Roswell.....

 (Reading fortune cookies after dinner)

 Liz: Ok, this is my favorite part. It says, "this is the best night of your life."

 Max: Is that really what it says?

 Liz: Well, it's better than "a broken clock is still right twice a day."

Max: You're right. I like yours better.

Liz: Ok, let me see yours.

 Max: "Ask a girl to dance with you."

Liz: Is that really what it says?

 Max: Depends on the answer.

 Liz: Then yes.

Max: Then that's what it says.

(Takes her hand to dance)

Liz: My parents are away for the weekend. They're at a stargazing camp-out. Something about Venus being in the morning sky.

Max: I thought she was right in front of me.

Parent & Child....Is There a Need for a Bigger Bond? An Interview.

This is a hard topic for me to discuss both ways. I am a daughter who is insanely and incredibly proud of her parents and all they've accomplished not only brother and me tbut for themselves as well. I cannot enforce how much I admire my parents. How much I love them, how much I care for them, because there really isn't a way to measure love at any level. I am constantly reminded of their sacrifices, and not in a bad way--I go to work, to school, home all in the same walking distance. I enjoy understanding the justice that is served in a country that is called the land of the free and the home of the brave. I enjoy voting for a president who knows that the slightest abuse of power will kill his career instead of hightening it. But regardless, I love the two people who were able to afford me the liberties I experience today. I enjoy coming home to the craziness, the hair pulling insanity and the love that only I can experience as a daughter from them.

But that's where I get a little hesitant, because I have yet to experience the love they have for me. I live it, but I would never understand their love for me. Kind of the same way we never understand God's love for us because it's so immense, but the fact is, we see our parents everyday. We talk to them physically and they talk back for everyone to hear. And yet I still don't understand the parental love a person can have for their child. So I asked someone I trust, someone I've known and have called friend most of my life and I interviewed her. Sofia has recently had baby Landon 2 and a half months ago, and he is her and her husband's pride and joy, the apple of their eyes, their own little miracle.

HR: So your little munchkin is about 2 months old now, right?

SB: Yep. 2 and a half months.

HR: Wow, I can't believe its been this long already!

SB: Yes, time flies. It goes by really fast.

HR: Now, tell me, how does it feel being a mom these past couple of months?

SB: It is the most confusing thing.

HR: How so?

SB: You are so happy and you have so much love but you're so tired and overwhelmed. But it's worth it when you see the little booger smile at you. When he smiles at you it's like a prize, like, "hey ma! You're doing a good job!"

HR: How is it having an extension of you smile at you? I mean, he's his own person, but you're now connected to a person for the rest of time. He kind of is you, in a way, and Lando too.

SB: I look at him and sometimes I don't believe he is actually mine. Like he belongs to someone else. But I know he IS mine and it's just amazing. I see this little person smile and he KNOWS who I am. Well, at least he knows that I take care of his needs.

HR: Well, you were there in delivery room. And how emotional did you really get? Cause I was in tears at your wedding. If I had been there, I wouldve melted entirely.

SB: Well, the delivery was intense. We had complications with him so by the end I was desperate to get him out..being in the womb was doing more harm than good. You don't think about yourself; you think about this little person struggling to makes his way out. And I had Lando and my mom in there with me and they are far worse than I am at keeping calm so I had to be very level-headed. I didn't break down until 10pm...he was born at 5:35am. in the operating room. I was alone with the doctors while Lando was getting dressed and I was getting prepped and I couldn't stop crying.

HR: If you didn't break down until 10pm, how long did it take for Lando and your mom?! LOL.

SB: I definitely DID NOT want a c-section but I needed my baby to come out and i needed to know he was ok. In the delivery room it got bad to the point where the doctor had her hand shoved in "me" up to the elbows, grabbing Landon's head and shaking him around to find a heartbeat and to get him moving. My mom left the room at that point and Lando was staring in shock. He broke down when they told him he needed to change to go into the OR.

HR: Well, this was it! Your entire life was about ready to change, again! How was Lando throughout all of it?

SB: Well, he was AMAZING! He surprises me everyday! He did not leave the hospital EVER. Woke with me at all hours of the night to take me to see Landon and to feed him. He took care of all the visitors and learned who the nurses were before I even got out of bed. I seriously could not have asked for a better husband in those days at the hospital. He was strong for me. He would let me cry and then pick me back up again.

HR: Though I probably already know the answer, how is Lando with Landon? He's his namesake! This is also his half that's living and breathing!

SB: He is...learning, lol. I have been around babies all my life so crying doesn't phase me but he gets frustrated because he thinks he is doing something wrong. But he is an amazing father; at this moment he is eating a salad and feeding the baby at the same time.

HR: So both Brasil boys are munching, that's awesome!

SB: He plays with him and they take showers together and he takes him on the weekends so I can sleep.

HR: Ok, now one last question. Aside from an awesome personal relationship with God, because I know no one wants that for him more than both of you, what do you hope for Landon?

SB: I hope he will take advantage of the opportunities that he is presented with. I hope he grows to be a great man, an awesome father, and an amazing husband. Lando and I try to be the best example we can be. We won't be with him forever so we hope he takes everything we teach him wherever he goes.

I have another awesomely dear friend who, in a fit of temporary insanity, made me her daughter's godmother. She compared the whole feeling of having a child to a quote that said it was as if it was having her heart be walking outside of her body. So from that explanation, I will never understand the bond a mother has with a child until I have children of my own. But I can tell you for a fact, the bond a child has with a parent? I understand completely. I cherish my parents. They're EVERYTHING to me.


Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone


While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. - Angela Schwindt

If it Works For Them....

A dear friend posted this article on Facebook, and I think that it belongs here. Because if it works for them, why can't it work for us? Not saying we're going to do exactly what's on this list here, so chillaxicate yourselves. But we are nothing but mammals, everyone.....

Soon it will be spring--the time when most animals start a family. Reproducing is important business in the animal world. It allows each animal's species to survive, and it's a way for animals to pass on their genes to their offspring. In order to reproduce, animals need the help of a mate. But finding a partner isn't always easy. Discover how some animals send the message, "Will you be my Valentine?"

True Colors

Chameleons (kuh-MEE-lee-uhns) are famous for being able to change colors to communicate their moods--and breeding time is no exception. Male chameleons turn bright, flashy colors when they want to mate. A mate veiled chameleon, for example, can change his color from dull green or brown to bright markings of blue, green, yellow, and red.

What exactly does this tell a female lizard? "One look at his handsome colors will tell a female that he's strong and healthy," explains Gary Ferguson, a scientist who studies chameleons. If she wants to mate, she'll turn green or a pale color to send the message, "You're the one for me!" If she turns black with yellow and blue spots, it's her way of saying, "Get lost, buddy."

Dating Scene
Usually, seabirds spend most of their lives at sea, where they feed on fish and other marine creatures. But their eggs cannot hatch in the water. So when they are ready to reproduce, they gather in colonies on cliffs and islands near the ocean. That way they are still close to their food.
Most seabirds stay with their mates for life, and they meet them at the same place year after year. Scientists have found that some seabirds, such as Emperor penguins, get inspired to mate when they see other penguins starting a family. As a result, all the babies in the colony hatch at about the same time.

Love Songs
Some mate animals produce loud calls or songs to attract the attention of females. Producing these sounds requires tots of energy. So a noisy call tells females that the male is healthy and therefore would make a good parent.
Frogs are famous for their mating calls. Some sing high-pitched songs, some croak, and others make snoring sounds. A male red-eyed tree frog's call sounds like a "chuck-chuck." To produce this call he takes a big gulp of air that puffs up the vocal sac in his throat until it looks Like a big bubble. Then, he pumps the air back and forth between his mouth and his lungs. The moving air causes the vocal chords in his throat to vibrate. When this happens, a sound is produced. The frog's puffed-up vocal sac helps make the sound louder. His call tells the females, "Hey, I'm over here. Come on over!" If a female likes the sound of his call, she hops over and takes him for her mate.

Romantic Scents
Many animals give off a chemical scent called a pheromone (FEHR-uh-mone) to attract a mate. The scent tells members of the same species that the animal is ready to reproduce.

At breeding time, a female elephant releases a pheromone in her urine. Although male elephants have the largest nose in the animal world, they can't easily smell the scent. So what do they do? According to Bets Rasmussen, a scientist who studies elephants, "A male elephant has to get a sample of her urine onto the tip of his trunk and touch it to the roof of his mouth in order to get a good whiff of it. If the scent is strong, he knows it's time to mate."

Attractive Features

Male bowerbirds weave fancy stick structures called bowers to impress female birds. Some bowers are simply two walls of sticks, while others are shaped like domes. Once the construction of these bowers is complete, the birds don't stop there. They look for all kinds of colorful objects to decorate the structure: shiny beetle skeletons, feathers and leaves, bones and shells, and even pieces of plastic, glass, and aluminum foil.

"If a male builds a sturdy, well decorated bower, he'll succeed in attracting one or more mates. To increase his chances, he may even try to steal decorations from other bowers," explains Gerald Borgia, a scientist who has studied hundreds of bowers in Australia and New Guinea.

Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish. --Jean de La Fontaine

Dear Heart,

I know you’ve been often battered, bruised, beaten and even quite often broken. I know that sometimes you’ve just lost your will to fight. But I promise you, if you hold on a little while longer, someone will come to fix you. He’ll cradle you in his hands and cherish you like the precious jewel you are. He won’t leave you in the cold to get frostbitten. He won’t take you for granted, and he’ll work his hardest to fix the cracks down the middle and the chips on the edges.

And what’s more, you’ll have a companion, as his heart will walk side by side with you. Who knows, maybe his heart is just as beaten, just as bruised and battered, and maybe just maybe as broken. I know I haven’t treated you the way you should be treated, but I promise. Things will get better, I’m going to see to it that you are going to be taken care of well. You’re the part of me that feels the most.

With the love you hold,

The Rest of You



There is no remedy for love but to love more. - Unknown

Is it Better To Have Love And Lost?

Oh, heartache. How familiar that feeling is. The feeling of total and utter despair. The feeling that your life is over because you see no more reason to go on after your so called loved one left you. That feeling that life doesn't make sense anymore, the world doesn't make really exist anymore because the pain is just to unbearable to cope. It crushes down on your chest and makes it impossible to take a single breath, leaving you with that utter misery that has now consumed you.

Yes. I do know how that feels. And yes, I have felt all that. I have cried my eyes out all day in bed, and yes. I have gotten up, and each day the pain eased a little and breathing became a little easier. Then I got up, took a shower, got dressed. Then I stepped outside. And you know what, I didn't desintegrate. I didn't fall apart into the disheveled mess I was. I took a step back, sure, because I was pathetic for so long, I forgot how to hold my head up high again, and treat myself with the respect I deserve. Sure, it'll be lonesome without him. It'll be harder, tougher. But if he had you in his arms and just decided to let you go, not only is he a total tool, he just wasn't that into you in the first place.

That film was first a book, and it was an eye opener on many levels. If a guy doesn't call you back, he's not interested. Because a guy doesn't follow the rules we women laid out, such as after a first date the guy can only call back after a certain number of days. Please!! If a guy likes you, he'll text you after you've gone inside your house from his car, saying how much he can't wait to see you again. If a guy says he's incredibly busy, but wants to see you after a certain time, on a certain date, at a certain location that's completely random, he's not only NOT into you, he's also not into somebody ELSE. Men are the MASTER of excuses. If he gives you one in order not to see you, or why he hasn't called, then guess what ladies??

Courtesy of MSNBC

I was reading on MSNBC about a woman in China who tried committing suicide in her wedding dress because she was jilted a few days before her wedding. Her idiot of a fiance married someone else. My heart goes out to her and I shed sincere tears for her. No one should ever go through that in a million years. It does seem like that heartbreak will never mend, but suicide over someone else is NEVER an option. They are not worth YOUR life. YOUR life is a precious commodity. Never let it slip through your fingers. But I do hope that she does feel that women all over the world are compassionate to her story. Some may even have similar stories. But we grieve her heartache with her. We send out love to her at a time where she feels loveless. We reach out to her in caring when she feels worthless.

Breathe easy, girls. Take a deep breath because you are worth it. You are the half of a whole. You are a diamond in the rough. You are somebody's exception to "the rules" (yes, I know. I really did like the film!). Do not despair. Do not lose hope. You are BEAUTIFUL. EXOTIC. LOVELY. CREATIVE. CARING. NURTURING. THOUGHTFUL. The "right" guy does exist. He might not be right for somebody else and in somebody else's eyes, but he is right for you, the perfect fit. Do not be afraid to put yourself out there. There's that famous saying: Gotta kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince. Just don't settle for the frog.

I thought when love for you died, I should die. It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on. ~Rupert Brooke

Just The Way You Are

Mark Darcy:  I don't think you're an idiot at all. I mean, there are elements of the ridiculous about you. Your mother's pretty interesting. And you really are an appallingly bad public speaker. And, um, you tend to let whatever's in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration of the consequences... But the thing is, um, what I'm trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um, in fact, perhaps despite appearances, I like you, very much.

Bridget Jones: Ah, apart from the smoking and the drinking, the vulgar mother and... ah, the verbal diarrhea.

Mark Darcy: No, I like you very much. Just as you are.

This happens to be a line from the ever-delightful Bridget Jones's Diary, released in 2001 to rave reviews. Now I know what you're thinking. 'It's a line from a film, it'll never be said in true life to me'. But here's where things get solid. Say it to yourself. Yes, it's romantic when someone else says it. I even get butterflies in my stomach because it was romantic they way Mark Darcy said that to our robust little heroine. I mean, Renee Zellweger had to gain 25 pounds on her little petite frame to portray a 'real' character. But the thing is, there are some of us that don't have to gain the weight--we already carry it. But unless you've become honest and start loving yourself first, you're really going to have a hard time finding someone who loves you. Losing the weight is really a lifestyle change, not a diet--diets you can get out of. You're unsatisfied with the way you look, then change it. Don't just mope around and expect things to magically change! Change yourself. Either say to yourself, 'I Like you just the way you are' or say, 'I'm going to change my life for the better'.

Comfort is a dangerous thing. You get stuck in comfort. It's a zone that many get trapped in because they're afraid to try something new. Don't be afraid, get out there! Go skydiving, bungee jumping, skeet shooting, do something to get out of the funk you're in, but start loving yourself first to do it. Make sure that this lifestyle change you commit yourself it isn't for anyone but yourself. Don't change for someone else, that's just copping the easy way out, unless that change will actually benefit you in the long run.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, love yourself. Care for yourself first before you hear someone else say, I like you just the way you are. Say that to yourself first before anyone else can say it.

You're my sweet love, my joy, my fairy tale, my fantasy; you're the peace I need to survive. Zeze di Camargo and Luciano

Inspired to Love

I'm never going to name names on this blog--it's personal, and yet it's still very public. But I am going to mention a friend who inspired me to start this blog.

We haven't been friends for very long, but we've known each other for a long time. We were never really in the same circle of friends, but we were friendly towards each other. We had siblings, I have a brother and she has sisters. As girly as she is, I'm not. I'm quite the rough and tumble kind of girl who always wondered which makeup product she used to get this great shimmer she and her sisters always had. But, of course, me and my big mouth created a huge scene, and it distanced us, as well as physical distance. Well, time heals all wounds and forgiveness is divine, right? But while I speak to her over social networking, I am inspired. Because she is the exact person we as humans need to be when being optimistic about love. She simply inspires love.

It's not only her, though. It's her sisters that also inspire love. They believe in that honest-to-goodness, head over heels, crazy in love LOVE. It's actually quite infectious. They believe in the light at the end of the tunnel, the scars healing over time, every little cliche that has been created, they believe, and after a while it's impossible for the rest of us not to believe in it. Because in the end it's true. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the scars will heal. The hurt will fade, things do get better. They REALLY do.

Having a friend is a form of love; it's having that friend hold your hand in silence as you sit weeping for some undisclosed reason. It's not having that friend barrage you with a million questions and give a million opinions. Someone who will hug you when you need it. Someone who will laugh with you when you need to laugh. Who will laugh at you when you need to be laughed at. Someone who will be silent with you, not in awkwardness, but in comfort. Someone who will tell it to your face, and lets you know when you're wrong.

So as I wrap up this post, I just would like to say thank you to my dear friend. A continent away, she and her sisters inspire the words on this blog. They make me believe that one day, I will find the love I seek. In the meantime, I appreciate the simple things--sun in the sky, the air in my lungs, and the love that I already have.

Again, this falls under the "Blogger deleted my blog, so I'm reposting everything" excuse. Mind you, I didn't have hard copies (lesson learned) so I'm going to re-write this as close as I originally had.

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship. Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Love.

I type this again in hopes of Blogger not deleting my blog anymore......

Love. I choose to write about love. This blog is dedicated to every kind of love there possibly is in this world, because it's something we're in dire need of. And not the cheesy kind of, "Oh, sure I love you", because those get tossed around everyday and people don't seem to understand the magnitude of those three little words. LOVE. There's tremendous power in that little word. I wish to write about all kinds of love, familiar love, Godly love, and the love that you can only have when you find that special someone. That love, everyone, is the love that makes this world function. It's the love that makes us human, though flawed we may be. It's the kind of love that makes our skin the only thing that holds us in, because we feel like we'll explode into a million little pieces. The little shiver in the pit of your stomach, the fear-anticipation-excitement-courage feeling that we feel is something we should all live for. Love may scare us. It may not want to make us take a chance because we're afraid that if we put a little bit of ourselves out there, if we show THE REAL US to others, we might not be loved in return. And that's an understandable fear. But it's a chance that needs to be taken, because if we don't, we're just living half our lives. Love is finding the person we're meant to start living with, not just the rest of our lives, but REALLY begin to live. So to all the cynics out there (I actually do include myself in this little shoutout), start believing. Start putting yourselves out there a little more. Be kind, be friendly, be honest, be loving. Because in love we grow, in love we find ourselves and in love we are more than what we normally are. Go out and love, everyone.

 

All, everything that I understand, I understand because I love. Leo Tolstoy.