It all started with one little mouse.

I love Mickey Mouse.  He is a mouse who wears clothing and keeps a tidy house.  He is able to hold a relationship with Minnie Mouse.  He takes care of his dog.  He is an ideal mouse to have around.

Lies!  Mickey Mouse is a big LIE!  Mice do not follow in Mickey's example.  They destroy everything they come in contact with.  They chew everything and proceed to poop on everything too.
We noticed evidence of a mouse in our garage a while ago.  We killed the mouse within two days of noticing its presence.  No evidence of said mouse in the house.  We searched and searched and not a single mice turd.  We cleaned out the garage and discovered the mouse most likely arrived with my parents' boxes. So, not only does my dad die, mom have a massive stroke, mom dies, whole world flipped upside-down, but we brought a mouse to our home.

There are some positives to all this.  We disinfected every single item in our garage.  Even if it was way up on a shelf, it was disinfected.  Our garage is almost presentable.  (We still have a small portion to finish.)  We organized our garage.  This is a big deal for me.  I love order.  We listened to music while cleaning.  My Man did a nice little Footloose dance for me.  It was awesome!

We have a little souvenir pencil.  The pencil has been chewed to the lead all around.  It looks as if the mouse chewed it like a corn cob.  It is quite impressive.

The sass is overwhelming.

I get a lot of sass everyday in my life.  It comes from every part of my life.  I am currently all sassed (is that a real word?) out.

I have a teenage daughter who is, normally, a good kid.  She does suffer from being sassy.  She has interrupted me three times since Friday to tell me to stop talking because she already knows what I am going to say.  Really?  You already know what I am going to say before I even say it?  Strange.  When did your clairvoyant gift start?  Have you always had the gift?  Is this a new development? Please enlighten me with your wisdom.  I decided when it happens again, I will stop talking and wait until she was done being a rude little turd and start assigning chores.  Let's see if she knew I was going to say that!

My youngest adores the Daughter, so guess what wonderful habit he picked up from the Daughter? You guessed it!  The sassy, clairvoyant gift! He appears to be more receptive to the chores being assigned.  There may be hope for him, yet!

In my job I have to work with many different professionals.  I, occasionally, encounter other social workers who are very rude and sassy.  I find this to be the most strange regarding sass.  Why are professionals acting like my teenage daughter?  I tried assigning them chores.  It doesn't work as well as I would like.

I have been experiencing a large abundance of sass the last four days.  So glad I have yoga tonight.  I need to release some of this stress before I become cranky.

Why do I feel like the old lady and why should it matter?

I applied for my master's degree in social work earlier this year.  I completed the application process (application, wrote a paper, etc.) and received a call for an interview.  I went to the interview, which consisted of a couple group interviews and a few individual interviews.  During the group interviews, I noticed one other person, besides myself, graduated a couple decades ago with an undergrad.  We had both graduate 16 years ago, actually (not 2 decades, but close), from the same college with the same degree.  It was nice to see an acquaintance and fellow elderly applicant.  She and I had been working in social work since graduating and had a bunch of kids.

I was feeling pretty knowledgeable and was very impressed with myself and fellow old lady.  Slowly, my impressive self started to be less impressive.  A fellow alumni, who I adore and is wonderful, is now the director of the master's program.  Why don't I have a Ph.D?  We graduated with the same undergrad the same year, shouldn't I be just as successful?  I had decided to have a family instead, which is awesome, but I felt a little silly being among all these young whipper-snappers with the same education level as me, but significantly younger than me.  I should have accomplished more in my career.

I noticed the answers the recent undergrads gave were pretty naive, but were similar to the same answers I gave when I was in their shoes.  Due to the experience I have, I know what I enjoy regarding social work and what I do not enjoy.  I do not like working with children and I am terrible at counseling.  I know my strengths and weaknesses.  I felt strong in this part of the interview process.

We had an opportunity to ask questions of the current MSW students.  I was curious about the length of time between their undergrad and starting their graduate degree.  I was also curious if they were completing school while working full-time and raising children.  The longest length of time was five years and she worked full-time but her practicum (internship) was in the same company.  I was starting to feel a bit concerned.   I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Let's jump ahead to today.  I have already been accepted, I received my financial aid packet.  I am starting to get information.  I received an email stating I need to take a writing lab during the summer for a week.  Something about being old, or under-educated, or really old...   In the email, a statement was made that had me giggling in a nervous/terrified way.  "...send in your senior paper from your undergrad..."  That statement made me feel as if I needed to break out a walker to get around.  Can someone hand me my orthopedic shoes?  First, sixteen years ago, I wrote completely different than I do now.  Secondly, I am pretty sure I do not have my senior paper from 16+ years ago.  Thirdly, did we have to write a senior paper?

I have to learn how to use some sort of program or something regarding school.  Apparently we communicate differently than we did 16 years ago or everything is paperless?  I don't understand, but I will be figuring it out soon!  Were did I put my bifocals?

This is the start to something scary and exciting.  I should make it out alive, I think.