Merry Christmas!

Twas the night before Christmas Eve and all through the house,
Janey was scurrying like a little mouse...
There was last minute baking to do
And gifts still to wrap- more than a few!

I thought I would take a break from my holiday preparations to wish all of you Saints, Saints Fans and monks a very Merry Christmas!

Tomorrow starts the real holiday festivities. I think that I will be both staying up late tonight and rising early in the morning to get everything done beforehand. The precious memories that we will walk away with will make it all worth it though! Yes- I'm a sap! Anyway- wishing you all a very happy holiday!

Drumroll please...

Okay- they grades are in and my gpa for my first semester back is a 3.67. I'm a little disappointed in the grade that I earned in one class...but that's disappointment in myself not the teacher; I knew that I was going to walk out of it with the grade that I received. I actually think that all of my teachers were very fair in their grading and gave students the benefit of the doubt with their final grades. Like I said, this is my first semester back in college so I am taking it as a learning experience on how to study.

Next semester should be interesting as I am taking 18 credits. Right now my schedule sits as:
Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Spanish 102, Intro to Poetry, Intro to Philosophy (a requirement) and Intro to Fiction.
Tuesday/Thursday: Advanced Journalism (yeah!) and Intro to Education

Gee- Can you tell I plan on being an English teacher???

My Baby Girl is Growing Up!

My baby girl turned 6 yesterday!!! I can't believe how quickly she is growing up! I also can't believe that I have been doing the single mom thing for 4 years now, but she received a special birthday phone call from her daddy in Iraq...he's not normally part of her life, so it was nice that he took the time to call.

We celebrated her birthday special, too. On Saturday, we had a party at McDonald's with her school friends and yesterday, after church, we drove out to my sister's house for a family party. My little girl is so spoiled (in a good way) and I don't know where I am going to put all of these toys! (Okay, part of why she is spoiled is because I won't let her birthday get passed over since it is exactly a week before Christmas.)

My Winter Break Goals...

Since we all know that New Year's resolutions never work, I decided to make up a couple of goals for over the break:

1. Start caring more about how I look- not to become totally high maintenance or anything, but I've become a little lax and usually just pull my hair up into a pony-tail.
2. Get back in shape- I may have returned to college as a sophomore (and a 1/2), but I gained the "Freshman 10". If you haven't heard that expression, then go check out any movie set at into a college scene...it is saying that girls usually gain 10 pounds their first year at college.
3. Reorganize my apartment- I used to be pretty organized before I went back to school, but lately my filing system has turned into throwing any papers that I don't want to deal with into a box. I'm thinking those old Math papers will make a good starter for my fireplace (no offense Dr. Mohler, but since I'm not a Math major, I don't need them anymore).
4. Redecorate my daughter's room- which means a trip to IKEA- yeah! That is the world's greatest store for college students or those on a college student's budget!
5. Spend quality time with my little girl including a couple of day trips!

One thing that I wanted to do, but it's not going to happen this year, was go up to Canada to join the Polar Bear Club on New Year's Day. It's on my "To Do" list, but not for this year.

Finally Done with Finals!!!

I just wanted to post an apology for not updating this week, but I was busy concentrating on the end of the semester. I am happy to announce that I am done with the semester. It is kind of a bitter/sweet moment. I am happy to be done with classes- especially the finals aspect, but being that it is my first semester back, it feels sad being done with it and I'm going to miss the friends that I made this semester.

I will be sure to keep my blog up-to-date with my life over the Winter break. As for now, I'm going to go celebrate the fact that I don't have homework tonight!

A Balancing Act

As we go into finals, I'm being asked daily, "How do you do it? How do you balance it all?" While some days it looks and seems very easy, other days are a fine tuned balancing act- like the performer who has 10 plates spinning at the perfect speed so that none of them slows down and crashes. I will admit that I am way over-committed between my school work, my part-time work, my school activities, volunteering at my daughter's school, my church activities and most importantly- being a mother, but I seem to make it work and so far nothing has crashed. My secret? There's really no secret to it- setting my priorities, marking them in my day-planner and being willing to sacrifice a little.

My biggest priorities right now are making sure that my daughter doesn't feel like she's having to sacrifice while I'm in college and making sure that I get good grades. The first way that I do that is making sure that everything has a time- nope, my life is not scheduled to the minute but I do keep a good mental list of what I need to accomplish each day. I make sure that every day has one on one time with my daughter and during the time that can't be one on one, I at least try to include her. If there is homework that I can do on the couch, then I will let her snuggle up to me and watch t.v. while I do homework- that way she doesn't feel like she is missing out on mommy time. I also try to attend activities where I can bring her with me. The most important thing is that I try to find some special time for us out of the house. On Saturday, we went to see the Nutcracker ballet in Astoria and I plan to take her to Zoolights next weekend. Going out for special time doesn't even have to cost money; playing in the park is good too.

As for that other priority- good grades- sometimes it even annoys my teachers that I try to get perfect grades, but that's just me. The first part is setting your limits to know what your boundaries are; I know that I am want all A's, I am willing to settle for a B (not many) and that if I get a B-, embarrassing to admit, I will probably shed a tear. The second part is knowing what study habits work for you. When the school year started, I found myself doing homework in the evenings and on the weekends. As it came closer to the end of the semester, I realized that didn't work for me anymore. It took only a couple of stressed out days for me to rethink my schedule and find one that works...now I do light homework in the evening and then get up early for any real writing that I need to do. The only catch to getting up early is that you need to pick the proper amount of time that you will need or maybe I should warn that this method may not work for procrastinators (meaning that it works great for me, but I don't wait to write something until it's due...if you work on something a little each day then you won't find yourself doing a ton of work at crunch time).

Good luck to all Saints on your finals and if you do get stressed out then be sure to check out the Stress Reduction Day in the SUB all day on Wednesday!