#48- My music.

I have a variety of music on my Ipod and computer. It varies, everything from classic Aerosmith, Live, Static X, Mudvayne, Brooks and Dunn, Fuel, Eric Clapton, and Hollywood Undead, a little over five days music all together. I started this collection about five years ago, every so often adding music if I'm thinking about it. Every song has a different meaning behind it. Kinda like whenever I hear Limp Bizkit's Three Dollar Bill I think back to 1998 when I graduated high school. A carful of friends having absolutely nothing else to do but cruise around Pekin in a convertible, having the best time ever. Then there are the great ones. This would be the majority of my collection. All the classics from the 60's, 70's and early 80's. Whenever I would go on trips with my dad in the semi that would be all he would listen to, so I learned to like it. Now if I'm in the car and there’s nothing on I usually just flip it to 95.5. I remember one of my friends jokingly told me that she credits me for bringing rap into our town. Being that young we had only two options for music, country or oldies. I had gotten a bunch of cds from a friend and mixed in all the 80's hair bands was a Warren G cd. I remember taking it over to my other friends house and listening to it over and over, memorizing all the lyrics. And I'll listen to things like Manchester Orchestra and it reminds me of my more recent friends that I've made. Take my friend Kendra for instance. If I had never met her I wouldn’t have never of gotten the tattoo I really wanted. All the music I have in my collection is there for a reason. No matter what genre they are or who sings them, they all have a story behind them, and a memory. Regardless if it's having the best prom ever because you decided to go with one of your best friends or remembering someone you really miss, they all have a memory behind them that basically tells the story of your life.

#75 my mom

The last time I seen my mother was fifteen years ago. It wasn't one of those endings that you want to share with you kids or even you friends. It all started about 13 years ago. Before I start, you have to understand that I love my mother very much; it's just really hard to deal with her. No matter what I did or didn't do, we just didn't get along. I sorta kind of gave up trying after a while; I know she gave up along time before that. I never really thought I was a bad kid growing up. I was pretty self-sufficient from a young age. I would get myself up and get to school on my own. My mother was usually already gone to work when I got up, working two jobs she was gone before I got up and didn't get home till after I went to bed. Yeah I would go out on weekend with my friends, but we never caused any trouble, so I figured I was a lot better than some other kids my age. By the time I was 17, the tension between the two of us was getting ready to break. I had just started dating a new guy that had transferred to my school. We were like any new couple. Wanting to spend all our time together, anything we did was about the other person. My mother was trying to do the whole dating thing as well, and every since my father, she really didn't have any luck. I think that it all kind of hit her and she just kind of snapped. I came home one night after being out with Shawn and a few of out friends, I'll admit it, I was running a little late, but only about fifteen or twenty minutes. She was waiting up for me like a concerned parent would do. But she was far from concerned, she was more pissed then anything. Not because I was late but because I was "out with him", as she frequently referred to him. Now usually I am pretty calm about these things, but a person can only handle so much. I proceeded to remind her, "I am a very responsible person. I attend school regularly, work part-time at the local store, and help out with anything I can around the apartment. It just pisses you off because you know I'm going to actually make something of myself." As soon as that came out of my mouth, I just froze. I couldn't believe I had just said that. I think we were both thinking the same thing. She just looked at me, stood up and went to her room. It took a few days for her to start talking to me again. I never told her, but the next day I started looking for an apartment. It's not what I wanted to do, but I just couldn't handle being around someone that took happened in trying to make me miserable. Within three weeks I had an apartment ten minutes away from work and a short public transit ride to school. I went home and began to pack all my stuff. I never told my mother that I was moving, I just did it. I finished school graduating with honors, and began attending college right after high school. I eventually graduated from college and started to begin my new career. So, now here I am, on the morning of my wedding, thinking about everything that I missed out on everything that she had to miss. I'm not proud of how I did things, I actually really regret it. But the one thing that my soon to be husband has taught me, you shouldn't spend your life living in the past. I am really lucky to have him, without him I would never have had the nerve to go and finally see my mother. And now, I get to share one of the biggest days of my life with her.

17 The first time I defied my parents

It's hard for me to remember the first time I defied my parents, I think I was probably about 5. Like I said before, I live in a very small town. Population like 300. Me and my mother went for one of our little walks before my brother got home from school. We went up to the store to get a few groceries. Now mind you that back then my mother was really involved with the city township, so everywhere we went we always had to stop and talk to people. My mother and the owner of the store was involved in some very boring conversation, so I decided to wonder and look around the store. I walked up and down every aisle, finally coming to all the candy bars and the 1, 5, and 10 cent pieces of candy. I ran up to my mother and asked her for a little 5 cent piece of candy. She told me that I couldn’t have it because we were going to eat after we got home. So I did my little "but mmmooommm, pleeeaase???" Then came the "put it back or imp going to spank your but " threat...so I put it back. But I really wanted it, so on my way to put it back, I opened it, shoved it in my mouth, put the empty wrapper back in the bin, and walked back to my mother. On our way home she noticed that I was chewing on something. After she figured it out, she made me spit it out, walk back to the store and return it. I had to apologize to Lloyd and throw the piece of candy away. And I had to pay him the five cents for the candy.

30 longest time without sleep

The longest time I’ve ever gone without sleep was about 48 hours. And honestly, it was probably one of my best memories. We had so much fun. It was me, my brother, three of my friends and like three of his friends. We decided we were all going to camp out in our back yard. We built a fire and did the whole hot dogs and s'mores. Well, earlier that evening while we got the food, we also picked up some no-doz. Seeing that the package said it was the equivalent of two cups of coffee, we thought it would be a good idea. We drink coffee all the time and it never really got us all hyper of anything like that. So after we ate we all took some. We ended up with so much energy! We went for like five walks around town, going out to the creek behind town, and out to the state forest. When we were walking in town, one of my brother’s friends thought it would be cool if he climbed on top of the phone booth in the middle of town. So he took off running across the street, jumped on top of the phone booth, and jumped on top of the building. Then he decided to scare the crap out of all of us and jumped off the top. Well needless to say, he had started walking before he hit the ground. We all thought he was really hurt because he hit the ground rolling and didn’t get up. When we got there he was laying on the ground laughing! We didn’t think it was funny at all. The next morning we went to town for breakfast, did some shopping, went for one of our famous driving with no particular destination. We ended up “camping” in the back yard all weekend. Come Sunday night, I think I fell asleep around 5 pm and didn’t get up till I had to get ready for school. And I still was dragging all day. Needless to say, I haven’t purchased and more No-Doz.

Lost with Friends #25

If I can remember just one time when I’ve been lost, it would have to be when I had to pick my mother up. She had an appointment in Springfield and when she went out to her car, it wouldn’t start. She waited for me to get home from work before she called. She told me what had happened and asked if I could bring my boyfriend at the time and my brother to help fix the car. I agreed. I couldn’t just leave her there. She gave me turn for turn directions exactly how she got there. I wrote them down and even repeated it to her. So we grabbed our stuff, picked up my brother and we were on our way. The ride down there was pretty routine the same way we always went. Before we got to town, I reread the directions to avoid getting lost. We drove down the hill and exactly where she told us to go. We ended up driving around Springfield for two hours looking for the building she was at. We drove around town looking for anything that looked like the building she described. We finally found a cop and stopped him and asked him if he knew where the building was. Apparently I am the only one that can get a cop lost in his own town. My mother got so tired of waiting, she ended up calling her sister to come get her. After driving for another hour we were ready to give up and head to the police station to see if they could help us. I decided that we would retrace our steps as we came into town. Apparently I came in one road over than what I was supposed to. By the time we got to her, she was standing in the front on the sidewalk waiting for us to get there. Then to top it all off, the boys figured out what was wrong with her car. The fuse to the headlights was blown and she had to get another one.

Childhood Friends

Growing up in a small town there really wasn't much to do. The only thing we had in our town was a post office, a bar and a little grocery store, so we really had to use our imaginations. All of us kids had our little fights and arguments, but we pretty much all got along. My two best friends, Angie and Alexis, were my lifesaver's back then and even sometimes now. If you were to ask Alexis how long we've known each other she'd tell you, "I've known her since I was in my momma's womb." There are so many memories that I forget about some of them. I remember one time; I think there was like six or seven of us, doing our normal walking around town because there was nothing else to do. We ended up on the main road, sitting on the wall sharing our famous "community cigarette", when out of the blue, Alexis stops what she's doing, jumps up, runs across the street to the grain elevator's storage shed to the electric meter and starts ordering Mc Donald's. After that she run's back to us, pretends to eat her Mc Donald's and then proceeds to jump in a flower bed and call's it her home. I know this may not seem funny now, but it was hilarious at the time. I remember another time when we decided that the three of us were going to camp in my back yard. We ended up meeting up with four other friends and spent the night walking around town and decided that we were going to play ghosts in the graveyard, which was cut short because on our way there a car came up on us. Thinking it was the cop we all darted in different directions, half of us ran into the cemetery and I, Angie and Alexis jumped in the bushes, which turned out to be a bunch of thorn bushes.