As My World Turns

Since school got out, I've been focusing on getting done with this infernal independent study course that I signed up for last August. When I signed up I was so excited, the lessons were engaging and I was learning a lot. Then I hit a snag. I wrote a short story and I hated it. And I didn't have any idea how to fix it and redoing it was out of the question because of all the time I had put into making that one in the first place. Then the rest of my classes started and the Creative Writing class got put on a back burner. I thought about it occasionally, more thinking about how much I hated the short story I wrote and how to rewrite it with out redoing everything else. Ultimately, I didn't even get back to it until after the other classes were out. And you know what happened? I read the story again and I though "I must be genius!" No, it wasn't that good but it was good enough that I didn't cringe any more and I was able to look at it subjectively. I finished working on it, got it turned in and I'm now a proud author of my first short story. I moved onto another section of my class called The Personal Essay, which I'm almost done with as well. That leaves me one more section, on poetry. I'm not sure how excited about that I am but it cant be THAT bad...can it? I'm flying to Washington State tomorrow where we get to spend 5 glorious days with family before trudging back here to start another semester. I hope that vacation is as relaxing as we've built it up to be. When classes start again, I think I'm taking 3 online classes and one independent study course- three english and one history! You'd think I'd get tired of writing papers now wouldn't you?

Christmas!

I'm late on the Christmas blog...sorry. My family has the tradition of starting Christmas morning opening stockings and then we have breakfast. After a nice, hot, wonderful breakfast, my dad will break out the first present and and the first recipient will then choose a package to give to another person. And the line continues like that until all the gifts are gone. Generally there are two or three sanity breaks as everyone enjoys a toy, goes to the bathroom or grabs a snack. By the time we are done, everyone is exhausted and ready for some down time. One especially big year we didn't get done opening presents until around 1 in the afternoon! This year we were done more around 1030-11, I didn't check the clock. This year was also much different than before. In the previous years, we've either had really little babies or young toddlers or no young childeren at all. This year there was a 5 yr old, a 2 yr old, a 1.5 year old and a 9 month old. The littlest slept most of the time, Emmaline took a good nap in the middle but the two oldest were really excited and often, the 2 year old would open random presents that she could sneek when Grandpa wasn't looking! Although there was quite a bit more chaos this year, I enjoyed it a lot. I felt like I was finally an adult, enjoying watching other people open their gifts. Its a step up from being an 'adult' but still wishing you'll be the next to recieve a package :) As for the gifts we got, we got a few board games, a new really good smelling candle, books for both of us, and other odds and end gifts. I don't think there was any one really big gift this year. Emmaline got an instrument set. All the instruments fit within a drum and there is a maracha, tamborine, xylophone, and bells. She really enjoys making all the noise. She also got the little people farmyard and house with a lot of the little people. The most unfortunate part is that I just realized that IF we got any pictures, they are all on my parent's camera. And I cant guarantee there are any. My trip to WA is next week. The plane will be an adventure. I'm sure I'll write all about it.

Aggravation (not the game)

I just got an email back about the FA situation with the independent study courses. They won't do it. Last semester they created 'shells' that basically allowed students to receive financial aid but they were still registered in independent study courses. Only three students signed up for those courses and only one even finished. Meaning, the school spent a lot of time and money for nothing really productive. So I don't get the benefit of FA paying for the last few classes I need to take. Oh, I also found out that I'll have to take 2 IS classes during the summer as well because they won't have the classes online that I need. Fun. So that takes the tally up to 4 classes that I need to pay for out of pocket- $2400. If I don't pay for the classes, I get to wait over the next year and hope they finally get them online. Not ideal. I emailed and asked if there was any way to get a scholarship because I know my GPA is really high. I have a 3.79 and I already have enough credits to graduate. Its just a matter of finding someone who wants to give me two and a half thousand dollars to finish my degree. Oh, and the other bummer? FA generally is given as a blank dollar amount. As long as I take 3 classes, I get the whole amount and can use the extra money however I see fit. But, I can only take 2 courses, they split the money in half and ultimately, half the money isn't enough to pay for two classes and books so money comes out of pocket. If I were able to take three courses, I'd get the remainder of the balance of money (around $700) and use it to help pay for IS classes. I don't even know if this rambling makes sense. On a different note, Matt has the flu and was up ALL night throwing up. I ended up sleeping on the couch so he wouldn't wake me up with his moaning and running to the bathroom constantly. I felt horrible abandoning him but after 2 hours of sitting at his side, I realized it would be better for me to sleep so I can handle today than for me to sit next to him while he expelled his dinner. Hopefully he feels better by Christmas.

Am I that CRAZY?!?

So I just got an email today saying that some of the requirements have changed for my history major. Basically, they have made two of the classes I need available now rather than having me wait for a few more semesters. The deal is, they are independant study courses and my financial aid won't pay for them. Well, at least right now they don't pay for them, the school is trying to get around that. Anyway, I have already signed up for two courses and I'm wondering how I'm going to handle them but as soon as I realized that there are two more classes available, I go crazy trying to figure out how to take them too! This semester is already promising to be busy. I joined another gym that has childcare so I'm going to be working out at least every week day. Then I'm babysitting for my neice every tuesday and thursday while my mom and sister are in school. Then I still have Usborne books and a baby girl to pay attention to. Taking two more classes? Suicide. I'll keep everyone updated. Besides, if FA doesn't pay for them, it would be over 1000$ out of pocket...I'm not so sure thats a good idea.

Why wear shirts?

So, first, an update on Monday's catastrophy...Emmaline is fine. Her bump on the forehead went down pretty quick and you can't see it unless you look for it. The cut inside her lip is now a flap of skin that I'm not going to do anything with...The cut under her nose isn't healing very well. She has a perpetually runny nose and I think that is causing the cut to heal slower. I got a picture that is pretty cute, it shows a big red spot under her nose and thats the cut.

So for bigger and funnier: Emmaline does not like shirts. I literally fight with her every morning to get her shirts on. Pants? wonderful. Socks? love 'em. Shoes? even better. But shirts? she would rather go naked than be forced to put a shirt on. So we caught a video of her trying to take her shirt off. Its pretty funny.

Okay, the last totally cute picture is of a Ladybug. Matt found the ladybug crawling on our wall and tried to give it to Emmaline. Unfortunately, she was so enamored with this moving thing that she kept trying to pinch it. So we only got one good picture before we took it away. We were both very surprised to see a live ladybug in December.

Yesterday was horrible!

So, yesterday I was so excited to be getting out and about, doing a bunch of small errands that involved seeing some of my friends and then making cookies with my family. It didn't happen. Over Sunday night there was a bit of a freeze and the roads were covered in ice. Yuck. We don't have snow tires and we don't even have 4 wheel drive (is that what its called?) Anyway, the car is dangerous to drive and I don't trust myself. So there went all my good plans. At one point I went to leave, seeing that no one in front of my house had skid as they drove by but as I put Emmaline in the car, she threw the biggest tantrum in her life. I swear, I have never seen that girl cry that hard. I took it as a sign and decided I wasn't going to drive at all. My sister came by later to pick me up because the roads were better and they have a better car- but as we were switching the carseat from my car to the SUV, we set Emmaline in the back seat- I couldn't get the carseat unhooked so Christal shut the SUV door and came to help. As we opened the SUV door again, Emmaline came falling out, doing a face plant on the pavement (and snow covered ice). She got a good scrape and bump on her forehead, cheek, under her nose and bit her lip. As soon as she fell I had adreneline pumping and when the whole escapade was over, I was exhausted and on the verge of tears. The day didn't get any better from there and by the time Matt got home from work, all I wanted to do was climb in bed and cuddle. We did make some rice crispies though. That could make anyone smile :)

Busy Busy Busy!

Friday started out harmless and actually looked to be quite relaxing. Boy was I wrong! I babysat from 830-11 and that went pretty easy. But when my sister came to pick the kids up, she told me she didn't feel like going home. So she stayed here for lunch and we ended up rearranging my entire house! It took us about 4 hours to swap the dining room and living room and the result is amazing. I love it! After she left I took my History final (no word on how I did yet), made and ate dinner then rushed out to go to a Christmas party. Yesterday morning was a craft fair at which I sold Usborne books...we didn't do so hot. But I was gone from 7 am until just after 5 pm. Then my brother came over while I was working on filling orders. There was church today then we have a meeting at church at 430, dinner at 5 then an activities meeting at 8... Tomorrow I have a WIC appointment as well as going over to my mom's all day to help make cookies. I think that's going to bleed into Tuesday as well. Talk about a lot to do! I still need to figure out how to get the car seat through the airport- I wanted to buy an attachment that turned the car seat into a stroller of sorts (like a baggage roller) and then we wouldn't have to worry about renting a car seat but those attachments are 90$ plus s/h and we don't think we'll get enough use out of it to make that sort of investment. We are also trying to figure out how to get three people's things shoved into one suitcase so we'll have room to bring home a second suitcase full of the inevitable souvenirs. And of course we need to keep our hands as free as possible so we can take care of our little bundle of energy. I'm definately counting down the days until she can get into nursery- only three more months now!

Sigh

Today has been one of those days where I woke up thinking that it would be pretty easy then I've been so busy I haven't stopped at all. I hate those days. So, as you have been reading, the Journal that I'm publishing (sort of, its in Word) is due on Monday and there has been drama on that front. I'm the Editor in Chief and I've been emailing back and forth with our layout editor. The other two editors have been unreachable for several days now. (ERG!). One particular editor, I needed her to send me the articles that she had saved. But its come down to the wire and she still hasn't emailed me back. I tried calling- but her phone is disconnected! So I had to go online and pull the articles myself, trying to recall which articals we actually accepted and which ones we didn't. I hope I remembered right. Anyway. Then there are all the acceptance and rejection letters that we have to write. I, being benevolant and not wanting to unfairly burden others with work that I know I can do, assigned myself three rejection letters to write where everyone else had to write only one. But then one of the rejection letters turned into an acceptance paper and blah blah blah...basically, all you really need to know is that it ended up in more work for muah (me). I love this job. But I wish that I got paid and was able to work with people who wanted to do it. I'm going to start my own paper editing business once school is over. I'll advertise on a few campuses and one day I'll have a whole line of 'teach yourself because your teachers can't' products. The idea will be that I can give someone a perfect layout for their paper. If they follow my guidlines exactly, they can make themselves an A+ paper. Bigheaded, I know. Anyone want to work for me? Lol

School's almost out!

So this week is Finals week.

For my English class, I get to put together the Journal that we have so diligently been working on this semester. I have on girl on my editing board that is assigned to help with the layout, but she is taking 22 credits and has a full time job. I can't imagine that she'll help that much with this process. But its her grade so if she doesn't...

Anyway. Part of me really wants to do it myself. I think it would be fun, if not time consuming. I went to edit the final submissions of papers today and there was one submission that surprised the socks off me. This girl shall remain nameless for her safety :). Anyway, the week before Thanksgiving we were all supposed to turn in a Research Proposal, showing that we had an understanding of our topic, the appropriate resources and a good thesis developed. She never turned it in. I emailed her a reminder then emailed her asking if he had dropped the class and I never recieved a reply. So I figured she dropped the class. Submissions one and two roll around and there is nothing from her so that cemented my assumption. Today though, I went online to see the other papers and lo and behold! she has posted a paper titled 'final submission'.

Well, I knew right off the bat that I wasn't going to accept it for publication. But I edited it anyway because I love editing. The paper had a lot of good ideas but NOTHING concrete! She didn't give evidence for any of her ideas, meandered off on summaries of fairy tales then came back to say 'this teaches children ____' then moved off onto another paragraph without any sort of explanation, justification, statistics, anything. So, I decided that she must have sat down to write this paper and thought 'Oh, I can just BS my way through the paper, they'll never notice'. And I'm offended that she would even think that.

(Now here I'm putting thoughts in her head and getting mad at her for them. Its not fair of me).

Anyway. The thing that tops the cake is that she was the editor for my first paper. All the way through my submissions and subsequent feedback, all she ever said was 'great job, this is awesome!' and made small comments about word choice or punctuation. And then what did she do? She rejected my paper. When I politely emailed back and asked why? she told me that her editing board made a mistake in how they edited it but because they 'didn't have time' to edit it correctly, they were still going to reject it. That boiled my blood. And now she turns in a paper that is poorly written without any sort of respect for my time.

Wow, I got myself worked up there!

Anyway. School completely 100% officially over next monday- only 6 days from now. And then I won't be busy, I'll probably lay around reading and playing with Emmaline.

Here are a few pictures to make you all happy. This pic is blury but you'll have to squint or something. The green on the walls is the color of my bedroom. Its pretty striking when you walk in. I've gotten used to it but people still comment when they see it.

This picture was a few months a go, during the fall. Matt was cleaning out the car and I needed him to take Emmaline for a moment. But she is adorable. And hasn't changed much except her hair is longer.

My Usborne Plug

Two posts in one day! Sweet! So I'm an Usborne Book Consultant and I have hinted at that a few times. Now I'm actually going to give you my sales pitch. Usborne is the leading publisher of children's educational books in the United States. Our books are so cool because children won't even realize they are learning. We have researchers that continually study the way children's brains work and grow and we encorporate their findings into our literature. We have books from birth to young teens and then dictionaries/encyclopedias that can be used through High School. But we label the books with ages and it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Matt and I have several favorites that we read/play with regularly. So for infants/toddlers we have a line of touchy-feely books as well as look-and-say books. These books have nice textures for the babies to learn from and big tabs to help turn pages. All of these books are board books and very durable. (plus a lot more) For preschool/kindergarten ages we have a little more advanced childrens books but my favorite are the dual readers. There are two sets of words on every page. The line on the top of the page is 1st grade reading level and the lines on the bottom of the page are 2nd grade reading level. This is really good for several reasons. Bedtime stories can be significantly shorter because parents can get away with reading just the top line of the story (lol). For children who are learning to read, they can read the top line while mom and dad or an older sibling can read the second set of words. We also have a very good line of phonics readers. For older readers we have a really cute line of stories that all have beautiful illustrations. My favorite is 'How Big is a Million'? Its one of the best sellers in our catalogue. From there, we also have a large line of chapter books for the graduating readers, level one through level 5 I believe. Did I mention that Usborne has a guarantee on their books? If a book gets ruined for any reason whatsoever (even if your kid tears it in a tantrum or throws it in the bathtub) we will replace it for half price. There is no other publisher anywhere that guarantees their books like that- especially if you buy books at chain stores like Boarders. We have so many really cool things that I can't even post them all here. We have books that have flaps (see inside your body, fairy land, the earth...etc) books that have fold out pages (Sam Sheep Cant Sleep, a phonics reader) books with activities (hair braiding, magic tricks, mazes, dot-to-dot etc) and so so so much more. Although I prefer to show books in person (they literally sell themselves) I have a website that is browse-able. www.ubah.com/w2478 Please check it out. We can deliver books straight to your home (if you order relitively soon, you can have some by Christmas!) or you can have books delivered to relatives out of state. Don't forget about birthday parties and good-grade rewards. Thats my pitch. I hope you enjoyed it. Now anytime I mention Usborne, you can understand what I'm saying. P.S. you can get a lot of free books by hosting 'eshows' or homeshows- For example, if your show earns $300 worth of sales, you get 50$ of books free. I did a show yesterday where only five people ordered and the hostess is going to get 40$ of books free. Its a really good deal.

Can I have Senior-itis yet?

I have 6 classes until I'm done with my degree. 6. Thats it. All that is left is 6 classes. And I'm excited. The problem? It'll probably take another year to finish them all. Because I'm in a new program that went online only a little while ago (I am literally in the pilot program), I'm waiting for them to put classes online. I'm subject to their ability to put the exact classes up that I need. I'm guaranteed two classes this spring but after that, who knows if they'll get the exact 4 classes up that I need? I wish I could take three classes at a time. That would be sweet.

If I were on campus with no family, I could probably whip this out in one semester. It would be really stressful but I'm sure I could manage it. I've had worse. But online with a husband who tells me he wants to eat and have clean clothes as well as a baby? Forgetaboutit. So I have senioritis and another year to go. Sigh.

So, for pictures... Here we have Emmaline 'diving' into her books. She actually was trying to stand up inside the shelf at one point, but I couldn't snap the picture fast enough. :(

I love seeing her enjoy her books. Okay, so she isn't actually reading them here but I took out all her favorite books- who can blame her for wanting to crawl on them instead of reading them?

This final picture is just 'classic Emmaline'. This is a scarf that I bought for my mom's birthday party a few months ago and Emmaline just took to it like duck to water. She knows how to put it around her neck and she'll strut around the house with her chest pushed out and the biggest grin on her face. We love watching her grow up and learn things.

I'm sure all moms out there understand exactly what I'm saying. Emmaline has been such a blessing in my life (and her dad's too) and we would not be nearly as happy without her. We thank God every day that he blessed us with such a wonderful daughter.

Even when she isn't taking naps. Like right now.

My Rant About TV

I'm not sure what I want to say right now...I'm in the mood to write something. I've been online for a while and looking at a DVD set called Your Baby Can Read. Usborne Books (I'm a consultant through them) used to sell the set until the makers of YBCR discontinued it. I was disappointed because they pulled it only weeks after I joined so I didn't get a chance to buy it at my wonderfully discounted price. So I hopped online to see if I could find it and how much it cost. Its like, 4 times more expensive online than it was a full price through Usborne. I'm not going to get it :( I did read several reviews though. Some people were in awe that their two year olds could read 6 words after only spending 2 weeks with the program and others were freaked out about a TV teaching their child to read. My thoughts? I don't care if my daughter starts learning how to read by memorizing words rather than the phonics way, but I do care that she has to watch a minimum of one hour of these movies Per Day in order to see results. I don't think I even care too much that the TV would help teach, I just care that she would be staring at a screen for potentially hours every day. Matt and I have decided that we aren't going to be a TV family. Our only tv is a 13 inch television and it is nearly dead anyway. When it goes, its gone. We have it in our bedroom, not in the livingroom, so it requires effort to watch it. And since my room is not Emmaline-proof, I'm not going to put her in front of the tv as a 'babysitter'. Now, anyone who reads this, please don't get offended. I think every family has to decide what is right for themselves and if, as a parent, you need to have the tv on (either for a sanity break from the children or as a babysitter so you can get some cleaning done) go right ahead. We have more or less decided to not have the TV because we know how we react to it. I have this tv addiction...once its on, it doesn't get turned off. And Matt gets sucked into tv like a 10yr old to video games and I can never get his attention. So for the safety of our own selves, we have decided its better to not have the tv as a focal point in our home. Besides, with such a busy schedule, all I would be doing is bemoaning every show I miss because I have to do homework, run an errand or spend time playing outside. That was quite a tirade as well. I knew I was in the mood to talk. No pictures today, its a bit more work than I'm up for to download more pics. Too bad I can't download pics from my phone, I have a really cute pic of Emmaline surrounded with books. Maybe I'll 'stage' the picture and get it on our real camera. Until next time: It doesn't really matter how fast our children learn, as long as we are teaching them good values.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was interesting. Although the food was great and the people friendly, it wasn't my best Thanksgiving yet. Matt and I were in charge of bringing deviled eggs- sounds pretty easy but it wasn't. We spent all morning cooking (we were only doing banana pudding and deviled eggs, I wonder what'll happen when we have to do the entire dinner!) and the eggs wouldn't cooperate. My wonderful husband took it upon himself to boil the eggs and cool them off but they weren't allowed to cook long enough so we had to reboil them after they were already cold. So on take two, we start de-shelling the eggs but the shell keeps sticking and pulling the egg apart horribly. We let them cool longer, we doused them in cold water, we tried to be more patient and nothing was helping those shells come off the egg better. We are just fortunate that the ugly side of the egg always remains down on the plate! The pudding got raves though. It snowed for the first time on Sunday and we got a video of Emmaline's first encounter. It was much like the bubbles, I can't say she really enjoyed the event as much as her dad and I did. I'll post the video but it may be sort of boring to tell the truth. She doesn't do much.

There are only two weeks left of school and for that I'm insanely grateful. I have several phone calls to make and I have an Usborne Book Show on Wednesday as well as a Christmas party to help set up for Friday. Amongst all this, I have three chapters in my history book to read, 15 chapters in the other one to review, 4 papers to edit and my own paper to finish. Its going to be a great week. The hardest part about all this is there really isn't a concrete deadline like if I was going to school. Oh, darn, I have to read this chapter of history today before class! I better do it now! No, its more like, Oh, it has to be done at some point today...I've got other things I'm interested in...hopefully it will get done! And then Emmaline isn't feeling well- she is teething and has a cold on top of being cranky. Its not easy to work on homework when she is awake so I have to carefully plan my day around her naps.

Well, thats my busy tirade for today. Thing to remember for next time, take each moment one at a time and things will work out better than I expect it will.