Thursday, January 14, 2016

2016 Was Supposed to Be Better

The funeral for my mother's sister, my tia, the woman who taught me to knit and sew and bake was on the 30th of December.  So let's just say the end of 2015 was not the best it could have been.  I started 2016 a bit weepy and mournful, and yet really really wanting to believe my cousin's IM that 2016 would be better.

Then school started and I did the crazy and enrolled in two classes and it's two classes too many...

Then David Bowie waited long enough to be as old as my aunt before he passed away....

And now Alan Rickman joins the gang.

Is 69 the new hip age to go?  Just a dark and awful coincidence I guess.  My aunt would have been 70 this month, and she did NOT die of cancer (hit-and-run...no, no suspects), so really just coincidences.

So 2016 is not being better.  I just want to put that out into the universe so that it knows my discontent.  Cuz really, I don't need unicorns and kittens, but maybe just no more death for a while? Please?

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

How Do You Convince Your Inner School-Girl to Stop Competing for the "A"?

Right. First World Problem, I know.  Acknowledged.  Moving on?

So I'm taking my latest Accounting-centered class and it's super interesting (if not cool) all about Fraud. If I could turn back time I'd have become a CPA-wielding FBI Fraud agent person...this is how cool I think the class is.  (I know.)  So of course I'm trying to to my best!!!  Love getting those 10's on homework!!!

We just got our midterm grades...I got 100% on the test.  I'm still in shock.  It was a hard test.  There were extra questions that she said she would throw out/reevaluate so my guess is that they became extra credit or something and I got enough right.  But I also got 100% on the mid-term project.  A paper.  Being a former English Teacher I can't say it was hard or that I sacrificed so much time and energy on it because, well, it's a paper.  Former English Lit./History major, again, former English Teacher.  There is a reason I hold an MA...I won't say I thought that was a given...but I figured I'd do well on it.  I do not mean to sound cocky, promise...just is...I'll shut up about that now.

SO!  With these two grades in I've determined I can coast the rest of the class and just get a 50 on the final and not turn in the final project and I can still pass the class.  (Doesn't everyone keep a weighted grade worksheet to keep track of these things?)  Except I can't.  When I realized how low I could make my standards I laughed as I deleted my possible "C".  Why stop at average?!?!  I can get an A!  No!  I WILL get an A!!!  Because I am crazy.

I do not need an A.  It is not my Precious.  It is just a class.  One of many many many more I have to take if I'm going to sit my CPA exam far far faaaaar in the future.  And yet...this goal is attainable and so very close....

So help me interwebs...how do I stop this craziness?  Because next quarter I've signed up for TWO classes...see above crazy.  And two classes and full time work and MUST HAVE THE A's might break me...

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

I think I'm Broken

So you know that feeling, when you fall off your bike as an adult and you really want your mommy?  I'm totally with you on that one.  Any mommy will do so long as they hug you and put that very important over-sized band aid on your owie.

But when I'm sick?  Not like a cold sick, because everyone wants to stay away then anyway, but like, my head hurts so much really I'm just touch-typing so forgive any odd errors? And please don't turn on the lights, they hurt  my eyes... That kind of sick?  As soon as I think how awesome a psychic link to a parental-like unit would be and could they come take care of me...almost immediately I wince...and then I wince again because MY HEAD HURTS! DON'T MOVE IT THAT WAY! And think ugh, no, please everyone just leave me alone in my misery.

And the people around me (not literally, because see above I've sent them away, I mean, like the ones I know) look at me all strange that I want to go lick my wounds (as it were) on my own instead of having someone fussing over me.  Why are you here?  What are you doing aside from feeling helpless because you can't do anything?  Because that's what I feel when I'm taking care of you, you know...but like any time I'm called on to look after someone.  Even when I know I can cook you a meal or draw you a bath or make your bed, the entire time I'm thinking I'm totally useless because none of this is easing your pain or making you feel better.  I can't take that away directly so what good am I doing?  (I did mention broken?)

So it must be that others don't feel this way, even when they're trying (and I'm not letting them) to tend to me.  They must feel...something.  It's no surprise to anyone that I didn't go into the medical profession, is it?

But I've been getting these SLAM YOU UPSIDE THE HEAD headaches way past allergy season, so I thought I'd note it down to keep track.  Today, yep, have one.  It's unusually warm (73 degrees predicted) for the end of September.  Maybe something is still blooming? My sinuses seem to think so.

Monday, August 17, 2015

At Least It Wasn't A Tether Ball Pole...

I'm calling it a win-win situation here.  I have a short-term built in excuse for being even more clumsy than usual.  Head injuries will do that.

And my boyfriend has officially learned that BAD THINGS HAPPEN when I get rushed.

Also?  Lesson learned.  Push your car door open PAST the resistance/bounce-back point.

So I have a new car.  (YEY! New car!) And I'm the first to admit that I'm still learning all the random details associated with it - I think I may have finally figured out how to make a radio preset...no really, it's harder than you'd think - you have the 8 buttons on the radio, but buahaha, magically you can have 40 presets if you enter the right combination of A, B, Left Arrow, Select, Right Arrow, Start - sorry, I was getting the it mixed up with the Konami codes of yore.  Seriously I feel old and out of touch with some of these things.  My car has NO DIPSTICK!  I have to push buttons (again, in the right order) to get Skynet to tell me if I'm burning up my engine!

Where was I?  Right.  Head injury.

No, it is not because the car is so small I bumped myself getting in or out of it.  That would be funny in it's own right, but my 5' 3-ish" stature is EXACTLY the right size for this car.  Short people rule!

I hit my forehead...or rather, my forehead was hit by the driver's side door/window bouncing/swinging right into it (see above point of resistance).  Looking at this more positively, had I been taller I guess I might have broken my nose.  I was rushing (see above, don't make me rush) to move my car when I "jumped" in (as fast as my sad sore broken body does said "jumping" - obviously NOT fast enough) to move my car out of the way so we could go get some dinner.

The pain was at a level where you don't even yell.  You go all quiet because OMG what just happened.  And you're sitting there holding on to your head absolutely sure you've just lost brain matter...but you haven't, because it was just the window.  The not-very thick, in fact very straight-lined and narrow window that has blessed you with it's marking.  Why yes, I am indeed walking around with a red line across one side of my forehead going up into my hairline.  I know, work the sexy.

And again, at least it wasn't a tether ball pole that a random classmate had taken a running jump at to "swing off" of (because who puts tether balls on those poles anyway?  Why would anyone actually PLAY with playground equipment...  At least I wasn't in elementary school (6th grade? 7th? hard to recall - possibly because of the injury).  At least I wasn't KNOCKED TO THE GROUND, hard. At least this time my awesome flowered panties weren't exposed to the playground...and finally, at least it hasn't left me with a golf-ball sized bump that didn't go away overnight.  Ah memories...And you wonder why I hated recess.

A coworker had a birthday celebration today.  I think I deserve an extra slice of cake after all this awesome reminiscing.  And some Advil.

Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Hello Summer!

Yes, must be going mad if I'm addressing the seasons now.

Right.  Well.  Let's pretend it hasn't been 4 months and jump right in.

Technology is awesome sometimes.  I am sitting here watching my 10 year old computer (a mac mini, the smallest computer I thought I'd ever own, you know, before my cell phone ended up with a faster processor and hard drive) copy onto a 32 gig usb drive that is smaller than my thumbnail.  Heh, it's a thumbnail drive!

I'm only copying off the music.  (Oh? My invisible internet readers ask, whyeverfor?  Okay, you probably don't really talk like that but I might have been watching too much Michael Mcintyre recently and he does, so now you do...)

See, I'm upgrading vehicles.  My new one, apparently, does not come with a CD player.  I know, right?  What is this world coming to!  Technology is silly sometimes too...but worry not new car owner, you can just connect your fancy fone (tm) to the car and viola!  You can become one of the Borg and meld with us (okay, way too many multiple and bad sci-fi references).

Except:

  1. I was raised on all those Terminator films and I purposefully chose NOT to install skynet in my new car.  I know, I know, I am a luddite and the machines will hunt me down for my punishment...so why make it so easy for them to find me and my escape vehicle?
  2. Also, my fancy fone is going on 3 years too old.  I (gasp) use it to make phone calls, text, and navigate my way out of a paper sack, because I was not born with any sense of direction, and yes, play music.  Four things, only ONE of which can happen at a time because going on 3 years too old...given that I'll be using my car to, you know, get places, and see above no KIT car advances, I'm going to keep relying on my lovely google maps to tell me which left to take.
So!  In comes the USB.  Because the stereo is determined to be smarter than my phone, or something, apparently I can just load all my music onto it, and plug and play happens.  Yes, the future really is NOW.

So I've been sitting here watching the progress bar slowly slide across...I had NO IDEA how much music I owned.  This is only what I digitized 10 years ago, mind.  Somewhere along the way I uploaded different music onto the laptop that "replaced" my mini (it's still good as a dvd player, but not much else.)  Stage two will be to sort and delete.  And yeah, while I waited I thought maybe I'd update the world - still here.  Still knitting!  Still studying.  Life is good, promise.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Right, Updating

I've been listening to Steven Briggs read me the Tiffany Aching Terry Pratchett Novels and my first thought was to re-use the Granny Weatherwax "I Aint'nt Dead" title...but then my second thoughts kicked in...(heh)

What?  You haven't read this series?  (Had it read to you? Audio books, how I adore thee.)  Get ye to a library, STAT!  These are such a must read/listen.  I'm going to send the Wee Free Men to my niece this Xmas, I think.  I /really/ hope she likes it...it would make my Terry-Pratchett-reading heart swell.  But not too much, I hear that's a disease in real life.  And there is news there might be a fifth book coming!!!  (Squee!)  Except I'm forty and we don't squee.  Yes.  Right. Ahem.

So yeah, what news....people I have nothing.  I'm in some sort of funk.  I'm really tired too.  Yep, still haven't caught up with that whole sleep thing.  Working full time and taking one bloody class?  I do not know how people do it.  Or maybe they take ones that don't require 15 page research papers and such?  Oh my yes.  Multiple weekly homework assignments, extra reading, MATHS PROBLEMS, and now a freakin' research paper that was not presented as such - it was described as a 15 min. group presentation (yep, group work, good god how I abhor group work) with power point slides.  How this = RESEARCH paper, I have no idea.

Right, so yeah, still in school.  For now.  I did pass last quarter with a much higher grade than expected and then signed up for the WRONG TEACHER entirely for my needs for the "part two" class.  If all I were doing was this class I still don't think I'd have enough time to do the work in a way she expects it.  I'm burning the candle at both ends and am melting up the middle to see if I can do it there too.  If I were smug I'd say I aced the first test but OMG there was no "ace."  It was very hard work.  I made myself sick worrying about it.  I think I need to take next quarter off.  Seriously.  If my first quarter teacher isn't teaching part three?  Yeah, fuggetaboutit.  I yield.  Uncle.

I've put it on the interwebs, so I really must mean it.

And hello to you all and happy new year!  And who knows when I'll sneak some time to do this again soon...heh.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

I Need More Sleep

I am assuming it is sleep deprivation that is making me grumpy.  No, not grumpy...on edge.  Yes.  Extra sensitive, even more yes.

I have too many work people on my Face-place feed to make this next statement:

If YOU did not put the kettle to boil someone else did.  That someone is PROBABLY the person gathering her things to make tea.  DO NOT plant yourself in front of the kettle thinking you can take the boiling water BEFORE the person who filled and set the kettle to boil.  DO.NOT.

I almost got Mr. Furious on her.  Seriously, it's stupid, and yet (not the best quality, but if you're angry enough you don't see straight anyway):

YEP, need more sleep....