People always ask me how Annabelle gets along with my cat. I always tell them that they love each other. Now I've caught it on camera once more. Miss Kitty has been extra loving to her puppy ever since Annabelle's been hurt, she's always looking at her and kissing her softly. It's the sweetest thing.

But don't take my word for it, watch for yourself!

I mentioned a few videos about soldiers reuniting with loved ones... Here are a few of my favorites. Yes, I'm a sap, I cry every time.



And because I'm a dog lover, this is one that gets me every single time too.

Cats and dogs. Peanut butter and jelly on a bacon cheeseburger. Some things just don’t make sense together. Then something comes along and shatters all logic behind these seemingly concrete notions.

Meet Miss Kitty, AKA the KiKi Monster. I’ve had Miss Kitty for about 8 years now. I rescued her from a high kill shelter when she was already mostly grown. I had gone in to snatch up a little white kitten; I was first in a line of many others who wanted the cute little guy. No one was even giving Miss Kitty a second glance. She was an adult cat in a shelter full of kittens. And she had short, patchy fur with no hair behind her ears. As I waited for the paperwork for the kitten to go through, she was rubbing against her cage and meowing loudly for my attention. Some man pointed her out to me and said "That right there is the cat for you.” I’m not sure why I listened... I already had claim on the baby cat. However, I saw this pitiful, sweet girl and decided I had to at least hold her. They got her out of the cage and placed her in my lap. It was love at first scratch. I didn’t choose her; she chose me. Another couple happily took the white little guy home since I could only have one cat at the time. And I ended up with the right cat for me. She is the best cat I've ever owned, so sweet and affectionate even though the people who brought her in swore she was feral and mean. The hair grew in behind her ears, and she doubled in size. Her thin, patchy fur is now thick and long. She’s a stunningly beautiful cat. I brought her home and she’s had a very happy existence ever since.

Well it was happy for her until I introduced her to a giant pup named Annabelle. Miss Kitty had lived with me for about 5 years before we picked up Annabelle. I knew I wanted a dog and not just any dog. I wanted a big breed dog. My ex was adamant that we needed a Great Dane. I found Miss Annabelle on petfinder.com and we made our way to a little shelter in Tennessee where we adopted another shelter baby for our family.

Bringing her home was interesting. She was 8 weeks old and already 12 pounds, which was more than what my cat weighed. I’d like to say that it was love at first sight, but that would be a lie. No, Annabelle walked up to Miss Kitty, tail wagging and ready for an introductory kiss. Miss Kitty didn’t take too kindly to the massive beast in her face and showed it with a hiss and a smack across the snout. Obviously, it was a friendly warning to maintain personal boundaries. It continued this way for awhile, and we thought that eventually Annabelle would learn her lesson and leave the cat alone.

But oh no... Annabelle absolutely loves her kitty. Today, my 12 pound puppy is closer to 100 pounds. While small for a Great Dane, she’s certainly a very big dog. And while she hesitates when Miss Kitty is angry, she still can’t resist giving her big slobbery kisses at every turn. The cat has determined that she likes the attention for a few minutes and basks in the glow of being petted by Annabelle’s giant tongue, but eventually Miss Kitty grows bored with it and smacks her away.

But you can tell that the affection is mutual when Miss Kitty walks up to a sleeping Annabelle and licks her face and ears softly. She even takes her tiny little tongue and gently licks her eyelids. Annabelle has learned that if she moves during these little sessions that she gets smacked and that even though her eyes are wide open, excitement clear as day in them, she can’t move a muscle. Well, except her tail which beats against the floor for the entire time she gets her kisses. Eventually, though, she can’t take it anymore and must return the kiss! She sits up, kisses the cat and usually gets smacked across the face. A cat’s love has boundaries.

Despite the smacking, Annabelle can’t help herself and loves “her” cat so much. I even realized by accident one day that she’s managed to learn what she’s called. One day, jokingly, I asked her "Annabelle? Where’s your kitty?” when I couldn’t find the cat. Annabelle jumped down off the bed; walked over to the closet; and stuck her nose on the cat. Then she looked at me as if to say, "Here she is, mom!”

Without any training whatsoever, I can ask Annabelle now "Where’s your kitty?” and she will look for her. Just today, I did this; she ran into the kitchen and looked on the table, then under the table and under the chairs before looking at me all worried like, "I can’t find her!” She kept searching for her... In the closet... On the bed... Finally, she ventured back into the kitchen where the cat had come out of hiding at last. She planted her nose on Miss Kitty and looked at me proudly. She found her kitty once again! Kisses and some hissing ensued as she enthusiastically greeted her tiny sister.

The care and concern painted on my dog’s face when something is messing with her kitty is unreal. Miss Kitty recently had an injury to her chin and sometimes when she cleans herself, it hurts enough that she meows in pain. Annabelle will run in from the other room, worry sketched across her face, and kiss her cat on the head softly as if to say, "It’s okay.”

I hear people say that pets aren’t able to love; that they’re just animals; and lack all emotion. They’ve never met my pets. Annabelle can hear my boyfriend’s car a mile away. Every Saturday, she gets all excited and cries at the door a full five minutes before he even knocks. As he walks up, her head tilts to the side as she waits for the door to open. When it does, she can barely contain her excitement and we have to snuggle with her goofy butt for twenty minutes before she finally stops wiggling and kissing him. When he leaves, we walk him out and she watches as his car drives away, refusing to go inside until she can no longer see him.

If this isn’t love, I don’t know what it is. Anyone who tells me otherwise is wrong.

She loves me and I can see it in the way she trusts me when she’s injured or scared. I can see it in the way she snuggles up next to me in bed when I’m lonely, her human sized body positioned perfectly next to mine. Or how she’s licked away my tears when I'm sad, as if she’s trying to make them stop and doesn't know how.

And of all the crazy things in life, she loves her kitty cat. And in her own twisted way, Miss Kitty loves her back. Miss Kitty loves her people too, of course. She shows it in her own cat way of kneading me with her claws and biting my hair and toes as I try to sleep. She’s known for sitting on my chest and burying her head into my neck, purring loudly and cherishing the attention.

You can always count on your pets to love you unconditionally and to show you that love on a daily basis. My shelter babies have truly taught me all about what it means to love unconditionally. No matter if you’re overweight or thin as a rail, rich or poor; they look past the exterior and love you for who you are. There are very few humans who can guarantee you that.



The video above shows Annabelle, my Great Dane, lying on the floor and my cat nibbling and kissing her playfully as my puppy tries to sit still.  

My baby brother wants to be a stuntman in the movies.

William is 17 years old. He's preparing to enter his senior year of high school, looking into potential careers. The kid is smart. I don't doubt he’d make an excellent engineer (the field my ex pushed on him). He has contemplated going into any number of fields growing up, everything from a video game designer to a professional chef.

But his heart is in free-running. I won’t pretend as if I know anything about the sport; I don’t. I only know that about two years ago, he started speaking to me about something called parkour and he would randomly do hand stands in my sister’s living room. I thought it was cute back then, and I was happy that he actually chose to pursue something other than video games. I knew it would be good for him, little did I know just how good it would be for him.

Free-running and parkour are his passion. My family never put him through any gymnastics training or karate classes, but had a few buddies who did flips for fun and they taught him. He started teaching himself new stunts from YouTube videos. And he practiced every single day. He would fall and get right back up to try it again. And again. And again. He just wouldn’t stop until he got it right.

He is dang good at it too. Don’t just take my word for it, see for yourself. Keep in mind that he’s completely self taught and has never had any professional training whatsoever.



(For the visually impaired: Video features my brother flipping and practicing stunts such as climbing walls, jumping from roofs, etc. He videos himself in our hometown, down a few streets, in a field next to the Wal-Mart (the only non-supercenter I know) and in the grocery store parking lot, among other places since parkour is about using your surroundings in your stunts.)

My mom tells him to pursue a college degree first, then he can go after his dream. Wise words. Take the logical path, the one that should lead to financial success first. Then when you get time, work on your dream and maybe something will become of it. That’s the story most of us here while growing up. Be practical, play it safe. Choose the most logical path to success.

My mom almost flipped (no pun intended) when I told my brother that perhaps he should take a few years off before college to try his dream out. Of course, I told him to be practical with it. We would set out a plan for him and make sure he wasn’t starving while pursuing his dream. I think it is possible to pursue it while not screwing his life over completely in the process. He just needs to be smart about it, and I think with the proper support, he will be.

The reason I care so much? I know from experience that the logical path doesn’t always lead to success, let alone happiness as we’re taught to believe. I listened to that advice, and gave up my dreams several times over. Someone was always there to tell me why it was wrong, why I needed to find a nice career in the financial sector, or maybe real estate. I changed my majors like I changed underwear. Every time I did so, I did it under the advice of someone who I figured knew more than I did about what worked and what didn’t.

Defeated, I finally settled on a business degree. I figured it would get me out of college and into a real job. I lost sight of what I wanted to do with my life, and started thinking about what others said I should do with my life. It made sense at the time. I could graduate with useful skills, and somewhere along the line find a way back to my dream.

Here I am today with a masters degree, another useless piece of paper that seems to hinder my dreams more than help them. Real Estate Development. Me? Really? Who is this person, I wonder. How did I get so sucked into the hype, and get this far in debt for something that doesn’t fit me at all? No one ever told me that a “real” job would be so time consuming, leaving little time for outside endeavors. Eventually, I just decided to suck it up and give into what the world expected of me. I live to work instead of work to live, and I am miserable because of it.

So yes, I believe my brother should aim for the sky. He’s a smart kid. Not to mention, the WFPF (the World Federation of Parkour and Freerunning) has noticed him already. His best friend travels the country doing shows for Red Bull. My brother has joined him before and caught the attention of recruiters. There are scholarships out there that would send him to school for his craft. A stunt school may not seem like the most obvious choice for college, but it’s what he does well. And more importantly, it’s what makes him happy.

Here's another video shot after only two years of practicing.



I see what he can do without any training whatsoever, through only his determination alone. With the proper training, the best of the best teaching him, I can only imagine how far he could go.

He may only be 17 years old, but he's such an inspiration to me. Any time I want to say "I can't do it", my brother comes to mind. He has shown me that you can do so much with hard work and dedication, there really is nothing holding me back but my own fears. Life is both too short and too long to be stuck doing something you hate, always wondering “What if...?” and regretting not taking the chance to see if maybe you really had what it took all along.

If I'd known this when I was his age, who knows where I might be today. A veterinarian? A zoologist? Or maybe a famous movie star? I will never know, and that’s not something I want my baby brother to ever have to experience. I will do everything I can to help this happen. If he fails to make this his career, at least he will know he had tried. That’s more than I can say for myself.

I was nervous, but I wasn’t about to let them see the fear in my eyes. The only reason I was doing it in the first place was to prove that I wasn’t a wuss. When I said I'd go through with it, they challenged me.

I have never been one to turn down a challenge. My pride is important to me and I consider myself to be a tough girl. I wasn’t about to let them question my bravery.

I was 27 years old and finally going to get my ears pierced.

Growing up, I wasn’t one of those girls who felt the need to wear earrings. It wasn’t like I purposely didn’t get my ears pierced as a youngster, I just never really thought much about it. I wasn’t against the idea. My mom wasn’t against it either. In fact, from about the age of 4, she’d tried many times to get me to do it. She’d always loved earrings and jewelry... But for whatever reason, she had two daughters who just weren’t into that sort of thing.

In my generation, it was almost inconceivable. Earrings were a given for a girl my age. I received them as gifts countless times from people just assuming that I could wear them. Even my ex-husband gave me earrings for Christmas one year, trying to encourage me to get my ears pierced to make giving me gifts that much easier for him.

I will admit to being afraid of the pain as a kid. As an adult, it just seemed like a hassle and an expense I didn’t need. I have always been rather frugal. Earrings just seemed like another luxury that would cost me money I didn't have. I couldn’t even buy shoes for myself, why would I want to add yet another accessory that I couldn’t afford?

It was a matter of practicality. It wasn’t that I was afraid of sticking in a needle through my ear. Despite what my friends thought, it really wasn’t.

Okay, so maybe I was a little scared.

Needles don’t really bother me but the idea of punching a hole through my flesh sent a few shivers down my spine. I considered it an unnecessary procedure and was content being considered a freak amongst the girls in my group. I called myself the anti-rebel. My skin was never pierced, never tattooed... Even though I hung out with people who always had plenty of holes in their body and art sketched upon their skin. I admired that sort of thing, even briefly considered it from time to time. As a teen, I used to beg my mom to let me pierce my tongue. She would just laugh at me and ask why I thought I could handle sticking a needle through my tongue when I couldn’t even pierce my ears? She had a point. I never did get my tongue pierced.

My friends finally managed to bully and badger me into getting my ears pierced though. We were in Chicago, and my cousin has always been a fan of piercings.

"Why don’t you get your ears pierced? Are you afraid?” Amanda smirked at me, knowing I would never admit my fear or let anyone think such things of me.

"Of course not. I just never got around to actually doing it...”

I tried to brush it off quickly and move along with the conversation. She had asked me countless times and I always told her that I would someday.

"Well there’s a Claire’s over there. Why don’t we go and do it now?” She pointed across the way to the pre-teen paradise.

"Claire’s? Really? You’re kidding me...” I rolled my eyes and started moving away from the store as quickly as possible, hoping that she really was kidding me. Claire's? That's where 8 year old girls shop for Hello Kitty hair bows. It didn't seem like a place for a grown woman to get her ears pierced.

"Why not? Are you a chicken?” Her smirk got even wider, knowing that those were fighting words.

Within minutes I was strapped down into the chair with a teddy bear in my lap. Okay, maybe I wasn’t really strapped down or held into place, but I might as well have been. My friends were not going to let me leave that chair until I was pierced.

The girl working there looked to be a decade younger than myself. She tried to make me feel better by saying that I wasn’t the oldest client she had seen... But when I asked her if they were my age coming in for their very first piercing?

"Umm well no...”

Nice.

A crowd formed around me, people lined up and giggled at the grown woman who was terrified as she got her ears pierced for the first time. I almost expected applause once the deed was done. There was a little girl waiting in line behind me, getting her second piercing in each ear. She looked to be about 6 years old.

Way to be a chicken, Kristen.

Regardless of being scared, I went through with it. It really wasn’t that bad at all. However, several months later I took the earrings out one night and they were closed by morning. I've considered getting it done again so I could wear all those cute earrings I've gotten as gifts throughout the years...

But I somehow doubt I will. I did it once to prove that I could. That’s all that matters, right?



(For the visually or hearing impaired, this is the video they took of me getting my ears pierced. You see my friends, Joey and Amanda, talking me through it. You hear my ex in the background as well. It's sideways because it was filmed from his phone. Basically it's just me trying to act all cool and calm as I get it done, the whole time holding a teddy bear in my lap.)

I heard about this on the radio this morning.

Oh so mean. That poor girl (at the end they zoom into her facial expressions).

Really quick. A video from my BABY brother. Yes, he's 13 years younger than me and like 20 years younger than my sister, so he will always be the baby. He will be 17 next month I believe. Wow.

Anyways, this boy is talented to the extreme. He's completely self taught in parkour, never had any formal training whatsoever. He started two years ago and he's already getting noticed by some pros. He wants to move out to California and be a stunt man for the movies some day. I think that's just so awesome and I think he really is that freaking good.

Oh and he made this video himself too. So check it out. Spread some love around to encourage him too, I know he'd appreciate it.

A lot of the videos were from my old college. The mini Stonehenge, the people cut out sculptures? My old stomping grounds *sniff*.

Not too bad for a boy that grew up in poverty, huh?



If you think his athletic abilities are awesome, just wait until you see that he's also self taught in music. I have a wonderful story about his love of playing the keyboard that I hope will make it in an Idol entry next season, but for now, here's a video I shot over Memorial Day weekend when our electricity went out at my moms and we were hanging out at Samantha's boyfriends apartment.

I was playing with the camera on my phone and took some videos of Annabelle. I thought this was hularious. She gets a case of the zoomies now and then, which is where she runs around in circles and on things. That happens at the very end. The rest is just of me playing with her. Enjoy! (It was dark down there, I tried playing with the light on the iPhone, but it was weird).

You get to see her clobber me and almost take me out. That is fairly common though...

I have started several entries only to keep deleting everything I write. I am too out of it to write coherently, so in the place of a real update, I offer a video.

Here is Annabelle playing with my nephew Tyler. She was being a chicken at times and hiding from him. It was so cute. Don't mind the mess, I had 6 people stop by and stay for several days, my house always looks a tornado came through after they visit.