Breathe

I know, I know.
It's been about a billion years since I [Erika] posted. And for that, I'm sorry. But man oh man. My life has been crrrazy lately. I have to remind myself to breathe...

For those of you who don't know, I got a job as a dental assistant. And no, you're not crazy if you think that is not what I went to school for. I was, in fact a Graphic Design major. But as it turns out, you don't have to have any schooling to be a dental assistant. Don't worry. I'm not the one doing the cleaning. That's the hygenist. I'm just basically the person helping the dentist when he needs his instruments for fillings, crowns, root canals, and yes, extractions.

How did I land this job, you may ask? Well. Let me tell you. Over the summer, I was house/dog-sitting for a family that goes to Timmy and Rebekah's school. The dad is a dentist. Towards the end of the summer, he called me one day, and I assumed it was to tell me that they were going up north again and needed me to watch their doggies. But oh, no. He says to me, "I know this wasn't you're major or anything, but I was wondering if you wanted to be my dental assistant." After the initial shock, I said yes and the rest is history.

I have to say I was rather nervous about doing my first extraction. For those of you who don't know, passing out runs in the family. For my mom, it's the sight of blood. For my brother, it's needles. For my sister it's... well, she almost passed out when my mom had to "pop" one of her blisters. For me, it's always been broken bones. I broke my toe and almost passed out. Not from the pain, but just the thought of a broken bone being in my body. I jammed my finger. Passed out. Diane almost broke her finger, I got woozy. So! Since pulling a tooth can be compared to breaking a bone, I was nervous that I would get in there, he'd pull the tooth, and I'd hit the floor. Not good. But. As it turns out, I survived. The first one I did was about a week or so ago, and it went fine. I mean, it was pretty gross. He had to kind of dig around in her gums to get all of the roots. I had to smack the hole with the suction thing to suck up all the blood, which there was a lot of. My mom wouldn't have been able to handle it. Yuck. But! I didn't even feel woozy. Yes!

I am also still working at Blockbuster. And totally rockin' it out, if I do say so myself.

And when I'm not working at one of those 2 places, I'm finally working on my final class. Let me tell you, it was a trick getting registered for that darn class. Stupid money. Or lack thereof.

Also. In other news. Most of you know [if you read my past posts] that my computer conked out on me this summer. It has been dead since.... oh, I want to say... end of May, beginning of June. Something like that. My very best good friend Jessica had the marvelous idea of taking it in to the computer repair center at SAU. I did that last week, and the initial diagnosis didn't look good. He said that he wasn't sure if he could save my files.

Frick.

There go my 5,000 pictures [that's only a slight exagerration]. There go my 2,000 songs. There go all the papers and such that I wrote [ok, I wasn't too broken hearted about that]. Thank goodness I had all my art work backed up. I still had hope that they all could be saved, though.

Then a couple days later, I got a call from the tech center and he said that he wasn't able to save any of the files.

Oh no.

I was devastated. He had left a voicemail wondering what I wanted him to do next. If I wanted him to go ahead with the reboot and lose all my files or if I wanted to take it someplace else. I called back, hoping to get more of an explanation before I made a decision. And that is when he told me that he WAS able to save my files!!

PHEW.

He went ahead with the reboot, and to curtail this story, I am now typing this blog on MY computer with a software updated and all. For only $50.

There are a couple morals to this story. First and foremost: back up your files! Second, if you are still a student at SAU, take any broken computer to the tech center. Cause they are the best. If I took my computer to the Apple store or Best Buy geek squad, I would have had to pay $60 for them to even look at my computer. Lame.

Ok. Last item of business. [I know this is a long one, but it's been so long in coming, you had to expect a long, rambling blog from me :)].
I don't know how many of you may have heard, but alas, my soulmate Jiri Hudler is no longer a Red Wing. :( I know. So sad. Happy Hudler will be missed. So this means that I need a new soulmate from the Wings, and I know that you are all anxious to know who I will pick.
My new Red Wings soulmate is.... *insert drumroll here* .... Darren Helm!

I mean, c'mon. How can I NOT fall in love with that?? I also love it when the announcer says that the Detroit crowd is "knowledgeable." Yeah. We know our hockey.

Okie dokes. I think that's about it for me. We are going to FLORIDA on Monday, and I'm sure there will be a few blogs sharing that joyous occasion.

Ok, peace out.

Gives You Hell

I never thought one of my days at Disney could ever trump the horrible awfulness of my days in strollers, but I was wrong.

So wrong.

Yesterday, my dad came into town on business so Megan and I picked him up from Downtown Orlando so that we could go to T-Rex for dinner. This was all well and good, but as my dad was driving, he noticed that another light on my dashboard came on. Previously, it had just been the "ETS off" and "Check Engine" lights, but now the battery light was on. We decided to bring the car in Wednesday to get it looked at.

After dropping my dad off, the seatbelt light and ABS light come on. Megan and I are now five minutes away from home, and the airbag light and check fluid light come on. I'm in panic mode and am starting to come frightening close to Cuss-ville USA. We approach a stoplight and all of the lights go off.

All.

And then my car turns off. Completely and totally.

So Meg and I are trying to wave people around us while we figure out what to do. A cop pulls up behind us and tells me to move.

No kidding. Really? I can't just park here?

We tell him that we're calling AAA, but he tells us to just call a friend and get a jump. Okaaaaay. We call David, but he's at a Halloween party. We call Mike, David's roommate, and he books it over and gives me a jump.

As Mike's following us home, I'm on the phone with him, and I begin to panic again, because the gas pedal is pushed all the way to the floor and my car's slowing down. He tells me to keep going, but then I lose power steering and have to pull over.

Mike then decides we'll push the car home. All two miles home.

So there we are. Mike's pushing and steering, Megan and I are pushing from behind, flip flops flailing, running pell mell. Mike complains that he just showered. Megan has to pee. Things aren't looking up.

Then a humongous bus comes and tries to run us over.

Not only does it try to run us over, it calls us in to security of the apartment complex we're passing to tell on us.

Skeeze.

We pull over and Mike goes to talk to the security guards and they let us in. I finally call AAA and a tow truck comes to tow my car to the nearest repair shop. The tow truck man was in fact very jolly and put me in a good mood, which was a tremendously difficult feat. Dan. What a great guy. He even called me an hour after I got home to make sure I got home safe. Precious.

Anyway, we end up catching a ride home from Erica, a friend of ours and don't get home until about 12:30 am. We had left my dad around 9 pm? Something like that....and poor Megan had to be up for work around 5 am.

Suckiest day in Florida thus far.

To top it all off, I have a broken alternator, alternator belt, ruined spark plugs, and something to do with fluids that need to be flushed. You can add up the cost on your own.

Needless to say, no good.

A Whole New World

They're revamping my old stomping grounds of Fantasyland.  Needless to say, everyone at Disney is straight up freaking out.  Enjoy the first sneak peek :)

- Jessica

Don't Stop Believin'

I'm sorry that I'm the worst at this, but my (Jessica) days are rather full...it takes a lot to just sit down and actually write on the computer, you know?

First of all, there's work. Lots of it. But I do love it. As a Fairy Godmother in Training, I work on princess' hair and tell them stories about my life in the castle - how the Fairy Godmother (as in, Cinderella's) recruited me from Michigan to get me out of the cold weather. Now I live upstairs above the boutique, eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, and am 220 years old (You have to be at least 1,000 years old to be a real fairy godmother, so that's why we're all in training. Also, the pixie dust keeps us young looking, even if one princess did tell me I looked my age. Ouch.) Here are the 3 hairstyles:

The Fairytale (my favorite):

The Disney Diva:
The Pop Princess (the hairstyle on the left):

When I'm done working, I work out. I'm kind of in a competition, so I'm work out semi (but not really) -hardcore, even though I honestly think that David and Megan are being paid off to try to deter me from working out. Just a theory, but probably correct.

They distract me by inviting me to do stuff, like go to cast previews of parades, go out to movies, play in the parks, yada yada, yada. They are bad.

The cast preview of the Halloween parade was off the chain. For those of you who know me, you know that is a BIG deal that I liked the parade, considering the complete and utter disdain that I hold for parades in general. It was totally legit though. LOVED it.


The headless horseman totally took my breath away. It was excellent.


We went and saw "All About Steve" in the theaters and I haven't laughed that hard in a theater since "The Hangover."



Oh. My. Word.
SOO freaking hilarious.

In other news, I went to Cinderella's Castle to eat breakfast for Ebonee's birthday (the one with the tiara).


Again, off the chain. I never thought I'd be able to eat there!! Now I've been in every place in the castle that the public is allowed to go.

I know. Be jealous.

Also, Belle played with my hair and told me it was soft and beautiful. Excuse me while I go pass out for a bit from excitement :)

As always, for more pictures of my Disney adventures, click here.

Lastly, I got my first package in the mail yesterday!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I totally 100% loved it :)

Speaking of love, love you all (probably...considering I don't know absolutely everyone who reads this, but I'm gonna go with it's mostly true...)

Jessica

Begin Again

And so begin the chronicles of my (Jessica's) life at Disney:

About a week ago, I arrived back in sunny Orlando, and it's like I never left. I can still navigate around town, in the dark much less, without my GPS, and I'm a little ecstatic about that to say the least. I'm not quite as pitiful as I was last time I came down here :)

Thursday, I officially started work as a Fairy-Godmother-in-Training in Cinderella's castle!! As if all my dreams werent already coming true now, they put me in one of the world's most recognized landmarks and I get to play with hair and makeup all day long. Score. My outfit is pretty legit this time- you can actually tell that I have a feminine form, so I'm pretty psyched about that. Here's just a sneak preview...maybe someday I'll post a picture of me actually being a fairy godmother. We'll see. Or maybe we won't.


I've already spent a couple days doing princess' hair and makeup and nails. I've even gotten some tips so far...the money kind for all you smart alecks out there.

I'm rooming with a girl, Megan, that I've known since elementary school. It's been great living with her so far - she's a character attendant and I don't envy her job one bit. She has to be able to cut off character's lines and not be influenced by crying, pathetic children whose lives she's just ruined. No fun.

Speaking of no fun, David's the opposite. Last year, I came down to Disney all by my lonesome, but this year, David came down to intern as a character. It's really nice to have someone I know to go to the parks with and hang out with in my rather sparse spare time, but nonetheless, he's a barrel of laughs and we're gonna have so much fun this semester.


Obviously.

Also, don't worry. My love for Prince Caspian hasn't wavered in my absence.


But don't worry - I haven't forgotten about all of you. Some of the best parts of my week thus far have been talking to people, and you know who you are, from home. I really miss you guys, but thank goodness for cell phones/texting/Skype. What lifesavers.

Miss you and love you,
Jessica

Boom, Boom, Pow

Ok. We know. We've been baaaaaad.
It's been over a month since our last blog.
But absence makes the heart grow fonder...so in reality, the time lapse in our blogs is for your betterment. You're welcome.

Buter got married. And we were there.

But first, we were there for her bachelorette party. There was Mongolian bbq, chocolate fondue fountain, chick flicks and presents. Scandalous, I know.


A week later, she got married, like we alluded to just a paragraph before.

I (Jessica) was fortunate enough to be asked to be Buterface's maid of honor, and Erika, Kate, and Adam made it up the day after to join me for the wedding.

It was a super classy and we were so happy to see one of our best friends get married.


And Erin's niece and nephew were SO cute walking down the aisle!!! They were Erika's favorite part :)

At the reception, things happened.


#1 - Adam did not dance and we were all aghast.
#2 - Boobs McGee was 26. Shocking. (note, she's the one wearing the pink dress...)


#3 - We sat with James Grant and it was great!! Holla!!
#4 - At each table, there was symbol of Erin and Matt's love - let's just say that in reference to our symbol, they'll have a great time "playing putt-putt" on their honeymoon.
#5 - Kate and Adam got closer. Not sure if I was ok with that...or that either of them were either ;)
#6 - Erin and Matt made out a lot. Gross.
#7 - They played Boom, Boom, Pow, Low, and Gimme More all at our request, though they tried to put up a fight.

And that's that.

We also got together with Jamar and Alison and Kate a couple days after the wedding and were able to hang out and have dinner and smell a guy who had used waaaaay too much cologne. Yikes.

That's pretty much it on our end. Well, almost. I started writing a book for Kate and Erika and it's sooooo good (aka, pretty cheesy, but intriguing), that I'll probably post a couple chapters at a time on my blog, hopefully get noticed by someone who wants to make it into a real book (and a movie to boot) and live happily ever after.

Get excited.

Love always,
Jessica and Erika

P.S. If you want to see more pictures from Buter's party and wedding, click here to see more.

Beat It

So, I [Erika] think the time has come to update you all on my life.... although, I'm not so sure there is much to update really. But. I'll tell ya what I know.

I think the first order of business is to say that the Red Wings broke my heart this year, and there is nothing more that I am going to say about that. It's hard for me to even write that much. Pathetic? Maybe. But it is what it is. Also. I hate Sidney Crosby. And that is that.

Also. Due to some changes in teams this summer, I have been forced to reevaluate my soulmates on some teams. If you are unaware of my soulmate rules, check 'em out. For those of you who don't know, my Pistons soulmate - Amir Johnson is officially gone. He was traded or something. So sad. But luckily, Rodney Stuckey is still around, so he is now my new Pistons soulmate.

Things aren't looking very good for my Red Wings soulmate Jiri Hudler right now either. Who wants to play in Russia?? Apparently Hudler. I'm going to put this change on hold, though until I hear something more concrete.

Last bit of sporting news - shout out to Granderson [my Tigers soulmate], Inge [my favorite tiger - still love him despite the 0 homeruns at the homerun derby], Verlander, and Jackson for making the All-Star game.

Haha. Now that I've bored you all to sleep with my soulmate rantings, I'll tell you what's really going on in my life. :) Which really isn't much.

I finally saw Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and absolutely loved it. Some day I want to own one of those Camaros. And I'm not usually one for a sports car. I like Jeeps. But man oh man. That's a good looking car. And Shia LaBeouf.

Enough said. Remember when he was Louis Stevens on Even Stevens? Haha. I do.

I'm still working at Blockbuster and haven't made too many mistakes yet. *knock on wood* And no crazy stories yet either. At least none that I'm going to put on here. ;) How's that for mystery? I also got offered a job at Old Navy, although I'm not sure I'm going to take it because I also interviewed for a job at a shoe store, and it went well. I'm hoping they offer me that job. I find out tomorrow if I got that. And just so you all know. These aren't jobs that I plan on having for a long time. Just enough to get me through the last class of mine and on my feet with some of these student loans that are going to start coming due soon. I don't aspire to be a shoe lady. :)

And I think that's about that. Sorry for the rambling, boring blog that this was. I just felt like it had been a long time since I updated... so I updated. :)

One more thing - how 'bout all these celebrity deaths? Michael Jackson [tribute to him w/ the title], Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Billy Mays? Crazy-land.

Ok. Peace Out.