Just Some Plain Old Updates.

I'm done.  Officially, 100%, completely done. Almost.
Of course I'm talking about my grad school class for this semester which is part of the reason I've been slacking so much on this here blog. I submitted my final assignment Sunday and now all I have to do is a one hour exam and I'll be all set.  
We've had lot's of excitement around here lately that I definitely want to catch you all up on.  Not the least of which is the fact that I am officially on spring break this week!  Woo!
I even made a spring break schedule for things like cleaning the house and getting yard work done.  Because let's face it, if it's not scheduled, it's not getting done.
But before I get started on all that fun stuff I have to take a second to mention the sadness I am feeling over the terrible events that happened at the Boston Marathon yesterday.  And the pain is doubled because it happened almost exactly four months after the terrible tragedy in my home town.  
What is this world country coming to? How can we feel safe anywhere?   How can we fix this?
There are so many questions that need answering and I really couldn't tell you where to start on anything.  In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are with Boston and everyone who was affected by this senseless tragedy.  Four months ago, the world opened up and showed Newtown an incredible amount of support, warmth and love.  Let's do the same for Boston, now.  
They will need it to get through the months to come.
Moving away from all the sadness and on to some of the positive things that have happened recently. Oh yes,  my spring break schedule!!
Here it is

Ok, in all seriousness it's nothing special. But hey, it'll get the job done.  On Sunday I'll be writing about what an awesome, productive week I had and it'll all be thanks to this spreadsheet.
So far I've accomplished everything I planned to do except fixing the garden fence and planting.  I'm blaming that on the fact that my schoolwork took longer than it was supposed to on Sunday and not the fact that I was being lazy in any way, shape or form.
In other news, I got my package from the Covert Robin exchange and I'll be posting about that soon.  My partner sent me so much awesome stuff I couldn't believe it!  
And my mom got a new dog!! After losing Jake a couple of months ago my mom was thinking maybe it was time to start looking around.  She wasn't sure if she was ready but a friend of mine who fosters for the Big Fluffy Dog Rescue got this awesome foster.  Her name was Bridgette and she's this cute little black lab.  Super sweet, good with just about anything you put in front of her... kids, small animals, cats, other dogs, the mail man, you name it, she likes it.
My mom was back and forth on what to do, again, not sure if she was really ready to move on from Jake but in the end they adopted her!  I'm very happy for them and for Bridgette who is now known as Callie.  She deserves a great home and now she has one!!

And my final positive news for now. 

 Wait for it.

We're getting our compost going again!!

I know. So exciting, right?

Well, sadly it is really exciting to me.  I just think that we really need to be doing more to help the Earth and one way to do that is to do things as naturally as possible.  We've done composting before but we made the fatal mistake of choosing a compost bin that was ginormous and then we couldn't turn the materials periodically like you're supposed to.

It all worked out and I think that the compost was part of the reason my garden grew like wildfire last summer.  So we're going to try it again (with some smaller bins) and see how it goes.  

Check back for some updates!

So, again, I'm sorry for the lack of attention lately but I'll get back into my normal routine now.

And if I don't, I won't have grad school as an excuse so shame on me!

That's all for now!