Some of my favorite things right now...

1. Listening to the sound of the dryer going as I close my eyes and drift off to sleep... I guess the reason I love it is because I feel like I'm getting something important accomplished AND doing one of my faves: SLEEPING. :)

2. Laughing with Mo and Rebecca at work...I'm going to miss that. :(

3. Knowing a new job is just around the corner. :)

4. Listening to The Bert Show in the morning on the way to work while putting the final touches on my makeup and trying to wolf down some breakfast...

5. Dancing like crazy with no rhythm to rap/hip-hop and loving every second of it.

6. Going to Weight Watchers meetings on Saturday mornings with Mom and Bean and eating breakfast at Chick-fil-A afterwards...this is my number one fave right now...I LOVE it. :)

7. Hungrygirl.com and Hungry Girl cookbooks...my sanity while on Weight Watchers.

8. Coffee with French Vanilla or Hazelnut creamer.

9. Our beautiful newly remodeled bedroom/bathroom.

10. InStyle, Vogue, and Glamour magazines.

11. Shopping...but only if I find bargains. I will never pay full price. :)

12. Tuesday nights...exercising and watching 18 Kids and Counting with Bean.

13. Wearing Nanny's sweater and my comfy socks with PJ pants while doing something relaxing. :)

14. Meeting new people.

15. Going to Wal-Mart...always a favorite. :)

16. Trident triple-layer gum...yummy! :)

17. Pedicures...just got one the other day for the first time in months...DIVINE!! :)

18. Buying/wearing new jewelry.

19. Sade's "Lovers Rock" CD.

20. Hugs and sincere compliments.

Take Me Back, Oh, Take Me Back...

Take me back to that beautiful day in May.

Full of possibilities. Great excitement about the future. Eyes bright with my hopes and dreams.

My pounding heart and shaking knees as I walked across the stage.

Take me back. Oh, take me back.

Take me back to last summer.

New feelings discovered. Old bitterness tossed aside.

Revelations unveiled.

Take me back. Oh, take me back.

Take me back to that week in December.

Stressful, but so accomplished. So worth it, even with the last-minute fiasco.

Take me back. Oh, take me back.

Take me back to the beginning of the year.

A chance to start over.

A chance to change.

Take me back. Oh, take me back.

Take me back to April, May, and June.

All the emotions that surrounded me, including the elation I felt.

Take me back. Oh, take me back.

Take me back to that text.

The one to which I should never have responded.

The smile that I should never have returned.

The invitation to which I should NEVER have said "yes."

Take me back, oh, PLEASE, take me back.

Your wit, your charm, and your smile will never appeal to me again. Your words are meaningless. Your actions disgust me. I have seen you for what you are. You are exposed.

You think you can keep telling your lies? Maybe you can, to some other unsuspecting, gullible soul. To someone who wants to feel needed...to someone who thinks your empty vocabulary is only for her. I wish I could warn her.

Take me back to the day before I fell for you. Oh, PLEASE, take me back...

They Both Kept the Same Secret from Each Other...

He knew.

So did she.

It was killing him; equally, it was killing her.

Confession wanted to spill out from their souls...it tried in every way imaginable to come forth, to make its grand appearance, even attempting to claw its way out through the winding path from deepest secret to admission of guilt.

They both knew, so why didn't they tell?

The pain of bearing the hidden truth--the vulnerable revelation of their character--was great, too great, yet they buried their sins deeper. Thus, their unyielding concealments sank lower into the dank, dark, foreboding abyss of their insides...

What drove them? Would they tell? How many more lies could be produced?

The lies were nothing compared to the sickening churning they felt underneath the surface, the ache that no one else could see. This was the most heart wrenching part. The falsehoods, the smiles that masked the agony--these things were easy portrayals of happy human beings. Even their interactions with each other...

How long would they be able to keep it up? When would the nausea become vomiting? When would the churning become unbearable? When would the lies cease being easy to tell?

Time.

the seeping liquid coming from "the windows to the soul"...

Joy, Sadness, Excitement, Pain, Peeling Onions, Laughter, Hurt, Anger, Listening to a Glorious Melody, The Memory of Someone Who Has Passed Away, Betrayal...

Some of the many reasons for the wetness on our cheeks, the redness in our eyes, the sorrow in our hearts, the accompanying abdominal tightness when something is so hilarious we can't even see straight...

Our visible liquid emotions.

Sometimes it is just a tear that stays in the eye. Sometimes it is just a single tear that falls down one of our cheeks and we quickly wipe it away. Other times, it's many tears that deeply change the temporary appearance of our eyes, even messing up our mascara if we're women. Then, there are those times when the hurt is so deep, the ache is so strong, the pain is so real, the truth is so evident, and the fear is so realized that the tears rush down our faces with incredible strength and seeming unwillingness to cease.

We feel the tears running into our ears, coming from our noses, running down our necks...

Shaking us, causing us to convulse, causing our heads to feel as if they are going to explode.

Words can't be formed audibly.

The emotions are certainly evident from the "rain" coming from our faces, but the tears aren't enough. What's behind the tears is so...is so...HURTFUL, so destroying to our souls, that we can't do anything but cry--and possibly scream as we're sobbing--but there has to be more, more to express the depth of what we're feeling.

The tears finally subside, our voices are hoarse, and a deeper, more real, more numbing even, pain sets in. A release has taken place, but what is left in the wake of our tangible display of harsh emotion is intolerable and we suddenly miss the tears.

The Stubborn Weed

He is a feisty little fellow.

Coming up from the ground, higher and higher, much to my annoyance.

Seemingly, he cannot be stopped and continues to grow.

"Ha! I'll show you, once beautiful purple flowers that are now dying by the front door. I'm still ALIVE," he seems to shout with a reckless and haughty tone. "Just try to stop me!"

His ugliness becomes more apparent by the day. One more day of not mowing can't hurt, right?

Wrong.

Mr. Weed seems to have shot up ten feet the next morning when I walk out the door. "Ugh," I grumble as I stare at him once again. "Go away, you stupid weed...I will soon take you and your hideous friends out with my friend, Mr. Mower."

Finally, I make my way across the yard with the mower, so sure of myself, so happy I will take down the ugly, tall thing that has stared me in the face for several days now. I've removed--for now--several of his friends. Heading his way with his executioner, I can almost feel him mocking me. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha..." Closer and closer I get. Finally, I run the mower over the arrogant beast.

After a brief feeling of accomplishment, I look to my dismay to realize that you can't keep a stubborn weed down. There he is, mocking me with all of his ugliness and gumption. I run the mower over him again, this time going backwards. He's still there...begging me to run over him again.

In the end, I always win, but not really. He just comes back in a few days. He really cannot be stopped. He's certainly not attractive, nor is he wanted. But I can't help noticing his determination.

Don't know if I have much else to say concerning the stubborn weed.

Hopefully, I will remember how I felt when I wrote this.

So many emotions...

Falling in Love (?)

I was not sure at first.

Maybe I'm still not sure.

All I know is that the falling is seemingly uncontrollable; I'm powerless to stop it. Or am I? Maybe I don't care. Maybe I'm just enjoying the fall. Perhaps I'm addicted to falling. For now.

The intoxication I feel when I see the light catching your gorgeous eyes is something I never want to diminish.

Songs to which I never connected before suddenly have meaning.

Your smile. Oh, that smile... Please stop smiling...but, actually, please don't. It's just sometimes too much for me. Is your smile only for me? I'll pretend--and hope--that it is.

At some point, this dream will end. It has to...right?

See, the thing is, I want to take care of you. I have this intense need and desire to take care of you. My hands want to dry your tears and my arms want to draw you into a hug and never let go.

I want to make you happy. Always.

What do you say?

All that I know is I'm breathing...all we can do is keep breathing...

So much has happened.

I feel like I need to catch up on everything, but maybe I'll just hit the highlights, and then blog on a more regular basis.

Perhaps I need to take my blog in a different direction. I'm thinking that I might try to blog every day, or every other day, even if it's just a one-liner, or a poem, or something that makes me laugh or smile...

I don't know. We'll see.

Joy Beth Cosby is done with weddings for a long time. Wow. That sounds so final. And so dramatic. As of June 27, 2009, my baby sister is officially married. The wedding was beautiful, and I suffered no major catastrophe with my dress this time. Thankfully. The reception was a blast as I pretended to know how to dance to such songs as "Low" by Flo-Rida and "Cupid Shuffle."

As for my weight loss, I have managed to keep my weight off this time (following a wedding, I usually splurge and put about 10-15 pounds back on) and it has been wonderful. I'm at about a 90-pound weight loss right now. Two-and-a-half years in, but hey, it's still great. I plan to lose at least 10 more pounds.

Still looking into graduate school and all that good stuff... My new plan is to get my certification for teaching separately from my master's degree. I'm doing this so I can teach at the college level one day. A master's in English Education, although it would kill the proverbial two birds with one stone, will not allow me to teach in a college one day. Colleges want to see that you have a concentrated study in something, such as English Literature or Creative Writing, so I plan to go in this direction at Georgia State. I've gone from Georgia State, to Mercer, to Clayton State, and back to Georgia State in my decision-making process... For financial reasons and looking-good-on-a-resume-wise, I'm choosing GA State. As for my certification for teaching at the middle or high school level, I'm hoping to do that online...somewhere.

Todd and I are STILL working on the master "suite," if you will. We, once again, put it on hold when wedding-hysteria set in again. Our new deadline is my mom's birthday party when we have the whole family over for the first time in a long time. To say that I'm ready to be done is so very much an understatement.

I'm currently reading another James Patterson mystery (just mindless entertainment, or "fluff," as my former professor would say) and will follow that with The Other Boleyn Girl, which I purchased for $1.50 at Amazon.com. I get very excited about the little things. At least I'm reading!

Once again, I am offering a post containing less information than what I thought I would have to give. Yes, it's been a couple of months since I last wrote, and I feel like a lot has happened, but from the looks of this entry, my life is still boring. I think I've experienced more emotions than anything else. That's why I need to blog more one-liners, poems, simple thoughts, quotes, etc. Maybe I can capture my emotions from time to time.