The DDA Trouble Free Zone Part 9

[Steffy]

Clare - I think you have some legitimate reasons for hesitating to put yourself out there. However, just think how outgoing you are with us. Now, I refuse to believe that if we were all to meet up, that within just a few moments you would still be shy. I think your true personality is really coming through here, and eventually, you will be comfortable enough to let other people see this side of you. Obviously you let your DH see this side of you. Just don't beat yourself up about the way you feel. Those are valid feelings, and you have the right to feel the way you do. I would say, take baby steps outside your comfort zone, but always keep the way to your comfort zone open so you can scurry back where you feel safe. You are an amazing person, and other people will see that!

I love what you said and how you said it.

 

[Glynis]

On to the statue unveiling!

Here's my dad! What a handsome guy!

The statue before the unveiling.

The governor saying a few words.

The governor signing the proclamation.

The statue itself!

My whole family!

 

[Steffy]

Ok. You all asked for pictures, well, here they are. These first three are of the baby shower that I threw for my friend. I made pound cake finger sandwiches, then went to Costco for eclairs and cream puffs, I also did chocolate dipped strawberries, and strawberries dipped in a cream cheese mixture and rolled in pink sugar. I think it all turned out cute!

The cake was white chocolate with raspberry filling! Yummy!

More to follow!

WOW WOW WOW, look at that cake!!!!!!!!!

 

[Tammi67]

Very nice pictures. Thank you for sharing. I forget who said it, but yes, you do look exactly like your dad.

 

[Steffy]

On to Cedar City. Here are the twins running through the sprinkler at Grandma's house.

These next pictures are of the greenshow. A performance of renaissance singing and dancing prior to the play. It's free and the community comes out en masse to enjoy it!

The sweet shoppe sells yummy treats like tarts, Scottish pies, meat pasties, candies, pickles, and this year steamed pudding.

More to come!

What fun!!!

 

[Steffy]

On to the statue unveiling!

Here's my dad! What a handsome guy!

The statue before the unveiling.

The governor saying a few words.

The governor signing the proclamation.

The statue itself!

My whole family!

That's just wonderful Glynis. Your Dad is handsome, so is your Mother! Your family is beautiful! What a nice day!

 

[Glynis]

Very nice pictures. Thank you for sharing. I forget who said it, but yes, you do look exactly like your dad.

Aww, thanks.

 

[Glynis]

That's just wonderful Glynis. Your Dad is handsome, so is your Mother! Your family is beautiful! What a nice day!

Thanks. It sure was nice being with the whole family. It doesn't happen very often, so we make the most of it when we're together.

 

[ReAnSt]

Sorry for spelling your name wrong earlier. I see that you spell it Christi. Now, they are thinking about the grotto instead? Check with Glynis before you go to find out what the final answer is.

ETA: We want a picture with you in it too!!! I'm putting mine in my DDA scrapbook.

As far as posting pictures, do you have a photobucket account? If not, you can go to www.photobucket.com and get an account. Once you have that, you can upload pictures to their site. If you are interested, let me know when you've done that and I'll tell you how to get them here. It is just a quick copy & paste if you have them in photobucket.

If we are doing this we should probably start a thread or two specifically for this, that way they are all together and easy to access in case we want them for something. Instead of having to search through thousands and thousands of pages to find them especially when the search engine is down.

 

[ReAnSt]

I have been trying to catch up for hours now. I'm still 50 pages behind, but that is much better than when I started.

For all of you that are dealing with the heavy rain and flooding. That is the same weather that we have been having here since May. It is hard to believe that so much of the east coast has had to deal with flooding issues. I know that the farming industry is really suffering due to damaged crops. I have to wonder how many family farms will be forced to sell because of the increased cost of buying hay/corn that they would have normally grown themselves. Then there are the homes and roads that have been destroyed. We could all certainly use a little sunshine. The only bright side is that everyone's wells are full so no fear of running out of water anytime soon which can be an issue all to often.

To those of you with friends and family members requiring medical attention. It seems that there is way too much of that for all of us lately.

I finally made it to the shower pictures. I'm glad that Amy enjoyed her shower and had a good time. I can't wait to hear what Alyssa thought about the gifts for her and the new baby.

I'm off to bed. Hopefully I'll catch up later (today as it is now after 1 AM).

Deb

Here we were actually in a drought and crops weren't growing due to lack of water. This is the first year since I was born that we didn't have strawberries for my Birthday, as they just didn't grow. At a lot of strawberry picking places you could not even pick them as they just didn't grow. My parents did not even grow a pint of strawberries this year. Normally they have tons of strawberries.

Now the crops have an overabundance of water and probably won't survive either. Why couldn't we just have normal rain instead of all at once.

 

[ReAnSt]

And this is Caleb. Sorry don't know how to downsize it or adjust them so they're the right side up.

Great pictures and cute kids, you look great too.

I hope your headache went away.

 

[Eeyorecln]

I'm going to have to keep a beady eye out for matching tees and tie dye crocs...

Thanks for the compliment! It's actually something I have on my development plan at work so I should be doing something about it. If I tell people I know that I'm shy they just laugh because I'm obviously not around them... I just squirm when I have to talk to strangers!

FEEL FREE TO IGNORE THE REST OF THIS POST EVERYONE - IT'S MY THERAPY

Actually - I think it goes deeper than that... I've been thinking about it since yesterday and since I trust you guys I'm going to share this - like therapy!

It's a trust issue... my dad was in the army so we travelled a lot when I was a kid and I found it hard to make friends, I was bullied a couple of times, but worse than that had a few so called friends turn against me. When I got to uni I met a girl who became my first proper friend, kind of like a soul mate I suppose, over the years she managed to get me to share everything with her. At the time I knew in my heart there was somthing wrong with her, she would hide in her room for days at a time, lie to me about things etc and then when I would beg her to come out of her room she would be back to her normal self. She didn't just lie to me, to her family too, she failed a year and had to go back but she didn't tell her parents. I should have done something but I wasn't brave enough to rock the boat. Then in my final year she went MIA again. I assumed she was in her room as the TV was on so just left it for a couple of days. Then I got a letter through the post, she was in hospital, at her parents, having just attempted suicide.

I know it was a cry for help - because she did it in her parent's house. I had nightmares for days after because what if she'd done it in her room in our halls, and no one had looked for her?? It turns out she had depression and they started treating her. I went up to visit her a few months later, but once again wasn't brave enough to ask her all the questions I had... still have... about why she did it... and why if we were such good friends she didn't ask for my help. I've not seen or spoken to her since... (6 years) I just can't do it, it was a very stressful time for me those months after, and I nearly messed up my degree, I'm not sure I can go through stress like that again.
Sometimes I want to ring her up -to tell her how well I'm doing and that I'm married, but part of me knows that I won't find out about the real things that are happening in her life...

So there you go... if the new couple next door had been in their forties or older I would have stopped to chat and been the pleasant neighbour... but they are our age, and that freaks me out because I'd love to have some "friends" living next door, but I'm still too scared to make proper friends and am keeping everyone at arm's length.

Ok now I'm crying. I don't expect anyone to respond to this, but I've bottled it up for so long it feels good to have it down on "paper" and I'd like to post it for that same reason...

Clare I am so sorry you had to go through that. It is hard to make friends after you have gone through something like that. I have problems making friends in real life too. I had a lot of people make fun of me in HS because I was the only girl in the TAG classes at our school (talented and gifted for people that scored high on the IQ tests). Most people thought only boys should be taking the advanced calculus and physics, etc. It got so bad that during a report my partner (a boy who I thought was my friend) depantsed me in front of the whole class. At the time I was mortified and couldn't beleive that the few people I thought were my friends had laughed at me. I went through the rest of HS only hanging out with my BF. I haven't had a close GF since. I have been in a lot of therapy in college and have been through depression and I can tell you she probably never thought it would affect you as her friend. People in severe depression lack the ability to think about others or see beyond what their feeling. It's like being in a dark hole, there's no light and your vision is limited. I hope she has managed to get therapy and go on to have a life. I look back to where I came from and the things that have happened now that normally would have had me in the hospital and now I can deal with them(of course I don't claim to do this on my own as it has been God helping me and filling me with peace when I need it most.) I'm sorry for rambling, I think that if you slowly allow some of those walls down that you'll find it get easier as you make close friends that don't let you down. And if your friend has turned her life around you may find if you give her a call you can talk through it and maybe get some closure or become friends again. At least you might find that you can make new friends with closure from this. I hope you're able to get to know your neighbors.

 

[Eeyorecln]

Cute kids Christi - glad you figured out how to post your pictures

thanks

 

[Eeyorecln]

Christi -- the pictures are wonderful! What a handsome bunch of men you have.

Thank you. I am pretty partial to them even if they won't wear a princess dress for me.

 

[Eeyorecln]

P3 is over and I am headed off here. We are leaving in about an hour so I won't be back on here for certain until Monday, July 10. If we have internet access I will try to post from the beach! Have a terrific week, DDA. I will miss you guys.

Have a fun trip.

 

[Missy Mouse]

Hi, may I ask, what is DDA?

Come on in and chat with us -



Visit the DDA Pixie Dust Zone to find out more about us, get your questions answered and to find out how you can help us spread pixie dust!!

 

[Eeyorecln]

Christi,

What a great family picture!!!!!!! I love it!

What are the boys names?

ETA: nevermind...I should have kept reading. What handsome little guys!!!

Thanks. I think the pic. was so funny cause the baby didn't want to look up because of the sun shining in our eyes. Yet DH kept trying to get him to look up by poking him.(gently of course )

 

[Eeyorecln]

Clare.
You have to realize that what your friend did was not your fault. I know that's easier to say than believe, though. As I read your story I immediately thought of something that happened to me my first semester of college. One of my high school friends called me one night and we hadn't talked for quite some time. She started telling me about breaking up with her boyfriend and dating someone new. As she started telling the story some of the things she said just didn't sit right with me. They sounded strange.

The next day I was getting ready for work and the noon news came on and described a murder-suicide that happened in my (very small) town. I missed the girl's name and they boy went by a different name than his given name so I didn't realize it was my friend. I went to work and one of the ladies there knew I was friends with her (her son was friends with the shooter) and that's how I found out about it. As the details were released I realized the details that sounded so strange...he was actually telling her how he was going to kill her.

I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. Like I should have been able to put the pieces of the puzzle together and realize what was about to happen. For a long time I wondered if the reason she called to tell me the story out of the blue was because *I* was supposed to figure out what was happening. I realize now that there was really no way for me to know but I still feel that twinge of guilt from time to time and this was 16 years ago, so I do understand how you feel.

As for being shy with strangers, especially people your age, I do understand that. I'm much more comfortable with people older than me. I guess because my friends were always older, I always dated older guys, etc. I think I'm more quiet in the beginning than I am shy, but I people either think I'm shy or not friendly. Once I get to know someone, though, look out because I can talk to a wall

I know it's hard at first but just smile if you can't say much. A smile always puts everyone at ease and they'll realize you are friendly. Once you find something to talk about, the conversation will flow more naturally. Taking the first step is the hardest! Once they get to know you they'll love you like we all do!

Good luck!!

How scary. That definitely would have been a hard thing to piece together so you shouldn't feel bad. As for talking to the walls as long as they don't talk back you're fine.

 

[Eeyorecln]

Christi - Great pictures! I especially like the Goofy one. You have such handsome men.

Thanks. We waited in line because I wanted a pic. with Santa Goofy, DH thought I was being as we already had a pic. w/ Goofy. I told him Goofy and Santa Goofy are entirely dif.

 

[Eeyorecln]

Wow! You figured that out fast! I love this picture! You have very handsome boys!

Thanks I had a little help after you said copy and paste from there it made sense.