Here's To The Crazy Weekends

So I know I'm pretty late on this, but this past weekend was insane and it deserves a post!

Friday was the real adventure.

Alexa and I bought a Groupon together for $18 mani/pedis (I mean come on, who could resist that when most mani pedis are upwards of $30???) but we didn't look at how far away the nail salon was before purchasing... Whoops!

So Friday after I got off work, I picked up Alexa and we drove all the way to Douglasville (which was over an hour long ride with traffic). We show up in a cute, dainty, old-town looking downtown Douglasville. Turns out that our nail salon was actually a one lady show inside a barber shop. And we were supposed to have made appointments because she was actually just heading out. OUCH.

We then decided to just wander around this cute little dainty town and look, but we found nothing to do. Everything closed down at 5 and we had no money anyways.

So we start heading out, super thirsty and overheated because it's a million degrees outside. We stop by at a Racetrac to get some gas and water, and the real adventure starts.

Some background information: Lulu's gas pump is on the opposite side of most cars, so I always have a hard time getting into a pump. This time, I'm lucky enough to have a whole lane to myself so I can get into the one that would have me heading out, it was great!

What wasn't great was that there was a lady trying to come in the opposite way into the same pump, but there was a car driving right in front of me, blocking my view of her. Needless to say, she was upset.

I'm not a mean or rude person, and I definitely don't have road rage (although I do get slightly upset when people don't use their blinkers). So I start apologizing. My windows are rolled down and so are hers, so I figured she heard me. She then pulls up in the pump behind me, gets out her car, and starts cussing me out like crazy.

This lady was absolutely insane. I don't know what was her problem. And it really upset me too, because she had the Jesus fish sticker on the back of her car. Honestly, it is a shame to be representing our Lord and Savior in such a poor way. I can't imagine a worse thing. The devil's best weapon is a Christian who shows of his or her faith, but lives the opposite. Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging her to be a false Christian, but her actions that day were not representing Him well at all.

Anyways, she follows Alexa inside the gas station yelling at her too. Then she comes back outside, yelling some more. She called me all kinds of mean names. Although I won't deny, the one that offended me the most was not the curse words and the degrading terminology she directed towards me. What hurt the most was the fact that she called me 'raggedy' and 'bum'.

Excuse me? Now my pride and ego are hurt. Here I was in gorgeous Franco Fortini heels, a beautiful Oriental looking red and black dress, with Talbot earrings and my red lipstick, and this lady in sweats and a tank top has the audacity to call me raggedy. I care a little too much about my looks and clothes to have people dissing on my appearance. Go ahead and call me anything else, but leave my wardrobe out of it. Thank you. It might seem extremely superficial, but my pride is my weak spot and mine of the deadly sins.

She then wrote down my license plate number and snapped pictures of both of us, talking about how she was going to find us later. She even goes so far to tell us "I have a gun in the car and I know how to use it!" She also told us she's military and she's going to use that to run our tags, and that we could write down her license plate number all we wanted to because hers is a fake.

As soon as there was gas in the car, we hightailed it out of there!

And she followed. She followed us out the gas station all the way to the highway and would even switch lanes when we switched. So of course, I called 911.

We then went to the courthouse to file a police report and tell the officers what had happened. I was literally shaking all the way to the courthouse and didn't stop shaking until I was almost back home. They assured us that military cannot run tags and there would be no way for her to find us. Still nervous tho!

That was the biggest adventure of the weekend really.

After we got back to Alexa's house we got ready to go to a party at Carlin's. It was a going away party for a friend of hers. We didn't stay very long though. I had to work in the morning and I wasn't in the mood to work on an all-nighter.

Saturday I went to work, then picked up Alexa and Alise afterwards to go back to Douglasville and get our nails done (We had an appointment this time!). We ended up getting there way early, mostly because this time there wasn't any traffic. She was about to go get a late lunch when we got there, so we joined her at a pretty cool Jamaican restaurant. We didn't eat, but she did share some of her jerk chicken with us, and it was super spicy! (For my weak taste buds at least)

Finally, we went back and she did both Alexa's and my nails. She was super friendly and we chit chatted the whole time about Alise's nail and make up aspirations, as well as my love for clothes, weddings, and cakes. She told me that I should definitely go into fashion, because I was obviously a connoisseur. I loved her the moment she said that! I was wearing the cute Forever 21 pumps I bought for my birthday, along with a peach-ish salmon colored peplum skirt and a light blue, button up, sleeve-less top. It was an adorable outfit and I wish I had taken a picture in it! One guy told me I looked like a flower!

I showed her some of my cakes and now she wants me to make her a fake cake as a display to put in the salon so she can show it off to her customers and get me some business. She was really nice and encouraging to both Alise and I in our non-traditional dream jobs. It would be pretty awesome if I could be a wedding planner/ fashion industry/ bakery owner. She got me dreaming again, which is nice, because other than the bakery thing, no one has ever really encouraged me in any way about the fashion industry or wedding planning, which I think I would enjoy even more than the bakery.

She also did an amazing job on both Alexa and I. It was probably one of the best pedicures I've ever had! I 100% recommend her, so go check her out on her page, especially if you live close to Douglasville! I'll definitely be going back to her whenever I can fit the drive and nails to my budget. She's really affordable too, even without the Groupon!

After our mani/pedis were done, we went back to Alexa's to get ready for Pedro's birthday bash/ end of summer party.

On our way to Pedro's, we got a flat tire (Alise's car, not mine. Thank God. I don't think I could handle two flats less than a month apart). We were pretty scared, because it was night time, we were in party clothes, and definitely not in the best of neighborhoods. Fortunately, a nice man stopped and he had a jack to help us fix the flat. We left him a small tip and went on our way.

Pedro's party was pretty fun. Alexa had to work in the morning, so she and Alise left early, but I ended up staying with Luis, and we had a blast!

Overall, we had a pretty crazy fun weekend. It's a shame that summer's almost over...

Although I can't wait to see what the rest of summer leads to!

Pitbull and Kesha Morning After

The concert last night was AWESOME!!!

We had quite the adventure yesterday.

After the forgetting everything debacle, we left from Alexa's place to go to Aaron's Amphitheater. Somehow, we managed to pick up 3 teenager (probably barely out of middle school) hitchhikers who also happened to be going to the concert. Good thing too, because we wouldn't have had enough money for parking if they hadn't pitched in!

After we got to the amphitheater and parted ways with our hitchhikers, we met Mami Chula from the radio!

We then made our way out to the green, because we're broke teenagers and could only afford lawn seats. We had plenty of fun jamming to Kesha and making fun of all the middle school girls dressed in tacky, revealing, and plain not-cute outfits (Seriously, Kesha fans have no taste. There were girls running around in really high tutus that showed their underwear, a girl with a male 'part' drawn on her back, girls wearing Victoria's Secret underwear with nothing but those lacy, designed stockings over it, and too many more horrible outfits to count.) Not to mention that Kesha herself had plenty of expletives to share herself. I'm sure all the middle schoolers' chaperones were appalled. Not a big fan.

Although this one girl did manage to get an amazing photobomb in while Alexa and I were snapping selfies!

Props to her!

It was easy to pick out the fans too. Kesha's fans all looked like tacky middle schoolers and Pitbull's fans were dressed in heels and clubbing dresses. Two very distinct artists and groups of fans. I arrived not really being a part of either group, but I left as a Pitbull fan!

I mean come on, the man is always in a suit. And it is a known fact that men in suits are just better. Class over swag any day. Plus, his part of the concert was incredibly turned up. I had so much fun!

But I'm going to back track just a little bit. The concert was so much more eventful than that.

During the Kesha part of the show, Alexa and I ran into my cousin, Aglaia, and her friends. They ended up leaving and paying the extra $10 to get into the VIP section, which was really just the covered part of the amphitheater that was closer to the stage.

Aglaia and I

We eventually joined them, and just in time too. Less than 15 minutes after we moved into VIP, the apocalyptic rain that has daily been hitting Atlanta came in full force.

We were well into the amphiteater and less than 5 minutes after the rain started came this stream of water coursing through the seats and aisles. Plenty of people lost their drinks that they had left on the floor.

People from the lawn also came streaming in. It was pouring rain and no one wants to be wet at a concert. And it was no big deal. It was during intermission and people were just chilling anyways. The people packed in!

But of course, every party has its pooper. There was this one lady there, that I'm pretty sure was already tipsy by this point, who decided she was the concert police. She got up from her seat, went into the crowd of wet concert goers that escaped into the VIP section, and started yelling at them, telling them they had to leave. It was ridiculous. She was yelling and cursing and getting all up in people's faces. It was absolutely ridiculous. I wanted to slap the lady and kick her out myself.

Of course, before the concert started up again, security came through and put everyone back where their tickets designated them, but she was so sure that she was the reason why they all left. It was so annoying. I was furious that she couldn't just sit down and enjoy the show like everyone else. Although after my initial anger died down, I did feel bad for her. I can't imagine having the kind of life that you can't enjoy a simple concert without causing confusion. I couldn't help but wonder what was it about her life that was so unsatisfactory that she has to find satisfaction from ruining others' experiences. I said a quick Hail Mary for her after I realized that, and tucked her away in my mental list of people to pray for.

She later came up to me during the show and apologized (because at one point I told her to stop bullying people and she called me a skinny b****... She wasn't exactly the tiniest person on the planet so I suppose that was meant as an insult) and at this point was completely drunk. She started telling me about her husband, her breakdowns, and her grandson. She also fist bumped me and told me no hard feelings. I doubt she remembers our conversation today, but that was just a lesson to me that you never know what anyone else is going through and you can't judge them by their actions.

Our heart to heart happened towards the middle of Pitbull's show, and boy was that show awesome!

I tried so hard to get a good picture of him on stage! I was jumping up and down, dancing, and screaming with all I had. It was a really good show. I'm pretty sure that when he started calling out all the Latin American countries, I shouted myself hoarse when he said Brasil.

After the show ended, Alexa and I hit up Waffle House before crashing at her place.

I had a lot of fun and it was totally worth only getting three hours of sleep before work!

Pitbull and Kesha!!!

Guess who's going to a concert tonight???

That's right, this girl!!!

I am soooo excited!!! ...Or at least I am now that I remembered about it.

I have had the most forgetful day ever! I woke up this morning and when I got into my car, I realized that I had forgotten that my tank was empty. Then when I got to work, Karima called me because I forgot that I had to pick her up to bring her to work. Then at around 5, Alexa texts me asking what time I was picking her up to go to the concert... I had forgotten all about it! Good thing too, or else work would have gone by super slow and today was a good day at work.

Anyways, now it's getting ready for show time!

Thank goodness I always keep extra clothes in my car!

I'm actually not a big Pitbull or Kesha fan. All I know by them is probably I Know You Want It and Tick Tock. But the tickets were super cheap on Groupon and why not right? So tonight, Alexa and I are going to be dancing the night away to them. Hopefully she knows more music by them than I do!

It's Graduation Time

It's that time of year again.

Everyone is talking about graduations and going to graduation parties and crying because they're all going their separate ways after graduation.

It is also the one year mark for when my life got flipped around.

About a week before my birthday last year, my mom announced that she was moving to Florida. Of course, my brother and sister were going with her, but I had already paid the deposit on my dorm room in Kennesaw and was registered for my classes. I had a great job at Chick-fil-A and had just been asked to start my leadership journey to become a team leader. Not to mention that I also have Luis and all my friends here. Leaving Atlanta was definitely not in my plans.

The final decision ended up being that they would be moving and I would be staying. The incredible irony of this is the fact that I always said that I would be going as far as possible from Georgia when I graduated. I didn't want to stay here. I wanted to travel and go to school in another state and start my life over from scratch. I wanted to live that American college dream.

But no. I stayed, and my family left. At the time, it hurt. I couldn't even imagine living with my mom in Florida and me in Georgia. Mind you, that does not mean we had a great relationship. We have an amazing relationship now, and we had one before high school, but something happened in high school that just tore us apart and by my senior year, we couldn't hold a conversation for longer than 10 minutes without it turning into an argument. I was glad to be getting away, but I didn't want to be SO away either.

The announcement came right before my birthday, so I had a month to prepare myself. I planned with friends to stay at their places over the summer. I told people at church, so I would have them to rely on if all else failed. My mom would be leaving on the last day of May, and my dorm would not be available until August 14th. I had a summer of house-hopping ahead of me.

During that month, I had to learn how to drive. I had never seen the immediate need to learn how, and I personally hate cars and driving with a passion, so since I had my mom and Luis to drive me around, what did I need to know how to drive for? So I bought a super old and beat up 1998 Ford Explorer from my cousin for $900 and I started my struggle to learn. It's a good thing my first car was that super big metal box, because I crashed into so many poles and ran over more curbs than I can count.

My Explorer's name was Shelly, and I don't think I ever took a full shot of her. She was kind of ugly *cough really ugly cough* so she didn't get pictures. Here are her tires. One is from a particularly high curb, and the other from a tree.

And after she was completely totaled in September (that's a story for another time) I only kept the decal on the front of her, as a souvenir and reminder of how she saved my life.

I also got a second job working as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant down the street from Chick-fil-A. On the day of my graduation, May 25th, I drove my mom's car to get my liquor license so I could work at the restaurant.

This beauty sparked up a lovely conversation about how at 18 I can die for my country, and I can serve people alcohol, but I can't drink it myself. Not that I particularly care, but Facebook blew up on this one.

I then I drove to the DMV, and butchered my test. Fortunately, the guy giving me the exam passed me with a 70. A few tears were involved, but I got the license, which is what mattered.

From there, we went home. I put on my dress, cap, and gown, and we went off to graduation. I graduated with the Magnet Seal and with Honors. I also had cords for French Honor Society and one more that I can never remember what that last cord was for.

This is the only picture of me from graduation on Facebook, and I didn't even post it. I'm sure there are more pictures on my sister's laptop, but I never got to see them or get them for myself to post them. Because three days later, we were finishing up our packing and moving everything away. It was a good thing I had bought the Explorer, because it did all of our moving.

Here I am in the passenger seat, all cramped up next to boxes. We moved everything into a storage and my family only took clothes and necessities with them. My whole room and bathroom was fit into the back of the truck, with clothes in luggage, cosmetics and toiletries in laundry baskets, and everything else in boxes. I was also given an air mattress. So with everything in my back seat, I spent the summer living at Luis's and my god-daughter's, Alexa, mostly.

I got a third job halfway through summer and just worked everyday. I took a few short breaks from work: a one day vacation to be whisked away to Tybee Island by Luis, and two weeks in Nicaragua on a mission trip. The rest of the summer was working until school started.

This is one of those things that I look back on today and I can say both "Wow, it's already been a year?" and "Woah, it's only been one year?" because I feel like just yesterday I was sharing a room with my brother, getting yelled at for coming home past 11 after a date with Luis, and telling my mom to go buy me conditioner because I ran out again. And at the same time, it feels like that was a lifetime ago, and I have been living on my own for ever.

My life is so different now, and it has been through all kinds of twists and turns throughout the past year. And despite everything that has happened, I think I'm finally at a point where I am truly becoming happy with my life and the way I'm living it. I'm not quite there yet, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, but I'm figuring it out little by little.

No one said life was going to be easy. In fact, they told me that growing up was going to be very very hard. And they didn't lie, it has been. This past years has been the hardest year of my life, but if I could go back to April of last year when I decided that I was going to stay in Georgia, I would make the same decision once again. This is my life now.

Birthday? No. Birth-week!

I prolonged my birthday celebrations as much as I possibly could.

I took the whole weekend off and made tons of plans with all my friends (:

Friday was just a sleep in until way past noon. Like way wayyy past noon. Like until 6. And after I woke up, Luis and I went to Panda and picked up some movies from the Red Box.

It was definitely a no makeup, no fixed hair, jeans and a long shirt kind of day. We went back to my dorm after gorging ourselves on fried rice, chow mein, mandarin chicken, golden honey roasted walnut shrimp, and green bean chicken. We watched Django, which was pretty good, then went right back to sleep.

Saturday we woke up considerably earlier at around noon. We then watched Silver Linings Playbook, which was also really good. (anything with Jennifer Lawrence in it is good!) Then I got ready to go out with my beautiful God-daughter and best friend, Alexa. I put on this top that I bought at Wet Seal from their penny sale. It's a little too small, but for one cent and cuteness, I can stand not breathing for a few hours.

I picked her up and we went to Bistro Niko to pick up my lost purse. I was SO happy when I woke up to their wonderful phone call telling me it had been turned it! Everything was still in the purse, it was great! We then stopped by Mickey D's because I hadn't eaten all day, and since my card was cancelled, all I had were the $15 I had left inside my purse. We then went to her place to meet up with her friend, Alise.

We chilled there for a while talking about make up and movies and jobs and all that fun stuff girls talk about when they get together. Finally, the fourth person to our party showed up and we went to the dollar movies.

We watched Jack the Giant Slayer and it was actually really good. I really enjoyed it. It made me sit on the edge of my seat (figuratively) in excitement over the action, made me sigh, made me hope, made me laugh, and made me cry. That's a pretty good movie to me.

Finally the movie was over and we went our separate ways, but not before Alexa gave me my birthday presents. I swear, she knows my style so well and always buys me the cutest things!

And it always comes in the cutest packaging. She once gave my mom this gift that came in the most gorgeous gift box I have ever seen. I don't remember what came inside the box, but it's still sitting in my mom's living room as decoration.

Inside the cute box above, came this beautiful scarf. The picture truly does not do it justice. It's a bad picture in awful lighting and way too close to see the overall image, but I promise, the scarf is adorable!

So cute! I feel like these earrings are totally business world, sophisticated earrings. Perfect for me! You don't see any teenagers running around with earrings like that, however, me? I'll rock them!

After I left the movies, I went to Luis's house so we could go to the wedding reception together. It was probably one of the most Mexican parties I have ever been to, and I go to a lot of Mexican parties, trust me. They had the whole banda there playing their 5 million instruments and singing. It was fun though.
.

Luis wasn't really in the dancing mood, so I ended up dancing with his mom, which was pretty fun. There's this one song, Caballo Dorado, which is like a Mexican version of the Cha Cha Slide, only funner, that we danced to together, and I could not stop laughing! It was a great night!

Here's out picture for the night!

Then Sunday was nice too. We slept in late and went to Mass at 5.

After Mass we went to the last college ministry meeting for the school year. That was really fun. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, we had authentic Mexican food (not that Tex-Mex stuff) and ate to our tummies content. Then we had Adoration, which is such a beautiful experience every time. Adoration is probably my favorite part of being a Catholic. We then went our separate ways so I could study my butt of for finals!

Monday was just a normal day, no birthday fun. I worked in the morning, went to school, took a final, then spent the rest of the day on Hulu catching up on Once Upon A Time (I knew Queen Regina was a softie at heart!).

Then Tuesday was when things picked up again. I went to work in the morning and got to lead shift for the first time! I was really excited about that! I'm training to be a team leader (assistant manager in Chick-fil-A lingo) so finally getting to lead the shift on my own was fun and exciting. I ended up staying wayyy past when I was supposed to leave, so I could get more training in. Finally I leave and head to Chili's to meet my girls!

I have two other friends whose birthdays are also in May, Emily and Estela. So we decided that we were going to do something together to celebrate all three of our birthdays. We have been talking about going to Chili's to just get their chocolate molten lava cake since September and it still hasn't happened, so we figured that this would be our opportunity to do so! We invited two more friends, Daena and Jessica (not the shopping one, the one that I went to Rumba with. I'll just call her JP from now on because that's her nickname anyways) to come celebrate with us!

Of course, nothing ever goes as planned. Daena had a million errands to run for her mom and couldn't make it, and Estela's grandparents are in town so she couldn't make it either. It was alright though, JP brought another friend with her and the four of us had a grand time.

Me, Emily, Yane, and JP (:

We had so much food! We ordered that 3 different appetizers thing with spicy boneless wings, honey boneless wings, and potato skins. Then we each had an entree which was delicious. I had the light version of the steak, and Yane let me try one of her bacon something quesadillas which was also really good. Finally, the moment we were all waiting for came, dessert time! We ordered two of the molten lava cakes, one for us to eat then, and the other to take to Estela, since she couldn't join us and it was her birthday too.

When it was finally time to go, we turned Chili's into our photo booth. We took so many pictures and it was great. I had so much fun with my friends (: