Red Ribbon Week

It's Red Ribbon Week, and Joseph's school is having them wear silly stuff each day. Yesterday, he wore his shirt backwards. Today was crazy sock day. I pulled out my Halloween socks, but he didn't want to pick just one pair, so he came up with the idea to where one of each. It was early, so the 

light was poor, but I got a picture before we had to run out to the bus.

Off-Day

Today was an "off" day for me. I just felt moody and frustrated most of the day. I've been working really hard to be patient with myself, and with the Lord's plan, as we try to figure out what to do. We haven't had much come up in the way of work yet. Mitchell is on his last week/paycheck for the freelance indie game he's been working on. He has been asked to do some illustrations for a friend, so that will be great. But that's all. The only time someone seems interested in hiring me, it would cost more to work there than I'd be getting paid! So we keep applying and keep praying and something will happen when it's time.

On the good side, Joseph has been doing well in school. He's going to a martial arts class several times a week, and it's really helping him with his focus, respect, and discipline, as well as getting energy out. We had a great family home evening with a good lesson and a fun activity. I'm also getting really involved in Joseph's school, so that should be fun.

Still Thinking

I've been continuing to look into schools and such. I found that I could possibly get an Associate's Degree at Chattahoochee Technical College, which is here in Marietta. That's the cheapest option of course, but that's the only cheap option in Georgia; BYU is significantly cheaper than any 4-year colleges around here. And, to be honest, I really just want to go to BYU. I love the atmosphere there, and I love having the Gospel integrated into all my classes. 

Right now, it seems I'm the only one focused on school; most of the advice I keep hearing is to wait until the kids are older. While this isn't what I want, and I'm not even sure it's right for me at this time, I've decided not to push things. I'm going to continue my "journey" of self-discovery, so that when the times comes, I'll know the direction that I want to go in.

My plan for the next few weeks is to prepare my family and my home for the beginning of school and a possible job.

Researching a Return to College

Last week for Family Home Evening, Mitchell and I read our Patriarchal Blessings to the family. During that FHE, we were both impressed with the importance of the continuation of my education. My blessing strongly emphasizes the need for me to attend "universities" and to extend my education as far as possible. I mostly share this so you can understand more of why I'm picking such "lofty" areas of study.

So, I applied to return to BYU. My application went through a couple days ago, but it could be around three months until I find out if I'm accepted. And, since then, I've been researching majors. My major was previously Family Life, but that never really felt right to me. I've mostly only looked at the majors at BYU, but sometimes at other colleges.

On Sunday night, I suddenly decided to look up career interest tests and came up with the O*NET Interest Profiler at MyNextMove.org. I took the test and they gave me a list of dozens of careers in different job zones, which entitle different amounts of education. I went through and kept only the ones that seemed interesting to me, plus added a few that I've always been interested in. Then I went through again and took out any that didn't have programs anywhere I was considering living. Then, Mitchell and I went through and crossed off all the ones that didn't really fit my personality  (while the profiler thinks I'd make a great CEO, can anyone really see me as the great, powerful, boss-lady?). Right now, the list is at 6 different majors/careers of interest, and all are in Job Zones 4 or 5, which means they all require at least a Bachelor's Degree.

1) Art History & Curatorial Studies; I could go two ways with this, either Conservation & Restoration, with an architecture emphasis, Museum Curating, or Archiving; BYU offers a great program, SCAD in Savannah has a specific Historic Preservation & Restoration program; the website lists the job outlook as Average and the average salary around $50,000.

2) Anthropology with a Sociocultural emphasis; I would prefer to do research and analysis with this, I took part of an Anthro course back in 2007 and I found it so fascinating, but I like the aspect of studying and analyzing cultures and patterns the most; BYU offers a great program; the website lists the job outlook as Average, but looking online mostly turned up teaching jobs, and the average salary around $58,000.

3) Applied Statistics & Analytics; this I would want to take in the direction of analyzing surveys and data for patterns, and such. Most jobs are with the government. I took a Statistics class at BYU before and it was really interesting; BYU offers a great program for this as well; the website lists the job outlook as Average and the average salary around $48,000.

4) English with a Minor in Editing; I want to take this in the specific direction of becoming a Proofreader or Copy Editor because I have always enjoyed doing that. It's super weird, but I love reading things to check for punctuation and such; I could take this at BYU, but probably also at many other schools; the website lists the job outlook as Below Average and the average salary around $33,000.

5) Interior Design; I have been interested in studying this for many years. It's actually almost second-nature for me to analyze a room for it's faults and to think of ways to improve it. There are many times that I've been thinking about redoing a house as I lay in bed and getting so wound up that I can't sleep; BYU doesn't offer this, but several other places do including TCC in Virginia Beach, LDS Business College, BYU-I, and SCAD, which is also in Atlanta, has the #1 program in the country; the website lists the job outlook as Average and the average salary around $48,000

6) Architecture; this is another thing that has always interested me, probably because I just love designing every part of a house; BYU doesn't offer this, but a school just down the road from us does, it's called Southern Polytechnic State University; the website lists the job outlook as Average and the average salary as $74,000.

If this were just about what my "dream job" is, then I want to become a House Flipper, but of historic homes. I'd want to go around buying historic homes, redoing them inside and out, then selling them. I wouldn't even care if I had a TV show about it. I just love the beauty and majesty of old homes, and it makes me sad to see them in ruins or turned into ugly duplexes.

So what do you guys think?

Music 101

I'm actually really beginning to enjoy my Music 101 class. At first it was a bit boring because we were covering stuff that I had already covered in my other class. But I recently made a friend in the class, her name is Rachel, and we have a fun time sitting together and talking. We are also learning about new things that I didn't know about. It is an easy class for me because I enjoy classical music and I understand how music works pretty well. I think a big part of that is from Popi. When I was a really little girl and we lived with Popi and Grandma, I would play in the living room at night when Popi would listen to classical music and relax in his chair. I felt really embarrassed during the midterm review last night. Without realizing it, I kept raising my hand and answering a lot of the questions, then I noticed that people were starting to turn around and stare at me. I stopped answering as many questions after that because I was worried that people was thinking I was being a know-it-all. I took the midterm today and did really well, though, which was exciting to me. It always feels good when I do well in my classes, especially because I don't usually give them as much attention as I think I should. I'm glad that I am able to be in school and I'm grateful for all the things that I'm learning.

School Stuff

I can't believe that I've blogged this many times in one month! I've been trying to stick to a schedule in order to keep my sanity, so I've been giving myself time to get ready for bed and do some of my own things. It's helping.

Tomorrow I start my third class. It's Music 101, so it should be really easy. I have to attend some concerts as part of the class, so I will probably go to some of the free ones on campus. I am hoping that it won't add too much extra weight to my already full schedule.

We've been discussing what to do next semester. Mitchell will only be taking 12 credits required for full-time, but he will be gone from 8 am to 7 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays as well as having an evening class on Tuesdays. He also wants to start doing some freelance work so that he can build up his work experience. I don't know what I am going to do. Mitchell suggested that I only take 3 credits and we just pay for the class from the money he gets. I want to take more classes because I'm excited about school and I want to learn things, but I'm also worried about the stress that school causes. We are going to continue talking and praying about what will be best for our family.

A House Full of Sickies

We have been a house full of sickies for the past 2 weeks. It has not been very fun, but it could have been much worse.

It started with Annabelle acting cranky around the weekend of General Conference; she even threw up twice. A few days later, we noticed her eyes were all pink and goopy. We took her to the doctor and she was diagnosed with bacterial conjuctivitis (Pink Eye) and an ear infection. We picked up her antibiotics and started her on them; she has 2 more days left of those.

Then Mitchell got a sore throat, and then a stuffy nose and a cough, all of it causing him to miss 2 days of class. Then he woke up with an ear infection. He went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. Two days later, he got Pink Eye, so he missed another day of class. He's still in the difficult process of catching up on his many art projects for his classes.

And I got sick, too, of course. I got the sore throat, the stuffy nose, the cough and the ear infection, plus the Pink Eye. I missed 3 days of class because of it. My ear is still plugged and my voice is just getting back to normal (I nearly lost it for a couple days). My mid-terms with this week, and I felt so far behind. Thanks to some quick studying and, especially, some answered prayers, I ended up getting good grades on both exams! It feels great to be done with the first block and starting fresh with the second.

Joseph has managed to get away without getting sick at all. He just had to be kept inside and bored because no one could take him out to play. He's happier now that he can play outside.

Busy, busy, busy

I am so busy right now! I haven't been this busy in so long, and it's really tiring sometimes. It's good, though, know that I am able to be busy and all of the things that I am blessed with.

Back in January, I signed up for an Independent Study class, American Heritage. When you sign up, you get one year to complete the class, with no deadlines or anything except that one. I didn't give it enough attention at the beginning of the year, so now I am working on it almost constantly. There are 23 lessons in the course and I'm just about finished with Lesson 6. That shows how very far behind I am. I think the first lessons are a little more intense than the later ones, though, because the first ones deal with the Revolution and the Constitution and all important stuff.

My other classes are just great, and easy so far. My Book of Mormon class is awesome, mostly because we are required to report on our reading as well as answer study guide questions. It really helps me make sure that I am studying regularly, and I am learning a lot more about the scriptures. My teacher did his graduate studies in Hebrew and he spend time in Israel, so he knows a lot of cool stuff. He LOVES showing us external evidences that prove that "the Book of Mormon is an ancient Near Eastern text" ( I think he says that phrase at least once per class). My other class is awesome, too. My teacher used to be in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! And he's Australian, so he has an awesome accent. He's really funny, too. I always enjoy the time that I spend in that class.

Mitchell is super busy, too. He's working on a lot of different projects for all his classes. Currently, he redesigning Pinocchio with a Lovecraftian theme, creating a space-age clown, and drawing lots of hands and feet. He spends a lot of time researching and looking up images on Google to get ideas for all the things he is drawing. It's pretty awesome; I have to try not to brag about him whenever we are around people just because the stuff he does is so cool!

Joseph is almost potty-trained. He's gone several days without an accident during the day (although he sometimes forgets to pull his underwear and pants ALL the way down, so they get wet anyways) and he's got half-and-half as far as the nights go. At first he didn't want to wear underwear all the time, but when he realized that all of his friends wear underwear it helped a lot. And we bought him some Star Wars underwear last week and now he loves wearing underwear.

Annabelle will be a year old next month! I can't believe it. She is growing so fast. She is already wearing 12 month clothes; I think she is around 21 or 22 pounds now. She is amazing at crawling and she is practicing walking using different toys. She can say Mama, Dada (sometimes), and Baby; usually it's just baby-talk, but on occasion she uses them in reference to the things they are, with Mama being the most used.

I'm so excited for Fall and Halloween and all the other wonderful things that are coming! Life is so great right now!

The Illustration Program

It has been almost a month since I last posted! I'm just as bad at this whole blogging thing as I was afraid I'd be.

August was a crazy month for us. We had a whole lot going on. Especially with me finishing classes at the same time Mitchell applied to the Illustration program.

I finished up my classes and took exams the first week and a half of the month. I got A's in both my classes! It was a great first term of school.

Mitchell turned in his application for the Illustration program on the 1st and the review was on the 8th. This was his last chance to apply to the program, so there was a lot of stress. He had to repaint almost all of the paintings that he applied with the first time. We found out on the 10th that he had gotten into Illustration program and also into the Concept Art focus track. It's really exciting! The Concept Art track is very exclusive, with only 5 students in it at a time. With a degree in Concept Art, he has the ability to get jobs at places like Disney, Dreamworks, or Blizzard.

Once we found out that Mitchell was in the program, a month long class shuffle began. He learned that he needed to change a few of the classes he was in, but some of the classes he needed were full, so he was constantly checking for new openings. My classes were finally settled the Saturday before classes started. Mitchell's weren't final until the Wednesday after classes started. We are both loving the classes that we are in and are excited for the rest of the semester.

The End is Near

Right now I am rocking a very cranky baby to sleep and thinking about how I only have 2 more days of this term left and 3 more days until we leave for Virginia.

This has been one of the busiest times that I have had in a long time. I'm doing very well in my classes, though. I have A's in both of them! My writing teacher likes my papers so much that she asked to use them as in-class examples for later classes.

I'm so excited to go to Virginia and spend time with Mitchell's family. It will be cool to see Ross again. Joseph is so excited to see everyone, too. It will be an interesting experience with both kids on the airplane, but I'm sure that Joseph will love it.

I'm going that Fall will be easier since I'm not going full-time. Maybe then I will have more time for blogging. I'm not taking early classes either, so I will also have a bit more time for sleeping.

Update on Us

Life at our house is SUPER busy right now. There are times that I have contemplated blogging, but I would prefer to get some sleep right now. Luckily, I am at a slow point in my classes right now, so I have a little bit of time. I even folded some laundry today!

I'm doing really well in my classes right now. I have an A in both of them. After today's lecture in Stats, I've realized that it's going to start getting harder. It didn't help that I could NOT stay awake during the first half of the lecture. We are about to start our 8-10 page Issues paper in Writing 150. I am going to be writing about profanity on television. We'll be required to do a lot of research for this class, but I'm hoping that I can get a lot done during library class days rather than toting my kids to the library.

Mitchell has dropped both of his classes. He was under the impression that he could use the art the he made in his Illustration 2 class to apply to the Illustration program. A couple weeks ago, he found out that he has to submit the art from his Illustration 1 class that didn't get him in the program when he applied in April. He was told that he needed to redo the art pieces to make them presentable. So he dropped Illustration 2 so that he didn't have to work on those art projects, too. Today, he decided to drop his Greek Mythology class because he needs to focus all of his energy on his paintings. He has been working and stressing a lot the past couple of weeks, but he has finally starting making some headway. He is starting to flesh out the ideas he has for each of the projects and even got some initial painting done on one of them. It's going to be a lot of work, but I know he can do it.

Joseph has finally started cooperating with Mitchell's potty-training efforts. He has realized that if he uses the potty, he will get a piece of candy. He has managed to go at least once a day on the potty. He has also recently developed a lot of fears and spends a lot of time hiding between my feet underneath my desk; he's actually there right now because his "room is too scary."

Annabelle crawls all over the house and she is putting everything in her mouth. She loves being able to go where she wants and follows Joseph everywhere. She just got over her first ear infection.

People have been asking how we both go to school while having kids. I tell them that we don't do the dishes or the laundry and we don't vacuum the house. We also survive on much less sleep and very simple meals (cereal, hot dogs, & PBJs are our standard fare). We are so grateful to be students here at BYU and for all of the things we are learning.

4th of July Weekend

We really had such an awesome 4th of July weekend.

On Friday, I was pretty stressed from school and everything and I was feeling a little disappointed that we didn't have any plans to celebrate, but Mitchell let me know that he had made plans to have dinner with some friends on Sunday night.

Then, on Saturday, Aunt Marianne called and invited us over for 4th of July! And I remembered that Dane's baby blessing was going to be on Sunday. We spent most of Saturday getting homework done so that we would be able to have fun the rest of the weekend. We heard from some friends in the ward that the best place to watch the fireworks was in the stadium's parking lot. We walked down there with the kids. It was so amazing! Mitchell and I covered the kids' ears to protect them from the noise. The explosions were so powerful that we could sometimes feel them! It was just so beautiful. Joseph was totally amazed by it all. Annabelle liked watching it, but then ended up falling asleep.

On Sunday, we drove up to Sandy for the blessing. It was so wonderful to see so much family all together at once. We had a really good time visiting with everyone after sacrament meeting. Joseph really loved playing with all of his cousins and Annabelle had fun, too. We drove straight from Sandy to our friends', the Winwards. We ate dinner and played games and just had a nice visit.

On Monday, we finished up a little bit of homework that we still had left. As we were deciding what to do for lunch, Samantha arrived. We all went out to In and Out Burger together. Joseph and Athena just loved being together. Then we went to Aunt Marianne's and a really fun time with everyone. We even rolled down a hill. Joseph didn't want to leave his cousins when it was finally time to go home and go to bed.

The weekend was so much fun that it was hard to get back into the groove of the school week. We've managed to get all of our stuff done okay, though. I got an 87% on my first Stats exam, but the written portion hasn't been graded and added to that, so I might have done even better. It feels good to be doing well in school. I've been having nightmares for years that I would go to school and be so far behind that they would kick me out. It's nice when the nightmares are proved wrong.

I have two very whiny, cranky children that I need to get to bed now, so I will have to be done. I hope that we can all get some sleep tonight.

How Things Are Going

I am tired and overwhelmed. I knew that things were going to get hard when school started, but I didn't realize how exhausting it would be. I'm so tired all the time. It takes me nearly all the time I'm at home to do my homework because I'm exhausted and the kids always need/want my attention. I've been worrying about how I'm going to make it through the next 6 weeks. I haven't been this grateful for Sundays in a long time; it's wonderful to have a day to rest and forget about school and housework.

It isn't completely awful, though. I enjoy my classes and I love learning again. I have always loved going to school and I'm really grateful to be doing it again. I'm excited to learn more and progress in my classes.

The kids are doing just great with everything. They have fun with Daddy every morning while I am gone and they are always excited to see me when I'm done. Annabelle learned how to crawl yesterday. She's still pretty slow and has to think hard about each "step", but it's so fun watching her and she just looks adorable. It's harder when I take Joseph out to play now because I can't just set her on a big blanket and study while she and Joseph play; she is determined to eat the grass when she is out there and it takes all my attention to keep her from doing that. If anyone has any ideas to keep her from eating grass (or rubber chips or sticks or sand...) while we are outside, I'd love to hear them.

I don't know how often I'll be able to blog, since school keeps me so busy. I'm going to try to keep up with it, though.

First Day of School

Today was a really good first day of school. It was nice to wake up early and read my scriptures alone and in a quiet house.

My first class was at 8 and it was Writing and Rhetoric 150. All of the other students in my class seem to be brand-new, fresh-out-of-high-school, 18 year-old freshmen. My teacher is a student teacher halfway through working on her Masters. I think I am much closer to her in age rather than the other students in my class. It is really interesting being in a class where I am the "old" one.

My second class is Principles of Statistics 121. I was very excited to see Annemarie in my class as well as my old visiting teacher and her husband who are very good friends to me and Mitchell. I am pretty sure that I will like this class. The teacher is really a lot of fun and I loved listening to her talk.

My biggest fear is that I will not be able to keep up with the heavy reading and work load that comes with both of these classes. I am going to try really hard, though.

Mitchell had a really good morning with the kids and took great care of them. I'm so grateful for the good day that we had and for the amazing opportunity that I have to go to college.

New Start

The Blogger application that I had for my phone ended up being defective and I had to delete it. So, I will try to blog before I go to bed at night.

The last few days have been pretty crazy. We spend Friday exploring the BYU campus with my mom, Marty, and Jason. It was really fun. Yesterday, we went to the zoo. My allergies were really bad and just kept getting worse as the day progressed. Although I enjoyed being with my family, I was pretty miserable the whole day. When I woke up this morning, my allergies had settled into sinusitis. We didn't go to church because Joseph and Annabelle both had runny noses, too. I know Annabelle suffers from allergies, but I'm not sure about Joseph. I slept and rested most of the day. I need to conserve my energy for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the big day! I start college! I had to change my classes to fit around Mitchell's schedule, so I'm taking Writing 150, which is basic college writing, and Principles of Statistics. I am so scared, but also so excited. I have no idea what this is going be like. I know that we will find a way to make it work, but I know that it is going to be hard. I am going to have Mitchell give me a blessing before I go to sleep. I'm going to try to go to bed early tonight because I need to wake up at 6 in the morning. I don't know if I'm really ready for this, but here goes...

Family

I have family visiting me right now. My mom, my step-dad, Marty, and my brother, Jason, are sleeping in my living room right now. They got here in time for dinner and then we walked up on campus to listen to some of the carillon concert and visit the Bean Museum. It is fun having family visit. I need to remember to take my camera when we go places tomorrow so that I can get some pictures.

Only 3 more days until I start school! I'm so excited!!

Today: 1. Joseph and I worked on his letters. He has this fun puzzle set that has a little ladybug puzzle for every letter of the alphabet with the upper-case on one side and the lower-case on the other and a picture of something that starts with the letter on the back. When we play with it, I lay out a few lower-case haves and then show him an upper-case half and ask him to find the match. He's really good at it. I've been increasing the number of lower-case letters that he has to pick from over time. He gets it right on the first time at least 80% of the time. It's just amazing to me how smart he is.

2. We ate apples and Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip for snacktime. The dip is an awesome recipe for the Our Best Bites cookbook that Mitchell just gave me for our anniversary. I started following the blog after Heidi posted about a cookie recipe someone used from it. And when I found out they were writing a cookbook, I knew I wanted it. Our anniversary was on Monday of last week and Mitchell gave it to me then. I really love it. I've already tried 3 recipes out of it and I plan on trying all of them. Here's the Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip recipe (if you love it, start following their blog and get there book from Deseret Book!):

1 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Toffee bits

Combine the first 3 ingredients and then sprinkle with desired amount of toffee bits. It tastes the best with Granny Smith apples, but it's still really good with other fruit, too.

I didn't let the cream cheese get soft enough when I first made it, so it looked kinda nasty. I took it to the ward activity on Monday night and hardly anyone ate any, including Mitchell (he said it looked scary). But after it finished softening and mixing, it looked much better. But it always tasted awesome! So, anyways, make sure you soften the cream cheese and mix well. 3. We walked up to campus. I had to go run a few errands to figure some things out for school. It was such a beautiful day outside, too. Joseph was running all over campus waving and saying hi to all of the students. Most of them thought he was really cute and had a smile for him, although there were some that seemed annoyed by him, but they were probably just stressed seeing as finals are next week. I can't even express how excited I am to start school. I seriously don't think that I can even wait until June. Even though classes start in 2 months, it seems like forever to me.

My Return

Okay, I have a renewed desire to start blogging everyday. Let's keep our fingers crossed! I'm playing with some ideas to reformat the way that I blog that might make it easier for me. We'll see... My blow dryer broke while I was doing my hair this morning. It was pretty old and nasty, so I'm just glad it didn't explode and catch my hair on fire. Now I HAVE to let my hair dry naturally (which is what I normally do, but I was trying to break my "ugly" habit). This leads me to some other news: I cut my hair! It's chin length and cute. I just needed something that Annabelle couldn't pull all the time. I would post a picture, but I have NO idea where our camera is... My other exciting news: I took the ACT and scored really well. And now I am a BYU student!! I've decided to get BA in Family Life with Family Studies Emphasis and a Music Minor. It sounds fancy, but it seems like I'll mostly be learning to be a better mom. I'm tired now... there is more I could post about, but I don't want to burn myself out. I'll try more tomorrow.

My Class

So I'm taking American Heritage online. It's been hard finding time to work on it. So I decided that I would make it a priority today. As soon as I started working Annabelle woke up and was screaming beause she had an insanely messy diaper. It soaked out of her diaper, through her pants, a (thin) fleece blanket, an afghan, and onto the bouncer that we are borrowing. So now I have tons to wash. I got her all cleaned up, but she's still on a bad mood and will only be calm if I'm bouncing her to my Glee playlist. This makes answering my study guide questions pretty difficult right now. When she eventually falls asleep, I'm hoping that she will nap for longer than 15 minutes. It's a good thing I have a year to do this class...