Blog of GumonyerShoe

Kiwibox... how I miss the original Kiwi

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:51:23 +0000

** I posted this in my postboard also. But I figured I might as well put it as many places as I can to get my opinion out there. **

Do you remember when Kiwibox was run by teens for teens? Just for fun?

Do you remember when the people who were in charge of the site actually used the various aspects?

I recently have been reading all of the threads about 3.0 and change yeah whatever. I understand things have to change. I understand that things need to modernize. The original kiwibox website probably would be laughed at by newcomers (though, those of us who have been here for 9 or 10 years probably would be giddy with delight at having the old website back)

Then I came across the new "big kiwi" (though I don't know as he'd want to be called "big kiwi" the way Lin used to. That title BELONGED to Lin. Did Mike ever call himself the Big Kiwi? Either way, Mike did a good job with it as well.) I went to Andre's profile and there wasn't much there.

Then I went to Mike's profile and he has postboards, polls, qbooks, information about himself... His profile is FILLED OUT and he USES the various aspects of the site. Or at least, he used to.

I remember when I had to open multiple windows to be able to catch all the journals I wanted to read because they'd refresh too fast and I wouldn't be able to catch them. Same with qbooks. Heck, I remember when the journals and the qbooks is what I came to the site FOR. Postboards weren't my thing really (though towards the end of 1.0 I started to come then since 2.0 that's mostly what I've done)

I miss the personality and the close knit group that Kiwi used to be.

Did this all go away because of Kiwi becoming outdated or did we all just grow up and get lives doing other things than kiwibox?

Some of the things I like about 2.0, but I feel that with each change we're losing what the whole mindset and core of what kiwi was originally. And this isn't a good thing that we're losing. I liked what kiwi was originally. I liked the mission of by teens, for teens and the anonymity. It was safe. It was fun.

Do you remember what kiwi used to be? What were your favorite parts?

bummer

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:33:14 +0000

Well I'm a little bummed out. Turns out after doing some more thinking and getting another perspective from a friend who has "been there" Rob thinks we should probably wait until at least June to seriously think about buying a house. He wants to make sure we get some more money in savings. Which really is a really good idea. I mean especially since we are still planning on trying for a baby. we need to at least have enough in savings to pay the mortgage payments while I'm on maternity leave as well as whatever other bills may come up. And it'll be good to wait until we see if he gets full time at his job. Which they should considering they're constantly expanding and even just informed him that they have a new office in town.

but I still have to admit, I was really looking forward to doing all of the setting up house things. And we had a lot of ideas that were "we can do that when we get a house" things.

I do recognize that it'll be best this way. I just wish it didn't have to be.

Oh well. At least we still get to try for a baby. And knowing my luck I won't get pregnant right away anyway, so we'll probably sitting real pretty by the time that happens.

So we will continue to put $200 a month in savings. Maybe I'll throw a little more in. I dunno. Right now I'm saving in my old account to buy Rob and myself new wedding bands. We talked a while ago about getting titanium bands. And I'll be able to afford them soon. But I'd rather get a house if my piddly amount that I have saved in another account would help. But Rob's really anal about the account having exactly the amount he expected in there. So making it any different by any different amounts of deposits will throw him off.

eh. ultimately, our apartment is good. And it is cozy. I'd rather have the baby than the house. A house we can get any time. And actually, if we wait longer and save longer, we could get an even better house. So, I guess this is best.

Here's hoping we have a baby soon.

Just had to write...

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:36:34 +0000

OK so I'm sure that everyone at my regular journals (xanga and livejournal) are sick and tired of hearing about me blabber about the exciting (to me) point I am at in my life. And no one's on IM right now really.

I am SO excited. Rob and I have decided to try to buy a house. Rob looked at a house on Saturday but decided we could do better. And he told me tonight that he made an appointment with the realtor to look at some others on Wednesday.

I am really excited. I know that with the economy going downhill right now it maybe is a bad time to be looking and everything. And I'm terrified about whether or not we'll be able to get a mortgage. And I definitely don't know what we'll do about a down payment. We may have to wait until after we get our tax return. Which would suck because I want to buy a house and start settling into it asap.

My other big news is that Rob gave me permission to quit my birth control pills. So yesterday I took my last active pill. I'll have my period probably around Wednesday and then we'll be using condoms for about 3 months and then we get to start trying for a baby.

I can't wait for that either! I have been reading about all sorts of stuff. I know I want to cloth diaper and breast feed so I've been doing some reading about both of those. And I can hardly wait. I can't wait for the pregnancy experience. I can't wait to have the baby and to be cuddling and raising it.

I kind of hope that the next three months go quickly because I can't wait for the excitement of actually trying for a baby.

The reason we're waiting 3 months is because my gyno suggested that I wait 3 months after going off the pill to reduce risk of miscarriage and also to allow my body to regulate itself again. Also we had planned on starting to try in January anyway.

I bought some prenatal vitamins today. I didn't read the package well enough though and you're supposed to take 2 of them a day which means it wasn't nearly as good a deal as I thought it was. But I didn't buy the biggest bottle on purpose. I wanted to go ahead and get started taking prenatals, but I didn't do enough research before hand to know what to look for.

I guess I'm going to go take a shower or something. My head's been stuffed up all day. bad allergies. blah.

It's been a VERY long time

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:43:15 +0000

I haven't gone through and re-read this journal yet, though I will eventually.

I just realized when I looked at the recent past entries that I never mentioned that Aaron and I ultimately broke up. We finally broke up for good either late February or early March 2005.

Shortly there after, I met the man that I ended up marrying.

Rob and I officially got together April 1, 2005. We got married December 2, 2005. And we just celebrated our 2 year anniversary. Things are still awesome and I am very happy.

I don't know how well things were wrapped up previously so I won't try to "wrap things up" really.

One note... it's interesting... I'm sure I've talked about my friend Aaron, who I had a crush on for the longest time, well he and I do still talk to one another. It's amazing having friends from that far back.

But anyway, that's all. Just wanted to kind of close things up so to speak.

It's been two years

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:39:45 +0000

Wow. i went on a trip down Memory Lane last night. I was wondering when I had originally started my Kiwi journal and so then once I got to the beginning I started reading. Not every entry, but most of them, and then I started skipping big chunks. I considered trying to move them all to my LiveJoural, but Rob said that it doesn't work as easily as it should.

Anyway, if anyone might still come across this... My last entry was almost exactly 2 years ago. I announced that I had gotten married.

Well, my 2 year wedding anniversary was yesterday. Things are still wonderful. We can hardly believe it's been 2 years.

No kids. Rob is working on his Bachelor's degree. We'll consider it after he graduates. I recently swore off children, but after having read through this journal I read some of the precious moments that we had with the foster kids, and I think I'll consider children again. But definitely not until Rob has graduated.

I noticed that I never mentioned that I got my B.A. in theater. Yeah, for anyone who might remember, I started majoring in Sociology and minoring in Theatre. Well by the time I graduated I completely switched that. Major in theatre minor in sociology. Funny how life works.

Emmaleigh was finally adopted. She's 5 now and a very funny, precious little girl.

My brother BJ got married May 12, 2006. Funnily enough, his wife's name is Emily.

I now live in Middle TN, not East TN. My husband's college is here. I enjoy it.

I work at Wal-Mart now. Started as a cashier, and now I work at the Customer Service desk. I love it (most of the time) and constantly am coming home with crazy stories about what people do.

I'm trying to figure out how to "wrap up" so to speak this journal. I feel like I've left so much hanging with how infrequently especially towards "the end" I wrote.

Aaron and I broke up in... early March '05 I believe. It just wasn't working out. He wasn't happy with my theater stuff, and I just turned out to not be the person he thought I was or that he thought I could be. I didn't want to change to be that person. I wanted to explore roles in theater and he wasn't happy with me potentially playing a "wife" or "girlfriend" role. One of the things that sealed the casket was it was rumored that my college was going to do Macbeth and I was going to play Lady Macbeth. Aaron didn't want me to play that role. I told him I wanted to do it if I was offered it. After that things really started coming to a close. Ultimately, he and I were on the phone talking about breaking up and then my father called him and told him he wasn't to come near me any more. So yeah. it sucked. we talked off and on for a little while until I ended up meeting Rob.

Rob and I officially got together April 1, 2005. He was bored one night and started IMing random online profiles. I had left my computer and YahooMessenger online while I was at rehearsal. When I came back, he was still online so we started talking. Neither of us were looking for a relationship. He had just gotten out of a 3 year one that was kind of rocky and she had cheated on him several times. I had just gotten out of the 1 year one with Aaron (like... literally just gotten out of it). But we ended up talking more and more and ended up falling in love.
The first time we met in person was kind of funny. We were talking about wanting ice cream so I finally said "Well I'm going to Sonic. You can show up if you want to." (because turns out we lived like 15 minutes from each other. how crazy is that?) So we met up and talked until the girl finally was like "Hey, we're closing up... do you want to actually buy anything?" He was like "Oh! shit! She needs ice cream!" Then a couple days later we met up at Taco Bell because he was hungry. In the Taco Bell parking lot we talked some more and ended up having our first kiss. And out of all 5 of the guys I've kissed, his was definitely the most wonderful.
He would come to my rehearsals and stuff and one night after rehearsal we were sitting on a bench outside the theater building and I asked him "So what are we?" and he said "what do you think we are?" and I said "Well, are we like dating? Are we a couple?" and he said "Do you want us to be?" And I said "yes" and he said "well there you go." That scared me because there was never an actual answer and I have been burned by that very same type of terminology before (see the Matt drama in my highschool days!)

But, we've been together ever since.

Aaron quit talking with me because he said it wasn't fair to Rob and me or our relationship if he was still around. So he wanted a complete break of contact. Which made me sad. I still would have liked to have attempted friendship especially after having shared a year of our lives together. But oh well.

Rob and I got married after we had been together 8 months. We got married December 2, 2005. We knew from the beginning we wanted to be together. And things had gotten increasingly emotionally and verbally abusive from my father. So I really wanted to be out of his house.

The summer before my Senior year in college, I moved to North Carolina to work at an outdoor theater for the summer. And then when I came back I had an apartment on campus. But I hardly stayed there. I mostly stayed at Rob's.

Rob's family is very interesting. He has a brother that's 3 months older than me, but is about 4 inches shorter than me. So he calls me his big little sister. and I call him my little big brother. Rob's brother has a (now) 3 (almost 4) year old son. His brother's (soon to be ex)wife is a whore. She has 2 other kids and another on the way all with different men. The only one that is even most likely Andrew's (Rob's brother) is Eli, the oldest.

Rob's mom was a lesbian. So he had "two mommies." Jeanne (his mom) and Joanne (her partner) had been together about as long, if not slightly longer than my parents have been together. Jeanne had been married to Rob and Andrew's dad. But then she discovered she was a lesbian and divorced him and got together with Joanne.

I talk about her in the past tense since she was killed in a hit and run car accident in August of this past year. She was like a 2nd mother to me. It's terrible because we had also hoped to be able to give her the granddaughter she so desperately wanted. Well it's terrible also because she was basically raising Eli as well. And just an unexpected, brutal death like she suffered is just... really hard.

As for Mike... He and I talk occasionally. But we both got busy with our separate lives. Same with Ben. I actually talk more with Ben than Mike, but conversations with Ben always have been fairly... empty. Not a lot of substance. When I do talk with Mike we seem to pick up where we left off a lot. Which is awesome.

anyway... I THINK that maybe ties some things up. maybe. haha.

Got Married

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 05:37:15 +0000

I just wanted everyone to know that I got married on Friday. My husband is named Rob. We've been together since April. We kind of eloped.

Pictures are here:
http://cn.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001137&l=c11c7&id=141100819

I have two journals I actually keep up with. A regular PG rated journal and one that's more PG-13ish. If you're interested in either of those kn me and I'll give you the addresses for them

Thanks to those who responded last time... whenever that was. heh

Peace

List of responders

faeriedustchik, sweetcheeks33, TheMomma

Back together

Mon, 06 Sep 2004 04:39:56 +0000

OK so we were apart for a week almost exactly down to the hour...

Aaron came over today and we went to the SAC and watched a movie and through that movie, it was like we'd never broken up. We definitely weren't "just friends" yet, every time we came close to kissing, we'd pull away or turn it into just a hug... which isn't even "just" a hug. Our hugs have continued to be very deep and passionate hugs even when we were "broken up."

We just couldn't keep away from each other. And we were just continuing to say that we weren't together, but in reality, we'd not been apart since he asked for me back on Monday. Sure, we didn't kiss on Tuesday and we stopped wearing our "taken" insignia, but our hearts weren't in it. We both wanted to be together.

We were in separate chairs, but they were right next to each other... we had our fingers entwined and he kept smelling my hair and playing with it and touching me in all these really loving and also sensual ways that I don't even know if he realised he was doing. Like he'd just stroke my arm or my neck or hair...

And actually before we even left my house, he was tickeling me and got his beard against my neck and with his breath and tickeling of the beard and flirty/playful attitude all mixed together... wow... it really turned me on.

But that's not why we got back together. I mean true, I kept thinking that we weren't really apart anymore so why even pretend that we were. Why not just re-declare ourselves... But also because really, I got to thinking and realised how wonderful he really was. How he supported me and encouraged me and just wanted to love and take care of me. I realised that if I let him go, I'd be seriosuly missing out and might never find anything like that again and I'd lose him to someone else. (though I still maintain that if he finds someone he'd rather be with I can't keep him. His happiness is more important.)

um... anyway... so yeah... I can't remember what else I was going to say.

Broke up

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 04:53:12 +0000

Aaron and I broke up on Sunday, but we're still friends. We're trying to work things out and maybe get back together. Actually, hopefully. Because we do still think we love each other and it just seems to be a shame for people who love each other to not be together.

There are a lot of reasons. But I don't feel like going into everything right now.

Panic Attack? Or something else?

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 04:51:09 +0000

I think I had a panic attack today. I was just sitting in class, paying attention as much as I could, everything was normal and then I started to feel kind of sick and light headed, and then it got worse and I got really disoriented and my hearing started to go like I was in a tunnel and I felt like everything was rushing, like my heart and my brain and breathing and everything. And my vision was all jumbled feeling, like it wasn't blurry, I could still see and everything but everything seemed extremely ... sharp. I tried to breathe slowly and fairly deeply (but not so much that I would hypervenilate) because I thought I was going to pass out or throw up (or both!) and because I felt like I couldn't breathe... so by forcing myself to breathe slowly and deeply and as calmly as possible, I was making sure I continued to breathe. Everything was rushing, rushing, and I felt a tingling kind of sensation creep through my body and then I felt a cold sweat pouring out from me everywhere. Then the rushing stopped and everything went back to "normal." I was still a little light headed and I had sweat all over me. It looked like I had been running or in very hot humid weather.

I went to work and told them I was going to the nurse and i tried to tell her but she said she didn't think it was a panic attack since I didn't have a histroy of them and I didn't know of anyone in my family having a history of them.

She told me my vital signs were all good. Blood pressure was fine and everything. Ultimately she decided that it was probably just stress.

I still disagree. I think there's more of a problem, but it could just be the stress because I am under an INCREDIBLE amount of stress right now (Alpha Psi, OOMITS, classes, play, Aaron, theatre stuff, 2 jobs, family stuff...)

So she advised me to get some lunch and talk with my parents. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and went home for lunch and talked with my parents.

We decided as a starter, I should drop the Pizza Inn job. So I turned in my 2 weeks notice today. And we also decided I should drop the psychology major to just a minor. So I haven't done that officially yet, but I'll get around to it.

If I need more stress removal I still can drop a class.

Aaron's friend suggested that I might try and get tested for hypoglycimia (sp?) A lot of the symptoms do seem to be similar to symptoms I've had. But then they're general kinds of things and you can't really decide from them.

Another thing I noticed was that some of the side effects of Allegra are similar to things that happened. But I've taken Allegra for years.

However, I did notice something interesting. It does say that it can alter mood and stuff. I can't remember when my depression problems started and when I started taking Allegra but I really wonder if they're connected.

I just went to http://www.hypoglycemia.org/ and took the quiz they have on there and scored an 87 which is a pretty high risk for hypoglycemia. It reccomends further testing.

But look at some of these symptoms:

fatigue
insomnia
mental confusion
nervousness
mood swings
faintness
headaches
depression
phobias
heart palpitations
a craving for sweets
cold hands and feet
forgetfulness
dizziness
blurred vision
inner trembling
outbursts of temper
sudden hunger
allergies
crying spells

OK, so a lof ot those things could be "normal" they happen to everyone now and then... big deal.

BUT, those who know me might notice a lot of those things in me... I dunno. Maybe I'm just crazy or overly scared about this thing that happened earlier today...

Look at the symptoms for a panic attack:

raging heartbeat
difficulty breathing, feeling as though you 'can't get enough air
terror that is almost paralyzing
dizziness, lightheadedness or nausea
trembling, sweating, shaking
choking, chest pains
hot flashes, or sudden chills
tingling in fingers or toes ('pins and needles')
fear that you're going to go crazy or are about to die
and this story on a website:

Ann was watching television after a typical workday. She suddenly developed a peculiar and very strong feeling of being lightheaded and a smothering sensation as if there were no oxygen in the air she was breathing. Then a surge of pounding rapid heartbeat began. It came on so quickly and was so severe that she became panicked that she might be dying of a heart attack! Then she felt very shaky, sweaty, and unsteady. This whole experience reached peak intensity within 60 seconds. This was the eighth such attack this month.

then this is further down the page:

Panic attacks reach maximum intensity within a minute or two once they begin. They diminish slowly over the next 30 minutes or the next several hours. It is common for the first attack to cause a person to go to an emergency medical facility. Subsequent attacks occur several times a month and are often as severe as the initial attack.

About three fourths of Panic Disorder patients are women. Panic Disorder begins most often when people are 20-30 years old. It begins less often in teenagers or persons in their forties. It is uncommon for the disorder to appear in the elderly for the first time.

It is important to note that although a few experts say it is more common in persons who experienced a separation experience as a child, many of experts feel that Panic Disorder afflicts emotionally healthy people. Persons with Panic Disorder are no more likely than the average American to have suffered from emotional problems at the time the disorder begins.

The first major panic attack occurs. The person often seeks emergency medical evaluation at this time. The initial examination is commonly normal.

It says that depression medications are often used to treat panic disorder. I'd already thought about depression medication some... hmm...

I don't know. I'm just throwing out ideas and basically trying to get something together. it's crazy I know.

Anyway... that's what's happened to me today.

Probably going to break up

Sun, 29 Aug 2004 07:50:42 +0000

Well, Aaron and I have reached a major problem. And it has come to my family's attention (and they brought it up to me) that my relationship with him seems to not be healthy and it seems to be very stiffling.

I can't remember everything to put it all down here right now, but I'll talk about it later (probably).

Right now I think I need sleep.