I'm still here, I promise

Hello intrepid blog readers,

I'm still in the land of the living and blogging. Life has just gotten incredibly crazy the past couple of weeks. I'm back in college and so far my classes are going fine. And I'm not the oldest one in any of my classes! Yay!!!! I am, however, I think the only female social studies major. All the others are guys with coaching tendencies.... More on that later.

It took a little bit to get back into the swing of college life/homework. It was much easier when I only had an apartment to take care of. But Matt is, as usual, a big help and the kitties are getting used to being more self-sufficient by holding things down for us like couches, rugs, beds, windowsills, etc.

For two of my classes, I have to do Service Learning, which is a technical description of volunteering. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I help in a special needs classroom with two fun students. Dillion, who needs help with his math, and Tiffany, who needs English help. They are fun and a challenge, Dillion more so than Tiffany. But working with them completely makes my day every time. And it reminds me of why I am doing this. Watching them learn and realizing that I am helping them to do that makes me so happy in a way that really nothing else does. On Thursdays I volunteer at a center that helps immigrants learn English and study for their citizenship tests. I helped a lady named Alexandria who grew up in Columbia. She has very good English and just needs to practice conversation. Total piece of cake!

Otherwise, life is good. Matt and I have been canning like fools. Our motto: Yes, we can!
We've canned: apple sauce, apple butter, pear sauce, pear butter, tomato sauce, pickled beets, & apple/pear jelly. We still have tomatoes and beet jelly to go. Then canning season is done, we can enjoy the "fruits" of our labor, and put away the large kettles and spare jars. And I can mop the kitchen floor, which hasn't happened since canning season started because, why? We're just going to get more dirt on it.

So life is good. Busy but good. I still have pictures to post but we now have dial-up at home which takes forever so sometime I'll have to post them from school.

A funny: My abnormal psychology professor said on the first day of class that after this semester, we will not be able to diagnosis anyone, not our parents, boyfriends, roommates or cats. But I've been using Gus as a test subject and I think that he is either OCD, ADHD, or schizophrenic. Or maybe just plain crazy.