My so Charmed Life

I guess I’m at that age. Everyone I know is getting married. I’m happy for them all, but for me it’s just an excuse to shop! We have a wedding to go to at the end of the month. It’s a Jewish ceremony at a synagogue at 5pm with a reception at a different venue.

So, I’m thinking cocktail dress? I have a really pretty dress that I wore to Lena’s wedding, but it’s floor length and I’m not sure that would be appropriate. Cocktail dress seems to be a happy medium. So here are the options I’ve narrowed it down to so far:

I really like this one too but Hushbear doesn’t like it at all.
I almost bought it for J & B’s wedding, but they didn’t have it in my size.

I like this one, but I’m worried it’s a bit young for me.

I love this dress, but not so sure about red at a wedding.
I am considering buying it just to have though. It’s so pretty.

I like it, but think it might be a bit too much.

So, any opinions? Should I stick with the long one I already have or go with one of these? Or are these all terrible and I should keep looking? Leave comments please! I beg you!

My theory of bad things coming in threes might be a bust. I guess I should say they come in a minimum of 3. WTF?

1. Miscarriage
2. Isabell
3. Maggie almost drowning
4. I’ve been twitchy again lately
5. We have a bee colony in our house (not catastrophic, but annoying and potentially expensive)
6. Hushbear getting food poisoning or a virus in Russia
7. Hushbear getting assaulted on the plane

Oh wait, you don’t know about that? Some drunk guy tried to choke him and threatened to piss on him while he was in the air flying back from Russia. They wouldn’t restrain him & didn’t give Hushbear the option of pressing charges. We’ve filed a formal complaint against the airline with the FAA.

So I think we’re at our limit. Seriously. Can I fill out a form? Did the memo not get around?

I was supposed to go to a bridal shower yesterday but apparently Maggie didn’t want me to go. I had the gifts wrapped and in the back of the CR-V. I was dressed and had my heels on. I actually took time to do my hair and put on make-up. I was ready really early because I still needed to pick up a card for the bride & groom.

I fed the girls and then let them outside to potty again while I finished up. I was walking from the bedroom to the kitchen and noticed a lot of movement in the pool. Then Baby comes and slams herself up against the patio door. (The last time she did this was with Bell so I freaked out.) She did it again as I was going over there. She saw me and ran towards the pool where I could see a very freaked out Maggie on the far end.

By the time I got the door open she was underwater. She’s not a strong swimmer by any means and she panics as soon as she is put into water. As I’m running over there I’m trying to decide if I need to jump in to get her or if it would be better to reach in and pull her out from the side. I decided to go for the side to not make any more waves.

I pulled her out and put her on the sidewalk and she wasn’t doing anything. I started pushing her and hitting (not hard) on her side. By now I am thinking that I can’t lose two dogs in two months. Then she blinked, puked at little water, coughed, got up and ran away. I grabbed her and ran inside. I put her in the bathtub and turned on the hot water. She was violently shaking. I’m not sure if it was from fear or the cold-ass water in the pool.

I’m freaking out trying to get her warmed up and calmed down. I call Tara to tell her I probably won’t be going to the shower and then I call JH & Ash. I don’t know why I called them. Last I checked they are not vets or neurologists. Not sure what I expected them to do, but JH is always calm & Ash seems like she would be good in a crisis.

JH came over right after I got Maggie out of the tub. We sat on the couch with her while she dried off & calmed down. She’s fine now. She ate this morning and isn’t acting any differently than she usually does. JH thinks we should get her some arm floaties in case she falls in again. I might look into that.

Hushbear and his bestie are on the plane getting ready to leave Moscow! Their plane lands at 1:50 pm tomorrow. So we have 13Hours & 20minutes before they are back in Houston!

I found this site. It’s an English couple with two adorable Wheatens, George & Millie. They’ve got pictures and videos of them. I like the video idea, it would be nice for people to see the girls and how they interact with Zöe. The boy won’t meet her until she is close 11 months old at best. I think he would get a kick out of watching videos of her.

I really like the Flip video recorders. They are small, cute & relatively inexpensive. Perfect for what I need. I’ll have to see if Target has them. I should be getting a 10% off coupon soon. I like the Flip for Good ones because they have different charities they are involved with. For certain models they donate $10 from every purchase towards that charity. They donate a camera to a nonprofit for every 7 cameras sold from the Shared for Good line.

Yeah, their marketing worked. I’m a sucker for a company that gives to charities! Oh yeah, and I found a birthday gift for Dan. It is absolutely perfect!

Damn it. I took what was supposed to be a really easy psychology course so I wouldn’t have to take a final. This prof has 3 exams of equal weight and if you are happy with your grade you don’t have to take your final. If you are not happy, you can take the final and drop the lowest of your other exam grades.

I got a 66 on the exam. OMFG. I haven’t failed anything since I came back to school. WTF? I knew the exam was hard and I figured I hadn’t done terribly well, but a 66?????? The class average was a 72 so at least I’m not that far behind, but one girl got a 104 so there is no curve. Bitch.

At least that grade doesn’t count. The final exam will be comprehensive and she is going to let us go over our old exams to prepare. Now I just have to hope that I don’t bomb the other two…

UH finally has the commencement information up on the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences (CLASS) website.

Commencement is Friday, May 15th at 9am and will last 3 hours! That’s not what got my attention though. This is:

Undergraduate students who complete their degree requirements will graduate with the stated academic honors if they achieve the following grade point averages earned in the last sixty-six (66) hours completed at the University of Houston.

Honors Categories and GPAs
Summa Cum Laude	3.75 to 4.0 GPA
Magna Cum Laude	3.50 to 3.74 GPA
Cum Laude	3.25 to 3.49 GPA

I have a 3.64 in what I have completed thus far in my 66 hours. If I do as well as I expect to, it will stay that way or just above it. That means 12 years after taking my first college class, I will graduate Magna Cum Laude. (With high honors.) Seriously, I am so freaking happy. I have worked may ass off since I returned to school and it’s actually paid off.

One Trill Hill (Ha! typo, but I’m keeping it) just killed one of my childhood memories. They massacred Young MC in a karaoke montage. No, I don’t watch One Tree Hill. I turned the TV on and that was the last channel it was on. Honestly.

1. Sweep up all of the dog hair in the house
2. Do all of the laundry and put it away (instead of putting it on the chair)
3. Clean the bathrooms
4. Iron all of Hushbear’s shirts
5. Give Maggie a bath
6. Shave Maggie to avoid dealing with all of the fracking dog hair everywhere
7. Fly on an airplane
8. Get my underarms waxed again (ouch)
9. Fire the dog poop guys and clean the poop up myself
10. Spend time with Hushbear’s mom & my dad at the same time

Is this semester worse than others? Or is just because I’m so close to being done? I know I have to study, I know what needs to be done right away. I’m even ignoring other classes to finish up stuff from last semester. Maybe it will be better when I’m done with that crap.

I’m currently writing practice essays for my exam on Wednesday based on the review questions. I hope I know which ones are going to be on the exam. Topics I am focusing on:

• The geopolitics (foreign policy/war) of the English, French, & Russian revolutions
• The careers, strengths, weaknesses, & ideology of Cromwell, Robespierre, & Lenin
• The outcomes of each revolution -were they significant or not (continuity/discontinuity)
• I need to study the period of radicalization & Thermidor in each, but am having trouble figuring out how to phrase those ideas
• Another one I am having problems with is examining the role of the Levellers, the Sans-culottes, and the SRs.

I’m not sure why I am having such a problem with the last one. I just can’t figure out how to mesh an essay with those topics. The review says to look at their demands. No too hard, but I’m just crossing my fingers that there are better options. There will be two questions and I have 3 hours to answer them both.

The last time I took an exam for Dr. S, I was there for 2 hours & 53 minutes with a 5 minute break so my hand didn’t fall off. I need to remember to take extra blue books with me since there won’t be anyone to borrow from if I run out of space. I imagine I’ll only use 2, but I think I’ll take 4 just to be on the safe side.

There are other topics on the review -the role of the Kings, the role of the Enlightenment and the Intelligentsia, and (one I really should write an essay for) the decrease in the period of radicalization.

I know after reading this you are thinking one of the following things:

1. Where can I get those last few minutes of my life back?
2. Why the hell is she studying this crap?
3. Stop complaining, you picked your courses
4. Why haven’t you been studying this entire time?
5. That’s easy, why is she such a whiner?

OK, back to my essay on the leaders. I’m still on Cromwell!

I was going to post a picture of myself standing next to Voltaire’s tomb at the Panthéon this summer, but blogger isn’t cooperating again. So click here instead.