On Saturday, my dad (who I affectionately refer to as "Bobert", much to his chagrin) is getting married.

The last time he got married, I had just turned two, and I was the flower girl. Needless to say, this time is going to be a bit different.

He's been with Jane since I was 17, and I love her. She's nice, and funny, and, most importantly, she makes my dad happy. She's been a very grounding presence in our crazy family.

the three of us at my wedding

Plus I'm getting another brother in the deal! He's a bit older than me, and he's married with an adorable little boy. I don't know him very well, but he's always seemed nice; it's just really funny (and weird) to me that after 25 years, I'm going to have an older brother.

I don't know what all this weekend will bring (like I said, my family is crazy...though mostly in a good way), but I'm looking forward to finding out!

Have a safe and fun labor day weekend!

Tom turned 26 a couple of weeks ago. We celebrated a few ways. A lot of them were food-related; I made him breakfast, his traditional ice cream cake, and his requested dinner (chicken and noodles). The day before his birthday, we went to the Indiana State Fair. He had never been before, and I had only been once (a decade ago), so we were both pretty excited about it.

It was hotter than we'd expected, and I got a pretty wicked sunburn (it was a very bad day to forget my sunscreen!), but we had a really fun time.

The Pioneer Village area was super cute. If it hadn't been so crowded, we would have been able to spend more time there. There were all sorts of craftsmen doing demonstrations.



Tom said he was an angry cow.


There was a little area all about water, called the Pathway to Water Quality, with facts about the water and soil, conservation information, and the chance to get a cool drink from a well pump (which my well water-lovin' self TOTALLY took advantage of!). It was really pretty, with a creek, waterfall, fountains, bridges, and flowers.



Near the Pathway to Water Quality was the Boy Scout Legacy Bridge, built by Boy Scouts. I was impressed.




We went through a "popcorn maze", which was a maze of panels with facts about popcorn and some little activities throughout it. It's obviously geared toward kids, but we still had a good time :)


My favorite part was an animation exhibit. It was really informative, and had really cool artifacts (like a typewriter that was used to write Bugs Bunny cartoons).

a painting of a Bambi scene

an original Chuck Jones sketch

a Chuck Jones watercolor painting

Po

Turbo

And of course, what would the State Fair be without food?

Like fried butter. The very thought is a little horrifying. I did try a deep fried Snickers though, and it was AH-MAZING.


And a giant sculpture made entirely of cheese! Cool, huh?


We went by the midway on our way back to the entrance we came in, but didn't ride anything (tickets are SO expensive, yo).



The last thing we did on our way out was stop by the butterfly garden. You know I love to take pictures of butterflies!


We had a really fun time, and I can't wait until we can take our kids there someday :)

It's been awhile since we've had a Lazy Sunday hop around here (both due to my own forgetfulness and to the blogging break), but everything around here is getting a resurgence (and eventually a facelift, once everything is ready).

If you're new to the hop, this is a no-rules hop. Just link up any social media accounts you like, mingle, and find some awesome new blogs!

Our little family of three has become a little family of four!

our little lu :) (and I do wash my windows -- all that ickiness is on the inside, and it's hard to get to on our way-older-than-me windows)

Luna first appeared on my Instagram feed three months ago. She started showing up on our porch most nights of the week, and my heart broke for her.  Tom is allergic to cats, but she warmed even his heart, and after a week or so, he said that if she didn't have a home, he'd be willing to go on allergy meds so we could take her in. She had a collar (albeit an old, worn one), so I figured she had an owner, but I decided if she was still coming back a week later, I'd take her to the shelter to see if she was microchipped. She was indeed coming back a week later, but she had on a new collar, so I gave up on taking her in.

She would still show up on our porch most nights, and even followed us into the entry a few times. Then we found out that she belonged to our awful neighbors downstairs. I was tempted to take her anyway, because they were pretty awful and seemed neglectful of their dog (who they would leave home alone for extended lengths of time, and then he'd bark all night because he was lonely). Plus having an outdoor cat in the city without a fully-fenced yard seems really irresponsible; there are so many ways she could have been hurt. I decided against  taking her though, because they had a little girl, and I hated the thought of her wondering what happened to her kitty.

But it turns out she might be wondering anyway.

They moved at the beginning of July, and we hadn't seen her since. We figured they took her with them.

But they didn't.

They left her behind.

This poor little cat has been living on her own for a month and a half, and miraculously survived with only a little thinned out fur. She showed up again Thursday, but left pretty quickly. Friday, the same thing happened. We decided then that when she showed up again, we'd take her in. Saturday I went to Petsmart to pick up Archie's food, and got some cat supplies while I was there. When we got home Saturday night, there she was. She came right in the door and started climbing the stairs.

I figured she was hungry, so I gave her some food, which she devoured. She then got a flea bath (just in case!) and a sparkly new collar. Archie was a little jealous of the attention she was getting, and it was really late (we had been at the drive-in), so Tom and Archie slept in the living room, and Luna and I slept in the bedroom. She explored for a bit before curling up in a little ball at my feet, and stayed that way through the night :)

Since then, they're getting along much better, though we're still going to keep them separated when we're not home for a few days. Archie is being gently curious with her, and she puts him in his place when he's being a douchecanoe. Plus, her favorite room is also the kitchen, so it's like they were born to be fursiblings!

As for her name, it came to me when I was at the pet store. Tom named Archie after Archie "Snake" Simpson from the various Degrassi series, so I thought I'd keep with the character naming tradition. She gets two awesome references in her name. There's the Sailor Moon reference (Luna guides the Senshi in the form of a black cat for the most part), and, of course, a major Harry Potter reference, since her full name is Luna Lovegood Green.

She's been a wonderful addition to our family. She seems to have a calming  presence on all of us (even Archie!), and we love knowing that we're giving her a home. She's sweet, and playful, and does some pretty funny things (for example, Sunday, she climbed onto the bottom shelf of the TV stand, and Archie started freaking out because he couldn't see her anymore. He was looking around trying to find her, and she popped out like she was at a surprise party).

It's been over a decade since I've had a cat, but it's awfully nice to have one again :)

My whole life, I've been "the smart one".  I was a voracious reader, got excellent grades, and was considered by many to be a teacher's pet because my teachers always liked me (well, except some of my math teachers -- math is definitely my worst subject, and I'm not very good at showing my work). As such, there was always a lot of pressure and expectation on me to succeed, not only from my family, but from myself as well.

I'm going to talk about something that I don't really like talking about, because it's embarrassing for me, especially considering that I was "the smart one": I've been kicked out of school for academic reasons.

Twice.

Now please don't think it's because I'm stupid or anything, because that's definitely not the case. There were a few contributing factors, and some of them carried over from the first time to the second. To fully understand this story, we need to go back ten years.

When I was 15, and in the second semester of my sophomore year, my dad decided to leave my stepmom. He and I moved from our home in Connersville to my grandparents' house in Middletown, and I transferred to the town's high school.

I was not a fan.

My new school was very clique-y (though I really can't fault them -- they'd all been going to school together since kindergarten), and I felt like the academics weren't on the same level as my old school. I started looking for an out, and I found it in the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities. The Academy is a residential public high school for juniors and seniors, and there's a rigorous application process (including essays and SAT scores). It was essentially college with more supervision -- we lived in a dorm at Ball State University, and had access to quite a bit of its facilities.

This quasi-college experience meant that I suddenly had freedom that I wasn't used to. I hadn't really been able to do a lot with my friends when I lived at home, but now as long as I was back by curfew, I could do pretty much what I wanted, and I took full advantage of it. I was a lot more concerned with having fun with my friends than I was with making sure I had my homework done. We had mandatory study time every night, but I usually spent it IMing my friends and listening to music instead of studying. As a result, my grades slipped. A lot.

Eventually, the retention & dismissal committee decided that they no longer felt it was a good fit for me, and on St. Patrick's day, I was kicked out. I finished the rest of my high school career in the same high school I had been so desperate to get away from. I did end up making some friends, but I still wasn't happy there, and I didn't feel like I belonged. Fortunately though, my grades got back up, and even with some failing grades leftover from the Academy, I ended high school with a 3.7 GPA.

Prior to all this, I had major college dreams. I wanted to go to Columbia. I thought of Notre Dame as my "safety school". I figured as smart as I was, I would be able to get scholarships to finance it. After my grades slipped, though, I realized I was going to have to be a little more realistic. My dad didn't make very much money, to the point where I was only able to apply to schools that didn't have an application fee (for the record, I got into and got scholarships to all of them, but they were private schools, and the most I got was a half-tuition scholarship). The only one we did pay was for Indiana University, because I had the opportunity to become part of a group specifically for first generation college students.

I got in, and between grants and scholarships, my entire freshman year of college (including books!) was paid for. At first, I was better about balancing work and a social life, but toward the end of my freshman year, I started slacking a bit, and I was put on academic probation. In the middle of fall semester my sophomore year, my best friend left IU. He had also been on academic probation, but he hadn't gone to any of his classes or do any work in weeks, and he figured it was better to just leave. He promised he wouldn't leave without saying goodbye.

But he did.

In hindsight, I should have expected it -- though I didn't realize it at the time, we didn't have a very healthy relationship because he was pretty much a ridiculously self-centered douchecanoe, but that's a story for another time. Anyway, I became very depressed. I rarely left my room, let alone my bed. I would just lay there listening to "Thinking About You" by Radiohead on repeat, crying alone in the dark. He wasn't taking my calls (okay, that's not totally true -- he took one a few days later, telling me that it was just "too painful" for him to say goodbye in person). Class and homework completely fell by the wayside.

I received a letter over Christmas break telling me I wasn't invited back for spring semester.

Never in my life have I felt like more of a waste. Everyone kept telling me that I should have learned from the first time. That just made it worse. Nobody cared about why everything went south. Nobody bothered to ask. I've always felt like mental health isn't taken seriously enough in my family.

After that, in an effort to actually get me to do something, my stepmom set it up so I could volunteer at the Head Start where my dad's aunt teaches. I ended up enjoying it so much, that I continued to go every day for the rest of the school year, and realized that I really loved early childhood education. I started looking for preschool/daycare jobs, and found one. I started as a floater, and made my way up to lead teacher. While there, I started a CDA program, which would give me a Child Development Associate credential, which is essentially the equivalent of an associate's degree. The class ended two weeks after I moved to Lafayette to be with Tom, and I was unable to complete the credential because you need to have observations and evaluations done, and I couldn't find a teaching job here.

I worked in retail for awhile, miserably, until I finally found a teaching job in West Lafayette. It was at an actual preschool too, so the job was more fun than overwhelming. But as much as I love it, my lack of degree of any sort has always been nagging me. Since I was little, I've wanted to go to college and graduate. I was going to be the first person on either side of my family to graduate, but that honor has since gone to my mama (and I couldn't be prouder!). Bachelor's degrees in early childhood ed aren't offered many places, but I figure an associate's is a good place to start, and then I can choose my course from there. I've just felt like people would take me more seriously as a teacher if I have the degree to back it up. And I don't want to deal with the humiliation of being uneducated anymore (please note this is my own personal humiliation -- I know that college isn't for everyone, and that's totally okay. I don't think less of anyone else for not attending college, but I do think less of myself).

Which brings us to today.

Today, I start college classes again for the first time in six years.


I'll be attending Ivy Tech, which is Indiana's foremost community college. If you would have asked me in high school if I ever thought I'd be attending Ivy Tech, I'd have laughed in your face. I always thought I was too good for community college, that it was somewhere you went if you couldn't get into a traditional university. But getting kicked out of IU was an extremely humbling experience for me, and I realized that with my grades, community college was my best chance of getting back into college. And really, it's not a terrible idea, even for four-year degrees -- it's much more affordable to get your general ed classes out of the way at Ivy Tech and transfer to a four-year institution.

Since between the two of us, Tom and I have three jobs and one car, I'm taking all online courses at the moment. It just works better for me. I'm taking three classes at three credits each. If it goes well, I'll keep up that course load, but if it's a bit taxing, I'll go down to two courses next semester.

I'm sure people are probably wondering what makes me think I'll be able to make school work this time. I'm sure there are people who doubt I will. But I'm confident that this is finally the right time for me to be in school. I think before, I was too immature to handle the responsibilities of being a college student away from home. I'm a lot older now, married, and used to adult responsibility. I think that, combined with sheer determination to prove everyone wrong, is going to be my formula for success this time.

Associate's degree, I'm coming for you.

And don't go too far, bachelor's, because I'll be coming for you next.