hey hey

Time to post of course....Whats new with everyone? Nothing to report here I guess. I've been busy working at the Royal Pacific, but haven't been back to the Contemporary since then. I'm still employed with Disney though, and I will hopefully pick up a shift there sometime soon.


Ok so here's something new. I got a new phone. I know right?? I had the same phone for like 2 years, and while I liked my phone I needed something new and more advanced. I got an iPhone and I love it! I have text messaging which is wonderful, and some apps that I am addicted to (such as checkers..no lie it's my favorite thing on there). I just love it!

Hmm...I'm going to Michigan in June, in like less than a month. I haven't bought my ticket yet because I'm broke so I need to do that after pay day. I'm also going to plan a trip to connecticut for July which is where my sister lives because her fiance is going to be gone for a month (he's a military man). I'm excited. Connecticut is off the ocean so that's good enough for me.

I've also started looking into going back to college in the fall at Valencia. They have a hospitality management program which is what I would do, of course. I have a campus tour scheduled for Thursday and if I can talk to an adviser I'm going to ask about the credits I got at macomb and see if they will mean anything here. I really hope so, otherwise all of that time and money has gone to WASTE! I'm really excited about going back though. I feel, right now, like I don't really have anything going on in my life and I really miss college and having social interactions outside of work. I'm hoping to meet new people and make some new friends as well. Right now, I am planning on only doing one class because I still need to work full time and I know that I can handle that. If I can do that well and have no problems I can try and do 2 classes for the following semester. It really depends on what classes I already took that will transfer over, if any, that will determine which class I take but right now it looks like i will take the intro to hospitality class, even if the one i already took is okay. it's always good to have a refresher and it's been awhile since i've gone to school so I'd like the class i take to be easy.

Things with Chris are going well. We are happy and doing very good. and there's really nothing else to say about that..lol

Well that's all i have going on right now. I will write an update whenever I deem necessary!

OMG almost 3 months, what's wrong with me??

I keep meaning to update my blog, and now I have some free time due to not being able to sleep so I shall write!

Nothing is super new with me I guess. In my last blog I mentioned that for my birthday Chris let me get a kitten. I named her Bailey and she is the MOST beautiful thing on earth. I love that girl with everything. She is bad, believe me, she is very naughty and I have to yell at her a lot but there is nothing quite like walking in from a long day at work to be greeted by a ''meow!!!!?!?" (which to me translates to "HI MOMMY HI MOMMY HI MOMMMY!!!!!!!!" he he he). I feel like having Bailey here at home with us makes this feel more like...a home! Chris has gotten used to her, even though I never thought he would, it only took a few weeks for him to treat her like his own. He's very good to her and feeds her and such. I'm happy about that.

I also got a new job. I know right?? In previous blogs I have mentioned my employment with Disney and how I felt cheated because it was basically impossible for me to move into a full time position due to being seasonal, even though they were hiring in full timers who had more employment time with Disney. I got so fed up with it, and it got to the point where i was only getting maybe 2 days a week at the most, and I can't live on that. I started applying for jobs everywhere, had some interviews and finally landed my first REAL full time job!!!! Ok maybe it's not a career, but I enjoy it. I work in the recreation department at Loews Royal Pacific Resort in Orlando. it's a beautiful hotel, large and south seas themed. I work as a pool attendant and it's quite a basic job, but it keeps me occupied. I'm trying to make goals for myself so I can move up with the company eventually. I'm hoping by like December or January (when it starts getting cold again) I will be able to move inside working at the front desk. And then I'm just going to wait and see what happens from there. That's my plan right now though. I like what I do for now, it's interesting having a job that I've never done before and working outside has its benefits (like a killer tan...which I kinda have, considering I AM a michigander at heart and at first glance ha ha ha!) but I know in July i'll regret saying that once i drown in my own sweat. ugh!

Ummmm...Honestly I wish I had more to say...however, I don't really and I think i'm going to try and go back to bed now. I should update this more often....maybe I will.

First post of 2010

Well, we made it. 2010 is finally here. I can't even believe what an insane year I just lived through. 2009, I have to say, was definitely the most interesting, challenging, adventurous, wonderful, exciting year of my entire life.

2009 was a year of many firsts for me. some ridiculous, some not so much. My first time on a roller coaster. My first time at basically all of the Disney theme parks in general. My first time moving out of my parent's house...my first time moving out of MICHIGAN...living on my own with girls from all over the country...my first time working a LEGIT job. my first time falling in true love. my first REAL apartment (disney apartments barely count). my first time to california. my first time driving cross-country. my first time moving my sister out of my parents house. my first christmas without my family. It's been insane and very intense but it's made me a stronger person in the end. I can't imagine 2010 comparing in any way, but i know it will be amazing!


so yesterday was my birthday. i turned 22. tooooo old. yet i feel soo! young because everyone at work is like 23, 24, 25...etc. chris spoiled the shit out of me. it makes me feel really bad about what i did for his birthday because i feel like i did nothing compared to what he did, then again, he has a lot more money than i do so whatever. he got me a Crock Pot which is awesome, and also he surprised me with the most amazing thing ever. he took me to Petco and let me buy a bunch of things and gave me permission to adopt a kitten from the Humane Society. i seriously cried. i was so happy. i bought what i needed and we went to go see ''Its Complicated'' at the movie theater. after that we came home because it was freezing and raining so we hung out until our dinner reservations at Citricos at the Grand Floridian. Food was amazing of course, service top notch. they had a personalized menu made for me along with a birthday button so everyone acknowledged me. it was awesome. then we came home for CAKE! chris made an amazing cake for me, it was sooo nice and he spent a lot of time on it. so it was basically the best birthday ever.

today i went, first thing in the AM, to the Humane Society to get a kitten. of course i couldn't WAIT!!! lol. i found one that i absolutely loved, shes 10 months so a bit older than i wanted but shes so playful and loving. i named her bailey after much thought. chris has never had a pet before so he's like walking on eggshells around her. i'm sure that will change though. she's very sweet.


anyway, thats it for tonight. i have so many things i could rant about but i will NOT get into that right now. good night and good riddance.

Well it's been awhile

I seriously suck at updating. Okay so here's what's been going on with me. Still working as seasonal at the Contemporary. I've had a couple job interviews which has been exciting, nerve-wrecking (wracking?), scary, stressful, you know.

My first interview that I had gotten was for the Orlando World Center Marriott, which was awesome because it's right across the street from where I reside, and it's also the world's largest Marriott. I couldn't even believe I had an interview there considering how difficult the application process had been. Marriott does all their applications through Marriott.com now and in some of them they include a timed test where you read descriptions of situations and you have to answer how you would handle them. I did this while I was at work, while trying to assist guests, but apparently I did well because 12 hours later they called me for an interview. The interview was very difficult as well. I was interviewed by four people who were managers and supervisors so that was intimidating, but I still felt REALLY good about it and I wouldn't have changed a single thing that I said. All my answers, I believe, were top notch. The interview lasted almost a full hour, which is probably the longest interview I've ever been to. 24 hours later I got a call asking me to come in for a second interview. I was ecstatic. The second interview was not as long..maybe 10-15 minutes. Good thing I didn't drive any more than 2 minutes, otherwise I would have been angry. There were only 2 interviewers this time, both who I did not meet previously. I felt that interview went pretty well as well, and I once again spoke with the hiring manager and she said she hoped things would go well for me and I'd hear from her later in the week.

Yea I did hear back later in the week...not even 24 hours later I received one of those ''Thank you for taking the time to come and talk to us, however, we have decided to pursue another candidate who more closely meets the requirements...'' awesome. It WAS pretty devestating, I can't lie, I was pretty upset because I had no idea where I went wrong. i did SO well! i gave it my all!

After spending some time thinking about it I decided that it was probably for the best. This hotel was probably too much for me anyway, considering it's so large in size and it would probably be overwhelming for me. I don't know how many rooms it has, but the Contemporary only has like a thousand so I'm not used to working in a hotel that has like...four thousand plus a million convention spaces. So I applied at a few more Marriott hotels, thinking why not. I actually DID receive a call for a phone interview from another very reputable Marriott, the Marriott at Grande Lakes. I did pretty well with the phone interview, and also received a call from the hiring manager at the Fairfield Inn at the Marriott Village in Lake Buena Vista, as well as a missed call from the Ritz Carlton. So many opportunities, yet I wasn't feeling on top of the world like I thought I would. To be honest, I love my job at the Contemporary. I know I've said Disney isn't my future, but I do enjoy my co-workers at the Contemporary and I am comfortable with what I do. It's like going on a year that I've worked there and some people are starting to feel like family.

Anyway, I wound up never returning the call to the Ritz Carlton, but I did go in for an interview at the Fairfield. The Marriott Village in Lake Buena Vista is very impressive. It consists of a Springhill Suites, a Fairfield, and a Courtyard. Altogether, it has about 1100 rooms. The properties are REALLY nice and updated, and in my interview I learned that you become cross trained to learn all three front desks. To me that was awesome because you get so much experience in the different Marriott brands, rather than JUST learning what the Courtyard is all about or just the Fairfield you learn all three. The interview itself was not as intimidating as the one at the World Center was, but it was still a challenge. I felt more comfortable with my interviewer, mostly because it was just one person and because she seemed very genuine. The interview lasted about an hour, and she said I'd hear back from her later in the week.

well I did hear back, 24 hours later i got an email stating the same ol, same ol ''we found someone better sooo....just forget it''. once again, I was pretty disappointed to read that and see that ONCE AGAIN my efforts have not paid off. I'm trying to look at it from the perspective that there's probably just other people out there who have more experience than me. I mean to be honest I don't have a lot of front desk experience. Only a couple months at the Courtyard, and that BARELY counts, and then about 10 months with Disney. They are probably able to find people who have years of experience.

So for right now I've decided to just keep at it with Disney. Even though it's not where I want to be forever, it's where I want to be right now. In about 9 more days I will be eligible for full time and right when that moment happens you better believe i will be at Casting trying to get this worked out so I can become full time with some sort of job security lol. I've been lucky, most weeks I get 5 days to work but this week i got very unlucky and only got THREE days to work. I was able to pick up a shift yesterday so that's a little bit better. i signed up for additional hours for the next 2 weeks so hopefully next week I'll get some overtime, if not 5 days.

So basically that's all that is new with me at work. chris and i painted the apartment last week and it looks really good. i love it. so nice to not have boring white walls and no personality to our rooms. other than that, my personal life is in shambles. i have gotten to the point of having literally no friends. i have coworkers that i like talking to at work but nothing is progressing from that...most of them are college program and they'll be leaving before I know it, so why do that to myself. that was one thing i was looking forward to about getting a new job was finding people who are permanately in orlando so i could make some friends. it's so hard to make friends, seriously. chris's birthday is in 2 weeks, followed by thanksgiving like literally the day after, and before you know it it will be christmas. i need to start working like 80 hours a week if i want to afford all of that. fuck my life. ahhhh.

well I'm off of work for the next 2 days so hopefully i'll find something to do. i have no money, no gas in my car, it's too windy to go outside and sit by the pool so I'm just going to relax. I need to anyway, I've been sick for a couple of days and so im just trying to get over that so relaxation sounds like a good idea to me. I'll write later on..byebye

Back in the Sunshine State!

Well the last couple of weeks have been really pretty good. I flew home to Detroit to visit my family on October 1st. It was really good to see my parents and my sister and my friends and of course, my kitties again. It was super cold though, didn't really enjoy that part of it.

I was there for about four days. On Oct 5th me and my sister drove 13 hours to Groton, Connecticut to her new apartment that she is now sharing with her fiance Brett. It's not bad...I still like my apartment wayyyyy more but they have a fireplace and a washing machine so it's alright. Luckily they are on the first floor so moving all the stuff inside wasn't as painful as I thought it might be. It sucked though, 2 nights sleeping on an air mattress. Chris arrived the following day around 3, and the four of us went out to dinner and crashed early that night so we could all get an early start the next morning.

Chris and I left Connecticut around 5:30 on Wednesday morning and drove 10 hours to Virginia Beach, VA. We stayed at an incredible hotel, Springhill Suites by Marriott. I wasn't expecting it to be awesome but it was. It was one of the best hotels i've ever stayed at. The best part about it was our oceanfront room directly on the atlantic ocean. it was AMAZING, especially at night you could hear the waves crashing on the shore and in the morning the sunrise was incredible. We were going to stay a second night but I looked at the weather forecast and it was saying that the following day was going to be 70 degrees there and that seemed a bit chilly to me and I wanted to enjoy the ocean so we decided to move onward. So we drove six more hours to Myrtle Beach, SC and stayed at a full service Marriott Resort & Spa. INCREDIBLE HOTEL!!! Just beautiful. Our room wasn't oceanfront this time, but the hotel is situated right on the beach so from the room we did have a small view of the ocean which was cool! We spent some time on the beach and had an amazing time. tried to get another night there but they were fully booked so we booked a night at the Marriott at Hilton Head Island which is about 5 hours away from Myrtle Beach, right at the border of Georgia. Wow..it was beautiful. trees and bushes and flowers surrounding the front entrance all the way up to the hotel and on the opposite side was oceanfront. our room was definitely an ocean view but with some trees in the way so it was technically a standard view. if we had been up a floor or two it would have been amazing. so we spent another day at the beach, hit the hay early and got home yesterday around 3PM. even though the vacation was incredible and super fun, it feels so good to be home again, in my own bed.

and that's basically all that's been up lately. just living the dream, you know. har. i kid. i really hate that i have no money now, but what can you do? Hopefully i won't be struggling too bad trying to make rent and my car payment and whatever for November.

by the way, whats UP with these record high temperatures? it was like 95 degrees today...mid October. After being in Michigan however, i'd rather be hot than cold. :o)

Going home soon, yay!

I don't know why I say I am ''going home'' next week. I'm going to Michigan next week. I live in Florida. So why do I still call Michigan ''home"? I'm not the only person who does it...I have co-workers who have recently gone back to visit their hometowns and said they were going home when they live here, so I guess it's not that weird.

Anyway i'm very excited to visit my friends and family! I will of course be staying with my parents while I'm in town and I will hopefully see as many people as I possibly can while I'm there. I'm so excited to see my cat too haha. MILO!!!

The reason I'm going home to visit next week is because of my sister. She is moving to Connecticut to live with Brett, her fiance. So my mom doesn't like the idea of her driving to Connecticut by herself and was going to go with her and then fly back home but I know that my mom probably can't handle all that traveling, and it gives me an excuse to take time off work and hang out with the fam so I told my mom I'd drive with her and then fly back to Florida.

I'm really not thrilled at all with the idea of my sister moving in with Brett. And no it's not because they aren't married or because they haven't been dating for very long because that would be hypocritical on my part. I totally believe in living together before marriage. My sister is 18 years old, however, and I think that at that age you shouldn't be making decisions to leave home and start a new life just yet. I'm well aware that many many people straight out of high school go away to college, but that's completely different. They are going for their education and more than likely the school is not a thousand miles away. I've made all the points I can to both Emily and Brett about why they should hold off on moving in together, and so has my mom but neither one of them will budge from this decision. It's just one of those things where I could go on all day about why it's wrong but i won't.

Anyway mostly what I'm not looking forward to is when me and Emily leave to go to Connecticut. My mom is going to die. She is already depressed about me being gone because without me she doesn't really have anyone to really talk to. My dad, forget it. My sister spends most of her time talking on the phone or online with Brett (who currently lives in CT but he's from Michigan). I was the one who would hang out with her and watch movies with her and just be there most nights when she got home from work. But she's starting to let go more, and forgive me for leaving, and now just as shes starting to adjust my sister decides shes going to leave too. I just feel so bad for my mom. All she has left is my dad, and for anyone whos ever met the guy knows that living alone with him is like .....well it's too early to think of a good analogy to that one. ugh. it's just heart breaking to think about. And then I started thinking about how i need to visit home more often blah blah blah and then I remembered that whenever I DO go home to visit after this next trip, its not going to be the same because one of the most important people in my life won't be there...my sister. Things will NEVER feel the same way again.

As much as I love my life here in Florida, sometimes I can't help but truly miss the way my life used to be. And I know I've expressed this before but it's true, it doesn't really get any less painful the more time goes on. I miss my old jobs; even after i left MJR it was only natural for me to still visit and hang out with my old friends every time. I miss school and classes (i'm sure i'd take that back in a heart beat though, haha), I miss everyone who used to be in my life, I miss having a FULL life. I don't feel like i have a full life anymore. I really don't and I really hate it. But I do have it good, I constantly remind myself that I am living my own dream and i need to just remember that.

Well i think Ive bored myself back to sleep..har har...Enjoy

a post! awesome

Well, it's been almost a month since the conclusion of my college program. I was super worried, as all my followers would know (all six of them) about finding a new job to replace mine at the Contemporary. I had 2 job interviews but no call backs with those and I applied to many many other hotels as well but nothing. I managed to talk to a manager @ the Contemporary to be statused as ''seasonal'' for the time being. The stressful part about being seasonal is that there is no guarantee for any hours. This was extremely scary to me, thinking about how I could possibly only work one or two days a week. Lucky for me it's been going really well, I've been putting in MORE hours as seasonal than I was as an intern which is good. My managers seem to understand that me and Chris, though we are only seasonal, are willing to do whatever it takes to remain active with the company and know we are willing to work any amount of hours we are offered. Last week I put in 57 hours and Chris put in 54 so we made out pretty well. For right now, I am probably going to remain at the Contemporary until I figure out what I want to do. I think I'd like to stay on as a full timer for now, at least until I finish school and then I can decide. Lucky for me, I have time to make any more life-altering decisions.

Other than that, not a whole lot is going on. Me and Chris are doing well...what else would you expect, we're awesome. Things are a little crazy on the home front back in good ol' Michigan but I won't get into that. I'm missing everyone back home and thinking about popping in for a visit next month if I can manage it.

Well that's all the updating I have for now...I'll write again momentarily.