avsongbird vlog #28- a long weekend

weight loss vlog #8 - Guess what! great news!

weight loss vlog #7- it isn't always easy being so open about all of this

weight loss vlog #6 - misbehaving (and no regrets about it)

avsongbird vlog #25- really had to get this off my chest

weight loss vlog #5 - long distance badge and hubby calls in

the runner - an original poem by avsongbird

vlog #23 - jury summons and my lil unintentional vanishing act

vlog #22 - a late night ramble

weight loss updates- getting there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zb6XwaHoic

sometimes- a drabble from my blog

               Sometimes, you just want to let yourself believe that it’s worth something. Any of it, all of it. All of the time you spend, all of the effort you pour into it.

               Sometimes you want to feel that it’s all for a reason. Even if you have to lie to yourself, to let yourself believe it.

               To tell yourself the lie so that just for one second in the span of eternity you feel like you’re worth something. And to know for just one brief second in time that it was real. That you existed. That you were wholly alive and that you and who you are and what you did meant something.

               Even if it was only to you, and that’s all that it would ever be.

               And sometimes—just sometimes-- even the lie is enough.

  

Inspiration- a drabble by avsongbird

                You never know when inspiration will hit you, or where it will come from. It just hits you, like lightning. And it catches your soul on fire.

               I’ve always considered myself a kind of lightning rod. I never really understood why. Was it my imagination, my open mind, my sensitive and caring nature?

               All I know is, that lightning struck me for the first time when I was young, and it’s found me ever since.

               It strikes me anywhere, at any time it pleases.

It sends me searching for napkins in restaurants, begging for pens….

               It has me tearing out of bed, nearly falling on my face before I find myself running to my computer….

               It wakes me in the night from my deepest of dreams, brings me back from the innermost reaches of my mind.

               It terrifies me… invigorates me… it excites me.

               It makes my blood hum in my veins and makes my nerves tingle.

               It makes every inch of me come alive as I feel the inspiration burning in my skin.
               It makes me feel more alive than I've ever felt.

               It’s a scary feeling sometimes—wild, uncontrollable—but it’s exciting just the same.

               And I’d never have it any other way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWoMd371PfE

Had a really rough day today but I didn't forget about you guys

Got some hard news this afternoon, and it's gonna a couple of days for me to process. I didn't want you guys to think I forgot about posting today, but I wanted to be honest with you about what happened, and where my head was. 

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

How it feels- a drabble by avsongbird

It’s so strange for me, to be accepted for my writing, my vlogs, for the vids I’m putting out, and to have people get back to me. I’m not used to being so openly accepted. I’ve always been more or less socially awkward, and I have to laugh—people watch my vlogs and I’ve been told I come across as confident, well spoken.

I’ve always had a decent enough vocabulary- being in love with words and reading and writing the way I always have been, it’s kind of hard at this point not to have a decent enough vocabulary—and I’m annoyingly aware of my tendency to slip into rambling when I’m nervous or scared, or feeling unsure of myself.

If you came across me on the street, and you smiled and tried to pull me into conversation, I’d turn fifty shades of red from the get-go, with my heart tripping over itself and everything else in my chest as I offered you a shy smile and tried to put together something clever or witty to say in return.

Knowing me, I’d end up coming across as eager to please and trying too hard, and all the best comebacks to all your jokes wouldn’t hit me until about an hour or two after we’d parted ways again.

It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you; it’s not that I don’t enjoy the conversation. On the contrary.

It’s just that I’m not used to it, and working my way into being social and having the blogging and the Youtubing and all the things I’m doing now building my confidence, it’s taking time for me to get my confidence level even to the point it’s at now.

But if you mention writing… books… movies… music… or videogames…? If the conversation steers off into one of my hobbies, I’m good. I could listen or talk for hours about anything and everything, so long as the spotlight stays off of me. I’ve had people I’ve met in my life where I sat up all night, just listening to them talk about themselves, and their lives. I love hearing about other people, and I’ve always loved listening to people.

It’s when the attention and the focus turns to me that I really get really shy, and that includes talk of my stories, my videos, my singing, my work. It’s really taking some adjusting to have people come to me and tell me what they think. And I love it. Doing the blogs and now doing the Youtube, especially now that I’m getting back into video-gaming and I’m having more Youtubers and real let’s players draw me into collaborations and interacting with them, I’m finding a sense of belonging and purpose that I haven’t felt in a long time. And as busy as I am with all of it, I’m loving it.

I feel renewed as I sit here, knowing the running is getting easier again, knowing I’m wearing clothes I haven’t fit into in years, knowing I’m entertaining people and making people smile and laugh, and feel, knowing I’m throwing everything I have into being the best wife, stepmom, writer, blogger, youtuber, sister, daughter, friend that I can be, I feel alive in ways I haven’t in a long damn time.

And it’s a euphoric feeling. There’s no other way to put it. Pure euphoria. 

 http://youtu.be/CIzKB-ONFCQ

Family is everything vlog

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

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