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Monday, December 31, 2007

Scrapping

Well I haven't scrapped in soooooo long, but finally got up the nerve to "just do it" here is what I have so far.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

I am feeling better

I have been sick the last few days, and today is the first day that I feel half way decent. It's no fun being sick while on Christmas vacation. I think that getting a good nights rest has helped a lot. I had all these plans for what I was going to do, mostly I wanted to scrap a little while I was off. I think that tomorrow will be the day. Craig is taking the day off and we will all be home. I have to go into work for a couple of hours today; Faith is over at a friends house, so Sarah and I will go in for a little while.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

My How Time Flies

I was taking some time for myself today, it's as if I am trying to gear up to be creative. But I am sick, and not feeling well. Anyway, I was looking at this website that I belong to called Two Peas in a Bucket. It is a scrapbooking website, and I haven't been there in a really long time. I want to scrap while I am off from school in the next 3 weeks, it has been forever since I have scrapped. They have a store you can order supplies from, a message board, and now a blog. So I was just looking through and decided to look at me profile. It has been 6 years since I updated my profile. I used to be a stay at home mom, my children used to be 5 and 6 years old. I had been married for almost 10 years. Things are different now.

Now I work part time at a doctor's office scheduling surgeries, part time college student; going for a nursing degree. My children are coming up on their 10th and 11th birthdays, and this past September my husband and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.
It's amazing how time marches on. My life is very busy right now, I am working toward a goal. Sometimes, I think that my family suffers for it. Does it matter that they suffer now so that we can have a better life, or will they not see it that way and be angry with me later on in life? Will they understand? It is important for my family to know that I love them, both my children and my husband.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Moving News

Well Craig asked me the other night if I had talked to my Great Uncle Fritz and selling the fishing barge. I had gotten the number from my mom and dad but hadn't called. I don't want to push this, (see post) I have finally come to a place that if God wants me to move to Texas then He will have to make it happen. However, I did eventually call my Uncle Fritz. Boy is he sounding older these days.

He realizes that he can't take care of himself, OpalRuth and the barge. He loves that place! He loves keeping busy!! So I called Uncle Fritz and he told me that he was having two different appraisers come and look at the business and tell him what they think it is worth. I told him that if we had to live on the property in the trailer that they have we wouldn't be able to do it. They have a two bedroom trailer, it's very nice but not room enough for me, Craig, and two adolescent girls, if you know what I mean. But Fritz thinks that we could live off site as long as we have someone living in the trailer and keeping an eye on the place. That could be do able!
I asked Fritz as well how soon he was looking to have this deal done, I think he said February. WOW! I was hoping to get out there at the end of the school year. He did tell me there were several nursing schools around and a lot of medical offices and hospitals. He also told me that he knows someone who makes $25/hr for being a nurse. That is what I thought the pay would be, but in Texas, that would work!
If we do this, it means putting the house up for sale, packing and moving, finding a house down there and running a business, me finding a new job, transferring schools. It seems to be quite a lot all by February. As a matter of fact it seems quite daunting to me. But, if it is what God wants and Craig is for it, I will do it. We will see.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Essay 3 – Anna Nicole Smith

We had to choose a person that had recently been in the news and had to tell why their particular story had such longevity in the press. What was it about them that made us watch? I chose Anna Nicole Smith, because I was never quite sure if she was really as simple as she portrayed, not only that but there was something that has always drawn her to me. Bizarre I know, but I always felt sorry for her.

Despite our love or hate of Anna Nicole Smith, people tuned in when she died. Anna never seemed to be out of the news for long periods of time and when she was in the news it seemed to be negative press. Anna's story had it all, beauty, fame, and scandal. Why is it that we love to glory in other people's trials and tribulations? Why must we show peoples' most intimate and devastating times to the masses? Even though we as a nation, long to have the "lifestyle" that we see portrayed on television, we still reserve the right to look down on those that take up the front page of our newspapers. Could it be possible that we as a nation secretly long to know that celebrities are just a screwed up as we are. Perhaps we feel more at ease with our own lives by poo-pooing the poor decisions that others like Anna Nicole Smith made.

Anna was born Vicki Lynn Hogan and at the age of 17 she made what most would classify as her first mistake; she married 16 year old Billy Smith. Anna reports a home life that many would deem harmful in that her mother would "beat and kick" her. Some would not blame her for wanting to get out at any cost. Anna came on the scene as a voluptuous blond bombshell that sent in her photo to Playboy while making minimum wage. Practically becoming an overnight success and then became the model for Guess Jeans.

Anna Nicole was compared to Marilyn Monroe both in looks and in backgrounds. They were both from small towns and the desire for leaving would lead them both down a road wrought with pain and tragedy. As with Marilyn, Hollywood was the vehicle that drove her from small town middle America. The first time that society was made aware of one of the many bad decisions that Anna would make was when she married J. Howard Marshall. J. Howard Mashall was a very rich man who happened to be 89 years old, 63 years her senior. People immediately thought that she married him only for his money and began to make snap judgments of her character. Here is a woman who seems to be on top of the world and could have practically any man she wants and she marries an 89 year old man. Many people felt that her motives for marring him were for personal gain, not love or genuine feeling.

Once her husband dies Anna is in the news once again. Now she is fighting against her step-son for her claim to her late husband's estate. Even though both Anna and Marshalls' son are left out of the will, both maintain that J. Howard Marshall orally promised them a portion of the estate. This only re-enforces everyone's thoughts of her as a money hungry bimbo.

Anna goes from being in the news for "leeching" off of her husbands estate to being accused of using drugs and becoming an overweight wanna be actress who is jumping on the band wagon of Reality TV. At least now she has a hand in what is being put out there for everyone to see and in a sense being paid for being exploited. With all the bad publicity from outside media, Anna is now able to get her side out there in the form of "The Anna Nicole Smith Show". Even as her life appears to be going towards an out of work, has been she continues to put herself in the public eye by doing interviews for radio and late night television. Maybe it is true that bad publicity is better than no publicity. Some personalities begin to comment about her taking drugs, as well as her weight gain and slurred speech. At this time of her life, it appears by her countenance that she is lost and unsure of herself.

It seems that Anna had many different relationships with different men as evidenced by the number of men who came forward to say that they had fathered her daughter Dannielynn. This seems peculiar in that the majority of men are hesitant to proclaim to the world that they have fathered a child out of wedlock. The only relationship that seemed to stand the test of time was with her handler/escort, Howard K. Stern. Whether that relationship was good for her or toxic, is debatable. There are those that say they witnessed Howard giving her drugs and felt that he exploited Anna most of all.

From what the press printed, Anna's immediate family was estranged. Who knows what happened when she was a child. When she becomes pregnant with her second child it seemed to be more focused. Time with the family, the family she made; was important to her, but she always seemed a little sad. Maybe life had not become what she had hoped, maybe she felt disappointed with how things went, however, when she became pregnant with her second child she seemed to be excited. It was that joy for a new life that made the news of her first child's death so astonishing to the public. It had to have been hard to rejoice at the birth of her daughter and at the same time grieve for her son.

The public watched her downward spiral and no one was taken by surprise at Anna Nicole Smith's death. It was foretold wasn't it, when she was compared to Marilyn Monroe? Even in death Anna was in the news; people fought over who would get her body, where would she be buried, who was the father of baby Dannielynn, the cycle continued. In trying to be informed you inevitably hear the sensational stories about the entertainment industry. Maybe the reason we are so hot to eat up the headlines for Anna Nicole Smith was because she is what we all wanted at sometime, fame, fortune and what we would think would be an easy life. Anna could be an example of sometimes we should be careful what we wish for because sometimes it isn't the best thing for us.

Second Essay-I had to compare and contrast between 2 characters in 2 different stories

This is the second essay that was revised, (not completely I must add, I don't like the way I ended it) that I included in my portfolio in my English class.

Absolute power corrupts. When people live in a dictatorship, whether it is real or imagined it leaves no room for growth. In Sandra Cisneros' "Eleven", the teacher's subjugation of Rachel makes her unable to stand up for herself. In comparison, Kate Chopin's' "The Story of an Hour" tells how Mrs. Mallard feels the subjugation of marriage as a noose around her neck and lives her life in repression of her own desires. It seems to reason, that if one represses emotion or allows external power to control him/her, it can lead to a loss of one's voice.

When uncomfortable things happen, one's reactions to those events reveals a great deal about that person. When Mrs. Mallard is told by her sister and brother-in-law about her husband's death, it was a bitter sweet moment. Mrs. Mallard was filled with grief for the loss of her companion but relieved at the freedom that came from her husband's death. It was only at that time she hoped that "life be long" and looked forward to, "a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely." One can picture Mrs. Mallard standing taller and throwing the yoke of marriage from around her neck as she imagines a life lived only for herself. In contrast, when Rachel's teacher continues to insist that the ratty sweater is hers she wants only to be, "like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny-tiny you have to close your eyes to see it." Her teacher has made her feel so powerless that she feels minuscule, and wants to disappear. Inside she is screaming that the sweater is not hers. Rachel wants to cry and in that moment feels like she is three and not eleven. In essence both Rachel and Mrs. Mallard relinquished their power to a person in whom they trusted.

Many times people in society are pigeon holed into what is "socially acceptable"; everyone has a role to play. Mrs. Mallard's role was dutiful and obedient wife, however she was not happy in her role. When her sister Josephine tells her of her husband's death she, "wept in wild abandon" and then retreats to where she presumably would be alone with her grief. On the contrary, she feels such a freedom due to the death of her husband that she throws open a window and "drinks in the very elixir of life". Rachel on the other hand is the adolescent girl when asked a question is not assertive enough to say the sweater is not hers. The teacher places it on her desk to make her take ownership of the sweater. Rachel distances herself from the sweater and the situation. She begins to retreat inside of herself and eventually feels as if she is regressing in age; wanting only to be 102, "anything but eleven".

Who knows what these kinds of imbalances of power may do to one's self esteem. Mrs. Mallard loved her husband, but in her love for him she had ignored who she was and what she wanted. She had lost her voice, her sense of self and it is only in her husband's death that she finds a release from ties that bind. Rachel is young and the young heal quickly but a continued pattern of not standing up for one's self could become detrimental in the long run.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Last Day and I'm singing the happys song

Well tonight was my last test. Earlier this morning I took my test for the lecture part of Anatomy and Physiology (A&P 1). It was kinda hard. I didn't think that I completely bomb it, but I was nervous. I knew I would do well in the Lab portion. Went back to school tonight and took my Lab Practicle and I got a 93!!!! Go me! While I was waiting for my grade, I thought I might look at the board to see if my test grade was up. I wasn't sure it would be, but sure enough there it was. I looked for student ID#, found it and knew that I had passed the class. I wanted to dance a jig right there.

While we were waiting for the grades I mentioned that I wasn't go to check the grades on line until after Christmas to one of my classmates. That was when they told us they had to be in by. I didn't want to torture myself and keep looking on line and not knowing. He told me you'll pass the class! I thought the same of him, but apparently he is taking A&P 1 and a class for Respiratory Therapy. He took AP1 in the summer, but he was passing with just a C and he knew he could do better, so he dropped it. He is doing both classes and not doing this one very well I guess. But once he saw the practical grade he thought that he had passed. I hope so, it would suck to have to take that class again.

I am so happy that I have 3 weeks off from school. A week off from work with the girls, I think I might actually scrap a little. I really feel like I need to be creative after all this stress from class. Well, off to put the girls down.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

I feel guilty

I came home from my last English class last night and saw Faith's interim report card is on the frig. She isn't doing all that great, and I am frustrated. I feel like I am not helping her enough but at the same time I feel like she should be taking more responsibility for her school work. I talked with her this morning and she of course started to cry, but I think she was crying because she feels like she has let me down. I know that at her age, I would do that.

She brings her books home, but she doesn't study. I mean why bother???? She does the homework that is assigned for that night, but she won't study beyond that. In her case she has to study some subject every night. She will bring her books home .....

I had to go to school myself, on the way I called Craig. He told me that he had already lit into her last night. Told her that if she failed, she would have to go to summer school and that takes up about 2/3 of the summer. Now I know why she was so upset.

I told her that I would give her $5 for every letter grade she brought her grade up. Dave came over for dinner tonight and told her that he would match what ever I gave her. I hope she does it. Generally I don't bribe my children (that's what it feels like) but if it works she will see that she can do it. That's all I care about.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Are we going to move?

It is getting pretty cold here, and today I went out and started and finished my Christmas shopping. It wasn't to hard as we have only enough money to get for the girls. I took the money that my mom gave me for Christmas and spent it on Craig for Christmas. I bought him a robe, the game BrainAge 2. We played it over at his Uncle's house at Thanksgiving. Supposedly if you play for a few minutes everyday, it keeps your brain thinking and active, therefore YOUNG! Craig tried it and I think his brain age was like 55 or 60, I think mine was 35. How good did I feel. At least my brain age is younger then I am, where Craig's is older. HA HA.

My mom sent me an email letting me know that my great aunt had another stroke and my great uncle has to have another hip replacement. I have to say that I think getting old sucks! Not the actual aging, but how our bodies seem to give out way before our minds. But I guess he isn't going to get the operation until he has sold the barge. She said she had mentioned to him that Craig and I might be interested. Fritz said the appraiser was supposed to be coming and and if he appraised it for more then he thought it was worth, he would sell it to Craig for a good price. I mentioned it to Craig and he said for me to look into it. The only thing is that they have the biggest trailer on there that they will allow and it still isn't going to be big enough for all of us. So the only way it would work is for us to be able to have someone stay at the trailer and in exchange for free or really reduced rent they could take care of the place at night. So I hopped on the Internet and started looking at houses around there and you can get a pretty nice house there for around $250,000. I think we could probably sell this house for around $400,000. I would be nice if we could be closer to my family.

Craig made me laugh when we were talking about it, he told me that if we did this, I would have to sign a "prenup" I told him he meant Postnup, but basically he said that if we moved to Texas and I left him I would have to take care of him for the rest of my life. He was pretty funny. I'm not pushing the issue, I think I have given up on that. All I know is that I can't think of it right now. All I can concentrate on for right now is my family and getting through nursing school. Sometimes I don't even do that very well.

We will see what happens but for now, I am just thankful that I have a home, a family who loves me and a mind that is young.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

School is almost over

Next Wednesday is my last day of school, until the 21st of January. I CAN NOT WAIT!!! As I have said in previous posts, this class has been excruciating for me. I hate that I feel like that but what can I do. I definitely have the slack factor going on here.

Next semester I get to take the second half of this course (A&P II). I am hoping that this teacher will be a better then the one I have now. He's not bad, but he's not great either.

I still need to do some Christmas shopping for the girls. I bought the presents from my mom and dad, but I really don't know what all I should get for the girls. Craig told me tonight that I should just spend the money that I was going to spend on him, on the girls. I can't do that, he said that all the things that he wants are just too expensive. But you know we don't buy gifts for each other that often, and I really want to get him something that he will like. I was thinking that I would get him a robe, and an automatic car starter. I think he would like that. He leaves for work so early, it would be nice for him to be able to start his car and let it get all nice and toasty before he got into it.

Well, I will sign off for now. I am trying to be better at posting on here, I was looking back over my history and noticed that in the past several months I have only posted once a month, I need to do better then that.



Tuesday, December 4, 2007

One Regret

This is one of the essays that I am putting in my portfolio for my English class.

I do not like to say that I have regrets; I believe that the experiences that I have had fashioned me into the person that I am today. They have shaped my idiosyncrasies, my wants and the desires of my heart. Nevertheless, if I could change a regret of mine it would be that I would not have dropped out of high school. Many factors played into my dropping out of school, some of those being, people I was associating with, home life and the way that I perceived my parents. But mostly it was my own skewed thought process.


My mother swears that as a child, I was perfect! She has told me stories of what an angel I was, and of how I did not question her authority, but obeyed immediately. Likewise, she also tells stories of when I changed. It wasn’t until I went through puberty that things started to go awry, you know the tell-tell signs of puberty. The back talking and rolling of the eyes, you couldn’t pay me enough money to go through that time in my life again. The emotions that I had as an adolescent only magnified as hormones coursed through my body. Isn’t that the case in any teenager?!
As a freshman in high school, I met my best friend Kelly; she and I clicked right away. We became very close, very quickly; it was almost as if we were each other’s family, each other’s world. I could read her like the back of my hand. There were many days that I would go to school and wait for her to get off the bus, she would just look at me and without having to say a word, we knew that we were skipping class that day. No one, especially not my family, knew me like she did or so I believed in my juvenile intelligence.
Kelly was a little more worldly than myself and my friendship with her brought me into contact with others of the same mindset. My only care was for my friends. I believe that this is normal however I took it to the extreme. This new way of thinking (or lack of thinking) made me not care about school and also made me imagine that I could survive without a high school diploma. I could get along with my new family. Eventually, when I stopped going to class I was moved to an “Alternative School”. The only people who went to that kind of school were the losers and misfits. The losers were people like me whose daily thoughts consisted of what kind of fun we would have and if that entailed some sort of partying. The misfits were the kids that didn’t fit in for various reasons; whether it was for social or academic.

There, homework was a privilege, a privilege I could do without mind you. Attendance and participation in class counted as points towards the credits that were needed to graduate. If I remember correctly, 60 points equaled one credit. As easy as that sounds, I couldn’t bring myself to do this menial task. I had more pressing things to do and I could not visualize my future beyond the day. Nonetheless with this kind of mindset I chose to miss out so many things.

Not only did I not consider my future, but I missed out on many other milestones of growing up. I missed graduating with my class, and the look of pride on my parents’ faces as I received my diploma. As well as going to my prom. I chose getting stoned over getting dressed up and taking the mandatory pictures with my date, the after party (although I am sure I found some party to go to that night).

When I was 17 years old, the Army stationed my father in New Jersey. I attended Monmouth Regional High School and I remember being in a freshmen science class and one of my classmates asked me who I had for math. She found it very strange when I told her that I didn’t have math; try and explain that you are in between a sophomore and junior. I hated the discomfort in trying to make clear just how much of a screw up I was. Evading was far easier then facing the truth. Image was all important to me at this stage of my life. It would be better that people thought I didn’t care instead of knowing that I couldn’t make it through school.
At that time I was dating a man back in California and he wanted me to move back to be with him. I had just turned 18 and decided that it was just too awkward being back in school. I signed myself out of school in anticipation of my move back to California, only to be let down. He ended up going home on leave and marrying his high school sweetheart. My parents then told me that I had two choices, either return to school, or get a job and start paying rent. I decided to get a job. Now I was an adult or so I thought! I had a job, I was paying rent ($35 a week, I want that kind of rent again), I was self sufficient. My first job after becoming an “adult” was being a cashier in a cafeteria in a government office building. I think I made $7.50 an hour.

I have had many jobs; and each has taught me a new skill that I have used in life. I have used each job has been a stepping stone, but none of these jobs would allow me to support my family should anything happen to my husband. I have worked at many retail establishments, a driving school, a dental office, a heating and air conditioning office, each one of these places I have learned and grown. Had I stayed in school my life definitely would have been different. I would have gone to college after high school and hopefully at this point in my life I would have been established in a fulfilling career. Instead, I am working in an office, making an okay wage and going to school part time as well as, taking care of a husband and two kids. Life is hard, but in a different way; a better way.

Again, I believe that life experience make up a person’s character. Had I not had some of the experiences that I did as an adult child, like living in a van with two other people, and being left stranded at a bus station after traveling across country, then I wouldn’t have the heart that I do for people, I would not be who I am today. I would be a different me. You see, I believe my compassion for people is a direct result of the hurts and trials that I have had, and it is this compassion for people that will carry me forward into the career that I have chosen. I think that because of both my choices, hurts and regrets I can be a better nurse. I can empathize with people who are in pain, whether that pain be physical or emotional. Not only can I listen with a clinical ear, but with a concerned heart. I am not sure that I could say the same if I did get my “do over”.