Moving to Sweden: An Update

Hello Everyone! 

I hope you all had a great week and now it is time for the weekend yay!!

This past week I had a big german test, uploaded two new videos (which can be found under the videos tab), went to the dentist, and had my interview for the swedish embassy. 

Wednesday was a big day for me last week. I had my german test that day and my interview, so my anxiety level was pretty high. After I took my test, which I think I did pretty good on, I had to drive into Houston for my interview. It was about a 35 minute drive to the building where the swedish embassy's consultant is located. For anybody who lives around the Houston area or has drived through Houston you know it is hell. I hate driving through the city. There are to many people who think they can drive however they want and it spikes up my anxiety. Anyways, I arrived there 40 minutes early, the one time I am early to anything. To waist time I sat in my car for about 20 minute listing to music and then I decided to go in, thinking they might be able to see me earlier. I was wrong, so I sat in there waiting room for 20 minutes.

 The two ladies who interviewed me were very nice and welcoming, which eased my stress a bit. I was very surprised by how fast the interview went. They asked me only a few questions, things like "Tell me a little about your self" and "What are your hobbies?". It felt more like a job interview than a possible life changing interview. They didn't ask me any question about Daniel and I's relationship. I thought I would have to confess my love for him in front of these people, but nope. 

After they were done asking questions I had to show them all my government papers like my birth certificate, passport, drivers license, and my single statues paper. Yes that is right I had to go down to the courts and get a paper signed by a judge saying I was not married. I had all of those things except my birth certificate and they also wanted pictures of Daniel, me, and any of our family members together. Without those two things my interview could not be sent in, so I had to return the next day. 

 I then had to make another half hour drive down to Houston to drop of the rest of the paper work. Before I left the lady assured me she would send the papers to the embassy in D.C. before she left for the day, which she did. This morning (Friday) I got an email from the board saying they will now look at everything and next time they contact me they will give me there answer. 

I am so excited that we are now getting somewhere with this process. I applied last year in July and was hoping it wouldn't take longer than a year. While I might get my residents card in the next few months, if accepted, I would not move until at least August of this year. I still have to finish school. I only have one more class after this semester until I can get my Associates degree in journalism. 

I am so excited that I might soon get to call Stockholm, Sweden home. Of course it will be sad to leave the place I have called home for almost 19 years, but I will always come back. 

I am finally in the home stretch of my application and I just thought I would share the process with you! I will add a few pictures of when I was in Stockholm just because I feel like this post could use some pictures. 

I hope you guys have an awesome weekend! 

xoxo Makenna

10 Years Time

Hello Everyone! 

Hope you are all well.

Today I am doing something a little different, I am turning a YouTube tag video in to a blog post. I wanted to make the 10 years time video, but feel like writing it out might be better for me. I could sit down and have a whole script planned out and memorized, but when I sit down in front of the camera that all goes away. I get distracted way to much to sit down and do a serious video, so I thought I would make it a blog post.

For those who don't know about the tag you pretty much explain where you hope to be in 10 years or what you think your life will be like in 10 years.

Life is one of the most unpredictable things so it is hard for me to sit and say this is where I will be in 10 years. Even just two years ago my life was on a different path than its on now. Two years ago I wanted to be a psychologist and get a PhD, I hated English and writing, I planned on going to a 4 year college, and I didn't plan on moving out until I was done with my masters degree.

I believe that the smallest thing can change your whole life.

If I wouldn't have met Daniel two years ago I would still be on that path. I wouldn't have gone to my local community college, and met the english professor who changed my mind about writing. I wouldn't have started this blog or my YouTube channel, and I wouldn't have started to write a book. I also wouldn't be planning on moving to a different country later this year.

With that said I can only say where I hope to be in 10 years. In 10 years I will be about to turn 29, so this is where I would like to be:

In 10 years time I hope to be married to Daniel and maybe thinking about starting a family. I hope to have a job that I love. I would hope that I would have published a book or two by then. I want to live in a nice apartment in a city I love surrounded by friends and loved ones. Lastly, I hope to be happy with where I am in life.

It will be interesting to be able to look back at this in 10 years and see where I am. If any of you want to do your own post or video I would love to see them! You can share them to my google+ profile that is attached to my blog.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week!
xoxo Makenna 

Short Stay in London

Hello Everyone!

I hope your weekend was great!

So like I promised in my last post I am going to be sharing my trip to London with you. 

My mom had a business trip in London, so me and my dad decided to join her. We left for the airport on Saturday January 10th for our flight to Washington D.C. at around 11 am, which was then delayed until 4 pm due to mechanical issues. We got to D.C. with about an hour until we had to board for our flight to London, which it didn't look like we would get on (my mom works for an airline so we fly on standby). The flight to London turned out to be on the same plane we had just gotten off of and was having the same mechanical issue. Now our flight to London was delayed until 1:30 am, but around 12 am they announced the flight had been canceled. After the announcement all 200 and something people started sprinting to the customer service desk to be the first one in line to re-book there flight and get hotel vouchers. So we just sat in our seats and tried to find another flight back to Houston to try and get on the 3 pm flight that left out of Houston to London on Sunday. We ended up taking a van from Dulles to the Reagan Nation airport at 3 in the morning to get on a flight to Houston that left at 5am. Once there our flight became delayed once again, I do not know why because I had fallen asleep as soon as I got on the plane. Once we got back to Houston everything was smooth sailing from there. 

We arrived in London on Monday, a day behind schedule, which sucked for me since I was only staying in London until early Wednesday morning. 

My first day in London, sadly I didn't really leave the airport, my dad and I took a nap while my mom went to her meeting at the hotel which was connected to the airport. Then we went to dinner at a restaurant in the airport and then back to the hotel bar for drinks with my mom's co-workers. I wanted to go into town and go shopping (we were 40 ish minutes from the center of London) since we finished dinner at around 6, but I lost on the vote. 

So the second day my dad and I did every touristy thing you could possible do in London. 

First we took a walk through Green Park to get from the subway station to Buckingham Palace. I must say I did a great job at navigating throughout the whole day, including the subway. Green Park was nice, and well green for it being winter. It was typical weather for England that day, which is my favorite kind, but I could have lived without the wind. 

However, the pigeons in this park were a bit on the crazy side. They would fly inches away from you, and I personally don't like birds ever since one pooped on my head when I was younger. I will say that they do have some pretty feathers. 

 We then got to Buckingham Palace, which I thought it seemed a bit smaller in person. There was quite a lot of people visiting at the same time we were, so it was extremely difficult to get a picture of the whole building without getting shots of other people. 

 They also didn't have any of the "typical" guards, with the big fluffy hats and red suits. I am not sure if they even have them at Buckingham Palace or if they still dress like that, but it didn't really matter either way to me. I am not the kind of person to want to try to mess with them. 

This is one of my favorite pictures, I just really love how the gate looks with the building.

 Now, I know this is the back of the statue, but we didn't walk all the way around the square or whatever you would call it. I have no idea what this statue is called or what it is for. If you know please feel free to tell me because honestly I am to lazy to google it. 

We then moved on from Buckingham Palace, and took a nice walk to Big Ben and the Eye. 

 We walked by another park that I do not know the name of. We even got to see some of London's cute little taxies, which I never did get to ride in. 

 One reason why I love Europe more than America is there architecture. These were just some of the cute apartment building we saw through the day. 

 This picture is tied for my favorite along with the picture of the Eye, which is shown below. It was just about to start pouring rain when I took these last few picture. I just love how the grey sky makes the colors pop out. 

We didn't end up going on the Eye because they were doing maintenance on it. It then started raining so we took cover in a building next to the entrance of the Eye for about 20 minutes. After it stopped it was finally time to go shopping!!!

 I went to Primark along with a trip to SuperDrug. I might make a haul post on the things I got from Primark, since there is quite a few. I went a bit crazy . . . the store was one of the biggest I have even been in. There was 3 or 4 floors I can't really remember because I only went on two of them. It seemed like this store was half the size of my local mall. The only things I bought from SuperDrug was some of Zoella's (Zoe Sugg) bath products and Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation, since we don't have it in the US.  After all the crazy shopping we tried to find The Good Life to get a snack/small lunch, but this was the one time when I got lost so we head over to Nando's instead. I have heard many good things about Nando's and I will say they are true. The food was really good. I would love to go back and try other things on the menu. My dad even took the napkins we didn't use as a souvenir. 

This ended my day in London, and I loved it just as much as I thought I would. I will defiantly be going back to England as soon as I possible can. I would love to stay longer in London and get to see Brighten as well as other cities. 

On Wednesday I took a bus to Gatwick airport and flew to Stockholm. I then spent the next few days visiting my boyfriend and his family before leaving on Sunday to return home for school.  

Thus ending my trip, which was an amazing amount of fun even with the ruff beginning. 

I will talk to you guys later this week or next, depending on when I have time to post. 

I hope you all have a great week! 

xoxo Makenna

So Its Been Awhile...

Hello Everyone! 

I hope you have all been well! 

I am sure that some of you have noticed I have not posted on here, Youtube, Twitter, or Instagram in a month or so and I am going to explain why in this post. It has just been one unexpected break from social media. I didn't get on to any of these websites until last week, because I just haven't felt like it. I had planned videos to film for christmas, new years, and I even took a trip to London a few weeks ago. I just didn't feel like filming or posting anything.

I know this is completely my fault and I 100% apologize and I apologize that I am going to continue this break. However, I would like to say I WILL STILL POST ON HERE and I AM NOT QUITTING YOUTUBE!

I will be posting a blog about going to London with in the next few days, but I will be contuining my break on youtube. When I was uploading for vlogmas I felt like I was just throwing things together and I didn't even like the content I was posting, but I did it because I needed to put up something. So with that being said I will continue making Youtube videos when I can give them the proper amount of time and effort. It may take a few weeks, a month, or two to get back into it. The reason I will still continue to post on here is because this is where I started. I feel like I need to go back and start over in a since. This is a year of new beginnings.

 For me this is the year of fixing/becoming a better me. I have already made steps to start the progress, one being a huge step that will hopefully benefit me and make this process faster/easier. So I hope you will all bear with me while I get my life on track again. I haven't decided if I will share every part of my journey of becoming a better me, but I will share some. I don't know how personal I want to get yet, but we will find out together!

I hope you will continue to read future post and are having a great 2015. Lets make this year better than last!

xoxo Makenna 

Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well! 

 It will soon be the season of baking, so I decided to share with you my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. 

Now this is not my own recipe, I found it online and wrote it down. I don't remeber where I got it from, but I did make a few slight changes to the recipe. I have been making these cookies a lot lately, as they are very popular with my family to the point where I had to double the recipe last time I made them. Alright let's get in to the recipe! 

Here is everything you will need:

• 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour 

• 3/4 teaspoons baking soda- ( however I use baking powered because it makes the cookies a bit more cake like, but it is what ever you prefer)

• 1/2 teaspoon of salt 

• 1 stick or 8 tablespoons of butter 

• 1 cup of light brown sugar 

• 1/2 cup of granulated sugar 

• 2 large eggs ( or just normal size) 

• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract 

• chocolate chips 

• two bowls, one large the other medium sized

The first thing you are going to do is set your oven to 375 F. I am sorry that I do not have metric conversions. 

You will then mix the flour, baking powder or soda, and then salt in the medium bowl and set aside for later.

Next in the large bowl mix the butter( softened), brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs  
         
         

     

 

After you have mixed all the ingredients extremely well, you can now add in the flour. The best way to do this is add a little at a time and mix the small amount of flour with the rest of the mixture. Then continue adding flour and mixing until you have mixed in all the flour. 

After you add the flour make sure you mix the whole mixture extremely well, for about 2 minutes. 

After the mixture has been mixed well you can now add in the chocolate chips! After you pour them into the bowl you will want to fold them in. 

Next its time to bake your cookies! I like to make them pretty big so I put 6 on a pan but if you want smaller cookies just make them to the size of your choosing. With small cookies you can make around 2-2 1/2 dozen. With large cookies, depending on how big you make them, you will make around 12-15 cookies. You will want to cook the cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes or until they are golden brown. Make sure to use a tooth pick to check the middle of the cookie. If it comes out clean then they are done! If dough is stuck on the tooth pick then put them back in for a minute or two, until they are cooked to your liking.

After the cookies are done it is time to let them cool and then eat them! I hope you enjoyed this recipe!

Late Movie Review: The Maze Runner

Hey Everyone!! 

How has everyones week been so far? I hope it has been good! I haven't posted on here in a while and I apologize. I just had a few of those weeks were I just wanted to sit at home and watch Netflix all day and communicate with no one. I did find a new show to watch, Lost, and have spent 99% of my time watching it. I know I am like 10 years late, but I quit like it.

I also know that this post is long over due and I am not even sure if this movie is still in theaters, but oh well! I would still like to share my thoughts with you all. 

So now lets get into what this post is about. A few mondays ago I started out my week great and finally saw The Maze Runner. I read all three books about 2-3 years ago and loved the series and was so excited to see they finally made a movie. I almost never go see a movie the night or weekend that it comes out. My friend Catherine and I went to the theater around 5 pm and there was almost nobody there, and it was amazing. One of my favorite things is when you have a movie theater all to yourself. Sadly that didn't happen this time, but there was only a few other groups of people which made finding seats very easy. 

So to be honest I didn't get to see the full beginning of the movie due to the fact that I was in the bathroom, typical, but I only missed a minute so I think I can still give my opinion. The movie starts following the main character Thomas's ascend into the Glade. Thomas is played by the extremely attractive Dylan O' Brien. I would end the review right here and say that he made the whole movie, but there was way more to this movie then just an attractive guy. Through out the whole movie I felt like I was in the Glade with them. This is extremely hard to portray in movies, even though many try not all succeed. This is my opinion, however, Catherine did agree with me after the movie. This movie left us wanting more, and that night I just kept repeating the phrase: "It was so good!" because I truly thought this was one of the best movies based on a book I have seen. One thing that made me really happy as a book reader was they didn't make major changes to the movie. All of the changes were small and almost unnoticeable or didn't really matter as much. I did however feel like Thomas' time in the Glade was a lot shorter than it was in the book. In the book Thomas spent anywhere from a few weeks to a month or so in the Glade ( I am not 100% sure since it has been a few years since I have read the book). I am sure they didn't want to make a 3-4 hour movie, but to be honest I wouldn't mind. I didn't want the movie to end and I can not wait for the second one. I really hope the second movie is just as good, after the first one I have pretty high expectations. I would defiantly recommend you see the movie if you haven't already and if it is still out, or see it when it comes out on DVD.

If you have already seen the movie, which I am guessing most have have please feel free to leave me a comment with your opinion of the movie. Also leave me a comment of another movie you think I should see. I already know I am going to see Gone Girl. I wasn't a huge fan of the book, but I am hoping the movie will be better. You can also just leave a comment saying hi and how your week was.

I would love to hear form you all and see what your opinions are. I hope you have a great weekend and I will try to post on here again next week! I also just uploaded a DIY: Laptop Sleeve video on my youtube channel if any of you are interested you can find the link here or it will be the first video under the video tab at the top of this page.

Thank you so much for reading and I will talk to y'all soon!
xoxo Makenna

I Got A New Tattoo!

Hello everyone! 

I am now going to start greeting you at the beginning of every post because it just feels really weird that I don't. I only never did because after looking at other bloggers most of them don't greet their readers or talk to them on a one-on-one bases, so I thought was the thing to do, but now I am saying screw it! We are all friends here so I am going to treat you like a friend.

So how is everyone doing? OK? Great? Bad? If that is the case I hope you feel better soon! I am doing fairly well for someone who just had all four of there wisdom teeth removed yesterday (Friday). However, that is not what I am here to talk about, today I am going to tell you all about my newest tattoo I got about a month ago. If you watch my youtube videos or follow me on any social media website (which you can now follow me on Bloglovin by clicking here) then you may know that I took my last trip to Stockholm, Sweden before I move there in the next year, depends on if there government allows me, still waiting for the paper work to go through. Anyways (get back on track Makenna!), I was in Stockholm for two weeks before I had to go back to school and on the last week I got a new tattoo. I did know before traveling that I wanted to get my second tattoo done while I was there to make it even more meaning full, it will make more since after I explain what it is. (If you are interested in reading about my first tattoo then you can click here to be taken to that post.) The first week I went in Stockholm Classic Tattoos and asked them if I could get the three Swedish Crowns on my right pointer finger. This is what they look like if you didn't know, two crowns centered above one crown under them:

The tattoo artist who's name I don't remember at the moment told me that the crowns would not fit and at the most he could only do one crown. This was the second time I was turned down for this tattoo and was a bit pissed about it. The first was because I wasn't heavily tattooed, and then now this. "Well thats just great, I am never going to get this tattoo" I thought, but there was another design I had been thinking about getting. I had not though about it as long as I had about the crowns, but there was one reason shouting out in the back of my mind that just wouldn't let me say no. I was turned down when I walked in to get my first tattoo, which was supposed to be the crowns and ended up with the one I have now. As I stood in the shop arguing with myself weather or not to even get a tattoo after my idea had been turned down I made the rash decision to do so, and I pick one the one I have now, even though I had only though about getting it for about a month. For me when I make rash decisions like that they always have turned out to be the best decisions I make, so I did it again. 

For a second time I was standing in a tattoo shop with a rejected idea, so I picked my next best one. My second tattoo is three birds sitting on a tree branch, but not just any branch, the branch of my family on my family tree. Two of the  birds are larger, and are on either side of the small third bird. This is supposed to represent me with each parent on one side of me. The branch is also just as important; it has 10 leaves on two separated arms extending from the branch. There are 6 leaves on one and 4 on the other. The 6 stand for one person each in my immediate family: my grandmother (MawMaw), grandfather (PawPaw), uncle (David), aunt (Tammy), cousin (Sam), and my sister (Breanna). The 4 leave represent the pets that have been most important in my life: Zana, Noella, Sadie, and Dexter. Zana and Noella have both passed, Noella just this past Auguest while I was on my trip. She is the reason I got the leaves, at first I wanted the branch to be naked because my favorite time of year is fall/winter, but that all changed when I got the email about here passing. 

I spent a lot of time going back and forth between two different places on my body: my forearm right beneath the bend in my arm or on my back under my shoulder blade, but towards my side/rib area a bit more. I chose my forearm because I wanted to be able to see my family everyday, since I will be moving over 5000 miles away from home, I want to know that my family is always there no matter where I am. It is not just a symbol for me, but them as well. That I am not forgetting about them or trading them in for a new family, but that my life is taking me on the path less traveled by and I will never forget them or stop loving them.  

Here is a picture of the fantastic artist tattooing me: 

The whole process took less time than I thought it would. It took about a total of 40-45 minutes from the time I walked in to the door and out again. The tattoo part took only about 30 minutes compared to an hour and half to two hours for my first tattoo. My very lovely friend Nellie, who not only took time out of her day to take me to the shop, filmed/took photos the whole time. So now you can not only read about my experience, but you can also see it from start to finish if you would like. If not then you can skip the video and keep reading. 

It did hurt, but not as much as my foot. One thing that was different was I bled a lot more than my first tattoo not just during, but even after I was done and went home. This tattoo also hurt for a few days after, which was something I didn't experience the first time or even this time when I touched it up. It felt like my arm had been dangling off the bumper of a car and skid on the asphalt for a few miles. I could not unbend my arm due to the pain, and when the scabs grew I couldn't unbend my arm do to the fear of them ripping off. As gross as that sounds it is true; when you bend and unbend your arm your skin stretches and pulls, so when you have skin still healing it is not good to move it as much. The good news was I only had to deal with one week of discomfort before it healed, while even today my foot is still on its last leg of healing. This tattoo did also cost more ($220) than my first ($100), but it was well worth it. I am very happy with the final result and love it every more each day. Even my family has given me their blessing. I told no one in my family that I had got a new tattoo, nor that it was front and center on my arm. My mom was the first to know. I showed her in the car on our way home from the airport, although she wasn't to happy she understood why it was so important to me as have my other family members. I never really got the "your never going to get a job again!" lecture, until I brought it up with my grandparents. Lucky for me the industry I want to work in doesn't really care what ink you have on your skin, but the ink you can put on a page. I am 100% happy with my tattoo and love to show it off whenever I get the chance, which is a lot around here in Houston since it is STILL 90 something degrees everyday! Anyways, as much as I don't want to say it I must: this is probably going to be my last tattoo *awwws and booos*. I know, but I made a deal with Daniel that I would only get two since not only do I have to live with them the rest of my life, but so does he. This is what you do in relationships my friends, and it is called compromise. I do not hold anything against him for it either, I completely understand where he comes from and how much he had to give to be ok with the two I have now. 

Now the moment you have all been waiting for while I droned on, the final product! (without the redness of course)  

While I was there I also got my first tattoo fixed. As you may have read in my blog post about the first letter of the quote being not up to par. It was nothing that was done by the artist, but by my body: the ink was rejected on the bottom of the "L".  Here are before and after photos:
Before:

After: 

I would like to thank you so much for reading and watching, whether it is one person or a thousand it means the world to me. Thanks again and I will talk to you all again soon! 

xoxo, Gossip Girl 

Just Kidding! I just had to. I really do mean everything that I said though and if you have made it this far then THANK YOU so much again!! I know my post are long and I am sorry, but I can write what I feel/think better then I can speak them out loud. 

Talk to you soon,    

Makenna