Spring has sprung!

My sister-in-law, Mandy, has inspired me to do a bit of spring-cleaning/re-designing of the blog. It's hard to pick a new template. I feel like I'm ready for a new look, but there aren't many I like more than the one we had (except yours, Jill!). We'll see if this one lasts. :)

It's a beautiful day in Charlotte! It's about 78 right now and the breeze is perfect. I'm writing this from Connor's favorite place in the world... the patio. I was just comparing weather in some significant places... Wichita, our future home (contracts have been signed!) - 50; St. Louis - 50; Paris (just in case!) - 48; Chicago - 38. Now, why are we leaving Charlotte again? I keep asking myself that question. As my brother pointed out over the weekend, we're going to roast in the summer and freeze in the winter. Clearly, we're not so bright. :)

March has been a full and wonderful month. As I mentioned before, we went to my cousin's wedding a few weeks ago and had the chance to reconnect with my mom's side of the family. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble locating my memory card, but here are a few pictures I do have... Up above is Uncle George, aka Father of the Bride. (Those who know him already won't have any trouble recognizing him. He looks the same as I remember him from 20 years ago!). And here are my cousin Anjeanette (AJ) & her daughter (Katie) and my Aunt Joyce and, finally, the beautiful bride, Christine! I think I have better pics of her (and maybe even of the groom) on the other memory card, so I really hope I find it! It was a really beautiful wedding and we had a wonderful time. It was well worth being extra sleepy at work on Monday! We also had the chance to visit with Maggie (a friend from medical school), her husband, Wes, and to meet their little daughter, Caroline, who was just born in January. What a cutie!
The spring travels continued last weekend when we went to Clarksville, TN, to spend Easter/Mom's birthday with my mom, brother, Joe, and sister-in-law, Jill. It was a quick trip, but we really had a great time. We didn't get to see all three of them at Christmas, so it felt like it had really been a long time since we'd gotten together. We're hoping to get together with Joe & Jill again in a few weeks. We're planning a visit to Asheville, NC, & the Biltmore Estate. I'm really feeling the pinch of our time in NC running out, so I want to make sure we get a chance to see the sights before we leave.

I turned in my resignation at work today... It's hard to believe it's already come to that time! I guess it's not ALL that close... I'm required to give 30 days notice, so I figured it would be good to give 6 weeks. Even so, it should leave us with about 6 weeks after I stop working to find a place to live, take a vacation, see what we can here and get ready for the move. I have a feeling it's going to be a busy few months! I've decided I'm not going to start working right away after we move. I think after this year, I'll be ready for a break again.

I hope you all are enjoying Spring... even if it's only holding out a hope that Spring really will come to Chicago someday. :)

Yea, weekend!

I am so thankful that it's Friday! This week has seemed to go on forever. There's an action-movie-type book of Ian's I read several years ago that talks about fast time and slow time. The idea is that time doesn't really move at a continuous, regular pace. Rather, there are periods where everything speeds up and time flies by (fast time) and other periods where things slow down and you're surprised by how little time has passed from one moment to the next (slow time). I've discovered that I most recently experience fast time when I'm getting ready for work in the morning and trying not to be late and slow time seems to come up most at the end of the work day when I'd really like to be home already. :) This week seems like it's been nothing but slow time. It feels like a month since I took that exam. I am ready for a weekend!

Fortunately or unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to be a terribly restful weekend, but it should be fun. Ian and I are driving down to Augusta, GA, tomorrow morning to visit with a friend from med school who just had a baby in January and to attend the wedding of one of my cousins. We've never been all that close with our extended family, especially on my mom's side of the family. At least on my dad's side, everyone lives in St. Louis, so we've had opportunities to see each other more frequently and, as we've gotten older, more of an opportunity to act on desires to be closer with our extended family. My mom's family mostly lives on the East Coast (Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia...), so it's always been a little more difficult to get together with them. My cousin recently reached out to our part of the family and said that she'd really like for us to get to know each other better. I'm really excited that it's worked out that I might be able to do something about that. Apparently, Augusta is just about 3 hours from Charlotte and it's a lovely coincidence that we just had this friend move there, so we have an extra reason to visit and free place to stay. The one big downside of the weekend is that the wedding is on Sunday night and Ian and I both have to work Monday. I'm sure it'll be worth it, though!

We got some new pictures of our niece, Sophia. I can't believe she's so big already! I've only gotten to see her once - for her Baptism in November. Ian and I should be in Chicago a couple times in May, so I'm very much looking forward to more quality time with "the Sophster," as I've heard she's called (and with Mark & Naomi, of course!).

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

P = LPC!

QUESTION: What do you call the person who finishes last in medical school?
ANSWER: Doctor

When Ian was in med school, we heard all sorts of things like this. One of the most common mantras was P (pass) = MD. I'm sure those same things go around in other professions. For the past few days, our mantra has been P = LPC (licensure for counselors). I had my board exam today, and I'm VERY happy to say that I got the P! P for Pass and P for Phew! Here's a crazy thought... depending on what I decide to do with the rest of my life, I may never have to take a big exam like this again! Or really, study for any kind of exam again! What a wonderful feeling! I'm as happy as these random people!

Popular!

Yes, it's true... two blogs in two weeks. I'm back on the wagon! I have my board exam for state licensure on Monday (eek!) and after that, I'm very much looking forward to the pace of life returning to some sense of normalcy. If nothing else, I'll have two big worries (conference plus exam) off my shoulders... assuming I pass the exam, that is. :) Keep your fingers crossed!

Since I'm really supposed to be studying right now, this is going to be a quick one. There were just a couple of super-cute things the kids did this week that I wanted to share. I do my very best not to take things the kids do or say about me to heart because I know very little of what happens is truly about me. That being said, I think it's good to hold on to the nice things and laugh off the not-so-nice ones. Without keeping this in mind, the week before last could easily have been a bit of an ego-buster. There are two little guys I see back-to-back every Wednesday. One is six and the other is seven. They generally like coming to see me, but that week the six-year-old said I was a bad friend and he was never coming back to play with me because I wouldn't let him keep even just one of my superhero action figures. To his credit, he did ask which one I liked best and tried very hard to get to keep a different one. (Apparently, my ass-kickers are quite popular, Mandy and Kev!) But since I said they all had to stay at the center so he could play with them when he came to see me, he said we were no longer friends and he was never coming back. Then, I went to get the seven-year-old for his session and he had a total melt-down because he didn't want to come see me. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it goes.

This week was lovely, though. There's another little guy who just turned six who has been my admirer for a while now. i don't see him for therapy, but he comes to the center every day I'm there for the after-school program we have. The going theory in the office was that he really just loved me for my toys and thought that if he was really nice to me, I'd let him come in and play with them. I was drawing pictures with him the other day and he said, "You know what? Joey said that sometimes he wants to kiss you. [Note: No idea who Joey is.] Sometimes I feel that way, too." I was chatting with the little guy who said he was never coming back and his case worker later and the case worker told him to tell me what his favorite color is. He said "White like your skin and brown like your hair and black like your shirt..." I am the only white person who works at this office. Ian said it's funny that I'm the exotic one. :) During our session, he did promote me from having "bad character" (for talking too loudly) to having "good character." I think we've made our peace... At least until Superman comes up again. :)