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Hello friends!

So very sorry that it has been so long since I’ve posted on here. Life crept up on me in September and I am still trying to catch up with everything. Last week I announced my graduate school project, The Story Behind the Status,  and I’m glad to say that the reception has been really good. I’ve got a lot of questions and comments about the project. I still need to work on the website a little and post some links, but I’m happy to announce that so far, everything is working out.

So my first 101 in 1001 challenge is officially over. I finished it on 10/1/11. One of my goals was to complete a new 101 goals list, which I am currently working on. My plan was to start challenge #2 on 10/10/11 with a completion date of 7/7/14, but unless I can finish the list by the end of the day, I might have to find a new date to begin.

What I really need to do tonight is organize my life. I have so many things to do. Between work, school and my personal life, I feel as if I have this ridiculous, scary, insurmountable to-do list. It gets worse though, because I don’t actually have all these items written down, which is paramount for me. If it is not written down, then it doesn’t get done. Unfortunately, that is kind of a life motto for me. I survive with the help of lists. If I don’t have them, then it is as my brain/body assumes I have nothing to do.

Both my birthday and Mr. O’s birthday was in September. I promise to share all the juicy details soon, which include batting cages, sickness, waffles and pho.

Also since I’ve last written, I vacationed in Vermont and New Hampshire. Both vacations were short trips, but I think they both deserve their own post. Plus, I take fun photos.

This was the first year I didn’t plan or do floral design for any weddings. I was a bridesmaid in one wedding this year, and a guest at another wedding (both of which were amazing weddings), but I didn’t make any weddings (or special events) happen. I’m not really sure how I feel about this. Part of me feels a little refreshed and relaxed. In the past few years between being in weddings and planning/designing weddings (or both), I got really burnt out. My love for all things event related never went away, but it just took a lot out of me. I do miss it; I enjoy being involved with important moment in people’s lives. Times like this though, I need to realize that I can’t be everywhere, and I can’t do everything. My focus needs to be on school, my relationship, friends and family and work. Everything else that I can fit in to my life is just an added bonus.

Speaking about focusing on school, I will be graduating (hopefully) in 9 months. I’m going to call this new phase my thesis pregnancy. I have 9 months (well technically less, because I need to submit my thesis probably a month or more before graduation) to complete a creative thesis for school. I’m writing a memoir of linked essays. I still don’t understand how I will have a book completed in 9 months, but I’m going to stop worrying about it and start working on it. I do have the freedom to take an extra semester to study, but ideally I want to graduate with my class, and I want to start teaching at the college level. So, I hope you’ll be here for my throughout my thesis gestation period, because I am going to need all the support I can get.

Also, tomorrow I will be posting the next installment of my Defining Moments guest blogging series. You’re not going to want to miss this one!