Long time no blog

I haven't written for awhile so I'll try to bring you up to speed.

Aug 8-12ish:
Roadtrip with Bethany. The roadtrip was great and some of my highlights were Savannah, fried pickles in Nashville, and the Twins winning the game we attended.

Saw my family for the first time in months which was amazing! Also met my fur-nephew (aka my brother's dog) Dierks who is horribly cute:)

Aug 15:
Moved back to Madison and into my new apartment. It's really small, but it's all mine and I really like it. It's a mess still as I'm trying to figure out how to best make use of the space and decorate it. My pictures are strewn all around the floor.

Since then I've been enjoying being back in Madison and minus an internet connection (thus the lack of blogging). I have another week before school starts and the craziness begins.
I'll try to blog more about the roadtrip and life as a Madisonian later.

Now it's time to say goodbye

I'm officially done with clinic: my clock hours are signed, their evaluation/grade report is in, and I am out-processed by the Charlie Norwood VAMC. It's a bit bittersweet as I've grown to love the clinic and the my supervisors and other students, but I'm excited to see Bethany (she gets here in less than 10 hours!) and my family soon:)

The roadtrip starts tomorrow and here's the basic itinerary:

Sat: Savannah

Sun: Nashville

Mon: Belle Meade Plantation (outside of Nashville)
St. Louis

Tues: Hannibal, MO (Mark Twain museum)
Ackley, IA (to see my Aunt T and pick up my quilt)
Humboldt, IA (HOME!)

Wed: Okoboji
Minneapolis -- TWINS GAME and to take Bethany home

Thurs: Home again:)

I'm free----free fallin' (lame I know)

Ready to fly. I don't look scared at all.

Free-fallin'!

More free-fallin'

Coming in for landing with my awesome pink parachute.

A successful skydive:)

These are just a few of the pics that were taken (there's about 150 on the CD they gave me) plus I have video of the jump too if anyone ever wants to see it.

Not much longer now

I have 10 days left until I'm finished with my clinic placement here in Augusta. It seems like I just moved down here. Besides that realization, this morning has been pretty great. I got a call from Miss McKenzie Messmann (I was her family's counselor at Okoboji for 4 years and now babysit her and her brother in MoHo). It made my morning.
Besides being almost finished with clinic, I'm almost done with my summer courses. I have a paper to write for my (stupid) hearing conservation course and I'm done with that course once I turn the paper in. The medical issues course has been a breeze and not stressful at all. Just a few more discussions to add my 2 cents.
Wish me good luck writing!

Oh what a beautiful morning

Thus far today has been an amazing day and for no particular reason. I stayed up a bit late last night, but slept amazingly and did not set an alarm. I work up feeling refreshed and not rushed. I took some time and went to the grocery store (one of my favorite errands, weird I know) and afterwards went to Smoothie King. As much as I love Saturday morning Farmer's Market in Madison, I'm going to miss my Augusta routine.

Although I have 2 Saturdays left (time has flown!) down south I'm not going to be in Augusta. Next weekend I'm going up to visit my cousin Jeff and his family near Fayetteville, NC and then next weekend Bethany will be here:) I think the plan is to go visit Savannah.

Frustrated

Usually Wednesdays are my day of relaxation as it's a day off of clinic. Today has been completely frustrating for two things.

1. I saw this hateful video on youtube from Westboro Church (the one that's well known for picketing GLBTA events and such) where they sing this song called "God hates the world" It made me so sad that these people feel the need to take a great song (We are the world) and turn it into hateful propaganda. I'm ashamed to call myself a Christian as these people also associate themselves with that name. If you want to view the hate here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsipv1jTQC8

2. $ sucks! After having to obtain a personal loan in order to travel down to GA (I couldn't take out a student loan because when I traveled down here wasn't during a session I was enrolled in). That $ is now gone because of random expenses that have cropped up like fixing my phone and computer, and buying a book for a summer class that I hadn't planned on buying at all. I now have no $ to get back to IA/WI with or pay my rent (both in GA and WI for August). I had to apply for a GradPLUS loan (one that can be consolidated with my Staffords and has low interest) and it's held up and I may not even get it in time to get back. For some reason my application was picked for manual review and now I have to fax my driver's lisence and Social Security card (real safe right?) so that it can be fully processed:( Idk what I'll do if I have to stay here longer. I'm just trying to be a financially responsible person, but I keep having these major set-backs. Please pray for my financial situation as I'm not asking for a handout!

Compy dramz

I've taken a noticeable absence from my blog, it wasn't intended. Last week my laptop screen stopped working. Turns out I had a cracked LCD screen :( I called HP to see if it was still in warranty ----nope only 2 days earlier the warranty lapsed. To send it to them to fix would cost $400+ and we all know I can't afford that. Luckily I got a recommendation for a repair shop here in Augusta and they were able to fix it a lot cheaper! PTL! The only problem was that it took about a week to fix it and in the mean time I still had to work on my classes. What a mess! I finally got the compy back on Wednesday night and I'm happy again.