The end of an era

SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED SINCE I LAST WROTE.

There’s a lot to be said, and a lot to be covered, but I just wanted to post this: 

It’s officially official. 

I received my BSN diploma back in December when I finished classes.

I’ve been pinned.

I’ve walked.

I’ve received the official university-diploma-holder-thing.

And I have a multitude of photos to prove it…

I am FINALLY officially done with undergrad round 2. 

Congrats to the class of 2014!

Future Nurses of America :)

Nearly Halfway to the End!

Not much to report as of late other than the fact that it's been a month since I last wrote which means that I must be busy…

…which is very much true. 

I'm in the home stretch of finishing up this first half of the semester (!) which means I'm that much closer to being completely done with undergrad round two! There is still a boatload of things that lie between me and that wonderful, blessed, hard-earned Bachelor's of Science in Nursing degree, but at least it's very much on the horizon and within sight. 

Things like this help the time pass and remind me to keep going:

Husband brought this beautiful surprise home for me today after he got done with a shadowing experience and then took me for a coffee date to catch up (talking face-to-face for more than just a 5-minute span of time!) and do some non-academic pleasure reading for nearly two hours. 

It was absolutely glorious. 

The only reason this wonderful expanse of time together was possible was due to the fact that he just took an exam yesterday and hasn't been slammed with too much work yet. I'm not complaining at all, though - I will take whatever time I can get my hands on these days! 

This coming Friday marks the beginning of a fantastic thing at my school called Fall Break, during which students are free from classes starting on Friday evening through Wednesday morning of the following week. I'm planning on doing lots of sleeping in, wearing my pajamas all day, baking, brunching with friends, and of course working ahead on school stuff so I don't have an anxiety attack due to overwhelming stress in the coming weeks as I start my NIGHT-SHIFT internship. 

Aaaaand on that note, I shall leave you with this:

Quarter Life Crisis

source

(totally not my cake but it does look pretty delish…)

I've officially entered my mid-20s, which puts me one step closer to being 50.

(Thanks, Husband, for informing me of this as soon as I woke up this morning)

Although he made up for it with a lovely breakfast in bed:

(obviously I chowed down as soon as it was in front of me…those cheesy eggs and buttered toast sure were scrumptious)

Yesterday (Saturday) we walked to and late-lunched (3pm) at one of my favorite restaurants in our city and splurged on a tasty scallion-cream cheese-butternut squash-caramelized onion-pastry appetizer, gigantic sandwiches (tuna pasta salad sandwich - what the carb?), and seasoned warm potatoes AND topped it off with the most delicious carrot cake to go (which we enjoyed later that evening with cold glasses of milk and an episode of our latest Netflix find). 

Today (Sunday) we headed out in the morning to try a new church in the area, Tropical Smoothie for a free (!) Kiwi Quencher (my fave, btw), World Market for a little shopping spree courtesy of Husband, homeworking at home (major womp womp…had to happen at some point), froyo with my side of the family, and a nice long walk with Hobbes. 

All in all, a wonderfully relaxing way to spend my birthday weekend. 

PLUS, my main birthday present from Husband was a ticket for a front row center seat to see my favorite musical artist perform live later in October. Cannot even handle my excitement!

I'll leave you with this very precious photo of my nephew trying to steal some froyo: 

The determination! 

Now if only I could channel some of that to finish up the rest of this studying / homework I've neglected all weekend long... 

Oh, and what's my quarter life crisis, you may ask?

Nursing school. 

So Hobbes had two accidents today...

Hobbes is soooo pouty.

"Oh, I didn't mean to piddle on the carpet twice. But I do make the best pouty faces, don't I?" 

Yes, Hobbes. Yes you do. 


----------

ALSO, this is how I feel these days:

source

Tennessee is too far away.

Yesterday I was able to visit with my dearest friend from college, Andrea. She lives in a far, faraway land (Tennessee) working and going to school (read: is super busy) but her parents conveniently have a house in our city and she has family living on the other side of our state so she comes back often to visit and I get to reap the benefits of being around and close enough to snatch up some of her visiting time. 

Because I had spent all day Saturday at the lake (and doing no studying or homework whatsoever), I had planned on Sunday being my catch-up day. Fortunately, I was able to sneak away from my books and laptop for a while to head over to Andrea's parents' house. Ironically, Andrea's parents hadn't flown in yet but I was able to spend time with Andrea, her sister and brother-in-law, and their cute patoot little boy Elliott and huge fluffy dog Daphne. I brought Hobbes along since he's still so small and easily portable (not to mention Andrea requested it, anyway). He loved all the attention, romping around the backyard area with Daphne, and of course licking up any and all crumbs knocked over from Elliott's high chair from their kitchen floor. 

Here's too much cuteness rolled into one photo that Andrea's sister managed to capture:

Look at the size comparison! Elliott wasn't too sure what to think of jumpy, licky, hyper little Hobbes, but he eventually warmed up and even petted his back a few times in the end. It was super cute to watch them crawl around on the floor with each other. 

I love that I have friends that span across the country so I have the ability to visit and explore other cities / states but man, I really miss having them closer around. It was so nice to just sit and catch up with Andrea. You know those friends who just get you? And no matter how much time passes between phone conversations or hangouts it's like you just pick right back up from where you left off? 

And the ones who back in undergrad would go out and buy a matching pool float device so you could go water running together without shame? 

…

Yeah, that's me and Andrea.  

Hello again...and Labor Day Legacy continues...

I know I know I know.

Documentation of this summer was at an absolute ZERO on the priority list. Therefore, hardly much of anything was put down in writing and I know I'm going to completely regret it years from now when I want to look back and remember what the heck we did with Husband's very last summer of freedom. He did a much better job keeping up over the past couple of months between talking about 4th of July, bringing Hobbes home, Hobbes having worms (GROSS), and his weird GI hospitalization BUT we both glossed over writing about camping with friends (thankfully Jamie wrote a post), Husband going out to Maryland to visit his niece, and taking a spontaneous road trip to Colorado to finish up the summer scratch that. He wrote a post HERE chock full of photos from the road trip! 

But.

BUT!

School is now officially back in session and you know what that means - routine.

And we all know I thrive on routine. 

In fact, I think I've written before about how bad I am with keeping up with blogging when I have free time and strangely conversely do pretty well when I'm tackling a big schedule of things lined up. I'm fairly certain that just confirms my alleged type A personality. 

Anyway.

I figured Labor Day weekend would be a good way to ease back into the blogging bug, considering I am now in my 8th year of the "Labor Day Legacy" - meaning, I won't have Labor Day (tomorrow) off for the 8th year in a row. Yowza. 

Thankfully the start of the school year hasn't been too painful. Over the summer I adjusted my sleep schedule to include earlier bedtimes to evoke earlier waking times. Although the majority of my classes don't even start until noon, I'm hoping that getting up earlier and exercising will motivate me to start studying and homeworking in the mornings rather than feeling rushed later in the evenings and nights. While the classes themselves are going to be the most difficult I've encountered yet in nursing, for the first time in my seven (!) years of undergrad, I will not be working while in school. I think having only school to focus on will help me feel less anxious about having enough time to fit everything in and get it all done. I'm so thankful to not have to work!

Yesterday, in celebration of it being the first weekend of the school year (i.e. no copious amounts of studying/homeworking to do), I was able to go over to a friend's house for a lovely day on the lake. We ate to our heart's content, floated on a tube with sangria in hand for a couple of hours, rode the jet ski until our bodies were sore and heads were spinning, watched our puppies play together, got cozy for a night in of Great Gatsby, and had wonderful conversation throughout the entire day.  She snapped a shot of Hobbes on the deck behaving himself (and looking so much older!): 

Today it's back to reality and getting my behind in gear for this week. Husband sadly stayed home yesterday to work on school stuff (his second year of med school is now a week underway, too) and today we are both sitting in our study room chained to laptops and books (and iPad, in his case). Coffee pot is full for endless supply, Hobbes has multiple toys to keep him occupied, and we are ready.

So.

Yeah.

Here's to the start of my LAST (…and most challenging…) semester of nursing school!

Wish me luck.

"Hobbes Sleeps"

Welcome home, Hobbes! 

Last week Saturday, we made the one-hour drive to the breeder's home and picked up the fluffiest, fattest, most roly-poly pup of the litter. Seriously, this dude was definitely bigger than the rest of his siblings. While he was "last choice" of the males (there were only two and the people before us in the picking line chose the other boy), it didn't make any difference to us because we absolutely loved him as soon as he was in my arms. 

Husband wrote a whole post with photos HERE on his blog. 

As far as how the past five days acclimating to his new home have gone, Hobbes has been doing extremely well. He is starting to like his food (and therefore totally chows down when a bowl is set in front of him), is drinking water like a boss, hasn't had any accidents in the house (…yet…), and is getting more rambunctious and playful each day. 

I've started an album on my phone entitled, "Hobbes Sleeps" to document the strange contortions he molds himself into each time he naps. A few whole bunch of my favorites include:

Day 1: Sleeping during the car ride home (as you can see I'm mildly excited)

Day 1: Asleep on my in-laws' porch during his 1st visit

Day 1: So tired he fell asleep with his head wedged between his feeding tray and water bowl

Day 1: Fell asleep on me while we watched HIMYM

Day 1: Needed some alone time and obviously fell asleep

Day 2: Snoozing while shopping at Chow Hound

Day 2: A favorite sleeping position = on his back

Day 3: Not sleeping, but getting tired outside during a short walk. Look at the size comparison - the hydrant looks gigantic!

Day 3: Another "too tired to eat" shot 

Day  4: Appropriate namesake photo

Day 4: He looks like he's trying to escape from his crate but really he's just so tired he doesn't even care where his limbs are or what they're doing

I'm so happy we got this little bundle of fluff. While we enjoy the puppy phase immensely for the sheer cuteness factor, both Husband and I are looking forward to when he's more trainable and able to obey commands…and let's be honest - in control of his bowels, because running outside hoping he won't poo or pee inside really makes me anxious. 

Welcome to our little family, Hobster Lobster :)