I haven't done this in awhile...

I haven't posted anything in awhile...a long while, actually.

As you can probably guess, a lot has happened since January when I posted last:

My wonderful boyfriend proposed to me on February 13. I had a feeling it was coming. Anyone who knows him knows that he is a horrible liar and usually has a hard time covering up his tracks if he is trying to get away with something. I mean....I can hear it in his voice when we are speaking on the phone as to whether or not he is lying to me....poor guy.

I finally have my (working) Escape. That happened at the end of February. I LOVE IT. Sadie treats me well and she only has 8,000 miles on it. When I initially got it from the dealership, she only had 6 miles on it. WHEW!

I went to FL in March with my fiance to visit my Grandma. My Grandma had the condo that we visited on Marco Island for 23 years. Prior to that one, her and my Grandpa had a condo down the beach since my mom was a kid. So it's been in the family for a looooong time. I have many amazing memories there from all my many trips of visiting her. The weather wasn't the best while Billy and I were there, but it was still great to get away from our schooling, work, and I got to spend time with Grammy :)

Billy (tried) to throw me a surprise golden birthday party when we got back from FL. But as I mentioned before, he is horrible at covering up his tracks and lying to me so when I found the guest list on MY computer (he wasn't even using his own to do this) he didn't even try to come up with a lie as to what the list was for...he just ran away from me. haha.

Lets see....nothing too exciting happened between April and the first part of August. But at the end of August, I completed my master's. Now...I have a bunch of free time and I don't know what to do with myself. Maybe I'll blog more...

Unfortunately, the same day I completed my master's program, my Grandma had a fall up at our family cottage. She got startled by a bat and tried to run away from it. She fell and fractured her pelvis, and shattered her shoulder and elbow. Keep in mind, this was in the middle of the day, so the fact that the bat was out and not sleeping is very strange... That was August 27th.

On August 28th, my mom, sister, and I went on a road trip out west. We tried to have the best time we could despite how worried sick we all were about our Grams. We spent time in Yellowstone National Park, The Grand Teton National Park, and we saw Mount Rushmore. I was taken aback the entire trip of the beauty that is out there. If you haven't already, check out the pictures on Facebook.

We got back from our trip on September 5. We got into Green Bay at 1am and we went straight to the nursing home to visit Grandma. Mom cried the whole drive from South Dakota to GB that day. I'm still not sure why and what was being said from her sister and brother that made her so upset, but I just know that she felt that she had to see her mom right away. When we got to the nursing home, Grandma was awake and was taking some pain meds from the PM nurse while watching TV. Grandma looked SO happy to see us.

From that day on until the end of September, I visited Grandma almost every single day. I think out of the entire month of September, I missed just 4 or 5 days of visiting her. I still can't drive past that nursing home without getting a stomach ache. It's on one of my routes from work back home, and I still avoid it. I just can't do it.

Anyone who knows my Grams, knows that she is a very very strong, independent, opinionated, and stubborn woman. My mom tells me everyday that I remind her of Grams and that she should have named me Betty. My Grandma HATED being in that nursing home. She was miserable. She hated waiting on people to help her, she hated depending on others just to get up and go to the bathroom, and she hated being alone when we couldn't come visit her.

Towards the end of September, the doctors had her on so much pain medication that she became delusional. She didn't think she was at the nursing home and she would ask me things like "would you put that in the kitchen for me" and "I like those yellow shoes you have".

And she was in so. much. pain. SO much pain. Two days before she passed away, I was visiting her and the nurses came in to help her go to the restroom. Grandma asked me to stay in the room with her. This was a rare moment of clarity when she asked me to do that. Otherwise, she was totally out of it. She was being helped by the nurses and she started screaming "HELP ME! HELP ME!". I looked over to Grandma and she looked so confused. I told her that she had to let these ladies help her and that she could go back to bed soon. After a few hours of visiting her that day, I kissed her goodbye and told her I loved her not knowing that two days later, she'd be gone.

On Tuesday, September 29, I got a call from my mom while I was at work informing me that at 4am, Grandma tried getting out of bed to go to the bathroom by herself and fell. The nurses found her on the floor, unresponsive, and they rushed her to the ER. I could tell in my mom's voice, as she was holding back tears, that I had better get to the hospital ASAP. I told her I would be there right away and she started crying. I knew this wasn't going to be a good day.

I got to Bellin at 11am and I walked into the room and saw my Grandma was unconscious, but in a seizure like state. The doctors gave her seizure meds to help her remain calm. I don't know if Grandma knew I was there or not, but I whispered in her ear that I loved her and kissed her. I kissed her so much. I held her hand and kissed it. I kissed her forehead. I kissed her cheeks. She passed away while I held her hand at 4:20pm. She had become septic. Which is an infection that gets into a blood stream and she could not fight it. I feel like she went so fast. She fell on Aug 27 and passed away Sept 29th. I feel like she was here, and then gone, in a blink of my eye.

I cried so hard for days and I still cry hard now. I miss her so much.

An update on the update...

So, I just got back from a meeting with Dorsch Ford.

They put in an order to MAKE me a new Escape. Unfortunately, it will be about 6 weeks before Sadie is back in my possession...so the wait better be worth it.

Update on Sadie

She's still being worked on and therefore, I still don't have her back. It's been 2 full days now.

I have to laugh a little because on Tuesday, when I called the dealership, I could sense in the men's voices that they thought my accusations on the car were frivolous. I could tell they didn't believe me and when they told me to bring it in right away, they had a "this is going to be a small issue" tone of voice.

Well, it's not a small issue. Not even a bit. Today, my pops reached a point of boiling-over frustration. He went to the dealership and demanded a meeting with our sales-guy and the owner of the franchise, Mr. Dorsch.

Apparently, during the meeting, it was brought to my father's attention that this "small issue" wasn't a small issue at all and that only ONE other issue like mine has ever happened to a Ford product in the whole country, ever.

I had to laugh when my dad told me that because after dealing with all my issues with the Sebring, this naturally would happen next. Why would anything go smoothly at this point? I bet Rosita is laughing somewhere right now.

Anyway, I guess two options are currently being presented to me:
1) They will just give me a new one of the exact same SUV.
or
2) They fix my issue, if they can, and majorly extend my warranty.

At this point, I just want this to end...so whatever happens first, happens first.

sigh.

I just want to escape!

This past Monday, I sold off a dear old friend of mine...Rosita (aka "ladies pimp car" to some). Rosita and I go back....way way back. She's a beautiful, red, 1997 Chrysler Sebring. She was good to me when I was learning how to drive, and when she went away to college with me. I also kept her on thru my first two and a half years in the "real world".

However, in the past six months or so...Rosita started to turn on me. The buttons on the driver side that rolled up the window and locked the door fell into my door. My dad had to take apart the door and find the plate that held up these buttons and screw it back up so I could use it. Then some suspicious black goo leaked from my rear view mirror. The black goo became permanent and I couldn't get it off my console. THEN, the siding on the passenger side door began to come lose and was hanging by a thread. I would have to warn whomever wanted to enter the passenger side that they couldn't open the door all the way because they'd pop that siding off. THEN my tires started going FLAT... FREQUENTLY. Once they got so flat, my rim bent and some garage dudes has to bend it BACK. They told me and my pops that I was lucky they could do that...rims for Sebrings are $400/piece. Ouch.

Then came the icing on the cake. On a snowing December 19th morning, Rosita spun out of control on the highway (I was only going 30 mph) and spun me right into a ditch. $90 later, I got her back. After that weekend, Rosita wasn't referred as her name anymore. She earned a new name 'bitchy crap box".

After that weekend, I was determined on moving on and finding a new, dependable car that I would actually feel SAFE in. Safe was a concept that was foreign to me because Billy's SUV is a POS as well (1997 GMC Jimmy) and therefore, we haven't riden comfortably and confidently in a LONG TIME. Billy's car has died on us multiple times, once including when we were in Steven's Point...two hours away from home. That was fucking lovely.

Anyway, this past Saturday, I test drove a 2009 Ford Escape and instantly fell in love. That following Monday, I was signing the papers for her. I am spending about $45/mo more in car payments than I would have liked...but I think it will be worth it....eventually.

I'd like to introduce you all to Sadie. She's a Light Sage Escape.

Unfortunately (and as my luck would have it), I only had Sadie in my possession for about 21 hours. Most of that was when I was sleeping. I had a hard time starting her and she would ONLY start when I jiggled the shifter. Anyway, I still don't have her and Ford can't figure out what's wrong.

Sigh. I promise she's amazing....once I get her back.

2008 wasn't that great...bring on 2009.

Everyone is asking me if I have a New Year's resolution.

I've only had a resolution 2 or 3 times in my whole life (maybe not even that many). I never keep them, and therefore, no point in making one.

My main concerns for the new coming year are:

-Finishing graduate school. Should be done THIS SUMMER. YAHOO.
-Excelling more at work. I don't feel as though I am doing as much as I should be. This has got to change.
-Trying to improve my relationships. I'm so busy between work, school, family, and Billy that I forget I have friendships. I feel as though many of my friendships have suffered....I can only hope that they all understand that my life has been hectic for the past 2 years and I'm trying to catch up with life in general every day.

Overall, 2008 wasn't too great for me. I don't mean that as a downer, but I just mean that nothing SPECTACULAR happened to me. I just sailed along with work, school, and my extremely limited social life.

Here's to hoping 2009 will have some amazing memories for me to have and here's to doing more in life instead of just sailing through it.

I was saved by an Angel!

....Literally.

On my jolly ride to work yesterday morning, I had a little accident. I left my apartment 20 min earlier than I normally do (it is a 20 min drive for me to get to work on a non-snow day) so I thought I gave my self PLENTY of time to get to work.

I started off on hwy 172 and was surprised by how GOOD the road was! I still was driving with caution, however, because my car isn't the more reliable in this type of weather.

I then merged onto 41 south to venture to DePere when I realized the weather between 172 and 41 was like a different world. The visibility on 41 was HORRIBLE, but the road wasn't too bad....atleast I thought.

About 2-3 minutes after that thought, I noticed a car in the ditch on the right hand side of me... After seeing that, I slowed down even more.

Apparently, that wasn't slow enough. I was going 30 on the hwy and then suddenly lost control of my piece of shit car. I started to fish tail, violently, and the violent swing of the tail put me in a spin. My spin spun me all the way to the ditch.

I was scared out of my f-ing mind. I am very lucky that no other car hit me, considering how long I was spinning on the hwy and I am very very lucky that no other car slammed into my car while it was in the ditch. My car sat in the ditch from 630 am to 10pm because the police put a "hold" on any towing due to the horrible weather.

When my car hit the ditch, I just sat there for a minute in disbelief. I was in complete shock. When I snapped out of my frozen minded state, I called my daddy's cell, but no answer. I called my mummsy and she answered and I just started crying. She was relieved that I was ok, but still worried as to how she was going to pick me up on the dangerous hwy. My dad called me while I was on the line w/ my mom and so I had him come help me because he was more readily available than my mum.

While I was waiting for my pops to come save the day, a cop stopped to check on me as someone had reported my accident. The cop's name was Angel. She put me in her squad car and brought me to safety at a gas station. That is where daddio came and picked me up and brought me to work.

There were 5 other cars that went into the ditch in the area I went in. Obviously, it was a little icy there.

Ski Bunny

Billy and I went to Ski Brule this past Friday. It was a nice day :)

Most of the runs were in rough shape because of how cold it was, but we still had a great time. There were 3 runs, which are in my top faves at Ski Brule, that were decent, so we spent a lot of our time on those 3. I took a fall on one of the black diamonds because of how rough that particular slope was. Some snow made it's way up my coat and because of how cold it was outside, the snow was pretty hard. So, it cut my back up a little. But I'm ok. No worries!

I have a lot of finance homework to do today...boo!! BUT, Thursday is almost here and once that day is done, I'll have 3 weeks off from school...Yippie!

I'm not too far off from completing my masters program. Depending on how may classes I want to take at a time, I'll either be done at the end of June, or the end of August!!! :o)