Hello friends!

I can hardly believe it is the last day of September.  I kept busy last week prepping for the final step in my project manager certification – the interview!  I was SO NERVOUS about this interview and definitely overprepared.  Fortunately, we were given the questions before hand, so the interview ended up being pretty easy.  I passed! Now I can manage projects for my company. I’m happy this goal has been marked off my to-do list.

Next – the exam.  26 days to go.  Last year, the exam date was October 27 and I had logged 145 hours total studying. For this attempt, as of yesterday, I have logged 119 hours.  I’m definitely ahead of where I was last year, and I’ve spent a lot more time working through problems instead of simply reading through concepts like I did last year.  I think this is my best shot. I just have to continue focusing and studying hard until October 26th.

Other than that, not much has been going on.  Husband and I have been in hermit mode on weekends so he can prep for his classes/apply to jobs, and so I can study.  ACL is next weekend, which HA! HA! HA! Husband and I have some regret about purchasing 3-day passes without realizing how busy we were going to be.  I think I will spend my mornings studying and will use the festival as a study break.  The only other time we had 3-day passes, back in 2016, we got to Zilker Park every day around 3-4 pm.  So I think I’ll have plenty of time to study…just the thought of being at a festival for 3 days already makes me tired. (Contrast this to when my brother and I went to our first ACL in 2008, showing up at noon and waiting in the same spot for 7 hours for the Foo Fighters.  We were in our early 20s). I AM looking forward to seeing my friends, since I have effectively abandoned all of them this past month once I started getting into hardcore study mode.

My family came to visit this weekend.  It was so wonderful seeing them!  We ordered pizza on Friday and I nearly polished off one medium-sized box by myself (which, ???? Hello, stress eating).  I get to see them next month after my test, so that is going to be a really nice treat!

I’ve been slowly chipping away at my blanket as well.  I bought another colorway to add to the blanket last weekend.

If you’re thinking, “This skein looks really weird,” it’s because my jerkface dog decided to run off with it.

I also received a skein from the TeenyButton Studio Harry Potter Mystery Club…Wingardium Leviosa!*

I’m also making (excruciatingly slow) progress on my Speckled Square blanket…

I’ve also been working on a cute little cross-stitched piece of a mama and baby fox…but it’s still in the “this looks like a giant, amorphous blob” phase, so I figured there wasn’t any point in taking a progress photo.

Other than that, I’ve just been soaking up the coziness of the season. We’ve been getting a lot of rain, which means I can run without dying of heat exhaustion again, and our yard is slowly showing signs of life.

I bought some pretty limonium to make our home a little more cheery.

We’ve also been keeping an eye on the puppy dog…he’s had intermittent tummy issues since the summer, so he’s had a lot of vet visits the past several months.  This time, his vet put him on puppy Xanax, thinking stress and anxiety has been the root of his tummy problems.  We’ve definitely noticed a difference with the puppy Xanax…he’s the same Apollo, but maybe a bit more of a space cadet.  Yesterday I made him wait while I took this cute photo of his toy raccoon…but when I gave him the go ahead to continue playing, he just stared at the raccoon.  For a long time.

Alrighty, time to get studying. I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

* I personally don’t care that Nagini was a human the whole time, but I guess the rest of the fan base has exploded over this fact. I DIGRESS.