Momma, what's all that white stuff?

If anyone knows where that post title comes from, you and I are most definitely kindred spirits.

My Halloween week in pictures:

The pumpkins Mom and I carved...I made the owl. I really like the star shapes on the wall.

Salem on her favorite chair on the porch. She's so fuzzy and cute.

Owl cupcakes I made for our work competition. I ended up tying for first place.

Thank you, rain, for bringing immense amounts of nasty things like slugs to my front door step. 'Preciate it.

Received in the mail an "I'm sorry I was bad" letter from a 3-year-old young man I teach at church. I was still giggling half an hour later.

We got at least 10 or more inches of snow at our Tuckahoe conference last weekend. Insanity.

But really pretty.

And certainly an adventure, considering we lost power Saturday morning and never got it back, had to completely change all of our plans, and got stranded there for awhile because whole trees were falling all over camp and across the roads.

Here's "the castle" cabin I stayed at. I love this camp. It also has a pirate ship and a fort.

A game of Apples to Apples I ended up winning after playing the Helen Keller card with the adjective: touchy-feely. I was pretty proud of that.

Me and 2 others getting duct-taped to the wall to see who would stick the longest.

A hilarious game of post-it note Twister.

My Bellatrix Lestrange costume.  Finally got out of my costume-block that I blogged about a couple months ago. You can find it here. P.S. I really love those boots...thanks Susanne. ;)

I put a spell on you.

My costume won first place. =)

Friends at the costume dance. The transformers took first place in the group category. And the girl's Hagrid costume was epic, she got 2nd place in the single category.

The only picture I could find of my decorations.

And last but best, a beautiful sunrise Sunday morning at Camp Tuckahoe.

Other activities the past few weeks have included: eating candy, apple crisp, and pumpkin cheesecake. going trick or treating to my grandma's cuz she gets sad that no one comes to their house. going to Field of Screams with my friends Shannon and Ian and having a spectacular time. Going to Jason's Woods for the first time with Ian to compare. Lots of scary movie watching. And prepping and buying decorations for Tuckahoe, which has left me a tired girl. So I'm calling it a nite. Enjoy the pictures.

Anything that's worth anything takes work

Soo I've dropped off the face of the blogging earth. I'll be back. Soon. I hope. If I ever make it through the grad school application process.

I've narrowed the list down to 5-6 schools. My future area of residence starting next summer and continuing for a year, perhaps longer, will most likely be one of the following: western PA, Philly or nearby areas, Lancaster, or Newark Delaware.

I've been studying my little tushy off for the GRE, and am making it a goal to take it NO LATER than November 11th. Ugh. I've seriously gone through my book and feel like there's not much more I can learn from it, other than 284789872692 vocabulary words, but when I go through the GRE drills, I'm terrible. Like really, really terrible. I think I'm doomed. On the bright side, they literally just finished major changes to the test and how it's scored (and I mean MAJOR...it used to be like the SAT, now scores range from 2-7), starting a month or 2 ago, so maybe even if I do really bad, schools won't know what to do with the new scoring system and they won't care as much about it, HA. I can only hope.

I haven't begun my 2-3 page letter of intent/personal statement...I mean, really? This stuff is so tedious and stupid. Why do you want to apply to our program? Because I want to be a school psychologist, and your program has the one year Master's degree prior to the 2-year certification that I'm looking for to do so. Why do you want to be a school psychologist? Because I enjoy working with children and families and have worked as a TSS in a school setting for 2 years. The end. Why do I have to drag that out?

I've thought about who to ask to write letters of recommendation, but haven't made a definite decision yet. And need to, stat, to give each person plenty of time. I'm seriously beginning to think this is the hardest part of the whole process, even over the stupid GRE. Who do I ask? College professors I haven't seen or talked to in 3 years? Supervisors who barely know anything about me? Friends and/or fellow church leaders who know me really well but don't know anything about school psychology and why I should be accepted into a program?

Oh, and then there's the filling out of online applications, paying to send my transcripts everywhere, and paying the stupid $50 app fee just to apply. Once again, really? As if everything else weren't tedious enough, and the cost per credit hour to attend your school wasn't enough, let me first deplete my bank account just applying to places.

This degree better be freakin' worth it, I'm just sayin'.

And when I'm finally, FINALLY a school psychologist I better be dancing around my office every single day yelling "I LOVE MY JOB THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIIIIIFE".

Or maybe not. But please God let me at least like it most days and have super-cool kids to hang out with?

So that's why I haven't been around much. My nose has been in a GRE prep book. Couldn't be more thrilled.

If anyone reading this has gone through this before...advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ok, venting = done.

Hellooo October

Happy October!!!

This is my very very favorite time of year. Things that I love:

cooler weather

sweatshirts

pumpkin spice candles

baseball playoffs

baking delicious things (but that's pretty much year-round)

my church's General Conference

candy corn

bonfires

pumpkin carving

jack-o-lanterns

decorating for fall and halloween

planning and putting together my halloween costume

scary movies

haunted hayrides and places like Field of Screams (went there last nite for the first time in a few years, had sooo much fun)

corn mazes

apple cider and donut holes

pretty much everything apple-y

and everything pumpkin-tasting too, especially pumpkin rolls with cream cheese icing

our church young adult group's big weekend-long Halloween party at Tuckahoe

costume dances and parties and contests

leaves changing and all the fall prettiness

And lots more, I love everything! Except the rain...the rain can go. I might not be so hostile to it were it not for the fact it's been raining. And raining. And raining. Since...I can't even remember. A month or two ago? Yesterday they forcasted this weekend to be clear and cool. Guess what it's doing? Raining.

Anywhooo, yay autumn! What are some of your favorite fall and/or Halloween things?