It’s no secret that I have grown to dislike my domain name and it’s even less of a secret that lately I’ve been neglecting to blog. Since jumping into the new fangle world of “vlogging” or as my husband would call it, “v-logging”, I’d like to gear my website more around my vlogs. I want a new domain name and I think I have one in mind. I actually have two, they’re the same, but they’re formatted differently. For now, I’ll keep that a secret.

It’s a lot of fun to document your life, not to mention with video and from your point of view to share with the world! I’d really, really like to do a 365 project where I record video every single day for a year and post it to my YouTube channel, but I’ve failed miserably so far at just posting once a month. And, to be quite honest, on a daily basis…. that might get boring. Not for me, but for you. There are just some days where I don’t do a lot and I, personally enjoy and downright love that, but for my viewers, that might get boring. On the other hand, some people just like to watch people live their lives regardless of what they’re doing. So, I don’t know. I think I’m just being self-conscious. I don’t think I’m a boring person by a long shot, but that’s my own opinion.

On another note, I would like to back up the last 3 years of blogs and archives I have here on my current blog so that I can at least transfer them to the new one without skipping a beat. If you have any input or suggestions on the BEST way to backup a self-hosted WordPress blog, please leave a comment and let me know. I want to make this as painless as possible. Also, if you know of any good plugins for WordPress that will API to YouTube or something so that when I post a video to YouTube, it automatically creates a blog post on my site and includes the video, that’d be awesome.

Here I am!

My last blog entry was August 29, 2010 and talked about the Backstreet Boys concert I went to. Wow, it’s really been a long time since I’ve blogged and for that, I’m sorry.

So, what have I been up to? School is a large part of my life and I love every second of it. I’m almost halfway finished. Time really flies. I’m a straight A, hardworking student, which leads me to believe that I’m a much better adult than I was a teenager because in high school, I skipped a lot and hated school. In my defense, I was one of the smarter kids in school and I was just sick of learning the same crap over and over again. So, I never actually “missed” anything.

Once I graduate school now, I may not be able to get my certification until next October, depending on how long it takes for my school to send me my transcript. After I get certified, I plan to go back to school a year or so later to get my EFDA which will be great and pretty much double my income. Gotta love that! Lately, I’ve even been considering being a doctor in the field I’m currently training in. But, before I commit to that, I want to have a few years in the field under my belt to be sure I want to do that because it’s a huge commitment, plus the only school that has that type of doctorate program nearby is Ohio State, which is in Columbus and I do not want to commute there all the time, nor do I want to move there. So, we’ll see. There are other possibilities too, but I have plenty of time to decide on that.

Aside from that, Sean is about to turn 3 in November! I’ve been planning his party and I’m super excited. Which reminds me that today I need to go get his invitations and mail them out. (I’m a little behind on that one, oops!) In other Sean news, he’s almost fully potty trained. He’s to the point where he will go to the potty himself when he has to go, but we haven’t tackled the “out in public” obstacle yet. Sean’s got this habit of taking ALL of his clothes off in order to go to the bathroom. I have a feeling Sean might make an appearance at his birthday party in his birthday suit at some point.

Have you seen my YouTube vlog of me trying to teach Sean to ride his tricycle? Well, he can finally do it on his own. It actually didn’t take long after that video was shot for him to get it down like a pro! I’ve just been lazy, busy, pre-occupied, etc. to blog or vlog. (Or as Chris likes to call it v-log. Dork!) I really want to get back into vlogging, but it seems that I don’t have as much opportunity to do it, plus there’s editing, uploading, etc. which takes quite a bit of time.

I’m kind of ADD right now, so I’m going to end this entry prematurely. Maybe I’ll add more later. Follow my vlog by subscribing on YouTube. If you read my blog and tweets, you might enjoy the live action version. on YouTube.

Last night, Cheryl, Melanie, Leanne and I went to the Backstreet Boys concert here in Cincinnati. This concert marked my third, yes, THIRD Backstreet Boys concert as an attendee. Though, the one prior to this was about 10 years ago, the 2010 concert was really quite nostalgic and pleasing. 12 years ago, my mother drove Cheryl, Melanie and myself down to Louisville for our very first concerts to see the Backstreet Boys.  Mind you, we were roughly around the age of 13 and were screaming our heads off and Cheryl, at one point even said, “I can’t believe we’re breathing the same air as them!”. lol Cheryl was my bestfriend all through middle school and the 3 of us would often get together to argue about who was cuter, Nick or Brian. Clearly, Nick! lol

Fast forward to 12 years later, wow, time sure does fly. Cheryl got in touch with me after not seeing her in years and asked if I wanted to go because she and Melanie thought it would be awesome to re-create that night 12 years ago, and we did… kinda. Melanie was just as excited and giddy as she was that night, but Cheryl and I didn’t have any idea that the Backstreet Boys had even released that many albums since they fizzled out of our minds about 6-8 years ago, but that doesn’t mean that once they got on stage we didn’t scream like we did when we were 13 and that we didn’t know the lyrics. I found myself singing to their songs like the words had never left.

Kevin Richardson is no longer in the band and with good reason, he left to be home with his family. Brian, Nick, Howie and AJ were all there, but much older and Brian had his wife and son in tow. The concert started out with this extremely adorable pint-sized little boy with a cowboy hat about 30 sizes too big for his head coming on stage and introducing the boys as “Nick, AJ, Howie and my dad” and then abruptly ran off stage (he can also be spotted in video 3 below).  So freaking cute if you ask me. Brian looks exactly the same and so does Howie. AJ is losing some hair, but pretty much looks the same and Nick has totally improved with age, that’s for sure. He is so much better looking now than he ever was back then… AND he plays World of Warcraft. Just throwing that out there.

Below are some photos from the concert and video broken up into 3 parts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Yesterday, I said farewell to a part of me after 10 solid years of companionship through the good and bad. My tongue ring. Why did I just randomly decide to get rid of it? Well, for a while now, I’d been waiting for a good enough reason to get rid of it, but didn’t just want to get rid of it “just because” because it has been around longer than most people in my life today. I know, very strange, but it was kind of a part of me and I needed a good enough reason to let that stage of my life go. Friday, in school, we were discussing the harmful effects oral piercings can have on the body. I had known that they were bad for your teeth, but I also learned that they can actually cause heart disease and even death. Though it is pretty uncommon to die from a tongue piercing unless the piercer was unsanitary, the bacteria that can build up on your oral piercings can spread to your heart and progress from there.

Personally, every time I brushed my teeth I would brush my tongue ring as well and would occasionally remove it to soak it in alcohol. I’d like to think that I maintained a mostly “healthy” tongue ring, but despite those efforts, my tongue ring wasn’t very good for my teeth. I do have a few chipped teeth due to it (nothing noticeable, but nothing good, either). Not to mention, I am currently in school for the medical industry and having a tongue ring seems like it would contradict with my new career path. It also wouldn’t be very professional to work with those in the medical industry either. Before, with other jobs, I didn’t really care, plus most people barely knew I had my tongue pierced. It wasn’t very noticeable when I spoke and most that knew would forget I even had it at all.

In the 10 years I’ve had it, I’ve swallowed two balls and acquired some chipped teeth. It’s never effected my educational or professional life. And, I do believe that it is a myth about tongue rings and sex. Just sayin’. It was never prominent. And no, that isn’t why I ever got it either. To be quite honest, I’m not sure why I got it, but I do know it wasn’t for that reason. I suppose, at the time, when I was in high school, I just wanted to be a little different. Being so young at the time, it wasn’t very common for body piercings in my high school. But, I soon realized that it wasn’t that “unique” once a few other people got them and then after high school it seemed like everyone had them. But, I never got rid of it. For a while, my reason for keeping it was that the piercing cost $60 and I wanted to make sure that I “got my money’s worth”. Well, 10 years later, I definitely think I got my money’s worth and maybe a little heart disease to go with it. I would gladly pay $60 in exchange to not getting heart disease or any other illness due to it.