Pros and Cons

Saturday afternoon, Aharon and I went to our friends Jamie and Clare's wedding. We were excited for the wedding but also for the chance to catch up with some friends. Long story short, the reception seating was assigned. So, we invited the friends over instead.

However, I've been major slacking lately and my tiny little apartment was a huge mess.

We got a little bit of a head start, and 45 minutes after arriving home, I had accomplished all of the following:

• Washed, dried, and put away 3 days worth of dishes
• Emptied all 4 trashes and took them to the dumpster
• Swept the kitchen floor
• Vacuumed the rugs and bedroom carpet
• Wiped down the shower
• Scrubbed down the toilet
• Cleaned the kitchen and bathroom sinks
• Disinfected the kitchen and bathroom counters
• Cleaned the dust off the bathroom spacesaver
• Cleaned the bathroom and bedroom mirrors
• Dusted the electronics in the living room
  
• Made the bed
• Put away all the clean laundry and picked up dirty laundry from the bedroom floor
• Febreezed the living room carpet
• Lit 2 candles
• Filed about 20 "explanation of benefits" letters from mine and Aharon's countless trips to various doctors over the last 6 weeks

Tiny apartments ROCK!

Kill me now.

I found out last night that my class that starts this week - my very first class of my senior year of college, my very first 400 level class - is being taught by a professor I've already had.

We had to write a group research paper the last time I had her. We have to do that again this semester. My group would have gotten a perfect score, except that we lost a full letter grade for word usage. Not incorrect words. Not inappropriate words. Just words that had a better substitute. Like we used "show" instead of "demonstrate" and "teach" instead of "instruct." Is that legal?

So now, on top of working earlier, driving to Royal Oak twice a week, and the uncomfortableness that is my physical therapy, I'll be going through the next 8 weeks worrying about my word usage!

Ugh.

I am now in physical therapy two times a week. I'm not sure I'm comfortable talking about why I'm in physical therapy on the Internet, so I'm not going to. But if you personally want to know, I'm okay with sharing the gruesome details. Long story short, after my first appointment yesterday - which was mostly to meet my therapist and get a feel for how this is all going to work - I found out that not only will this correct the problem that I originally started seeking treatment for, but it will also correct 2 problems I've had my entire life and never connected to this issue as well as 1 more recent problem that I also never connected. So basically, in 6 to 8 weeks time, I'll be cured of 4 unpleasant problems!

Anyway, because of the rarity of this particular treatment, there are only 3 physical therapists who treat it within a 4 hour drive of my house. All 3 of them are at Beaumont Health Center in Royal Oak. Royal Oak!!

So, on Mondays and Wednesdays I have to go in to work at 7 a.m. so that I can leave at 3:30 and drive down to Royal Oak. My appointment is at 5 and I'm out of there at 6. If traffic is decent, I get home around 7 or 7:15 p.m. I then have to make and eat dinner and do homework.

Why can't Aharon make dinner? Because he's currently working until 8 p.m. every weeknight.

To make my life easier, I've had to sort of plan out dinners ahead of time. I used to just throw together whatever was around because it didn't matter if dinner took an hour or two to make. But there's no way we can eat dinner at 9 or 10 p.m. Especially when I have to be up the next morning by 7 at the latest.

One of the perks of both of us working in the hunting industry despite the fact that neither of us hunt is that my freezer has about 15 pounds of ground venison in it. I checked out some venison-specific recipes online, and none of them sounded that awesome. So I'm making my own dinners using the venison as a substitute for ground beef.

Here's my meal plan for now:

Tuesday, August 25: chicken and rice casserole
Wednesday, August 26 (Wipeout night!): fajita style chicken with fried jasmine rice and onions
Thursday, August 27: spaghetti with venison meatballs
Friday, August 28: BBQ venison (Also, I need to make 6 loaves of banana bread for people at work who are giving us even more venison!)
Saturday, August 29: baked salami bagels for lunch; Clare and Jamie's wedding for dinner (hahaha, that sounds funny!)

Sunday, August 30: teriyaki chicken stir fry for lunch; brinner (breakfast for dinner. in this case, scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes)
Monday, August 31: Pork Roast and mashed potatoes
Tuesday, September 1: sloppy venison joes and baked potato chunks
Wednesday, September 2 (Wipeout night!): venison dogs (chili dogs but it's left over sloppy venison joe mix, thus venison dogs) and left over baked potato chunks
Thursday, September 3: New York Strip Steak and scalloped potatoes
Friday, September 4: Cheeseburgers and corn on the cob
Saturday, September 5: Pig Roast at Nick's!

Higher Education is funny

Aharon's at home with a totally spazzing back. I'm not sure what he did, but the guy almost always has back pain, but I've never seen him in quite as much pain as he was in this morning. Luckily, work for him today was kind of optional. And even more luckily, his health insurance card arrived on Thursday. So he's home until around 2 and then he's going to the doctor...for like the first time in years with the exception of when he burned all the skin off his elbow last winter.

Anyway, I'm sitting at work right now with a pot of coffee and a 20 ounce bottle of coke. The coffee is to warm me up and wake me up, since it's freezing in this building. I also didn't sleep well all weekend thanks to being home alone most of Friday (Aharon was at a bachelor party until 5:30 am), a huge thunderstorm Saturday night (we're talking constant lightening and thunder from about midnight until around 4 am), and a small thunderstorm Sunday night coupled with Aharon flopping around trying to get comfortable despite all the pain he was in.
The coke (I normally drink diet) is to hopefully settle my stomach, which is full of unhappiness that should have been gone by now. (TMI: birth control. Doctor said it would take 3 months to really feel the effects. I'm going on 4 months and do not feel any better.)

But the point of my post is really this: college and why people hate me/I hate myself.

I had a class that started one week before my wedding. Stress management, ironically enough. Right away I found out I had to do a book report (because apparently senior in college equals fifth grade) and write a paper about past experiences with stressful times. The paper was due while I was on my honeymoon, so I sat down right away and did it. I can't say I put a lot of effort into it. I got a perfect score on it.

So I slacked a little. I went on my honeymoon. I came home and picked up my book for my report from the library. It sat untouched on my kitchen table for about 3 weeks. Then I realized I had two weeks to do the four-page paper. I read the first 3 pages of the book and then set it aside.

One week later, I read about nine random pages, then set out to write the report. I spend about twenty minutes writing it on Monday, and then about 15 minutes finishing it up on Tuesday. Including reading time, I probably put about 2 hours into the entire project. Aharon was upset with me for not taking school seriously. (I never have, though. He knew this before the wedding!) I told him that the wedding made me slack and that I'd do better next semester.

I got my paper back Saturday night.

I got a 100%.

Aharon = furious.
Sarah = a little disappointed that I was basically rewarded for being the biggest slacker-who-is-still-a-straight-A-student in the history of the school.

I want to get a degree. I want to learn. I just don't want to do homework or learn about stress or read books.

It's not my fault that school comes naturally to me. Ask my mom, if I would have put even a slight effort into high school, I easily could have been top of my class. Instead I slacked off and graduated fourth. I was thrilled about that, but I knew I could have done better.

I guess I just don't have any motivation.

That's why I want to go to law school. I think it's the one thing that would actually provide a challenge to me and be interesting at the same time! I may actually put some effort into law school. 'May' being the key word, here, though. Because after I graduated magna cum laude and not summa cum laude when I earned my Associates, I said I would actually apply myself at Siena. That clearly hasn't happened.

Cold?

I would just like to say that never once during the winter did I say anything about wanting it to be warm outside, being anxious for summer to get here, or anything else like that.

So I feel that I have no problem saying this:

1. I hate summer.
2. I can not wait until winter.
3. Fall is okay, but the allergens are pretty bad. The cool weather is nice, though.
4. Is it winter yet?
5. How much longer until winter?