Bad Habits

Breaking bad habits is really hard. I bite my nails all the time, and I bite them so short until they bleed. So that is a terrible thing right? Well I have always wanted to stop, but have never been able to. I've been biting them pretty much my whole life, its like my own little addiction. I hate it and its almost like I do it without even thinking. I've done the whole paint my nails so its gross tasting when I try to bite them, but nail polish doesn't stop me. So this week, lets say this month I have made it my goal to not bite my nails at all. This is much harder then I thought it would be.

I went to a nail salon, had acrylic nails put on, with the crazy strong super glue and stuff, just so it would make it so I cant chew on my fingers. Let me tell you if I had not done that, I don't think I could go longer then maybe three days without freaking out and biting them. It makes me wonder how hard it must be for people who smoke, drink, or have drug addictions. It must be a millions times harder then my nail biting issue. So hats off to anyone who has beat there addiction, I think that makes you and great strong person. My mom has been smoking since she was a teenager, but she quite three months ago, and I think she is amazing to be able to beat such a hard addiction.

I also wish I could get in the routine of having better habits. Like keeping my room clean, flossing more, following a skin care regimen, making my bed every morning, washing my makeup off before I go to bed, shaving my legs every time I shower instead of like once every three weeks... don't judge me...I think its just as hard starting good habits, as breaking bad ones, at least for me it is.

In other news I have started working! Not in like a real job, but I made a care.com profile and have started doing so babysitting jobs. Let me tell you two year old boys are the best! Every time I come home from babysitting I just wish I had my own kids and family. For those of you who don't know, I want six kids, hopefully three girls and three boys. Anytime I tell someone that, they give me this look as if I'm crazy. I want an even number, but more then four, yet less then eight, so six is perfect.

--Emma

"Life is meant to be a celebration! It shouldn't be necessary to set aside special times to remind us of this fact. Wise is the person who finds a reason to make every day a special one." - Leo Buscaglia 

Tunnel of Trees - A Short Story

I'm running through a tunnel of trees, the sun raining through the canopy in beams of light. The leaves come in all bright shades of green and yellow. The path I am running on, is the softest green grass one will ever feel on there feet. The tree tunnel is short, much to short for grownups to come in, unless they were to crawl, but grownups never come here; yet it is perfect for my friends and I, us being only young children. The smell of flowers, moss, and late morning dew flows through the air, and you can here the laughter and pitter-patter of my friends and I running through the tunnel. This is a memory, or maybe just a dream, but when was a dream ever so vivid?

I wear a white dress, its in the style you only see in old black a white photos, my hair in two braids, with powder pink ribbons on each end. My friends, two boys, are the same age as me, and they are also dressed in clothing from the past. So this must be a dream, but it feel so much like its something I'm remembering, like it has happened before.

As we run, I am just a bit faster then the boys, and we are all laughing happily. We have been running for a long time, but my friends and I are not at all out of breath or tired, and this happy run has turned into a lighthearted race. We hear the grown up, are parents, calling for us to come back. For we have been gone a long while. We can hear them hollering for us, but we ignore them, because it is a race now, and we all want to win. All this time we have been running, but have not really gotten anywhere, yet we don't seem to notice, and even if we did, we wouldn't care.

Through this whole dream or memory, what ever it is, it has been beautiful, sunny, happy, and peaceful. Thought very slowly, as we run so fast the trees seem to blur together, the sky starts to darken, as if a big cloud has gone and blocked the sun. With the slow but sudden darkening, something to the right caches my eye, and right at that moment I stop laughing with my friends. To my right looks to be a shadow of a abnormally skinny dog running beside us, but there is no dog for the shadow to come from, and the paws of the shadow are floating in midair, with no connection to anything.

We run faster now, frightened. The dog shadow runs faster as if chasing us, and I could swear I heard a growl from behind me. We are to afraid to turn back or stop running away, so we keep going as fast as we can. The boy on my right trips and falls to the ground. The other boy and I keep running, as tears start to run down my cheeks. I look back as I run to see if I can see the fallen boy, but he is gone. Then I look to my left to see the boy running with me, but he is also gone. I'm alone in this tunnel of trees that seems to have no end. The shadow dog is not alone anymore, it is now joined by two other ominous shadow dogs. I am distressed, and crying while I run as fast as I possibly can, for what seems like forever. Still oddly I am not out of breath or tired.

I stumble a little, and look to my side again, the shadow dogs are gone, and up ahead I see a dark gap on the right. I run to the gap remembering that this was where my friends and I would always come to play, are secret nook in the tunnel of trees, it had never taken this long to get here before. All of the treasures and toys that my friends kept in this nook are gone, only my thing remain. My old box full of marbles, pretty postcards, and shiny coins.

I wanted to go home, but i was afraid to go back the way I came. I could ether stay in the nook where I was alone, or keep going ahead, but my friends and I had never gone past the secret nook. I was frightened to go back, to stay, and to go ahead. I sat and cried as it got darker.

I got up and brushed the dirt from my dress now stained from the grass, and started running ahead, into the unknown.  -The End-
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This is a dream that I have had a few times throughout my life, and every time I wake up from it, I feel a kind of sadness. I view the dream through the eyes of this girl, so I don't know if this girl is really me or not, the clothing and hair are nothing like mine, and she is only like nine years old in this dream. It seems like a memory and plays in my mind like a short beautiful film. I think there is some symbolism in it, about growing up, and the loss of your childhood days, but there is a lot more to it. What do you think?

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--Emma (P.S. - all photography on my blog is by me. Except for the family photo a few post back.)

"The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence, makes innocence unattainable." - Irving Howe

Friday List - Best Clothing Stores

Best Clothing Stores

1. Anthropologie

2. Forever 21

3. Charlotte Russe

4. Modcloth

5. Target

6. Free People

7. Nordstrom

8. Dorothy Perkins

9. Boden USA

10. Kohls


I love to shop! Clothes and shoes being what I spend most my money on. This is just a list of stores that I love, whether for there deals or just the amazingly beautiful clothes they sell. What are you favorite stores to shop for clothes at? I like skirts and dresses best, ruffles, lace, pastel colors, and just really feminine kinda style, but I also really like simple pretty pieces. I love clothes, but sadly a lot of the thing I like on a mannequin I don't like on me, or things I really love don't come in my size, but I am working on that problem! One day I will be able to wear whatever I want, and love how I look in it.

--Emma

"I'd rather have roses on my table, than diamonds on my neck." - Emma Goldman 

Dolores - A Short Story

I sat there on the train, with my mother and four sisters, sitting in the cramped train compartment with me. My youngest sisters Mary and Amanda sat quiet and still. It would have been a kind of miracle, with them not being loud and restless, but there was reason for it. My father together with Uncle Thomas had died, and my family and I where on the train heading to the funeral. 

Mary had only just turned seven, and was now fatherless. Bridget the oldest, would not have a father to walk her down the isle, nor would any of us; but out of all of us sitting here together silently, Mother was hit the hardest with the death of father. She sat with little Amanda in her lap, as she stared blankly out the foggy window, at the raining world. My beautiful mothers face, was blank, emotionless, she looked so much more fragile, and old then I had ever seen her. More then the time when her brother, Uncle Peter, lost his arm and most of his sanity to the war; more then when the family dog Kipper died, and even more when she had had the miscarriage last winter.

Irene sat next to me, fiddling with her tear soaked handkerchief. She was older then me by two years, but she cried more then anyone I had ever seen. I had not cried a single tear, and that made me feel guilty. I was more sad of the fact that Uncle Thomas was dead, then my own father. Bridget told me I was in shock, that I would cry when I understood, and fathers death dawned on me. The thing was it had dawned on me. Father was dead, gone forever, and never coming back. All that was left behind of him was debt, five fatherless daughters, a widow, and his body, that would quickly rot in the ground, only to leave some bones. 

I had spent most of the eight hour train ride thinking about it all, trying to find something that made me feel the least bit sad, something for me to grieve. All that came to mind were the times he hit my mother in a drunken rage, the time he cut of all of little Mary's long red hair, yelling that he only wanted sons, the time he whipped Irene because she was five minutes late coming home, when he killed Amanda's pet rabbit in front of her, when he locked Bridget in the barn all night because she ruined his shirt. That even without a drink in him he was a demon to his family. I remember the day her broke my arm, burned my doll in the fireplace. With all that and much more, I could not comprehend why any of my family shed tears for him. I traced 'Dolores', my name into the condensation on the window.

The train finally pulled into the station, it was late at night and there was no moon in the sky, but oh so many stars glimmering. Mother carried little sleeping Mary, as we walked to the Inn, along the muddy road. Tomorrow was the funeral. I didn't sleep, neither did Bridget, we just laid in the bed until it was morning, listening to Irene's little sleepy mumbles and Amanda's soft snores.  

The sun came up, and we dressed in are black dresses and shoes. Irene, and Amanda would not stop they blubbering. Bridget and Mother put on there brave faces as they consoled the girls. We made are why to the graveyard for the service, I saw my uncles, aunts, and cousins gathered around the caskets. Everyone looked so sad and pitiful. Songs were sung, people cried as they said goodbye. Mary and Amanda placed flowers on top of the casket, mother kissed the casket leaving behind a pink kiss mark. Irene patted the top of it and burst into tears, running off towards the church, and Bridget seemed to whisper her goodbye into the cold air. I stood there, wanting to be that last person, as all of the people walked back to the church, I still stood there to say my goodbyes.

"I hated you...I loved you. You were are terrible dad, and husband...Just a horrible person altogether, but you were my father. How do I forgive you? Even though you are dead, and its all over. You were the one that did all those things to us, and it seems the have ether all forgotten, or all have somehow forgiven you. I will never forgive you, but I will forget you. I will never think about you again, not a good or bad thought...Goodbye." I said looking up at the sunny cloudless sky. I walked back to the church, to my family, as one tear slid down my cheek into the green grass. I will never know if the tear was of joy... or sorrow.

.......

'Dolores' is a short story I wrote in the summer of 2011. I found it in a note book full of a bunch of my old writing. Its rather sad, I admit, but I like it for what it is trying to say. What is your opinion or interpretation of it?

--Emma

"Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits." - Hannah More

Am I Ordinary?

I have never consider myself to be normal, or an average person. From the way that I think, to what I look like, from the day I was born. I don't know what its like in the minds of other people, but I have always thought that my mind must work differently, seeing how others make choices and prioritize there life, the different personalities, cultures, and morals. I must be very diffident from everyone else.  I sometimes don't understand how some people come to the conclusions that they do, or how they like certain things.

I was born different and have always been different,  but in the end everyone is unique and different,  and as the saying goes 'no two minds think alike.' I love and hate that statement,  because its wonderful that everyone is different and odd in there own way, yet I sometimes wish every person could think the same as me, to understand one another completely, to feel the same.

I think about a lot of things. I have many questions on why, how, and what. Some of these questions will go unanswered, but other I will some day know the answer to. I envision my future, all the time the many paths I can choose to walk down, where I end up is a mystery, but I have hope that it will turn out as I want. My dreams could be the same as yours or completely contrary.

In the end everyone is perfect, and no one is ordinary, because everyone has a least one quark. I have hundreds myself, and without them I would not be me.

--Emma

"If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color." - Johnny Depp

Don't Worry Be Happy

So yesterday I was super happy, like over the top happy, laughing, and hyper. That feeling of happiness lasted all day, from when I woke up to about eleven at night, but then I kinda crashed into a state of gloominess. It came out of nowhere and was not a gradual thing. So I Googled mood-swings and some other stuff; trying to figure out what was up with me. To go from being so overjoyed right into a state of melancholy. Of course Google popped up things such as manic, bipolar  BPD, depression, hypomania, and other drastic things, I knew that was not the problem, so I called the 'Boys Town Hotline' at like four in the morning, to ask for there counselor opinion. It helped so much to talk to someone. Normally I would go to my mom for these kinda things, and maybe even my sister, but it was four in the morning my mom was at work and my sister was asleep. I found it rather nice to talk to someone who knew what to day and that was not connected to me in anyway.

I do suffer from depression and anxiety, but I am on medication and reading a lot of motivational, and self help books. I also am looking for a counselor or therapist, to go to so I can talk about stuff. I am so much better then I was two months ago. People suffer form depression in different ways, for me I was just unmotivated, irritable, lethargic, and and blue all the time, it had become my normal  I didn't think there was anything wrong, because I had been that way for so long, and from seeing commercials for antidepressants, the people looking so sad, and in pain; I was not like that.

In middle school I had suicidal thoughts, and more then once, wrote out long suicide goodbye letters, I cried a lot and was angry with so many things. At the time, the only thing that got me through, was the fact that I loved family, and I knew they loved me. I didn't want them to be sad if I died, I didn't wont any of them finding my dead body. Back then I hated myself, school, teachers, the whole world, and I just wanted everything to stop. I didn't want to think, feel, hear, or see, anymore. My only thought was 'I'm only alive because I don't want to hurt my family. I don't want them to cry or miss me.'  Thank God that I didn't ever go though with suicide.

I know now that no matter how hard, or terrible it gets there is always the future, and always something better around the corner, even if it takes a long time, and you just want everything to end, once your at the bottom, you have the choice to stay there in the doom, or go the only other way, up. Choosing to go up, is harder then you think, but once you start you will see changes and you will become happy some day.

So don't worry be happy. Look for help when you need it. Find the beauty in little things, like the fact that flowers will always bloom, the sun always comes up, you are alive, you are needed, you are here for a reason, and you are wonderful.

I found faith at 17, and ever since I have been doing better. I still struggle with depression, and I still am unhappy about a lot of things, like my weight, family issues, money issues, anxiety, and stuff from my past that I would rather forget. Without that trials and hard times in life, you cant appreciate the good, and the amazingly beautiful thing of this world. Without everything you have gone through, seen, and lived through, you would not be who you are today, you would not know what you know today, and you would not have learned anything.

I am working on moving on from my past, thinking about forgiveness, trying to understand the why, and living for a better future.

If you feel that you need someone to talk to I would suggest calling 1-800-448-3000 (24/7)

--Emma

When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better. – Malcolm S. Forbes

Friday List - Favorite Baby Names

Favorite Boy Names.

1. Anthony

2. Declan

3. Roger

4. Colin

5. Elliot

6. Warren

7. Lincoln

8. Matthew

9. Cameron

10. Ian

Favorite Girl Names.

1. Sylvia

2. Johanna

3. Lavinia

4. Freya

5. Sally

6. Marnie

7. Miriam

8. Yvaine

9. Daphne

10. Valerie

So I love these names so much. Some of these will most likely be my future children's names. What do you think? I have a slight obsession with baby names, I have spent a lot of times on name websites just reading about the different meanings and origins of names. My name 'Emma' is very popular now a days, and it meaning is universal. I love my name. My mom told me she got it from a show called '30 Something'.

--Emma

"I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I'm not afraid to look behind them." - Elizabeth Taylor