Our new server- minecrafting with avsongbird & shawnpc1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HellNKQzIMc&feature=youtu.be

For those of you who want to write or vlog

            I'm not going to lie and say it's easy to record and post some of the things I post, especially the one vlog where I broke down and cried-- that one was especially hard. It was hard to film, hard to play back and even harder to post it, knowing others might see it. But I knew I had to do it, no matter how hard it was for me to do so at the time. I wanted people to see me as a human being, and to know how much it means to me that they allow me to share my work with them. I love the people I'm meeting who are getting back to me. It's the most incredible experience I've ever had. And human emotions aren't always safe, they aren't always bright and shiny and sparkly and politically correct. But they're real, they're normal, they're healthy.

If you want to write, you should. I still go back to pen and paper sometimes because I love the feeling of the pen in my hand, and when I need to keep up with my head, I go to the computer. And sometimes it's just typing whatever comes into your mind that kicks your brain into gear. Give it a shot! Because trust me, you never know what you're capable of coming up with until you do it! And you don't have to do it for anyone but you. Writing is the most amazing therapy, it really is. Even if no one else ever reads it, do it for your sake first! Make yourself laugh, make yourself cry, and rage. Let yourself vent. Let yourself FEEL. You'll feel much better afterwards, after you get through the drained part after going through the storm that comes along with it. Trust me, I've been through the wringer sometimes for the sake of a good story. And if you ever need support with it, you know where to find me :-)

avsongbird vlog #19 a very busy life, odd jobs, and lets play plans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ndmgoXAOUY&feature=youtu.be

All the Ages- (a love story) by avsongbird as read aloud on my youtube channel

All the Ages (a love story)- by avsongbird

"All the ages"- a love story by avsongbird

All the ages- a love story by avsongbird

Thank you!

I wanted to take a moment to thank you guys, all of you who drop in to read my blogs, and those of you who are signing up to follow me on wordpress or by email, and those of you who are following the vlogs on my youtube. Not because I think I’m a big shot, but because you inspire me. The feedback and the interaction I’m getting from all of you inspires me in my writing and in the work I’m doing with the blogs and the youtube. Every day I find myself more and more driven to keep pushing myself to the next level, to keep improving the stories I share with you, and the videos I put out for you. I’m grateful for the fact that each and every one of you takes the time to stop by and to see what I’m working on. So sorry guys, no poem for today, no story, just a heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you for your time. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lwW4pcaiqY&feature=youtu.be

Lessons learned

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned more than anything else in my life,

It’s that happiness is something worth fighting and struggling for.

I've known intense pain so I seek pleasure.

I've known hatred so I seek to love and be loved.

I've known grief, despair, loss

so I strive for and celebrate happiness

Wherever and whenever I find it.

With every lesson learned,

Every hardship faced,

I find myself coming closer and closer

to the peace and the happiness I've always wanted

in my life.

And I'm grateful every day that my husband and my stepsons

and my friends and now my readers, viewers, followers,

are a part of that journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjae1ZveiHw&feature=youtu.be

Picking up steam

           It feels really good to see the way everything is starting to fall into place in my life, now that I’m making a few changes in my habits and to my lifestyle in general. I stepped onto the scale this morning and found I’d dropped two more pounds over the course of the last week, bringing my weight loss over the course of the last month or so up to around 15 lbs, so, even with my sore legs, I’m excited to know I’m making progress with that.

            I woke up in a panic this morning, almost falling out of bed as I reached for my phone to check the time, and my husband watched me with bleary, “oh so not awake” eyes as I dashed for the bathroom, to shower.

            I had friends waiting on me. They’d seen the video I shared on my youtube the day before, of me running around being “oh so noob” at minecraft, and they’d invited me to play with them. And there I was, tripping over myself and muttering in my still-half asleep way that this was going to be one of those days where the coffee could never be strong enough.

            And I was already over an hour late.

            I hate to be late for anything. I always have. Growing up, my mother looked at being late as being one of the cardinal sins in life, so even the thought of being late for anything was pretty much understood to be out of the question.

So I texted off a quick “sorryshowercoffeeillbethere” to my friends, and I fell/stepped into the shower.

 The meeting went fine. Any nervous feeling I had dissipated quickly as the three of us ran around for an hour or so and had a blast just talking, laughing, running around killing monsters and just having a good time together.

I sat back for a moment when it was all over, staring at my screen and just thinking to myself, how a few months ago, if I hadn’t started my youtube— then further back still, that if I hadn’t started my blog, that led to me being asked to start a youtube—days like today, running around with my new friends and having so much fun wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t taken that one step.

A year ago, I never would have imagined I’d be sitting here now, juggling a youtube and a blog and vlogs, and well underway into my running training, racing towards that goal of getting back down to my ideal weight. It’s so many changes oh so quickly, and even the thought of how much has changed over the course of the last few months is enough to almost make my head spin.

It’s getting easier as time passes to juggle everything as I come to learn more about making videos and how to improve my content on my youtube and in my blogs, and with my running, every pound I lose means that much less weight I have to carry on those ten miles I go every day. And every day that passes, as I find myself shedding the skin I’d sunk into over the course of the last few years, I feel myself sinking back into myself again, becoming more and more myself again, and with each day, I feel more and more at peace with myself, with the world around me.

I can’t get over how good it all feels, making it happen and then sitting back to watch it all starting to come to bear. It’s a really good feeling. And sitting here now, a couple of months in and looking back, I know I’d never go back to the way things were before, when I was pretty much shut away from everything, where I hid myself and my work and the person I am away from the world in the belief that I couldn’t make a difference, and that people wouldn’t care or notice whether I was there or not.

It’s a really good feeling to know that your presence and your absence matters to people—to know that the things you do and the things you say make a difference to people. And I’m starting to realize that there are people in my life who do value me, even when I have nothing to offer them but myself.

And I have to admit—it’s a damned good feeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYSwFm2pq90&feature=youtu.be

Going back- a drabble from my blog by avsongbird

taking control of my life

               This last May, I woke up and decided out of the blue that I was going to turn my life around. No one pushed me, no one coached me, no one dragged me out of bed kicking and screaming and staged any sort of intervention.

               I made the decision that I didn’t like the direction in which I was headed. Or, more correctly, the lack of direction that my life seemed to have.

               So I decided to change. And ironically, the steps I decided to take, and the actions I took on in the following days, weeks, months, have started me along a road that proved not to be changing me into a new person altogether, but helping me along the path to becoming the person I once was, before my proverbial train derailed and went careening down into a ravine.

               Taking control over your life and deciding to take better care of yourself can start out seeming hopeless, as you find yourself facing opposition from the people in your life who’ve grown accustomed to the person you’ve become. Some of them might have become comfortable with the fact of knowing that they have you under their thumb, precisely where they want you, and they may not want you to pick yourself up and to decide that your life is yours to live all the time, instead of whenever and however the people in your life will allow you to live it.

               I’ve been a caring and a giving person all my life, which unfortunately has led to me being used throughout the course of my life by people who saw my giving and caring nature as a reason to use and abuse me in whatever ways they saw fit, and trust me, learning to say no and to make myself unavailable to those who would use and abuse me has not been an easy task—I’ve come to care for some of those people a great deal over the years. The idea of saying goodbye to some of them breaks my heart, but at the same time, those in your life who only remember you’re alive whenever they need or want something, and who ignore you the rest of the time, are not good people to have in your life. They’re physically and mentally exhausting, physically and psychologically draining people, and if you don’t stand up for yourself every once in a while and realize that you deserve to be treated better than that, you will find yourself being treated as a doormat by these people. And if you truly meant something to them, they would not treat you that way.

               Taking control of your life takes time, and as I said, you’re facing opposition—not just from other people and outside influences, but from yourself.

               I used to run every day, a couple of hours a day (I took days off every week, don’t worry. I was driven, focused, not pathological). When my train derailed I spent years trying to figure out who I was, and I fell into a much more sedentary lifestyle.

               Trying to get back into that rigorous training schedule was a nightmare at first—between finding the time, and the sore and aching muscles (Oh my God I thought my legs were going to fall the hell off, and part of me lay there on the tile beside the treadmill and wished they would have on more than one occasion), and your mind telling yourself you’re fighting a losing battle, there were times I wanted to quit, but I didn’t.

               Throughout my life, whenever I saw something I truly wanted, I went for it, and I’ve been called things in my life, but a quitter has never been one of them. When I have a goal in mind, I go for it, and I’m all in.

               Now, I’m three months into this new, unmapped phase in my life, and 13 lbs. lighter than I started, down a couple of pants sizes, and my blog and my youtube are humming along at a comfortable pace. My husband’s thrilled to death to see me working with a goal in mind, and I couldn’t even begin to describe how good it feels for me to know that I’m working towards something again.

               With the people watching my videos, reading my blogs, the people that are beginning to interact with me and who are starting to recognize me as a writer—as a new youtuber and a supportive friend-- I find myself waking up each and every day with new ideas for directions in which I can take my blogs, my youtube channel, my writing, my life! And I’m loving every single minute of it.

               I’m writing with renewed enthusiasm and vigor, and as my writing and my running and my home and family life are falling back into place, each and every aspect of my life is falling into place, and I have to admit, I’m feeling more and more proud and more and more confident as a writer, as a wife, a stepmom, as a woman, and a person as the days pass.

And I’m loving the hell out of it. I can’t wait to see what’s around the corner. And it’s been far longer than I’m ashamed to remember since I last felt that way about the direction in which my life was going.

               If your life has gone off the rails, as mine did, if you find yourself playing the doormat, the way I have, and you’ve wished someone would come along and get you to change, if you’ve wanted to change yourself, do it. Don’t waste another damned day waiting for outside help. You are all the reason and the inspiration you need, because every day spent as a doormat for those who don’t give a damn, every day spent not achieving your goals, your dreams, is a day wasted.

               And it’s a day you will never get back.

               So let this be the last day you wish you could change your life.

               Then tomorrow, get out there and do it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gQqo6s1ZyA&feature=youtu.be

a question and a request for all of you (and yes, some rambling too)

"owning up and being yourself"- a drabble by avsongbird- includes vlog of reading from my youtube channel

               It’s so easy to say that the circumstances that are your life were NOT your fault—that where you are and what you are, are simply the product of others. It’s hard to stand up straight and strong, steeling your spine against those who would judge you, and to say “Yes, I made those decisions, and I made those mistakes, and I am the reason that I screwed up.”

               Hard, yes, but necessary in the path to growing up.

               I know that for a long time I was guilty of passing the buck to others. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t my fault—that I was as I was because of genetics, because of my sheltered upbringing, or because I wasn’t allowed to do otherwise.

               The truth was—I liked where I was. I was loved, I was sheltered, I was safe, and that sanctuary was always a strongpoint for me. It is all at once my springboard and my safe-haven—the place I always start from and come back to, my alpha and omega.

               Genetics? My line is a line of strong men and women, all of which I am proud to call my ancestry, and of which I am proud to be a descendent. Whatever problems I ever claimed to have with my genetics was simply a cop-out—a scape-goat- a way for me to explain away those times when I raged, when I felt weak.

               The weakness was never in them—in the ones who came before-- it was in me that it resided, and always has been.

               Do you want to know the truth? The honest, complete, black-and-white truth?

               I was afraid, though I would never admit it.

               I was always afraid that I would not be accepted for who I was, loved for who I was. I spent most of my life working as hard as I could to please people, to bend and twist myself into what I believed they wanted me to be. And I was losing myself continuously in the process.

               How can you ever hope to find who you truly are if you do that? The simple fact is, I couldn’t. The fact is—you have to free yourself to be who you ARE, and be true to your nature, in order to find real happiness in this world. Otherwise, no one can ever really know you, or touch you, or hope to really connect with you any deeper than your inner walls allow.

               That can lead to a solitary life. Believe me—I know. I kept myself isolated for a long time—a prisoner in my own mind, and I do not recommend it to anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwBTgf3cjV4

link to "Where am I" - short story excerpt by avsongbird (includes audiobook style reading from my youtube)

http://avsongbirdshortstories.blogspot.com/2015/08/where-am-i-short-story-excerpt-by.html

it's been a long week - drabble by avsongbird- in word form and read aloud for those of you who prefer it

It’s been a long week. A productive one, don’t get me wrong, but still a long week.

The running training is going well—I’m doing the ten miles on my treadmill, five on a slow day, or when I’m just not quite feeling up to the ten. I’m taking two days off a week, just to let my body recharge before I start into it the following week, all over again.

I’m still crocheting—I just put down a half-finished green scarf I’m a little more than halfway done with, and then there’s the writing, the youtube, the family, the garden.

I’m tired, but it’s a good kind of tired, you know? Like the tired you feel after a good long run. The kind where you can take a step back and see everything you’ve accomplished so far, before you turn to see how much you have left to do.

It’s so important to take the time to do that from time to time—to take the step back and to not look at how much you have left to do (because that’ll leave you feeling tired, drained), but to look at what you have done, and how far you’ve come.

It may not be any huge milestone to anyone else, or even to you, but any progress is better than none at all.

Take me—I’m tickled shitless over ten miles a day, and five on slow days. Career runners and Olympic athletes wouldn’t think twice of such things. But I’m not doing this for the athletes. I’m not trying to win any medals.

I do it for my husband, for my stepsons, for myself. So that my family can see me pushing towards something, instead of always staying in the same place.

Goals keep you moving, keep you productive, healthy. And I figured it was about time I got working on mine.

My husband says he’s thrilled to see me working towards something I believe in—something I love—and we both agree that it’s important for the boys to see us both pursuing the things we love. And even if we fail at some point down the road, at least we can say we tried.

And even trying to pursue your goals and failing is better than being haunted by the “what if” for the rest of your life.

"Finding Jesse"- a side note to "Run Jesse" by avsongbird

(posted the wrong version of this video, and the other version didn't have the same sort of feel as the rest of the series had, so I'm posting the true version now. I hope you enjoy it.)

a measure of loneliness- a candid moment with avsongbird

"I remember" - original song by avsongbird

avsongbird vlog#18- the big project

avsongbird vlog # 17- date night! archives! challenged! Camping!

ten question challenge on my youtube channel

avsongbird vlog #16 frustration, running, new idea, online presence

1000 views on youtube!

I'm still under the weather today, but I couldn't wait to thank all of my viewers, and all of my readers, because you guys are making this a truly amazing experience for me, as a person and certainly as a writer. And with the more time that passes, the less afraid I'm becoming of sharing my work with all of you because you guys have been absolutely amazing in your support of me and of my work. Thank you!

"I'm not a fake person"- my drabble read aloud on my youtube channel by avsongbird

Nurse! Help! I think I sprained my everything- drabble as read and discussed on my youtube

"Nurse! Help! I think I sprained my everything!"

"Nurse! Help! I think I sprained my everything!"

               One of the things I've decided to devote myself to, in my course to get back to finding myself again, is getting back into my running training. And I'm not gonna lie to you. After taking the last few years off, learning how to be a wife and a stepmom and getting into the swing of things and how busy my life is now? Getting back into running after so many years without it is pure hell. When I pulled that treadmill out early this week and hopped up on it, turned a show on (seriously, if there's any show out there that will make you feel guilty sitting on your ass eating popcorn while watching it, it's "the Walking Dead".), and I turned that treadmill on and power-walked ten miles? I thought my legs were going to fall the hell off.

               Coming down after such a long run, having a pick me up wind-down snack after burning so many calories, my eyelids drooping, I heard voices in my head as I lay there. Voices telling me I was too old for this crap, that I was too far out of practice and shape for this crap, that I'm a wife now, a mom now, that I don't have to worry about this kind of crap. And with my legs aching and every bit of me feeling like it weighed a million pounds-- feeling weak-- my hair soaking wet, my body drenched in sweat, the smallest part of my brain might have believed it. But then I reminded myself that I'd just gone ten miles, even after so many years off. And that yeah, I was tired (let's be honest, I was beyond tired), and I knew I'd be sore the next day (Oh God, so unbelievably sore haha), but I'd done it. No one else had coached me, no one else nagged me. I did it, on my own, because I wanted to do it.

               And I slept better that night than I had in years. Which, as a chronic insomniac, meant a hell of a lot to me. I woke up in the morning feeling incredible. Sore as hell, in need of ice packs and wanting to put my feet up, but I felt accomplished. And yeah, it was only ten miles, but it was something. And even a little something is far better than nothing.

               That night, I queued up the blu ray again, and I was back up on the treadmill again, telling myself I'd walk another ten miles. Not running, not out to give myself a heart attack or asthma attack, just walking, decent conversational-type pace, and see how I felt (At my size, there's no way in hell I'm gonna hop up there and start running. I'm driven, goal-oriented, not crazy.)

               I got so caught up in what I was watching that after awhile, I stopped watching the digital readout on my treadmill, and when I found myself looking down, I was surprised when I realized how far I'd walked without realizing it. The ten miles I'd done the previous night felt like nothing now as I stood there, staring down at those numbers, still walking, and yeah, I was sweating from the pace I'd kept, yeah I power-walked the whole way, but I knew I wasn't done yet.

               I went another mile that night before I stopped. And it felt good. It felt like progress.

               I've been at it for over a week now, just power-walking, not trying to outdo Olympians or professional athletes, just going by how I feel and making sure I don't push too hard. I'm in it for the long haul. If I overdo it, looking for the quick fix, and I hurt myself, I won't be doing myself any favors.

               I've lost weight already this week, and my pants are getting looser. And I'm sleeping better than I've slept in years. And yes, it means less time at the keyboard, working on my writing, and it means getting even more creative with my scheduling between looking after my family, my household, my pets, sleeping, writing, running, blogging and youtubing, but as I find myself now beginning to find balance between all the aspects of my life, and as I find myself recovering more of who I am now, I find myself finding peace more and more easily in each and every aspect of my life, which in turn lends peace and balance in all the other aspects of my life in ways that I haven't found in a very long time.

               It feels good. It feels like control, empowerment, accomplishment. It feels like cresting that damnable mountain and picking up speed as I find myself coming down the other side.

               And damn, does it feel good. 

"Have you Ever pt 2"- a drabble from my blog by avsongbird on my youtube channel

"on taking a long needed break, a step back, and a breath"- drabble read and discussed on my youtube channel