Do You Ever Think About Me?

'Sometime's I think about you, wonder if you're out there somewhere thinkin 'bout me,

And would you even recognize,

The woman that your little girl has grown up to be.

'Cause I look in the mirror and all I see

Are your eyes looking back at me

They're the only thing you ever gave to me at all.'

Do you ever have one of those days, when you think back to the past, to a time so far gone that its a wonder that you can even remember it at all? Sometimes I catch myself doing that. Thinking back to the past. Searching so far back in my memory that things become a bit hazy around the edges and the picture isn't completely clear. Today was one of those days.

I don't think about her often. I think I have purposely blocked out the majority of those memories, only because I find them to be to painful ninety percent of the time. But I can't deny that when I look in the mirror I see her face staring back at me. Her eyes. And her hair. And I can't help but wonder if maybe I have some of the same manneurisms as she. Do I brush my hair the same way she brushes her, or do I have the same smile. Do I sound like her?

For a long time I told myself that she had her reasons for doing the things she did. For choosing the way she chose. And I had been told a million times that perhaps she made the best decision for me. And perhaps she did. And maybe for a while I believed the things I was told.

However, I'm a mother now, and I know that there isn't a damn thing in this world that could drag me away from my son. There is nothing, there isn't a thing a person could give me, or say to me to make me walk away.

So I wonder, how could she have walked away so easily? Was I really worth so little to her?

Thinking about her today got me to thinking, really thinking. And it made me realize that its the fear of abandonment that has me so messed. That has me being one of two ways. Over clingy, or distant. I seem to find that if I distance myself than I'm less likely to get hurt. But that doesn't always work out for the best. I'm pretty sure that I have missed out on some great friendships, and emotional connections with people because I distance myself. And in the same note becoming to attatched to someone never seems to work out for me either. Because I have a tendency of giving everything that I have to give to people and the majority of the time it always ends up kicking me in the backside.

I am steadily learning to straddle the line. To balance myself out. Do I still have fears? Absolutely. Will I always have them? Most likely. Its time that I asked myself the important question though. Am I going to let the fear of what may or may not happen stop me from living my life to the fullest, stop me from having amazing opportunities with people, stop me from making genuine friends who accept and love me for me?

No, no I'm not. She may have walked away, but does that mean that everyone is going to walk away? No. Will some people walk away? Sure. I've dealt with it before, and I'm sure I will deal with it again. But I will not let the fear of the unknown stop me from being me. Stop me from living. She wont take that away from me. Not know, and not ever again.

Tasty Tuesday

So I woke up this morning to a beautiful overcast day in the Pacific Northwest, and decided that it sounded like a good day as any to bake. Now, I have always loved baking things. Especially when they turn out really well, and people enjoy what I spent hours making.

Now, last year I tackled learning how to make a home made chocolate cake and chocate frosting, and I felt so good about it. Because before that moment the most I ever did in making a cake was open a box, measure some water and oil, and crack a few eggs, so last year learning to make a cake from scratch made me feel as if I was on top of the world.

Lately however, through some pretty awesome friends and their tweets, my curiosity was raised from hearing all their talk about Red Velvet Cake. So I decided for myself today that I would tackle this mammoth mountain and see what would happen.

Now of course my journey to what I now like to call Red Velvet Heaven, I had to find a good recipe. So I hopped onto Google, and searched for a while before coming across one from Martha Stewart. And I figured, if she can do it, so can I.

After tearing apart my kitchen and discovering that I only had two, yes two items for the recipe in my arsenal of food items, I much to my dismay, had to take a trip to Safeway, which was frustrating in and of itself, because lets face it, whenever you need to find something in a store, you can NEVER, EVER find it, and usually its right there in front of your face. So after scouring the aisles for nearly-twenty minutes with my sister in law I finally found all of the things that I needed, and made a beeline for the ridiculously long lines. Seriously, how long can a line be in a Safeway, on a Tuesday? It's as if the baking muses were out to thwart me from my mission, but I refused to be beaten down. I was determined to do this. Nothing would get in my way.

Fast forward to nine o'clock, the kitchen was mine. It was just me, some good music, and Red Velvet Cupcakes. And wouldn't you know it, I didn't get enough red food coloring. ( it takes two whole, 1 ounce bottles of red food coloring just to make the cake red, who would have thought right?) So off to Safeway I went, once again (thank God it's open twenty-four hours.) So away to the store with myself I went, only to find myself standing in yet another ridiculously long line at nine thirty at night ( in the express lane no less) to buy three items, with a woman in front of me who wanted a rain check on just about every item in the paper for this week. So to say that when I got out of Safeway that I was a little peeved would be an understatement, which was only made worse to find that the skies had opened up in the twenty minutes that I was in the store and it was pouring rain. Got to love the Pacific Northwest.

Finally, I found myself in the sanctuary of my kitchen, safe and dry, surrounded by mixing bowls, and measuring cups, and I felt slightly overwhelmed. And for a moment I thought to myself, that perhaps I had taken on too much. As I looked at the sea of ingredients, and my small, pitiful kitchen, I contemplated throwing my hands in the air, and saying forget it. Cue some good old inspiration in the form of MJ's PYT ( gotta love an I-Pod on shuffle) and just like that, in the blink of an eye the inspiration was back and it was time to do what I had set out to do.

After the first few minutes, and countless times of checking the recipe I kind of lost myself. Let myself sink into the moment, into the scents and the sounds. And all of the tumultuous emotions that have plagued me for a week just seemed to slip away. For that hour it was just me, the music, and Red Velvet Cake.

So drawing this blog to a close, I have learned a few things. When you write a recipe down, be sure you check, double check, and triple check that you got enough of what it calls for to save yourself from having to run back to the store. Relax, if it turns out good, great, if it doesn't then you'll know what to do differently the next time. And lastly, let the moment take you away.

At This Moment

" At this moment there are 6, 470, 818, 671 people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to get through the day. Others are just now facing the truth. Some are evil men, at war with good. And some are good, struggling with evil. Six billion people in the world. Six billion souls. And sometimes...all you need is one."-Peyton Sawyer OTH


I sit in front of this computer with my fingers at the keyboard and I listen as the rain falls outside of my window, and my thoughts are on one person. My Dad. I don't know why, tonight of all nights that he seems to be on the fore front of my mind, but he's there. Maybe he's playing muse tonight, or maybe simply he's trying to just tell me that its time that I check myself, and get myself back on track.

In my twenty three years of life I have had three fathers. My biological one, who other than giving my Biological Mother a helping hand in my creation, hasn't had anything to do with me. Then there was my Biological Mother's husband, my step-father, who, well, I wont go into what he was. All I can say is this, he wasn't a father, not even close to a father figure.

And then there is my Dad. The only man in my life who showed me what a Dad truly was, that to be a dad is more than to just simply have the title, or to create a life, its what you do with that life. Its how you shape it.

My Dad was an amazing man. I can remember the silliest things about him. About how he would look when he first woke up in the morning, or the fact that he was hardly ever without a Coca-Cola in his hand. But aside from those things, its other things I remember.

I remember him trying to instill in all of his kids the importance of family, education, friendship, and love. I was a lucky girl, to have a Dad who would come to my room every night to sit and talk to me, whether it was just for a minute or fifteen minutes. Every night he would come in and talk to me. And every night before turning the light out and shutting my door he would say, I love Amber, a bushel's worth.

I was fourteen when my Dad died. And at the time it felt like my world was collapsing around me, and maybe it was. Perhaps for a long time after that nothing made sense in my world anymore. I dealt with every conceivable emotion that a person deals with after losing someone important. I didn't understand. I didn't understand how in one moment he was here, and in the next he was just gone.

Over time, I learned to accept it. No amount of praying, or crying was going to bring my dad back to any of us. But acceptance doesn't make it any easier.

I often times wonder if my Dad is proud of me. Proud of the decisions I have made, and I'm sure I have had some shortcomings in his eyes, but I wonder if who I am as Amber, as the woman that I am, makes him proud.

As I write this, I realize exactly what is that I'm trying to say. People can be gone so quick. All that it takes is a blink of an eye. Now their here, now their gone. Over the last week or so I have been on an emotional rollercoaster, and as my soul has finally started to settle and the pain has slowly digressed I realize something. It doesn't matter. What hurts you, what a person says, what happens none of that matters. What matters is this. Everyone in your life right now is there for a purpose. Every person that you care about is there for a reason. I didn't realize that, not this past week. Instead I wallowed in pain and hurt without opening my eyes and realizing that I have so much to be thankful for. So many people to be thankful for. More importantly I have some apologies to make, to the people who I have somehow hurt.

" Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."-Leo F. Buscaqlia.

Friendship Part One

Sitting here tonight, I'm reminded why I miss blogging so much. Blogs are an easy way to talk about any subject, or to simply not talk about anything at all. I used to blog all the time, whether it was about something I felt strongly about, or if it was just a walk through my day. So I decided that perhaps, I need to get back into the habit of writing a blog. I'll probably start off small, once or twice a week, but I don't want to make any promises because lets face it, whenever I put myself on a deadline, it never works out well.

Tonight I want to cover a subject that seems to be on my mind a lot lately. Friendship.

Friendship as defined by Google is the state of being friends. Or. Friendship is the cooperative and supportive relationship between people, or animals. In this sense the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, affection, and respect, along with a degree of rendering service to friends in time of need or crisis.

Thinking back over my twenty three years of existance I see how much I've grown, and at times how much I've stumbled. I can remember not having many friends in my early years, but that was because I was in foster care, and well, lets face it, when your the only kid in the class who says that your Mommy and Daddy didn't want you kids tend to shun you, just a bit. However, I remember when I was moved to my final foster home, with the family who adopted me, I was able to achieve my first real friendships. It helped that I was going to the same school every year instead of being switched out.

And then fifth grade happened, and we moved from one side of town to another, and with that came a change of school scenery (again.) It was hard. Because I had gotten used to my old setting, I was happy there, I was comfortable, but I quickly found myself a nice little group of friends, and I was content.

Bring on Junior High. When emotions and hormones are just starting to run rampant and everything changed again. However. I was lucky in the fact that one of the friends I made in Junior High, happened during a time when I needed someone the most. And I can proudly say that we are still friends, best friends to this day.

And finally, High School. I didn't really know what was going on in high school, or where I belonged, I just kind of floated along and hoped for the best. I lost friends, made friends, found the friends that I lost again, and the cycle seemed to repeat itself, fueled by the day to day drama that exists in every high school in America ( and all over the world I'm sure.)

It wasn't until I was "grown up" or what people would say was grown up, and I moved out of state that I realized just how precious friendship is in and of itself. In the last almost six years of living in the Pacific Northwest, I have learned some of the biggest lessons when it comes to the art form known as being a friend, and I have also learned what to expect from a friend.

I have gotten the short end of the stick many times. Whethere it was strictly because of a misunderstanding, or if it was just one person not liking me. The fact is that I have been hurt, much like I'm sure, everyone has in their life.

I am the type of person that gives everything to every person in my life. If I'm your friend, and you call me, it doesn't matter what time of day or night, and you need me I will find a way to be there. I give everything inside of me. And I've been told multiple times, by multiple people in my life that doing that is leaving me open to the pain that is bound to come. But I can't be any other way. I can't shut people out, I can't not be there. It isn't in me to not be there for a friend.

I've learned the hard way though through the years, that not everybody shares the same philosophy on friendship. Not everyone plays by the same rules, or even cares. I have come across the users, who will use a person up until there is literally nothing left to give, and still they try and squeeze a little bit more, until they realize there is nothing left and they are gone without so much as a 'good bye.'

I've come across the back stabbers. We all know these 'friends.' The one's who have nothing but nice things to say to your face, but the moment your out of sight they run their mouths a mile a minute talking nothing but trash and lies about you, and when you confront them they somehow turn it around to make you sound like the crazy one.

I could probably go on, and on, about all of the bad examples of friends that I have come across, but that isn't the point of this blog. Not at all. The point of my blog is to say this. For every bad or poisonous friendship I have come across in my time, I have found another one, a greater one to take its place.

I wont give up hope, that there are genuinly good people in this world. I refuse to. Maybe I'm a dreamer for thinking that way, or for holding onto that hope, but I can't help that. It's who I am, and it's whats inside of me. I believe that everyone has good in them, they just have to choose to show it.

In closing. I want to say I'm sorry. If I have ever been a 'bad' friend to anybody. If I have ever hurt anyone, or let anyone down. I'm truly sorry from the bottom of my heart, and I pray that one day we can sit down and talk about it and make it okay again.