Happy Easter!

Just taking the time to give a big ol' HAPPY EASTER to everyone :]  Enjoy it.

For Easter, Thomas was a sweetie pie and bought me my first easter basket in 10 years - he filled it with some candy and the cutest little plush ducky.  I love my boyfriend, he's super amazing.

I'm 21 and fabulous!

So one week ago was my birthday.  Technically I've been 21 for one week!  Haha, but I've only utilized it once.  Anyways, my birthday shindig.  I spent the morning babysitting for a friend, and then came home that night, and the absolute first thing we (and by we, I mean myself, Thomas, his friend Dustin, and Shay) did was hit up a liquor store.  It was incredibly overwhelming (and my naive little self found out that "top shelf liquor" really means that it's on the actual top shelf in the store) and not as much fun as I thought it would be.  Go figure.  So we run several errands and eventually end up back at my apartment where they had hung my piñata!  And let me tell you, that thing was HARD to pulverize.  I eventually took a hammer to it and dumped it all out on the ground.



Yes, it is a high heel with cheetah spots<3







The fillings - 21 mini botles!



We gathered everything together, and finally at 8pm we were ready to leave.  Of course, I had to get dressed and look all cute and put-together, if only to get sloppy drunk later.



Ignore the underneath of my eyes plz. Cute tiara!



For the past week, we'd had no idea how we were going to get there.  It was either Dustin's truck (which, it poured, so that wasn't going to work) or Shay drive my 5-speed car, which was also not a great idea.  Well, Thomas's parents gave me a great birthday surprise - they let us use his mom's Yukon to drive to Broadway at the Beach to party it up for my birthday!  The only rule was no alcohol in the truck, but haha, do you really think we listened?  No ma'am.

So we pile in the "bus" to go get Prinston.  He lived all the way out in the freaking sticks.  It was so bad he didn't have cell service, so we kept calling his house to get directions to his house.  We probably pissed his mom off, but whatever.  We drove by his house three times before he finally got smart and came outside to meet us.  We got him a mini bottle or two and made our way to Mellow Mushroom - which has fabulous pizza if you've never had it.  Great birthday dinner, yum!  Oh, and Prinston refused to take a normal picture.  Every picture I have of him from that night looks like the below.



I happen to think they're adorable :] 

 We all piled back into the yukon and drove right across the street to Broadway at the Beach.  And holy shit, it was PACKEDDD with people.  We had totally forgotten that spring break started the same weekend as my birthday.  So everything was insane, coupled with outrageous covers at clubs ($10 to get in if you're 21?! I've never even paid that much being underage!).  We stopped at Fat Tuesday's first, for one of their frozen drinks.  I got a Cat 5 Hurricane, which was supposed to be Bacardi 151 and fruit punch slush, and it was NASTY.  The rum overpowered everything about that drink, it was unbearable.  I threw away at least half of it.  We finally left there after standing around outside for at least thirty minutes, just drinking and not even really talking.



The nasty drink :[ boo!

 


Shay trying to get rid of the nastiness :[



 Shay and I had to pee really badly, so we went to Broadway Louie's, which is part bar, part arcade, part karaoke lounge.  We had to pull out our IDs immediately, and we were kinda "WTF? We just have to pee..." but whatever.  We did our business and then went to the bar while the boys sat around playing games.  Guess what?  When I ordered a long island, they ID'd me at the bar AGAIN.  So what was the point of IDing upon entrance?  No idea.  But either way, that long island was a sweet and sour disappointment.  It had maybe half a teaspoon of coke in it.  Gross!  But I took it all like a champ.  Dustin ordered me a black&blue shot (my favorite!  I'm a blue curacao girl, hands down), Mike ordered half a Wild Turkey: American Honey (which is NASTAY warm btw, and the other half went to Thomas), and I ordered another black&blue and a jager shot for myself.  So needless to say, at this point I was feeling pretty good.




I can't remember if I was drunk or sober here... I'm inclined to say sober.



There was a girl walking around with these giant looking plastic syringes, and I was all sorts of excited about what they were, but she was extremely standoffish.  Apparently Thomas stopped her when he was on the other side of the bar and bought one for me - it was a jello shot!  And she handed me a grape one, yum!  Well, almost yum.  It was made with bottom shelf liquor for sure, the burn from that thing damn!  So I decided I was ready to go dancing, and Shay and I made it over to Señor Frogs to ask about cover.  It was $10 there, and $10 at Club Boca, but Boca had no wait.  Can you guess where we went?  The guy at the door checked my ID, smiled, and told me Happy Birthday and that he had me.  I didn't have to pay the cover!  Everyone else did, and I kinda felt bad, but hey, being the birthday girl definitely has its perks!




Woah lots of people!  This was the dancefloor!



When we got there, apparently Prinston knew someone, so he went off with his boy, while we found this super cool, super awesome stage thingy off to the right, where we could dance like nobody's business and not have to worry about anyone grinding up on us.  I was definitely drunk at this point, and dancing my little white girl heart out.  Thomas left the stage to go get a beer and a drink for me - he surprised me with a cranberry & vodka!  Yum, I definitely think I have a new favorite bar drink.  We stayed at Boca until about 1:30AM.  At that point, Dustin had told us he was going home with Mike, and Prinston decided to stay out and then go home with his boy.  So it was just Shay, Thomas, and myself.  The three musketeers of sorts.



Yep, both wasted.  Good birthday!



The ride home was interesting.  I remember being extremely drunk, blurting out anything that I thought of to say, and then being super self conscious that I was being too loud or too annoying or too anything hahaha.  Shay assured me that it was okay, I was super drunk, it was my birthday, and I was still allowed to be annoying and loud ha.  Finally we made it home with some McDonalds in hand (which, reflecting back, was not a good idea to eat afterward, but hey, what can I say, it was tasty) and I passed out, only to be woken up by my alarm at 8:30 the next morning!  To drive to Wilmington!  Ugh.  (more on my Wilmington adventure later, I promise!)



Drunk trying to look cute face!  Bahaha.



Oh well, fuck it, I had an amazing time on an amazing birthday - what more could a girl ask for?

Operation Beautiful.

This isn't a normal blog post, this is just something I want to share.  I have fairly low self esteem, and I get really down on myself sometimes.  Forever ago, I stumbled upon a site called Operation Beautiful and it really changed my life.  It helped me try to look at myself and point out my perfections and good qualities, as opposed to my flaws.

Last Thursday, Shay and I were in Walmart doing some grocery shopping.  We turned down the juice aisle, and I saw a sticky on some apple juice.  Being the nosy person I am, I decided to stop by and read it.

It warmed my heart and I had that instant "No way!" reaction.  Shay came over and asked what I was reading, and I pointed and whipped out my phone to take the picture above.  She had the exact same reaction that I did.  We found another two post its stuck to a cart handle, and another one on some Hawaiian punch.

So I'm telling you, readers, to never stop believing, and to always know that you're incredibly beautiful in your own way.  It just comes from the heart :]

Birthday, smurfday.

Today, I am officially allowed to LEGALLY consume alcoholic beverages.  It's gonna be a good day :]

(as a sidenote, I also wanted to thank one of my regulars, because last night she got me a little cake, a card with a $25 Visa giftcard in it, and took me out to dinner with her family to celebrate.  She is the sweetest thing, and it really touched me.)

It's always better when we're together.

And sometimes, in all honesty, it isn't.

Thomas and I have officially been living together for two weeks and two days.  So far, we haven't killed each other, but we have had a few bumps in the road.  We seem to bicker once I'm in a bad mood (and I do love to argue), and sometimes it escalates to more.  I really need to learn how to control my temper.  He really needs to learn how to not be so whiny.  And he really is - he whines.  It's almost like living with a five year old at times.  A lot of it stems from where he grew up, because in his household, being the biggest whiniest brat is the only surefire way to get attention (which is all sorts of depressing but I digress).

He has a habit of getting a really defensive tone with me, like a small child would if they were being pressed or argued with about something.  I can't stand it, because I'm dating a 22 year old man, not a four year old child.  Not to mention, half the time it's just something stupid I've said and he comes out with "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. -immediately corrects what I've said here-" (oh and did I mention he CONSTANTLY has to have the last word?), which immediately sets off my temper because I know I didn't do anything to get that kind of reaction.  Like I said, I need to stop flying off the handle, but sometimes I just can't help it.

He also has a habit of speaking passive aggressively (or really, he has a habit of BEING passive aggressive).  I don't really know how to set up an example to this one, but I can always tell when he's being passive aggressive, and it kills me.  I'm a very honest person.  Just come out with what you want to say, and I will completely respect you.  Beating around the bush annoys me to no end.  He also has an excessive spending habit,  but we're working on that.

Today is a short update, because I have somewhere to be.  My birthday is in five days, and I'm beyond excited!

St. Patricks Day on Emerald Isle.

Okay, so I'm nearly a month late.  Really.  Eight days away from being a month late.  Ah well.  This is a tale of my St. Patricks Day adventure (and how I got to watch my dad play in his pipe and drum band!).


The best picture I could get of the festival.  Everyone in green!

After working three babysitting jobs in a row, my love and I packed our bags at 11pm and hit the road to Wilmington.  It's always interesting, driving that late at night, especially since I'm sensitive to bright light.  Argh.  Luckily though, we made it there, safe and sound.  Set all of our stuff down, and made sure to not disturb anyone, and fell asleep.

Let me pause there and explain something: my aunt (Brooke), uncle (Dennis), and their five children (Darian, Mallory, Bridget, Shay, and Brody) had been living with my mom, dad, brother, and myself in our 3 bedroom apartment for two and a half months at this point.  Tensions were high, and everyone felt like going crazy, because literally no one had their own space.  Previous to my coming up, they had decided they weren't going.  Or so we thought.

So we wake up around eight the next morning (which sucks when you went to sleep around two, but I digress), and Brooke is saying something about needing to get the kids ready to go. ...ok, what?  Oh, apparently she had decided overnight that she felt like going, and now everyone was going.  So now our tiny family trip turned into this huge parade.  We had wanted to leave for Jacksonville around 10, so we could get there around 11 and watch my dad play for a long time.  Well, that went out the window because now we had to get all the kids dressed and fed, and then it was off to Walmart to buy a stroller for Brody, because when he isn't in his stroller, he's a wee bit much to handle.

Wouldn't know it looking at this innocent face :D

So around 11, my dad texts me "Hello offspring!" which makes me smile.  I love my daddy.  He asks where we are, and I tell him we are just finally leaving Wilmington.  The trip there was mostly long and BO-RING.  It was my mom, my brother, Thomas and I all riding in a tiny Kia Rio.  And I mean TINY.  So when we finally got there, it was great, because we could stretch our legs.  It turns out that they'd turned this shopping center on Emerald Isle into a giant street festival!  It was pretty cool.  We walked around and looked at some stuff for a bit, but since it was around 12:30, Brooke decided the kids needed to eat.  So they all went to go find somewhere to eat, and me, Thomas, Bridget, Jared (my bro) and my mom go off to find my dad, so we could watch him play!  We finally found them, and it sounded awesome.

My dad in his supercool shades.

They played a few songs with us there, including one guy who did a solo on the pipes.  Definitely the most interesting thing I've ever heard.  We were able to inch closer and closer until I was finally up front.  My heart was bursting with pride for my daddy, I love him so much and he looked like he was having a ball.  We looked over and saw Darian standing at the other edge of the crowd, and all of a sudden, there was the rest of the family too!  Turns out the Michaelangelos pizza they were looking at eating at was super duper crowded.  So we decided to split ways again - Thomas and I had noticed there were certain rides at the end of the festival, so we went to check it out, with Jared and Darian with us.  Too bad we didn't check out WHAT rides they had, because it was super lame - there was only one "big kid ride" in the whole place.  Oh well, we bought tickets and dealt with the consequences.  Darian and Thomas were the only two to ride the crazy ride, because I was too fat, and Jared left us there all alone.  Haha.

Somehow being too fat to ride didn't bother me.  The cars swung around by the way.

We waited in line long enough for them to do that twice (and long enough for me to beast at the darts twice to win two monkeys).  Thankfully, two times was enough for them, and we went back to find the rest of the family.  We found them looking around some shops (right around where I found the most perfect luggage/duffle bag, but it was sold before I could get it) and I decided to stay with.  Thomas and Darian went their own way around the festival, checking out treats and chicken terriyaki.  I'm really glad they got along so well - my ex wanted absolutely nothing to do with my family, and I was thinking about marrying this guy!  Family is super important to me, and everyone seems to love Thomas to pieces.  That's great, because I love him to pieces too :]  We all hung around, and I guess they decided all the kids needed some ice cream, so they got italian ice.  And got it everywhere, of course.  It was adorable :]

Darian and his princess Shay.

About that time, we met back up with Darian and Thomas.  Brooke was super ready to go, so they finally went to look at the petting zoo, while Thomas and I headed over to Andy's so I could get something to eat - I hadn't eaten since we'd woken up that morning.  I was just exhaustedddd.  I'd spent the whole day walking around and being up and watching little kids (well when I was with my family, I did haha) so to sit down for thirty minutes was really nice.  Andy's is pretty nice, if you're familiar with Johnny Rockets, it's the same kind of atmosphere, excpet there aren't any roller skates.  I thoroughly enjoyed my food, and taking pictures of Thomas :]


The only nice picture I ended up with of him.

We ventured out afterwards to find my parents and my brother.  It was almost 5pm and we were totally ready to leave.  So think about this if you will - my mom, my dad, my brother, Thomas, and myself all in a five-seater Kia Rio.  This thing is smaller than a freaking beetle.  Most uncomfortable hour of my entire life.

The rest of the day was completely uneventful.  Dinner and all that jazz, and that's pretty much it.  I have one picture that seems to sum up my mood of the day there though:

Scrunchy face!

Tune in next time for my ranting about apartment living (and living with someone new), and excitement about my upcoming 21st!