Yummy dinner

So last night I made dinner other than Mac & Cheese and I was really proud of myself. It wasn't hard to any extent, but I was still none the less proud. Hopefully I'll be cooking more in the future.

A suprise in the mail

When I got home last night there was something sticking out of my mail slot in my door. I couldn't figure out what it could be. When I pulled it out of the door I knew what it was. My diploma!!! I was already an official graduate, but having possession of that with my name on it was surreal.


The cover


It's still really cool to say that I have a college degree. It felt like the time would never come.

Gigantor bone

On Saturday my Mom and Grandma made a trip to the IFA and brought bandit a special treat. This bone is gigantic and and first Bandit was a little scared of it. After she'd circled it a few times and it didn't move, she decided it was safe to consume. She's slowly working on chewing down the knots on the ends. I think this bone will be around for a while.

This is a side view of it.


She was really anxious to get it.


Circling and occasionally taking a taste.


After eating most of the good stuff off of it, she picked it up and moved with it.


She wanted up on the couch and had to get a running jump to get up there with the bone.



UPDATE: This bone was consumed down to two pieces about 6 inches long which B has now decided are fun to drop from the bed or toss up and run after.....it's cute, but it's damaging my bamboo wood floors.

A new beginning

In 6 months from today my best friend will get married...and I will cry through the whole thing because I'm a boob, haha. After 18 years of talking about getting married and wondering what it will be like, the time has come for one of us. I'm feeling sentimental today and really looking forward to the big day and I wanted to share it with everyone else. So to my best friend now and on the day, I'm so excited for you and glad you finally found someone who makes you so entirely happy.

I love you Riss~

To whom it may concern, or whoever reads this...

As many of you know Bandit is my baby. I don't have human kids, I have four legged ones. So a majority of my posts and pictures will include her. This is fair warning for any of you who don't care what she did that I think is funny and worth sharing. No complaining allowed.

This past December 2009, I was lucky enough to buy my own place. It's a cute little two bedroom, two bathroom condo with an awesome backyard for Miss B (Bandit). I was really excited because I got a great deal on it and an awesome interest rate thanks to my incredible loan officer. We actually found the place back in August and put in an offer and started the process, but due to school and financial aid issues and an extremely picky underwriter at the mortgage company, I didn't close until the week before Christmas. It was such a long process, but it all worked out in the end and I got a new house for Christmas.

Here are some pictures of the place before I moved in and I'm working on decorating and will get pictures of what it looks like now up soon. These are in a really random order since this thing won't work with me, sorry.


Laundry room, I was lucky enough to get them with the house so I didn't have to buy them or go to my mom's.


Second bathroom

Second bedroom

One view of the backyard

Another view (and Bandit exploring it for the first time)


My bathroom


One view of my bedroom


Another view of my bedroom (it's an L shape)

Kitchen from one end


Kitchen from the other end


My little tiny living room that barely fits my couch




So that's it, it's small but we love it. I had a friend of mine move in with me at the end of February so it's not so empty now. New pictures soon, I hope!

School Again

Back in December I finally finished all of my classes and now have a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice. It's been such a long journey for me since I started college right out of high school, occasionally taking semesters off. In 2006 I started at University of Phoenix. I've really liked this University because it was a slower pace than I was used to. After 3 long years there I finally finished and decided to go back for my Master's degree in Counseling, Mental Health. I had a little prompting on this from my mom and a friend, Stephanie, I had throughout my entire criminal justice program. Steph and I made an agreement that we would continue together, neither of us wanted to do it alone.

After many issues regarding my financial aid and my graduation status, we were able to attend orientation to get us prepared for our first class. Orientation scared the crap out of me. I didn't realize how intense this new program is going to be. Our first class is what is called a Portfolio course. This is a pass or fail class mainly dependent on writing and interaction skills. In order to begin the new program they have to make sure we're at a graduate level of writing and able to interact well with other people. That's not what worries me, it's the writing aspect that worries me. I've always felt that my writing skills aren't the greatest, but I've been told they aren't as bad as I assume they are. So with Steph's help I'm trying to be confident that I will do well enough and pass the portfolio class so we can begin our 3 year program. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm really ready for it and know I'll be happy when it's over.