Well, it's now been a year since I started my journal. I sure haven't put up very many entries, but I have really appreciated the chance to be able to express myself whenever I want to. Thanks for reading.

Every since I graduated I've been working full time (well, almost full time) for the same professor I had been working for before I graduated. I got a raise and benefits, but I'm still doing pretty similar things. It SEEMS a lot more exciting when I tell people, though, because now, rather than being an "Undergraduate Assistant," I am a "Research Specialist." Apparently this even seems more exciting to the university, because yesterday I got a letter in my campus mailbox (yes, I have a campus mailbox, isn't that cool?) from the Office of Research that was addressed to Dr. Raina Cepel. Bonus! If they want to give me a PhD, I won't be complaining. I think I should be getting paid more, though.

Actually I recently applied for graduate school. After we decided to stop trying to get pregnant for a month or two, life suddenly seemed a lot emptier. Not that I was sitting around thinking, "Hmmmm….something to do….something to do…..how about graduate school?" I have always been planning to go, I just didn't know exactly when I was going to start, and this seemed like as good a time as any since plans for a baby had been pushed back a few months. I never really noticed this about myself until my mom pointed it out to me, but I really do always need a few things to be working on or I get bored too easily.

Speaking of things to be working on, the slipcovers are continuing to come along. I think they are going to look really nice. I've got three kinds of fabric I'm using. One is a really deep rich brown, and the other two are the same print in two shades of blue. The print is of leaves and the like, and is really neat. My husband is a bit reluctant about the brown, but I think they look really great together. I love nice rich dark colors. I'll get some pictures up when I make some more progress.

I noticed something interesting about me and sewing projects, and indeed projects of most any kind (cooking, webpages, gardening, wood crafts, etc.). I read through and understand the directions (if I have any, which I sometimes don't) and then I usually just go ahead and do it my own way. Whenever I run into unexpected problems, I figure out some way to fix them. I don't know if this is because I'm an engineer, or if it's just some sort of weird personality trait. Whatever it is, it's interesting. And the projects usually seem to turn out well. We'll hope the slipcovers turn out well too.