Girlfriend's Guide to Surviving Senior Year

No one warned me about senior year. Everyone would just smile, hug me, and tell me how proud I must be. I was proud alright. Proud that on this day I didn't end up in jail needing bail money.

You see, senior year is much like the birthing process. Except instead of birthing a tiny human you are birthing an adult. Which, if you ask me, is a much more difficult and emotional task.

When our first daughter entered senior year, I decorated her car with the window chalk that read "This is my last first day of school." I had pictures of her holding her kindergarten picture. I cried as she drove off to school thinking gosh where have 18 years gone? How can we be here already? But here we were. So in those first days when people would hug me and say "You must be so proud", my heart would swell and my eye would leak with excitement and anxiety as we prepared her for the first day of the rest of her life.

Dear Kim Kardashian.........

I would like to applaud you for loving your body enough to pose nude and spread the pictures for everyone to see. However, I also would like to take a moment and thank you for making me have yet another conversation with my teenagers about how it is not appropriate to drool over a woman's body, worship nude pictures of women, or treat women as objects. However, when a celebrity's nude picture pops up on the internet, it's hard to keep a teenager from wondering what all the hype is about. I'm sure they don't care about what classes you studied in high school or college, what kind of career plans you have, what your family looks like, or what hobbies you enjoy. Instead they would probably say something like "Did you see?..........." And yet have no real idea what they are looking at and what a beautiful creation the female body is. God created women for a great purpose. Although, I'm sure one of them is not to be spread all over the internet.

Dorm Check

Yesterday was the day I hate. My daughter went back to college. I knew she was ready. I knew she was excited. And while I am excited for her adventures I am never ready to watch my children leave my house.

Since my daughter is in a dorm with a community kitchenette we discussed buying her dishes and things she will need. However, we decided to wait for most of the bigger items since there are a total of 4 roommates sharing the space. After all there is no need for them to have 4 toasters or 24 place settings for dishes.

We came home from camping, quickly cleaned the mud off my Jeep and loaded up her stuff to go. I quickly became aware that my daughter and husband didn't care how the stuff came home from college in spring as long as it made it home. We looked like a redneck bunch of hillbillies moving into the dorms from good o country living. Many families had all sorts of organized totes and boxes. Not us. We unloaded one thirty one bag or Wal-mart sack at a time.

Between Photographs

I love photography. I don't have many pictures of when I was a child. The few pictures I have I treasure. At one of my dad's birthday parties my aunt brought me a bag of pictures that had dozens of snapshots from when my sister and I were little. I can't wait to find just the right picture frames to hang them in my hall. That is a task that I have been meaning to do for a long time. The photographs are still there waiting for me. Still ready to take me down memory lane every time I pull them out.  But what happens between the snapshots that we take? What does life throw at you that isn't captured by a photograph?

Last night my husband and I went to a Passenger concert. The concert was absolutely amazing. I could go on forever about the concert. On the way to the concert I looked at my husband and was really disappointed that I had forgotten my camera. About a year ago I took the plunge and invested in a good camera. I am still a novice photographer but LOVE taking pictures. You can capture so many things in a picture. However, the one thing you can't capture in a picture is the feelings. What was the emotion of the moment? Sure you see people smiling and laughing or making a sad face but what was the true emotion of that day? A picture can't tell you that.

Ironing

Do you ever feel like there is something you are supposed to do but you dig your heels in the sand and refuse to do it? Like maybe God has been knocking on a door of your heart and you pretend like you don't hear it? It would require work, faith, and in some instances swallowing your pride.

Today when I was at Target I walked by what I was sure was the car of the person I previously wrote about. I haven't spoken to her since the other day and have no intention of speaking to her soon. One thing about me being a Happy Warrior is I know that if I attempt to have a conversation before I am truly ready I will say a lot of things and it will resemble word vomit. I'm good at word vomit. But I am trying to control my word vomit. I think God would like me to control my tongue better. I'm sure my husband would too. :)

Relationships

Relationships are difficult. This is no secret to anyone who has endured any length of relationship.
As an adult I didn't think I would struggle with relationships with other adults. In the recent days I was reminded that while I have a few close friends who are dear to me, the outer circle of friends that I have is........well........not people I should be around any more. 

To give you a little background information I will tell the Reader's Digest version. This Saturday we were supposed to celebrate with our friends that we have been married for 15 years and me being done with nursing school. Some how that celebration with friends morphed into a combo country boil/celebration. I didn't say much and was just going to go with the flow until I was informed that the country boil would have cost me about $270 to feed my family of 6. That is not something we can afford. Especially since our grocery bill is double our mortgage payment right now. (and I'm taking 5 minutes to write this before I go to the grocery store again....ugh) 

And so it ends.....

Another semester of nursing school is over. The final is done (although I'm still not so patiently waiting for my grade) and my mini summer vacation can begin. But I sit here with questions in my head about what I answered right and what I answered wrong and where the heck did that question come from because I sure as heck don't remember reading that. And as nursing students it seems that is all we do is read. I sent my husband a message that said I'm not sure if I should cry or drink. I truly have no idea how I did on that test other than I past. Or I'm pretty sure I passed.

Once our grades post we will be officially called second year students. Something we thought we earned going into this semester but the instructors called this our "bridge" semester. In 32 short weeks(two 16 week semesters) of class we will find ourselves standing at graduation and pinning ceremony. Is that possible? It seems like I have been working forever toward a goal that would never get here.