Two years gone by......

When Dan passed away I made few long term goals. One was to go back to school, after being home for a year to help us find our new normal. So off to the local community college I went. My goal was to get my AA and all my dental hygiene pre-recs done.

Turns out this was easier said than done. You see the only school I could apply at was EWU because I was not willing to relocate my family for college. EWU is one of the best schools in the nation for dental hygiene and also one of the hardest to get into. Ugh.

All they require is an AA plus 11 other classes, 20 hours of volunteer work in a dental office and not allowing your GPA to drop below an A.

To accomplish this I took 20 credits a quarter and took classes through the summer.

They get approx. 500 applications a year. From that they deduct for too low of grades in selected individual classes and then deduct from too low of a GPA. Ya know the A minuses from the A pluses.

That leaves them with 56 people they will interview. It is a four hour interview process with a critical thinking exam.

From there they choose 36. We have to wait for 3 weeks.......

Today I cringed as I checked my email after school. I had to wait until after school because I had an exam today and I did not want the bad news of not getting accepted to ruin my ability to concentrate.

I GOT IN!! I am official.

I start in the fall. Three more years left of school. WOOO WHOOO!!

Name brand vs store brand

I am all for being thrifty, some may even call me cheap.

I shop store brand whenever I can even if it means giving up on quality such as bread, hot dogs, and sliced cheese.

But there are some things that I, Miss Cheapie Pants, cannot compromise on.

First being.....

Cheerios. Quite possibly the perfect food.

 Western Family peanut butter is very hard and tends to tear the bread. When we could finally afford to buy Jif I remember Dan and I opening the jar and taking in a big whiff of the "fresh roasted peanut" smell. Just like on the commercial.

 Store brand is just not a cheesy. It has a grainy, gritty texture.

 The texture is just not quite right. Nillas are crunchy but still have a bit of softness and denseness to their cookie. Perfect with a glass of cold milk.

 The store brand of Velveeta lacks the signature Velveeta flavor and the pasta is just mush by the time it is done cooking.

 We have used Flavor Aid, the generic version of kool-aid. This did not end well. It just floats at the top of the pitcher in a light fluffy foam. Sorta creepy looking.

 You just don't mess with Oreos. EVER! Unless it is a double stuf-oreo, that's okay. But Vanilla oreos?? Not gonna fly here.

That is all. Have a good day.