December

How did it get here so fast?! Here is what I've been up to lately:

* 14th annual (maybe 15th?) family reunion with the Reagan's! This event is also named, "Reagan Fest" thanks to my mom's side of the family :) My dad has 12 brothers and sisters, so it does look kind of like a festival when we all get together. But its one of my very favorite things that happens during the year!

* I became addicted to Pinterest. I've had an account for a little while but have only caught onto it in the past week or so. One day I made a crock pot recipe AND made a holiday wreath from Pinterest. How about that?

* I've slowly but surely made my way out of the funk I've been in. I'm getting used to the idea of growing up :)

* I started my new tutoring job, which I'm loving. It is on Monday's and Friday's. I work with one other girl and we tutor 5 kids after school. I work on the "reading" part. Comprehension, fluency, and writing strategies are probably the top 3 things I've googled DAILY for the past few weeks. I LOVE IT.

* I finished my literacy class I was taking two nights a week. Made an A in both 8 week courses. :)

* Met with a career counselor at the U of A after a very frantic late night email a couple of weeks ago. I think it started off something like this, "Hi I'm Emily Reagan. My life plans were crushed after I didn't make it into grad school for speech path and my advisor advised me not to apply again and for months now I've been sick at my stomach trying to re-plan my life and figure out some kind of career I can go into that will be easy to make it into grad school, make me a lot of money, and allow me to have a family later in life and I'M TIRED OF IT! I give up! I can't do it by myself anymore! I need help figuring out my life!" … Ok, it probably wasn't one big run on sentence, but it wasn't pretty and it did sound something like what I wrote above. When I told my mom this, she was a little embarrassed. :)

* Went to that career counselor two weeks ago and walked out with a smile because it was probably the very FIRST time I had met with an advisor in the last two years that I didn't bust out in tears on. Seriously. Big accomplishment there.

* I was advised by that very nice man of a career counselor that my face lit up when he mentioned counseling as a profession for me. (We met for over an hour, btw.) And so guess what I did?

* Made an appointment with the director of the counseling department at the University of Arkansas where I took in lots of information that was music to my ears… so then guess what?

* I started filling out papers for GRADUATE SCHOOL!! That's right! I'm applying on January 15th. And I'm really excited because it is the first career I've thought of and explored that has actually felt "right." It feels good. And the graduate program sounds heavenly. So even though this is fresh information, I'm excited about it and I'm ready to move forward with it. I'll go into detail about it all on another day :) eeeeek!

* I've done some house sitting/dog sitting

* I've done a ton of christmas shopping, which I love. I literally freaked out when I found the christmas sprinkle aisle at Hobby Lobby. Oh! and the $1.00 Christmas sprinkles at Target that I use every year. I just LOOOOOVE the holidays. I'm always trying to talk Dylan into getting "in the spirit" so he totally makes fun of that phrase any chance he gets now. But doesn't it just feel good to be in that spirit?!

* Spending lot's of time with family, especially tonight- we had one of the biggest Sunday dinners EVER. Our house was packed full and everyone was eating and laughing and joking around. We had mexican food and then Aunt Karen brought a ton of stuff over to make banana splits! Including the cherries! I looked at Dylan while we were standing off together at one point, looking at all that was going on and I said "I just love this. Look at it all. I love it!" And I do. I don't ever want to forget these times or take them for granted.

* Most importantly, I've just been enjoying being back to my old self lately. Life is finally starting to feel good and normal, and I'm thankful for that.