The Big Day

I may be the only one in our household who is thrilled about graduation coming up on May 15th. John can hardly wait to be done with school, but the parading of graduates is the part he isn't eagerly anticipating. Quite frankly, he could care less. He didn't even walk for his undergraduate degree two years ago. Because this time around his tuition includes the cost of cap, gown, and any other trinkets associated with graduation, he is going to walk with his fellow business school classmates for a short ceremony on Saturday, May 15th at 9:00 AM at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. Are you writing this down?

To celebrate such a monumental occasion, I thought it would be a great idea to order some graduation announcements to herald to the world his incredible accomplishment. I mean, come on! He works full-time and still finishes his Masters Degree in one year in the executive program at Arizona State University for the Masters of Science in Information Management. It's just a neat way to pronounce Computer Geekology. In addition to the timing of his degree, he also aced it. Literally. He got straight A's the entire year, despite me being home occasionally and having it be my number-one priority to get him to skip an hour of studying and homework to spend his precious time with me. He has attended class from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM on Monday and Wednesday nights since last June and has also attended several all-day required Saturday conferences. Additionally, he has been working on a group project equating to a thesis (presenting it to a board of faculty this Saturday!) since last July and has always been so patient with his teammates when they don't come through on time with their portion of the work. He is smart enough to just do it for them, and he is certainly the editor for their group when it comes to proofreading and fixing glaring errors in information. John is the man. After such an incredible year for this guy, I thought it only fitting to order twenty-five announcements for family to inform them of his incredible accomplishments throughout this past year. He vetoed that, saying he didn't care and neither would anyone else. Ha! I couldn't let this event pass by without letting his family know how stinkin' awesome he is.

So I decided to MAKE the announcements. That's right. By hand. From scratch. Even the ASU seal is my own design, printing it from my beloved HP laser jet to some stickers. I enjoy doing things like this, and it is always more fun when it means I get to brag about my man. If you don't receive one of these precious announcements in the mail, it's nothing personal. My fingers simply couldn't take another week of folding, tearing, cutting, pasting, and printing. It still hurts to touch things! I guess I need to do more manual labor around here to prevent this from happening next time. And I have burned too many tanks of gas returning to JoAnn's Crafts to get additional supplies. Despite all of this, I am tickled with how they turned out. I was worried about them looking homemade, but I had to let that concern go since I had been forbidden to purchase the real things. It makes it more personal anyway, right, to have a homemade handicraft? Now comes the hard part...waiting another few weeks before I can mail them out. How early is too early to get an announcement in the mail? I'd mail them today if it didn't seem a little impatient!

I am very proud of my man. He works hard at everything he does, and this will only set us up even better down the road to be great parents and have a wonderful family. I am one lucky lady to be married to such a man. I think our children have a 1 in 80 chance of being pretty smart, too. It just won't be their mommy they go to for help with math homework...