November 29th, 2011 (Day 333)

So, this picture was a joke picture I sent to Annie right as I was running out the door for work, but it represents the day pretty well. It was raining all day long. So much rain! Roads are flooded because of all the rain.

I didn't do much today besides work. I am happy to have my new awesome green peacoat, with a HOOD, to protect me from the rain though!

November 28th, 2011 (Day 332)

I had an intense start to my week! I had to intern today, which I was quite productive at! I really have been enjoying being moved departments. The women in the mentoring department are so awesome! I love working with them. :) I had to leave interning a little early today to drive downtown. I met up with my 'group' at the computer lab to start working on a group project. We got the first part of our project done, which was good. I left downtown right around 5, so perfect rush hour time! Ugh. Oh well. I didn't mind sitting in traffic listening to good music!


I ended up parking right by my old apartment. It made me feel all nostalgic. Look! You can see my old bedroom window from this pic. I miss my apartment! It was a good first apartment.

November 27th, 2011 (Day 331)

Today Lauren and I did more shopping for Christmas presents for the three kids we're sponsoring this Christmas. We got lots of good things for them!


Sometime I noticed that happens to me occasionally when I shop...my hands get really read and itchy! You can see in between my fingers (and also on the palm side of my hand) was super red and itched so bad. Why does this happen?? I must figure it out!


After shopping, mom came over and we scrapbooked together! Fun :)

November 26th, 2011 (Day 330)

I saw this idea last night on Pinterest, to have your alarm memo be an inspiring/positive message to start your day off right!


This morning when my alarm went off at 7:30am, my inspirational message made me less grumpy to be getting up so early. Success!


I worked 8-5 today. It wasn't too bad, I like the people I work with! Today was unusually warm out for being almost December. I'm suspicious, but enjoying it!

November 25th, 2011 (Day 329)

Annmarie and Fiona came over this afternoon to hang out for a bit. Annmarie told me about her Black Friday deals and I was glad that I didn't go out and partake in the craziness!

I worked 2-7 today. Work was kind of boring and slow, which was a change-up from the past few shifts I've worked, which have been insane!

I came home and had dinner and relaxed. I am ultra-boring on a Friday night, freshly showered and in PJs already by 9pm. I'm doing some laundry and will probably go to bed fairly early tonight, since I work 8-5 tomorrow. Blah.


When I got out of the shower, I went into my room to put pajamas on, and this is what I found in my bed. I'm not sure how she got in, since I keep my door closed, but I thought it was cute!

November 24th, 2011 (Day 328)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love the holidays :) We went to Mina and Papa's for "dinner" around 3. We ate with the family and had a delicious meal. I hung out most of the afternoon/evening there. Mom, Mina and myself looked through a bunch of old pictures and it was a lot of fun! I love family time.


Sister.


Typical family photo.


Seriously, I'm grateful for my parents for being good people. They've been divorced over 10 years and still can celebrate the holidays together as a family. I love it!


Annie came over that night and we had Thanksgiving round 2. Thanks for putting up with my silly weird ass, Annie! Haha.

November 23rd, 2011 (Day 327)

Today was disgustingly long! I was supposed to work from 6:30am to 2pm, but it turned into 6:30am until 6:30pm! 12 hours is too long to be working. The plus was that it flew by. We were insanely busy at work today (hence my shift running over an extra 5 hours almost!)


We got an owner surrender on an 11 week old Shih Tzu puppy named Katie. She was super sweet and hung out with me most of the day! She is in our rescue at work and I'm sure she will get adopted super quick. We already have people interested in her!

After working all day, I came home and just relaxed and then crashed super early. Pure exhaustion!

November 22nd, 2011 (Day 326)

Today was so good! I was off today, so I ran some errands during the afternoon. Lunch with sister, bank, work to get my schedule, gas station, and grocery store. I made two yummy desserts (Pioneer Woman's chocolate peanut butter pie and caramel brownies) to take for an "adult" dinner party at Cody and Joe's apartment downtown. Mostly all of the friends were there, and it was good to have everyone home for the holidays and under one roof to spend time together! I love my friends. I can't say that enough. I'm so lucky!





:)

November 21st, 2011 (Day 325)

Today I hung out with Britty Boo out in Rochester most of the day.

I liked the new poster hanging in her bathroom.


Live one day at a time and make it a masterpiece...the a to zen of life. :)

November 20th, 2011 (Day 324)

Today is November 20th. I couldn't believe that it was already November, never mind almost December now! Time is flying by, it is CRAZY!


My Sunday Funday wasn't bad. I got to sleep in today. I woke up and worked on my paper for a few hours. Corinne and I ended up spending the afternoon together. We got lemonades from Panera and then did some shopping! Sally's (I was proud and only got one nail polish, a China Glaze on sale for $1.99), T.J. Maxx and Target. I mostly did shopping for the foster kids we're sponsoring for Christmas. I have their wish-lists and was able to buy them each a couple things on their lists so far. It was fun!


Corinne showing off some Tech Deck stuff, as the 13 year old boy I'm sponsoring requested!

When I got home I finished up my paper and submitted it. I'm glad it is out of the way. I can't wait for the semester to end and to have everything OFF my plate. I feel like a syllabus can be so intimidating at the beginning of a semester. So, when the end of a semester comes and you see everything you've accomplished, that is a good feeling. I can't believe I only have one semester left of undergrad!

Annie stopped over tonight and it was good to sit and catch up and talk. We've both been really busy lately, I'm lucky if I see her once a week. Before we used to see each other almost daily. :P

November 19th, 2011 (Day 323)

I was up at 7am today, which is not acceptable for a Saturday, at least not in my opinion. ;) I worked 8-5:30. Work was ok, not too bad but not too great, haha, just typical work!


I love our office cat, Chiffon, so much! She is such a sweetie. Today she was incredibly lazy and was snuggled in this blanket in the chair next to me for the most of the day. I was pretty jealous and wished I could join her. :P

I'm not sure what, if anything, is going on for tonight. I guess we'll see!

November 18th, 2011 (Day 322)

TGIF...not really! I had to get up pretty early this morning to go to the doctor for my follow up appointment with the orthopedist to check up on my foot. They x-rayed it again and it is healing! The fractured piece of bone is moving back towards the rest of the bone, so that is good. They will x-ray it again in 5 more weeks to make sure it keeps healing properly. As for now, I get to wean myself from the stupid boot, which I am thrilled about!


Bye bye boot! I will not miss you!


After the doctor, I was still exhausted from the lack of sleep the other night, so I took a little nap before working 2-7. After work I went to Annmarie's and we got Thai for dinner. Yum! I hung out with her for a bit and then saw Rachel for a bit too. My Friday did end up being pretty good!

November 17th, 2011 (Day 321)

Today was exhausting! I slept for like 2 hours total last night (technically this morning) and then I had to get up, shower, and intern. I had a ton of coffee to try to energize me! I'm not sure if it worked or not!



Leaving interning at night, there were some slight flurries. The first "snow" I've spotted so far. It is depressing. I can't handle it! I hate snow. I am not ready for another winter...

November 16th, 2011 (Day 320)

BLAH! Today was so incredibly long. I was awake before 6am and then had to work from 6:30am-2pm.



At least Nancy is a nice manager and brought me an Ice Capp and a donut from Tim Horton's to brighten my morning!


After work, I went home for a couple hours and then had to head downtown for class. It was the second to last seminar class of the semester, and our paper was due tonight. So that is kind of a weight lifted!

My night later on ended up unexpected and interesting...

November 15th, 2011 (Day 319)

Today wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be! I had a bit of a break and didn't have anything major to do until later on. From 6-8 I went to a foster parent support group meeting at my internship. It was really awesome this month! They had a guest speaker, a sister in law of one of the adoption workers, who was in foster care and adopted herself. Her story was amazing and inspirational and it was a great thing to be able to hear her tell her story first hand!


After interning, I came home and spent time with some of my favorite girls. Haha.

November 14th, 2011 (Day 318)

The dreaded Monday! Getting out of bed this morning was not easy! I interned today, found out Mallory also got switched departments so we're both mentoring interns at our agency which is good! Our supervisor and the two mentoring coordinators are super sweet and nice, I love working with them so far! We are going to try to switch our intern days to Tues/Thurs instead of Mon/Thurs so that we can participate in both elementary school mentoring programs on those afternoons! I'm excited.



I did nothing special or out of the ordinary today, so my picture is of my new manicure. It is a little wild for me, normally I'm more boring and conservative with my colors! I tried to go outside the box when I bought this nail polish and now I finally got the guts to try it out!

November 13th, 2011 (Day 317)

Another Sunday Funday has rolled around. I love that Sundays are back to lazy days for me! For the most part, I had a really nice Sunday today.


Britt came over and we sat in her car and listened to music and talked like old times.




Then, the dogs ran away. We spent over 2 hours looking for them. Not fun. I'm just happy they're home! Oliver was a guilty guy when he finally came home.

November 12th, 2011 (Day 316)

Happy birthday Christina!


I had to work earlier in the day, and then later on we went down to Ferndale to celebrate Christina's birthday! I really had a good time tonight!



Love my friends! It was a funny and interesting night. :)

November 11th, 2011 (Day 315)

11-11-11! Make a wish!

I went down to Grosse Pointe to babysit my little cousins while Kym and Steve went to a wedding, so I was with the kids from about 3pm until midnight! It actually went by pretty fast, they are such good kids. :)

I also decided it is way more comfortable and enjoyable babysitting family members rather than someone else's kids!


Parker was being shy about being in a picture..but I wanted to get a shot of him with his "double" cheeseburger which ended up being 4 patties (the standard burgers have 2!). It was so cute, but he put a major dent in it for being such a little guy!


Ailey looking silly with her TCBY treat.


My delicious parfait from TCBY...chocolate chocolate ice cream, peanut butter ice cream, twix candies, butterfinger candies, and Reese's pieces on top. So friggin' good!

(No pictures of Saylor. She went to her friend's birthday party down the street we got dinner and ice cream!)

November 10th, 2011 (Day 314)

Overall, today was a good day! I interned in the morning, as usual, and then got to come home and take a little nap...before waking up and going to the movies with Annmarie! MJR had the thing where you could bring in a donation of 5 cans (per person) and get a free movie ticket. We also both happened to have free popcorn coupons from our MJR rewards point cards. So, it was a completely free outing! We saw 50/50, which was very funny and heartwarming at the same time. I liked it!

After the movies, we went out to O'Toole's in Royal Oak to celebrate Cody finally being legal! It was a good time. :)


Happy birthday, finally, baby Codes!


Haha- my friends make me laugh.

November 9th, 2011 (Day 313)

Today I worked 2-7 all ALONE in reception! Nancy was supposed to train me but had to take her daughter to the hospital (staph infection) and I was left alone even though I'm not officially done training yet. Sink or swim, I guess! I think I swam for the most part. It was overwhelming and I'm still not completely there yet, but it was a good learning experience to have to do everything on my own.

After work I came home and was very accomplished in my homework. I did a process recording, discussion posting and 3 responses, and wrote 3 pages of my 8-10 paper that is due the 20th.


Then, my favorite part of the day! Zoning out while laying on the couch and peeping Facebook while watching The Real World on MTV!

November 8th, 2011 (Day 312)

Today was also kind of long! I had lunch with Annmarie at PF Changs. It was nice to catch up and eat our favorite lunch!


I thought my fortune from my cookie was pretty nice!


After lunch, I trained at the AAC from 2-5 and then drove to my internship and interned from 6-9. I got to sit in on a foster parent orientation meeting and I felt like I learned a lot! Which was cool.

I didn't get home until late and went to bed pretty early tonight too. I've been such a grandma lately!

November 7th, 2011 (Day 311)

Today was LOOONG!

I arrived at court by 9am for two trials. The first was a best interest hearing for two twins who have been in foster care since they were only months old. They've now been with their foster parents for almost 2 years and are very bonded with them. A biological aunt was trying to get custody of them, even though she hasn't seen them in the past 2 years. The judge took statements from everyone (including the aunt) and will make a decision in the future. I thought it was silly of her to even show up, these two kids don't know any other family besides their "foster" family. The second was a parental rights termination trial. The rights were terminated, which is definitely a good thing. I won't go into details, but yeah, it was so cool to see! There are 7 kids in the family and they are in a few different foster homes. They've been in limbo in foster care for 3.5 years, so to finally have their parents' rights terminated and now their foster families can start the adoption process..that was AMAZING! The foster parents were crying tears of joy after the trial ended. I almost cried too! It was so awesome, I can't wait for the kids to get adopted!


View of Mt. Clemens and the Clinton River from the courthouse. I thought it was pretty!

After court, I went back to my intern office had lunch, made a million phone calls reminding foster parents of our upcoming support group meeting and reminding them of blind cord safety procedures to prevent little kids from strangling themselves in the blinds...and then supervised two parent visitations with birth parents. Like I said, long day! I interned for almost 11 hours today!

I was so exhausted when I got home I went to bed at 9 and was asleep by 10pm!

November 6th, 2011 (Day 310)

Lets see, what did I do today? Oh yeah, basically nothing! I was excited to have the day off and no real plans all day after the long day I had yesterday. Actually...the entire week was pretty long! I slept in, played the Sims, had a nice visit from Britty, watched tv, got some laundry/cleaning done, watched more tv, sat on the computer, etc. It was such a nice peaceful day! Tomorrow starts another busy week...


High-light of my day was the pumpkin pie ice cream blizzard from DQ! I was too lazy to get my camera, so taken on Photo Booth. :P

November 5th, 2011 (Day 309)

Today was...less than awesome!

I had to get up at 7 something am and get ready for work.


This is what I encountered at 7:45am when I went to leave for work. I am not ready to scrape ice off my windows! Ughhh, winter sucks!

I ended up working 10 hours today, "training" in reception. I feel like I'm probably 85% trained after today! Just a few more things I need to get a hang of, but it definitely helped that I have worked other positions at the job for so long and know a lot of the information and systems already!

After work, I went shopping with mom and Lauren. Then, I came home and was lame for the night. Took a midterm exam (did well on it! Ended up getting over 100% with extra credit factored in) and went to bed semi-early. I was pretty pooped!

November 4th, 2011 (Day 308)

I had my first day of training as a receptionist today at the AAC. Since I broke my foot, I have been off the past few weeks since I can't really be an animal caregiver or work in doggy daycare with a broken foot and a walking cast. Two of the receptionists gave their notices last week, so Nancy decided to train me to work in reception as well. I'm glad to be back to work (so I can be making money!) and this job is definitely something I can do with a broken foot since most of the job is sitting down and doing stuff on the computer, answering phones, and talking to clients!

After training for a few hours, Mallory and I went down to our internship for a couple hours for an event for adoption month!


Part of the reception area at work...where I will be spending a lot of time the upcoming future!

November 3rd, 2011 (Day 307)

For my internship today I went to court for a few hours this morning. One of the foster care case workers, Beth, had a trial for parental rights termination. The first hour we spent waiting in the hallway for the attorney, the second hour was discussion of adjourning the case to give the parents more time to "prepare" and we went into the open court room and observed other cases taking place just so the day wasn't a complete waste. Our case got rescheduled for February 9th, so not for a while!

I went home and took a little nap after court. I woke up and just kinda hung out at home and didn't do much the rest of the day! Had dinner with dad, caught up on tv shows, and most importantly...played Sims 3! I've gone through periods of being really into the Sims and then not playing for months and months.


Right now I'm really into it...which is good because it gives me a "hobby" to entertain myself with my boring broken foot!

November 2nd, 2011 (Day 306)

Today had to be one of the best days of the YEAR! First off, it was my half birthday. As of today, I am officially 21.5 years old. 6 months until my 22nd birthday, which I am excited for because 22 is my lucky number and hopefully it'll be a lucky year!

Secondly, I found out I got accepted to grad school today! I am now accepted for Wayne State's 10 month advanced standing Master of Social Work program! Best news ever! It totally made my day awesome.

Lauren and I went out to lunch to celebrate. We had Salsarita's which was delicious as always. Then, we drove downtown for our seminar class.

After class, Annie and Annmarie came over and we finally had our chapstick making party. We made a bunch of organic chapstick from scratch. It was pretty cool!



Eeek! So excited :D

November 1st, 2011 (Day 305)

I can't believe it is November already!

I had lunch with Sarah. We had yummy La Saj...mmm! After I got home and hung out for a bit, Annmarie and mom came over. Me and Annmarie ended up going to visit Lauren at work (and bring her dinner) and then went to Target. They had their Halloween stuff for 50% off, so of course I had to buy the dogs costumes! After we went shopping, I went back home and Annie came over to visit. :)



Silly squirrel Dot.


Pretty pumpkin Bellie!