Famous Last Words for Week 15

Well, I'm almost done with this weeks work for this class.  I'm quite happy to say that I'll be finished with the last of the extra credit posts by tomorrow sometime.  I finished all the required postings as of this morning.  Yay!  I'm hoping that I get some "free passes" or bonus points to bump up my grade just a little bit.

For my other class, I'm a teacher assistant in a psychology class, so I still have to attend those classes this week and then help proctor a test on Monday for the professor.  That should be the last of my duties for that class.  The next class I plan to take is my Trigonometry class again.  Neither of the other two classes I need to finish my degree at OU are offered in the summer, so it looks like I won't be back at OU until the fall semester.

My personal life is still going well.  One of my middle daughters started complaining this morning of the same symptoms that my youngest one had last week, so I may be dealing with another child throwing up soon.  I'm hoping not, but if it happens then I'll just deal with it.  Stuff happens, right?  I'm still feeling well and that's a very good thing!

My son has a job interview today so I'm crossing my fingers that his interview goes well.  He needs a job because I'm getting ready to kick him out of the house by the end of July.  He's twenty-two years old, so I think it's time to be on his own.   Plus, I need the room he's currently in, so I can move my teenage daughter into it.

Even though it's been pretty rainy and overcast outside, I've actually kinda liked the weather.  My plants and landscaping really needed the rain.  Everything looks so green outside now.  It's actually quite pretty.  I'm hoping that I can get out there and plant a garden sometime soon.  I tried to grow some carrots last year (I planted them a little too late) and they didn't turn out so well.  Lol

Oh well, hopefully this year will be better.

Well, I guess that's about it for this post.  I hope that everyone has a wonderful summer and has the best of luck in all your future classes!  Take care and I'm glad that I was able to meet each of you in this class.  A special "Thank You" goes out to the professor, Laura Gibbs, for allowing me to take this class and expanding my learning so much.

Have a great summer everyone!

Fun in the Sun

Famous Last Words: Week 14

Week 14 has been a good week overall.  

Academically, I'm continuing to get good grades in my classes at OU.  Woo, hoo!  I'm about to finish up my postings for this class and I'm feeling really good about my effort and grade in this class.  I've had several stressful weeks throughout this class, but everything ended up on a good note.  Yay!  As for my Trigonometry class at OCCC, well...I'll be taking it again and hopefully since I've had more practice and experience under my belt that I'll do better next time.   Even though I won't be graduating this semester as I had hoped, I only have 3 more classes to finish and I plan to take it really slow so I can get super good grades in all of them.  I should be graduated in approximately 2 more semesters.  I know I can do better in the last of my classes, if I take them one at a time.

Good Grade

On a personal level, my life has been good.  My littlest daughter was sick (throwing up) for two days in a row, but is all better as of yesterday.  She's a tiny little thing, so I was quite worried about her getting dehydrated.  Luckily she didn't get dehydrated and started feeling better.  My other 3 girls are finally finished with the public school standardized testing.  Whew...that was a challenge for my 3rd grader.  Next year, I'm going to have a Kindergartener, a 2nd grader, a 4th grader & a sophomore in high school.  I'm going to be SO busy!

I've also decided to get my butt back into shape.  I finally got sick and tired of being overweight and want to get back into great shape.  I bought an elliptical and my goal is to use it at least 3 days a week to start off, and then work up to everyday.  I'm also starting a fitness boot camp for the next 4 weeks and I'm betting that will make me sweat off a few inches and pounds.  Lol   I also love to dance, so I might sign up for an adult dance class at my girl's dance studio.  I've done it before and it was SO fun!

Motivation Needed

Scary Scale

In my last post I had mentioned that I was getting a new fence installed.  That hasn't happened yet due to all the rain, but it should be done by next weekend.  My husband and I have also been talking about moving to a bigger house as well.  That's still just in the idea phase, but I'm hoping that it does turn into reality in the next few years.  We have to pay off a few bills first, and then fix a few things in our current house before we can make a move.  Waiting sucks, but it will be worth it in the end.

That's all for this week, folks!

Famous Last Words for Week 12

This week has been a better week for me overall.  I got to relax some even though I had housecleaning and homework to do.  Relaxing and taking a nap are not things that I normally get to do at all usually.  My husband didn't have to work on Friday, so we spent the day together goofing off and running around together while the kids were in school.  That was certainly a nice change from the daily grind I deal with each week.

I'm so happy that my family's medical issues are well under control now.  That makes me less stressed and a happier person in general.  My littlest one does have the sniffles right now, but it's nothing too bad.  I can handle the sniffles.  Lol

My classes are all going well.  I didn't get as much done in this class as I had hoped for this week, but that's ok with me too.  I did get all the required stuff done, so I'm feeling quite good about that part.   I do love going to college, butI now realize that I like it much more when I take less classes in a semester and can concentrate on each one as I take it, so I can get a much higher grade.

My Trigonometry class at OCCC is not going so well, but I plan to switch to Audit and then retake it again in the Fall or possibly this Summer.  I know I'm not really a Math person, so I know that retaking the class will benefit me and help me obtain a better grade next time.  Trigonometry is hard and I feel that the more exposure I have to it, the better I'll do.  I also plan to utilize their tutoring services as well.  I think that will help me out even more.  Can I just say...I HATE Math!!  Lol

Ok, ok...I don't hate ALL Math, but anything above College Algebra sucks big time!

Trigonometry Sucks

Wasn't the weather beautiful outside this past week?  Even when it rained a little, I still enjoyed the weather.  I really do enjoy outside temps in the 70's to 80's and just a little bit of rain here and there.  The stormy weather that rolled in this morning was a bit of a shocker though.  I woke up to heave rains, howling winds and a little bit of small hail.  It kind of frightened me at first until I looked at my Accuweather app on my phone and saw that it was just a minor thunderstorm.  I can't wait to have a few days of no rain though because I'm getting a new fence installed as soon as the weather clears.  Yay!

I guess that's about it for my Last Words post this week.  Thanks for reading and have a wonderful, productive week!  Until I post again...bye!

Famous Last Words; Week 11

I have been MIA for a while.  Sorry for that, folks!  Between my husband having some medical issues (surgery), my own personal battle with a stomach bug and my teenager dealing with bleeding ulcers and anemia...I've been emotionally and physically tapped out.

We are all back on track now, so I am back to writing my blog posts again!  Yay, for me!  I've ben trying to play a little bit of catch up in all of my classes and this class is no exception.  This class is hard work, but I love it nonetheless.

After being away from posting for about 2 weeks, it was definitely hard to get back into he swing of things again, but I persevered.  I'm looking forward to getting everything done for this class this week and doing ALL of the extra credit.  Ambitious, I know, but most definitely doable!

As for my other classes...well, I had to drop a couple of them so I won't be graduating this May.  I'm a little bummed about that, BUT the feeling of being overwhelmed and stressed is gone and that makes me happy.  I will still graduate, but I'm going to take it at a much slower pace.  I'm planning on taking one class at a time, so I can concentrate on each one and get the best possible grade in each of them.  This will be the best scenario for me because...wait for it...we will be adopting a newborn in August.  Yes, we are crazy and crazy excited to be adopting my grandchild.  We have no idea if it's a boy or girl yet, so I'll probably update with that information later on in this course. (We're hoping it's a girl though!)

My kids will give me the extra energy to get through it.  Lord knows...they are full of energy!  Lol

Here's to another week FULL of writing and other assignments!  

Cheers!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter yesterday!  My girls were able to color Easter eggs, visits with their grandparents and hunt Easter eggs!  It was a great day for them.  Since my kids were at the grandparents, my hubby and I got to spend the day relaxing at home with some much-needed peace and quiet.  It was a good day for us as well.  Lol

Personal photos of all 3 of my beautiful girls!

Famous Last Words: Week 7

My post for this week will be mixed with positive and negative things that have happened to me and/or my family.

First of all, I finally realized that I had "bitten off more than I could chew" in regards to taking 15 credit hours this semester.  I made the decision to drop out of a class to lessen the pressure I was feeling every day and the fear that I was not going to pass all my classes if I didn't reduce my stress level.  This is both a positive and negative decision for me.  The positive is that I will feel less pressure and stress on me from all the demands of maintaining such a full class load.  The negative is that I won't be graduating this semester after all.  I'm ok with that because I know I will only have to take 1 class next semester and I'll finally be done.

My family life has also had some ups and downs this week.  My husband had surgery to repair a broken foot, so that has put a lot more responsibility on my shoulders for keeping the house in shape and taking care of the kids more on my own.  The positive things have been I've had more "quiet time" to myself since I'm not enrolled in so many hours now.  I actually have more time to devote to studying and housecleaning.  Lol   I do love being a mother, housewife and student, but I do also want to get out into the workforce someday.  I know my time will come, but it will just be delayed a little bit due to reducing my class load.

The snow has been so beautiful to look at and I've taken lots of pics of the kids playing outside in it.  They love it, but I'm not really a cold loving person.  We love to watch the birds eating birdseed off of the windowsill and the bird feeder.  We've seen so many cardinals in the snow.  Their red feathers make them stand out against the white snow! 

 (personal photo of my kids--February 28, 2015)

The funniest thing that happened this week was when my son took a couple of our cats outside and put them in the snow.  I was cracking up watching them shake off their paws and try to figure out how to get out of the cold snow.  I'll post a pic of one of them in the snow.  I guess that's about it for this post this week.  Thank you for reading it!

(personal photo of my cat, Luna--February 28, 2015)

Famous Last Words: Week 6

Well, I was hoping that this week's post would be about having a great week and not being as stressed as I have been in my previous week's posts, but it turns out it wasn't much better.  Let me apologize now, if my Famous Last Words posts seems to be mostly on the negative side.  I'm really not a negative Nancy, but this semester has been wrought with new & unexpected stressors almost every week.

I took my first Trigonometry test and it did not go as well as I had hoped.  I will probably need to get a tutor, if I want to pass this class.  My other classes are going ok.  I'm doing pretty well in my Capstone class, my TA Psychology class, and my Research Methods II class & lab.

In this class, I came across several interesting posts and storybooks.  One in particular drew me in just by reading the title.  The title was something like LSD: The Yellow Submarine.  The storyline left me with a lot of unanswered questions, but it also intrigued me enough to want to visit it again and again to see how the story progresses.  Good job, Lillian on such an interesting Storybook so far!

As for my personal life, I'm preparing for my husband to have surgery tomorrow morning (if the weather doesn't interfere with the current plan).  He is a medically fragile man & any surgery could be potentially life threatening to him.  I also found out that my oldest daughter is pregnant again with child #4 and she is a single mother.  She has asked my husband and I to adopt the child once it is born in August sometime.  This is an exciting time for us, but also stressful too because this will be a high risk pregnancy for her.  

As most of you know already, we are foster parents and already have 5 children in our home right now.  I need to graduate this semester, so I can go to work part or full time once our newest addition is old enough to go to Early Head Start (somewhere around September or October).

I know most of you are a lot younger than I am and probably have completely different stressors in your lives than I do.  Please bare with me as I post each week.  I'm just trying to survive this semester without turning into a crazy woman and writing about it seems to help somehow.  Thank you for letting me vent.

Thank You

Famous Last Words: Week 5

AHHH...I'm so glad that this week is about over!  I had so many issues with getting my Portfolio Folder set up correctly for this class.  For some reason, my brain just couldn't wrap around the instruction on how to do it correctly.  At last, I think I have finally gotten it working now!  Thank goodness.  Lol

My other classes (and other family stressors) have calmed down a bit, so that is definitely a plus.  I'm actually doing better in my classes so far than I had originally thought.  Yay me!  That makes me feel better about actually graduating at the end of this semester.  I'm still worried about my Trigonometry class, but I'm taking it slow & steady.  Baby steps, right?

One thing that I'm actually looking forward to this coming weekend is my daughter's adoption party.  We adopted her on February 2nd, but with our crazy busy schedules we haven't been able to have a party for her yet.  Lots of people are coming and I'm looking forward to the distraction.

I'm also really looking forward to Spring Break next month.  I'm hoping to take the family on a road trip to see some sights around Oklahoma that I haven't been to in a long time.  It will be fun to take a family trip and "get away" for a while.  I think we may even go visit my family in Tulsa too while we are out adventuring as a family.  I think I'd like to go to some children's museums, Arbuckle wilderness, Frontier City and maybe some other places that I've heard of recently.  I think there's a place in Oklahoma that you can dig for crystals or diamonds.  That sounds like fun.

Anyway, even though some of this week was stressful, I have some great things to look forward to doing in the very near future!  Gotta love a large family and all the (good & bad) times that it brings into your life!

(Personal Photo: Our adoption hearing day!  Our new addition, Jacqueline, is the girl in the middle. February 2015)

Famous Last Words: Week 4

Wow, this week was especially tough for me.  I fell behind in getting my work done and ended up not being able to do any of my Reading Diaries or Storytelling for this week.  I'm so thankful for an understanding instructor and all of the extra credit options that are available to us all.  I had numerous personal life situations happen that interfered with my schoolwork, but with a husband and 6 children most people can probably understand why.  For most of the week, I felt like I was stressed out and ready to lose my mind.  Thankfully, I can look back on everything that happened and smile because I survived without being put in the looney bin!  Lol

Stressed Out

As for my other classes, I haven't found any similarities between them and this class, but I did find out that one of my children, 15 year old girl, is learning about Greek Mythology (the gods, goddesses & beasts) in one of her classes.  It is kind of nice to be able to compare what she is learning to the material in this class.  Each day, we talk about what she has learned that day and I let her read my blogs and see the story selections that we can chose from in my class.

This week for one of my extra credit assignments, I chose to include a YouTube video into a blog.  I've never really searched or looked around on YouTube much before doing this assignment, so I really enjoyed looking around at all the video options there.  Man...the video options on YouTube seem to be endless!!!!  I posted a video on eyeliner techniques on my blog!  I was fascinated with all of the makeup tutorials on there.  Since looking around on that site, I have used it for another one of my classes to help me understand Trigonometry better.  There are tons of videos on Trigonometry topics and they really did help me with two homework assignments that were due this weekend.  Needless to say, I will be watching a lot more YouTube videos from now on!!!  :-)

YouTube

Famous Last Words: Week 2 struggling with writer's block

This week has been challenging for me.  It's hard to fight off the feeling that you are falling behind in your classwork, even when you logically know you're not.  My personal life (mainly my children) has really made it difficult to get things done on time & get to my classes on time as well.  I suppose I need to start organizing and prioritizing my schedule a little better, so that I don't feel so overwhelmed and overloaded on the weekend.

With that being said, I feel that my best writing assignment this week was when I rewrote the story of Saint Christine.  I felt like I conveyed the story in a successful way by adding new details and changing the storyline just a bit.  I thought the story was interesting and that is why I chose to retell it.  I really went out of my comfort zone with deciding to read the Women Saints unit.  I really don't read anything religious in nature at all and that was my main motivation for trying to read this unit.  I wanted to try to read something I'd never read before and see if it interested me at all.  I found the Women Saints unit to be completely different from reading religious scripture, so that really helped me stay more involved in reading the stories.

I still haven't really gotten into the writer's groove yet.  In my opinion, there is much improvement needed in my writing to make it more evocative and eloquent.  This class is making me wish that I had a more creative talent for writing stories like some of the other students taking this class.  With the help of reading other people's stories, plus talking to a friend of mine who is a creative writer, I hope to learn some better techniques in my writing style and word usage.  At least, I have an idea now of what I want to write about for this class, so that is definitely one step in the right direction.

Writer's Block

Week 1: Famous Last Words--New adventures in writing

This week started out pretty rough for me.  I really don't think of myself as a creative type of person, so writing blog stories ended up being a little out of my comfort zone.  I don't mind being pushed out of my comfort zone somewhat, but it does make me a little more anxiety ridden when I do get put into that position.  With the encouragement of my husband & family and the ability to use people and experiences from my own life, I was able to complete all of the assignments before they were actually due.  I have never written a blog before either, so I was pretty worried about doing that task correctly.  After completing a few entries, I'm starting to feel more confident in that task.  As for the Pinterest task, I found that to be somewhat easier but I'm still not 100% confident about pinning posts and other people's boards.  I'm sure I'll get better at that too with time.  I feel like my most creative writing post was my post about the nursery rhyme.  I was able to use my daughter, Mary, as my inspiration for the main character of the story.  I also used my adult son as a character in the story, but I did change his name to better fit into the story.  In my opinion, my second most creative blog post was my Introduction.  For the most part, I don't mind writing about my life experiences and telling people about me in general.  However, I am a pretty private person overall, so I will keep a lot of my life details to myself.  In reflection, I found this first week of class to be quite challenging and rewarding at the same time.  I'm also thankful that is seems like the class workload will be tapering off just a wee bit.  I'm also taking an online Trigonometry class through OCCC, so I'm hoping that these two online classes combined won't be too much for me to handle.  All I can do is wait and see.  Wish me luck!

(Image information: Family Photo from November 2013--My inspirations: My husband Steve & daughters Mary (on left), Tiffany (middle) and Jacqueline (on right).