While I’m Taking a Short Break… Sunday, Jan 27 2008

Just wanted to post a quick update before I get back to homework.  Which, of course, means I’m probably going to bitch talk about school.

It’s all I’ve done all weekend!  Okay, maybe not quite all, but certainly pretty close to it.  I did manage to fit in a movie last night – The Pursuit of Happyness.  Very, very good.  I cried.  I love movies like that.  I would have liked to have seen a little more “after” his success, but I guess that part of his life sorta speaks for itself.  I have two other movies that came in Saturday afternoon from Netflix.  And let me just say, lovin’ the Netflix.  I mailed the three movies we had here on Thursday and by Saturday they had three new ones at my house.  I am impressed.

So, let’s see…Friday.  Friday, I cleaned my bathroom, and vegged in front of the TV until about 2pm, then I finally got my arse in gear and got going on homework.  It’s a good thing I did, too, because my two education classes, which are mostly on-line, are really taking a chunk of time.  I spent, roughly, 4 hours on Survey of Reading on Friday afternoon, and that was just for one assignment.  If I hadn’t gotten the other assignments that are due next week done already, it probably would have been more than 6 hours of work for that class!

Once I finished with Survey of Reading, I took a look at what I was going to need to do for Computer Use in the Classroom.  I hadn’t done any work in that class all week, and what a mistake that was!  I quickly came to the conclusion that there was no way I was going to get all of it done on Friday, so I did what I could and got about halfway through the reading.  When I got up Saturday morning, I did my Bible study whilst drinking my coffee, spent some quiet time in my room, praying, and then got back to work.  Yes, I know it was Sabbath.  I spent the rest of the day on the assignments for this class.  Yes, the REST of the day.  For one quiz and three assignments.  This class…if I don’t keep up with it, it’s going to break me.  Anyway, once I finished, I took a look at the next unit that we’re supposed to be working on next week, and it’s even longer.  So, it looks like I’m just going to have to make time to work on it during the week. 

Today, I got up, grabbed a cuppa, and got right to work.  By noon, I’d finished the homework for Astronomy, and two hours later, Differential Equations was done.  I have one more problem to work out in Problem Solving, then I have to do my “write-ups” which are time-consuming and can be difficult.  They involve explaining your reasoning and logic for solving the problem the way you did.  Explaining how my brain works is not the easiest thing to do! 

And now, I’m at a stopping point on homework and with the laundry that has been going since last night (after sundown. I DO put regular work on hold for Sabbath, after all!), so I’m running to Humble to the Wal-Mart there in the hopes that I can find non-frozen TV dinner-ish lunches for the next couple of weeks. 

Leave a Response »

 

Weird Wednesday Wednesday, Jan 23 2008

It’s been a weird week.  I think it’s because Monday was a holiday, but I’m not sure.  And I can’t exactly pinpoint why the week has been weird.  It’s been productive - seriously productive - but remarkably laid-back.  Weird.

Like I said, Monday was a holiday, but I took advantage of it and ran errands.  The kiddo and I got our hairs cutted (love the grammar!).  And then we headed next door and made Wal-Mart a little richer.  We had a little windfall that let me pick up some things that we’ve needed for several months, but I’ve been putting off buying.  The kiddo was down to his last couple of pairs of jeans that fit.  (Carrie, I have a couple of bags of clothes for you!)  His one and only hoodie was starting to act more like a straightjacket than a wind-breaker.  He had no socks sans holes.  His sneakers looked like something the gutter digested last week, but gagged back up yesterday because they were unpalatable.  And the hubby needed a few things as well.  There were things I needed for the bathroom – a new shower curtain liner, for one – that I was also able to get.  And I was able to get some grocercies for the house, so that was nice too.  I still need to find my way to a PetCo or PetSmart to buy a FurMinator for the cats, but I can do that this coming weekend, I think.

I was so glad to finally be able to get this shopping trip out of the way.  It’s a huge task that I can finally mark off my list!

Tuesday was exhausting.  It’s the one day of the week that I have three classes and the first part of the day, I’m in class constantly from 8am until 1pm.  There’s just no way around it – Tuesdays are going to wear me out.  Expect to hear me whine about it again next week, ’cause guaranteed I will.  I did get a bunch of stuff done on the short break that I had.  None of it culminated in a complete assignment, but it was a lot of the prep work required for me to do so.  Today was more of the same.  I only had Differential Equations to go to, but I headed up to school around noon, got more prep work done plus two assignments for Survey of Reading, then met with my study buddies to do the homework for Diff Eqs.  The homework was…actually not too bad.  We all got stuck on this one problem, but apparently everyone else did, too.  And I left class today actually understanding the majority of what we did, which is simply amazing.  Tomorrow, I’m going to school early again to get my the reading assignment for Astronomy done before class.  I’ll never get it done here, there’s always something else I could be doing.  Petting a cat, for instance.  After Astronomy, I’ll head back to the computer lab to do the write-ups for my Problem Solving homework.

And let me just say that I love my Problem Solving class.  It’s like taking a class where all you have to do is solve brain-teasers and puzzles all day.  And then explain to everyone else in class what you did to solve it.  Fantastic!

Outside of school…and shopping…things have been as normal as they ever get around here. 

The times they are a-changin’.  I really feel for my husband these days.  He exhibits such self control during bedtime, considering he’s sleeping with the sexiest thing this side of the Rio Grande.  Picture me, in my pink, nearly floor-length nightgown.  It covers me fron neck to mid-calf because I hate short nightgowns.  It’s cotton, too!  The fabric for lovers, you know.  Because if I slept in satin, I’d slither right off the bed, initiating an earthquake that California would shudder at, and confusing the scientists.  This nightgown would make my granny proud.

The cuticles around my fingernails have a tendency crack, split and often bleed.  So, I put thick, medicated cream or petroleum jelly on my hands overnight.  To keep from mussing the sheets, I wear soft, cotton gloves.  To bed.  In my granny nightgown. 

Continuing with the bad skin theme, I have a tendency to break out.  Some call it “adult acne”.  I call it “sucks from hell”.  To combat break-outs, I use a medicated spot-treatment.  It is a white cream that never completely rubs in.  So my face often has white streaks and dots on it from the dried cream.  I’m a vision of loveliness with my polka-dotted face, in my white gloves and granny nightie. 

I often have bouts of insomnia.  When I’m in an “insomnia cycle,” every little thing will wake me up.  Every time I wake up, I am startled, sending adrenaline rushing through my system, causing my body to think that it itches from head to toe.  I have found that a good pair of earplugs helps this.  Earplugs do not come flesh-colored.  They come in such lovely colors as neon yellow and orange, screaming blue, stick a fork in your eyes green, and, to my delight, hot pink – for the ladies.  Picture it: Neon colors screaming from my ears, polka-dotted face, white gloves and granny nightie.  Mmm-MMMM!

To top things off, I’ve developed the annoying habit of grinding/gritting my teeth at night.  I was waking up with terrible, pounding headaches and I noticed a notch forming on the back of my front, top teeth.  Not good.  So, now I wear a night guard to bed.  It makes me drool.  And I talk like I just learned English this afternoon when it’s in my mouth.  And it makes my top lip stick out so that you can just see the edges of my top teeth.  Which are blue because the plastic the night guard is made of is…blue.  With my screaming yellow earplugs, my white-dotted face, in my cotton gloves, wearing my granny nightgown, I have now added the insult of drooling, babbling, monkey lips and blue teeth. 

Dear Lord, please bless my husband, because he deserves it!

2 Responses »

 

End of Week Wrap-Up Thursday, Jan 17 2008

Well, my first week is done, and I survived.  I’m tired, but not bone-tired, so my classes aren’t killing me yet.  I had Astronomy and Problem Solving today.  I still don’t have a handle on what Astronomy has in store for me because all we’ve done so far is watch last season’s finale of “The Universe” from the History Channel.  It’s a good show and pretty well done, but I don’t feel like we’re getting anywhere.  I should count my blessings, right?  At least I don’t have major homework yet.  All I have to do so far is reading. 

I have a 4-day weekend because of MLK Jr. day on Monday.  That’s good because I have work to do for all of my classes.  I don’t even know what all I need to do right now.  I’m a little frustrated because I bought a new student planner for 2008 but the space I have to write in is a little on the small side.  I’m going to give it another couple of weeks to see if I adjust, but right now it’s quite annoying.  I’m not writing stuff in it because I don’t have enough space.  Yet I have too much work to keep up with to trust my less-than-perfect memory with it all. 

I took the kiddo to school this morning, then took myself to school.  So I was there by 8am, didn’t have class until 11:30am, and got quite a lot of work done in the meantime.  I got the rest of my course materials for Computer Use in the Classroom printed and a survey response for Astronomy written and printed.  When I was done printing in the computer lab, I found a comfy chair in one of the common areas and settled down to tackle the reading assignment for Astronomy.  It took a lot less time than I thought it would, so once I was through, I made my way to the classroom I have Astronomy in.  There was a class still in there but they were just finishing, so I waited for them to clear out and then found a seat and went back over the reading assignment to take brief notes.  At that point, I had about 45 minutes until class began.  After about 20 minutes, my teacher came in and started getting the equipment set up to show us the movie.  Class began, we got another reading assignment and we watched the movie.

After Astronomy, I found a table in one of the Atriums and ate lunch while listening to a podcast.  When I was through eating, I cleaned things up and decided to make good use of the table.  So, I pulled out the stuff for Problem Solving and got the homework done.  It was only four problems, but each one takes quite a bit of writing in order to answer it properly.  We can’t just show our work and the answer; we have to give full explanations of why we worked the problem the way we did, what our logic process was, etc.  It’s a full page of writing for each problem.  Once that was done, I supposed I could have gotten started on Differential Equations, but I had about 45 minutes before class started so I decided to chill for a while.  So, I grabbed a campus newspaper and turned on my iPod to listen to more podcast.  I never did read the paper because the podcast was just too distracting – but in a good way.

Problem Solving is going to be a great class.  There’s so much I am already learning!  I’ve read ahead (even though the teacher said not to) and I can just tell that I’m going to benefit from this class so much. 

Well, that was my day today.  Not terribly exciting, but purposeful and productive.  My two favorite “P” words!

One Response »

 

I’m Getting Sleeeeeepy…… Wednesday, Jan 16 2008

Well, I finally met my Differential Equations teacher.  She’s of Eastern European descent - Russian, or something along those lines.  And she writes funny on the chalkboard.  Otherwise, she’s okay so far.  I don’t know what this portends for the future of this class, but we all pretty much walked away tonight thoroughly confused.  I think she was trying to make up for the fact that she missed Monday, but it could have been done in a way other than rushing through the material.  She really should have just given us her syllabus and told us to read it on our own time and to ask her questions after class instead of taking the time to read it to us.  That time could have been used for instructional purposes.  Just sayin’.

Overall, I’m can already tell that I’m going to have to work my butt off in this class, just to understand the material. 

I was at school by 2pm today, even though my class wasn’t until 5:30.  I kept thinking, and telling people, that I got there at 1, but I was wrong.  It happens.  Anyway, I went by the bookstore to return some workbooks and software that were listed as “required” for my computer class, but turns out aren’t.  I got a little over 100 dollars back for it all, so that’s good.  After that, I went straight up to the computer lab and worked on some stuff for Survey of Reading.  I forgot to bring a flash drive or a diskette with me, though, so I had to save all my work to the desktop and then email it to myself to deal with at home.  I did manage to get most of the class materials printed, like the syllabus, calendar, and list of assignments.  All I need to do now is the same thing for Computer Use in Classrooms.  I really need to take a close look at both classes’ schedules and assignments to make sure I’m getting done what needs to get done for next week.  I would love to get a little ahead in one or both of them, but I don’t know if that’ll happen.  It will depend on how much time I make this weekend.  And we all know that I’m  terrible about not finding time to do homework on the weekends.  I have a sinking feeling that I won’t be able to get away with “free weekends” this semester.  I just have to keep reminding myself that very little of the work is truly difficult, so buck up and just get to it!

On the way home, I drove through Baytown and stopped at the Office Depot there to look at the rolling laptop cases they carry.  I’ve been looking around on-line for a new, larger capacity, backpack that rolls.  The one I have is about 7 inches deep, and the deepest I’ve been able to find – in a backpack style, that is – is 9 inches deep.  Two additional inches just won’t cut it.  I needed something closer to 11-14 inches deep.  Turns out that the only way you can get this size rolling bag, without it looking like luggage, is to delve into the laptop and catalog case territory.  While catalog cases definitely come deep enough (11+ inches!), they’re typically just a big open compartment, and they often come with built-in racks for hanging files.  I don’t need to use hanging files, and the racks would just get in the way of my textbooks.  Besides, if all I have is one, big compartment, how am I going to keep all my little things organized?  This won’t work for me, so that’s when I started looking at laptop cases.  They come in a wide variety of sizes – from 3 inches deep to nearly as deep as the catalog cases.  I didn’t want to buy one until I’d put my hands on it and looked it over, though.  I found one at Office Depot that I think will do the trick.  It’s pretty close to 10 inches deep and has five major compartments to organize things in, as well as several smaller pockets in the large compartments.  The problem is that none of the five large compartments are quite big enough to suit me.  Ideally, I wanted one, big, empty compartment to keep all of my textbooks, then a slightly smaller one to keep binders, folders, papers, etc., and then 3-4 yet smaller pockets for organizing pens, staplers, etc.  In this case, I have an overabundance of small pockets and the large compartments are broken up one too many times.  I have to keep my books in two separate areas and my large, zippered binder won’t even fit!  However, there is a reason why I chose to buy it anyway.  First of all, it does fit everything I need in it, plus some.  There are things that I carry with me every day, but that I probably could leave at home.  I have empty pockets in this thing, for cryin’ out loud!  Second, it’s a Samsonite.  It’ll out-last me.  It’ll out-last the other laptop cases that were twice the price or more, but had less space.  Third, I won’t always be a student, needing to carry multiple textbooks, plus notebooks/binders for each class.  I will, eventually, be a teacher, carrying a laptop with all of it’s accoutrements, plus paperwork common to my job, as well as various and sundry office/classroom supplies that I’m not comfortable leaving in my classroom.  This bag is perfect for when I start teaching.  I consider it an investment.  An investment that required considerably less than 100 dollars from my bank account.

OH! And fourth, the compartment that houses the laptop slip has a locking mechanism with a removeable key.  This only makes the bag even more perfect.

Yes, all of my calculators are in that pocket.  They’re the closest thing I can get to that laptop I’m gonna buy when I graduate.

Well, I logged on to do an entry to give my sleeping pill a chance to work, and it’s definitely working now.  So, goodnight all!

Leave a Response »

 

Ugh Tuesday, Jan 15 2008

How I manage to forget that I have bouts of insomnia the first couple of weeks of class I will never know.  I got, maybe, 3 hours of sleep last night.  Needless to say, I am falling asleep as I type right now.  But, I am still a mother.  I have a responsibility to make sure my child goes to bed on time.  Yes, my husband can do it, but he has to go to work in the morning, requiring him to get up at 4am.  I, on the other hand, do not have class until after 5pm tomorrow night.  So, up I stay.

Today was…mostly boring, actually.  My Survey of Reading teacher seems okay.  She’s a bit dry and I think she’s taught this class one too many semesters because she talks about things as if we should know what she’s talking about.  When we start asking her questions, she seems surprised.  I know this will smooth itself out as we get to know her and how she runs the class, but until then, it’s a little strange.  At the same time, she seems really knowledgeable and passionate about literacy and reading issues, which is what this class is all about.  So, that’s always good.  Her class is 3 hours, which usually means a 5 minute break at the mid-point, but not, apparently, today.  No break.  All work, all lecture for 3 hours.  She actually kept us five minutes late, leaving me only five minutes to get to my next class – Astronomy.  

The classroom for Astronomy was on a different floor and in a part of the building I’ve never had classes in, so it took me a bit to find it.  I hate to say it, but I think that this is going to be a really boring class.  Of course, this is just the first day and there was a lot of “business” that had to be dealt with.  I hope that the subject matter makes up for the possibility of dry lectures.

After lunch and a three-hour break, I had my last class of the day – Problem Solving.  The best way to describe my teacher is “happy leprechaun.”  He’s short, bouncy, energetic, and has red hair and a HUGE personality.  He’s also my academic advisor.  TeeHee!  He’s structured this class to have a student-centered approach, so we work almost exclusively in groups.  I’m not the greatest at problem solving and I’m usually the last one to even “get” what it is I’m supposed to be solving for, so I’ve been a tad worried that the material for this class would quickly outpace me.  I mean, I know I’d be able to do the math, but with word problems, it’s all about getting your problem set up, and not as much about the answer.  We answered a few problems today in class that weren’t too bad and, after skimming through the rest of the book, the problems don’t seem to get much harder.  It’s just that each chapter really focuses on a different problem-solving strategy.  This makes me uber-excited to be taking this class, since I have a real chance of improving my sadly lacking skilz by being in it.  The better I am at understanding word problems, the better I’ll be able to teach them to my students someday!

So, that was today.  I had a strange incident happen with Differential Equations last night.  My teacher never showed up!  That’s right.  The department secretary had to call her for us – at home.  And she was there!  She thought our class was on Tuesdays & Thursdays.  Apparently, someone forgot to send her the memo that all schedules are subject to change – even hers!  Nah, I kid.  I’m not upset in the least about it.  In fact, I’ve been overly worried about the difficulty of this class, so having it start this way kinda breaks that ice for me.  Most of the tension over it is gone now.  And she’ll be there tomorrow (we hope) (kinda), so all is well.

Well, this was a useful post!  It’s now 9:01pm and I can send my son to bed.  Yay!

Leave a Response »

 

Here We Go! Monday, Jan 14 2008

I’m here at school – first day, first class.  I have 45 minutes to wait before my first class actually begins, but that’s just enough time for me to soak in the atmosphere and calm down. 

 Aaaaaannnnd  I think my teacher just walked in.  She’s nice, funny and very personable…so far.  I hope she stays this way.  And she’s already asking for my advice on how to use the computers.  And she’s teaching a computer class.  How nice!  Well, I can’t expect her to know everything there is to know about UHCL’s computer network.  I can only hope she knows her way around the software that this class required.

 Anyway, I’m calming down a bit.  I’m not nearly as nervous as I was last semester on the first day, but that was true nervousness with a few drops of excitement.  This semester it’s mostly excitement.  I don’t have to navigate my way around a strange building; I pretty much know where everything is.  I know what resources are available to me and how to find them.  I’ve already been text-messaged by a classmate from last semester and we’ve set up a lunch “date”.  It’s convenient since she and I have the same class tonight.  I really think this is going to be a good semester. 

I could be speaking too soon of course (and I probably am).  My hardest class for the semester is tonight – Differential Equations – and I’ve heard positive things about the instructor, but still…it’s Differential Equations.  There’s a handful of students enrolled there that I had in classes last semester, and we all studied together, so I think it’ll be okay.  This is the class for which I found a student solutions manual on-line and ordered on Friday.  That will be extremely helpful too.

Hmmm….the longer I sit here, the warmer my hands become.  They get cold when I’m scared, nervous, or excited.  This is a good sign.

(Tee Hee!  My teacher is still trying to figure out the computer system in the room.  She had to go find someone to help her, since I only know how students are supposed to log in.  It’s quite obvious by the lab assistant that the log-in for instructors is much more complicated than it is for students.  Poor lady!  Wish I could have been more help to her!)

Well, I guess I need to find something more productive-looking to do until class starts.  Besides, this standard keyboard is quickly making my arms ache.  I miss my ergonomic keyboard from home!

Leave a Response »

 

It’s Just Another Manic….Friday?? Friday, Jan 11 2008

I’m glad this week is nearly over, but I’m a little anxious about school starting next week.  That’s normal for me, though.

I did receive the new card from UHCL in the mail on Tuesday, so on Wednesday I drove up to school and bought my books.  $525 worth of books, workbooks, and software.  You can add another $100 to that for a book that I bought last semester, but I ended up dropping the class and keeping the book.  Today, I spent another $50 at Barnes & Noble’s website for the solutions manual for my Differential Equations class.  That’s nearly $700 worth of books for one semester. 

I always have people tell me about buying books on-line and how it’s cheaper and all that, but I don’t find this to be true.  What I do find to be true about buying textbooks on-line is that when you buy used textbooks, the people that are trying to sell them are a bunch of crooks, and regularly advertise the books they’re selling as the current edition of said textbook, when in reality, it’s 5 years old.  When I do find the right edition of the right book, it’s only one to two dollars cheaper than what my school’s bookstore sells it at, except with shipping it’s now fifteen dollars more expensive, because textbooks are heavy and the shipping costs are astronomical. 

Anyway, I have my books, and it turns out that I could have purchased them much sooner than Wednesday.  It seems there is a conflict of terminology between my previous school and my current one.  The total amount of financial aid I receive each year, according to LC, is my “award.”  If I have any money left after paying tuition, fees, and purchasing books, LC called that my “disbursement,” which is refunded to me after the second week of class.  UHCL, on the other hand, calls my total financial aid award a “disbursement,” and the amount I get back after school costs is my “refund.”  So, when UHCL said that financial aid disbursements will be available after January 4th and then proceeded to launch into their sales pitch about this new One Card thing they’ve got us all using now, I presumed (wrongly) that my financial aid was now available to me on my One Card and that this money would be transferred to my new One Card account after January 4th.  Are you as confused as I am?  What UHCL meant was that the school had access to my financial aid money after January 4th and that tuition and fees would be paid out of it.  If I had anything left after said tuition and fees, I would be allowed to go to the bookstore to purchase textbooks, and their cost would also be taken out of my financial aid.  After the first week of class, if I still have financial aid monies in my account, they will be refunded to me and placed into my new One Card account.

And that’s that.

Once I got home from buying books Wednesday, Mom and I decided to go to Sam’s.  All of our freezers were pretty bare, but neither of us had had enough money to really do much with them lately.  Dad got a huge bonus from work last week, so Mom decided to put it to good use and got us stocked up on meats and entrees for dinner, cleaning supplies, paper products, and canned vegetables.  Had her bill been six cents higher, she would have spent $800 there.  And today, she’s gone to Wal-Mart with Dad to get frozen veggies and other items that we just don’t need to buy in bulk.  When that woman shops, she shops!  It’s a huge amount of money, yes, but it’s also nearly 4 months worth of dinners and meats.  The cleaning supplies will easily last us the next 6 months, and the paper products will last nearly as long as the cleaning supplies.  Once we have the other deep freezer stocked with frozen veggies (we have one freezer for meats/entrees and the other for veggies and breads), the only thing we’ll need to shop for will be things like milk and eggs.  It’s a good thing we don’t park a car in the garage because I don’t think there’d be room for one next too all that toilet paper and dishwasher detergent.

When I woke up Thursday, my right arm was sore from the shoulder to the elbow, but not in the joints.  I realized that the muscle actually hurt from pushing one of the shopping carts the night before.  And my right knee is popping and crackling SO bad that it makes me a bit nauseated.  The funny thing is that the popping doesn’t hurt much, but it feels and sounds so gross!  I didn’t really do much of anything else yesterday.  I cooked a really simple dinner, and that’s about as productive as I got.  Around 10pm, I realized that I was really, really sleepy, so I finished up what I was doing on my computer (messing around with www.playlist.com) and was in bed by 11pm.  I actually woke up before 9am today!  Amazing! 

While I was falling asleep last night I was praying, “Father, please help me to stay focused and productive tomorrow.  There’s a lot I need to get done before school starts and if I have another day like today, I’ll NEVER get it all done!”  It’s so neat to see God answering prayers in my own personal life!  When I woke up this morning, I was far from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but I started the coffee anyway and while it was brewing I got dressed and stripped the blankets and sheets from my bed.  Then, on the way back to the kitchen to pour the coffee, I got the first load of wash started – my pillows.  I got my coffee and sat and talked with mom for a bit. 

One of the things I was praying about last night was that God keep me faithful to the Weigh Down eating principles.  I’m doing so much better these days, but there’s always room for improvement.  As much as I wanted that cup of coffee, I wasn’t really hungry for anything super-sweet.  And what do you know?  I put too much sugar into my coffee!  It just tasted so disgusting to me that I didn’t even finish half of it!  When I realized what I had done, I had already woken up enough from chatting to get to the rest of my tasks for today.  So, I washed out my cup, put it into the dishwasher, and pulled out the pancake mix.  I wasn’t hungry, but I had a dream last night of making a huge batch of pancakes that were already sweetened a little, and then freezing them to take to school.  This isn’t really an unusual dream for me to have, since I’d been talking to my mom about it for a few days now.  And, as much of a temptation it would have been to eat a huge plate of them (after all, I was making a very, very large batch), I only had one – the first one.  It was good.  I had added a cup of sugar and a few tablespoons of vanilla extract to the batter, and there was about eight cups of batter.  But, I was so busy cooking the rest of them that I just didn’t have time to eat more.  Besides, as soon as I had two made, I would put them into a zippered plastic freezer baggie.  By the time I was done, I had nine baggies with two pancakes each in them, and none left over.  That’s God’s way of telling me that one was as many as I needed this morning – especially after that half-cup of coffee!  Praise You, Father!

During the pancake extravaganza, I fed and watered the cats, rotated laundry twice, sprayed my mattress down with Febreeze, swept the kitchen floor and wiped down the counters, and did some cleaning up of the laundry room.  Apparently, if I’m kept busy enough, I just don’t think about eating!  Once the pancakes were done and I’d cleaned up the kitchen again, I sat and talked to my dad for a bit.  He’s been working overnight shifts for the past week, and I haven’t seen much of him, so it was nice to chat.  I started looking around the living room and realized that I couldn’t take the state of the carpets for one.more.minute.  So, I vacuumed the house.  Pluto, my long-haired black & white kitty, is in major shed mode right now, and she’s leaving clumps of black hair EVERYWHERE.  There was a trail of it from the front door to the back, and I hadn’t vacuumed around the litter pan for a few days so, all-in-all, the floors really needed cleaning.  By the time I was done, it was after 2pm, and I was really, REALLY hungry.  I had fixed “easy Mexican” last night for dinner, meaning stuff I can just throw into the oven and not have to stand over, so I got a small plate with one chimichanga and three taquitos.  I ate slowly and was actually hungry enough to eat it all, but I’m still not hungy now and it’s been a few hours.  I’m actually hoping that I won’t get hungry again tonight.  I still have laundry going and a few other things I need to do, and I would rather not be interrupted with this annoying need to eat!  LOL!

Aaaannd, I just realized that it’s been a while since I’ve checked on things in the laundry room, and I’ll bet everything is sitting still in there.

………..I was right.  Anyway, I’ve been trying to take inventory of the things that need to be accomplished before I go back to school.  I thought that the list was getting shorter, until I started thinking about what else I want to get done.  I need to do a really thorough cleaning of my bathroom, including getting on my hands and crackly knees to scrub the corners and the baseboards.  The shower curtain liner needs to be replaced and the rugs washed.  I have shopping to do at my least favorite place in the world, Wal-Mart, and I need a haircut that’s NOT from Wal-Mart.  I need to go by Office Depot and/or Office Max to see about getting a new rolling bag/case for my school stuff.  I need to gather up all the stuff I’m going to need next Monday and I need to pull out my student planner/calendar and make sure it’s up-to-date with the current semester’s goings-on.  The checkbook needs to be balanced.  I need to try to find a PetCo or PetSmart to buy a Furminator so that, perhaps, the trail of cat hair on the carpet will be somewhat reduced and, therefore, my vacuuming duties will be likewise reduced.  I need new headphones for my iPod because the ones my darling husband bought me last semester are falling apart.  You can’t say I never used them. 

You know, the longer I sit here writing this list, the longer the list is becoming.  So, I quit.  I’m just going to plan on Sunday being my errand day.  I’ll go into Houston to Office Depot and PetCo, then swing back into Crosby to get my hair cut and go to Wal-Mart.  The shopping will tire me out, and I might actually sleep well that night.  Tomorrow’s sabbath, and I will not let anything interfere with it.  So, goodnight!

4 Responses »

 

It Has Begun… Monday, Jan 7 2008

Today begins the final countdown for me to begin classes again.  I go back in one week.  The Kiddo went back today, and he was NOT happy about it.  I got up early with him, though, just as a show of solidarity and support, and saw him off on the bus.  And then I went back to bed for 5 more hours. 

 Yes folks, I got up at the crack of 10am.  Go.Me.

That’s actually about 45 minutes earlier than I’ve been getting up lately, so I actually feel pretty good about that.  Maybe, by next Monday, I’ll actually be getting up in time for school.  The excitement.

For Christmas, my parents gave me the first season of Heroes on DVD.  I’m not usually into television shows, but I had caught a couple of re-runs on Sci-Fi and really liked them.  It took me over a week to finally sit myself down and begin watching the discs.  I think I was trying to delay the pleasure, because once I started watching them, I had a hard time stopping.  The first day, I watched the first three and-a-half discs.  The first disc has two episodes on it and discs two through six have four episodes on them.  That means I watched eight 40-minute episodes in one day.  Like I said, once I got started…  Anyway, I finished the sixth disc last night and have only disc seven left.  Disc seven only has the last episode on it – the finale – plus the lion’s share of the speical features.  It has taken me three nights to watch up to this point, and the series has not been a disappointment yet.  I’ll probably watch the finale tonight and run through some of the special features, as well.  I can only hope that the writers handled the end of the season well.  It’s awful to have such a well-written storyline ruined by a bad ending.  It happens in books way too often, and it happens even more often in television.  Overall, I’m glad my parents thought to buy it for me.  I would never have made such a purchase for myself at this point, yet I’ve enjoyed it immensely.  I even think I got my husband hooked!  It will be worth watching again.

On the subject of television watching, I have finally joined the Netflix revolution.  When we moved to Crosby this past summer, we gave up our dish and switched to cable.  This decision had been agonizingly difficult to make and was only settled when we were told that we would not be able to get DSL at the new house.  The only other high-speed internet option available to us was cable modem, which was cheaper to get if we purchased it bundled with cable TV service.  The package price was just a little more than what we’d been paying for DishNetwork, but we had the bonus of the cable modem, which is loads faster than DSL.  However (and isn’t there always a “however” in stories like this), over the past few months, the cable bill has creeped up from the original $79 a month, to over $120 a month.  The cost of the cable has gone up, and every month, they seem to add another “fee” onto my bill.  It’s simply ridiculous.  None of us in this house can afford to keep this up.  So, we’re supposed to be looking into how much it would cost to just keep the internet service alone, while finding other television-watching options.  Hence, the Netflix. 

We have often found, both with cable and with satellite, that we’ll have days on end when we, as a group, can’t really find anything on TV that we want to watch.  For the cost of the service, it seems ridiculous that this could happen.  But, when you start looking at the channels we receive (again, this is for either service), the bulk of them are 1) sports channels, 2) shopping channels, 3) Spanish-language channels – none of which any of us EVER watch.  And, insultingly, Comcast, our cable service, has decided that the Gameshow Network is classified as a “sports” channel (they play games on there, after all), and we can only get it if we subscribe to the “sports package” – at an additional cost.  So, all told, outside of strictly local channels, there are, perhaps, 20 channels that the family watches.  20 channels for about $80.  That breaks down to $4.00 per channel per month.  The cheapest monthly subscription to Netflix is $4.99 per month.  With that, I can receive up to 2 videos a month.  Not bad, but I knew they offered better.  The package we subscribed to is $17.00 per month with no maximum, except that we can only have three movies at one time.  If we watch one movie per day (average 30 movies a month), that means we’re paying about 57 cents per movie, or 57 cents per day.  In comparison, cable is costing us $2.67 per day, but there are days when the television stays off because nothing worth watching is coming on or we’re simply not home.  If we say that, on average, there is one day per week that the television stays off, then the cost of cable rises to over $3.00 per day.

We haven’t yet cancelled our cable service.  We’re going to try Netflix for a month or so, and if we like it…bye-bye Comcast!

And now that I’m thinking about it, I would much rather watch a television series on DVD than on TV.  No commercials!

On to other subjects!  I’m looking around my office and the house, trying to figure out what all I need to do to get ready for school next week.  I have my classes and my schedule.  I’ve even checked the enrollment level of my classes to make sure they’re all going to “make”.  So far, so good.  I need to get my books, but I can’t yet because I’m waiting on some debit card to come in the mail.  UHCL has made some changes in their financial aid that took effect for this coming semester.  Instead of having a school account that you can tap to pay tuition, fees, and purchase books, they first take out the amount due for tuition and fees, then send you the balance of your financial aid on a debit card.  Upon activating the card, you can then choose how you want to receive your refund.  You can keep it on the card, which then works as a checking account, or you can have the money transferred to an already existing account, or you can have them send you a check.  Last Thursday, the school sent me an email letting me know that my card had been mailed that day and that it will take five to nine business days for me to receive it.  All of the rest of my financial aid is on that freakin’ card, so I can’t do squat about my textbooks until I receive it.  According to UHCL, the earliest I’ll get it is this Thursday, but it could be the middle of the following week as well.  That’s just great.  I could be IN CLASSES already before I get money to buy my books!  I can only hope that future semesters will not be this way, since I’ll already have the card.  Unless, of course, they give me a new card every semester.  Bleh.

On top of books, I also need to get a new backpack.  I don’t want to, but it’s becoming apparent that the one I have is just not sufficient.  I took four classes last semester.  I had a textbook for each and a solutions manual for two.  I usually keep a notebook for each class, but in the interest of saving backpack space, I used one zippered binder.  I also tend to carry a portable office with me – meaning that I always have things like a hole punch, a stapler, extra paper, pens, pencils, erasers, scissors, paper clips, etc.  And, I keep a spiral notebook for those classes that I take regular notes in (the binder is just for class handouts and worksheets – things that need a three-hole binder), plus extra paper.  And you can’t forget that I carry several different calculators with me at all times, map pencils, rulers, mechanical pencil refills, extra batteries for the calculators…  I carry a lot of crap with me!  I do this only because I tend to spend all day at school, and I’m too far away from home to be able to come back for anything that I might have forgotten.  About halfway through last semester, I discovered that I had accumulated so much paperwork from my classes, that my books had a hard time fitting into my backpack.  I carry all of my classes’ books every day, because you never know when you’ll have a chance to get some homework done.  Since I have one more class this semester than I did last semester, I don’t even think the books will all fit at one time, much less spiral notebooks and binders with the books.  I need a bigger backpack, and I need one on wheels.  And I don’t want to cart something around that is obviously meant as luggage, because I may be a nerd, but I’m not a dork.   So, that’s another expense, and I have a feeling that I’m going to have to spend some money this time.  Not a happy thought.

Also, I need a haircut.

One Response »

 

Ringing in a new year Thursday, Jan 3 2008

So, how was your New Year’s?  Mine was fine.  Low-key and all that.  We didn’t go to the boat house, but we did go over a friend’s house and didn’t get home until 6am the next day.  We stayed up all night playing one round of Trivial Pursuit.  Girls v. Boys.  It was fun, but by the time we were done we were all wiped out.

We’ve had a major cold front come in, here in my part of the world, and I’m freezing.  I cannot seem to get warm!  Of course, you have to realize that when I say “cold front” I mean that the overnight temps actually dipped to freezing.  It’ll probably never be this cold again until next winter.  Right now, I’m sitting at my computer and my toes are going numb from the cold and I have goose bumps on my arms.  I’m even wearing pants and a long-sleeved shirt.  I guess I should go put on a sweater and some warm socks, huh?

 Anyway, there’s not a lot going on here, but I wanted to continue to update semi-regularly since I’m on break for at least another week.  My sleeping/waking habits have been for crap for past few days – since New Year’s Eve, actually – and I have a headache again because of it.  I stayed up watching a movie that had James Cagney AND Edward G. Robinson (don’t have any clue as to the name, sorry), but it didn’t end until well after 4am.  At that point, my husband was just getting up for work, so I kept him company for a bit until he had to leave.  So, I actually went to bed around 6am.  Got up at 10.  Head.HURTS.

Despite my wonky sleep schedule, I have been relatively productive here around the house.  Yesterday, I worked on my filing and my checkbook, and got everything from 2007 filed and closed out.  I also cleaned up the office, especially around the area that the cat pan sits.  I bought them a new box for litter and spent a few minutes switching everything out to the new equipment.  Their old box was several years old, and was just gross.  It had to be scrubbed every week, at the very least, or else it would smell overwhelmingly of ammonia.  We don’t use a standard litter box for them.  We use a Sterilite storage box with really high sides so they don’t scatter the litter quite as far, or pee over the side.  It works really well, but after several years of use, the sandpaper action of the moving litter takes the smooth finish off of the inside of the box.  The grooves that are scratched into the plastic tend to absorb odors and stains – much like the plastic bowls you might have in your kitchen cabinets.  Anyway, it was past time to get them a new box, but the local stores don’t always carry the size I use.  Right after Christmas, though, Wal-Mart fills the now-empty Christmas section with storage containers of every type and size, and, for a change, they had a display of the size I needed.  So, the office is cleaner and we’re all happier for it.  And my filing is done!  As for today, I’ve answered the email that has been sitting in my inbox for the past three days and I paid bills.  I’m now poor again.    But I’m organized!

And now, I’m going to take several Tylenol.

One Response »