Woo hoo - Done!! My son graduated Saturday summa cum laude. He knew he had honors, but wasn’t sure if he would make the cutoff for highest honors until the week before. We had perfect weather, about 80 degrees. He’s working in his college town for the summer and starting his real job in the fall. Looking forward to hearing more good news from this group. Feels good to be done with this chapter!
coolweather- she is only paying $600 a month, but I don’t know what the three that have actual bedrooms pay… she’s been told that the rent she pays basically covers the utilities and paper goods and things that are needed around the apt, the other three actually pay the rent. She was expecting to pay around $850 or so when she first started looking, so this is a bargain. She is willing to live in this sort of added on room if it means paying so much less than she was budgeting for. It’s also only up one floor, basically the upstairs of a two family house. She looked at a 4th floor walk up and a 5th floor walk up!!
^ That’s a good deal. My son pays $2,500 in Manhattan and does not share with anyone :(. I hope he and my D will look for a new apartment to share later.
Here in SoCal to attend S graduation from USC and it is pouring rain!!! Huge drought year and the deluge hits for this momentous occasion. Ugh!
We just arrived in New Orleans for D’s graduation on Saturday. We have an alumni crab fish boil tonight and a wave good by party tomorrow night. S '16 is looking forward to the 2nd line dancing by the graduates and faculty/staff at graduation.
I just picked my 91 year old mother from the train station – she took a train into NY Penn Station and then switched to Amtrak. Pretty impressive. Graduation is tomorrow AM for ShawS. She has already received her diploma (in February) – she graduated summa cum laude. But, she couldn’t march until tomorrow. I’m giving her the pearl necklace and earrings I bought for her in Hyderabad.
She is working tonight at her part-time job as a nurse and has a week off before the summer semester starts. She is going full-time to school and working part-time, but had decided to do the last year of grad school part-time and spread it over two years. Now she is thinking that after the summer, it will be only 10 more months and maybe she should just push it through. She got all As in undergrad and so far has all As in grad school as well. But, she’s tired of school and ready for the next thing of being a nurse practitioner.
D took an EMT class this semester and passed it. The next step(s) are taking a passing a two step national certification exam. The practical part has to be taken in the same state as the class was taken in. So, since she is leaving Louisiana today, she went in on Friday to take the practical exam. She failed 3 of the 7 modules. (she graduated with honors, she is not used to failing). She retook all three parts and passed two of them. They refused to let her take the one a third time that day, they told her she could come in today and take it once. If she failed it again, she would have to retake the test.
She is in New Orleans, the test was in Baton Rouge, an hour and a half the wrong way. She did delay her plans to drive to Virginia for her summer job by a few hours and got to Baton Rouge before 8 am to retake it. She texted at 8:15 to say she had passed. Hopefully she is now on her way to VA! She can take the written part anywhere, so will try to do that in VA this summer.
D graduated on Sunday, summa cum laude. Was a great weekend -very interesting to see her in her own environs, so to speak. Met several of her friends, her professors - really a great experience to see how much she’s grown over the past four years. Tons and tons of pictures!
Packing up her stuff and moving her out wasn’t as much fun though!! She had been busy with senior week and had done absolutely nothing about packing. Wasn’t happy - also, didn’t help that both she and I suffer from seasonal allergies. But we did get it done. Had a horrific flight back - flight got diverted to a different airport due to weather issues in Baltimore - we came home a good 12 hours after going to to the airport in Cleveland. Ugh.
Congrats to all of our HS Class of 2011/College Class of 2015 graduates. S graduated on Saturday. The weather in Washington behaved as the 9 AM call was for the outside ceremony at noon. All went well as all invited family guests managed to make it and actually found us and our saved seats near the back but under a wonderfully big shady tree. We had a relaxing lunch and a great dinner celebration for the adults Saturday evening.
Sunday was packing and move-out day. As arisamp stated above, they had a week to handle a lot of the sorting and packing. While S did have a couple of totes and two large duffel suitcases packed, he woefully underestimated the time required to pack everything. Since he was off campus in a house with furniture, we had to disassemble the bed, desk and bookshelves before moving them downstairs and eventually out to the street (another 22 steps in three groups) to the rental trailer parked on the street. After 6 hours, we were done. And exhausted from the 90 degree heat and 80% plus humidity. We then drove three hours south and stayed about an hour north of Durham. Monday wasn’t much better weather wise but we rolled on and arrived in Durham, found the storage facility and managed to unpack the trailer and fill a 5 x 10 storage locker with his stuff. After being able to get into our hotel room early for badly needed showers and clean clothes we headed off to apartment shop for the fall.
The rest of Monday and Tuesday went well as we toured several apartment communities near campus and S ended up on the wait list for a 1 BR unit for early August at his preferred location. We then went to campus got a tour of the law school facility, had lunch, visited the bookstore for the obligatory new t-shirt, hat and car sticker, before heading home for the summer. I have decided that while we will help him move-in and get settled this fall, I will gladly pay a mover to bring his things from storage to the new apartment. My moving days in 90 degree heat are over! 
@AvonHSDad I know of what you speak! We moved d’11/15 home from her apartment for a few months between grad and the start of her job in August. We had just 17 steps and it was much cooler than 90, but still! All I could think when she looked at apartments in her new town was, “not the third floor, please, not the third floor.” She’ll be on the second. As a single female just couldn’t get comfortable with ground floor, although it would have saved her quite a bit of money. And furniture moving should be minimal as some pieces just won,t fit in the small new place. She’ll have to buy new and the furniture store can deliver!
D graduated Monday. No rain. She will stay with a friend off canpus for another week to make connections then will fly home. She will start her job on June 15 and currently asking me for help with selecting options for benefit enrollment.
D arrived in Virginia on Sunday to settle in and prepare to start her summer job as health director of a fairly large summer camp. She called me last night to tell me that her permanent job set to start in August called her yesterday and wants to send her to the Dominican Republic for 10 days starting tomorrow. She does have her passport and no campers are set to arrive until the day she returns to camp, so she is going. She just won’t have this week to set up the health room and will have to depend on someone else to do that.
Had a small graduation party for D this past weekend with our close friends and neighbors. Was wonderful to have everyone there to celebrate her accomplishments.
D made this canvas picture thingy as a gift for us - has pictures of her from her senior year and the collage spells out the words “Thank you mom and dad for giving me the world”. Amazing and she was planning this from the first day of senior year in college - the first picture is of her on the first day of senior year holding the word 'Thank"!! Wonderful moment on Saturday when she gave it to us before the party…
How wonderful, arisamp – you have a very thoughtful and appreciative daughter!
Haven’t stopped by in awhile but I just wanted to congratulate everyone who’s kids are graduating.
I’m not sure if I posted this a few months ago or not but d was offered a job in her field (civil engineering) in Washington, DC. She starts at the end of July so we were able to take a family trip right after graduation and now she’s traveling with friends for 3 weeks. She has secured an apartment with two young women with a spare bedroom that she’s very excited about and, well, everything’s really falling in place for her and I’m just so excited for her. She will be across the country but I guess I will just have to visit!
Interesting tidbit about her job…she was offered a signing bonus as part of her package but she doesn’t get it until the 3 month mark of her employment. I always thought signing bonuses were, in part, to help someone get settled/relocate. That first/last/security deposit requires a hefty amount of cash! It all worked out for her but I know other companies give the signing bonus up front and you’re required to return it if you don’t stay with the company for, let’s say, a year.
^ We just had to pay first/last months rent for my son’s 3 month sublet (he’s paying for month #2) and just yesterday had to pay first/last month & security dep.for the apartment he will be moving into on Sept. 1. Then for his car to pass inspection in new state he called yesterday that it needed $2400 of work done (most was for a new catalytic converter.) Since he hasn’t gotten one paycheck yet (he just started work on Monday) we have now had to pay $8400. He is going to pay us back for the money we doled out for new apt and since I am a nice mom I told him $500/month until it’s paid off. The rest I am just chalking up to new job expenses. And as my H said - it’s better then him not having a job and living in our basement.
His company did pay the finders fee (which was $2000) and he got $1000 to help with relocating. They had also offered him a free apartment for 9 week but he didn’t want to live in the suburb where it (and company) is located. He wanted to be in Boston - which I understand - but it sure would have been a lot less expensive for me.
Yikes @emilybee
D1 ordered a bed and sofa yesterday at Macys. Will be delivered to her apartment in Manhattan. A friend suggested that we try Macys. It was really hassle free and the delivery is only $95. She is living in a 3rd floor walk up so delivery was important. We had though of going to Ikea and using their delivery service. This is so seamless it was a no brainer. Hoping it works out. We will take a trip to Ikea when she gets there to get the other stuff. Small apartment so she won’t need much.
She has some expenses for the move reimbursed, including the agency finders fee. H and I are going up a week after her and will take advantage of his status on delta to check bags with her clothes etc
@collage1 I think she gets her signing bonus in the first pay period.
@arisamp That was a lovely gift and very thoughful of your d. Has she moved to Atlanta yet?
Back in my day my company would give you a no interest loan to use to pay for first/last month’s rent and they took the payments out of your paycheck. But that was in the 80’s.
@collage1, @sally22 - thanks. D hasn’t yet moved to Atlanta - headed there next month.
She is sharing a 2 bedroom apartment with a friend from college - wonderful that they “found” each other. She had to put down a security deposit, but it wasn’t too much and she took care of it herself. Her friend is working for an “approved partner” company or something like that, so the condo company waived their requirement for the deposit and returned the money to D. She initially freaked out thinking their application was rejected - but once she figured it out, she was thrilled that they didn’t have to pay that!
She is going to take our car and move to Atlanta. I guess we should register the car in her name in Atlanta then? She will have to pay the registration fees and also get on the insurance. So many details to take care of…
@sally22 - will have to look at Macys. D was planning to go to IKEA once she gets to Atlanta to get a bed.
ShawD is supposed to be going to school full-time and working part-time. But, the place where she is working has 42 full-time nurses, one part-time (ShawD) and one per diem. One of the full-time nurses left rather abruptly and ShawD finds herself working full-time and going to school full-time and is very stressed. She feels loyal to the team, but it is really taking a lot out of her. They are interviewing new candidates. She has a vacation at the end of the summer and we offered to take her pretty much anyplace in the time she has but she just wants to go to an ashram and decompress/rebuild.
Happy Father’s day to all the dads and granddads on our class of 2011 thread! Hope you had a great day with your families! 