Sugar Crash

Harry Potter inspires amazing treats.

Grad class and Elizabeth

So my first grad class is going pretty well. It is definitely reaffirming my career choice. I really enjoy learning things that aren't purely academic, but that I can apply in my actual job. We'll see how I feel when I am taking two classes, recruiting, and working in the fall.

I have a new niece in my family. This makes 5 nieces and nephews, 3 born in June. Apparently September is fertile month. I'll keep that in mind when we are ready to start a family. I am definitely looking forward to adding to our family, there is plenty we would like to do first. Finish our graduate degrees. Travel. Make some updates to the house. Go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida. You know, important things.

Summer time....

Tomorrow I start my first grad class, but today is Memorial day, the unofficial start to summer and it's raining. I am quite excited for the barbecue because it may be one of my favorite food groups. What? You say that's not a food group? Screw you and your limited point of view. Meat, cheese, and bread. Yes!

Lately I have been very much in love with my house. When it is clean. And the yard is nice. There are a few projects we are hoping to get done this summer. The big ones include: Getting rid of the rocks and paving the driveway. Putting down weed matting. Paint the family room. Open the pool. I am hoping at least all of those things get done, if the smaller things on my list don't get done, I would be excited to have these complete.

I really should be cleaning up and getting ready for our barbecue, but I think I will look at the dresses on Modcloth instead.

Student Status

It's official, or I guess it was official before, but now it's student ID official. I am a grad student. I went down to Stony Brook with my husband to get my ID and find where the best parking for my summer class is. Turns out it is in the middle of campus in a faculty lot that is only effective 9am-4pm. And since my class doesn't begin until 5:30, that works out quite well for me. Parking is very important to me. The campus is huge and they are doing construction in a bunch of places. Now I have my ID (yea, SBU library! I'm looking at you!) and I know where my class is. I have my books, a notebook, and pens. And I have no idea what the program is going to be like since it doesn't even officially begin until the Fall. The past spring semester and this summer semester are kind of early preview semesters. Brand new program, mostly same old me. I am very interested to see how much of my mind I lose taking grad classes, working full time, and working on the house. I hope it will help that the hubby is working on his Masters as well. We can be study buddies... just studying different things. This fall I will be taking a course that's on campus and one online. This will be my first online class ever. I am a bit nervous as the reason why I'm usually a good student is my not taking ability and structure that the class gives me. I'd rather listen and take notes than read any day. I am interested and nervous to see how it goes. Maybe I will make Gordon read me the things I need to learn. He's got nothing going on, right? Oh crap, that' right, his Masters.. how selfish of him.

Happy new dryer day!

Happy new dryer day!

We got a new dryer today! Installed it ourselves and everything. I am very excited about the steam setting! No more ironing that I wasn't doing anyway! This was an awesome gift from my mom.

This is what excites me. Also the hope that the driveway will get paved this summer. A girl can dream.

Green Thumb

Today was week two of attempting a garden. This time we're hoping Benny doesn't dig everything up. We bought flowers, grass seed, we mowed, weeded (kind of, as least as much as I could before I got too pissed at the universe for even allowing weeds to exist), and planted flowers where there was once a really nasty pond. It feels like this is really our house this year. We have all our rooms filled with furniture and some of it we actually purchased! We are setting up desks and getting ready to really bunker down on our respective Masters. Today I got my college ruled notebook, so I am reeeeeally ready for grad school. It's yellow!

Damn it, Benny just started digging the backyard up again. Guess he's going into his crate again.

Not-a-Mother's Day

Wow it's been a month since I last posted??

Anyway, Happy Mother's Day to all the awesome and mediocre moms out there! I have been having a lot of dreams over the past few months that I have either been pregnant or had a child. It is very strange. I thought maybe I could be ready, but I really want to get through my Master's first if possible, before I break down and give into my maternal instincts, filling our rooms with babies. Just two. I would love girls because I grew up with four sisters, but I am sure a gay boy would be just fine too. Just kidding, I don't have any control over that... yet. One of my oddly favorite things to do is bother my husband with what we should name out baby we're not even trying to have yet. Usually it falls to girls names since he turns down every single boys name I like! And every once in a while we will agree on a girls name and then I will bring up the same name a couple weeks or months later and he decides he doesn't like it anymore. The one we have in mind now is keeping strong, but only time will tell.

I have a slight obsession with having a unique name for our kids since I grew up with a very very common name and there was always 1-2 other girls with the same name in my class since kindergarten. And they will have a rocking last name that is fairly hard to turn into the name of a female pain reliever, so that's a positive.

I have to say, I have some great people who know how to rear a child in my life to help me learn how I want to raise my kids. (ha ha... rear a child... ok I am so not ready for kids yet.) My sister Meghan and Gordon's sister Kateri do a great job and combine affection and discipline in a very respectable way. One of the things I worry about is going back to work full time. It seems like somehow more women I know are going the part time or stay at home route, rather than going back to work. I don't know what will happen in the next two years, but I have the "I can do it all" mentality that I can go back to work after having a baby. Yes, it will be expensive and I will have mental problems because I will be going through separation anxiety everyday, but I am getting my masters and trying to work my way up in higher ed that I want to give my family everything I can, do something I love, and still be there for the babies.

Now I am off to the in-laws for breakfast. And my renewed fears about future motherhood can keep my head spinning as I eat pancakes.