Confession

Ok.  It's confession time...well nothing super juicy, just some thoughts I've been having today.  I finished a major presentation and it went well.  That is the end for one of my classes.  I'm 2 papers and one book away from graduation.  But it dawned on me, just now, what's next?  I mean, May will be fairly busy with the MOH trip and so will the beginning of June.  I have the alumni convention half way into June, but then...nothing.  No plans, well until convention in August, but that's one weekend.

I'm going to be in yet another transition period.  I don't own my home, so I can't do some awesome DIY projects that I've seen on TV or on Pinterest.  I don't have kids, so there won't be any time devoted to them.   I'm not engaged yet.  No wedding planning yet.  I'll be done with school.  Now what?  I know, I'm hearing people say, but you'll have a job and your MBA!  Well, yea, but what will I do after work?  I guess I'll have to pick up another hobby.

I'm just getting slightly worried that I'll be bored during this transition time.  Did anyone else feel that way?  I would ask my close friends, but they are all in school.  :)  Several of my closer friends went back to school.  Oh, what to do...  Just pondering for now.  Any advice for this upcoming graduate school graduate?  (Don't say school.  I'm not planning on getting my Ph.D.)

More writing

So yesterday, as I was writing a paper, I realized that I haven't really gotten a chance to write for myself.   I've written papers for class, written emails for work, and even written a blog post for one of the organizations that I'm a part of, but I have not written for me!  This is really odd because I feel like I'm approaching a huge life change.  In a matter of 17 days and 21 hours, I will be a graduate again.  I will be Jillian Marie Quirante, MBA!  :)  I am extremely excited, but I'm also extremely nervous.  I've hit the critical point at the end of the semester where presentations and papers are due.  I completed one presentation today.  I have another one tomorrow.  I hope to finish one paper tonight.  Finalize a group paper this evening. And read a book and write a summary paper by May 3rd.  Gosh, looking at all this makes me exhausted!  Anyway, I'm very excited.  I'm thinking about renaming the blog once I graduate.  Any ideas?  I'm not sure either.  I'll have to ponder that for a while.

Well, in other exciting news, I took a huge step as an adult a couple of weeks ago.  I applied for a mortgage and put in an offer on a house!  Since you guys haven't received a moving announcement (I had them picked out and everything!), you can conclude that the seller didn't accept my offer.  It was slightly (and by slightly I mean incredibly) frustrating because they took 10 days to respond to my offer (I was dealing with a bank).  So, no house yet.  Will sign another 6 month lease.  I know I'll find that dream home soon.  Maybe it's just not my time yet.

Ok.  This is all the time that I can dedicate to writing a blog post, so I'll give a quick update on how I'm doing with my resolutions.

1.)  Start the Good Thoughts Jar.  Ew.  I'm still doing really bad at this.  I recently did the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal in response to one of the books I'm reading for one of my classes, and it says I need to take time to reflect on the good things in my life to increase my EQ.  How fitting is this resolution!  I guess I really do need to do better on this.  Ok, here's the plan.  I'm moving this jar to a place that I know I'll actually put paper in.  So, if you come over to the house, ask me where my jar is.  :)

2.)  Read the entire Bible.  I'm still doing really well on this!  I was a little behind last week (by like a week's worth of reading), but I was able to catch up.  I'm about 30% through the Bible now.  I'm learning a lot!

3.)  Lose weight...a lot of weight.  Have you watched my weight tracking widget -->?  I've lost 43 pounds so far.  I've been really happy with my progress so far.  I still have a little ways to go, but I'm very happy.  I have been frustrated a little bit.  When I was getting dressed for my presentation today, I found that the majority of the clothes that I've been saving to when I lose some weight don't fit because they are too BIG!  It's a great problem to have, but it's still a problem.  Luckily, I bought a dress for my big presentation tomorrow that actually fits.  I was planning on wearing it for graduation, but looking at the way I'm dropping sizes, I may have to buy a new one.  We'll see.  Right now I'm at a size 10.  I have no more saved jeans after the ones that I'm wearing, no blank pants that fit, and probably only two dresses that fit.  Looks like I need to go shopping!

4.)  Be more creative.  The extent of my creativeness has been pinning stuff of pinterest.  Get back to me on this resolution until after graduation!

5.)  Cook one new recipe a month.  So far in the month of April, I've tried 3 new recipes.  The first one was a crockpot rotisserie chicken.  EarthFare has a sale on whole chickens.  They were only $1/pound!  Ryan and I bought two.  :)  We cooked one of them and it was sooo good.  The meat just fell off the bone.  I think we are having the other chicken sometime this week.  The second recipe I used as a dessert for my birthday cookout, banana smores or as people in East Tennessee call it banana boats.  The only modification that was made that made it especially delicious (thanks, Justin for recommending it) was adding a bit of peanut butter.  It was sooo good!  The last recipe was banana bread because I had too many bananas left over after the cookout that I didn't want to go to waste.  It was a little high on sugar, so I'm going to modify it with a splenda next time.  I have at least two more recipes to try sometime this week.  I'll let ya know how it goes.  Or you can look at my "Success" Pinterest Board for an earlier update! ;)

6.)  Save some money.  I saved most of my tax return.  Does that count?  ;)

7.)  Drink more water.  Again, this resolution has now become a habit.  I get such a headache if I don't stick with my water drinking schedule.

8.)  Be more appreciative. I still haven't thought of a way to report on this.  Any ideas?

9.)  Take more photos, and not just photos of my dog, Butch.   Nope.  I've been willing to be in more pictures than I have in the past, but I've been horrible at taking pictures.  Maybe it'll get better with this Philippines trip.

10.)  Blog once at least once a ...month. Well, judging on the archives, I've blogged at least once a month so far.  I think I'll be blogging more often after graduation comes.  Besides, I won't be writing academic papers anymore.  I have to keep my writing skills sharp somehow!

Well that's all for now!