Happy Birthday Sis!!

Kinda funny how when I was looking for a picture of you from when you were young I had all these pics of our baby sister and just a few of you. So you either hid from the camera a lot or somehow pics I've taken/received have disappeared...hmmmm. Or our baby sis was such a ham that she just jumped in front of the camera at every single opportunity leaving no time for someone to get a pic of you. Yeah that's more likely, huh.
Anyway I know ya'll are dealing with no power and ice and snow and nasty stuff like that today. But I hope you have a good birthday anyway. I'll sit down here in my nice warm, powered house browsing the internet, playing with the kiddies and thinking of ya. ;) . I may even bake a cake in your honor.

I need to get a move on...

It appears my baby sis is already working out a plan to beat me at knitting the first pair of socks.  So I guess I need to hurry up and decide on a pattern (there are just way too many beautiful ones out there) and get knitting.  I already have the yarn and the needles and a technique I want to try. If only I didn't already have so many UFOs going on I would put socks on the needle.  In my defense, I do have a lot on my plate with more getting added to it on a near daily basis it seems...most of it my own doing I think, lol.

Not too bad

   At least not as bad as I thought it would be.  This week could of been a lot better if I didn't have this cold though.  This cold has seriously gotten me thinking about going back on the Blood Type diet.  On that plan my sinuses didn't bother me, I slept great and had a ton of energy (and lost some weight so that's good too).  The hardest thing about it was sticking with it because I'm the only one in my bunch that has type O blood.  Everyone else are A's (lucky, it means they have a much easier to get food list....try fixing meals with no wheat or corn).   I need to do that or give the Eat-Clean plan a better try...I'll probably do that as the nearest health food store is a 45 minute drive and Krogers' spelt flour is high.  I'm doing much better about my sugar, I think anyways.  In my coffee instead of sugar I'm using stevia.  It's sweeter and no nasty aftertaste like artificial sweeteners.  Still more sugar then I should in other things but I'm working on it...baby steps.

   School was good this week.  I messed up in English this morning, though.  The professor asked what we thought the "simple operation" in Hemingway's "The Hills Like White Elephants" was referring to.  Well, I had thought the lady was going to have a lobotomy...because they(the characters) kept talking how everyone who had the operation were happier afterwards and she could say things like the hills look like elephants and how she would be happy and they could be like they were before.  She also seemed rambly and depressed and angry...I don't know the story just didn't shout out abortion to me.  I mean "everyone is happy after they had it done." does not strike me that way.  Then I had to think while I was talking to my sister about this...this story is written by a man with a man's point-of-view/opinion so a woman's feelings would not be included in it.   So that could be the reason that I couldn't see the hints and clues as to what the short story was about.    Oh well, I'll try to do better next time.  I did all right on the other short story we had to read "Civil Peace" by Chinua Achebe.  I liked that one better as well.  

Well I'm off to figure out what I'm going to fix for dinner and see how the kiddies day went.  My youngest son  just came up to me wanting to now how to spell store. He's making a sign for a 100cent store.  I guess that's another way of saying Dollar store.

What a week it'll be

Maybe it won't be so bad, I'm just worried a bit that's all.  I was thinking while I was at work today that tomorrow is going to kinda suck.  Because tomorrow I will have homework.  Friday was the first day of class so we didn't really do much just introductions and such.  So Tomorrow is the first real day of class for my two morning classes.  It will be the first class for my Wednesday night class, but it's a 3 hour class so I'm sure there will be time for the teacher to assign work.  I still have to sign in to my Nutrition class for today and go over chapter one.  

It won't be bad I'm pretty sure.  I just cannot let these feelings of being overwhelmed get to me and just take one thing at a time.  It's doable, thousands of women/moms/men/dads work and go to college and pass with great grades.  I know I can do it and still have time for my kids and hubby and housework ('cause I'm superwoman, right..not).  

On a brighter note...wasn't today great?  We have a new president!!  One that for the first time in my adult life(yea I'm only thirty so that means I've had the chance to vote a total of like 3 times) I feel has the potential to take our country somewhere besides down the sewer drain.  I'm so glad Obama was elected...the thought of McCain being president was frightening to me.  Also it snowed today.  A beautiful fluffy snow.  No rain, ice, sleet just big beautiful snowflakes.  The best thing...it was gone by noon.  If only it could of snowed on christmas like this.  And it will be near 50 tomorrow so that's great too.

I also heard that Tim McGraw might, one day, run for governor of Tennessee.  Now that'd be interesting.  Hee, hee a ton of redneck, hillbilly, country ideas ran through my head just this moment.  Tim McGraw for governor, wouldn't the late night talk show hosts eat that one up.  

Brrrr

They say we are going to have the coldest night/day in 6 years.  That sucks.

Wordless Wednesday

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  The parent-teacher meetings went well last night.  My youngest son is getting better at reading.  I get the feeling that his regular teacher doesn't care for the resource teacher much.  I think she thinks that he's not being pushed enough to show what he can do.  she says she knows he can do much more then what he is.  I know he can do much more, I also know that he will only do as much as he has to.  So if he's being told something is good enough then he'll stop there.  What he needs is to be told that he should do more.  

Middle son's teacher had nothing but good things to say about him.  I think she adores him but then again who doesn't.  Also had the meeting to go over the test results for his gifted testing and he didn't get into the program.  He came like 10 points under the needed score.  It was his processing score that brought it down.  Basically he takes  his time analyzing everything to make sure it's just right before he gives an answer.  The lady that had worked with him asked me if he likes everything to be just right at home or things done in a certain order.  I had to think about it a second but really he does.  It doesn't help that we have a schedule/routine that we don't differ from.   It's not wrote down or set in anyway it's just the way we do things that happen to be at nearly the exact minute everyday.  If it varies more then say 15 minutes everyone's day is thrown off I can tell...everyone is cranky and crabby and fighting and nothing seems to go right.  So I try my best to not change anything time wise.  His teacher said that he has his perimeter so to speak in class, lol.  Basically he has everything he needs to do work or play around him and gets upset when someone disturbs it.  Hmm kinda sounds like someone I know...especially when I was younger and had to share a room with my three sisters.

My dear, dear daughter.   Beautiful, smart, witty little girl that she is.  Her teachers displayed a combination of pride and frustration that everyone who gets to know her feels about her.  She's a very smart girl and while she made honor roll it was a bit of a disapointment.  Because, she should of made principal's list(which is all a's).  Her teachers say that she doesn't always focus on what should be going on in class.  Instead she's fiddling with her bracelet, reading a book when she should be doing math, looking in her desk, etc...  If she would only assert herself a little more just a tiny bit more, she would do wonderfully instead of good enough (yea there seems to be a pattern going on with my children).  Her teacher said for some of her students a "B" would be awesome but for my daughter it's not acceptable because she can do better.  So I have some smart, but lazy, kiddies.

My oldest son's meetings are tonight so more fun.

I got a kitty cat today.  A little kitten that I am going to name Sissy I think.  Sissy, Sister something like that anyhow.  I got her so our other kitty, Jane, can have a companion.  So...3 dogs, 2 cats, a goat and a hamster and a handful of fish.  I think we're pretty good in the animal department now.  Well, except, I'm thinking about getting a  couple chickens.   I haven't brought this idea up with Hubby yet.  I figure I'll tell him after I get a coop made and a area cleared off in back for them.  I don't want many just a couple hens so that we can have eggs.  I'm a mess I know.

Back to School This Week

Thursday classes start again, and I'm determined not to stop going until I earn a little white cap to place on my head.  Well I have one class I can go to on Thursday my other classes are not till Friday.  I'm all excited and nervous and well I don't know.   It'll be fun and I've got to make great grades. 

Today, or well late this afternoon almost evening,  I have parent-teacher meetings to go to.  All four of them all in like a two hour time span.  I think my middle sons will go well as I've not had any notes from his teacher really.  My youngest son takes some time 'cause he has more then one teacher, I have to speak with his resource teacher as well.  My daughter's teacher will probably want to discuss dd's recent lack of ambition streak and forging hubby and I's initials on her reading log.  Silly girl.  My oldest son's teachers will probably want to go over his reading and math 'cause apparently he scored below grade level on the TCAP.  I'm not worried about tcap 'cause standardized testing sucks and is a poor tool to use to evaluate a students progress/knowledge of subjects.  I do know he struggles with math and I'm not sure why his reading scores are down because he reads all the time.  I'm leaning towards possibly test anxiety. Because they have to read a book and take a test on the computer.  I don't know whatever happened to good old-fashioned book reports.  I really wish they would bring them back... if nothing else it gives kids a reason to have to improve their handwriting.  With everything going to computers we'll end up with a bunch a five year olds who cannot write their name on paper but can type 60wpm. 

Anyway guess I outta figure out something to throw into the crockpot as I won't feel like cooking dinner when I get home sometime after 6 tonight.

T.G.I.F.

This week has been a bit frustrating.  I've been trying to get fin. aid all straightened out so I can attend classes next week.  Well Wednesday I get told that I need to have my h.s. transcript sent in before they can approve/award any financial aid.  Classes had to be paid for by Thursday. Well I get that done and go up there Thursday after work to see whats up and if I need to pay the 50% needed for classes.  The lady in the office said that everything seemed okay and that I would have to sign a contingency form on the 14th.  Well her manner and the way she said it kinda struck me funny.  She wasn't rude or anything but something about her told me she was either new or just not confident with what she was doing.  I get home after getting the kids and all of us going out for tacos and there's a message on the machine telling me to call the financial aid office.  I call them this morning and it turns out I needed to sign that form sooner then that.  So I drive up to the college and the main campus faxes over the form I need to sign and the campus I will be going to faxes it back so everything should be good for now.  

    On another college-related note I found a site that rents textbooks and plants a tree for every book you borrow/rent from them.  It's http://www.chegg.com and I recommend them.  I got three of the books I needed from them for 149.xx (including tax and s&h) and 3 trees were planted in my honor.  So I saved around 70-100 dollars (depending if I was to buy the books used or new) and when the semester is over I just mail the books back, no worrying if the bookstore will buy them back or if I'm stuck with these expensive books that I'll most likely never open again.

A bit on the silly side today...I accidentally wore two watches today and didn't realize it until 2-3 hours later.  I put them on sometime between 7am-8am.  I guess I saw one and put it one, then saw the other one and thought I guess I should put my watch one(they weren't in the same place/room), if I thought at all.  I didn't realize this until around 10am when I was at wal-mart and thought to look at my watch to see what time it was.  Funny thing is I still haven't taken one off, I guess since I've wore them this long...

I had a creative streak today as well and finished the picture frame I did for my aunt's secret santa gift.  Yeah, I'm a bit of a procrastinator....but hey, at least it's done before next Christmas, right.

Here's a pic of it:

It's got a little bit of color in it.  Very little, the colored pencils I used weren't my watercolor pencils (kids thought those made good regular colored pencils and took them) so it shows up super light.  That's okay this way the wood grain and the wood burn show up and the picture is the main thing not the frame. You don't want the picture frame to out shine the picture it's framing right?  I think it looks nice anyway...it's much nicer in person for some reason woodburned/pyrography art never looks the same in photos as they do when you see it first hand.  I guess that goes for all artwork though.  I love going to art museums and seeing landscapes but seeing that same pic online doesn't give me the same feeling.  Gotta see the brush strokes (or burn marks) I guess to get the same vibes from it.

    

Wordless Wednesday

Our first ice of 2009....well actually the first of this season too.

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Getting Started

Five days into 2009 and I'm finally getting started on my goals.  So far today I've worked out for 30 minutes using The Biggest Loser Boot Camp DVD.  It has 3 levels that you do for 6 weeks.  To tell you the truth I almost didn't make it through the 30 minutes.  I started to think wow I'm not going to make it and then it the display button on the remote and saw that I was 22 minutes into it and started telling my self only 8 minutes to go, only 5 minutes, only 2 minutes...I DID IT.  I sweated my legs were all shaky 'cause this workout is lunge and squat heavy.  I feel great now though and like I've accomplished something.  I feel strong.  I love how working out and sweating makes you feel that way.

I started another sparkpeople.com account.  I closed out my old one and started fresh.  I posted some before pictures on there and oh do I hate those pics.  I see way more rolls of fat then I wish to.  Next time someone asks me why I'm trying to lose weight and get in shape and where do I have 30-40lbs to lose.  I will direct them to my sparkpeople page and say, "See there it is, there's those 30-40lbs, there's where I need to tone up right there."  I look much better in my scrubs then I do in a sports bra and yoga/sweat pants.  I'll add the link to it on my sidebar...my before pics are there they don't need to be here, lol.