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.