Orientation

Well, I went to orientation for grad school. A little overwhelming, they handed out the syllabi and I already have homework due next week....Uuuugggg!!

All of the professors seem really helpful though, so that's good. I thought there would be more students around my age but most of them are in their 20's, there is a couple in their 30's and only one older than me. There are 28 of us in the MSW program. The computers were screwed up and people couldn't register, luckily, I had already registered from home.

The only problem I had while I was over there, was the place I was staying. The owner of the home was out of town and her niece (she's about 20) is staying there as well. She comes home late and has people over into all hours of the night. I have only met her twice and she has lived there for the past year. I don't know if she brings people over that late when the owner of the home is there, but on the second night I was there I had gone to be at 10:15 thinking I was in for a good nights rest.......NOT..... the girl cam home a 11:45 with friends, they proceeded to run in and out the front door, then went downstairs and put in a movie, laughing and talking.....they were right below the bedroom I was staying in and of course I could not go back to sleep. Finally at 1:20 am I got on my computer and found a motel to go to. I packed my stuff up and left. This coming week the owner of the home will not be home yet so I think I will book a motel room for the night. I'll have to talk with the owner and see if the niece does this often, because if that is the case, I'll need to find a different place to stay. I'm an old student and need my rest in order to function properly!

Well, I guess I better get busy and start studying my books, before I go to work!

Wishing there was more time to each day!

I took up quilting about nine years ago. I can't believe some of the things that people make, I am no where near as good as a lot of quilters items I have seen, but I try. Here is one of my first quilts that I made my grandson.

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I actually finished a queen size quilt for my sister, my husband wasn't very happy with me that I gave it away. I picked out fishing fabric because my sister likes to fish, so I decided to make it for her. I have to admit it did turn our pretty nice! It's one of those mystery quilts.

This moose is my most recent project, which I still have not finished quilting yet. This one is for our future log home.

I hope to be able to get some more made during my breaks from school, but we'll see. My granddaughter is still waiting for her horse quilt she requested some time ago. I bought the material, but it is still sitting downstairs in my sewing room waiting to be cut and sewn.

Playing in between work

We went to the lake and had some fun for a couple of days. Stayed in a really cute cabin, Flathead is so clear. This is a picture of our friends grandson, he's so cute!

Here is a view from the front of the cabin out to the dock. Our friends grandkids stayed in the Teepee tent.

On the way home we were going through town and this buck was helping himself to someones apple trees in their front yard.

And today we took the dogs to the river and went kayaking. Check out their little life jackets!

And now I must go to work to pay for this adventure called life!

Where is summer?

The last couple of days have been in the 60's here, where is our summer? I am sitting here wrapped in a quilt freezing my butt off. It's 57 degrees in the house but I don't want to turn the heat on because I think it is supposed to warm up in a few days. I talked with my daughter this morning and told her it was about 53 degrees outside, she said it was a little warmer where she is, but still not summer temps. I guess it doesn't matter much since I have to work today anyway, but still!

It's after 12:00 pm and I just looked at the temp on the back deck, it says 63. I am used to having anywhere from a few days, to a week or so in the 100's here during the month of August. This summer is quite different. My oldest daughter and her husband went floating and camping, I hope they are staying warm. Fall is definitely in the air; I do love fall, but I'd like to have a little heat before it sets in! Tomorrow we are going to meet some friends at a lake house on Flathead lake, I hope we have some good weather while we're there, but it will still be a good time being in a beautiful place with good company. We're going to stop on the way and look at some floor plans for our future retirement log home.

We found a great deal on a log home, but it is much larger than we want. I would like to down size, not upgrade to a larger home. We'll see how that goes. I want to pick a floor plan so we can take some numbers to the bank and see if we can get a construction loan. I think now is the time to build while prices are lower. I think the economy will be picking up and prices will start to rise again. I want a little log home for a get away now, but also big enough to accommodate us when we want to move there in the future.

We will also be stopping to check in with the person who is putting me up on Thursday nights while I am attending school 2 1/2 hours away. She happens to be my ex sister-in-laws Aunt who also used to date my father back in the 70's. Pretty funny; she's a great lady. The grad program I am attending is on Thursdays and Fridays, so she is willing to give me a room so I only have to drive over once a week.

Hubby wants to fly to the places we are going the next couple of days, but I'm not sure I want to. I am such a chicken; not much for small planes, I guess I better get used to it since the hubby is building a plane in our garage and our future home is on a private air strip! It's the weather that scares me, anything can come up quick and we have been getting a lot of bad, windy weather lately.

Here's a picture of a plane landing (or taking off, hubby took the pic) where we are planning on building our log home.

I thought I was pretty smart; until I took the GRE!

I must say thanks to Missy for the award. that was really great! So, THANKS Missy!

Well I am all registered for my classes and financial aid has come through again. However, I am not looking forward to paying back the $60,000 after I finish my Masters degree. I guess that's the price you pay for getting an education, huh?! It will be well worth it though, as long as I can get a good stable job when the time comes. Two more years of studying and then taking the test to become a licensed social worker. I don't know how I ever got through the GRE test to get into grad school!

The GRE (graduate record examination) has been dropped by many universities, but of course not the one I wanted to attend! Have you ever looked at some of the questions for this exam? I didn't know there were so many words that I didn't know! For example.....adumbrate, abjure, animadversion, aplomb, circumlocution, comestible, deleterious, demagogue.....do any of you know what these words mean? I sure didn't and there are many, many more that I never even knew existed! (I have added a link on the side for dictionary.com if you want to get the definition of these words) I had just had 4 years of college and I felt dumber than a box of rocks when I started studying for the GRE......Uuhhgg!

I did not do well on the exam, but I was not going to pay the money to take it again. I certainly didn't want to study for it again. My daughter and one of my former professors told me not to worry about it because it didn't matter.....and they were right, because I still was accepted to grad school.

So if any of you want to go check out the GRE and take a practice test, just look it up on the Internet and try it!

He didn't think I'd do it......but I did!

Ok, this is a story from our much younger years. The year was 1983. My husband was in the Navy and we went to many parties during those years. This party happened to be at a lake that was about 85 miles from where we lived. My husband liked Tequila and he and his buddies threw back quite a few that day. I was the designated driver. So...on the way home from the lake, my husband decided to be funny and pulled the emergency break up on me while I was going down the highway.....when I regained control of the car, I told him if he did that again I was going to kick him out of the car and he would have to walk home, we had 75 miles to go. All I could think about was what if he killed us by doing that, we had 2 small children at the time and that's what I was concerned about (the kids were at a babysitter that day) Well......he did it again and when I got control of the car this time, I pulled over, reached across him to open his door and said "get the "F" out of the car!" He did, bare foot, with no wallet, in shorts and a tank top.......I left and drove home to Idaho Falls. I figured he'd get a ride from someone else that had left the lake.

He had to hitch hike and first rode on a catamaran that was on a trailer, that guy only took him to Pocatello, then he hitched with a guy who drove a truck with chickens in it, my husband rode in the back with the chickens to Blackfoot. That guy tossed him a dime to make a call (phone calls were only 10 cents back then!). So my hubby called a friend to come and get him, our friend did and he was fine. I called our friend to make sure that my hubby was with him and made it to Idaho Falls alright. Our friend brought my hubby home the next morning. Hubby said he didn't think I would leave him out there, he thought I would just go down a couple of miles and then come back and get him.

A few years down the line we were stationed in California and went to a military Christmas party and of course, I was driving home and my husband was drunk. He started messing with me again and I said "I can pull over now and leave you on the side of the rode, or you can stop doing what you are doing" my hubby laid the seat back and I didn't hear a peep out of him the rest of the way home! He learned his lesson.......I follow through with what I say!!

Ya gotta teach them right from the get go that you're not going to put up with stuff like that, especially when you have children to think about!

Isn't it amazing we are still together?! I do love him very much and I don't know what I'd do without him and.......he hasn't had a drink in 15 years!

Results

Thanks for you thoughts and prayers for my friend on her mammogram results. Everything is good. They saw calcification on one side and dense tissue on the other. So...it's all good. She said she broke down after she was told, just from the relief of it all. Thank God everything turned out ok. :)

Friend awaiting mammo results

I have a friend up in Alaska that I knew in high school. We have been out of touch for about 30 years and have recently been reunited. We talk almost everyday and she sends my son packages to Afghanistan which are full of all kinds of goodies; movies, canned salmon, jerky, books, magazines, etc. She has never even met my son, but she says she feels responsible for him because it was at her birthday party back in high school that my husband and I first started dating. She is so sweet. My son loves the stuff she sends!

Last week my friend told me that she went and had a mammogram and they wouldn't give her the results. She had to make another appointment to go in and get the results. That appointment is today, I just sent her an e-mail that I am thinking about her and saying a few prayers for her. My friend said the last week has been hell, she breaks down and cries at any moment; at work and one night when her and her husband went out for dinner. I told her to try and stay positive and that it is fear of the unknown that is taking over her emotions, she agreed. Her mom has been staying with her through the summer and she hasn't said anything to her because she doesn't want to worry her mom just in case it is nothing. Which I can understand, but at the same time, I know if it were one of my daughters I would want to know to be able to give her the support she needs at the time.

I just thought I would share and ask for prayers to be sent to Alaska for my wonderful friend and I will keep you posted when I here how her appointment went. Thanks a bunch!

Did your mom used to cut your bangs?

My sister and I were just reminiscing about when our mom used to cut our hair. We were left with not much for bangs, mom should have just cut them completely off, since there wasn't ever much left anyway!! I was always left with a dutch cut, do you remember the Dutch cuts? (I'm the toe head in the black and white crushed velvet dress in the front row.)

My poor sister, there just wasn't much left of her bangs when mom was done!

God love my mom, she was just keeping up with the "Jones's" I guess! It's funny to look back at old pictures of me and my sister, but if you look at the one I posted, my mom doesn't have much for bangs either!

High School Reunions

As I came out of the bedroom this morning, my husband was sitting on the couch surfing the Internet. He started singing.....Hhhaaaappyyy Bbiiirrrttthhhdddaaayy Mr. President (in Marilyn Monroe voice). I started laughing and thought....can you imagine being the President?

My husband and President Obama are the same age.....they graduated 30 years ago. My husband said.....No Thanks, he would not want to be the President......so this leads me to.....This weekend is my husbands 30 year reunion. We are only a 4 hour drive from where he graduated, but he has to work this weekend. He works at a dam and they do their annual maintenance in August of every year. They work long, hard hours for a couple of weeks straight, so we will not be attending his reunion.

Where do the years go, it seems every year goes by faster. I went to my ten year reunion, but will not go to another one. I am still friends with the people who were close to me and we still keep in touch. My Aunt, who is 70, goes to every one of her reunions and has a blast, maybe things were different for people in earlier years, I don't know. She graduated from the same high school as me and my husband, so what is so different?

I hung out with the people a year ahead of me, so I wouldn't mind going to their 30 reunion next year....we'll see.

How do the rest of you feel about high school reunions? Please share! Thanks!

Here's a couple of pictures of me and my hubby during high school....1979.

Change in work status

Well, I had to make in important decision concerning work. I felt my being the Program Manager wasn't going to be a good thing while commuting every week to earn my Master's degree. So, I wrote a letter of resignation from my Manager position and asked to stay on as a Program Coordinator. It is a step down, but would allow me the freedom to be done with work when I left the building instead of continuing to work from home as well; not to mention always being on call, which I get 2 to 3 of every time I try to take a day off!

August 27, I will begin my pursuit to school, while at the same time take on the title of Program Coordinator. I saw the ad in the newspaper yesterday for the Manager job, they upped the hours for the new manager to 30, I was only offered 20, but shortly afterward they offered me 25.5. The job really should be full time at 40 hours, but until a BIG grant comes in, it won't be 40. This will also allow me to get a paid internship, which will be nice.

I keep telling myself I did the right thing because school should be my number one priority and I want the place to have a manager who will be available to the staff. We will see who we get for a new manager, so that I can take a break from those responsibilities and hand them over.

Sorry I haven't written in a while, but I was facing this dilemma of work and school and had to take time to write up a good letter to send my boss. Thanks for all of your support!