Sunday musings

Well, the Thanksgiving holiday is over and according to my "holiday" radio station, there are 26 days, 7 hours and 24 minutes until Christmas, so get to it if you haven't already started getting ready!! ha! :)  I've been mulling over in my mind what to get my family members for the holidays and I think I have it all figured out.  Now I just need to go BUY the items!!  There was NO way that I was heading out for Black Friday, though, so my shopping will now commence! :)  Some of y'all are just crazy to head out for Black Friday, but I'm impressed that you have the "oomph" to get out and go! ha! 

I had a good day at home today.  I woke up not feeling so well, so I just stayed indoors today and laid low.  I did a lot of homework stuff for end-of-the-semester projects and I also did some work on work stuff, so it was a good day.  I even refused to let myself take a nap!  I have to start re-training my body for the work week, ya know!?! ha! :)

This week will be the last week of classes and then a week of finals, with the semester ending on December 10.  I have a project due on the 1st, an exam on the 10th, a 15-page research paper due on the 10th and then my final take-home exam (which I'll get tomorrow) and that's due on the 8th.  That take home exam is no picnic, either.  It's a 17-page front-to-back exam and he will take direct quotes from our readings, but you have to be super cautious because he'll change ONE word and that makes the entire option WRONG.  *sigh*  It's a nightmare.  Anyway, with that exam, I also have a two-page essay question to answer.  So, it's not too terrible of the end of the semester, but I sure don't want to leave everything until the last minute!  I'm super thankful, though, that one of my professors decided to cancel our final exam on the 7th and instead, she just left us with our 15-page research paper.  Up to the cancellation of the final, we were going to have a final exam (6-7 pages) and the research paper.  Yikes!  I'm glad she cancelled the final...her exams are NOT easy!!

So, I'm finishing up my project for Wednesday and doing a couple loads of laundry, too, so hopefully the evening will be just as quiet as the day.  Oh...we got two more inches of snow today!  It's pretty!  But the wind is supposed to pick up now and that will make driving not so fun. :(  All for now!!  Hope you're doing well and having good days!! :)

It's a-blowin' out there!!

Wow.  It is windy out there today!  And c-o-l-d.  No joke.  Right now, the temp is a mere 3 degrees, but the wind is right around 32 mph with gusts up to 40 (and that's IN town!), so the windchill is hovering around 25 degrees below zero and they're saying the windchill is likely to be around 35 below zero tonight.  Yikes!  If you've never experienced Wyoming winter before, this picture is a pretty accurate depiction of what it's really like on I-80 when the wind starts a-blowin'!!  (I found the pic on the web, so thanks to whoever took it, but trust me...I am NOT out driving in weather like this!! : )

I have plans to spend Thanksgiving day with a family in town, so I'm glad that I don't have to travel very far.  If you do, though, be safe and enjoy your time with family & friends!!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!!  : )

I'm missing...

I'm missing Wisconsin today and I'm missing being within driving distance of my family.  Why is it that one day I'll be fine and then the next day, I just miss that part of the country and I miss being close to my family?  What goes on inside of us that makes our feelings flip like the switch of a light?  Whatever...I'll never fully understand it.

A week? Really?

How can it have been a full WEEK since I last posted?  This week was busy.  I was SO busy at work and almost every day after work involved time spent on projects and end of the semester stuff.  It was not the most fun week I've ever had in my life. :)  One comment I heard more times than not this week from everyone, though, was, "I sure am looking forward to getting a break for Thanksgiving!"  I think that's how a lot of us feel!  I know that I'm sure looking forward to having four days off!!!  I plan to sleep, clean, write some letters, read some books, take naps and maybe work on some homework. :)  Of course, there's "attend a holiday dinner and eat" mixed smack in the middle of that, too, so no missing out there! :)

I tell ya, I sure am looking forward to graduating from college this spring.  I feel like a broken record on that subject, but I am SO tired of doing both school and work.  It's exhausting on so many levels!!  I'm registered for all of my classes for the spring, but I'm registered for a couple of extras because I'm not real sure what I want to take yet.  My opinions on what classes to take seem to be changing on a daily basis, so I'm thinking that I just need to go to WI for Christmas and completely remove myself for a full two weeks and then come back and decide.  I think that I'm just too burned out to make any decisions on classes right now.  What a whiner I am, huh?!? :o)

I'm always glad for Thanksgiving.  It's not my most favorite holiday of all time, but I really do enjoy the time spent with family & friends.  I also really enjoy that it serves its purpose to get me thinking about what I'm truly thankful for.  I feel so blessed in life and as time goes on, I realize more and more how lucky I am.  I had a wonderful upbringing and still have a great relationship with my family.  My life since leaving home has had its bumps, but for the most part, it has been full and rich and satisfying and I've certainly had a lot of opportunities in my lifetime.  I'm SO thankful for all of my experiences and I'm thankful that this is a holiday that reminds me of that.

As you start your plans and travels to visit family, please travel safely!! :)

Lazy Sunday

I had a very nice day today!  I went to my Sunday church meeting this morning and then out to lunch with two very special ladies.  After lunch, I ran a couple of errands (ones that I can't do during the week because of work and school) and then I came home and just relaxed.  I turned on some Christmas music and just bee-bopped on the computer, completing little projects here and there.  It was a nice, lazy, relaxing Sunday and I thoroughly enjoyed it!!  Did you have a lovely day, too?  I sure hope so!!

Now I'm off to bed so that I'm ready for a new week of work.  Have a great night and a great start to your week!

The past and the present

Well, it hasn't been snowing out today and it turned out to be a nice day!  The temp is around 30, but the sun is SHINING and the wind is quiet, so it's a beautiful day out!

Last night, I was getting ready for a paper that I have to write tonight about my personal and professional ethics code and I had a nice thing happen!  A few years ago, I was really struggling with feeling down and I was also battling a lot of anxiety. It was a rough deal. Through it all, though, I kept a journal and I allowed myself to write whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and let me tell ya, I wrote about anything and everything.  Last night I decided to sit down and look through the journal to see if there was anything in there that would add to my paper.  Wow...I was SO amazed.  My "rough time" was during 2006 and when I read through some of the things that I was feeling and experiencing, I felt like it was just yesterday that I was experiencing everything and that time period came flooding back to me.  When I stop and look at the date on the journal entries, however, I think, "Wow.  That was a long time ago.  I'm so far from that place!"

What I felt truly thankful for is that things are SO different than what they were at that time.  I've made some significant changes that altered a LOT of things in my life and I feel so much more balanced than I was during that tumultuous time.  I also felt like even though I have an "off" day once in awhile, my entire life is altogether better.  I am no where near the place that I was in during 2006 and I'm so thankful for that!!

I was glad to read about the past and to see a vivid improvement with the present and I just found myself wanting to take all of the lessons and changes with me into the future.  Just because things are good now doesn't mean that it's smooth sailing for the future.  Hopefully I can take with me what I've learned, though, so that maybe I don't make some of the same mistakes or wrestle with some of the same things that I struggled with before.  I just hope that I can learn from the past and make the future brighter, better and richer.

Snow.

The time has come.  The snow has arrived. Here is a small picture of my world.

The picture was taken earlier this morning, so there is a bit more snow on the ground than this.  Maybe three inches so far?  Anyway, the background on the blog will change for awhile, too.  Happy Winter!! : )

Time Change!!

Don't forget to turn your clocks back one hour tonight!!! :o)

Colds are crummy

So, I've been battling a cold this week.  It set in on Tuesday.  The sad part is that there are only two times in the year where I feel like I really can't afford to call in sick to work because of how busy I am and it's that exact time when I get sick.  If it were an illness like the flu, you can bet your bottom that I wouldn't be leaving my house!!  But a cold?!?  Well, I'm a Wyoming gal now and out here, the phrase is "Cowboy Up," so that's what I did this week.  And it was miserable.

I think that I'm over the worst of it, but I still feel kind of crummy off and on.  I plan on sleeping for something like a hundred hours tonight, though, since I don't have to get up to an annoying alarm at 6:30 in the morning (as if I actually do get up that early...it's more like 7, usually), so I'm really hoping to tomorrow is when I start to feel "normal" again. : )

I'm supposed to go to a bridal shower tomorrow, too, so I'd better seriously be feeling much better by the morn! : )

I hit a milestone this week, too!  I registered for my LAST semester of classes!!  Wahoo!! : )  I am not 100% sure that the schedule will stay as is because I'm hoping to get into a different class that's already closed, but I am enrolled in my "back-up" courses plus a "for sure" course, so I'm half way there!  If this other closed class doesn't work out, then I'll initiate the back-up one and away we go!  Either way, I'm currently enrolled in enough credits that when I go in and look at my degree evaluation, it shows that I'm complete.  Do you even realize how exciting it was to see that today?!?!?!  I felt giddy the entire day today just because of that.

I hope you're doing well and have something nice planned for the weekend!  We're supposed to have weather in the 60s and that is almost unheard of at this time of year!  No worries, though...snow is predicted for Monday & Tuesday. : (

I just noticed something...why do I all of a sudden have people from 133 different places who have come to my blog in the last day or two?  I've never had that many visits in one day!!  EVER!!  Weird...I'm feeling slightly stalked...or watched or something...but only just slightly.

Take care!! : )

Voting

I voted!  Here's what I thought...I didn't go in feeling completely clueless, but I did feel like I need to go into future voting sessions with a more confident feeling of who's running and who I want to vote for.  I love to vote and I love the feeling that I get when I vote, but I know that I definitely want to feel more confident about my choices.  I hate to even say it like that because I'm not going in there with no idea of what's going on, but sometimes I have the same feeling that I have when I go into an exam that I'm not prepared for.  I just feel like I know most of what I'm supposed to know, but sometimes I don't feel a "without-a-doubt" confidence.  So, that's my goal for the future...be more involved and more informed.

I hope you voted, too!! : )

Happy November 1!!!

Wow.  I can't believe that it's November already!!!  Where does time go, anyway?  This weekend, I was looking over some work documents because I received a renewal form for some things last week and I was just disgusted because I was sure that I had just taken care of this and I knew that it was way too early for renewal.  Turns out that the last time I dealt with it was November 2009.  Good grief.

I had a pretty good weekend this weekend.  I caught up on my sleep, paid some bills and got November's budget in line, went to a potluck and then waited around my house for trick-or-treaters.  I wasn't planning that too many tots would stop by and yell, "Trick or treat!!" but I was glad that one did!! : )  She was a witch with vampire teeth. : )  Other than that, though, no one. : (  I guess the other 90 pieces of candy in the bag I bought will go to work with me tomorrow.  (Well, maybe 80 of the pieces will go to work. haha!)  I can always hope that next year will be a  better turn out, right!?!

School is going well.  I am studying for an exam that I have tomorrow and right after that, I'll be finishing up two papers that I need to submit within the next week or so.  Not including Thanksgiving week (because I'm sure both of my classes will be canceled) and finals week, there are only FOUR weeks of class left.  You cannot begin to comprehend how excited I am about this.  This hasn't been the best semester for me.  I really enjoy one of my classes (of three), but even still, it's just been a t-o-u-g-h semester to keep motivated and to want to be doing this.  I think it just might be a severe case of senioritis. : )

Along the lines of school, I have been seriously contemplating going on for a master's degree in "Student Affairs in Higher Education," but in reviewing things last week, I found that the particular program I'd like to get into starts the same week in May 2011 that I will be having finals.  So, I think I'm going to postpone that dream until 2012.  It might be really good for me to have a break, anyway.  Some say it's harder to go back after a break and I might have to agree, but I seriously think that I need a break.  If anything, it will be good for me to try and pay off some debt.  Ugh.

Last week was advising week at work.  It was a L-O-N-G week.  There were late nights, early days and LOTS of overtime.  I think that the brunt of it is over with, but I'm trying not to be too relaxed just yet.  : )  This year, the professors decided that they wanted to free up my time a bit more by handing out the registration information to the students they were advising.  At first I was super nervous about the last minute change and how it would go, but it ended up being an awesome change.  I was still super busy, but no where NEAR what it has been in the past.  We might have to talk in our next dept. meeting about a few glitches that occurred, but for the most it was a fantastic change and one that I hope that they continue. 

Okay...I need to get back to studying.  Happy November 1st!!  : )