Hello My Name Is

Child of the one true King!

I am currently 100% obsessed with this song.

It's so uplifting and beautiful.

I mean, how often do we go through our lives looking at ourselves in the mirror thinking "My goodness, I'm so ugly, look all these physical features that could be better about me? Ugh, I'm such an idiot, why did I do that?? I'm so confused, what am I supposed to do with my life? I feel so lonely and broken inside."

Or how about those times when other people are the ones putting us down?? Using words like 'loser,' 'stupid,' 'Oh, he's such a liar,' 'she's a gossip' and reminding us of all our insecurities?

We're so quick to put ourselves down, and so quick to remind ourselves of our past shortcomings and failures. We find it hard to love ourselves and let others love us. This song does an amazing job of reminding us that no matter what kinds of shortcomings and failures we may have had, God looks past those and sees us for who we truly are, His children.

He has broken away the chains that tie us to our past sins and regrets, so we can live in freedom in His love and mercy.

19 Years And Counting...

First and foremost, I would like to start off this post by thanking God for blessing me with these 19 healthy years of life.

He has been so good to me, and has filled my life with goodness and blessings and joy, and I can't thank Him enough.

And keeping in line with the blessings, Thursday was really a day filled with joy.

I actually woke up in a really bad mood. Wednesday night I worked and I didn't get out until 11 30. I made it to my dorm just in time to ring in my birthday at home, at 11 57. Then I studied for my history final until around 3 (after doing the midnight birthday phone calls and answering FB messages). I finally woke up at 7, totally grumpy from lack of sleep. I drag myself over to my bathroom sink and BOOM!

BEYOND cute!!! My roommate is the best!! She wrote Happy Birthday in English, Portuguese (my language!) and German! (she lived in Germany for 10 years before coming to Georgia for college)

Look! It's Hello Kitty! Beyond adorable!!! She later drew on balloons, but I didn't snap a picture of that. It totally made my morning to wake up to that sight!

And she got me a present!

Three Victoria's Secret body mists, and a German chocolate called Kinder, that we discovered early on that we both love! She's just the greatest! I felt kind of bad, because the only thing I did for her birthday was buy her a jewelry case... Talk about being outdone!

Then I finished getting ready, and Carlin came over, along with a Starbucks gift card! Woot woot! She knows the way to my heart, that's for sure. I can now thoroughly enjoy Starbucks Happy Hour!!

Oh, and here's the outfit I bought for my birthday

With blazer

Without blazer

The blazer was already a part of my wardrobe, but the belt was purchased maybe 2 weeks before this, and so far had never been used. The dress though, so cute! When I came out of the dressing room on Tuesday, both Jessica and Karima agreed that the dress was a must have for me. I really like it. I can make it a business outfit with the blazer and some nice pumps, or I can wear it as a party dress, or even just a casual night out with friends outfit. So many endless opportunities, so much adorable-ness. And I wore the cute heels with the bow that I bought at Forever 21 on Tuesday as well. It was just a "be fabulous" kind of day!

We then studied and went to take our final, which wasn't too bad. We both closed the class with Bs even though we BOMBED the first exam (And by bombed I mean under 50%).

Finally, the final was over and off to Ihop we went! I didn't have breakfast, so Cinnabon french toast was the perfect way to start off my birthday. Oh, and the phone calls. Endless phone calls from my mom, brother, sister, aunts, grandma, et cetera et cetera, Not to mention a gajillion texts and e-mails and Facebook messages. I'm not going to lie, it does feel nice to have one day of being the center of everything.

Finally we came back to my dorm where my baby was waiting for me with surprises! He had a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me, along with a big cupcake balloon (cupcakes are kind of an insider cutesie thing between us) surrounded by smaller balloons, and a gift bag!

Beautiful bouquet from him (:

The cute bag my lamp came inside, and his card 

My new (only) lamp (:

Balloons!

Cupcake balloon!!!

It was all so cute it's a wonder I didn't squeal!

He also brought me cards from my family (long story short, all my mail goes to his house).

I loved the cards! They were so cute and springlike, and I felt as if they all matched. If only it had been warm on birthday to celebrate the spring colors... My mom also sent me bonds... That won't be good for another 30 years. I'm sure that when I'm 49, I'll be so happy to have that saved up money to send my children to college. Or, to go on a really nice vacation!

Then off Luis and I went to the Georgia Aquarium! 

I love places like the aquarium and the zoo. Animals are fascinating to me. I really enjoyed going to the aquarium. We had the opportunity to touch sting rays and anemones and sea orchids and starfish. We saw beluga whales, whale sharks, penguins, and otters. We even sat in this huge room with a giant aquarium for a while and just relaxed, watching the fish swim around. So peaceful and lovely.

I also took a LOT of pictures. Pictures of me, pictures of Luis, pictures of fish and crabs and whales and frogs, pictures of everything.

And we are that couple. The icky, super lovey and affectionate, PDA, too cute couple. We make people jealous and wanna puke and awww and ewww and whatever else people have to say about us. But the point is, it's not a special date for us, if we don't take at least one oober cute picture (which usually involves kissing). So here it is

Cue awwing and/or ewwing

Aren't we so cute? He took me to Starbucks afterwards to pick up my free birthday drink (Yes, I am a rewards member!) and I got my first Starbucks venti ever! I tried the new Caramel Ribbon Crunch frappuccino! So yummy!!!

Our next stop... Buckhead! We went to this super nice, French restaurant, Bistro Niko. It was a beautiful place, and delicious! 

The bottle of water.

Our glasses were never less than half full. The waiter was at our table almost instantly after we took a drink. And the food was beautifully plated as well!

My shrimp meal!

He even had flowers delivered to our table!!

Aren't they beautiful?? They had a card attached to them as well. 

Dinner was wonderful and delicious. (not to mention fancy!) I had the shrimp over pasta, and he had a seafood pasta. It had shrimps, scallops, calamari, and more in there. He was slightly surprised to learn exactly what calamari is...

He tried feeding it to me, but I wouldn't touch that squid thing, much less allow it inside my body. He did end up eating it, after I was done taking pictures of it.

After we ordered our dessert, he got up to go to the restroom. Restroom my foot! He came back with this beauty

SO pretty!!! He brought me a little gift bag and when I pulled this out, I couldn't believe it. This necklace, WOW. Beautiful. AND it's real diamonds and white gold! I haven't taken in off since I put it on.

Our dessert finally came.

Three beautiful and delicious profiteroles! Now, the idea behind taking me to this French restaurant is rooted in the fact that I am a francophile. If it's French, I love it! French nails, french fries, french toast, french kiss... Just kidding! None of those are actually French, but since I was 8 years old, I have dreamed of going to France. I started teaching myself French in middle school, took French all throughout high school, listen to French music, read the French newspaper, am minoring in French, et cetera. I am French obsessed.

So of course, with my French obsession, I am always trying out new French bakeries, restaurants, diners, shops, boutiques, whatever. I love it. But, there's a curse that accompanies this immersion of all things French in my life. In French, the way to say Happy Birthday is Joyeux Anniversaire. They don't use bon. Bon is good. Like good food, good friends, good. Not happy. Happy is joyeux. It made me slightly sad, but more amused, that this French restaurant with such a lovely French ambiance and French food, would mess that up. Oh well, we can't have it all I suppose.

Then after dessert, the drama started. No day can be perfect I suppose, we always need a little bit of drama. I go to reach for my purse (I was actually using the Coach one Luis had gotten me for my birthday last year) so I can reapply my lipstick, now that dinner was over, and boom, no purse. Where is my purse? I go check the bathroom I went to at the restaurant to see if I hadn't left it there. Not there. I double check the table and floor again. Not there. We pay the tab, ask the hostess if anyone has turned a purse in. Nope. We go check the car, just in case I hadn't brought it with me. No purse. I call CNN Center to see if I left it at the Starbucks (the last time I definitely remember seeing my purse, when I loaded the gift card Carlin gave me onto my rewards card). Not there either. We go back inside the restaurant and check all the bathrooms, just in case. No purse.

Needless to say, I was freaking out. I lost my Coach purse with my Coach wallet inside. My ID, debit card, school debit card, school ID, dorm key card, cash, brand new Mac lipstick, and more, all gone. Of course I called Bank of America right away to cancel the card, which took FOREVER. And by forever I mean I had to call three different numbers, was transferred at least twice, and had to listen to that stupid automated voice way too much! It took almost 30 minutes to cancel the card, and then the people kept asking me stupid questions like my account number and the 16 digit number on the front of the card. Seriously? My card is LOST, just cancel the stupid thing!

I was so stressed out that I was a bit rude on the phone. I hate rude people, and I felt so bad afterwards because of it. It's not those poor people's fault I'm an idiot and lost my purse. At least the card got cancelled before anyone could use it. I left my contact information with the hostess and the manager in hopes of it being turned in.

I finally calmed down, and we went to Luis's house to say happy birthday to his sisters. Yes, their birthday is on the same day as mine! Isn't that cool? They're 10 year old twins, and totally adorable. I gave them their presents. Each one of them got a nail spa kit and a Hello Kitty eraser. Luis's mom gave me two undershirts (which will be normal shirts over the summer... promise!) and a pair of shorts. This was really interesting because Luis got mad at her for giving me shorts, saying they were too immodest. The conversation that went down after that was downright hilarious. (Just as a PS, they're not... I wouldn't have been able to wear them to high school, but they're long enough that my mom would approve, so we're good)

Finally, we left to head back to my dorm in Kennesaw. I took a quick nap in the car and woke up definitely not in Kennesaw. A few of our friends were there: Jessica (not the same one I went to the mall with), her boyfriend Rodrigo, and another friend, Pedro. We were at Rumba!

Unfortunately, we got there a little bit too early. Whatever though, we got free entrance because it was Thursday night, and the party picked up later on.

I did have a little rebel child moment though. I have never ever done anything slightly naughty before. Never smoked anything, drank, partied hard, skipped, cursed, ran away, sneaked out or anything like that. I figure that doing hookah once in 19 years is pretty good compared to most other college kids. I will probably never do it again either, I almost choked to death doing it on my birthday! So I got to do hookah for my first time, and they let me pick the flavor, strawberry! I didn't do it much though, I was much more amused by their smokes and puffs and whatnot.

This was my moment for the night. After we got this shotgun picture, I was done smoking. I'm pretty sure I could feel my lungs blackening and the lung cancer settling in. Plus, my family has a history of asthma, and I'm not into risky behaviors. It was fun to get to do it once though, I'm not gonna lie. We ended up partying until almost 3am, and then it was time to go home, because we were all exhausted.

Overall, it was a great day, and my best birthday yet. Hopefully I'll have many more, better ones to come.





P.S. Bistro Niko called me Saturday morning. My purse was turned in and EVERYTHING was still inside! God is good!

Good Triumphs Every Time

After last night's rant, I feel like I should take a step back and do a second post.

I was angry and upset last night, and all I could see was the bad. That's what most of us did, and that's what brings people down so much. We see something bad happen, and we see all the evil in the world. We see how twisted and sick and cruel is this world we live in.

But go rewatch the videos from last night. Not just the ones I posted, but all the ones you watched too, because if you're like me, you watched dozens of them. Go back and watch, and instead of watching the explosion and looking at the people bleeding on the ground, look at all the people running towards the explosion.

First responders were on scene immediately. No one knew if a second bomb was in place, or if anyone was going to follow up their bombs with gunfire or anything else. The two bombs were seconds apart, and when you watch videos of the first explosion, you can see people helping even before the second one goes off. And even after finding out there are more bombs, they don't stop, they keep going, keep helping. It's beautiful.

There is tremendous beauty in the midst of all the disaster.

God is so good. He never let's the devil make a move without responding with a better one.

"Look for the helpers. You'll always find people who are helping."

Sandy Hook school shooting?

• A teacher, Victoria Soto, hid her students in a closet and sacrificed her life for her students.
• The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, gave up her life in an attempt to stop the gunman and protect her colleagues.
• The school psychologist, Mary Scherlach, was also shot in this same attempt.
• Another teacher in that meeting, who's name was never released, pushed the door shut because there was no lock, so the gunman couldn't get in. She was shot through the door.
• One of the custodians, unnamed, risked his own life by running down the hallways, warning everyone to lock up and protect the children.
• A little six year old boy, Aden Licata, grabbed several of his friends and ran out the door trying to get to safety. A mother who happened to be at the school picking up her children early, saw Aden and his friends. She took them with her and they all went to the police station to wait.
• Another teacher, Kaitlin Roig, took her students to the bathroom, locked the door, and pushed a bookcase in front of the door to protect her students. She kept telling her students that she loved them, so the gunshots wouldn't be the last thing they heard.
• One of the kids hiding in the bathroom told Ms. Roig and his fellow classmates that he knew karate and would protect them.
• Abby Clements, also a teacher, opened the door to her classroom and quickly pulled in students from the hallway.
• The music teacher, Maryrose Kristopik, locked all her students into closets with instruments in front of them. She then stood by the doors, holding on the handles not to let the shooter in. 
• The librarian, Maryann Jacob, led the children to safety by crawling, and then gave them papers and crayons to keep them busy and calm.

I make a point to try and remember these names, and I intentionally try my best to forget the gunman's name. It is not worthy of recognition.

Yesterday's bombing? Yes, somebody, or even a group of people, hurt these people by setting off two bombs and having 2 others planted. 176 injured and 3 dead by the last count I saw. But there is a light in these numbers, because the good still outweigh the bad.

• People were in the hospital within 10 minutes of the first explosion.
• Allan Panter, a doctor who was just waiting for his wife to finish the race, jumped right in to start helping victims, treating them as well as possible on the spot.
• An unidentified event volunteer helped a 78 year old marathoner get up seconds after the explosion.
• All off-duty Boston police came in to help with the tragedy.
• The racers who weren't hurt kept running, and they kept running all the way to the hospital to donate blood.
• In the few hours after the attack, so much blood around the country was donated that the Red Cross issued a statement saying to schedule blood donations for a later day, because they had all the blood they needed.
• Even after the statement, people still kept piling in to donate blood, so the Red Cross started setting up future appointments for all the people queued up outside their centers.
• You can see people run towards the explosion site in the videos and start tearing away at the fences and rushing to help the injured, undeterred by the pools of blood surrounding them.
• One unidentified man took off his belt and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding of one legless individual. After making sure that individual was okay, or as okay as one could be in that situation, he turned around to help others.
• Dozens of marathoners took off their shirts to work as tourniquets  as well.
• Men carried other men, women, and children away from the scene. 
• Joe Andruzzi, former Patriots player, was one of the ones carrying away victims. His three brothers were also responders at the 9/11 bombings.
• Volunteers wheeled a countless number of victims away from the scene.
• Two soldiers who had just finished the race ran straight into the explosion.
• Carlos Arredondo, a peace activist, helped a legless man onto a wheelchair and pinched his artery all the way to the ambulance to prevent blood loss.
• Countless people opened up their homes to anyone who needed a place to stay after the attacks, as two hotels shut down as precautions. A Google document was started with numerous people offering places to stay or rides for others affected by the tragedy.
• People also offered clothes, meals, and showers.
• Restaurants around the area started offering up free meals and places to stay for those affected by the explosions of the day.
• The owner of El Pelon Taqueria was one of these, offering up free wifi, cold drinks, outlets to charge phones, and a place to stay if they didn't want to be alone. He honors his workers for not going home when they could, and those workers who were not scheduled came in to help. They also insisted that people only pay for their meals if they could.
• Make Shift Boston, an office space, opened up it's doors to the public for water, phones, and internet.
• Oleana, a restaurant, offered warm meals to those in need.
• Several airlines, including Southwest Airlines, waived their fees for changing flights for the runners and attendees.
• HopeMob, a crowdsourcing funding website, offered financial assistance to family members of victims in need of airfare. 

After everything is all said and done, I won't try to to remember the names of the people who caused this tragedy, but I will remember the amazing love and support that poured out from all over the country and beyond. That's what I want to remember. That's the light in the darkness. That is God's Hand in the tragedy. Even in the ultimate darkness, when Christ was crucified and darkness overwhelmed the earth, brought about the ultimate light, resurrection and eternal life. Because the darkness of night has to come before the light of the morning.

For every one twisted person on this planet, we have thousands more that are willing to work hard to help to undo the damage.

Because at the end of the day, good triumphs evil every time.