Elämäni

Well here I am again, saying sorry for not blogging. I really need to work on that. Hopefully I will have the energy and time to blog more.

Not much has happened since I last wrote.

School started and I am loving every second of it!! I am doing well in my Asian Humanities class and have signed up for next semesters classes! Hopefully at the end of the spring semester your truly will be graduating...... FINALLY!!!

That is not the only thing that has started to look up. My personal life is starting to take a turn for the better with a little help from finland :)

I met 'Fin' at a halloween party that a friend invited me to. We all went together as to save gas and parking spaces, lol. So Kyle, Dave, 'Fin' and me went to this party. The boys knew everyone and as I only knew the boys (really just kyle and dave, just met fin that night) I stuck with them the entire night. I mingled some, but they were never outta arms reach. As Dave had one thing on his mind, Kyle was DD, I stuck mostly with Fin. We talked the entire night and got to know each other. By the end of the party we were snuggling on the couch :3 Kyle decided that it was as good as a time to head out before the bars let out and traffic would be crazy, so we rounded up Dave and headed out. Well on the way back to get our cars we kissed, and man does he kiss!! Meanwhile Dave is drunk off his a** and is rambling about nothing. Fin and I continue to kiss in the back seat. Dave decides to turn around and talk to us. Well he turned around saw what was happening and turned back around and started rambling off again. Needless to say we both started laughing in the middle of a kiss and continued to giggle the rest of the way home. I think Kyle was oblivious to what was happening but idk.

So we got back to Dave's, where our cars were parked and went our seperated ways.... well not necessarily me and Fin. We left about 2 hrs after we were dropped off at our cars. It was cold and let me say again Fin can kiss. We left and I texted him to let him know I made it home safely, even though I live 2 min from daves, but he wanted to make sure I was safe :3

So the morning after, I was thinking, okay great kisser but will I hear from/see him again.

Well I don't have to think about that anymore. He called me later that day and we talked for an hr on the phone and then an hr on Skype! Can I just say I LOVE Skype!!

We have talked/texted/skyped daily since.

Today we went on our first offical date! Even if it was walking around the mall and then lunch, it was the first real date I have been on in like FOREVER!

He is so sweet, opening doors, grabbing my hand, kissing me where ever. Small things but in my eyes they are huge!

This time around I am taking things one day at a time. We shall see where that takes us but as of now I am enjoying ever second :)

Complete Overview

Ok.......... so the whole idea of blogging while up in N.C. sooo didn't work. I was having too much fun spending time with the family and the Marine. Early mornings and late nights made doing anything else quite impossible.

So to sum up the trip, it was AMAZING!!! Got to spend lots of time with the family, got to see lots of N.C., and had lots of good N.C. BBQ. Parker's BBQ is soooooo good! We ate there twice while in N.C., once when we were visiting my great aunt and great uncle and then for my Birthday :). This BBQ is amazing and sooooooooooo good. It is also a very unique place as they only accept cash or checks for payment and they are only located in N.C.

Speaking of my Birthday, my brother got my an 32GB I-touch, which I absolutely love. He got it engraved with "Brother and Sister A Bond Never Broken". Can we say tearjerker?? Anyway to stop me from crying to laughing hysterically and being totally brother style, he got me a bedazzled pink case. For those that don't know, I really don't like the color pink, so everything my brother gets me either has pink in it or is pink its self. Needless to say the tears dried up to me giggling like crazy.

The trip home was uneventful, except for me running down the highway to jump into my brothers jeep while we were stuck in traffic outside of Wilmington. He was soo happy to get back to FL.

While he was here, it was non-stop going. We did everything plus more of stuff her wanted to do. One of the thing that he wanted to have done while he was here wasto have tattoos done for my and my younger brother, T. We got to pick the design, the lettering and the colors. Then we each went with him while her got it done. The tattoos are similar to the ones that me and T had. T's tattoo was a four leaf clover done in red and black with his name under it on J's right shoulder. Mine is green and black with my name under it on his left shoulder. He wanted them done so that we will be with him where ever he goes. Of course this had me crying more, cause we have always been close and its been hard to be away from him. With him being in the military, the length between seeing each other has been longer and longer. And with him possibly being deployed soon (maybe march :( ) knowing that that little piece of us is with him will hopefully help.

He left right before Labor day and has been planning his next trip home already, lol.

School has started back up for me. I am super excited about it. Hopefully at the end of spring semester I will be graduating with my AA. YEAH!!!! Finally but it had been worth the time and effort. After that I will be in my nursing program :)

So that has been a complete overview of that past couple of weeks. Hopefully I will be more vigilant in blogging :)

Day One - The Drive

Ok..... so I have been writing about how excited I am to be going to see my brother.

I am finally up here!! Yesterday was Day on which was longest drive EVER!!!!

10 hrs in a car with nothing but my I-pod and my phone, I went bonkers! The first part of the drive was ok. When we crossed the Fl/Ga border we decided to make a pit stop. Well the fun started there. As I was trying to get over, a driver decided to pull along side of me and neither speed up or slow down for me to merge over. While I tried to get this person to move either way the tractor trailer behind me almost plowed over me! Needless to say I was pissed/scared to death. The rest of the trip was uneventful after that.

When finally arriving to Jacksonville we get to our hotel and recieve a call from the Marine, telling us that he wants to see us. If I didn't mention the time it was 11:00 pm.

Anyway we go pick him up at the 7 day store, get something to eat and then return to the room and proceed to passout.

Hopefull I will be able to write about Day 2 later today, lets see how the day progresses...

Long Drive

Tomorrow morning begins the long drive up to Jacksonville, N.C. It will probably be a longer drive because this time we have to take 2 vehicles, my brother's jeep and either the mariner or milan. That means that Mom and Dad will be driving the jeep and I will be driving the other one by myself.

I am kinda anxious about the drive. Anyone would be. I have made the drive from Fl to N.C. before but there was other people with me in the car. Which made it a completely different expirence.

I am also looking forward to the drive. Not just because I get to see my brother (which is amazing all in its-self :D) but it will give me some time to think about things. With being in a car by myself I will be able to think about things and decide what the next step is or just to contemplate life. I will be able to voice these things out loud without explaining why I just start saying things to anyone. I promise it makes sense to me.

Hopefully this time to think will help me put some closure on certain things, to decide on what the next step will be for me, and just some time to scream at the top of my lungs if I need to, which will probably help relieve some stress.

Why August is AWESOME!!

August is awesome for sooo many reasons! But this year it is especially AWESOME!

The first reason is of course it is my Birthday Month!!! I share my birthday with some awesome people, H :). Unfortunately this year I won't be celebrating my birthday in town, which brings me to reason #2.

BUBBA IS COMING HOME!!!!! My brother, the Marine, is coming home from his first Deployment and I will be at Camp Lejeune for my birthday picking up my brother. Awesome birthday gift. He has surprised me for my last two birthdays for coming into town and being here to celebrate my birthday. This year I will be going to see him, so a reversal! I have missed him soooo freakin' much!!

Reason #3 makes me sound like a nerd but that is who I am. School is back in session and if everything goes according to plan I will be graduating in Spring, FINALLY!!! WOOHOO! I absolutely love school. I love the learning, the classes, everything. I feel like I am a professional student, if that makes any sense.

So this August is usually an awesome month for me but this year is even that much more awesome for me!

I really could use a shooting star

Me and my I-pod have never been closer. That may sound weird to most but to those who know me, music=life so life=i-pod attatched to my hip, at all times. I grew up singing anything, then took piano lessons forever. Even though I don't play piano that often anymore, singing and music have always been imortant to me. I have music for all occasions and emotions. My mood can be told by what music I am listening to.

Lately the song that has been on repeat lately is 'Airplanes' by B.o.B featuring Haley Williams. I so wish that this song was true cause I need a wish right know. Along with this song you have the usual heartbreaking songs from Rascal Flatts, Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Brad Paisley, Randy Houser, Jason Aldean, etc. etc. But then there are few that are not quite the usual like 'Undo it' - Carrie Underwood, 'Picture to Burn' - Taylor Swift, 'Pray for You' - Jaron and The Long Road to Love. So mostly sad songs with a few upbeat different songs.

Music has been a huge part of my life. Without music, life would be boring. Just think, no dances where you get your first kiss, no clubs to go out and have a girls nigh out, no concerts to scream your lungs out, no moonlight dancing to your song by the lake, no songs to cry to when yor heart is breaking. Movies would be dull and unsuspenseful. Life would be blah.

My I-pod has been on overdrive but that is how I deal. It will be on overdrive for a while longer cause I have to make a driving playlist to help be get from here to Lejeune to pick up the Marine. I will be driving by myself, yikes. But it will be worth it.

It still hurts and the emptiness will there there for quite some time but music has helped get me through what seems like endless days and nights. I just the was a shooting star that I could wish to undo it!

Emptiness

Why is it so hard to let go of something that you know is not good for you? Why does it feel like every part of you is tearing into little pieces when staying is hurting worse and worse.

I can't do this anymore. I can't be the only one who if fighting for this. But it is taking to much of me to continue to fight for this. It is killing me litle by little and I am losing what little bit of myself that I had just regained from the last incident.

There isn't enough tears, chocolate, or wine to fix this. I don't know if I am strong enough to do this....

K and H - Can we do a girls night in or out soon? I need all the support in this as I can get!

Twilight

6+ hours of Twilight hotness= Amazing!!!

Gonna go see all 3 movies tomorrow!!! Lets see how this goes!!

From the mouth of a 2 year old

First of all my cousin is BACK!!! Yeah!! Very excited about her being back home! Miss her and E way tooo much!

Second: I have had a bloggers block, hence no recent blogs.

So sorry about the fewness in blogs. Been a crazy couple of weeks. Found out my brother is coming home soon, my bf is also coming home and I had to take the CLEP. Excited about the first two but I am anxious/nervous about the third. It takes 4 weeks for the results of the CLEP to come back and it has only been 2. The hair pulling has begun so by week 4 I will be bald.

Anywho........

So if you can't tell, I am super excited that my cousin and my niece are back home. So this past weekend I spent lots of time with K, E and H. So I go out to her house and she tells me that she had to run to the post office but that H is there and will let me in. I go in and while waiting for K to get home, H and I began to chitchat. I cover all sorts of topics in my jumping from one subject to another very fast in my normal way. I then hit the topic of my brother coming home, which lead me to a funny story that happened during while I was seeing my brother off.

When we went up to see him off, he wanted to introduce us to a couple of his buddies, G and Hichos-Hichos. So we went to dinner and had a wonderful time with everyone. Back at the hotel, after Bubba dropped the boys back off at the barrack, Bubba informed everyone that Hichos-Hichos had told him that he was totally in love with yours truly. Needless to say I was totally flabbergasted. Driving all day, crying the days before (BF left a couple of days before Bubba deployed) I know I looked like crap and yet my brothers friends was head over heels for me. Anyway for the following he went everywhere we went. Before D-Day (deployment day) my mom invited both of the boys to come down to Florida when they came back if they wanted to. Hichos-hichos immediately told my mom he would love to.

Back to present day, I was telling this story to H and K. Both absolutely thought it was the funniest thing and kept saying 'Hichos-Hichos' over and over again. Well with E being 2 she repeats everything so she was also saying it. Anyway, we went to the mall later that day and while we were walking around, E started saying 'I want my Hichos-hichos'. We all looked at each other, wonder who she was talking about. She then proceeded to point to me and say 'Hichos-hichos'. H and K started rolling with laughter as E kept pointing to me and say 'Hichos-hichos'. So today before church, K told E that they were going to see Aunt Danielle. E proceeded to get a confused look on her face. K then said that they were going to see Hichos-hichos and she got all excited.

So now instead of Aunt Danielle I am now Aunt Hichos-hichos.

This will be an intersting couple of months to come.

H- I can still come up to visit you if things become interesting as we think they will be?

Mail Stops

That has to be my favorite phrase right now!! If you are military you know exactly what this is my favorite phrase. For those civilians that have no idea it means to stop sending packages, letters, ect. cause they are COMING HOME!!!!! My brother, Bubba the Marine (OOH-RAH!) , told my mom to give everyone the heads up and call a mail stop, which means he will be home soon!! Thank God, I will be relieved when I can hug him again and know that he is safe and sound!!!

Anyway, I also got an e-mail saying that my adopted solider is coming home, so another Mail Stop. I am part of a group called Solider's Angels. It is an AMAZING group. They have soliders who might not have some one here at home that will write to them, send packages, etc. So they adopt them out to individuals that are part of the group. So in essence we become that solider's angel. When my brother was in boot camp, I found out about the group and thought, oh there wouldn't be that many soliders to adopt but I wanna try it. I couldn't believe how many soliders are waiting to be adopted! I have done several adoptions and I feel blessed to know that I am making the day of one of our armed forces, letting them know that we here at home are still behind them and that someone it thinking about them. I have never recieved anything back, which they say might happen because where the solider is located, and that is fine by me. Just knowing that they have someon here thinking about them is enough for me. Now the group is called Solider's Angels but they have Marines, Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and all the Reserves. I have had several Army soliders but I have had a Marine Chaplin and a Seamen.

I am always excited when I get my new adoptee! To figure out what they do, where they are is so interesting, like my last adoptee was part of an IED group that disarmed any IED along routes that were travelled but military conveys. Believe me I was ready for this Mail Stop, worrying about him and his BB (Battle Buddies, Steve, an army friend explained this one to me).

But even though I am excited about getting a new adoptee, I am more excited about getting the Mail Stop. This means that whatever tour they were doing is over and they are coming home, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! I may never get a letter from them, but I am glad that I can brighten the day of one of our armed forces! Because they are doing fighting for me to have the freedoms that I enjoy in daily life. Being a military sister I enjoy it even more cause I know how much it is appricated through my marine, how much he lights up when he gets one of our letters/packages.

Concerts in General

I have never really been a concert person as I never went to concerts. They were usually too expensive or out of town. So hence my concert expirence is nothing. In the last few years though I have become the avid concert goer, wether it was a small inimate setting, i.e to see my boys of Takeout at AKA or larger settings like an arena. This past Tuesday though was probably one of the best concert expirence I have had in a while.

Tuesday night Cowboys was hosting a "Free Concert" starring Randy Houser. It was free but you had to get tickets from either Carl Black's dealership or K92.3. Anyway I got tickets and was super excited!! I invited several people, and we headed towards Cowboys and got there around 6ish, even though the doors opened at 8. We wanted to be the first in line and get good spots. The doors open promtly open at 8 and we all filed in. If you have ever been to Cowboys you know how it is arranged. So the stage was roped off as thats were he was going to be preforming. Since it didn't start till 930 all the table were open as were all the bars ;) So we played a couple of games of pool, I totally rocked!! And then as it got closer to 930 we made our way toward the stage. So he came on stage and everyone on the dance floor was asked to sit on the floor so everyone there could see. So we sat, and lets just say it was way to crowded to sit all those people on the floor but somehow we did it. So it was an amazing concert and had a total blast. Randy Houser is AMAZING!!! And it was just him and one of his band members. He played lots of new songs, plus the faves of course. He also played songs that he helped to write. Like I bet you had no idea the he, Jamey Johnson, and another writer wrote the amazing Honkey Tonk Badonka Donk (sp?). Love the way he sings it!!! Got lots of photos and even some video, which I am surpised that it turned out so well as it was the first time I used the video setting on my camera.

I hope that the concerts I go to in the future are as fun as this one was!!

Season Finales

I am a dvr addict. I dvr EVERYTHING. From award programs to tv series. I love it but the one thing that I hate about tv series is the season finales. The way they end with cliffhangers sucks.

You fall in love/hate with the characters, and want to see them fall in love and make everything ok for them. Season finales don't let you do that. They make you wait to see if your fave characters are ok and the villians are stopped.

My series that I am addicted to are as follows (probably won't be all cause I have too many and might forget some):

Bones

Criminal Minds

NCIS

Castle

Paranormal State

Fringe

Warehouse 13

Sanctuary

Ghost Lab

True blood (don't jave HBO so have to wait for the Seasons to come out on DVD :( )

Those are just the ones I can think of right now. I jsut watched the Bones season finale, which totally sucked and am now watching the Criminal Minds season finale! I can not wait for fall to get here so my shows will be back on.

SMILES!!!

I love getting stuff in the mail, especially when I forgot that I ordered something and it comes in. Like what happened tonight when I got home from a LONG day at work. I was already not having a good week (will probably explain in future blogs...... maybe) and was just wanting it to be Friday so I could relax and have some 'me' time. So I come in all blah and walk into my room. There sitting on my bed was a box, a big white box.

At first I was like, "Did I leave this here?" and then "Who put that there?". I then saw the address and my face lit up like a kid in a candy store. I tore into the box estatically and was very happy with the contents. You are prbably wondering what was in the box that was sooo great.

Well first of all I have never really been a girly-girl. I perfer jeans to dresses and shorts to skirts. I have also been a very minimalist person when it comes to make-up. Hence why it is weird the I was overjoyed with this particular package.

It was a package from E.L.F.. E.L.F. stands for Eyes Lips Face E.L.F. is a online makeup company where everything they sell is a dollar. Of course they have a studio line which is $3-5 but everything else is a dollar. And everything is full size, so you get your moneys worth (or so I think, so far)

Lipstick, a dollar. Brushes, a dollar. Eyeshadow, a dollar. Nail poilsh, a dollar. And so on and so forth.

This package contained a summer beauty boost set (2 brushes, a full size mineral bronzer, a mineral booster, mineral lip gloss, 3 gold braclet, a bio-restorative day cream and a certificate for a body conturing treatment worth $500) that was $20, a couple of cream eyeshadows, a liquid eyeliner, and a lip stain. For a purchase of $20 (of course mine was more than that but you'll get the picture), I got 5 free full size nail polishes in the newest shades (super excited :) ).

They offer deals like this all the time, which means free stuff. I did a complete overhaul on all my makeup and it is all now E.L.F..

I am now a self declared E.L.F.-aholic, which coming from a girl who uses just the basics is a huge step. I still use the basics but every now and again I like to play it up and have a little fun with my makeup. I love all the products I have tried and haven't been disappointed yet. But don't take my word for it, check it out!! You might become a E.L.F.-aholic like me!

So unexpected packages (or packages I forgot about) are one of the tings that make me smile. That and bubble baths but that usually puts a smile on anyones face.

Tomorrow is Friday which means a day off, Woohoo. But it also means cleaning and laundry day. Plus I got to go to the post office and mail some books ( another thing that puts a smile on my face, book swapping clubs ROCK!!!) and then probably some grocery shopping, they got some great deals at work aka Publix. After that we shall see!!

Let's see how this goes!

Okay, first of all I have NEVER blogged before, this is a first for me. After consulting some people, ok just my cousin and she thought that this would be a good idea for me. So here I am. I guess I should let ya'll know a little bit about the blogger behind the blog.

~My name is Danielle.

~I am a college student going for my nursing degree.

~I am also the only girl out of 6 kids and I am the 2nd oldest.

~I am also the PROUD sister of a US Marine, who right now is somewhere, no idea where,becasue he is 'unable to diclose the location of the ship'.

~I am a southern girl. Now just cause I am from Florida does not make me southern. My family, who is from South Carolina, is what helps me become the southern gal that I am. You wanna talk about family meals with all the fixins with the whole humongous family, thats just a part of my southern life.

So just a snapshot of me. More will probably come out as a grow as a blogger. I am hopeful that this expirence will be a good one and that I will look forward to blogging in the future!!