New Position

I haven't had time to blog much as of late because I got a new position at my job!! :) My official title is 15(8) claims examiner as of Monday February 25, 2013. I have been going through training and working on paying carrier bills, which has been occupying my entire day at work. I am finally moving up at my job after working here for nearly two years. I was informed that the job in itself is not as intense as it may seem like in training. Even though it does seem like a lot of work right now I think that it will eventually be easier to do :)

I will start blogging a lot more when I have the chance because I've been doing some exciting things lately that I want to talk about. I am also super excited for my vacation coming up in two and half weeks!!! I will be posting pics once I return!

Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone whether you have someone to celebrate with or not. This is my fiance, John, and my third valentine's day together. I am very grateful to have someone to celebrate this day with because there are people that do not have a significant other. But even if you do not have a significant other you can celebrate valentine's day with friends and family. Our plans tonight are having dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant, Naples 45 Ristorante e Pizzeria. John wanted to go to a restaurant style pizzeria and I've always wanted to give restaurant a try so it is perfect. I did some research before choosing this restaurant and I found out that pizza is actually originated in Naples, Italy! Therefore, this restaurant should have very authentic pizza. It is located minutes away from my job which is another plus. We are both looking forward to go there tonight. After dinner, if we have time we are planning on seeing Safe Haven which came out today. This is a movie based on the Nicholas Sparks book with the same name. I did not have a chance to read the book beforehand like I usually do because the book is usually always better than the movie. But I figure I would see the movie before reading the book this time around. I am very excited to see this movie because I have been waiting for it to come out. This movie stars Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough. So if all goes well we will be able to do both of the things planned tonight.

Lunar New Year

The fifteen day long Lunar New Year started a couple of days ago on Sunday, February 10, 2013. I usually work on Sundays but since it was the first day of the Lunar New Year, I had that day off. I woke up pretty early that day, at 7:45am. We started the day by having a dish my mother prepared the night before the new year, which was vegetarian delight. We then took off to the Buddhist temple, Gong Ming Ge, to pray as we do every year. By the time we got there the line was outrageously long, but we still lined up. We must have waited for over an hour because my toes were literally freezing! When we finally got into the temple there were a ton of people. We waited in line to get more vegetarian delight and ate it there. When we were done, I had to use the bathroom really badly so we headed over to my grandmother's place. We treated it as our new year visit to her. We stayed there for about 20-30 minutes to chat. After we left, I bought a couple of the fake firecracker bombs for my sister and I to play in Chinatown. There were so many people playing with them; the streets were trashed with confetti. We did not stay too long because it was way to crowded. We started to head home when we were done and on our way my sister wanted Popeyes lol. When we got home my family pretty much relaxed for the rest of the night. I, on the other hand, went out with my fiance to have dinner at TGI Fridays. That is slowly becoming our favorite restaurant to dine in. I ordered a salad because I was still full from all the food I've been eating throughout the day; John ordered his usual bleu cheese burger. I also realized the Grammy Awards was on that day and we were able to catch the first hour and a half of the show at the dinner. Overall, it was a great day :)

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday marked my beloved grandmother's 97th birthday. I love her so much and wish she will live a long and happy life. My whole extended family and I went out last night in celebration for her birthday. It was kind of weird to celebrate on a weekday, especially on a Wednesday, but it turned out well. I am not especially fond of certain people in my extended family but my family was there for my grandmother and that's all that matters. My sister and I purchased a green tea blueberry cake for her. She was very happy and that makes me happy. I took some pictures of her because I've noticed that I do not have much pictures of her. She means so much to me because she basically raised me as a child; she took care of me. I love that she is always so happy when she sees me :) Pictures of last night will be up shortly!

Super Bowl 2013

The 47th Super Bowl took place yesterday, Sunday, February 3, 2013, in New Orleans. The teams involved were the Baltimore Ravens and the San Fransisco 49ers. I have never been a big sports fan but since there was so much hype about the Super Bowl this year, I decided to watch it. I surprisingly enjoyed it even though I had no idea how the scoring worked. I found it extremely comical how the football players fell and jumped on each other. I was not initially rooting for any team in particular but I finally decided to root for the Ravens because they are located in the east coast and their colors (purple and gold) are my favorite. The half-time show was amazing; Beyonce looked gorgeous. It was also nice to see Destinys Child together again. A while after the half-time show, there was a power surge in the stadium for over half an hour! The reporters said that the 49ers had a similar problem when playing against the Seattle Seahawks in December of last year. After the power came back on the 49ers started catching up, but in the end they were unable to defeat the Ravens. The score is 34-31 (Ravens - 49ers).

Primerica

Most people have never heard of Primerica. I've never heard of it either until my fiance introduced it to me. Basically, "Primerica helps Main Street families get the protection they need at a price they can afford, invest for the future and get out of debt." These products are sold through representatives. This might sound too good to be true, but truthfully it's not too good to be true. I have been looking into this company for some time now and they are definitely legitimate. Their headquarters is located in Duluth, GA. They are a spin-off company of the well renowned Citigroup. They have offices all throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. When you join Primerica, you are basically creating your own business. You work on your own to recruit members and sell products to people who need them. However, of course, you need to be licensed in order to sell products. There are three exams that you must pass. I am not sure what they are but I do that you must pass the three exams before you can sell. You can also get a bonus if within the first four months of you joining Primerica you: pass all three exams and recruit four people into the business.

My fiance rejoined Primerica a couple of months ago. He was involved with Primerica previously however due to personal reasons he did not continue. But he recently decided to rejoin the business because he believes in it. Primerica is definitely not for everyone. It is for people who have the mindset and the persistence to be their own boss. It is not a easy process at all; it requires time and patience, like everything else you want to achieve. Therefore after thorough research I have decided to join Primerica as well. I am not currently involved with the company at this moment, but I am excited to see where this company will bring me.

Winter

The weather has been extremely odd recently. Just last week the temperature was in the 50s and this week the temperature dropped tremendously. It is literally freezing outside. This is no climate for anyone to live in. Our bodies were not build that way. Winter is my least favorite season because I dislike the cold weather and my skin becomes extra flaky. I prefer the summer because it is warm and I do not need to layer on a lot of clothes. I know some people who disagrees with me and I honestly do not understand why they like the winter. As mentioned before our bodies were not build to endure cold weather. We are warm-blooded animals which means that we are unable to adapt to whatever climate we are in.

Anyways, the reason I have been ranting about the weather is because I've been thinking a lot about moving to somewhere much warmer. My fiance feels the same way. We both want to eventually move down south because it is warm year round. We cannot stand the cold weather any longer. This however is only one of the reasons why we want to move out of the city. Another reason is because the cost of living here is way too high. It is getting to the point where it is impossible to do anything with our salary because everything just costs way too much. I was curious how much an apartment would cost us monthly in Florida and to my surprise it costs so much less. A three bedroom apartment costs the same as an one bedroom apartment here in the city. However of course we would have to be making roughly the same we are now. But that will be something we will be looking into in the near future.

Plan

On my last post I listed a couple of goals that I want to accomplish this year. One of those goals were to pay off a majority of my bills. Today I have written down a plan as to how I will pay off one of my credit cards. This is the same thing I did last year for the other credit card I owed money. I think this is a more realistic way of paying off debt. According to my plan, I should be able to pay this credit card off by June. It seems so far away, but it will come before you know it. I have been looking forward to paying this bill off for three years now and I am ecstatic that I am so close :)

As for the other goal I've set to accomplish this year, I have plans to start taking lessons with a driving instructor after the month of March. This has also been something that I've wanted to accomplish for a long time now. I started taking lessons with an instructor towards the end of 2011 and as of right now I've taken fifteen lessons and a road test. Unfortunately I did not pass my first time, but I am definitely not discouraged. Since I've made it my goal to pass my road test this year, I am determined to achieve it.

New Year Resolutions 2013

I have decided to start blogging again. I stopped blogging for a couple of years or so but I want to start documenting my feelings and what's going on in my life. The new year started roughly two weeks ago and I have been trying to set my New Year Resolutions as I did last year. I have so many things in mind that I want to accomplish this year. To name a couple, I definitely want to be able to pay off a majority of the money that I still owe to my creditors and I want to pass my road test in order obtain my driver's license. I wanted to set realistic goals that I know I can achieve. Last year I feel like I had goals that were unrealistic. An example of a goal I set last year was the pay off all my bills. Even though I had a plan as to how I would accomplish this goal, I did not end up paying off all my bills. I did however pay off one of my credit cards in which I owed a pretty hefty amount. Therefore, I think that I was able to stick with a goal that I set for myself. This is the reason why I am setting goals for this year as well. I look forward to achieving these goals because these has been things that I want to accomplish for a long time now. I am very glad that this is finally the year where I will be achieving these goals.