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.
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
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!
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.
This week I made a big decision to try something new and scary; I made a YouTube channel. I filmed my first video with my blogging camera last Wednesday and edited it on Thursday. Let me just tell you it is not as easy as you would think. It was extremely weird to talk to a video camera and watch it back. The whole process was cringe worthy. It also took about 2 1/2 hours to get ready and film. I filmed the same video three different times, and each time got a bit better, but it still wasn't the best. I know that as I film more and become more comfortable with filming they will get better. The next step was editing. I used IMovie to edit, and it has been a while since I have used IMovie and I could not remember how it worked. I spent about an hour watching IMovie tutorial videos and still didn't figure everything out, so I just decided to wing it. I think it turned out pretty well for my first video. Although, there are a few things I will fix for next time. I chose to make my first video an introduction to my channel. I explained what I had planed for future videos and when I would be plaining to upload videos. I also said that I will be going back to Stockholm, Sweden for two weeks next Friday and I plan on vlogging while I am there. I will also be blogging as well, so don't worry I am not quitting my blog. Before I started my blog I was really considering on if I should start a YouTube channel or start a blog, and the blog won. I still very much wanted to start a channel, as it looked so much fun and was a good way to document what I am doing in my life. I wasn't going to originally post anything about my channel because I was nervous about it. Just like everybody else I am scared to make myself vulnerable to everyone else and blogging about my life was a big step, video taping my life and putting it on the internet is an even bigger step. This is finally a step I have gained the guts to take and I am pretty proud of myself. The video will be down below if you would like to watch it. It would also help me out a lot if you could comment on the video or this post if you would be interested in seeing a whats in my carry on bag video along with a travel vlog or if your would rather just watch a normal travel vlog. I would also like to say thank you to all the people who read my blog and are returning readers it means an amazing amount to me that you actually take the time to read things I wrote. I would also like to say thank you to anyone who watches this video for supporting me, as this is a huge deal to me. Also I love hearing fead back from people so if you want to leave a comment with some tips or even just your opinion on the video. I am open to all types of criticism good or bad because it will help me learn and help me find a way to do better next time.
