So tonight’s entry will be very short.  I’ve had a busy day but not so telling in any way shape or form.  No great revelations, just sort of a quiet in my own little way sort of day.

I did call Elizabeth to wish her a happy birthday and we talked and got caught up. She seemed completely shocked by my birthday tribute to her, I actually think perhaps she was a bit speechless, not knowing what to say. I understand.  Sometimes you feel humble and words can’t be found. She told me it made her day and that to me was what it was for. Just to let her know how much I do love her.  She’s alone in Toledo, not too many friends made as of yet, but time is young for her there. She will. No one can help but want to be friends with Elizabeth. So I was glad to be the reminder that she’s not forgotten here in our city. And it’s true, she isn’t.

I worked on bills today.  Something I totally despise doing and will procrastinate  until I can’t procrastinate anymore.  That took hours.  At least I feel more organized once again.  Why is this such a drudge to me? *rolls eyes*

I also finished distressing the hutch late this afternoon. I went very light with my distressing. We have the hutch now set up on the new stand we had bought, plasma big screen TV in place, we’ll finish the doors tomorrow and it’ll  FINALLY be done.  It’s a lot bigger than I thought it’d be……………but I like it.  It will be very cool when it is done. It definitely looks like something you’d see in “Country Sampler” (my personal favorite magazine), or in the craft store I spend so much time and money in.  Dell did good!  I guess my design given to him was what I wanted.  I’m very excited to get the doors on in the morning and the tin-punched panels in.  I CAN’T WAIT!  Perhaps pictures here tomorrow night?

Now I MUST get serious and get all these Christmas gifts wrapped!  Time is running out!  Joel, Emma, and Drew will be here Sunday night, and I MUST have all the wrapping done by then because all of the gifts are stored in the room they will sleep in.  And I must have the house clean by Sunday too!  And time is slipping, slipping away.  In more ways than Christmas being here in less than a week.  Can someone please tell me where 2008 went to?

I spent most of the day alone.  Seems this is happening more and more.  I guess it’s the working part-time thing and not being in contact with near the people I used to be when I worked in the high school with so much public contact. I miss that part of the job, I truly do.  Perhaps I need to get back involved in a church?  And do some public volunteer sort of thing?  Forget politics, as personally, I think they all need booted out these days, so perhaps it needs to be some sort of spiritual outreach type thing?  And I’m rambling…………………………………..

The truth is I need to be finishing the book.  January, February, March could be very cold and dark months.  The dead of winter……………perhaps I need to lock myself up and just get it done.  I truly believe I need to finish this and I am chiding myself that I have not yet done so.  Could it be about timing that keeps me so unmotivated to get it done?  Or am I just being lazy?  Not focused where I should be?  Okay, okay, probably all of the above would be correct!

Reading some of my prophecy sites tonight as I took the time to do, has left me feeling rather, apprehensive.  Since this is a place of love and light I won’t go into details, other than to say faith is found from within regardless of what happens from without.  Wow, times are sure on the dark side at the moment, even if it is the Christmas season.  But, love and light are always stronger than the dark, so I will focus on that truth.

No great stories of twin souls tonight.  No one has written to share any stories with me.  I guess today is just a day of feeling and knowing, and perhaps re-living where I’ve been.  Not that we should look in the past, but you do need a rear-view mirror when you are driving so that you can from time to time see where it is you’ve been and what might be following you.  And of course you need that rear-view mirror to make sure you have cleared that of which you just passed. When I think of it, it’s okay to have a day when I look in the past and wonder.  I just know I can’t look too long because to do so might mean a wreck up ahead if I don’t keep my eyes focused there.  Never go back, but look back.  Move forward, but don’t forget where you’ve been.  Lessons of the heart.

And now, with so few words mentioned tonight, I think I will head to bed.  Perhaps a stop in the hot tub on the way there, but for some reason I just don’t feel like braving the cold to get in tonight.  Wow, that’s so not like me! *chuckles*

My love never wanes.  My love for so many things……………of course my Father in heaven being the top of that list!

As the faith, love, and light lead me on.

Goodnight,

Sunshine

Goodnight Chris:  You know for a brief moment today I allowed that thought to pass by that says, “What if you really didn’t get married?”  Now, I won’t go into how I came to find out you did, but you know in life sometimes things are not always as they seem.  Wouldn’t it be crazy if I was wrong?  Still, this is the lesson I must needed to have learned, and you know, I am doing so well with it in the end because it only allowed my faith to grow all the more that there is SO much in life that is beyond what we can fathom sometimes.  I am probably truly cherishing the journey more since my discovery of 99% sure you probably are married now…………and learning that destiny can be fulfilled in so many different ways. Whatever that may mean, I continue to believe that this special connection between us is lived in another place, another time, and yet, it touched us while we were here too.  And there’s never been anything more revealing to me than this touch I have shared with you.  I send you love and light in the hope and beliefs that one day, it will all suddenly be so clear.  And will glisten,  I can see that the truth will glisten.  Goodnight,  Love, Sunshine

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIZABETH!!

Yes, today is Elizabeth’s birthday.  The other night I wrote about my friend Ang, tonight, I shall write about one of my closest and dearest friends.  This is my tribute to her on this special day, her day of birth.

I met Elizabeth in 1995 (I believe this was the year).  She came into the office of the high school where I managed the office.  She had just moved here from upstate New York, knew no one, and was looking for a job in the school. I immediately felt a connection with her.  I couldn’t explain what it was, but she felt very special.  There were no office jobs available in the high school, but I knew of one at one of the middle schools. I sent her over there with high hopes she’d get a job.  Unfortunately they had just hired someone.  She had called to thank me and I promised her I’d keep an ear open.  Her oldest son was beginning his first year at the high school.

A couple days later I heard of an opening in our cafeteria.  This wasn’t exactly what Elizabeth wanted, but as I told her, “Get your foot in the door and the second an office job comes open, I will let you know immediately!”

And the year went on.  No office jobs opened. I didn’t really talk with her that much that year, but I would always say hi and ask her how she was doing.  I remembered my promise to her but nothing opened that whole year.

The end of the school year came and in the last few days I heard of an opening!  Our office was expanding!  It would only be a part-time job, but all the same in the office where I worked.  I ran back to the cafeteria to tell her about the opening.

She interviewed and GOT the job!  My then boss was most impressed with her credentials, not to mention charming personality!  It was official, she’d begin the school year working with me.

I’m not sure how it happened, but within 6 months her part-time job gave way to a full time job in the athletic office which was right next to my office!  We grew close, but the real friendship wasn’t quite bonded….yet.

The years go on.  She and I grow closer.  We begin to do things outside work. Our husbands meet, they seem to get along. And tho it is slow going, we continue to build a friendship.  Don’t the best things take time?

Her boss, the Athletic Director, is everybody’s favorite boss. We begin to spend a lot of time goofing off with him during the days.  Elizabeth is so much fun,  her at first quiet demeanor gives way to one of the best sense of humors I have ever known.  I feel so close to her by now as we begin to really share a great friendship.

Our favorite boss decides to begin doing concerts as fund raisers.  Elizabeth, and I along with Joyce, another office staff member are the concert committee.  During this time we really bonded as we brought in a most-famous band!  The band was country of which Elizabeth and I were not savvy to, but we had our responsibilities and because we were doing it together we had a great time!  That was the band where the lead singer fell in love with Amy, my daughter, and asked me if he could marry her.  Elizabeth and I laughed and laughed about this!  Um, not until she is 21!  Which was only about 2 months away.  Sure enough, on her 21^st birthday, he remembered her by having tickets to a concert in Florida, along with backstage passes.  Elizabeth and I laughed about it all, as we watched a story in the making. Only the story wasn’t too long lived as Amy just wasn’t quite into this lead singer.  Go figure!  A short-lived story that was a lot of fun for Elizabeth and I.  Little did we know that in a few years the real story would begin…………..but I’ll get to that in a few minutes.

And we grew in our friendship.  Lunches were more fun because we’d often sneak out of the office under the guise of “errands” and meet for lunch where we’d talk about the upcoming gloom and doom called “Y2K!”  Was it the end? Would we be pushed back into the ancient of days with no electric or food?  Yes, we lived forever on this conversation!  We’d listen to Art Bell at night, compare stories, and we’d get all wound up sure that this just might be the end of all we had known!  I remember New Year’s Eve, 1999 at the stroke of midnight I had to call her.  “Do you still have lights?”  “Yup!”  She told me. And we laughed off the Y2K scare, and I think we must have eaten our 2-week supply of food we both stocked as well as drank all that water we had stored.  What was it Elizabeth?  2 gallons or something? *laughs*

And it was time for the next concert, this time he decided to go with pro-wrestling.  You know, the show type where they come out all big and bad and say funny things as they throw one another around and sweat flies?  Well here Elizabeth and I are backstage, trying to feed these guys, and clean up the bloody messes they made!  Yes!  They truly DO get hurt! I’m not sure why anyone wants to have this career as I still see one of the semi-pro wrestlers backstage grabbing his ribs and throwing up blood…………..and the funny thing is, the guy that broke the chair over this guy’s head is back there joking with him. They’re all good friends.  Go figure.  This was probably the most successful “concert” we did financially.

And Elizabeth and I would still listen to Art Bell, as she would begin to confess to me she might be having some past-life memories.  At the time I’d listen amazed, but just couldn’t relate! I mean I was in her office all the time preaching about my beliefs in God and the end of the world.  I had studied that subject just too long.  Little did I know that in just a few years I would more than understand the “memory of a past life thing.”

And the next concert came. A famous female country singer that our favorite boss was SO in love with.  We met her, we weren’t impressed, we had our picture taken with her, and we cracked up in this picture because we were blocking this female singer’s view, so we are both bent over so you can see HER!  And we are laughing!   By now we are the best of friends and pretty much inseparable in about every way.

The summers would come and we might get together to do something, but we didn’t spend all the much time together. But come a week before it was time to go back to work and we’d be on the phone moaning to one another.  “YUCK!”  It made it okay tho because misery loves company and if I had to go back and end my summer at least I was going back to Elizabeth.

Now it was the fall of 2000.  My mom was suddenly sick, and I would tell Elizabeth I am worried about her, even tho my mom convinced me it was simply the flu.  It was also concert planning time.  I so wanted to bring this classic rock band, and Elizabeth did too!  We were tired of the country scene and bands we knew nothing of.  The year before we had tried to bring this same band, but our favorite boss had said no. This year, something took over and I fought for this band to the end!  Elizabeth by my side!!!  I’d leave our boss’ office and say,  “Why am I doing this? I could care less about this band?”  And yet………….there was a force driving me that I can’t explain.  Elizabeth kept watching and observing and saying, “This isn’t normal.”  In the end I won, my fav boss booked them and Elizabeth and I were so excited, or were we?

A few months after the official signing of the contract for the classic rock band, Christmas of 2000, we found out my mom was sick. Real sick. It was cancer.  It was a horrible time for me.  Because of my insistence on booking this band, my fav boss didn’t want to deal with it, he put it all on me. My mom had surgery on the 19^th of December, Elizabeth’s birthday, and that’s when we discovered it was cancer.  A few days later following complications from the surgery she was put into a coma, and wouldn’t come too for the next 45 days.  Elizabeth by my side, I had a friend I could turn to in the madness of it all. She just had a listening ear and a heart that cared. I knew it was hard to find friends like this.  Little did I know we were still just beginning a journey of incredible destiny.

My mom came out of the coma, was sent to the city for rehab, and now I was planning this stupid concert, working, driving to the city, keeping my dad going, and about to have a breakdown. My faith in God was the strongest it had ever been because without that faith, I would have NOT made it. Oh, and did I mention without the hand of my best friend who would listen to me cry………………….I probably wouldn’t have made it either.

It was now the day of the concert.  Elizabeth and I were to pick the band members up at the airport 65 miles away.  Dell would drive a van as well as we had several band members as well as instruments, etc.  Boy, were we nervous on our drive to the airport. I mean we had to make conversation with people we had never met before.  But it was okay because we were doing it together.  “This is all you Sunshine!”  Elizabeth would say, “If it wasn’t for you this band would never be here.”  And I sighed, “I know.”  Little did we know……………………

So we meet the band, the lead singer is giving me a hard time, but he is only joking.  However, one of the band members has missed his flight!  Oh great!! This is a major problem! I mean it’s a 65-mile drive ONE WAY, and I have to find someone to pick him up!  I make quick phone calls, find someone to do this, get in the van with the tour manager and lead singer for the drive back. It turns out the band member who missed the plane just happened to be an original member of one of my all-time favorite groups……..so he is forgiven. *laughs* I’m curious now anyway.  Something is feeling so familiar, yet I don’t know what it is. I decide I’m on the verge of that breakdown that’s been building. I’m glad Elizabeth is near in case I end up having it.

She keeps me going that day.  We sit to watch sound check and it happens.  He walks in, the guy that missed his plane.  My whole world has just turned upside down. I know him! I’ve always known him and I am feeling as if the room is spinning!  I can’t tell Elizabeth, I can’t tell anyone what I’m feeling!  I’ve just met my Soul Mate.  Of course I didn’t know it at the time, I just thought I was having the big one, you know, the breakdown I am sure is in the making.

We officially meet. It is odd, he is as drawn to me as I am him!  Elizabeth takes note of this but doesn’t say anything right away.  It would take us a few weeks to sort out what was transpiring!  But she is there to witness this!

Finally when he and I fall into one another’s arms the next morning at the Holiday Inn, Elizabeth is shocked……………..after we drive away after leaving them at the airport to drive home, I hop in her van and cry,  “Quick, get out of here now!!!” I say as tears are falling down my cheeks.  I know if I don’t leave right then I will turn around, run back to him and never leave his side again. My soul was being ripped in two, but I’m not ready to talk about it.

When I do, poor Elizabeth!  I talk it out over and over for years and years and the poor thing listened to me! Like my private journal she listened and tried to offer advice!  This is a true friend by the way because NO ONE should be subjected to the same repeated story over and over trying to figure out what was happening, but she did.

My mom died, she was there. Whatever I needed, she was there for.

And time went on. We heard Soul Mate was coming back near here. We decided to go!  A whole other story I won’t get into but when the intensity was too much for both he and I that night, it was Elizabeth that paved the way for both of us.  Man, she really in some way seemed to understand what was happening. She was the sane one when both he and I lost clear thinking because we just didn’t know what to do with what the heck we were feeling…………Elizabeth to the rescue!

We went through all sorts of life changes from there on out.  My daughter getting married, her son going to college, my angel dog getting cancer and me having to put her down, then her daughter entering high school.  We did special things like taking her daughter on her 16^th birthday to see the Beach Boys, and going to the beach the next day!  We loved it SO much we decided we all needed to take a trip one day!  And I’d bore her to death with my new-found understanding of twin souls!  But she listened and she put up with me.  Most people wouldn’t, this just shows you how special she is!

It is now 2004.  Her daughter is graduating and for spring break we want to do something special. We decided to go to LA!  In the end 6 girls end up going!  My daughter is one of the 6.  We have the time of our lives, even if I did try to sneak a visit in with Soul Mate, it didn’t work, but that’s another story where I am so happy my best friend is there with me to clean up the mess. *laughs*  The trip wasn’t ruined tho! I mean we went to, “The Price is Right” the next day, got in, and I got to be a contestant!  To this day Elizabeth still gets angry because one of the gals in our group blocked her shot when the cameras were looking for me.  *laughs*  You’d have to know Elizabeth’s sense of humor to understand.

That fall, 2004, Amy in an unhappy marriage, we won’t even discuss mine, we discover Soul Mate will be in Chicago. An easy drive for us.  Amy wants to go, she sneaks along her new friend, and I DO mean friend at the time, Chad.  We head to Chicago.  We see Soul Mate who meets my daughter for the first time.  And once again, as Soul Mate and I are facing this intensity we always seem to have, Elizabeth intervenes and gets this awesome picture of the 4 of us.  This just isn’t normal, I sort of chuckle to myself as I remember that night and that photo, but it is what it is.

A dark season I had entered from there, Elizabeth was there when I was being haunted, literally by my friend Will who was lying in the house next door to me after committing suicide. I’d go into work and tell Elizabeth how someone was trying to get me in the mornings when I’d leave for work.  I felt someone waiting and watching me when I’d go to get in my car. We didn’t know Will was gone yet, as no one had discovered he was in there.  Elizabeth was the first one to make the connection the day we found him. “Sunshine, he was trying to get your attention to come find him.”  I guess she paid more attention to Art Bell than I did!  (For those that don’t know who Art Bell is, he had a radio program over night of the unexplainable.)

A few weeks later my dad died.  Elizabeth was speechless on this one. Just silently letting me know she was near.

That next summer it was back to LA.  Her son, a pianist had received a scholarship to the “Henry Mancini Camp” and was performing in Beverly Hills.  Her parents were going, her daughter, my daughter who was now married to Chad and pregnant with Skylar.  Once again we had the time of our lives in LA.  We were rapidly becoming LA girls!!! And loving every minute of it!

Skylar was born, Elizabeth was there through the trauma of Skylar’s birth.

We were so cemented by now.  I was there for her when their car broke down after flying in from the ocean one summer. We had to drive 90 miles to rescue them. It happened again that next Christmas night. We drove the 65 miles to rescue them, always glad we could be there, after all how many times had she rescued me?  Short of ending up with my Soul Mate so far away, we were sure nothing would ever change.  But life goes on and changes come, no matter how much we don’t want them to.

Her husband’s job here went down, he took a new job in Toledo.  For a year Elizabeth and I were in denial as he lived in Toledo and she stayed here until their house sold. How long did I send bad energy that her house never would sell?  It finally did and so she could finish out the school year, she lived here with Dell and I.  She and her two dogs.  It was such a bittersweet time as I knew it was only a matter of a couple weeks and she’d move away, forever.

I really couldn’t cope with going back to the high school and Elizabeth not being there. Yes, I had my other friends, Donna, Sydney, and Linn, but it wasn’t the same without Elizabeth.  Nothing seemed right. A few months of being there without her and I began looking at the university for part-time.  I was even on my way to Elizabeth’s house in Toledo when my current boss called my cell phone and made me an offer, and I accepted.

As everyone knows we have managed to get together a lot, even tho she is gone. But like everything else in life it just isn’t the same as her being so close and seeing her 5 days a week. I still miss her beyond words.  She is one of the most special, kind-hearted people I have ever known.  We always joked that we were soul mates too. On a different level than Soul Mate, but with all I have I will swear that God sent her to my city for those 12 years to get me through life’s biggest changes!  She has always been my gift from God and I am SO blessed to call her my best friend!  Only now, Elizabeth says we’re not best friends, we’re sisters, the sister neither one of us ever had, and interesting enough, we always hear how we look alike.  I don’t see it…………..but others do!  I always joke, “Yeah, she’s my older sister.”  Who knows?  Perhaps in some past life we were sisters or something?  *joke*

And that is the story of Elizabeth…………..a story I know is without ending as I believe we will always remain the best of friends no matter how far apart we are………I know and she knows, we will always be there for one another.

Happy birthday Elizabeth!!! I’m thinking of you as I know so many others here are too, because you left a foot print on a lot of hearts here in this town.

And I thank God for so many special people in my life.

As the faith, love, and light lead me on.

Goodnight,

Sunshine

Goodnight Chris:  Really, one day you should thank Elizabeth as she was the one that kept me sane SO many times!  You just can’t imagine.  God never sends us on journeys alone, I am convinced of that. He sends special angels to help us along the way……..and while I do believe you have walked this journey with me in a silent sort of way, Elizabeth is the one that is right there beside me.  I know you can’t help but remember her.  She drove you back to the hotel after we had that first dinner together.  She is always with me when I have seen you.  The memories I have of this journey continue on in so many ways.  And still, I cherish so many things about the few times we have encountered one another. But for tonight, my hands are tired……so I will head to bed now.  Did you know?  How crazy this whole thing has been?  Of course you did, and somewhere  you are out there smiling because I think you get it……………….and perhaps I am finally getting it now too.  I send you love and light and a spark of memories………………..just because they are special.  Goodnight,  Love, Sunshine

This is for laughs because Elizbaeth and I were ofted compared to Lucy and Ethel!  And guess who was who? *winks*

Hey Lizzie!!!!!!!!!!!  Remember this is our theme song?