July Highlights:

• I graduated from the best MFA program in the universe.
• My last residency was incredible. I loved meeting the incredible incoming class. I loved spending time with some of my mentors. I loved teaching my seminar and giving my reading. I loved it all.
• I am very happy with my graduation speech. It went so smoothly and I think I did a good job of involving the whole class in my speech. I’ve been toying with posting it here, but I’m not sure if I should.
• Wolverine’s birthday party was a blast. The weather held out all day, which meant no rain until the party was over! Our water slide also worked the entire time. Mr. O put a lot of hard work into patching the holes on the slide, and the kids loved playing on the slide.
• Announcing Spry Literary Journal. (Ha, I didn’t quite announce it yet, but the big announcement should come tomorrow!)
• I’m doing a great job keeping up with my 365 photo project. As of today, I am on day 179.

Stinky July Moments:

• My dad had a heart attack while I was away at school which was very scary. Because of this he and my mother couldn’t come to my graduation. I’m very lucky to have a great boyfriend who videotaped the whole thing so that they could watch me graduate from the comfort of their living room!
• Everything happened at once. Between school, work, the literary journal, another editing project I’m involved in and my personal life… everything happened this month. Oh, well. All good stuff.
• Running into people I’d rather not see.

Other Mentionable Moments:

• My fantastic friend gave birth to a healthy little baby girl. Welcome to the world Isabella.
• Wolverine, my dad, Lauren, Kerri, Linsey and both of my grandparents all celebrated birthdays. Those same grandparents also celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.

I’m looking forward to____ in August:
August should be busy! Mr. O, Wolverine and I will be road-tripping down to DC and then heading to Virginia to visit some great friends and their new baby girl. We are also hoping to go camping this month. We’re going to a carnival and my brother’s annual cookout (which I’ve missed the past two years). August 15th will be the first day my literary journal will be accepting submissions.

Overall Thoughts:
July was incredible. I’m so happy and proud of the fact that I graduated from my MFA program. At the same time though, I will miss it terribly. I’m so grateful that my dad is okay and I hope his healing process is smooth. I’m glad that Wolverine loved his actual birthday and his birthday party. I’m tired, but happy.

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Want to know more about my experiences in 2012? Check out the previous months: January and February and March and April and May and June

So last night I looked at my student loans again. This is never a good idea.

Anyway, I’ve always been a fan of paperbackswap, which is where I trade most of my books. (I’ve got hundreds, and by hundreds, I mean like 300+ maybe.) However, debt makes me anxious, and since buying books for school only added to this student loans stuff, I’ve decided to try to sell some.

I have many books (and possibly movies, etc) that I’d like to sell on the blog. I’m going to go home tonight and try to get a semi- comprehensive list posted tomorrow. I’d much rather sell the books through here than pay Amazon or ebay huge fees. Please, please, please pass the word about it. All will be cheap. I just want to see a small return for my money. Merci!

Day 159- July 11: Dr. Suess quote
Day 160- July 12:  Lunchables for lunch
Day 161- July 13: Early graduation present from my boss
Day 162- July 14: Alcoholic slushy
Day 163- July 15: My seminar!
Day 164- July 16: Stone seat at school
Day 165- July 17: Dinosaur and octopus
Day 166- July 18: Spiderman cave
Day 167- July 19: Lobsta dinna

Four days ago I woke up as a student. I went to classes and conversed with my professors and other students.
Three days ago I woke up as a master- a girl with a MFA, a girl who still needed to go to class in a half hour.
Two days ago I woke up as a master- a girl with three loads of laundry to do, lucky to have no school or work so that she could do her laundry.
Yesterday I woke up as a master- a girl with a job she hasn’t been at for a week or so, a girl with work piled all over her desk.

Is this what happens when a person graduates from a graduate program? Everything and nothing change at the same time?

NOTE: I originally wrote this post at the end of June! I just forgot it in my draft folder I guess!

I’m obsessed with Pinterest. I have been for a long time. Once I thought I had the obsession controlled, but like any addiction, when I signed back in a few months later to “browse” because I was bored, I was instantly hooked again. I just can’t control myself; I’m a pinner.

So this past Saturday Wolverine and I started a countdown until his birthday. We used some colored paper, a hole puncher and a marker to make the tear off dates for the countdown. It was “cute” but certainly not that crafty. I’ll be honest and explain that when I say Wolverine and I made a countdown, what I mean is that I threw together a countdown while he played with his dad… but it was for him. So I promise I’m not insulting a future six-year-old’s creativity. He just agreed that making a countdown would be fun. That was his level of excitement.

So while the original countdown worked, I just wasn’t pleased with it. I knew I had pinned a few countdown photos on Pinterest, but I couldn’t for the life of me find them in my boards. My boards are super disorganized right now and totally need to be decluttered. Anyway, on Sunday morning I decided to search my pins one more time, and I found it!

The lovely ladies of Eighteen25 shared a free printable on Skip to My Lou and I had saved the pin in my Can I DIY board! So I downloaded and printed it and then Wolverine and I set off to find a frame to put it in. This was a little tricky, because when we all moved in together, I packed up much of my home-accessories (like all my frames). Finally we found a 8×10 frame, and at that point, both Wolverine and I didn’t care what the frame looked like. That’s it folks! Now we have a fancy schmancy wipe-off frame to countdown the days until his birthday.

This is soooo much cooler than what I had originally done.