Let's Try This Again

    No, I have not forgotten. Yes, I am a horribly disorganized failure of a consistent blogger. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad. Please don't leave me. The end of last semester (from Halloween on) kicked my butt to Christmas and back and I had a meltdown. Blogging kind of disintegrated with most of my sanity. Forewarning - if my life becomes unbearably stressful, as it did then, blogging is the first thing to go, because it's something I do on the side. It will not get me out of school or get me a job or plan Corey's and my wedding.
    But I do still love doing it, so I will always come back. I won't go into the details of the butt-kicking, but here's an overview of what I didn't blog about.

In the beginning of November, I met Corey in Charleston for a few days. We moseyed around the city and met up with his uncle and aunt whom he'd never met. They were great and expecting a baby boy in the next week or two. Congrats on baby M!

At the Marine Corps Birthday Ball
The picture taken right after this was my velociraptor impression.

I finished up most of my finals then got sick (as I usually do) during the last week of finals, which was also the first week that Corey came home to visit. I spent the majority of my sickness on the couch with him at his dad and dad's fiancée's new house which is beautiful. We did however fit in our anniversary dinner on December 10 at a local Italian restaurant which happens to be right down the street from the place we want to have the wedding. Haven't booked it yet though, so don't get all excited.

After our anniversary dinner. Should've taken one before hand when we weren't exhausted yet.

For the next week we spent most of our time hanging out with friends and just spending time together. He had two weeks of leave all together; unfortunately, the reason it was so long was because it was a pre-deployment leave. He deployed five days after Christmas and didn't get to spend Christmas at home with his family and me. That was a big bummer.

Christmas was nice, though. My mom got us all up at the butt-crack of dawn because her mother was expecting us before lunchtime (because everyone in her family is a crazy morning person and wakes up at five am every day). We opened gifts and then my dad made his usual big southern breakfast for us (eggs, bacon, and home-made biscuits and gravy), and it was delicious. Then we went to my grandma and papa's (mom's parents) for Christmas dinner and my mom's siblings and their kids were there, which was cool.

Between Christmas and New Year's I did very little aside from work and mope around because Corey's gone. I did have dinner with my bffl Suzie (sushi) and go to the movies with her (Frozen, for the third time. But it felt like the first time in forever. Anyone? I'd see it three more times).

New Year's Eve I had a very last-minute party with a few of my closest friends from high school, Suzie, and my cousin Aaron, and his friend. I made Pinterest Not-Fried Fried Pickles (which were amazing), strawberry-champagne cupcakes with champagne frosting (which I did not ruin), and Amaretto Sours, which are super easy, taste like candy, and are liked by everyone ever. We played Cards Against Humanity, drank (responsibly, most everyone slept at my house except the one person who hardly drank at all), and had a really great time.

Suzie and I. Best friends for almost thirteen years now!

Now it's back to the work-and-school grind. Semester overview:

• I have classes Monday-Thursday and work Monday-Friday-Saturday.
• I'm not sure yet what days I will be posting, and it will probably be only once a week since I only have Sundays off for both homework and rest from the restaurant.
• I do have a fifteen credit-hour semester ahead of me, so bear with me while I work out the kinks.
• If I disappear without warning, chances are I'm buried under the inevitable rockslide of the workload I've taken on.

Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Here's hoping I do better than I did last year!

100th Blog Post!

Reflecting on the last three years.
    That's right! It's taken me almost three years to reach 100 blog posts. And this is because I took so many hiatuses, and they were so long. All my fault. But I'm here now!
    And I have to say, I'm happy with where my blog is now. I've been doing really well in the past few months, sticking with my two posts per week (except when life gets crazy, like this week). I think that's just enough for me to handle. And I like my subject matter right now - Monday being whatever I want and Thursdays being beauty/fashion related.
    Lately, I've been toying with the idea of changing my blog name and url, mostly because someone owns the url dangwrite.com, and I'd like to have something more original to me. Also, my blog isn't just about writing anymore, especially since I don't have time to just sit and write my heart out. I have books to read, schoolwork to do, and writing isn't my only love. I have so many other passions and I don't want to limit my blog to only one thing. Dang Write just doesn't cover all my bases anymore.
    However, if I did change the name, I'd want to register an actual domain name, and pay for it and everything. And although it's a small fee each month, what with saving for the wedding I don't know that I'd want to worry about that as well. Plus I'd want to ensure that everyone knew what was going on before I changed the name so I wouldn't lose any of my meager audience - I value you loverlies too much!
    But I digress from what's most important here - my 100th blog post! I want to thank all the people who have been reading my blog for the last three years. There aren't a lot of you, but I really appreciate your dedicated reading, even through the time I would disappear for a few months. It's because I realized I did have a small following (read: 13 people), that I wanted to be better about blogging. If thirteen people in this world think I'm worth reading twice a week, by George, I'm gonna give them something to read! So I've really tried to do better. And personally, I'm pretty proud!

 

So do you all like where the blog is going? Do you miss any old features? Do you have ideas for new ones you'd like to see? Are you intimidated by my questions? If you have any opinions at all, please comment below, because I'm not just writing for me, lovely readers. I'm writing for you, too! Let me know what you like, what you don't, and what you want to see!

Things Lately

Listening to the soundtrack from Ever After.
Avoiding the veritable mountain of homework I have due tomorrow.
    Life this past week got interesting. That's the best word I can think of to sum it up. Some of it was bad, but it wasn't all bad. And some of it was really wonderful, but it definitely wasn't all wonderful. For example, Friday was Friday the thirteenth. But because I'm non-conformist and not superstitious, I celebrated early with an awful Thursday the twelfth. The day started with my alarm being set for 7:30 pm instead of am, and ended with a parking ticket. You can just fill in the blanks from there (but I will say that in the middle somewhere I was told that "being independent doesn't make you special, it makes you less feminine," and that I "shouldn't even be called a lady").
    That night, I also received a call from my bffl Suzanne with news of her dad, whom I affectionately call Horace. He's been dealing with some heart problems recently - I would say "struggling" with some heart problems, but honestly, a month ago when it all started, it rather miraculously healed itself, so that part wasn't really too much of a struggle. Now, though, because he didn't get into surgery soon enough, he's been paralyzed from the waist down. Now, I've known Suzanne and her family since the fourth grade. We've been best friends for twelve years now. Her big sister is like my big sister, and her parents like my second set. I know it seems overdramatic to be so affected by this news - after all, it's not my dad - but it really did throw me. It doesn't seem to have thrown him, though. I spoke to him (and Suzanne, of course) on the phone on Friday, and I couldn't detect the slightest note of sadness in his voice. There will be sadness, and dark times, I'm sure, and Suzanne says every so often she can tell he's down, but overall, he's taking it so well. The whole family is. He told me on the phone, "Today, I put on socks, which is great! And," keep in mind, he's in the hospital, now, "Maybe next week, I'll get to put on pants, which is even better!" I mean, he's just so positive. Suzanne said he told her that he sees this as God, as our shepherd, breaking his legs (as shepherds do) and throwing him over His shoulders so that he must depend more on Him. Which is just so inspirational. I have to say that I'm so proud of him, of all of them.
    For those of you who recall my mom having surgery a few weeks ago, a little update. She's healing really well. It's difficult for her, seeing it every day, and not noticing too much change, but really, it's healing so much faster and more smoothly than I expected. Her forehead bears just a faint pink line now, and the skin on her nose (at the bottom, the top still has the skin flap until this Friday) is blending perfectly, and she doesn't have too much lasting pain. She does have a headache that's been an issue, but only because of the tightness in her forehead and the bruising. That will all go away. I'm so proud of her for going back to teaching so soon after it happened, too!
    Lastly, I went to a wedding Saturday night! It was Corey's dad's fiancée's daughter's wedding (hard to follow, I know). And it was beautiful. Of course, because I can't go to important events without screwing something up, I went to the wrong wedding first. Turns out there was another wedding going on at the same place at the same time - just a different building. But their decorations looked lovely, and their guests were very nice! It was only when I asked if anyone had seen Amanda yet, and they were like, "Who?" that I realized this was not the right place. Thing was, I only knew two of the guests personally who weren't in the wedding party, so I wouldn't have recognized anyone going into the wedding anyways. That was embarrassing, but whatever. I got there just in time and the ceremony was lovely and sweet, and the reception was possibly the most fun I've ever had at a wedding - and I've been to a lot! I spent the whole time with Brett (Corey's brother) and his girlfriend Robin, who are two of my favorite people on earth. We celebrated until about one in the morning and I danced until my feet hurt, and then kept dancing. The only downside was that Corey couldn't make it (thanks, USMC) and it was sort of depressing watching everyone holding their significant others close for slow dances while I sat in a chair by the dance floor. But the groom, Nick, did ask me for a dance towards the end which was super sweet. He was on the trip when Corey proposed and it was very considerate of him and Amanda to think of me missing Corey on their big day. Just shows you what a wonderfully sweet couple they are. And I know they're going to have an equally wonderfully sweet marriage.

I know this was a long post, but for those of you who were interested enough to read to the end, thanks. I realize it may not have been what everyone wanted from a Monday post, but I've got more on my mind than the next pointers post or tutorial. Sometimes I just need to get out what I'm thinking so I have room to think more.