Comps Continues.

So I wanted to give you an update on this thing called "comps."

So I wrote this on Saturday, and well, here ya go...

.. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . ..

"Just so you know... in case you are wondering... and in case I don't feel the same way next Friday night when I'm freaking out about turning in all my essays...


I'm LOVING Comps! (and my husband is helping sooo much around the house!)


I think this means I am officially a nerd. I crave deadlines and assignments, but most of all new information. Funny thing is we got four questions; therefore, we have to write four essays. Two are more unfamiliar territory and two are actually really familiar territory. Guess which ones I picked first... maybe it's the thrill of the challenge.


Or maybe it's the thrill of looking up the new information... I cannot tell you how much time I spend reading about diseases WebMD tells me I have.


Maybe that's why my one of my favorite essays in grad school was titled Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitors for Treatment of Diabetes when it could have just been written about:


diabetes and counseling...which oddly enough is what one of my comps essays is on.


Much nerdy love. Who knows what I'll do when I finish all this... Yay Comps!


.. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . ..


Not quite as cheery today as I was on Friday... but I'm pushing through, like that time I thought it was a great idea to run a half-marathon...

Plan on finishing the 3rd essay tonight! Got 2 hours until self-mandated comps week bedtime.

They call it "Comps."

So I'm at the point in my graduate school education for a little thing called "comps" or the Comprehensive Exam in Human Ecology. Pretty much for one week, it's kind of madness.

On Friday I'll get an email with 4 questions, (each representing a class I took in grad school) and by the next Friday I'll send in four 5-page essays.

Saying it that way makes it seem easy.

But pretty much our house will go on hold from Friday until Friday. I'll still go to work every day, and then race home to work on the essays. Which means I'll have to plan meals ahead (because fast food does not a happy student make... for me.)

Are we remembering what that was like.... I actually found all my notes from grad school, whew!

Yep...

So here's the run down of easy to prepare (not necessarily healthy) foods for the week. That Kyle man that lives here will be doing all the cooking.

For Lunches at Work: Just Straight PB&J, Apple, or Tuna Packs

Thursday: Leftover Hot Dogs, Chili, Baked Beans (Sometimes I hear they send out the questions on Thursday, so we're planning accordingly).
Friday: Tuna Fish Sandwiches and Smoothies
Saturday: Lunch: Chicken Wrap, Dinner: Roast Rice and Gravy with Carrots and Potatoes (Crock Pot).

Sunday: Lunch: Leftover Roast Sandwiches, Dinner: Freezer Pizza
Monday: Fajitas with Pre-Cooked Strips, Bell Pepper, Onion, Non-Fat Refried Beans (from the can), Chips, Salsa
Tuesday: (Basketball Practice) Can of Soup and Crackers
Wednesday: Freezer Pizza
Thursday: Quesadillas, Beans, Chips, Salsa

Friday: Woo hoo, done! We're cooking up a storm or going out to eat to some place wonderful!

I think it'll feel great to have that done. And I'm planning on that being the thing that gets me back in the groove of school-working at night to hammer out this thesis...

After that week, it'll be 2 hard push weeks for the thesis and I'm practically done. Wooo hoo! (Sort of.)

I think I may just attend graduation after all of that.... even if it is hours away, and more than likely no one will be there to see it... (but I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch on this graduation thing, gotta get to work!)

Teach Me How to Shoot

There's a lot going on at the Hess household, but number one moment of the day:

Teaching a little girl how to shoot a basketball.

At practice one of our players came up to me and said:

Player: Mrs. Brittany I don't want to do this. 

Me: Umm, well, we should practice shooting...

Player: But I practice a lot and I don't get any better. ... I just get worse.

Imagine the sweetest, poutiest voice you ever heard.

So I took an extra few second, minutes and showed her how to shoot. Mine you, I have no idea how to shoot other than what I read in my coaches manual. But I studied that manual hard...

And it worked. Smile on face, that girl was proud. And boy was I proud of her. She even showed her mom after practice, and now she's more than likely better at shooting than I am.

Maybe I should have been a coach... or teacher ?? (I guess to my patients I am sort of a nutrition teacher, lol).

Loving coaching, loving the sweet girls on my team. Loving the way God uses me even when I am not qualified at all...

Basketball Recap!

So I know you are all just dying to know how the game went! :)

Let me tell you what, I actually got a little nervous putting my coach's jersey on and heading to the gym. But these girls were ready!

They were soo great! They blocked and rebounded and made multiple baskets! they passed to their teammates so every got a turn. The were nice to the other team when things got a little more aggressive. Really, no kidding, aggressive.

We have a few things to work on. Like what it means to NOT full court press. Who knew you had to run back across the half court line when the other team gets the ball and wait for them to cross to defend. Yep, I didn't. Oops. But we'll work on that...

They were so great. So great! Oh I could not be more proud.

And they don't keep score in the 1st and 2nd grade, but let me tell you what, every girl on our team kept score in her own head and out loud, of course. And so even though it "doesn't really matter"... we Won! They were so pumped!

I handed out their little award stars last night at practice and we're ready for the next game. Bring it on!

B-Ball Begins!

So tomorrow is the big day... our first real basketball game!

After 2 practices we've figured out 3 things:

1. None of us have every played basketball before.

2. The tallest member of our team, who happens to be really good, asked me after I missed a basket on an 8-foot goal while standing right under it, "so did you play basketball?" I had to answer honestly and tell her that I didn't. It went something like this: "Well, not exactly, like no, not in high school or anything." ... I mean, maybe I missed that basket on purpose as to not show up the girls on the team... right?

3. I'm thanking the local P.E. teacher whomever he or she may be... when I was teaching the girls some of the basketball rules (you have to dribble, no dribbling with two hands, if you stop dribbling you have to either shoot or pass) they piped up and said "oh we learned that today in P.E.!" Dear Lindale PE teacher, thank you. It's really hard to teach the entire game of basketball in just two 1 hour practices... with water breaks and all ;)

Loving it. Ready for the game tomorrow. May the Lady Tigers dominate! And by dominate I mean look great out there and have fun, because they don't keep score in the 1st and 2nd grade... who knew.

They sent me home this week with the coaches box!!

And yes the uniforms do resemble Texas A&M, but all the teams are the same colors... and me and my severe hitchhiker thumb aren't "gigging them" I was just going for a thumbs up, lol....

Have a wonderful weekend! I'll let you know how it goes... And if you're in Lindale, game's at 8am on Saturday, come cheer us on!!

New Year, New Ideas

So all the famous bloggers (you know, all the ones with lots of "followers" that I read during my lunch break) have been writing about their New Year's Resolutions.

And I'm actually having a very hard time remembering what my resolutions were for 2010. Really, I'm hoping maybe I blogged about it so I can find them...

...

Okay, so to save you some time I just checked and apparently I didn't actually set any resolutions. I did say I'd be using coupons and working out more. As for the coupons, we decided that our little town's limitation of Wal-Mart and only one local grocery store wasn't going to work for extreme couponing. As for working out, well I worked out a lot last winter, and then a lot again this summer...  ...

I think maybe I jumped on the other opposite bandwagon last year of "not setting any resolutions but simply reflecting on the year."

But I think I've decided I'll make a few this year. Why not? If I don't keep them what'll happen, maybe we'll get a few laughs next year thinking about what I thought I could do in 2012?

So here goes:
1. Work out more. I know that one was from last year. But it really is a good one. I don't need to join a gym or start a class, I just need to walk more and dance more with my husband and work in the yard and such... right. I'd like to have at least 2 active days a week. I'm setting the bar low. But of course then I'm thinking about training for another half marathon with my new Christmas running shoes... raising the bar.

2. I'd like to pay off our debt. Not our house, but my student loan from my internship. It's a modest loan, I'm still in school, so it's not due yet, and it's subsidized meaning that it doesn't accrue any interest at all while I'm in school and up to 6 months afterwards. My goal is to have it paid off my the end of May.

3. Finish my Masters. I feel like it's been a long time coming, but it's only really been 3.. oh that is a long time.  It should be tuned in my March at the latest and finalized by May. Oh that day will be so wonderful. And then I'm sure the very very next day I'll miss school... Really, that's me.

4. Host People in Our Home. We have our new wonderful house and I'd like to have people over more. Movie nights, dinners, Bible study. I'd like to share what we've been blessed with and make it a welcoming place of love and friendship and "sure I'm not doing anything either come over and we'll hang out" place. We'll see. But if you're in the Lindale area, be watching for an invite...
And after I feel as free as a bird in May, out of debt and done with school and all, then maybe I'll have time for Number 1 and Number 4, right?

5. Blog more. I know there are not millions of you reading this and I don't expect 5,000 people to stop by every day... I don't expect that I am the next greatest blogger of all time. But honestly, we have some funny stuff happening around here and I just forget to take out my camera, or don't know how to take a good picture, really. I make and try all kinds of yummy food, and we've got a lot of work on the house coming up this year. I'd like to write about it and share it and maybe you can even learn from my mistakes, lol... I'd rather not just forget to blog and send you a list of the things I did last month. But we'll see...

I'd also like to love my husband better, read more books, and sew pillows, be a better friend, and plant a wonderful garden and repaint almost every room in our home, and setup the kiln, and make lots of pottery, and be on time for work, and post more than once a week (month) on the blog.

But we'll see. A year's a long time, right. Who knows what'll turn up.

Update: I worked out twice already this week, really! Wii Biggest Loser Challenge Yoga and basketball practice... first game's on Saturday...

Finishing

On a day when quite possibly you are thinking of abandoning your resolutions, already. And on a day when I've got to realize it is time to get to work on finishing the thesis that is my life. I send you this. (And because I read it on a financial blog I love to read a few days ago.)

All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile,

shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.

The fight to the finish spirit is the one...characteristic

we must posses if we are able to face the future as finishers.

-Henry David Thoreau

I may actually, very soon, find a way to get that up on my wall at home. Very near to the desk... very near.

It's already now written and taped to my desk at work. ;)

I'll finish that thesis, and I'll love it... whether I like it or not.

To resolutions.... and theses... and to any other of the seemingly large molehills.

Best of 2011

So we've been off in Christmas Wonderland for the past few weeks. We shopped (me online, of course), wrapped, drank lots and lots of hot chocolate, baked cookies, and visited the relatives for two wonderful Christmases. We truly are blessed by the Lord and or families. Special thanks to my sister and brother and their chauffeur Drew ;) for driving in to make a Kingsley Christmas on New Year's weekend possible, and to my brother of course for Skyping in even though he was out of town.

This weekend I went down memory lane while cleaning out my childhood bedroom of all the stuff I've collected over the year... movie tickets, school notebooks from every class I've ever taken, and the likes.

So I figured we'd take a recap of the blog this past year (because I'm still figuring out my MY favorite moments of the year were). We had visitors from mostly the US, but also Brazil quote frequently (Hello Brazil!), Dominica, Canada, and the UK.

Our Top Five Cities for Visitors in 2011:
1. Shreveport
2. Lake Charles
3. Baton Rouge
4. Dallas
5. Lindale
Probably not a coincidence that most of these are places I've lived. And don't worry, I can't actually see who's reading, it's not that creepy. Feel free, read as much as you like.

I also looked back to see which post were the most popular, most visited this year, and hopefully your favorites. Interesting really.

So here they are the Top Five Hint of Hess blog posts of 2011.

Number Five:
Colorado-ness in June
Where we finally got some pics and posts up from our wonderful summer home at Sky Ranch Ute Trail in Colorado. Oh how we love Colorado!

Number Four:
Wedding Wedding! in July
It's just fun to read and write about weddings. This one here was about Kyle's sister's wedding and the party we had that weekend celebrating!

Number Three:
Buying the Hess House! in August
Which is when we announced the beginning of our hunt for a new home. Oh was that an adventure!

Number Two:
Valentine's Extravaganza in February
As we spilled the details of our incredible fun and incredible wife-y Valentine's Day dinner that me and my friends Becca, Jenn, and Katie planned for our husbands. Those boys showed up in style too!

And finally Number One:
Summer List of Wonders in June
Probably because I talked about it so much. Maybe this next summer we'll tackle a few more after the thesis is done... Until then I'm sure we'll come up with a few New Year's resolutions or something...

PS - Completed that goal... met my new niece Kinsey, twice actually!

So,

I've got a few things up my sleeve for 2012. Watch out, lol. What about you? What were your favorite moments of 2011, or you're favorite posts on the blog??