Success!!

Final exam conquered.  I am officially done with my semester, which means there is only one left.  In the fall, I'll start my final semester in nursing school. Surreal indeed. It didn't hit me yeseterday, but it's definitely starting to sink in today.  This semester was difficult because the program was new to me.  It was different than what I experienced in Seattle with LPN.  Next semester is all about the nitty-gritty RN stuff.  The leadership, the critical thinking, and more advanced skills.  I'm very excited.  

AND, because I killed the final, I rewarded myself with a day off AND A NEW CAMERA!!!!! Woooooooot! I couldn't take it anymore.  I was in a hard camera withdrawl and I didn't think I could wait for the repairs to take place.  Someday soon, I will repair my camera that I dropped. In the meantime, I splurged and bought this baby.    

Hello, Lover.

I am so ridiculously happy about this camera.  I have no buyers remorse whatsoever.  Lastnight, I tinkered around with the camera until I felt comfortable.  I nearly had a heart attack because I couldn't figure out how to focus the dang thing.  The automatic focus was on and everything!  I freaked a bit, I'll admit it.  Well, the dang lense wasn't on all the way, so that's over.  My first muse was an empty diet coke bottle. 

Diet Coke

Diet Coke on the side

Underexposed Diet Coke

Overexposed Diet Coke

Up close and personal Diet Coke

You get it. And just to spice things up a little bit, I'll add a picture of lotion:

I topped off the night with some spaghetti and meatballs, caprese salad (eh, still not tomato season yet), and some yummy lemony cake.  I saluted my Italian dinner with an "Under the Tuscan Sun" viewing.  One of my favorite movies ever.  Oh, to buy a villa in Tuscany and start over, to leave everything behind and focus on the simple beauties in this world: love, food, photography, writing, friends.  Love it.  The only thing that I was missing was some Limoncello.   One of my favorite lines in the movie is, "Oh terrible ideas, don't you just hate those?"  Those terrible ideas are what we all need in our life, because sometimes, they're really brilliant ideas after all. 

Because we're celebrating the end of a successful semester, I decided to reward a patient puppy.  How many times has she had to wait for me to finish my work.  How many trips to the field have been post-poned this semester?  In the spirit of the evening, I reserved a meatball exclusively for her.  She ate it in 1.5 seconds. 

It's going to be a good summer.  I'll post my goals soon.  In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my new cookbooks and listen to my new CD.  Yes, I buy CD's. 

Stay tuned.