So little to do, so much time... wait, reverse that...

I think this recurring hiatus is why I stopped blogging a while back. I have all sorts of ideas of things that I want to write about, but I don't usually have time to write anything while I am at work (nor should I really be spending my work time updating my blog anyway), and once I get home, I just want to veg and not do anything.

I will try to do better than a once-a-month update, but in my defense, February was a short month!

Since I haven't updated everyone on the status of my 101 things in 1001 days, here it is:

#2: Seeing as how February is the month for at least one date, I can check this one off my list. For Valentine's day, we actually celebrated mostly on the 13th. Jared picked me up from work, we went out to dinner, then got some yummy gelato at Sugarland and then went to see the planetarium show at the Morehead. It was pretty cool. On the actual Valentine's day, Jared worked until the afternoon, so I went out to brunch and a movie with some of my friends from work, and then came home to make Jared and I a tasty dinner.

#10: We got together for dinner with my cousin and her husband who live nearby, and my other cousin and her kids who were down visiting for the week! I really like living close to family. This weekend I am heading to PA for another cousin's wedding and am driving up there with my aunt and uncle who live about an hour from us. It should be some great family fun.

#15: This one maybe shouldn't have even ended up on the list because I talk to my parents fairly often. Oh well, I still like being able to make that check mark!

#16: I didn't call my brother in January or February, but I did give him a call the other day. Since he isn't exactly a wordsmith, our conversation was short, but we at least got to talk a bit.

#17: I sent a birthday card to one of my co-workers from BGSU. (I sent it to her office at work... hopefully she got it!)

#72: Pay off credit card -- partially. Jared officially paid the last on his credit card on February 27! Now we will double the payments that we have been making on my card and hopefully have it done by the end of the year! After watching "Maxed Out" a few weeks ago, I at least feel really good knowing that we are far below the national average of credit card debt for our household.

#96: Get a live plant for my office -- DONE! Thanks to the generosity of one of my co-workers, I inherited a zebra plant that is doing quite well in my window. I probably need to re-pot it and give its long branches some support, but I will get there.

This last one is probably the most exciting:

#79: Find a house to rent -- DONE! We will be moving out of our apartment in July and into a cute 2-story 2 bedroom house. We signed a lease for two years, so we won't have to move again for a while after moving in. After that two years is up, who knows what we will be doing, but at least we have a roof over our heads for a few more years!

The requisite year end review

Here we are, sitting at the end of another year in my life. I have encountered blessings beyond belief and trials to make me realize how blessed I really am. Because I have no other creative way to give the run-down, chronologically it is.

January: We rang in the New Year's at Derek's house with a little too much alcohol and cocktail shrimp. The first month was full of lots of weekends spent traveling to Toledo and the surrounding area for speech tournaments with my hubby and some cool high school kids. My last semester of grad school started and I limited my commute to BG by setting up a practicum at ONU once a week. Jared, Derek, and I continued to do our weekly WOW (worship on Wednesday) service at the church in LaRue, despite waning attendance. I served as the New Attendees meeting coordinator for the annual OCPA conference in my hometown and got to meet some new student affairsy types.

February: More speech tournaments, more WOW services, more snow, more preparation for BG's Alternative Spring Break to NC (of all places!). As far as I can remember, nothing too exciting happened in February.

March: March marked the month that I began seriously applying for jobs. My resume had been written, reviewed, revised, rewritten, printed, and PDFed. I started with a position that looked okay, but really wasn't what I was looking for/qualified for and was promptly rejected. It was a feeling I would learn to hate over the next few months. I traveled to NC with 42 BG students and 3 grad students for a few days of hard work and relationship building. I am proud to say that the SheetrockStarz completed almost an entire house in the 3 days we were weilding hammers. Two of the speech boys qualified for the national tournament, which meant that we would be going to the Entertainment Capitol of the World in June! I attended a conference in Atlanta at the end of the month where I interviewed for some jobs and was "professionally developed". My birthday came and went and then my first nephew was born! On top of it all, I was still doing the grad school thing and the dreaded comps were right around the corner.

(March aparently was a busy month!)

April: The first weekend of April I spent in a computer lab, writing and writing and writing as much as I could think of for my comprehensive exams. As has been usual for me throughout my education, I was one of the first finished, which always makes me a little nervous. But, despite only studying for about 10 hours total (while some of my classmates studied for months), I passed with flying colors. Thank goodness! Now back to the job search... which was picking up significantly. Phone interviews either yielded on-campus interviews or rejections. My credit card bill still bears the mark of the on-campus interviews. I was offered my first job, but it wasn't the right fit at all, so I politely declined (which I think they saw coming). Forge ahead to...

May: Graduation! Quickly overshadowed by the fact that we had a plane to catch at 6:00 a.m. the next morning to fly to the Emerald City for a mini-vacation and job interview. We both loved the area and long to get back there someday, either for vacation or work. We'll see how that works out. Regardless, it was a great way to celebrate finishing my master's degree! A week after that fabulous trip, I flew to Long Island for another interview. Jared's job for the following year had been elimiated in a RIF, along with our friend Derek's, so we spent a lot of time just waiting to see where life would take us.

June: And we survived year one of marriage! We spent a (very hot) week in Las Vegas vacationing and being speech "parents" to the boys. They were cheated out of another round of competition (in our humble opinions) and were disappointed to find that their speech from last year advanced much farther than they had, but we had a great time. Derek happend to be there at the same time that we were, so we met up with him, too. I still didn't have a job by the time we returned, so I went back to work with the I CAN Center a couple days a week. If nothing else, that job helped me see more of the college campuses in Ohio than I did in living in that state almost my entire life!

July: As far as I can remember, we didn't do anything too exciting for the 4th. I still didn't have a job and that was becoming a tense subject around our house. We ended our WOW service since Derek was leaving for Alaska anyway and we were hopefully moving somewhere else. I led a tribe for VBS to help out a friend and a classmate from AU passed away. I had given up all hope at getting a job and then this happened. The rest is basically history.

August: Jared got my employment for his birthday and we moved to NC. I started a new job and Jared started losing weight (of which I am still jealous) and gained employment.

September, October, November, December: We lived through our first hurricane and only had a blown-in window to show for it. Jared left me to drive to Ohio for Dan and Kim's wedding, OSU lost some football games, UNC won some games. I spent a lot of time at the dog park. Jared worked a lot. I have seen more of my cousins since I moved here than I did while I was in college, which I really enjoy. Liza and I had standing weekly lunch dates, and I introduced Marti to the state farmer's market in Raleigh. My parents came to visit for a weekend. We cooked our first Thanksgiving meal together and drove to Ohio for Christmas. We are still establishing ourselves down here, trying to find things that we like doing and the time to do them.

Which leads us to now. Jared and I met 5 years ago tomorrow and I can't wait to start yet another year with him (even if he will be going to bed early to get up for work at 7 the next morning). I have a stable job, a loving family, and great friends. With all of that, I think I am ready to move forward into 2009.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

Send in the helicopters!

This is an e-mail I received from one of my co-workers. These are real-life parents and their student! (Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Dear (advisor),

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a long talk with Janie over the Thanksgiving break about saying at CH. She said she would consider staying. We don’t think she has really given CH a chance. Can you please email her and set up an advisee appointment with her. I know she values your advice. We are hoping she will at least stay for the spring semester before she makes a decision. I will send you a copy of an email which her father sent to her so you can have a little background. Thank you for all your help. Sincerely,

John and Jane Doe

**********************

Dear Janie ,

We want you to seriously consider your future. When you finish college you will need to get a job or go to graduate school. There is a very clear difference between CH and XYZ University . CH is universally accepted as a far superior school to XYZ . CH is currently ranked 27 best school in the US and the 5 best public University in the US. XYZ does not have a ranking. Employers would hire a CH graduate over a XYZ gradate. The same goes for graduate school. I called both schools to get some basic statistic. The statistics for CH are 28% go graduate school and 67% are employed upon college graduation. CH offers 30,000 internships (internships lead to jobs). CH has 300 study abroad programs in 70 countries. I called XYZ and they were not able to give me these statics. They said they did not have the current numbers. They do offer study abroad programs in 40 countries but they were not sure of how many programs they offer. You only go to College once in your life and were you go to College make a really big difference in your future life. Please do not settle for a third rate education when you can have the best and have a bright future. You want to put yourself in the position to have as many options as possible. Going back to XYZ limits your options.

Sincerely,

Dad and Mother



As a university employee, these are the kinds of parents that drive me crazy! EVEN THOUGH THIS MAY BE A GOOD SCHOOL, IT DOESN'T MEAN THIS IS THE RIGHT PLACE FOR YOUR DAUGHTER! There are all sorts of factors that play into a student being happy at a particular institution, and if the shoe doesn't fit, then don't force it!

I am so grateful that my parents were not like this at all. I do recall a small conversation when I decided to change my major of whether or not I would want to continue at AU, but I said yes and that was the end of the story. Sure, there were probably other places where I could have gotten a "better" education, but I didn't want to go anywhere else. If I would have been unhappy there, I hope that my parents would have been supportive of my transferring to another school. And I certainly hope that when we have kids that we can be okay with our child making his/her own decisions about where he/she goes to college (even if I were working somewhere with dependent education benefits).

To helicopter parents: Let your child live his/her own life! You were allowed to make some of your own choices/mistakes at one point in your life and you lived through it. DO THE SAME FOR YOUR KIDS!