I'm Liza Lawson.

I took some of a theater productions class in high school when I lived in Forney. I didn’t like the class. The teacher was quite a character who wanted us to copy quotes down in our composition notebooks as our “warm ups”. It was sophomore year. When I was removed from school, I continued the notebook’s original purpose, putting my favorite quotes into it. It soon became my quote journal.

I stopped filling it after a few months, but I’m going to try to get back into the habit of putting quotes into it. A lot of my most cherished quotes are in this thing, and I want to fill it. I miss my handwriting I had during that time… Perhaps I can reteach myself how to write like that.

If you talk too much about what you’re going to do before you do it, you leave the game in the locker room.

— Michael Caine, actor

I found it before I began working on this post, because I needed the above quote. It fits myself quite well.

I don’t make long-term goals (or even short-term goals) unless they’re extremely versatile. I also never tell anyone about my goals at all because then I just won’t do it. I think this is why new year’s resolutions are something I despise with a passion. Meekakitty from YouTube made a video last year on resolutions and goals that’s now unlisted. Aside from the adorable bow she made with her hair, the video explains why so many people fail to accomplish their new year’s resolutions.

If I say that I’m going to try to get back into driving by the end of the year, people will encourage me to do so. Will I be emotionally and mentally ready and able to handle such a task? That’s something that is out of my hands, and that goal isn’t what I want to personally do — it’s what others expect me to be able to do.

I have things I’d like to do in life, but I don’t really tell them to people because I’ll either be congratulated before I even accomplish such and/or I’ll receive a response that simply implies the other person’s disappointment in such a wish or dream or whatever it may be that I won’t necessarily continue to have the desire to do it thereafter.

“You need to make goals. You need to have a plan.”

I don’t need to make goals or have a plan in order to survive. Currently, I need to focus on my health and not relapsing. I don’t make goals because I don’t believe in them.

I remember having teachers who required us, the students, to make goals. I understand that it’s something that helps others, but it has never helped me. I make to-do lists, and I don’t look at them as goals. I have dreams that take the place of goals.

We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future, as if figuring it out will cushion the blow. But the future is always changing. The future is the home of our deepest fears and wildest hopes. But one thing is certain, when it finally reveals itself, the future is never the way we imagined it.

— Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy

Do you make goals? Why or why not?

It’s a new week. I feel both annoyed and happy at this, because even though I spent the majority of last week playing Sims 3 and sleeping due to my junk food intake, I’m much closer to June. I’m looking forward to June, because I’ll be able to stop going in for allergy shots four days a week every week. Going into the doctor’s office for a shot is exhausting and just plain boring. I’m tired of waiting for 15-20 minutes after every shot. It’s just…boring!

I’m beginning to lose interest in blogging again. I think that this happens at least once per year for me. I can’t put my finger on the exact reason, but some things that are causing me to not care about blogging. I feel like I’m losing it again. I met a few bloggers who don’t want to blog because it’s a passion, but because it can be seen as profit. I hate that — I hate it when people don’t care about what they are making the money from. It’s ridiculous, and I feel disgusted with this hobby when I see the text, “I wanna blog because it makes money!” People start throwing out these big prices for advertising and/or web design — they use scripts for Blogspot blogs that only work in certain browsers that some plugins can cause to make the results look all shitty.

I bought a custom theme from Kya because she puts effort and creativity and love into what she creates, and I bought a custom theme from Georgie because she puts effort and love and her into her designs, and I’m ecstatic that she put me into the one she created for me. They both spent time on it, but these days I feel like the latest bloggers and web designers just want to get things done quickly and make money.

And I’m not sorry that I see the ones who appear to be like that as heartless, selfish and just plain ridiculous.

And I think that that is why I am starting to despise it this year.

But this year I don’t want to back down. I merely lack inspiration. I’m dropping out of the online classes. I’m about three stories in to my book. I’m writing it my way — the way that I blog and write — and I’m pushing myself. That was the point of signing up for the classes.

I actually dropped out of the aforementioned writing class. I was having a difficult time finding a peer introduction essay that I could write eight hundred words about and quite annoyed at the fact that the forums were in such a mess that people were replying to my threads with questions and their essays and just DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO USE A FORUM. And I officially hate Vanilla, the forum script, for this reason.

I had signed up for a nutrition class, but since I don’t count calories anymore¹, the class is doing more harm than good. I also signed up for another writing class, but since I slept all week due to the junk food that goes against my food allergies, I haven’t actually had the energy to check it.

I’m not really upset with myself, though, because I have had a lot of inspiration for the book lately.

I closed all of the windows on my laptop for about two days, for at least a few several hour time spans. This includes Thunderbird, the program I use for emails. I refused to let myself check my blog comments, Twitter mentions, Facebook notifications, etc. I was playing Sims 3. Just to throw it out there, University Life gets really boring. It’s like having one Sim to play with, as you can’t really play much of the game when they’re at school, work, or sleeping. The CTRL+Shift + ResetSim Firstname Lastname cheat was a charm when she needed to sleep… sometimes.

My Sims are all born rich. Are they struggling? You can guarantee I’m going to use the motherlode cheat for just because purposes. I like to have the best furniture and the most awesome home remodels. My favorite part of Sims overall is the interior designing. :p

Anyways, here’s an update on my life as of recently:

1. Lately, my despise and distaste for people is greater than usual, stretching to some family members [unfortunately].
2. I may be able to lease my truck after all, to my uncle instead.
3. Eating the foods I’m allergic to that don’t cause much harm literally feels like I’ve eaten junk food for a week, even if it’s one bag of chips and/or three slices of DiGiorno’s breadstick pepperoni pizza.
4. I have realized that my hair is much more pleasing when I blow dry it straight from the shower.
5. In the shower this morning, I thought of the domain name that makes me say, “YES! THAT SCREAMS ME!” It sucks because it’s available, therefore tempting. The only downside is that the .com extension is taken (even though I want either the .me or the .org)¹ It’d most likely serve as a redirect. Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Yes. Should I get it? I’ll go with the most votes as my answer by either the end of today or tomorrow, provided at least 5 votes are cast. It needs to be an odd number (I’m weird like that) of votes. Go vote? I’m having a grand opening giveaway for it instead.
6. I’m saving my Wowbutter review for when my allergy food blog opens up. I’m also planning to do other reviews on foods that I’ve tried.
7. I’m thinking of using the tags for the [insert allergy]-free notes, as well as basic tags. I can’t decide if the ingredients the recipes use should be added as tags or not, though.
8. The categories could be branched out, like so:
   1. Recipes
      1. Beverages
      2. Meals
      3. Snacks
   2. Substitutes & Alternatives
   3. Stories
   4. Tips

And that is as far as I have gotten. Feedback would be lovely. I’ll get to comments this weekend.

I decided to invest in the Pro version of Flickr, since 500px is a bit out of my price range and I’m rather fond of Flickr. I ran out of space on my account, so because I bought Pro for a year (next year I’ll worry about renewing it…), I put the new space I received to good use. Last year I went to the 11th Annual Butterfly Festival in Plano, and this year I went again, to the 12th. Bri ended up meeting us there after her appointment, since Grandmama, Papa and I all went after mine (allergy shot). This post is rather picture heavy, just a warning.

I probably shouldn’t have upgraded to Pro, but I need a place to showcase my photography, and there’s only so much one can do with free versions of photo sharing mess. In other words, I didn’t really have another option, and I’d rather not rely on Facebook, who supposedly owns photos after they are uploaded.

Afterward, we went to Chik-fil-A, where I bought us lunch, and then Bri bought our movies. We watched Olympus Has Fallen. It’s an action movie. White House Down was featured in a preview, and it stars Channing Tatum. We think it’s the comedy version of Olympus Has Fallen. I REALLY can’t wait for Fast & Furious 6, because I love Vin Diesel, a few of the other actors (like Paul Walker), and movies about fast cars.

We even got to release some butterflies! They had two per envelope! They just kept handing us some. It was awesome. Last time, we missed doing this because we went in later.

I was using the camera my dad got Grandmama for either Christmas or her birthday. It was 16.1 megapixels, but it definitely did not work like my camera. It was like a DSLR and a digital camera had a baby, and this was the result. I suppose the best thing about it is that it takes larger and more crisp pictures? It just doesn’t capture motion very well like my 8.1 megapixel baby does.

I won’t really have any of me until Bri posts the pictures from her phone to Facebook.

You can view the full Flickr album here.

Although it’s mostly pictures, if I receive comments saying “cool photos” or just focusing on the pictures, I don’t care who you are; I’ll still deny it.~

Dear mom,

Hi. I have been constructing this letter to you for over two years now. I don’t know what to say that could possibly make anything okay — no matter what I say, you’ll never understand how you have made me feel. A mother’s relationship with her daughter is supposed to be one of the best; you’re supposed to be my best friend. How could the person who carried me for eight to nine months to give birth to me treat me so horribly? Am I supposed to apologize for causing you so much pain? Am I supposed to pay you back for taking away the rest of your teenage years?

I feel like you kept me all of those years because you were as selfish then as you are now. You didn’t just want me because of the child support; you wanted me because I was considered the prize. You wanted custody of me because you like to be in control. You wanted custody of me so that you could brag to my dad that you had me and he didn’t. You were wrong. He’s had me since day one, because you were right: I did think that he was the better parent, and I still do now.

I crave a mother’s love all of the time, and I hate it. You always got so jealous of Kimily because she married my dad. You don’t understand how it feels. As much as I’d love for her to to think of me as her daughter, I don’t think she’ll ever feel that way toward me. I need to be a mother’s daughter! I need to be loved by a mother as though I am her own. It pains me every single day, because I know how unlikely it is that such will ever happen. All I wanted growing up was a mother who would love me like I was actually her daughter — like I meant something to her. I wanted a mother who would die for me; instead I have a so-called mother who would throw me onto the train tracks for money.

What kind of a “mother” are you?

You’re the kind of mother who would call up my dad’s side of the family asking where I was if I turned up missing. Then, you would accuse my dad of murdering me. For all you know, that could be your husband. You have no idea what he is capable of, but you don’t see it. You don’t see that all that you two accused me of isn’t actually me; you can’t see that it’s you. You’re the one who doesn’t care about other people’s feelings. You don’t care, and that’s why you don’t see your husband as the problem — you’re exactly like him: sadistic, ignorant, power-hungry. Neither of you deserve to have children.

I am not hiding. I’m fully aware you read know my website URL. In fact, I don’t even mind if you’re subscribed to my RSS feed!

I’m not going to apologize for calling you a bitch two years or less ago. To be quite honest, standing up to you felt nice. You treat me however you’re feeling, so why am I not allowed to do the same? You’re the one who raised me, therefore you are the person I learned all of this from. I personally don’t understand HOW I didn’t grow up to be exactly like you. We may look somewhat alike, and I may sometimes do things that you do, but deep down, we are nothing alike.

I will be seeing my siblings soon. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when. I will see them, though, and they will be reminded of how much I love them.

You caused me to see my biggest fears. I’m no longer a stranger to death. If I had died, would you even fucking care? I’ve been so tempted so many times to post on social media and my blog that I had passed away — in hopes that you would care at least somewhat. I didn’t, because why the hell would I waste that energy on you? While most Christians are terrified of the devil, I’m not. I’m not afraid of him, because I’ve already met him. You’re married to him, and I’m not scared of him.

People say you’ll always be my mother and that I should love you. You’re not a mother in my book, and you definitely didn’t raise me the way a mother should.

I love you. I wish I didn’t love you, but I do. I’m not some kind of prize. I can’t change you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change other’s points of views.

I thank God that I wasn’t adopted by your husband. I would have killed myself before I was ever his daughter.

“Sometimes child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it.”

Sincerely,

Liz

P.S. You know that scene in Letters to Juliet about her mother? “You’re wrong…Her mother chose to leave her. You always knew your parents loved you.” You chose to love me. I don’t know if you love me, and that’s messed up. You can’t play the “I’m-your-birth-mother-so-you-have-to-love-me” card if I can’t play the “I’m-your-daughter-so-you-have-to-treat-me-with-love” card. I don’t believe in words as much as I do actions anymore. Actions say everything. Your actions say you’re holding a grudge over me — that you enjoy humiliating me. I know you just use people until they’re of no use to you anymore, but I can’t believe that you would use me. I’m your daughter — flesh and blood or not. Stop acting like you had a horrendous life and as if you should be put up on a pedestal and everyone cater to you because you were adopted. It’s ridiculous. You’re ridiculous.

By definition, I don’t define you as a mother.

A month ago, Manda posted one of her link love posts¹ like usual, and in it was a link to a post about putting your money where your happy is. This post gave me a new look on some of the things I do. Unfortunately I have to continue to go four days a week to see my allergist for my allergy shots until June, but the time that I spend at home is being spent the way I want to spend it (to an extent).

I’m on the TCG forums less, because they caused me a lot of stress and were a bit difficult to constantly keep up with. Yesterday I put Capture on hiatus, because I just don’t have the motivation to do something that is currently stressing me out. It’s probably going to be static until July or so.

I’m going to start focusing more on my blog again, because that makes me happy. I’m also playing with CSS again like I used to, spending hours and hours at a time to make something that I love. I finally got around to customizing my Dunked profile since they recently launched to something that I can at least live with, only to realize the background was still white blinding. In doing so, I made a CSS3 triangle, but as the window was made shorter and whatnot, the triangle didn’t change in size. I spent 15 minutes making a triangle in PSP9 and making it transparent. I then had the epiphany that I have given myself a logo that I add to my websites as a mere signature without even realizing it, thus doing what I once said I would never do: brand myself.

In case you didn’t see on Twitter, I now have 9 domains. Two of them are for Hope Fades and Abuse Aloud, so I like to personally think that they aren’t really a part of my official domain count. Sometimes I wonder if Hope Fades is actually worth keeping when I look at that list, though. Isn’t it? It’s just some simple website with a simple layout featuring a random positive phrase via a simple PHP rotation, yet I put it up on a pedestal as if it’s this grand thing and couldn’t get anymore special.

I bought allergicliza.me. It’s not my first choice, and I don’t love-love it, but it fits, right? I wanted a-free.me, for allergy-free me, but the dash bugged me. Allergicliza.me is long in size. Mel suggested it, and Hiro mentioned something about it being kind of like Godzilla, and I like little dinosaur illustrations, so I figured that once Mel’s done with my chibi self that I could request a dinosaur illustration of some sort that could be used to represent the domain.

I did have some help with suggestions, though. I hope to learn to love it. I mean, three years later from registering 6birds I learned to love it, right? It’s possible.

Foodallergy.pw is also mine. It was available, cheap, and perhaps the .PW TLD will benefit me later on.

And last but not least, while I will be designing the layout for my upcoming blog, I won’t be designing the one for 6birds. :p I think I have a cute idea for that. :p The first entry on the new theme (whenever THAT happens) will explain why I will no longer be designing my blog’s themes.

I’m so annoyed right now. I just want to scream, break something, anything — I want to do anything. I hate how, whenever I post something on Facebook, people start assuming shit. I really freaking hate it. That is when I find myself wishing I shared my blog with people offline. However, if I did that, more assumptions would be made, and I’d probably be in the nuthouse by now.

This happened.

I especially hate being told what to do. And then I’m stuck, unable to defend myself, because people keep commenting the damn status when they completely miss my fucking point. Just a warning: If you can’t handle cursing, get out right now. I’m so pissed off at the moment, and I’m too invested time-wise in Wild Ones to just deactivate my Facebook¹.

I just hate it. I want to go fucking ballistic on people who comment me with such content because they completely missed my point. I WAS JUST SHARING A FUCKING BLOG POST THAT ANGERED ME.

If you’re a member on Wanderlust, I posted an even more detailed explanation of my feelings.

Sarah pick yourself up brush off and keep going

Sarah move on with your life.

You are wasting time in your life on could ofs and should ofs

Make peace with it and move on or you are going to wake up one day and find out you are old and are still dwelling on the same problems.

Make peace with it and move on or you are going to wake up one day and find out you are old and are still dwelling on the same problems.

Make peace with it and move on or you are going to wake up one day and find out you are old and are still dwelling on the same problems.

Make peace with it and move on or you are going to wake up one day and find out you are old and are still dwelling on the same problems.

Make peace with it and move on or you are going to wake up one day and find out you are old and are still dwelling on the same problems.

Even with the poor grammar, these lines still hurt.

I’m not dwelling. Sharing that fucking link was not a result of dwelling. I talk about something related to abuse or a happy memory I had with my mom, and I’m bombarded with assumptions and accusations related to dwelling. There’s a difference between dwelling and PTSD symptoms.

I don’t think of the could haves* and the should haves*; I think about what would have helped me the most if someone had been fighting to spread awareness, and then I attempt that for Abuse Aloud.

My eyes are stinging with salty tears that are begging to escape.

I currently hear what I assumed only two and a half hours was someone playing basketball against the sidewalk and the brick wall on this house that ended up being people working on roofs. I’m eating a salad. Last week was the start of me eating things I am allergic to, and such carries over to today, as the only thing I can have in a vegetable salad is the lettuce and the shredded carrots. I used a bigger bowl this time, so it contains half as much more than I usually make up, and I’m already starting to feel full.

I dropped the writing course at Coursera. I did a lot of sleeping and watching movies last week because [slowly] pain crept in. I think I have another kidney stone; the pain is centered around my back and right side, and it aches more than a cramp (plus it’s not even in the right location for cramps). The pain started out with me thinking that I pulled something at first, because my back just constantly ached. Thankfully, I still have some ibuprofen pills leftover from when I was prescribed them at the hospital earlier this year.

I recorded myself making the broccoli deck for Zest. I did it because I wanted to, and then I made other videos just for the fun of it.

I also made a page for advertising, so if you wish to self-promote yourself via my blog comments, you should just pay for it (because I won’t remove it like I do the comments). Thankfully, I’m not the only blogger dealing with this right now. Spam bots go into spam. These people are the ones just commenting blogs with the same thing, usually saying something along the lines of, “nice ____”, and so on. I understand if you’re a new blogger and all, but that doesn’t mean I’m cutting you any slack. And who gives a care if you’re “bigger” than me with all of your 300 GCF followers? Numbers don’t mean shit unless they’re high quality. I mean, you wouldn’t want two scratchy .jpg’s versus one sleek .png on your blog, right? …oh, wait. #sorrynotsorry

I’m going to try to start using ously.me to share links on 6birds for two reasons:

1. I need to start using this domain more.
2. [Insert some quality talk here that sounded much better in my head that I decided to not keep on this line and instead put some text into brackets.]

It came to my attention when I tweeted about it on Twitter that not a lot of people know how to hook up a domain name to bit.ly, so I’ll post a tutorial for it that NameCheap users will find useful. I won’t, however, provide support for it… My instructions are what support will tell you to do, and anything after that is completely for support. It takes time for it to work and to get approved, but I don’t want peoples coming to me and whining about it.

I made two fonts. I used a bitmap font maker, and at first I failed. It’s actually difficult to make a font that hasn’t already been created when it’s a pixel one. My fonts look best in 12 and 24 pixels. Pixeliza seemed fitting for the first one, and BitDo0dle seemed accurate for the second. I don’t expect anyone to use them, especially BitDo0dle¹, but if you do happen to, I’d love to see where! You can download them both, or you can download them separately: Pixeliza | BitDo0dle

I’m still trying to make my handwriting into fonts. Anyone know of a program that is FREE that doesn’t require me to have some kind of an i-Product?

I’m so tired of people
telling me I am getting
better when I definitely
do not feel any better.

There is a difference in
looking one way and feeling
another. Just because I
look as though I am better
doesn’t necessarily
mean I feel any better.

Feelings take over the way
a person perceives things, and
if said person does not feel
as though they are any bit
of better, then it is not
another person’s place to
just continue pushing them.

Society’s perception
of the word “better” is that
“better” means as such to its
full potential. The problem
with this is that we use this
ambiguous term always.

Sucks, but I couldn’t care less. Kudos to you if you figure out what I did here.

And the interview begins.

I am Robin, an almost-25-year-old South Carolina (USA) native. I have a wonderful husband. We are dog parents (no human kids, no desire for any). We believe in Jesus, not religion. I like pasta, all the seasons of the year, Halloween, books, movies, and coffee.

1. What is the most memorable pick-up line you’ve ever heard? Who said it to you, and what was your reaction?

A man approached me at a restaurant where I used to work and told me that I was pretty, with beautiful eyes. I just said thank you and made some excuse to walk away, not sure what else to do. This man was actually my now-husband. I didn’t realize it had been him until after we met again, two years later, and began dating.

2. What profession would you not like to do?

After being a cashier in two hardware/home improvement stores, I have absolutely no desire to do that again. There is almost constant rude, mean, and often sleazy treatment from both co-workers and customers – much more so than at other cashier jobs (I have been a cashier at other places).

3. What is your least favorite word?

I can’t stand the cute-sy abbreviations for husband – “hubs”, “hubby”, “hubb-o”, “husbo”, etc.

4. If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose?

I don’t know, really. I don’t think I want someone else’s life, even a fictional one.

5. What is the best piece of advice you have to offer others?

Be true to yourself. Don’t make serious decisions based on what other people want, on articles you read, etc. Consider whether your friends, family, and the writers of those articles have to live with your choices.

6. Where’s Waldo?

In a galaxy far, far away.

Did you find any similarities between the two of you?

Wanna be interviewed?