Danielle's Soap Box

Movies I have seen in the last few weeks or so:

2009-12-08T08:29:08Z

And I'm only counting actual DVDs, not movies on TV!

Trapped In Paradise
Flash Gordon (both of these because of my step-dad, lol)
Chicago
Wall-E
Twilight
The Ugly Truth
G.I. Joe
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
My Sister's Keeper
Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Star Trek (the most recent one)
Madagascar - this wasn't bad, and some of it had me rolling, but overall, not that impressed. I love Cars and Kung Fu Panda WAY more

If I included the ones on TV, I'm sure I'd forget a bunch, but yeah, I've been watching a LOT of movies lately.

I've been watching SO many movies!

I saw Kung Fu Panda for the first time and LOVED it! I also really love The Fifth Element and bought it on Blu-Ray for like $10 at Walmart which I think is pretty awesome. I'm so excited that BluRay movies are coming out cheaper and cheaper. :D

Going after dreams

2009-12-04T05:37:42Z

The past few weeks has been interesting. I've done a LOT of writing! I tried watching the more difficult parts of the story I've been working on, parts that are very emotional, and I sucked!! So, I started doing some creative writing exercises and that got my creative juices flowing and now I can't stop writing! I've finally settled into a flow that I like for the story and am trying to write things out in a chronological order and then I'm going to rearrange it to the flow I have in mind once it's all done.

I've written so many pages starting from when my characters are just children all the way up to high school. I've got way more to write, but I feel like I'm done with half of the battle. And it feels really great to actually be finishing it! And I am determined to finish this story! I've been working on it for over a year and it's turning out to be so good. So much better then I planned originally. :)

I'm so excited! I'm a writing fool!

Yeah, I'm the penguin today

2009-11-21T16:33:50Z

I haven't posted in a very long time. I've actually sort of had a writer's block.

I started to write again last month, mostly just trying to finish up stories I had already started, and then it just stopped. I got to a section of the story I'm writing that is being really difficult for me. I can write about love and romance, I can write about joy and happiness, but I have a hard time writing sorrow and pain. When I write, I connect to my characters deeply, and when I try writing about loss or hard times, its like my brain shuts off and I'm just writing words on the page. I'm not connected to them, and therefore, they look and read like words on a page. It's terrible.

So, I started to do some creative writing exercises, but I've put it all on hold for a time, because I had other projects I needed to complete first. My mom's husband is going to ask for his green card and they need as much as they can that they have a good marriage (and he's not here just to get his green card), so I decided to put together a wedding album for the two of them. And actually, it's so much more then just a wedding album. What I've decided to do is put together an album of the first year of marriage. I had the idea for my album too, but I've yet to start mine.

I had so much fun putting together mom's album and the two liked it so much. I really want to do more, but I need to go and print out pictures, which costs money and I don't have a whole lot right now.

Wow, I'm finally hearing Leighton Meester's new song. I've heard snippets of it before now. It's not a bad song, but I like Cobra Starship's Good Girls Go Bad song better (she's featured in that song).

Anyway, Justin has a part time job working for UPS, helping the drivers (not driving), but hopefully it'll get his foot in the door for him to stay on. He's been trying to get hired at the local warehouse for forever, so he's really excited. I'm kind of mad at him right now, because he went up state to go take some classes to be a flagger and I had asked him not to. I'm not mad that he wants to take the class, I'm mad because he's making me worry. I have no idea how much gas is in the car and if he can make it there and back on what's in the car. I don't know how much money he has with him. I don't know how much he's going to spend. That's why I'm mad. It wasn't planned very well, and now I may not be able to see New Moon because of it. That makes me mad.

I hurt my foot a week ago and it is still bothering me. I'm planning on calling the doctor on Monday and see when I can get in to see him. I'm absolutely positive its not the bone. I know what bone injuries feel like, and I couldn't barely walk on it when I had fractures. It could be a sprain but I don't think so. I think it's the tendons around the ankle, I might have torn a ligament or something. But honestly, it mostly doesn't hurt so much unless I move it certain ways. I can walk on it almost just fine (stairs sometimes hurt a little), so I'm not too worried about it, but yeah, I am a little worried because it is still swollen.

And I guess that's all for now.

Update

2009-11-03T19:03:32Z

I haven't posted in a long time. In fact, I should've seen when I last posted, cuz I have no idea how much to update! LOL

Quick run through:

Justin got fired from Wal-mart, hasn't found a job yet.

Mom quit her job because of my cousin Kathy trying to get her fired. Got hired at K-mart as a cashier.

Phil got his social and applied for a job everywhere. Got hired as an overnight stocker at Wal-mart.

And for me? Working 40+ hours a week to make ends meet, worrying about Justin finding a job, and sleeping for long long hours on my days off. I think I slept like 11 and a half hours last night/this morning.

But things are okay. I mean, we're not starving. We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our back, and food in our bellies. What more could we ask for? Granted, Christmas is coming up, but I've already decided to buy just a couple of presents total, like one for Justin, one for mom, one for Phil, and that's it. I can't afford to give everyone presents every year, as much as I would like to.

There really isn't much to post about, lol! I mean I suppose I could rant and rave about a lot of things, especially the shit Kathy was giving my mom, but that's well over now. I'm still pissed at her, and ignore her as though she's a common stranger whenever I see her. As long as she gives me the same courtesy, we'll be fine. But if she starts saying things, then there are a lot of things I could be saying as well. And I'd just as soon not get into any of that.

Anyway, other then work, all I do is play on pogo.com, it used to be just word whomp, but my mom, Phil, and I have started playing Scrabble there, and since then, I've branched out and have started playing a lot of the games on there like Trivial Pursuit, Sims Pin Ball, and Boggle! :) Now if they had Clue, I'd be really happy! LOL.

Oh, I found out yesterday that a relative of mine passed away. Filberto Perea, my grandma's brother, so my great uncle. Dunno how he died yet, but he was 71 years old. There's only a couple of living relatives from the Perea family now and everyone is feeling the sadness from the loss. I'm honestly not sure if I ever met him, or not.

Well, that's it for now. I'll try to get on here more often, its just that working 10 hour days makes it kind of hard to really do anything the rest of the day (I work 8:30-7 on the weekdays), so I'm usually working, then coming home, watching my TV shows or cooking dinner, then going to bed. I've split up my days a little differently though. I now have Saturdays off and am working the 10:30-9 shift on Sundays, so that I'll be able to do things with my family on Saturday (since everything is actually closed on Sundays), which I like. I get Mondays and Tuesdays and Saturdays off now. :) They're not all together, but that's okay. It'll break up the monotony of it for now, I hope.

DWTS!

2009-10-12T15:40:14Z

That's stands for Dancing With the Stars! lol I've been doing a DWTS marathon! I have 6 episodes recorded on DVR and I needed to catch up! So this week, I can watch all of my shows (well, almost all) live, yay!

Anyway, I LOVE DWTS! It is so so hard to choose a favorite, because so many of them are great. I like all of the dancers. Some of them are much better then others, but the ones that improve the most are really great to watch too! So its really hard to choose favorites. But if I absolutely had to choose, I think I'd choose Natalie (the Olympic winner) and of the guys... Louie (the snowboarder), haha, he's so cute! But Donny Osmond is great, so is um... Marc (I think that's how it's spelled), he's the martial artist that is also a host on some chef show. He's great, as is Aaron Carter (surprisingly enough).

It's all I can think about lately. :)

Shit

2009-10-10T15:37:49Z

Why does my family have to have nothing but drama and bullshit?

It's finally come to the point that my mom has quit working at Sorenson, because of Kathy. It's a long story and I don't really feel like telling it right now, but it's a bunch of bullshit and I'm sick of it.

Because of Kathy, our workplace has been "keeping an eye" on both of us, and because of that, my mom has quit. I feel very close to quitting, because I don't feel trusted or respected at work any more. If I'm not trusted then why should I trust them? Why should I keep doing a job where I don't feel comfortable?

They're using Facebook to spy on me now. I've been so stressed the last few days that I actually got sick from it, sore throat, coughing, body aches, the works. And now, when I go back to work today (I've missed two days), I know they're going to be suspicious that I was just fine and blowing off work, which isn't fair. I feel like I have censor Facebook now, because of those jerks and that's not fair.

I'm sick of it all. I'm sick of these office politics that didn't used to exist until Kathy worked there. I'm sick of everyone being in my business just because this town is too fucking small to have any anonymity. I'm tired of gosspimongering mindless idiots. I hate going to work and seeing all of their snooty faces with their upturned noses as though they're any better then me. Well, they're not. They're on the same earth as me. They have the same feelings of me. They feel pain, sorry, joy, and happiness, same as me, and truth be told, I'M better for knowing that. So I am better then them, but do I turn my nose up? Nope. I'm a better person for that.

I still don't want to go to work.

Happy Birthday to me!

2009-09-24T05:34:17Z

I had a great birthday!

First of all, I took Saturday off as a vacation day so that I had my entire birthday weekend off. Well, it just so happened that my extra day off (the 19th - Saturday) was Melon Days in Green River! Now, Green River is not much of anything really. One stop light in the whole city, not big department stores, but a LOT of farms. And Old MacDonald had a lot of melons! Melons that are fantastic! Seriously, you will never, ever taste melons any better then the ones you'll get in Green River. And on Melon Days in Green River, they give it away for FREE!

I think free is the best word in our language, don't you? Anyway, so the 19th is the day to get the best melon absolutely free, as much as you want, when you want. So of course, I went. I took my husband, my mom, and her husband. We had SO much fun. Granted, we were only there a couple of hours, lol, but we ate a lot melon! Watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, and another one whose name escapes me at the moment. Either way, it was super yummy!!

Anyway, the 20th, my birthday, Justin's mom, Brenda, took Justin and me to Hogle Zoo!! Salt Lake has a zoo! And I LOVED it! It was so much fun! We saw all kinds of interesting animals and baby animals! The newest addition to the zoo is a baby elephant and she was so adorable! There was also three new baby tigers! And they were playing with mama tiger! And mama tiger was giving them all baths! It was great! I got some great pics! And then there was the baby giraffe! Can you believe it? Another baby! And the baby was trying to feed on mama, but she wasn't having any of it, lol so she went back inside. Still, it was awesome seeing all these baby animals.

We watched a bird show as well, and that was amazing! The birds were literally flying over our heads, inches away from us and they were so majestic and magnificent. It was really an awesome day, but man! The zoo is built all over the mountain, so its a lot like six flags in that you get a major work out!

Well, we ended up going to eat at Golden Corral afterwards and I totally pigged out! But it was worth it! I had an excellent angus sirloin (which doesn't happen too often, considering it's sirloin), but it was great, and I had pot roast and potatoes and ice cream. lol, it was freaking awesome!!

Monday was an interesting day, mostly because I couldn't move! LOL! Remember, zoo built on side of the mountain? Yeah, all those uphills were killer on my calves and because of it, I hobbled around most of the day on Monday. It was sad, but my calves are in much better shape. :D So, I just sat around and watched TV most of the day.

Tuesday though, was really great, because it was the day of my actual birthday party! And that was so great! My mom and Phil put together a Cars party for me! It was awesome! I actually can't remember everything I got, because I got so much great stuff! But I'll take stock by the weekend and report back. It's nearly midnight, and I should be in bed, but I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd come post a little bit about my weekend. :D

My first Slumber Party!!

2009-09-19T22:38:58Z

I went to my first Slumber Party last night! It was so much fun! Unsurprisingly, I knew the consultant and a few of the other girls there at the party from work. It was really great going too. I was undecided about going mostly because my cousin that I'm not speaking to was going. Well, she didn't even show up. So, the party was much more enjoyable without having to try avoid looking or speaking to her.

Anyway, the girl who was hosting the party, Jessica, is someone I know from work and we keep meaning to hang out but haven't gotten a chance to. Well, we got a chance to, and it was super fun. Her and I were sitting next to each other and also with us was Natasha who's another friend at work. I was super surprised to see her there! She's very conservative, but she's got a great sense of humor. She just needs to come out of her shell a bit, I think. I dunno how old she is, but she's about where I was when I was like 20. :D

At the beginning of the party, everyone was rather standoffish and quiet, but by the end we were cheering and laughing and all having such a good time. The demonstration took about 2 hours, and everything Kristy (the consultant) showed was so much fun. There were moisturizers and creams, lubes and toys. It was better then a sex store! hehe! My hand was going numb from all the vibrators being passed around! The most interesting were the creams and stuff. They have a cream that helps tighten up your tissue in a lady's front door so that it feels like she's a virgin again! It's amazing! LOL! There's nipple stimulants, door bell stimulants, and more! It was really amazing.

I say its better then going to a sex store because the consultant explained everything so well! She explained the sensual uses as well as other practical uses. She made it so much fun and so safe feeling. I dunno if that makes sense or not. But even to the most conservative person, this stuff is amazing and eye opening, as long as you have an open mind. :D

So, I'm going to host my own party. :D

It'll be in November some time. And sorry guys, this is LADIES ONLY! And you must be 18 years or older. No children whatsoever.

Needless to say, I bought stuff. ;) Some lingerie, and some body glitter to be glitz and glamour for my birthday (which is tomorrow), and some other miscellaneous stuff that I don't care to disclose to the entire universe! LOL, that's between me and (get this) my husband!! ;)

www.slumberparties.com/Checkout/ShopOnline.aspx

Getting this off my chest now...

2009-09-10T03:47:22Z

My wedding was a huge success, and I am very grateful to all those who helped. We had plenty of food, cake, music, etc. In fact, we had an abundance of food and cake. We had so much, it was nearly enough to feed about 50 people! Know why? I'll tell you why.

Because I was expecting there to be at least 50 people!!

Lets see, how many were there actually... My mom, my dad, my step-dad (3), Justin's mom and dad (2), his grand parents (3), his uncle Clyde, his uncle George and his family (5), his aunt Cindy and her family (4), the bishop (of course) and his wife (2), a couple of ladies from the birthday club (2)... 22 people. Not even half of what I had planned.

Now, granted, I had my whole episode where I freaked out and called off the wedding, okay. Fine. So, the people out of town didn't come, but I really expected the people IN TOWN that I invited to come. The people who told me they'd come but didn't were understandable, because they had to work and said they'd come on their lunch breaks. Well, we ended up packing up earlier then anticipated, so that's why they didn't come. I understand that.

The ones I'm mad at are the ones I specifically told about the ceremony before the BBQ, the one who took the day off but didn't show up, the ones I knew had the day off and still didn't show up. Especially the ones that are my blood relatives and live within miles of me!!

I am very upset and hurt that my own "family" couldn't be "bothered" to come, or just "didn't feel like coming." Where was I when they got married? When they needed babysitters? When they had no car and needed help getting around town? Who was there for them when they moved into their own place and let them BORROW my things in order for them to not spend as much as the could have on getting these things themselves? Who STILL has the things I let them borrow even though they are mine and I needed them back when I moved out on my own?

My "family."

I hate to break it to you all, but that isn't what family is about. You don't just ignore a big life altering event, an event that is uplifting and happy for everyone involved! Not when that person having the event has done what she could for you.

It's not fair. And I'm done. I don't want anything to do with them any more. They can kiss my ass. I have a new family now. I'm Mrs. Fish, and I am proud of it, because the Fish family know how to stick together. I know that if I needed any one of them, that I could call them and ask for help and it would be given, no questions asked. My own family can't even do that!!

Because of my own observations about one of my cousins, I made a scathing remark about her and somehow, my opinion has gotten out (not hard to do in this stupid small town), but my uncle is being blamed for it! And he was here all of 3 hours!!

That's another thing. My uncle, whom I love very much, flew out on my wedding day just to spend a few hours with me, because he knew I wanted him there. A few hours! And the family in town couldn't even come. It just makes me so boiling mad!! And it really hurts!

Tomorrow, I have to go to work, where I work with one of my cousins who didn't feel like going (read that to mean that she got rip roaring drunk the night before and had a hang over like you wouldn't believe to bother getting out of bed, let alone to go to a wedding reception that probably wouldn't even have any alcohol -- which it didn't -- because a bunch of Mormons were going to be there). I'm not looking forward to going. I swear, if she even so much as try to instant message me at work, I'm just ignoring her. If she tries to talk to me, I'll answer her cordially as though I don't know her, because why should I give her the time of day? She's a stranger to me now, not even worth knowing.

Can you tell I'm angry?

UPDATED: My wedding day!

2009-09-09T05:49:35Z

I'm writing this a few days after my wedding day, as I've been a bit busy actually. Not honeymooning, like everyone thinks, although it hasn't been a bad past couple of days off. We got a couple of gift cards from Wal-mart, and went and spent those already. We bought a lot of things for the house that we needed, like a shower caddy and a rack to go in the bathroom. Miscellaneous stuff that was necessary but unaffordable at the time and with the help of the gift cards was affordable. Yay. Then we had to put them together. Oh joy, lol.

I also got the bright idea to just put the library and all my miscellaneous stuff upstairs. So, Justin's been working on that.

But anyway! The wedding. It was great. I can't believe the day came and went so quickly. When I got up, it seems like all I was doing was going going going! Really, though, I didn't do too much. All I did was get ready. I helped my mom and did her hair (I had straightened mine the night before and we found that curling straight hair isn't the easiest thing to do!), and then got myself ready. I put on press on nails and then kept putting them on as they kept falling off, lol. I did my make up and then put the corset and dress on. That was a chore, lol, because it laces in the back all the way down.

Once that was done, we were on our way to the park and I was being ushered into the women's restroom to wait to walk down the aisle. Brenda, Justin's mom, had a bouquet made for me, and boutineers (or however it's spelled) made for all the guys, so the guys went and got theirs. Then there was an issue of the music player not working, but they got it working after a bit, but I have no idea what I walked to. LOL!

My dad and I struggled a bit to figure out which side he was supposed to walk on, but we got it done and I was walking down the aisle, towards my love. I could barely see anything through my veil, it was the oddest feeling. Everything happened so fast! The bishop asked us to take each other's right hand and we said our "I do's" and exchanged rings. My mom was holding Justin's band, and I have no idea who was holding mine for Justin (apparently, the bishop had it, I just asked him). Poor Justin was shaking like a leaf, I had to help him get it on my finger. And then we were kissing.

We took endless amounts of pictures. I still need to get the pictures from the rest of his family, but I have the ones people took with his camera. I wish I had taken mine. I love the way pictures come out on my camera. Justin's camera is a bit tempermental. Anyway, the pics came out all right and I've posted them onto my Facebook profile, as well as my Myspace page.

Then we signed the license and certificate and were barbecuing soon after! The bbq was a huge success. We had plenty of food! The only problem was that not many people were there. Justin's aunts and cousins came, his uncles, and grandparents, his parents, and my parents and that was it. A friend of mine from work showed up with her kids, and that was great, but not many were there for me. A couple of people from the birthday club were there too, but just not as many as we expected there to be. We have a LOT of food left over, not to mention cake! It was a fun day though and everyone had so much fun!

And the gifts! LOL! I told everyone that a gift wasn't necessary and yet there were still gifts to unwrap!

I have a lot more to write, so I'll have to update this at another time, when I'm less sleepy.

UPDATE:

Okay, I'm ready to finish my update, because I have a major rant afterwards to do.

Anyway, after we ate, Justin and I cut the cake. No, we didn't smash the cake into each other's faces like everyone thinks is so funny and fun to do. I don't find it particularly fun to smash cake into anyone's face, or have it smashed into mine, especially when it could fall and get smeared on my pretty and expensive white dress. :P He did shove a huge piece in my mouth, and I him, but that was about it. lol. The cake was huge! We got a sheet cake (thinking all these people were going to show up and eat it with us), and Justin bought a cake topper for us, which was really beautiful. Hm, I guess I will post a couple of pictures of the cake:

Once the cake was done, I decided to change out of my big white dress, and that's when Mandy showed up. LOL! She at least got to see me before I changed out of it. I put on my sun dress and was much more comfortable. The dress I was wearing wasn't that uncomfortable, but very heavy and getting dirty with every step I took.

And once I was out of the big white dress, Justin and I tackled the gifts! We got a steamer and colander from his grandparents (on his mother's side). There was a quilt, kitchen towel set, washcloths, baking sheets, lingerie, and money from his grandmother (on his father's side). The quilt was really great! Some parts of it were made from old t-shirts Justin had worn, which I think is really great. It's really pretty. When I get a pic of it, I'll post it here. His uncle Clyde got us a slow cooker! A really nice steel one, too! We've already used it. Justin made us a roast yesterday, it was so good! More on that later!

His unlce Georgie and aunt Merrilyn gave us a $50 card to Wal-mart. I'm trying to remember everything (mostly so that I don't forget who gave me what so I can send out the thank you cards)! A couple of girls from the birthday club came and gave us a bunch of stuff! We got this really pretty set of swan decorated picture frame, decorative box, and a bell. Also, they gave us a pie making set, which has a pie dish, pie cutter, and a kitchen towel. I think there was something else, but I really can't remember... My mom and Phil got us a Blu-Ray player, and Wall-E on Blu-Ray! I saw Wall-E the other day on TV and fell in love with it! The cables that came with the player though are way too short! They don't even come up around the back of the TV! So, I found an HDMI cable I bought, so I'll hook it up on the TV upstairs, since Justin's TV doesn't even have an HDMI hookup on it.

Overall, it was a really great day, and we all had so much fun, but we were pretty much finished by about 2:00! Actually, earlier in the day, a guy came over and was asking if we had reserved the park, and I was like, um, yes. I reserved it months and months ago, like back in April. I had called and canceled the kitchen, because we decided we didn't need it, but I was quite clear that I still wanted the park for the wedding. Well, later on in the day, the same guy came over and was apologetic, because somehow things got mixed up, but they did have my reservation. Well, they had booked another party to come in at 5 that night, so it was good that we were done by 2, so he had plenty of time to clean up, which I'm sure he appreciated. But we were supposed to be there all day and a few of my friends were going to stop by on their lunch break. Oh well.

Afterwards, Justin and I just came home and started putting things away. We were getting the food put away when we heard a knock on the backdoor. We both just thought it was like my mom or Phil bringing us something we forgot, but when Justin answered the door, it was my uncle Charlie!! I was so happy! We showed him around the messy house, and then just sat and talked. Apparently he got to the park just right after we all left, because it was empty, and he drove past mom's house, but they weren't there, so they were probably still here helping us bring in things. He ended up going over to Natalie's house and she told him where we lived, he saw my mom and she also helped him to find our house, and that was that. We just told him what was going on around town and how the wedding was. We let him see the pictures that were on Justin's camera and took a few pictures to show that he was here! LOL. It was really nice seeing him.

He was surprised that my dad was already gone, oh, and I forgot to mention that. My dad ended up leaving shortly after the ceremony, because he's doing remodeling on his condo and there were people that he needed to get back for to let them in the condo. I was super happy he came, but a little sad to see him go. It was just a turnaround trip for him, and for Charlie too. Charlie only stayed a few hours and then was back on the road to Salt Lake, because he had an early flight back to San Francisco the next morning.

So, overall, I was very happy with how everything went on my wedding day. I am super glad that I wore the big white dress instead of the sun dress. I loved how it felt being a princess for a day, in my big dress and tiara. It was a magical day and I am so so happy. :D

Date Night

2009-09-04T06:15:35Z

I had this completely crazy idea to try to get all sorts of things done in the next couple of days. I wrote everything down on paper. I made a list. It was set. LOL! About the only thing I managed to get done in the last couple of days was the music list which is an enormous list of music. Still, I think its going to be great. Once I finally sat back and decided to ENJOY myself, things worked out really well.

And instead of grabbing hair and yanking, I decided to relax and let things flow naturally. So, Justin and I had date night tonight. :D

My whole day was crappy. I was in a crappy mood, I was getting nothing but fraud calls at work and not getting anything to nail them for the fraud idiots that they were, and was generally feeling like crap. Then, a wonderful thing happened! I. Ate. Lunch.

Seriously, my fridge is barren at the moment. I'm planning on doing some grocery shopping tomorrow and getting the necessities, but for the past couple of days, I've had toast for breakfast.

Now, I'm not a morning person by nature. Mornings and I do NOT see eye to eye. After all, I vowed to myself to never, and I mean that: NEVER, wake up before the sun for anything ever again after I finished high school. Someone had the bright idea to make "0" period, and my band director jumped on it, thinking that half alive high school students would just be so eager and perky to get up at 5:30 in the morning, to be at school at 6:30 in the morning. Well, waking up at 5:30 turned into 6:00, and then ended up being 6:30, so that I was pretty much late every day. :)

So, I require sustenance before greeting the world, which means I ALWAYS eat breakfast before leaving the house. If I do not... well, lets just say that today was probably defcom 5 on my scale of 1 being okay and 10 being fire and brimstone.

Well, I ate my regimen of toast and washed it all down with plain water, which was bottled and cold, but plain, because we have no orange juice, no milk, and no other juice in the house right now, and went off to work. Defcom 1 turned into 5 pretty quickly. It was briefly a 9 for about 10 minutes, because of my beloved. I made a simple request, which I felt he was ignoring, and instead was asking to buy things that were not necessary and using money that needed to go to the wedding or our food. So I told him in no uncertain terms that if he purchased anything, we would not be having a wedding, and we would also starve.

This was right before lunch. Lunch is pretty much whenever I want to go. I mean, there is some stupid program that we "follow" for our breaks and lunches. It predicts patterns based off of previous years to send all of the employees on their breaks when it's supposed to be "less busy." I've found that it is NEVER right and when I'm actually scheduled is NOT "less busy" but most busy. So, I just ignore it. I leave it open on my desktop, but for the most part, it decorates the desktop similar to the Garfield plushie on top of my TV: it sits there, collecting dust, and is glimpsed at minutely as my eyes wander. :)

Anyhow, so I'm on lunch now and I'm eating (after throwing my food into the microwaves and slamming their doors) and a friend comes in and she lets me vent to her. She's a sweetheart. So, I vent my frustrations and really, I feel okay afterwards. About an hour later, I feel pretty damned stupid. I look at my cell and my fiance has left me a nice but poignant note saying that because I'm having a bad day doesn't mean I should take it out on him.

Needless to say, I apologized. :)

After work, Justin and I went out to dinner and spent a decent amount of money on mediocre food (although I must admit, my steak with mushrooms was delicious) and then went to the movies. We ended up having to wait like 45 mins for the movie I wanted to see, which wasn't my first choice. I had looked at the theater's website earlier today and it said The Time Traveller's Wife was going to be there, but it wasn't, not til tomorrow! I was disappointed. However, there is a bright side! Julie & Julia was still showing and tonight was the last night! So I got to see it!

It was inspiring! LOL, not like I need to tell you. Obviously, I'm inspired. I haven't written this much since... July! Nothing can be more inspiring to me then seeing Morning Musume in person! But still, this movie was about food (my favorite subject) and about blogging! I know I don't blog nearly half as much as I used to and I rarely blog about anything important, but I felt inspired by Julie & Julia.

I could identify with the main character, because like Julie, I work at a job where I sit in a gray box (otherwise known as a cubicle) and then I come home to my honey and rinse and repeat. It gets monotonous. And like Julie, I consider myself half a writer. Well, maybe not half a writer, but not a whole writer. I blog. And I start writing stories. I used to write poetry, not very good poetry. But I've never been published. And like her, I feel that makes ALL the difference in the world.

I do feel that blogging is a way to write and is a valid form of writing, but it's self publishing which has as much clout in the real world as selling your own CDs out of the back of your car. Sure, its your work, and you're working hard at getting yourself out there, but it isn't quite the same as having an agent, a publicist, an editor, a publisher, etc.

The movie inspires me to want to do more with my life. I get inspired easily. A good commercial. A pretty card. Clouds. I've never followed through on a single thing, also like Julie in the movie. Everything has always been a hobby or a passing whim. I played the clarinet for years, way before I started this blog. But I played it, and I was good. I was really good. I had good timing and rhythm, excellent technique, and a pretty darn good ear for tone. I gave all of that up, and I'm still not even sure why. I've looked back and thought why didn't I continue it? I loved to play, but nothing sticks out as a main reason, except for maybe the fact that I hated to audition and so I didn't go to auditions when they opened up for concert band.

Well, this blog is entirely too long as it is, so I'll end here with: maybe I should find something more permanently inspiring. Julie had Julia, but what does Danielle have? I need to do some thinking and come up with some sort of goal or purpose in life. Right now, I'm just existing. I'm not really living and i need to find something to help me live again.

Final wedding music disc count:

2009-09-03T05:29:15Z

11!

That should be sufficient amount of music to last us ALL DAY LONG! lol!

Good night!

Two hours...

2009-09-03T04:29:49Z

It took me TWO HOURS to go through the music on my HDD and on my external HDD in order to pull out songs that are either fun, romantic, dance-y, or that I just like to create for our wedding music!! LOL, granted, it could've been worse... I could've gone through all my imports and foreign language music, not including the anime and the video game music... That would've taken HOURS longer! XD

But it's done and I'm making the first disc now! I'm sure I won't need as many discs as I'm probably about to make (and I have NO idea how many, because I just put all the songs into one folder and am going to go until I get to the last song...), but I'm sure I'll like the CDs anyway. I can put em in my car. :D

So, things are progressing (onto disc 2!) rather nicely. My dad is going to leave tomorrow afternoon and arrive sometime in the afternoon on the 4th. My mom's agreed to do the grilling at the BBQ. Justin's mom is going to get the cake and bring her table centerpieces and the paperware (plates, cutlery, etc.). I have a rough idea of how many to expect, and Justin and I are going to go shopping on Friday morning. I'll get half of my hair done on Friday and Mom will come over and help me with the curling on Saturday morning.

I have made lists of things I'll need so I don't forget anything. I have a time schedule for things I need to do tonight, tomorrow night (after work), and on Friday. And then after that, it'll be done! Finally!!

LOL!

I'm really happy to be doing all this, but I'll be glad when it's all over. (Disc 3 now!) And I'm really glad that my dad is going to be here. I wish Elvia had gotten to back to me to at least tell me she wasn't going to be coming, because at this point, I'm fairly sure that she won't be here. And that really disappoints me. I know why Angelica can't be here, she looks like she's about to explode!! That baby girl is going to give her a hard time, poor Angelica! But I can't wait to see lil Audrey! She's going to be so beautiful. :D

Oh, and my house is looking GOOD! So I'll have pics soon! Probably not til after the wedding! LOL! My living room is clean, and upstairs actually looks like a ROOM and not a storage unit! LOL! Honey, that's where you'll be sleeping, by the way! So I made it more homely for you! :D Oh, and the TV doesn't work upstairs like we'd wanted, but I've got a DVD player AND the PS2! Woot! Hehe! I'm seriously rethinking how I want the house.

(Shadow of the Day and What's my Age again... If I post this accidentally, just ignore it, its my place marker in the folder)

Disc 4 now!

Wow, if I can get the music all done tonight, that'll be great! I was supposed to take a shower tonight, but I guess its getting too late for that. Meh. No biggie. I am too wired right now, lol, because of all this. I swear! The wedding is the last thing I think of before going to bed and its the first thing I think of when I wake up!! Its driving me nuts! But in a good way. :D

I think I've rambled on enough about this, so I'll go do facebook things, but I'll have to post the disc count when they're all made, lol!

6 days to go...

2009-08-31T02:58:25Z

I guess I should be nervous or doing something, but I'm totally not. LOL, I mean towards the wedding, of course. Everything is planned out, the only thing that I'm still trying to decide to do is my wedding favors. I have pictures to put into thank you cards, but I'm not sure if I want to hand them out at the wedding, or send them with the gifts, but then there's the fact that I may not get any gifts, lol, since I did put in the invite that gifts are not necessary. So, I'm thinking that I want to hand them out with my little favors that I'm making. Then I've got to find envelopes to fit them too. I have a few ideas on that too, but meh, I'm sure it'll all come together in the next week. :D

In the mean time, I'll play DOAX2 some more! :D

Ken Murillo

2009-08-29T06:12:29Z

Where are you?

I wonder...

2009-08-27T02:42:53Z

Does anyone even read my posts any more? LOL! Seriously! For who's benefit is it that I continue updating my blog? Does anyone really care?

I don't mean to sound all pensive and down, but I just wondered who is it really that I write to?

When I write, I like to think that I'm writing to the masses, and that they actually care about MY life. Its as though I'm writing my life story out on Live Journal, but the thing is, I don't really include anything very personal. I like to complain, I like to comment, and I like to state my opinions. I don't want to offend anyone, but I am very opinionated and I know not everyone shares my ideas or values.

That's the allure of the Internet, though, isn't it? For some, it is to find people who share your ideas and opinions, and for others, its to find people who don't so that you can argue your point with them. Most call that debate, but really, its arguing, lol.

Mmm, I can smell my baked potatoes...

Yes, that is really random! Hehehe!

Anyway, today was a great day, because it passed so swiftly. I'm coloring this huge Celtic knot poster at work and it takes a lot of time and concentration, which helps me not to watch the clock, which means time passes quicker. Plus, it was very busy too. I actually didn't color as much as I'd like because it was so busy. Still, coloring this poster is great.

Its time for me to check my potatoes and go back to Stars Wars 3 (sith wars, I think).

I am so happy!

2009-08-25T21:57:59Z

So, I've been working most of my weekend to finish up unpacking my house, and while I still have a LOT of totes to go through, I'm done with just about all of the boxes! Everything is out of tissue paper and most of the things I want to put out are at least in the room I want them in, so I'm super encouraged! Granted things still look a mess, but you can see floor in the living room and walk around in it, and dance around if so inclined! My library was nearly clean earlier today (until I moved what was left of the stuff in the living room into the library and from the hallway too), and now its a disaster again, except that its not as bad as before, because all of the stuff going to the DI is gone (the DI is Deseret Industries and is kinda like the Good will or Salvation Army), all of the trash boxes are out of there. I need to finish up in the library and there's miscellaneous things left in the bedroom we're currently sleeping in (which is supposed to be the guest bedroom, but since my queen sized bed doesn't fit up the stairs its temporarily our bedroom) and the section of the hallway closest to the living room.

Also, tonight Justin and I go to see my friend's husband, who's a bishop (from the Mormon church) to see if he will be able to marry us on the 5th. We got the marriage license yesterday!! Things are coming together very nicely and I'm very pleased. I got most of the apartment done this weekend, like I wanted, and I'll be putting together my party favors next weekend! I need to get my computer up and running, because I am not hand writing them all again! I did that with my invites to the barbecue and that made my hand cramp up! LOL.

I am getting so excited! Another 11 days and I'll be Mrs. Danielle Fish... It seems surreal to me, but I know now more then ever that I want this with all my heart. All the fears that I had before just seem so foolish and are completely gone now. I have a better understanding of what it means to be a wife, and am looking forward to this new phase in my life. Its really hard for me to accept and deal with change at first, but once I get used to the idea, I usually throw myself in with open arms and mind and look forward to it.

Oh! Another happy note! My cousin Diana sent me my cousin Andrew's email address!! What's kind of ironic is that I had just recently found his letters that we had written back when we were in high school and was wondering what happened to him!! So I was totally excited when my cousin sent me his email address and I wrote him immediately! I've already gotten a response! I'm super excited to be communicating with my family in New Mexico. I don't say this often, because I don't want to sound ... I want to say pernicious, but that's a bit too harsh... what's the word I'm looking for... haha! Poser! I'll use one of my cousin's words. I don't want to sound like a poser, but I do feel truly blessed. I'm not one to praise god and thank him for all that he's done, because I'm not sure how I feel about God, or how I've felt about him for the past 15 or so years, but it is how I feel. I have so much to be thankful for and I am just so glad that I have my family and friends to support me.

Thank you everyone for all the years that you've known me! I love you all from the bottom of my heart and am super glad to have you in my life.

Love,
Danielle

Today was really productive

2009-08-20T04:11:08Z

Surprisingly.

I ended up leaving early from work, because I had such a bad stomach ache. I woke up with a stomach ache and almost called out but decided to try going in and seeing if I could make it. Well, I was getting worse and worse, so I came home and slept for about an hour then got up and made Justin his lunch. After that, with his help, I found what I needed to finally send my invitations to my wedding reception, which is really good. I hand delivered the ones I needed to, and I mailed the ones that needed mailing. Its nearly 2 weeks until the wedding reception, and this is as long as I can put it off... Most the people I sent the invites to I know aren't going to come (the mailed ones), but there will be plenty of people with the ones in town.

Then I went and got groceries. Hooray. We have food! I like food. :D I actually made quite a bit of it tonight for dinner... Justin wanted hamburger helper, rice, and mashed potatoes. :D So I made it all. I have a ton of left overs for lunches this week. So, I consider today to be really productive.

New layout

2009-08-17T22:05:40Z

Yep, I decided to change things up and get a new layout. Not much to report, since I've just been at mom's doing laundry, lol.

The music is new and is Ryan's new favorite band ever! So I'm listening to some of it. Its not bad. Not as perky as H!P stuff, but its definitely not bad. In fact, the instrumentals are pretty impressive. And the singer has a good voice.

Wow

2009-08-16T20:48:49Z

I can't believe its been over a month so I last posted (when I say that, I'm not including a backdated post). Things have been truly hectic. I had a nervous breakdown, called off my wedding, put it back on, and am still in the process of putting it together. As it is, we're doing a small ceremony on the 5th of September (this is brand new news) with just our parents at the park where I'm having the reception BBQ. We're hoping to get my friend Karen's husband, who's a bishop over in Helper. He married my mom. But we should have booked it a long time ago! Ugh. I don't really want to talk about what happened, except to say that I had a freak out that consisted of cold feet and PMS. It was not a shining moment for me, but I do have to say that because of it I am more certain now then ever I WANT to be married to Justin. I am so in love with him and want to spend the rest of my life with him. There are some people that think they know what's good for me and think he is not, but you know what? I don't care. If you people can't be happy with my choice, then you don't have to be in my life. He is the man I am choosing to marry. He is MY choice. And I love him very much.

Also new in my life: my new apartment! Let me see, I sent a picture to my email, let me go get it and upload it:

There it is! There's four in this "complex," and all the units are the same. The master bedroom is upstairs. Oh, my unit is the one on the end. LOL, just to clarify. The plants in front there, there's flowers but there's also tomatoes! Fresh tomatoes! Yummy! I've already had one and it was seriously the best I've ever had! The landlord said to help myself, so I did! YUM!

What else? There's three bedrooms. The master, upstairs, but I couldn't fit my bed up the stairs! So we're currently sleeping in one of the smaller rooms downstairs, closer to the front of the house. Then there's a bedroom at the very back of the house, where the bathroom is, and I've made it my library. The kitchen is at the front, next to the living room and is very tiny, but I love it. :D This is my new home! I'd show pictures of the inside, except its not done at all! There are boxes and totes everywhere still! Granted, I've been working on it steadily since we moved in on the 6th, but still. I have a lot of stuff. I can see more of the living room floor though. :D

As soon as more of it is done, there will be more pics to show, or maybe a video. ^.^

Aside from my new apartment, I've just been working like crazy. I did a 12 hour shift one day last week and no way am I ever doing that again. Sitting in a small gray box for 12 hours in one day is enough to drive a person to drink themselves crazy!! Seriously, that was a nightmare. No more. And my ops manager asks me almost daily, do you wanna stay til 9? I'm like, no. My mom thinks it wasn't that bad, but really, it was. I'm there 40 hours a week, I really don't like being there longer. AND I get the 40 hours done 4 days now, not 5, so I'm there 10 hours a day. Seriously long hours... But I love Love LOVE having 3 days off!! Lets me get so much more done now! I know, not posting blogs... but I should be better about that now that I'm nearly finished with my apartment.

Wow... a whole month. A month since Anime Expo and Morning Musume and Yossi. You know, I'm STILL in awe over that whole experience. I don't think I'll EVER get over the fact that I met and got autographs from my favorite Japanese band. I have a picture of the two things I got autographed on my desk top as my wall paper and I still just sit and stare at it (because the items are securely away until I get a shadow box or something to hang them in).
This is the pic I have as my wall paper:

Its just awesome to me and I don't think this feeling will ever go away. At least, I hope it doesn't. The only way I could top this feeling is if I went to Japan and go their signatures there. But getting them at AX was perfectly awesome. XD

Anime Expo Day 3 - the Fourth of July! (backdated!)

2009-08-03T16:50:14Z

I didn't have any real special plans for today, except to just be with my dad all day. And I wanted to go back to AX and walk the exhibit hall, because I hadn't actually done that yet. LOL. I'd gone to the MM booth, and I went to Yossi's signing, which was in the back of the exhibit hall, but that was all.

So, we took our time, since I didn't get home until about 3 a.m. that morning. When we left, we decided to stop at Norm's for breakfast, where I had the WORST filet mignon EVER! lol! The chef decided I didn't want a rare filet mignon, and instead gave me a well done one. BLEH! That is just so nasty. There was something else wrong with my eggs, but I don't remember what. Either way, it was a terrible breakfast, lol, and all I could do was laugh really. My dad was great and let me have bites of his breakfast, but that wasn't very appealing either, lol. He had some mediterranian breakfast. I should've stuck to the gumbo.

We got to the convention center, and we started on one end of the hall and made our way to the other. I found NOTHING that I wanted to buy. I was only looking for Jpop, mostly H!P stuff, but there wasn't anything! You'd think, with all the vendors there, and MoMusu being there, that they would want to sell what they could of MoMusu's stuff! But no. The only booth that had anything was the MM booth (which actually belonged to Jpop House, I think--at least, where you could buy stuff). We didn't even get through all of artist's alley, because I was mostly too tired to.

I wanted to go see Chandelle and Cindy one more time before I left, but we went up to where they were and neither were around. So, I asked my dad if we could go back to the exhibit hall and just stand around the MM booth until the hall closes, which was like in an hour at that point. So, we headed back downstairs and across the convention center and I basked in MoMusu's glory, lol! They had one TV screen set up directly in the middle of the booth and they were playing concerts on that one. Then there was another TV set up in the corner of JapanFiles' booth that was showing music videos (actually called promotion videos), so I was going back and forth watching both. It was great.

Well, at some point, the dragonlady showed up and was just generally watching things and my dad went over to talk to her. He got me to talk to her about how enthusiastic MoMusu's American fanbase would be if we had an American MoMusu fan club! She had said that they were definitely looking into it, and they had started expanding into Taiwan and China using a specific model, and if it worked out, then they would definitely be bringing their business to America soon. I am SUPER excited about that!

The exhibit hall closed soon after and we had to leave. My dad and I were talking and he thinks that the dragonlady was like the tour manager for MM, which is exciting! She was definitely involved in a major way. She had said how most people, when they were wanting to talk to her, they wanted yell and scream and generally cause her stress, lol. Poor thing. So, she was thrilled that we weren't wanting to and that she really appreciated us letting her know how excellent our time had been. So, I'm super glad that we got to talk to her.

The exhibit hall closed at about 6 and there were still about 3 hours to dark (and fireworks!) and I had told my dad that i wanted to watch the Disneyland fireworks, because that's what we'd done for years and years. So, we headed down there, and parking at Downtown Disney was $15!! Usually, the first 3 hours are free and you get an additional 2 hours free if you get validated. Well, they were charging a flat rate and if you ate a restaurant or went to the theater, you could get validated and a complete refund. So it wasn't so bad, except that the restaurants are expensive. It just so happened that I had been craving Italian food, so we went to the Naple's restaurant and had pasta!! It was really good, and my dad and I got a couple of really great pictures taken by the waitress, so it turned out really nice.

After dinner, we walked down to the front entrance between the parks and wanted to watch the fireworks where our stone is, but it was packed! We decided to just get a picture of it and then headed back to watch the show from the car. And that worked out really nicely. We had a clear shot of them and it was much quieter and less crowded. We weren't inside the car, but outside on the walkway. There were a lot of people, but they weren't as noisy as the ones in the courtyard of the entrances.

And that was it, we went home and went to bed. :D It was a great fourth of July.

Day 2 - another SURREAL day!

2009-07-04T10:46:50Z

I got to see Morning Musume in concert, FROM THE FRONT ROW!!!!

I got to have Yossi autograph her first photobook!!!!

I got to see my friends: Brandon, Felicity, and Randy!!!!!

And we went and danced our asses off at Oasis (a club)!!

I had so so SO much fun.

Pictures and details to follow...

UPDATED: July 26, 2009

I had started to update this before, but then there was a power outage and it ruined it. LOL, so here goes again.

So, because of Thursday (Day 1), I told my dad that I definitely wanted to be at the concert the minute the doors open up. Our tickets were front row, but they weren't numbered seats, so we would've gotten whatever seat was available, and because of the layout of the seats, I wanted to be in the closest seats possible to the stage. So we left nice and early and got there on time. And it was super great, because we headed over to where the concert was and showed them our Priority Access passes at the door and they let us right in, with an escort, to show us where our seats were. :D It was so great. And we were the first one there in our row. So, I got the exact seat that I wanted, closest to the stage. Our row was situated at an angle on one corner of the stage (stage right, to those of you that understand that), so I wanted to be as close as possible. I guess I've said that, lol, but really, it was super great, because I got the exact seat that I wanted!

The doors opened two hours before the start of the concert at 12:30, and we were in our seat at 12:30, cuz we got there a bit early. Waiting for the concert to start was torture. And they were playing AC DC. It was so bizarre. Why couldn't they play Morning Musume or H!P?! LOL, I was so disgruntled. We watched as the hall filled up. There were easily 1000 people there. I think I read somewhere that there were 1600 people. That's amazing! The whole time I kept thinking that Tsunku (the creator of the group) has to see how big the fan base is and give us more Morning Musume!! We really need a fanclub based in America. There is so many options here in the Western world. Untapped resources and money for the group! And most people that like Morning Musume like other Hello! Project groups too, Berryz and C-ute for example.

My dad and I talked about all this while waiting for the concert to start. And where we happened to be sitting was also the side where they came out of to go onstage! So we got first shot! It was great! When the concert started, it was amazing. I didn't think I'd be standing up, I mean, I was in the front row, lol, so why bother? But I couldn't help it! As soon as I heard the first song come on, I was up and dancing along and waving my glow sticks just like everyone else! Mikan was the first song they performed, and I was just too excited! Its my favorite single right now. It took me 2 months to memorize all of the lyrics! LOL! And the music video is so awesome. It shows pics of all the girls as little girls! Some of them look exactly the same, and some are so much cuter! LOL.

Then they did 3, 2, 1 Breakin' Out! which was the theme song to Anime Expo. I think we all figured this was going to be the starting number, because its the theme song and all, but still, I was super excited for Mikan. And when 3, 2, 1 came on, we all did the dance with them, the Oh Yeah, Oh yeahs. It was super fun. I danced with all of their songs. And they were so great, everytime they could, they'd wave at everyone! I think I got waved at by all of them at least once. So exciting when you're waving at them and they make eye contact and wave and smile. So cute! I was just so super happy. I had seriously died and gone to heaven. It was a dream come true.

All of the songs were great. I can't even remember the complete order, but you can find it anywhere. I was really surprised that they did HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS JAPAN? instead of Songs from their newest album, but I was SO thrilled! I LOVE that song!! Such a great song! They did this medley and it was a bunch of OLD songs! Love Machine, Koi no Dance Site, I wish, Happy Summer Wedding, Souda! We're Alive, The Peace, and Renai Revolution 21!!!! All the greats!!! I did all the dances with all of them, of course! There was so much adrenaline running through my body! hehehe!

But the concert ended too soon! They did the Myspace Music Video contest and the winning videos were so awesome! There was one in partiuclar that I liked from a girl in China, where she and her friends got together and played the stressed out business woman and then when they "broke out" they were having fun at clubs and dancing and stuff. It was super cute and very creative, and the MM girls were dancing around them telling them to have fun and not worry and whatnot. I honestly don't remember the others. LOL. Oh, no, I do. The final grand prize winner, the one that won the money prize, It was drawn! Like the music video for Aha, Take On Me. It was of the girls, singing to the camera in the close up angle, and it was like they were drawn on school paper and as the song progressed, the drawings got more intricate until they were really them. It was super creative. And it definitely deserved to win first prize.

Then, once they did that, MM sang 3, 2, 1 Breakin' Out! as their encore and the concert was over. My dad and I had set up beforehand that at a certain time, he would go stand in line for Yossi's autograph session. Oh yeah! While they were announcing the winners to the music video contest, Yossi was on stage and she was so cute! She argued with Gaki about which one was cuter! It was so funny! And before that, when she had first come out, there was this one lady who was translator for the girls in the panel and on stage, and she asked Yossi where was Angry (because Yossi was there as Hangry), and Yossi said that Angry heard they wouldn't be performing on stage so she didn't want to come. They joked that Angry was Angry. Yossi even said it in English. LOL. So cute!

Okay, so yeah, my dad left right after the 'encore' and headed over to Yossi signing, to be in line for that for me. We didn't know exactly where it would be, so that's why I had him leave early, because of the fiasco the day before with MM's signing. I wanted to make sure to get into Yossi's. Oh, and the reason I was really able to get into Yossi's signing is because I had bought all that stuff from Jpop house at the MM booth. If you bought like so much money worth of Hangry and Angry stuff, you got the ticket. I was ticket #72. :D So, I stayed behind, because everyone was yelling "encore" not realizing that 3, 2, 1 was the encore. LOL. Well, when all of the AX staff started coming out shouting at us to leave and saying that it was really over, I took off. I practically ran all the way to the signing. I had to stop at the MM booth to ask and make sure I knew where I was going, but I got there and my dad was like #6 or #7 in line! We were at the FRONT of the line!! SO exciting!

While in line, we saw the lady who was acting as translator for MM and Yossi on stage, and she seemed to be running a lot of the show. There was some debate as to what could get signed, so I showed her that I had Yossi's first photobook there, and asked if Yossi could sign it and she said that it was fine. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything else for my dad to take in, but really, it was supposed to be one person per ticket, but because of our Priority Access passes, lol, my dad got in! All I had for him to have Yossi sign was the AX program guide. Well, when I finally got in, I showed Yossi the photobook and her eyes bugged out! She was seriously so surprised that I had it! She was like, wow! Long time fan! And I talked to her, and I said, yes I've been a fan of Yoshizawa Hitomi for a LONG time. So, she asked me what page she was to sign, so I showed her the picture and she signed it Hangry (in Japanese), but I wanted Yossi's signature. So, I asked Can you sign as Yossi please? And she was like Hai! Hai!! And she signed it as Yossi too! Which, apparently, she wasn't supposed to do, but how can you refuse a LONG TIME FAN! LOL. Here it is!

I LOVE this picture. Reminds me of the grumpy Tinkerbell pose. Hehe!

Here's a close up of just the signature:

The top signature is "Hangry" and the one under it says "Hitomi Yossui" her nickname. It is just the most awesome thing ever!! Yes, I think it is definitely the most awesome, more awesome then meeting Morning Musume and getting all of their signatures. Yossi is that important to me! So, this trip was just so super awesome and successful.

I was in awe after that. I managed to come down to earth long enough to remember that I was supposed to go out with my friends that night, so we went out to eat and then went home. But let me tell you. After running on so much adrenaline for two days straight, and all the walking on top of that, I was in so much pain! LOL! I seriously was in pain. I was starving, because we didn't eat too much before the concert, and we didn't eat for HOURS after that, and then my shins hurt like I'd never felt before. So, we ate at the Pantry again that night before going back to Corona. I had something that I can't remember, and it was really good. Haha, I think it was pulled pork sandwich.

Anyhow, after I got home, I called up Felicity and Brandon and got ready to go out. I didn't even bother changing, just redid my makeup and hair. We decided to go eat at Claim Jumpers beforehand, but since I had eaten at the Pantry, I wasn't that hungry, so I just got a lemonade. So yummy. It was so great hanging out with Bran and Felic and Randy again. It was like a normal night for them, which is what I miss. I told them that I didn't want to do anything special, I wanted to just do something normal. And it felt so good, because I hadn't done anything with them in so long. Nearly a year.

So, after Claim Jumpers, we went to Oasis, a club in Upland. I had so much fun. I'm not really one to go out clubbing, but when I'm with them, it feels like so much fun to dance around and drink so its just naturally a good time. I did a shot and drank a beer then we were dancing our asses off. Had a few more drinks, but didn't even really get buzzed, because of all the dancing we were doing. I burned it off too fast. Oasis closed at 2 (as most clubs and bars do) and so we went over and had a late night snack at Denny's. Yummy! I got poached eggs and some hash browns with bacon and sausage. LOL, and of course Bran and I swapped food, lol. I got some toast, he got some of the meat, hehe, don't remember which. It was fun. The day and the night. Such an amazing day.

Like I said, it was a complete dream come true.

2nd UPDATED: I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning!

2009-07-03T15:33:22Z

Okay, so today was just amazing!!

I thought things were going to go bad when we arrived for the Morning Musume Q&A panel about 10 minutes to start. We weren't in the front. In fact, we had to sit close to the back! But it was so great to hear MoMusu speaking and being cute!

I half understood what they were saying, which was exciting by itself. And the questions they were being asked were good questions. For instance, 'Where do you definitely want to go while here?' and 'What meal/food do you feel most confident making?' they're answers were so varied and so distinct! Each one was so excited to see their American fans! But I imagine they were super exhausted and jet lagged. Yet they were up there, effervescent and charming. It was quite amazing.

Then, after the panel there was to be an autograph signing! And they were only handing out 500 tickets! Well, my dad, being awesome, took care of that. See, AX sort of screwed up. They're supposed to save seats for the handicap and they didn't. So they gave my dad the first two tickets for the autograph session. Only, after the panel, they announced that autographs were being signed in the exhibit hall, behind artist alley in hall k.

So, we run down there only to find its not there. And that nobody knows where they're holding the autograph session. We finally get the correct information and head to where it is and we got to have Morning Musume, all 9 girls to autograph my stuff! Pictures will be added in the comments later.

I got a book signed and had the girls also sign their singles collection case. Its awesome!!

I have so much more to talk about but its after 1am and I'm super exhausted. Again. Lol. I'll add more as a comment when I'm home and on my regular computer.

Nite!

Updated July 25, 2009:

So, I didn't know that the autograph signing was going to be right after the panel. Nobody knew exactly when the signing was! It was a good thing that I had brought things for them to sign just in case! I had this signed:

And I had my dad take this along for them to sign:

But let me tell you what happened!

I forgot to mention something special about the panel. All of the girls spoke in their native tongue, except for LinLin and JunJun, who are Chinese, but speak in Japanese. Well, LinLin, when answering a question, answered in English!! And she spoke it so well! We all cheered so much for her English, it was exciting! JunJun spoke a little bit of English, and the other girls said basic "hello" and "thank you" and "yay!" LOL, but it was just super fun.

We have the first two tickets to be handed out for the autograph signing, but we didn't leave right away after the panel was finished, because we had to find out where we were going. Well, they announced that it was in the South Hall, behind artists' alley, which was like really far away. So, my dad and I head over there and took a look around, only to find multiple amounts of other people looking around too. It was obviously not there in South Hall. So, we finally stopped and asked the information desk, and they told us where to go. So, we headed in the right direction and found an elevator, which was good, because it was upstairs. There were people guarding all the elevators and stairs that AX didn't want people to use, but we would show our Priority Access pass and we'd have NO problem using them. It was fantastic!

So, we get off the elevator and there's a girl leading a bunch of people down the hallway and she's all rude trying to figure out what we're doing. We explained what had happened and showed the Priority Access pass to her, but she must have been dumb, or unaware of the policies, because she wanted to send us to some other place. My dad was like, I'm handicapped, I can't stand for long periods of time. SO, finally, she just takes us along with these other people, and apparently, she's the head of the line, and is transferring the next group of people to the next portion of the line to get in to see Morning Musume and get their autographs. Its great. So, instead of putting us in the line, we have to wait outside of the room with the line in it. They get my dad a chair and we basically stand there for half an hour, wondering what the hell they're doing. I was pissed. I was like, they're right around the corner! Can't we just get in line?!

Well, the guy who was watching the line finally asked us, why are we sitting there, and we tell him we were told to wait there until our number was called (we'd been given the specially numbered tickets to go inside), and he was like, I'm not calling numbers. So, he brought us to the attention of someone else who was in charge, telling her that my dad's handicapped and can't stand for a long time, so can he just get in line and get out of there? Well, this other lady he talked to got us going and explained that he was handicapped and asked if anyone minded that we went ahead. Everyone was super nice and let us!! It was surreal!! So we got to go ahead of everyone else, and get their autographs!

And the girls were super sweet!! They were sitting in the order of age and generation, so Ai Taka was first. All I could say to any of them was "Hello!" and "Thank you!" and "Arigato!" I mean, it was so surreal! I was starstruck!!! All of the girls were so beautiful and all I kept thinking was how tiny they really were!! But Gaki (Niigaki Risa), the co-leader, looked really unhealthy. She usually has these nice full cheeks and at AX, they looked really sunken and she just looked really malnourished. I'm really afraid for that. Because the girls work so hard! I wouldn't want them getting sick from pushing themselves too hard, you know? So, that was the only thing that really worried me about it. Everyone else looked exactly like their pictures! And Koha had so much energy! She was practically bouncing in her chair! I didn't even get a word out to Reina! I wanted to tell her I thought she was super kawaii and kakkoii, but nothing came out! LOL!

The only one I did talk to was LinLin! And I told her that her English was really good! She said thank you, in English, and that was it. She was the last in the line! The whole time, my dad was saying how this was for his daughter, and how he'd been hearing Morning Musume music for years because of his daughter. At least he got to say something. LOL

Afterwards, I was just in awe. I was still starstruck, still speechless. We took my holy grails back to the car and dropped off all the stuff I wouldn't be using or needing then headed back up to the South Hall to check out the Morning Musume booth. I got a LOT of pictures.

Here's the booth. They changed the costumes at least once, as far as I'm aware, on Saturday, and this was just a display booth. On the farther side, to the right of the picture was where they were selling actual stuff! Concert goodies and just general things!  I got a whole bunch of things! I haven't taken pictures of them yet, I just realized, so I'll have to do that and show you all the great things I got!

To the left of the booth was another booth and it belonged to Japan Files. I never got a picture of their booth. Hmm, I wonder if my dad did. Anyway, they were selling MM's newest album, Platinum 9 Disco, Hangry&Angry Kill me Kiss Me mini-album, and MM"s newest single Shouganai Yume Oibito, which included 3,2,1 Breakin' Out! and that was the theme song for Anime Expo. If you bought all three of these, then you were entered into a drawing to win all 10 photo cards from the Platinum 9 Disco CD, which were one of each girl (9 girls) and one card with all of them on it. Well, my album had the card with all of them on it, which satisfied me.   There was one guy who bought like 5 or 6 different albums trying to get Takahashi Ai, and all he kept getting was JunJun!! He had 5 or 6 JunJun's! LOL, poor guy.

I'm going to have to continue updating this over the weekend, because I really need to get to work. But at least there's some pictures! :D

2nd UPDATE: July 26, 2009:

All right, so I have a lot more to write! LOL.

Okay, I left out something super important!! So, there was a huge line to buy things at the MM booth, and it wrapped around the other side of JPOP House, which was behind the MM booth. So, I was waiting in line, and I was nearly to the table to buy stuff and I noticed a LOT of people rushing over to the MM booth on the one side. Well, I was looking around, but couldn't quite make out what the big deal was. So my dad comes over and I ask him, what's going on, who's there? He says, some sort of animal. I'm like, OMG! Its Yossi! Go get video! Video everything! So, he did. He got awesome video too!! However, its on his iPhone, so I don't have it. Otherwise, I'd totally upload it and show everyone. I took a lot of pictures, but only a couple really came out good. Here they are:

The first is kinda blury, but the best I have. The second is a nice side view of her and a front view of the mascot Hangry. So I really like em. A lot of people got better pictures, but I like mine, because I took them. LOL! I got my own personal pictures of Yossi! So awesome!

Well, she was only there for about 10 minutes. When she left, a lot of the crowd dissipated, so I got to buy all my stuff and I got my ticket to go to Yossi's autograph signing. Yay! I bought so much stuff, but really, it was only like $150 worth. I figured I'd spend a lot more. The only other stuff I bought was the MM album and single and Hangry&Angry's mini-album. And the Anime Expo stuff. That was really it. Any other money I spent was at other places. So that was good.

After that, I went to the other hall (West hall) and saw some other friends of mine that are staff to AX. That was really great, because I don't know how long its been since I've seen them. They were the same and it was great hanging out with them. I miss all my CA friends, and it was really great to see so many of them again!

So, after we were done there, we headed over to the OC to the Block at Orange, because I was meeting my friends Angelica and Elvia, they are my longest friends that I've had. We've been friends since junior high, since about 7th grade. We were 12. Our friendship has lasted over 10 years. Almost 15. That is so great to me. We don't talk all that often any more, but it was really great seeing them. Especially Angelica, because she's pregnant!! When we met up together, I was so happy to see them!  And she was so big! LOL, her baby is growing so big! Baby's name is Audrey Marylou (I'm not even sure how she's spelling it, but that's close enough). So we ate some dinner and joked around and had fun, almost like it was normal. I miss that so much.

After we ate, we went and got some candy then headed over to Dave and Busters where I got to meet her boyfriend and her baby-daddy, lol. He seems really nice and together. And she just seems so happy. And healthy!  She's always been healthy, I suppose, but she glows. Motherhood suits her very much. I just can't stop smiling, I'm so happy for her. And then Elvia! She's the same! Its so refreshing to see her, because she's just my little elfin friend and I love her so much. I love them both so much. And we talked about boys and stuff. It was great. But we didn't stay for very long, because the next day was the concert, and I wanted to get plenty of sleep.

I had so much fun that day. I got the holy grail, MM's autographs, and got to see my longest/oldest friends. Really, this vacation was the best I had ever had. XD

UPDATED: Anime Expo - Day 0

2009-07-02T07:01:40Z

Today, I woke up at about 7:30am PST. I knew I'd be waking up early. Being excited all the time like this makes sleeping nearly non-existing. Lol! Still, I slept and felt really good, but it was so early! I browsed the net on my phone for a while then went downstairs a couple hours later and ate breakfast. I got dressed and ready for the day then went and woke up my dad at around 10:oo.

I wanted to leave around 11 and be there by noon. Well, that didn't happen, lol. My dad isn't an early get going goer. So he did his thing and I distracted myself with One Tree Hill. It was a good episode too. Hehe, i was telling him that nothing else would have been able to distract me better.

So we got to the L.A. Convention Center at around 12:45 or so, got prime parking (right in front of the doors to the west hall-where all the main events are), and got up to pre-registration ok. Well, the line, at that point, had formed but was still indoors and the man we talked to knew exactly what to do, told us to come back closer to when the kiosks actually opened up at 3 and he would get us to the front of the line.

Why would he usher us to the front of the line, you might ask. Because my dad is legally disabled. For once, that actually helped rather then hindered. It was to our benefit that my dad had documentation stating that he was handicapped. Instead of waiting in the line 1000+ were standing in, we were in a line that about 6 people were standing in.

It was amazing. Well, when Ishmael (the guy who knew what was going on) told us to come back, we decided to go and have something to eat. We walked down the street a ways and ate at this really old school and old restaurant called the Pantry. It was a really good restaurant and had great food, but at that point I wasn't terribly hungry. So I just ordered a salad.

Anyway, when we got back to Anime Expo at about 2:45, we got in the short line, but due to some technical malfunction, the kiosks weren't all working. And they were letting people go at about 10 at a time. Well we got some of the staff members to take our papers and get our badges for us and that was really cool. Then, we had to wait for the disabled services table, but it was a breeze after that...

I'm really too tired to go on. There is more..

Okay, I'm going to try this again. Updated: July 25, 2009. I had tried to update this a couple of weeks ago and then it didn't save it! I was so POed I stopped and gave up. :P

Okay, so after we got our 4-day passes, we waited in the disabled services line and there were two ladies ahead of us. One lady was one we had been talking to in the previous line. She was rather loud and fussy. And it turned out she didn't have the proper identification to prove that she and her husband were disabled. So, she made a fuss and the executive administrator over registration came over and explained things to her. He did a good job, because she left smiling, surprisingly. Then he helped the girl who was helping us and he was super nice. Bent over backwards really to accommodate my dad. HE had the proper identification, lol. Things went so smoothly, I just couldn't believe it.

When we had everything we needed, including our Priority Access passes, I wanted to take a look around and figure out exactly where everything was, Morning Musume's panel, their concert, the autograph session, everything. Everything was really easy to find, since there weren't a lot of people there. So, we headed over to South Hall and I saw what aisle Morning Musume's booth was at, but we couldn't go inside. They were still setting up. Then we went over to merchandising and I bought a bunch of stuff. My dad got a t-shirt from this year, while I got the messenger bag (the vertical style), this year's pin, and glow sticks. The glow sticks came in handy, because I used them during the concert.

After that, there really wasn't much else to do, even though I didn't want to leave. It was exciting to be there! But we did go home, and rest and relax until the next day, which featured the panel. :D

I'm in California and I'm a fangirl!!!

2009-07-01T07:29:12Z

I'm finally here! And its all been pretty smooth so far!! I'm so excited! I get to see Morning Musume in a couple of days! Its just a dream come true!