Where Has Time Gone?

Today I took the day off to take my daughter Elle to visit a college.  When I really thought about it, I was like, "Damn I'm old!"  It was 20 years ago this May that I graduated from college.  Where did the last 20 years go?  How am I old enough to have a daughter going to college in a year?  Wow!  It was a hard rock to swallow for sure!

The college we visited was Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa.  We thought it would take about 2 hours to get there.  In reality, it ended up being 2 1/2 hours.  Getting lost and turning around twice didn't help the timing!  I was driving and Elle is no help at navigating.  We have a GPS on our new Blackberry's, however, we had no signal.  Nice!  Thank God I emailed myself the directions from Mapquest.  We also stopped to get an Iowa map after driving an hour and not being sure where we went from there.  Oh, well!  We ended up being about 15 minutes late.  No big deal.

MapQuest directions

From: Carroll, IA US
To: Orange City, IA US

DRIVING DIRECTIONS

1. Start out going NORTHWEST on US-30/E 6TH ST toward N MAIN ST. Continue to follow US-30 W. (go 0.79 miles)

2. Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto US-71 N/LINCOLN ST. Continue to follow US-71 N.

- US-71 N is just past W 10TH ST

(go 12.5 miles)

3. Turn LEFT onto US-71/IA-175. (go 17.67 miles)

4. Turn RIGHT onto US-71.

- If you are on IA-175 and reach JACKSON AVE you've gone about 0.9 miles too far

(go 22.12 miles)

5. Turn LEFT onto US-71-BR/IA-7.

- US-71-BR is 0.3 miles past 615TH ST

(go 1.82 miles)

6. Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto FLINDT DR/US-71-BR/IA-7. Continue to follow IA-7.

- IA-7 is 0.2 miles past MEMORIAL RD

(go 17.2 miles)

7. Turn LEFT onto 530TH ST/IA-3 W.

- 530TH ST is 0.4 miles past 535TH ST

(go 3.32 miles)

8. Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto IA-3 W.

- IA-3 W is 0.3 miles past S AVE

(go 29.15 miles)

9. Turn RIGHT onto CR-K64.

- CR-K64 is 0.9 miles past PIONEER AVE

(go 13.83 miles)

10. Turn LEFT onto 2ND ST NE.

- 2ND ST NE is just past E 1ST S

(go 0.07 miles)

11. Welcome to ORANGE CITY, IA.

TOTAL ESTIMATED TIME: 2 hours 37 minutes

DISTANCE: 118.46 miles

The college reminded me a lot like the college I went to, Buena Vista University in  Storm Lake, Iowa.  It was located in a small community and was a fairly small campus.Both are also Christ centered schools. Elle really liked it.  This trip reminded me of when I was getting ready to go to college and my method of choosing.  I really wanted to go to hair school, but my mother would not hear of it.  She kept saying, "Go get a college education.  You can always go to hair school."  Boy do I really regret having listened to her.  I wish I would have had some balls and put my foot down and insisted I go to hair school.  Anyway, when I figured I had to go to a college, it was a choice, according to my mom, between Iowa State and Buena Vista.  I knew I would get totally lost at Iowa State, so I opted for BV.  Again, I really wanted to go to a college in Nebraska called Midland Lutheran College.  My mom thought this was too far to drive.  It was really only like 2 hours, if that.  My mom was a single parent and I think she was pretty paranoid that something was going to happen to me.  This is the same woman who had me paged at the mall if she couldn't find me! omg!  Anyway, it's all said and done.  Now I have two BA's and no real job.  Nice!  Had I gone to hair school, I could be running my own salon by now.  I could go back, but I'm almost 43!  We will see.

Back to Elle.  She is taking her ACT tests tomorrow morning.  God help her!  She is not the best test taker at all.  She needs extra time and usually takes her tests outside of the classroom.  She is one of those nervous test takers.  Her doctor tried to put her on a pill that would slow down her heart rate when she got nervous.  It didn't work at all.  What can I say, my nervous kids take after me.  Poor things!  I wish they would have gotten my husband's confidence instead!  I don't know how I even made it into college!  lol!