One Hundred Eighty Degrees

I have so much to post about.

December 23, 2011
This was the Friday before Christmas. I was at work, a normal day. The father of the children that I babysit was home most of the morning, which is very unusual.It was a tense morning because he jokes around a bit more than I do, weird, I know. We got into a huge fight.

All of a sudden... I am no longer a nanny.

I have worked for this family for over a year, and they are more like family than anything else. It pretty much broke my heart. Christmas Eve was incredibly hard, because I spend it with them... the kids, the siblings, the grandparents, the whole shebang. Instead, I sat on the couch, drank half a beer and waited for my boyfriend to come home and then leave for St. Pete to see his family.

I decided to drive down to Daytona, I spent almost three days with my family, and it was pretty wonderful.

Christmas at the beach with my siblings. You cannot beat that. Unfortunately, I only got about half an hour of sun before the clouds moved in and brought the wind with it.

I took the time with my family to relax and try to just have fun. I never spend that much time away from Brian, so that was strange, but I was glad that I was able to still enjoy my mini vacation.

While I was in Daytona, the mom of the children called me. We talked for a long time. She asked me if I still wanted to work for them. I had to tell her that I did not know. I did a lot of soul searching those couple of days in Daytona. In the end, I decided that I was not going to continue working for them. I told them this face to face when I came home. It was an incredibly hard thing to do, because I love them. However... I think that it is what is best for me. Several people have asked me..."you would rather work at Subway?"... and that is not the issue. It is not a matter of preference for a smelly fast--food chain, it is a matter of emotional stress vs dumb stress. I would rather take the dumb stress. I have been filling the gap until their new nanny starts this week, and have been assured that I am still family and still welcome in their lives. It makes it easier. Tomorrow is my last day, and even though I know it is not a permanent good-bye, it will be hard to walk away from my kids.

December 26th, 2011

I met my beautiful half sisters this day. My dad adopted me when I was five years old. He and I did NOT have a good relationship growing up, but we have grown a lot closer since I have been in college, and I treasure that relationship. However, no matter how dear this new-found bond may be, I still wanted to find and get to know my biological father, Ron Moore. We started talking in September and it has been a rewarding experience. I had only met him once, briefly, in a waffle house, for like ten minutes, in October, before the 26th. 

I have three half sisters, Brittany, Amberli and Bethani. Brittany has a son named Tylan. I met them at Cracker Barrel for Tylan's birthday. I have talked to Brittany and Amberli some since I started talking to Ron, and I love them for how accepting of me they have been. It was a great experience, if a little stressful. I did not get to meet Amberli, but I hope I will in the future. My little 11 year old sister Bethani reminds me so much of my sister Allison, she is a little diva and a ball of energy and I love it. This new found family is a gift that I never expected.

Speaking of long, lost family.... I was also finally able to see Bryan and Jessica for the first time in two years. It was so amazing to see and talk with Jess, she has always been such a wonderful friend and I love her very dearly. Seeing Alayna so grown up made me want to cry, and meeting Anthony was great. 

They are ridiculously adorable in the monkey hats I made, per Jessica's request. I am sad that I only got a couple of hours with them, maybe a trip to Arizona will be in my future.

December 28th, 2011

This was our 6 month mark. The last six months has been awesome. I really cannot put that timeline to it though because our friendship has melded so seamlessly into our relationship. We have our challenges, but overall, we are a very cohesive unit. Not to go all "The Notebook", but Brian shows me how much he loves me every single day and I know he would drop everything to be with me... And I love that. Being with him is an incredibly rewarding experience. We had a pretty low key day and enjoyed dinner at Outback.

December 29, 2011

This was a day that I was not looking forward to in the least. For two reasons. 

The primary one was that I was having a stupid, dumb surgery and I hate doctors, hospitals and all of their affiliates. The second was that it would have been Lemur's and my 6 year anniversary, a pretty hard pill to swallow, no matter how happy I am. 

I spent approximately 7 hours at the hospital on Thursday. Four of them were me sitting in a room, with an IV stuck in my hand, waiting for a doctor. I was pretty irate. They said they had "fallen behind". So why did they stick me in a room with a dumb needle in my hand??? Poor Brian.. I was not a nice person that day. The procedure took all of twenty minutes, and I was in recovery for about twenty minutes before I woke up. I don't remember falling asleep and I was kind of out of it, but I was on a mission. They told me before hand that I would probably have to stay for 45 minutes. They said once I could use the bathroom, and felt okay, I could leave. I asked to use the bathroom as soon as I got back and then asked to leave. Probably the quickest discharge ever, it was great. I then proceeded to sleep for hours and hours. Stupid, dumb, hospital...for the record, I am fine.

December 31st, 2011

This was the day that I told the family that I worked for that I was no longer going to be their nanny. So I guess, technically, it was the day I started working for Subway full time again. I had to close on New Year's Eve, it was not my favorite thing in the world. Until about 10 or so my tip jar looked like this:

Which means I was 47 cents closer to a house I guess. Brian came up and mopped the lobby for me so I could leave, it was sweet. We actually kissed at 12:01 am because we were distracted and busy. 

Not my favorite end to the year, but I think it was pretty symbolic, I both ended and began my year by working. And I will need to work my butt off if I ever want to get this house. 

Now, January 4th, 2012 11:00pm,

We are four days into the new year, and my year is drastically different than I would have imagined at the beginning of December, mostly because of the job thing. Nevertheless, I have high hopes for this year, and loosely bound resolutions. I decided not to streamline and overly dedicate my resolutions, because I did not want to set myself up to be disappointed at my inability to keep them. So here goes:

> Drink more water

>Read at least one book a month

>Be more self motivated and proactive

>Keep up with Blog

>Do not shop at Wal-Mart, at all.

This last resolution is one that I feel relieved to have made. Why? I NEVER have good shopping experiences at Walmart, the staff is always rude and unhelpful and they never have enough cashiers on the line. Anyone who knows me, knows how impatient I am with lines. Not only that, Walmart is not a company that I admire, I do not get the best deals there, because I use coupons, AND I prefer to support local business when possible. While Publix and Target are not local businesses, I would much rather give them my business. Some of my absolute best coupon successes have been at Publix. I would rather be a little inconvenienced and have to go somewhere farther away to get something than deal with Walmart... Four days in and I am sure that this is a resolution that will hold.