All good things must come to an end...

But that doesn't mean that it won't open doors to even more wonderful things, right? Another year ending and a bright new one right around the corner. I love New Year's. For me it marks a new beginning or a chance to improve last year's model. All in all, 2004 has been a great year for me even with all the changes. I am definitely a better person because of all the changes and yet a little more humble than before. I want to do my traditional year end:"the 10 things I learned from 2004"

Here goes:

10. Learn from history, don't let it repeat itself.

9. Trust your gut instinct, it usually is a better judge than your head.

8. Throw away emotional garbage but not into the recycle bin.

7. Patience is a virtue.

6. There is always room for self improvement.

5. Don't always go by 1st impression. People will always surprise you.

4. Drama is overrated.

3. Take the leap of faith...you may surprise yourself.

2. It's okay to let your guard down. Living life is all about the full experience of it.

1. The most important thing I have learned this year: To love and laugh all at the same time is priceless : )

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year full of love, laughter, and joy.

Love and kisses,
Rosebud

We are still Divided

Okay everyone, I hope all of you went out and did your civil duty and voted in this pretty historic election. If you didn't and you are of legal voting age, then shame on you. I am not going to make anyone a victim of my political views because I think that the majority of us are up to our eyeballs with everyone else's political views at this point. I do have to mention the fact about how close the election was. It clearly shows that we are a nation divided and I don't use that in a past tense either. It worries me that the election was pretty close and it really didn't matter who won the election because we are still divided as a nation. This division will not be cured overnight and I am not too sure that it will be resolved in the next four years. I am hoping it will get better and we can all find some equal footing but that's just me. I am always asking "can't we just get along?"(maybe that should be my mantra ; ) Realistically though, it might just get worse before it gets better. I still trust in our system of Democracy. I mean it has brought us this far and we, as a country, are not in too bad of shape compared to other countries and their systems of government and leadership. And I know as long as I still have faith in our system, I have faith in our country. With that said, I will get off my podium and go off to sleep ; )

Love and kisses,
Rosebud

Happy Halloween ; )

Trick or Treat ; ) I love Halloween. It's a great holiday because whether you are young or old, you can be goofy and expressive and just have fun. There are no expectations for this holiday like most of the other holidays. I also use it as a marker for the upcoming holiday season. It's the last unstressful holiday before the stressful holiday season with all of its expectations. You can dress up and be someone/something else for at least a night. Sometimes it can just be stressful being yourself all the time and its nice to let your hair down and be whoever or whatever for awhile. So Halloween...I give my thumbs up to you! I hope everyone else has some great way of celebrating this nonsense holiday. That's what it's all about...being nonsensical on purpose. It should be interesting celebrating it here. I will let you guys know how it is. On other things concerning me, things are falling into a routine for me. I have school all day 3 days a week and I work the other 3 days so that leaves 1 day a week for me. It's a pretty good schedule yet I feel that I need more to put into my schedule. I know it's pretty sick. Am I so afraid of downtime that I don't know how to truly enjoy it? I have been doing the "couch potato" thing the last couple of weeks on the weekdays. I don't think I have ever watched as much TV in my life as I have since I have moved here. I know one of the reasons I moved here was to slow down and "smell the roses" but is this what it means to do that? To become one with the couch? I really need to come up with a new hobby, I guess. But that might interfere with me finding out what the secret ingredient on "Iron Chef." I would have to find something to do that won't interfere with that ; ) Well, enough about me for now. I hope all is well with everyone and Happy Halloween, my little goblins : )

Love and kisses,
Rosebud

30s Here I Come : )

So the big day has come and almost gone and I don't really feel "old" as some people would like for me to believe. Maybe I am one of the few that is ready to hit my 30s, but I have never been known to fly with the rest of the flock either ; ) My 20s...they were torturous and hellacious but I was able to learn what I will not put up with in my life from that decade. I learned everything the hard way and hopefully now I can put those lessons to good use in my 30s. It's a new decade so that means new things and new experiences ahead and I just can't wait! I am ready to embrace being 30 and beyond because damn I sacrificed a lot to get where I am at right now in my life. I lost my soul and spirit in my 20s and finally feel like I have it back in a brand new shiny improved way. So I say...Bring It!

I also want to say thank you to everyone in my life, old and new, that acknowledged my birthday. It really meant a lot to me. I am in a whole new world out here, without my constant support system that was always physically nearby on the east and west coast, and it meant a lot that everyone remembered me and brought me home again : ) I also want to thank my new friends over here that made me feel like I was home also!

Here are some quotes and sayings that were shared with me by loved ones, and since I am such a giver I would like to share with all of you:

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. -Joseph Addison, writer(1672-1719)

1. Love yourself because it only gets better from here on out!

And I am still following my whole birthday week mantra this week (hey I might elongate it to 2 weeks considering it is a "BIG" one : ) I love all of you and Mahalo!

Rosebud

Do you believe that people come into your life for a reason?

The more experiences I go through in life, I have to say I am a believer. In the last few years (in which I started living again), I have had some amazing people come into my life. And when I reflect on their effect in my life, I have to say I am blessed. There is a reason why I am here in Hawaii-one that I still have not realized yet but hopefully I will. Remember "the one"? Well, I thought that maybe he had just slowly faded away into the sunset of my life because of the last conversation that we had about a couple of months ago. He just popped back into my life today. It sort of freaked me out and it was just an email! I am still not sure how to sort out my feelings about it yet but that's for another blog (maybe). There is a reason why I do bring him up though in this blog. I realized that it was him that inspired/motivated me to make the decision to come out here in the first place. In the really short time I spent with him, he made me realize a lot of things about myself and pushed me to become more self aware. So that's why I have to believe in the fact that people come into your life for a reason. It's either to show you your faults or strengthen your strengths or even just to make you realize those traits within yourself that you were never able to acknowledge on your own. This blog is dedicated to all the people in my life, old and new, that have made me the person that I am today. And on a sidenote: I am self aware enough now to know that I have a lot of self improvement to still do! Well, as always, I hope all is well with everyone and please keep me up to date with what's going on in your lives.

Love and kisses,
Rosebud

Rules are meant to be broken....

Or so I think that they should be. Especially when it comes to the heart. The heart does not come with rules so why should it abide by them? You may be asking yourself why am I delving into this subject, or not. I was out last night doing my usual Friday night ritual of socializing ; ) and in my constant vigil of people watching, a small little drama arose. We all know when drama arises it usually originates from some type of overemphasized emotion. The drama was small in comparison to other drama that I have been in or been witness to. Alright let me get to the point....A girlfriend of mine that is in the military and an officer likes another man in the military but is not an officer and they both ran into each other last night. I guess in the military world there is a big taboo of not dating under your rank. They had gone out before and the guy was "counseled" about cavorting with an officer. Is it just me but isn't this a little archaeic in thought? Now my girlfriend really likes this guy but has to limit herself and her heart to just that. She would be shunned from the institution in which is her livelihood if she were to pursue her heart. I am not saying that there is a huge love affair going on here but what if he was the "one" and she would never be able to have the chance to know. I think that's a shame. I know we have the same type of hierachy in the civilian world where we are not supposed to date or cavort with bosses if we are employees and vice versa but it happens everyday. In our world today, where do most of us spend the most of our time? At work. So it's natural to possibly find love or the possibility of love in the place that you spend the majority of your time. Really, is there proof of workplace love and dating on different status levels as being detrimental to the workplace? Should people really be punished for following their natural emotional instincts? I think it's a travesty but that's my opinion and after last night I don't think it's a popular opinion. Or so I was told by the military officers I was out with last night. You know I have to bring up some type of drunken debate before the end of the night ; ) I say life is too short so live it to the fullest.....Well enough of my random thoughts...Still miss everyone : (

Aloha,
Rosebud

I think Hawaii has the market on "Laidback"

I thought I was laidback but Hawaii has redefined the term for me. Not that this is such a bad thing but it is a change. It's different being laidback in a "constantly on the run" environment. Very different. Here the environment is definitely not on the run. They run on island time around or so I have been told. I got the BUS schedule for the bus that I take to go downtown and I don't know what purpose it really has because the BUS does not run on this schedule at all. The shocking thing is that noone gets irate about this. Everyone just has this attitude that whenever it gets here, it gets here. I wonder why most people even own a watch around here. LOL. Riding the BUS has been quite entertaining to say the least. You never what type of person you are going to run into.
I have already made friends with a couple of neighbors so that's pretty good for someone who is only been here for a week. Patrick wants to know when I am going to run for the Chamber of Commerce around here because of all the people I have met so far : )
My roommates are great. Patrick has introduced me to some really cool people around here and has just been really helpful with everything. Phil is an ultra nice guy and has been pretty encouraging in my transition here. Sidenote: I was told not to say anything bad about them in my blog ; ) However, I confirmed the fact that if they were bad people I would not have them in my life....simple as that. But I did say that if any silly or stupid actions happened that were worth mentioning would have to be published by moi.
I have been back and forth all week with school stuff and next week I officially start classes. I am now in the mode of trying to find a job that works with my schedule. This should be fun ; ) I am looking for something flexible like restaurant or retail. This is going to be a little different for me because I feel like I am regressing a little on my career path but I need to maintain my lifestyle somehow, right? I here oil wrestlers are big here but that may clog my pores and weigh down my hair. LOL
Well, miss everyone and hope is well. Love and kisses.

Aloha,
Rosebud

So the adventure begins...

I ventured out today solo into Honolulu. Yesterday I just got my bearings around the neighborhood. The beach is in walking distance and I have to say it was a beautiful sight. Alright enough of that...I tried out the whole mass transit system here called the BUS. It's really called the BUS. It's pretty convenient and I got to Honolulu without a hitch and even found the downtown campus. Honolulu is a very clean and metropolitan little city. There is a huge Asian influence here but I saw many other nationalities also. I was amazed on how productive I was in a couple of short hours. I thought it would take me a couple of days to go through the maze of me registering for classes but I did all of it in one shot. I walked around a little and then had some lunch in a little hole in the wall cafe. The campus is almost right in the middle of downtown so there was a little hustle and bustle going on around me. I had to buy an umbrella because while I was waiting for the bus this morning it started raining. It rains here on and off during the day but its only for a couple of minutes. It sun sprinkles during the day but noon takes notice. However, I am seeing that I am going to have to carry around the umbrella with me on a daily basis. I had a lot of people think I was a local girl that is until I spoke. I haven't gotten(is that a word?) the local flavor of speaking I guess. All in due time, I guess. However, a lot of the words around here have a whole help lot of vowels in them. They are a tongue twister to say the least. Then I had to head back home. I learned which bus to take back and I got a friend on the BUS. He was a little on the slow side so I let him talk to me and ask me silly questions but he taught me how to sign my name. I just found out that signing is pretty popular around here. More new info about the culture around here. The people here so far have been superfriendly and some a little bit on the offbeat side but who isn't nowadays? I know this...I will definitely be meeting some different type of people traveling on the BUS. Well, I must go for now and see what new things I will encounter this weekend. I still miss everyone : (

Aloha,
Rosebud

Hawaii...I have arrived

I am trying something new. I have switched over to a new blog site (thanks Heather) because I was not liking the new format of my old one.

Well, everyone I am here in Hawaii and just beginning to get my bearings. I have been blessed with all the help from Patrick to make my new beginning much easier than if I would have came here without knowing anyone. I will keep everyone posted on my goings on but for now I am still trying to kick some of this jet lag that is dragging me down right now.

I miss everyone : (

Love and Kisses,
Rosebud