Resolutions Checklist

2010 is coming to an end and I wanted to be able to check some accomplishments off my New Year's Resolutions List for this year. I posted my resolutions on January 1, 2010. You may remember them when you see them.
Be enrolled in college by fall semester
Have a part time job
Be in better shape physically
Have a stronger relationship with Carlos
Make new friends
Be happy with myself
Grow my hair out

What can I check off?

I've completed two semesters of college this year, both of which I maintained a 4.0 GPA which means I got all "A's!" I'm also enrolled for Spring Semester 2011 which starts in less than 3 weeks.

I'm working not only one but TWO part time jobs!!! I've been able to make enough money to pay all my bills and pay for my college education all on my own with no financial support from family or the government. It's been tough and I can't afford any extras but I'm proud of what I've been able to do.

At the beginning of the year I was determined to get into better physical shape. I forced myself to work out 3-5 days a week. What started out as an excruciating 15 minute walk on the treadmill turned into a 30-60 minute jog including push-ups, 100+ crunches, limb stretching and weight lifting. My butt firmed and I started getting the 6 pack I had senior year in high school. My biceps were huge and mom never stopped stating how muscular my arms looked. I was feeling so good and gaining muscle weight. By May of this year I looked incredible and I was extremely proud of myself. Unfortunately, I started school in June and I was unable to keep working out juggling two jobs, school and homework. I think the last time I walked on the treadmill or did a crunch was early June. Oh well....I succeeded for a short amount of time and I'm proud of that slight accomplishment. Maybe I'll start again before too long.

I wrote this list before Carlos and I broke up. If you remember Carlos and I broke up January 15th. I had hoped that we'd be able to work on our relationship and grow stronger as a couple. Unfortunately we didn't have that opportunity. However, we've stayed in touch with each other and remained friends this entire year. By early March I was beginning to feel that our relationship was growing stronger through a friendship. He's come to me a couple times this year needing advice and I tried to help him as best I could. I'm sad to announce that the last I heard from Carlos was November 8th; almost two months ago. I've sent him a few emails since then but he's never responded to any of them. There is still hope that he'll write me again some day. At least our friendship grew stronger for a brief moment in my personal history.

I haven't made many new friends. I've become friends with some co-workers of mine on facebook and a few of my classmates from school. I haven't made friends with anyone that I care to hang out with. I'm still searching for a BFF and I hope that one day I'll have one. Right now my closest friend is my Mother and I'm grateful for that. My mom was always my best friend when I was growing up and our relationship changed when I moved to Utah and got married. My mom has been my best comfort this past month while I was going through TWO break ups with Alex. I'll always love my mother and I never want to grow apart again.

Be happy with myself!!! That's a tough one to check off the list. I'm not so sure if I'm happy with myself or not. I'm proud of all my accomplishments: school, work...etc. But I still think I have a long way to go to actually be happy with myself. I've continued to grow as an individual this year but I've also made many mistakes along the way. I think I'll have to continue striving to be happy with myself.

I've tried to grow my hair out all year but it just won't grow anymore. I ruined my hair when I bleached it back in 2008 and it's thinned to a point where it looks like straw when it gets past my shoulders. I'll never have my thicker and longer hair again. At least I've tried, right?

I guess one could conclude that I've been able to check off most of my resolutions for 2010. I hope many of you have been able to do the same!!!

Christmas Highlights

Another Christmas has come and gone! The time sure does fly by as you get older. I can't believe that Christmas is already over...seems like just yesterday when December started. I had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was a very stressful but very enjoyable holiday.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is seeing The Nutcracker Ballet. Alex bought Houston Ballet tickets to see the Nutcracker with me this year. On our first date I mentioned that I loved ballet and used to be a dancer and he went and bought tickets, all on his own. I was so excited to share my love of dance with him and for him to experience his first ballet with me. Unfortunately he was out of town the weekend were supposed to go and so I ended up giving his ticket to my mom. We had quite the adventure driving downtown because our exit was closed off but luckily the GPS got us there in one piece. We would have been lost without it. It was a very interesting experience for both of us. Not quite like my experiences seeing Ballet West perform The Nutcracker in Salt Lake City. People were walking around with glasses of wine and champagne; not something that ever happened in Capitol Theater. The ballet was excellent but not my favorite version and choreography. I managed to take some pictures with my phone.

It is my own personal tradition to buy a Nutcracker every year. This is the one I chose to purchase this year. It wasn't the one I wanted but they were out of stock of my first choice. I still like him though.

The Christmas Tree in the Wortham Center

A huge gingerbread house next to the huge Christmas tree

The curtain inside the theater

Work has been extremely stressful and exhausting for me this holiday. I've been working retail for several years and I can honestly say that I have never worked so hard in my life. The hours have been long, the employees have been scarce and the work has been tremendous. It was wonderful having off yesterday for Christmas and having off today as well. I really needed those two days to relax and recuperate.

My older brother, Danny, came down from Dallas for a few days and it was really nice being able to spend some time with him. I had a wonderful and relaxing holiday with family. It's a shame we all couldn't be here but it was nice celebrating with who was available. I was sad to see my brother leave because I don't get to see him much through the year.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends.

Catch Up Time

I've been really busy with school, work and my crazy relationship that I haven't had time to post on my blog lately. I've been working almost 15 hour days since black Friday and I've been extremely exhausted. I thought it would be nice to have one nice post to catch up a bit on my life.

Finals

For my Interior Design class I had to do a final project and a final exam. For our final project we had to design an executive office for a made up client. We had to design a company logo for both our designing firm and our clients company. Then we had to come up with our clients age, sex, job title, education and family situation. Our office design was required to have a desk area, conference area and a lounge area. We were also required to draw up a floor plan by hand in a 1/4 " scale.

My Client

My company is K~Design and my partner and I started the company 3 years ago. I personally took on the design of this office. My client was Corissa Burns who is a Jr. Accountant for Burns Accounting (where they are the key to your financial success) which is owned by her father and uncle. Corissa received her Masters in Accountancy at Brigham Young University which is one of the top ten accounting colleges in the United States. Corissa is 27 years old and recently engaged to be married. As a wedding present, her fiance asked me to design her new office.

Here are my presentation boards of Corissa's Office with all furniture choices and samples of paint colors, case goods, flooring and upholstery. Corissa wanted a very traditional and classic look for her office. She also wanted me to bring in influences of the Queen Anne time period with my furniture choices.

Board #1

My first board presents the floor plan (kinda hard to see in this picture), most office finishes, and the furniture for the desk area. All four walls in the office will be painted in the darker neutral color presented on this board while the ceiling will be painted the lighter tint of the wall color also presented here. The carpet will be a dark brown while all the case goods will be in cherry. Both the swivel desk chair and the two guest chairs (situated in front of the desk) will be upholstered in this tan colored washable suede. To bring in some Queen Anne influences I choice these chairs because they have cabriolle legs and Queen Anne arms.

Board #2

My second board presents the conference and lounge areas with all their finishes. I chose a 42" round conference table since Corissa didn't have a huge need for a large conference table. Most of the company meetings take place in her father's office. We also chose 4 Queen Anne chairs (identical to the guest chairs on previous board, only without the tufting) to be situated around the conference table. All four chairs will be upholstered in the paisley/damask patterned fabric shown in the bottom middle of the board. For the lounge area I chose a settee to situated on the left side wall of the office. The magazine table will placed in front of the settee while two fish aquariums will flank each side of the settee. I selected two wing back chairs to be placed on each side of the magazine table. Both the chairs and the settee will be upholstered in a rich red velvet which was a popular textile in the Queen Anne time period. The same upholstery that I used on the conference table chairs will be used as throw pillows on the settee. I hope you liked my design of Corissa's office. I know my teacher did cause she gave me a 100 on this project!!

I also received a 100 on my final exam for this class. I ended the semester with a 99 which I think is pretty amazing and impressive!!!! I loved this class!!! For my College Algebra class I had to get a 65 or higher on my final exam to get an "A" in the class. I thought I would be able to pull that off but I was unable to study for the final. I was going through all my Alex crap around this time and couldn't focus long enough to study. I thought I aced most of the final but there was this one cruel word problem that I ended up skipping completely!!! I was worried that I might have made a few minor errors on some other problems but I felt good that I got my 65 or HIGHER. My only concern was that my teacher refused to email us our final grades and if we wanted to know our grade we had to visit her in her office during office hours. I was unable to visit her during office hours because my jobs started scheduling me during the day when my finals were over. Luckily...I ended up getting an "A" in the class so I'm satisfied. I was able to maintain my 4.0 GPA for my second semester in a row. YEAH!!!!

Work

Like I mentioned earlier....I've been working A LOT of hours this holiday season. What else is to be expected when I work in retail? I've been starting most shifts at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning and ending my shifts around 11 at night. Yesterday I didn't get out of work until after midnight. Yikes!!! It was amazing having a day off today and luckily the mall closes early tomorrow for Christmas Eve. I've had to deal with a lot of angry customers but I've managed to be nice to most of them. Palais Royal has been much busier than Gymboree. I also happen to work in the busiest department in Palais Royal so there hasn't been a dull moment yet. I've definitely been working hard for my money. We've had a lot of WEAK individuals quit on us this past week because they couldn't handle all the work. Oh well!!!! It's almost over!!!

Alex

We've definitely had our ups and downs these past 2 1/2-3 weeks. I don't really care to discuss Alex's and my relationship at this time but we're doing alright. I still don't think we're doing as well as we were doing before he broke up with me but we still care about each other and so we're working on our little problems.

Misc.

When I woke up this morning my parents informed me that a robber tried to break into our next neighbors house around 2 in the morning. The cops were all up and down our street trying to find the guy. He was trying to unscrew my neighbors window and it woke her up. Apparently he had already broken into other houses in the neighborhood and the cops were called. My parents were a little spooked today and so we've all agreed to keep the doors and windows locked. Keep us in your prayers. We also had a riot today at the mall. Of course it had to happen on the day that I'm off work. My boss called me today to tell me about it. I guess some people were angry that a store ran out of stock of the new Jordans and so thus a riot broke out. Mall security had Palais Royal close the gates to the store. She told me that trashy black people were running through the mall yelling tantrums. She also told me that people were getting trampled by the mob of crazy people. I guess it was so bad that all the windows in our store were shaking and my boss was scared the class was going to break in the windows. Craziness!!!

I hope everyone is having a Happy Holiday!

Surprise, Surprise

The past couple of days have been really hard since Alex broke it off with me. I cried most of the day on Thursday. Little things would trigger the tears like when I walked past a bench in the campus courtyard that I used to sit on when I would call him when I got out of class. I was doing better on Friday because work was SOOOOO busy and I didn't have time to think about it. After work I was so busy working on my final interior design project that, again, I didn't have time to think about him. However, Friday morning I told one of my co-workers at Palais about the break up and she told me something like this, "Kristin, I don't want to sound mean, but it sounds like he found someone else!" I hadn't even thought of that as being a reason. All he told me was that he wasn't ready to get into another serious relationship so soon after his divorce. There was always the possibility that he met someone else and didn't want me to know. When I asked him if he would be interested in dating me when he was ready he responded with something like this, "I don't know if I would. You may not be what I want and right now I don't know what I want."

Maybe that was his nice way of saying, "Hey...I found someone else who is more my type and things are done between us."

Soooo Friday night my mind played tricks on me and I had nightmares of how Alex was posting all over facebook all the woman he was dating now that he had broken up with me. I woke up yesterday morning VERY sad. My whole day was pretty much ruined because of that stupid dream and I was a complete zombie at both my jobs. Last night while working at Gymboree, I told my co-worker about the break up and how I just keep hoping he'll contact me and tell me how much he misses me. I knew that would never happen since he deleted me from facebook and most likely deleted me as a contact altogether. :/

I cried myself to sleep as usual and at 4:11 am, exactly, my phone dinged with a text message. I was half asleep when I rolled over and picked up my phone and saw a text from....

ALEX!!!

"U there?"

He told me he couldn't sleep and that he was trying to sort things out in his mind. He then asked if we could talk sometime. I ended up calling him right away so we could talk and figure things out immediately. To make a long story short.....the main reason he broke it off is because he is scared of getting attached to someone and getting screwed in the end (his ex-wife cheated on him several times). He told me that he really, really, REALLY liked me A LOT and that he missed me. He also told me that he wanted to date me but he was too scared. In the end, he asked if we could start where we left off but just go a little slower this time.

I hope everything works out and I hope he doesn't break my heart again...especially anytime soon!

Oh 2010

I can't help but notice that 2010 is almost over. Sure we still have about 3 1/2 weeks left...but really....it's almost gone! I've been pondering on the events that have occurred this year starting from January 1st. I've been on so many roller coaster rides and experienced several "thunderstorms" in my personal life. I fell in love with a man, Carlos, who ended up literally BREAKING my heart at the very start of 2010. I REALLY didn't think that I was going to survive that break up; I was ready to end my life. I don't know what I would have done without the loving support of my family. I can't even begin to explain the emotions I was feeling and experiencing at the beginning of the year. It wasn't long when someone from my past resurfaced and starting soothing my aching heart. I was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and I could finally breathe again. There were several obstacles but I was willing to put up a fight and hopefully conquer. I was constantly battling between which man to choose; the one that broke my heart or the one that wasn't currently available. I've posted several of my experiences with these men throughout the year and I don't really care to re post them at this time. About a month and a half ago I lost all communication with both Carlos and Brandon. What was odd is that both men were actually doing necessary things to have me in their lives. Carlos was telling me that things were finally falling into place and that fate would be good to us and we'd be together again. At that same time, Brandon volunteered to fly me to Atlanta to spend some time with him. Out of nowhere.....BOOM!!!! They both disappeared on me. It's been over a month since I've heard from Carlos and I have no way of contacting him since he has no phone or computer and I haven't known his whereabouts since we broke up. Brandon disconnected his facebook account which was our soul source of communication. I do have his email and phone number but I sorta feel like his disconnection is a sign that he doesn't want me in his life anymore. At the exact moment in time that I'm hearing from both Carlos and Brandon for the last time....BOOM....I meet Alex!!! Sure I was sad that Carlos and Brandon disappeared but Alex was SOOOO AMAZING AND SWEET AND WONDERFUL!!! I was the happiest I had been in a VERY, and I repeat, VERY long time. Alex and I got along so beautifully. I felt so comfortable around him and I could actually be myself, which was really refreshing. We would talk on the phone for hours every night and he called and texted me ALL THE TIME!!!! Because of my busy work and school schedule we only got to see each other once a week and I truly cherished those moments when we got to spend some time together! I can't say that I loved Alex, but I was falling for him and I was falling fast!!! This week was a little different!!! I wasn't hearing from Alex as often as in the past weeks. He wasn't texting or calling me 24/7 and I was beginning to worry. Even when we would talk it would only be for a few minutes and I felt something strange. He wasn't as talkative or as perky. He stopped calling me sweet names and telling me how amazing I was. This week has actually been a sorta HELL for me cause I couldn't get him to communicate with me. He would just tell me that he was tired and didn't feel like talking. I finally couldn't take it anymore and last night I sent him a message on facebook stating that we really needed to talk. When he called me this afternoon things seemed normal and he told me that he missed me. I perked up a bit and he told me to call him when I got off work. When I did call him after work he never answered and it was hours before he called me back. By then I was on my way to class and he told me to call him when I got out. So I called him again when class was over but he never answered my phone calls or texts! I was beginning to worry again because this wasn't normal Alex behavior. He always responded to all my texts promptly in the past. I gave it an hour and half before I tried contacting him again. He finally called and all my fears came to life in that short conversation. He told me that he wasn't ready to commit to a serious relationship. He too is recently divorced but unlike me, he's only been divorced since July (I think). He told me that I'm the first girl he's been with since his ex-wife and that he thought he'd be ready for another relationship when we started talking. Things moved very quickly between Alex and I in the beginning and I actually tried to slow them down but I became greedy and enjoyed our time together just a little too much. I guess in the end he realized that he just hasn't had enough time for himself to recover from the divorce. He told me that his decision had nothing to do with me and that he's enjoyed every minute of our time together. I offered to give him time if he needed but he turned my offer down since he doesn't know how much time he needs. In the end we agreed to be friends but he asked that I not call or text him anymore. I found great comfort in my mother's arms tonight as I cried for my loss. Alex and I only knew each other about a month but it felt like it was much longer. I'm not lying when I say that I was really starting to fall for him. I'm not sure how much more of this heartache I can bare. I was really hoping that 2010 would be a great year but it's turning out to be a nightmare. I have to confess that I haven't been active in the church since a little before my divorce in 2009. I've done things since my divorce that I should be ashamed of. I know that the experiences I've encountered this year are a lesson from the Lord. I feel truly humbled this evening and despite my anger I'm feeling for the trials I've been given, I can't help but LOVE my Father in Heaven. I know that he is teaching me that wickedness NEVER was happiness. I guess it is time for me to take off my stubborn hat and leave that "spacious building." I know that it is going to take some time and that I'll have to take some baby steps but I truly feel that I'll be happier with myself if I take the necessary steps to come back to the church. I'm hoping to see light at the end of the tunnel again. I hope that in doing so that the Lord will bless me. Please pray for me!

It's December!!!

You know what I just noticed? It's freakin December already!! Where has the year gone? Seriously? I've been so busy with work and trying to catch up on my school work that I hadn't noticed that we've already had 5 days in December. Geez!!!

Just wanted to post that I'm still alive and doin well!! School is almost over and I couldn't be happier. I'm ready for my mini vacation! Too bad I work retail and won't really get much of a vacation before spring semester starts but it's something.

My grades are still good in my classes. I got a 100 on my color notebook and an 83 on my last Algebra test. I'm not proud of my 83 but Alex keeps telling me that I should be grateful I didn't fail. It feels like failure though...I get a 105, 110 and 102 and on my other tests and drop to a "B" on my last one. Again, Alex tells me I'm too hard on myself. The lowest of the four gets replaced with the highest so it's really a 110!! Oh well...it was the stupid logarithms that got me on that last test...I hate logs!!

Alex and I are doing pretty well. We try to see each other at least once a week and so far we've been successful. Not sure if I'll be able to see him this week since I have finals next week that I need to prepare for. I guess we'll see though...I'll try to get him to drive out here to see me since I drove to see him last.