Now at a different blog

I have survived!

I have officially finished my semester of post-bac (bring me up to speed) work and will start grad school in Jan. I am FREE (except for work) until Jan. 11!

First, for those of you who don't facebook *cough Mom #1*, here is a recap. If you do facebook, feel free to scroll on down.
**************************************************************************
Nov. 21 - 8:26am - I'm off to Keller to watch Cooper play football and Cason play baseball.

Nov. 22 - 10:12am - Had a lovely day in Keller yesterday visiting family and friends. Cooper "Sand-Man" Sanders did a great job and his team won. Cason's game was canceled so I'll have to see him play another time. I also finally got to taste a Chuckie burger.

Nov. 22 - 1:49pm - I did not do so hot on Test from Hell: 2nd edition, but oh well, I still have a 'B' in the class.

Nov. 23 - 10:03pm - KJ and I just got home from seeing "New Moon." I saw "Men Who Stare at Goats" yesterday. I think 2 movies in 2 days may be a record for me. Thank goodness Olene gave me movie passes.

Nov. 25 - 10:44am - I'm off to work. Ho-Hum.

Nov. 25 - 10:18pm - Picked up cheesecake that Olene ordered for tomorrow - check, have fruitcakes to Audie from Olene - check, have bag of clothes and toys for Carson from Rachel & delivered by Olene - check, bought the rolls I'm supposed to bring - check - KJ and I leave at 7:00am for Wichita Falls!

Nov. 27 - 9:10am - Had a great Thanksgiving yesterday! KJ and I will be heading back to Waco this afternoon.

Nov. 27 - 9:34pm - I'm home with big plans for the weekend. First priority is to do something about the stinky dog, Curly. Next priority is to unstinkify everywhere Curly has stunk up. Third - clean the rest of the house, and lastly - put up the Christmas decorations!

Nov. 27 - 11:54pm - One task down - Curly has been given a haircut, bathed, oiled up (skin problems), given a doggie breath mint and denta stick, and no longer smells...at least for a little while.

Nov. 30 - 12:30am - The house is more or less clean, definitely much cleaner than it was, and the inside Christmas decorations are up. Unfortunately, all that cleaning and decorating made my back hurt too much to sleep which is why I'm on here after midnight.

Nov. 30 - 7:31pm - I just took my turkey out of the oven. I bought two when they went on sale after Thanksgiving. I LOVE turkey.

Dec. 1 - 9:47am - I was changing out a framed photo of KJ when I discovered this hiding behind his picture. **Eeeek**




Dec. 2 - 10:33am - I'm turning in my last three assignments today and then all I have left to do is STUDY for finals. Yay! On that note, I was reading out loud last night (helps me focus) from the Dive Physiology chapter in Animal Phys and Sammie fell asleep before I finished half a page. Guess he's not interested in the subject.

Dec. 4 - 5:27pm - I have officially registered for the Fall and am REALLY glad I only have to take 9 hours to be full-time.

Dec. 5 - 2:29pm - Well, today is a first. I'm taking KJ to a bar. Actually, his band is playing there this evening. When he asked me if it was okay, I said, "you do realize I'll be there the ENTIRE time." He agreed so I get to play chaperone tonight. He's the only one under 18, but only one member of the band is 21 or over.

Dec. 7 -10:49am - One more class to go and then classes are OVER...just have to survive finals. I only have one really hard one, but it will be a killer.

Dec. 7 - 8:00pm - Ever leave the house wearing pajama pants, T-shirt, and house shoes, because you will not be getting out of the car...and then have to get out of the car? I was dressed this way to run KJ over to a friend's house to study for a final they have tomorrow. It turned out that the power was out in that part of town so no studying. On the way back to our house, KJ suggested renting a movie from Redbox which I agreed to (after he studies of course). Our nearest Redbox is at a gas station so there we stood, both in plaid pajama pants, me in hot pink hot shoes, KJ in checkered vans renting our movie. The kicker is that we went INSIDE to get sodas. I told KJ we were doing a white-trash impersonation.

Dec. 9 - 11:28am - I've been fighting a sinus-triggered migraine since the middle of the night. I'm up to a total med count of 2 Fioricet, 4 Advil, and countless reheatings of the bed buddy across the left half of my head. It has finally receded some, but the vision in my left eye is all blurry. This sucks.

Dec. 9 - 2:33pm - Headache is pretty much gone which means the studying can resume. I went to bed studying dive physiology (which may have something to do with the resulting migraine) and am now on to circulation. I'm working my way backwards through the semester.

Dec. 9 -6:50pm - Circulation chapter is going slowly...

Dec. 10 - 12:06am - I now know about circulation in mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. I'm done for the night.

Dec. 10 - 8:44pm - Tonight's review will be respiration. See ya in a few hours...

Dec. 11 - 11:14am - 1 final down, three to go.

Dec. 11 - 10:27pm - Disco Elves

Dec. 11 - 10:31pm - Hip Hop Elves

Dec. 11 - 10:33pm - Country Elves

Dec. 12 - 8:46pm - I'm trying to relieve stress with comfort food. I cooked a 12 pound turkey today and just ate a pile of turkey with a pile of mashed potatoes, all covered in turkey gravy (kind that comes in a jar).

Dec. 13 - 1:16pm - Slightly less stressed since I just realized I only need an 80 on my Statistics final to keep an 'A' and only need a 40 for a 'B'. This means I can keep studying for Vert Phys instead of switching over to Stats.

Dec. 14 - 10:43am - 2 tests down, 2 to go.

Dec. 15 - 1:37am - 7:00pm-1:00am = studying with a friend at library. Home now and heading to bed so I can return to library by 5:30.

Dec. 15 - 11:52am - The final from hell is over!!!! I have one more tomorrow, and then I'm done.

Dec. 15 - 10:56pm - *sigh* Staying up late studying and napping in the afternoon has screwed with my sleep pattern. I'm WIDE awake.

Dec. 16 - 11:48am - I'm DONE! I'm still waiting on one last grade, but so far 3 A's and 1 B.

Dec. 16 - 6:53pm - Crap, crap, crap! I had two tests of 100 each and a class participation grade of 95 in Evolutionary Biology. I bombed the final (don't know how, I thought I did decently- it was open book and I looked up most of the answers) which dropped my average to 89.75 and he DID NOT round up to 90 so I got a &%$ 'B' in the class. *fuming* (This is something I added in my comments to this. This professor is a great lecturer and one of my favorites. I knew he did not round since he said so at the beginning of the semester. I was just mad, because I expected to have an 'A'.)

Dec. 16 - 6:55pm - On top of all that, my great-aunt was giving me a hard time earlier today, because I had made a 'B' and did not get straight A's. I was happy with THAT 'B', just not the second one. *still fuming*
***************************************************************************

Now that everyone is up-to-date, on to new stuff.

I spent quite some time last week volunteering at the Scholastic Book Warehouse Sale. I spent that book credit on KJ a pile of books and a few for my nephews. KJ and I are going to volunteer again in the morning so I can finish my shopping for the nephews and for my youngest niece. We have some friends coming over for Christmas cookie decorating tomorrow afternoon.

My parents are coming down Christmas day and are bringing a car for KJ. He is beside himself with excitement! It will certainly make things easier on me schedule-wise.

I'll blog more regularly now, at least until school starts back.

updates from facebook

Nov. 8 - 9:10am - No sleeping in for me today. The man who sometimes mows my yard (when I've let it get away from me) was here at 8 to finish up from last week when his lawn mower died. Sammie hates strange men and spent the entire time running from window to window barking his fool head off.

Nov. 10 - 8:47pm - Breath in, breath out, breath, breath out...I'm trusting KJ with a little more independence and am now sitting here wringing my hands waiting for him to call.
Edited to add that KJ was allowed to drive to Hillsboro at 9:00 at night. He made it okay.

Nov. 13 - 8:34pm - It's been a l-o-n-g week full of tests, projects, and homework. One more busy week and then things slow down until finals. I can hardly wait until Thanksgiving.

Nov. 14 - 11:00pm - Long, but productive day today. I did some work related stuff, visited with a friend, took KJ to Guitar Center in Killeen since it was the closest place for a part that broke off his bass drum pedal, did laundry, vacuumed, sprayed for fleas, bathed Curly, actually cooked lunch and supper, showed KJ where the fuse boxes in the car and how to tell if one has blown, and did a little more work on my 3-D farm project.

Nov. 15 - 1:03pm - I'm off to work at store #2 today. Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho....

Nov. 16 - 12:21am - The farm project is done! I can now have my dining room table back.

Nov. 16 - 12:21pm - 100% on my farm project, thank you very much.

Nov. 16 - 11:00pm - Had a wonderful music-filled evening at the MCC Rock Band Concert. I had to restrain myself from standing up and yelling, "That's my baby rocking the drums!"

Nov. 17 - 1:03pm - If I top off a healthy lunch of tuna on whole wheat crackers with Schwan's Peppermint Stick ice cream, that would make it a "balanced" meal, right? Right?

Nov. 17 - 5:03pm - This is what Sammie and I do several times a day. If I don't, he is not tired enough to sleep at night.

Nov. 18 - 7:55am - I was fighting a headache yesterday evening, took a migraine pill and laid down to rest for a few minutes, and woke up 3 hours later having missed study group. Then, however, I was wide awake and stayed up late reading my animal physiology book and now, I'm sleepy. I need a better routine...

Nov. 18 - 11:08pm - Emily's new favorite spot now that's it's getting cool enough to light the heater. Please ignore the large amounts of dog hair. I'm too swamped with school stuff to sweep.



Nov. 19 - 6:52pm - I got into grad school! Woo Hoo!!! I have not been officially informed, but found out today that I'm IN!! *happy dance*

It's been so long that I don't know where to start.

Let's see, I left off with the impending test from hell. It went fine and I got a 'B,' which means I can still get an 'A' in the course. School-wise for me, things are going well. I have A's in all my other classes, did decent on the GRE, and am pretty sure I'll get into grad school for the spring. My mentor professor/advisor seems to think I won't have a problem.

School-wise for KJ, things are improving, but could still be better. After his father and I spoke to KJ's psychologist, we agreed to try KJ on a prescription med for his ADD, for this transistional time anyway. Meanwhile, KJ will work with his psychologist on organizational skills. KJ had his first dose yesterday and said it helped tremendously. He felt much more relaxed and focused.

Social-wise for KJ, he is in a new band. I believe it is "death-core metal" or something like that. It's loud and has a screamer. Thank goodness, they do not practice at my house! The other young men seem nice enough and were gracious enough to not smoke around KJ or even in their cars with the windows down. Of course, KJ had not bothered to tell them this...I finally called the main guy up after listening to KJ's cough get progressively worse. He felt bad that he had not known it was an issue for KJ and things have been fine ever since. KJ had a girl he liked be a total bitch, and say some really mean and uncalled for things to him. Seriously, I have NEVER heard of a girl treating someone this way. Times have changed. I went into mama-bear mode and it took everything I had not to call the little hussy up and take a piece out of her 17 year-old behind with my 40 year-old foot.

On the home front, the house is currently a disaster area that only seems to stay clean for an hour before the dishes start piling back up and everything becomes coated with a layer of dog hair.
Work-wise, things got nuts right after Halloween with me working a total of 11 hours last Sunday, taking down Halloween and putting up Christmas. I alternately hate and love my job depending on when you ask.

Dog-wise, I am also battling some kind of mutant fleas that refuse to die. I've just about poisoned myself along with my dogs and they just keep coming back. It would take a whole other blog post to describe putting on my bathing suit and giving Sammie and Curly a shower to try and make sure I got all the flea shampoo off. I always have a hard time getting their undersides so I held them up in the shower. Neither one liked it at all. The most recent flea battle plan is respraying the yard, the dogs got Frontline yesterday since the last topical stuff (Bio-Spot) did not work, and I've sprayed the carpet and Curly's bed with a different flea spray. I had been dusting them and the bedding with something that I've forgotten the name of, but it did not work. They both had a flea bath 3 days ago and I can't bath them again for a week to give the Frontline time to spread through their system.

A couple of weeks ago, a pit bull broke into the back yard by ripping the chain link away from the frame and pushing it up to make a dog-size hole. It attacked Sammie and charged at me. I called the police who came out and waited for animal control. The dog left while he was waiting so the officer followed him, but lost him down an alley. Animal control thinks he was trying to get to Curly. She has been spayed, but he said female dogs could still put out an odor. Who knows? A man came up as they were leaving and spoke to both officers. I think it was the dog owner. Either way, the dog has not been back. Sammie had a pretty good puncture wound on his head, but has recovered fine and the landlord fixed the hole in the fence. I still have a large walking stick and a sword by the back door in case the dog shows back up.

I have to head to class so ta-ta for now.