It has been one of those weeks. Monday night we went to the Business Administration awards dinner. I was award the Second Major Outstanding Student for 2010-2011. Yay! After socializing with a couple of the professors, I found out that they basically created the award for me. Prior to this year they never recognized second majors....they do now. And who better to honor the first year than Moi? YAY. Here is a picture from the evening.

As for the title, I've been fighting a nasty cold. It started Tuesday night with a very sore throat and exhaustion. I basically came home from work and went to bed. Wednesday I felt fine and all day Thursday. After band Thursday night, the cold come back with a vengeance, I thought I had pneumonia. Friday morning, again I felt fine, but I got to work and felt sick again. Ugh. I got a good night sleep and feel much better today. We even went for our first bike ride of the year. A short 6 mile ride.

Today was our Eden Prairie Band Festival concert. It is probably the neatest concert ever. There were 6 bands from EP school district (5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, 10th grade and EPHS Symphonic) and then us, the EP Community Band. So the little munchkins are so cute with their simple pieces that were totally out of tune and then you can see the progression of experience and talent as each band plays their song. We played "Gallop" from First Suite for Band. Then all seven bands played another very simple song and ended the concert with Stars and Stripes Forever. You have to imagine there were 7 bands and at least 40 to 50 members for each so there were 300+ kids play at one time (I'm a kid right?). Really cool....and VERY loud.

Well this weekend we are in the tranquil city of Independence. Mom is still on her warm vacation in Florida visiting her sister Alice. We are crashing at her house. The main reason we came down was to do taxes. Oh...I want a refund!!! So we arrived last night to see her house decked out in Packer stuff. I took care of it though ;-) This was from the newspaper. She had it on her fridge. Don't worry its a post-it note so no harm will be done to Rodgers. Its a joke mostly...I wonder if she will notice? Speaking of mom, she sent me a text one day this week that say it was 80 degrees....it was 0 degrees here so yea, I'm jealous. Yesterday she went to the beach, yes, very jealous.

So after taxes we are heading to George's (near Winona) to pick up my brother, Mike, and then we are gong to Wason's for dinner. Yum, Wason's.

Also this week I booked out tickets for our Mid-Atlantic trip in September. Just a brief summary, we are going to Dover, DE, Atlantic City, NJ, Ocean City, MD and the Outerbanks of NC. A fun filled week of sun and surf. We are also taking my mom along. Very excited!

Lets see what's new with school? Last Sunday I had my test in Financial Management. I thought it was fairly easy, but I guess we have to wait and see what the grade is on the test first. I also had a take home test for my Advanced Accounting class. Boy it was tough. Gov't accounting is Zeally hard, no wonder our governments are so messed up, I wonder if they even understand it! Thankfully my professor recognized that we were falling asleep and we got out at 8:30 again. I would be shocked if we ever stay until 9:30 like we are suppose to, but I'm not complaining. A 6-9:30 pm class on Monday is tough enough. I will be so happy when I'm done. (in 78 days).

Its almost spring but yet it is still only 1 degree outside. Overall this week has been great. Sunday was a snow day, we got over a foot of snow. Minnesota has such crazy weather, 3 weeks ago it was 20 below, 2 weeks ago it was 55 degrees, last week it snowed a bunch and now it is back to cold. The best part is I didn't have to go to work on Monday (Presidents' Day) and St. Kate's cancelled classes Monday. YAY!! What a great start to the week. Wednesday we filed our 10-K so the year end stress has lifted. We still have a ton of work to do but it is such a relief to get over that major hurdle. But the date I really can't wait for is May 22nd...only 85 days to go.

I have a very busy weekend ahead. Today we are having the Stayers over for dinner. We had a turkey in the freezer from Christmas so I figured it was time to cook it. Thanksgiving in February. Tomorrow I have class in the morning, another test, and then a CAbi party. So I'm taking advantage of a quiet morning at home, doing nothing.

What a busy week! Work has been crazy, I've been working many hours but after today, I can finally see a light at the end of tunnel. By this time next week we should be all filed and then we can move on to everything else year end related. Other random thoughts on the week:

1) Today I was reading up on the Wisconsin protests at the state capitol. Very interesting! So the guv wants to basically break the union and make them pay 5% into their pensions (gasp), pay 13% for health care (gasp) and their raises would be tied to the consumer price index CPI (double gasp). I really don't see what the problem is? I don't have a pension plan...I have a 401k which means I have to save money for my retirement and my company only pays 3% of what I contribute so yea...don't really feel sorry for them there. 13% for health care is peanuts. Newsflash all of us have increased medical costs, one year my dental went up 40% year over year! And I wish I got a raise that was comparable to the CPI...but I didn't but you know what I'm thankfully I still have a job. Wisconsin is turning into Egypt of the "Mid(dle) West." Ha ha. My experience with unions is more of an annoyance. I think people should get paid based on their performance not because of union rates. But I digress...

2) On a brighter note, today is reporting day for pitchers and catchers. How exciting! It means that opening day is around the corner and Twins baseball will be in full swing again, get it? swing! I'm so funny tonight. I'm glad to see that Joe Nathan feels like he is normal again after Tommy Johns surgery. Only 42 days until open day...

3) So the hours I wasn't at work, or sleeping or at school I've been working on my new blog. It is so exciting. I figured out code for a comments section (see below). I also created the sliding menu you see on the left. I feel so cool.

4) Finally, only 99 days until my mom, hopefully my niece, and I will be on our way to the Gulf Coast for a week of sun, beach and water. I can't wait!

That's it for now.