Thank you

Thank you

• to my husband......who has supported me on this journey from the very beginning, who has allowed me to close myself in my bedroom for hours at a time so I could do homework, who has rubbed my sore back and neck after I've sat on my bed with a laptop in my lap for hours, who has listened to me vent, cry and scream expletives at my computer, who has encouraged me every...single...step...of the way, and who reminds me always how proud of me he is.
• to my children......my three little loves, my reason for dreaming big, for pursuing my education.  Because I know I am better than a minimum wage job, I know I am better than the B and C student I was in high school, I know I have more potential than 15 year old Liz Bunn EVER imagined.  YOU are who made me who I am.  Before you were born, I could never imagine I could feel proud of myself, I never realized what an amazing person I could be.  You helped me to see that.  I look at you and I see hope, I see three beautiful, amazing beings who deserve to have a role model who loves herself, who dreams big, who fights for what is right and who never stops learning.  I want that for you.  I want you to know that you can do anything you put your mind to.  I want you to never give up, to never underestimate the power of one.  In many ways, my journey has just begun, and I have many many struggles ahead as I try to figure out where to go from here, what my career will be....but you three will help to keep me moving forward.  And I hope you will always remember how important it is to have an education and to never stop being full of wonder and curiousity and I hope you always thirst for knowledge the way I have learned to.
• to my sisters......who have been on the other end of the phone listening to me describe an exciting class I'm taking, engaged as I have explained an amazing professor I'm working with or an interesting fact I've learned, but also listening to me vent, cry and scream expletives!  My sisters who have cried with me, laughed with me, and always, always tell me how proud of me they are.
• to my parents......always there to offer encouragement, even if they've never really understood my desire to go back to school.  (they know I didn't take to it too well the first 12 years,right?)  For the hugs, the "You know how proud of you we are, don't you?"  I do, mom and dad...I really do.
• to my extended family, my grandma and aunt Sue, who have also repeatedly told me how proud they are of me.  Even with children and lives of their own, they have always become engaged when I talk about school and supported me.
• to my friends......I'm sorry for being distracted for the last seven years.  Thank you for realizing that sometimes in order to keep my family and children first, yet still have my dream a priority, my friendships sometimes dwindled and were often neglected. Thank you for understanding and being patient with me.  And for those who've moved on, believe me when I say, I have no hard feelings.  I understand.
• finally, thank you to those moms who have done this before me, for you are who inspired me to begin this journey in the first place.  On this Mothers Day, I salute your courage, strength, and determination.

                                            Below are two pics, one of me on graduation day and another of the cake my sister made for me.  Well, let me tell ya, this cake is a prime example of the way my sisters and I think.  It's obviously very sarcastic and supposed to be funny, but we have had a few people shake their head and not get it.  Believe me, it's A JOKE.  This is the kind of sarcasm and dry wit we share and I just like to believe we are just so advanced in our sarcasm, others just aren't up to our standards.  I guess it's one of those things...if you get it, you get it.