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!

Good Eats

VeggieTales? Yes!

Listening to This Boy by the Beatles. All-time favorite Beatles song. :)
Chilling in the Social Sciences building on campus.
    So I'm trying really hard to be healthy this year. Never mind that I had Chick-fil-A three (3) times last week. I'm starting now. After I finish eating this enormous sugar cookie... Seriously. I'm going to be good.
    A major problem I'm having with the whole eating healthy thing is that the options here on campus aren't quite stellar. I mean, if I eat in the commons I can have a salad, some hummus (hummus is yummus), or a wrap, but I don't really like eating alone in the commons, and that's what would happen on Mondays and Wednesdays. The other choices* for food on campus are either Chick-fil-A, or getting something at Jazzman's coffee in the Social Science building. So today I went with Jazzman's. I got a turkey club wrap, which was soggy (with what I'm not entirely sure) and a watered down fruit cup. After that dissatisfaction what choice did I have but to get a massive sugar cookie the size of my face with blue icing and sprinkles that was beckoning to me from the display case? None, that's what. I'd have taken a picture to show you just how irresistible this thing is was, but it's gone. It was gone as soon as I got it. And now I'm so full I look like I'm about to give birth to a food baby.
    Now, I have many ideas for healthy eating that I fully intend to implement when I move out and start buying my own groceries. Chick-fil-A is going to take the backseat and I'm going to make friends with nuts, fruits, and fresh veggies for snacks. I'm even going to start exercising somehow. I was thinking either taking some adult ballet classes (but since I've already taken eight years I'm not sure how much good a beginners' class will do me), or even some belly dancing classes. Something that involves dance and doesn't take place at a gym (they scare me). Aren't I such an inspiration? Ha.
    How is everyone else intending on getting healthier for the new year? Since I know so many peoples' new years resolutions are to lose weight and get in shape, let's hear your ideas!

*I say other choices as if they are the only two. They're not, they're just convenient because all my classes are right nearby, and although I'm going to be healthier, I'm not hauling myself all over campus to find something to eat.

Shunning the Resolute*

Dream by Priscilla Ahn ringing in my ears
New Year's Resolutions running through my mind
    As a kid, I never gave much thought to New Year's Resolutions. I always thought it was something that you did once you got to Middle School, or something. When I reached Middle School, I figured, "I'm a kid, there isn't much I need to change about myself," and decided that High School was when I'd start setting and striving to achieve any yearly goals. Once High School rolled around, I acknowledged that I am a truly lazy person and responded to resolutions with with the same method I reserved for huge papers and projects: procrastination. Now that I'm in my second year of college, I feel like this is something I need to take seriously.
    It's being impressed upon me more and more that I am an adult and need to be responsible, be driven, and act on that drive. I have to instill good habits now so that I can depend on them later in life - don't ignore my alarm clock now, because if I do in the real world, I'll be late and be fired; don't procrastinate and stay up all night to complete a project, because once I get a real job, if I do that, I'll oversleep, ignoring my alarm clock, be late, and be fired; write down everything I have to do, because if I don't, I'll forget until the night before, stay up all night, oversleep, ignoring my alarm clock, be late for my job, and be fired. You see how all my bad habits now will eventually lead to the deterioration of future me's job?
    So I've gathered (read: been told time and time again) that I need to set some goals and "resolutions" for myself, to become a better person, and to help future me keep my job. The problem is, I still view New Year's Resolutions in the same way I did in Elementary, Middle, and High School. I know they would probably help me a good bit, but I also know that I will never stick to them. I could say that my resolutions are:
    1. To go to sleep earlier and wake up on time.
    2. To eat healthier.
    3. Not to procrastinate.
    4. To keep track of everything in a planner, like they tried to make me do in Elementary and Middle School.
    5. To submit my first book for publication.
    6. To finish my second book.
    However, I know that I'm going to:
    1. Stay up until roughly three a.m. tonight doing who even knows what, sleep through my alarm, and be extremely rushed to be at work at ten a.m. tomorrow.
    2. Eat Chick-fil-A until I throw up, and then go get Zaxby's.
    3. Wait as long as I can to go get my books for my classes, thus making myself overly stressed.
    4. Insist I can remember when I'm supposed to work this next week, then promptly forget and have to go back in to check my schedule again.
    5. Delay submitting my book because for every "no" I receive, a piece of my soul will flake off and die. Plus there's always something I can improve, right?
    6. Give myself a "break" on my second book because I just spend a whole month writing it - I have plenty of time to finish it.
    Look there - I already have reasons why I don't need to stick to my resolutions, so what on earth is going to keep me going through the whole year? The answer, reader, is nothing. Nothing will keep me going, so why start? Not trying at all is way better than failing. That way, no one has to know that I'm a failure. They'll just look at me and assume, as anyone would, that the reason I have not set any resolutions for myself is that I am already completely perfect and there is nothing about myself I need to change. Why would I correct them?
*This entry is rife with sarcasm. You have been warned.