I should call this WiR: Blurry iPhone Photo-edition.

Or maybe: that one time that I graduated from college-edition.

Or how about: I have so many things going on in my life but am struggling to write about them because I have writer’s block-edition.

Any way you look at it, I have a lot to review from this past week! 🙂

Thanks, Meghan, for hosting!

• Last Sunday (well, actually, two Sundays ago), I started and finished my ePortfolio. It was one of the requirements for graduation for education majors at my university, and it was a pain. Twenty pages of rationales and multiple hours of organization later, though, and it was all set!

• I had my last day of student teaching. What an amazing experience. I might do a recap/”things I learned” post next week, because I’d like to document my thoughts while they’re still fresh.

• We have gotten absolutely hammered with snow for the last week. Yesterday was the first sunny day we’ve had in weeks. It was, however, -1*F when I was going to an appointment at 9:00 in the morning. Ouch. My car was not happy.

• The biggest news of all is that I graduated college on Saturday!

My parents, brother, grandma, and I all made the two hour trek to my uni’s town, enjoyed a fancy dinner at the local casino (it’s a resort, too), and attended the two-hour ceremony before driving back home.

The hotel was all prettied up for Christmas.

We enjoyed dinner at an Italian restaurant. We started with a delicious bottle of Pinot Grigio and absolutely incredible bread. For the entree, I ordered the Whitefish Picata, which was pretty good. Nothing special, though. And we had a few coupons for free dessert, so my grandma and I split the pumpkin panna cotta (egg-free Italian custard). It was flavored with lots of spices, dried cranberries, and a salted caramel sauce. Super good!

After dinner we went to the casino, where I lost $5 in record time. I knew I wasn’t going to do well, which is why I didn’t cash out more. 😉

My commencement started at 9:00 am, which I was just fine with. I much prefer getting things done earlier in the day, rather than waiting for them to roll around. Anyone else like that?

Our keynote speaker, Joseph B. Anderson, is a decorated war veteran (the movie The Anderson Platoon was based on his experiences), and had a lot of great things to say. He talked about the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone and becoming involved in your communities, and how other opportunities will come from that. I didn’t get a picture of him because it seemed rude to have my phone out (even though others did and were texting/on Facebook/Pinterest throughout…seriously, what’s happened to common courtesy??), but it was a very good speech.

I’ll post the official pictures when we get them. 🙂 When I do, I’ll say a few more things about graduation itself!

• We grabbed a quick lunch before heading out. The drive home was awful. I’m soooo sick of winter already.

• I babysat some of my favorite kids the last two Saturday evenings. I’m so lucky to have met such awesome families.

• After babysitting Saturday night, one of my windshield wiper blades snapped. Thankfully the dad of the kids I was watching was able to help fix it before my 20 minute drive home. Apparently my car hates winter, too.

• Now that I’m not teaching, I feel like I have so much time. My absolute favorite thing to do? Hang out with this little cutie. 🙂

She gets herself into the weirdest positions. I call this one “Ella Doughnut.” I couldn’t even tell you which one of her legs that is.

• It’s also been nice to get back to longer workouts. Because of my crazy schedule this past semester, my workouts were kind of pushed to the sidelines. I still exercised about 5 times a week, but it never felt like a good workout. Now, I’m able to spend anywhere from a half hour to over an hour doing whichever exercise I want. It’s great.

• I still have about 50 essays to grade this week before I head back to the high school on Friday for an end-of-the-semester party my students are throwing for me. (They’re so great.) That said, I’m still hoping to begin blogging on a more regular basis – hopefully I can make it work! 🙂

Well, I think that’s about all for now. Have a wonderful day, everyone! Stay warm! (And if you’re in a warm climate….send some to me, please!!)

Questions for the day:

How did you customize your graduation gown? I was so excited to get this study abroad sash for mine!

Is it wintery where you are?

Have you ever won big at a casino? Care to share your secrets? 😉