a little class

Can I talk about school for a bit? I had my second chemistry lab tonight and seriously, if I don't get an A for lab I may have to think of something drastic to do to show my disappointment (I'm too tired to be creative at the moment). The teacher is, well, interesting to say the least and seems to be easily distracted. Lucky for me I seem to be remembering large chunks of the information so I should be OK, but I really feel bad for some of the younger students that don't have a clue what he is talking about. Then there is the online biology course... talk about little to no information. There is an online forum set up for the course, but I am getting the feeling the teacher doesn't take the time to read them. She could save herself a lot of individual questions if she would just answer it once on the board. What's a girl to do? I guess I will just have to figure it out and get 'er done! Oh and there are no deadlines for this class. Well, except for the May 8th end of semester deadline. You could literally complete this class by February if you were so inclined or May 8th as I will surely be doing.

the first snow of the year

I played hookie took a PTO day today. We got our first snow of the year, school was canceled, and I was going to miss part of work since I had a doctors appointment anyway. There wasn't a lot of snow at our house, but other parts of town had more... Here are the roads on the way to the doctors.

And another on the way.

After my appointment I got a lovely mani/pedi and then headed home to lounge. It's been a productive day if you count knitting and cross-stitching as productive. Which, of course, I do.

brrrr

Have I mentioned that a cold front moved in? Well, it did, and it is damn cold. Twenty seven degrees cold in sunny Charlotte. The sun may be out, but that wind is crankin and making it feel even colder. It was really noticeable when I walked out of class tonight and walked around the corner. WHAM! The wind was whippin down that corridor between buildings. I couldn't get to the car fast enough!

a post... and their was much rejoicing

Obviously the idea to post something every day is a bust, but at least I am getting something on here from time to time (which is to say more than once monthly or so).

Started school yesterday. I was originally scheduled for a chemistry class that would have required leaving work early and then driving to a campus that was in the opposite direction of my home. Not really what I was looking for when I signed up for this. Luckily, I was able to squeeze into a similar class that is being given at the downtown location and makes my life much simpler. I won't even have to drive my car downtown and pay for parking like I originally thought, since Joe has volunteered to drop me off and pick me up. Awesome! I was really dreading the idea of having to pay a ridiculous amount to park here two days a week.

Today was supposed to be spay the foster rabbits day. As I'm sure you can tell by the previous sentence that was not to be. I wrangled the rabbits into the carriers and left here early so we could drop them off only to get a call later that their had been a mix up with the vets. In case you were not aware, most vets do not like to fix rabbits. They are not only difficult anatomy wise but do not do well under anesthesia. Of course, from all the things that I read about how fragile rabbits are I keep wondering why mine don't drop dead of fright every time I turn on the vacuum. But I digress. I spoke with my contact and she was super nice and apologetic which is not what I was getting through email. Not that her emails were rude, I just wasn't getting the feeling anybody cared. The phone call washed all that away... I think they are just overwhelmed over there. So now they are scheduled for the 26th and hopefully that will be that.

mickey

I go to my first class in years tomorrow night. Instead of thinking about that, let's think about the first time I met Mickey...

on spot

Today has been a good day. I got up this morning, fed the rabbits, fed me and headed out to my first of three crochet classes I am taking at Charlotte Yarn. Fun! I really enjoyed learning how to use that hook and it was challenging to move your hands in a way that is so different from knitting. I will definitely be practicing for next weeks class.

After class I ran over to Macy's to return a not so great set of pots and pans I had purchased after Christmas. Really disappointing. Seriously, a pot should not have  black spots in the bottom just cause you boiled some water. In their place I picked up some shiny new Calphalon.

Did I mention shiny? Shiny AND pretty. What can I say, I love the pots and pans. Of course, this means that I need to stay on track with the whole cooking thing.

If you are not a follower of football, which I am not, you may not know that 'Our Carolina Panthers' are in a playoff game tonight. Oh, the insanity! We are therefore planning a night in with Joe's brother and girlfriend (who is kind of enough to cook for us this evening) as to avoid said insanity that will be ruling the downtown area and any establishment with more than one TV.

OK, off to wash those shiny new pots and pans so we can break them in tonight!

ch ch change

Getting back to January’s theme  I have been thinking of things that I feel I need to do to make myself a healthier happier Judi. One of these things is to remove all fake sweeteners from my diet.  The problem with this is that I <3 Diet Dr Pepper. Really, I think it is the best drink out there… it tops them all. There is going to be quite a hump for me to get over on this one. I really don’t drink a lot, but I do tend to have my one in the afternoon for a bit of caffeine and that lovely sweet taste. But then, there is that niggling in the back of my head wondering if this stuff made in a lab is really what I need to be putting into my body. Well, I have decided the answer is no. And that means no more diet sodas for me, which pretty much rules out all soda since that is all I drink anyway.

Alrighty then, on to more interesting things than my lost love of diet sodas. Wednesday I took a couple of pictures of my life right after work. Joe and I  carpool and I typically have to spend some time waiting for him to finish up before we can head home. This is the nice area that I sit and wait in the evenings.

Some people I know wonder why in the world I carry around these giant suitcases purses all the time. Here is an exclusive look inside. So you can see that I carry a book, some knitting, and there is a magazine peaking out there as well. You can ignore the VS bag... that's what I carry my lunch to work in. Suffice it to say I am terrified of being bored. Especially when I might be sitting there for 30 minutes or so.

Not much else to report. Joe had to work crazy late tonight and now is at the gym. Tomorrow I am taking the first of three crochet classes. yeah! I will finally learn to crochet. Another plan for the weekend is to make some soup in the crockpot. I'll let you know how that works out. Oh, and I start school on Tuesday, gotta go get those books!

another day

So yeah, I didn’t blog yesterday. Did anyone even notice? Is anyone out there?

OK, so what happened yesterday? I blame it on the diet. Cause you know it must never be my fault that something is not done, I must place the blame elsewhere, haha. Today I blame it on WeightWatchers and those crazy points! Actually, I’ve been doing pretty well with it the past few weeks. I have even dropped a few pounds here and there. Then there was yesterday. Yesterday was bad. Yesterday was fine until it was dinner time and then the fowl mood of hunger took over. Snappy McHungry showed up and it was on! Even after I was able to fix some dinner and have a few minutes to myself the mood lingered. It lingered on into the evening and gave me an even better excuse not to do the list of things I had planned to do and just sit on the couch and read. That led to falling asleep on the couch with Joe and I finally getting up about 1:30 to go to bed. Fun.

Today seems to be a better day. I don’t feel quite as grouchy, but I have been slacking on the eating. You know what, sometimes you need to take a break from the rigid and just do what you feel like from time to time. The key here is to not make this excuse at the drop of a hat or mood as the case may be. Tomorrow is another day!

cuteness

Introducing... the ridiculously cute Mocha!

 

a bit of knitting

I actually finished something! OK, so it was a dishcloth, but that counts. Right?

Behold! The fabulous completed object.

Now for something much more exciting. Well, at least for me that is. Instead of picking up one of my many already started items I decided I needed a pretty new scarf to wear in this yucky cold snap we have been having here. The picture is a bit blurry, but it's the best I could do in order to get the colors to show. So pretty! I just can't seem to put it down so I can clean up after the rabbits and then the bathroom. Go figure... the scarf always wins.

the closet

While Joe was taking some time off work he has spent some of the time painting. Painting the guest bath, painting the guest bedroom, and painting our huge walk in closet. The closet by far is our favorite... it looks so great in there! Here's a pic of part of our shiny new closet.

That then leads me to the shoes... lots and lots of shoes. This was a good time to purge some, but I am still left with quite a few. Have I mentioned that I really love shoes? They are so pretty! Oh and no counting of the shoes, my shoes are thrilled to have so many friends to hang out with when I am gone. Plus, they get a bit lonely if they can't throw big parties in the giant closet.

While I was moving my shoes back into the closet I came across a shoe box I didn't recognize. So, what do I do? Why, open it up of course! At first I just thought it was some of Joe's Star Wars plushies, but upon further investigation realized that underneath was the signed Star Wars picture that we had considered "lost in the move" over two years ago. Apparently, it was having a good time partying with the shoes to let us know where he had been all this time... Joe had it on the wall in about 2.37 seconds after I showed it to him. I love it when I can make his day!

 

This morning I got up early to volunteer with Animal Control. The first Saturday of every month you will more than likely find me at the South Park Mall Adoption Event. So much fun to find a home for some poor little guy who needs a home. Here we are setting up in the middle court. All doggies must stay on the giant plastic mat so we don't ruin their pretty marble floor!

And here is Bear! So cute! He found a really good home today.

Last but not least. Actually, totally not least! This a gift I received from my Aunt and Uncle when they were on their recent trip to Hawaii. It is an original oil painting and is really beautiful! Can't wait to find the perfect spot to hang it...

i'm back!

Look at that... two days in a row. Can you believe it? So, the theme for the monthly blogging thing I signed up for is 'change'. I would think that's a pretty good topic for January not only because it is resolution time, but since I really seem to have a lot of things going on at the moment. Things like, I wonder if I will go into work in the near future to find that I have been laid off and the fact that I am going back to school (something I swore I would never do) in an attempt to get into a nursing program. Life really throws some curve balls at you sometimes, you know? Those are but a few changes that I am trying to get through at the moment. There are others, but I'll get to them later.

Today was a strange day at work. The fact that it's a Friday and the day after New Years makes for a very quiet and empty office place, reallyreallyreally quiet. It also felt like the end of the holidays, which felt really good to me. I am ready to move on into this new year and accomplish some new things.

Tonight I cooked us a nice dinner (yummy giant scallops) and in a few I will be cleaning up the mess I left behind. Cooking is another thing I have vowed to do more of. Well that and adding a few things to my tiny repertoire of cooking. So small! It wouldn't be so bad if the dishes would magically wash themselves. I'd ask Joe to do it, but since he has been busy painting the guest room and our closet during his time off I figure it is just plain wrong of me to ask him to clean up the kitchen. I mean really, the least I can do is cook him a decent dinner and then clean up the mess.

Stay tuned for more blogging fun! I plan on posting even more riveting items about my life tomorrow.

a bit of an explanation

So you may be wondering what has been going on with the blog. Well, back in February '07 I decided that I needed to have my own domain with all my very own stuff. So I moved my blog on over to deadjudi.com/blog with grand plans of creating a really great frontpage with links to pictures, the blog, lists, whatever I wanted. That then led me to the realization that building a website is hard and not only that, I really don't have the time, patience, or inclination to even do it. On top of that about three months ago the spammers found my blog. As of a couple of weeks ago I was deleting almost 200 spam comments a day. Fantabulous!!! That basically sucked the life out of my will to blog. Seriously, opening up your blog and realizing that you have to deal with 800 spam comments cause you hadn't checked in a few days is not the motivator I need to keep up with this kind of thing. Some of you might be thinking, well, why didn't you just add one of those plugins that will verify if an actual human is trying to comment? I did, or at least I made the attempt, refer back to not good at doing website stuff. It effectively cut off all comments, which, for the time being was a bit refreshing.

So, here I am. Back to good ole blogger. Back to where, if I need to make a change I can. I feel much better now. Oh, and I am going to attempt to move my comments from the other blog to here so they can be saved for posterity, but don't hold your breath...

Another bit of interesting news is that I signed up for NaBloPoMo. I figure with starting school and work being in flux I should have some things to write about in the near future and this may help me along. That and I really need one more thing to do  :-)

 

Happy New Year everyone! Here is to a fresh start!