S.T.R.E.S.S.E.D. For real.

Whew. I haven't been around the blogosphere much lately, but I have some good excuses. Well one, mainly: STRESS.

It's been a healthy stress though. It's not one that's keeping me up at night, or one that makes me eat tub after tub of ice cream. It's a good one that makes me realize that life is upon me. It feels like up until this point I was just...here. I wasn't doing anything spectacular with my life, nothing life changing. I was getting scared that I'd be like this forever.

I got my GED when I was 16 and moved out when I was 17. I started taking classes at the community college and I was working full time between two jobs, so compared to my 'peers' who were still in school, I was kind of living the life! I got to pick my schedule, didn't have parents to control me, and I had somewhat disposable income. I was way ahead of them with college classes, so if I wanted, I could have graduated college early.

BUT. That didn't happen. I realized that rent and groceries and gas money cost a whole lot. I realized that it's a whole lot harder to work and go to school at the same time, and I wasn't ready for that. So, because we live in a money-central world, I chose to work instead of go to school. I still felt cool that I had a full time job with the city with full benefits and was making WAY more than my friends did when I was 18, but that coolness is starting to wear off.

Some of them are going to graduate next year, and where does that leave me? At least two years behind them in school. But hey, at least I have my high paying job!

But now I realize that I want to go to school and work. It's worth the sacrifice to me. Ya, I may not have a social life, but I don't care much about that. I'll still make time a few hours here and there throughout the week with friends, but I'm not the type to go hangout and party for hours anyways.

On Monday I am starting school. I haven't talked about school since this post, but things DID fall into place! I am taking my Certified Nursing Assistant class at the time I wanted, and then I'm taking AHS 131, a medical terminology class, online. So total, I am taking 9 credits, in addition to working 40 hours a week and watching my neice for 8 hours every Friday while my sister is in school. That accounts for 57 hours of my week, NOT including homework time. That's a lot, and I'm kind of nervous about it. I'm still in the midst of planning a wedding, and then in the middle of all this I'm going to HAVE a wedding!

I've realized that I have to come up with some kind of schedule for how my days are going to be. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to clean my house, do the laundry (at the dreaded laundry mat) cook dinner, and enjoy time with my fiance. Luckily Vince is going to do his own laundry now! A lot of the time we do it together, but he always has twice, if not THREE times as much laundry because his clothes are bigger and he has his riding gear for bikes.

The most important thing out of the list is my fiance, but after that it's food. I don't care if I have to wear the same shirt twice or if I have to wash a dish in order to eat some cereal. I just need to have healthy food that will sustain me throughout the day. If I don't have that, all bets are off and I will lose my shit.

So I'm going to start planning my meals again and have somewhat scheduled internet time, exercising time, friend time, etc. Once I figure out what I'm going to do over the next few days, I'll share it with you. I know I like any kind of scheduling tips, so I figure I'll share mine! Let me know if you have any good ones, too!