Those River Kides

For those of you who don't know, I have a theory that all life's problems and up and downs can be solved through Dawson's Creek. However my seasons are currently in storage, as I enter this next phase of my life I thought I share some of my favorite quotes and things that currently apply to my life.

• You're born, you die and you make a lot of mistakes in between.
• I'd like to tell today's youth that no matter where life takes you, big cities, small towns, you'll inevitably come across small minded People who think they're better than you. People who think that material things, or being pretty or popular, automatically make you a worthwhile human being. I'd like to tell today's youth that none of these things matter. Unless you have a stregth of character, intergtity, ... and if you're lucky enough to have any of these things, don't ever sell out. Don't ever sell out. So when you meet a person for the first time, don't judge them by their station in life, 'cause who knows, that person just might end up being your best friend.
  
• Don't let yourself get so angry that you stop loving, because one day you will wake up from that anger and the person you love won't be around anymore.
  
• There are certain people who are not meant to fit in your life, no matter how much you want them to be.
• It's not that I want to be the one holding your hand, it's just that I don't want her to be the one holding it
• You know i used to spend every day thinking about you and dreaming about you, and everytime you walked by i lost myself, do you know what that feels like? And you couldnt possibly know what it feels like to have that person not have the same feelings back. Look, im sorry if you miss the way i looked at you, but i dont miss the way you never looked at me.
• I wanted to write about falling in love and why it can't last but that the same time how it lasts forever..
• When a girl hates you the way she hates you, that really means she likes you. That's basic kindergarten psychology.
• maybe it's the only way that we can finally stand on our own. Ya know, to hurt each other so much that we have no choice but to let go... maybe otherwise we never would.
• You're probably right...I'm sure I don't have any idea what you're going through. How hard it is to let someone go. How painful it must be to know that as right as you two are for each other, it doesn't mean you're right for each other right now. I wouldn't know a thing about that. About how it makes you want to scream, or hit someone...or cry.
• I guess everyone has someone who challenges them, and makes them shoot for something just beyond their reach. You're that person for me
• Listen to me: If we are truly meant to be, then we will find our way back to each other. It's as simple as that.
• You know, it's weird how you still love the person, you just stop needing them the way you used to
• To love someone when there is no chance of that love ever thriving.. that is romance.
• Letting go isn't a one time thing, its something you do everyday, over and over again
• It seems a little sad that I was the girl whose only purpose was to help you find out who you're really in love with.
• You wanted a kiss. Is that what you want? Are you prepared for everything that comes with that kiss? cause it doesnt just end with a fade out. There are repercussions. Hearts get broken. Friendships get ruined. Your entire life could fall apart because of one kiss. That's what you have to look foward to. Do yourself a big favor.. don't rush it.
• Because you're beautiful, and you don't know it. Because you're smart, and you don't believe it. You're the kind of girl that guys never get over. Joey, you're the kind of girl that other girls get compared to
• There are not many people in this world with the ablility to give you butterflies, and if you dont tell those people how you feel, It'll be like spending the rest of your life in your own personal prison.
• Falling in love. Sharing your life with someone. Giving your heart to another person to the extent that losing them could potentially destroy you. It's such a crazy thing to do
• You've taught me that love sucks, that feelings can change, passion will fade, partners will come and go, but through it all, one thing remains sacred: friendship
• You know, it really hurts sometimes because i know he's out there falling in and out of love with these girls that aren't me.
• I'm scared that I'm going to end up alone. I'm scared that I'm always going to be somebody's friend, or sister, or confident, never quite somebody's everything. Mostly I'm scared I'm never going to find a guy that I love as much as I love you.
• She's so beautiful that every time you look at her, your knees tremble, your heart melts and you know right then and there, without any reservation that there's order and meaning to the universe
• alot of people walk in and out of my life, but your one of the only people i ever really wanted to stick around
• because life, much like a french movie, rarely makes any sense, but when its right, its right, and you dont question it, you dont think, you dont ponder, you just exist
• It's like you get this picture in your head of the way things should be, and you end up closing yourself off to some of the wonder and serendipity of the actual experience
• That guy didn't know you...because if he did..he would have never walked away from you
• It's like your heart has been ripped out and stomped on. You.. you can't breathe, you don't want to eat, you can't function. It's the most intense pain that you'll ever feel, and there's no way to relieve it. It's unyielding, merciless torture, and you know its yours for life
• But that's just it, the butterflies never seem to accompany the right people. All the nice guys who are right for you, they never make your stomach go flip flop...
• Sometimes the hardest things to say are the things that really matter
• I think sometimes you have to lose someone completely before you can figure out what they really mean to you
• so yeah maybe we didnt talk this summer, and who knows maybe we'll find ourselves talking less and less as time goes on and life gets more and more in the way, but, i dont feel it, cause your with me everywhere i go
• I used to be afraid of so many things, that I'd never grow up, that I'd be trapped in the same place for all eternity, that my dreams would forever be shy of my reach, it's true what they say, time plays tricks on you. one day your dreaming the next your dream has become you reality and now that the scared little girl no longer follows me wherever I go, i miss her. i do. because there are things that i want to tell her, to relax, to lighten up, that it is all going to be okay. i want her to know that meeting people who like you, who understand you, who actually except you for who you are will become an increasingly rare occurrence Jen, Jack, Audrey, Andie, Pacey and Dawson, these people who contributed to who i am they are with me where ever i go. and as history gets rewritten in smalls way with each passing day my love for them only grows, because the truth is it was the best of times. mistakes were made, hearts were broken, harsh lessons learned, but all that has receded into fond memory now. how does it happen? why are we so quick to forget the bad and romanticizes the good? maybe it's because we need to believe that the time we spent together actually meant something. that we were there for each other in a time in our lives that defined us all. That time our lives that we will never forget. I can't swear that's exactly how it happened. but this is how it felt -joey
• Dreams aren't perfect. They come true, not free.
• What we have goes beyond friendship, beyond lovers -- its forever.

I'm A Little Tea Cup

I'm A Little Tea Cup.... Love this story or not, you will not be able to have tea in a tea cup again without thinking of this. There was a couple who took a trip to England to shop in a beautiful antique store to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.? They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups. Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked "May we see that?? We've never seen a cup quite so beautiful." As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke, "You don't understand. I have not always been a teacup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, "Don't do that." "I don't like it!" "Let me alone," but he only smiled, and gently said; "Not yet!" Then WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. "Stop it! I'm getting so dizzy!? I'm going to be sick!", I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, quietly; 'Not yet.' He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. "Help! Get me out of here!" I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, 'Not yet'. When I thought I couldn't bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good! "Ah, this is much better," I thought. But, after I cooled he picked me up and he brushed and painted me all over The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. 'Oh, please, Stop it, Stop, I cried. He only shook his head and said. 'Not yet!'. Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering "What's he going to do to me next?" An hour later he handed me a mirror and said 'Look at yourself.' And I did. I said, That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful!!! Quietly he spoke: "I want you to remember, then,' he said, 'I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you." The moral of this story is this: God knows what He's doing for each of us. He is the potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will. So when life seems hard, and you are being pounded and patted and pushed almost beyond endurance; when your world seems to be spinning out of control; when you feel like you are in a fiery furnace of trials; when life seems to "stink", try this. Brew a cup of your favorite tea in your prettiest tea cup, sit down and think on this story and then, have a little talk with the Potter.

Family Affair

At the end of April was an event that had taken forever to make, it was a fun filled weekend of family celebrations. As you all know there are times I don’t feel like I have a half hour to breath let alone a whole weekend, but the event were far too important to miss. The weekend started with a small bit of me time (I know can you believe it). I got up early on Friday, April 29 to watch the royal wedding, and unless you have been living under a rock lately you should know how amazing it truly was. After working that day, I packed and got ready for a trip to Olean the next morning.

However first on Saturday, April 30^th I attended a meeting of the annual Fabulous Females Luncheon, to help tie up all the last minute details and plan what we were going to do the day of. This meeting ended up taking longer than we originally thought, and I had to speed out of the meeting at 10:30 to get back to Rochester and on the road to Olean for a 1:30 weeding.

Lucky for me AJ is an amazing driver, we enter the town of Olean with 5 minutes to spare and feeling very good about the time he had made up…but then we hit ever red light in the town!! We ran into the Church late, to be greeted by my beautiful cousin Sarah looking glowing on her wedding day. Luckily I was there in time to see her walk down the alley.

I was able to sit with my cousin Jen and Paul and their lovely babies (they will always be my babies!) Olivia and Dylan and as much as I was happy to see all of them they brought with them ANNA MARIA! For those of you who don’t know Anna is my beautiful cousin who lives in LA and because of that Nick and her are unable to get to out of holidays as much. Anna and Nick (her hubby) are excepting their first baby boy. Of course Anna looks like she has swallowed a beach ball, with only a belly to let you know she was having a baby. I was so happy she was able to make it for the wedding and I kept joking with AJ that she was my real date to the wedding not him.

We ended up hanging at the hotel for a little bit before the reception, after me and AJ made a trip to buy me flip flops. While the kids napped (or we were hoping) everyone was able to catch up and I finally had others to talk about the wedding with. We also got to hold and coo over my cousin Marie’s newest addition. The reception was so fun, I made up goody bags for the kids to help keep them entertained however they were all out on the dance floor!

The next morning we had breakfast at my Aunt Fran’s House and talked about the wedding and catching up,

AJ also found a new person to play soccer with, Olivia. It was then time to head back to Batavia for Anna’s Baby Shower. I had so much fun shopping for baby stuff for her, everyone in my family really needs to keep having kids so I can keep shopping for them! Sadly that was the end of my fun filled weekend because I had two papers waiting for me back at home to finish for school and a speech to right for the luncheon the following weekend.

Fabulous Females

Hey everyone, Mother's Day weekend is always a busy time for me. There are a number of yearly event that take place and this year I had some great Mary Kay events also to take part in. Friday night I was able to take part in a "Ladies Night Out" event at Batavia Downs. I also help out at a craft show during the Mother's Day Luncheon on Sunday. This year because of my schedule I sadly could not make it to my Church's annual Mother's Day May crowning and breakfast, however I did attend the Fabulous Females Luncheon for the YWCA. I have attended this event for over five years and love it so much. This year I was honor to sit on the committee to help plan this event. I was a little nervous however, when a week before the event I was thrown in to speech at the event also!!!!! Below you will see what I said at the event:

Blessed is the heart that finds joy in the journey. While this statement is true, sometimes the road you take is filled with bumps, detours and missed exits making it not always a smooth ride. However it is the love, and support of family that gets a person through and truly adds joy to the journey.

I stand here today to speak on behalf my family; really it’s the family that we all belong to, the family of women. Family cannot it easily be defined because family is much more and reaches farther than our front doors.

Family is the support network, the community that is all around us. I would like you to take a moment and look around the room today; we are a room filled with fabulous females. I would also wager that as you look around the room you will find a lot of women who have served as your cheerleaders, role models and support throughout your life. That’s because we are all part of a network, a community, a family really of fabulous females.

I cannot emphasize enough from my own life, how important it is for women to support one another. I can tell you when I look around this room, I can see the faces of those who encouraged, praised and loved me into the women I am today. If it wasn’t for that family of a few good men and a city full of women that wholeheartedly embraced me, I would be a completely different person.

Sometimes the journey is not always easy, there is an old sixties song, that says “sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” This phase has stuck with me for a number of reasons. First because I was that child, at the age of ten I lost my mom. But also because it speaks to the importance and emotional connection youth have with their mother and mother figures. The influence of women have a lasting impact on us as we grow up, I now pass on the amazing knowledge and example that was set for me to everyone I come in contact with. We truly pass everything on forward.

I love the paper doll chains that are found on your tables, they are so symbolic of our family. You will notices that they are held together really because they are holding each other’s hands. This is something that as women we do, we hold one another’s hands and support each other along the journey of life.

The YWCA has as part of its mission to empower women, and this event serves as recognition of those fabulous females who have blazed trails and held out their hands to others. I have been lucky as all of us have been to grow up in this community and while we come together today to applaud the work of these recipients today it’s important to remember that the work of a family is never done. Because we are all women of influence, we all have the ability to enrich the lives of all those we come in contact with and it starts by following the example of the dolls on your table and taking the hands of those around you.

It’s important to have support at all stages in life; it is the support of the family that adds the joy to our journey. Throughout our lives we have milestones that are much more manageable or joyful with our family. As women we give so much, it is vitally important that we have this wonderful family to come back to recharge our batteries with and refill our cup. There was a time where women stood together in a bond of sisterhood, women supporting women. It is only natural that the pendulum swings out of balance for a while so that we may have the experience of what we do not want. It is up to women to bring the pendulum back into balance and bring back the sacred sisterhood we yearn for at our core.

Our family is much like a bee hive, we venture out in crazy world, every day different from the next. We gain something when we are out in the world, lessons and wisdom and then we come back together and make something sweeter from what we share with each other. But most important we are each like a bee. Many years ago engineers discovered that when you calculate the weight of the bee’s bodies mass and the span of its wings, it should not be able to fly. It’s a good thing no one every told the bee that, because then we would never have honey! Every day we are each like a bee, achieve amazing things and reaching to greater highs, doing the impossible.

No one part is stronger then the whole and this is true for our family. We are each successful but become stronger because of all the other members of our family. We stand together a strong community because of the work of those that came before us and while we help along the next generation to their next great height. We are all connected just like those dolls on the chain, connected and united as one family.

**My next blog will go a backwards in time and look at my cousin Sarah's wedding and my cousin Anna Maria's Baby Shower

Breakdown and Breakthrough

I have had a busy couple of weeks! Last weekend I was lucky enough to have my mom stay over in Rochester with me because AJ was out of town; we went shopping, ate some good food and spent some much needed time together. Sunday I headed back to B-town for my very good friends Colleen and Randy’s baby shower! They have having a little boy and I was so happy to share in the celebration of the newest addition to their family. I then spent Monday packing up a bag for the rest of the week.

Every Easter holiday for the past seven years I have spent this very important season at Young Christians at Work. This is a program run by the Diocese of Buffalo’s Department of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, participate come to celebrate Holy Week in an unique fashion, by taking part in direct service and also by learning about the catholic social justice teachings and how they apply to our real world. This program had a profound effect on me in high school, helping me to choice a much different path for my life then I first had plan. It truly have a great impact on my life and every year as I come back I still learn something new and get new prospective and guidance for my life.

Also now as a group leader I hope I service to help give guidance to those going through the program now and a support. This year I was very blessed to have an amazing group of students and a co-group leader!!!! Kevin and I made a great team and having a co-leader really help at the work sites also. For work sites these year, I can say that God truly touch me at them. The first day we worked at Loaves and Fishes which is a soup kitchen. I went there my first year as a student and haven’t been back to the site since. The first time I was there I have a deeply moving experience where there was a woman at the site who looked a lot like my mom. As odd as it sounds it made me feel blessed that we never had that experience, it also help me see that maybe God took my mom when he did because she was in so much pain. This year I was able to be a support of my group who helped serve those that came into the soup kitchen.

The next work site was People Inc. I have not been to this site before but I spent the morning working with Lee a woman with disabilities that loved to do art. Together we decorated her Easter basket and made a picture of a cat , finally I color a picture I left for her to keep. We also interacted with the people who work there who truly create a sense of community at day facility.

On the last day we went to Villa Maria which I had gone to 4 years prior. We were able to talk the sisters there about their lives and they offered so much amazing advice. We also helped clean the church, scrubbing chairs. I was also able to meet Sister Peter again, four years ago I had a chance to talk to her about her life and it ended up she had taught school at the local catholic high school in my hometown. We contact, and it’s hard to explain how deeply she touched me. The next year I was able to visit with her again. However the last two years I have been unable to make it to that site. I walked into her room and her whole face lit up and she said how happy she was to see me again. She asked about the kids I had this year and also about school. We talk about how she has been and about her latest surgery. She told me to always keep my heart open to the young people I was working with, because the love I have for them will so through and never lost that. I was pulled away to help give some of the students a new task, however Kevin and Phil were also able to go in and chat with her. Funny enough she told Kevin to follow my lead that I was a good person to follow. It brought a smile to my face and also a shared laugh between me and Kevin, all the work sites were amazing but there is something so powerful about the sisters it’s hard to explain fully.

The learning sessions as always were eye opening and enlightening; I always come away learning something new even after taking part in the program 7 years. While by the end of the week I am tired and ready to kiss my bed at home after sleeping on an air mat from Tuesday night to Saturday morning, I couldn’t think of anything better.

Birthday

“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.” - Abraham Lincoln quotes

As many of you know I celebrated my 24^th birthday this past weekend. Honestly going into the weekend I wasn’t totally sure how I felt about getting a year old, and I am still not totally sure. 24 is an age that is not here nor there. It doesn’t make any large mile stone or life changing point. It did however make the official end to my Miss America career. I try very hard not to think about and enjoy where I am now.

I think it is very easy to look at everything that is wrong and horrible and it takes a lot more energy to try and be positive. Being in a in between age makes it a lot harder for me to look at a lot of the great thing. I feel like mile stone ages are easier to have great things to talk about.

Lately I have been all about Bethany Ever After on Bravo. She uses to be one of the New York housewives and ended up getting her own show. She just turned 40 of the show and she was having a very hard time with that age. However all her friends were excited about it because she has done so much in her life, especially during the last five years.

For me I have been having a hard time looking at everything I have done since high school, youth 20s are such a work in progress time. I am in the middle of my grad school program and have a ton of projects going on. I am doing an AmeriCorps Placement, working at Shelley’s office, building my personal business, helping to plan events for the YWCA. There is a ton of stuff I need to try to fit in and start doing, including ballroom dancing, Zambia and starting to work out more again.

I know I have fit a lot of life in the small amount of years but I am still worried that I am not doing enough. Luckily I have plenty more years to fill up.

Pink Inspiration

This past weekend Buffalo was turned pink, it hosted the annual Mary Kay Career Conference. This event is called the “24 hour of power event” and it lives up to this nickname. The event was jammed back with everything you could as for and truly was inspirational and educational. The best thing about Mary Kay is it is truly about way more than lipstick. It lives up to its mission statement of enriching the lives of women.

There were so many amazing things I learn from the event. It would take me forever to share everything however here are a couple of them:

-Multitasking is bad for your brain; it’s have been proven in studies that your brain power can go down by 10 IQ points when trying to multitask. What you should do is something called power sessions; try to do 3 a day where you are completely focused on one task at a time.

-Dreams – God puts them in your heart and in your mind, and also puts people in your path to help. Maybe they are just to help focus you or to remind you others to support you along the way.

-No matter what you are doing, do it with your full integrity and focus.

-Winners= Listening, learning, helping and leading

-No victory without a battle

-“You will remain the same, till the pain for remaining the same is too much”-Barb Stimach

-Be careful who you listening to, do listen to anyone you wouldn’t trade places with. (Garbage in to your brain and garbage will come out).