Guess Who Is Back

I always say I am going to post and keep posting, and let's face it, that never happens.



Lately things have been going well. I have almost finished my first year in my new job. I am loving it so far. It has brought challenges and moments of victory. There have been multiple days that I have said "I can't picture myself doing anything else!" Granted, it is a job and there have been some difficult times but, the always outshine the bad.



This year I have been blessed with so many things. And it being the Christmas season I wanted so share a few of the things that have made my year so wonderful.



1. Starting a new job on January 1, and loving it.

2. Having my grandfather turn 81 years young. He is still independant, living at home, driving himself to our usual once a week lunches.

3. Have become closer with people I have needed to, and left a few behind that I wasn't willing to sacrifice myself or my beliefs for.

4. A brother who's football team went 8-0 this season and won the Super Bowl.

5. Coaching 6 - 8 year old girls in softball. (And not losing my temper)

6. Watched my little sister score her first (and second) goals in soccer.

7. Paid payments 1 - 4 of my ever accumulating student loan. Only 87 more to go.

8. Drove with sister in the back seat, and we sang "The House that Built Me" at the top of our lungs.

9. Gotten to know some of the most amazing people through my job. A retired couple buying their first house, newly weds starting a new life together in their first home, an author, an investor, relocation, and ever expanding families.

10. Had a girls day with my sister. Just the two of us, shopping, eating, and enjoying each others company.

11. Laughed until I cried multiple times.

12. Discovered egg nog latte at PCC. You must try.

13. Saw my childhood best friend marry the love of her life.

14. Ended a relationship on my terms. ( I know this is odd, but still something I am proud of for standing up against something I did not believe in.)

15. And lastly, reading my sisters' letter to Santa. She asked for only 3 things but none of it mattered because of the last sentence. She asked Santa "for my family to have the best Christmas ever." I think her little heart is so genuine.

So maybe this was a ramble, I was bored and wasn't creative. HA!

What Yesterday Consisted Of...

I can't ever come up with clever titles for posts... usually it's a line from a song that strikes my fancy at that moment. Anyways, yesterday I went to one of our local middle schools to sign up to be a bone marrow donor. My life has been greatly affected by organ donation, a very close friend's nephew, an uncle, and someone I work with have all received the gift of life. One thing that I find so interesting about organ donation, some donations can come from live donors. (i.e. livers and kidneys) and I have always said, if it were a family member it would be no question if i would give them one of my organs. But what if it were to a complete stranger?

There is a young girl in our community that has leukemia, and is in need of a bone marrow transplant. I was hesitant to go and find out about bone marrow donation, but I have done alot of research online and decided to go after I saw a documentary on live donation just last week. And one of them happened to be a bone marrow donation. The chances of a person surviving after a bone marrow transplant is only about 30 to 50%, but that's a chance that this person didn't have if they do not receive it.

I was amazed at how many people from the community came out to support this young girl and just to sign up to be a bone marrow donor. However, when you sign up for Be The Match, you have to be willing to give to any person in need, not just a specific person. The person that was my screener just happened to be a survivor of sucha transplant. He was very informative, and said that there is an 80% chance that I may never get called to donate. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to become a part of this.

There are two ways that you can donate, one is to have a team go into your pelvic bone and extract bone marrow at multiple locations. This requries anestesia and about 3 days of recovery. However, as I was told, the most common procedureis a PBSC donation. In this case the donor wll reveive daily injections of filgrastim to boost white blood cells forming in your blood streem. Then your blood is removed from one arm and passes through a machine that seperates the blood forming cells and then the remaining blood is pumped back into your body through the other arm.

A very minimal procedure that can be done outside of a hospital. I was shocked at how easy of a procedure that this could be but have such a large impact on the person receiving this. Anyways, I was just so moved by the entire situation that I thought I would share. The only test that they run during your screening is 4 mouth swabs, not even a finger prick.

I didn't want this to be a depressing post, but an exciting one. It was so wonderful to see a communtiy be so willing to donate to strangers at the hope of just one of them might be the match for someone we do know.

Technology and Me... It's a Love/Hate Relationship

It's an I love technology but it hates me relationship actually. So you've read my drama about the cell phones. Well, yesterday my laptop bit the big one. I do keep computers for quite some time, unlike other things. And there was nothing I could do do salvage it. Thank you to an ad on a major networks website (their symbol is a peacock, hint) that I accidently clicked trying to find out the newest update on Lindsay Vonn's broken finger for the olympics.

177 Trojan Horses. One hundred and seventy seven.

I was shocked. I called my computer repairman and he tried to walk me through fixing my problem. But the virus attached itself to my anti-virus so there was no saving it.

So, it only took him a day to fix, so now I have a like new computer, with nothing on it. My 1000+ iTunes collection... GONE.

Guess it's just one of those things that just happens.

My Evolution of Cell Phones

Well, yesterday my phone that I loved very much bit the dust so I had to go purchase a new one. I was not too excited about this! While waiting on my new phone to get activated I started thinking about all the phones I have had since I got a cell phone the first time at 16. So here goes:

1. Nokia Something or Another. It was free when my parents added a line to their plan haha, so that's what I took..

2. Motorola Flip Phone - because some one gave it to me.

After my little brother decided to hide that phone from me and not tell me where he hid it, I went back to the original nokia.

3. Audiovox

This was the first color - camera phone I got given to me used from someone I worked with. He liked to upgrade phones every 3 months or so, and he gave me this one after I graduated high school.

4. LG

The audiovox lasted through my freshman year of college then the screen went out and I couldn't get any numbers out of it. It was terrible! So, this phone I had to buy outright because my parents upgraded my plan to get a new phone when my dad dropped his in water.

5. Motorola OLD Flip Phone (which is so old I cannot find a picture for it)

I LOVED that lg phone, and it had a problem with the port you plugged the charger into breaking off. It happened once and it was repaired, and then a second time after a golf tournament. It was no longer in warranty so I bought this old motorola phone on Ebay. Interestingly enough, after I had received the phone I got an e-mail form Ebay making sure I was satisfied with my purchase because the seller had posted that very phone for sale multiple times online. I just happened to be the only lucky bidder that actually received the phone.

6. Katana II

My contract with Cellular One / Alltel finally expired so I switched to Sprint. The Katana I loved loved loved.

One fateful day in Dallas, I was using this phone and was particularly clumsy that day and dropped it about 5 times on concrete. It broke the ear piece and I had to speak to everyone on speaker phone.

7. LG Musiq

I was brave enough to try Ebay once more in search of a phone. I got this one brand new in the box with all the plastic still on it. Pretty lucky there.

But being the clumsy person that I am, I always carried my phone in my back pocket and one day ( I won't go into details) the phone ended up in not too sanitary water. So a friend graciously gave me her old origianl Katana.

8. Katana

This phone, much like the other Katana I had was reliable, but it was old. A friend had used it for two solid years and it still worked. I was shocked but relieved not to have to get a new phone.

9. Palm Treo

The Katana just wasn't cutting it and was cracking in some places, so I went to Ebay for the third time to purchase a phone because I still couldn't use my upgrade. Two years is hard for me to keep a phone. My record is about six months. Again, this phone came new in the box with all the plastic and this has been my FAVORITE phone!

This phone lasted me a record year and two months. I loved this phone. But the battery eventually got to where it would only stay charged about half a day and the brightness on the phone went out.

10. Blackberry Curve 8530

I have surrendered to the Blackberry. I can't believe it. I loved my palm but at my new job, I need to be able to get e-mails, texts, web alerts, and guess what, PHONE CALLS. (Crazy huh?) So, I got the new Blackberry Curvey yesterday. It is still taking some getting used to. I miss my touch screen on my palm, but the Curve is doing well as long as I do not drop it or submerge it in a liquid, it might survive!

Coupons?

Ok, so since I no longer have a steady flow of income, I have become quite frugal. Well, honestly I have never been one to over indulge, but every little bit helps right? Our local newspaper has the usual ads on Sundays but the past few weeks they have included a pretty healthy bunch of manufacturers coupons. I have searched through and picked out the few I needed and passed the rest along to my parents. I made the terrible trip to Wally World this afternoon and bought only one thing that I did not have a coupon for. I saved $3. But I was thinking, if I save those $3 every time I go to Wally World (which is about once a week) times 52 weeks a year is $156! Thats a car payment, or insurance, or SO many things that I could use that extra $156 on.

So this is my question for you, do you clip coupons? Do you find coupons online? If you do, which sites do you find work best?

I usually only take what I need, but I see those people with a 3' binder FULL of coupons. (Most of which I am sure are expired!) I don't think I would be one of those people but I am liking the thought of savings. I mean it may be only $3 this week but it as already mentioned that adds up over the year!

I just read through there and realized that I am a 22 year old posting about coupons. This is almost as bad as the intense conversation I had a few weeks ago about the recall on Rolaids. Guess I really am growing up!

I think I hibernated for the summer, fall, and winter

I just realized that I have not blogged since May. MAY. I saw where a friend had taken up blogging again after a similar break from it as well. I got inspired to write a few thigns down myself.

Since the last time I blogged, I have finished school and graduated, become a real adult with a "real job." I have been at my new (but not as different as I had expected) job for about three weeks now. I am loving what I am doing. Helping people find their home has been so rewarding to know that I am being a part of a huge life choice.

It felt very strange this January to not have to register for class, go buy books, and drive back and forth to school. I feel that I am getting to where I need to be in life at this point and it feels amazing.

On a lighter note, the Vikings vs. Saints game last night was a doozy. I have to say, I was cheering for New Orleans inside the entire time. I do love Drew Brees (he's a Texas boy) and plys NO has not been to a Super Bowl, ever. I always love an under-dog. :)

Well, it's back to my duties and hope everyone has a wonderful day.

I'm BACK!

So, honestly, I never really went anywhere but I have been absent from my blog for a while. I only have one more final and then I am done for the semester. But not for long because I am scheduled to take my real estate test in June, and I have two summer classes so there will not be much of a summer. Things have just been so busy here that I have just kind of forgotten to write anything!

I've been doing some coaching for my sisters softball team. Not much here lateley because the absurd amount of rain we have been getting, as well as that swine flu thing that was going around. But all in all, it has been pretty fun!

I have become Twilight obsessed. I have to admit that when I saw the movie advertise in theatres, I thought it was dumb. People were lined up for hours at our home town cinema to see this Twilight movie that I had never even heard of. Well, a friend of mine sat me down one day and said "You're going to watch it!" And I did. AND I LOVED IT. I was still somewhat niave throughout the movie, but the further it got into the movie, the more I liked it. The same friend also has all four books in the series, and of course I had to read them. I am usually the "read the book first, hate the movie second" and while, there are some obvious differences in the movie than the book, it's pretty darn close to the same. I read it in three days. And, as soon as I was done, started reading the second book in the series, New Moon. It was somewhat different, but still kept my attention. It has been a while since a book has kept my attention that heavily! But now, I'm just waiting to read the 3rd and 4th books. Some others have told me they are the best two, CAN'T WAIT!