Break & an Update!

If you've followed this blog long enough, you know by now that this is the time of year when I suffer from my I-didn't-do-a-dang-thing-all-semester-and-now-deadlines-and-finals-are-creepin'-up anxiety. Its also the time where my hair is greasy, my eyes have bags, husband feels neglected, dinners don't get cooked, my social life disappears, and tears inevitably ensue.

Well........ I decided to skip all most of that dramarama this year! I still took my finals, duh. Sure, I had a few sleepless nights, stressful days, and definitely had my fair share of under eye bags... but for some reason or another I just decided not to stress so much this year! I took time out of my studying to finish my Christmas shopping, cook dinners, go to yoga (whaaat? ya, I said it!), and didn't turn down one weekend social invitation! And guess what? I survived.

Finals are done. Did I ace them? Probably definitely not. But who cares?! I've put in my time... worked hard for 3 years... now I'm ready to just slide by and enjoy my last semester of school! Because really, there is just way too much fun stuff going on to stress!!! 

Hellooooo 4 1/2 weeks of winter break! On the agenda: be a stay at home mom to Miss Bella (insert crazy cat lady comments here), read read read for fun!, vaca in FL w/ Andrew's family, home to Ohio to visit for 2 weeks!

Cyber Monday shopping... computer, coffee, wallet, and The View. 

Gift wrapping station in our office... I knew that table would come in handy eventually!

Saturday mall and sushi date w/ husb... how pretty is the tree on our Macy's?

Bella loves to help her daddy take study breaks ;)

Oh, ya..... and.............

MY SISTER GOT ENGAGED LAST NIGHT!!!

The proposal was adorable. The ring is amazzzing. Her fiance is a doll. She is over the moon excited... and I'm SO EXCITED FOR HER!!!!! She is soo in love :) And she hates planning things - so I'm her full-time wedding planner woo hoo!! 

The blinggg! Beautiful just like my sissy!

Looks like 2012 is stacking up to be the most exciting year of my life to date! Weddings, graduations, babies and MORE! Bring it on!

Halfway

I can finally say that I am officially HALFWAY done with law school!

Halfway.

1/2.

50%.

That means I still have 3 semesters to go... but looking back on how quickly the first half of law school went, and how much happened between August 2009 and today, I am just amazed that I am already at the halfway mark! When I first decided to embark on this stressful little journey, it just seemed like it would never end. But now, I can finally say that I see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

The fact that I have a whole month to enjoy time with friends and family, to shop, to bake, to sleep, to work out, to read for leisure...... etc. seems surreal after the late nights and long, miserable hours of studying and exam taking I endured over the past month. Being so crazy busy leading up to this break makes me appreciate it even more!

I am SO thankful to have made it this far. And I'm even more thankful to be rewarded with a nice, long holiday break :) Now! Onto the fun stuff - I have a long weekend of Christmas baking ahead {stay tuned for pictures and recipes!} and am sooo anxious to make a major dent in my holiday shopping!

And in the midst of my euphoria I was (unpleasantly) reminded... the sweet just isn't as sweet without the sour, right? I think the universe decided that it needed to keep me in check and ensure that I was sufficiently appreciative/grateful/whatever... because only minutes before taking my last final of the semester I discovered that my Macbook Pro was drenched in water. Wouldn't turn on. Wouldn't charge. Nothing! So Sheila's awesome bf came to my rescue - he brought me his laptop to take my final on (my hubbs has a desktop... which normally I groan about but I'm sort of enjoying plinking away at his noisy keyboard at the moment!!) and then Andrew performed surgery on my computer last night. It is currently dismembered and recovering in a caserole dish full of rice...... in a few days, I'm praying that I will turn it on and magically it will be fine! Wishful thinking? Maybe. But I'm still drunk off of the thrill of being done with school and free as a bird until January, so I'm not going to cry over spilled milk water :) I'll let ya know how it turns out...

These days.

This is what my life has looked like for the past week...

Yuck.

Double yuck.

 And it will, no doubt, only get uglier/messier/frazzled-er as the days go on! I'll be spending my weekend studying... then early next week I'll transport myself and my study outlines back to Ohio for Thanksgiving "break." (I think its cruel to even call this a break. Cruel and rude.) I start finals the Monday after Thanksgiving (see? rude, I told ya), and my finals will finally end on December 9th at which time I plan to do nothing but this for the remainder of my real winter break:

How cozy does Miss Bella look?!

 I hope that all of your Thanksgiving holidays look much more like the latter :)

On a slightly brighter note - at 5:15 today I will be 50% done with my law school classes. That is 1/2. Halfway done (aside from passing the final exams of course) with law school! EVER! Woo!!! I'm starting to see the light at the end of this long, dark, agonizing tunnel...

Neglect...

Law school has really been crampin' my style the past several weeks. After 3:15 this afternoon though, I am making a (public) vow to stop neglecting the things that have been shoved to the back burner over the course of the last month. These poor neglected little things include: 

Health. Dear Lord have I neglected my health - this includes proper sleep (what sleep?), diet (mostly sugar and caffeine these days), exercise (what is that again? I forget), hygiene (TMI? sorry), and the like.
Beauty. My hair dryer, flat iron and make up have been seriously neglected. My wardrobe has also fallen victim to some grave neglect.
My kitty. Poor little thing wants brushed and pet and loved, and I have hardly been home! So she snuggles up extra close at night, as soon as my head hits the pillow, and just purrs her little heart out til she falls asleep. So cute, I could cry.
My husband. Another little creature who just wants to be loved haha. I haven't watched a TV show or shared a meal with Andrew in what feels like days! And quite honestly I don't know how long its been since I crawled into bed when he wasn't already dead asleep. Bad wife.
Our house. My strict cleaning regimen has not been followed. This past Saturday, it took every ounce of self-control in my body to prioritize school ahead of toilet scrubbing, vacuuming, and dusting. And I have hated every moment of this week because of it!
Laundry. It is looking very scary. Thankfully, my shopping addiction (once again) comes in very handy at times like these. Most families would be out of clean socks, underwear and tshirts - not us :) Go me!
Friends/Family. I haven't talked to my best friends on the real telephone in weeks. My mother-in-law, a week. My sisters, days. And my own mother, well... she gets calls every day but they have been distracted, whiny conversations I'm sure!

So this is my very public, very lofty pledge: I will change ALL of this in the next 48 hours!!! I already have a to-do list made for myself and plan to attack it the second I march out of my bankruptcy midterm moot court competition! All except for the exercise, of course... gotta be realistic here, people ;)

Summer Reading List

Books are the treasured wealth of the world
and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
~ Henry David Thoreau ~

As a life-long avid reader, I was scared to death that law school would ruin my love of books! In an effort to ensure that I still read for leisure - and enjoyed it - I compiled a Summer Reading List for myself.

After scouring the NY Times and Publishers Weekly best-sellers list, polling my Facebook friends, and (of course) consulting Oprah's Book Club book list, I came up with a list of books to work my way through over my summer break. I was so excited to discover that the Buckhead Library was just minutes from our house, so I rushed out the door with only my car keys and cell phone in tow to get a library card. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that in order to get a card, I needed a piece of mail addressed to me with my current address on it. I had no wallet, no purse, nothing. But, true to form, I dug through my messy car and found a DSW Rewards coupon in my center console! See? Sometimes shopping addictions can be good for more than shoes.

So, I got my library card. Step one, check! Step two... find books. This is where I got really overwhelmed. The library down here is nothing like the Hudson Library I have grown so accustomed to! It isn't pretty, it doesn't smell good, there are old computers and dusty wire shelves... and, most importantly, no coffee shop!! Tragic. But fret not - after some diligent Googling, I learned that you can place books on hold on the library's website and they email you to come pick it up when it comes in! So convenient. Here is the list of  books my nose was buried in all summer:

• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
• Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth
• Private by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
• Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
• Something Blue by Emily Giffin
• Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
• Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• The Shack by William P. Young
• Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver

I enjoyed literally every page of every book! It was so nice to spend time reading for pleasure instead of reading for school. There are a few books still lingering on my list of holds at the library, but for now my focus is on casebooks, rule books and code books... until winter break, when I can become a pleasure-reading bookworm once again :)

The busy girl's guide to dinner!

I'm a self-proclaimed busy girl, but I don't think anyone would argue with me that I truly am busy! I'm a full-time law student, a part-time office worker (for lack of a better title) and in the midst of it all I'm a full-time *new* wifey! People who have only known me since my migration to the South probably can't picture me any other way... but everyone who has known me longer knows all too well that becoming a domestic diva was not a natural progression for me! But! Long gone are my days of catching delivery pizzas - literally - on fire, burning scrambled eggs to a (now, irreparable - sorry mama) pan and making chocolate chip cookies that caused my baby sister's tooth to fall out upon biting into them. I wish I was making this stuff up.


So, in 12ish months of marriage the questions I get asked most by people who know me best when I talk about being all domestic are along the lines of "since when do you cook?" Which I know is really code for "omg poor Andrew he is probably eating take out every night!" These questions are followed by dropped jaws and looks of bewilderment when I tell them that I actually do cook now, and I'm getting (kind of) good at it! In fact, I cook every night :) Not weekends... let's not get carried away. But Monday-Thursday, the quicker and easier the recipe - the better! Here are a few of my favorite weeknight staples that keep my hubby full and happy, and that keep me from slaving over a hot stove/oven for more time than I can afford to waste:

• Lasagna - easy, delish, and leftovers for days! I use whole wheat noodles, and always mix up the cheese and sauce flavors for some variety.
• Crock pot pork chops and potatoes - simplest thing ever, and perfect for nights when our dinner times don't align.
• Chicken and pesto pasta - tastes so much better than plain old marina or alfredo, and my personal fave is to make it with campanelle noodles!
• Baked salmon and rice - marinate in olive oil, lemon juice and toss in every seasoning in your spice rack... can't go wrong.
• Stuffed burgers - stuffed with cheese, cheese and more cheese then grilled to perfection.
• Spaghetti and meatballs - something about homemade meatballs just makes Andrew feel loved haha... and 1lb. of ground beef makes enough for meatball subs the next day :)
• Reubens - my Irish hubbs loves a good reuben and they're our grown-up substitute for grilled cheese sandwiches.
• Quiche - breakfast for dinner is always fun, and its even more fun when you have your entire meal contained in a single dish!

While these dinners are far from gourmet, they are do-able on a weekly basis in the midst of juggling school, work and home life. On nights when I have more time or just want to experiment with the zillions of recipe books we got for wedding gifts, I put a little more effort into our meals... but who am I kidding? These menu items have become staples in my kitchen and I am just happy to have graduated from pizza burning and teeth breaking to cooking edible, nutritious, and occasionally delicious dinners for our family of two :)

If you're wondering "where are the veggies?" ...that's another post, for another day!

Summer Update!

Is it REALLY already June 25th...?! This summer has gone by much too fast! Here is the update on our lives:

Andrew finished his first quarter of Chiropractic school last week! He did fabulous :) His grades were great and he survived the 27 hour course load just fine. His "summer" is a 3 week break from class, so he spent the first week in Atlanta keeping me company and is now up in Ohio visiting with family and friends for a week! I'll join him up there next Wednesday, and then we'll spend the following week in Canada on our annual family vacation. We can't wait! Oh, and Bella girl gets to come this year, too ;)

I'm busy working... but I'm having a ton of fun doing it! I'm babysitting three precious little kiddos 3 days a week, and working at their parents' bankruptcy law firm the other 2 days! It has been SUCH a good experience so far! I've learned a lot at the office, and at home with the kids haha. It has been excellent birth control - despite their cuteness. I'm excited for a break though and can't wait to see my fam and friends up in Ohio!

In other exciting news, I received a WONDERFUL email the other week! I was awarded a $32,000 scholarship for law school!!! We were thrilled with the news and now there is hope that we may actually be able to reproduce before the age of 35... just kidding. Sort of. But really, we're so excited! My hard work is - literally - paying off.

Looking forward to what is left of our summer and will keep y'all posted! Uh oh... I've been in the south almost a whole year now, y'all is starting to sound like English. I better get back to school......

Law School Ball

At the end of every year, law schools (well, most law schools) hold a Barrister's Ball... people call it the law school "prom," but really it is a fun night out to get dressed up and celebrate the fact that you've survived a first, or another, year of misery! Ok, I'm exaggerating. It's not that miserable! So maybe Barrister's Ball is more of a last hoorah before finals? Those are quickly approaching - in fact, I had one the morning OF the ball! - so I suppose the ball was probably the last night I'll spend out on the town until summer. In any event, we had a really great time! My grandparents were staying with us for the night as they passed through from Florida to Ohio, so we ended up going to the ball pretty late, but had a fabulous time nonetheless :) Here are a few pictures of us all dolled up and having a good time w/ friends!