We're really here!

holy cow! did a whole summer go by with no posts? considering that i wasn't that great with the posts during my spring semester, why am i surprised?! so, i can give a rundown of the summer activities... and the next post just might have some pictures (but, please don't hold me to that)

school let out, pool opened up: jeff decided that it would be nice to have a pool pass this year instead of forkin over money every visit. $100 for a family of 4 (sofi being only three is still free) yes! thank you! we have taken full advantage. we started the summer with aidan being terrified to him saying "i don't need my floaties if i'm in the short part mom". he got over his fear and taugh himself how to swim. not perfect, but enough of a start. we did want to start the tow older kids on swim lessons, just never happened. sofi loved the pool, took to it like a duck to water. erica loved it too. at just about every visit included me going off the diving board at the kids request. i can only do one dive, but they loved it.

uncle scott and aunt katy!: my brother and his family moved back from utah (hooraaaaay!) and moved just 11 houses up from me. LOVE IT! what i love most is having my nephew, aylor, randomly opening my front door and saying 'surprise, your aylor is here!' he makes me smile. katy and i are constantly texting back and forth asking if our kids are at the other's house. katy and her kids have been our pool buddies too, makes the time go by so much faster.

erica in missouri: mom went to visit her sister in missouri and asked if she could take erica. ummmm, YES! i love my child, but i was really looking forward to her being gone and having less fights among the children. she was gone two whole weeks! by the second week i was actually missing her. and because i knew she would behave for mom and aunt janet, i put her room back together as a surprise. (remember, she lost EVERYTHING in her room for being snotty and disrespectful to me, had to earn it all back, hadn't yet). she came home the second week in august and still has everything in her room.... progress!

my first car accident: i had been driving for 16 years by now... first accident was just last month. by now i can say (without bitterness) that me and the other driver were equal in the blame. i had a stop sign at an intersection, was in the middle of it when other driver came through. love my insurance, took care of everything really quick. lola's (my car) only damage was some paint scratches on the front passenger side of the bumper. takes a lickin and keeps on tickin.

spring summer cleaning: my family knows that my grandma hasn't been the best with keeping up with expiration dates on her pantry items. since i've been the 'house keeper' for a while now, i have mentioned a few times her need to clean them out. one day, after removing green hamburger buns from the counter, grandpa gave me the authority to 'clean house'. the job was too big for just myself. so i enlisted the help of my SIL katy and my mother. we must be nuts for all the fun we were having. we laughed, dry heaved, gaged, laughed some more.... way too much fun for what we were doing. not completely done, but so much better.

a new school year: and now it's time for another school year to start. the kids go back on wednesday, i don't go back until monday. i'm very excited, the kids.... not as much. but we have two birthdays this week, so that will help cheer things up.

here's to another year and to better blog updates! (did i mention that my son taught himself how to ride a bike)

wow.... been a while

so this semester wasn't all that exciting. i just didn't have much to write about. but i can give you a sum up of each along with my final grade.

bio wasn't nearly as hard as i thought it was going to be. every friday we had a small quiz, usually five questions. the first 4 i did really well, the rest... not so much. the prof would take the best 6 scores when he tallied the final grade. i wound up with five that were 80% or higher, don't know about my last quiz, but i'm pretty confident i did ok. i studied for my exams and did fairly well, a 21 out of 30. i know, it's only a 70%, but with bonus points i made a 27, 28, and a 28. the bonus points were the mercy points he gave everyone, whether the answer was right or wrong, on the questions the majority of the class got wrong. well, the final only took me 30 minutes, it was only 30 questions, and as my reward... i got to be a witness to four male streakers. my mom teased me by saying 'some girls have all the luck'. i really didn't consider myself all that lucky, but i had a good laugh about it. so my final grade in the class.... A!!!! can you believe it? well, i guess you can considering my exam grades were all As and i did B work or better on the 6 quizzes he considered.

my writing class was such a no brainer, really! we had to do a ton of reading, but there were no quizzes and only one project to do the entire semester. i didn't exactly wait until the last minute to write my paper or do the research, but i could have been done a lot sooner than i was. my biggest problem was my topic took a major turn. originally i was going to write about how someone becomes and art critic, why they have so much power, and why we rely so heavily on their opinion. well, after the research... the paper was more on why the art critic is a dying breed and the 'fights' between the average joe/jane and the critic. my mom is my toughest critic with my papers, she liked it and said it was entertaining. got a big, fat A for the class. are you surprised, cause i'm not.

online math! hated it!!!!! it wasn't really all that hard, but it did have it's moments. i did B work on the web assignments, which is surprising considering how many questions i left blank or half done because i just didn't understand. i told my mom, after a really tough assignment, that after three days and two extensions (the prof gave cause of web issues) i was just guessing and there was no point in finishing. i got a very low c on that assignment. i had two projects to do with a group, which is stupid when it's an online class. i was the group leader only because i sent out the initial emails, two people decided that group work wasn't for them, and the other two helped a great deal. my group, at least the ones that participated, got good grades on the assignments, despite our lack of understanding. i am pleased to say that i got a C+ for the class. i'll take it and enjoy the fact that i never have to take another math class again.

so, for the term i have a 3.433..... for the year, i have a 3.388, not too shabby i'd say.

5 weeks to go

i know, i said i would have pictures with this post... sorry. i know i'm being lazy. i have pictures from christmas still on my camera. honestly, i just so tired at the end of my day that i don't feel like posting anything - hence the lack of posts this semester. but, one day i'll keep my promise of posting pictures. i do have pictures on shutterfly... which is out of date too. DAH!

so a sum-up of the last few weeks:

the 5-9 was my spring break... not much of one since it didn't coordinate with my kid's spring break. i was planning to spend some time each day to get some research done for a paper due at the end of the semester... didn't happen. i spent my time reading and watching movies and playing with my kids.

my first week back to school was hard, not so much a big work load, just tired from all those late nights the week before. my bio class continues to be fun, mostly because the professor and his stories. he's an odd duck, but i like him. we had our second exam the friday before our break and turns out i didn't do too bad. i got the same score (pre-bonus points) as the last exam, a 21/30. i know, not great... but when you add in the bonus points he gave to everyone for some of the problems... i got a 28. i figure i'm doing solid B work in his class. i had a quiz this past friday on human reproduction, i got a 50!!!! my mom couldn't believe it, since it was multiple choice. i read her the questions i got wrong, the look on her face confirmed that she wouldn't have done any better. so HA!

math class is a challenge, but a good one. the professor has a chart that lists our class rank. with one being the lowest, i'm in the 20th spot out of 27 listed. i'll take it. we had two 'papers' to do and i got a whole 8 points on the first (out of 20) and 17 on the second... i think i'm gettin it. my web work assignments are solid Bs. so i have earned that rank of 20. though there are 33 people in the class, so 6 didn't even register on the chart. as long as i did i'm ok with that.

my writing class has just gotten interesting. we've been talking about ethics in writing and now copyrights. some of the topics get my blood boiling, but i keep it in check when i respond to her questions. the same people still irk me with 'like' and 'i was gonna say' and messing with their hair. i'm sure i was just like them when i was their age, doesn't soften the response though. well, like i said earlier, i am in the process of research for my paper. it's dealing with art, why we call it art, why we feel the need for.... crap, i can't think of the word!.... justification (not what i wanted but it works) in purchasing said art, why we spend thousands of dollars on art that a five year old can produce... stuff like that. still not sure if i'm gonna do an actual paper or not, i do have options. if i do the paper then i can be done sooner, but i don't know if i can get 6-8 solid pages out of my topic. we'll see.

the countdown...

... until spring break. i told my mom i had only four more days of classes then i'm off for a week, which means she's off for a week. yea!!!

i actually skipped school this past monday. for some reason, rockingham county closed the schools (there was NO SNOW despite the 3-8 inches predicted) so i decided to stay home too. my brother brought his family up for the weekend, which means loud-yet-fun times at grandmas, and i decided to give my mom a day off. good thing i did. my brother was to take his family home sunday afternoon-ish, but the snow that missed broadway completely prevented them from going far, so they turned around and came back to grandma's. i figured she needed to have some quiet time to recover.

so when i was back in my bio class i found out how crappy, yes... i said crappy, i did on my last quiz. out of 6 questions i got 3 right. i told my neighbor ' i guess this will be one of the 6 that gets dropped'. i have been doing B average work, so i don't think i'll suffer too much. my professor is still nutty and full of stories that make no sense. he always says "well, i don't know", "i'm making this up", "maybe it was like this", and "now, where was i" with all his stories. some are funny and most are just WRONG (but still funny).

what can i say about my writing class.... this last one wasn't boring. wasn't really all that great, but not boring. since i only have one writing project for the entire semester, there isn't a whole lot of work to do. a lot of reading, but nothing too bad. which reminds me, i still need to post a response on this weeks readings... maybe i should finish them.

math is a bit easier this week. which means i actually understand what's going on without much outside help. i got all but two problems done on my webwork assignment on my own. but i'm soliciting the help of my math teaching uncle for one of the problems. i have a few more days to complete the assignment, so no worries on my part.

i'm thinkin my next post will actually have pictures... and only pictures. well, maybe a small bit of writing at the beginning. i may even stick in some christmas pictures too... i need to upload my camera pictures before the memory gets too full.

i'm still here

ok, i know i have seriously slacked in my posts this semester. i haven't been overly busy, just not in the mood to try and think of what to type to make my semester so far sound as good as last semester. maybe you should ask my parents, mostly my mom, about how i've been doing. i'm constantly goin off about my classes and the students all over campus. so let me fill ya in...

my bio class is hilarious! i mean it. my professor reminds me of the absent minded professor. he is constantly telling stories to stop half way through to think about what he said, tell us it doesn't really happen that way, then say he made that up, then lose his place entirely, and finally end the story and get back on track to whatever the lesson was on. i've had 3 quizzes (all b's) and one exam so far. we have a quiz every friday during the last five minutes and i have consistently gotten one wrong out of five. the first exam wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. my wonderful professor said his quizzes and exams are all multiple choice, NICE! he also said that the exam looks like the quizzes, so i was sure to study those as well. i got a 21 out of 30... i know, not a great score. BUT, he gave everyone 6 bonus points... the 6 questions that the majority of the class got wrong (i got four of them wrong). i guess this is his curve... so i went from a 70 to a 90! tomorrow i will have my fourth quiz, i think i should study a bit.

my writing class is driving me crazy!!! i hate it and love it at the same time. i hate it because we can NEVER stay on task in the discussions and it seems like a contest for people to make their comments. and can i just tell you how much i am starting to hate the word 'like' and the phrase 'i was gonna say'! i swear every other word out the kids' mouth is like. and 'i was gonna say'.... what did you suddenly change your mind even though you're gonna say it anyways? i don't get it! and let's not get started on the fact that half the girls in the class can't seem to leave their hair alone as they give their two cents. i vented this to my parents on wednesday when i went to get the kids... dad just said "welcome to my world sweetie" as they both laughed. well, i don't have any tests in this class and only one writing project that i got to make up. i let you know about the progress on it later.

my math class is gonna turn me batty. it's online and it is all logic crap. i can safely say that because it stumped my dad. i needed help on one problem and had him look at my paper. the look of confusion was priceless. i was able to explain most of it, but that didn't help him. he said "give me algebra and i can help you, i can't do this logic stuff". so i guess i'm to rely on emailing my professor or calling my math teaching uncle. i understand what i'm reading, and if i don't get it right away i do some of the practice tutorials and soon pick up on the concepts. i didn't do too hot on my first 'paper', got an 8 out of 20. i just turned in my second one and i'm hoping that i did much better. i still need to finish up the web class work... this was a loooooong 'lecture'.

soon my ge classes will be done and i can really focus on the classes i want to take for my 'major'. you remember what it is right.....? archival photography and historical processes, basically learning the history of photography and learning how to restore. fun times ahead!

first week back

so i have gotten through my first week back at school very well. i thought i would have issues getting a parking space in my favorite garage due to the lateness of the hour of my first class. my class doesn't start until 11:15, but i left my mom's (i agreed to drop off my youngest instead of my mom coming to get her) a bit before 10, pulled into the garage by 10:30ish and managed to get a space. i prayed to be able to get a space and even said "i don't care what level it's on, just to be in the garage is great!" i'm a creature of habit and the champion garage is a habit i didn't want to quit.

monday i got to campus early enough to try and pay my tuition bill, i had grant money!!!! they said my bill wasn't updated since i was no longer full time (3 measly credits) and should wait until friday. ok, i mean, who really wants to part with money.... not me. so off to my class i went....

biology! oh how i do not like you already!!! well, first of all i went to the wrong classroom. i wrote down the room number, but left it in my car. luckily the class hadn't started yet when i discovered my mistake and i was not the only one who said "oops". so in the right room.... the professor said the dreaded word 'chemistry' and i about panicked. i signed up for the most basic science jmu offered.... which isn't chemistry! i was assured that this was more like playing with tinker-toys and there was no math involved. i'm already a bit confused with half the lecture notes, but i can tell you that glucose is C6H12O6 and can draw it out for you. AND i have already had a quiz, 5 questions that were multiple choice.... i was only confident on two of them. sad, i know!

so with three and a half hours to kill before my next class.... that's right, to the library i went. i'm taking an online math course so i spent some time emailing the professor for the information, for some reason it just wasn't ready monday morning. the rest of the time was spent reading for math, emailing, a little facebook, more emailing and then to my last class of the day. during the rest of the week i was diligently doing my math assignments once they were received and turned them in by wednesday afternoon. so far i haven't done a single math problem. that will change by next week i'm sure.

so my third class is a writing course like the one i had last semester. the professor likes to go off on tangents and i'm constantly saying to myself "the point edith!". but she is also a trip and very nice. i have a feeling this class is gonna be easy, not 'easy A', but not so hard that i feel overwhelmed. we did manage to have a pretty good discussion on some key words that will be used a lot during the last class. hooray for me, the class is only two days a week! but there will be a lot of readings.

so the first week is done and i survived. it helps that i only have classes three days a week....

survey says.....

the verdict is in..... i have passed this semester with flying colors. i was so worried about my history class, i even told my professor early in the term that i would be ecstatic if i passed with a c. well, my ecstatic-ness is on high right now. i was able to view my grades this morning.... (drumroll please)

GCom B+
GHist A-
GWRTC A-
Psych C

which gives me a 3.215 for the term and a 3.362 cumulative. i told my brother about my grades and he said "this is what happens when you're older and goin back". i have NEVER EVER gotten better than a C in any history class, so i was jumpin up and down when my mom just happened to stop by. i really want to see my final exam though, curiosity is kickin in. i had already figured out what i was getting in my other classes, it was just confirmed. my GCom and GWRTC professors used the 'blackboard' feature so it was easy for me to figure out my grade without waiting.
so here's to next semester! i have math, biology, and another writing course. i am so gonna rock the semester!