Adventures in Not Taking a Test

I’ll give away the ending before I start, though. He made it safely to the conference center and took the six hour day one of the Missouri Bar Exam. But it wasn’t without a ton of freak outs by the crazy wife back in St. Louis throughout the day.

Here’s how the day played out yesterday….

6:01 am: His text - “I’m awake.” I asked him to let me know he was up, because if not, I was going to be his wake up call.

6:45 am: My text - “Good! Break a leg today!” And off to work I went.

7:14 am: His text – “We got six inches of wet slushy snow. The guy parked across from me pulled into the driveway and is now stuck. I can’t move.”

8:11 am: My text – “Are you serious? Oh no!”

8:12 am: My text – “Are you going to walk to the test?!”

8:13 am: My text – “I hope everything worked out in the hour since I got your text! I love you! Let me know how it goes!”

 

So cue the first freak out of the day. I presumed that no news was good news and he was just too busy once he got to the testing site to text me back. So I was stressing all morning, but hoping for the eest.

 

1:14 pm: He calls and I’m in a meeting. I text him and let him know I’ll call him in a bit.

1:15 pm: His text - “The power is out at the conference center and my hotel.”

1:16 pm: My text – “Oh no!!!!!!!!! What are they doing?!”

1:17 pm: They were told to come back at 2 pm and hoped the power would be back on.

2 pm: They arrive to start the second session, and the power is still out. Come back at 2:30 pm they say.

2:05 pm: The power is back on surprisingly, and they all sit to take the test.

But then they have to sit there until 2:30 pm, because some people weren't there, and they were told to wait.

3 pm: They finally start the test.

3:02 pm: They’re told to stop what they’re doing and step back from their laptops. Apparently the power outage has messed up the test taking software and they can’t continue with the electronic test taking. They continue taking the essay portion of the test via long-hand after some long back and forth with the IT support on staff and the proctors for the exam.

6:47 pm: He finally calls me to tell me know that Day One is finally done. And he’s heading for dinner and a relaxing evening, to get ready for tomorrow.

 

What with a fire in his original hotel, a freak blizzard the morning of the test, cars not able to get out of the parking lot, power outages and then software mishaps, I really think the whole group needs to get t-shirts that say  “I survived the MO Bar Exam of 2013!”

Because REALLY?

Did I mention that the television in his back up hotel room doesn’t work? Lovely.

Adventures in the Bar Exam

"Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, 'Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary'."
- Martin Luther King

Right now, my law school husband is taking the Missouri Bar Exam in Jefferson City, MO.

And I’m freaking out.

Let me explain. I am a ridiculous planner. My wedding day timeline had bathroom and snack breaks in it for our 15-person wedding party. I live by my calendar and my check-lists. I plan events for a living and then come home to work on weddings part time. I run our household, pay the bills and make the doctor’s appointments. I call for the scheduled maintenance on the townhouse and plan our daily activities for a Disney vacation six months in advance.

To be blunt, I like being in charge.

And today and tomorrow? I’m not in charge. I can’t do anything while my husband is two hours away, taking a twelve hour exam that he’s been preparing for since August of 2009 when he started law school, and ever more intense studying since the end of December. I can only sit at my office, go about my business and my doctor’s appointments, and wait for his call.

It doesn’t help that Jeff City is getting hit with another Midwestern winter storm. He was hoping to walk to the testing site from his hotel but due to the layout and his original hotel catching on fire (YUP!), he has to drive. Which just adds another layer of complexity we didn’t want to deal with in addition to the exam itself.

So I will sit here. And wait. And pray. And wait some more. And freak out because I can’t do anything. Then I’ll get to hear his voice after he’s done with the Day One of the test. He gets to do it all over again tomorrow.

I don’t like it when I’m not in charge.

Snowpocalypse

Today,  the office closed down at noon. Except I left around 10:30 am. In the half hour it took me to drive home, another email went out to the staff saying that they were moving up the closing to 11 am since the roads were getting so bad.

So here I am, having a glass of wine for lunch and now officially out of wine, organized my tax documents and done some things for this new blog, waiting for a conference call this afternoon.

In my line of work, we don’t usually get snow days, so this is really exciting!

But honestly? By 2 pm? I was already getting a bit of cabin fever.

And craving French Toast.

What a weird world we live in.

Project Life

I did it.

I finished Project Life.

I took a picture (almost) every day of 2013 and scrapbooked into a beautiful layout. Thanks to Sonya at A Day in the Life, I found a system of scrapbooking that works for me. I've always wanted to remember the day to day, and not just the big celebrations that come throughout the year.

At the end of 2011, I took the plunge and promised that I would do the daily photo thing and make my Project Life book. And I did! I finished last week, once the final pictures from December had been printed and mailed to me.

Right now, I'm still taking a daily photo, usually the Fat Mum Slim prompts found here. But I'm not necessarily going to use them going forward. I don't know if I'll do a daily photo scrapbook in 2013 but I'm taking the photos just in case I decide in a month that it's what I want to do.

But you know, they say it will make your photographer better and I feel like it has. Looking back on a photo from January 2012 to one I took a few days ago, it really has improved. I'm not using the DSLR as much as I had hoped, because the iPhone is with me all the time. Since I upgraded to the 5, I feel like the camera is just as good as the point-and-shoot at least, so why bother carrying two things around?

I love looking back on the daily photos. I know that I would have loved to have something like this from my mom or grandma, but maybe it's presumptuous to think that a future child of mine would be interested. But I have it to document the last year of husband's law school, which is pretty awesome.

A New Start

This is a new day, and a new adventure awaits.

My husband finished law school in December and is currently studying for the bar exam at the end of the month (yup, it’s pretty stressed around our house right now!). He starts his professional gig in March and boy, is that exciting to say!

I’ve been blogging for a few years at actingadult.blogspot.com now but after a few years of not being involved with theatre, it just seemed strange to continue under that banner.

Since I’m such a Disney fanatic, “I Want Adventure in the great wide somewhere” just stuck with me. I love the Beauty and the Beast and it seemed to be a great new theme to continue under.

So welcome and I hope you can join me on our future adventures, whatever and wherever they might be!