Happy Birthday Mama!!!!

Happy Birthday to the most beautiful, genuine, loving woman I know.. My mama! 

Every day my mom sets a great example for me. There is no other mom that be a better or a more fitting mother than the one I have. She is the perfect mom for me. She is loving, kind, genuine, spiritual, accepting, understanding, compassionate and a hero.

She loves her children and grand children enough to put us first. She has taught my sister and me to value the one we love and the families in which we create. I love knowing that I have such a great example of marriage to look at and think that "Maybe one day, I will find someone to share my life with, and have a love like my parents do." My mom married her best friend. She and I always joke about how big of a stud my dad is.. But the truth is, neither one of us are kidding. My dad is a stud, and I love knowing that my mom is so in love with my dad. They are happy, which in return makes me happy.

My mom has also been my emotional dragon slayer since day one. I can't even begin to tell you all how many times my mother has rescued me, it started as young as three and four years old. I loved the days when she'd get off work early to take my sister and me to lunch...Or when she started going to work extremely early just so she could pick me up from day care on time because she knew how much I hated it. I wasn't old enough to tell time yet, but my mom gave me a watch and told me what time she would be there to pick me up. "When the little hand is on the 2 and the big hand is on the 9 I will be here to get you".... I know it still gets to her because she still tears up when she tells me how heart breaking it was to see my "crocodile tears" as I held on to the chain linked fence waiting for her like it was the end of the world.... My mom was also the person to give me some of the most important advice that I have ever received. While going through my first "real" heartbreak she said "I'm sorry you have to go through this. It's absolutely horrible. But Nicki, you will never truly know what love is until you have had your heart broken at least once, and broken at least one heart.".... I didn't understand it at that moment, but she was absolutely right. That day was a milestone for me. It opened my eyes to show me that even when I was sluffing school, and swearing on the phone for the first time in front of my mother... She would be there and love me unconditionally. That is also the same month I gaged my own ears. I remember trying to hide it from her, until I laid my head in her lap one night when I was crying from a broken heart. She just pulled my hair back in the way mothers do to comfort their child and said "Nicki..." Even though I could hear the discomfort in her voice, she said nothing else because she knew that all I needed was for her to do exactly as she was, comfort me.

My mom has put up with a lot from me, but she has never been one to judge me or the things that I have done. For that, I am truly grateful. She loves me unconditionally and accepts me for the good and the bad. She might not agree with all of the decisions that I make, or my lifestyle choices, but she loves me as I am.

Everyday I notice something about myself that was influenced by my mama. Where it be the way that I lick my fingers to smooth down my fly aways,  my green eyes, or my love for Life time and country love songs. My mom is also one of the most compassionate and loving people you will ever meet. I don't know anyone else that loves animals more than she does. We have nick named her the "tree hugger" because she hates to even think about an animal (even a mouse) being hurt.... I get that from her too. :)

I love my mom because she loved me enough to bring me into this world. I love her for the woman that she was, is and will continue to be. I love her for the great examples she sets each day and for the joy she brings to my life. I love my mom for teaching me to be the woman that I am, and for standing by me as I figure out the woman I want to be. My mom truly is the best mom I could ever ask for. I am so thankful that I picked the perfect family for me. I know I am not perfect, but I have the perfect parents to love me, imperfections and all.

Happy Birthday to my mama. I could never love another mother as much as I love mine.

Love,
Her baby

Angry Gusts of Wind

I feel strong today. I feel like it's ok to rid myself of you completely. I feel like we were a waste of time even though I know its not true, Feeling that way, and knowing that makes me sad. It's easier to be angry instead of hurt sometimes. So today, I will be angry. Tho through that anger, I still feel happiness. Its bittersweet.

I'm angry with you and for leaving things unsaid about what really happened (even though I know it won't do any good to know now)... I feel happiness, because I feel stronger than I thought possible up to this point in my life.  My friends, the family that is beside me, and the options that I have to do as I please with my life is what makes me smile everyday.

.......I don't thank you for that. You letting me go, wasn't what was best for me. You don't get to make that choice, I do. Telling others you are sorry for how I felt, and that I deserve better  was not what I expected from you. That is just a cowardly way of saying you had stopped caring....  I'm angry because instead of telling me how YOU felt, you blamed our failures on the timing. There is never a right time to discuss a topic in which you know the other person will feel pain. But I feel like I deserved the honesty of how you felt from the moment your heart fell out of love with me.

Either way, you are gone. You have moved on. You were the one that said "We need time to find ourselves." .... I cannot speak for you in saying whether or not you have found yourself. I can however, speak for myself when I say I feel you were looking for an escape. You found it.

As for me, I have moved forward. There are days that I still think about you, but I no longer let you get the best of me. I smile often, and think of you sometimes. When I do, those thoughts pass as quickly as a gust of wind. I feel good about that. They say to send thoughts of light and love to those that anchor your heart down... For you, I send nothing because I feel nothing. I don't think you would be offended by that. 

I have released the burden that my love for you had placed on my heart. I don't feel relief because of it, or feel that is was an accomplishment. I feel the same, only stronger. The difference is that I smile more lately. I laugh to the point that my stomach hurts. I no longer hate the opposite sex and I feel gitty when I talk to someone that I am attracted to. I love myself as I am. I feel beautiful as I am. I feel this way because of me... No one can take credit for that.

The Chase

"Let them chase you." ... That always seems to be the comment I get from others when I become interested in someone. I don't know why, but I don't feel like it should be about anyone chasing anyone. Life is too short to wait to be chased. I know I am 23, but I feel much older than I am. 

I feel like waiting for someone to chase me, isn't the correct interpretation of who I am. I want the person I end up with to know me as I am, good traits and bad. Sure, maybe they will pull away, in most cases that happens at some point. But to me, being honest up front is the best way to start a relationship because it shows who you are from the very beginning.

Why pretend that you aren't interested in someone if you truly are? Why play hard to get? Sure, I get it.... "Make them want you. Make them see that you are worth chasing"... I just don't feel that its for me. I know I who I am. I know I am worth it.

I hope for someone to love me just like the rest of this world does, I just don't feel I need to put myself  on the back burner in the mean time to do so.

Love for me will come. It will come when its the right time.. (If the right time even exists). When it does, I will embrace it, on my terms. But I refuse to sit here and play a game of cat and mouse to "bait" a man to walk into my life.

Love me as I am, and in return I will do the same. The most beautiful things in life develop naturally, so why shouldn't the most beautiful feeling we as humans feel develop the same way?

Let it be, love will come on it's own terms...And when it does embrace the possibilities.

-Nicki

Work in Progress Heart

I woke up feeling extremely angry and bitter this morning. Angry because I feel like I haven't gotten closure from some past events in my life, and bitter because I have allowed myself to hold on to the anger. I have been toying with ideas of how to cut that anger out of my life, and I had come up with some solutions. All of them were good, but some were and are going to be hard to follow through with. It's hard sometimes when cutting anger towards one person effects your relationship with others. Unfortunately, ridding myself of this negative energy involved doing so. But I like to think that they would understand and not take it personal. If they don't understand however, I'm sorry and I apologize.

My life right now is up and down. For the most part, I have really good days. But with all good days, we have to have our share of bad days. I enjoy being single (for the most part), but mainly I don't think it would be fare to myself or the other individual, if I were in a relationship right now. Today has put in to prospective that I really am not in the right mind set just yet to take that leap. Tho I continue to work on myself daily, I don't feel that I fully know/love myself yet.

I know I'm great person. I know I am deserving of someone that will not fill a void, but become the other half to my "work in progress heart". I know that in order to love that person, I have to love myself.  And today I learned this; Love is patience.

I was talking to a friend of mine today about what has been going on in our lives. I told her how I was feeling and how angry I was. She expressed to me that she and her husband were continuing to work on their relationship and in doing so, decided to do the 40 Day Love Dare Challenge. For those who don't know what that is don't worry, I didn't either. It's a for couples to help strengthen their relationship. It's Christian based (Each challenge is related to a verse from the bible). I asked her to explain a little bit of what the challenge was and the first thing she said was "Love is Patience". I found it ironic or that for some reason I was supposed to hear that today. She told me that the book is for couples, but really it would be good for anyone. It teaches you how to love your self in a way, and also to love others. "Love is patience" stuck out to me.

"Love works. It is life’s most powerful motivator, and has far

greater depth and meaning than most people realize. It always
does what is best for others, and can empower us to face the
greatest of problems. We are born with a lifelong thirst for love.
Our hearts desperately need it like our lungs need oxygen. Love
changes our motivation for living. Relationships become meaningful
with it. No marriage is successful without it.

Love is built on two pillars that best define what it is. Those
pillars are patience and kindness. All other characteristics of love are
extensions of these two attributes. And that's where your dare will begin.
With patience.

Love will inspire you to become a patient person. When you
choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative
situation. You are slow to anger. You have a long fuse instead
of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding,
love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those
around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external
storm. "

I really needed to hear that today. I needed to hear that through loving myself, my patience for the things that effect me most negatively will over power all.

Love really is the most powerful motivator. It really is needed like our lungs need oxygen.

Love is the one thing that unifies us. Love is the one thing that unifies us, with who WE are inside.

For now, I continue to work on loving myself.

Nicki

What. The. World. Needs. Now... IS LOVE.. SWEET LOVE!!!!

For all of those people that hate Valentines Day, I just don't understand you. "It's a waste of money." "It's so commercialized." "Why do you have to have a day to celebrate your love with someone when you celebrate it everyday?!"... (That one is my personal favorite!).... To answer that last question.... NO ONE CELEBRATE THEIR LOVE AND RELATIONSHIP EVERYDAY!!!!!!!! ..... How do I know this? Because I was practically married for two years and there were days that I wanted to kill him. (Well not literally, but you get the point)

Love is the one thing in the world that makes everything beautiful. When you look at the world through eyes of love, the air smells better, the colors around you seem more vibrant, and yes; life seems sweeter.

Valentines Day is one of my favorite holidays. I love going the extra mile on that day to show the person I am with that I truly care about them. Valentines Day doesn't mean you have to spend hundreds of dollars to see that person smile.. it means that you do something a little extra to show that person you take pride in your relationship and that you feel your love DOES DESERVE to be celebrated!

My most memorable Valentines Day comes from my high school boyfriend. Neither one of us had a lot of money, neither one of us were nor are we now superficial... So for Valentines Day he cooked me dinner, we exchanged small gifts and letters we had written to one another, and we spent the night watching movies together cuddled up on the couch.

Valentines Day has nothing to do with spending money. To me, the most heart felt gifts/memorable are the ones that are sentimental. Take time to write that special someone a letter professing what exactly it is that makes you grateful to have them in your life. Make them a card, a picture frame of the two of you in it, or even a freaking macaroni necklace! It doesn't matter what it is, its the thought that counts.

Love is beautiful, and YES, it should be celebrated every day! If we can have a holiday to honor our country, our Father in Heaven, the birth of Christ, our Freedom, and the dead... Why can't we have a holiday to celebrate the one thing that makes this world beautiful... LOVE!

Even though I don't have a special someone to share this day with at this time in my life, I remain happy and humble. I love LOVE and I love celebrating LOVE. If you have that special someone in your life, I hope you take the time today to honor your love and let them know how much it means to you to have them in your life.

Cherish LOVE. Cherish the light it brings into your life! You never know when it might be taken from you.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Nicki

Happy Birthday to My Papa

Happy Birthday to my dad, the best man I know! I am so grateful to have a father like him. I know that all kids say "I have the best dad in the world."... And of course I feel that way, but beyond that, I feel that I have the best dad for ME. What I mean by that is that I don't know any other father that could hold a place in my heart like he does. My dad is my hero. He is the man that I look up to most because he has always been there for me. The older I get the more I realize how amazing my parents are.... And the older I get, the more I realize how much I need and love having the father that I do in my life. I have never felt closer to him than I have this past year. The first time I realized this was Easter Sunday of last year . That is still probably the worst day of my life up to this point in my 23, almost 24 yrs of life; and the one person I needed that day was my dad.

One of my fathers greatest qualities is that he is relaxed. He has this way of calming you down and making you feel as if everything will be alright, even when if feels like the end of the world. I guess that is a quality needed when you are a father to two emotional daughters whose tear ducts open like flood gates on a regular basis, and husband to the emotional mother in which we get our "emotional gift" from. I feel that I can speak for all of us when I say that he has held our family together... Even in times when we weren't ok individually or as a unit.

My father is the hardest working man I know. He has always provided for our family to make sure that we have not only had what we needed, but what we wanted. During our hardest times when he been out of work , he has worked side job after side job to make sure we had not only the necessities, but he also made sure that my sister and I had what we wanted in order to keep doing the things we loved. I think sometimes the hardships that we face as a unit is what pulls us closer together. I have never felt closer to my family than I have in the moments we have experienced hardships like that.


The reason I love my dad most is because I honestly know that no matter what decision I make in life, he will always love me. I am not perfect, nobody is. But everyday my dad gives me the greatest gift he could ever give me, love and acceptance.

I can only hope that one day I end up with someone as great of a man as he is. He is corky, smart, easy going, handsome :) , a provider, witty, honest, loyal, family oriented, and all around a hero. He loves his family more than anything and everyday he does what he can to make us proud. That to me is what makes him so wonderful... Everyday he tries his best to always be the great example that he is.

Thank you to him for all that he has done, and continues to do each and every day. I can only hope to be as great of a parent to my kids that he has been, and will continue to be to me.

Love Always,
Nick

Cheers!

Happiness... That is my New Year's Resolution...


Cheers to eating what I want, exercising when I want, dating who I want, traveling where I want and making memories to last a life time. I'm loving life just "doin' me". This is my year in one way or another. It's my year to grow as an individual and smile constantly. It's my year to pave the rest of my life... It's my year to accept myself as me and to continue to love myself inside and out....

I smile more these days and I feel TRUE HAPPINESS within. That is something that no one can take away from me.

Cheers to 2012! :)