WILW

Let's see...

- I'm loving that I made $60 at work tonight when it seemed like everyone else I was working with was making much less.

- I'm loving Chocolate Xtreme Blizzards from Dairy Queen. OH MY GOD. 

- I'm loving my change of schedule at work.

- I'm loving that school resumes on Monday for me. While I don't particularly love school (at all) I got screwed out of last semester because my college likes to loose paperwork pretty often so I'm relieved that all my paperwork went through. Plus I'll feel like I actually have some what of a purpose and not just wasting my days away by sleeping until 11am :-x

- I'm loving "Once upon a time" it's a tv show and if you've never heard of it or watched it go do it now! Seriously. Now.

- I'm loving when someone who's wronged you in the past comes to you an apologizes and it's actually sincere.

That time no landlords would accept our pup!

Being Chad and I are planning to move within the next 4/5 months I have started to keep my eyes open to what's being offered apartment wise. I've been browsing for quite some time now being I was actually going to try and live with a couple friends this past summer and while there are some pretty decent places for rent around here NO ONE WANTS OUR DOG. Seriously. It's basically impossible to find a decently priced place to rent with a dog. I get that dogs can cause damage to properties and they want to be careful with their precious properties but KIDS CAN CAUSE DAMAGE TOO! I mean are they going to start putting a "No children" rule on properties? Or charge an arm and a leg extra to let people with children move in? I don't think so.I mean, Jax is a really awesomely trained dog, if I do say so myself *pats self on back* and he's crate trained so he'd never be roaming around our apartment when we aren't home. His only issue is that he jumps when he gets excited but we work on it whenever he's with us. (He's currently living with my grandmother being I don't exactly have a home to keep him with me in) I know that this is not the case for everyone that these landlords have ever rented to but sometimes I wish they'd keep more of an open mind. One person always ruins it for the rest of us! But it shouldn't be that way.

 I mean seriously how could you say no to this dapper looking fella

I really had no inspiration for a blog today for some reason so this is what you get I guess. Ah well! Here's to a better blog post tomorrow.

Liebster Award

Thank you to Caitlin @ Letters and Lattes for this Award !!

Rules

This award is given to new or up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers...the award is then passed along to other bloggers in the same category to help spread the word and support one another.

1. Each blogger should post 11 random facts about themselves.

2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you, and then create 11 new questions for the bloggers you pass the award to.

3. Choose 11 new bloggers (with less than 200 followers) to pass the award to and link them in your post. 4. Go back to their page and tell them about the award.

5. No tag backs.

11 Random Facts: 

1. The Volume (on anything and everything) has to be on an even number. HAS TO!

2. I'm a phone case hoarder. I love to buy phone cases and I have about a million. I'm not even sure why because it's not like you can use more than 1 at a time.

3. I'm addicted to buying underwear. Seriously. I have so many.

4. I dye my hair a dark red (cherry cola-ish is how I describe it) and when it fades it keeps a pretty decent "ginger" color so I pretty much get referred to as a ginger at least once a day. My hair is naturally a dirty blonde/ strawberry blonde in the summer but in my opinion, that's not a true "ginger".

5. My biggest insecurity is the paleness of my skin. Which is why I fake and bake. I know it's bad for you but it REALLY boosts my self confidence and makes me feel so refreshed. I used to get made fun of for it when I was younger.

6. I pretty much raised my baby sister for the first 4/5 years of her life. Which is why we are so close.

7. I straighten my hair basically every day and have since I was in 7th grade. I secretly loathe doing it. So time consuming!!

8. I'm too nice. I should learn to say no more often.

9. I rarely watch movies because I get so bored about 20 minutes in. Even if it's something I'd enjoy I just hate to sit around doing nothing. I feel so bum-y!

10. I won't drink anything alcoholic unless I can't taste the alcohol. If it tastes like juice I'll drink it all damn day. If I can taste too much of the alcohol, I cannot for the life of me stomach it.

My 11 Questions

1. What is one of your favorite items in your home? 

What Home? haha no but seriously let's just say my favorite item in general because I'm currently living in the middle of two places... I'd probably have to say my irish claddah ring from my grandmother.

2. Favorite country song? 

I'm not a huge country music fan but I do love me some Carrie Underwood. So anything by her.

 

3. When was the last time you did something for the first time? 

I honestly can't remember. I should change this.

4. What would you fight for? 

My family and my relationship.

5. Who are the 5 people you hang out with the most? 

Let's see.. Chad, His mom, His step dad, My bed and my co-workers. The sad life of Danielle everybody ;D

6. What are your long and short term goals?

Short term - I just need to get a serious job and get my shit together forreal!

Long term - I want to finish school with a degree to something that I love doing. Have a beautiful house and family and live happily ever after. Okay but seriously, I just want to accomplish something.

 

7. Other than family, who is the biggest role model in your life? 

I don't have any other than family. My mother and grandmother and that's seriously it.

8. Are you living your life to the best of your ability or are you settling? 

I'm not settling because I'm still on a journey to find out what's best for me, specifically. But at the moment I am def not living my life to the best of my ability.

9. What are your travel dreams? 

Italy, Caribbean, pretty much anywhere sunny beautiful and warm... ahhhhh

10. If money wasn't an issue, what would your dream job be? 

If only I knew. It'd make things a lot easier.

11. Favorite holiday? 

4th of July. Cuz it's warm, it's fun, it's laid back, a day to celebrate America and also because it's my Anniversary as well. I'm sure this will change with time though. I think Christmas and Thanksgiving will be much more fun when all of my sibilings are older and have careers, homes and children. I'm one of seven so yeah.... imagine that craziness. I hope one of us has a nice home to celebrate in!

11 Questions for Others

1. What's your favorite thing to do in your spare time?

2. What celeb would you like to trade lives with for a day?

3. What do you hope to gain from the blogging experience?

4. What's your definition of a best friend?

5. If you had quadruplets what names would you pick out for them? (you can choose the combination of boys and girls)

6. Do you regret anything in your life?

7. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

8. What has been your favorite job so far?

9.Have you ever thought about joining the military?

10. If you won 100 million dollars in the lottery what would you spend it on?

11.Favorite Color?

I tag:

Anyone who wants to do this. I only have 6 followers so I'm not going to tag anyone haha!

Holidays 2012 : A Life Update

Christmas this year was nice. I spent Christmas eve during the day accompanying my dad on some last minute shopping (He waits till Christmas Eve every year) and then I spent the night with Chad and his family at his grandparents. Chad and I exchanged gifts Christmas Eve like we've done every year. He got me boot socks that I've been wanting and searching for, a curling wand and seasons 7,8 and 9 of One Tree Hill to complete my collection. I gave him his Timberland boots he's been wanting, a hat and an Eagles sweatshirt that he actually got back in November when we went to an Eagles game. It was a good Christmas for us both.

 L. My boots and Boot socks I got for Christmas R. Our new Superman PJ pants. (Chad and I got the same ones from his Mom)

We came home and watched True Blood (Quite possibly my favorite show ever and Chad's now addicted) and went to bed fairly early. Got up on Christmas day and went over to Chad's Grandparents where most of his family was gathering. Exchanged gifts with his brother and brothers girlfriend and ate some lunch/early dinner. After that we said our goodbyes and headed over to my dad's / my dad's girlfriend's. We ate dinner and exchanged some more gifts.

L. My Brother Mikey, My Niece Hayden and Chad. R. My Dad, His Girlfriend, Robin and Hayden

 

Myself and Hayden opening presents and playing with her new toy.

  

L. Hayden R. My dad and Hayden

 After spending some time and having dinner, dessert and coffee with my Dad and that whole side of the family chad and I said our goodbyes again and started our 4 hour journey to Maryland to spend a couple days with my mom, my little brothers and my baby sister.

  

The backseat of my car!

We didn't get to Maryland till almost midnight so everyone was pretty much sleeping. Knowing the kids would be waking us as soon as they got up to show us all the things Santa brought them we headed to bed. Sure enough just before 9am Mackenzie was sitting on top of me with pretty much half her new toys showing me everything while my eyes were just barely open. We lounged around playing games and exploring their new toys for awhile. Had some breakfast and eventually started showering and getting dressed for the day.

 T. Mackenzie playing on chads phone. B. Chad, AJ and Bryan playing video games.

 She got those ear muffs for christmas and would not take them off for anything. As you can see, we painted her nails!

 

 Being silly and wasting time waiting for my mom and older sister to get there!

 Mackenzie and I decided while we were bored to put as many flower clips in Chad's hair as we could. I used to work at Claire's so Mackenzie has a crapload of hair accessories. (50% off discount how could I not?)

Once my mom finally got home from work and my oldest sister got there with her son we exchanged more gifts and had some lunch. After all the craziness was over the adults sat down and decided if we were gonna go do something for the night or hang out at the house. We all decided to go get some energy out where the adults could enjoy too. So we went to Dave and Busters had some drinks and played some arcade games. Really I just walked around with Chad and Mackenzie and helped them both play. Chad was nice enough to put all his tickets with Mackenzie. When she realized how many tickets they had all together she was ecstatic.

 One of the machines didn't print tickets when Mackenzie won so we got a guy to come check it out and it was out of tickets. Once he put tickets in it, it wouldn't stop printing! I think other people played on it too but didn't ask anyone to check it so it had been backed up for it a bit! 

 

 The rest of our time there was spent just hanging out and a trip to the mall so the kids could run off some steam in this bounce house place that Maryland has so conveniently placed in one of their malls. Chad and I left on Friday back to PA being I had to work at 3pm that day.  New years was extremely low key for us. To be honest, If you haven't figured it out already, I'm really not a huge party type person. So I was perfectly content with laying in bed with my handsome man. I don't really feel like New Years is anything amazing. I believe in setting goals for yourself, but not the "I'm a failure if I don't complete this goals" type goals and that's about it. So I leave you with some pictures from the holiday season. I hope all your holidays were wonderful.

 

T. Chad, Myself, (step-sister) Stephanie and her date.

B. My dad, his girlfriend Robin, Myself and Chad at Robin's work Christmas party.

 

 

  Chad and I (and my brother Mikey) waiting for Dinner to be ready on Christmas day

 L to R - Stephanie's date, Stephanie, Robin,My Aunt, My dad, Myself and Chad.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well friends I'm back. I hope you all had some wonderful holidays and a blessed new years! I'm failing horribly at this blogging thing but I think you all can understand a bit that when your soldier comes home from a year and a half of long distance it's a huge thing to adjust to. (More on that later! As an FYI, I'm currently living with Chad at his mom and step dad's house) Plus throwing all the holiday craziness into that mix just makes for some serious lost time on blogging. For that I apologize! I really want to get back into this and make my blog grow though. (Suggestions? Ideas?)  I read through blogs all the time and I'm so interested in everyone else's blogs and I so badly want to get mine to where I see all these other fabulous blogs at but sometimes I get a little lost and loose the motivation. I don't have a wonderfully interesting life, I don't have the most creative writings, I don't have any children to post adorable pictures of, I'm not planning a wedding, I'm not a crazy party girl... I'm just a plain Jane. BUT, I really want to try. Everyone needs a good hobby! Plus if all goes well this year should bring some changes that I'd like to document. Without further-ado, I bring you ...

14 Goals for 2013!

One for goodluck ;)

1. Find a good, reliable job! I need to put some serious effort into finding a decent job that I can count on. While I love serving and the money I bring home there is no way I can survive on not knowing how much to expect every week! Sometimes I make awesome money and sometimes I walk away with $19. Let's be serious... No one can live on $19! I need something I can count on. (And to be quite honest, I miss my retail management job so much lately)

2. Save Save Save! Along with finding a job I can count on, I need to save! Chad and I have made a goal to get our own place at the end of this first semester. So that gives us about 5 months from now to save up for our first place together. We have barely any furniture and really no essential needs for a home of our own plus I'd like to have a couple months of rent saved up. It also never hurts to have a fat savings account $$

3. Let the little things go. I need to put less worry, stress and thought in to things that really aren't that big of a deal. I need to learn to let things go! It's okay to move on and somethings just aren't worth it!

4. Learn to budget!  Budgeting will give me a better sense of what I have and what I can spend. It will also help us immensely when we are on our own. Right now I will admit... We are pretty carefree aside from $1,000 worth of bills every month between the two of us. Plus gas and food expenses. So learning to make a budget and stick to it will really help us to plan and save. I don't want to be living on our own and fall into a rut because we don't know how to budget and save! I really want to be prepared.

5. Do well in school. I don't want to say all A's because I know myself too well and I know that school just has never been my forte. I've never been a straight A student and that's okay! I've accepted it. But I will shoot for A's and B's this semester. I also want to put effort into it.

6. Be Positive! I will admit, that I tend to have a very negative way of thinking. I personally cannot stand it. It drives me absolutely insane so I can only imagine what others around me must be thinking. No one likes a negative Nancy. I want to be able to find the good in everything. I want to look at the positive side of things. I need to make this happen to better myself and my life!

7. Visit my grandmother's grave at least twice this year. I'll admit, I haven't visited since her ashes were buried there. My grandmother was and still is a huge part of me and it kills me to think that I haven't visited. In my defense, it is over an hour away, practically in the middle of no where and it never used to be in the direction I would ever travel. But now that my mother has moved to Maryland it IS an easy stop off. So I'd like to make this happen at least twice, if not more.

8. Spend less time on my iPhone. I know that everyone does it. And I know that it's so natural now a days. But I seriously need to be less dependent on my phone. When I'm bored, I scroll through social networking or play games. This needs to STOP. Sometimes I'll be sitting with family or friends and instead of enjoying my time around them I'm scrolling through my phone. Let's face it there's nothing even that interesting on facebook or instagram! Chad is pretty guilty of this too. A lot more than I am actually. He's included in accomplishing this goal as well.. he just doesn't know it yet.

9. Get Help. I'm gonna get real serious for a minutes..I will tell you right now, I have some serious anxiety issues (along with some depression I suspect.) This is actually a huge part of what stops me from doing serious job pursuing. I have so much anxiety over new things and new jobs is a HUGE part of it. Just thinking about it gets me really nervous. But I cannot and will not let this affect me and keep me from doing new things for my whole life. I don't want to be medicated for these issues, I just want to learn how to cope and how to have more control. I started to see a counselor in September but she was really strange, didn't seem interested in anything I was saying and just didn't make me feel comfortable at all. She was more worried about the rain coming in her bathroom window then talking to me in a paid session. So that scared me off of finding a new counselor. I've been wronged so many times in the past that I have closed myself off to pretty much everyone except for a select few so feeling comfortable in talking to someone is extremely important to me.

10. Make better food choices! I have a pretty decent eating habit. I'm not a HUGE snacker and I'd choose water over soda any day. But sometimes I fall into this slump and will just basically eat my feelings in any food I can get my hands on. (Normally around that time of the month) Which tends to be brownies and ice cream... my weaknesses! I just want to choose the more healthy option and drink less soda or cut it out completely. I tend to drink soda at work because it's there and I can but I really need to knock that off!! I gave up soda for a year once and didn't even miss it so I know that I can live without it! It's really not even that great!

11. Be more mindful of the people you're helping. I have a huge heart and I seriously LOVE to give and love to help people even when I don't have the necessary means to be helping. It's okay to help... and I'm going to continue doing so. But sometimes I find myself helping and giving to the wrong people. People who don't appreciate a thing that I do and who continually use me and wrong me even when I give and put in so much effort. I just need to be more mindful and careful. But I'm going to continue to give and help the people who truly deserve it.

12. Have more confidence in myself. Your mistakes do not define you. Everything that has happened in the past has already happened and cannot be changed. It has shaped me into the person I am today. But I need to let it go and not let it have such an ill effect on my self confidence. I need to love myself for who I am and what I have accomplished. Not what I didn't quite finish or accomplish.

13. Get fit. this is a pretty generic "New Years Resolution" but it seriously needs to happen. It will help me achieve other goals already listed as well. I tend to start working out and loose the motivation when I don't notice any serious body changes. It can't be like this. It takes longer than a couple weeks to see a difference and it's going to take months until others notice it. KEEP GOING. DON'T GIVE UP.

14. BE A BETTER BLOGGER. this is self explanatory! YOU CAN DO IT.