Finally!

I'm free! I got to take my brace off this morning, this time for good. I am very excited about this, and I'm making good use of my freedom. It's kind of funny though, I still forget sometimes that I can use my left hand properly, and I go to use it the way I have been for the past few weeks. 

Anyway, it's been a week or so since I've been on here. So it's time for a fill-in. This past weekend, Karen came up for Little Sib's weekend, which was fun. Dad brought her up Friday evening, and we met in St. Cloud for dinner. My best friend Brittany had her whole family up (two boys, 6 and 12, and her sister, 17, plus her parents) and an extra friend that wanted to tour the school, so we all got together when I got back to CSB and just kind of hung out for the night. We met some of the boys and then went to a comedy act, which was quite good. Merideth, Heather, and Brittany also had one of their mutual high school friends up, and we met her Saturday morning. Saturday was filled with a photo scavenger hunt and more hanging out. We popped in a movie late Saturday night, since none of our visitors were used to staying up until the wee hours of the morning. Sunday, Karen and I got up, went to breakfast, and then met Mom in Waite Park to catch the 12:30 showing of New In Town. For all you native Minnesotans out there, I would recommend you watch that. It's not amazing enough to the point where I would say go see it in theaters, but someday, rent it. It's pretty funny. 

Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened in my life over the past week and a half. I've been working on a couple of research papers for various classes, and trying to stay ahead in all of my others. I work approximately 11 hours each week, spread out over Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then enjoy Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Piano lessons are still up in the air; I have definitely decided though to either drop them or take an incomplete. I sign up for my room tomorrow, and I'm really excited about that. But that's about it.

Love to all...

Even The Most Carefully Laid Plans....

can end up changing completely. My weekend was all planned out in my head, starting with Friday night. I was going to have a piano lesson around 4:30, do some homework, grab something to eat, head over to SJU around 7:30, see Karen, come back to CSB around 9:45, relax in my empty room (Sami was gone all weekend for basketball), and get to bed by about midnight. Saturday, we were going to be up and headed into St. Cloud by 11:00, shop for a few hours and be back early afternoon to do some homework before having another girl's night, this time in my room. Sunday we were going to sleep in late, finish any homework, go to church, and then head over to SJU for the remainder of the evening.

Wanna know how my weekend actually turned out?

Friday night, I did have my piano lesson around 4:30, and it turned out to be pretty upsetting for me. As it turns out, with my tendonitis messing with my practicing, I may have to take an incomplete in my lessons, or even drop the course. I'm really rather upset about this, since I love playing piano. Our decision for the time being is for me to take another week off, and see how things are going by the end of March. I'm hoping to finish the semester out and then take a little more time off at the beginning of my summer. After my lesson, I met up with Brittany, Merideth, and Heather and we got dinner at CSB before heading over to SJU on the 6:30 bus. I did in fact get to see Karen, who was playing in the pep band for a girl's basketball game, but it was only for a couple minutes. I didn't want to pay to get into the game, so I went back to Mary 2 with the girls and was waiting around for the next bus when we all decided to go check out the dance in the pub. Suffice it to say, I didn't make it home and into bed until 1:30. Brittany spent the whole weekend in my room, and we talked for just a couple of minutes before falling asleep. 

Saturday morning, we didn't end up leaving for St. Cloud until noon, since Heather had to work. We shopped the mall; got some essentials, as well as some fun stuff, and made it back to CSB around 3:30. The other girls headed over to SJU after a couple of hours of homework, and I stayed back to keep working. Brittany ended up taking the 9:15 bus back to CSB, and we met up in the Gorecki for a quick bowl of cereal before heading back to my room. We worked on some stuff for a little while, and then decided to head over to Regina to check out a party that was supposed to be going on, but it wasn't, so we left. We ended up sitting in Mary Hall Commons for a good hour and a half, just talking and people watching. Finally, around 12:30 we headed up to my room and crawled in bed. About 15 minutes later, the boys showed up. They had been out in St. Joe, and ended up hanging out with us until the 2:00 bus. We finally got to bed around 2:30 and slept until 9:00. 

On Sunday, I did a little homework before meeting up with my collegebound group for breakfast. We chatted until a little after 11:00, and then I went to practice piano for mass, came back to my room, took a quick shower, got ready for church, and went to SJU for an orchestra concert with Brittany. It lasted until just before I needed to head back for church, so I got out of there pretty quickly. Mass went well; it was confirmation and Bishop Kinney was  the presider. After mass, Brittany and I headed back to SJU for the remainder of  the evening. All was uneventful until about 11:30, when all the power on the campus was lost due to an excel power outage combined with our generator dying. I was irrationally scared, and ended up spending the night because I refused to drive back to CSB and then spend the night alone in my bed. Brittany and I slept in Jon's room, and Merideth was in Steve and Geo's room. We slept until about 7:30, when we found out that classes were cancelled for the day, which was an awesome discovery. The rest of the morning, we just hung out on Jon's futon, chatting with each other and the random people that walked in. At one point we walked over to the Reef and had some dry cereal. Finally around 1:15, we all came back to CSB and worked out. The weather was gorgeous today, so most of the group ran outside and then came back to our dorms and did homework outside. Brittany and I got food with Jon and Geo around 4:00, and then I had to work. After work, Brittany and I attended a speaker, and were about to head over to SJU when we realized that there was still no light over there. We decided to stay here, which worked out well, since all of our guys are here too. We're currently just sitting around doing homework and hoping against all hope that the generator will prove impossible to fix by tomorrow. As of right now, all classes at CSB are scheduled to go regularly and SJU classes are pending. I would definitely be up for a couple more days of cancelled classes, but it doesn't look too promising. Most of our boys are thinking about spending the night here, so we'll see what happens. 

Whew, that was long. I hope all is well where you are. Have a great day and don't forget to smile because I love you!

Snow Nights, Tendonitis, and Roommates

I've only been back to school for six days, and already the drama has returned... We started off the week with a beautiful day on Monday. My class went fine, and I felt like I got a lot of stuff done. The weather took a major turn for the worse overnight though. On Tuesday, the temp had dropped about 30 degrees and we were expecting about ten inches of snow. Sure enough, by about 2:30, classes for the rest of the day were cancelled, and the busses shut down at 4:00. Since we were stuck at CSB for the night, Merideth, Brittany, and I hung out. There were lots of laughs, and we had a ton of fun. I wrote a story about our night, which I'll probably post when I finish it.

Wednesday morning, I got up and headed back to Princeton to get my wrist checked out. It's been sore and swollen for three and a half weeks, so I decided it was time to get it looked at. As it turns out, I have tendonitis in my left wrist. I'm stuck in a wrist brace for the next two weeks, and it's been tough. I'm only allowed to take it off for showering, and it's been very interesting learning how to live with only one functioning hand. I can't move my thumb at all, which makes it difficult to type, eat, get dressed, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Pretty soon, we have to sign up for next year's rooming in the sophmore dorms. As of early this week, I was planning on getting a single next to Merideth and Brittany, but things may be changing. I know a girl from Collegebound, Erin, as well as her boyfriend and main group of friends. We've never really hung out, but we both really like each other and always want to hang out. As of right now, she's signed up for a quad next year, but we decided earlier this week that we want to live together. We discussed everything that we could think of, and it sounds like we'll be a perfect match. She is still waiting to find out about the quad, though, so we won't be able to figure this out until next week. She's someone I never even thought of living with, but now I'm really excited about the prospect of doing so.

Well, my wrist is bugging me, and I've got to go get ready for the next part of my day, so I leave you all with my love until next time!

Back to good ol' (not so cold) MN

Well, we made it through our last day in Florida without too many problems. Grandma stayed sick all the way home, and we figure it had to be the water in the house, because she was the only one who kept drinking it. 

Friday afternoon we ended up at the beach again. It was nice for a while, but the clouds moved in quickly, and by 5:00 we packed it up and called it a day. We headed "home", showered, and then went to McDonald's for our last meal in the Sunshine State. By the time we made it home, everyone was exhausted, so we put the little kids to bed, and turned on the boob tube. The rest of us packed up what we could in anticipation of our 10:00 checkout time and then hit the sack around 11:00.

Saturday morning was filled with the last little bit of packing and laundry, before we left at 10:30. We made it to the airport and checked in by noon, got a pizza, and boarded the plane. The following seven hours weren't very exciting: two plane rides, one with a half an hour delay on the runway for reasons unknown to us, and finally loading into the car to go home. 

I was in bed by 10:30 and slept until close to 9:00 this morning. With daylight savings time, we don't have to deal with any jet lag, which is pretty nice. I packed everything up this morning, and headed out around 1:00. It's SO nice to be back at school; I never realize quite how much I miss it until I'm settled back in. I have church in an hour, and hopefully by the time we're done my friends will all be back. I can't wait to get to SJU and see the boys... I know there were lots of cross country trips taken and I can't wait to hear about them. Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone! xo

What's the point??

Well this has quite possibly turned out to be the worst vacation/spring break I have ever experienced. We started off the week with bad weather and two sick people. As time went on, we started finding dead (and live) cockroaches all over the place. Next thing you know, Karen, Nina, and myself are all sick. And by sick I mean throwing up sick. The three of us were up most of the night Wednsday night, and Karen and I were totally out of commission yesterday. I didn't even see Karen (or eat anything for that matter) for over 24 hours because I was sleeping in our room and she was stuck on one of the couches. Of course, yesterday had to be the nicest day of the week, and neither of us were able to enjoy it...

We're all feeling better today, although I'm still a little weak. The skies are clear and blue and the sun is shining, so hopefully I can muster up enough energy to shower and get outside to enjoy our last day here. By this time tomorrow, we'll be packing up to head home to cold MN.

That's about all the excitement I've got for now. Hope everyone is staying healthy!

What A Way To Start...

Well, after I made it back to good ol' P-town Friday afternoon, the fun and games began. It was a bit of a stressful night for everyone, trying to get packed up and ready to go. I came home to find out that not only had we not started packing yet, but also that not all of the laundry we needed was done. Tempers were a little short, which was not good for me, being as it was my first night of spring break and the first time I was going to be home for more than a couple of hours. I didn't add to the happiness much either, considering that I was running on about two and a half hours of sleep plus four hours in my car, being very stressed out because I don't like driving in the cities. But you knew all of this from the last time I wrote.

Anyway, I ended up falling fast asleep on the couch Friday night while I was waiting for my iPod to finish charging. My dad woke me up around 11:00, at which point I decided the thing was charged enough and proceeded to stumble upstairs and fall into bed. I used a comforter and a fleece blanket to cover the bed and slept until about 4:00 in the morning. We made it out of the house around 4:30. I plugged my headphones into my ears and fell asleep, not waking up until we got to the airport. We made it to the gate on time, boarded and took off a few minutes early. I sat apart from the rest of the family and slept off and on all the way down.

When we got to FL, the rental car waiting for us was a joke. Two of the seatbelts were broken and we couldn't buckle everyone in, so we ended up being at the airport for almost two hours after we landed, trying to get a car. The drive from Fort Meyers to Marco Island is about an hour and a half, and we got to the house around 3:30. We unpacked, and headed out to grab dinner and some groceries. I was dead tired, and it took my remaining energy to walk around that grocery store. (Which happened to be Publix, one of my favorite grocery stores ever... odd, I know) When we got back, I read for a little while and pretty much fell into bed around 10.

Yesterday, we got up and went to church and then came back to the house and relaxed. It was sunny for a little while, so we all got some sun, but then the clouds rolled in and we spent the rest of the day indoors. We're starting off this vacation with the bad weather, hoping to work up to the nicer stuff. We got off the island for dinner, checking out this little place called Rib City. It was good food, and we had a lot laughs. We arrived back at the house around 8:00, put the kids to bed, and just kind of hung out for the rest of the night. I was once again in bed by 10:00.

Today I didn't get up until 10:00, and the first thing I found out was that Joe is sick. He's been freezing cold and throwing up (...I think. I haven't checked too closely into that yet.) Dad and Karen went to Publix to get some meds and food supplies and everyone else is having a quiet day in, since the wind is still pretty strong. I've been putting off my two papers that I need to write and reading instead. The kids are doing homework and watching t.v. quietly, since the pool table was driving Grandma nuts. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get together with Teri and Kate, and go shopping.... I think the inactivity is hard on Grandma.

I miss my friends back at school SO MUCH, and I can't wait to see them all again. Hopefully though, the weather will clear up so I can get outside and bring them back a tan to be jealous of!

love to all!