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!