Blood Work Back

My bloodwork came back normal. YAY!

But that just rules out one thing as to what is causing my thyroid to be enlarged. My follow up appt. is in 3 weeks, so I'm hoping the Dr. will have some ideas. My mother was diagnosed with Hiroshimoto's thyroid disease (sp?) a few months ago. I might bring this up to the Dr. as most thyroid diseases are genetic and this disease can present with your thyroid hormones showing up normal in blood tests.

School is going good. Lots of homework and my Mock Interview coming up next week. But in the end it is all worth it. :)

Also next Friday I am being inducted into Phi Theta Kappa (international honor society) my overall GPA is 3.88 and my GPA for last semester was 4.0 I'm hoping that my Human Biology class this semester doesn't pull my GPA down too low. It is definitely giving me some trouble. I have a high C in that class now. I"m hoping to bring it up to a B with this next test (Wish me luck!!!)

Off to shower and finish up some more homework, just wanted to update ya'll.

Oh wait! I found a really neat website, slideshare.net I used it for the first time at work yesterday on one of their blogs. So check it out: Bucket Craft

Priorities...wait what?

So maybe my priorities are a little mixed at the moment....

I'm on here writing a blog...

Whilst beside me sits a mound of homework, leering at me, expectantly, waiting to be done.

*sigh*

It seems as though my procrastination has truly gotten the better of me tonight.  But I seem to not be able to focus while feeling so blue as I currently do.  Not sure why, pms-ing perhaps.

But in lieu of rambling about feeling so lonely tonight, I'm going to share with you my newest hair color.  Personally I love it, though it has already faded quite a bit since I dyed it 3 weeks ago.

So, I think red suits me.  Brings out the blue in my eyes.  Ignore the dark circles it was 7:30 am when I took this pic, and morning just does not suit me (well that in addition to late nights, homework puts me at its beck and call) Speaking of homework, I'm heading to bed early so I can have more time tomorrow to tackle this mound, it is definitely not getting touched tonight. Sleep is a much more tempting mistress in my eyes.

All Worked Out

Today was a busy day, lots of meetings in my dept. at work.  Our ideas and things are coming together, but the next few weeks until I get into a set schedule are going to be hectic at Red Hill.  But I'm looking forward to the challenge.  I'm also looking forward to decorating my new office.  We finally got things rearranged so I now have my own space.  First time I've ever had an entire office to myself.  I had a nice little cubicle at Weichert, but this is awesome. 

School is going to be tough though.  My class on XHTML is going to take 6-9 hours a week.  Also, everyone has told me that a C is an A in Human Biology, which I also have.  Then Office Admin. is going to be a little tough since I'm taking it before a couple classes you're supposed to take, but the teacher thinks I'm smart enough to do it without those classes.  Medical Terminology doesn't seem like it will be too bad, just a lot of work and memorization.  And I'm not sure about Medical Transcription since my first class in it isn't until tomorrow (weather permitting).

So if you want to see some of the things I've been up to at Red Hill General Store, you should check out their company blog.  It's really the only thing tangible that I've done at the moment the rest is behind the scenes type stuff.

Well off to bed, hopefully a big day tomorrow!

Whew...

Gee, with all the work at Peds, homework, housework, and work blogging and rewriting descriptions for Red Hill General Store, I haven't had time to keep up with my own blog or with Etsy... I'm hoping that I won't have quite as much homework this weekend and I'll be able to make some jewelry and get it listed.  Its been crazy busy in my life lately.  That and making time for The Boy, who is amazingly supportive with all my work.  I couldn't do it without him that is for sure.  :)  Speaking of, here's my current fave pic of The Boy and me:

Holidays are just around the corner...

I'm sitting here in class, the teacher is out today, just waiting for tomorrow to get here.  I absolutely cannot wait until the Grace Potter and the Nocturnals concert tomorrow night.  It cannot get here soon enough.  Hopefully I can get my camera to work a little better and can get some good pics to post.  I wish my financial aid check had gotten here beforehand, I really need a new one, especially a less bulky one. 

I cannot believe that Christmas is just 2 months away.  I need to get started on my gift buying.  If ya'll want I wrote an article on creative gift ideas.  Go check it out by clicking HERE.

Well I guess I should probably get started on doing something constructive. 

Hacker House

Went to Hacker House with Asher tonight.  We had a blast.  Her boyfriend, Evan, was working, so of course everyone knew our names and some of the actors were shouting it from ahead to lure us down certain paths.  I had fun messing with some of them using my own "monster" voice.  Awesome night overall.  We'll def. have to do it again sometime.  I would love to be one of the actors there.  I think it would be amazingly fun to scare people and just get to dress up and be all crazy.  Maybe one year when my life is a bit calmer and more settled. 

Work is still stressful.  Still dreaming about a job where I could be creative and relaxed and just enjoy work and life.  I know work is never fun all the time, but sometimes it'd be nice to not dread getting up in the morning. 

Going to spend the rest of the weekend memorizing my experience speech.  I'm thinking about once this semester is over using some of my speeches and essays as topics on Helium.com and trying to make a little extra off of that site.  Love making a little money off of my writing.  I would write whether I did or didn't, but that just adds a little extra bit of satisfaction to my day.

Shout Outs and Updates.

Starting off with tonight's post giving a shout out to Red Hill General Store.  The owner graciously did an interview with me for a school project, and I was amazed at how far they have come since I worked there back in High School, and my first go round at college.  You should visit their website at http://www.redhillgeneralstore.com they have just about anything you could think of and then some.  The staff is friendly, and the prices are reasonable. 

Update, the Jewelry Presentation my small group did turned out very well.  Our group came in 2nd, but we had a lot of fun, and I got to work with some wonderful people.  My Power Point class finally started, and we have a few projects which will be a bit more work added to my already stressful life, but I think I will still enjoy this class.  I get to be creative in a few ways, which always makes me happy.  Work has been stressful to the point that I've been nearly in tears and physically shaking every day on my way home.  I love the people I work with, but we need to figure out a way to lighten the load.  Or else I'm going to have to go to a Dr. and get put on some meds or something.  This much stress can't be good for someone.  I wish I enjoyed my job again.  :(

I have to work this weekend, but hopefully after I tackle all my homework in the evenings I will have time to  make some new jewelry and get pics up and stuff listed. 

Thank you to all of my readers.

Weird Couple've Days...

Its been an interesting and weird few days lately.  Found out I most likely have a half-sister that I did not know about...still deciding on how to go about (or if I) contacting her.  A little girl a few towns over from here died from a mysterious illness, a lot of people are in an uproar over it.  Understandably so.  Waiting to see if something is put in the news about it.  If so I'll share that here.  Went out to Turn One in Wytheville, to watch a friend's band play.  Fast Back.  They were pretty good for only 3 practices, but it was for a good cause, they were raising money for a 15 month old who needs an intestinal transplant.  The Boy was a sweetie and donated some extra money in addition to paying for the door charge for both of us (door charge was all going the baby's fund).  Am trying to get everything together for our group project this week, and realizing that A LOT of big projects are due, just one class is keeping me so busy I can't breathe, I'm honestly typing this on a forced break from memorizing my intro for our project.  So my brain feels a little like this:

Projects galore...

So, I mentioned the Small Group project in an earlier blog.  The one that we are doing for my communications class, anyway, the product my group picked was my jewelry :O Which is awesome!  The girls are determined that we will sell a piece the day we do our speech.  They are all so super nice, love my group. LOL. 

Well, as I had said about Records Keeping, I have a feeling that it is going to be the death of me.  Accounting is not my thing, and I'm doing it online (I'm sure I've mentioned that a million times) but really ONLINE??? WTF was I thinking???  It took 2 tries to get a passing grade on my post test (and that's not the real deal grrrrrr.) I have one more try, I'm gonna study some more and shoot for a 100.  The bad thing is that for the pre and post test we can use our book...and I kinda have a feeling that we'll have to go to the ARC for the main tests and no books there *big gulp*  I need to look into that...

Now onto my latest listing:

Week 2...

And thus my 2nd week of school begins, so far it looks like I aced my first 2 quizzes in my Drug Use & Abuse class.  My Records Keeping class seems to be ok thus far...still a little dubious about how its going to go once we get past learning the whys to accounting and start learning the maths to accounting. (YIKES) And tomorrow is my first quiz in Editing & Proofreading, English is my thing, so hopefully this class will be easy for me.  And then we start our small group project in Communications tomorrow as well.

Also I have to find out where the ARC center is, I'm meeting an old friend there between my 1st and 3rd class (yup there's a hole in my 2nd class til Sept. 28, that's when my power point class starts)

So wish me luck on my quiz, and as my work load gets harder this year, I may not be on here quite as much, and I apologize in advance for that.

Hmmm...

So, I wound up ordering an older version of Gregg Reference Manual from amazon.com, along with a really awesome dictionary.  It is The American Heritage College Dictionary.  And oddly enough I also ordered a shower head, since mine had sprouted a leak.  The dictionary and shower head arrived yesterday.  So I decided to do some work in my shower (naturally).

So this morning was my first time actually showering with this thing.  Well, while the water was warming up I realized that there was a gust of air coming from within my shower...that is how hard the water is pounding out of this shower head.  And on my back the water pressure felt AWESOME.  Then...I turned around; My nips are still sore from the pounding water.  So I think this afternoon I am changing the washer inside the head to a water restrictor.

Also for those of you have still not checked it out.  I have made the goodsearch.com page my homepage on Firefox.  Yup, its that good.  I really like it anyway.  Try it out.

Today's first Dropper:

Went on a Book Hunt...

So for my editing & proofreading class, our teacher recommended us getting the Gregg Reference Manual so The Boy and I went to Barnes & Noble today to see if they had it, ha ha. Yeah they do...but for $70.  As much as I love books, and as much as I would probably use that book, I had to say NO.  I've found several copies on Amazon though for $50 and under, so I think I might go that route.  And since I'm a student they have this thing you can sign up for and get FREE 2 day shipping.  :)  And free shipping always makes Raen happy!!!

On a different note, I did pic up a Self Magazine while there (love their articles) and there is an article in this month's issue about Women Doing Good and one woman, JJ Ramberg has helped create a search engine that raises money for a nonprofit of your choice every time you use it to search.  It is called GoodSearch.com I haven't checked it out yet, but I have a feeling that page is going to get bookmarked as soon as I get a second to check it out.  What better way to help out a good cause?  You are going to be searching online at some point anyway (or if your me, several times a day).  If you do check out that search site, let me know what you think about it, I'm always curious about other's opinions! 

Well I am out, but before I go check out today's first dropper's blog:

First Day

Yesterday was my first day of online classes, and today was my first of actually going up to the campus.  I was so nervous the whole ride there, stomach in knots and all.  But so far so good I think I'm really going to enjoy this semester.  In case anyone is curious here's a look at the classes I'm taking:

AST 107 Editing/Proof Reading
AST 136 Record Keeping
AST 260 Pres Software (PowerPoint)
CST 110 Intro to Communications
HLT 121 Drug Use & Abuse

So far my hardest classes seem like Record Keeping (Accounting) and Communications.  Wish me luck!

Also for Record Keeping, we had to do an introductory thing and include a pic of ourselves.  So I figured I'd share my pic w/ya'll since the one I have on here is a bit vague:

Today's first Dropper:

  

Friday was a BUSY day...

Ever have one of those days where you are so busy that it just flies by in the blink of an eye?  Yesterday was like that for me.  Me and The Boy went to the college so that I could get my books, figure out where my classes are at etc.  Then we went to Wal-mart so that I could get some notebooks, pens, etc.  We ran into my aunt and uncle while there, so I had to introduce them.  That went better than expected tho.  Then The Boy and I went and ate at this little diner at Flying J's on the way back home.  The food was awesome.  Made a few stops on the rest of the way home: Library, Yard Sales, Thrift Shop.  At said thrift shop I bought the neatest Suitcase, it looks like its from the 40's and it was only $2 since it doesn't have a key.  It is Fam-Line. 

Anyway the rest of my day continued at a very harried pace.  Then as I'm getting ready to go to bed and get some much needed sleep.  I get a text from my sister:

A woman died on me.

That is all it said.  So naturally I text back: WHAT?!?

So she called me and told me about her first day at her new job being a clerk at a local motel.  Apparently, a man came running into the office demanding a room so that he could get his wife in there and wake her up.  She'd passed out 30 minutes prior to his arrival and she was diabetic so she'd done it before.  He told them not to call 911 that he'd woken her up before when she was like this. 

Kace and her manager quickly got things ready for him and handed over the key, he rushed out of the office.  Just a few moments after, a woman comes in and says to them:

"There's a man outside slapping some woman repeatedly while screaming WAKE UP LAURELL.  Just thought ya'll might want to do something about it."

The woman then walks back out of the office.  And Kace's manager sends her to the front lines. 

Kace approaches the man, asking him if he wants her to call 911 or what she can do to help him.  He tells her to NOT call 911, and he needs a man to help him carry his wife to the bed in the motel room.

Kace goes inside to tell her manager what he said, and she gives Kace permission to go to the rooms that are being used to see if there is a man in any of them willing to help.  Kace's search for a man doesn't go well, but when she is returning to the scene of mayhem a man just pulled in who is talking on his cell phone.

Kace runs up to him, asks him if he will help the other man with his wife, and if he can talk him into calling 911.  The man agrees, and while he and Laurell's husband try to carry her into the hotel she starts having convulsions.  At this point Kace decides that not calling 911 is no longer an option and runs into the office and tells her boss to call 911 RIGHT NOW. 

The boss calls and comes out to the parking lot, at this point the woman has stopped breathing.  Her husband begins CPR on her and Kace and her manager start looking for a pulse.  The cannot find one.  The husband continues to alternate between administering CPR and slapping his wife yelling at her to wake up. 

Kace said at this point the woman takes what sounds like 3 big gasping breaths.  "And Cris I cannot even begin to replicate the noise she made after that.  Then everything was still."

So I'm thinking that Kace heard the death rattle up close and personal.  Gives me chills just to think about it. 

The ambulance finally arrived, they tried oxygen on Laurell, but to no avail.  Kace said when the loaded her up they pulled a blanket over her and rode away.  No lights or siren.

I believe that after that being her first day at work, she needs a raise.  That is above and beyond minimum wage pay.

Hoping to get Critiqued.

I posted in the Etsy Forums to get a critique on my shop, if you are on Etsy please visit this link and help me out: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6597599 I would sooooo greatly appreciate it!

I am hoping to get my shop as flawless as possible before I start going to school in 2 weeks, so that I can use my spare time for making jewelry and listing it (and hopefully shipping it) instead of trying to work out kinks in the store.  That would be a great help to me.  And since my hours have been cut at work I could definitely use some extra income if I could get this thing up and going.  Everyone has said this summer has been slow on Etsy, so hopefully I'll start seeing some more action as we move towards the holidays.

Well I am off to clean, organize, and make some jewelry.

Today's first dropper:

   

Update:
Made a treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c61a784f3bd6d915d20e343/cool-me-blues?index=0
Featured in a treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c61c0bf347c6d91df2cf718/quick-draw?index=0

Great DAY!!!!

So today The Boy and I spent a lot of time together.  We went to Wytheville, wandered around this government surplus store where I got 4 binders that were practically brand new for 0.75 a piece.  And I got a nifty little pocket knife it's a FURY.  We ate at Ruby Tuesdays, love that place, then I went to the college to talk to a counselor and try to get everything situated.

I got signed up for all my classes next semester and if all my stuff from SCC transfers, I should be able to knock out getting my degree in just THREE semesters!!!!  I'm super stoked over that.  So if I take summer classes next year I might have my degree by August 2011.  WOW. 

It is so awesome to finally feel like I'm getting my life back on track.

What a Day...

So work was a little rough, but no biggie, but when I got home my books had come in the mail "Woo Hoo!!!"  and I found out that I'm approved for Financial Aid triple "Woo Hoo!"  and I just had a great afternoon, other than mom still being bummed...still trying to cheer her up.  :(

But the books look like they are going to be awesome especially The Write-Brain Workbook I'm thinking about seeing if some of the exercises would be doable to do on here.  *crosses fingers*  That'd def give me some food for thought so that ya'll have more exciting reads.  LOL.