i’ve been a busy little bee lately. i started my classes at nau last week. im doing their distance learning program so i’m still at my crappy little town and not at their main campus in flagstaff
my semester is split in half with three classes this half (aug-oct) and then two classes the next half (oct - dec). my classes this half are: a practicum, ed psych, and tech. in ed. classes are from 5-10pm on tuesdays and thursdays. bleh. but they say most dont last that long.

my practicum had a general meeting last monday. i need to spend 45hrs in a classroom, basically helping out and learning. i get evaluated by the teacher i’m with and i have to put together a lesson plan and execute it in the classroom and my practicum adviser/teacher will come in and evaluate me also. bleh. its scary to think about. i need to hand in a contract thats signed by me and the teacher ill be working with by this friday… i picked out the school i want to do my hours at, but nothing more than that. lol i called today and tried to schedule a meeting with the principal, but some stupid secretary who didnt know english just wrote down a note for the principal to call me back.. im figuring im not going to get a call back. -grumbles- so im sure ill have to email my practicum adviser/teacher and let her know my contract wont be in on time because ppl dont call back..

i also had technology in education on thursday.. it was pretty simple. there is no book; everythings online. its pretty much “read this, do this, email it to the prof, you can leave.” i’ve already done next thursday’s work, so ill be able to leave early.

today is my first day of psychology of elementary-aged children. i ordered my book like a week and a half ago, but it hasnt come in yet. so i’m worried that im going to be the only one showing up to class without a book. .. and that ill have to be there until 10 sharing a book with someone double bleh.

me and jim had a really good day yesterday. it was the first day in a long, long while that i got the giggles and couldnt stop laughing. we went out to home depot and picked up some things (a new wheelie for the sliding glass door that sticks, new ‘guts’ for our leaking toilet).

then we went over to petsmart to pick up some food for the doo-gas. i got to do my happy dance! they were just putting out their halloween stuff and they had TONS of halloween costumes in their size. usually they only have xxs sizes. so we picked up three costumes (rusty = ghost, walter = a devil, murphy = cow!). (anyone who really knows me knows i love cows. when we test-drove the element, the first thing i said was “its ugly” but then the second thing i said was “well, at least we could steal a small calf with this thing”.. yes the dealer really did a double take at me… arizona is also known for cotton, copper, and cows.. theres cows everwhere. yes. when they are close to fences by roads that are not very populated, i make jim pull over so we can stop and moo at the cows.)

after that we stopped at olive garden. they just opened up last week and werent as busy as we thought they would be, so we managed to get in pretty quickly. we fought over breadsticks, i made a breadstick and stuffed mushroom penis, and kicked each other under the table when the waitress came over and asked if we would want more breadsticks. (ok, it was more like me kicking him lol) and anyone whos ever been to olive garden knows its all about the breadsticks, so dont judge :p

when we came home i put the dogs in their costumes. they looked so adorable! walter is a little big for the devil costume, so it might have to go to rusty; hes the smallest of the three. we also fixed the toilet (yay! it doesnt leak anymore!) and we went for a swim in the pool. walter played pool ball.
all in all, it was a great day.

so my site was down for a lil bit and its been a while since ive gotten the chance to post anything.

everythings been going pretty well.. its been hot as hell here; into the 110s. my pool is no longer nice and cooling, but more like a luke-warm bath. there is no such thing as a “cold shower” in arizona. all the pipes that carry the cold water are hot. a cold shower is a luke-warm-to-warm shower. so all of that is pretty annoying. my best bet has been to stay inside during the day and go out for night swims (that way i dont get sunburned either) and then once i get out its cooler at night and there is a gentle breeze and it feels cool.

im still slowly gaining a new wardrobe of clothes.  went out to khols the other day and picked up three new tops.  they were all ones that i had tried on before the trip to pa but didnt purchase because of the price ($46); they were now down to $8.80. so i couldnt pass that up.  i also picked up a lovely new black leather hobo bag. i absolutely love it. i just take it with me everywhere and constantly pet it. (its so soft!)

last saturday i went and cut my hair. i lost about 6in and my hair now barely brushes against my shoulders.  its so nice. i feel like a great big weight has been lifted from my head (well, i guess it has). it also perked the perm back up since it didnt have that weight pulling it down, so its short and curly/wavy. i’m constantly shaking my head ‘no’ just to feel the tips of my hair slap me in the face.  the best part is that it dries so quickly and doesnt get as knotted easily. its a snap to deal with.

my garden is still chugging along like the little engine that could.. my sunflowers have fallen over and my pumpkin leaves are starting to whither.  why? because of the heat and sun. our shade screen we had over them collapsed and just wouldnt come back up.  we went and bought a big umbrella and stand for it, but its not doing much good either.  i think we’re just going to have to go out and buy some 2×4s and create a top wooden box to attach the sunscreen more permanently to. my tomatoes are doing ok. i have my first tomato and its looking pretty healthy and round.  i have about 5-6 green peppers that are growing nicely.

right now im still on summer vacation. my days consist of mostly doing nothing and sleeping in. ive been watching a lot of documentaries on IFC and the Sundance channel. i’m also still reading a good bit, but not as voraciously as i was 1-2weeks ago.

im waiting patiently to hear back from the plastic surgeon.. we called the insurance company for something else and asked about that and they said it would be covered.. im just waiting for the letter of approval to go from the insurance company to the dr and for the dr to call me to schedule the appointment. im very excited about it.  its been hurting me a bit lately.
there was more that i wanted to talk about, but heck if i can remember what now.. i guess it will have to wait for next time.

so i updated my wordpress.. something that i haven’t done in ages and in a million wordpress upgrades. so now i’m trying to get use to its very different and new interface. i’m not really feeling the new interface and its going to take me a while to get use to it.
i dropped my summer classes and changed my emphasis/endorsement from early care and education (ece) to history/social studies. ece is considered a specialized endorsement and none of my ece credits would have transfered. i would have to have taken many of the same courses all over again.  so changing it allows my history credits to transfer over..  i only need one more history for the endorsement.

while i’m working at that, i’m going to finish up my AA in ece. i’m just a few credits shy of it, so i might as well finish it.
so i’m reading the national news and its just so scary.. unemployment is rising, the price of gas is increasing, the price of everything is increasing..  i think its good that we are where we are. both of my parents and jim have really good, secure jobs and are making more money here than what they did in pa. i know when i’m good to go to start teaching, that there will be plenty of jobs here for me.  they’re going to be opening up a new school every year for the next four years here to help with the city’s population boom. the nau advisor told me that the neighboring town was hiring people to teach who didnt even have their teaching certification.  so i know that in two years ill have a secure job.  everything is really good here.. i feel pretty blessed.

today i go for a one-month follow up with holiday. i think i might ask to be bumped up on my seroquel and i need to get a new prescription for my xanax.  i went to a plastic surgeon on monday who said that my scar was a sabacious cyst.  i was reading up on it and it doesnt sound like thats what it is, but she’s the doctor.. i told her i wanted to make sure the insurance would cover it and she said that they would have to send in pictures of it to the insurance to check.. it would take about 4wks.. if they dont cover it, its in the 540range and jim said we can pay for it ourselves. she said that they do it there in their office. she would inject lidocaine around it, excise it (cut it out), and then stitch it up. it will give me a more fine, straight-line scar. so that would be nice.

im starting to upload pictures from our trip. i didn’t realize that a hiccup made me loose my gallery. so i’m in the process of putting the gallery back up and my other pictures back up as well. ill probably finish it today.

so i was reading this article about how terrible bottled water is. its as expensive as gasoline by the gallon, fiji exports it but doesnt have their own fresh drinking water, and of course its filling landfills. and then people complain about how water has no taste and blahblahblah and its just friggen water.. but lemme tell you, water is pretty damn important.  other people might not be able to taste the differences, but i can. i couldnt even use the arizona water to brush my teeth (i would snag bottled water); it was just that gnarly and nasty. i still cant drink the water here, but i can now brush my teeth with it.  what we’re doing now is we bought a water cooler and get 5gal jugs of water.. we go through it pretty quick and use it for our drinking water. we refill them at refilling stations (which are pretty popular and can be found at most grocery stores or gas stations).  it says it has like a five step purification process. it really takes the nastyness out of the tap water.

i’m updating this after my trip home to washington at the end of may…  i love the tap water at home.. i can drink it by the barrels. it has a very mineral, filling taste. i loved it while i was there. i came home and went back to jug water here.. and now it tastes lacking to me. it doesnt have that really good mineral-y taste and it tastes like a ghost water.. acceptable, but not satisfying.

first off.. bleh.

my pump died in my fish tank. my cucumbers died. my bamboo shrimp died. the other day, my guppie died. now one of my tetras died (but in all fairness, im not sure if it was because of something wrong with the tank or because my dempsy just ate it for fun and food). bleh. i dont know what im going to do about any of the above.

ive been meaning to write the past few days, but havent had a chance.

saturday night we went out with ppl jim worked with. i had too much to drink and was introduced to jagermeister and red bull. wow. ill leave it at that. lol on sunday we stayed in and replanted my cucumbers so that they could have more room to grow. we also went out and tried a new chinese place. it was kinda bad and i think it made me sick. ive been feeling more than a little bleck lately. on monday, i forgot to water we also mapled and got some take out from t&m. at some point we watched “dan in real life.” a friggen awesome movie. today i did work for school, jim had a meeting, and we went out with my mom to costco, target, and buffalo wild wings.

on monday we also did a hell of a lot of work. we cleaned up the house (i finally mopped!) and we called a guy about the ac. we tried turning it on sunday night and it wouldnt come on. it just made a nasty loud humming sound and blew warm air. it was on pure luck that we were able to get someone the next day.. a lot of the places we called said a 4+ day wait. (umm. yeah. i dont think so). one ad said “same day service” but jim thought it looked cheap and didnt want to go with them. when he finally called them, they were very professional and (the first we called to do so) asked what we were experiencing. the guy they sent out was friggen GREAT.

ok, backstory. last year our ac was acting up. wasnt blowing that cold and was blowing all of the time. some came to the door one afternoon and i let him in the backyard to fix it.. yeah.. well. i thought my mom had finally scheduled someone to come out and had forgotten to tell me. turned out the guy was just at the wrong house. paid him a lot of money. he left. two day later the ac goes COMPLETELY out. yeah. i had jimmy get us a night at a hotel in eloy because it was just too friggen hot to sleep. i was in the pool every two hours to cool down and was just exhausted from no sleep. (yes, we took poochies with us so they could sleep cool too for a night). my mom did have to call the insurance ppl and they sent someone out. they replaced the motor for the nominal charge of the insurance price and everything was pretty ok after that until sunday when we tried to turn the ac on.

now back to this weekend. fri-sun me and my mom had been snippy at each other, mainly about whos responsibility it is to do what. because of all of this, me and jim opted to call in ac repair from some one out of the phonebook instead of me arguing more with her and waiting th week+ that the insurance would take to find and call someone out.

well, the guy we called out said that the ppl the insurance ppl had out last summer had put in a crappy motor. he said it was so crappy that his own company stopped carrying it awhile ago because its total crap. the problem with it? they’re notoriously known for going out after a year (2 if you’re *extremely* lucky). in other words our insurance was going with a company that was ripping them (and us) off and using super-cheap parts. since it was under a year the old motor was still under waranty and we could call insurance company, argue, wait a week, have them send the ppl out from last year, get another crappy motor replacement, or just have the guy who was here then replace it for like $350. yeah. we chose the latter. so.. yeah.. jimmy got a great back-rub for being such a great provider on monday and will probably get a few more before the week is out. my parents offered to split it and pay jimmy back half(+), but he has declined. (we did get dinner on my mom tonight, so thats a plus lol)

on monday we also called some window repair ppl. it seems as thought a little doggy might have fallen on the back of the couch and into the window (or perhaps they just jumped on it) and there is now a crack going right across it. we’re not really sure when it happened. murphy really likes that window and he stares out of it all of the time (so does rusty, to a lesser extent). jimmy is worried that someone might push against it and have it break and come shattering down and hurt them. so hopefully be the weekend someone will come out and change it out. someone was suppose to come out yesterday or today to measure it. they said they would have to order the glass and should have it in in about 3day or so.

we’ve also been talking about what to do with the front and side yard. it just so happened that we had a huge magnet (we got it from the place where we rent our storage unit from; they had a stack of them and i took one) that had local contact numbers for fire, emergency, and poison control and such. well, along the side of it it has about 4-6 advertisements from local businesses. one of them is a temp agency and it states 4hours for $55 or 8hours for $110. theyll provide ppl to do anything from packing, cleaning, moving, to landscaping and yard work. we want to take out a few trees and a few stumps and cut back some bushes. we also wanna look into putting down some type of edging between the landscaping rocks and the sidewalk.

our neighbor just completely redid her front lawn (put in grass in a kidney-shaped area with this wonderful edging around it, new red landscaping rocks, begonias, and a few citrus trees) with the help of another neighbor. the “another neighbor” is new to the neighborhood. they’re an older retired couple and as nice as peach pie. we went out one day to find that our alley had been cleaned up and our bushes along the side of the house (along side the outside edge of our wall (we dont have fences out here, we have walls) and often forgotten about) had been pruned. we had no idea what happened. then we met the neighbor-man and he said that he hopped that we didnt mind and that he had done. i guess he is newly retired and has been trying to keep busy. well.. he’s just infectious i guess.. the other neighbor lady redid her front yard with his help and now we’re thinking of redoing ours.. especially so if we can get work done for $110/day. i would love to put some citrus trees in, but we have some decorative olive trees in now and they’re just a pain in the ass with the mess that they make.

jimmy said he would be willing to pay for it, but he’d want to get a lot of things taken out and really get his money’s worth lol my mom said it would also be something she would like to do.. however all four of us have trips planned to go back to pa (my mother in father in early may and me and jim in mid to late may).. so it would probably have to wait until we come back and after we get our tax money. it should be really nice though. i cant wait.

ive still been really amazingly happy and high on life lately. today after my shower i just burried my face in a towel and smiled at how fresh it smelled and how great it felt against my skin.

ive really been thinking lately that i want to get published. im working on a creative writing class and im doing really well in it. my teacher has been raving about two short stories in particular. i would like to work on them more, develop them into novels, and submit them to some literary agents. is it too late to change my new years resolution? : finish a novel. get an agent.

so my garden is coming up *beautifully.*  i have another pumpkin coming up and about 43 lil cucumber pants. i have about 7 lil tomato plants sprouting up as well.  my peppers are growing great and are now getting their second set of leaves in.  tomorrow me and roo plan on looking around the yard and trying to figure out where to put our next garden. yay!

i was listening to the new madonna song, 4minutes, and i absolutely hate it from the very beginning. in the version that i saw and the lyrics that i read to confirm (of course now that i go and look everything says differently, but it did say this two-three days ago) was timbaland singing something to the likes of “i’m outta time. i’ve only got 4 minutes.”  …..    ….  …..   ok…. yeah… umm… 4minutes is a unit of time.. so if you have 4minutes, you have time; you’re not out of it -grrr- i hate silly things like that.   (and i did refind those lyrics here).

for some reason, ive been waking up incredibly early. i forgot that i use to like to be a morning person. ive been getting up around 7 - 7.30am. a week ago i was going to bed at 5.30am. lol so i’m really proud of myself.

today, i’m absolutely loving my husband (just like everyday, but just a pinch more today).  we went out with my mom and went up to chandler.  we stopped at black angus and had an *excellent* lunch/dinner. money’s been a lil tight for my parents, so bunny paid.  i thought that was so nice of him.  then we had to go to costco and pick up a few things. the doggies (as always) made out like bandits. jimmy bought them some duck jerky and some honey biscuit cookies and my mom picked them up some chicken jerky (they love the jerkies) and a package of bones.  jimmy also got us this really great doggy training book that i cant wait to start reading tomorrow. its really detailed and has some great instructions in it.

after that we went over to walmart and picked up almost one of everything. we also stopped and showed my mom the bikes we were looking at last time and thinking about getting. they didnt have the one that i liked in the color that i liked (they had it in white and hot pink; a lil too girly for me). we kept looking and found two matching ones that we liked and were cheaper than the others. jimmy surprised me and got them for us. they’re both the old, 50s-type cruisers. hes is red and mine’s blue.  we had to struggle getting everything into the car, but we managed to do it.  after we got in and put away our groceries and things, me and jimmyroo went for a bike ride around the block. it was dark, so we didnt want to go too far and, really, we just wanted to test them out.  i haven’t ridden a bike in 4-5years.  i know its been even longer since jimmy did.  it was loads of fun. :)  jimmy wants us to get helmets.  i know they’re good, but i dont really want to.  so we will see.  tomorrow we’re gunna go for another ride around the neighborhood.  i’m sure its going to be great again
for some reason we’ve just been assaulted with mosquitoes lately. :(  some, i swear, are as big as the palm of my hand. i call them the prehistoric mosquitoes. i’m waiting for one of them to fly off with walter.  it just dawned on me the other day that they have to be coming from standing water, and most likely from someone’s nasty, uncared for pool. i dont know what to do. :(  we can call the city and complain, but they’ll come spray and with rooroo’s healthy, that worries me a lot. he’s just such a fragile little dog with his allergies that i worry a lot about him. i’m sure the extra poisons in the air wouldnt be good for him.
speaking of poisons.. i need to find some organic gardening pest-control stuff.

i’m really happy. its spring (which is summer-ish back home), the sun is shining, the pool is crystal clear, and life is good. our neighbor has planted some wildflowers/poppies in their yard and some have migrated into our yard.  they’re so pretty looking. its really a… (and i almost hate to say it).. a great time to be in arizona.

sunday me and jimmy took the boys to the dog park. it wasnt a great trip by my standards (had a few run-ins with some mexicans; a woman who was at a dog park and didnt like dogs. a group of older teens/young 20somethings who brought their 2-3m/o puppies and were letting their young kids awkwardly hold and hurt the puppies.), but the dogs still seemed to like it.  sunday was also the first day in the pool, albeit a quick trip in. woo was hot from the park and i was upset. he got in to cool off and i tossed on my ‘kini and jumped in after him.  yeah.. it still gets down to the high 30s / low 40s here at night. it was pretty damn cold and we both jumped out pretty quickly. it was really like ice water. we misplaced the thermometer for the pool, so i’m not exactly sure how cold it is.

yesterday, monday, me and jim kinda slept in and got a late start.  we stayed in until my mom came home from work and then the three of us went out and did some shopping at sams club and target. the dogs are really starting to love our costo / sam’s trips. it means they get brought home a bag of pigs ears and turkery/chicken jerky. you know, we spent a ton of money there, but i can barely remember what all we got now. we got some fucking *fantastic* shrimp. i was playfully asking jim last night if he could run back up there before work and grab me some more. next week we’re so going back and i’m going to stock up. mmmmshimp. yum. :D  i had to pick up a lot of little things from target that costco didnt have, like my shampoo and a body wash that had a smell i liked. we picked up the new juno soundtrack. we saw it a few weeks ago and both commented after the movie that we really liked their soundtrack. its really kickass.
oooh. and we also picked up season 1 of dexter. we didn’t get a chance to watch it last night, and probably wont get to tonight either; so hopefully tomorrow night we can start watching some of it. i really like the tv on dvd option. its great getting to just cuddle up on the couch together and watch a few episodes of a show.

still, me and jim are planning on going to walmart tonight after work. there were some things i couldnt get at either place yesterday. the walmart trip is always unavoidable *sighs*

since i started my ‘diet,’ i’ve lost like 10-15lbs. yaay!

we finished gears of war this past week. he has some wwii fighter game for the ps3 that he wants us to start playing next, but we only have one controller for it; we need to pick up another one, but it sucks to have to spend like $50 for it.  instead i talked him into starting super mario galaxy.  it took a while to get use to. you’re pretty much flying through space, landing on shit, and walking on it. at time you’re actually walking upside down on a ball-like shape and cant see whats coming at you or where you’re going. its tricky.

tonight/tomorrow is going to be busy, busy, busy! i have discussion board work to do for my classes tonight. one is kinda crappy. i need to interview a female family member about their pregnancy and labor. yeah. for me that pretty much leaves my mom. i dont wanna hear the gross stuff that i have to ask. bleck! tomorrow morning (at 9am! eeeep!) i have an appointment to meet with the adviser from NAU.  i received my letter (yesterday! YAAAAY!) that i’ve been accepted to NAU, but i need to go and apply to their school of education (their education department) now. so i wanna take with me a filled out application and the essay that they request for admission. i think i also need a letter of recommendation from a teacher. luckily i already have it.  so tonight i have a lot of work to do.  tomorrow, i’m going to go in like an hour early and do some of the things that i need to do at the college. i need to change my name, pick up a refund check, and i just wanna check in with the lady that processes the graduation stuff and be 110% sure that i will be graduating this may.  that means that ill need to be up at  6tomorrow to be there by 8.  double-bleck!  there are nights this past week that i didnt even go to bed until 4 or 5am.

for some reason, i’ve been loving and craving unsweetened ice tea. all i want is a nice cold unsweetened ice tea.

for some other reason, jim has been spoiling me rotten lately; not that i’m complaining.  :lol:  two weeks ago i was having trouble finding some jeans that i like in my size.  i found out that they’re pretty much discontinued.  luckily i found them online (and on sale!) and he bought me a few pairs of them. then last week he bought me a new pair of croc sandals. (i wore them out yesterday for the first time. i *love* them. they’re the best. croc shoes are amazingly comfortable).  two nights ago, we went out for a drive around town. when we came home, i noticed that someone had left an avon magazine by the door. i flipped through it and found a buncha things i liked. i went online and found a bunch more things i liked. well, jimny let me get them too. mostly some light, natural make-up and a few make-up brushes. we started talking last night about getting a magazines subscription. i’ve been looking today and am down to three choices: cosmo, readers digest, and fido friendly (a doggy travel magazine).

well, the day isnt getting any earlier and i have a shitload to do, so..

there is a high school less than a mile from here and their band is practicing in their football feed. i have my window open for fresh air and i can hear the rhythmic beats of the drums and the tap-tap-tap of a block. i like this time of year. i like the fresh air and the band.

i went to bed around 1.30am and was up around 7ish.  by 8.20, i was at the school. by 9.30 i was speaking to an adviser.  my aa is done. i cant complete my aa in ece because they’re not offering all of the classes i need to take for it.  i submitted my form to graduate. i tried to change my name, but they wouldnt let me. they said that they needed to see my SScard before they would change it.  i did that monday, but havent gotten my card yet.  i cant change my email and login for my online class stuff (which is my old maiden name) until i change it in the administration with my SScard. such a nasty, vicious cycle.

• No Snow
• Lower than average intelligence
• Bad Drivers
• Snooty:
  • Scottsdale residences
  • Lexus-driving Realtors
  • Middle-class
  • Lower-class
  • (everyone here is snooty)
• Not being able to watch the ball drop in NYC on New Years