Almost two years ago this summer, my ex boyfriend died in Iraq. I know it’s been awhile, but I’m still so sad by the loss. I can’t remember not knowing him and we dated all throughout high school. He was the person I could always turn to and he was always there for me. We shared so many things together and we were literally the perfect Ken and Barbie couple. We broke up our senior year though because he was leaving for boot camp and he didn’t want to put me through that since we knew there was a possibility that he could die when he left for Iraq. I never thought he would ever die and I remember the day I heard about his death like it was yesterday. It seemed like within five minutes I received 100 calls asking if I knew what happened. For a month I couldn’t eat or sleep and the whole time I felt like I was in denial. I mean I never thought my Jonny would die in the war. There was a suicide bomber who bombed the building he was in and instead of saving himself, he saved three other Marines. He received a Purple Heart for his bravery that was displayed at his funeral. His funeral was a beautiful ceremony that really recognized him as a person. I couldn’t help but feel dead too though when I saw his casket at the front of the church. Ever since that day I heard the news I have had nightmares that were as frequent as weekly to now getting one every three months. Along with the dreams about him, I even started having panic attacks, which required me to see a counselor. I’m so by no means over this loss; I don’t think I ever will be. He was such an important part of my life for so long. I just can’t wait for that day when I can see him again.

It's funny how things happen. Jonny has been gone for a while now and I just ran across something of his yesterday that made me weak at the knees. I was going through things in my closet because I want to have a yard sale and there it was sitting at the bottom the my closet, Jonny's favorite sweatshirt that he let me borrow one night when it was really cold outside. It's funny how you can see just that one article of clothing that brought back so many memories, which made me sad, but I love remembering him.

So a city in Oregon passed a law to where you can't smoke at work or in public places and heart attacks dropped by more than 40%. I think that is pretty amazing. Think of some states where you can still smoke inside restaurants or basically wherever you want. People are exposed to second hand smoke more than they realize. They can't be 100% sure that the decrease was due to this, but it really did drop a lot in a short amount of time.

I think that if they see results than they should install these in more states. Think of how many lives are taken from drunk drivers. It's ridiculous and it seems like it's never the drunk person, but the innocent person driving somewhere.

One of my friends from high school used to do drug, but he quit after getting caught. Anyways, he started dealing because his friend's family owned this warehouse in the country and the guy started using the warehouse for his own business of getting dealers and selling drugs. It was mostly marijuana, but occasionally drugs like cocaine or they would trace them with other drugs too. This guy had many dealers and was making bank off of them. It's just so hard to believe that he did all of this on his parents property without them even knowing it. When my friend got caught by his family everyone denied ever buying drugs from him so he took all the heat. I'm glad he got caught though because it really straightened him out and he hasn't done drugs since.