Me, Myself, & I...

My Mom & I...

My story is one of pain and laughs, as most people's stories usually are.  I've had years of struggle, and years with a lot of fun memories.  My memories from my childhood start around Kindergarten.  I remember a blue house on Mapleway Lane, it had 3 bedrooms, and 1.5 baths.  I remember the laundry area being in the hall, and the kitchen, dining room, and living room all being open to each other.  There was a deck on the back that was pretty high off the ground.  My dad had built my sister and I am kids heaven in the back yard from the piping supply that he sold!  We had a swing set, a sandbox, a slide, and a see saw.  We loved to play out side, and I have many good memories in that house.  With those good memories, I also have a lot of dark memories.  My parents didn't get a long, and I saw some things that children shouldn't see.  I was a Girl Scout and loved troop meetings & camping trips.  I was smart enough to be in the blended class in 2nd grade.  We were blended with 3rd graders, and learning more advanced things.  My younger sister was very allergic to peanuts which we learned by a horrific allergic reaction when she rolled a pine cone in peanut butter.  I shared a room with my sister and slept on the top bunk.  I remember being terrified because my mom would turn the blinds up, and from the top bunk... I felt like I was being watched at night.  My sister and I fought, as siblings tend to do.  

Girl Scouts... I was a brownie!

After a traumatizing afternoon that I will never shake... my mom, sister, and myself moved out.  I was in the 3rd grade.  I remember most everything.  We moved into a friend's house temporarily, and my sister thought it was great, because we got to eat Taco Bell every night!  Eventually, we moved to Elkin, and I think the move came at the end of the school year.  My mom's family lived in Elkin, and we lived with my great grandma for a bit.  Mom found an apartment and we moved not to far from my "Grandma Grandma's" house.  We called her that because she was my great grandma, and that was grandma twice!  I started a new school in the 4th grade, and didn't make many friends.  In fact, I remember very little about that school and the students.  

My mom and dad ended up getting back together, and we moved back to Greensboro.  They had already sold the house on Mapleway Lane, and my dad had purchased a townhouse on Horsepen Creek Road.  We moved in with him, and I have many many memories from our time in that house!  I remember roller skating and riding our bikes up and down the sidewalks there.  I remember convincing my sister to climb a tree.  Not just any tree... a HUGE tree!  I convinced her to climb all the way up to the very tippy top!  My dad was furious!  I remember a groundhog living in our backyard, and a flat area with tons of fruit trees!  I started a new school and this time I remember just about everything!  I could walk through the entire school in my head right now!  I remember where everything was!  Mr Stallard was my teacher, and he was sooooo much fun!  I remember working so hard on my big project that year, My North Carolina Book.  I'm pretty sure my mom still has this book.  I had to come up with something in NC for every letter of the alphabet. I got an A!  I was a Presidential winner for the Physical Fitness Award that year, and in the 5th grade I was runner up for the Dare Essay contest!  I did 2 Science Fair projects that I remember like it was yesterday!  I stained white tiles with coffee and tea and tested various brands of toothpastes, and the next year we tested the absorbancy of various brands of paper towels!

Doing a back hand spring...

My sister & I... celebrating her birthday in 2005!

Life got interesting as I went into middle school.  I got pretty involved with my youth group, I had my first boyfriend, my first kiss, a few "best friends", and I started caring about being cool.  The problem was, while I wanted to wear cool clothes, and have a cool purse like everyone else, my parents just couldn't afford it.  I would never ask my mom to buy a shirt from "The Limited" for me, when she couldn't afford to buy one for herself.  She and my dad did what they could to provide for us, but unfortunately that meant I wasn't very "cool".  I got picked on and made fun of a LOT, and one person in particular went out of her way to pick on me.  Then came 7th grade.  It was one of the hardest years of my life, as a kid.  My best friend from the 6th grade, made a new best friend.  Together they were a force to be reckoned with.  Mix them with all of their other faithful sidekicks and my life literally became a hell.  I didn't want to go to school, because they were horrible to me.  My grades suffered, and so did my self esteem.  Titanic came out that year, and my homeroom teacher would let me spend homeroom in the computer lab so I didnt have to be around these girls.  I would look up and print out tons and tons of pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio!  Those pictures became the wallpaper in my room, and that mixed with making up AWESOME dances to the Spice Girls songs with my little sister's friends, was really the only happy parts of my life that year.  8th grade got a little better as far as the bullying goes.  I was still in class with some of them, but now they ignored me instead of picking on me.  I had a few really good girlfriends, and even a few guy friends.  My boyfriend who I had been with on and off, started dating one of my other friends, and now they are married with an adorable little boy!  One of my guy friends that year, was killed in Iraq a few years ago... that was not easy to deal with.  On a high note though, I did go on 3 mission trips in middle school, all which left a lasting mark on me!!  Especially the trip to Maine.  I remember everything about it, and would love to go back!  I broke my ankle playing basketball with some of the guys, and spent most of the trip on crutches, but watching 4th of July fireworks on the beach cliffs of Maine... amazing!  My parents split for good the summer before I started high school, and it was an UGLY split.  After a few months, I chose to live with my dad, and without my sister.  I didn't realize what that meant for my life.  After my sister and I knowing everything about each other for years and years... I no longer knew her anymore.  There were boyfriends I never met, and friends I never knew, and I hate that I missed so much.  I wanted desperately to be on the cheerleading squad, so I tried out... fail.  I was crushed, and I sought out help from a highly recommended person!  That is when I learned about Cheer Extreme Allstars.

Cheer Extreme Allstars :)

High school was a whole new start.  People who hadn't spoken to me in years, were suddenly my friends!  I was borderline cool, and I had some close friends that made life fun my freshmen year!  My 2 best friends and I spent the majority of our free time learning every dance by Britney Spears that we could!  We had most of them nailed!  I even got to go to her concert with some of my friends for my birthday in March of 2000.  My dad and I went to the coliseum at the butt crack of dawn and waiting forever to get tickets in the nosebleed section!!  It was all that was left when we made it to the window :(.

My dad met someone new, and she rallied for me to start cheerleading, so I did.  I met the coach and owner of CEA and after my try out was placed on the CoEd team!  I loved it, and worked SUPER hard to gain tumbling skills.  After a few months I had a back hand spring and was learning how to do running tumbling!

After another try and fail at the Cheerleading Squad at Northwest High School, I thought I was going to give up.  I decided that cheering Allstars was fun, and I didn't need a school squad!  My dad and his new lady got engaged and I opted to change schools again, and move into town and out of the suburbs!  My mom and dad got remarried and I had a whole new life.  

Scorpion... I loved cheering!

I started Page High School in the 10th grade, and my only friends for a while were really the friends of my step sister.  However, when spring of 2001 rolled around, I tried out for the cheerleading squad, and to my surprise... I made it!  I cried harder than I had in a long time!  Not only was I on the team, but I actually was one of the team's 4 flyers!  I was so proud of myself, and felt like all of my hard work was really paying off.  I cheered as hard as I could for 2 years!  That was all I cared about, and the only reason that I worked on my grades in high school!  My junior year, I developed a bit of an eating disorder.  I never openly admitted that I was anorexic, but I was.  I would drink a Slim Fast before practice, and besides that... I didn't really eat.  Flying in cheerleading means that people catch me, and I was so self conscious about my weight.   I got down to about 78lbs, and my coach threatened to kick me off the squad.  It wasn't much longer before I discovered that I needed emergency surgery to have my tonsils & adnoids taken out.  I was out of cheerleading for a while, and was able to pack on a few pounds before returning.  My senior year, I got senioritis pretty early on!  While I loved cheerleading, I also loved to party.  I was a rebel, and I didn't care what anyone thought about me!  I actually went to my final exam my senior year wearing my bikini and cut off jean shorts.  Thankfully, the teacher let me take the exam... and didn't expel me!  My senior year ended up being pretty dark.  I ran away from home for a while, and did a LOT of things that I wasn't proud of then, and am still not proud of now.  Most people don't know that I even attempted to take my life, but God had other plans.  It took a lot of growing up, and meeting my now husband, for me to actually snap out of my self destruction!

Sarah & I Junior year... she introduced me to Derik!

My best friend from high school, introduced me to Derik, and we started dating in June of 2005.  We were living together August of 2006, and engaged in October.  Our friends at the time weren't too happy about us... growing up.  We lost most of them, and had some hiccups through the week of our wedding because of them.  We were married in September of 2007, and 2 months after our 1 year Anniversary trip to Mexico we found out we were pregnant!  This news came immediately after Derik started a new job, and we bought our first house!!!  Derik owned a townhouse that we lived in prior which we rented out, so a LOT of things changed in a short amount of time!  January of 2009, we miscarried, and were devastated.  However, we were pregnant again by June!  Preparing for Abbie was surreal, but she made her grand entrance Valentine's Day of 2010!  Her first year was amazing, and we loved just about every minute!  In March of 2011, we began preparing for a relocation, and we finally made the move April 30th.  Exactly one month later, we found out we were pregnant with Brady.  Brady arrived after several false labor trips to the hospital in January this year... and here we are!

Derik & I... many many years ago!!

I have chosen to filter a lot in this post.  The mistakes I made, and the pain I suffered... made me the person I am today, however... if I had to do it all over, I'm not sure that I would!  I would make changes, and live life in a better way.  There are a lot of things I like about myself, but my past is not one of them.  I am a mom to 2 great kids, I have a wonderful husband, I have great friends, I created and run a successful home based business, I am pretty creative & crafty, and my love for cheerleading will never die.  I am who I am, and my past led me to this point.  I am thankful that God forgives.  I am thankful that he has forgiven me for the mistakes I made in my past.  He is greater than all of it... and I am so thankful!

I wrote this blog post because I was listening to this song this morning, and it made me think about every time I ever called on God...  The song is called I Am by Nicole Nordeman.

Pencil marks on a wall, I wasn't always this tall
You scattered some monsters from beneath my bed.
You watched my team win, you watched my team lose
Watched when my bicycle went down again.
And when I was weak, unable to speak, still I could call you by name
And I said Elbow Healer, Super Hero, come if you can.
And you said, I AM.

Only sixteen, life is so mean
What kind of curfew’s is at 10 PM?
You saw my mistakes, you watched my heart break
Heard when I swore I'd never love again
And when I was weak, unable to speak, still I could call you by name
And I said Heartache Healer, Secret Keeper, be my best Friend
And you said, I AM.

You saw me wear white by pale candle light
I said "forever" to what lies ahead.
Two kids and a dream, with kids that can scream
[ From : http://www.elyrics.net/read/n/nicole-nordeman-lyrics/i-am-lyrics.html ]
Too much it might seem when it's 2 am.
And when I am weak, unable to speak still I will call you by name
Oh, Shepherd, Savior, Pasture Maker, Hold on to my hand.
You say, I AM.

The winds of change and circumstance
Blow in and all around us
So we find a foothold that’s familiar.
And bless the moments that we feel you nearer.
When life had begun, I was woven and spun
You let the angels dance around the throne.
Who can say when, but they'll dance again
When I am free and finally headed home.
I will be weak, unable to speak
Still I will call you by name
Creator, Maker, Life Sustainer,
Comforter, Healer, My Redeemer
Lord and King, Beginning and the End
I AM, Yes I AM.