I'm starting to feel like I have no idea which is up, what's ahead of me, where I'm going, how soon will I get there?

I have a lot of homework, especially writing to do, but I'm having a case of writer's block with one particular assignment.

So I guess it was Tuesday, I left around 3:30 to head up to campus, left, everything was fine and normal. I came back around 7:30 and my beautiful patio set was GONE. I attempted to call the emergency maintenance line and ask if they knew whether or not maybe the maintenance men took it for some reason.

Well I finally got a call back from them and the guy in charge of the emergency maintenance that night(or week or whatever) apparently works at the sister property and had no idea. So I waited until Wednesday morning and called the office to ask. Well the two people I spoke w/ said they had no idea, and didn't believe anyone moved it.

A couple minutes go by and I get a call, and I just knew it was the office even though I didn't recognize the number, sure enough it was another office worker who confirmed that they did move it b/c since it was sitting in front of my neighbor's window(like it always has been- even though they've seen me out there) that when my neighbors moved out they left it. I explained, "no it's always been outside of her window since I never had a place to put it elsewhere, so her and I had agreed I could leave it there." So finally around 4 on Wednesday it was returned, and I was so thankful to have it back.

So I'm finally learning how to take orders at work.

Here's a picture of the $6 dress I bought at Goodwill a couple weeks ago(see last post)

Here's a picture of my dress from www.10dollarmall.com

Between super short dresses being 'in-style" and me being 5'7" this dress is very short, but don't worry, I was wearing some shorts underneath.

Here's the new collage I made from the say I had surgery, until this past Monday.

So I took myself on a mini shopping spree.

This is my haul from Goodwill.
I got a large glass vase for $1.99
A small serving tray w/ glass lid for $2.99
2 shirts, a dress, and a skirt

Total: $21.03

My Dollar General haul.
Straw Dispenser $2.00
Lint Roller $1.00
Spray Bottles $2.00
Paper Towels $2.00
Candy?

Total $12.45

My Trendyz haul
Sandals $11.99
Skirt $12.99
Pearl Earrings/Necklace set $1.00
Hair Clip 3-pack $0.59
Lip Liner $1.00
Lip Stick $1.00
Hair Bow $1.59
Bra(not pictured) $4.49

Total $34.48

Here's the dress I bought at Target about 2 weeks ago for $27.99

Here's my attempt to make glitter tights, but sadly most of the glitter rubbed off after walking in them.

I went home this week Monday-Wednesday so of course here's two pictures of me and my handsome "son"(my dog)

So I've finally found a new apartment that seems much nicer, and I'll finally have my own washer and dryer in my apartment so I won't have to share w/ anyone else, or worry about having enough quarters.

Also I will *soon* be replacing my iPhone that I cracked all to hell w/in the first week of having it. But I'm waiting b/c I'm going out of town next weekend for the evening and I might have to dip into that money, but it'll likely get replaced right after.

I got $200 which I'm putting towards a new mattress set. My current set is VERY old and now that a spring is protruding from the mattress, I've just decided it's time to move on up. My parents found a great set at Big Lot's where they live for $279 for a Serta Plush Queen size, so I've told them to go ahead and buy it while it's still on sale and I'll send them the $200 to cover the majority of that.

I really can't wait to move.

I had to call Domino's and ask where my W-2 was and my old boss was like "oh they got sent to the store!" So I politely said "well my address hasn't changed?" So he said he'd put it in the mail, which he did b/c I received it today, but the issue is, by LAW he was required to have mailed that to me on January 31, and I know for a fact that he made no attempt to get me my W-2 until I finally called this past Saturday, so mid-February. Which is quite annoying and quite illegal. Not sure if I should report it or not.

Well I have to go to 

It's crazy to think that we're less than a month into the semester, and I'm already crazy busy! I was really stressed out about creating a logo for a made up company(okay so secretly I made up a new photography business named Jozie Doodle Memories. hehe) for my Graphic Design for Media class. I was very intimidated by some of the other students logo's but after I went in and took the time to work some more on my design, I felt good about what I ended up submitting. That took some stress off of me. I think I did well on my Photojournalism (2) first assignment. I felt like a lot of people took very similar pictures, and I felt like I thought outside of the box a lot more, so I really hope Mr. Patterson will appreciate that. We were supposed to take 3-5 pictures spotlighting things that we would want to share w/ incoming freshman about what to expect that they may not have learned elsewhere, and I chose to take a picture of textbooks and make a slightly witty caption(the caption was a big part of the assignment as well) about what the difference between high school text books and college text books are. Then I took a picture of laundry, but it didn't post, so I left it out, then I took a picture of the Mazzio's sign and talked about getting a part time job, and then lastly I had a picture of money and a starbucks cup in the background and talked about budgeting. I didn't want to just go around taking pictures of freshman in COMMON places, or really people at all, which I hope doesn't cost me points.

My advertising principles class is going very well actually. I got an 89 on our first test. Well I got an 84 + 5 bonus points, I only missed 8 questions out of 50, and our professor said the class average was a 74, so I made 15 points higher than the class average. I heard a lot of people talking about getting 70's and the girl next to me was proud of her 63 b/c she didn't study at all. I heard another girl say in my Graphic Design class that Dr. Bond is sooooo hard and that she failed every test. I honestly cannot comprehend how these people didn't do better, EVERYTHING came straight out of the BOOK. The girl w/ the 63 said "I know how I'm going to study w/ next time..." and pointed at me, I didn't flat out tell her no, I just told her how I got my grade. Then last class (Friday) we broke up into groups and had to make some different "pitches"(I guess you could call them that) highlighting the 6 different facets of marking communication, and well I basically did all the work, the girl kept shouting out BAD ideas, which I guess made sense since she had no idea why a Yeti cooler was so special, and the guy in our group, he knows about Yeti coolers that they're like the best coolers on the market, but he was at a loss for ideas, so I ended up writing everything out, and so while I was upstairs in the lab after that class working on my logo I typed it all up and printed out 3 copies for my group. I hate group projects, b/c I refuse to get a bad grade, and it usually ends up I do 95% of the work and earn all of us an A. Which sucks on one hand, but on the other, I also got an A, and I can honestly say I worked for it.

I really think I'm just at a very different place in my life than a lot of my fellow students. I'm going at this semester like a runaway train, I plan on destroying anything in my path that tries to throw me off so that I do not get behind. I am doing absolutely everything I can possibly think of to put my all into everything I have going on this semester. I have class everyday except for Thursday, I work 3 days a week, I go to counseling once a week for an hour. I have a lot going on, but I refuse to let this semester take control and defeat me. Failure is no longer a crutch to fall back on anymore. I've come way too far to overcome my life's obstacles to slack off and take the easy way out and fail a class. I've pretty much run out of financial aid and I need to come out of this semester super strong and show them, look, I just need this much aid left and I'll be out of your hair forever. I swear!

My goal is to get a job for the Waco Trib and move back to Waco to be closer to old friends, and closer to my parents, while working in a nice sized town, but I kind of think I might work for The Daily Sentinel for a year or so, THEN try moving away. The Sentinel tends to hire a lot of students from SFA for their first year or two after graduation to give us experience, and then we move on into a steady career.

So I've found a new apartment, I'm just waiting to hear whether or not I'm approved. Yesterday I was sitting at my table doing homework, and I decided to call Chevy Chase apartments to ask about how much rent is and all that sort of stuff and I asked if I could come look at one and so I did, and I loved it, so I went and filled out my application, got my $35 money order for the application fee, they faxed my mom the guarantor form, and now to see if they'll approve me. The apartment is a little smaller than what I have right now, but I also have my own washer and dryer in my own unit, plus a full length mirror in the bathroom so I can finally see exactly what I look like before I leave for school, I even have closet space in my bathroom which I have absolutely none at my current apartment. I have a little bar/window area between my living room and kitchen, and luckily I still haven't managed to get rid of my pub table, so if I move, I'm going to put the two stools from my pub table at that bar, and then send the actual table home w/ my parents for them to put into their storage shed.

Okay, well I need to get

    I have been so busy, I haven't had hardly any time to just sit back and relax. Lately, Facebooking on my Kindle doesn't even feel like relaxing. I scroll through, read what catches my eye, maybe a comment or like here and there, then I'm back off and back to being productive.

    I know I've been slacking on my blog for a very long time, but I am just hoping that if you're a "fan"(if there is even any) that you'll stay patient w/ me while I bust my behind in school. I have like 3 semesters left, the end is FINALLY in sight after 10 years, and I'm running as fast as I can towards the finish line.

    I am taking 12 hours, I work about 18 hours a week at Mazzio's, once a week I'm in counseling for an hour, once a week I make time to work out(just starting), and then those remaining hours of the week are mainly spent studying, and occasionally spent w/ my boyfriend Chad.

Here's Chad and I at the Bluff Dale Winery in Bluff Dale, Texas w/ my parents, grandma, and one of my great aunts this past weekend.

I found my mom's cap she has to wear when Tarleton does their graduation, and put it on, luckily their colors are purple and white also.

Left to right is my mom, my great aunt Mildred, and my grandma (grandy)

Myself and my mom at the winery.

Just me

Chad and I at my parents house

My Grandy and my Dad!!

My mom bought us each this cute little pony tail holder w/ this pearl bow on it. And then there's my Diabetes awareness bracelet that I wear in honor of my mom.

This was Sadie, my boyfriend's dog at my parents house this weekend Saturday morning, I woke up w/ her on the bed w/ me.

Here's my cute festive door decoration for Valentine's day. Got it at Wal Mart in Nacogdoches for $3.97! And they had several other options, even some for $1.97! And y'all know I'm always on the lookout for a good deal!

Honestly, no! You can NEVER have too many pairs of glasses. I'll go through them from bottom up... The "white" pair is Ivory Tortoiseshell from Coastal Contacts(although I highly doubt they're still available, I bought them like 2-3 years ago). Then there are my two solid black wayfarers. The smaller pair to the left are from www.zennipotical.com and I got them for about $22.85 I believe. The larger pair on the right is from www.glassesshop.com and I got them for just under $13. The brown tortoiseshell pair are also from GlassesShop as well as the black&purple ones on the top left. I got the top two pairs buy one get one free and ended up paying like $45-47 for one pair, the 1-2 additional coatings on the lenses, I opted for the free standard single vision lenses, and then shipping. Now the first time I ordered the solid black wayfarers they took just a couple days of 1 month to get here. What happened was they had sent me an email to confirm my pupil distance, but it went to my spam which I NEVER read, I just delete them all, so I went onto their Facebook page to ask where my glasses were, they looked up my order, told me about the email, I confirmed through Facebook, and then it was about 2-3 weeks to get them after that. But this time I got them in in about 2 weeks exactly pretty much.

A closer look at my two new pairs.

Here's a weight loss check-in for you. I'm down to 188 lbs, I am into a size 13(juniors). I finally decided to start making smarter choices when buying groceries at the store, as well as working out. These are my new K-Swiss Jullian Michaels work out pants. I feel pretty good that I can fit into them so well considering how unforgiving the material is.

My sister mentioned I should be expecting a surprise in the mail, but didn't get me ANY clue as to what it was... and this is what she sent. It's a bottle of OPI nail polish in Anti-Bleak

Well that's sort of my life up to now in pictures. I hope you feel more caught up and such. I really should go get onto some more homework.

Well today my new digital scale arrived, and even though it's late and the day I weighed myself, and apparently I've gained 9 lbs since Christmas.

I'm pretty sure I know exactly why though. I've been drinking a lot of Starbucks whereas when I go home to Stephenville I drink almost no coffee. So not only are they full of sugar, I'm also consuming the worst possible liquid only calories I can. Also I have NOT been eating hardly at all. I'm pretty sure my body is convinced I'm starving, but I got some really good dinner options at the store today, so hopefully those will suffice my body into stopping it's hoarding of fat and start to lose again.

Also today was the first day in a long time that I've really actually put forth the effort to work out. I went and walked on the treadmill at the rec center for half an hour.

Tonight I made some broccoli fetticine alfredo, and I'm trying super hard to get it t

5 years ago I tried to kill myself, and there's some things I've learned that I wanted to share.

1. Stability is a daily balancing act.
    My diagnosis of bi polar in December 2007 wasn't perfect right away, yet rather it was nearly 2 years until I first achieved stability. Which came after a psychiatric hospitalization. While being so open about this isn't as easy as it may seem, there really is a level of shame and embarrassment that goes along w/ the honesty. You don't know how people will react to what you're telling them. But since achieving stability, there has been less than 5 times where my stability became volatile. But none of those events/times have lasted longer than a week and none have required emergency care or hospitalization. But every day I have to take multiple medications (between all my disorders, dysfunction, and so on, I take 9 different medications), just to maintain my internal chemical balance. Also I have to sometimes make a conscious decision not to let an event trigger an excessive emotional response.

2. Strong support systems make all the difference.
    My mom is my #1 supporter. Together we maintain almost constant communication. Typically we simply keep track of each others daily lives, but when an event comes up I inform my mom and together we process and react accordingly. I also have a great primary care physician to regulate my meds, and recently I just started back to seeing a counselor.

3. Denial gets you nowhere.
    A lot of people attach significant stigma to hearing about Bi Polar disorder, but really it's a lot more common than you think. All Bi Polar is are highs that sometimes get TOO HIGH and lows that sometimes get TOO LOW. It's really just having the chemical imbalance to not sufficiently regulate your emotions on a chemical level like a "normal" person would. Everyone gets super happy, but sometimes ours are quite extreme, like shopping sprees when we can't afford to pay our rent (not me personally, but that's a sign of something being not right). And everyone gets sad, but not everyone gets suicidal and sometimes tried to go through with it. Being knowledgeable and accepting of a disorder you cannot control can seriously help. If you deny your diagnosis, you could end up in a much worse place than sitting in a doctor's office discussing a plan of action in getting back to "normal". You could be DEAD.

4. Adapting and Organization can make a huge difference.
    This also could be my dyslexia and ADD, but I find that figuring yourself out well enough to learn what minor(or major) adaptations you need to make in your life and implementing them can make daily life much more smooth and successful. Keeping a To-Do list when things come to you helps me. I either write a to-do list out while I'm at school, or I keep a running one on my phone's reminders that allows me to add to it and check things off(which removes them) as I go.

5. Routines.
    This is kind of like #4, but establish a daily routine. I wake up, get dressed, get my medicine, put it in my pocket, go to campus, go get a drink so I can take my meds, go to class, get out of class and either work, study, or relax, take my 7 pm meds before or around 7 pm, eat, then 30+ minutes later I will take my bedtimes meds and get into bed.

Now for what I've learned since having weight loss surgery 3 years ago.

1. In most cases, you should accept that you're undergoing a $10,000 socially acceptable bulimia habit. Yes, a lot of us throw up a lot. But it's not as bad as it sounds, since the food never touches the stomach, there's no stomach acid. It's not really painful or unpleasant, it's just a hassle to go back and forth between your plate and your bathroom.

2. Your head/mind may not lose an ounce, much less 100+ lbs. Sometimes in my head, I'm still 300 lbs.

3. Keeping up w/ changing sizes is very expensive, so don't run out and buy a ton of clothes after a minor weight loss, buy them slowly and gradually, take advantage of consignment and charity clothes, online clothing exchanges, so forth. Always have a built that will be fitted enough.

4. Expect the unexpected to shrink:
-ring size
-shoe size.

5. Take pictures while you're still FAT. I know you hate how you look and you don't enjoy pictures, but once you've lost 100 lbs, you're going to wish you had more pictures to compare w/ your new pictures.

6. Your relationship w/ food sometimes is love/hate. This goes back to it being a bulimia habit, you'll want to eat something so bad, but your band doesn't want it at all.

7. Relish in the small victories.
   - seeing your feet
-seeing your feel while driving
-your belly not touching the steering wheel
-your belly no longer makes a good prop

8. Keep up w/ weight losses, measurements, and BMI changes(including points and classifications)

9. Set goals. This is sort of a problem for me right now b/c when I first had surgery I set the goal of 200 lbs and a size 14. Well now that I'm actually under that, I have no idea what's a realistic goal past where I'm at.

Here are some shots of our Thanksgiving meal. We had dressing, homemade mashed potatoes, sauteed cabbage w/ garlic, onion, and bacon, Brussels sprouts, Turkey, and French Onion Soup Casserole, and gravy and rolls.

This is how I like my dressing... consuming the majority of my plate!

This is the French Onion Soup Casserole from Pinterest. Recipe below

3-4 large sweet onions
2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
2/3 cup milk
swiss cheese
french bread(this time we used sourdough b/c it was all we could find and it tasted just fine.)

1. Saute onions until clear, a little brown is okay, dump onions into the bottom of a greased casserole dish.
2. In a saucepan stir together soup, milk, and soy sauce and heath through. Pour on top of onion and stir to mix
3.  Place slices of the bread on top, bake for 15 minutes of 350, the bread should be a little crispy and/or browned
4. Layer swiss cheese on top, as little or as much as you'd like, return to oven for an additional 15 minutes
 Cheese should be completely melted and casserole should be slightly bubbly.

This is me at 8 pm, 1 roll left and all my dressing left, gave up on the brussels sprouts, did have some cabbage, ate all my french onion casserole, and gave up on the turkey.

I'd like to officially APOLOGIZE to my fans, those of you whom are still around, that it has been almost 3 entire months since I've posted on my blog. For those of you who are NOT Facebook fans and may not have seen my post, my saved info wasn't available and I was unable to log in up until today. But now I am back.

So let's start w/ some good personal news. Right before I left to come to Stephenville for Thanksgiving, I stepped on my REGULAR scale at my apartment and I could've sworn it said 199lbs, but I didn't want to believe it until I came "home" and weighed myself. So Wednesday I weighed myself and I was completely shocked at the scale's results, it said 195lbs. Today I also weighed, and if I stand up really straight it says 190lbs, so what I'm going to do is stand up really tall and straight at the doctor's scale when I go on the 4th, and see what their scale says, now if it says I'm over 200 lbs, I'll go back to believing I'm 195lbs, but if it's less, I'll believe that!

Yes, I did come home to Stephenville, which has confused a lot of people b/c I call this "home" when really it's not my home. See I was BORN in Nacogdoches, but RAISED in Waco, but my parents currently own a HOME in Stephenville. So it's easier to just say "I'm going home for Thanksgiving."

Today I'm going to take pictures w/ my parents for their Christmas card, but the problem is I'M taking the pictures, so we can't ALL be in the pictures.

Well I'm about to go take pictures, so I'll end this now. Lots of updates to come.