Big News Reveal!

I've spent most of the day sewing in the studio and getting lots done --yay! I'm working on some new spinning-related items for the shop, as well as some more table runners, some needle booklets and some baby blankets, as well and making tons of triangles for a pinwheel square project that's taking shape. It will be this kind of pinwheel square, but using up a lot of floral,strawberry patterned,  burgandy and blue squares that my mom gave me.

Source: jaqsstudio.com via Heather on Pinterest

However, talk of patchwork and sewing stuff is more just to tell you what you'd be seeing pictures of if I'd remembered to bring the memory card for my camera with me to the studio to take some pictures before it was pitch black and raining out. Generally this hasn't been a big week for pictures for me, so I figured I'd share why this is. For awhile on here and on Twitter, I've been vaguely mentioning some possible good news and changes that were coming up that I could share when I could. Well folks, the time is now! (Unfortunately, also because I forgot my memory card, I couldn't do the vlog that I was going to do to announce this, but I promise I'll try one soon)

 Anyway, here's my exciting news: I applied back in 2009 to go back to school, to upgrade my Bachelor of Arts degree in English to a fancy Bachelor of Social work. I worked with kids with disabilities during university, but never went any further with working in the field of social work and helping, generally just because I lacked any school or qualifications in that field, and was not at all wanting to go back to school for anything at that point. However, now I've been conditionally accepted into the program, and have been working on the ten prerequisite courses via online classes while I've been working full-time. However, I've only managed to finish five of the courses so far given issues I've had this year with repetitive strain in my arms and wrists and was really struggling to think that I would have to likely wait until September of 2012 to finish up these courses and head into the year long program while continuing to work full time.

So I've schemed to bump the timetable up a bit --my big news is that...............

I'm heading back to university full-time this September!!


I'll be completing those last 5 courses, and then I'll be starting the bachelor of Social Work program on a part-time basis in January! So excited!

Of course, there have been some serious roadblocks with this that have not been fun and have been a huge source of stress for me. I made too much money working full-time to get student financial aid, and too little/don't own any assets to get a loan, and was definitely quite upset when both of those didn't turn out how I wanted (if anyone saw my tweet about crying at Ribfest and placating myself with ribs and deep-fried cheesecake, this was when I got a lovely call from the loan guy at the bank that left me pretty upset) So yeah, borrowing some money from my parents for tuition was not *really* the way I wanted to do things as a 29 year old, but sometimes there's not much else to do.

And the stressful stuff isn't really over yet either, since I still have to juggle money around to get books and find a part-time job and all that sort of fun student stuff that I haven't had to do since I was last in university. So I'm guessing that this, combined with the fact that I'll be commuting to school 3 days a week to Waterloo (about 45 minutes or so away by bus, but may have some carpools and such as well) will end up meaning that I may be a little quieter on the blog for September while I'm getting things all sorted. So bear with me, and know that I'd rather be sharing crafty things all the time, but that really getting closer to finishing up this schooling and getting into working in a career that I feel more suited to is pretty important to me and will make me happier and craftier in the long run:) But even with all that to think about, I'm really excited for these changes!

And now I'm off to the movies to FINALLY see the new Harry Potter to celebrate (thank goodness for birthday movie passes)! Hope all of you are enjoying the long weekend!

 ♥ Craftzilla