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.

This little piggy went to school.....

I have spent the last six months doing bad things to a piglet, taking pictures of it, and then posting them on the internet. Not just a few pictures mind you, but hundreds of them. 

I am waiting for the Feds to come arrest me at this point. 

 The picture above features the five lobes of the lungs. Pretty, huh?

 Here we are looking at the urogenital tract pf a female piglet.

And as I am sure you have guessed by now, this is the intestinal messentary. ( bright pink tissue connecting the small intestines) 

The good news is I made it through A & P I, II and III in six months. 

I am not out of the woods yet, I get a few months off then I am headed to A & P IV, the neck and up. 

I have three more classes, spring quarter, and I will have my associates and all my prerequisites done. I have my interview for the program on April 6th. It will be four hours long with an exam to follow. 

School and kids activity took away any kind of spare time. Ike advanced to the rank of Life scout and is in free style wrestling and loving it. Daniel just passed his Eagle board of review so in a few months (  it takes a while for all the paperwork to get signed by all the right people) we will plan his Eagle Court of Honor. Jacob, Maria, and Anna (health permitting) are signed up for soccer this spring. They need another volunteer coach and I am debating. I don't want them to not have a team because they did not have enough coaches. 

Still working with the 8 yr old boys as their Den Mother. 

Ben is working at the new Walmart in the grocery. They treat him pretty good there. He gets Sunday's off and anytime he requests a day off they are good about giving it to him. He misses me, I have been here, but not here. Usually with my nose buried in a text book for hours on end.

Well that is about it.

Only two weeks to go...

As we enter into the final stages of finals I am happy to announce the arrival of the first zit of the season. Its a beaut too.

Three more weeks...

Three more weeks left of this hellish quarter and then a well earned break. Have stories to share and blogs to post. Keep tuned......

When did booger change?

I was muttering to myself, as I often do, how much my nutrition class is a buggar to take.

Issac asked, "Wait, does booger mean bad? Because when I was younger booger meant something that was really good."

Oh Isaac.......

Math genius

Okay, now I have only have gotten up to finite math in school so this math equation made no sense to me. Maybe you can solve it for me, because I am quite baffled.

My son, no names given, was not able to see the answer to this problem as well until the principal kindly pointed it out. The answer is suspension. Luckily only for 2 days.

We feel this scared him enough that we foresee at least three weeks with out any trouble out of him.