Home Again, Home Again

Well people I'm finally home for the Holidays and very excited to know that I don't have to leave for a full 2 and a half weeks! I am currently sitting squished between my Mom, Bindi's bottom, and Matthew! Zappa is snuggling in Dad's lap and Matthew is getting ready to take both Bindi and Alex outside...(potty break!)

To catch everyone up on the last week, this past Wednesday Matthew, Katie, Thomas, Jessica, Robert and I all had a very awesome Christmas party/get together in order to exchange gifts and play games. As most of you know, I bought Matthew an Xbox 360 for Christmas! I'm attaching a few pictures of him opening his gifts! I made him open the hard drive first which had him stumped for a few seconds.

Matthew has just figured out what it is!

Matthew's second present! Grand Theft Auto 4! He has no idea still that I actually got him the Xbox!

Oblivion (this one is mostly for me!)

Finally!!! After a month of keeping it a secret I finally got to give him his Xbox 360!

The six of is playing the new board game that Matthew bought me for Christmas! It was so much fun! The game is called Loaded Questions! Lets just say that boys got stuck on one particular word for their answers and made the game hilarious! *Criggidy Criggidy, Oh Right*

Along with the game, I got a really cute coffee thermos and a $20 gift card to Barnes and Noble from Matthew. Katie got me an AWESOME picture holder in the shape of a Christmas tree, a pair of really cute socks and a coffee cup! Jessica bought me the leather bound copy of the entire collection of Jane Austen books. SO SWEET!!! She also got me a friends picture frame! (Now I need a good picture of us.) Thomas bought me a bath and body works bath set! (Can't wait to use the lotion!) Robert bought both Matthew and I a wine rack, and Natalie got me a adorable puppy calendar.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!

Bullet Dodging and other feats accomplished with Accounting

Subject: Matthew Hallman
Height: 6 Ft. Even
Hair: Copper
Eyes: Blue
Attitude: Nefarious
Current Emotion: Humbled

This short tagline sums me up at this moment fairly well. As some of you know I was going for a degree in Finance from Tech; however most of you do not know that to be in the Finance program you have to make B or higher on the ACCT classes at tech. Still with me???...good because here is where it gets interesting. For the first ACCT class I made a B no problem, then for the second class I had made B's in all the tests leading up to the final, so the final I thought I had on lock (notice my ego making an appearance here --->) so a few days after the test I decide to check my grades. BAMMMM, C+ in ACCT (ever had one of those moments where it feels like the rug just got pulled out from under you, this was that moment) so naturally I checked my final test grade to see what went so terribly wrong, and there it is- my score is a 59 out of 100. Needless to say I was dumbstruck, no finance, no internship, no good job, . Ok so maybe I over-dramatise a little but that is how I felt at the moment. After some talking to Kasey and my Mom I no longer felt completely useless, merely in the dumps. So in a last ditch effort I emailed my professor just to see what could be done (I completely expected nothing to change and was bracing myself for a change in major). So after 4 days of waiting, today I received an email from her stating the following : "I rechecked your final exam score and it was correct. However, after carefully considering your grades throughout the semester, I decided to go ahead and award you the B-. Consider it an early Christmas present." After several minutes I managed to pick my jaw up and immediately replied to my prof with a sincere thank you. Then I got to thinking, my original grade was correct why did I deserve this change, was it my good looks, roguish smile, or way with words? I think not, in my personal opinion (and I'm borrowing an Asbill phrase here) it was a God-Thing. He wanted me to know that he is always there for you and he will lead you down the right path, even if you disagree wholeheartedly. Some might see it differently and that's OK but in my opinion someone upstairs gave me a second chance. So with this grand start to the Christmas Season, I'm in a very good mood. So with that I will leave you and hopefully see the majority of the readers of this blog in a few weeks!

Old Pictures

Here are some photos that most of you guys have never seen! I was looking through all my picture and decided that I should let you see some of these!

(Busted!) The evidence of this photo was just too strong! As you can tell she was trying to give me the "I'm innocent!" look.

This was so funny I couldn't even pretend to be mad!

As you can tell in the first photo, she was trying to act like she didn't do it!

Fourth of July at the Bryan's!

Fourth of July again! It was a blast watching Rohan in the water!

Granny and Big Ike #1! Granny loved this little girl and the kitten loved her as well!

Christmas Tree

Here' is the little visitor that stayed with me for a couple of hours the day after Thanksgiving while I was putting the tree up.




Here's our Christmas Tree!!! I love it!!!

1 More Week!!!

YAY! One more week before coming home for Christmas (or well technically, 5 more days)! I am so happy to finally be getting more than a 1 day break from work and school. I guess at this point I should catch everyone up on the final days of this semester and the going on's of the past couple of weeks!

First and foremost, the most awesome of awesome news is that I made 4 A's!!! (and one B) for the semester! WooHoo for Kasey! My Texas Tech GPA has finally climbed back up to a 2.972 from the dramatically horrible first semester! I swear that by the time that I graduate from Texas Tech my GPA here will be at least a 3.0!

On a different note,Thomas Ayars has been down for the last two weeks! It seems as though my roommate Katie and Thomas have kicked it off pretty well and have become pretty good friends. The 4 of us are planning on having a Christmas present opening evening on the Friday right before Matthew, Thomas and I leave for Winnsboro. We're all hoping that Katie will be able to come visit for a couple of days for the New Year!

In the area of work, my boss is still messing up my schedule and trying to schedule me during hours that I specifically told him I couldn't work, so I'll have to talk to him about that tomorrow. I can't wait for the commercial side of Christmas to be over, working in retail during Christmas is absolutely a nightmare! People tend to be in a hurry and tend to get cranky (specially while waiting in line). I believe that everyone should at least work in retail once in their lifetime just so they know how hard it is and can possibly have a little understanding with those of us who do work in retail. Just remember the next time you walk into a Hobby Lobby (or any other retail store) the people who work there are just trying to do their jobs and aren't purposefully trying to screw you over! It Christmas, don't forget what we're celebrating!

I suppose that's all I'm going to blog about tonight. I'll try to keep you updated a little more! Thanks for being patient!

Love,
Kasey

The Last Final!

Do you ever get too enthusiastic when trying to plan your week? Day? or even Hour? I can tell you now, I am one of the world's worst over enthusiastic planners. This is how it happens:

Schedule Prior to Over Enthusiasm:

Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: One Exam 1:30-2:30
Wednesday: Nothing
Thursday: Nothing
Friday: Nothing
Saturday: Nothing

Schedule After Over Enthusiasm:

Monday: Work: 9-3pm
Tuesday Work: 9-12, Exam: 1:30-2:30
Wednesday: Work 9am-3pm
Thursday: 5pm-12 AT NIGHT!
Friday: 9am-3pm
Saturday: 5pm-probably 3am

And yes I realize that it doesn't sound that bad...but for my first week out of school I wish that I wouldn't try to fit so much crap into it, because at this point all I want to do is be lazy. The last thing I want to do is work but I'm trying to keep reminding myself that the pay check will be very nice and that I'm being good by working. But right now I'm thinking that I might have been a little over zealous when writing out my work schedule and the amount of hours I really wanted to work. Blah. I hate when the lazy bug bits...makes me feel crummy for complaining about working so few hours compared to those who work twice as much as I do. I think I can honestly say that it's not so much the hours that I put down but the fact that I offered to close 2 nights this week. (stupid, stupid Kasey) I hate staying up past 12!

Trying to Stay Positive,
Kasey

Finals!

Just so no one gets upset and starts thinking that Matthew and I aren't going to blog anymore, we are in the middle of exams but after tomorrow our blog will pick back up again!

Love you all,
Kasey