Single for the Weekend

Matt went on a mens retreat with our church last weekend, so I was without him for Friday and Saturday. I got some quality girl time in, but I was glad to have him back. I really don't like it when we're apart, and thankfully it doesn't happen very often.

On Friday night I hosted a girls' night at my house for other wives in our Sunday school class whose husbands were gone for the weekend. We did what all girls do best, we ate and talked. It was fun just to relax for the night and catch up on each other's lives. There were four of us, and I think everyone had a good time.

Since I was alone on Saturday, I decided to practice making an apple pie. I love baking, but pies are something I haven't had much practice with. Since I'm hosting Thanksgiving this year, I want to make an apple pie for dessert (although I'm sure Matt would much prefer I just make 3 cheesecakes, I'm too traditional for that). I think it turned out pretty good. Matt took the leftovers to work today. We'll see if I can recreate it in a few weeks. I also watched OSU beat Iowa State that afternoon. Saturday night I went to Stillwater to celebrate with some graduate school friends since I got this in the mail on Saturday:
I passed my licensing exam! Actually, I found out I passed on Thursday when I called the licensing board because I knew they had the results, but I got the official letter on Saturday. There were four of us from my cohort who took the exam, and we all passed. Thank you OSU for preparing us well! I went to dinner Saturday with a friend who passed and another friend from grad. school.

I'm glad that huge hurdle is out of the way. I would say it's the biggest and most stressful part of the licensing process, and now it's over. Sometimes this whole licensing process can be really frustrating. I respect that the board's job is to protect the public, but it seems there is hurdle after hurdle I have to cross to be able to write LMFT instead of LMFT candidate or LMFT under supervision. It takes way too long to sign my name on treatment plans right now :). The next hurdle I have is an oral exam in front of the board that I have to take sometime in the next couple of months. Although I know it will be scary to be orally defending myself, the content areas covered on the oral exam are much more specific (it only covers psychopathology and state law), so I'm not too worried. After that I'll just have to keep trucking along accumulating client contact hours and supervision hours for awhile (probably for another year and a half). Even that's a major hurdle because of the complicated way the state records and awards hours for LMFT candidates. It seems my supervisor and I talk about how confusing and frustrating the process is every week. I guess I can't complain too much since I chose this field, so I'll just keep jumping over hurdles for awhile longer. At least now, there's one less to cross :).