Christmas

So my family came out over Christmas.  It was pretty great.  This blog is going to feature some pictures taken on our fancy new camera!

We had fun just hanging out.

And ate LOTS of cookies.  Seriously.  My mom brought a whole box labeled "cookies."  Fabulous.

And we took fun pictures.

And gave a gift that has a story behind it.  A funny one too.

And ate lots of really good food!

And hung out some more.

I also had a video I was planning to post of me flying while playing wii (better I post myself looking like a dweeb than my mom, right?), but I haven't quite figured out how to post the video yet.  Oh well.  Just trust me- I look super duper silly.  But it's pretty darn fun!



* 'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

Bleh.

I'm having a low self-esteem day. I understand that these days come and go, so I'm sure it won't last too long. However, it's not exactly that fun. It's really frustrating that just about any form of exercise makes my shins hurt. I just have to keep reminding myself that the contestants on The Biggest Loser all go through serious aches and injuries and I'm no different!

Anyway, it's settling in that we are really leaving for vacation in one week. I'm really excited, but I'm also surprising myself with how much I need to do before then. It's kind of nice for someone who doesn't do well staying at home alone (I need to be around people!) to have things to do and a nice vacation in the middle of everything. That'll be really nice. What would be even nicer would be if I would have a job waiting for me when we return. I'll just keep applying and praying!

Leaves

-Jake starts cleaning up right after he finishes eating-

Me: "What are you doing?"

Jake: "What do you mean?"

Me: "You're putting things away. You're never the first one to get up and start putting things away."

Jake: "I know. I'm turning over a new leaf."

Me: "I like the old leaf."

Jake: -Laughs- "Why?"

Me: "Because it included you sitting with me until I was done eating."

I basically just asked my husband to not pick up after dinner. Pretty sure I regretted it right after it happened.

Elizabeth Rohde, M.A.

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to write my excited that I'm done with school blog post, but it has. I'm still excited though. In fact, check out all of the things I was able to cross out on my list for the last couple of weeks of school.

Look at how much of this junk was theology (the above side). Seriously. It'd be cool if we had more of our homework spread out throughout the semester!

I'm not going to lie- crossing things off of this list was one of the coolest things ever. Doesn't it just seem fun just looking at it? Ah, I think I'm reliving it.

So anyway, I'm done with school! And I have a M.A. behind my name now. Fun stuff. I've been passing everything lately which has been fun. I passed my comprehensive exams, I finished my internship, I just found out that I passed my NCE (National Counselor Exam) and did fairly well (I was SO excited that I answered every question right in the development section- pretty sure that topic has influenced my counseling of children more than any other) and I graduated from school. I'm also tutoring a couple of people, which is fun.

Now I just need to get a real job. So far I've applied to 13 jobs and I've only really wanted 3 of them- one of which is the only job I have officially received a denial letter from. I just applied to one today that I think would be fantastic, but it's only a 4 month position.

Anyway, I'm done. Whoot!

I should be a detective

Because Jake and I were confused about who someone was, and I found a heck of a lot of information about who they were. I found out their full name, a photo, where they live and what church they go to. That's impressive.

Still don't know who they are though.

(I'm going to blog pretty soon about being done with school. It's getting a bit ridiculous- it's been almost a full week since I finished and I still haven't written it yet. Yeah, whoops.)

**Fun fact: A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

Boom baby

I was right; this week's update makes me feel way better because I finished a bunch of stuff! The following is the remainder of the things I need to do in the next 9 days.

1 medium paper (6 pages)

2 finals

689 pages to read

Best part about today: I turned in ALL of my internship documents. My internship has been quite the ride with all of the changes and paperwork that has been involved. I still have this week left of internship, but not much! Hopefully my intake tomorrow won't prove to be as complicated as I think it's going to be.

I'm also going to be proposing this week that both of my internships think about hiring me part-time, one of them especially. If you think about it, please be praying for me and these conversations because they are likely my best chances at getting a job quickly. Thanks! I'm SO close!

Control

So I'm having serious control issues today. I was getting really frustrated with discrepancies with money, and I caught myself muttering "Why can't I control anything?!" That was when it was pretty obvious that it is going to be one of those days.

What do I do when I have one of those days? Find something I can control.

So I did.

Turns out I could control some issues with our rent (this was actually different than the other money discrepancy mentioned above). I realized that our statement this month was way higher than it should have been, and wanted to know why. I called our apartment office, and the woman gave me the numbers since our rent was prorated this month (we renewed our lease and the amount went up partway through the month). Basically she told me after we were both doing calculation that I should just call back on Monday and talk with someone else about specific numbers. I agreed, but then messed around more to figure out what happened.

I did it. I figured out that the dude prorated the later amount in the month to be what our month-to-month amount would be if we didn't renew our lease. Except we did renew our lease, so we shouldn't get that ridiculous amount. Ta da. Now I can call on Monday and say "I figured out how you screwed up, so give me $57.96 back." That will of course be translated to be a bit more appropriate.

So, all-in-all, I'm glad I found something to control. Hopefully I will be much nicer to my husband the rest of the day now. I haven't exactly been the nicest person this morning (ok, that's making me sound better than I have been!) and he deserves better. Sorry bout that! I'll do better now.

I'll also run the dishwasher later if I need something else to control. I've found that works beautifully.

*I've decided to post completely useless facts on the end of my posts for a while. Here's the first:

**A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.