Our son that never was and never will be

What do you think? Could this be a child of ours? The morphing of faces is kinda neat but was so slow!

Freezing Friday!

Another snow day for the girls today but this time it actually makes sense.  It is coming down pretty good and everything is covered.  We spent the morning at the doctors office for Kaylee.  Poor kiddo has a pretty bad ear infection that came on kind of suddenly last night and she was in a lot of pain and a 102.5 temp.  She has had her first dose of antibiotics now so hopefully they will kick in soon.  She had such a rough night that she fell asleep on the table at the doctor's office while we were waiting (and we weren't waiting that long).

Mykenzie was happy not to have school today but she is bummed because she was supposed to go on a Junior's only girl scout field trip to build a bear tomorrow that we had to postpone because of the weather.  She has been saving her allowance so she could buy her bear clothes and stuff and has been really excited about going.  She will just have to wait now.

(just incase you were wonder this is for 2 classes)
I am totally stressing about my upcoming week.  I have my first lab exam in A&P on tuesday and a lecture exam on thursday.  The body has way to many fossa, foramen, fissures, ect in it.  I hope I can remember it all!  I am most worried about the lab exam.  I stayed for a few hours after class yesterday to use the skeletons and stuff to make more sense of it all rather than just looking at the book and that helped me feel a lot better.  I still have TONS of studying to do though.

My exam for entrance to the nursing program is on March 9th.  OMG that is coming up so soon.  Needless to say the next month and a half are going to be basically me studying in every spare second.  yikes!

Back to the grindstone...  at least we have the view of the beautiful snow falling and a toasty fire blazing to get us through this freezing cold, sick, studying day :)

Jacy Bolin?

Time to hear that called daily again during roll.  The spring semester began Thursday and has left me feeling like I am so far behind already.  I am writing this while taking a break from the past 3 hours of working on reading/ studying Anatomy and Physiology.  Tuesday night I got an email from my professor telling me that we would be having a test on Chapters 1-4 in a week (class hadn't even started yet)  fast forward to Thursday during class and that man was go go go.  Oh yeah and he informed us we will have a test on Chapter 6 on Tuesday, this tuesday.  It isn't like 1. the material is easy or 2. that the chapters are small.  they are long chapter with SO MUCH information!  I knew this class was going to kick my ass.  I guess I am going to have to live and breath A&P for the next 5 months.  Pray for me, I need all the help I can get.

I am taking a second English class and Dosage Calculations too.  I haven't had the dosage class yet it wont start till the 25th since it is a Monday class and it is MLK day this Monday.

The next few months are going to be crazy.  Is it sad I am already looking forward to May 6th, AKA finals?

Seriously pray for me

2010

Another new year has begun.  Time to reflect on the past year and look to what the future will hold in the new.  Looking back at my new years resolutions I made in 2009 pretty much ended up being a bust.  It feels like it was a month ago I made them and felt like I had all the time in the world to accomplish them, yeah, not so much.  Starting in 2010 I have only a few resolutions I want to make

* Study and do well on the Hesi Exam
* Get a 4.0 in the spring semester
* Figure out what I am going to do with my life if I don't get into the nursing program
* Stress less~ after 29 years I am finally beginning to learn what matters in life and to let things go that don't ~ still a work in progress but I plan to do even better this year.
* Get my organization back.  I have lost it over the past 2 years and I miss it very much.
* Once again getting my scrapbooking caught up
* Oh and what the heck, lets add losing 15 pounds to the list as well, what would a resolutions list be without that one!
* Get my scrap/craft area organized and set up better
* Re-do my laundry room
* Finish loft decor

Christmas Craftyness!

Part of Mykenzie's teacher gift

Back of Clipboard for M's teacher

Floating glass frame (given to my FIL)

Ornament for part of M's teacher's gift

A and B frames for Abby and Brielle

Kaylee's teacher's gift

Back of K's teacher's clipboard

Polk a dot ornaments for Mykenzie Kaylee, Lily, and K's teacher

Bath Salts from Craft Day with moms group

My first adventure in jewelry making thanks to Moms craft day

Pendants from craft day

Tree of life pendant from craft day... yep I am shocked I made that too

One of 2 buckets I made this one held M's teacher's gifts

Floating glass frame

Christmas floating glass frame for Aimee

Floating glass for Mom

One for me too

Photo blocks for Aimee

Ornaments cuter in real life~damn flash

Ornaments

My B ornament

My Believe ornament

Home floating glass for Aimee

Ornaments for Mom

Ornaments for FIL

Ornaments for Aimee's family

Ornaments for Dad and Jen

BTW....

Oh by the way Blog world... I got my grades back this past week and I got a 4.0! Yay me! Now onto my hard classes starting Jan 14th!

Whew!

Christmas has come and gone! It is so crazy how long we all prepare only to have it over so quickly. We had a great week leading up to the big day. Friends came over on Tuesday for our annual ornament exchange and we all got super cute ornaments that we love for our tree.

Mykenzie finally caught me on the right day a few weeks ago and asked if her friends could spend the night over Christmas break so that took place Tuesday night. Two of her BFFs from school came over and had way too much fun. There were little giggles well past 1am. They are really good girls so we will definitely have them over again.

Girls with friends and gingerbread house creation

Wednesday the day I have been waiting for and the thing I had wanted to do for years finally arrived. We went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes!!! It was the first time I had ever set foot into the Grand Old Opry and the show was fantastic. I will probably never go back (seems like something you only need to see once) but it was worth it and I would recommend it highly :)

Girls at Grand Old Opry

Thursday was Christmas Eve. Travis needed to wrap some gifts so I took the girls to movies to see the newest Disney princess movie The Princess and the Frog. It was really cute. After some dinner we spent the evening opening gifts that family had sent us and playing board games till it was bedtime.

Mykenzie reading us 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Christmas morning was relaxing. We all remained in our pjs all day. We were up at 6:30 and opening gifts. The girls got way too much and were very happy with w

hat they received. We all just hung out and played all day. Ate too much ham and sides and just chilled.

Here are the photos from the day :)

It's the BEST DAY EVER!!!

Ok so it isn't the best day EVER but it has been a darn good day! After surviving a few emotional breakdowns last week and feeling as though I was drowning in my to do list, today I was able to breath a huge sigh of relief and I finally feel as though the weight of world has been lifted from my shoulders. Not only did I turn in my FINAL English paper today but I also took my tiny written final in Speech (which I am positive I aced) and I presented my final speech. I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that speech is OVER!! I will miss seeing several people in that class though. We all bonded over our fear of public speaking and our disgust for our professors disorganization.

Wednesday I will have my last final, my theater final. I haven't read the play that the final will cover yet but there is a reason for that. I need it to be fresh in my mind. I plan to take care of reading it tonight after the girls go to bed :) At 12:15 on Wednesday this semester will officially be over and I will have survived and passed!! Yay! Well as far as I know, I assume I did well in theater but have no way to find that out since we have nothing of real grade value returned to us at this point. So not going to miss this lady as a teacher!!

So not only is the weight of school gone but I also took care of 2 things that I have been wanting to do and have those officially crossed off my list as well, including making the final arrangements for our moms group MNO to see Mama Mia! in March!!! I am soooo excited to go see this I can't even tell you! I have heard nothing but wonderful things about it and I love the movie. Yay me! I can't wait.

All of my many craft projects are completed (pics to come soon) and not only completed but everything that needed to be mailed has been wrapped, boxed and shipped!! So check that one off my list!

I am so close to being done Christmas shopping for the girls. So close in fact that I thought I was done until I wrote everything down and realized I have many more things for Mykenzie than I do Kaylee. I have no clue how that happened since I had no idea what I was going to buy that kid but I guess I figured it out. I plan to run out tomorrow and pick up a few final touches for Kaylee and then I will officially be done with all Christmas shopping, well that is until family members start sending me money and saying, "go buy something for the girls and wrap it up for them from me," like they do every year and every year they all wait until the last possible second to send it. I mean it is down to 11 days! I know what I am going to buy when it happens though so I am ahead of the game :)

My house is finally beginning to look like a home again. For a month you could not see the surface of my dining room table (and it is big if you've never seen it) or a good portion of the floor in the dining room because that was craft central. My living room was covered in boxes, bags, bubble wrap, and wrapping paper and was gift wrap central, my kitchen table was covered in books and notebooks, backpack ect... It was homework central (for me) I was just going back and forth from station to station getting what I could do when I had a minute. I have a ways to go on the cleaning front to catch up but knowing what it looked like just a few days ago makes me feel fine about the messy state it is now! lol

I still have many things to do from now until Christmas but it will be a walk in the park after this last month. My spirits are lifted and I am officially in full swing of the Christmas spirit!! I feel so overwhelmed with joy today and cannot stress enough how welcome it is!!

Come and Gone

Thanksgiving has come and gone and I am finally beginning to feel the Christmas spirit. When I am done with school that will help, I just have too much going on with that to fully embrace the holidays.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with some great friends. We all enjoyed our day of yummy food and fantastic company. Very thankful to have them in our lives! It was the first Thanksgiving in years that I haven’t hosted and it was fabulous to have a bit of a break this year.

Chandra and I decided to go shopping this year on black friday, yikes! I had never done that before. Once we got out of the freezing cold it was actually a lot of fun. We started at 12:30am and ended at 8:30am! I spent way too much money but I am almost done with the shopping now! WooHoo! I still have to figure out a few more things for Mykenzie and pick up a couple things I have left to grab on Kaylee’s list and a couple gift cards for family members. Fantastic news.

After shopping all night I came home and put the tree up with the girls while Travis was at work. We got it up along with all the other inside decorations. It is still undecided if we are putting up outside lights this year. If you come in my house and only look at my Christmas decorations it is very pretty. You just have to put on blinders for the rest of my house which is a total disaster! I am getting there....

I have a packed week planned, starting tomorrow with writing my two theater papers, yeah that will probably take all day. Wednesday I have class and errands to run on my break. Thursday I have to work in Kaylee’s class and I have a ton of returns that I need to do and I plan to begin my English paper and finish it on Friday. This will free up the weekend from school work, well almost. Friday night I have my moms group ornament exchange that I am really looking forward to!! Saturday morning we have girl scout stuff all morning until about 2pm, I am not looking forward to this at all because it includes a trip to the discovery center on a free day which is going to be a nightmare! Kaylee then has a bday party at 3pm that I am excited to catch up with some of her preschool friends and their moms :) Sunday I will be studying for my Speech final that will take place on Monday. She moved it up so she could use the 2 hour allotted final time for us to do speeches, read she planned poorly and didn’t have time to do speeches prior to that day. Whatever, I will be happy to get one final out of the way. And it is going to be multiple choice!! I could not be any happier about that fact!! Almost done with these classes then onto the hard ones.

My sweet girl

Yesterday as I was getting out of bed Kaylee was coming upstairs to bring me breakfast in bed. It was her own creation.... ritz crackers with grape jelly and string cheese, YUMMY. I ate my two but Travis refused to give it a try. She was so proud of herself for doing something nice for her mommy and daddy though. When I suggested she eat the couple that Travis didn't she looked at me and said, "no way! I don't like that stuff!" Nice, glad I ate it. LOL

Holy Turkey Day Batman!

Tick tick tick BOOM! The clock has been counting down to the holidays and OMG they are here! I have never been so unprepared for the holidays in all of my life! Yeah yeah I know that Christmas is technically still a month away but lets get real gifts need to be in the mail in two weeks. TWO WEEKS! Yep, two weeks! No where near prepared. Now don't get me wrong I do have SOME things bought and some people crossed off my list but I still have a long way to go. I have nothing for Mykenzie or Travis and only have a couple things for Kaylee. Normally by this time I have all of our Christmas decorations up and the tree decorated, my Christmas cards are typically filled out and ready to be mailed. Not this year. I am keeping hope alive that I can write all the papers that I need to write this week and by the weekend I will be done and ready bring out the tree and all the many boxes from the attic and can finally get into the Christmas spirit. So much to do, so little time!

On a side note Travis, the girls and I went to see a stage production of It's A Wonderful Life on Saturday and it was really good. Mykenzie wasn't a fan of all the singing and Kaylee fell asleep after intermission but Travis and I enjoyed it. I would love to see it again sometime. I had never seen the story so I was unsure what it was even about. I am going to be renting it and watching it soon...

I am paying for our Rockettes tickets tonight. We are going on Dec 22nd to see that show and I am so excited!! See, I will get into the Christmas spirt eventually.

My kids are lovely

Today we are driving home and Mykenzie is talking about how Kaylee needs to go to a horse academy. She said that is Kaylee's talent but she hasn't figured out hers yet, maybe it is being a vet or maybe a rock star, if not she would just not have a job and she would just knit all day like me. I said "that is not what I do all day" So she said ok, well watch tv and eat health bars and go to the gym. I think you need to go to the gym a little more often" Lovely.

So then Kaylee was in the bathroom complaining about a stand I just bought and put in there. She said she didn't have enough room cause it is in the middle of the floor. I told her I had enough room and I am bigger than she is. So then she says, yeah your bigger than me and you have a bigger a pointed to my stomach.

I swear my kids are so sweet ;)

What? A new post?

If you actually still ever visit my blog you will be happy to know that I am actually still alive and well. Not doing so well on the blog updates. I just spent two hours typing up some updates so if you are interested keep scrolling down and see what has been happening in our lives. Facebook is great cause you can keep up with friends with just a few sentences while blogging takes a bit more effort. I plan to do better at posting on here. I really love having this record of our lives and I think it is really cool that when my kids are older they will be able to look back on this and see what our lives were like during these years. Check back soon cause my blogging days are back :)

Mykenzie update

Mykenzie has some big news. After 10 long months she is now braces free! She got her braces off and she is so thrilled about it. Her teeth look so good!! I am so glad we got it done while she was so young. Fingers crossed they stay this way and she wont have to do it again. Dr. Jones said she has a 50/50 shot so here's hoping. It is so weird to see her with them off, even a month later. She is such a pretty little girl and now she has a beautiful smile to go with it.

I had a parent teacher conference with Mykenzie's teacher last week and got her report card. She is doing great and her teacher had great things to say about her. She got straight A's. She continues to love to read which I am still super excited about. She always has at least one book with her now.

She is getting older now and with that comes some preteen drama. Oh geeze what a pain in my butt! Listening to her drama stresses me out! This is the hard part of parenting that people don't tell you about. The bigger they get the bigger their problems... Girls are so darn mean to each other and she is right along with them being mean. I don't want her to be like how I was growing up... I wish I could get her to change her attitude about things before it is too late... just keep trying I guess. She is a really good kid but there is one girl she doesn't like and she is CONSTANTLY talking about how much she doesn't like her. We have had a lot of talks, maybe one day it will sink in.

Mykenzie is changing so much physically it is scary. She is truly a 'tween and will be a full on teenager faster than it seems should be possible. Lord help me please.... Better call for that refill ;)

Kaylee update....

Not sure what the last things I have updated about Kaylee... Well she was one of the lucky kids who contracted H1N1, luckily she didn't get a bad case of it and was totally better in just a couple of days.

A couple of weeks ago she got to go on her first bus ride for a school field trip. They had done a bus safety thing a few days prior so the kids would know how to behave and what to do in case of an emergency. On the way to school that morning I was going over bus rules with her. We talked about being careful on the big steps getting on and off the bus. She told me that you only get on the bus on the steps but you get off the bus in the back! lol Apparently the bus safety class confused her, glad we had that talk and she didn't go busting about the back door.

We had girl scout camp in October. Back to Camp Sycamore which is my favorite. They have a 48 horses and the girls got to do an age appropriate horse program. Kaylee got to do Pony Ready, where they learned how to groom the horse, including putting bows in their hair, and they also got to lead the horse around the rink. She was in hog heaven, first of all just being at girl scout camp after so many years of watching Mykenzie go without her but getting to have her first time combined with her favorite thing... ponies! Just the best time ever for my sweet little girl.

Last week I had her first parent teacher conference and got her very first report card. She did great and her teacher had nothing but good things to say about her. She has mastered everything they have learned, though she still needs to work on holding her scissors correctly, I can't even describe the strange way in which she holds them, but she gets things cut. Its crazy looking though.

She has also started to read! She is doing really well with this and loves reading her books she brings home. Not so much practicing her sight words but she is doing good despite not wanting to do it. She loves to do her books though and reads them each at least ten times. She is very proud of herself too.

She is doing great overall and has also learned how to use the computer on her own and loves playing games online now. She is getting so grown up and she has gotten a bit taller since her last visit to the doctor as well. Sniff.

My Update

I have so much to update on here it is insane! I totally suck and haven't been blogging (obviously) much lately. Life has been good, nothing to complain about. We have all been really busy with everything in life. School has been a bit crazy for me lately. Had a lot going on and the second I thought I could catch my breath it got crazy again. English has calmed down but the other 2 classes have picked up. Today was a particularly stressful day at school and I was feeling very overwhelmed. Now that I have had some time to relax a bit I am feeling better about it but I have a lot of work to do. Monday was registration for spring classes and I got up bright and early to sign up. I had had had to get into Anatomy and Physiology this spring and there is only 1 class available for 24 students, thank God I got into it, otherwise it would have been impossible for me to get into the nursing program in the fall. Next semester is going to be hard.

Moving on, In October I took my first solo flight. No I didn't get my pilots license in all my free time I just simply flew without anyone I knew. I went to Ohio to spend a few days with Aimee (my sister) and my niece Abby and the brand new sweet baby girl Brielle! I loved every second that I was there with them. I had such a great time just hanging out with Aimee and cudd

ling my sweet nieces. Brielle is just the sweetest little cuddle bug ever. I hate that I live so far away and those girls don't get to know me and their cousins like I want them too.

The first weekend in November Chandra and I joined my theater class at TPAC to see the Broadway production of The Little House on the Prairie. I had never read the books and had maybe only seen a couple episodes of the show a very long time ago. I had no real interest in seeing it but had to for the class. I loved it! I now want to watch all the episodes of the show and read the books to my girls (shh they are getting them for Christmas) I laughed out loud and cried, which I never expected to do. Watching the relationship between the girls made me really think about my sister and I and more so, my girls and their relationship with each other. Anyhow, It was really good and if you have the opportunity to see it I would recommend that you do. After the show we went with my crazy pushy teacher (Dr. Adams) to the doors on the side of the building that the cast exits from and we got to chat with several of the play's stars and get autographs and photos with them, including Melissa Gilbert who played Ma in the play. It was a really cool experience. Chandra has the photos so I can't share right now.

I have some big decisions to make concerning girl scouts. Lets just say my decision could determine if this is the last year for the troop or not. I am completely torn and have no idea what I am going to do.

My moms group had a craft day at my house this past Saturday and it was fabulous! I loved learning new techniques all while hanging out with a group of women I love. Bonus, I now have 10 awesome gifts for Christmas that are all unique and special :) Crafting is way too much fun! Anyone with awesome craft blogs they want to share with me pass them along cause I want to see them :) Photos or our craft day crafts will be coming soon. I have to take them first ;)

That pretty much wraps up my personal life. Now to do the kids posts :)

School and life in general

It has been awhile since I have updated what is going on in our house. Basically we have been to busy for me to even think about this blog.

Where should I start, lets go with my school business. I turned in my first major grade English paper last week. It was due on Wednesday and I could not be happier that it is over with. Of course we have already begun our second so the process begins again. Won't have the grade back until the end of October. I had the entire thing written and had it in my 3-5 page limit and then realized it needed to be double spaced! Grr! That brought it to 9 pages so I ended up picking a whole new topic and rewriting the entire thing. Hopefully I get a good grade, though I don't know why I wouldn't, I did the assignment I was supposed to do.

Ahh, Speech class is next. NOT FUN! I really enjoy chatting with the other students in this class and we have all bonded over our hatred of public speaking but the public speaking of the class sucks. We had to get up and talk, just off the cuff. Tell a little about ourselves. I was a bumbling idiot! Seriously, it was terrible. Luckily when I actually had to do my real speech for a grade I redeemed myself and did pretty good. I was still a nervous wreck but at least I knew what I wanted to say and had spent a LOT of time practicing it. I finally got that grade back last week and ended up with a 48 out of a possible 50 points. That makes me happy but I am a little (ok a lot) pissy about what I got marked off for. She tried to say that I didn't preview the body of my speech in my intro and I SO DID!! She read my manuscript prior to the speech and wrote and I quote "excellent intro" on it. I said the intro WORD FOR WORD and she said I didn't preview the body? WTF? Anyhow, I am trying to just be happy I did well and forget about that but like I said I am quite pissy about it.

I have no clue how I am doing in my theater class. My teacher (also my speech teacher) is a total scatterbrain. We have turned in 3 things, very small minor things, for a grade but who knows if we will ever find out how we did. If I had to guess I would say I am currently holding out at an A. However, we had to do a character analysis on the musical Showboat and I don't think I formatted it correctly so who knows how much she will deduct for that crap. But really how can you tell someone to write a character analysis and not tell them how to do it (we have never done that) or what you expect. Seriously she is nuts. I am going to be pissed if I don't do well cause I have a lunatic for a teacher.

Moving on. Mykenzie had to do her first report last week. She had to do a one page report on Native American Nancy Ward. She also had to complete a poster with pictures and facts, and do an oral presentation. She was not allowed to read her report out loud, she just had to get up with her poster and talk. She had to present it on Friday and brought her grade home the same day. She ended up with a 35 out of 35 possible points on the report, 35 out of 35 possible points for her poster, and 28 out of 30 possible points for her oral presentation. So her total score was 98 out of 100 possible points. She was so nervous to get up and speak in front of her class and I am so proud of her that she pulled it together and did well.

Now I will update on the freaking Swine Flu, oh sorry I mean H1N1... whatever. Kaylee ended up sick last week, on Sept 25th. She had a temp of 102 that didn't come down with tylenol. Travis took her to the doctor (Kenzie and I were at our Girl Scouts garage sale) on Saturday (the first time he has ever taken either of our kids to the doctor, btw) Even though her fever had broke in the middle of the night and she seemed ok, she tested positive for type A flu. Grr. Luckily the fever stayed away and she was able to go to school on Monday (or I would have been screwed since I had to turn in my rough draft and T had to go out of town). Also take note that this occurred exactly one week after she received her flu shot. Fast forward to yesterday, October 3, and now Mykenzie gets a 102 fever. Luckily I had extra of the Tami flu (long story) from Kaylee cause that crap cost $85! so she has been taking that and so far has been fever free since last night. Hopefully that continues cause once again I have class tomorrow and need her to go to ESP (the girl are on fall break so they have to go to the extended stay program at school)

Lets see. Beyond that I have had a ton of stuff going on with girl scouts and putting together the yard sale we had last weekend. So glad that is over but we leave for camp on Friday so there is no rest cause now I have to figure out what the crap we are going to do while there. We are doing the horse program again. Mykenzie gets to ride cause she is a junior this year so that will be really cool. Kaylee gets to brush and learn about horse safety. They are both really excited though Kaylee wishes she could ride too. I let her ride the pony's at the school's fall festival the 24th though so that was nice. The child loves horses and that was the first time she had ever been on one or touched a real one!! She was over the moon!

Aimee had her baby on the 30th!!! Brielle Raylin (that would be my middle name, Rae and Aimee's middle name, Lynn combine, aww. How sweet is that?) She is such a sweetie! And a chub! She weighed in at 8lbs 15oz and that was 2 weeks early. They are home now and my mom was able to be up there with her for the week though I assume she is leaving today or tomorrow. I am going up to see her on the 14th. I can't wait. I will only be there for a few days but I am so excited to go see them all. I will be flying for the first time in 4 years and the first time ever by myself. The way there is a straight shot but I have a layover on my return flight. Fingers crossed.

Ooh! We FINALLY got a family picture taken!! Shocking right? The last professional family picture was taken 9 years ago when Mykenzie was exactly 1 month old. Yep. That is sad people. You have to wait to see them though, well unless you are Travis' facebook friend cause he put them on there. I want people to wait till Christmas cause uh, heck yeah that will be Christmas gifts for people :) If you read this and want one, LMK what size ;)

I think that is all the major time consuming things going on. Though there have been plenty of smaller things for sure, baby showers, picnics, my car dying. Not that they were small things, just smaller less time consuming things that have been going on.

strange

I have been thinking a lot about Jenna lately. I imagine it mostly has to do with the fact that Mykenzie just spent the night with her kids (and Mark and Kara) and while we were out there dropping them off Barbara and I stopped and visited Jenna's grave and I made a fall flower arrangement that we put on it. Fall was her favorite time of year and she always got so excited about all the upcoming fall festivities.

In my english class at school I have to write a narrative essay, so a story with a point. We had no notice and had to start writing in class on Monday and so I started to write about Jenna's story and was recounting the day she found out she had leukemia.... I was reading over what I had written so far in class tonight and realized that I should probably fill in my blank I left in the opening line of my essay....."I got the phone call that I had been dreading on ________. " I couldn't recall the exact date, so I came here to my trusty blog to find out. You want to know the date that it was.... September 15, three years ago to the day that she found out that she had cancer. Wow. So yeah, I had to write about it and share it with someone. I thought it was strange that I picked the exact day that it happened to look up the date. I bet I don't forget it again.

Lots of Changes

Both big and small changes are happening in our home currently... I am officially in school. My first day was Monday and I go back tomorrow. People keep asking how it was and I don't really know what to say other than school is school. It is something that I have to do so I am going to get it done. I don't think it will be as bad as I thought however I am still nervous and I am still a bit freaked about having to do speeches. I think that the next 15 weeks are going to fly by though as well.

Now for some of the changes you can actually see. I mentioned in my last post I was in the middle of moving things around in my kitchen closets... Well after a LOT of hard work I did it. It is done and it is dang cute if I do say so myself. Most importantly though it is such a WONDERFUL use of space!

This is my small closet sized pantry before the redo....

And now it is a coat closet.....
This is my closet before (ish) I forgot to take a photo with all the crap in here. Picture one of those ugly wire shelves with all those coats (plus several more that got moved to the yard sale) with a bunch of crap piled on top of the shelf and a ton of craft stuff, playdoh ect all over the floor of it. You can see where I had to re-mud and tape and deal with electrical in this photo though.
And now...

Tuesday Twelve

1. I am in full on project mode. So far this week, I have changed my pantry into a coat closet, painted the door from my garage to my house, and painted my shutters.

2. I taped and mudded dry wall joints for the first time. My old closet, new pantry had the surprise of the current stuff coming down so painting on there is on hold till it is successfully fixed. Another surprise in there ended up being the stupid box from our security system that is no longer hooked up. Fun stuff. It isn't there any more ;)

3. I dropped about $400 last week on book and already got them. The classes don't look too bad but still eh.

4. In less than one week I will be a college student for the first time in my life after leaving high school 11 years ago. I will no longer have to check the box on things that say "level of education" as just having a high school diploma ever again. I have moved onto "some college"

5. Both girls have colds :( Hopefully they stay colds and don't develop into anything else. That would be just our luck that they get sick my first day of school and have to miss school. That is not a situation I want to deal with at this point.

6. My sister finally has her c-section scheduled I learned via facebook since she doesn't have a phone right now. September 30th my new sweet baby niece will be here!!

7. I am working on figuring out how to get up to Ohio in October to see the new baby. I am thinking I can leave the night after my last mid-term and head that way for about 4.5 days.

8. I am having a garage sale on Friday. Apparently after sitting on my butt all last week, I decided it would be a great idea to cram as much as possible into this week. Wish me luck cause I have some serious lofty ambitions this week.

9. The girls are both enjoying school this year!! I had both of their room meetings on Thursday and I have got to say I really like both of their teachers alot. I think this is going to be a good year for them.

10.Travis picked up a second district. joy. That means, oh yes folks, TRAVEL. This equals good times for me. ugh

11. I joined my moms groups biggest loser contest. I don't think I have lost any weight this week but I am getting back into exercising. This is good since like I said in a previous post I have gained 12 pounds this summer! yuck!

12. Girl Scouts is back in session. We had our first meeting last Monday. I have 1 new girl as a brownie which puts me at 4 girls. I am really excited about having only a few girls this year and getting to do more with them. I had 11 last year!!! This is going to be a cake walk!