Back in the saddle?

It's been well over a month since I have posted on here. 36 days to be exact, but who's counting? Of course, I've been one busy gal. In the past 30 days, I have officially wrapped up my first year of graduate school (I got all A's!), completed my internship (to be resumed in Fall 2011), and have certainly been working my tail off at two part-time jobs (Butler County Rape Crisis Program and now officially Women Helping Women--did I forget to mention that?)

Even now that it's summer, I'm still plenty busy, with an increase in program assistant hours in Oxford and a few extra on-call shifts with WHW in Cincinnati, as well as weekly volunteer hours at Santa Maria. Yep--I liked interning at Santa Maria so much that I just couldn't walk away from two weekly activities: my Meals-on-Wheels route to several elderly ladies in Price Hill, and my youth group which I co-facilitate with the Youth Program Manager. Next fall when school and internship resume, I will be fully immersed in my administration specialty track, so I won't be able to devote any time to my kids or ladies. Hopefully this summer I can share more about some of my adventures with all of these activities.

On the homefront, Taylor and I are keeping plenty busy, as well. We've been gardening and landscaping, and making a few house updates (which I'll share), as well. Sadly, our family has experienced some other changes of late, as we recently lost our dear little Louise on May 28th. Her health kept deteriorating to the point where she didn't want to eat or do much of anything anymore, and we knew the time had finally come to say goodbye. It was a tough decision, but the right one, and we miss her all the time. We're lucky to still have our sweet 16-year old Thelma, but it just isn't the same without her other half.

So with the summer underway, I am optimistic I will be able to crank out more than 3 posts/month, which seems to be the going rate right now. Hey, sorry about that. I'm back!