MIA, Busy Bee, and New Digs.

Hello Blogging world! I have been completely MIA for about a month now and I whole heartedly apologize. There has been a lot going on in my life lately and I can't remember the last time I was so busy. It would most definitely be appropriate to call me a "busy bee".

The new job has really picked up. I love it but sometimes it does get a little overwhelming. But undoubtedly we are in our busy season right now and it should slow down in June. We are so busy that next Tuesday (the Tuesday following a holiday) I will most likely be at work until the wee hours of the night, AND possibly into the next morning. We have a major project going out that is going to take every second of time we have until it's due Wednesday morning. It's Crazy! But I'll be getting the OT. :) One of the great things about my job is that I am salaried, BUT I still get paid over time. Pretty Sweet.

In other news, I will be moving soon! YAY! No more apartment, no more having to walk the dogs down every morning, no more kitchen the size of my work cubical, AND NO MORE neighbors above me! I couldn't be more excited. I am moving into a 2100 square foot house complete with nice kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms, dining room, AND two car garage. Another great thing about the place is that it's a patio home, where the front door is actually in the backyard (or side yard I should say) and you have to go through a gate to get to it. The fence around the yard is all brick also (so no escaping puppies). All of that makes me feel really safe. Here are some pictures of the new digs. :)

 This is looking at the house from the street. You can see the garage, and the entrance gate is to the right of it.

This is when your walking in the gate. Cute and spacious backyard (it wraps around the other side) complete with a fountain, grill, and I believe some of the patio furniture is staying also. The front door is on the other side of the lounge chairs.

 This is the front door. The direction Trevor is walking in is towards the kitchen and the direction where the photo was taken is the living room.

 This standing where Trevor was walking. The front door is on the other side of the hexagon shaped window.

 Across from the hexagon window, the first door is a coat closet and the second door is a half bathroom.

This is the living area. Fireplace and beautiful, large windows. Love.

 This is the breakfast nook. The door to the garage is to the right.

 Standing in the breakfast nook, facing the kitchen. It wraps around to the right and then you would walk into the dining room.

 This is a view going up the stairs, looking down into the living room.

Up the stairs more looking down, starting to run into what was the first bedroom but has now been turned into an open office.

 The office. :) Complete with another closet. (which I need lots of)

 The master bathroom.....(AHHHHHH :)) There is a stand up shower to the left of the vanity.

 Big bathtub. YAY. I also love how she decorated that space.

 The most kick-a$$ master bedroom ever! It's huge!

 Left Side....

Right side....

There also is another bedroom and another full bathroom. I couldn't be more excited. Now if I could only get through moving and paying two rents for the next month. :-/

And finally, today is Friday and not just any Friday...the Friday of a Holiday weekend! Only if you work full time can you get the full appreciation of a 3 day weekend. I mean from January to May there aren't any of those! It's draining and exhausting. So for all my fellow full timers out there, go out and ENJOY this rare commodity.

What are you Memorial Day plans? The mister and I don't have much going on besides NOT working. :) I'm sure we will spend it relaxing and hanging out with friends.

Have a fun a safe weekend dolls!

Oh and I get to see my beloved Jimmy Buffett in concert next Saturday, consider me pumped.

I Go Back....

This one was tough to write...so bare with me.

6 years ago today, I was playing in my senior year district golf tournament. I remember that day like it was yesterday…

I was late…as usual…to meet the rest of the team in front of the gym to head out to Beaumont. I remember pulling up thinking, “Crap, what a way to start today”. I got into the van expecting a lecture from Coach White (aka Mary) and was shocked when all she said was “Good Morning” in a way chipper tone and we pulled out of the parking lot. I was also expecting jokes from my teammates about me being late again, but everyone was silent. “Great,” I thought…”Everyone’s mad at me”. I had no idea how far from the truth I really was.

As soon as we got to the course Coach White was on my butt about staying off my phone. I didn’t think much of it since it was district and I really needed to focus but she said it about 100 more times and then watched me turn it off before we actually started play. “Danni, Do NOT turn on your phone today”, she told me right before I teed off. Again, I didn’t think much of it but was starting to get annoyed. Another strange thing is that my basketball coach, Coach Scales (Jackie), was also there and I remember seeing her and Mary talking off to the side in hushed voices before teeing off, “strange…” I thought but then we begin to play.

I played terrible that day. Drives weren’t straight, chips were short, and even my putting, which is the best part of my golf game was falling short of the hole nearly every time. I was in a HORRID mood come 14, I knew that I had most likely blow my chances of qualifying as an individual and once I heard the team wasn’t playing well either, I knew that Regionals was probably not going to happen for the first time in 3 years. As the end of the course got closer and closer I realized that Coach White and Coach Scales both were following me and not going to see any other players. “Why?!?! Just go away”, I remember thinking. "Why stay around and watch me crash and burn." So as I finished 18, I remember thinking all I wanted was a Dr. Pepper, some flaming hot Cheetos, and to be left alone, but as soon as I put my club in my bag, Coach White was right there with her cart telling me to get on and to not look at my phone. Now at this point I am becoming a little annoyed…”the tournaments over! Why the heck can I not look at my phone???” I realized my basketball coach was following behind us in her cart and we were driving into the parking lot. “Where are we going?” I asked Coach White. She told me were going to Coach Scales' car and didn’t say anything else. I had NO IDEA what was going on but I had a feeling it wasn’t good. They ask me to get in the car, my basketball coach took my hand and start getting choked up, my golf coach is in the back with her hand on my seat. I immediately ask “Is my family okay?” even though since my Dad was at the tournament also, I knew that he would have told me by then. “No, your family is fine…but…James Reeh committed suicide last night”.

-----WHITE NOISE-----

I blanked out, I didn’t know what to think, I couldn’t think. How, why, How could he do this to his family!?! A family who had loved him and tried to do their best for him even after his brother was killed running a red light less than 3 years before!! Why…(this is when the tears came). Why did he have to get mixed up into drugs?!? Why did he let them win?!? Why was he hanging out with these people that weren’t looking out for his best interests?? Why didn’t I reach out to him the past month? Why did I cut him out because he was making bad choices? Why? Why? I couldn’t think anymore…so I cried and cried and cried some more. I realized that the whole day everyone had been making sure that I didn’t find out, starting with me being late that morning...

James Wesley Reeh was a boy I met my freshman year of high school, he was the new funny kid and I, like every other person in school, was drawn to his “happy go lucky” attitude and his infectious laugh. Over the years of high school we got to be very close, actually dating for two weeks at one point, but let’s be honest it was high school, so it didn’t mean a thing. We grew close during the time when his brother was killed in a car crash. I remember during the wake for his brother we snuck out of the palor  and hid in some janitorial room because he said he needed a break from “being comforted.” I remember sitting in there for about 30 minutes just talking about basketball, Pat Green, and his brother. I’ll never forget that… We called each other “my twin” because my birthday was August 28^th and his was August 29^th. The only catch is he was born a year earlier, haha. We even had a dollar that we split in half and wrote each other a note on that we kept in our wallets/purses. I still have mine….

The last year of James’ life he began to change. I believe a lot of it had to deal with the depression over losing his brother. He once said in a classroom that last year, if he could do anything, anything in the world, it would be see his brother again. He missed his greatly. He was also struggling with school and for some stupid reason had decided to start doing some drugs. He started hanging out with a different crowd and his parents took him out of Bridge City High School. I remember getting into it with him about his new life choices and also he wasn’t a fan of my current boyfriend so he would always have snarky things to say about that. We would still text but I saw him less and less. And then it was the week before prom when everything changed and he was gone…

I remember the first time I went home during college…I knew that I wanted to go by the cemetery. As I’m on my way “How to Save a Life” by the Fray came on and I remember tears falling down my face. When I finally made it out of my car, I remember sitting there talking to him and then getting angry. I was angry he chose to leave this life because things got hard, I was angry he chose to take his own life and make his parents have to see it all, I was angry that he chose to go down a path that we talked about 100 times and how stupid we thought people who did drugs were. I was yelling a tombstone and I’m pretty sure the nice couple a few 100 yards away though I was Looney. I finally ended up sitting on the grown singing “Ever clear” by Roger Creager because James used to get so mad when people would say Pat Green sang Ever clear. Then I just sat, and I sat there for a good thirty minutes just thinking, and praying.  

Even though it’s been 6 years, I think about him all the time. I have dreams about him at least once every 3 months. There always so vivid, the dreams that are vivid enough that when you wake up you actually have to convince yourself it isn’t real. I hear “How to save a Life” by the Fray and I cry, I hear “Who you’d be today” by Kenny Chesney and I cry, I hear “Ever clear” by Roger Creager and I laugh. But every time I hear “I go back”, no matter what I’m doing, I nearly always stop and it’s like time stands still, and I really do go back to when he was here. We talked a lot about that song because he lost his brother when he was 16 and there is a line in the song that says “I go back to the loss of a real good friend, and the 16 summers I shared with him, now only the good die young, stops me in my tracks”. We listen to it a lot that summer before he left us. And I treasure every minute I had with him. He was an amazing soul who lived life out loud and to the fullest. I miss him so much and wish so badly that he wouldn’t have made that terrible choice to take his own life on his brother’s birthday 6 years ago…

Rest in Piece James Wesley Reeh.

Love, Your twin.

"Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life"

Freaky Friday

Nothing like starting a Friday morning off by finding out your apartment complex has been hit TWICE for armed carjacking!

So I wake up this morning, 30 minutes earlier than usual because my plan was to pack my car up for the bachelorette party girl's weekend that is happening in Galveston so as to avoid having to come home after work. So I'm up, take the dogs out, (take Shep out twice) pull my car around, and begin to finish getting ready. Right when I am about to bring my last bit of stuff down to the car, I hear a knock on my door...of course Chanel goes absolutely ballistic as I hurry to throw on a shirt. When I get to the door I see it's my neighbor and I step outside to talk to her. (This is where it gets REAL). The first words out of her mouth are "Ummm did you hear about the carjacking that happened here????" My response, "UMMMMM NO!" She then proceeds to tell me how as she is getting ready for work this morning she heard our apartment complex on the news about a young women being held at gunpoint, forced to get out of her car and was robbed. HERE is the link to the news story. On top of the EXTREMELY RECENT event, about a month ago what I thought was just a guy getting harassed by our cop one morning was actually ANOTHER attempted carjacker.

Let's rewind to January. I'm walking Chanel outside before I leave for work, and I see this lanky white kid pleading to the cop to just "Let me go Man, please". I assume that the guy just got caught parking where he shouldn't or something and go on about my way...well I was definitely wrong! My neighbor proceeded to tell me this morning how that same man I saw had actually been arrested for carjacking. She saw his pull in the complex and drive through several times. He then went and parked at the reserved spots across from out specific unit. After sitting parked for a while, a BMW drives through and into the garage. Everyone at the complex knows that our on-site cop drives a BMW...guess this guy didn't. He proceeds to get out of his car, leave his door open and make his way creepily towards the BMW where he pulls a gun out and points it at the cop as he is getting out of his car. As you can imagine, the cop pulled his gun out at lighting speed and told the guy to get on the ground, handcuffed him, and then proceeded to walk him back to his truck where he called for back-up. I only saw a guy next to a truck...had no idea what had just happened. The man had a warrant out for his arrest also...super.

My apartment complex didn't inform us about EITHER of these incidents. The only reason I found out about the first one is because of my neighbor and the second one because it was on the NEWS! As you can imagine I'm a little wound up this morning and for the first time EVER in my life, I truly want a gun. I have never had the desire to own one but after feeling the way I felt this morning...my feelings have taken a complete 180. I know I live in Houston and yes in a city of 4 million there is bound to be crime, but it still doesn't make it any less scary knowing all this when a deadly crime happens in your front yard.

Thank goodness I will be gone all weekend. I need to get the hell outta dodge for a while...

ALWAYS be aware of your surroundings people!

Have a safe weekend dolls.

Hi, My Name is Danni and I like to rescue dogs.

Yesterday as I was doing my afternoon stalking browsing on Facebook I noticed that a girl from back home had posted several photos of what looked like and Australian Shepherd puppy. If you know me, you know that my very own daughter/fur baby is an Aussie so I was immediately intrigued. After browsing all the pictures I found out that he had been hanging around a neighborhood in Bridge City for the past few days and that no one had been looking for him/claimed him. The worst part is that a terrible storm has been moving through Texas this week and the poor thing was stuck outside in the frightening weather all night under a car. :’( Doesn’t that just break your heat, because it sure breaks mine. The FB friend said that she had called all the shelters in the area and that they were all COMPLETELY full because of the bad weather and that the only place that would take him would be the pound and there they would only keep him for 48 hours before he would be……. :’(. To top everything her husband didn’t want her keeping the dog past yesterday evening.

After learning all this information Trevor and I, animal lovers at their best, knew exactly what was going to happen. We would get the dog, give it a good night’s rest and some love, then go from there. I can’t BARE the thought of a perfectly healthy, happy puppy having his life cut short because his original owners couldn’t take care of him. I seriously hope the original owners break both their legs, dead serious. There is a VERY special place in hell for people that abuse and don’t take care of animals/children.

 Before the drive yesterday.

On the way home.

So yesterday evening around 8 we finally made it back to Houston. Poor guy was so exhausted he slept the ENTIRE way to Houston. After getting terrorized by meeting Chanel and walking around outside for a while, we put down a big old comforter down near the couches.  He curled up on it and went right back to sleep.

 When we first got home yesterday

Not a very good shot, but I was trying to get a picture of his pretty white chest.

Him on his comforter. Rags to Riches.

FLook at that face, he's such a cutie.

Eyes full of love.

He woke off only briefly yesterday evening to eat a few bites and have some water before he was conked out again. We did move him later in the evening to let him lay on his blanket on the couch which is where he fell asleep like this:

His face is leaning up against the back of the couch and his eyes were just fluttering. He was also making all kinds of crazy noises. We think he was dreaming. :)

He really is the sweetest little guy and he has beautiful colors on him. Trevor and I of course were torn because on one side we really want to keep him. On the other hand, we both live in small apartments (Trevor can’t have dogs in his) and we also have another very bossy Australian Shepherd. It’s not really Chanel we are worried about; it’s the lack of space that is the problem. Also the potty training task along with vet bills because I’m pretty sure he needs his shots, heartworm medication, a flea bath, and to be spade. So today during lunch we are bringing him to Friends for Life in the Heights which is the best of the best when it comes to shelters. They adopt their animals out so quickly and they take very good care of them while they are there. (Check out their Website) We plan on going to back to visit him as they clean him up and get him ready for adoption. Who knows…maybe in a month you’ll be seeing a post on our new puppy. ;-)

This last shot is of my daughter who last night was really struggling through some jealousy issue, Haha. Overall though she did really well with our new friend and I was proud of her. I mean come on, how would you feel is some stranger just came in your house and are your family was paying tons and tons attention to him? J

My girl.

Side Note: I love the fact that I am with a man that has such a big heart when I comes to animals, he really is the greatest… just wanted to through that out there. J



Ten on Tuesday #2

Today I am linking up for another "Ten on Tuesday"!



(Questions by Chelsea @ Roots & Rings)

1. Should we keep doing Ten on Tuesday?
I really enjoy it! So I vote yes. :)

2. How do you pick out your sunglasses?
I usually just try and find some that I think look good on me and aren't too terribly expensive since I have somehow lost or broke nearly every pair of sunglasses I have ever owned.

3. Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?
Yes I do. And did big time this year. It was not only St. Patty's Day but also our good friend Cody's birthday so we rented a party bus! And went from Houston to Galveston and back Saturday night. SO MUCH FUN.

4. Name 5 movies that you will never get sick of.
The Holiday, The Devil Wears Prada, Love & Basketball, He's Just Not Than Into You, Beauty and the Beast

5. Name 1 book that you will never get sick of.
I feel like the most obvious choice will have to be the Bible. But I also think I could read the last Twilight or Harry Potter book over and over and over again.

6. Do you know any sign language?
I know the alphabet! 

7. What is your favorite kind of Girl Scout cookie?
I honestly haven't had any in so long I can't even name any of them.

8. Are you handy? (Can you fix or build anything?)
I think I'm pretty handy. I'm a problem solver. But I have to admit that Trevor usually fixes everything and anything before I can even get to it. He's seriously Mr. Fix It. 

9. In what form do you prefer your potatoes? (Baked, mashed, au gratin, hashbrowns, twice baked, etc.)
Baked.

10. Do you believe the saying “actions speak louder than words”?
To an extent. Words definitely can mean a lot and can also hurt a lot. But the actions following the words are usually very clear, no matter what was said.