Catching Up/Chasing Time...

Wow...February 1st!!!!

I feel as though I've left you with a two week or more lapse on the happenings of my life. And you know, I'm sitting here now not sure where to go with this post. It has been the most unusual beginning of a semester for me yet at Mount Marty. I spent the majority of the days following my brief post about my grandpa attempting to give my life back some semblance of my crazy normalcy. Essentially, I spent the entire week and following weekend catching up on old and managing new homework. That in turn made the last week of January quite long beings I felt like I never had a weekend because I home-worked straight through it.

The past week seemed doubly long acutally because, once caught up on homework, I still locked myself in my room for nearly the entire week, still working on homework, this time trying to get ahead. You see, I found out I have been nominated as a homecoming royalty candidate for the festivities next week, so I needed to go somewhere this past weekend to find a black dress. It all worked out rather nicely actually. Though exhausting, I worked on homework double time during the week so that I was finished with everything I needed done for Monday before Friday at 2:00 rolled around. At this wondrous time, I departed for Lincoln, NE for a weekend of friends and shopping!!!

It was a super refreshing and much needed weekend in many ways. I saw some great and dearly missed high school friends on Friday night. Saturday morning, we got up and headed to the state capital building to participate in a short pro-life march. I met up with some of my favorite TEC friends there and it was very humbling to see the large crowd and participate in such a powerful and needed and moving event. Many of the state representatives gave brief talks on their support for our cause and they even played the tunnel walk before we took off! :)

All of that marching made me quite hungry, so my friend Jackie and I departed to the mall for some food and shopping. I was fortunate enough to find a dress I am pleased with, so I could relax in the afternoon and browse around for whatever my heart fancied. Surprisingly, we only shopped for a few hours until we were satisfied. I guess we just made quick business of the ordeal.

Saturday night I headed home for perhaps the greatest part of my weekend. I hadn't planned on making the loop through Elgin, but my heart pulled me that way in the end. The ache from the loss of my Grandpa is still pretty raw in my family, so home is where I wanted to be. My parents arrived home from Michigan at roughly the same time as me on Saturday night, so I chatted with them and then curled up on our coach to give myself a headache spawned by complicated genetics problems. On Sunday morning, I drove to my Grandma's very new home in the assisted living center and picked her up for a church and lunch date (Mom made chicken and rice at my special request!!). Later in the afternoon, I brought Grandma back on my way back to Yankton, but before hugging the wonderful lady goodbye, we went shopping together for a bird feeder to liven up the cute little tree outside her new window. We braved the cold together to securely hang it out there. Hopefully a few songbirds come home for spring soon...or perhaps a squirrel or two will find pleasure in the bird seed.

Hmmm....aside from my weekend what's college life like? Well, I will admit without hesitation that I despise my online introduction to sociology course. It's that one general education credit I've put off until the last minute (mostly because it would never fit into my schedule mind you), and now that I'm taking it, it seems like nothing more than a nuisance in my life. Who wants to write a 4 page research-ish paper every week. "NOT ME!!" says Kelly the senior with a slowly developing case of senioritis. Genetics....well, just appreciate that you are your own unique person because of the miracle of genetic diversity. It's probably not worth your brain's relaxation to attempt to decipher the reasons (although it is rather interesting....). Symbol and Sacrament continues to awe and ispire me and it is quickly become one of my favorite classes in all my years here at the Mount. That's enough for class run-down (mostly because I'm sure I've already sufficiently bored you).

On out and about area of my life, I have work at the Clinic tonight and Wednesday on the agenda with intramural basketball immediately following pill counting tonight. WHOOO! I love playing basketball. I miss it quite a lot even after a four year lull actually. AND, the new girl at the pharmacy is currently undergoing her first day of training. It will be fun to meet a new face when I walk through the doors tonight and it also makes me smile because a new body will lighten my workload for the remainder of the school year.

I should be off now. I'm thinking that a game-plan of: weekday afternoons and evenings (early anyway) = homework crunch time is a nice philosophy to keep for a while anyway. Having free weekends is quite lovely, especially if the days are half-stolen by work anyway.

Stay tuned next week for what I'm sure will be a full and lively (as always) recap/run-down of the homecoming festivities.

Happy February!!
(If you made any New Year's resolutions in January that have yet to be put into practice, now's a good time to start...new month! ....Actually, on that note, while in Lincoln, I was informed of a half-marathon run to go down in Lincoln on May 2. Now's a great year to check a top ten item off my bucket list...... :) )