A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Again, I have let myself forget this blog.  I very much want to keep up with it, but life tends to get in the way.  April and May both flew by in the blink of an eye.  I must discipline myself, because what happens when you have children?  I have numerous friends who have had babies in the last year, and those children have been growing up so quickly, and they aren’t my own!  I know this will happen ever so quickly when my own children are born and grow up.

School is going well; I have received 3 As and an A- in the four courses I have completed.  I am currently in a Management class.  In a month, I will start another class.  Then, I will be half-way done with my Master’s degree.  A bit insane, isn’t it?  Considering the fact that last year at this time, I hadn’t even applied for the program.  It’s amazing as well, yes?  Hopefully, new opportunities will arise in the near future.

On a different note, hubby and I went to London for vacation this year!  It was amazing to be back.  When I got on the plane last time, I knew that it wasn’t going to be my last time visiting.  But, I had no idea that in 5 short years, I would be back, showing this amazing city to my husband (I didn’t imagine I would be married either!).  Hubby was super smart and found The London Pass.  What a life saver it was!  So much money and time was saved, it was awesome!  This pass let us into many attractions for free, and by passed many lines.  We went to restaurants that I had visited my first time (an amazing Italian restaurant, a very good Indian restaurant, and an awesome French restaurant).  We learned the Tube (“Mind the gap!”) and the trains.  We saw such amazing sites/sights (both!); hubby was in awe.

It was a long flight, but not awful.  Our first day there, we walked around, helping jogging my memory and finding places that we had gone with choir. We visited St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster, Hampton Court Palace, Greenwich, Abbey Road (for my brother), and so much more!  The following are some pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

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News break…

I am saddened to report that the woman I wrote about in my last post, my boss’ wife, has lost her battle with cancer.  She died, at home with her family by her side, on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.  Please, pray for her family during this time of grief.  May God comfort them in their time of need.

On a lighter note, I am more encouraged and excited for my career in library science.  For one of my courses this semester, I have to write a paper based on an observation of a reference desk.  I’ve completed the observations, today and last Wednesday.  It was a lot of fun, and very informative.  I met 7 different librarians and have made some good contacts with them.  It was interesting and cool to be able to give my input to some questions.  Hubby asked me if I was excited about librarianship after the observation.  And I absolutely am.

Yesterday, we were at my parent’s house and got snowed on!  It didn’t stick, but it was awesome.  And FREEZING!  We were out at the SCV Food Truck Festival (which was awesome), and it was hailing/snowing on us.  I forgot my camera at home, and my phone in the car, so I didn’t get any pictures, but we had FrySmith and Papa’s Tapas again.

I am sorry if this post feels very scattered and short, but I am incredibly tired.  🙂  Next week will be more enticing.  And, I need to get at my pictures.

Reading, cataloging, and baking

Well, this weekend has flown by, as always.  I wish time sometimes would slow down because I have so many things to do and so very little time to do them all in.  Pictures are still coming along, check them out!  Yesterday, I spent time (almost an hour) reading outside.  It was nice and quiet and lovely, until it became too cold.  It is still winter, after all, and I almost forgot it because the weather has been so beautiful.  But, I finished reading for this week for one of my courses, and finished the chapter for next week.

Today, I spent all day working on my MARC exercises and homework.  I am still somewhat lost on cataloging.   It is going to take a lot of practice and concentration, and re-reading the books.  School this semester is a lot more reading than last semester, but I am still on top of everything.  For the other course, I finished all the reading for this week, and have been looking into the assignment that is due on Friday.  Tomorrow, I will be spending sometime with encyclopedias at the library for that assignment.

Dorfy has been wonderfully cute all weekend.  She has been sleeping next to me since Friday.

She’ll get up, play a bit, eat, drink some water, and then come back to where she was sleeping.   Cats are really the best.  All three of our cats are super cute and on Friday, they all took care of me.  Luckily, I am feeling a lot better than I was on Friday.

This weekend, I also made lemonade from lemons (Real lemonade! Not the powder stuff).  It was very good and I am excited to not have to use the powder stuff.  I also baked some cookies, but they weren’t original because we ran out of eggs (that’s what happens when we have eggs for breakfast both weekend days).   I made the Pillsbury Funfetti cookies.  They are still yummy.

What are your favorite cookie recipes?  What should I make next?

 

Crazy school schedule

Today, hubby is out with the boys.  Well, at a friend’s house, moving things and cooking dinner for everyone, then eventually playing poker.  This leaves me home alone.  Now, the last time I was home alone, I wrote about singing and how I sing loudly when I’m home alone.  I also spoke of joining a choir.  The UCI Alumni choir is getting underway and we have now met 3 times and perform tomorrow.  It is very exciting.  But not today.  Today is laundry day, and a BIG laundry day at that.  Everything is getting washed, though big blankets will wait a week until we’re at my parent’s home.  And, different this time, I am in school, instead of just preparing for it.  I have tons of classwork/homework/lectures/reading that I have to do.

I am currently taking 2 classes.  I have noticed that one class is VERY heavy on work, while the other is not nearly as heavy.  Both involve my attention, but one has much more to do. This is the list of the one class:

1. Marketing Project Due 10/31 (This is what I am working on today) Finished 10/27/10
2. Budget Assignment due 11/7 (Has many parts and probably is stressing me out the most!)(2/3 is finished, just the power point presentation is left) Finished 11/7/10 at 1pm
3. Research paper due 11/14 (I have started research) Finished 11/14/10 at 1:58pm (just on time)
4. Access project due 11/21 Finished 11/20/10 at 10:30pm
5. Quiz this week (Postponed 11/1-11/7) Finished 11/6/10 at 11pm
6. Group project due 12/5 Finished 12/5 at 11:30 am
7. HTML project due 11/28 Finished 11/28 at 12pm-ish
8. e-portfolio due 12/13 Finished 12/11 at 8:50pm
9. Final Quiz due 12/16 Finished 12/11 at 9:30pm

I’m trying to remain calm, but I can definitely see myself freaking out.  Hubby will be there to help calm me down. The other class list

1. Group blog responses, first one due 10/25, second due 11/1
2. 2nd group project due 11/15 Finished 11/14/10
3. Library interview paper due 12/8 Finished 12/8/10 at 10am
4. E-portfolio due 12/13 Finished 12/11 at 8:30pm

I’m being more technical and advanced than I ever have been.  LOL

I have decided these projects demand my usage of hubby’s big monitor so I moved it to the living room and figured out how to use it as a monitor extension.

Weekends are incredibly too short

This weekend has sped by incredibly too quickly.  It always seems to happen, no?  Weekends have always come and gone too fast, and that is part of the reason I started blogging.  Tonight, I feel productive, yet unfortunately, still feel behind.

One item checked off: I was finally able wash my car!  I had neglected my poor car and I drove it around, filthy.  This morning,we woke up, hubby went to watch the NASCAR race, and went downstairs to wash the cars.  Yes, I washed both cars.  Both were gross and I had to wash them.  While washing my car, a cricket decided to crawl out from the area behind the side mirror.  I, of course, screamed.  Luckily, no one was around.  ::blush::  I hate creepy crawly things.

Another productive activity:  Our house is finally clean!  We have been on the go for so long, and I have become busy with classwork, that the house was so messy.  I hate the messes and need order.  I finally sat down and did our shred pile.  I then got started on the bedroom.  Hubby even got into the action when he started cleaning the kitchen (he scrubbed the stove, washed the microwave, and mopped the floor!).   Finally, a clean house.  Still needs work, but we got most of it done.

For the rest of the day, I read and caught up on the message boards for my classes.  Last week was an odd week at work, so it was harder to do class work.  Yesterday was not nearly as productive, but it was fun, as we spent the evening with Joanna and Nate and a few other friends celebrating Nate’s birthday.  At least we did have our Disney date night on Friday, even though Disneyland was super crowded, probably because Halloween has started!

Not the best pictures, I took them on my phone (as per usual, I forgot my camera was in my purse).  We were able to get dinner (thanks to the gift card I was given for my birthday from Sarkis and Jenn) and even got on a couple of rides (picture above was from Autopia).

September has begun

Classes at Wayne State officially started today, the first day of September.   First thought of the day “Wow, the year has gone so fast!” And the second thought, “I have to write a paper!  I have not written a formal paper for 4 years!”  An official graduate student.  Beginning this new chapter in my life has me very excited.  I know I have the support of my husband and my family.

Thus far, I have completed my first assignment for one of the classes I am taking (an introduction to myself, found here).  Books have also arrived and opened to the chapters I need to read.  I have also joined my fellow classmates in making a group for our group work.  I have yet to listen to the lectures because I wanted to read before listening, but that will be in the next couple days (reading at work on my lunch and breaks).

This will be a long, tedious, stressful, fun, exciting journey for me and I invite all to read and follow my blog(s) as I continue this adventure.

New adventures around every corner

As a newly admitted student into the MLIS program at Wayne State University, I had to attend orientation.  This one day orientation was last Thursday and I must say, I am tired of traveling for a while.  Hubby and I left on Wednesday morning, making a connection in Phoenix (where it was HOT and the airport was huge!), and finally arriving in Detroit in the late afternoon.  Our hotel was very nice, having been a Ritz before Marriott bought it and it was nicely located.  Thursday was orientation.  All day long.  It was long and tedious, but incredibly informative.  It was nice to meet other students and professors face to face as I will not have the opportunity being an online student.   After Cesar picked me up, we went to the financial aid office to fix an issue they seemed to have and I also got my student id card.  I am officially a Wayne State graduate student.

We left Michigan on Friday morning, traveling back to Phoenix for the connector (which had some drama….a security breach that caused a lock down of all gates), and then traveled onto San Fransisco.   Since we don’t know how I’ll be handling school and if we will be able to take a vacation in the next couple years, we decided to make this a mini-vacation.    Since we could not agree on going into Canada or Chicago, we compromised on San Fran, since it was a friend’s birthday weekend.  We had a lot of fun.  Hubby finally got to go into the city (he had never been) and so we did the “tourist” thing and went to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf.  I didn’t take as many pictures this trip because I kept forgetting that I had my camera!

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School days were over….not anymore!

At the end of last month, I turned in my application for Wayne State University.  I applied to their online MLIS program, hoping to get in so that I can get my Master’s so that I can start the career that I want.  I have been out of school for four years, graduating with my BA in History in 2006 and have been itching to go back (what?!?) for a while.   I looked into history programs, but finally settled on the MLIS after talking to a family friend who had received the degree.  I looked into online programs because they give a slightly more flexible schedule so that I can work.  Well, it had been 3.5 weeks since applying and I sent an email to try to get the numbers I needed to sign in to check the status of the application.  Instead of sending my the numbers, they sent me back an email saying “Congratulations, you have been accepted into the SLIS!”  Starting September 1st, I will be an official grad student at Wayne State University.

I have to visit the campus one time for orientation, which is in a few weeks, and hubby is making a trip out of it.  I am excited to start school again.  This is just part of the string of activities that have happened to the pharmacy family in the last couple months.  One co-worker is leaving because she got into pharmacy school, another is going back to finish her BA, a third is going to another job, and a fourth is getting married in two weeks.  It will be a strange and exciting time in our dysfunctional family, but hopefully everything will work our for the better.

Now my time will be consumed with work and school work.  An online program seems incredibly exciting and I have to be on top of everything.  Repeats to self “Must not let procrastination rule…” In college, I was a bad at procrastination, always finished my papers, but waited until the day before it was due to work on it.  I must not let that habit continue.  Now I have hubby who will hopefully help me with that goal.   He is also quite excited because when I get super stressed, I bake.  I bake a lot.  But I don’t eat what I bake.  So the pharmacy and hubby will be handsomely rewarded for my stress.

OH!  And a completely off-topic topic, we were part of the 36 First place winners in the All Star Mickey Scavenger Hunt.  We won the Diamondbacks All-Star Mickey! And other topic, we finally got a new bedroom set and a new couch.  They are awesome!