I'm Back!

So before I get back to work here at Charm Hour, I feel I ought to apologize for being MIA for the better part of July and August.  It has been an insanely busy summer, and unfortunately blogging seemed to fall a bit to the wayside.  BUT- although I haven't been posting, I have been a busy bee living life, crafting, and cooking like a fiend and taking pictures all the while, so there will certainly be posts to be made.

First of all, I spent six weeks of June and July working full-time doing 8 hour evening shifts with an incredible preceptor.  I mentioned her a bit in my Crocheted Sunflower Coasters post.  I was working 5 or 6 days a week, and living on a wonky schedule thanks to the evening shifts, so it was hard to find the time to write.  But I did have a fantastic time working as a nurse and learned an unbelievable amount in the process.

Secondly, if you're a fan of Charm Hour on Facebook, you might have heard that Joe and I went to Hawaii for a week.  Joe was presenting his research at a conference, so I went along with him.  My parents were kind enough to use their travel miles to buy my ticket as a graduation present for finishing nursing school.  We spent the majority of the time on the beach, with a little bit of hiking mixed in.

I'll post most on that later, but here's a sneak peek:

view from the hotel 

view from Wa'ahila Ridge 

mid-hike 

Throughout the trip I made a point to set up my hammock basically every time I found two trees at an appropriate distance.  What's life all about if not relaxing in a hammock in a beautiful place?!

Needless to say, we had an amazing time.

Unfortunately for me, on either side of the trip was that kind of working all day, everyday project that makes a ten page paper feel never-ending and seems to require a dozen revisions.  And that research paper is then followed up with a 20-minute powerpoint, so by then all you're doing is thanking your lucky stars you have a partner to share the work (and stress) with.  So that sucked up week before and after our trip, which has delayed me posting about the amazing and beautiful Hawaii just a smidge.

And after our successful presentation, I officially graduated!  I have now acquired my Master's of Science in Nursing, so I can add another set of initials to my credentials.  Now all I have to do is study and wait to take the licensing exam so I can add RN to my name and start hunting for a job!  It's still hard to believe that the program is really over, and I'm totally done with classes.

So after a long weekend of celebrating my accomplishments, it's time to get back on track and start blogging again!

My mom is cooler than your mom.

So it's a very exciting weekend around here!  Not only am I graduating today, but I'm also celebrating my 24th birthday!  Technically speaking, we're just walking at graduation and I won't be finished for three more months but it's still something to celebrate.

And it will be even be more fun to celebrate as my mom is on her way to see me as we speak!  She's even roughing it by herself on the train, that brazen lady.  I think my mom and I are a message of hope for all teenage girls and their mothers because we used to fight like cats and dogs in high school.  Mostly over clothes.  I used to have to change my clothes several times each morning, because as soon as I came down stairs she'd tell me to turn my butt around and change.  I might have pushed her buttons a little bit, and probably wasn't totally appropriate.  BUT now we're amazing friends.

I seriously love to hang out with my mom as much as I do my other friends.  She's hilarious, and we both get louder as we drink so neither of us feels the need to embarrass the other my yelling at them to quiet down.  We both love good food and cherish time with family- she is very must the instigator of Charm Hour- which I am infinitely thankful for.  Some of my best memories are sitting around the kitchen counter with my family over a bottle (or two) of wine and some appetizers talking about anything but politics.  Even in high school when I was snotty and bratty my mom would make me stick around for family time when I wanted to hang out with my friends who were totally going to be best friends forever.  So thanks mom, for some pretty sweet family values.  And for having a lot of fun with me.

And in case you didn't know, she's secretly a total bad ass.  Okay, so she teaches little kids, and dresses all classy, and sometimes says very silly words as swear words, but she is one really tough lady under all that.  Firstly, she worked for the government as a russian translator during the Cold War doing something sneaky enough that they tapped her phone. Secondly, my dad told her within weeks of proposing that they were just going to up and move to Germany to work for Kodak. Does she speak any German?  No. But she ups and goes and has a fucking adventure, which is what life is all about!

Then she has two troublesome little children, and decides to be a teacher's aide during the day while we're in school.  She had an MBA and was working for minimum wage making paper cut-outs.  As a kid it was seriously awesome because we could occasionally make cool stuff in their office, like laminated bound books.  Because she's very clearly a brilliant woman, the teachers would ask her to edit their letters home.  She kept thinking, "Man, I could what they're doing", so she went back to school and became a primary teacher.  And she is SO good at what she does.

And most recently she joined forces with my dad and started a daycare.  Left the job she enjoyed and worked at for over 12 years, and started fresh at a time when her friends are planning retirement.  Within a year they have over 100 students, from newborn babies up to 12 year olds.  And they've created jobs for over a dozen teachers, most of whom recently graduated.  Their teachers are fantastic.  They are each so excited to come in each day to see their class, and they have some of the most creative activities in their classroom that I've seen.  It's an amazing success they've managed to accomplish and I am so very very proud of them.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but I am very lucky to have grown up with the female role models I did.

And now off to breakfast with my one and only Mom!   And hopefully some manicures and shoe-shopping to follow- I gotta look pretty for graduation, after all!