Pondering...

I'm thinking about enrolling in a LPN class. The technical school in a town up the road is enrolling for all courses it says on it's sign. I'm just really not sure if I want to go the LPN to RN route or just enroll in a Rn(BSN) program. The LPN course is only 12 months and I'll make probably close to 3x as much as I am now, which will make paying for a RN course a lot easier. The hours are M-F 8a-2:30p which are perfect 'cause I would not need to pay for daycare(the kids get on the bus at about 6:40a and are home between 3:25p-3:30p). I could still work weekends for a while(just couldn't sleep on Mondays, sleep is over-rated, right?). Anyway, I think I'll go for it. My grades are horrible(had a bad semester last time I was in college) and so it would take a lot of work to get into a college for an Rn program so the Lpn to Rn route may be easier for me.
Well I think that's it for today, I've got a training class to go to for work this morning. Oh and btw I'm selling Tupperware once more. So, if you want to check out what we have to offer go here http://www.mytupperware.com/jackiefrench . You can do an online party and earn the hostess gifts ;)

Crazy 8 MeMe

8 Things I’m Passionate About:
1. My Hubby
2. My Kiddies
3. Education
4. Getting Healthy
5. Taking care of people
6. Drawing
7. Enjoying life
8. Making Friends

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die:
1. Finish College
2. Learn to play violin
3. Go to Ireland
4. Visit, and take my kids to, all the major tourist places in the US (Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Disney World, etc)
5. Take an art class
6. See a Broadway show
7. Get to know all the family members on my father's side that I haven't met.
8. Climb a mountain

8 Things I Say Often:
1. I love you
2. NO
3. What were you thinking
4. Ya'll are nuts
5. Put that down
6. quiet it down
7. Let me look it up
8. I don't know

8 Books I’ve Read Recently:
1. The Eat-Clean Diet
2. Labyrinth
3. Dream-Hunter or something like that by Sherilyn Kenyon
4. Fitness mag-okay so it's not a book
5. Country Living
6. Highland Wolf
7.In My Wildest Fantasies
8. Every Blog and news headline that I see it seems

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over:
1. Living on a Prayer-Bon Jovi
2. 18 and Life-Skid Row
3. What Do Ya Think About That - Montgomery Gentry
4. You Wouldn't Know- HellYeah
5. Poison- Alice Cooper
6. Is There Life Out There-Reba McIntyre
7. anything by Johnny Cash
8. Unforgiven- Metallica

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends
1. Sense of Humor
2. Their confidence
3. Honesty
4. Trustworthiness
5. Loyalty
6. Their love for all their friends
7.How they stand up for the underdog(all my friends do this I realize, I just haven't thought of it really before)
8. Their strength

8 People that I think should do Crazy 8s
1. I don't know who to put here.
2. So I guess if your reading this and want to do it...
3. go ahead.
4. Have
5. A
6. Nice
7. Day
8. Alrighty then.

My Handsome Lil Man

My middle son's class are doing reports on famous people today and each were to dress as their chosen person. My son chose Milton Hershey. Well the picture in the book just showed a guy in a suit, so we went to Goodwill and bought a jacket and some dress pants and a white button down shirt. He looks so handsome in it, which you may not be able to see too well in this little picture but that's okay, lol. He wanted a tie but all they had at the store was regular ties, no clip-ons and I didn't feel like going to Wal-mart to get one. Neither Hubby nor I know how to tie a tie. Anyway, I just had to share one of my pride and joys with ya'll. He's going to grow into a knock-out.

The Eat-Clean Diet

Yea I'm a sucker for flashy book covers and diet books that promise success and stories of 200lb or + women who have lost all the weight and kept it off for years. Everyone swears that theirs is the only way to lose weight, the best way to do it and so on. But this book/diet I think I could actually do...in the past year I've tried a couple different diets, the Blood Type diet (which I really liked but unless everyone in your household is the same blood type it's really hard to do and I'm the only O in my house, but I felt good, lost weight and slept better on this diet) and the really old Beverly Hills diet (some may remember it as the pineapple diet, I only tried this one for a week if that, too many no's). This author of this book doesn't tell you not too eat anything really, well except junk (potato chips, donuts, soda pop stuff you know is bad for you but eat anyway). She encourages fresh veggies and fruits, ground turkey instead of beef, hot cereal instead of box cereal and flax seed, bee pollen and wheat germ. I really think I could get my whole bunch on this eating plan. There are no big calorie restrictions (I believe I read 1880-2200 or something like that and that seems like a lot to me since most diet plans are 1200-1500 cal's a day). Your suppose to eat 6 times a day or every 3 hours but not after 6 pm(she includes a bedtime snack in the two-week meal plan but says only if your actually hungry, I think after eating every 3 hours you should not be hungry).
I like the way the books wrote, lots of charts and lists, not too technical. It’s written so if you've only had high school science you’re good. Compared to the Blood Type diet where a college level knowledge of chemistry is helpful, lol.
I think I'll start this on Friday. My only thought is what about the weekends...I work 7p-7a on Saturday and Sundays. I think I should turn the eating plans around on these days and do it overnight when I'm up compared to during the day when I sleep(well I only sleep for maybe 4hours). I'm noticing on these days I'm not losing the water weight I usually do when I sleep ( I'll weigh anywhere from 3-8lbs less in the morning then what I do at night, lately I'm weighing about the same, I don't like that obviously). I think though if I nibble on baby carrots or turkey slices or something healthier then I have maybe I can combat that. I don't drink soda at work; I've mostly been drinking coffee, water and hot chocolate or green tea. I don't know I'll get it figured out; I just need to get started. I'm tempted to buy diet pills but I don't really want to. Last time I did, I didn't like the way they made me feel so it's scared me off of them for a while.
Well, if anyone wants to check this book out its The Eat-Clean Diet by Tosca Reno her websites are www.toscareno.com, and www.eatcleandiet.com . In a few months I'll have a garden full of veggies so this will be pretty easy for me to follow, plus the farmers around here will begin selling their produce on the roadside. Lots of yummy Ripley tomatoes, can't wait.

Will You Be My Friend?

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a perpetual first day of school? You know the feeling, when you walk into a classroom and know no one in there and can feel everyone staring at you, judging you and you just don't know what to do, say. Yeah that's about how I'm feeling right now. I want to start a walking/jogging program kinda thing, but I don't want to do it by myself. Both for safety reasons and 'cause it's more fun if you have someone to work-out with. I could bring one of the puppies, but they're dachshunds and looking like they are going to be the miniature variety. So yea a short walk is fine but most likely I would end up carrying them and getting licked to death half the time. Another thing is ...have you ever seen a dachshund walk? They're short little legs they don't really move that fast, fast enough for them but if I wanted to jog/run they would have trouble keeping up for long. One more thing, they're small and don't bark much, if someone was to threaten me they would provide little or no protection. They would most likely run and hide, lol. Well, no Casper would great the person. Cheyenne is more shy but not for long.
Another dilemma I have is; I'm shy. Less so then I was a few years ago, but still enough I do not like to go up and introduce myself to people. Well, no, I like to meet people, it’s the walking up to them and saying hi and doing the small talk thing. It's easier with people I work with or have a class with because you'll see them again or at least have one thing in common. Take my neighbors for an instance; I met one of the ones on the right, the husband. He came over and introduced himself one day when the kids and I were outside. His wife I assume is home all day or most of the day. I assume this because I see their 6 year old daughter playing outside once and a while. They also have a teenage son and a teenage daughter with disabilities. He seemed nice enough but I've still yet to introduce myself to his wife. I'm hoping when the weather gets warmer and stays warmer they'll be outside more and I'll meet her then. The other neighbors I have yet to meet, but the one neighbor said they won't come out and introduce themselves unless they need something.
Two of my kids don't have this problem, my dd and my middle son. Dd has already gotten phone numbers of two other girls who live on the same street as us. My middle son has introduced himself to the teenage son of the neighbor on the left. My oldest and youngest aren't exactly shy but cautious. My youngest will tell someone his name and age and then until he meets the person again that'll be about all he says. My oldest will talk to someone new if he's been around him/her for a few minutes. The only time Hubby seems shy is when we are at a school function, lol. Maybe it has something to do with teachers and PTA moms I don't know.
Anyway one of my goals this spring is to meet new people that I don't work with. Not saying the ladies I work with aren't great, it's I'm trying to get out of my comfort zones. This means forcing myself to meet people. Acquainting myself with coworkers is an easy way out.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary....

Well I'm not Mary, I may be quite contrary...I can't wait to see my garden grow. I've got a case of spring fever, bad. I'm so tired of dreary gray skies, gray landscapes and brown grass. I want to see some green and lots of color. The daffodils should be blooming pretty much any day now, I'm hoping we have a few in our yard. I've already wintersown a few pumpkin seeds, french radish (okay that's not the exact name it's just what I wrote down in my gardening notebook) seeds, broccoli, beefsteak tomatos, asparagus, Juanne Flamme tomatos, marville lettuce (again not quite the right name), and morning glory seeds. Of these my lettuce, my broccoli and the radishes have sprouted.
I'm waiting for my Valentine's day present my hubby said he was going to get me...a tiller, lol. Yep no need to buy me flowers just get me the tools to grow them myself. I've already have my veggie garden planned out in my head...it's going to be about 20'x20' or so( big enough but not so big that I feel overwhelmed by it). It's going to have about two rows of corn, about 4 zucchini plants, a couple cucumbers, lots of tomatos, a row of lettuce, a row of broccoli, a few green bean plants, peppers of all sorts of varieties and a row of carrots. Then some where I'm going to have a melon patch for cantaloupe and watermelon and a small herb garden for my chamomile, peppermint, valerian, basil, garlic, sunflowers, dill and whatever else I decide to put in it.
I've not quite figured out how I'm going to put my flower beds. I want to put like semi-dry creek where the run off ditch is. It has water in it so it's not going to be a dry bed. I'll either need to make a trip to Mo and find some big rocks or bite the bullet and buy some. We don't have rocks here...at least none that, were not brought in, that are bigger then a pebble. Makes gardening interesting...and a lot different from where I grew up.
Where I grew up you couldn't hardly dig more then a few inches in the ground with all the rocks. You won't hit many rocks here, but if you try to dig in the middle of summer when we are in our dry season have fun...this clay dirt gets so hard and compacted it's nearly impossible. Everywhere has it's difficulties though, one of my sisters lives on the east coast...about all she has is sand. With 2 kids, 3 dogs and a husband I'm sure she wants to tie vaccuum cleaners to their bottoms once they step inside the house.
Well I think this enough for a day, I need to check on my seedlings. Oh and plant these strawberry and tomato started kit things we saw and bought at Wal-mart yesterday. With any luck and Mother Nature willing I'll begin to have fresh veggies in May. Maybe sooner.

I'm Back!!!

It's been such a very, very long time. We finally got the landline in and now I'm on dial-up. Sucks really but it's basically all we got here, aren't small towns great. Anyway we're moved in and settling in slowly but surely. I'm liking my new job so far, lots of training classes but that's okay. I'll post more later and I'll be reading everyone's blogs trying to catch up.