Hello.

This photo? Makes me giggle.

So. Here I am. Some 6 weeks after the last time I blogged. This time I at least have 3 unfinished posts sitting behind the scenes. I always seem to start a post, then get distracted, and then never finish it. Story of my life, lol.

My big test is finally over. That was this past friday. It was an 8 hour test split into a morning session (which covered EVERYTHING civil engineering) and an afternoon session (where you choose the section you want to take, and I chose structural, as that is what I do). I feel pretty solid about the morning section, but the afternoon could really go either way. I got a little freaked out in the afternoon, but afterwards a group of us all went over to the bar/restaurant next door and discussed, and they made me feel better. We all felt like they (the test makers) threw a LOT of really random stuff at us, and no one thinks that much more studying would have helped that situation at all. Such is life, lol. I studied A TON for this test, and I will be bummed if I don't pass. But, I can't dwell on it. And at least if I do have to take it again, I'll know that I need to study the afternoon stuff more.

So we went over to the bar for some celebratory drinks (well, more like some "omg we are DONE and have our lives back" drinks :P) after the test was over. I went down a tiny little street thinking that there would be some parking available, and ended up at a dead end. There was barely enough space to try and turn around, but I tried a K-turn anyway. And backed straight into a fire hydrant. :X Those of you who know Jordan probably just gasped and clapped your hand over your mouth (as one of his best friends who also took the test, did exactly that!), as you know how INSANE he is with taking care of the cars and avoiding dents/dings/etc. If I had been driving the Acura, I would have made a get-away by driving to California and adopting a new identity. I was only the driving the Contour though (THANK GOODNESS), so I shrugged it off. I cracked the back bumper and put some nice scrapes and paint marks on it, but it's the freaking Contour man. It's a 2001 with 150,000 miles on it, and we're probably getting rid of it this year anyway. WHO CARES? Jordan does, naturally. I called to tell him my test was done and I was going to celebrate (which he already knew was the plan, but I wanted to let him know I was out of the test anyway), and then broke the news. There was a mild explosion, but nothing too awful, and I was fully expecting it, lol. I went and had some fun, hung out with friends, and then went home. I got home while the Penguins game was still on, which worked in my favor. The boys were playing FAR better than they had during Wednesday game, so he was in a good mood. He went into the garage after the game, and then came back into the house, but he never said a word about it. Not a peep! I think he talked to his Dad after I told him what happened, and Joe must've talked him down off the ledge, lol. Remind me to send that man some flowers or something, LOL! Of course, I brought up the non-existent reaction, and Jordan didn't say much. So I told him that if he was ever going to yell at me about this, he had to do it right then. No waiting a few weeks or months and then flipping out about it, lol. But, it never happened. And for that I am grateful, lol.

I spent all day saturday cleaning. I KNOW! Me? Spend the first weekend I've had free in months CLEANING?? I don't know what came over me either, but I ran with it since it happens so rarely. I concentrated on our bedroom and went nuts. I moved the furniture to get the vacuum into places that haven't seen light in 3 years, I cleaned the outside AND the inside of the windows, I vacuumed the baseboards and got cobwebs out of the lower ceiling corners, I started ANOTHER bag for Goodwill. It was nuts! Of course by the time I got to the other side and my craft area I had totally lost steam, but at least the half where we sleep is all clean and pretty now :) Once Joey moves out I'm taking back my blanket chest and putting it in our bedroom under the front windows so I can store my knitting and fabric collection. :) I'm going to dig out my craft area during the week now that I have FREE TIME again! WHOOHOOO!!

Sunday was extremely unproductive, but I don't care. I enjoyed some Sportcenter, started reading a new book, caught up on a few of my DVR'd shows, and just relaxed. It was wonderful. I DID make myself go for a run though since I didn't do anything on saturday (although strangely enough I was actually SORE from cleaning, lol). Well, I accidentally selected Day 1 of Week 5 of C25K, instead of doing another day of Week 4. Fail. Week 5 is 3 - 5 minute runs with 3 minutes of walking in between. I did 2 miles on the exercise bike to warm up because it was chilly out, and that helped a TON, so I think I'm gonna stick with it. Once I realized my selection mistake, I decided to really push myself and do a new route with a HUGE hill. Yowza!! So hard!! But, I didn't totally die, and I still finished off the run relatively strong (minus the part where I thought I was going to die from inhaling gasoline fumes - next time I will run UPWIND of the gas station!). It felt pretty good too, so I'm gonna stick with Week 5 for tomorrow's run as well. Tonight is going to be yoga or pilates, I haven't decided. I'm going to really get back into the mindset of working out almost every day a week. I'm slimming down and I want to keep that up. I've also heard that pilates/yoga are great counterparts to running, so I'm excited that I already like to do those things.

I'll leave you today with another picture. I picked these tulips from our front yard on wednesday or thursday, and I just LOVE them. They opened up SO BIG in that bud vase in our bedroom. Bud vases are my new favorite obsession (Mine are cheapies from Crate and Barrel!). I clipped some rhododendron blooms and have them in the living room as well. A house just looks so much nicer and pulled together with a few blooms spread around I think. :)

All photos in this post were taken on my iPhone and processed with the CameraBag App. The first one uses Lolo, and the tulips use Magazine.

Have a great day!
~Col

PS~Working on a new decor for the ol' blog. The wintery mix just isn't appropriate anymore, lol.