One Day At A Time....

That would be ME!!!! Here is part of an email I recieved and forwarded my mom a couple weeks ago: Me: "Dear Acknowledged Student: Congratulations! You are invited to join The Gamma Beta Phi Society, a national collegiate honor and service organization.  The Society focuses on community and educational service, and every member is highly encouraged to participate in this service. ..." Mom: Congrats! Me: I know! Yippee! They want me!!!! Mom: Yeah, it's another thing to put on a resume... Me: I wonder what it takes to get into Golden Key? Mom: Good question... Me: Golden Key, as I found out, is invitation only. So I need to keep a look out for an invitation. Kinda dissapointed, I went on with my day. I drove home from work that night, got the mail out of the mailbox, and what was in there? THIS WAS! What is the likelihood that this would happen?

Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN Fall 2011      Well, it's been an interesting few months. Between school, work, church, finals, tech portfolio's, Thanksgiving, vacation and Christmas, my life seams to be one major activity after another. It's gone by so fast, some parts of the last 8 weeks I am still trying to process. Much of my thoughts have hovered around one topic/event:       Thanksgiving and 4 weeks before and after Thanksgiving.      I'm not quite ready to talk about my experience, but suffice it to say, it didn't turn out how I imagined it would. (don't worry, it's all G-rated.)      I have quite an imagination sometimes and being invited to spend Thanksgiving with a friend back in Indiana gave my imagination a sugar rush!      One day, I hope I will be able to describe my Thanksgiving 2011 experience, but it is still a raw a...

I am alive. I realize it's been a while since I posted anything here. I've been busy, ok? Shiesh! Something about working full time, school part time, branch moving back to BG, road trips, home improvements, sleeping, loads of conferences (Stake Conference, then General Conference, then Branch Conference) is just keeping me running like crazy! I have projects and assignments due for school once or twice a week, work driving me crazy sometimes and we are planning for a minor basement repair scheduled for a couple weeks from now. That means cleaning and sorting and organizing and pitching and reminiscing and remembering all the junk stuff junk I haven’t gone thru in years! Wish me luck!

Email me for an invite to my blog. I had to create a blog for one of my classes. I didn't want people checking out my personal blog, so I made it private till the end of the semester.

So last night I bought myself a new fancy alarm clock that will charge my ipod! it will charge, play, etc. Well I had to call customer service on it last night because something wasn't working. The guy asked me what happens when I put the ipod on the docking station. I took it off so I could put it back on and tell him exactly what it does...and it wouldn't go back on!!!!! I tried and tried. I even had Michelle try... all while I am still on the phone with "Michael", the service agent who barely spoke English. We didn't want to push it too hard because we were afraid it was going to break my ipod (if it would have, I would have been REALLY MAD!!!! but it didn't.) So, frustratingly, eventually I told the guy that I think I am going to return it because it is too much of a hassle. His response was pretty much "go ahead and return it." What kind of service agent is he? So, that just made me really mad. I started looking for reviews for it ...

(PS: I've officially fallen off the blog a day goal....dont hate me!) Tonight's dinner? Mexican Hobo Stew 1 onion diced 1 large tomato cubed (or diced if you prefer) 1/3 cup yellow bell pepper diced 1/4 pound ground chicken 1 cup Boca Crumbles 1 box Rice-A-Roni (Mexican Style) seasonings (salt, pepper, cumin, red pepper powder, garlic powder) 2 3/4 C water 1 1/2 TBSP olive oil shreaded cheese and sour cream cook the onion and peppers. add ground chicken and cook. add boca crumbles and tomatoes and cook for just a few minutes. add rice a roni (with seasoning packet), add water. cook till rice is tender and most of the water has been absorbed. Scoop into bowls and top with cheese and sour cream. ENJOY! NOTE: no Mexican hobo's were harmed in the making of this dinner. I gathered ingredients from different parts of my kitchen and I am all out of Mexican hobo's.

Blogging every day is hard. Let's just average a blog entry each day, OK? Great!   Yesterday I biked for 20.575 miles in 1:50:55! That is the furthest I have gone... ever!   So I am a bit excited (and sore!)   AND that knocks off over 20% of my monthly biking mileage goal!   So here's to a little update and today's QOTD:   "When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments.  Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man.  And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became.  Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others."    ~Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills

While in the process of not watching TV for a week, I have realized that there are a lot of things I could do instead of watching TV. June brings the hope of achieving more goals, hence the list below: 1. Finish Reading/listening to The Book of Mormon before July 1, 2011. I'm currently in Helaman Chapter 7. That is an average of 2.5 chapters each day. (So far today, I've already gotten 4 done! So now I'm about half way thru chapter 11!) 2. Bike 100 miles by July 1, 2011 This averages out to be 4 miles every day but Sundays. (This was my goal for last year.... ALL of last year!) 3. Mow the front and back lawn at least 1 time every 7 days. 4. Blog about something every day of June 2011! While I would love to achieve these goals, I know things will fall into my path to deter me from them. Distractions, disgruntlement and disappointment always happen and they always will. But I can try. Today's QOTD (Quote of the day): "Success u...

Well, that didn't work as well as I had hoped. I didn't watch TV shows, but due to a loop-hole I invented, I did watch more movies in a weekend than I usually do in most months! Although I did manage to get a good handle on my laundry, due to some nasty weather, I wasn't able to get as much done outside as I had hoped. My Farmville farm looks far nicer and less weed infested than my real garden does. And my back yard looks like a jungle. But I made it the entire week without watching any TV shows!

So, I'm grounding myself. It's something I do. This time I've found I spend FAR TOO MUCH time watching TV each week. I mean WAY TOO MUCH! So my goal is to not watch TV for 1 week. 7 days. 168 hours. As of 12:00 am this morning, NO TV for a week! It's going to be rough, but I have such a to-do list that I am coming up with that I will have plenty to do. For some ideas on what to do other than watch TV, here are a couple links to a few resources I found online.... http://www.marcandangel.com/2008/07/28/40-positive-effects-of-a-tv-free-week/ (Don't worry, I will not be doing what #36 implies....) http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/turnoffweek/TV.turnoff.week.html (I was amazed at some of the statistics here....) Not only am I cutting out TV, I am replacing that time with things I need to get done. I want to see at the end of my week how much I am able to get done. So come next Monday, I will post my results! Now come on everyone, jump on the ba...

So, my dad is going in for surgery today and all he puts on his Facebook about it... "I'm in the hospital & I need help on my farm so my cows don't take over." He is having his gall bladder removed and some adhesions taken care of from his appendix surgery about 15 years ago.

Today is my birthday. Every year around my birthday, the daffodils around my house bloom. But when I came home from church yesterday, none of them had bloomed (or at least I didn't notice). With all he crazy weather changes, 36° highs one day, to 83° degree highs a few days later, I wasn't sure that the daffodils would bloom in time for my birthday. So, other than the occasional glance on my way in or out the front door, I forgot about them. I left my house this morning and happened to look at the flower bed and found this.... I'm not usually one for coincidences. I know that this was Heavenly Father's birthday present to me. One single daffodil to remind me that He knows me individually. He loves me and he wants me to be happy. So He let one daffodil bloom just for me, for which I am very grateful.

I just accepted my first honor society invitation!!!! I'M JUST A TAD EXCITED!!!!

(For those wondering, my refund came back from Chewbacca on Friday.)   On to today's story. So with the goal of saving my money up for the i P od touch instead of just using my refund for it,   I did something fun today. I got all the change out of my armrest of my car, put it in my pigg y bank with my other coins (that  I conviently had in my car) and headed to Kroger. Kroger has a CoinStar machine. Coinstar machine counts coins....  I f   I  wanted cash, it would cost me about 9.8%....  But  I knew what  I  wanted.... AMAZON GIFT CARDS and by getting a gift card, it didnt cost me anything to count the coins! 127 quarters, 209 dimes, 104 nickels and 1231 pennies.... grand total...(insert drumroll here ) $70.16   Talk about a giant step toward my goal!

So I have been awaiting the arrival of my FAFSA refund from school.... Yes, I realize the semester is over half way over.... Yes, it frustrates the snot out of me.... Apparently taking staggered start date classes screws with your refund disbursement date. BUT..... Unlike the 18 billion other times I have checked my bank account and UT account since January, today there was a small change. Below is an email to my mom, and her response cracks me up: well the $$ is no longer in my UT account. It's not yet in my bank account either. must be in limbo land (somewhere between UT and my bank is UT's bank. it's probably there.) only a matter of time.... Mom's response? Maybe the Klingons have it and are heading, warp-speed, to Chewbaka-land! Man, I love that lady! (And if Chewie is listening, please send them back with my money, Thanks!) PS: my mom's response to that: I wouldn’t send THEM back with it, I would trust it to CP3O or R2D...

I typed up a purchase order this morning for some insulation. About 20 minutes after I faxed it over to the vendor, I receive a call that went something like this:   Julie: Good morning. This is Julie. How can I help you? Caller: We just received purchase order XXXX-XXXX for (Vendor).... We are a pizza shop. Julie: A what shop? Caller: A pizza shop. We have received about 12 faxes for (Vendor) since yesterday. So I have been calling the people who sent them to us to ensure that they are able to still get their stuff ordered, but that they need to call (Vendor). Julie: Ok, thanks for letting me know. I will call (Vendor) and see what the problem is.   After verifying that the fax number I sent the purchase order to was NOT the fax number for the pizza place, I called (Vendor) to figure out what was going on.   Aparantly (Vendor) had been having problems with their fax number/machine/line and forwarded all incoming faxes to their branch in Co...

remember that big stack of paperwork I was trying to get thru last week? I just finished it this morning! Just in time to start the next stack of paperwork....

Today's Goal: Get rid of every single non-essential piece of paper on my office desk. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. Office paper breeds like rabbits!

...come down with a stomach flu. (No, I didn't come down with the stomach flu. I just thought that would be an interesting start to this post.) Between my roommate and her dog, and the 5 members of my family including myself, the holidays were spent with visits to doctors, vets, urgent cares, and emergency rooms, Not to mention how many doses of cold fighting drugs and prescriptions, boxes of tissues and gallons of clear liquids consumed. Other than the cesspool of illness, the holidays were great!