Catching up with the Bowman's

Hello all!

It has been awhile since I last added anything to my blog, and since I am on a school break, I have more time, so here goes. Fun reading for everyone!

I finished the semester officially on December 13th, where I had my last final. I still had to finish helping my teacher grade projects (I was a T.A.), but that was done from my home, and I didn't have to be in Logan for it. As it was my only final, and it was towards the end of the week, I really had it easy at the end. I didn't even go to school on that last Friday, the 7th, as there was supposed to be a bad storm that I was avoiding. Anyway, it all ended, and ended well. I got great grades, and can look forward to my last semester as a student at USU, as an undergraduate! Yeah for me! I am excited, but am going to be busy still. Going to finish with a bang, or not at all. I will be taking 17 credits, only one of which is easy (Yoga again - love it). 4 credits are block classes, so I will really only have 15 credits at any given time, but it will still be hard work. I am going to graduate with Honors, and have a thesis that I need to write. I am going to be taking a memorial design course which will be hard, but so rewarding that it should be okay. And of course some other stupid classes that the university says will be helpful to me, but I really think they just want more money.

Last Sunday, we went out to get in our Jeep for Church, and it was gone. Yep, stolen in fact. We didn't just park it farther away than usual, it was gone. It was recovered the next day, but we had to put money into it to get it to run again. The window is still broken from the first time it was broken into, but we park it in the garage now (the Jetta is getting work done by the slowest mechanic known to mankind, so it's not there and I don't want the Jeep to get stolen again - apparently that year is popular to steal). Fun times, not really. It was so hard to have any emotion, and know what to do that I didn't really feel like doing anything. I had planned on making sugar cookies, so I did that while singing Christmas carols with the radio station, but when I stopped to think about things going on, it just brought me down again.

We are finishing making Jerry's (the father-in-law) gift, and finished shopping for other gifts yesterday. I had been done with all my shopping last weekend, but Corey still had to finish. Don't think he is a procrastinator, because I didn't give him my list until last week, so he really didn't know where to start with many ideas. Apparently I am hard to shop for. Didn't know that, but will remember it!

My days are filled with cleaning, playing with doggies, organizing what little things we have out of boxes into better, clean spots, and then nights are filled with working on the house. We are almost completely done drywalling the upstairs bedroom and it is looking great. We will mud and sand (not a fun task) ourselves to get it done quicker, and then paint. Our goal is to have a completely finished room that I can use as my work room for my last semester. I will only have to drive two days a week, so we want a place for me to go to get tons of things done the rest of the days! It is coming quickly, and I couldn't be happier. By the way, hanging drywall with two people is not a good idea, but can be done.

I had to take this lovely computer in to get work done again. It was quicker this time, and I have known for about 2 months that I would have to take it in, but it was fixed very quickly this time. My wireless card was no longer recognized at all by the computer, so I had to plug in the ethernet cord to use the internet, not always easy to do. I dropped off my computer the 14th of December and got to pick it up last Friday. I wanted to check to see that the internet card was working before I left the store, but the Geek Squad guy couldn't find the right adapter to the power cord (I had not brought my own), and they had totally run out my battery. I was so frustrated that I told the guy that I would take the computer home and try it, and that if it didn't work I would call back and he would hear and feel my wrath. He laughed thinking that I was making a joke, and then saw my face, and immediately quit laughing. I was not being funny, as I have had too many times when I have had to pick something up that was "fixed" only to find that indeed it was not. He had me sign the papers that it was in my possession, and I left. When I did try it, it started up really slowly, and did not want to work much at all, so I was scared. Then it was working. I think that they had totally run the battery out that it didn't have any power, and even the power cord needed to give the battery some life before it would work. It now works fine, and the internet is a great source of information, fun, and communication.

I can think of a dozen other things to write about, but I have to go. One of the things that I organized was all my travel pictures to Italy and London. Not Florida yet. I hope to finish my travelogue of my international trip this break. Happy reading!