what a relief!

Here's the post that I promised to write when I announced that I was FINALLY finished with school. I started graduate school at RTS in August 2006...right after getting my BS in Psychology from MC. Kevin and I had only been married a few weeks when I started the Marriage and Family Therapy program. The first semester was really hard and I thought about quitting before the semester was over. I was incredibly stressed out and felt like I was taking some of that stress out on Kevin (which wasn't fair). We talked about it a lot and I definitely felt like I was supposed to get the degree, so I decided to stick with it.

In February of the next semester, we found out I was pregnant with Mattie Leigh...something we weren't expecting but were thrilled about at the same time. Again, there was a thought of quitting school but we decided that I needed to follow through with what I thought I was supposed to be doing. Mattie Leigh was born October 5, 2007...I took a full class load (minus a seminar class) that semester but only saw clients through mid-September and didn't start seeing them again until January. That decision set me back a good bit in the clinic. Added to that was the decision to not have a full client load after I started back in the clinic so that I could be there to keep Mattie Leigh on a fairly consistent routine. I knew that would mean at least one extra semester if not two before I was able to get my client hours.

I didn't realize that I would have even more trouble than that getting my client hours...I had a lot of inconsistent clients and clients that just wouldn't come. Added to that, there weren't a whole lot of clients that were able to come at the times that I was able to be in the clinic. Because of that, the extra semester or two turned into almost two full extra years of just trying to get client hours.

During those two years, I hated having to leave Mattie Leigh, especially when she was having really hard times with separation anxiety. There were times that she cried until she made herself sick because she wanted me and only me. It was so hard to not cancel everything I was supposed to be doing and just sit and hold her.

When I found out I was pregnant with Allie Grace, I talked to my professors to see what could be done to get me finished with my hours as soon as possible. We thought I'd be able to finish in just a few months. That few months turned into 8 months. I'm so thankful that they allowed me some special privileges in finishing so that I would be able to finish before Allie Grace is born.

Needless to say, I've had lots of highs and lows while trying to get my master's degree. I am so very glad to be done. Now I'll be able to focus on being a mom for a while before I try to get licensed and start working.

yummy pancakes

Last time we went to my parents' house, my mom made fabulous homemade pancakes. Mattie Leigh liked them so much that she cleaned her plate (a rare thing for her), so I asked my mom for the recipe. She didn't have one...she just added self-rising flour, milk, vanilla, eggs, sugar, and oil until "it looked right." I decided that I was going to work with the ingredients until I got a recipe. I tried a couple different times before today and they weren't quite right. I decided this morning that I had to have pancakes and was going to get the recipe right. I did and thought I'd share it with all of you.

2 1/4 cups self-rising flour

1 1/2 cups milk

2 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1-2 teaspoons vanilla

1 egg

Preheat an electric skillet to 350 and just before you're ready to pour the batter, let butter melt onto the skillet. At this point, the recipe works just like any other pancake recipe. You can add any fruit or other favorite ingredient into the batter.

cleaning frenzy

I'm not completely sure where the sudden energy has come from, but I've had tons of it since I finished my client hours on Monday. I didn't get to do much around the house Tuesday because I had a doctor's appointment and then ran our tax stuff by so they could start working on it before our appointment next Tuesday. Yesterday, I got all our clothes washed and dried, dishes done, all of Mattie Leigh's toys picked up and the floor swept before I got tired and decided to call it quits for the day. Today, I managed to fold the mountain of clothes in our office/spare bedroom that had been accumulating for months. I also got them put away (finally). Then, I cleaned off the table (it gets piled with stuff when I don't have a lot of time to organize and put away). I rested a while, cooked supper, played with Mattie Leigh, and then cleaned out and organized cabinets in the bathroom and cleaned as much as I could in there. My plans for tomorrow (and the next couple of weeks) include getting the dishes done and organizing cabinets in the kitchen, sorting through the rest of Mattie Leigh's clothes that are too small and getting them put away (and taking the unwanted/unneeded ones to goodwill), and organizing things better in our bedroom. I need to go through Mattie Leigh's toys and get rid of some of them too because she has WAY too many. After that, I may tackle the closet in our office that has been being used as a place to store stuff we don't know what to do with. I'm not sure if it's nesting or if I am just relieved to not have to go to school anymore...either way, I'm getting tons done. It feels REALLY good to finally be making headway on things that have been driving me nuts at home for months.

FINALLY!

I finally finished with my client hours for school yesterday. As soon as a missing grade gets posted and the MFT department finalizes everything with the registrar, I'll hopefully be getting a diploma in the mail. I'll try to post more later on how much this means to me...right now, I'm really tired and am going to bed.

really?!?!

I just spent several hours going over our checking account transactions for the last year. The balance I had was way different than the banks and I was trying to find the discrepancy. After going through each deposit/debit for the year, I learned that I wasn't doing a great job of balancing in the first place...I sometimes forget to deduct items that come out automatically and don't always double-check to make sure I have every receipt from Kevin. I also learned that I apparently have horrible simple math skills and made addition/subtraction errors. All this to say, I'm going to be watching our money like a hawk from now on and will be double-checking my math. Hopefully, we won't ever have this problem again.