Ridin' Solo

Hello All,

I reached a teenage milestone (I still have 8 months until I'm 20 so I'm still a teenager right?) today! Today I drove ALL by myself! No one else was in the car with me, and I drove to 3 different places and I didn't crash into anything! That's an accomplishment if I do say so myself. 

I figured since my blog only a little while I ago I should share my learning to drive story with you guys. In the state that I live in I could get my learner's permit at 16, my licence 3 months later but me being the merp that I am didn't get my permit until the summer before my senior year (I failed the written test twice, don't judge). I went to driver's ed and did the class part in 15 classes which came out to be about 7 weeks. But I was horrible about the actually driving part. At first I was scared you know all the horror stories you learn about in driver's ed, I was scared that would happened to me. It didn't help that Mama J was scared to drive with me, Father lives in a different state and I have no older siblings. 

Finally in January Mama J came up with the ideas that I should ask 2 family friends who had taught their children to drive if they'd be willing to help and they were. I went out with Mrs. P (my best friend, Amelia's mom)  a couple of time and Mrs. R a bunch a of times (Thanks for that!). Finally Mama Judy was comfortable driving with me. I would got home, every weekend in February and the first couple of March to drive. And I drove around like crazy, I spent hours and hours on the road. 

Finally it was the day to test, not only was it my test day but it was also my 19th birthday! And how did my test go? I panicked and failed! I was uber upset at the time but I come the realization that I did deserve to fail  and the instructor was just doing his job. But some birthday right? I honestly believe 19 has been my worse birthday so far. I tested again about 3 weeks later and passed with flying colors but I didn't get to drive again until May when I returned home.

Mama J decide that she didn't want me driving again until I had a little more practice...fair enough, it is her car. 

So, finally today I got to drive all my lonesome! I had an appointment I had to go to and Mama J needed to work so I got to drive. I listen to music, obeyed the speed limit (always a good thing), didn't hit anything (another good thing) and drove myself. After my appointment I drove to McDonald's to grab Mama J some lunch and I ran into a girl I took Driver's Ed with small world right? I also did another quick errand that the grocery store to grab some nail polish remover and new nail polish. Then headed home. 

I was really impressed with my driving abilities. And can't wait to drive alone again for farther distance...and maybe to somewhere more fun then an appointment, maybe to movie or out to dinner with friends (something fun to blog about). 

This weekend will be a pretty busy one, I'm going to student leadership program for the future teacher's club i'm part of (its an over night retreat, and I'll tell you all about it early next week. 

I'm also going to send a quick shout to my roommate who is doing relay for life this weekend, she's the team captain. I wish I could be there for her but unfortunately the dates didn't work out. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

XOXO,

Em.

P.S.-Since my blog is like my baby for the first year I want to share its milestones and accomplishments each month.

Month One:

Followers - 2

Post - 16 (This will be 17)

Comments - 4 

Page Views - 159

Bucket List Accomplishments - 0

Missing My Merps

Hello All,

I moved home officially 3 weeks ago and since being home I haven't seen my merps (definition of a merp) in 3 weeks and I miss them so much. 

The only picture with all my merps (minus Chris D'Elia, he's not a merp)

Its weird to go from seeing these two, my best friends at college, everyday to not seeing each other at all. A few nights ago I spend 2 and half hours on the phone with one of them just catching up.

It amazes me how in just a few short months people who I just met become such an important part of my life and now I miss them so much. Hopefully we will be uniting in the next couple of weeks. Mandi (the one on the right of Chris D'Elia) lives about an hour and half away from the area of the state that me and Hannah (my roommate and on the far right) live. 

The strange thing is I miss my college friends more then I missed my high school friends at the beginning of the year. Is that normal? Maybe sense when you go to college you start over and recreate yourself and becoming who you truly are so I think the connection I made with my college friends is stronger then a lot of my high school friends. Don't get me wrong I do miss some of my high school friends, the ones who I still loved me even when I started over and became my true self. 

I can't wait to see my merps again. This weekend I will get to see some of my college friendship when I go to a Future Teacher's Club leadership conference. But part of me can't wait until the end of August when I will be back at school with Merps. 

XOXO,

Em

What I Love Wednesday...Country Boys

Hello All, 

Welcome to my first ever What I Love Wednesday! I have a whole list of things I want to write about for this feature sitting down in my room. I spent all of today thinking a debating which topic I wanted to write about. I decide to go with the one that I came up with last night after being inspired by friend, Alex's, Facebook post. 

I grew up listening to country music. But it wasn't until this year that I fell in love with my favorite country singers! 

The first one I discovered was Scotty McCreery.

I don't watch American Idol, but one of my friend's raved about him while he was on the show. I fell in love with him in his song, The Trouble With Girls.

I just love the lyrics in the song and how the words describe how boys think about girls because its so similar to how girls feel too. 

I also love his song Water Tower Town.

I love this song because there is line in the song that says "You Know who loves who from miles around." Those words ring true to the high school that I went to, you know every detail of every person life. 

My other country love is Hunter Hayes.

I was a little behind on the Hunter Hayes craze (or is that just something that I see with my friends?). Anyways I first discovered how much I loved him with his (very short, too short) performance on the Grammy's this year. All his love song describe the type of relationship I want to be in one days. The first song I fell in love with was Somebody's Heart Break.

But my favorite song by him, actually my favorite song right now is I Want Crazy.

I absolutely love this song. I love the melody, the lyrics, the songs and video's story. I love every word in this song, if you haven't heard or watched the video well I put the video in my post so watch and listen because well the song is perfect. 

Well this concludes my first What I Love Wednesday! 

XOXO,

Em 

And We're Tweeting...

Hello All,

Today I spend sometime researching how to get blogs more popular. One of the ones I read about a lot was  to link your site to social networks. So, I have created a twitter for my blog. You can follow me here. You'll get a better inside of who I am and sneak peek of what's to come on my blog!

I'm also going to start a weekly post called "What I Love Wednesday" where each week I'll pick a topic of something I love and write all about for all you fine people out there in Internet land.

I would also like to know...What makes you want to follow a new blog? Let me know in my comments box and I'll be sure to think about.

Thanks!

XOXO,
Em.

My Bucket List

Hello All,

I hope everyone has had a good Memorial Day weekend. Before I start this post I want to thank all Servicemen, past, present and future for their services. I also want to thank the family members who have people fighting. I know that it can't be easy! 

Next, I want to share a new feature on my blog...my BUCKET LIST!

I got the idea for a bucket list on my blog from one of my favorite college blogs, Sabra from College. Crazy. Life. Although on her blog is 101 things she wants to do in 1001 days, while mine is a list of things I want to do before I die. I very much suggest that you check out Sabra blog, check it out here, Sabra's Blog. 

My bucket list is something I'm so excited about and I can't believe how easy it was for me to come up with. I now have a page devoted to it and on slow blogging weeks I will do a short write up on why each item is something that I want to do. Also when each item is complete I will share it with you guys here on my blog. So, please join me for the ride!

Since I started the blog today I will share the explanation of my first 5 items. 

Spend a weekend in New York City: I have loved New York City for as long as I can remember. As of right now I have spend days in New York (I've seen Broadway Plays, gone to the American Girl store & saw the rockettes) but I want to really spend time their, not having to worry about catching a plane, I want to spend the night in hotel, fall asleep to the lights and wake up to the skyline. 

Be in Time Square on New Years Eve: I know you can't see anything and its crowded and you have to be there all day but I've always wanted to be there, I love the vibe of New York. My real dream would be to do with my best friend, Amelia! 

Finish redoing my room: This will probably be the first thing on my list that I will finish. I recently moved into my basement and now it needs to become a room instead of pile of my stuff that doesn't have a place. 

Although my room probably won't look like this I don't have any finish photos yet

Get on the Dean's List at School: I am one of those people who have to work really hard in order to get good grades but I really want to one day get on the Dean's List, who wouldn't. 

Do the Gossip Girl tour in New York City: I've done some research and saw that this tour exist. Over winter break this year I watched the series and loved it. Now I really want to see all the places where the characters were. I really wanted to do this for one of my friend's birthday because she liked the show a lot to. We'll see. 

I'm so excited to start my bucket list. I know I will constantly be adding things but I can't wait to complete items. 

XOXO,

Em. 

Summer goals

Hello All,

I feel like I have been missing from my blog lately...mainly because I no longer in school so my life as become....well boring. My friends from back home are mainly still in school if their in high school or like don't have cars yet. My friends from school live farther away then 10 minutes across campus so I am spending a lot more time at home. 

Because of my time at home I've been working on some projects for the summer. One has been a project that Mama J and I have been working on for what seems like forever and that is switching are rooms. The way our house use to be set up was that Mama J had the master bedroom, I had the small spare bedroom and then their was a craft room (we love scrapbooking, crocheting, rubber stamping, etc...) in the basement. Last summer though Mama J realized she wasn't doing as much crafting because the basement was too dark and depressing for her. Since I'm not home all that much living at school we decide that I would move down to the basement (about 2 1/2 times the size of my old room) and my mom would move her craft room into the second bedroom.  That being said one of my goals for this summer is to finish updating my room so that it'll be all nice and decorated to my standards. When that is finished I'll post pictures and a video tour. :)

Another goal/project I have for this summer is for Mama J, which is to re-do her room. She wants to rip up her carpet (Long story short we had a dog who passed away in October, and towards the end she had a hard time controlling bladder & bowels (sorry I know TMI) and her accidents have stained Mama J's carpet. So, I'm in the process of ripping up Mama J's carpet. Once that is done she also wants me to paint her room for her.

With all the room re-dos and finding a real summer job, I will be busy but I am extremely ready and excited about it. Although today I don't want to do any of it, because its cloudy out and I'll wanna do is curl up in bed and watch tv, crochet or read. Although I'm making myself push through because frankly I want my room back LOL.

XOXO,
Em 

Freshmen 15

Hello All,

We've All heard of freshmen 15, we say that we will be able fight and not fall into the trap of freshmen 15. At least I thought I could but I hate to say that I did lose the fight for freshmen 15 for many reasons. 

But first a short background on me...I've never been thin, I went through a phase where I hated myself but after losing some weight I started to love who I am and dress myself so that I felt comfortable with myself. During my weight lose I learned that I would eat when I was bored and that I was emotional eater and I would ask myself if I was hungry or bored and eventually I was able to stop the emotional eating.

After starting college I started eating when I was bored and I spent WAY to much time at the dinning hall and felt the need to eat when I was hanging out with friends. I was a member of the fitness center but didn't go nearly enough!  

After starting the summer and getting home I had time to think about solution how for me to lose the freshmen 15 and keep off when I return to college. So, here are my ideas:

1: Create an eating schedule such as breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon lunch, and dinner

2: Actually eating breakfast, they say that helps keep you healthier

3: Join a gym, one that has a summer work out program for students

4: Find a way to stay healthy at home and at school 

I want to say that I'm not one of those people who hates themselves. I don't want to lose weight to be prettier. I want to lose weight to be healthy and in shape. 

I was at my thinnest during my senior year when I looked like this...

Now  look more like this...

I hope to one day be back to my thinner self but if I stay the size I am and end up healthy I will be happy!

Starting tomorrow I will start my new eating schedule and find a way to work out at home! Its all part of me journey as a college student. 

XOXO,

Em. 

Saying Goodbye to the Office

Hello All,

As I mentioned in my introduction (Can be seen here), I am a television junkie! Of all the shows I watch the only one to truly end this season was The Office. 

I was never a must watch every week, overly obsessed Office fan. Instead I was a watch occasionally but still love the show, Office fan. I was one of those fans that thought the show would crash and burn after Steve Carell left the show but instead I was wrong and it lasted 2 more seasons. 

I didn't know what to expected from The Office series finale but I can honestly say that I was extremely pleased with the finale. They flashed forward a year which is one of my favorite technique when it comes to series finales, it gives you a good idea of where all you favorite characters are going to be in their lives. 

I also found that episode was a powerful episode. Why do I say that? Because I am not a very emotional person it takes a lot for me to cry but this episode had me on the edge of tears multiple times. And when I wasn't on the verge of tears I had goosebumps. 

I suggest that anyone who ever watched even a few episodes of The Office, and enjoyed it even remotely watch the series finale because the writers did finale justice. 

XOXO,

Em. 

Mother's Day 2013

Hello All,

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there! Today I celebrated Mother's Day with Mama J!

We started the day with me giving her, the gifts I got/made her. This year I got her a bumper sticker from my college, a card with a dancing monkey and made her some cupcakes. 

You can see her card in the background.

A close up of her cupcakes, the cupcakes say: Happy Mother Day Mommy! (Yes, I forgot the 's' in Mothers). 

I absolutely love making cupcakes and I think these are some of the best cupcakes I've ever made. Normally when I try to write words you can't really make-out the letters but I these ones you can so I'm happy. And she loved them! 

In the afternoon we went to a beach about an hour away from our house. It was the one place where Mama J wanted to go for Mother's Day. 

The tide was so high today!

Looking down the beach you can see there were quite a few people there today, if you were to look the other way you would have seen even more.

Mama J and I.

I accidently took this picture while I was trying to take a picture of the beach because I forgot to change the way the lens faced. What can I say, I'm a merp!

Mama J went for a walk on the beach, I ended up going to sit in the car. I had to go sit in the car because I have cold urticaria, which basically means that when I get to cold I break out in hives. In simpleton terms, I'm allergic to the cold. My original thoughts was to sit on the beach while she walked and read my book but I started to break out so I went to the car. Mama J was very happy with her walk along the beach though and that is all that matters because its Mother's Day. 

After our trip to the beach we went to seafood restaurant down the road where we met up with my aunt, uncle and cousins. 

All-in-all I think Mama J had a fantastic Mother's Day!

Before I say good-bye I just wanted to share the paragraph that I wrote about Mama J on my instagram: "Happy mother's day to the most important person in my world. She is my inspiration, my role model, my biggest supporter, and my hero. But most importantly she is my best. I love you Mama J." I think this describes my relationship with Mama J. 

XOXO,

Em.  

The Best Parts of Freshmen Year!

Hello All,

I think its time to do a final wrap up on my freshmen year. I spent sometime this morning think about my top ten experiences of my freshmen year. I want to share them with you now and then I'll share a video I create with all the pictures and video from my freshmen year!

10: Halloween 2012: I'm really not that much of a Halloween person, I hadn't dressed up or trick or treated since probably 5th grade. But their was a campus sponsored party so me and my roommate dressed up has dogs for Halloween. 

Me on the left and Hannah on the right.

9: Meeting the Mascot-One day after math class my friend Tessa and I were walking around and me saw the mascot out taking pictures. We asked if we could take a picture and they let us.

From Left to right: Me, Otis the owl and Tessa

8: Rooftop Party- During the Welcome Weekend our campus had a roof top party on the parking garage. I went with some people who I had meet during that weekend. Although the people I went with and I drift apart it was still an awesome experience. 

From Left to Right: Me, Lisa, Michelle

7:Color Combat- This event was an awesome because it made me feel like an elementary school student event all over again. Plus it helped that my team won. 

My Team's t-shirt

6: Getting Bubbles-Hannah and I got  fish, Bubble, and we bonded with it pretty quickly. Unfortunately it was short lived because when Hannah brought Bubbles home for Spring Break, Hannah's niece tried to take Bubbles for a walk, outside the bowl. 

5: Pet Therapy- I love playing with dogs so when they came to visit campus I was so excited and totally in my element. 

My favorite Dog, Honey and me.

4: Sophie visits College - My mom's best friend Sara has a daughter name Sophie who is 4 years old. I love this girl to death, I call her my spirit animal because I love who she is. She came to visit me at college in October and it was so much fun!

Left to right: me, Sophie

3: Meeting Chris D'Elia- I've never seen Chris D'Elia's Show Whitney but hey he's a celebrity and I can officially say I met someone famous.

From Left to right: Me, Chris D'Elia, Mandi & Hannah. 

2: My Expanding Family- This year my family was lucky enough 2 new babies enter our family. One of my aunt's adopted a baby in August and I got to meet him in October. My other Aunt had a baby in February. I haven't met her yet but I can't wait until I get to meet her. 

Joshua (this a recent picture of him) he was born in August!

Anna who was born in February. 

1: Becoming Secretary of my Future Teacher Club- I love this club more then anything that I've ever been involved in my life. I can't wait to be more involved and help run all the events I loved this year!

From left to right: Me, Cyndi (VP), Deanna (President), & Christina (Public Relations). Missing is Megan who will be our treasurer. 

This is the slide show I created of my college experiences. 

Enjoy!

If you find yourself enjoying what I write please follow my blog!

XOXO, 

Em.

P.S. One of my really good friends Cayla just started a blog so check her's out. Sorry I Have Rehearsal

I Harry Pottered My Way Across the Street

Hello All, 

Well, I'm officially home with Mama J and on summer vacation, but getting here was not an easy task!

Let's start uber early this morning like 12 AM, I don't know if many people know this but Disney Channel does Disney Channel throwback Thursday when they play Disney Channel Shows from years ago. I couldn't sleep so I decided I would watch because I couldn't sleep. I watched both Phil of the Future and the Suite Life on Deck.

I use to LOVE this show. I also had a HUGE crush on the guy who played Phil...I still think he's a pretty attractive guy. 

This was one of my favorite shows though. I thought it was so funny and it made me want to do a a semester at sea. Its actually a program that I am looking into for one summer. 

I finally fell asleep after my flashback to childhood. And 7:30 AM came all to quick and it was time to start getting ready for my math final. Luckily I think I did pretty well on my final, I'm thinking about B. 

After my final I started packing all my stuff, at about noon I was half way through packing and I had a lot more stuff then I thought I would.

I had that plus a huge suitcase and a hammer packed so far but I decide I needed a quick break, I went to the Dinning Hall with Mandi. It was our last real hang out a session. I can't believe how close the two of us have become this semester and I know I'm going to miss her next year!

On my way back to my room I ran into my friend Lauren from my future teachers club, we caught up real quick and said good-bye for the summer.

I went back to my room, finished packing, Hannah and I cleaned our room, and soon it was time for her to leave too. :(

(This picture was actually taken a couple of weeks ago when she was bring stuff home but still she left today)

I had a couple of hours to kill before Mama J would be at school to pick me up, I watched a couple of episodes of Grey's Anatomy and made sure that everything was packed. Unfortunately Mama J was a little late so we were rushing to get before my check out. And here comes the story from the title...

At our school we have 2 types of cart to help people move in and out. One is a laundry bin style bucket and the other is luggage carts that you'd use in are airport. The parking lot is across the street from my building so I had to do a little jog across the street to get the cart over the lip between the street and the sidewalk. While I was doing this I felt like I was in the Harry Potter movies when they had to run onto Platform 9 3/4. Here's a video for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. 

Well during my last load of bring stuff out to the car I was transporting my rug and I went to try and "jump" the lip to get into the parking lot and the carpet bent under the cart and I got stuck. I said some choice words because I was stuck in the street. I finally was able to get the cart over the lip and get the stuff to my car. During this whole ordeal an attractive guy who lived in building saw it. I was a little embarrassed but I'm a merp so its okay. (If you want to know what a merp is check out my post about it here)

After my merp moment I check out of my room and said good-bye to my room until next fall and said hello to summer!

(The top picture is all my stuff in my dorm and the bottom is it all somehow put into Mama J's van)

Its weird to say good-bye to people who I've grown so close to over the past few months. I see Mandi, Hannah and Heidi everyday and now I don't know when I'll see them again. I will miss them dearly and can't wait to see them at some point this summer. 

Over the past few weeks I've been working a video with pictures and videos from my freshmen year of college, I will be sharing it at some point during the next few days and then it'll be time to start telling stories of summer. 

XOXO,

Em. 

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Hello All,

I see the light...the light of the shinning sun and beautiful summer days to come! 

At this time tomorrow I will be homebound, I will have completed my freshmen year! That is scary thought to me. But I am beyond excited for summer and the classes I am taking next summer. Along with my role as secretary in the future teachers club. I know I will miss my amazing friends that I have made this year but I'm taking with me plenty of memories and they are all just a text, tweet, facebook message, skype, call away. And I know that I will see them during the summer. 

But let's talk finals:

-Finals SUCK! Although I know a lot of people already know that fact

-When it comes to finals I would prefer to write a paper rather then take a test. Mainly because I am a horrible test taker. Luckily for me 2.5 out my five finals were papers! Why do I say 2.5 because one of my finals were both paper and a test. 

-If I passed my French final and the class with a C- I will be done with French forever which is would be a dream come true because after 7 years of taking it I'm still horrible at. 

Although I have no concrete plans for the summer I hope to see my little cousins when they visit my grandmother. I hope to get some time to hang out with my friends back home. I also hope to work, read, and relax because next semester is going to be CRAZY!!!!

As I mentioned earlier I am so excited about my classes for next semester. What are the classes? Well I'll tell you in declining order of what my excited about. 

-Geography 100 - This a core class that I have to take. I'm not sure what exactly I will be learning about but I do know that I was pretty good at geography when I was in high school.

-Economics 101- I'm interested in economics because I have no cool how they work and I want to try and understand so that when I become an independent adult I'll understand the economy. 

-Math 106- Its the second part of the math class that I'm in this semester. Its a review of all the things that you learn in elementary math classes. I need to know all of this so that I can teach it one day!

-Special Education 225 & Education 200: These two classes are tied for first because they are my first education classes I've been waiting for those classes since I started college. 

Before I leave you guys I want to share with you a study tip from my roommate, Hannah.

Sometimes napping is more important then studying. LOL

XOXO,

Em.

What Exactly Is A Merp?

Hello All,

There is a word that is important in my world that all my readers should know, Merp. It is somewhat of a made up word that me and my friends use. It actually has many meanings. 

1. A Noun; A merp is a person, my friends, Hannah, Mandi and I are merps. We are willing to be ourselves no matter where we are. Even if that means Gangam Styling while we walk across campus. Yes, I've done this. 

2. A Facial Expression; merps have many facial expressions, but the most important one is the merp face itself. Here's an example of the merp face...

Or

3. A Verb: You also can merp. Merping is when you let your inner merp out. My friends and I love being merps. Today while Mandi and I were studying we took a little Merp break. 

I love finding friends who are willing to be merps with me. The most important part of being a merp is loving who you are. 

XOXO,

Em. 

Playing with Puppies

Hello All,

Today was one of my favorite on campus activities of the semester! What was the event you ask?

Pet Therapy!

Right before finals my college puts on an event where they bring dogs to campus that are certified therapy dogs. They are trained to distress and calm people. They are brought to visit people in the hospital, with people who have mental disabilities,nursing home and college students before college. 

I went down to visit the dogs with my friends Hannah, Mandi and Heidi. The dogs were adorable and it was so fun to pet them. Plus they were absolutely adorable. 

One of the dogs did a really cool trick:

I absolutely love when they bring dogs to campus. I wish I could bring one back to my dorm and cuddle with one all night. 

XOXO,

Em!