Monthly Archives: October 2018

7 Quick Takes: One Word Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Pumpkins. I got to go with Daniel’s class to the pumpkin patch again this year and it was fun. We did not get many pictures of kiddo smiling per se, but he was engaging more. Minion was very interested in the pumpkin that Daniel brought home.

— 2 —

Prayer. As I’ve been mentioning for a while, my prayer life has been craptastic at best. I have no excuse as Daniel goes to sleep before I do. This week, I’ve actually grabbed prayer time on three consecutive days. When I got my new-to-me phone a few weeks ago, I put the Sacred Space and Pray As You Go apps on it. I did Pray As You Go on Tuesday night; and this morning, I wanted to put it on while I was driving to the pumpkin patch, but I didn’t know how it would mesh with Google Maps giving me directions. I couldn’t wait to put it on and listen to it on my drive between the pumpkin patch and school. I’m definitely rediscovering why I was a fan of it ten years ago when I’d listen to it on my commute to work in Montana.

— 3 —

Rain. It threatened to rain while we were at the pumpkin patch today (it did rain last year) but it held off until tonight. I’m hoping for a decent pouring rain and windstorm tonight so I can turn off the lights and enjoy the sight and sound of it hitting the windows.

— 4 —

Book. Kendra Tierney is having a launch party for her book and her Instagram had video of the dishes she is making for it. The most interesting one: turducken for Trinity Sunday.

— 5 —

Internship. I finally got to start doing internship work this week and it’s been fun thus far. I’ve been reading through my instructor’s book and creating an answer key for it. The hard part is that Sharepoint wasn’t working for my email address so I had to manually enter a lot of the numbers into Excel. Oh well… it’s good practice.

— 6 —

House. Kelly (our hostess with the mostest) is talking about their old house on her Quick Takes this week.

— 7 —

Happy. My therapist said last week that this is the happiest she has ever seen me. I have to agree that overall, I am much happier than I have been in years. Having school/work as a change from being a stay-at-home mom is a good thing for me.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: “Not A Zombie” Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Good news: I’m not a zombie. I got a “get in here!” call from my doctor a few weeks ago and got scheduled to be seen today. Last Sunday was Blood Pressure Sunday for our faith community nursing program and one of them noticed that my pulse was a little weird again. She told me to mention it to my doctor and I told her that I’d mention it when I got seen today. When I told my doctor about it, she tried taking my pulse using my left wrist… and couldn’t find it. This was a little weird because my hand wasn’t turning any weird colors and obviously I was sitting there alive in front of her. They had also taken my blood pressure on my left arm and done the pulse-ox sensor on that hand as well so we knew it was there. She tried on all my pulse points and she had a hard time finding it on my left side while my right side was fine. She finally decided to have her nurse take my blood pressure on both sides and see if there was any measurable difference. When they did, my left side was two points above my right side but still normal. Apparently, I have a very quiet pulse on my left side?

But hey, I’m not a zombie, so I guess that’s good news?

— 2 —

The 2018 election. Absentee ballots arrived in the mail today and mine is filled out and ready to mail. Having done my civic duty, I will issue the following reminder:

If you are eligible but don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the people who get voted into office.

— 3 —

Argh. Carolyn Hax had a letter in her column today about a mom who is butthurt that her son and daughter-in-law (DIL) aren’t calling her to be present in the week after they have their twins. The mom apparently had twins (the son is one of them) and *SHE* knows how much work twins are. One of the DIL’s kids from a prior marriage had surgery right before the DIL is due to have her c-section and the mom’s husband is making noise about requiring an apology before they go help (because they’re positive they’re going to be called in to help now).

Carolyn’s response: don’t be obnoxious and let the parents decide when and if they want visitors during that time. Beautiful.

For all my readers who need to hear this: being present after the birth of a baby is a privilege, not a right. Being a grandparent is a matter of biology and does not entitle you to impose yourself on the new parents because you want baby cuddles or to “educate” the parents on the “proper” way to take care of their babies. Srsly, knock it off.

— 4 —

Mama. This is fascinating.

— 5 —

Boggle. The program we use for improving our typing speed (Keychamp) has a Boggle-like game at the end of every lesson called “Wordchamp” and the highest score for each lesson gets posted for people to see. I may or may not have started playing “Boggle with Friends” on my phone to improve my Wordchamp score.

(Yes, it’s working.)

— 6 —

Church music take. We’re working on this right now. It sounds very Rutteresque.

— 7 —

Paul Allen. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen died this week. It’s a BIG deal in these parts because he has given quite a bit of his wealth away, he owns various sports teams in the Pacific Northwest, he has invested in cultural things up here… I’m seeing people on the street in Seattle crying on various news reports. I’m wondering if it will be this way when Bill Gates passes.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Things That Make Me Stabby Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Special needs blogging Kelly talked posed the question of why you should start a special needs blog. I’ve actually done some.

— 2 —

Things that are making me stabby #1. I’m seeing more and more blogs who have pop-ups advertising their newsletters. It’s obnoxious, and most of them are not blogs that are big enough to really need one. Not to mention, stuff like that belongs on a sidebar and there are a ton of widgets that let you do it.

— 3 —

Things that are making me stabby #2. I’m hearing more and more from parents about “getting” their children into college. 20 years ago when I was applying, *I* did everything except maybe sign certain parts of the application if they needed a signature of a parent and pay the application fees. I filled out all my paperwork, got the letters of recommendation, wrote the essays, etc. All of my classmates did too.

When parents “get” their children into college, I wind up with students who are functionally useless in tutoring and who have no clue as to how to talk to an instructor, plan out their schedule, or do much of anything adult-related. Please, I beg you, MAKE YOUR KIDS DO THEIR OWN APPLICATIONS, FILL OUT THEIR OWN RESIDENTIAL LIFE INFORMATION, AND FILL OUT THEIR OWN FAFSAS. My friends who are instructors, professors, res life people, and college staff concur.

— 4 —

Things that are making me stabby #3. Daniel has a whine that sounds like a dog whining… and he’s been doing it all day.

My child, I love you but KNOCK IT OFF!!!!!

— 5 —

Things that are making me stabby #4. My favorite subreddit just had an explosion and a bunch of people who were banned for legit reasons are now dancing on the wreckage. I’m really hoping the mods ban them across every possible sub for the crap they’re pulling in the wake of this.

— 6 —

Things that make me stabby #6. I’ve had a couple students come in and try to make me troubleshoot things with the testing software on their laptops. When I’ve told them that they need to use the desktops in the lab, they’ve had hissy fits and told me that their instructor TOLD them to come to me and make me fix it.

…

Witch, please. Do you think your instructor and I don’t discuss these things?!?!? I know full well that your instructor told you to use the computers in the classroom in which you are sitting because those computers are less likely to trip up the testing software than your laptop is. That’s been what instructors have told students for the two years I’ve been here. Oh and by the way? You could have also FINISHED your assignment in the time you just spent yelling at me.

— 7 —

Things that make me stabby #6. People who send you an admin question and then ping you every 5 minutes to see if you’ve spoken with the other admins. It’s like a complete surprise that it *MIGHT* take me 24 hours to get back to them.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: October 8, 2018

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For Today… October 8, 2018

Simple Woman's Daybook

Looking out my window… dark. It rained all day.

I am thinking… about my drop-in tutoring hours today. I dealt with cranky SNAP assessments and tutoring a class I didn’t enjoy taking. I love my job, but it was a tiring day.

I am thankful… for the tutoring students who didn’t leave their SNAP assessments until the last minute or who didn’t make me deal with SNAP at all today. (Can you tell what I spent most of my drop-in hours doing today?)

One of my favorite things… students using “please” and “thank-you” and respecting my boundaries on when I will answer questions outside of drop-in tutoring hours.

I am wearing… jammies.

I am creating… plot things for NaNo.

I am listening to… silence.

I am hoping… to get as much Keychamp done tomorrow as possible.

I am learning… how much I suck at typing with fingers on the correct keys.

In my kitchen… Greek chicken from Trader Joe’s.

In the school room… Daniel loves school. School loves Daniel.

Post Script… Some brain bleach.

Shared Quote… “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.” — Bertrand Russell

Hosted by The Simple Woman.

7 Quick Takes: Back to School Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

School situation. My schedule needs to stay flexible for some Daniel therapies that will start (hopefully) in January, so I am having to put off job-hunting until everything gets resolved. My parents are amenable to me taking a couple more classes so I will be doing the three classes I need to graduate with BOTH degrees in my department in June.

— 2 —

Keyboarding. I dropped my Final Project class and added up a Keyboarding class in its place. It is aimed at improving my speed and accuracy, so I need to find something to teach me to type with the correct fingers on each key as that seems to be an issue.

— 3 —

Tutoring. I’m doing 4.5 hours of drop-in tutoring this quarter along with whatever one-on-one tutoring they need me to do. We’ve changed some degree requirements in my department since I started all of this two years ago, so I’m tutoring an introductory Accounting class that is more theory-based. I don’t have the book for the class and all the learning aids are proprietary to the publisher, so I’m tutoring it off of whatever spreadsheets the instructor (who has more alphabet letters after his name than I have in my first name) is using. Thankfully, I’m able to figure out how he is doing things and how to explain it a whole lot more simply. (He’s doing the typical pontificating-on-theory approach, which is not incredibly helpful to someone who just needs to know how to do the math, journalize the transaction, and post it.)

— 4 —

Why ‘Murica has an obesity issue. This is disturbing. Fried chicken (especially TWO Cornish game hens) does not belong on a Bloody Mary. #ew

— 5 —

Nobel prizes. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year: Nobel Prize announcement week! The Nobel Peace prize is being announced tomorrow (I’m terrified of Kim Jong-Un and 45 being among the recipients) and I’m heartened to see some women among the laureates of the prizes for Chemistry and Physics this year.

— 6 —

Srsly. A friend who is a middle school science teacher told me that she had to have a conversation with one of her classes on why you don’t eat things in chemistry.

/facepalm

— 7 —

Pretty darn fabulous. Did you know that Sir Anthony Hopkins, the actor, wrote a waltz? It’s a favorite of mine. Here is André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra performing it in Vienna.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: October 1, 2018

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For Today… October 1, 2018

Simple Woman's Daybook

Looking out my window… dark and pouring rain. I’d love it if it (and screaming people) weren’t triggering a migraine.

I am thinking… about an email I have to write to my boss and department head about a tutoring student. Oyyyy..

I am thankful… to have gotten to finally meet my 3 month old nephew Braden this weekend. There would be pics of him and me getting behbeh cuddles on here, but his parents are wanting to keep pics of him off social media. (I’m a good sister and auntie so I’m complying.) He is too cute for words and was very smiley for me. 🙂

One of my favorite things… black kitties with jet engine motors.

I am wearing… jammies. Clothes today were a long-sleeved blue shirt and jeans capris.

I am creating… typing certificates.

I am listening to… the rain beating against the window.

I am hoping… my boss and department chair have my back regarding that tutoring student.

I am learning… typing skills.

In my kitchen… heated up some frozen pizza.

Post Script… I need this shirt.

Shared Quote… Someone asked men and women what they do to avoid sexual assault. The men’s response was on the left. The women’s responses were on the right.

How the different sexes avoid sexual assault

A moment from my day… With the Kavanaugh debacle going in DC, I thought this was a good editorial.

An editorial that is fitting for today.

Hosted by The Simple Woman.