After 5.5 years in Grad School, at last she graduates with her Ph.D.!

I think I'm firing my hair dresser.

I went in with hair half way down my back. I told her I wanted to cut it so that it was shoulder length. I came out with a bob. It's a pretty cute bob, but it's a freaking bob! Umm...this isn't what I had in mind!

The little girl who cried wolf

Today I had a 1st grader tell me in a quite articulate manner that the parents I had spoken with were not her real parents. (I quickly did a double take in my mind of her file, thinking, no, this little girl isn't adopted. Her parents are divorced, I met them both, and she looks just like them.) She proceeded to tell me that her real parents were attacked and eaten by a wolves, and then their spirits rose into the heavens, and then she got her new parents. I had to bit my lip not to laugh at her.

I tried to let her off the hook by tell her that her story seemed a bit like make believe, which caused her to go back through her story and add detail, which took a great deal of time. She wasn't a very quick liar. I then asked her if I asked her parents about her story if they would say that it was the truth.

"Umm...hold on a moment. Let me think about that. Hmm...that's a tough one. I'd probably say no."

"Yeah, I think you were trying to pull my leg and make up a story!"

"Yeahhh...I wassss."

"Well, let me tell you a story. This story is called 'The Boy who Cried Wolf'." We can call it The Girl who Cried Wolf if you like!

Vintage QotD: Here Comes The Bride

What was the last wedding you went to? Were you in the wedding?

My own. I was the bride! That was a fun day.

And the World's Greatest Husband Award goes to....

Mr. Paul Parent!!!



For so many reasons, but today the reason was his supreme cuteness in celebrating my 1st day at my 1st real job! Yes, my 1st day of work was this past Monday, and Paul recognized my special day by walking through the door with the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. He then told me that we were going out for dessert for dinner! You see, I am the dessert Queen. I LOVE dessert! But, I also get full pretty quickly, so the problem is that I never save room for dessert when we go out! So, we always say that we should just go out for dessert for dinner sometime. That is what we did on Monday night! Paul told me we could go anywhere: Sanctuary, Mary Coyle's, Chili's, whatever! I picked Houston's and we decided we were going to try their brownie sundae that we had heard so much about.
When we got to Houston's, our waitress started to tell us the fish specials for the night. I was like, well, do you have any dessert specials, being kind of silly. Then she proceeded to tell us that they did in fact have a dessert special that night: Strawberry Shortcake! We went for it! Oh my gosh........

The shortcake was made out of a lemon poppyseed scone that had crystalized sugar on top of it. It was split in half, and had huge strawberries piled in between. Paul told our waitress that we were celebrating, and we were getting special treatment all around. The manager came and told us it would be a couple of extra minutes for our dessert because they were making homemade whip cream for it. Best whip cream EVER! Then, because the waitress knew we had been debating the brownie sundae also, she brought out some of the chocolate sauce from that to dip the strawberries in in case we needed it!

All in all this was an awesome night. I think we will be going out for dessert for dinner more often! :)

Bleh.

I have no desire to work on my dissertation. You'd think since I am so close to the end, I'd be motivated. But that is not the case. I am searching to find anything to distract me...anything. I need to buckle down, and I will. I think this next week will be good for me. I am starting to sense a bit of urgency, and I am also starting to get ready to go back to work. Why is it that sometimes it takes being busy, if not overwhelmed, is what it takes to get things done.

I think the fact that we moved into a new place that was in need of decorating and organizing didn't help my ability to focus either. And, whatever...I've had a great summer. I'd say the best ever. It has been relaxing, and eventful, and filled with family and friends. We constantly have events going on, and yet we haven't been overwhelmed. It's been nice.

The dissertation will get done. I should get it done so I can stop talking about getting it done, huh. It's just so boring.

QotD: Roll Call

Who are the last five people you called on your cell phone?

1. Cox Communications...don't get me started.
2. Paradise Valley Unified School District...scheduled my appointment to go in and sign my contract.
3. Dr. Wodrich...Help! I don't know how to analyze this 2-way repeated measures ANOVA with between subjects factors on the side!
4. Mom and Dad. Called Mom to tell her I was wearing my cute pink sweatpant capris from Victoria's Secret that I bought when we were together.
5. Will, the realtor...telling him a few things we would like to do/want done to our house.

Fascinating, I know!

Just call me Betty Crocker

It took a lot longer than planned because we scheduled lots of double dates and birthday dinners for the past week; however, tonight Paul and I made our Chicken with Edamame, Corn, and Bacon dinner. It was really good! 2 for 2 so far, which makes the thought of trying another recipe even more tempting.

I was very proud of myself that I cooked chicken and bacon and managed to get both of them done! I have a habit in the past of having my chicken take forever to get done, and then not taste very good. But this recipe had a great method of cooking the chicken so that it stayed moist but also cooked all the way through. Yay no salmonella! I think Paul was excited about this fact too!

I sat at home all day today and worked on my dissertation. It was a pretty boring day. I think I'm going to do the same thing tomorrow, but hopefully feel like I have a little more to show for it. Today was a little unsatisfying for progress. I'm shooting to defend by August so that I can not be crazy while working at my new school. I need to kick some ass this summer in order to get this done. So far I'm doing pretty well keeping focused. Perhaps I could do a little more, but I somewhat feel like I'm still recovering from data collection, internship, and wedding planning. Keeping that in mind, I think I'm doing ok.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we're back from Fiji! The trip was amazing...more than we could have dreamed of it being. We relaxed, watched the sunrise, went snorkelling, drank fruity, mixed drinks with pineapple or coconut in them, read good books, sat by the ocean, watched some rugby, ate great food, talked to people from all over the world, enjoyed each other, and watched the sunset. Oh, and Paul took some bugs out for me...big ones! :) It was a great vacation!

Then, we came home to our new home. It's amazing how we had just moved in the week before our honeymoon, but coming home it really did feel like home. I love it here. We've got the place basically set up. Now it's just putting away the little things. I feel like we're playing house! And it still makes me giggle when Paul or somebody else refers to me as a wife! :P I'm too young to be a wife! Hehe. I love being one though. It's fun. :)

Last night Paul and I cooked our first real meal together! I know...we dated for how long? It's true. We didn't cook very much up to this point in our life. We had a blast last night though! We used our new pots and pans that my brother got us and made an excellent meal: Eggplant rigatoni with grape tomatoes, garlic, parmesan, and mint leaves! It was amazing, and we were quite pleased with ourselves. We already got the fixings to make tomorrow night's dinner: A chicken dish with corn, edamame, and some bacon too! We don't quite know how the bacon fits in, but the picture in the recipe looked good!

Well, that's the update for now. I worked on my dissertation since we got back into town trying to get my data entered into SPSS and tomorrow it's off to ASU to meet with my stats prof to run the statistics! Hopefully I find some interesting results! Big day!

Wedding

They're done!

Well, after one night of printing and cutting with Paul until 2:30am, and one night of putting together, tying, and addressing with Mom, Sherry (Paul's step-mom), and Kristin until 2:00am, we officially have invitations that are ready to be mailed out Monday morning! I think they turned out really cute. I hope everybody else likes them! We couldn't have pulled it off without our amazing friends and family!

Paul and I were talking the other day about how you really could make a wedding pretty easy to plan if you didn't want to personalize anything, and if you weren't a perfectionist. Unfortunately, we both fail both of those criteria! We have really had fun doing, and are proud of the things that we did to personalize our wedding. And of course, these are the things that took us the longest, held us up on other things! Our website, invitations, guest book, bathroom buckets, and hotel room treats fall into these categories, and I think they were all well worth it!

I'm sooo ready to get married!!!

And, I can't wait for the next two weeks! Starting on Thursday night the fun officially begins!!!

QotD: Chores

Which household chores do you most/least enjoy?

Most enjoy: Organizing!
Least enjoy: Vacuuming and dusting!

A couple of my favorites!

Paul and I got our proofs back from our engagement photo session, and I thought I would share a couple of my favorites! We had an absolute blast acting like we knew how to be models, and running around Scottsdale Civic Center with the paparazzi following us everywhere as well as the old grannies watching the photoshoot. It was a funny morning, and we got some cute photos out of the deal!

QotD: I'm Good.

What are five things you're good at?

Cleaning.
Evaluating children.
Having fun.
Shopping.
Making others feel special.

These are the first 5 things that came to mind. I took the approach of, don't think about it too much, and see what happens. I don't know if that's a good list or a bad list, but I suppose it could be worse!

Dang...that's kinda harsh, kid!

It's official...I had my first kid tell me that working with me was "no fun!" Yeah, I just kind of gulped and smiled. Here's the whole story:

This little girl is four years old and is in the special needs preschool and will be transitioning to kindergarten next year. Because of this, I have to evaluate her to determine what kind of classroom she would do best in next year. For example, will she be ok in a regular ed classroom, does she need an aide, does she need to be in a self-contained classroom for children with mental retardation, or in a self-contained classroom for children with communication disorders, etc. This little girl is a foster child who has PKU, or Phenylketonuria, which is a genetic disorder that requires a special diet free of phenylalanine, because she lacks the enzyme that breaks down the essential amino acid phenylalanine, and a build up of this amino acid can lead to severe mental retardation. Her brother also had the disorder and his mom did not follow the special diet for him and he is now 14 years old and severely retarded. Well, CPS stepped in and took these children away from Mom, who was not providing the health care they required, and this little girl was removed from her biological mother's custody by the age of 2. She has been with her foster mother, who she calls Mom, for almost 3 years now. So, they think she may be mildly mentally retarded, but basically, just barely. We're trying to figure out if she can swing it in normal classes or if she needs to be in a self-contained class.

This little girl is absolutely adorable. They didn't think she'd even come to a different room with me to test, as she is very shy. But, she did; she even held my hand and led the way. She's a cutie. She was super compliant for the first 45 minutes. Answering all of my questions (after a great deal of prompting and repeating on my part!) and not answering many of them correctly! Then, I hit a brick wall. She was done with me! She was no longer having fun, and no longer entertained by these things I had been calling "games!" I asked her to arrange some blocks for me and she said, "No. I don't wanna do that." I tried to get her by telling her how good she was at it. And that I bet she could do it. She did it! I was like, yes! I got her! So then I asked her the next question. Again, "No. I don't wanna do that." I tried my previous strategy. And she was to have no part of answering. She kept repeating, "No!" I was like, alrighty then, you're obviously in control, so I guess we're done! I told her we'd finish our "games" another day! She grabbed my hadn and we walked back to her preschool class. This is when her teacher welcomed her back to class and asked her if she had fun! She promptly replied, "No. No fun." Hahahhahah! I replied, "Oh, she worked so hard for me and she did so well! She is so smart!" She looked over at me, smiled, and replied, "No fun!"

I smiled back thinking, we've got a whole other day of it ahead of us!

I used stickers today, but I don't think the stickers will convince her next time if she can remember how "little fun" she had with me. Usually I'd resort to the candy then, but I have to check into her PKU diet. I don't quite know what I'm going to use to convince her to come with me! I might need to make a trip to the toy section of Target!

QotD: Beam Me Up

If you could make a magic wish for a futuristic gadget or high-tech innovation, what would your item do?

Definitely the Jetson's "get ready machine". I'm sitting here, the shower is running, and I have absolutely NO desire to get in it. Bleh. I hate getting ready.

Girlfriends

My girlfriends are the best...ever! I love you girls, and I cherish the time we get to spend together. Thank you for being you, and for everything you do to make my life as sweet as it is right now!

Love you always.

WOOHOO!

I'm a member of the Ukazu group! :)

Ukazu FOREVER!

QotD: Can't Type It Rihgt

What word(s) do you always make a typo in?

KElly

lvoe

Roommates Forever!

I have my roomie back in Arizona, and I love it! We have spent the past 12 hours together non-stop, and I don't think I'm going to let her go back to NY! It's so fun having her home!

2 more days with her, and then I have to wait until March. But then I get her for over a week! I can't wait!