Froufy - it all sounds absolutely lovely! And if that cream chiffon dress fits now, wear it to the bar mitzva, because it will be too big for your daughter's bay mitzva. I'm so excited for you!
Now for my exciting news.

But some background first. In addition to my full time job, I'm a criminal justice student with aspirations to one day be a homicide investigator. About 6 months ago, I applied for a corrections officer job in my county. It's a big step in the right direction and would help me learn more about personalities and such. Also, the physical exam for police is too hard for me right now (runnning 1 1/2 miles, sit ups, push-ups, jumping) so corrections was great.
I did the testing 2-ish months and 20 pounds ago. The physical part was strictly pass/fail and consisted of running up a flight of stairs, down the longest hallway ever created and back (a little over 1/4 mile), and then dragging a 185 pound sled for 100 feet. I kid you not - I thought I was going to die. I have never pushed myself to the point of throwing up and I'm still not sure how I kept it down. But - success! - I passed! I had one tenth of a second to spare, but I passed the damn thing.

I didn't regain my normal face color for over 2 hours
The second part was some written tests that are used to rank the applicants. They told us that there were about 200 - 250 people testing and that there are currently 5 positions open. We could expect that if they passed background investigations, the top 30 would be called in for interviews first.
So, after a nerve-wracking 2-ish months, the results came in the mail today. I'm ranked number 28!!!! I'm so excited that I could just piddle. DH is applying, too and he ranked number 11. Just wanted to share - I'm doing a big huge happy dance right now.
