It's been over a year... again

So clearly we're not the exactly the best at updating our blog regularly, but we're going to give it another shot and see if we can't do a little better this year.

At the moment, our apartment is made even smaller as we have boxes piled up in anticipation of our big move next weekend. While the studio apartment worked out great for us, in December they raised our rent. And, honestly, $695 is too much for what we're getting. Thankfully, around this same time, we found out that the apartment we'd had our eye on for several years has opened up. It's in a 4-plex and is a two-bedroom apartment with a washer/dryer, pantry, dishwasher, and a deck! Even though it'll start out pretty sparse since we don't have a lot of furniture, we're super excited to move and get settled in a bigger place. And, one of Noah's oldest friends, Patrick, lives in the apartment above, so we're looking forward to spending more time with him and Telena.

Noah's had some up's and down's this year in school, but we're proud to say that it's more up's than down's. He started taking ADD medications in the Fall and they've made a drastic difference for him. For instance, last week, he got a 98.5% on his psychology exam! We just found out that he can get his AA sooner than expected, so it sounds like he'll have his degree by Winter quarter. From there, the plan is to transfer to Brandman College so he can get his Bachelor's in Psychology. His goal is to be able to tutor and, maybe eventually teach, students with ADD and help them in school. He switched from his medical-oriented path because he found after doing his clinicals that his joy of fixing and finding out how things work, didn't transfer very well when helping people who are injured, since he wasn't going to be a doctor. Fixing the problems that people put themselves in has always been Noah's fixation, but not his carreer choice. Being someone who struggled with school, Noah has learned a lot of things about, if not how he learned, how to teach other people to learn.

For us, this past year has been great with our relationship. Not that it was in any way bad to begin with, but we've definitely grown. One of the best things we recognized was that we fell in love with each other and married because we compliment each other so well. While Meg may not be observant (and may have just noticed an old sign that has been there for 10 years), there's not much that gets past Noah. And vice-versa. We've found a nice balance that allows us both to alternatively help or be helped by the other person. This has fostered a sense of peace and allowed us to really enjoy each other. Although we may not be perfect, we are perfect for each other.

Final May Thoughts

Studying has paid off for Noah. He's just received 17/20 on his Biology exam and an 84% on his last Chemistry exam. His last math test he received a 95%. This coming week is finals, so you can guess what he'll be doing. Noah says, "I still think I'm going to fail Chemistry, but it's getting better." It has too. His test scores since he changed the way he studies have been a lot higher.

Today we're trying to get motivated to do much of anything, but we're having trouble. The weather's too hot so we don't want to do anything outdoors, such as ride our bikes or work in the yard. Money is tight, so we don't want to waste gas going anywhere or paying to do something. Instead, we watched a couple episodes of Heros Season 2 and one episode of Sea Quest. We did do a load of dishes and some laundry and a bit of cleaning, but not much. We're hoping to get the motivation to go work on the yard for a few hours this evening when it's cooler.

Yesterday I had went to my friend Monique's baby shower. It was fairy-themed, which meant that she and most of her family were in fairy costumes, complete with wings and fairy dust. I didn't have any wings or sparkles, but Noah did my eye makeup to be more fairy-esque. It was surprisingly fun. Not your usual run-of-the-mill shower at all. We played some entertaining games her aunt invented and her mom cooked up some delicious food. My favorite game was the clothes-line game. Each "fairy" had a basket of clothes she had to hang on the clothesline (with at least one clothes pin per item). While hanging the clothes, she also had to be holding the baby and carrying on a conversation on her cellphone. The fairy with the fasted time won. I went second and had a time of 2 minutes 23 seconds. The fastest gal's time was just over 1 minute. At least I didn't drop my baby! It was fun to see a couple of the ladies I used to work with at Insight, but it also reminded me of how happy I am not to be working in such a crazy, unstable environment.

I was looking at Craigslist at all the cute puppies and kittens and ran across a post with all the numbers of animals euthinized at the Tacoma Humane Society. The kitten rates were through the roof with 1,551 healthy kittens euthanized in 2008. That, of course, had me in tears. I turned to Noah who read it and asked, "What do they even do with the 1,551 bodies after they euthanize them?" Needless to say, that did not help stop my tears.

First day of a long vacation

We are celebrating because Noah received his best score so far on a chemistry test! Way to go, Love! He stayed up until 2 am studying for it, so it's nice to see his hard work rewarded. He got 12/22.

Noah's excited to go see Wolverine tonight with the guys. I'm still debating whether or not to go. It depends on how I'm feeling. We're trying to decide if it'll be cheesy or awesome. Hopefully the second since we thought the other X-Men movies were great.

Last night my parents dropped off some boxes filled with assignments and projects from my childhood. I'm looking forward to going through them and remembering.