Finally moved in

New House

Well, we’re not completely moved in, but we’ve got the majority of our stuff over to the new house. We have until this Sunday to get totally out of the old house. I LOVE this new place! I’ll have to post pics, but I don’t have a lot of time right now. I can’t wait to get completely settled!

My Family Scrapblog

On the Move

I have been so busy lately that I have broken my promise of regular updates!

I finished my first block of classes already and earned a 94% in both. I am happy that I have an A average right now, but I wish my grades were higher. I’m in the third week of my second block of classes. This time it’s another communications course and the dreaded Critical Thinking. I hate that class! This week we are discussing what our expository essays are going to be about. So far we have immigration, the importance of using in English in America, gas and oil prices, cosmetic surgery, and tattoos and piercing. I can’t wait to see what type of debates arise from all of this!

The girls are almost done with school. Alexis and Desiree have done amazing. Dani is still having problems, and I am waiting to find out if she actually gets promoted to 9th grade. I could strangle that girl.

Oh! The most important news! We are moving. This weekend, to be exact. We found a wonderful house in North Peoria which is perfect because it is in a great schooling area, right next to my church, and very close to my sisters, brothers, and mom. I am ecstatic! Four days until the big move and I still have over half a house to pack. I love it because I can throw out all the crap that has accumulated over the years.

I really can not wait to start out fresh in this new house.

My next post will probably be done once I am in the new place. Wish us luck!

Living By Lists

We’re looking to move. Did I tell you that? We’ve completely outgrown our house, and with our landlord being very distant with us and putting the house up for sale, we’ve decided to get out. We’ve been searching for a house up in North Peoria, where my sister and mom live, and we hope to finalize something within the next week. This means we need to get packing.

Did I mention I hate packing?

Everytime I’ve ever moved, I waited until the last minute to get things packed, so that on moving day, we end up being stuck still packing as we’re moving. I want to avoid that at all costs this year. What with working full time and going to school, I don’t have a lot of time to mess around.

My problem here is that I  have a really hard time staying on track. You guys may have already gathered that by reading my past posts. I am very ADD when it comes to approaching any chore that I don’t find to be fun. And packing is just not a nice chore.

I have decided to create a list of things that I need to get done, and I can add to them, and then cross them off as I go. You know, I always say I am going to write out lists to get myself going, but I end up not doing them at all. I must get it done this time. I don’t want my poor husband to have to do the majority of the packing. That would be so unfair.

Ok, off to create a list!

Knocked Myself Silly

I was at work today and it was crazy as usual. I was sitting at a desk entering some patient data, and needed to get back out to the floor to register another room. I bolted up out of my chair and forgot that there was a hard, unmoving cabinet above me.

Oh.My.God.

I rammed my forehead right into the corner of that sucker. It flipping hurt. I hit it so hard that I bit my tongue. Everything went grey for a half a second, and I literally saw stars. As I turned away from the desk my legs felt like jello and I was completely unsteady.  I wanted to cry out, but my coworker was in the room and I couldn’t look like a wimp in front of her. Come to think of it, maybe I should have fallen to the floor. I may have been sent home – damn me and my intense need to always seem strong!

I have been walking around work for the past 7 hours with a huge welt on my forehead and a pretty pink line going down the front of my forehead. Thank God the corner of the cabinet is rounded. I can’t imagine what I would look like if there was a sharp point on it.

My head is still sensitive to the touch and throbs when I walk. Maybe I should have let one of the doctors look at it. I can’t go them now and say, “Hey can you check me out? I knocked myself silly 7 hours ago.” That would be way too embarrassing, especially since one of the nurses on tonight is a leave-you-panting-hottie. No thank you. I’ll just keep my little injury to myself tonight, thank you very much.

School Insanity

As I told you recently, I have gone back to school. I have many feelings about this; fear, elation, and stress being some of them. Juggling the house, kids and family with work and now school, I have had more than my fair share of bashing my head against the wall moments. I have just started week 5 of my classes and although it’s embarrassing to admit it, last night I completely broke down.

I have realized that I am a perfectionist when it comes to my schoolwork. My goal is to have no less than a 95% at all times. I have succeeded so far. Any marks off that I have received thus far have resulted from not indenting one paragraph in my first assignment of the class, not posting enough discussion question responses during week two, and using contractions in an assignment during week two. I’ve handled things really well until this week.

My work schedule just changed so that I am now working 12-hour shifts three days in a row. I work from 6pm – 6am. I have had a hard time getting my internal clock to follow my directions. I work, come home, try to do something for a couple hours, then crash. I end up sleeping all day then get up and get ready for work. I basically don’t see my family for those three days. But, on the upside of that, I have four awesome days off to do whatever I want with my family.

Last Friday I came home from work in the morning, and immediately jumped online to do my assignment that was due by midnight Friday night. I spent 1 1/2 hours on this assignment and was so brain dead by the time it was over. After posting it to my school website I went to bed. Last night I pulled up my school website and found a message from my instructor. Sunday night is the end of our school week and the instructor goes through and starts posting grades and such.

The message from my instructor said that she didn’t receive my assignment that was due and reminded me that every day an assignment is late I automatically lose 10%. I flipped. I checked back to my message that I posted with my assignment.

It wasn’t there.

The message was, but the attachment that held my assignment was not. I quickly scanned my school folder I have saved on my desktop and found the assignment that I saved Friday morning at 8:37am. I posted the message online at 8:39am.

I didn’t attach my freaking assignment.

At that moment I burst into tears. Will wanted to know what was wrong and I felt like such a boob for crying. It frustrated me beyond words that I worked so hard on that paper, even though I was sleep deprived and ended up not even attaching it. I mean, if I had known that I was automatically going to be docked points I would have just gone to sleep when I got home and done the paper Sunday or something. Argh!!!

I have no clue what this is going to do to my grade. Now I have to work extra hard to make up for whatever it is that is going to be lost.

Note to self: Sleep is essential!!!

Changes

Have you ever just looked at your kids and wondered where the time went? I’m sitting here at work looking back through pictures of my babies from the past year and it kills me how much they’ve grown. Their faces are so different. Their bodies are so different. Their hair, teeth, eyes, smiles… all different. The one with the greatest growth, of course is Alexis. This is a given as she is the youngest and the youngest usually changes at a more noticeable pace.

Their views are different, too. I don’t mean to say they have done a 180 on anything; it’s more that they know of things on a grander scale now. Their awareness has become more acute. Part of me loves this and the other finds it scary.

I know I have been saying this for years, but I am not ready for them to grow up.

Busy past few months

Oh wow, I’ve been gone from here for a long, long time. Sorry ’bout that.

Let’s see…Christmas was great. We had a lot of family time, made tamales with the sisters, and just enjoyed ourselves. I’ll have to post some pics from Christmas soon.

January brought some money to me. Lonnie got a settlement from his mother’s death and I had to fight to get a little bit of it. With that money we paid off some old bills, bought a truck for Will (as the car he was driving wouldn’t even pass emissions), and put the rest in the bank to save so we can have a down payment for a house. I’m really proud of  myself. I had money but didn’t blow it on stupid things, as I would have done in my younger years.

The girls are doing well. Desiree’s in drama club at school and LOVES it. She’s still really helpful around the house and plays with her little sister. She’s protective of Alexis and it’s so cute.

Dani is struggling in school, and I can’t figure out how to kick her butt into gear. She does her homework, but doesn’t turn it in. She’s failing math right now. It’s hard to get on her case (in my head) because I also really suck at math, but her attitude is what gets me. She just doesn’t seem to care about it and that is so frustrating.

Alexis just finished gifted testing today. I can’t wait to find out how she did. I’m not looking to have her “labelled” or anything. It’s just that I remember being bored with my schoolwork when I was a kid and looked forward to going to gifted classes because they challenged me further. I want that for Lexi, too.

The biggest change in my life was that I have made strides to grow personally. I joined a small group at my church and go every Thursday morning for bible study. The time leaves a lot to be desired as it’s at 6am, but my mom also goes to it and I wanted to do something with my mom. I also volunteered to help around the church, so tomorrow I’m going to be helping by creating the slides that will be shown on the screens behind the pastor and our worship team when they are preaching and singing. I have to learn Mac applications which is a little scary as I am a total Windows girl, but I’m excited.

The other change is that I decided to go back to school. My mom works for a doctor and the doctor is thinking of branching out into an office of his own and they will need an office staff and biller. The doctor doesn’t like to dabble in the office stuff, so he is leaving it up to my mom and the PA in the office to get things done. They aren’t planning on taking their current office staff with them because the office staff is run by an incompetent manager. Mom wants me to run it but I need to learn billing. I called University of Phoenix to see if they have a medical billing program and one thing led to another and now I am in an 18 month program to earn my Associates in Healthcare Administration. I’m in my 4th week of classes and I am taking 2 courses at a time. It’s all online. I am one BUSY woman now! I am excited though. I’ll be the first in my family to obtain a degree!

I also changed my hours at work. I now work 12-hour shifts Thurs, Fri and Sat. It’s a major adjustment for me. But, I love it. I have more time with the family now.

So that’s what I’ve been up to, in a nutshell. I’ll be posting more timely in the future, I promise!

The Dangers of Leaving the TV on at Night

I like to have the  television on in the background to give me some noise while I go about my day. I have it on day or night, unless I am sleeping.

Tonight I was on the computer, doing homework and I had the movie “Hope Floats” with Sandra Bullock playing in the background on the Oxygen channel. I love this movie. It’s one of those that I know all the lines to and helps to calm me. I have the volume on really low, because the rest of the house is sleeping and I am the only crazy awake person in the house.

I finished up my homework and started editing some photos I took of our recent vacation when I got thirsty. As I got up to go into the kitchen to get a glass of milk, I didn’t think anything odd about the fact that I didn’t hear the movie anymore. Again, I only have the TV for background noise. I walked into the living room and just about dropped my glass.

There, on 63 inches of flat screen were two women, both holding a side of an electric blue double sided dildo, moving it back and forth.

HOLY HELL!

When did the Oxygen channel turn into a porn channel?

As the women put it down and picked up something that resembles a woman’s vagina, I scrambled for the remote and turned the TV off.

I stood in the middle of the living room, shocked. What if I had fallen asleep while watching TV and my husband walked out to see me “watching” that? Worse! What if one of my girls had come out through the living room to get a glass of water?

So, this is a public service announcement to all my friends out there. Never fall asleep to the Oxygen channel at night. You won’t know what you’ll be accused of watching!

Every Vote Counts

The 2008 election has come and gone. Obama’s supporters are celebrating their win. Propositions have been decided. All over I am hearing people say that their vote didn’t count because the person they wanted to win did not win. I can freely admit that I voted for McCain. I was devastated when he lost. I was even more devastated when they pretty much called the election before half of America’s votes were in. But, I do not feel that I voted in vain. My vote counted. The simple act of me going to the polls and drawing my little line in the arrows counted so much. People have died for my right to go into that booth and draw that line.

I must say, and this has never happened before… when I was in my little cardboard booth, I was suddenly overcome with such emotion. I can barely even describe it. I was elated. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to cry. I stood there for a few moments and prayed to God. I asked for his guidance in making the decisions I had to make. I know in my heart I chose the right things. Most of the things I voted for won, some did not. That is ok. I am at peace with what I voted for. I thanked God for living in a country where I had a say in how my life would be lived.

How did you feel on election day? Were you an emotional sap like me?