grassy area behind my building before bed, and I realized that the necklace could have fallen off at any point in the apartment, on the way to the field, or on the way back, and it was gone forever. I still didn’t want to think that I’d lost it, so I started to scan the floor of the apartment by the front door.

And there it was. Right in the middle of the living room. I just happened to look down and see the charm; I couldn’t see the chain. In recent months, the necklace has been coming apart a lot, with the hook just coming undone, and the necklace sliding down my shirt. So I was worried that had happened again, and it slipped right off without me noticing. I was just glad that the charm was on the chain when I found it, b/c if it had separated, who knows if I would have found either one.

So, I need to get a new chain, because I don’t want lose the necklace; for real or even if I just imagine I have. I will also probably have to get the silver cleaned at some point, to get rid of the icky black areas.