So many different shows as a kid, in many different genres. I was mostly an indoors tv watching kid. What i watched at any point in my childhood though, Dependency largely on where I was living and if we could affordable cable or not.
When I lived just with my birth mom and my siblings, most of what I watched was either cartoons on pbs in the mornings, or there were Disney, and cartón network type shows on the local channels on the weekend. On the weekdays, I had the CW, ABC, CBS, and NBC schedules memorized and watched a mix of teen dramas, supernatural, charmed, sitcoms, and news (yes, as a kid I watched the news).
One thing that was special at those times, though, was that we had some nickelodeon and disney dvds and vhs tapes that I would watch all the time. We also practically wore out my mom’s back street boys concert vhs tape as well as her new kids on the block cartoon vhs tapes as well.
The times we lived with my grandparents was real memorable because, not only did my grandparents have dish which had so many channels, but my grandpa and aunt both had large vhs tape collections with every type of content imaginable. The only downside for most of the family was thar when my grandpa was home from his long, overworking jobs and the times before he died that he wasn’t able to work as much, you had to watch whatever he wanted to watch, even if he was sleeping usually because he would often wake up if you changed the channel and say “I was watching that!”.
This was never a problem for me, though, because my grandpa was my favorite adult in my birth family, and I loved watching whatever he was watching. I spent a lot of time at home in the living room with him because I wanted to spend time going on TV adventures with him. We watched many things, but the main shows I remember were Walker Texas Ranger, Charmed (he liked the women on the show), Stargate-SG1 and Altantis, and a show I had no business watching at the time called Crank Yankers.
After I was put in foster care, I started really getting into charmed and supernatural even more, as well as different anime and adult swim shows like family guy. I also watched a lot of sitcoms and reality shows with my parents because it extended bedtime. It extended electronic time, which otherwise was only a half hour and only on the weekends, and the shows were really good to me as a teen.
What were some of your favorite shows growing up? Tell me in the comments!
This summer has not gone exactly as planned, but it has for sure been funny of memories! I have here some pictures from my summer, but they happen to kind of be in order, but not 100% order. I will talk now about some of my adventures to give the pictures more context.
Comic Convention in June…
So first in my summer of fun was a comic convention in my town where I may nor have dressed up in costume, but I had some really memorable moments, important talks with some very important content creators I also got their autographs, including one actress/ voice actress, Corina Boettger. I was part of a live video taping of a lord of the rings roll playing game by YouTuber Don Marshall and his friends whose names escape me, but who also are content creators. I talked with tiktoker Jose Monkey, who is known on TikTok to find anyone’s location just by looking at their photos and doing his analysis. And I saw a bunch of other cool costumes and some vehicles. I also got to learn how to play sword fight by actual professional LARPers, I entered and lost a Mario Kart 64 tournament, and I saw some cool performances from a metal bender and a guy who plays with fire. Finally, I hit up the artist alley for some cool stuff for my nerd collections.
One of the things I made sure to talk to the creators and some authors and illustrators who were there was about how they continued doing their craft and how they were able to do it successfully. The advice I got was to keep at it every day and to never give up my spark. I also got some good advice on why self-publishing is just as valid as traditional publishing, which also gave me hope that I could be a recognizable published author.
An Unplanned Roadtrip…
The next memorable experiences I had took place on a random trip my mother, kid brother, his friend, and I took to Virginia to see some of her best friends. It was already planned that my mother would go on the trip and that she might have taken my brother and his friend but the trip was supposed to be to Florida to visit her dad’s family for a cook out. The plan changed to me going with them and my 18 year old brother coming over to babysit our dog instead of me doing it. Then the plan changed again because as we were traveling south, we stopped in Virginia with the plan to rest there for the night, then continue traveling to Florida the next day.
To our horror, my mom and I realized that we had forgotten some of our important sleeping meds. I was fine physically with just taking melatonin we had gotten in Virginia, but my mom couldn’t function well without her meds, and she also didn’t want to leave her friends, so we stayed in Virginia. We were kind of bummed that we didn’t get to go to Florida, but the family didn’t even have the cookout, so it wasn’t a total loss.
While in Virginia, we did many things. First of all, we stayed mostly with my mom’s friend instead of a hotel. She lives deep in the woods, so that was cool. While we were there, we checked out Hooters for my brother’s friend’s birthday. It was my first time going, and I can honestly say I don’t get all the hype. The food was good, and the servers were pretty, but it wasn’t something magical like I was picturing.
Not pictured is the Golden Coral that I ate way too much food at and also not pictured, was be getting sick in the car on the way back to my mom’s friends house that day. I had to ride for a whole hour in my messed clothes because that’s how long the drive from Golden Coral to her house took. I definitely enjoyed my dining experience and would go again, but I definitely wouldn’t eat as much as I ate while there.
Also, I was not pictured because I was spending all my time living in the moment, was the trip my my mom’s friend’s daughter, brother, his friend, and I took to an amusement park called King’s Dominion. That trip wasn’t as planned because I thought my mom and her friend were going to go too, my brother and his friend ran off on us somewhere in the park and we couldn’t find them for a bit, and they wanted to leave before the day was over when the plan was to stay there all day.
We were supposed to go back later that week, just me, my mom’s friend’s daughet, and her boyfriend with no kids, so we could go all day but we ended up leaving Virginia early because my mom wasn’t doing well. I did win a Baulbasaur stuffed animal at the amusement park, though we all won a pokemon stuffed animal at this game where youshootwater at a target and whoever gets the stuffed animal higher wind a prize so someone always wins a prize on that game, its just one person per game.
We kind of rigged it because we were the only ones by the game, and we did 2 people at a time enough times for all of us to win a stuffed animal. My brother got Charmander, and his friend got Gengar. I was so happy, with what little time I did get at the Amusment Park, but we ended up spending more money that we were supposed to spend between food and games, some that were impossible to win, but that my brother insisted on playing anyway.
The rest of our time in Virginia was spent at a wilderness camp resort I only slept there the night before we were going back to New York, but my brother and his friend stayed there for a couple nights with my mom’s friends. And she spent the night there once without us. I didn’t take a lot of pictures there either, because I was enjoying the day, and I don’t have very many pictures of myself being there, but it was a lot of outdoor fun, and it was a nice escape from the daily stresses of everyday life.
The first night there I went swimming in a lake, but we all got out once we found out one of the people their found a leach on them. Then that night, I took my brother and his friend to a spot where they pretended to go fishing. I say pretend because they just keep casting and reeling in every time they fish without actually waiting for the fish to bite.
The next day after a lot of waiting around for the person driving us to the resort to come get us, we came back, we went to the good part of the lake where people normally go swimming. Luckily when we got there someone had finished using the Paddle boards and kyak they rented and let us use them for the rest of the time we were there. My brother and his friend used the Paddle boards, and I set sail on the kyak and had the best, most peaceful time out on the water, until my brother needed help bringing in one of the boards that was just floating off down the lake. This ended up being a very challenging task until my mom’s friends saw us struggling and helped by swim pushing it back to shore for us.
The final full day we were there, my brothers and I went to the swimming area by ourselves because my mom and her friends were spending time together at the cabin. We rented out the paddle boards and Kyak again, but they didn’t even want to use them for the time we had them. They wanted to go to the pool.
I let them go since the pool wasn’t too far away from the lake, and they both go to the pool in our town by themselves. I spent more time relaxing on the water and getting the worst sunburn of my life. I literally did not treat my skin kindly because I didn’t wear sunscreen the whole trip. Please treat your skin kindly. I often struggle with the physical aspects of self care. It’s good self care.
Next the boys decided they wanted to go to the gym area to play basketball, so I went with them to watch them play. It was cool, and they found 2 other kids to play 2 on 2 with. later that day, my mom and her friends made it down to where we were, so we all hung out there until it was starting to get dark.
The highlights of that night were getting to use a big water tricycle and seeing my brother’s friend get chased by a small dog that was only chasing him because he was running and the dog thought it was play time. They ran right to the edge of the water. After we got back to the cabin for the night, my mom’s friends and I got ice cream for everyone while the rest of the group rested at the cabin. I had mint ting a Ling, which is one of my favorite kinds it’s like mint with chocolate syrup and chocolate cookie crumbles. The next day, it was time to head home, so we all made sure to get a good sleep. As we were leaving early in the morning.
After The Trip…
The day we got back from put trip to Virginia, it was the day my town puts on an orchestea concert in the park, and fireworks for the 4th, and I love both. The event started at 5:30pm and we got home that day at about 3:30pm, so eventhough I had been traveling all day, I still made it there by 5:30 to see every bit of the concert. My brother was supposed to meet me when it was over, but he didn’t, and both of our phones died at the event, but we eventually both made it home safe and sound.
One not so huge, but still awesome thing that I did this summer was going to the zoo to see the new animals that they got. They were the same type of animals that they already had, a wolverine and an opossum, but I had been missing seeing those exhibits and wanted to check them out. I did take lots of pictures of the zoo.
One event I went to this summer happened at the end of last month. It was one of the 3 summer block parties my town puts on every summer. For some reason, I wasn’t really enjoying myself like I usually do, so I didn’t stay that long. Before the block party, I went to the Americans with Disabilities Act anniversary celebration that was also being held downtown, stayed for some food, reconnected with old friends, and did some networking.
I spent about an hour at the actual block party listening to some really good live music, making a couple of friends, checking out the vendors, and checking out the community organizations. P.B.S. was one of the organizations, so I took a picture of the mascot they had there from the pre-school show Super Why.
Towards the middle of last month was my local county fair. My birth mom actually took a bus from the town that she lives in to my town so we could go together for once, then we went to a different town to visit her brother, my uncle. I had gone to the fair the day before to catch the first demolition derby, and I tried some food from a BBQ vendor.
Then, the next day, my mom came, and we went over to the fair for a couple hours so we could go to a comedy act who is a local talent. that I bought tickets for. And got slushies from souvenir alien shaped cups. The comedy show was very funny, and he had us laughing the whole time with his mix of jokes and parody music. Sadly we live in a pretty rural area so not that many people came, but there were people thar cane from quite far away to see him preform. We also caught the last half of an acrobat show where the finishing act was a man being shot out of a cannon. It was an amazing acrobat act, and I was very impressed by the finale act, but the cannon really scared me.
The last day we were at the fair was our only full day there. When we got there we were hungry and still had a half hour before we could buy our ride wristbands, so we ate from the same BBQ place so I could show her how good it was to go with it. we got soda from these big souvenir cups as well as slushie refills. Later that day, I also got deep-fried oreos, and she got funnel cake. we each tried some of the other person’s thing, too.
We rode on all the rides we were not too tall to ride on at least once each, I managed to get her on a ride that loops around one big loop called the fireball eventhough she didn’t want to at first she ended up enjoying it. I know that sounds bad, but I was trying to get her over her fears so she could ride the one at six flags with our cousin.
One ride was very difficult to ride. It was this large wavy slide with 4 spots for riders. First, you had to climb the stairs to the top, position yourself on the slide with a burlap sack, and slide down. This was challenging because there was no worker at the top to help you get ready. On the way down, my mom also fell back and burned her arm, sliding down the slide.
We did ride on the bumper cars twice, but that was the only ride we went on a second time because by the time we rode on all the other rides, I was feeling a bit queasy. We took breaks in between to buy a couple of things from the vendors, check out the art contest, and we looked at all the animals before we left. The plan was to go to the second and final demolition derby that was being held at the fair, but we both didn’t want to spend 3 more hours at the fair, so when we ran into my cousins we gave them our tickets and went home.
That night, we slept at my place, and bright and early in the morning, we took the bus to the town my uncle and his wife live in. These are the people from my birth family, and there is a fair bit of trauma in my birth family, so the visit was kind of weird. But it had been a long time since I talked to my uncle or saw my mom in person, so I made the most of it despite the strangeness of being out of my town with just my birth family, and not my new mom to turn to if I needed to. That was only one night, though, because my birth mom had a job that she needed to get back to.
On the 1st of this month, I did another gig volunteering as concert staff for a local non-profit that hosts summer concerts every year. The concert this month was Justin Moore, the country star. Rapper Flo Rida was supposed to perform next week, and i was supposed to work that show too, but the show was canceled for some unknown reason (at least unknown to me).
The Justin Moore concert was spectacular for the most part, though. There were 2 opening acts from local bands, and I knew a lot of the songs all the bands were doing, plus I got to get up close to the stage because I was working there. Justin was really good with signing autographs for people, too. I did have to get stern with some concert goers who weren’t following the rules, but overall, it was a fun time.
Finally, this month I saw the Deadpool movie in theaters, and last month I saw Inside Out 2 movies. I am definitely doing a movie review of Inside Out 2, so stay tuned for that. It was really impactful to me, as I have felt what Riley was feeling when I was her age.
Spoilers
Wrap up…
So that was my amazing, yet pretty simple summer so far. I managed to create some memorable moments with my family even though the weather was rainy way more often than it should be in summer. I went on a fun random trip to Virginia, I saw several live events with music, vendors, and new friends, I spent in person time with both my bio and adoptive families, I had new dining experiences, and fun at the fair. I saw 2 must-see movies of the summer. And I did important things in my local community.
This has been a truly memorable Summerland has ended with me being accepted to Graduate School just this week. I am definitely making my next post about that, so please tube in next time for that.
I know this post was long, but I was trying to pack in all of my summer happenings into one post. I have been taking yet another break from making any kind of big posts on here, but I am back now, and I’m not starting school until February, so I still have time to batch create a bunch of posts Foe my more busy Weeks. Which I will start today after i get some sleep. (It’s Midnight now).
Lived experiences with various mental health challenges, lived experiences with generational trauma from abuse and poverty. I have authority on being diagnosed with autism by a specialist at 20 and living life under that lable only to be told by my last therapist who is also a specialist that she doesn’t feel that diagnosis fits but that trauma mimicking the symptoms does.
And I have authority on going through a variety of life situations throughout the lifespan from young child until 30 including school life as a survivor of bullying every year, college life, being the oldest sibling and child of people with addiction issues, being a foster child and getting adopted as a late teen, my own struggles with alcohol, being taken advantage of by adults in person and on the internet, being an intern at human service, foster care advocacy, and public health agencies both as a social work student and just a lucky young adult who was chosen by the foster care advocacy organization.
I am an authority on living life as a person who is LGBTQ+ with disabilities, and mental health issues, who has been affected by the issues targeting asexual, pan-romantic, non binary, human beings who were born female and who have spent most of their life trying to figure out who they are.
There are just so many other experiences I’ve gone through and have helped give me insight. I would say that I am an authority on my unique life experiences and how I got through them to get to the point in my life that I am at now. Plus, I have 2 associates degrees in human services and chemical dependency and a bachelor’s in social work. I still have to get my master’s, which, as of right now, will be in public policy.
I also have experience in food service and experience quitting a food service job to protect my mental health at a time I was going through a breakdown. So I definitely have a great deal of life experience that makes me an unofficial authority on several complex issues.
Hello all, I planned on making a few posts in June, for pride, for Juneteenth, and about how I’ve managed my PTSD in honor of National PTSD awareness day on June 27th.
None of that happened, for no reason other than the fact that I got really unmotivated last month. I kept putting it off until now, where we are all the way to July 4th.
I will not really be making a patriotic post, but I do hope everyone has a great and safe day if you celebrate the 4th. If you don’t, I still hope you have a great and safe day.
I am, however, going to be remaking my ptsd post despite the fact that it is no longer June, and I will be making a post related to the recent vacation I just took to Virginia, how nothing went as planned, but how I had a really fun time anyway, and how I’m settling back into my daily life.
That is all for this update, if you will all excuse me I am going to spend some time with my dog, and nursing my large nearly full body sunburn (note if you are going outside for extended periods this summer, use sunscreen, lots of sunscreen).
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