It’s my BFF’s birthday week! In honor of her birthday I decided to create a sticker sheet based on something she’s passionate about and to pick an organization for me to donate the earnings to. She’s really into conservation and eco friendly living; so I came up with this sticker sheet.
It includes the Lionfish (which can be found in the Philippine oceans) and crabs (something found in abundance in the SF Bay Area). I’m so happy with how these came out! A lot of my art work has this sketched out look to them and I’m really digging it. I’m surprised how much I love these little sea animals I drew! I’m legit no artist, don’t ask me to draw a human. But these don’t suck.
JFC I’m inching closer and closer to 40 and I’m not about it.
I got to finally spend my birthday at Disney World after 4 years of being away. It’s also my ten year anniversary since my first Disney College Program in 2011. So it was super important I was there this year, even though I was missing a few people. But man, to be 26 again would be kind of amazing. I miss all my friends from my first DCP but I don’t miss the marriage drama I was dealing with at the time. Or the strings of bad news that was waiting for me when I got home after.
It’s also the 10 year anniversary that my dad was diagnosed with Cancer (which took his life almost 2 years ago). The 10 year anniversary that my cat Meez was shot by a jackass kid in our neighborhood and passed away before I got home. The 10 year anniversary of my brother getting into an accident that resulted in him getting a blood clot in his brain — extremely thankful he recovered just fine.
And also the 10 year anniversary that a mama cat dropped off her entire liter in our backyard randomly; those kittens changed our family’s life. No joke.
I wrote about turning 35 last year and I honestly feel like I just wrote that blog post. It’s seriously crazy and scary how fast time flies. Even in quarantine I guess. Also super proud I finally got to link my own post, what the heck is that called? Inner linking? Ok no, that’s so far off but something like that.
I’m not going to write 36 things I learned in 36 years because this past year there wasn’t much to reflect on or consider. So that would just be torturing myself for no reason. Instead I’ll do 6 and see where that goes.
At the start of this year I was annoyed that my birthday landed on Easter; I hatewhen my birthday lands on Easter cause that means everything is closed. So I usually opt to go on vacation for my birthday instead to avoid this.
So I booked a trip to Vegas (where I haven’t been back to in about 13 years) considering I haven’t left Texas since I moved here almost 4 years ago and I am in desperate need to get out and go on vacation. Not to mention last year my birthday was not something I’d like to look back on considering I was suffering from heavy postpartum depression and everyone was acting like they didn’t know wtf it was, so I suffered kinda in silence for a few months.
Then the quarantine happened and all of us hot headed Aries folks are now stuck at home. To celebrate in our houses.
My 35th birthday was yesterday, unfortunately I was unable to make sure I had this post up by then because it was a crazy week. I swear now that Tums is a year she has like this endless storage of energy. I’m gonna have to come up with more things for her to do/spend her energy on! The problem is our apartment is smaller than our other apartments so she doesn’t have much room to play and run around; I know we were looking into a 2 bedroom soon and I think it might be time for that now…
This year is just zooming by already; I can’t believe we’re in April.
March wasn’t a good month, and I’m sure a lot of other people can relate to that statement. Besides the whole Coronavirus thing going on which is freaking everyone out, causing panic purchasing and forcing everyone world wide to stay home — we were hit with the flu a week before it all happened. I don’t usually have more than a 48hr flu, if even that. So the fact I was down and out for a whole week is insane. I haven’t been that sick since I was a kid. And tbh I barely ever got sick — until I got married and had a kid. Now I feel like I’m always sick and I fuckin hate it.
But I had to include a blog post for Tums First Birthday.
It’s hard to believe that yesterday I went in for another sonogram check and at the end of the appt they told me I’d have to be induced, possibly that day. So they sent me home and I had Olive Garden to try to calm my nerves. Got a call mid lunch of them saying they wanted to induce me… IN SIX HOURS. I hadn’t even packed my hospital bag yet cause I was suppose to still have two weeks! The reason they were inducing me was because Tums was measuring as “small” and she wasn’t growing at the rate she should had been at. They worried she wouldn’t survive if they kept her in there so, induction time!
I frantically had to finish laundry, pack my hospital bag, make sure I didn’t forget anything and try not to throw up from anxiety and fear. Man, it was ROUGH let me tell you. Especially because I heard SO many awful stories about others being induced.
So we went to grab dinner since they said I could eat up until midnight while they prepped my room. So we get settled in and they decide to check where I’m at before anything happens — I somehow jumped from 1 to 3cm dilated in like 2 days. So since I didn’t have to do that cervix balloon thing they sent me home and told me to come back at 6am. I remember telling Bubba I was getting slight cramps, girl those weren’t cramps lmao!
This photo pretty much sums me up nicely! But that Wizard of Oz calendar thing is definitely one of my favorite gifts from Bubba. Sometimes I forget to change it, but I think I’ll keep it on April 12th for awhile.
But thanks calendar thing, I did have a great and powerful day!
I somehow forgot to write this little section in the previous entry. I guess I thought the photo had copied to my desktop when it didn’t and I didn’t realize it until I went to bed last night that I didn’t talk about this!
This birthday was probably the most memorable, and definitely not in a good way.
My ex husband was pretty… selfish. Bubba had asked me months ago if he was ever controlling and in a sense I never thought of M as ‘controlling’, I guess because he never acted out, if you will. Like he never made public scenes or he never flat out showed your typical version of jealousy. But if I think about all the things he expected of me or all the things he pushed then in a really subtle yet un-subtle way he was controlling. He wouldn’t throw a fit or make a scene but he was a pro (A FUCKIN PRO I TELL YOU) at ignoring someone for as long as a week and a half. And I mean IGNORE, like not talking, not responding. But if we’re talking ignore then he went years doing that shit.
But he was selfish in a sense since I can’t really think of another word to call it — let’s put it this way — if he had friends (and 99% of his friends were girls which was fine cause 100% of my friends are usually guys though I DO NOT hug coworkers AT WORK. Hell I don’t hug them AT ALL unless I’m REALLY close to them and that takes a lot of time. I’m not a hugger if I don’t fuckin know you and I’m definitely NOT a hugger if I suspect you have a crush on me. In fact I’d be less than a friend if I suspected you had a crush on me and I definitely would not be hanging out with you, ever) which were mostly girls he would completely ignore me. If they asked him to hang out he would be prompt and he would stay out as late as 2am. He wouldn’t tell me WHERE he was going or WHO these girls were and he wouldn’t update me from time to time. If he went to hang out with friends or coworkers I wouldn’t get a single text or call the entire time he was out. If I texted asking him something while he was out he would get pissed and wouldn’t respond.
This particular year we had to take the same work bus to work (the E bus for those of you who do/did the DCP and worked on the Hollywood Studios route whoot whoot); we barely ever started work at the same time or ended at the same time to ever really have to be on the same bus. But the very few times we did he wouldn’t even acknowledge I was on the bus, especially if his coworkers were there.
Once we were standing at the bus stop, I had my headphones on cause we were waiting and he was standing next to me, a coworker comes and says hi. Looks at me then walks off. He turns to me mad saying, “why do you always have to repel my friends.” uh bitch what? I’m sitting here, listening to music, on my phone, minding my own business. Don’t no one care about you and your janky friends. She need to brush her hair.
This was the birthday year I’m talking about.
The one I had mentioned where his friend’s birthday was the day before mine and they went to lunch and I was waiting for him at my spa appointment. His friend had asked about me and he didn’t like it. So he resolved to not have me meet anyone he worked with. So this year, though I saw some of his coworkers from time to time on the bus with him, I wasn’t allowed to meet them or say hi. So most of the time when I’d run into him say on the bus on the way home, I’d sit away from him and with my coworkers instead and ignore the fact he’s actually on the bus since he did such a great job of ignoring me even as I walked on.
Great marriage, right?
So he was never into social media, he always said it was “stupid” and “gay” but during my birthday week that year he got back on Instagram and Facebook, added all his chick friends and would frequently be in a group chat with them on Facebook or on Instagram and leaving each other comment threads. I noticed he got back on social media but he still hadn’t liked or commented on any of my posts anywhere. But I knew he was texting people on these apps.
He said he had gotten on for my birthday as if THAT was his bday gift to me. Just like how he frequently used, “I was nice to you all day.” as if it’s something that he should be praised for. It didn’t occur to me at the time that Chanel’s birthday was literally the day before mine and that he added all his coworkers and was constantly texting them. Yet he spun it around saying he got back on for me though he left no trace of any activity on any of my posts.
I do a lot of random things.
At EPCOT you can color in a Perry or a Duffy at any of the countries. There’s a table for kids to color at and you take it to every station in every country and they stamp it for you.
I was pretty proud of this guy cause I thought the body color was pretty accurate and at the time I was kind of obsessed with Perry (not so much Secret Agent P) even though I didn’t watch the show. But I always thought it was funny how as Perry he’s kinda cross/bulge eyed but as Secret Agent P he looks all professional lol! And no, sadly you can’t meet Perry in the parks!
So I decided to color a Perry and take him around the world for my birthday. M colored some of him but I colored most of him and it was me who took him around and I’d chit chat with the people in the diff countries. The guy in France noticed I had a Vinylmation pin and we talked Vinylmations for awhile.
There was another photo of just Secret Agent P by himself without me in it and I noticed M had posted it on his Instagram with the caption, “I scraped those little whack ass kids.”
I noticed that there was no mention of me or my birthday at all on that post. When his friends left comments he took ALL the credit and he made it sound as if he was so hardcore that he “scraped” some KIDS in coloring a fuckin character. It’s not a content or a game. It’s something fuckin fun for kids to do. If you need to boost yourself up by down talking KIDS who are on VACATION you’ve got some fuckin problems. Foreal.
I had brought it up as we were going to Magic Kingdom to watch Wishes and it started this big argument where the above was said. I don’t remember the entire fight. I do remember sobbing my fuckin heart out at the Magic Kingdom gates not even wanting to go see Wishes. Not even wanting to celebrate my birthday anymore.
I was just so sad and so hurt.
And I was so tired of being hidden. And sadly this was the start of the next 2 years of being hidden and BANNED from his work location. Oh yes, it got worse.
I was so tired of him saying anything having to do with marriage was gay. When that shit didn’t even make fuckin sense. He never told people he was married. They would have to figure it out themselves. If I did go visit him at work and someone asked who I was he’d say “oh that’s Hazel.” it got so bad that some of his coworkers speculated he wasn’t even married and was lying about it since no one EVER saw me. There was one coworker who he got into an altercation with at work who ran into us doing laundry once and was like “oh, you really are married I guess.” and he got pissed he said that. As if it wasn’t obviously his own fault. Or as if he was mad he was married in general.
As much as I loved that Perry in the end I ended up throwing him away. Every time I saw him I’d just get sad and remember that day.
At the end of the day M blamed everything on me and “acting crazy” so he deleted the photo off his Instagram and deleted the app off his phone along with the FB app. And in the end he ended up joining SnapChat with all of them and refused to add me to his friends list.
I try to cling on to the good memories of this birthday — my facial. Finally meeting Remy at Chefs de France and getting to eat in France. My day 2 outfit with the top hat. How good this outfit came out and how I didn’t feel insecure in it at all (it was the first time wearing a dress in forever). Getting to eat Ohana’s.
And I think that was it.
But this is definitely one birthday memory I wish I could erase.
And though I’m not turning a significant age I thought I’d look back on all my past birthdays. As a reminder, if you will.
I’m a little sad I’m not going on vacation or doing anything epic this year for my birthday. I am going on foodie adventures through out the DFW area though which I am REALLY REALLY excited about especially since there’s a few places I’ve really wanted to try since I moved here!
But I was thinking the other day and this morning; I had mentioned to Bubba I never look forward to my birthday. Like ever. And though I’ve had traditions that I’ve held on pretty tightly to through out the years I wonder, really, how do I FEEL about my birthday?
