The campers have returned!

We spent the week camping at Half Moon Pond in Hubbardton.  It is a couple of hours south of us and a part of Vermont that we haven’t really traveled to before.  I made a goal a couple of years ago to try camping at a new state park each year and this year, Half Moon Pond fit the bill.  I also had heard about how wonderful it was to camp in the cabins at the state parks. So, we combined trying a new park with trying cabin camping.  I must say, we loved it!

The cabin was small, but plenty big for three people.  I’d say the cabins are about 12′ square on the inside.  They also have generous porches on the outside. 

The interior is simple, a futon couch to be pulled out to a bed, bunk beds and a table and two chairs.

Oh…and see by the door?  It also has electricity.  We took a box fan.

Our cabin was set an a small bluff overlooking the water.  It. was. beautiful.

And here’s our cabin tucked in the trees as seen from the other side of the little bay we were on.

Honestly, the whole place was beautiful!

We were very thankful for the cabin on Tuesday as it started raining in the early afternoon and then rained through the night.  At first, the rain was light, but it eventually turned into a heavy, long rain.  We were glad to be in the cabin and have room to move around (vs. being stuck in a tent in the rain) and read and play games.  Also, the sound of the rain coming down on the metal roof was just delicious and a wonderful sound to fall asleep to!

I think we will definitely cabin camp again!  We got to spend all of our time outside by the fire doing the things we like to do when camping and we had the creature comforts of a building with walls to sleep in and get relief from the elements!

Tomorrow, I will post some pictures of some of the fun activities we did while camping.

Just got back from camping all week…Pictures and stories tomorrow.

I passed my certification exam! Squee!

The first message on my answering machine when I got home was from a job recruiter. I now have a job interview on Tuesday.

Camping laundry load #3 is washing.  Thank goodness for Zout and the heavy duty wash cycle!

We are all tired, bug bitten, sun-kissed and happy.

It has been a good week!

I do so love pansies!

We’ve been waiting for black raspberries to ripen. Actually, we’ve been waiting for summer weather….Which has slowed down some of the summer plants….

A couple of weeks ago, the berries were getting there.

(Sorry that’s super bright…It was sunny that day, but you can see how loaded with berries the bush is!)

Finally, today there was a generous berry harvest!

And the berries are just coming in ripe, so we will get to enjoy them for another week or two.

Lots of the berries were a deep and beautiful purple.  I also picked some that I would call not quite ripe, but Nature Boy likes the slightly underripe ones as he likes them tart.

Next, I am waiting on my grape tomatoes.

Well…The exam is done. The waiting game begins. 

The testing center was very interesting! Talk about high security (to keep people from cheating). Security is both generalized and test specific.  For instance when I checked in (not to be confused with signing in…which I did later) the check-in lady said,”Oh, you’re the one who needs the three forms of ID.”  Yes it is true…And I guess based on how she said it, not everyone has to cough up three IDS.

Then you are not allowed to take anything in with you.  Lockers are providing for locking up your stuff.  You are asked to empty your pockets…The check-in lady said you need to empty your pockets right down to the pocket lint!  Luckily, I did not have pockets!

You can take in one piece of candy or gum…but it has to be already in your mouth. 

After check-in is the sign-in desk, where the ID is reviewed, the biometric scan is performed and you sign in.  The testing room is a fishbowl (i.e. giant windows from the sign-in desk) and each cubby is video and audio monitored.  At the sign-in desk is a surveillance t.v. They also physically walk through the testing room at least every ten minutes! 

The testing center I went to is small. I think I heard her say that they have spots for 14 testers.  The room was quiet and even though people come and go because they have different stop/start and break times for their tests, it was very easy to concentrate. 

As to the test….I hope I did well.  If I have understood the website correctly, you can check online for a Pass/Fail score long before you get your official report.  I won’t admit to having tried obsessively to access my scores already…..

But now my test is done! Squee!

Hey, and you know what today is?

Dh’s birthday!  He is 40 today!

Happy Birthday, honey!!!!!!

I tried to take pictures yesterday, but after about the 4th picture, the camera battery died.  I’ve had it charging…..Hopefully, I can get more pictures taken soon.

Yesterday was a marathon errands day.  Nature Boy had his eye doctor appointment and picked some new glasses frame. On the way to the eye doctor, we did a drive-by of where the testing center is.  Then we went to Walmart to pick up a bag of items we had forgotten (it didn’t get take off of the bag carousel), then Toys R Us to look for a gift (and walked out with gifts for two people…so it was a two-fer), then Hannaford for cake mix (dh’s birthday is Friday), then Dick’s for a life jacket, then we hopped on the highway and went to Nature Boy’s Karate class.  It was a long 6 hours out of the house and on the road….Mind you, we did lots of time browsing in Toys R Us and we were pretty casual everywhere else too…but it was still a lot of stops!

Today….this morning actually, is test day.  My licensing exam is scheduled from 8-12.  I will be soooooooo relieved when it is done!

K…That’s about it folks. I gotta shower, eat breakfast and get to the testing center.

Whose neglected blog is this?

Oh…Mine!

I guess I haven’t felt too bloggy for the past week or so.  And I don’t really have much to say.  But I thought I’d check in before folks worry.

I guess my biggest piece of information is that tomorrow is my licensing exam.  I have been studying on and off in spurts since a couple weeks after I got out of school.  Last night, as I went to bed, I started to really worry about if I know the material.  I was already starting the “Maybe I should have studied harder” worrying.  To some degree, I feel like it doesn’t matter how much I study….I can’t relearn it all.  And then I think I should have re-read every page of every notebook……But that doesn’t seem quite the right answer either.  Hopefully, I found a happy medium and will be prepared.

It has been very rainy here this summer.  Today is supposed to be sunny, which will be a treat!  I plan on spending some decent time outside!  Hmm…come to think, Nature Boy has an eye doctor appointment smack dab in the middle of the day!  I guess I’ll have to plan my outside time around that!

I need to get the camera and go on a photo tour of everything!  The chicks are bigger, my tomato plants have tomatoes, a creature ate my broccoli plants, my potatoes are monster big!  I’d best document it all for you!

That’s about it for now. I’ll try to get up some pictures in the next few days!

You know what is on my mind this week?

My exam.

On Thursday, I am taking my exam.   I am not nervous about it yet, though I am worried.  I hope I gleaned all the info that I needed over the past two years to successfully take the exam. 

I have heard from a couple of classmates that the exam security is crazy.  You are fingerprinted on the way in and the way out.  I know you have to provided multiple forms of ID.  You are under video and audio surveillance. And they were not even allowed to take in bottles of water!

The exam is four hours long.  Both my classmates that have taken it needed basically the full four hours.  One classmate said that sitting still for four hours was hard….Which I can imagine! I am not a sit-still-for-four-hours kind of gal!

I will be greatly relieved, however, to have the exam finished.  It has been hanging over my head all summer and it will be nice to be free of it!

Once my exam is done, it takes a month for the scores to come back and then I can apply to the state for a license to practice.  Once all those ducks are in a row…I will have to find a job! <gulp>

But I am in one-step-at-a-time mode.  I just need to do some more material review the next few days and then take my exam. 

In other news:

I need to take new pictures of the chicks for you! I guess we’ve had them two weeks now….They are quiet disheveled looking with “real” feathers growing in and chick fluff growing out!  They are sweet little creatures though!  I love listening to them peep at each other….They do it pretty much all day long, little sweet pips and peeps.

Gemstone

October 2004 – July 2009                          above picture circa 2005

Last night, we were about to leave the house for Nature Boy’s karate class when he noticed one of our guinea pigs had a bit of blood on her nose.  Further investigation showed that the blood was coming from her backside and while she was not bleeding heavily, it was continual.  We zipped her off to the vet and found out that she likely had uterine cancer, something frequently seen in an older guinea pig like ours.  Basically, such a cancer is terminal for the guinea pig, so we had her euthanized.  Actually, when they gave us her little body back, the vet tech said her lymph glands were all swollen too….It looks like she was a pretty sick piggy.

We are all pretty sad.  Gemstone was from a litter of pigs that we bred. Nature Boy was in the third grade and still homeschooled when she was born.  We were waiting and waiting for the momma pig, Ruby, to have her litter.  We didn’t want to miss it!  One day, we came home from Homeschool Gym and found Ruby just starting to give birth.  We got to see each and every baby pig be born!

Gemstone (on the right) was red and white like her mom, with part straight and part abyssinian whorled hair.  She was one of Nature Boy’s very favorite pigs!

In early 2005, Nature Boy entered Gemstone in a contest at a local pet store….A couple of months later we heard back that Gemstone had been selected the April Pet Of The Month!

April 2005 Pet of the Month

Name:  Gemstone Owned By:  Nature Boy Story: My name is Nature Boy and I am 8 years old. (I have my mom’s permission to enter this contest) This is my entry for pet of the month. This is Gemstone. She is 3 1/2 months old . Something special about Gemstone is that we saw her being born. Most Guinea Pigs we know like carrots, but she likes apples. When I snuggle her she makes happy noises. Thank you for looking at Gemstone.

We will miss our little burbling friend.

Oh dear, I did not sleep so well last night. <yawn> I woke up a few times, I had strange dreams…Not bad dreams…just strange!  I feel like I am moving very slowly this morning.

So, I have been applying myself to studying for my exam.  I am finding the materials I wanted to review and going over them.  I am using both my textbooks and a review guide I bought.  Honestly, I wish I had bought the review guide at the beginning of my academic program.  Basically, It is a big book of everything relevant to my profession in outline form.  It would have been handy when studying and reviewing for tests in school as I could look up a topic and get a succinct bullet list type summary.  Ah well…neither here nor there at this point.

The other thing I want to talk about today is spiders.

You may have heard or maybe you live around here and have experienced the fact that we Vermonters are getting a hefty soaking of rain this summer.  It has been pretty much raining every single day…And lots of rain at that! What I have noticed is an increase of creepy, crawly spiders in the house.  While I am not afraid of spiders….I would much rather they stay outside and not come inside.  I think all the rain and wet is driving them in to the house.