Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Sad, but dancing
A little while ago a friend called with the news that JUDGING AMY (my favorite TV show for the last two years!) has been cancelled from the Fall schedule. So I am very sad. Husband says it was coasting downhill anyway. I’m wondering if there will come along another show for which I would be willing to re-arrange my own schedule, or at least set up the VCR for it when necessary. The folks who make TV shows seem to forget that anybody above age 35 might like to see someone they can relate to.
The reason I feel like dancing is that a CD ordered used from Half.com arrived today. Love Songs by Richard and Karen Carpenter. Chris didn’t want me to play it when I first took it out of the wrapper, so when he drove away with a buddy, I slapped this little tune boon into the player, cranked it up with the speaker next to the screen window, then went out to the porch where my crochet bag waited. Had to sway a little bit first, then I managed to sit still long enough to put the border on a crochet cross. Sometimes this dead-end street, excuse me, cul-de-sac, is as empty as a stadium after the game.
Husband got home and left it keep playing. He just turned on the TV with the close-caption going and watched a rerun of The Simpsons on screen while listening to music.
He can be so thoughtful so often.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
I say It’s Over
I’m saying the semester is over. I went up to HCC to fetch my composition portfolio.
There is one comment from the Instructor which states “Lacks the ability to look at both sides of issue/topic/concern.”
My husband gladly would have told her that without me going through all the writing and processing assignments.
Earned a C for it, then a C overall for the semester, which is passing and means no money down the drain. Tuition gets expensive, and the rate is going up—Again!
Then I went over to the Basic Assessment Test Lab. According to my Algebra Instructor, if I passed his class, then passed the test well enough, I could skip the next level which is Intermediate Algebra. I thought this would be great. The BAT is multiple choice, I can use my own calculator, there is not a timer.
And I did what I thought was fine. The answers I figured out were within the list of choices! Why can’t they all be like this?!
For once, I was not the last person done.
The proctor got my printout from the computer—another cool thing. Instant gratification. I got a score of 55, which she says is right at the average, having just finished the course.
I will have to take Intermediate Algebra.
Okay, I am already signed and paid for the summer.
On the way out, there was a girl sitting in a study area and looking over her own Portfolio for the next level of Composition, which is 102. She had the same Instructor I did, but a class further along.
Just being friendly old me, I asked if she did alright. She said she Passed, which was all she had hoped for. She said she never understood how writing could be so hard. She said she is going to make sure she never gets another class with this teacher.
My grandma angel was grabbing ahold of my shoulder and whispering “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything” so I just nodded and said “We can put it all in a drawer now, and make sure tuition is paid for next semester”.
On the way to the car, I was thinking that I probably should cause some kind of mess within the english department bureaucracy, but there was one girl in my class who thought that this Composition 101 was a breeze, got an A on her portfolio, could not understand why I found it so hard to get a research paper done.
I have come to the conclusion that there are different strokes for different folks.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Monday, May 16, 2005
Almost done
The chair at the coffee shop got three hours of my warm bottom this afternoon. I studied Algebra and wrote up my note cards with the formulas and equations from each chapter.
This evening there is more studying to do, and I am still not real sure what will happen when the final exam is sitting in front of me on Tuesday morning. The brain will hopefully get into a working groove.
After I turn in that paper, the Spring semester is done for me. Summer session begins June 6.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Sunday, May 15, 2005
My Favorite Drink
Right out of high school, when I was in LPN training, one of the hospitals where we did our Clinical studies, there was Red Rose tea in the cafeteria. I fell in love with the stuff, and always got hot tea at lunch and iced tea on my break.
When we lived in Tennessee, Red Rose was not available, but I found JFG tea to be a fine substitute. There’s nothing quite like leaving a gallon of water with 5 teabags sitting outside on the porch to make suntea. After a half cup of sugar is added, the best iced tea in town.
Then we moved to Illinois. I couldn’t find any teabags that I liked, and believe me, we tried many that first on the prairie hot summer. Not only is sweet-tea not heard of in restaurants in the North, but I couldn’t make anything good enough at home either.
So I asked my friend back in Tennessee to send boxes of JFG teabags. I got my sister in Ohio to send Red Rose teabags. For Years we carried on this way, and my family’s tastebuds were happy.
Last summer, I went to a grocery store across town I hadn’t been to before. They carry Red Rose teabags! Talk about one excited customer!
I sent my sister an e-mail saying she is saved from having to shop and send for me any longer (not that she minded. Sisters do things like that.)
During my time as Hostess in the church kitchen, I have added little touches of hospitality, and Red Rose teabags are in the cupboard there. Apparently, there was a luncheon the other day, and Red Rose tea was offered. A guest just raved over it, and asked her member/friend where to get some. The question was put to me this morning, so I mentioned the proper store. All the way across town, but worth the trip, really.
Now there’s gonna be a gift box on its way. I mentioned to the member that the website has recipes and other items in the company store. I didn’t explain about the Whimsies figurines in each box. They make great little giveaways to children.
Little touches of niceness do mean much for some folks. I hope your favorite drink is obtained easily, and when you have it, there’s good company, too.
Now I gotta go brew something to sip. The weatherlady says it is a chilly 55o outside.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Friday, May 13, 2005
Stuff Portrait Day
This is participation in the Stuff Portrait Day, but I’m not sure who started it. During my weblog perusals, there seems to be too much in the way of hair care products, and I am not about to worry about my fine, thin, inherited from Grandma B hair.
So here we go. Clutter and sentimentally mine. The actual pictures may be a bit fuzzy, I tend to jab at the shutter button. Have had that camera for 5 months and still don’t use it properly. Plus I need to get this done. While it is fun to do, I have a list of errands to accomplish and want to be out the door by Noon.
More Stuff Portrait Day... below the fold
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Hope springs eternal
This afternoon whilst I was cruising weblogs, I came upon Kristine’s Place where she has the bright idea to post pictures of the stuff all about the house.
Someone asked her for the view which can be seen from the back porch, so I went out and checked mine. To the left is the air conditioner, which hasn’t had any use so far this season. The protective screen on top is a favorite place for the cats to have a snooze. Lately, it has been coated with seedlings.
I sit out here most mornings of warm weather, sipping my tea and listening to the birds chirping in the maple tree.
Here is proof positive that maple trees sure like to get busy.
They are desperately trying to propagate, do ya think?
Reminds me of a picture from an anatomy class
Same general idea, Right?
Ramblings, not graded
This morning I paid the Tuition for the summer courses, Intermediate Algebra and Speech.
Then just for fun, I added on a Community Education class which meets only 3 times on Monday evenings. Crochet for Christmas in July, working with thread. The prerequisites are that I know how to do single and double stitch patterns. I probably don’t need to take a class, but I just want to be around other folks who know how to crochet and don’t ask ME to be giving the lessons.
Plus we oughta support the Community Ed program, else we might lose it.
This is going to go off in weird directions, and I hope you can follow along. Believe me, this week, I am tired of writing to prove a point and earn a grade….
More Ramblings, not graded... below the fold
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
All energy is gone
Today is the day the Composition Portfolio was due. I didn’t even have the Revision of Paper 3 back, the Instructor forgot to leave it in her office box.
I took the 3-hole punch tool with me to class so that I could do the last minute put-it-together. Out in the hallway, 6 other students borrowed it while we waited for the Instructor. She had overslept, 20 minutes late, on the last and most important day.
I got a C on the Revision, up from an Incomplete. I started punching the holes and she said I could have an extra day to do more Revisions. Nope, I said, a C is passing, I did have a clean copy of that exact paper, the Portfolio is together now.
Then she checked it, page by page, as if I couldn’t read the list of contents. She said I have to re-do Paper 1, that was not a B paper. I said, hey, there’s a B written right there at the top, I’m done with it. The Revision Plan has a checkmark at the top. There’s no way she can lower something already done, is there? If she tries to, I’m going over her head. Then she says there has to be a clean copy of another paper. I can put it into her box in the morning.
There is a Course Reflection paper to be written and placed within. For that paper, I wrote that I am quite grateful just to be done with the course. Yes, I have learned about how to do Research papers, but I found the whole process frustrating. Someone with less innate talent would have given up long ago, and I worked way too hard just to pass with a C.
It is most regrettable that all my energy is so sapped that I cannot do what I truly like to do, which is to write here on the weblog.
Maybe next week, after Algebra final, and before I go back to the Valley to see my mother.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Missing you…
For much of the day, I have been putting together my Portfolio for the Composition class. Even with stuff in reserved in folders with date and assignment labels, this has been a tedious task. Having a printer which likes to be babied one page at a time doesn’t make it easier. Maybe next month’s budget.
I still have to type two pages for the Course Reflection. This needs to be acceptable for a grade, which means that all the venom will come later. Or maybe the best thing to do is plod through, shrug it up as one of the dullard experiences.
Anyways, I should be anywhere but here.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Monday, May 09, 2005
My Day so Far….
Dear Ones,
Today is Husband’s birthday. He doesn’t want to make a big deal of it, and it does come just a day after Mother’s Day and I didn’t want a big deal, so we are going to balance out. He has caught up to me. For a whole month, we are the same number age. He doesn’t like the way I do the math, maybe that is why Algebra is so hard for me to figure out.
First class today was Composition. When I walked into the room at my customary five ‘til 8, the Instructor asked about my Mother’s Day. I replied that after I did my thing in the church kitchen in the morning, I got home and took a nap, then typed a six page paper revision. She asked about any celebration. Well, that will come when we are not so tired and so busy.
Algebra class is a Review day, and I think I might be able to do factoring if someone asked about it.
We shall see what happens when the Final Exam page is put in front of me on Tuesday May 17.
I went to the bookstore to buy the official folder for the Portfolio. I had $1.98 in change on me, and my purse was locked in the trunk of the car at the far end of the parking lot because I don’t like to tote it all over campus. Books are heavy enough. Tomorrow the bookstore will get the full fee of $4.18.
What a racket! Any office supply place, the whole kit would be less than $3, but I guess I should count travel time and convenience.
Stopped and got breakfast at McDs on the way home. Leisurely meal at 10am while reading the paper is such a treat.
Had a dentist appointment at 11:30am. Routine cleaning and x-rays reveal a 5 pocket between two back teeth, when a 3 means I should be alarmed. The hygienist cleaned it out real good and squirted in antibiotics and said it is good that we caught this in time and keep up the good maintenance.
Uh huh, if I was doing so good with brush and floss and forgetting the Pepsi and peanuts while thinking about a Composition paper, would I have a gap in the gums already?
I wasn’t allowed to eat for an hour after the application of the medicine. It so happens that the dentist office is across the street one way from Kroger and the other way from TARGET. Good thing that breakfast had been so late, because the fridge is bare, the grocery list was long.
I went shopping, and even knowing nothing should go into my mouth, the tab came to $100. Seems like just as the sons leave, the grown-ups have to start watching the type of food intake and ingredient labels, and get vitamins and other supplements. The bill averages about the same, no matter how many coupons I clip.
At home, as I carried in the groceries, I discovered a hairball on the porch. Not sure which of the felines presented this little gift, but it sure put the rest of the morning into perspective.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Co-workers, be nice to them
This morning, Husband and I had the pleasure of the company of a friend during breakfast. We agree that the pancakes are quite tasty at the Garden of Paradise.
Plus, she picked up the tab!
She told an amusing story about how there was a little while when she worked at a video rental store. She said the manager liked to throw his authority around, made sure she stayed on task, etc. It was just a temp job, she got called to a place where she is able to use her education and be self-directional.
A couple years later, as part of her job, this fellow shows up with a deal to set up and carry out within her department.
She says she moved him a little further down the list for the completion date, just for old times sake.
I told her that sounded like a direct line with the quote laminated and hanging on the wall of one of my former jobsites.
Be careful. The toes you step on today may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Report of Grade
Dear Ones,
The chapter 7 test in Algebra came back with a 40 / 100.
Two missed were because I went too far—I put the real answer over the other number and made it into a fraction. Three were because I misunderstood the directions and did a graph with points rather than lines—he only took 1/2 off each answer because he said the point was in the correct place, but I was supposed to draw lines according to the slope.
One question I had no idea and simply wrote Undefined. The answer was Neither.
My grades so far say I need at least an 88 on the Final to pass the class with a C average.
It’s gonna be a rough couple weeks.
Husband says if I have to take the class all over again, we can do that. There are three students in my current class who are on their second go round. It looks like one of them is about the same place I am with the points needed. I sure hope she makes it, that we all make it.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Speakers at the Banquet (part 2 of 2)
Had lunch of leftover vege-beef soup and leftover fruit salad. Good Eats. Then I put load number four into the dryer, and started load number five. Seems like the laundry piled up whilst I was working a banquet.
Where was I? but first, I have to answer an e-mail from the church office about how great everything was last evening.
Heh, heh, if she only knew the half of it.
More Speakers at the Banquet (part 2 of 2)... below the fold
Events towards the banquet (part 1 of 2)
A write-up about the Women and Girls banquet at the church last evening. It is going to read as if I am writing to my friends Cindy, who couldn’t be there because her daughter was sick, and Carrie, who is under the weather herself.
As sorry as all that is, girls, we did have fun without you…
My whole involvement began last Fall. You see, our church sends out these sheets of paper with the title _Offering Your Gifts_. There are volunteer slots which need to be filled, both ongoing or just a one-time opportunity. On that sheet, 6 months ago, I checked the box which said I would be willing to “help with planning the Women/Girls Event around Mother’s Day”. The other box I checked was to be the Fellowship Class hostess. What a way to get out of having to sit still in church every Sunday. And the speaker system has a feed back to the kitchen, so I can hear just fine while I am measuring coffee.
Since I had been the President of Women’s Fellowship last year, and planned the Christmas party, I thought that just being a Helper for this banquet would be adequate, many months later.
More Events towards the banquet (part 1 of 2)... below the fold
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Filling Time
I am sitting here waiting for fruit to thaw. There is no better way to take a breather than to decide to be trivial and understated. The calm before the stroke.
The dinner this evening is to be a carry-in Salad Supper, with all the forms that word can take.
Mine happens to be a fruit salad.
Husband took me out to SAM’s CLUB, which might be the last time we have to do so together. He and Lucas were the partners on his card, but as a Mother’s Day gift, he bought another Club card for me and then Chris is the partner. We don’t do shopping together very well. Then again, we keep the budget in line better because of the “Are You going to buy That? Do we really need a box that big?”
Anyway, they sell a bag of DOLE frozen fruit in a six pound size. There is a recipe on the back for a type of honey glaze, which is cooked with cornstarch and lemon juice, and looks yummy.
All the ingredients are sitting on the counter, but I have to zoid out a bit from the Algebra test. Watching fruit thaw is an easy pastime.
My feelings for a good grade are mixed. I have perfect attendance for every class, I do all the homework practice pages, I asked questions and seem to understand the answers.
On test day, when the paper is set in front of me, with three words and 4 numbers and a big white space to figure the answer, my brain says “What the Hell?”
I went to the back and worked my way forward. The last two problems were what we covered in class just yesterday, I think I got them correct. The drawing graphs were just fine because of all the years of doing quilt patterns and color coordination for afghans.
Figuring out the equation and then putting it on a graph much more difficult. There was enough time that I didn’t have to leave any answers blank like last quiz, but I was the last student to turn in my paper.
The grade of C is what I have to earn to move on to the next class. I need both this Elementary then Intermediate Algebra (I signed on for a summer course) and then another Math in the Fall. Why? I ask? Why?
The time is up about the fruit, plus I have to be getting to the store and then the church building. There are two boxes to load into the car, even before I add the giant fruit salad.
People who do catering for a living are earning stripes for sainthood.
~~love and Huggs, Diane