Where Am I?

So what happened to February?  I feel like it left my head spinning, and I am doing a terrible job at blogging more frequently. 

Classes are going fine. Semester is almost half over already…doesn’t seem possible.  I am getting really frustrated with the scheduling between my school and the kids school.  If it wasn’t for my wonderful mom and dad, I’d have missed quite a few classes because of weird school cancellations and teacher workdays. Today was the first day that one of the goofy delays was on a day that didn’t interfere with my classes. The temperature was hanging right around freezing, and it was raining pretty good all morning, but the roads were fine.  It didn’t seem worth a three hour delay, but neither did the last few.  I think they need to separate the county into high elevation and low elevation zones so that we won’t get penalized every time high elevation gets snow or ice. It’s frustrating, but thank goodness my parents keep coming to my rescue.  They’re awesome like that. 

I’ve been sick this past week, sinus and head cold stuff…I keep thinking I’m shaking it off and then my head hurts again.  Grr…could always be worse though, so I’m not going to complain about it. 

The hospice patient I visited for over a year passed away last week. I haven’t visited for a month or so because she was released from hospice due to improvement and I wasn’t her volunteer anymore.  I was going to call and check in on her anyway but then I found out she had taken a sudden decline, was put back in hospice, and then was gone a few days later.  Sad.  I haven’t taken any new patient assignments yet, but I may, once I find some free time again. 

I have a droid tablet now…a hand me down from the hubby.  I’ve been playing like a little kid in the evenings after I put the actual kids to bed. LOL.  I am loving having my English book on a tablet that is big enough to read easily.  Haha. 

Thirty is just around the corner.  EEEEK.  KC talked me into a 30th party, but I really don’t love being the center of attention so I’m trying to keep it small. He was all like Karaoke, party games, large crowd, a DJ….and I’m like…oh my stars NO!  Too much.  I’m trying to keep the guest list small which is really difficult since I’d love to invite everybody. #firstworldproblem but hopefully everyone will understand.  *sigh*  On the bright side, I’m getting a dr pepper cake.  =)  I was going to make it, but KC refused to let me make my own cake. LOL.

Speaking of making, it’s time to make supper, so I should hop off.  Later.

Happy Dance

Yes, it’s been a week—again.  *SIGH*  It’s just been another week of the same ol’ stuff.  Reading books, homework assignments, class, errands, all that jazz.  And of course, just not feeling up to blogging. 

But…had to come do the happy dance for just a moment.  I got my first essay for class back today, and….YAY for the homeschool girl!!! 

99, baby! 

The instructor told us ages ago that he NEVER gives 100 on essays because there’s always “something” that could be done better.  So, a 99 is like, almost perfect. 

WOOT! 

Of course, I did enlist help after I wrote it, to edit it and make it better, but hey…whatever it takes.  =) 

On a not so happy note, I’ve got a scratchy throat and general achy junk going on tonight and I’m going to bed in hopes that a long sleep will fix whatever the echinacea, vitamin C, and Advil Cold and Sinus didn’t take care of already. 

Also, parodies annoy me.  Hubby is watching one now, and he keeps cracking up, but I don’t think it’s that funny.  (insert confused face)

And Aldi had Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup minis (unwrapped mini cups) right in that danger zone at the register today.  I was shopping at lunchtime.  I had not previously eaten.  I caved in about .035 seconds, and I can feel my thighs enlarging as I type.  OOPS.  Maybe when I feel better I’ll do a couple of crunches or something.  LOL Or maybe I’ll just make 100 on my next essay and happy dance all the way to the last essay.  That’s sort of exercise, right?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

For the first day in ages, I had nothing on my schedule and was able to come back home after taking the kids to school.  Thinking I would take advantage of the opportunity, I threw a load of clothes in the washing machine (don’t want to be a complete slacker, you know), and then put myself back to bed.  Wouldn’t you know my brain was wide open and I never fell asleep!  Ugh.  And I was so tired when I woke up this morning, too…I could have totally used the extra sleep. 

ANYWAY.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  This year, both kids were able to do a lot more of the valentine work themselves.  It was tough for me to let them cut crooked lines and write not-so-neatly, but I managed.  LOL.  I helped with the more complicated stuff (obviously Photoshop is out of Munchkin’s league, and curly mustaches are out of K-man’s cutting skill range) but they did a lot of it.  =) 

Munchkin’s were bookmarks, and K-man’s were mustache blow pops.  The tags I printed and he cut out: “I ‘mustache’ you to be my valentine.”  He thought that was SO funny.  I saw the idea for the mustaches on a sucker on Pinterest…it was so cute, and he has a thing for mustaches, so it was totally perfect.  And Munchkin is a bookworm, so hers was an appropriate theme for her, as well. 

I know it’s been a week since I blogged, I can’t say I haven’t had time to blog, because there’s been time even though I’ve been busy.  I’ve got a lot of stuff on my mind, and while that “should” make it easier to blog, it just feels scattered and somewhat difficult to talk about, leaving me in the place to just keep postponing the blog. I know, I could just get on and post random scattered thoughts…after all, that is my normal modus operandi, but English class is killing me.  Not literally killing me, but now it’s taking me tons longer to write anything because I’m back in the habit of wording and rewording my sentences to be, at least slightly, more grammatically correct.  Ugh. 

In other happenings, KC’s grandma moved to an eternal address last week.  KC had this strong impression that he should go up and see her two weekends ago, so he did.  She wasn’t in the best of health, and she was almost 93, but she seem to be still holding steady. Then, four days after he got back, we got a call that she was gone.  So I’m really glad he had one last chance to go up and see her. From all the stories I’ve heard from her family, in addition to my own experience from the times I was around her…well, it’s hard to know what to say.  I guess I could say she had a wicked sense of humor, never passed up a confrontation, embraced her age as a medal of honor, and was a master storyteller.  I think those things are safely truthful without speaking ill of the dead.  I loved her because she was KC’s grandma, but I wasn’t terribly fond of the way I saw her treat her family. Nevertheless, without her, my darling, sweet, handsome hubby wouldn’t exist, and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful.  

KC’s mom had open heart surgery on Friday to repair her mitral valve, and she’s already home, which really shocked me, but is awesome.  Hopefully it’s an omen of a speedy recovery to follow. 

That’s about it for today.  It’s lunchtime, the laundry needs attention, and the dogs could use a bath, so it’s going to be a full afternoon and I need to get started.

Have a lovely (less wet-dog-smell-y) afternoon…and if perhaps you want to share my pain: find a dog, spritz it with water, then bury your face in it’s fur for a good whiff of my world.

How It Goes

I’m ahead.  I quit. 

That was my facebook status but on the blog, I just have to elaborate a little more.  I took my “farther than a first draft” essay in to class today and the instructor went over it and said it’s well on it’s way to being great.  So I came home, pulled it up on my computer, and made some changes.  Then I left it up on my computer for the next five hours and walked by it every few minutes and stopped and typed something every once in a while and pondered and got up and cleaned the kitchen and sat and chatted…and typed a little more. 

And erased.  And pondered. 

And now….you know what?  I’m already ahead of the game, And you know the rule….quit while you’re ahead. 

So…I quit. 

But don’t worry…it will get finished before the deadline in a week and a half. =) 

Unofficial Bucket List Item

So I don’t really have a formal bucket list, but I do have a mental scattering of ideas that I’d like to accomplish or try at least once at some point of my life.  One of those ideas was ice skating, and a couple of my friends and I went up to the mountains for a ladies-only day this past Saturday and I got to check that one off my mental list. 

It was an absolutely fabulous day.  My mom and dad were wonderful and kept the kids for me, we went to a “Quarter Sale” at a local thrift shop and I found two bags full of sweet deals for only a quarter each (spent a grand total of $5.87…yay!), there was snow up in the mountains, grown-up girl time (in which we acted like children and strapped on instruments of torture to our feet and spent an hour and a half concentrating on not falling or breaking any bones), lunch at a nice restaurant with a killer view, hot donuts….it couldn’t have been more perfect! 

It was cold, but not miserable, and we were successful in not falling (even though there were a couple of close calls), so we were pretty proud of ourselves. 

I think I’d rather go rollerblading when it comes down to it, it’s just a lot smoother and I get better traction, but I’m really glad to have gotten the chance to try it.  Maybe it was the rental skates that made it more difficult, but we walked away in awe of the professional ice skaters because that is some slick stuff, I kid you not.  LOL

So…ice skating = CHECK.

Next item on my unofficial bucket list: college degree.  That one will take awhile, but at least I’m working on it.  =) 

Speaking of working on it, I’m ahead of my homework and I’m feeling really good about not procrastinating.  I’m also feeling really good about my second class (Art Appreciation) which just started today, because part of the grade is an art journal.  I thought this would just be a class observing and analyzing other people’s art, but getting to do some hands on stuff is exciting.  Sweeet!  

After All That Work

We finally have a completed project.  Yeah!  Now it’s time to sell it. =) 

House VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Bits And Pieces

Goodness.  It’s been a crazy sort of week, but in the midst of all the crazy, it’s hard not to see just how very blessed I am. 

Had class this morning and then left from there to go to a funeral (but more of a going away party) for a very loved and special sixteen year old.  It was beautiful and sad at the same time.  My heart is sad for the family but so happy for “Brother” because I know where he is now and that he has the complete healing that he didn’t have on earth.  I can just imagine him running and talking up there, two things that he was never able to do here, and I’m sure that his smile is more radiant now than ever. 

So I’m not one for tears very often, but today was very touching and I’m pretty sure I used up my annual allotment of eye raindrops. 

The instructor in class this morning said our homework tonight is to start on our first draft for the first essay….and we should start by just free-writing all our ideas. 

Mental vomit, he called it.  ROFL!  I almost laughed out loud in class.  I think I did actually snicker.  I should be really good at this….after all, it’s what I do in EVERY blog post. 

It’s what I’m doing now…(only about all the floating particles of happenings that are in my brain at the moment, NOT about the topic of my first essay). 

Speaking of happenings, KC is almost home from work, so I better go get changed.  We’ll probably have to go get some food since I, for sure, am not in the mood to cook at the moment.  Is there such a thing as mental ADD? 

Brainstorming

Make-up homework assignment for my missed classes is to brainstorm the following:
What am I all about?  What things do I do?  What things have I done? What things do I know about? What things do I want to know about?

You wouldn’t think these would be hard questions. Ugh. So here’s my lists in progress:

I am all about getting closer to God, taking care of my family, traveling to new places, knitting, reading, my church family, having a good time, scrabble, piano, Dr. Pepper, photography, photoshop, chocolate, drawing and doodling, being organized, thrift stores,

I read, blog, sleep, play with my kids, volunteer for Hospice, take my kids to school and appointments, try to walk with my friends at least once a week, take pictures, clean house, iron my husband’s clothes, practice playing the piano, sing, grow herbs, cook, help with homework, procrastinate, do laundry, do more laundry, love my dogs, tolerate the cat, spend hours on Pinterest, go to bed late, watch sappy chick flicks,

I have fallen in love, been married for 11+ years, gone on a mission trip to Haiti, been to NYC, had to have a pet put down, cried, spent 5 days in Las Vegas without drinking or gambling, had poison ivy, been knee-boarding, gone skiing, lost all my grandparents, been snorkeling in the Caribbean, sailed on the world’s largest cruise ship, stayed in a bed and breakfast, never attended a public school until college, tutored algebra, worked at a radio station for 10 years, had 9 foster kids in my home at one time or another, made my own scarves, never broken a bone, driven a manual transmission and prefer it over automatic, painted every room in our house, demolished a kitchen with a sledgehammer and enjoyed it, had mono,

I know about foster parenting, being organized, photoshop, scrapbooking, Hospice, card-making, 

I want to know about crocheting, better writing, winter gardening, a fast and easy way to gain patience (lol), photography, lighting for photography, illustrator, better designing, using fonts, how to increase IQ, how to get along with annoying people, ways to cure insomnia,

And the best part of brainstorming is getting other brains involved…these lists aren’t long enough and I need some more ideas…. =))  Have you made any of these sorts of lists?  Do you know me and see something I totally forgot to add? 

Reflections Of A Scattered Mind

I have a new favorite game when the kids want to play a game.

I like it so much, that tonight I talked KC into playing it with me WITHOUT the kids. (LOL)  He was very accommodating, bless it. 

He’s actually been very accommodating all day…except for the parts of the day when he was doing his best to annoy me.  He’s really good at that, too, sometimes…

It’s usually on the days when I am craving chocolate and Dr. Pepper for reasons other than because I just happen to like chocolate and Dr. Pepper.  LOL…so I guess the being annoying probably isn’t really his fault.  =)  But I’m not telling HIM that.  ;-)

So something else I really love right now is this beautiful scarf that Aunt C made for me….it’s hard to tell in this picture (instagram is awesome but the quality is just not great) that the color of it is black and brown and white and grey.  (If you’re reading this, thank you again, Aunt C!! Love it and love you! =)

Speaking of Aunt C, here we are at California Dreaming in Greenville, SC last weekend.  Hindsight, I should have taken the picture before we left the restaurant and saved us from the harsh sunshadows, but it’s too late now.  Ah well. 

New topic: Today. I woke up at the usual before daylight time and showered because it’s Friday and I was supposed to have class.  They told us yesterday that it was going to be an early release day at lunchtime for my kids, because of weather, but I was still going to be able to get back in plenty of time, so I wasn’t worried.  So I get the kids all ready and we back out of the garage and I realize it’s sleeting.  Rut-roh…not good.  Get halfway to school and the phone rings that they’re cancelling and sending all the kids back home.  So I come home and check the college website and they’re still having class…grr.  So I get ready and then leave at 8:15 and call mom on the way to her house to see if she’s home because my kids are going to hang out there for an hour (okay, I didn’t tell her, I ASKED, but I was pretty sure she’d say okay, which is why I called on the way)…lol.  Mom is awesome like that.  =)  So I get there and prepare for a rushed drop off so I can head to school except between my house and moms, the school posted the announcement that classes after 9am were cancelled.  Grr again…but it’s not sleeting at mom’s so I decided to stay and visit for a few minutes since I didn’t have to go anywhere else.  Stayed there until about 9:45 when KC called and said it was so bad out that his plant had closed early and he was on his way home…that’s when Mom shooed the kids and me out the door because she didn’t want us to be out if it was beginning to get bad.  =)  She loves me like that…even when I forget to call her after I get home to tell her she can stop worrying because I made it and she has to text me to remind me that I forgot so I can remember and call then. 

Fast forward through the rest of the day because it was annoying.  I was SOO productive all week and working on projects and then the hubby and kids are home earlier than planned and we all ended up being lazybones all day.  Grrr. 

I don’t know where I was going with that whole story. 

So I’ll just skip to class, which is what I’m thinking about right now.  Wednesday’s class, the teacher talked about the purposes of writing, and I figured out the purpose of my blog.  It’s reflection…and reflection isn’t typically written for an audience (think journals) so it’s just me rambling down my thoughts/random happenings/whatever, and it doesn’t matter if no one else understands it, since it’s mostly for my own benefit anyway. 

Also, in class on Wednesday, the instructor killed me.  He was demonstrating the invention of a topic and thesis and illustrations and he used me for an example of how dancing can be dangerous.  One girl got jail time, one guy lost his career, and I died from dancing.  Kind of ironic. LOL  He apologized after class about my unfortunate demise, and I don’t hold it against him…I’m just hoping it’s not a sign of my future in the class!  LOL

Okay, enough rambling for a night.  I changed my colors again and very nearly added something to the blog description regarding reflections of a scattered mind, but then I decided it wouldn’t fit in the space (even though it fits quite well in actuality) so I left the description alone and just changed the colors to ones I LOVE.  =)

I haven’t had a Dr. Pepper in five days.  I was hoping we WOULDN’T be iced in tonight so we could go out for dinner and I could get a drink…alas, it wasn’t to be.  I am still craving. 

Ack.  I’m going to stop talking now.  See ya.

Sapped

No school today, so I did what any good mom does on a kid’s vacation day—put them to work. 

Munchkin is getting really good at doing chores on her own and I have much less work now when I have to go behind her and finish up, K-man, however, is still clueless as ever.  Sometimes I wonder if he is just genuinely talented at acting clueless in order to have things done for him, but if he’s truly just acting, the kid could win an Oscar.  Argh. 

Needless to say, he was all about WANTING to help, but when it came right down to it, I did most of the work.  He used to be my OCD kid—everything in it’s place and lined up just so, as soon as he was finished playing with it.  Not anymore…he’s nearly as messy as his sister.  WAHHH…it’s a plot to drive me nuts. 

The sad part is….it’s working.  =O lol

It’s sucking all my energy just trying to stay sane.  Okay, so maybe the work probably has something to do with the sucking my energy, too.  And it sure is a lot of work keeping up with this huge house.  I am going to miss the space when we downsize, but I sure won’t miss the cleaning.  But we’ve got a lot of work to do to get to the point where downsizing is an option. 

If I can only summon the energy to get there. 

Weekly Review

Oh how quickly we do forget. 

Yes, I realize it’s Friday and I haven’t blogged since…uh…last Friday. 

Grr…I try so hard to keep these pesky resolutions, but this BI-weekly review is too easy to let slip.  It’s just been one of those weeks.  I kept thinking I will just blog tomorrow.  It’s been about 5 tomorrows and I just never got around to blogging. 

Snow day here today (all of 1/4 inch of snow—but there are portions of the county that are in the higher elevations, so it’s pretty common for us to get snow days without any snow that we can see). so the kids were out all day and thankfully college was delayed long enough for my class to be cancelled, so I didn’t have to shuffle my kids around so I could get to class. 

Tuesday night/Wednesday morning (love those middle of the night things), K-man woke up with a horrible sore throat and was having trouble breathing.  We almost took him to the ER, KC got dressed and everything, and then I guess the hot tea and advil kicked in and he sat up and said, “Yeah, I think I need an x-ray.”  The little twerp.  But his breathing was better so we decided to hold off until the pediatrician’s office opened the next morning.  So he was bouncing around and acting normal on Wednesday (except he said his throat still hurt) but he didn’t go to school so I went ahead and took him to the doctor.  Strep.  Joyful, joyful.  I don’t want my kids to be in pain but it’s a little annoying when they don’t act sick (ie: jumping up and down and excited that they don’t have to go to school because they want to watch movies and play with their toys.  LOL. 

Anyway, Monday’s class was the in class writing assessment.  It’s where you have to answer a question in a five paragraph essay in the 50 minutes of class time.  I guess they want to make sure you aren’t going home and getting your Great Aunt Betsy to write your papers for you to turn in, and that you actually know how to write.  Unfortunately for me, time constraints totally stress me out, and I totally blanked and then had to scramble to get something written.  Don’t know how that’s going to turn out, but see this blog post?  I am REALLY good at BAD writing.  *crazy face*

Not letting it stress me out though…it is what it is. 

Weekend was nice.  My friend turned 27 on Saturday and had a pizza on the grill party…it was fantastic and I just might have to borrow her idea for my “getting old'” party.  =) LOL  The level of awesome of her party had nothing at all to do with the beverages…okay…well, maybe a little.  Hahaha….sometimes I have superb self control.  Saturday was NOT one of those days.  ROFL. 

Anyway, that’s the story since I last posted and now it’s another weekend.  Hopefully I’ll have more to say before NEXT weekend.  =)  =)  I’m TRYING.  Honest. 

Oh and I’m still having crazy dreams…I don’t know why in the world I have suddenly started having sleeping issues but if this is what getting old does to you, I need to find that fountain of youth. 

Maybe I’ll just go dream about it now. 

Que Sera Sera

So I guess I spoke too soon…enter exhibit A

Note the under eye bags and giant Dunk-uccino.  Another night of crazy dreams (following a couple other nights of crazy dreams) and waking up at odd hours with a headache. 

Last night we went on a vacation in the mountains.  In our cabin on the side of the mountain, I watched the storm out the window and cringed helplessly while three giant trees fell on the cabin.  I was immediately very relieved that none of the family were hit by the trees and that the cabin owners were outside right away cutting up the tree and removing it.  But then we were leaving in the car and I was driving along a four-lane road down the mountain using my knees, when a bus pulled up in the lane along side me and turned off it’s lights, leaving everything in the dark.  That’s when I realized my lights were off, but my hands were tied (hence the driving with the knees) and I couldn’t get to the lights to turn them on.  I panicked, screamed at KC to please reach over and turn the lights on or else we were gonna wreck because I couldn’t see diddly squat.  Then I woke up with my head pounding in tandem with my heart and I tossed and turned for the remainder of the 3 hours left until my alarm buzzed. 

Good morning, coffee and dark circles. 

That’s what I get for saying it was getting better.  That’s how it always works!  LOL. 

But the professor let class off early today, so I only had to work at staying awake for 35 minutes instead of 50.  I’ll not complain.  TGIF. =)

On the topic of class though, it’s basic English class, right?  So I should be fine…except…I was thinking about it on the way home and I have been practicing HORRIBLE writing (AKA mindless typing/brain dump) for like six years on this blog.  I am going to have to do some serious work on decent writing skills…I’m pretty sure the professor will frown on using DOT DOT DOT to continue related…or unrelated….thoughts…..BWAHAHAHAA. 

First writing assessment in class essay will be on Monday…FINGERS CROSSED.  See?  There I go again.  UGH. 

Ah well.  Whatever will be, will be.  ;-)