family time

I feel like I should squeeze in one last post before 2015. 

We are currently in Kansas visiting Ben's family. 

The picture above is from a day celebration that we had at a B&B in Lindsborg, Kansas. 

The Stuckys gathered to celebrate Grandma Milly's 90th birthday, which is coming up in February. 

We are headed to Lawrence tomorrow to hang with friends. 

We'll stay for New Years and then head back to MKE on Jan. 1. 

Luckily, Ben doesn't have to return to school until Jan. 5, so he has time to relax yet. 

It's been a wonderful trip thus far. 

Spent Christmas in South Dakota with my family.

Saw some good ol' friends. 

Spoke to some important people about potential job opportunities in Sioux Falls. 

The job search may ramp up a little more in the coming months, but it's at least time to get things rolling.

Our lease is up in August. 

There are more notable things about our future house situation...but I'll explain those when we know more about the future in general. 

I'll try to post a few pictures from my phone when I get a chance. 

Until then, I'll be enjoying my break. :)

Happy New Years!

finish line

Final semester of supervision. Final semester-long art piece.

SORRY FOR THE HIATUS!

So I made it...almost.

There is the matter of this little "take home exam" that I have yet to complete for Family Systems, but the goal is to sit in a coffee shop and complete it on Monday!

Otherwise I somehow magically made it through 2 very tough weeks. 

They weren't the toughest 2 weeks because I had a lot to do.

They were just THE LAST TWO WEEKS of one of the hardest semesters I've ever experienced. 

I actually didn't have THAT much to do.

Luckily, I've had practice with 2 other tough semesters. 

If I hadn't had experience with the first two semesters I never would have made it through this one. 

Not to mention that they were the last two weeks of PRACTICUM.

That part really hasn't sunk in yet.

I hit my 800 practicum hour requirement (actually probably more like 825-ish) and I will officially have 18-20 hours of my life back each week.

WOW.

THAT'S HUGE.

But I might also be working more hours at EYM, looking for a real, full-time job, doing homework from the two classes that I'll be taking this spring semester, creating my exit art show, and writing a 30-page contextual essay about my research.

So YES. I AM looking forward to it.

These last two weeks were hard because I was sick with a cold. 

The first week was just a dry throat and postnasal drip.

Week 2 was a full blown cold, but because I didn't have a lot to do I could actually do SOME laying around...but not much. And now I've given my cold to Ben (but I think we could blame his elementary school children too).

I managed to do some rearranging of my schedule at the hospital in order to get the rest of my hours in and clients closed out. 

I did have to cancel my last visit to the infusion clinic and my last time at the cancer support group on the oncology floor.

It's not responsible to spread your cold to people with compromised immune systems. 

I took a bouquet of tissue paper flowers as a gift to the infusion clinic on Friday. The nurses loved them and they were super appreciative.

Because I still have a little residual cold and cough I decided to take it easy today and tomorrow. 

Been napping, drinking tea, and watching tons of Grey's Anatomy on Netflix. 

No shame. 

Time for a break.

Speaking of breaks...

Never got to say how wonderful it was to have Ben's sister with us for Thanksgiving break. 

We made a nice little spread, hung out, watched Netflix, Skyped/called family, went to my final Open Studio at the hospital, and took Emily on her very first brewery tour over at Lakefront. 

I actually have some "homework" to complete before the spring semester starts...aka analyzing my research, and completing my annotated bibliography (no small tasks).
BUT I have until JANUARY 26 until classes start again.
Thank you MMU, for the most beautifully long Christmas break.

Hope that gives you all an idea of what life has been for the past 3 weeks.
We're headed out for a week in South Dakota and then Kansas.
Going to be cleaning the house until then...it's been awhile.

lost in familiar places

3 weeks to go, my friends!

And one of them is THANKSGIVING week. 

Unfortunately I think it's going to be a really hard few weeks simply because I don't want to do a single thing. 

Writing papers just doesn't seem that exciting anymore. 

Thanks, but no thanks.

I'd rather pet my beautiful kittens. 

We really love them to pieces...and obviously can't take enough pictures of them. 

So this is basically a post to let you know that I'm still alive and procrastinating all of the time. 

That's why I'm on the blog instead.

I'm also just trying to stay afloat.

It's a miracle if I can wash a few dishes these days. 

Though I DID make some very comforting cheeseburger soup last night.

Feels like it's taking all of my strength just to get homework done.

I have a multicultural paper to write.

So right now I'm going to gird up my loins and make some paper-writing magic happen. 

facepainting

Happy belated Halloween, ya'll!

I wasn't planning on dressing up this year, but my friend Holly said I should do a little something creative because we were planning on attending the De La Buena/ Hood Smoke show here in MKE. Holly works with me at Express Yourself MKE and she and her husband sing and play piano for De La Buena, which is Afro-Cuban and Latin Jazz music. It was an awesome show and fun to be with friends. 

I have always wanted to try out a candy skull design, which is a traditional Hispanic celebratory practice for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) on Nov. 1. I still have the pictures of the festival in Guatemala. But I didn't want to use cruddy cheap paint that cracks and sucks the moisture out of your face, so I asked a friend of mine who does a lot of theatrical face painting. She recommended a costume/theatre make-up shop downtown, so I splurged on some black and white. It took about an hour to paint. It was so much fun and I was sad to take it off at the end of the night. The make-up was worth it too. I had to be careful not to smudge it, but it looked just as good at the end of the night as it did at the beginning. The picture above is my practice run. The picture below is what I wore to the show. I actually liked the design from the first run (typical me!). I had to be careful to make sure I could replicate the design on both sides. 

Other than that...

Study, internship, study, internship...

I'm done with my midterm stress bomb and have transitioned into the beautiful, pre-end-of-the-year lull. 

I am not "out of the woods" yet, but compared to my midterm, the rest of the semester looks glorious.

Quite a bit of reading and writing to do, but it's nicely spread out. 

98 hours of internship to go.

1 weekend class to go. 

4 weeks of class to go (not including Thanksgiving break). 

By the way, Ben and I are super-excited to have his sister Emily be with us for Thanksgiving this year. 

Can't wait to cook, explore MKE, and lazily hang around the house with her!

I have a very dreaded annotated bibliography that will require A LOT of reading and writing during Christmas break....but I have 6 weeks off so it shouldn't be an issue. 

Ben and I are going to a Yonder Mountain String Band concert tonight.

How I've missed the bluegrass music!

I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE SO CLOSE TO THE END!

I AM ELATED!

Best wishes in your final weeks without extreme snow and cold!

the leaves in milwaukee

A shot from the parking garage at my internship.
This was a rare sighting of sun this week.
Mostly clouds and rain.

Behold! The glorious Wisconsin fall colors!

I wish fall would last for half of the year instead of winter. 

Hopefully this year will not be another "polar vortex" extravaganza. 

I've been polling folks at the infusion clinic.

Some people say that it will be worse. Other people say not. 

We shall see.

The family systems presentation went well, by the way.

Glad I can now recycle all 12 of those journal articles that I had to read in preparation for it. 

Test this Thursday...and I'm going to try to get my genogram/paper done...but I'll likely just have a rough draft.

She pushed the due date back a week because of the test falling on the same day. 

"Midterm" busyness will essentially be done by the end of this week.

I'm officially at 650/800 hours for internship.

Only 150 to go!

Hard to believe we're nearing the end. 

Research is going well. 

I've only got 2 more weeks to go...but I might actually finish up early because I already have 6 pictures and stories. 

Need to speak with my professor on Monday. 

Another shot from the parking garage.

mid-term

It's already OCTOBER 11!

I blinked and now we're nearly half way through the month. 

Fall has been lovely, but I've been so busy that I've barely had time to enjoy it. 

My Family Systems presentation is this Thursday.

Then my Genogram and Genogram Paper are due next Thursday, along with a test.

Can't wait to take down these next two weeks!

Maybe I'll have lots of fun things to write about after that...maybe.

For now, you can look at my body map...which is about 7 feet long.

The body on the paper is literally the size of my body. 

dismal

Here's a print from rehab group. 

String painting.

Pretty successful process.

Found the idea on Pinterest and made it my own. 

So....

I am really busy.

And stressed.

And tired.

Today as I was driving towards my internship I told myself I should have stayed home. 

I decided to leave 5 hours early because I was just too tired and lethargic to really make anything significant happen.

Luckily, I didn't have anything of importance scheduled.

(Oh, how I love my flexible schedule.)

It was a really great choice. 

I slept, worked on Family Systems homework, ran one errand, and cleaned the living room. 

We can't have good days everyday, so this one was just one of those not so good days. 

Glad I had the opportunity to pass on it and try again tomorrow. 

Also, we took the train down to Chicago on Saturday for a Royals vs. White Sox game. 

This was Emily's first professional baseball game that she has ever attended, so we were happy to be with her for the momentous occasion.

We stayed with our friend Kelly and she also attended the game with us. 

We ate some fabulous ballpark food...not to mention Ann Sathers (cinnamon rolls from heaven) and Southport Grocery and Cafe. 

I can't believe October is here.

I have some big paper/presentations/things happening in these next 3 weeks. 

I'll try to check back in, but no promises.

I'm a little afraid, but also extremely excited to tackle what I feel will be the busiest part of my grad school career.

Wish me luck!