Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas! We had an enjoyable time visiting with family on Saturday and Sunday. This upcoming weekend we will go to Abilene to have one more Christmas. We have Roland from the 28th-3rd January, and there were too many sides of the family to see in such a short time. So Christmas gets extended! That's ok! :)

All Fall grades posted

Well, all my grades posted online. I finished the semester with a 3.667 GPA and finished my Associates Degree with a 3.286. I should here from the college sometime in January about receiving my official degree. The community college only does the official graduation in May, so they do not rush to get people their degrees in December. I'm not planning on walking for this degree, but I will definately walk for my Bachelor's degree!

One week until Christmas!

This past week was pretty simple. I finished my classes from the fall semester as of Saturday night. Two of my classes have officially posted online. I show my A in World Literature and my B in World Civilizations (History) class. My teaching math class should be an A, that class was so easy. However, I have to continue making A’s and B’s in the future. To graduate with my teaching degree, each student must have a 2.75 GPA on a 4.0 scale. I’m doing pretty well so far. At this point, from the Dallas community colleges, I have a 3.2 without my other A. Oh, and from last week, I mentioned I was pretty sure I aced that math class, and I did. I made a 95%, only missed 2 questions. But I don’t know for sure which two, but I have an idea for one. No biggie. Most of that class was teaching math for the Kindergarten through 4th grade. The 2nd half that I am enrolled in at UNT is supposed to be toward concepts from 4th-8th grade.

I spent most of the day Wednesday looking up information for Jeff for UNT and looking to see what he needed to complete his degree. He has not been to college due to work since the spring of 2004, so he had to reapply. So I spent part of the morning talking with people at UNT and then submitting a readmission application. The next morning, I called and set up an appointment for Jeff on January 2nd since he has the day off. There are a few different management degrees that Jeff said he wouldn’t mind getting. He has many classes (over 100 hours) and needs about 30 hours (10 classes or so) to finish. There is a basic General Business degree that he might work toward, we’ll see. The good thing about the management degrees, are many of the courses are available online. He would easily be able to do that style of class where he didn’t have to go to the school and mess with getting there on time after work, etc. He has done a few certification test where he has read this fat book about computer related subjects and read them himself, took the test, passed. He is really smart when it comes to that stuff, so I know he could do the online classes just as easy.

This past Friday, my mom came to visit. She needed a few more items for Christmas for Jeff. So we went to Target where we got a few pants for Jakob. He has grown, and really needs 18 month size now. Otherwise, when you pick him up, his pants look like shorts! Not good since it’s quite chilly outside. We went to Denton and I was able to show Mom where the daycare that I am on the list. We then went to the college, but I didn’t have my maps so Mom got to see a few buildings. (Mom, I’ll send you a map highlighting what we drove by!) From there we headed toward Plano to pick up Roland for the weekend. Traffic on the way to Roland’s was pretty light, but by the time we picked him up it was getting heavier. Mom left shortly after we got back to our house. We tried to convince her to stay, but she said she couldn’t.

Saturday and Sunday, I was sick unfortunately. I have been taking medicine and it helps a little, but being sick is just annoying. I slowed down from my busy schedules, so the germs caught up to me, I suppose! I’m starting to feel a little better, but this evening I started to get a slight migraine which means I have to cut back on milk again. I took some Tylenol for that and even got a soda for the caffeine in the mall which helped dramatically. Amazing what caffeine does to a migraine.

I started reading the 5th Harry Potter book earlier today. I am in the mood of reading it since my last book was a mystery. I prefer to mix authors so Stuart Woods doesn’t get boring since the style of writing is similar in his books. But it’s a pretty long book, so I have to work on it before class starts back up. I won’t have as much time to read such a long book when class starts. The first couple chapters were pretty interesting. I was really surprised after reading the 4th Harry Potter book and then watching the movie in the theatres. They left so much out of the movie, I was slightly disappointed in the movie. Without reading the book, I would have been slightly lost on the movie. The movie skipped around and didn’t explain certain things. Oh well, books are normally better than the movie. I might have to go back one day and read the earlier books and then watch the movie to see what was left out of those!

Yesterday, Jakob started getting pretty interested in the Christmas presents! He started knocking over one of his gifts and pushing it all around the living room. Then today he knocked it over, climbed on top of it and ended up poking a hole in it and unwrapping it! He unwrapped enough that he could play with the toy. It's an entertainment table that says the alphabet, numbers, and other things. It lights up and makes noise and he was quite interested in it this afternoon. I took some pictures and honestly, I think it's funny. I figured it would be funny to put in the scrapbook.

Well, it’s time to switch laundry and get ready for bed! Hard to believe Christmas is next week! Looks like Jeff will not have to work on Dec 24th or 25th. I think we will be driving down to Austin in the morning and having Christmas with grandparents and parents, then back to Killeen that evening. We’ll do Christmas with my parents that evening possibly and then have Christmas with my mom’s side. We have Roland from Dec. 28-Jan 3rd and are planning to go to Abilene with New Years and we’ll have Christmas there sometime around those dates!

College semester is finished!

Saturday, was my last day of class for How to Teach Math (1st part). I know I aced my test that I took that day. It was so easy. The teacher pretty much used previous test questions and reworded them a little or changed the numbers around. It was pretty simple. From there, I went and did a mystery shop at the mall. Starting late November, I signed up to multiple companies to do mystery shopping for their clients. I have done 9 shops since I started and they pay an average of about $8-10 a shop. Majority of them are pretty easy. Yesterday afternoon and today I had to do a mystery shop/audit for two different locations. The audits were really easy and mainly checking marketing at the locations. Pretty simple since I used to do detailed audits for GameStop. (Plus their instructions tell you how to do it). Anyhow, each of those shops paid $10 and it took me less than an hour for both. Nothing to get rich on, but it can be fun money.

Jeff, Roland, Jakob, and I went to The Colony parade Saturday evening. It was cute, and Jakob got a bear. A car had holiday bears with their design and since the City Hall location is the end of the parade that we watch from, the lady threw it at him and said, “For the baby!” He enjoyed playing with the bear. Roland and I both had hot chocolate while we were there. The sad thing was the kid I gave the money too didn’t know what dollar coins were! I had gotten the $1 coins from the post office after buying stamps. Anyhow, I like buying the hot chocolates at the parade not only because it’s hot chocolate, but the money is going to proceeds and fundraisers.

Well, I’m officially done with my classes this semester and I did good! I finished with an A in World Literature. And I should easily have an A in How to Teach Math. My World Civilizations class for History should be a B once he grades the essays and post everything. The good thing is the World Literature and Math class transfer to my Bachelor’s degree! Need all the good grades I can get! J I have to keep my GPA above a 2.75 to even graduate. I’m doing good at the moment, I have a 3.2.

Anyhow, I think I’ll go get ready for bed and cuddle in and read a good book or something in a moment. I was a little upset to find out Desperate Housewives was not on tonight. I enjoy watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition, but I expected Desperate Housewives to be on though. Oh well, guess I will wait until next week. (My luck, it’ll be a rerun!)

Orientation at UNT

Today was the "Early Eagle" Orientation at UNT and it went good. I left the house at 6:45am, not knowing how long it would take to get to UNT in the morning and had plenty of time to waste. I even had time to stop by the place Jakob will be staying at for daycare to check up on his position and to remind them I would like a spot for him! I arrived at UNT officially about 7:45am and headed in where everyone waited. They served us breakfast and lunch with our orientation and it was ok food. Nothing spectacular, but serving many people will do that to you. Anyhow after lunch, they broke us into our different majors and we spoke to counselors. I was quite happy that I already spoke to a counselour in September and already had an idea of classes I needed to take. Luckily, they allowed the "Early Eagle" group to register today!! Many classes were already full, but I was able to get a decent group of classes.

I am enrolled in 4 classes now, Geography (US and Canada), Environmental Science (plus lab), Teaching Math (2nd class), and Elementary Problems and Statistics. The great thing is I was able to get majority of the classes on Monday/Wednesday. I have a lab on Tuesday and one Science on Friday (MWF class). However, I wanted to be able to have flexible time on my a few days so I could take Jakob to daycare and I could go to school and study. Worked out good.

I have 20 classes left to take and then I have some student teaching that factors in before getting my degree. Overall, it's about 2 1/2 - 3 years if I can go full time. I should be able to complete my normal classes in 2 years, and then the student teaching is half observation and the other half is actually doing the teaching. I'm really excited!

Christmas decorations!

Well, I pretty much have everything decorated for Christmas. Today, Jeff and Tim (my neighbor) worked on the outside lights for the house. We have some icecle lights on the front section and basic big color lights for the border of the house. Tim did the high stuff and it looks so good! I can't wait to see it in the dark. The front yard also has some lighted candy canes and lights for the bushes too! I'll post a picture when I get one taken.