Personal Update

Okay,....I've had a few people email me to let me know that I haven't updated my blog.."since the summer". That's not quite true but I guess it kinda is. I feel like I've been really busy but I'm not sure what it is that I've been busy with...When I try to think about it I'm not coming up with much but work.

This pic is from our annual Halloween party at Harrison Lake. Mikayla dressed up as an iPod but is missing most of her costume here so I had to add the pic below. Her and I made the costume the night before the party.

I'm still working at T-Mobile in Toledo. When I left Sprint and took this job I swore to myself that it would only be very temporary. I figured maybe 6 months to give the real estate market time to turn around and get us a guaranteed paycheck and insurance for a while. Well, the real estate market hasn't improved much and now it's over a year later and I'm still at T-Mobile.

One of the benefits at T-Mobile is college tuition reimbersement so I'm finally taking advantage of that and studying business at the University of Toledo. I transferred all my credits over from the University of Michigan and Waubonsee in Chicago and I'm going to finish my Bachelors degree.

Funny how many of the credits at U of M aren't going to count since I got C-'s or worse in the classes so UT won't accept them. A couple classes on the transcripts from U of M had "E" as a grade. The UT advisor asked "what is an E?" I said "I don't know" even though I did. So she contacted U of M for them to tell her an "E" at U of M is the same as an "F" everywhere else. I wonder how I could have possibly gotten some of these grades while I was in Ann Arbor! ;) Seems like it should be somebody else's transcripts (must have gotten mixed up in the Registrar's office or something) Yes, GO BLUE!

I think we start college too young before we really know enough about life and I think a lot of students, like myself, were just too young to appreciate being there. I would love to be able to go back and do it over. A lot of what would have been considered mistakes that I have made I would never change. However I would change my priorities around and spend more time studying and make that time and all that money count toward something. I appreciate all the friends that I made, especially the ones that would stay up all night bringing me coffee and making sure I stayed awake and helping me cram for exams the next day that I wasn't never ready for and sometimes slept through! I guess that happened a few too many times since I didn't know how to prioritize or budget my time. Lets just say, I would put in a lot more effort this time.

So once all my credits were transferred they made me a sophmore at UT. After 3 yrs at U of M and a couple semesters at Waubonsee. Thats a lot of time and money for not a lot of credit! So I'm just finishing my "Managing in a Global Economy" class and starting in January I'm taking Financial Accounting, Business Principals and Technical Report Writing. So we'll see how well I can handle 3 classes while still working full time! When I told Tom what I was taking he said "good luck with that". I don't think he thinks I can handle it. I think I'll be okay, that is until I have to fill the Calculus requirements. I don't think I can pass the basic Algebra test so I'll be taking a couple years of elementary Algebra before I can even get into the classes I need.

Still spending time Geocaching www.geocaching.com. I have over 200 finds now and can't wait to make it to 1000. It's very addicting. Makes me wish we lived out west like some of you lucky people. I think the caches there are much more challenging from what I've read, due to the terrain. Maybe someday we can afford to take a vacation out west and find some caches in the mountains. It would be nice to log some with a terrain rating higher than 3! Halloween was our 6th anniversary (Tom and I), not married yet but 6 years together. I got him 11 gifts/cards and set up a geocaching type hunt. He had to start with coordinates in the 1st card and use the GPSr find each one in turn and they were scattered all over Toledo all the way down to Maumee. It was an interesting way to spend the day. I think we might do it for the kids birthdays in the future.

The kids are doing well. Joe did cross country and Mikayla is still in gymnastics. They actually clean up pretty well. This is them making chocolate truffles one night. They tasted a lot better than they looked! ;) Well, this has already gotten to be a lot longer than I anticipated so I will continue another day.