La mia famiglia

I LOVE my family! Probably more than anything else in the world. This post is dedicated to my family and to let the blogging world know a little bit more about them. In this post I will cover my Dad's side.

My Dad and his siblings are from New York. My grandparents met while serving in the war at Pearl Harbor. They met in Hawaii, fell in love, got married, and had my aunt Debby. She was a native Hawaiian before it even became a state. My grandfather John was originally from California and my grandmother Grace was from New York so after the war they moved with Debby back to New York with Grace's family. Afterwards my Uncle Wayne, Aunt Tamie and my dad, Louis were born in Albany...in that order. When my dad was 11 years old his parents seperated and not even a year later his mom passed away from breast cancer. I think about Grandma Grace alot, and how strong of a women she was to have to go through a divorce while she was struggling through cancer. I can't wait for the day I get to meet her.

After Grace died my grandfather picked up the kids and moved to Texas. Debby decided she wanted to stay in New York. She was old enough to make this decision and she still lives there to this day. They moved to Houston and my grandfather started the business, Lone Star Building & Construction Services. The company started as a family and is still run that way more than 30 years later as my dad and uncle serving as the owners and my aunt Tamie serving as the secretary & treasurer. After my grandfather moved to Texas he remarried 2 times...and divorced 2 times. His last marriage with Sue ended in the mid-'90's but they have been back together again for the last four years. I have grown up with Sue being my grandmother figure.

A few days ago Sue was diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer that has already spread to her lymph system. She starts chemo this week. Please pray for a recovery.

Debby: (Around 55 years old?) She lives in Albany, New York with her husband Art. She is an amazing women and has run around 8 marathons and a few triatholons. She has two children, Marcy and Matt. Marcy is 28, or 29 and is married to a man named Tim.(no kids) Matt is around 25 years old and is not married.

Wayne:(Around 52 years old) Also known as uncle Winky by his nieces and nephew. Wayne is probably one of the funniest, craziest men I have ever met! He has a larger than ife personality and he has also ran a marathon. Both him and my dad are very athletic men. He is married to Christine (Chrissy) and has two children, Nick and Danielle. Nick is 22 years old and Danielle is 21, both are single and in college.

Tamie: (50 years old) I'm really close to aunt Tamie and love her optimistic personality! She is so caring and acts like everyone's mommy!! She is married to a hispanic man, Joaquin and has three girls, Channon, Lauren and Kristen. Channon is a 28, 29 year old teacher and married to Joey.(no kids) Lauren is 25,26 and married to Justin who is in the army and locationed in Iraq.(no kids) Kristen is 17 and graduating high school this year.

My daddy, Lou: (46 years old) My dad is the hardest worker I have ever met. He finished high school early and got accepted to prestigious Baylor aviation and worked his way thorugh college. Half way through college his dad desperately needed help with the family business. My dad ended up leaving college and his dreams of being a pilot for his family. He got married to my at the age of 25 and had me and my brother John- Logan. He recently ran a marathon with his sister Debby and his brother. He has a dare devil quality to him (that's where I get it from) and has been a professional skydiver, with over 1,000 jumps, and currently flys planes. His hobbies include anything that he can ride on; including motercycles, jet-skis, sports cars, boats, and the lawn mower!

My dad's family is Italian and we love to cook and eat! Get 5 of us together and we are loud enough to rupture some ear drum's!! :)

-Nessa

Ryan....

Ryan is my best friend's little borther and an absolute cutie! He turned 5 in January and I have def. enjoyed watching him grow up.

Ever seen I met him this little guy and I have had a connection. At an early age he took great liking in calling me his girlfriend. He makes me happy to see how excited he gets when he sees me! :) Everytime I go out with Kelin's family Ryan always wants me holding him and sitting next to him. He calls me Nessa and I feel like his 2nd mom at times!! I love it! :)

Fun Facts About Ryan:

*He is the only American born in his ENTIRE family

*He has blonde hair, while his dad has red and his mom has black

*He loves dinos

*He is afraid of heights

*He likes to snuggle

B57

After thinking for quite some time now that my Mommy had lupus the doctors have changed her diagnosis...again. She has B57, which is an immune disorder. Forget googling about it, because cases are rare.

The only way I can describe is by relating it to HIV, which is very scary to even think about. HIV affects the body because the immune system is very underactive, B57 is the exact opposite and people who suffer from it have an extremely overactive immune sysyem. Ironically enough the symptoms for both diseases are very similar. Certain days my mom can not even get out of bed she is so tired, other days she is her naturally peppy self and can be seen gardening in the yard, and other days her body has horrible "attacks" and her joints, hands, and feet swell up to the size of clubs. She is on a medicine called cellcept, but the doctor said she probably will not be on it for long, because it does not work well for most people.

On top of all this she has a tumor on her gallbladder. They do not think it is cancerous, but they could be wrong. Ugh, I think it makes everything worse because I am medically intelligent. My poor mommy :(

Sun is shining, weather is sweet

Hello readers! ...Let us start where we left off!

Ok, so, on saturday I turned 20. I spent a good portion of the day studying and then Hannah and I went to this little hole in the wall place called Mi Casita, very yummy! Hannah paid for me, since it was my birthday :) I found out about the place because because I was searching for vegetarian friendly restaurants in Denton. After that Hannah and I went to Coldstone. I never knew you got free ice cream there on your birthday!! :) :) My ice cream was cake batter ice cream mixed with cinnamon ice cream and white chocolate chips. YUM! After we got back to the dorm Kelly and Gina dropped by with gifts for me. An easter basket with a pretty rotating picture album thingy, flower seeds, flower pot paint kit, and the game mad libs! I also got a pretty yummy marbled cake. I'm blessed to have such good friends! We ate cake, played wallomoppi, and talked.

Sunday was not a good day. Hannah and I went to church, and I was very enraged during the entire time service. We had a guest speaker named James Walker. He is the president of a group named watchman. (http://watchman.org/) is a quote from their website, "Watchman Fellowship is an independent, nondenominational Christian research and apologetics ministry focusing on new religious movements, cults, the occult and the New Age." During the first 5 minutes of this man talking I knew I was not going to like it. He supported a ethnocentric view of Christianity,basically. This man used to be a former mormon and came to know "jesus" and now he trys to get others to convert to Christianity. Seems kinda harmless, right? I did not think so. I do not believe that there is one god. Jesus Christ may be YOUR lord and savior, but that does not mean that everyone else must think the same way. How can any caring person honestly say that other individuals religions do not measure up to their own? If my friends want to be mormon, hindu, buddhist, or rastafarian I am not going to question it. How you would you feel if someone with religious beliefs as strong as yours tried to get you to change an important part of yourself? If this is what Christianity is all about I will not call myself a Christian. Now, I'm smart emough to know that Christianity is about accepting Jesus into your life and living a life lead out through him, but why would I want to categorize myself with such hypocritical people? Maybe it's because I go to a Babtist church (because Hannah wants to) but I once read a book called "Blue Like jazz." It's an amazing book, and in one chapter about love the author describes how he ends up living with hippies in the woods and how the hippies are the most caring, loving people he had ever met, because they loved unconditionally. I wonder if some christians see how they push others AWAY from Jesus instead of bringing them closer to him, by choosing to not associate with gay people, democrats, or deviant people in general. LOVE is my religion...the end.

Today is Thursday and Dustin, Kelin and Brian are all driving up tomorrow to come visit me for the weekend. We are going to Six Flags Over Texas on Saturday! I'm so excited to see them. Hannah is going to be gone friday night and most of Saturday on an R.A. retreat, because she got chosen to be an R.A. next year.

:)

Nessa

Giorgio Armani and Bebe

Hannah, my roomie, is a fashion design major...if you did not know. Well, this week in Dallas was the "Fashion at the park" event, which are fashion shows held outside of the Northpark mall in Dallas. Hannah and I both wanted to go badly, but with ticket prices starting at $100 a ticket for some shows, we decided not to.

However, one of the fashion design teachers is friends with a lady who was helping to run the show. She told Dr. Dragoo, the teacher, that they had some extra tickets, and they sent out a mass email to the students announcing whoever emailed back first with their show of choice would receive two tickets. Hannah urgently replied and received tickets to the Giorgio Armani show. Boy, were we excited! It was yesturday at 6pm.

Our friend Jenny was going to ride with us ,she had received tickets to the Armani show AND the Bebe show, but she didn't know who to give the extra ticket to. Coincidently her friend Emily had an extra ticket to the Bebe show as well...so it worked out perfectly and Hannah and I ALSO went to the Bebe show at 8pm.

The three of us left Denton at 4pm yesturday and it took us about an hour to make it there, because of traffic. Well, when we got there we parked and made our way up to the massive tents that the event was being held at. When we got to the entrance there were photographers and people running the show all dressed alike. Emily met up with us and then one lady asked us if we wanted our picture taken we did and they gave us cards with instructions about how to retreive our complimentary photos online. After that they scanned our tickets and we went inside.

For those of you who have never been to a fashion show, there is an area before the fashion show with music and a bar to hang out with friends prior to the show. We met up with my friends David, Britney and other TWU students. In this room there was a cadillac, makeup consultants from Bobbi Brown who would freshen up your makeup, a wax mannequin sculpture, and many other things. Before the show I had a strawberry martini and Hannah, Jenny and I had our pictures taken by another photographer. They said they would be posting the pictures online later.

About 15 minutes before the show they announced that seating had begun, so we went and sat down in our seats. Every seat had a bag with Giorgio Armani code perfume in it, score! The show began, all the clothes, models, and music were beautiful! When the show ended Jenny, Hannah, Emily and I went into the mall to get something to eat before the next show started at 8. We ate at a place called crepe master. It was good but overpriced, seriously, they charged Jenny and Hannah $1.50 for water...and it wasn't in a bottle.

For the Bebe show we went through the same process of getting in. This time I had a grape martini, and enjoyed it much more than the strawberry one. I don't thoroughly enjoy drinking so the best part of the martinis were the fruit at the bottom of the glass :) We went to our seats 10 minutes prior to the show and discovered that for this show we had received Bebe lip gloss, lightup makeup compacts, and Bebe water bottles. LOVE the lipgloss. The clothes were magnificent for this show as well, and many of the models from the Armani show were also modeling in this show.

It was a super fun night overall, and it made me even more excited to pursue modeling. I'm turning 20 tomorrow and I know the time is ticking for me to begin modeling. I have an upperhand though since I don't look 20...at least I don't think I do.

:)

I haven't posted in a VERY long time...

So, Thursday, the 13th was the beginning of my anticipated spring break AND Dustin and I's 2 year anniversary!!! :) :) I drove home from school (5 hours) and Dustin met me at my house. We had a wonderful dinner with my family and we all watched the movie, "Across the Universe", which is wonderful!!

*Over the rest of the break Dustin was allowed to spend the night (in the guest room), on the days he did not have to work night shifts. I remembr when Dustin and I had been dating for about 6 months and my parents FREAKED because I was snuggling with him on the couch, nothing naughty!!!...oh memories!

*We cooked each other lunch Dustin made the appetizer and main meal: townhouse flips w/ cheese, and asian noodles with shrimp, YUMMY!! I cooked macaroni casserole and strawberry cheesecake cupcakes. The dessert was wonderful, but the mac, not so much. I accidently used VANILLA soymilk while making it, :/

*We celebrated my mother's 50th birthday by going out to Babin's with my grandmother. I LOVE BABIN"S. I also bought my mother tulips!!

*Dustin and I went to Ikea, which is a fun day event for us when we have nothing to do. I love thinking about how one day we will both use our crafty minds and fashion sense to decorate a house!

* My Grandma come to visit us for a couple of days and we watched "La Vie en Rose" with her. It was amazing, Daddy, however, was not thrilled. He claims that it was too "girly" for him....hmmm...Dustin watched it with no problem :) ;)

* I went to the Katy Mills Carnival with my best friend Kelin, her mom, grandmother, and little brothers. We rode a couple rides and giggled at the scary carnies. I also got to eat a wonderful dinner with her

*I bought the movie, "Iam Legend" and watched it with my family and Dustin... :)

* I went shopping for baby stuff with Kelin, because our friend Jess's baby girl, Kierstan was turning one. Kelin ended up getting her a bath time bubble maker and I got her a barn yard matching toy.

* Dustin and I went to my cousin Lauren and her husband's Justin newly bought house for a house warming / easter party. It was nice to be able to see my loud, Italian family once again and spend quality time with them before I had to go back to school. However, Justin got shipped back to Iraq for another 1 1/2 and was not there. :(

* I ran out of gas on an insanely busy road, thought it was my battery, had my car pushed by two old men to the Shell station, freaked out my parents, had them drive to the gas station (my dad was at the airport flying his airplane before said incident), and realized my car only needed gas....hee hee...my bad?!?

*My wonderful week ended with me spending a bit more quality time with Dustin; we hung out at his apartment and then went to Star for chinese food, because I was craving crawfish like no other

So today was my first whole day back at school..After my Modern Dance class this morning I went and applied for a passport at the postoffice and went through my daily events.

One of the highlights of my day was Hannah coming into the room around 10 after sewing for the last four hours to tell me she had just won 2 tickets to the Giorgio Armani fashion show at Dallas north park on thursday!!!! JOY!!! YAY, let me remind you that one of these tickets would usually go for over $100....so im happy!!

I would love to post some pictures of my spring break, but seeing as I still have not received a new battery for my camera I've decided to post old pictures!! :) :)

-NESSA

MARCH SNOW

On Thursday it snow 7-9 inches here!! Since I'm from the south east coast of Texas this was SO weird!!! It's not that I've never seen snow before, (Dustin is from Colorado, and once when we went to visit his family we got caught in a six foot blizzard) but I've never seen snow like this in Texas.

Dustin drove up here monday night to spend the rest of the week with me!!...very exciting, especially since I hadn't seen him in a month. Anyways, all classes were cancelled after 2 on Thursday...

So Dustin, Hannah and I drove to Sweetwater for some dinner. MmMm, blackened tilapia. The snow seemed to make everyone giddy and everyone and there mom was outside when we got back to the campus. They could be seen making snowmen, throwing snowballs, and frolicking.

We decided to make our own attempt at making a snowman....Dustin had to teach us how! That night we also went to watch the movie 10,000 B.C. It was good, but reminded me too much of Apocalypto, which beats 10,000 B.C!!!

That is all!! Only a few more days until I'm back home!!! :) :)

YEAH...sooo

Ihad a VERY fun and interesting weekend...to say the least!! ...the end

Anyways, today it was super cold and I had two dance classes. So, I wore my baggy dance pants to class. In my jazz class we were learning pirouettes today. After the teacher taught it to us we were instructed to spend 10 minutes doing them on our own. I was doing my pirouettes and my teacher, Joe, comes over to help me a little bit with feet placement. He gets down on his knees to help and moves a feet a little bit. Then he tells me to try one. I pick my leg up in the position start to spin around and as I began to bring my leg down (mid spin) it catches on my baggy pants....and they are around my ankles when I finish. Embarrassing, huh? Well, what's worse is that I NEVER wear underwear...so I made a full half naked rotation...in front of my dance class of 30...and with my male dance teacher VERY close! WOW,lol.

The thing I'm thankful about is that he is gay, and really did not think it was a big deal. He was like, "Girl, I've seen it all!!" SO glad I go to predominately women's school, yeah.

Just another day in Vanessa world, lol!!!

We tried to find some worms..

So, today is Saturday, and yesturday Hannah's friend back home in Florida came and visit us. Her name is Heidi, and she is staying with us until Monday. We have been having lots of fun, and I have to keep reminding myself that I still have two tests next week!! Yesturday we went to eat at El Guapo's and had fun in the dorm. Today we traveled to a fabric store in a near by town, went to pita pit, attended the gymnastics meet, and in a little bit we are going to see "Definitely Maybe" at the Cinemark. HOW FUN!!!

Dustin and I's 2 year anniversary is in a couple weeks and I'm painting a piece for him. In the painting there are pieces I drew of us. I'm pretty sure we are also going skydiving!!!! :) :)

I included pictures from when I pierced Hannah's nose!! Don't worry....I've done it before, and I'm completely safe!!!

...Why?

The word feminist has so many bad stigmas put to it. It's amazing that many people, especially women do not even know what it means to be a feminist. For instance, once my roomie and I were driving around town and I was talking about the shirts that say, "This is what a feminist looks like." This was before I voiced my opinions about Women's Studies, and the like. Anyways, she kind of laughed and then said, "I'll wear a shirt that says ,this is NOT what a feminist looks like." Oh, so your a woman, but do not want equal rights for your own gender? ....That def. makes sense.

Being a feminist doesn't mean that you have to burn your bras, or be sexually attracted to women. Being a feminist just means wanting equal rights for women. I never realized it until recently, but I've been a feminist my whole life! Any women who does not want rights is crazy. Women are not meant to always follow order; women can rebel, women can lead, and women can do whatever they want!!

This is why...& CHEESE!

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=6501846&ch=4226713&src=news

....That my friends, is why i'm a vegetarian...

That is a video from ABC News about the recent meat recall. Man, 143 MILLION pounds. Now while the rest of America is frantic worrying about what effects they are going to have from eating this beef the vegetarians are smiling.

I really do not see why news like this is making such headlines now! PETA has had videos of cruel and inhumane treatment of animals on their website for years. The news crews act like this is the only time this has ever happened! How do we not know it doesn't happen everyday? Like the video mentions, the manager rarely checks on their workers. What kind of people do you think slaughter animals for a living??? ....Oh, very compassionate, caring people I'm sure.

...Why are people so blind to what happens "behind closed doors?" People take the pretty, packaged meats for granted and do not even dare to think. What did that animal go through so you can have a few minutes of pleasure?!? It's so much easier to put into context after something like this happens. I just do not want to be eating meat when I do not know the state of health the animal was in before slaughter...end of discussion! Plus, it's healthier for you...isn't that enough reason?!?

I'm also pleased to announe that since becoming a vegetarian (October 07) I eat alot more cheese. I've always loved cheese, but now it seems like I eat it with everything!!! Soups, salads, sandwiches...I even sprinkle feta on my veggies. YUM :)

-Nessa

...unmotivated

I have the worst headache, EVER! Ugh, I think it's because of all the candy I ate yesturday. The Red Show went well yesturday. I was modeling in it.The hair and makeup crew did a really good job on everybody!! After the show had ended all the models and designers were backstage and the lady (from channel 5 news) told Dr. Dragoo (head of fashion design) the winning garments and she collected a few models to model them for the audience and the news crew. I was asked to model the garment that won 1st place for people's choice. So I was on the news.

The Red Show is always fun, because my roomie, Hannah, is a fashion design major, so she designs and makes the clothes and I model them for her....a winning team!! This year someone asked Hannah to model a dress. Evidently Hannah was the only one they could find that fit it. It looked great on her!! I was a little sad that I did ot get to see Dustin for Valentine's but only a little bit longer until im at home again!!! :) :)

Oh, and by the way i'm unmotivated to clean my room and study :(

...a gold star..

So, i'm pretty positive that I have never had blisters like I do now. Taking 9 hours of dance a week REALLY takes a toll on your feet. I have bruises in places I never have before...it's odd.

Yesturday and today were the longest days in a while.

Tuesday:

6:45- Wake up

8:00-9:20- Ballet class

9:30-10:50- History class

11:00-12:45- eating lunch and reading my History book in the underground

1:00- Government class

2:30-4:00- study for my History test on Wednesday...I ahd to take it a day early because I have a fashion show to model in tomorrow

4:30- Dinner at Jimmy John's with Hannah

6:00- 8:50- Women's Studies class- My teacher told me that I was doing a fabulous job in the class and gave me a "gold star"

9:20-9:50- Ran 3 miles with Hannah

10:30-10:45- Shopped in the campus C-Store

11:00- Took a shower and cleaned the room

1:00- Talked to Dustin on the phone

1:30- 3:30- Studied for my History test

SLEEP!!!

So...today!! The most important part of my day was when I went to go take my test at twelve. My TA had told me to meet her in her office on the 11th floor of the CFO. When I got there at 11:55 she was not there so I waited...and waited...and waited. For about thirty minutes I waited and decided that even if she showed up now I would not have enough time to finish my test before my next class. So I left and I sent her an email today. (boo) I'm really frustrated because I was ready to take the test and now I have to take it next week, and I already have two tests next week!!! URG!

So the Red Show is tomorrow. It's the charitable fashion show that UNT and TWU put on during Valentine's day. The profits go to a women's heart disease charity. All the garments in the fashion show are done mainly in a red print. It should be fun....just like last year!

I hope everyone has a good V-day!

GOD BLESS!!

-Nessa

YAY!!

My first blog! How exciting! I have always wanted to keep up a blog, but have always gotten too busy with other things. When I was a little girl I recieved a diary for my eighth birthday, and I wrote in it until I lost it in a family trip to South Padre. :( I had it for about eight years, though.

So a few things about me:

*I go to Texas Woman's University- Going to this school has really opened up my eyes to female inequality. I actually consider myself a feminist now. There is such a negative image one pictures when that word comes into mind...FEMINIST...such a powerful word. But what women doesn't want to be seen as an equal?!?

*I'm engaged, yes, I'am young..but not stupid. I'm almost twenty but Dustin and I do not plan on getting married until we have finished college.

*I'm a Nursing major and desperately want to shed light on the horrible birthing techniques used in American hospitals. I think I was called to this position because i'm a caring individual. It breaks my heart to see another person in pain, but i'm tough enough to deal with death, and the like.

*I can not wait until the day that I get to raise a family. I want to be the kind of mother who looks out for her family's best interests. I'm going to be a breastfeeding, clothdiapering, baby food making, baby sign language teaching mother! And Dustin is going to be a INCREDIBLE father, I just know it.

* I'm a Christian, but would like to be looked at as a more "liberal Christian." I support gay marriage! Because America is the land where you have jurisdiction over your own life, right?!?......but not for gays!! Hypocritical much?

*I'm a vegetarian....a healthy vegetarian :) I also enjoy running. I run about 12 miles a week, and I plan to run a marathon next January!!

That's it for now! I have lots of homework to do!!

-Vanessa