milestone.

four years of school.

four years of work experience.

one crazy long application process.

four months of studying.

eight hours of examination.

six weeks of waiting.

 

combine, shake well, and just like that,

 

 bam. professional.

i still don't quite have my head wrapped all the way around this one. which is pretty understandable, given the fact that i just found out yesterday afternoon in a flurry of frantic half-panicked emails between me and the hubs. (he passed too, btw!) so we plan to spend our memorial day relaxing, workin on some projects around the house (remember that one time i told you mark was building a bed frame? and have i mentioned my new upholstery project?) and calling each other "professional" as much as we can stand.

"my, aren't you looking professional this morning?" "why yes i am, thanks for noticing. what would my professional spouse desire for their professional dinner this evening?" "oh, i think some professional tacos would suffice quite nicely." "i whole-heartedly concur my good professional."

this is the best idea i've had in a while.

so i dont know if i've ever mentioned it before, (that's a lie. i know i have) but my kitchen is pretty tiny. like, i-can-fit-the-entire-thing-in-one-picture tiny.

 yeah, that's it. teeny-tiny. as i was taking this picture, my back was up against the wall with the pot rack/shelf over my head, and the fridge is just to my right out of the frame. the cabinets aren't that yellow in real life, but i snapped this picture before work yesterday morning and was too lazy to try and take a better one.

we're actually in the very early planning stages of a GIANT kitchen overhaul. that's not to say that the end result will be a giant kitchen, but the process and effort to get from here to there has the potential to be huge. but until then, i am all about attempting to find little ways to maximize my itsybitsy bit of counter space to keep the kitchen as functional as possible.

so with an exhausting investment of 10 minutes and two command hooks from the basement, i freed up a few square feet of counter space by relocating our lunchboxes. ta-da!

why did i not do this sooner? i really don't know. its such a little thing, but it makes a huge difference in keeping the counters clear and useable.

 

of course, now i'm a little worried about myself, because if THIS  is the best idea i've had all year, (seriously, two basic command hooks on the wall) i'm thinking i'm either going to need to step up my creative game, or just give up completely at ever having a good, original thought ever again. someone send help. or ideas. or chocolate. or all of the above.

 

 



so we went to florida.

and it was absolutely lovely. the perfect little getaway to celebrate FINALLY being done studying for and taking the PE exam. we stayed at my Aunt's beautiful beach house in Panama City Beach, and thanks to how wonderful this trip was, "own a beach house" has now moved up a few places on my bucket list.

 5 days full of sunshiney, warm, fun, breeziness with only a little bit of thunderstormy, tornado-ish, floodedness at the end.

 
the beach was gorgeous and not at all crowded. the water was a pleasant temperature once  you got used to it, and the surf was calm at first, but picked up a bit as the days went on, so we got some good wave jumping in later in the week.

 

 we lounged, we played games, we swam in the gulf, we relaxed, we rode bikes, we ate ice cream, we got sunburnt, and there was at least one day we just didnt wear pants because we were sunburnt and it was thunderstormy and we had no real reason to leave the house because pizza delivery is a great invention.

 

 

i got my camera out of its case for the second time since February (seriously, zero pictures of March this year) and it was nice to excercise my shutter finger again. 

10 pictures of this bird. only one decently non-blurry one.

 i needed this. we needed this. this winter was cold and nasty and long and full of drudgery, so this little taste of early summer with the sunshine and the warmth and the chilling out was perfect.