Gemini's Journey

**Note: this is my life, my journey, not yours, my choices are my own and although I do make mistakes, they are mine to make and I've learned from them and grown from them.

Each new experience is just that, new.**

Letting go

I no longer write for the world, but for me. I have removed myself greatly from the online community. For a while I questioned continuing to write in a blog, but after some thought I realized that I should, for myself and if others read it, fine, and if they don't, it matters not to me. These writing are for myself and for those that follow after me. I write because I love to write. I write because there are thoughts within me that need to be freed.

Places like in the picture to the right make my heart race. I want to go there, I want to see it. I just want to walk among the shevles and breath deeply. There is a world of knowledge at our finger tips and yet we sit and wait for the world to come to us. For something to happen around us. It's easy for me to sit here and think about all the wonderful thing I would like to do. The above is the Trinity Library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Oh my dreams of traveling to Ireland and walking these halls...

A bucket list. We should make a bucket list. And then, once you have one, what do you do with it? You save, you push yourself to make those dreams a reality. So to make a list, to start a savings fund, to collect the items needed to travel and then set about doing so. First thing, I need to update my passport. So really I need to collect my old passport and find my divorce decree.

And then that list. I won't start it here, it could go on forever.

I know I do not want to be one to just sit at home and dream of all the things I'd love to do with my life. Yes, talking about it is fun, but actually doing is even better. I know that not all things I want to do I may get to chance to in this lifetime, so it's a matter of determining what is achievable and what is not.

What fun and what joy it would be to see this.

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I'm a watcher, an observer. I delight in watching mother nature do what she does best. I enjoy watching children play and discovering the world around them.

Life is good. Life is to be embraced. Life is to be enjoyed. Life is to be lived. It is not the years in your life but the life in your years.

NaNoWriMo 2010

Here we go! :) November is slowly creeping up on us and this year is the year I plan on writing my heart out and typing my fingers off. 50,000 words in 30 days!

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal? To write 50,000 words in 30 days, preferably in some cohesive order. Idealy it's a novel's first rough draft. And by rough I mean ROUGH. No editing is to take place in November. It's a free write dream.

Pour your soul out into words and see what you get. It's the story you've been telling yourself for years. It's that amazing idea you recently cam up with that would make for a great plot twist.

The awesome part. I think Jordan is going to join me in the craziness and a friend of ours might as well. :) Planning on making it to at least one write in. And then working on writing 2000 words a day for 30 days! Yes, I'm insane. I'm excited. I'm planning on winning this year. I've tried twice before and failed. It's ok, life happens. Last year I didn't try because I knew I just wouldn't be able to get into it with everything that was already on my plate.

But here's to an awesome new beginning. :)

Exciting

Things go well. And this is good. Sure, life is stressful. But I'm managing to stay afloat and right now, that's a lot! :)

Friday we met a wonderful woman. She's gorgeous! And smart and funny. Easy to talk to and get along with. Of course is this all first impressions. It will be very interesting to see where this leads. I'm intrigued. Jordan can't stop talking about her. And it's all in good ways.

We're both excited to be traveling on this new journey together and to share ourselves with someone else and with each other. I think the biggest thing is sharing together.

The business goes, slowly, but it goes and will grow and form. The key for myself right now is not rushing. It's a hobby, it's a dream and it will be obtained, just not over night.

And now we head into the busy time of year. At least I think so. Samhain is around the corner! I'm going to Utah for an extended weekend to visit my sister and her family. And then a huge to-do at work for Halloween, dressing up, contests on the 29th. A Halloween party the 30th and Samhain on the 31st. 

For me Samhain is a day of honoring our loved ones who no longer walk this earth. This year will be exceptionally difficult because my mother passed away this past March. This is the night when the veil is thinnest. I long to hear her voice. To feel her  touch. To just know that although she is no longer here, that she is still with me.

This was her favorite time of year. The weather changing. The Halloween decorations followed by Thanksgiving and Christmas. I now carry with me the same love for decorating during this time of year. I no longer celebrate Christmas, as a Christian Holiday, but rathe Yule, as a pagan holiday.

Here's to a crisp chill winter and warm comforting hearth. May your hearth glow with love and peace. May we turn inwards in these darker months and discover anew ourselves.

Growing into myself

I'm about to embark on a journey into my core. My relationship is growing in ways that I hadn't thought about much before. With the leaving of one partner and I being the main (We're polyamorus.) things change. But these are good changes. I've discovered that I'm secure enough in my relationship that sharing with others would be wonderful. To share and explore the multi levels of sexuality and passion and just good fun safe sex. It's amazing what he and I have and if we can share that with others, spread the love and show people that they are truly worth being loved, the more the better.

I am by no means perfect. Lots of evidence to back that up. But I want to share what I've learned from my mistakes, and possibly help others from making the same thing. There are those out there that don't think they are worth being loved, or that the abusive/one way relationship is the only kind they'll ever deserve. Not true. Not true by a long shot. But until someone takes their hand and shows them something different, they'll never know.

It's a scary road. There are a lot of what-ifs involved. Fears. Concerns. But if there is one thing we've learned from the year and a half we've been together, it's that as long as we're open and honest with each other we'll be ok. Conversations have started with "This may sound bad but..." "I know you don't want to talk about it but I need to say this just so it'll stop bouncing around in my head...." And sometimes we'll talk about it, and other times we'll both know that it's been said out loud and there are no secrets.

The only secrets I ever want to keep are the good ones and that's because it's a surprise and the other will find out soon enough. "SURPRISE!"

So here's to new adventures. Not letting my fears and insecurities keep me from enjoying what I have and what I want to do. I'm thankful to be in a relationship with a man that makes me feel comfortable with who I am. Who understands that he may not be able to meet all my needs all the time, and vice versa, but we'll work together to make sure we're both happy. Our jobs may be rough and the real world might get in the way, but when it comes to our personal lives, we're going to do our best to enjoy ourselves and be happy.

The Doing Will Be Difficult

It's easy to sit at work, with nothing to do, or just  busy work, and think of all the better things you could be doing. And then, when given the chance to not be at work and to do better things with time, I tend to do nothing at all.

I have dreams. This job, this thing I do Monday thru Friday, 7am to 4pm, I do as a means to an end. I long to live a different life. Where I wake up every morning and I'm excited to go to work, because the work I do would be what I love. (Isn't this everyones dream?)

I dream of owning a shop. Nothing big, nothing fancy, but it's a place of peace and there you can find the things that make you smile and feel good about who you are, deep down inside.

I don't expect to become rich from this idea. Just enough to get by. To be happy. So I think that maybe I'll stick out this desk job until I have enough in retirement that even if the store didn't make much of a profit, as long as it broke even I'd still be able to keep it. The trick would be to keep myself from spending money now on things I don't really need.

I'm Irish. I have a Celtic Heritage that runs deep in my veins. These desires I have are strong. Deep and true. Now, to find that balance between providing for what is needed today and working towards what is wanted tomorrow.

This can be done. It brings such joy and light to my heart and soul to just think about it. The doing will be difficult.

Oh but it will be worth it.

Coffee, Camping & Nautre

Very unoriginal. Coffee. I grew up thinking this was a bad thing. One should not drink coffee. But why? The smell is intoxicating. I take mine light and sweet. Give me a good organic coffee any day.

It's one of the things I love about living in Fort Collins, the many different coffee shops. They are putting Starsucks out of business. At least that's my hope and dream. Silly college kids show up from all over the country and don't know any better, so they go spend a fortune on industrialized coffee, when they could be helping the local economy, keep 'mom & pop' stores in business, and have YUMMY coffee served by people who have a passion for the bean. They keep us up and going.

I get Kona coffee at work. Anything is better than Foldgers. (Talk about processed coffee grinds, ewww!)

Life is a lot like coffee. So many different flavors. Depending on how much you grind will depend on how strong the smell, the potency. Sometimes we want it life strong, to take it head on, dive in head first and pray we land on our feet, or the water is at least deep enough so we don't crash upon entry. Other times we just want it mellow, lite and simple.

I live near the mountains. (Almost said in, but really it's the Foothills, someday I'd like to live in the mountains....but I digress.) Camping is wonderful. Waking early in the morning to find a light dew covering the earth, building a small fire and then brewing the coffee in the little french coffee press. (I seriously need to get a bigger one.) There is something about the smell of a camp fire, mixed with the coffee and all that nature has to provide that just awakens the spirit within and for a moment life is great. 

As Fall starts to creep in and winter isn't far behind. (Seems here in Colorado Fall lasts a few weeks and before you know it there's snow on the ground.) I've missed a lot of my camping possibilities. I'm not ready to delve into winter camping. Although I might push my luck and camp as late as mid-October. We'll see.

It's mornings like these though that call to me. Where I long to be sitting around that camp fire, sipping my coffee and communing one with nature. Maybe this weekend. Oh that would be heavenly. I'm a bit too chicken to go camping on my own, although it's a tempting thought.

I love nature. I love to surround myself in it. Something is changing in the air. I can sense it. I can almost reach out and grasp it.

So here's to good coffee, awsome camp fires and a bonding with Mother Nature that will never end.

An introduction

Well, I started with Vox, back when they had Beta open, and they are now closing their doors at the end of the month. :( So here I am at TypePad. For a while all of my blogs were marked private. I had a problem with a certain individual who couldn't seem to keep her nose out of issues that were not hers to get into. Even after being told twice I wouldn't discuss the matter with her. Instead of respecting that, she dug up OLD blog posts and began to leave comments about things that she couldn't even begin to comprehend and relating them to things that were not related.

Drama, exit stage left, out the door and in the middle of fast moving traffic, please.

Life is forever changing. For those with more time on their hands than is probably warrented, you'll note that by reading past blog posts.

Yesterday I celebrated a year and a half with my man. What an interesting time we've had thus far. I won't oooh and awww over how awesome of a team I think we make. But I am happy to report that I'm happy where my life is and where it's heading.

I'm working full-time with a company that provides great benefits. I finally have a retirement fund. I'm valued for my work and I'm working on my 2nd new project. Life is good.

Enjoy the ride.

World of the gainfully employed...or something like that

After almost a month of on-again off-again interview with BestBuy and the stressing the bullet for unknown reasons after a drug test and back ground check, I'm in the clear and started work last Friday. YAY! Is it the job I want to keep forever? No, not really. Not after 3 days on my feet in one bloody spot for 8 hours at a time. It's not like I get the joy of roaming the store. Nope, as Asset Protection I get to stand at the front door and make sure to tag every item that comes in the store and check every item that leaves. Yep, I'm a glorified security guard at Best Buy. :P And the only female on the team. I'm still on the look out for that M-F full-time job that I know is out there for me, I just have to find it and keep applying for all of them that I can find. My social life picks up only to get this job in which everything goes down the drain, because even on my days off I have to go in for bloody training at 7am. Yes, I'm not happy about this at all! Oh and the online training I should be doing...can't, still can't log into the system to do my own training for my department, much less the training I MUST have done by Saturday...Uhmmm, it's Monday, and as of an hour ago, I still couldn't log in... I'm hoping this will change soon. I do my job well and most of the training will cover things I'll never really have to worry about, but there it is. Part-time, $9 an hour. Which probably comes down more to like $8 after Uncle Sam takes everything he wants out of there...:(

It feels like ages since I last updated. I'm bouncing in and out of depression. Lots of lows and a few highs. My feet are ready to run away from me if I ask them to stand for that long another day...sorry guys, it's happening tonight and Wed...At least I have Tuesday off all day.

Fall is here. The leafs are starting to really drop and the high for part of this week is mid 50s...yay...kinda. My depression doesn't need this so much right now. But really I think while I'm at work I'd rather see cloudy skies and wind with chilly weather, than sunny skies and warm weather, which makes me long to be in a park somewhere, under a tree reading a good book. Changing seasons is good. The only problem here in Colorado is that half of this week will be chilly and the other half will be hot. Don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes. :P

I've become a Stampin' Up Demonstrator. I love stamps. I love making cards, I'm not a HUGE scrap booker, but I've been known to make small ones for family and friends. erincrawford.stampinup.net. I have my  first workshop on Friday. Still haven't designed my cards yet for that evening, but I will, that's what tomorrow is for. :P And then Saturday is Jordan's Birthday. I'm not gonna get much sleep this weekend. Workshop, a fire at a friends afterwards, then work at 7am on Saturday and Jordan's Birthday. Then work again at 9am Sunday morning. And then October will be here and as much as I want to go to the Witches Ball, I don't see it happening this year. No costume, no money, and not sure it's going to be worth trying to get that Saturday off. Samhain is a Saturday as well, I could request that day off..but really, I think I'd rather open that day and then have the 1st off...Not that I get to decide these sorts of things.

Where is my M-F job?! I'll find it. I have to. Mabon was great yesterday. My biggest fear of the winter? Not having the strength emotionally and physically to get done the things I need to do. We'll see. Time will tell. I need more hours. I need more stability. I have a job and for that I'm grateful. I'm forcing myself to find the positive in all things and not beat myself up for my past faults. I can't change what I've done or didn't do, I can only learn from it and move forward. On the bright side I've learned that there is nothing wrong with being me and standing up for myself. It's not always easy and it may cause confrontations I really don't want to deal with, but in the long run it's important.

Job Hunting

I am aware that maybe Craigslist isn't the best place to try and find a job. There are a ton of scams and then a lot of liars.

PLEASE, for the love of all that is good and worth while, do NOT make your subject "Receptionist Full Time" And then once I click on the link read that it's a bloody part-time job!! WTH?! Seriously?

I know that the job market is tough right now. But really, why would I waste my time sending a cover letter and my resume to someone that can't even take the time to use capital letters and spaces?

Example:
Subject : assistant
"Our company is looking foran administive assistant, to join our expanding company. Your responsibilities will be supporting our team, typical office duties, track inventory , dictation."

Holy crap, this person can't even spell!! Maybe if I send them an email and point out their flaws I'll get the job? Nope, chances are I'm over qualified and the person that posted this will be afraid I'll take their job. Or, it's a scam.

Ran into one of those earlier this week. And ALMOST fell for it! Job hunting is bad enough, I shouldn't have to stress over this very stupid shit! Shame on those out there preying on those that NEED work. And really, do you want to steal someone's identity when they are probably unemployed and chances are their credit it's worth much anyway?

UGH!

That is all...

What a week!

Life does strange things to you and for me it hasn't stopped even as I've gotten older. It's the luck of me, I suppose.

I'm pretty much completely moved out of Rose's and have most of my things unpacked in my new room at Jordan's. It's going well.

I am currently do a total freak out about job hunting. Everyday I post about 3 resumes in the attempt to find a real job that will pay me consistently and with luck allow me to eventually have my own place. Please send out what you can to the powers that be that I get something before the end of August. I need this rather desperately. (With that, if you know of anything in the Loveland/Fort Collins or surrounding area, please let me know.)

Last Friday night was a lot of fun. Rose hosted a Stampin' Up party and it went fabulously! :D I'm going to attempt to be a demonstrator with Rose's help. Don't plan on making big money, but it'll be a fun side project and with the crafting group we've got going on we'll at least be able to help our friends get stamping/scrapbooking stuffs at reasonable prices and great quality. During this party Monty (my bobbed tailed kitty) was let out into the back yard. This normally isn't a problem as he's a rather territorial cat and stays close to home, normally hardly ever leaving the back yard. But, seeing as I wasn't the one that let him out and I had to leave early because I had to be up for work at 9am the next morning, I forgot he was out there. It wasn't until Saturday that I realized this and text Rose to see if someone had let him back in. At first she thought he was, but then realized she couldn't find him anywhere. I was a little stressed about it, but figured he'd come home later that day. The kids looked all over for him and knew to keep an eye out if they saw him. By Monday there was still no sign of him and as I'd worked all that weekend and then all day Monday & Tuesday I hadn't had much of a chance to stop by and search myself.

Monday after work I stopped by the Humane Society to see if someone had found him and turned him in. No luck, but filed a report in case he did come in. Rose was wonderful enough to print out some fliers and laminate them for me. I also posted an ad on Craigslist about it. Nothing. :( By Thursday I was starting to accept the fact that I may very well never see him again. Keep in mind Monty is like my son. He knows when I'm sad and gives me lots of attention, he's very precious to me. The thought of losing him was slowly tearing me apart. Thankfully I was busy with work and moving that I didn't have a ton of time to dwell on it. I kept checking Craigslist with the hopes someone had found him. Friday I was going to stop at the Humane Society to see if he was there, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. The fliers did go up around the neighborhood though. I spent Thursday night and Friday night at Rose's while she and Matt enjoyed a much needed holiday to celebrate their 4th wedding anniversary. (GRATS!) Friday night Jordan spent with me. Had a fun evening with the kids and enjoyed the quiet as well. I dreamt a lot that night and was awoken at about 4:50am from a dream by the sound of a cat crying. I was instantly awake and felt over to know it wasn't Rose's cat, Gaia making the noise because was laying right next to me. So I jumped out of bed and grabbed my glasses. (This is a neighborhood where there aren't a lot of cat and dog noises at night, it's largely a dog neighborhood anyway.) I opened the bedroom door and who was coming up the stairs but Monty!!! I cried, I couldn't believe it. Come to find out Kelvin had gotten up to get a drink of water and had heard him scratching at the back door and had let him in. I was so happy to see him. He's a bit skinner than normal, but appears to be no worse for the wear. He's grounded until he's dead. :P For now he is sleeping soundly under my bed in our new room, adjusting to yet a new living space. Gaia and Tabbers, both, were very happy to see him. I expect him to sleep and rest a lot for the next few days. But he is well and home safe and I couldn't be happier about it. :)

Wednesday I had the wonderful joy of going to see Counting Crows and Augustana play together on stage at Red Rocks! Jordan and I went and despite the rain it was a truly amazing concert. I had wished last year after seeing them in Denver to see them play again with Augustana at Red Rocks and less than a year later I got the wish!

Things are going well. And can only get better by my finding a decent job. The universe will provide as long as I do my part. And so I'm actively searching and doing the best I can with what I have. I needed a good kick in the pants and I got it and it has made me realize that I need to and can provide for myself as long as I'm willing to do the work to make it happen. It's taken a very long time for me to see that. I keep hoping for things to happen and then finally (And this seems like a "well, DUH!" thought) I realized that in order to get what I want and need I need to step out side of my bubble and show the universe I'm here and these are the things I need and this is what I'm doing to try and get them. If I don't try I'll never receive.