Introducing Romeo.

Don't let this cute face fool you. He is naughty! A few weeks ago we got a new puppy, Romeo. He is a Maltese and one of the cutest things you will ever see. He is into everything. Roxy wasn't this bad when she was a puppy. So, as you can imagine, it's a full time job just keeping up with him. He is only 10 weeks old and is in the chewing, eating everything, peeing and pooping all the time, stage. I wouldn't trade him for anything though. I love the little booger. It's so funny to see him forming a little personality. He has a tendency to get super grumpy out of nowhere. It's quite comical. And, normally when that happens he will put his ears back, give a little growl, and then go lay down and go to sleep. It just happened a second ago. He is now passed out. He likes to sleep in between things. Instead of sleeping in his bed he sleeps behind his bed between it and the wall. Right now he only weighs 1.3 pounds. We think he will get between four or five which is perfect because Roxy is only 3 pounds. He was the runt of the litter. When we went to see him we were planning on getting a girl. It was him and his two sisters. He was half the size of them. Alberto couldn't resist picking him. He looks like a little snowball or polar bear. And, he's so fat. His belly is so big. He loves to eat. Sometimes he'll be in the kitchen laying at his bowl just eating away. I like to call him little fatfat. Roxy has taken to him better than I expected. They are so cute when they play together. Of course, since Romeo can't jump on the furniture yet, Roxy uses it as her opportunity to escape when she has had enough. She is such a good big sister and will check on him when he is sleeping or when he whines. It's very sweet. He is a great addition to our family.

New Talent.

Gabriel has started piano lessons! They are going really good. He has had only three so far. He goes once a week. I signed him up for only four to start with. I wanted to make sure he really enjoyed it before paying too much money and then him maybe hating it. He seems to be be picking it up really fast according to his teacher. This week he can start on actual songs which is exciting. I bought him this awesome keyboard to practice on at home. It ended up having way more stuff with it than what I thought. It came with a stand and microphone too. And, we can get this certain cord and hook it up to his computer and he can record songs onto Cd's, compose his own music, etc. It's way cool!! I had no idea all the stuff you could do with a piano/keyboard. Gabriel is loving it.

Family Search.

Update. I am stopping my search. I've had some roller coaster of emotions the last month. Long story short, I've come across two men who I thought were my father. One I never spoke to directly. I just spoke to an ex-wife and ex-stepson. It was going in the right direction until I found out this particular man had not been in prison where my father had been. The second man, the lady who was helping me in my search found him and emailed him. He confirmed he had a daughter named Season. I started emailing him but was getting extremely short responses with not much information. It started off like our letters used to be when I would write him in prison. I thought maybe I just need to give it some time and he will come around. Well, I ended up asking him a couple of times to tell me something to prove it was him. Like a birthday or something. I picked birthday because I was sure of that. I have proof in birth records and information from the police on his whole birth date. This man came back with a totally different one. I have a feeling this guy could have been scamming me. Not that he asked for money or anything at all, but maybe it was leading up to that. He did, however, offer me money by saying he is financially stable to help me now. I, of course said thanks but no thanks. I ended the emails by letting him know he is not the person I am looking for and will just leave it at that. It's very strange there are two men out there with almost the same information as my father. Same full name, around the same age, lived in TX, and have past criminal records. But, the look totally different if the pictures are indeed really them. So, I am going to just get on with my life and put this behind me. If it was meant to be then maybe someone will come looking for me.

Update.

A lot has happened since I wrote my post about finding other family. I came across a really sweet lady who is helping me in my search. She has been looking for her family for over 20 years. She has a lot of resources and has helped me tremendously. I can't thank her enough. I feel I am so close yet so far away. I got my hopes up yesterday, but don't want to go into much detail until I know more. I think I've let this consume me for more time than what I had promised myself so I am going to take a few days off and catch up on some other stuff.

Bad Dreams.

I've had really bad dreams for as long as I can remember. Very rarely do I dream about "regular" stuff. I have nightmares probably 99% of the time. My memories of strange dreams and seeing strange things goes back to when I was small enough to be in my crib. I would see these shadow figures on the wall in the middle of the night. They always looked strangely familiar. I wouldn't be scared, but I would feel uncomfortable and just stare at them. As I got older I would hear and see these "little" people. They would only come to me when I was at my grandparents house. They looked just like humans but super tiny. Maybe about a two inches tall. They would tell me to do bad things like burn the house down or runaway or tell me I needed to hurt myself. Of course I never did any of that. Thank God I knew better. Around this same time I was always having dreams where I would be floating up around my bed spinning really really fast. And then I would fall and wake up and my bed would be shaking. I would see shadow people on the walls and hear whispering. Still they were strangely familiar and not too frightening. It all seemed to come to a stop when I was around 13. I never gave it much thought although it would cross my mind from time to time. In 1999 I went into the Air Force. In boot camp I woke up one night and went up to a drill instructor and starting asking her where everyone was. I was sleepwalking. This was my first known experience with that. The funny thing is that I remember waking up and seeing everyone gone, or so I thought, and running around until I saw her. I was freaking out because I really thought everyone was gone. It was like I was awake and knew I was sleepwalking but I couldn't come out of it. Like I was stuck in my dream state even though I knew I was sleepwalking. Make sense? I was reprimanded in a way and told that I may have to change jobs if this continued. My security clearance could have been jeopardized. For a few years it never happened again. That brings me to 2008. We moved to Oklahoma. And it all started again. It seems like I was sleepwalking almost every night. One time I even lined up all my purses in my bedroom and just stared at them. Crazy? Yes! I would find myself in the hallway, in the kitchen, in the living room, everywhere. I would see the electrical plug in the bedroom was on fire and I would try to put it out. I would see the ceiling falling down on me and totally freak out. I would think someone was after me and try to run but couldn't move. I would hear voices and see weird lights and shadows moving towards me. I can't explain how frightening it always was. I was always in a state where I knew what I was doing but couldn't control it or make myself come out of it. My dreams were always about almost dying. We moved to this new house in October of last year. From day one there was a creepy feeling in this one corner of the house between my office and front door. I always got this feeling someone was there watching me. The other night I was in a sleepwalking state and saw a shadow reflection in my mirror. The mirror attached to my chest of drawers. I knew it was a man. He was dark black and just standing there like he was watching me. I couldn't see through him. I closed my eyes hoping it was just my imagination. When I opened them again he was standing next to my side of the bed. I could just see the dark black, almost like tar, outline of him. I had this overwhelming feeling of dread and closed my eyes and turned my back to him. I tried to say Alberto's name but I couldn't breathe, much less speak. I just knew this black figure was going to kill me. I have never been so afraid in my life. I have never experienced the feeling of pure dread. I couldn't move, I couldn't scream, I couldn't do anything. Finally I was able to move my left thumb just enough to tickle Alberto's arm. I was hoping it would wake him up since he's a light sleeper, but he just turned over. I guess I eventually fell asleep. It is so vivid in my memory though. I am still pretty creeped out. I don't normally talk about these occurrences. I always felt alone and felt that no one would understand what I go through on a regular basis. I don't want to be labeled as schizophrenic. I know I'm crazy, but not like that. Ha, ha. So, when I told Alberto about the shadow and my feeling of dread he sent me a link from Wikipedia about shadow people. When I read it I knew it was talking about me and my experiences. I spent a few hours reading about it and the different names and sure enough I have sleep paralysis. I just know that has to be it. And thousands upon thousands of people experience it just like me. In some of the stories I read they talk about seeing flashing/streaming lights around the room just like I experience. Almost everything these people said is the same thing I see. There have been some really severe cases reported and I'm lucky not to be one of those. Finally I don't feel alone in this. I even was able to find some good exercises I can do before going to sleep that have been helping. I also realized that these dreams only come when I am sleeping on my back. I haven't been sleeping as well lately because I've been tossing and turning making sure I never am on my back. It's quite annoying but so much better than feeling like I am going to be killed my some demonic looking creature/person. I am so relieved I know what is going on and it can somewhat be explained. Phew *wiping forehead*. I think I'm in the clear from being committed :)

Something's Missing.

Do you ever feel like there is something missing in your life? From time to time I get that feeling. Today is one of those days. It's dark and pouring rain. My mind keeps drifting. I have so much yet I want so much more. I keep getting this overwhelming feeling that I may have a brother or sister out there somewhere. Little back story: I don't know my father. Shortly after I was born he went to prison. I found him at the age of 15 but didn't move forward or let him know I knew where he was. I found him again at the age of 22 and we wrote letters back and forth. Nothing ever came of it. We started writing again when I was 26. All he seemed to want is money, so I stopped writing. I received a phone call on my 29th birthday from a pastor at a half way house telling me my father was out of prison and wanted to know if I wanted a relationship. I told them I needed some time to think and I would get back with them. Next thing I know he is gone and no one will give me a straight answer as to if he is back in prison or just left the half way house. My point of this post was not to get all into this about my father so I will move on. Family. There must be some out there. I want to find them. I wonder if they've tried looking for me? I've moved around so much I may be a hard person to track. I just always think of how much fun it would be if I had siblings. And, it would be nice to know the medical history of the other half of me. Of course there is always the chance that they would all be crazy and it may have been a good idea to not find them. But, that is a chance I am willing to take. I emailed a couple of people I found on Facebook that are in the general Fort Worth area with the last name. It is not too common, especially the spelling so I'm hoping I get some leads. I am very blessed to have friends in my life who I consider "family" and who we jokingly say are sisters and brothers from another mister/mother. LOL! This is just another adventure in my crazy fun life.

World Cup.

I'm addicted to watching the World Cup. I've never really watched before. Gabriel has played soccer since he was 4 so it's fun to share in this with him. Wouldn't it be cool if it was him one day I was watching? So far I've seen three of the games. US vs England. Serbia vs Ghana. And Germany vs Australia. I'm going to try and work my schedule around so I can watch the other games this week. It really is a rush for me. My attention span is pretty low especially with things that are slow paced (like baseball). Soccer is so fun to watch. It doesn't hurt that the guys aren't bad looking either! I'm still trying to determine my top 5 teams. I would like to see everyone play before I make my final decisions. Here's what I'm thinking so far though. US, Ghana (they were very aggressive and I like that), Spain, Mexico, and England. Looking forward to hopefully seeing Japan play tomorrow. Since I've always wanted to go there I'm wishing their team is pretty good.