'needs'

We have been blessed beyond measure around here! We have had so many people love on us and Baby H. I started working on a gear post because a few people have asked for updates on what we decided to go with and I was so humbled adding all of our baby gear to the list. Literally almost everything on that list has been gifted to us. I really don't even have words to tell you how blessed we feel. I sit in Baby H's room and look around and I'm surrounded by gifts from people that love us. I sit at my breakfast table and look at my sparkling kitchen, done by a friend that came to deep clean our house for us. I pull out diapers to stock the dresser drawer with, diapers that had been passed on by a friend whose baby had outgrown them. I emailed my cousin to ask her opinion on baby books (because I JUST realized that might be something we want) and she said she already had one for us.

We. are. so. Blessed.

So when people have been asking me lately what we need. I really tell them NOTHING! I really think people have thought of everything that we may need and they've provided it.

But since everyone keeps asking, there are a few little things that I 'need' your help with. Advice welcomed.

1. What nursing clothes did you like? I purchased one tank from Motherhood. I am thinking I may like the clip down version better though? How many nursing tops do I really need? What worked for you?

2. How many newborn clothes does a baby really need? Did you buy a bunch only for your baby to never wear them? Did you not buy enough and was your little one in them longer than you expected? In newborn size, our little guy has 1 outfit, 3 sleepers, 3 onesies and 3 pants (and a coming home outfit). Should we get more or wait to see how big (or little) he is when he arrives?

3. Same question on the newborn diapers... We have one package of newborn diapers (but more in size 1). Should we get more? Should we wait and see? And while we're talking diapers, besides diapers.com, where do you find them to be the cheapest?

4. Did you take you iPod to the hospital? Have any good recommendations for the playlist for me?

5. Where did you find 0-3 pants? I've looked all over for 0-3 jeans (that aren't $20 or more. yikes.) and have purchased just one pair. I thought I could get away with baby legs but those are hard to find in the boy styles too (he has white, green and grey polka dot baby legs but they are all bigger so I'm not sure they'll fit him at 0-3). He got some really cute sweaters as gifts and (his mom thinks) he 'needs' jeans to match. I keep checking our consignment store but am not coming up with anything there. Am I the only one that thinks baby jeans are too expensive?

(I should probably clarify that I'm looking for boy jeans. I can find lots of cute girl jeans out there!) :)

6. Did you sign up for Rewards 'R Us? Did you ever get your rewards? It says we earned some last quarter but we never got them. Do I need to do something to actually get them this time? This is probably the biggest one we'll ever get from them so I hate to miss out on it!

7. Do you think I can get away with a 'reversible' birth announcement/Christmas card? The chances of me getting both out this year are slim so I'm thinking I may just do a Christmas card on one side and a birth announcement on the other. Dumb? Genius? What do you think?

Anyway, all that to say, I don't really know that there's anything left we really 'need.' But maybe you can come do inventory for me and let me know what I'm missing!

Let's Talk About Budgets

Updated: You really need to read the comments below. And for those of you that had emailed me replies but I didn't save the email to post here, please leave those comments below too! (You can do it anonymously if you want.) There is some GREAT info in there for you. :)

_________________________________________________________________________________



So, as we expected, R&I have had to change our spending habits this year with me on a leave of absence from work. We knew our budget would change but we've always had a 'budget' so I wasn't worried about it one bit.

But.

You see, our old idea of a budget was to say how much we were going to spend on certain things a month.... but.... if there was something I 'needed' (or could convince R that I needed), we would transfer money from savings to checking and we'd get it. This didn't happen a lot. But it did happen.
Most of the time we would do really (okay, relatively) well on not spending money. We don't buy expensive things. We don't buy too many wants. We aren't name brand snobs. We hardly ever (I mean, really) shop. And R is in charge of the groceries so we spend a lot less there than we used to.

So. When this year came around and we were going to get serious about the budget, I knew I could do it.

Until I needed something but really couldn't afford it this time. It was kind of a shock to me that we actually couldn't afford for me to get it. And that's when I realized this budget really is a budget. And I pulled an R and got just a little bit nervous about the money situation.



Okay.... This is where you come in. I need your help!


How much did your budget change after baby?

What do you think a reasonable baby budget is for a month?

What did the baby budget money go towards? (How much for diapers, etc. We hope we wont be buying formula, but just in case- give me those numbers too!)

What are some costs that you did not anticipate that ended up being added to the budget?

And because this is the biggest thing looming over us right now..... how much did you spend before baby even arrived? We just realized with 10 weeks (we hope!) to go that we may need to start getting serious about buying some things. Yikes!

Thanks, friends!

Baby H Update

I'm swamped in emails and several of them have been asking about how we're doing so I thought I'd post an update here....

We are doing great! 

My labs did come back preeclamptic with proteinuria and creeping blood pressure and they are keeping an eye on my liver and kidney functions (they told me why and what those numbers were but honestly it doesn't mean a whole lot to me). I'll likely be taking the 24 hour test quite often for them to monitor it. I feel like I don't know a whole lot about it but I refuse to ask Dr. Google on this one. I do know it can be very dangerous. I figure between knowing that and what my Dr tells me, that's all I really need to know. I asked R to look into it because I knew what I would read on the website they gave me would be bad- he reported that what he read online was not good and that he wasn't going to be looking into it either. Ha. I guess it will be better for both our our blood pressure this way. ;) (And I have a little sister that nags me about my symptoms so I don't think we'll miss much by living blissfully ignorant on this one.) 

It does give me a great excuse to rest. And rest. And rest. I'm just now getting back into the tired stage so taking advantage of some rest time has been great. 

I'm also thankful to have some awesome clients! I had a full day of special sessions scheduled in September but knew that would be difficult to make happen once my Dr told me I couldn't do the same activity for more than 45 minutes at a time. Thankfully, all of the clients scheduled for that day were more than understanding and we got some things rescheduled. 

Other than the lab issues, I've actually been feeling the best I've felt throughout this pregnancy. Second trimester was better than first trimester but Little Guy was in such a position that I was always in pain. I cringed when people told me to just wait because it was only going to get worse, but thankfully they were wrong! (By the way, stop telling me that! ha) He has switched positions and I've actually been feeling a lot better because of it. 

Once in a great while, R will catch me off guard with a, "WHOA, you've gotten... I mean Baby has gotten bigger." This week was one of those times. The other day he kept commenting on how much bigger I looked. I didn't believe him until I snapped this photo. He may be right. (And no, we haven't been taking belly shots. The last photo with my belly in it was in July. Terrible of us I know.)

Thanks for the prayers. Just knowing people are praying for us has been great for my blood pressure. :) 

Today It Clicked

Today it clicked for me. That bigger picture that I'm always thinking about got a few more pieces of the puzzle put in and it. just. clicked. I know I'm not going to do God's story justice here but here's a quick review....

LOTS of things had been happening where I worked that made me feel like I was not where I was supposed to be. Some doors in my life were closing and others were opening and they all pointed to me changing my life direction for a time. I said no. And no. And no again. I kept telling God 'no' because I had ALWAYS wanted to be a teacher and I had the perfect teaching set up. I loved my curriculum, my classroom and my kids. It was the only thing in my life I ever felt like I was really good at- I would have been so stupid to walk away from it. As much as I told God 'no,' He patiently kept telling me 'yes.' In February, I compromised and requested a leave of absence for the following school year. It was granted.

Meanwhile, R&I had been wanting babies. Lots of them but we decided we would be happy with just a few if that was God's plan for us. Previous medical history did not bode well with this plan but we were both wanting to adopt anyway so we were okay with that. We sought adoption but the doors kept closing. Upon R's request, I reluctantly went to the Dr. But I told him 'no' as well. 'No, I wasn't going to have fertility treatment.' 'No, I don't want your medicine or procedures.' I just wanted to know what was physically (not reproductively speaking- I had just been feeling 'off' for 10 years) wrong with me. He diagnosed me with hypothyroidism and put me on a pill that cost $1.20 a month. I saw a chiropractor for the first time in my life and she informed me that I was (literally) out of line (everywhere). After years of wanting to be parents, we were pregnant within a matter of weeks.

In fact, remember that leave at work I had requested? I only requested it because God stopped allowing me to say no. We were pregnant at the time but didn't know it. (Oh but God did.) In fact, I probably wouldn't have taken it had we known we were pregnant because, as I'm sure you know, babies are expensive and then they grow up to be expensive kids. 'We wouldn't be able to afford to have a baby on R's income alone.' Surely God knew that.

Over the summer, Baby H kept growing and I kept working. We had a scare in early July. I remember being admitted into the birthing unit and asking God 'Why are we here? What is the purpose of this happening right now?' I. just. didn't. get. it.

School started. It was tough. Really tough. I had anticipated being sad and missing the kids (that laugh at all my jokes and make me feel so needed). I did not anticipate feeling so down on myself. I felt like I was not contributing anything to society by cleaning my kitchen and editing people's pictures. I didn't feel like I was making a difference and immediately decided there was no way I could stay home. I questioned God's will even though we had prayed about this scenario for years.

In just a few short days, God was out to hit me over the head again show me that I could do it. First, He sent me a series of emails using some amazing clients (new friends, really) of mine to tell me what a blessing I was to them. Who knew that was even possible in a 45 minute photo session?

Then, as we were sitting at a routine prenatal appointment, our Dr's generally cheerful demeanor changed. She got real serious and started talking to us about preeclampsia. She told us the complications of it, especially with onset before 32 weeks. Several hours of testing and another Mercy admit wrist band to add to my collection later, and what she suspected was confirmed.

As I talked to the Dr this morning, I wasn't sad or scared about the outlook one bit. Instead, I had an 'a ha' moment. And God was smiling down on me saying, 'See child, I told you so.'

'I told you you wouldn't go to work this year. I told you your job was at home for this season. I told you this summer to slow down. I told you My timing is perfect.'

'My timing is perfect.'

And this slow learner is seeing a little bit more of that big picture today and feeling so blessed.

So blessed indeed.

google images

Cry it Out

I didn't cry once today. Are you impressed? Seriously though, it was the first day back for my fellow teacher friends and I was really thinking it would be a tough day. It wasn't that bad at all. In fact, as I was making my 9am smoothie, I was so thankful to be at home doing that at 9am rather than 6am. (Never-mind the fact that R and the fellow neighbor teachers in this district were still out and about today making it still feel like summer... maybe tomorrow will be a different story.. but I still made it through the day not a bit sad!)

I haven't exactly been tear free lately though. Not about school stuff. Just about whatever seems overwhelming (which can be a lot when you're sharing your body with someone else). Sometimes R just lets me cry it out. Smart boy. :)

We always joke that this little guy is going to be a crier. Pretty much every other baby we know right now is a great, quiet, easy going, laid back baby. Which means someone in our group of friends is due for a crier. So you know that means it will be us. ;)

In fact, I hung this up in his room today.

Oh come on. It's funny. (Seriously, don't send me hate mail.) And yes, I'm fully aware that this cements our chances of having a crier. Remind me when I'm up in the middle of the night that I'm totally okay with that. ;)

Hope you're having a tear free day! Especially all of you teachers getting ready for school to start! I'm definitely thinking about you this week!

Really Important Stuff

Let's talk about really important stuff......

...like baby clothes! :)

(I hope you don't take this post seriously....)

It occurred to us not so long ago that we had not bought any clothes for our little guy yet. He had a few cute outfits from my mom, sister and friends, but not too much. We decided since little guy is due in November, he may need a few pieces of clothing to get him through the cold winter. Time to get cracking on that.....

Have you ever shopped for baby boy clothes? I mean cute ones? It's NOTHING like shopping for baby girl clothes. They aren't all that easy to find. If you don't want giant logos, cartoon characters, not so catchy phrases, skulls & crossbones or zoo animals, your choices are pretty limited. (Did you know they put skulls and crossbones on baby clothes?!? I didn't!)

Not only do they not have much to choose from but they spread them out among the little girl clothes so while you're searching for them, you have to walk through all the pretty pink and polka dotted girl things.

And who knew baby jeans cost $27?!? (Don't worry mom- I found some for about 1/3 of that at the outlet.)

My friend asked me awhile back if I would want other people buying clothes for our little guy (her knowing full well that little guy would end up being an advertisement for big monkeys and footballs). And actually, I really do. Because I just cant bring myself to spend money on those monkeys and footballs but the poor little guy cant go nekid can he?

Even so, I was determined to find him a few things less loud.

One night I sat down and made a google doc registry of stuff for little guy that isn't sold at Target. I even ended up finding a few clothing things to put on it. Are you impressed?

Some things that caught my eye:

Baby Legs (in every boy color- if all else fails, little guy could live in these with dyed onesies)

Headphones Playsuit

Something his daddy would like

Something his mommy would like

Pretty much anything American Apparel like this 'b' onesie

Suspenders (I'm so serious! ha)

Cute hats

And even a little something with animals on it

And on that shopping trip R&I did? We bought some baby clothes. Even one with characters on it. Kind of.

(From Naartjie Kids)

PS- Just so you know- there are cute boy clothes, they just have to be hunted for. So far, I've had the best luck at 77 kids. When we were there in May, my mom got little guy some great stuff (like the fedora you've all admired, ha). Just last week, R&I found some more great deals. I've had a hard time finding their sales online but at the store, they have lots of great stuff on the sale racks and each time we've been there we've gotten a scratch off ticket for another percentage off. I vote they bring one to Jordan Creek!

Update:

I love blogging but wish if my blog offends you, you don't like me, or you disagree with me that you'd click on out of here. I'm really debating setting it to private. But that's a whole other post.

Anyway..... Yes! I love our little guy so much. I don't care what he wears (well I kind of do- if you buy him skulls & crossbones, hawkeye gear or anything about being a boob man, I am not putting it on him). But if it's something I'm spending my money on, I do care. If you are paying for it, shouldn't you like it? Yes, I know he is a baby. Guess what? He doesn't have preferences yet. When he's older I guess he may like shirts with basketballs, Disney characters and Hot Wheels (just to name a few) all over them and I'm sure some will make it to his closet. So is it really a big deal if I blog that I want cute clothes for him while I actually do get a say? Not everything I blog is serious- we don't take life that seriously around here. I apologize if I offend you. Like I often think around the 8th graders..... cant we all just get along? (And if you really cant get along with this blog, you can leave any old time you want.)

Okay, back to fun loving, happy blogging. ;)

We Had an Anniversary!

Yesterday, R & I celebrated our anniversary. We both took the day off of work just to hang out.

We ended up heading to Minneapolis for the day. We did lunch at the Cadillac Ranch (we are more into doing lunch out instead of dinner- it's the same food at a cheaper price- it just makes sense in the summer). We did the Mall of America. R looked for shoes (we didn't find any) and we got a few baby clothes. (I know you'd expect me to have a lot of baby clothes by now. I don't. More on that later...)

We did an IKEA run and got everything IKEA we thought we wanted for Baby H's room. As it turns out, TODAY is the day they are switching everything out and now there is all new stuff. We missed it by just one day. Originally I had planned on IKEA this September (during Junk Bonanza) but with Baby H's history of travel, R decided not to let me head up there without him this fall. Sooo..... I'm trying really hard to stay away from the IKEA website. Please don't pin anything cute from their new stuff on Pinterest. :)

On the way home, we did the Medford Outlet. R always has to check out the Nike outlet (in his words, he's found some 'hidden gems' there in the past). We did the kid clothing ones. And Gap. Wait. We didn't do Gap. Can you believe it??? In the past, we've stopped at the Medford Outlet JUST for Gap and this time we didn't even make it in my favorite there. (And you know when I got home I had an email from the Gap Outlet in my junkmail about all the kid sales they were having yesterday!) ha.

Our big dinner out was Wendy's (R's choice). We didn't even have to get dressed up for it. :)

We played stupid car games (alphabet hunt, anyone?) and talked about life and marriage.

Our counselor has reminded us of how different/difficult our early marriage has been compared to others because of what we've been through. Even so, we are anticipating baby changing everything. We had a recent marriage meeting and talked about what marriage would be like after baby (I might have had to take back a laugh when R mentioned weekly dating).

I know I'm going to offend people by saying this, but we both (prayerfully) agree that baby will not come first in our life together. Our intention is for our priorities to be 1.) God 2.) Marriage 3.) Baby.

For those of you ahead of us, what are some things you did/do to ensure your marriage came/comes before baby? Was it/is it incredibly difficult for you to do?

Show Us Your Life

It's been a long time since I've posted along with a Kelly's Korner Show Us Your Life Post.

This week is 'how did you share with your husband/family you were pregnant?'

I know some people go all out for this but not us. He found out right along side me (though he really didn't believe it for awhile). I'm including the pages from our Jamaica scrap book that talk about it. (The Day 2 page is a little funky because when it prints the gap will be missing so the lines read across instead of down. And as I'm posting them I'm glad I haven't ordered the book yet because there are some typos. Glad I found that out here instead of when the book arrived!)

We waited until my mom's birthday to tell my family. As I talked about in Mo's birthday post, she was the first we told. Later that night, all of my family went out to eat for my mom's birthday. R&I gave her a card signed, "Happy Birthday! Love, R, H, Dakota, & Baby H." There was an ultrasound picture in the card as well. It either took her a little while to figure out what was going on or she was in shock because she looked confused for a little bit. Then her jaw dropped and she smiled really big as she was holding the picture. After awhile of this and everyone just staring at her, I realized I should probably get my camera out. A little late but....

My little sister was the first to figure out what she was holding in her hand. Then everyone got excited and poor Morgan (who had been doing such a great job of keeping that secret) was so upset because everyone was figuring out the secret and she didn't think they were supposed to know. She was confused... but not as confused as Maddox. When his mom showed him the picture he said, "OH yay! A PUPPY!!" As we left, he told us to make sure it was a tiny puppy. (He remained confused for quite sometime... he was just getting things figured out when we had our gender ultrasound during our shopping weekend in Minneapolis. The ultrasound tech said he needed to make sure it wasn't a squirrel and Maddox said, "OH NO, it's a squirrel?!?!" At some point he finally got things figured out and got excited about having a baby cousin. A BOY baby cousin!

Happies

After getting up early on the 4th and having a very full (LONG) day, I thought once my head hit the pillow just before 11 pm that it would stay there for quite some time. I thought wrong.

So taking R's advice, I got up from tossing and turning in bed and that somehow turned into a blog post....

I love our friend, Amy R's, blog and how she always posts her three happies at the end of each one. Taking her lead......

My Three Happies:

1.) Dakota. He has been quite the trooper with all the craziness in his life lately. He even spent his first night home alone this weekend and (as far as we can tell) did a great job. He is the most loyal, loving pup and the only dog I've ever seen that truly has two 'masters.' You can see the pain on his face when R&I are both home but in different rooms- he doesn't know where he should go! :)

2.) Healthcare. I'm so thankful we have it and I'm amazed by all the techniques/procedures they can do to ensure our health. Some of you tweeted me about that Mercy mug on the 4th of July. Baby H was already up to his first antics and causing quite a stir (literally). Our Dr was concerned (which in turn, made us very concerned) but after a few med tricks, he's straightened out (literally) and all is well. I started and ended my long weekend with such different feelings about life and I'm so thankful. (Side note, please pray Baby H stays put for quite some time. According to yesterday's tests, he is now estimated to be 3 ounces heavier than the lightest baby ever born to have survived. I simply cannot imagine him arriving this soon or this tiny.)

3.) Hubby. This one goes without saying, but he was especially my happy this weekend. This guy loves me. And I love him. I feel so blessed to have him by my side in everything. If you're admitted and need someone to sneak you McDonald's french fries, I hope you have a guy like R by your side. And did you see his photography skills? He's good. (Okay, he's going to tell that story as me setting up the shot, switching him places, him pushing the button, me straightening, cropping, and editing until I got them how I wanted them.... but who else would let me hand them a camera and do all that back and forth?) ;) Yep. He definitely is my happy.

Hope you have lots of happies your way today!

gear update

Thanks so much for all the baby product advice! I love hearing what has worked and hasn't from people.

According to some of your emails/messages, I might not have been real clear on the infant carrier. We have this infant carrier in gray (it's called romantic most places). (It's actually on a truck being shipped to us right now. And there's a good story behind it-My uncle called one night asking about car seats. He had done some research and then found out which one we were wanting. He was wanting to know if it would be okay with us if he got it for us. How awesome is that? We have good family!) (I guess the story is better if you know my uncle).

It comes with one base and after much deliberation, we decided not to purchase a second base for R's car. Baby H will rarely (if ever) need to ride in R's car. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ridden in it this year (just for hauling stuff- hello Junk Bonanza). Other than hauling stuff, R only uses it for work. So we decided against the 2nd base but we have a good friend that offered to loan us theirs once their little guys have outgrown them (which is soon... tear). (We have good friends!)

On a somewhat related note.... my latest struggle in preparing Baby H's space is finding boy fabrics that match the ideas I have in my head for a nursery. I know this will apply to way less of you- but is there anyone that reads this blog that buys fabric online and knows of some great places to get fabrics? I love Amy Butler, Joel Dewberry and the like but I'm not really finding the boy colors I'm wanting (teals, greys, vintage blue, aquas, mustard, etc).

And yes, I'm thankful this is today's struggle. I know there are much bigger things in life to worry about. My brother has already told me how silly it is to spend so much time and effort into designing a space for a child that wont care. (However, he told me within the same hour how he likes my decor and what a good job I do with it so his nursery opinion was discounted.) My heart really aches for my friends struggling today because they long for a baby to hold and I know they couldn't care less about a nursery. My heart is aching today for those whose babies went Home too soon and should be here in their momma's arms today. I know the way our baby's nursery looks is a very minor detail that doesn't matter to most. But it matters to me. As I would sit in our guest room, rocking several other people's babies to sleep, I would pray that God's will would be done in my life. And I would often ask him if that will would someday have me rocking my own baby in a nursery up there. I'm so thankful that He has given us this day to worry about nursery fabrics.

On a related note... I appreciate those of you that chimed in with a resounding 'no' to the wallpaper border debate. R says he wasn't actually wanting it... he just thought that's what you were supposed to do in a nursery. ;)

Love to you today!

$1.00

Inspired by Raechel, I wanted to post my garage sale steal of the week.

Technically, this is Ang's garage sale steal of the week. She spotted them and even forked over the cash for them but since they're in my home I'm totally claiming them!

As we were out and about Friday morning, Ang spotted these baby Jordan's at a sale for ONE DOLLAR. ANY pair of baby Jordan's is going to cost around $30. Most around $40 and rare ones like the generation 8s are as high as $99 on ebay!! That's just crazy talk. And I know Ang is going to want these back to post on ebay now but R has officially fallen for his first baby item and has subsequently spent hours of research online looking for other suitable baby Jordan items. While he was on it, he decided he needed a matching pair of retro Jordan's. Which will end up costing us $130. So actually these baby Jordan's total cost is $131. But that doesn't sound like as good of a deal does it? ;)

It's a.....

A couple weeks ago we had a gender reveal party with a few of our close friends. It was actually Holly's idea and she and mom were going to come up to host. Instead, I got anxious and couldn't wait until it worked for both of us to do it so we changed plans and we planned this gathering in about 9 hours. :) In the not so far back future I would have thought this was a cheesy idea for a party but I'll take any excuse to celebrate and this seemed like a great excuse. It turned out being so fun!

PS- A little disclaimer about that last photo- where it says 'shocked' it should say 'mad as heck.' We had some seriously upset boys that thought they 'lost the game' since they chose pink and it was blue. And where it says 'excited' it should say 'stopped being mad.' But I figured in the long run having that in the baby book may not be the best idea. ;) AND the little guys are warming up to the idea of a baby boy around here- they've already hooked him up with his first Mav's shirt. :)

PPS- You totally cant see it but part of the reason those boys may have been so upset is because they got SO into the dressing up in pink. We've got Mr. Zay with his pink collar popped and Malachi with his sister's pink princess nightgown and pink shoe laces in. He really went all out!!

The View From Here

Here's the view I've been getting a lot of lately......

Yep. That's a bump.

(I think it actually looks bigger in photos and mirrors than real life... at least that's what I tell myself.) ;)

Bump is such a funny word for miracle but I'm embracing it.

We sent out an email last week announcing little one's gender and the majority of responses was, "WHAT?!? You're pregnant?!?!" Turns out most of the free world doesn't follow me on twitter or pinterest. (You are on pinterest, right?)

So I realized maybe that bump could make an appearance on the blog. And as the writer of this blog, I made that happen. Nice how that works out, huh?

Now from the bump diaries.....

as I was slaving over the stove (yes I was barefoot but that has nothing to do with my story and you shouldn't have wondered), my bump bumped into the stovetop. I thought to myself, wow for about two hours I forgot I was pregnant. I had felt good with no emotional outbreaks for two whole hours. Then as if on cue- there's a heart wrenching story on the Nate Berkus show. I start bawling. No, it was not the story about the lady with cancer in the hope room. The one about the college kid working at UPS to pay for their tuition. Baby H has a long time before college though. Right?.... Right?!? Someone please tell me I'm right. ;)