I am sorry that it has been so long since I last updated. I just really have not had a lot to write about. After I stopped working and got past my oral exam, life seemed to get boring, if not a little depressing. I knew very quickly that I wanted to return to work if Wendy would have me, and now it looks like it may happen relatively soon. Two people (perhaps three) that I know of are looking for other employment. One gal's husband had open-heart surgery in his home town in Iowa, and his doctor wants him to stay close, so he has requested to work remote from the Des Moines area. She is looking for employment in Iowa and once she finds a job, she will move. I am praying that it is soon for both of our sake. The other person who is looking for another job is Billie. That one makes me sad, but she has a little girl and wants to have another baby, so I understand her wanting to find a job that she can do from home. It's not easy to find online employment, but she is determined; so much so that she told Wendy and Crystal (the supervisor of the writing center) that she has to find another job. I also know that one other lady wants to move to Washington state to be closer to her daughter, so last I heard, she is looking for a job there. She has not been happy at CSU for some time, so it is not surprising that she wants to leave. Another lady also wants to leave, but her prospects are limited, so I don't anticipate that she will be leaving anytime soon. So I have several opportunities to go back; it's just a matter of one of the gals finding the job she is looking for.
I finished my last class at the end of December and am now officially in the dissertation phase of my degree. I am not at all excited about school anymore and am just so ready to be finished. I am hoping that I can finish up by the end of summer, but it will depend on how long my committee drags the process out. I am required to take three dissertation classes and my first one ends at the end of March and my second one ends around July 4th. I am not sure when the third one ends, but I am guessing around the end of September. Regardless, time will get behind me and it will all be over soon.
I was very happy to see 2019 come to an end. It started off rough and ended a bit rough as well. In January I said goodbye to my beloved Jasper, in February we had Hailey, our eighteen year old westie, put down, in April I had to say goodbye to my other beloved bird, Avery, and then right after Thanksgiving, we said goodbye to our almost twelve year old silky terrier, Maddie. I am now down to my two sun conures, my blue crown conure, and Emma, the shih tzu/maltese mix. If anything happens to any of them, I will not be replacing them. I thought getting birds would heal my heart and help me get over Jasper and Avery, but it didn't. These birds are nothing at all like them. Of course I knew that they wouldn't be, but I think my broken heart wanted one of them to be close at least. They are quirky and entertaining (and quite messy), but they will never replace Jasper and Avery.
Other than that, things are pretty much status quo. Dan and I decided to get back to eating strictly vegan, so I went grocery shopping yesterday and bought a whole bunch of fruits and veggies. Last night I made ratatouille and tonight I think I'm going to make vegetable fajitas. I am kind of glad to be cooking again, because while we were not being strict, we ate a lot of black bean burritos, and Dan usually made them for us. I sat around a lot and played my Pokemon Sword video game. April bought it for me for Christmas and I got hooked. I've finally gotten to the point where I am tired of it, so now I can go back to watching recipe videos and planning meals.
Well, I need to finish reading my chapter on Anna in my Twelve Extraordinary Women book before I go have lunch with Billie. We started doing this Bible study together a couple of months ago, and I have really enjoyed spending time with her talking about spiritual things. Unfortunately, it is pouring and doesn't look like it is going to let up any time soon, but hopefully it won't be coming down as heavily in an hour. I will try to get here more often to update, but I may not be back until I know I've gotten my job back. Here's to hoping that it will be sooner rather than later. My job gave me a real sense of purpose and I really miss that.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Monday, November 4, 2019
Our New Orleans Trip
April and I had a nice trip. We left a little later than we wanted to on Friday morning but still made it to New Orleans with plenty of time to get to our piercing appointments. When we arrived at the shop we were asked to choose our jewelry and the piercer came out and looked at my ear. She told me I have a shallow daith top and she needed to assess it a bit more thoroughly to determine if it was piercable. After measuring and looking, she determined that she would feel comfortable doing it, but she used a larger gauge ring and it is larger in diameter as well. She told me there is a chance that it could migrate and that it will take an entire year to heal, so I will just baby it as much as I can, avoid sleeping on it, and hope for the best. She looked at my tragus and found that it was still open from the last time I had it pierced, so she just used a taper to open it and inserted jewelry into it. To be honest, it hurt worse than the daith piercing, and it is still sore at the three day mark, but once it stops hurting, I won't have to deal with the healing process, so that will be nice. It also saved me $30 not having to get it repierced. After it heals up really good, I will get a smaller hoop put in.
I didn't get a picture of April's trio piercing. I'll have to have her send me one. It turned out really cute, but of course it was pretty sore. After we finished with our piercings, we checked into our hotel and then we went to eat sushi. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a grocery store to get some pop for April and we picked up a couple of bottles of liqueur to make 'buttery nipples.'The ghost tour provided buy one get one free hurricanes, but they were expensive and we found it was cheaper to buy our own alcohol. We each had a drink before we headed to the tour. The tour was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. We weren't out ghost hunting, but rather the tour guide walked us around the French Quarter and pointed out old houses where weird things are purported to happen. There is a lot of history in New Orleans, so I paid more attention to that rather than the ghost stories. We got back to the hotel after 10:00 p.m. and I was beat. We had walked over 18,000 steps, which wouldn't have been bad if I was used to walking, but I have been lazy for the past several months. Many of the sidewalks are tilted because they have settled. New Orleans is built on silt and sits below sea level, so it is essentially sinking. Things have to be built back up regularly. Walking at an angle made one of my knees hurt, and I compensated with my other foot, so I was sore on both sides of my body and very tired.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and walked back to the French Quarter. We ate lunch at Cafe Beignet because you can't go to NO and not eat beignets. We also ate a veggie sandwich that was surprisingly good. The line was long, so it took us a good hour and a half to get our food and eat. After that, we walked around a little, but there was nothing either of us was interested in looking at and we were still worn out from the day before, so we decided to just head home. We got home around 4:30 and I hung out with April and Ben for awhile before heading home. I ended up going to bed around 10:00, so with the time change, I got a good night sleep and felt much better yesterday. I made a trip to the grocery store to get some healthy food because I decided it's time to get back on the WFPB way of eating. I need to lose about 10 pounds (maybe 15 to feel really good) and the only way I can maintain my weight loss is to eat mostly plant food. After I purge the highly palatable foods from my diet for a week or so, I really enjoy eating that way. It's just so much easier to eat junk food like bean burritos and tortilla chips. I have been eating vegetarian all along, but I have been a junk food vegetarian, which is why I have gained some weight. Thankfully I haven't gained much, but I can't wear my jeans right now, and that is my goal.
Well, I am off to cook some rice and sweet potatoes. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
I didn't get a picture of April's trio piercing. I'll have to have her send me one. It turned out really cute, but of course it was pretty sore. After we finished with our piercings, we checked into our hotel and then we went to eat sushi. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a grocery store to get some pop for April and we picked up a couple of bottles of liqueur to make 'buttery nipples.'The ghost tour provided buy one get one free hurricanes, but they were expensive and we found it was cheaper to buy our own alcohol. We each had a drink before we headed to the tour. The tour was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. We weren't out ghost hunting, but rather the tour guide walked us around the French Quarter and pointed out old houses where weird things are purported to happen. There is a lot of history in New Orleans, so I paid more attention to that rather than the ghost stories. We got back to the hotel after 10:00 p.m. and I was beat. We had walked over 18,000 steps, which wouldn't have been bad if I was used to walking, but I have been lazy for the past several months. Many of the sidewalks are tilted because they have settled. New Orleans is built on silt and sits below sea level, so it is essentially sinking. Things have to be built back up regularly. Walking at an angle made one of my knees hurt, and I compensated with my other foot, so I was sore on both sides of my body and very tired.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and walked back to the French Quarter. We ate lunch at Cafe Beignet because you can't go to NO and not eat beignets. We also ate a veggie sandwich that was surprisingly good. The line was long, so it took us a good hour and a half to get our food and eat. After that, we walked around a little, but there was nothing either of us was interested in looking at and we were still worn out from the day before, so we decided to just head home. We got home around 4:30 and I hung out with April and Ben for awhile before heading home. I ended up going to bed around 10:00, so with the time change, I got a good night sleep and felt much better yesterday. I made a trip to the grocery store to get some healthy food because I decided it's time to get back on the WFPB way of eating. I need to lose about 10 pounds (maybe 15 to feel really good) and the only way I can maintain my weight loss is to eat mostly plant food. After I purge the highly palatable foods from my diet for a week or so, I really enjoy eating that way. It's just so much easier to eat junk food like bean burritos and tortilla chips. I have been eating vegetarian all along, but I have been a junk food vegetarian, which is why I have gained some weight. Thankfully I haven't gained much, but I can't wear my jeans right now, and that is my goal.
Well, I am off to cook some rice and sweet potatoes. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Time to Start Planning for the Holidays??
It doesn't seem like it's been a month since I last posted, but timestamps don't lie. I completed my last assignment for my last class and my two week break flew by, and I already submitted my first assignment for my current class yesterday. It is basically a repeat assignment, so I just modified my last paper. Technically I am not supposed to do that, but since this is my dissertation topic, it's difficult to write a brand new paper. I think my next assignment is a PowerPoint that I have to present to my professor orally. I am not looking forward to that. I hate oral presentations. But I will do what I have to do. This class ends right at the end of the year, which means I'll have submitted my last assignment right before we take our cruise on January 2nd.
I can't believe that the holidays are right around the corner. I need to figure out what I am going to do for Thanksgiving. Since we are vegetarian/vegan, a traditional turkey is not on the menu. I was looking to buy a tofurky, but by the time I had it shipped to me, it would have cost nearly $100, so I will have to start looking around on the internet to see what other vegans do for Thanksgiving. I know there are a lot of options. I haven't even started thinking about Christmas yet. I think part of the reason for that is because it just doesn't feel like winter is coming. Right now it is 72° and I have my back door open, while it snowed in Omaha last night. Everything is still green and flowery, which is not very Christmasy. I'm not complaining, though. I do not miss the snow and cold at all!! At any rate, though, I probably ought to start planning when I'll put my tree up and where I will put it. The spot I had it in last year is unavailable this year, so I might just put it out on my screened in porch. I won't really be able to see it out there, though, so I don't know...
April and I are taking a mother/daughter trip to New Orleans on Friday. We will leave early on Friday, spend Friday night and come home late on Saturday. So far all we have planned is a trip to a body piercing shop and a ghost tour. I'm not super excited about the tour, but April enjoys things like that, so I'll go for her. When we were in Omaha in July, we went to the piercing shop we used to go to when we lived there. It is an Association of Professional Piercers (APP) member shop, which means they use specific cleaning methods that help prevent infection in new piercings. I got my nose and helix pierced, and April got two dermal piercing on her chest. APP members are tough to find. The nearest one to where I love now is in Slidell, Louisiana, and I was going to make a trip there just to get pierced, but then I decided that a trip to NO with April might be fun, and there are two APP member shops there. I made an appointment at the one that seems the least scary, lol. I am planning to get my left daith and tragus pierced and April wants a faux industrial. I'll post pictures below.
The first one is what April wants to get done, and second picture shows what I eventually want my left ear to look like. I already have two lobe piercings and the helix. I probably won't do the third lobe, but I do like the two forward helix piercings, so I may do that in a year after the daith and tragus heal up really well. I'd also like to get a rook piercing on my right ear, so that ear will look something like this when I am finished:
I already have the conch piercing, which is the hoop right above the lobe piercings. I've had it done for nearly 9 years and I love it. I am going to get a prettier hoop or a stud put in it when I go to the piercer. I have a plain silver one like in the picture, and I am ready for something nicer. Good jewelry is expensive, but since it's well healed and I will likely wear the new jewelry forever, I don't mind spending a bit for it. Merry Christmas (and happy birthday) to me!
Well, that is about all for now. I hope you all have a great week!
I can't believe that the holidays are right around the corner. I need to figure out what I am going to do for Thanksgiving. Since we are vegetarian/vegan, a traditional turkey is not on the menu. I was looking to buy a tofurky, but by the time I had it shipped to me, it would have cost nearly $100, so I will have to start looking around on the internet to see what other vegans do for Thanksgiving. I know there are a lot of options. I haven't even started thinking about Christmas yet. I think part of the reason for that is because it just doesn't feel like winter is coming. Right now it is 72° and I have my back door open, while it snowed in Omaha last night. Everything is still green and flowery, which is not very Christmasy. I'm not complaining, though. I do not miss the snow and cold at all!! At any rate, though, I probably ought to start planning when I'll put my tree up and where I will put it. The spot I had it in last year is unavailable this year, so I might just put it out on my screened in porch. I won't really be able to see it out there, though, so I don't know...
April and I are taking a mother/daughter trip to New Orleans on Friday. We will leave early on Friday, spend Friday night and come home late on Saturday. So far all we have planned is a trip to a body piercing shop and a ghost tour. I'm not super excited about the tour, but April enjoys things like that, so I'll go for her. When we were in Omaha in July, we went to the piercing shop we used to go to when we lived there. It is an Association of Professional Piercers (APP) member shop, which means they use specific cleaning methods that help prevent infection in new piercings. I got my nose and helix pierced, and April got two dermal piercing on her chest. APP members are tough to find. The nearest one to where I love now is in Slidell, Louisiana, and I was going to make a trip there just to get pierced, but then I decided that a trip to NO with April might be fun, and there are two APP member shops there. I made an appointment at the one that seems the least scary, lol. I am planning to get my left daith and tragus pierced and April wants a faux industrial. I'll post pictures below.
The first one is what April wants to get done, and second picture shows what I eventually want my left ear to look like. I already have two lobe piercings and the helix. I probably won't do the third lobe, but I do like the two forward helix piercings, so I may do that in a year after the daith and tragus heal up really well. I'd also like to get a rook piercing on my right ear, so that ear will look something like this when I am finished:
I already have the conch piercing, which is the hoop right above the lobe piercings. I've had it done for nearly 9 years and I love it. I am going to get a prettier hoop or a stud put in it when I go to the piercer. I have a plain silver one like in the picture, and I am ready for something nicer. Good jewelry is expensive, but since it's well healed and I will likely wear the new jewelry forever, I don't mind spending a bit for it. Merry Christmas (and happy birthday) to me!
Well, that is about all for now. I hope you all have a great week!
Friday, September 27, 2019
A Long Overdue Update
I am very sorry for my lack of updates. I have come here several times and started writing, but my heart just hasn't been into blogging. I haven't felt like myself for awhile. Quitting my job was much harder on me than I thought it would be. I have felt depressed and just blah. I actually asked Dan what he would think about me going back to work if/when there is an opening, and he said I need to do what makes me happy. I worried that he'd get on my case because he would be stuck at home all day with the three birds I brought home, but since they all get along so well and are relatively independent, he is ok with it. He said he is glad I was here to get them adjusted. Well, of course this is all contingent on Wendy hiring me back, so I texted her to express my interest, and I got no reply, so I fretted for days and worried that she was not interested in having me come back. However, a couple of weeks ago I went up to CSU to have lunch with Billie, and afterward, she invited me to come up and say hello to my old coworkers, so I ended up staying an extra hour and a half making the rounds. Wendy wanted to see me before I left, so I stopped into her office, and she told me she would hire me back once a position opened. I was SOOOOO happy! If I had known how much I would miss working there, I never would have resigned. It would have been difficult to get everything done for my oral exam, but I would have found a way to do it. Anyway, it's hard to say when someone will move on, so I will just be patient until it happens.
Speaking of my oral exam, I took it on Wednesday at noon and I was finished by 12:30. I passed with flying colors, according to my professor. I was so stressed out, but she and Dr. Wesolek, the other examiner, went pretty easy on me. They asked me about my study and how I plan to carry it out. I assume that since I was able to respond to all of their questions easily, they decided not to ask the basic questions. My guess is that they assumed that I was well prepared for anything they could throw at me. I am just so extremely happy to have that roadblock behind me. I have one more assignment to submit for this class and then I have two weeks off. I think a trip to the beach is in order for Sunday.
On another note, my flock is complete and has been for awhile. Phoenix (not Harley, it just wouldn't stick) came home on August 23rd and Jack came home four days later, so they have both been here for an entire month already. It worked out well, because it took Rio a few hours to warm up to Phoenix, but when we brought Jack home, because he'd already had his world rocked, he wasn't phased, and Phoenix, being so new, wasn't phased either. They have become very good friends over the past several weeks, and they are all sharing a sleeping cage now. Things really went so much better than I could have hoped they would.
Well, I should press the post button before I end up back here in two weeks revising this blog post yet again. Now that I have the stress of my oral exam behind me, I should be able to focus on other things. The next step in my doctoral journey is writing my prospectus. That will occur in my next (and last) class. After that class, I am on to my dissertation classes. My journey should be over in less than a year, although they have me scheduled for another year's worth of classes. I am hoping to have my dissertation completed by next June, but I guess I'll have to wait and see how quickly they are willing to let me progress.
Speaking of my oral exam, I took it on Wednesday at noon and I was finished by 12:30. I passed with flying colors, according to my professor. I was so stressed out, but she and Dr. Wesolek, the other examiner, went pretty easy on me. They asked me about my study and how I plan to carry it out. I assume that since I was able to respond to all of their questions easily, they decided not to ask the basic questions. My guess is that they assumed that I was well prepared for anything they could throw at me. I am just so extremely happy to have that roadblock behind me. I have one more assignment to submit for this class and then I have two weeks off. I think a trip to the beach is in order for Sunday.
Well, I should press the post button before I end up back here in two weeks revising this blog post yet again. Now that I have the stress of my oral exam behind me, I should be able to focus on other things. The next step in my doctoral journey is writing my prospectus. That will occur in my next (and last) class. After that class, I am on to my dissertation classes. My journey should be over in less than a year, although they have me scheduled for another year's worth of classes. I am hoping to have my dissertation completed by next June, but I guess I'll have to wait and see how quickly they are willing to let me progress.
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