Time to Start Planning for the Holidays??

It doesn't seem like it's been a month since I last posted, but timestamps don't lie. I completed my last assignment for my last class and my two week break flew by, and I already submitted my first assignment for my current class yesterday. It is basically a repeat assignment, so I just modified my last paper. Technically I am not supposed to do that, but since this is my dissertation topic, it's difficult to write a brand new paper. I think my next assignment is a PowerPoint that I have to present to my professor orally. I am not looking forward to that. I hate oral presentations. But I will do what I have to do. This class ends right at the end of the year, which means I'll have submitted my last assignment right before we take our cruise on January 2^nd.

I can't believe that the holidays are right around the corner. I need to figure out what I am going to do for Thanksgiving. Since we are vegetarian/vegan, a traditional turkey is not on the menu. I was looking to buy a tofurky, but by the time I had it shipped to me, it would have cost nearly $100, so I will have to start looking around on the internet to see what other vegans do for Thanksgiving. I know there are a lot of options. I haven't even started thinking about Christmas yet. I think part of the reason for that is because it just doesn't feel like winter is coming. Right now it is 72° and I have my back door open, while it snowed in Omaha last night. Everything is still green and flowery, which is not very Christmasy. I'm not complaining, though. I do not miss the snow and cold at all!! At any rate, though, I probably ought to start planning when I'll put my tree up and where I will put it. The spot I had it in last year is unavailable this year, so I might just put it out on my screened in porch. I won't really be able to see it out there, though, so I don't know...

April and I are taking a mother/daughter trip to New Orleans on Friday. We will leave early on Friday, spend Friday night and come home late on Saturday. So far all we have planned is a trip to a body piercing shop and a ghost tour. I'm not super excited about the tour, but April enjoys things like that, so I'll go for her. When we were in Omaha in July, we went to the piercing shop we used to go to when we lived there. It is an Association of Professional Piercers (APP) member shop, which means they use specific cleaning methods that help prevent infection in new piercings. I got my nose and helix pierced, and April got two dermal piercing on her chest. APP members are tough to find. The nearest one to where I love now is in Slidell, Louisiana, and I was going to make a trip there just to get pierced, but then I decided that a trip to NO with April might be fun, and there are two APP member shops there. I made an appointment at the one that seems the least scary, lol. I am planning to get my left daith and tragus pierced and April wants a faux industrial. I'll post pictures below.

The first one is what April wants to get done, and second picture shows what I eventually want my left ear to look like. I already have two lobe piercings and the helix. I probably won't do the third lobe, but I do like the two forward helix piercings, so I may do that in a year after the daith and tragus heal up really well. I'd also like to get a rook piercing on my right ear, so that ear will look something like this when I am finished:

I already have the conch piercing, which is the hoop right above the lobe piercings. I've had it done for nearly 9 years and I love it. I am going to get a prettier hoop or a stud put in it when I go to the piercer. I have a plain silver one like in the picture, and I am ready for something nicer. Good jewelry is expensive, but since it's well healed and I will likely wear the new jewelry forever, I don't mind spending a bit for it. Merry Christmas (and happy birthday) to me!

Well, that is about all for now. I hope you all have a great week!

A Long Overdue Update

I am very sorry for my lack of updates. I have come here several times and started writing, but my heart just hasn't been into blogging. I haven't felt like myself for awhile. Quitting my job was much harder on me than I thought it would be. I have felt depressed and just blah. I actually asked Dan what he would think about me going back to work if/when there is an opening, and he said I need to do what makes me happy. I worried that he'd get on my case because he would be stuck at home all day with the three birds I brought home, but since they all get along so well and are relatively independent, he is ok with it. He said he is glad I was here to get them adjusted. Well, of course this is all contingent on Wendy hiring me back, so I texted her to express my interest, and I got no reply, so I fretted for days and worried that she was not interested in having me come back. However, a couple of weeks ago I went up to CSU to have lunch with Billie, and afterward, she invited me to come up and say hello to my old coworkers, so I ended up staying an extra hour and a half making the rounds. Wendy wanted to see me before I left, so I stopped into her office, and she told me she would hire me back once a position opened. I was SOOOOO happy! If I had known how much I would miss working there, I never would have resigned. It would have been difficult to get everything done for my oral exam, but I would have found a way to do it. Anyway, it's hard to say when someone will move on, so I will just be patient until it happens.

Speaking of my oral exam, I took it on Wednesday at noon and I was finished by 12:30. I passed with flying colors, according to my professor. I was so stressed out, but she and Dr. Wesolek, the other examiner, went pretty easy on me. They asked me about my study and how I plan to carry it out. I assume that since I was able to respond to all of their questions easily, they decided not to ask the basic questions. My guess is that they assumed that I was well prepared for anything they could throw at me. I am just so extremely happy to have that roadblock behind me. I have one more assignment to submit for this class and then I have two weeks off. I think a trip to the beach is in order for Sunday.

On another note, my flock is complete and has been for awhile. Phoenix (not Harley, it just wouldn't stick) came home on August 23^rd and Jack came home four days later, so they have both been here for an entire month already. It worked out well, because it took Rio a few hours to warm up to Phoenix, but when we brought Jack home, because he'd already had his world rocked, he wasn't phased, and Phoenix, being so new, wasn't phased either. They have become very good friends over the past several weeks, and they are all sharing a sleeping cage now. Things really went so much better than I could have hoped they would.

Well, I should press the post button before I end up back here in two weeks revising this blog post yet again. Now that I have the stress of my oral exam behind me, I should be able to focus on other things. The next step in my doctoral journey is writing my prospectus. That will occur in my next (and last) class. After that class, I am on to my dissertation classes. My journey should be over in less than a year, although they have me scheduled for another year's worth of classes. I am hoping to have my dissertation completed by next June, but I guess I'll have to wait and see how quickly they are willing to let me progress.

Harley (Phoenix) is Home!

So, Phoenix came home on Friday, and today we decided to change his name to Harley. Dan was having a hard time remembering Phoenix, and honestly, I had to think about it more than I should have. Now I will have to see if Harley sticks. He is a sweet heart! He came right out of his carrier and almost immediately acted like he's been here forever. Rio was not super fond of him the first night, but we got home kind of late and it was Rio's bedtime, so I put them to bed and the next morning, they hit it off immediately. Last night I put them in the same cage and they did great. Today they were together almost all day, preening and playing together, so I think it is safe to say that they are going to be BFFs. They are biological brothers, after all, so I really wasn't worried, but I am happy that it was such an easy transition.

I got an email last Tuesday saying that my blue crown conure is ready to come home. After I got the updated pictures, I decided that I want to change his name, too, lol. He just doesn't look like an Indie to me, so I am going to call him Jack. That name has always been on my list, so I am excited to finally use it. He is scheduled to come home on Tuesday of this week, so I am going to be busy. Dan actually shocked me tonight and told me that he thinks we should get another blue crown since Jack will be a fifth wheel. The breeder I got Rio and Harley from also breeds blue crows and thinks she will have some this winter, and I am already on her wait list, so when she has a boy available, I will snag one up from her. She does a great job with her babies.

I spent a good chunk of the weekend with April, which was really nice. Since I don't see her every day at work anymore, I have to make more of an effort to get together with her. On Friday I went to CSU and donated blood with her. CSU sponsors blood drives about three times a year, and I try to give most of the time. After we donated, we went back to her apartment for lunch and ate chili. Then after we got Harley home on Friday night and settled into his cage, Dan and I went to her apartment and had dinner with her and Landon. Actually, we ate junk food, but it was fun. Last night I invited her over for pizza and she and I went to Office Depot on the way to pick the pizza up. I will see her in the morning, too, because I have to drop her off at work. Landon had to borrow her car to take to Pensacola to take a test because his car is leaking oil. I am so thankful that God gave me a daughter and that we are as close as we are.

Well, that is about all the excitement I can think of at the moment. I took a benadryl because my allergies have been crazy all day, so I think I am going to crawl into bed and play on my iPad before I fall asleep. I hope you all have a great week ahead.

Long Overdue Update

I am sorry it's been so long since I updated. I have just felt kind of icky lately. My first excuse for not updating was that I had to finish my previous classes and then I was out of town for a week visiting my mom. After I came back I finished up my work days, and that is when things got really funky. I took three days off my last week to be with Rio because Dan was out of town, and I really enjoyed those days at home. I cleaned and hung out with Rio and thought that adjusting to now working was going to be a breeze. I found out on my last Friday that it was not going to be that easy. I cried most of the day, most of that evening, all weekend, and then up through Wednesday of this week. I felt a bit useless and depressed. I missed getting up in the morning and having a purpose. I missed seeing April every day. I missed helping students. I was a mess. On Wednesday I met my Success Center team for lunch and I told Wendy, the director of the SC, that I would love to do my job part time, and she told me that she might be able to make that happen. I have my doubts, but it made me feel better to hear her say that the door was not shut and that maybe one day I would be able to go back to work there. I think that as time goes on I will get accustomed to being home and will not want to work in an office setting any more. I already feel better.

Phoenix is ready to come home. I am just waiting for a decent day to fly him in. It has been really hot here. Yesterday the forecast said that Monday's high is only supposed to be 84°, but today they bumped it up to 89°. I asked his breeder about shipping him on Monday, but she never got back to me and now I'll probably need to wait anyway, although it will not cool down substantially for at least a month, so we will need to find a day in the not-too-distant future. This is the newest picture I have of him. He looks a lot like Rio did at that age. Rio's cheeks are getting much more orange/red now. He is a beautiful boy.

I also have another surprise. I put a deposit down on a baby blue crown conure. I have wanted one since I first saw the movie Paulie years ago, but at that time I thought having a bigger and louder conure would never happen. Now that I have a bigger and louder conure, and since I will be home again, I figured, why not? Phoenix was hatched on May 28^th and Indigo was hatched on June 13^th, so Indie is just a couple of weeks behind Phoenix and should be home in the next couple of weeks. I hope that being about the same age and coming from environments where they hang around with other birds will help to ensure that they get along with each other. Rio might have a harder time since he's been alone for awhile, but since he's so laid back, I am sure he will adjust pretty quickly, especially to another sun.

Other than all that, I have been working on my second-to-last class of my doctoral degree. I have to pass an oral exam before I can move on to my last class, which means I need to be adept at explaining statistical tests, research methods, and theory. I have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks, but I think I will be ready. After I pass my next class, I will be ABD (all but dissertation) and I am hoping to be finished with everything by next June. It helps to have a PhD sitting five feet away from me! And on that note, I should go and start working on the assignment I have due on Monday so I can do some house cleaning a bit later. Have a wonderful Saturday!