I am still alive!

I guess I've just been so busy that I kind of forgot about my blog! So I guess it's time to update!

First of all, my birthday (June 25th) was awesome! Some of my friends from college: Catherine, Lauren, Aimee, Emilee and Alyssa all came down to stay with me for the weekend! It was so much fun :)
Unfortunately, despite asking for this weekend off in advance, Hannaford did not give me the weekend off... so, just as he always is, my friend Kyle was there to save the day and he took my shift on Friday, which was my birthday.. such a good friend. I couldn't find anyone to take my Saturday shift because everyone and their mother was working on that day... So I had to work 1:15 to 7:30. But, yet again, Kyle was there to help me.. he worked 11 to 7 that day and he told me he would stay til 7:30 for me so I could leave at 7. I mean.. it was only half an hour, but still.. half an hour is better than nothing!
Again.. seriously, how awesome is he? so awesome. :)
Here are a few pictures that we took over the weekend:








One thing that I had to do that was.. not so much fun.. was when I had to go to Portland with my mom to give depositions to lawyers and other Court room people about my dad dying of Mesothelioma/Asbestos cancer. If you've ever seen those advertisements on TV about families who have lost someone to Mesothelioma/Asbestos cancer.. and they may be entitled to get money.. well thats what we're doing. My mom and I couldn't be in the room together.. she went first.. I sat there for 3 1/2 hours... I was SO bored.
To make a long story short, I finally went in.. I sat next to my lawyer, and there was a Court Reporter there and like 8 or 9 other lawyers.. most of them were the lawyers representing the companies that made/make things with asbestos in it, and they're the ones fighting against the families so they don't have to give anyone any money.
So, it was scary and upsetting. You're not allowed to say "I don't know".. and there were questions that they asked me that I really had NO idea what to say.. so I probably sounded like an idiot at some points.
It was hard though, being questioned about something thats really hard for me to talk about, but thats done now, and now I think we're waiting to see if we need to go back again and then I think they decide on whether we get money or not.. cross your fingers we get money!

Not much else has really happened thats been really exciting. I've basically just been working everyday at good ole hannaford.. and still doing my internship for speech therapy every Wednesday morning 8 to 12.. which I love doing!

Also, unfortunately.. I'm not going to be leasing the horse, Carlos, that I talked about in a blog a while ago.. Its like half way through the summer and I still haven't even started the lease.. it seems kind of pointless to me to keep waiting.. so I'll just lease next summer.. no problem. I mean I miss riding.. SOO much, but once I went to college.. its so hard to find time and a horse and everything now :(
On a brighter note.. my mom and I are looking at jet skis to buy! I am SOO excited :) We sold our pontoon boat, speed boat and jet ski last year because we were planning on getting all newer ones. Well we're finally looking at jet skis! And we will most likely get our speed boat next summer! :)

Another thing that happened thats exciting (to me at least) is that my friend, Kyle, took my car for the day last weekend and did a few more things to it for me :)
He 'professionally' painted my brake calipers red, making them look like they're aftermarket brakes! ('professionally' meaning he didn't just spray paint them with red paint.. he used a kit specifically for painting them red) and it looks SO good!
He also tinted my front passenger window, because when him and my other friend Ryan had done it before they crinkled the sheet of tint and then they couldn't use it.. so now all 4 windows are finally tinted! (front 2 windows are 20% and the back 2 windows are 5%)
And he also touched up the black paint on my rims from when we painted them black in August of 2009.. there were a few chips in them so they needed some touching up, but now they look awesome again!
I also got two short blue neon light bars to go under the dash in my car so that there's blue neon glow on the floors in my car! My power outlet in my car doesn't work, probably because of a blown fuse.. so once I get that fixed, Kyle is putting in the neon lights for me :)

Here's a couple pictures of the outside of my car after he painted my brake calipers, tinted my window and touched up my rims.. oh and he also cleaned it for me!:





Looks sooo good :)


Thats pretty much all that's been happening in my life.. I'll be sure to try and blog more often!

Back to Reality

So I haven't posted in a while, but just for a quick update, I'm finally home for the summer and back working at Hannaford 30-40 hours a week. What a life.

I also just started an internship with the Speech Therapy program here where I live! Yesterday was my first day, I go every Wednesday all summer 8am to noon. It was actually really fun and really interesting! I think I'll get a lot out of this experience and it's an amazing opportunity for me to get to do this only as a Sophomore in college! If you didn't know, I want to go to graduate school after Farmington and get my Masters in Speech Therapy, so this is perfect for me to start early. :)

So, tomorrow, June 25... is my birthday! I'm going to be 19 years old! Not that it's that important of an age, but still.. a birthday is a birthday; always fun :)
For my birthday, I'm having some of my friends from school come down for the weekend! I'm so excited because I haven't seen a couple of them in a really long time! We're going to be staying at my camp on Mousam Lake for the weekend, and even though we sold our boats and jet ski last year (because we're getting new ones) we'll still have fun! We have a water trampoline, a huge dock, our camp has a big sandy beach and of course.. we're going to go out Jeepin' in my Jeep Wrangler!
Only thing is that I asked for the weekend off at Hannaford, but they didn't give it to me.. for some reason. One of my best friends, Kyle, took my shift on my birthday for me though, such an awesome friend. :) I'm still trying to find someone to take my Saturday shift, but hopefully I'll find someone!
But, needless to say, this weekend is going to be awesome.


I've also decided that I'm going to have my own little car cleaning business.. because last Saturday, I was outside literally all day working on my car and my moms car.. cleaning them inside and outside. They look amazing, if I do say so myself :)
I worked really hard, especially on my car because it had a lot of scratches, bugs that were like cemented on and some hardened tar.
Well, I got all of that off, and I buffed out most of the scratches. It looks so good. So good, that I don't want to take it out because I don't want it to get dirty! Every time I have taken it out though, I polish it when I get back home.
I know, this may sound ridiculous to some people, but to me.. having a good looking car is important to me, and my mom likes her car to be clean too.

So anyway, a bunch of people have seen my car and my moms car and want me to clean their cars too.. for money. :) So I can't turn down an offer like that! I now have an additional 5 cars to clean either this weekend or sometime this coming week.

Here are some pictures of my car and my moms car after I cleaned them:

This is my moms car. 2008 Volvo S40 Turbo.
Her rims had been like.. dark grey, almost black because they were so dirty, and now they're clean silver like they were when she got the car!

This is my car. 2000 Volkswagen Jetta MKIV VR6. I love my car.
My rims are black, by the way, they're definitely not hub caps. I'll never get a car with hub caps.

JETTABUG.

I actually forgot to write about my improvements and my cars improvements! (the Jettabug)
On Friday, May 28th, I brought my car (2000 Volkswagen Jetta VR6) to the New England Dragway in Epping, NH for the second time. I went with my cousin, Jonathan, my friend and Jonathan's girlfriend, Catherine, and my friend David and Jonathan's mom came too, Jonathan actually brought her new car, a 2010 Ford Fusion Sport.. which I picked out for her, by the way :)

So the last time I went with them, it was opening night for Street Night and it was packed, and I only got to race twice because it was so busy.
My first run, my car ran low 17 seconds at 84mph.. slow.
My second run, my car ran high 16 seconds at 84mph.. a little better, but still slow.
My reaction times for both runs were around .938 seconds (your reaction time is your reaction on the line when the light turns green) and my reaction times weren't bad for my first time, but slow.

So it wasn't too busy, and I was excited to go a bunch of times. Catherine rode with me in the car for my first 4 or 5 runs, and she said it was fun! Then she got out to go and watch with David and Jonathan's mom, because Jonathan convinced his mom to let him race her car.. haha, of course :)

After Catherine got out of my car, I just kept going, and going, and going.... and going because my times just kept getting better and better! Then eventually there was a break for everyone.. racers, spectators.. everyone. for about half an hour.

Then eventually when it got to be around.. 9:45pm it was just Jonathan and I racing each other over and over and over again because everyone else was packing up getting ready to go, because the dragway closes at 10pm.

Needless to say, it was a FUN night, and I got to race SO many times.. pretty sure it was about 20 times that I got to go :)

My best times? Well.. my car got down to low 16.21 seconds at 87mph!! improved from last time which was high 16 seconds at 84mph, huh? :)
(this is over a 1/4 of a mile, by the way)
And my reaction time? That improved from .938 seconds.... to .028 seconds!!! YES.
AND I won one of my races!! By A LOT! Smoked em'! I was SO excited.. beat by a girl in a Jetta, what now? :)

I'd say it was a very successful night for me, and Jonathan too.. he beat the expectations of the 2010 Ford Fusion Sport that were in Car & Driver Magazine.. so he was pretty happy too!

Next time we go, I'm bringing my moms car, 2008 Volvo S40 Turbo... it's a fast car, so I'm hoping it does well :)

Anyway.. here are some pictures from the night at the dragway:




Theres me on the right, against a 2010 Ford SHO, and Catherine was in the passenger seat!




Yeah, lost to the SHO, but I did get him off the line :)
(meaning I started faster and was in the lead for a little bit)





Theres Jonathan on the right, against a Jetta 1.8t




Obviously Jonathan won :)





Catherine and I during the break. :)





Jonathan showing off the 2010 Ford Fusion Sport, engine and all, during the break.. as if it's his car, gotta love him :)




Jonathan and I racing. I'm on the left, and yes I did actually get him off the line and was beating him until the 1/8th of the mile. :)




This was the point where he caught up to me.




And this.. was the race that I won! Got him off the line by a lot, and I beat him by A LOT! :) love it.

What a weekend...

I can honestly say that Thursday, June 3rd, was definitely not one of my best days for a lot of reasons.
I went home from school for the weekend, and I was alone that night so I decided to get a Purple cow ice cream from Ted's (a restaurant). And, by the way, purple cow ice cream is black raspberry ice cream with chocolate and white chocolate chips in it. amazing.
So, I left my house, it immediately started downpouring to the point where I could barely see even with my windshield wipers on high. great..
So I get to Ted's and from running in and out in the rain I was completely soaked.. might as well of gone swimming in my clothes.
As I was pulling out of Ted's, there was suddenly this flash flood/puddle across the whole road that wasn't there when I went into Ted's. Now, I know you're not supposed to drive through puddles incase the road caved in or if there's something in the puddle, but there was no way to turn around, and no way around it because there were other cars behind me and the puddle was across the whole road.
So, I drove through the puddle slowly, but had to have some speed because I almost got stuck in the puddle because it was so high that it was over the bottom of my car, probably half way up my tires/rims.
As I came out of the puddle, I hear a loud noise, and I thought it was thunder at first so I kept driving, and then I realized it was my car.. fantastic. So I get out, and there were two huge pieces that the puddle ripped out from the bottom of my car.. one piece was still connected, but dragging on the ground and the other piece had ripped completely off, and had caught on something else on the bottom of my car and was grinding on a belt or something so I took it out and put it in the back seat of my car.
Needless to say, it was a scary ride home because I could hear the other piece still grinding on a belt making the car make a noise and I thought it was going to blow up or something. (Because believe it or not, I do not know everything about engines..)

I was very frustrated because these kinds of freak things always happen to my car.. always. I take such good care of my car, wash it all the time, detail it, drive it carefully so I don't scratch it, and I even park far away in parking lots so nothing will hit my car and scratch or dent it.. and somehow, something always happens to it.

Here are a couple pictures of it:






This is the piece that got completely ripped off.









This is the front bottom of my car, and that's the piece that was still attached, but was dragging on the ground.



So, it ended up being fine, it was just the plastic guard in the front on the bottom of the car that had been ripped off.. nothing serious.
Still very frustrating, and it wasn't the best way to start off my weekend.


Friday was definitely better. I had a lesson (horseback riding lesson) at 10 in the morning on Carlos, the horse I'm going to be leasing for the summer. :)
I had tried him out a couple weekends before, and he was really fun, and this time we tried jumping him to see how him and I would get along.
Well, it went perfect. Although he's somewhat new to jumping, he's a fantastic jumper, almost just what I've been looking for.

Here are a couple pictures of Carlos and I (from the first time I rode him, no one was available to come take pictures for me during the lesson



He's so handsome :)



So happy :)

Then after my lesson, I got to see my long lost friend, Carolyn, who just graduated from college! She's moving to Florida in a couple weeks and I'm going to miss her so much, but she's going to be working at a really nice horse barn and doing what she loves so I'm glad she'll be happy.

And finally, Friday night was Sanford High School's graduation. One year since I graduated, I felt old, but I also felt like my graduation wasn't even that long ago.
I went to the graduation because I have a bunch of friends that were graduating.
It felt so weird being there again and knowing that I did all of this one year ago. No, I didn't cry, I wasn't sad, but I just was so amazed that it's already been a year.
Well, I got to see almost all of my friends after the graduation and they were all so excited just as my class was. It was great to see everyone though, I got to say my congratulations and good lucks to everyone, even though I'll still probably see most of them over the summer. It was fun.

Then Saturday, June 5th, was finally the day of the Taylor Swift concert. It was in Foxborough, Massachusetts at Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots play, and it was her very last concert of her Fearless Tour that she's been on for 15 months, and it was amazing.

So it was just my friend, Kelley and I that were going together. We were going to drive ourselves, but we ended up being able to ride with Kelley's moms friend, who was taking her daughters. They got a Limo Van to go and they had room for the both of us, so Kelley and I got to ride in a limo van to the concert for free!
I had never seen a limo van, but its basically just a really fancy truck/bus thing and it's just like a limo inside!
So we left at 3pm and were supposed to get there at 5:09pm (according to the GPS), but then we hit traffic.. really bad traffic, and we ended up getting there at like 6:45pm and we missed the band Gloriana (who apparently only sang one song?), but we got to see Kellie Pickler's last two songs, and then Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, so at least we got there, right? Right.

First of all, Gillette Stadium? HUGE. There were 5,500 people at the concert. Needless to say, it was the biggest concert I had ever been to!




This is Gillette Stadium as you're walking toward the entrance.





This is the back of one side of Gillette Stadium.




And this is the back of the other side of Gillette Stadium. There were more people in the front and on the floor too. Crazy huh?


I got to see a couple of my friends from college too! Lauren and Aimee :)



Me, Lauren and Aimee before Justin Bieber.



Kelley and I in our seats, before Justin Bieber.
















So Justin Bieber was actually really good, even though he looks like a 12 year old and sounds like a girl.. :) He's a very talented singer and dancer!



Justin dancing with his dancers.



Justin singing, probably looking at some girls, who probably fainted. :p

It was a long wait between Justin and Taylor Swift. It also started raining a little bit right before she came on, but then when she came on, it stopped and it never rained again for the rest of the night!
Taylor Swift was absolutely amazing. She performed for 2 hours, and each song she did was fantastic! I called my friends, Paige and Catherine, during her song, Forever & Always, because that's like "our" song, and they loved it :) I also called Paige during Love Story, and Catherine during Today was a Fairytale.
Here are some pictures of Taylor during different songs:




Taylor singing "You Belong With Me"





Taylor singing "Love Story"



Taylor rocking her custom Patriots jersey that said "Swift" on the back :)



Taylor singing "Fifteen" when she came to the middle of the floor of Gillette Stadium.




Taylor singing "Forever & Always" :)


"If people don't want me to write bad songs about them.. then maybe they shouldn't do bad things to me." - TSwift


So, the concert was awesome, and it was so cool that it was the very last one of her Fearless Tour. Kellie, Justin and Taylor were all incredible, espeically Taylor!
We ended up getting home at about 3:30 in the morning, and I'm still exhausted, but it was so worth it!!
If I ever have the chance to go see Taylor Swift again, I'm definitely going. :)


Then Sunday, June 6th, I left to come back to school for my last 4 classes of my may term (yay!) and a lot of Maine was under tornado watch, and I was heading straight into high tornado warning areas.. great. It was black, windy, and I was pretty much the only car on the road.
Needless to say.. I felt like a tornado chaser! It was kind of fun, all I needed was a camera crew, and some appropriate music.. I was thinking the theme song of Jaws? yes.

Then when I got closer to Farmington.. I saw this.


















Scary? yes. It did get bigger, but I don't think it ever touched the ground, but still.. I was scared.
So, I was a tornado chaser.. I kind of drove around to see it because I couldn't stand not knowing where it was.
That was my adventure for the day!


So, this was my weekend, it was pretty eventful, and now here I am with 3 classes left of my May term! I'll finally be going home for good for the summer on Thursday, and I couldn't be more excited!!
I'm actually really glad that I took a May term because I got one class out of the way so I don't have to take in in the Fall and these 4 weeks have gone by so fast!
Of course, that means that I have to go back to working at good ole' Hannaford, but I need money so I'm okay with that.
I'll be able to hang out with my friends and enjoy my summer.

This is real, this is me...

I'm Ashley, 18 years old.. I enjoy long walks on the beach, pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
Oh wait... this isn't the Pina Colada song.. or an online dating site.
I'm just kidding.. I don't have an online dating site.. I don't want some creeper to come and kidnap me. :)

So now that I've written a blog on some of my friends.. I figured I'd talk a little bit about myself. I'm Ashley, Mia is just a nickname.. my middle name is actually Victoria. I'm 18 years old and was born on June 25th.. so I'll be 19 in a little over a month.. not that 19 is a very important age.. besides the fact that its the last teenage year of my life, no big deal.

I'm a student at UMF, majoring in Early Childhood Special Ed. and I'm going to go on after to get my masters in Speech Therapy. I;m not so much interested in being a teacher.. I like kids, but I don't think I could ever deal with a bunch of them all together in a class, but Speech Therapy is for anyone at any age, and they make good money. :)

My family is really important to me. I live with my mom and my dog, Tucker. I'm really close with my moms side of the family. My only cousin on my moms side, Jonathan, is basically my brother.. we grew up together and everyone says we could be brother and sister because we look so much alike. My dad passed away on June 28th, 2007 from Mesothelioma (asbestos cancer). He went through chemotherapy, radiation and a test trial thing that they're working on for patients specifically with mesothelioma, but none of them worked. he passed away almost a year after he was diagnosed. I miss him so much I can't even describe, but I know that at least he's not in pain anymore.

One thing everyone should know about me is that I'm an Equestrian. An equestrian is a horseback rider.. in case someone didn't know. I ride English style, and my discipline is hunters, equitation, and jumpers. All those disciplines involve jumping, so yes.. jumping is one of my favorite things about riding. I've always loved horses, I remember always saying I wanted to go on pony rides and what not.. so I finally started lessons when I was 5 years old, and I've been riding ever since! Riding is my life.. the bond that you can have with a horse is amazing.. it's one of the best feelings in the world.. there's nothing else like it. I know that horses will always be a huge part of my life, and I"m going to ride for the rest of my life. <3

Some other random facts about me and hobbies of mine? I played Field Hockey from 6th to 12th grade. I played lacrosse my freshman year of high school, softball in 6th, 7th and 8th grade, and a bunch of sports when I was little. I love photography. I have a Nikon D40 and I want to take a photography class in school. I'm also pretty good with photoshop. I taught myself everything I know, and I'm still learning.
Music is a huge part of my life.. I almost always have my iTouch with me and when I'm on the computer I almost always have music playing. I like songs that I can connect to, but I'll pretty much listen to anything. I can't just pick one favorite band or one favorite singer because there's so many that I like.

Ah yes.. and the last thing everyone should know about me.. is that I'm really into cars. My dad owned a couple garages and knew pretty much everything about cars.. so I grew up around them. My dad bought me my first car in 2006, a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta VR6. I LOVE my car.. most of the time. Over the past year.. a couple of my guy friends have helped me "pimp" it out. It has halo angel projector headlights, smoked euro tail lights, spoiler, tinted windows (20% in front, and 5% in the back), and we spray painted the 16" stock rims black. So yeah.. I'm really into import cars, american muscle, badass trucks... you know.. :) I don't know everything about cars, but I think I know more about them than most girls usually do, and I'm still learning. :)

I consider myself really lucky to have all these people and things in my life, and even though at times, life can suck and it may seem like the end of the world.. I try to remind myself that there's people out there that have it a lot worse than me and I shouldn't be complaining.. so I try to live life to the fullest because you never know when it could end.

Best friends.. Second family.. Glam Girls

I would just like to say to all of you that you are all the best friends EVER and even though I didn't get to meet any of you until second semester, I feel like I've known you all for forever and I'm SO glad I got to meet all of you.

I guess I can thank Jonathan for that... because he was the one that was constantly bugging me to come and hang out with him over in Lockwood and come meet everyone, and as everyone knows (and if you didn't well now you do haha) my first semester pretty much sucked and I was planning on transferring to another school. So I wasn't too enthusiastic about coming back after winter break and about going out and meeting a bunch of people because I just figured that there was no point since I was transferring. So, Jonathan, thank you so much for encouraging me to come and meet everyone.. because if you hadn't.. I wouldn't have been coming back to UMF and I wouldn't have met all these amazing people who are the best friends EVER! All of you are the reason I'm still at UMF and you all were the ones who made my college experience a great one. I can't thank you all enough for everything you've all done for me, I love you all so much <3

"By now you know that I'd come for you, I'd fight for you, I'd lie, it's true, give my life for you, you know I'd always come for you.. no matter what gets in my way, as long as there's still life in me, no matter what remember, you know I'll always come for you."

Catherine
The first Glam Girl that I met, the last week before winter break during finals. You're one of the nicest and most caring friends I've ever had, and I'm so grateful to have you as a friend. I know I can always count on you for anything. Every time I have a pickle at a restaurant, hear a bird flapping its wings, have fish nibble on my toes, go on a drive with Jonathan and see a Turkey, or see someone flip their hair.. I'll think of you. :) <3

Emilee
I remember that when I met you in whatever room we were in, we were talking about our class schedules, and I said I had water aerobics and you jumped up and got really excited because we had the same class together.. it was funny :) I'll miss having gym together, but we'll obviously see each other all the time! Thanks for everything :) <3

Paige
I remember when we first met, we were in your room and you were kickboxing haha. You're always there for me for anything and I'm so grateful to have an amazing friend like you. You always know just what to say and give the best advice. I enjoy coloring your calender.. and by the way.. you better bring that calender back next year so I can still color it! I love the long drives to nowhere and singing the whole time. I loved being your roomie for one night! Whenever I hear Forever & Always, Have you ever been in love, Lean on Me, I'll be there for you and so many others.. and whenever someone says Mia (because you came up with it)
I'll think of you. <3 :)

CeCelia
I remember for a while when we were still getting to know each other, whenever I would talk to you.. you thought I was yelling at you then you thought I hated you hahaha, and when we took the road trip back to Sanford and you were obsessed with my house :p I'm so glad we've gotten to be such good friends! I never thought that teaching you how to do the rubiks cube would lead to you being so addicted to it and teaching other people how to do it haha :) We can rubiks together now! Thanks for everything <3

Aimee
Whenever I hear or see anything with Justin Bieber.. I always think of you! Or whenever I hear a Ke$ha song I think of you too :) I love singing with you, "I wanna dance with no pants on, HOLLA! Meet me in the back with the jack and the juke box" :) I'm so luck to have you as a friend! Thanks for everything :) <3

Lauren
Whenever I hear Miley or the Jonas Brothers or "so I got a question, do you wanna have a slumber party in my basement?" I always think of you :) I'm so glad you organized our team for Relay for Life, that was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again next year! I'll never forget that walmart trip with me, you and CeCe.. the longest walmart trip ever and we were all so exhausted after haha. I'm so glad to have a friend like you! Thanks for everything :) <3

Alyssa D.
I remember when I was getting to know you, I thought you were the most energetic person I've ever met haha :p I'm so glad we got to be such good friends and I'm so excited to be roommates next year! Thanks for everything! :) <3

Emily
So glad we're becoming such good friends! I always think of you when I'm watching Glee and see Sue Sylvester because I know you love her haha :) You're such a great friend that I'm so glad to have in my life! Thanks for everything :) <3

Alyssa S.
You're an awesome CA and more importantly, an awesome friend! I'm so glad I'm going to be living in Lockwood so that I get to see you more next year! :) I'll never forget the mug fairy, because that's how I got to meet you haha. I can't wait to see you next year! Thanks for being a great friend! :) <3

It's amazing how much of a difference you all made in my college experience. going from a really bad first semester to an awesome second semester! We have so many awesome memories.. dancing/singing parties, road trips, watching Glee, American Idol and the Bachelor, "COOL!", the mug fairy, going out to eat, late night talks, heart to hearts, Relay for Life, sleepovers, Mia.. I could go on and on!

What I really want to say to every one of you, is Thank you.. for being some of the best friends I have ever had, for always being there for me for anything, for being the reason for me to stay at UMF, for making a huge difference in my life. I love you all!