Something That Made Me Laugh

Wednesdays always carry a sense of trepidation, never knowing if I am going to run into someone I don't care to encounter. So I am sure my face held consternation on my drive to work.

However, the mood was broken when I had to chuckle... upon seeing a man walking his dog on a leash in his own backyard! It just looked funny.

On later contemplation, I am pretty sure he is probably training the dog to do it's thing in a certain area of the yard, so this is commendable.

But it sure struck me as funny this morning... and I needed that :)

Never Again!

Egads! Well, I knew this was going to be a killer quarter with three classes, 11 credits, and last night at the end of the second day, I swore to myself I would NEVER take three classes at the same time ever again!!

I was up until 12:30am just printing out all of the syllibi(?), calendars, and the first couple weekly check off sheets for each class. I now have chapters to read, quizzes to take, and extra activities to complete since I will not be available to attend the labs for one class. Presentations to prepare for two classes and fellow students to connect with by discussion board for my third class. It's all so overwhelming the first week until you can get a handle on the new routine. It still seems like an insurmountable feat even if I do get into a decent routine.

Then I was up for a large portion of the night worrying about these videos we have to produce to teach what we are learning, to post on YouTube. Geez!

But never again! Too much! This is so totally how I am feeling...

Already I can't wait for it to be over in June!

:)

Break 2011

[ this spot reserved for pictures and commentary regarding Break 2011 Adventure ]

Excited !!!

Made my flight reservations for Hawaii in October!! So excited!! Woo-hoo !!

My bestest buddy of 40 years and I are going to Hawaii in October!! We are going to snorkel at Molokini Islet, and Zipline, and ride bikes down Haleakala!! And lay in the sun, and hike, and eat great food! Just spending time together will be special, but in such a beautiful place... it will be fa-bu-lous!! Aloha!!

Home is Where the Heart Is

Well now, I will admit I am not the best housekeeper in the world. In all honestly, it is just not that important to me.

I'm a bit of a collector and that tends to clutter things up.

I have a lot of interests, and every interest comes with it's own pile of "must have" goodies.

I'm a bit of a procrastinator so I put off organizing and throwing things away. It's the decision making that wears me out.

I had a friend once tell me, "If you came to see me, stop by anytime! If you came to see my house, call ahead." I agree 100% :)

My heart is always with me, but my home is also where my heart is...

I tend to believe that one of the reasons I have the relationship I have with my sons is because we all didn't have TVs in our separate bedrooms - we sat on the couch and watched shows together, and we talked about life. We didn't go our separate ways, we always tended to congregate in the living room/dining room of our little house, even though, most times, you can't find the surface of the dining room table.

My sons have come to accept this about me, even though I suspect they don't care for it much. But they also know, that they can come through that front door at any time, in any circumstance, and be safe and secure and accepted by me. That there is always a hug waiting for them, an ear to listen to them, a word of advice for them... that I love them for who they are and where they're at in life, even if I don't always agree.

So, it's a little, ordinary house... it's fairly cluttered, our furniture doesn't match, the floor probably needs vacuuming, and there's dishes in the sink... but it's where my heart is, and it's where LOVE is for my family. Yes, there are plenty of bigger houses, and less cluttered houses, but that's not where my heart is... that's not where real love is... my love, is here.

:)

Now I will address those who might argue, "yes, but if you loved your family, you'd keep a better house." To them I answer, I could have a floor clean enough to eat off of, but I've never met anyone who would actually like to eat off of a floor like that. And, when I could have been scrubbing floors and dusting corners, I chose instead to love my family by spending time with my boys playing games or reading or going to see and do things. I could have spent my energies keeping an immaculate house, but then my sons probably wouldn't have had their art projects up on our walls, or their friends over because they might "mess things up", we wouldn't have the memories of the things we've done and experienced, and we most certainly would not have had the parade of pets we've had. If I were that way, I probably wouldn't be the kind of mom who would allow a stuffed bear on her roof either!! I made my choice for what I believed was for the better... you are free to choose for yourself what you believe is for the better.

For those who just believe that I should be different... all I can say is, you don't understand, and you certainly don't understand that I have been going through a process to understand why I want to have things around me the way I do. I've learned a lot about how to weed through and get rid of, and I have been disposing of a multitude of items. I am understanding what I need for my future and what is not important for my future. I'm ready to parcel things off with my boys as they move out. I am ready to release a lot of the stuff I've moved along with me for years. The actual doing takes time, physically and mentally, so I'm sorry that it just hasn't been fast enough for y'all.

OK, I'm done :)

Buoyed Up by Success.... and a little about Goals

When I started taking college classes again last quarter, I felt overwhelmed, and wondered if my old pea-brain could handle all of this... and I only had ONE class! Then this quarter I took two 4 credit classes, and was willing to settle for a lower grade if I couldn't actually get all of this info into my head. But I have done quite well, and was practically shaking with excitement to take my Intro to Business final this morning... I missed more than I should have, but finished with 94% for the course. My computer class final is on Thursday and I'm feeling pretty confident about it also. I'm just giddy with the thought that I might be smarter than I was thinking I was.

I need to hold onto that feeling as I begin my Spring quarter in two weeks with three classes, 11 credits. What am I thinking!!!? I am SO, TOTALLY terrified! I'm not sure I'll "sail" through, but I will probably do better than I am thinking I will. I mean, I sure hope I do. Keep good thoughts for me please :)

And now... on to Goals.

When I was turning 30, I was blessed to share the event with my best friend, whose birthday is just the day before mine. 30, it's a big number, a turning point in a person's life, especially for a woman. My friend was married, had two small children, was purchasing a home in California, had a nice church family... things were good. My husband and I were traveling through, headed to Louisiana for school. We had plans for school, a family, missionary work... lots of plans and goals. (Things didn't quite work out the way we had planned, but that was the direction we thought we were headed.) While I was excited about my birthday, the future... my friend was having the "I'm turning 30! blues. I admit I could be wrong, but I always felt that she was in the accomplished part of her life. Yes, she had things to look forward to, but a lot of her life, at the moment was "routine." But I had things to look forward to, be excited about...

ooh, the "Look Forward, Anxiously" lesson again...

I now have new goals and plans that I am looking forward to. I must say I've been in a bit of a funk since my divorce three years ago, but now, today, I feel like I have so many things ahead. A plan with my schooling and a vocation, a vacation to coordinate with my same best friend to Hawaii, a business idea, plans to find friends who want to go biking, hiking and fly-fishing. Plans and Goals. All day today, I've felt like a puppy whose tail wags it's whole body! Butterflies in my tummy, which I haven't had in years! I just feel all happy-wiggly!

Then again,

it could just be my medication kicking in finally after three weeks!

:) lol

Week 10: Tsunami

I was just ending my evening and listening to snippets of the local news, when they reported, just in, "Massive earthquake in Japan." I caught a friend on Facebook and asked if she had heard about it, and she said she was watching Fox News as they were covering it. I don't think I've gotten 4 hours of sleep during the past 20 hours, watching the amazing coverage of the Tsunami roll across the Japanese farmlands. Then the warnings for the Hawaiian Islands. I called a friend in California at 12:30am because her dad spends a lot of time at his condo in Maui, and I wanted to make sure she got a hold of him. The tsunami watch for the coast of the US was upgraded to a warning. News of a fire at one nuclear reactor, and another that they couldn't cool down. More videos coming in. I finally laid my head down at about 3:30am, but got up at 5:00am to see what was going on with Hawaii, and stayed up until they started talking about the waves hitting Crescent City, and then I napped again for a short while. I've been watching the news stations all day as videos are coming in, and the sun rose on Japan.

I am just blown away by the beautiful, neat little farms being taken over by this huge, muddy flow. Unbelievable.

And now we just wait and see what is going to happen with the nuclear reactor, and hope they can find all of the missing people. It's overwhelming and difficult to sit back in my seat.

Week 10: Pauline's Grandmother

Another little except from my son's blog about his exchange in Sweden. I am so excited for him and his experiences there.

I had planned to visit Pauline in Kumla and take a fika at her grandmothers house, so that is what I did! It was a very nice day weather wise and so we walked to her grandma's house, I actually like Kumla, I think it's a nice little town! We ate lunch with her grandma and then had a fika and just talked, all in Swedish, it was a lot of fun to meet her and she is like a very, very nice lady, she actually made me a pair of gloves, how sweet is that! I hope to see her again in the future before I leave.

Pauline's grandmother's delicious food, typical swedish actually ;D.

The mittens she made me :D!

Flowers in Pauline's grandmothers house!

Week 10: Letter to Future Students

Dear Future Students of this Class:

Hey! If you know a little bit about some of the programs in the Microsoft Office Suite, you will learn a lot more about them in this class. You’ll also learn about your computer and your work space, more about web pages and game programming. I guess it’s been said before, but keep up with your weekly assignments. Don’t let them pile up. If they are posted early, get going on your blog and exercises.

For newbies who don’t know much at all about computers or software applications, it may all seem a bit overwhelming but you are going to learn so much! Knowing the Office programs will help you a lot through school for assignments and projects. Give yourself enough time (I ended up spending between 10 and 16 hours each week on lessons,) keep up with the assignments and follow the book step by step, making sure you understand each thing you do – the book is very good at this. If you have time, do the extra exercises at the end of each section also. If Tutorials are made available for a project, make sure you watch and follow those – they will help you a lot!

Also, Ms. Bagent has made herself available each week for an Elluminate session which has been great when I’ve had questions. She goes over every part of the assignment, so this is your opportunity to touch base with your instructor. If you can’t make the session, make sure you go back and listen to it, someone may have asked your question, and you’ll find out the answer! The more who participate in the session though, the more questions are answered and the more ideas are tossed around. I am surprised how few of us took part in this valuable part of the class. Use the Discussion Board to ask questions too… often another student will be able to help, or the teacher will answer you. She wants you to learn what you are doing, not just get a grade.

Many parts of this class are actually fun, so enjoy! I will be keeping up my blog… my family gets a kick out of it. Going over HTML coding has inspired me to create a business website, and the gaming part was something that really intrigued me also.

I wish you well! Don’t get overwhelmed, just tick off the steps so you don’t miss anything, have fun and “learn lots of things” as my dad used to say to me :)

Week 10: Lessons from our Dog

Having a pet brings so much to a child, to a family. We learn about loving and being loved, caring for the needs of another living creature besides ourselves and the responsibility that involves, and lessons on reproduction, birth and death.

Cinnamon Taffy Twist has taught us many of those things, and probably much more that I can’t think of right at this moment. Her current condition, mammary gland cancer, has taught us all… if you find a lump, go to the doctor right away. I feel tremendously guilty that we did not do this, and she got sicker while we waited. I have thanked her for her sacrafice in teaching us this, and maybe she has saved one of us, or someone we know, from becoming very, very sick. What we can do for her now is love on her and keep her as active as possible, and she is flourishing with all the attention. I have a couple camping trips planned, just the two of us, as soon as the better weather arrives.

Last night she reminded to me something more about life… “Anxiously anticipate every moment.” I took her for a ride with me to the grocery store and where she usually sits in the back seat of my Taurus, my bicycle, which my son had dropped off and picked up from Klamath on his way to Medford over the weekend, was still wedged in the truck and back seat, so I let her in on the front passenger side. For the whole ride into town, she never sat down, but had her face up over the dashboard looking ahead. When I returned with my bags, she greeted me with tail wagging and nose to nose. On the ride home, she again, never sat down, but had her face up and looking around forward. Her stance reminded me sadly that she has no idea of what is coming, that her days with us are numbered, but she was eagerly anticipating each next exciting moment.

Our own days are numbered.

We don’t know what is coming.

Therefore…

"Look forward, anxiously,
to each moment you have the opportunity to live." ~ Cinnamon

Week 9: Way too fun

Learning the Game Maker for our project this week was "way too fun!" Oh, there is so much more I would like to do, but don't have time this week. I earnestly plan to return to the Yo-Yo Games site and learn more from their tutorials as I have a couple of game ideas rolling around in my head.  I'd like to try to create them.

Am working on my second interview, and working more on my Access Final.  I'm also still diligently studying for my other class test... do I really think I can take on more than this!?  Looking at 11 credit hours next quarter is really scaring the heebie-jeebies out of me!

Probably worked/will be working 15 or 16 hours for this week.