back on track

Hi there world. It has been a while since I posted. Grad school and a trip to the emergency room sure got in the way.

I have officially finished my 1st semester in my masters program. I took 5 classes and received a 4.0! Not only that - but I learned truckloads about counseling and interviewing, and am almost convinced I am doing what I want to be doing. I am growing more nervous about actually working with clients, but every time we do a faux-client interview, my nerves disappear during the session. I am nervous about how I will affect people, but confident in my ability to listen and glean information.

I am taking 2 courses over the winter - 1 about counseling people with addictions and substance abuse, and 1 about counseling children who have been abused. I am looking forward to both of these classes a lot.

In three weeks my next semester starts - the semester in which I have to figure out my thesis, and the last one before we start seeing real clients. I take all of these classes with the same 25 other folks - a wonderful group of people who I have become really close to. It's a great group. Lots of energy, and really funny.


As fas the emergency room goes... on Dec. 13th I experienced some awful abdominal pain, and my husband took me to the ER. Turns out I had an ovarian cyst which ruptured and caused massive internal bleeding. Fuuunnn. I had surgery that night, and then spent the next 2 weeks in bed recuperating. Today is day number 2 that I am back at work, and day number 2 of exercising again. I can tell you - it sure made me appreciate my husband, my family, and being healthy. Not an experience I'd like to have again, but it did happen conveniently between semesters, at a time when I could take off work, and while Adam was home.


I love making resolutions, and so I usually don't do them at New Years, because I do them all the time. This year, however, I did decide to tackle an overall characteristic in as many ways as it affects my life: RELIABILITY. I am notoriously awful at this, and it makes me feel like a less-good-person. I truly desire to be the type of person who can be counted on, and who follows through.

My obstacles are that I have a hard time saying no to people - so that will be key, if I feel like I can't realistically follow through. Meanwhile, there are a few things I said I'd do in the past that I need to finish:

1. Sew a friend's shirt button back on
[do it tonight]
2. Knit a friend a dog sweater
[start by looking up a pattern and setting aside yarn for it]
3. Help my cousin with his curtains
[waiting on him to give me fabric. when that happens, set timeline/deadline.]
4. Help a friend with his curtains
[set date to go with him to buy fabric.]
5. Finish painting my aunt's chairs and dining room table
[4 down, 2 to go + table. return current chair to her, start on design for next]
6. Follow through with Fern's Garden about my felted coin purses
[take photos and email prices to her]
7. Follow through with the LB Farmers market about a place to sell my items
[ask M if he wants to share booth, call J to ask about their costs again]

craft fair

Yesterday I drove up to a friend's apartment and we went together to Los Feliz to a little backyard craft fair. It was really fun, and re-inspired me all over again. It was full of the most hipstery of hipsters, and I was just glad I was wearing a cute dress. I bought a really pretty felted flower necklace, I'll post her blog up here when I get home and find her business card. She was super nice, and talked to me a lot about her experience selling stuff.

I came home inspired all over again and got out my needle-felting materials, worked on some coin purses and started making rings! I'm excited to have more projects!

This week has been hectic for me. I haven't been as ahead-of-the-game school-wise as I like to be. My house is starting to get messy again. I'd love 2 or 3 solid days at home - I would wake up in the morning and do schoolwork for 2 or 3 hours, then get up and do dog care and housework, and still have time to do my cross stitch. That sounds just about perfect.

Instead - today I work and am going straight from here to the gym on CSULB campus. From there I have 6 hours of class. I got up early and took the dog out this morning. When I get home, I'd like to do dishes and empty the bathroom trash.

Tomorrow I have my first personal therapy appt (required by degree) and I am really looking forward to it. I am also going to take my sister-in-law on a tour of CSULB because she just got accepted. I can't wait to show her the awesomeness that is the new rec center.

----there's a baby in the office right now. I have done NO work. I now want to quit everything everything everything and just have babies. Is that so wrong?----

ok. back to work.

free earrings!

I've decided to give away 20 pairs of my crocheted earrings. The idea is that if you receive one of these pairs and wear them around, people will say things like "gee whiz, what an awesome pair of earrings!" and you will say something resembling "thanks! I love them! You can get a pair at royaboya.etsy.com" and then when that person buys a pair of earrings, I will send you $1.00 for every pair from each buyer who says YOU sent them!

If you are interested, send me an email at royaboya@earthlink.net and I will send you a pair of FREE HANDMADE EARRINGS

earrings and a little bit of daily life

A taste of some of the newest earrings I've made. They are all posted at royaboya.etsy.com and royaboya.weebly.com


Today I dyed my hair, cut my hair (yay bangs), made earrings, read a chapter, picked up a desk and set up a new office area - where I am typing to you from! It's a great desk with a hutch perfect for storing all of the zillions of textbooks I had no room for.

Still to come this evening - laundry, watering the back lawn, feeding the dogs, reading 1 more chapter, working on my paper, eating dinner, doing a load of dishes. I think it can be done! Adam is working late tonight because of the weather - he is on fire watch at Griffith Park. Hey people - when you throw your cigarette into the grass, it's MY husband who gets to work late. Dispose properly! heh.

snapshot.

I am sitting on the floor beside my bed. The ceiling fan is on the 2nd setting. Adam is snoring, in bed behind me. Chris is in the computer room. His brother, David, arrived here from Vegas where he lives now, about 20 minutes ago. I had just finished watching an episode of Sons of Anarchy when he arrived. Our biggest dog, Rommel, is asleep next to the front door. Our other dog, Juno, is in the backyard because she's in heat. Every time I look out the bathroom window she is looking back at me. I'm awake at 12:53 in the morning. I am slowly adding bullet points to a paper that is due Thursday night, and I have done enough schoolwork today that I could go to bed totally satisfied. I have been restless for most of the day. I want to dye my hair and cut it. I want to buy new furniture. I want to paint the walls in my bedroom. I want to buy new shoes and clothes.

Tomorrow I am picking up a desk I found on craigslist, and dying my hair. Other things will have to wait, maybe until after grad school is over.

Tonight I read about Gestalt therapy, I read 150 pages of the DSM-IV-TR desk reference, and 3 articles about diagnosing. I worked an 8 hour day at Project Independence. I ate wonton soup, stir fry, rice, baked chips, gummy bears, two diet snapples, peanut butter and banana sandwich, crispy ranch chicken and spinach. I made all of it (except the snapples, gummy bears, and chips). Tomorrow I am going to cook swedish pancakes.

Right now I am going to get clothes out of the dryer and then lay down and try to sleep. My eyes are tired, but my mind is still going. I think this is what happens when you have caffeine.

Adam's dad gave me the guitar that used to belong to Adam's mom. It hasn't been played since she died. I tuned it carefully. It has a mixture of nylon and steel strings. I looked up chords for folk and country songs on my laptop and sang Adam to sleep while he read the 2nd to the last book in the Sword of Truth series. Tomorrow Chris and David are going to play disc golf. Adam is going to work. I will do many, many things.

new website

I made a new website to sell my stuff!!!

http://royaboya.weebly.com/index.html

go look!!!! tell me what you think. Feedback would be great!