Project update

Finals week is finally over and I lived through another semester.
I will admit that this has been the hardest semester for me so far due to a combination of several things. First, my class schedule, second, extracurricular things I am involved in such as student government and research, and third my house is a disaster...literally. Our home improvement project is still not finished, every time we seem to make a little progress we either find something else that needs to be done or we decide to add on to the project. What started out as remodeling the living room (wood floor, new lights, paint) has now grown into a major renovation. We have replaced our ancient furnace with a hot water system, added a water softener, repaired sagging floor joists, poured cement in part of our crawl space for support, moved a couple of doors, re-plumbed the kitchen, updated some electrical, and removed a closet, and we are now tearing out a wall to expand our kitchen. That will of course require more sheetrock work and more wood flooring. We are also intending to replace the cabinets and counter tops and paint the kitchen. This is all of course taking a very long time because we are doing most of it ourselves, I'm sure glad my husband knows how to do all of this because it would be very expensive if we had to hire someone else. I can't wait to get it finished because I know it is going to be beautiful when its done.
Here are a few pictures of the project:

This is a picture of a wall in my kitchen right before we tore it out, by removing this I am gaining 4 1/2 feet more across the length of my kitchen. I am losing a pantry which was not a very efficient use of the space, we will be adding pantry cabinets later.
You can see that we have already taken out some of the kitchen cabinets in order to work on the plumbing

When you look at this last picture you may see a mess, but try to look passed it and see that thee is maple flooring that is ready to be sanded and finished. This is proof that we are making slow progress.

The end is in sight!

The end is in sight...and I mean that in more than one way.
I have only one more day of regular classes followed by 3 finals next week and one 5 page paper. This means that 8 days from today I will be breathing a big sigh of relief.
Not only can I see the end of the semester, BUT...
Then there are only 16 credits between me and a diploma.
Fortunately, I have registered for spring semester classes and I was able to get everything I need. This means that I will be driving to Logan 5 days a week, but at least I will not be there all day everyday and I will be home most days within an hour of when my kids get home.
Of course that diploma will only be the end of my bachelors degree, hopefully next fall I will be starting on a masters in school counseling!

Then and now

Here's a blast from the past...
The other day me were looking for my sons social security card so he could go and get his learner's permit and look what we found!
This is my Hubby's student ID from USU back in the late 1970's. I took this picture of his old one and my new one just to compare. The cards have changed quite a bit over the years (so has my hubby, I didn't know he ever had hair that long!) At least I can say they, the cards and my hubby, have both improved with age.

Snow

Oh, it snowed last night,
It snowed last night.
The sky bears had a pillow fight,
They tore up all the clouds in sight,
and dropped down all the feathers white.
Oh, it snowed last night,
It snowed last night!

I don't remember very many specific things that I leaned in kindergarten (it was 35 years ago!) but I remember that song and I think of it every year when I wake up, look out my window and see snow.
These pictures were taken Thursday on campus and this morning in my backyard.

Spider

Saturday our neighbor came over to show us something that had wandered into his backyard. His kids didn't like it and wanted him to get rid of it but mine liked it and wanted to keep it. I understand that a generation ago, tarantulas were seen fairly often crossing highway 38 as they migrated down from the mountains in the fall. We caught one on our patio about 10 years ago that was bigger than this one. This little guy was lucky, I didn't let the kids keep him. We passed him around for a little bit and took pictures of him before releasing it in our forest at the back of our yard.

T-shirts

I have accidentally started a collection. It all began in a very simple way. My freshman year I was taking a class called Career and Life Planning. Our instructor said she would give us some extra credit if we would come to a fair at the Brigham campus where we could talk to people from different departments and get ideas for our major. I couldn't resist so I showed up and while I was there I entered and won my first Utah State T-shirt. Little did I know that one shirt would turn into a collection of USU shirts. That one shirt was lonely until I was appointed as the Student Government President for the Brigham campus. The Provost's office gave me my second shirt with the RCDE logo on it. I then bought game day shirts for my family when we went to the Homecoming game. I acquired a USU Brigham hoodie when we had a corn maze activity and it was too cold outside to wear a t-shirt. Since then I have visited several of the regional campuses and moved on to be the Regional Campus Rep. I work with ASUSU and they seem to love t-shirts. If there is something big going on at the Logan campus I am likely to end up with a t-shirt to commemorate the event. I have one for Homecoming, one for Ag week, one for donating blood during the blood battle, and many others. Not only do I have lots of USU shirts, but my hubby and kids do also. I collected some of the shirts today while I was doing laundry and here are just some of the USU shirts in my house.

Looking at this picture I think that it might be fun to sew them all together and make an Aggie quilt. I think that I need to buy just one more...for the dog!

Brigham City

Last summer I spotlighted a couple of the regional campuses here on my blog. It was pointed out to me recently that I had not done a post on my favorite regional campus...BRIGHAM! I am a bit biased in my opinion because I attended the Brigham Campus for three years. But, because I am familiar with Brigham, I did not tour their facilities during the summer. I would not want them to feel left out though, so I took the opportunity when I was in Brigham the other day to take some pictures to share on my blog.

This is Dr. Shinkle, the Executive Director for the Brigham City Campus. He has done a fantastic job as enrollment has grown and the buildings have been remodeled to accommodate the growing number of students.
This is Lauri Merrill, one of the outstanding academic advisers. I have personally pestered every one of the advisers on more than one occasion when I need help or had questions about a variety of school related subjects, and they are all knowledgeable and happy to help students.


This is the Charles and Rae Perkins Lounge in the Milton P. Miller Building (my home away from home) I have spent many hours studying here or just sitting by the fireplace to get warm between classes.

The next two pictures are of a couple of the new labs that were just completed last spring. One is the anatomey lab and the other is the engineering lab. One of the great things about the Brigham Campus is that all of the rooms have been remodeled recently and are not only beautiful, but have state-0f-the-art technology.


The next few pictures are of the Center for Early Education. This is one unique feature of the Brigham campus. They have an outstanding child care and preschool program for students with young children ( birth to 8 yrs.) Parents are able to take their kids to campus with them, and they are given a "buzzer" that they take to class with them so that they can call the parent if their child needs them. There is also a camera in the childcare that broadcasts to the classrooms so that you can see what you child is doing while you are in class. This makes attending much easier for students who have little ones.


This is one of my favorite place on campus, the play garden. It is located outside of the childcare and was built largely by volunteers and donations from the community. The kids love it, and many of the adults find it irresistible also.

I know I have already listed many things I like about this campus, but one of my favorites is the small class sizes. I actually have professors who remember my name. I have had many classes with fewer than 10 students. I know that this has made a big difference for me because of the amount of personal attention I get, and the opportunity to get to know and work with other students on projects. As you can see there are many good reasons to attend USU in Brigham City!