Relaxing at the coffee shop

Today I'm in Grand Rapids. I came up early this morning (left Ada a little before 6am) and got here around 9am. I picked up some groceries at one of the grocery stores and was happy with both their selection and their prices. Good deal. Then I went to my new place. As soon as I unloaded half the groceries, Sears called me and said they'd be there in a little bit with my washer & dryer. So I started unpacking my car and they came and installed my washer & dryer. There was a problem with the washing machine drain pipe, so I have to call my landlords and have that looked at before it can be used. The dryer is ready to go, but not put into the "slot" it goes into so that the washing machine problem can be gotten to. Then my parents showed up with my couch I "bought" from Albert. Me and my mom went to buy some flowers for my front flower beds on the deck and dad stayed back and nosed around, met the landlady, and decided that I needed a rain gauge and found a wasp nest on the back deck. SO, he took off to some kind of fleet supply store and came back with a rain gauge and a can of wasp killer. He spent more than a few minutes "installing" the rain gauge and killed my wasps. Well, thank God because I was worried (sarcasm here!). No, really, that was nice. Now I can report the weather more accurately when he calls since "how much rain did you get" is an important facet of conversation to him.

Then he went to visit some furnace store he bought his wood/gas furnace from 30 years ago. Weird. But then Amelia showed up with my bedroom furniture and we hurried and got it all into the house before dad showed up. Unfortunately, he didn't stay away long enough for us to get the bed frame put up because he jumped in to help. Then had a massive manic episode trying to figure out where the screws were for the dresser mirror and bed rail braces. There weren't any. And honestly, that was not my concern at the time. There is plenty of time to remedy that!!! But good God. He perseveres like no one I've known. Almost worse than a downs syndrome kid. Seriously. So then I brought up supper and eventually after repeating several times that I did not care nor did it matter if my mirror was installed onto my dresser right NOW...and wasn't concerned about the wayward screws we FINALLY went to Ground Round. It was VERY good. The first pasta I've had in a LOOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG time. I was in a cozy carb haze afterwards. Haha. So after they all left, I left too and went to the library to get a library card and to Caribou Coffee to check out what's happening in the world on the ole internets & googles. Looks like I didn't miss much!

Tonight I am unpacking, hopefully getting my kitchen completely sorted out and organized and tomorrow I am doing more of the same along with opening a new bank account and getting a new drivers license. Oh yea, I get my cell phone tomorrow too!!! Hot damned!! Now I can stay connected to the world 24/7!!! There's got to be some kind of new psychological term or sociological term for that. :-) i wonder what time of the day fedex delivers in this area? Well, I hope not when I'm getting my stuff done! :-)

Keep Clickin Everyone...and the Strawberry joke explained...

Do you see the ads on here? click on them! They are awesome!! :-)

So when I was at mom and dad's today, I was visiting with dad and he says, "you should see your mom's strawberries! They are so red! You can have one or more if you want". So I went out to the garden. I found the strawberries and it looked like there WERE some on the ground, but they were awfully red and looked more shriveled than plump. So I looked closer, and they were ROCKS!!!! I guess my mom scoured the egg plant parking lot for a bunch of little rocks that were "just right" -the size of ripe strawberries because she read somewhere that if you do that, birds will try to eat them, find they cannot, and will leave the "real" strawberries alone when they come in.

We'll see if that really works. :-) In the meantime, it's a neat joke to play on people!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great day

Today was awesome. Yesterday was pretty good too. I worked at JCP all day (not part of the "pretty good" HAHA), and then went back home and hooked up with some friends to go to the demo derby. Hooked up with more at the demo and fun times ensued (kinda). It was rainey and kinda dumb because of that....and I thought they had a small amount of cars/heats...but that's not really my thing, so what do I know?? haha! I just go to see stuff get smashed and there wasn't enough of that for me! So then I just wanted to wrangle my peeps and go back to Jami's to play games, sit around, and chat. Well, that never happened cuz my peeps all had peeps of their own to talk to all night or other stuff going on, so at midnight or something Jami and I finally said "enough" and we walked to her house from where we had ended up (about 3 blocks away from her place). So she and I had game night. Which lasted for like an hour or so cuz we're old ladies and need our beauty sleep. But still, it was nice to see people I haven't seen in a while and even forgot existed (haha)-but still kinda lame. Oh well!!

Then today I slept in. Then I reformatted my computer, unhooked it all, brought the tower to Jami's for her and Shaun to use and packed up the monitor to bring to Perham cuz my mom's monitor went out (GREAT timing, I think!). I also had plans to stop in Detroit Lakes to go to my brother Albert's. So, I got to Perham around 3, visited with dad a bit, fell for his "look at mom's strawberries" joke (long story!) and hooked the monitor up for mom. Audrey got home and she and I went to Albert's for a visit. I am having Amelia borrow his pickup on Tuesday to bring some furniture to Grand Rapids and I wanted to help him clean the bed out because I thought it was the least I could do cuz he was letting me borrow it. Then I visited with him, Jen and of course Grace -who is getting SOOO big. She'll be 2 in two weeks!! We ordered pizza for supper and then I took Audrey back to Perham, graciously took lettuce, spinach, radishes, and rootbeer from mom's fridge (she had offered it all earlier). Then I came home!

There were tons of people in my parking lot...I think that this building is filling up. And they all have like 3 cars each because there is NEVER any parking spaces left. Some of them with long cars and pickups park in front of my garage, so getting into it is kinda tough. I actually sort of broke my mirror one day because I couldn't get in at the right angle because of the small space. Oh well. 20 more days and I'll be out of here. 32 more days and I'll be COMPLETELY out of here, never to have to return unless I wanna. Awesome.

I did it!!!

Well, I defended my study today. It was very low-key and my committee was perfect -three male professors: one was my advisor who I've known for almost 8 years, one an instructor I've taken at least 4 classes from in my masters and specialist programs, and one I've never had for class but who I defended my license portfolio to (who, incidentally remembered me well and said good things about me).

It was great. I didn't present anything, we just pretty much talked about my process and they asked questions here and there. They all liked what I had to say and even stated they learned some stuff. That's ALWAYS good when you defend stuff!! :-) All three were convinced that the subject is "new" and current and could definitely be used to spark more research, should be presented at national conferences, and should also be published in "trade" publications (like magazines for principals, rural education, etc -I made it clear I was NOT interested in revising it to shop it around to hardcore research journals -THAT would be a lot of work). So because of that, I have some revisions to make to it. Nothing major at all, just some language changes to make it sound more "researchy", a little bit more streamlining, and formatted better. I could have been completely finished with only some minor language and format revisions, but the professors promised to guide me with the revisions to get it ready for submission and sharing. Of course, they see "dollar signs" in their eyes...not dollar signs per se, but definitely "kudos signs" for themselves. They want to take my research and run with it...SO, their way to do that was to "let" me revise it. Then I'll be awarded my specialist degree. Which is no problemo. Hopefully I can get it done this summer by the middle of August. If not, I'll just wait until December to "graduate". The most important thing to remember is that I am DONE and I did well. Ambition has created a contingency to obtaining the actual degree. :-) So soon you will be able to check my study out of the MSUM library. :-)

So I'm super duper tired. I got about 3-1/2 hours of sleep last night and wanted to go to bed at 8:30 tonight, but it was getting stormy. So it's after 10 right now and i think it's ok to go to bed now and I won't die in a tornado or anything. I HATE storms...soooooooooo much. Tomorrow I have to work at JCP from 7:30 to 5:30 and then I have a FULL night of fun and friends in Ada with a demo derby at 7pm (it's the fair weekend) and then HOPEFULLY games into the night. I say hopefully cuz I think my friends want to mingle and visit with their other friends who go to the demo after the demo. But I don't wanna waste time talking to people I don't know when I could spend some quality time with my friends before I move away. Oh well, we'll see how it goes tomorrow!

So, I'd better get to bed so I can play apples to apples until 3am tomorrow!! (probably not, we're all old now and fall asleep by 11pm....well, except for me, of course! LOL).

Friday is the Beginning of the End

Tomorrow, on Friday, I defend my field study I've been working on all year. It's about time. That's all I can say. I will be SOOOOOOOOOOOOO relieved to be finished and I hope whoever is on my review board LETS me be done. Geesh. I want that specialist degree already.

So tonight I'm just preparing. Well, right now I've been "taking a break"....hehe. Been procrastinating ALLL day. Did laundry, actually cleaned my bathroom -like scrubbed (literally) the entire shower and the floor...everything. Then it was only 11:30...so I watched alittle tv. Then of course, I had to find something to eat so I spent a good 1/2 hour assembling my lunch. And then I took more stuff off walls and gathered various decorating stuff to pack. Then I browsed the internet a bunch. Then I held texting conversations with some friends for about two hours. By then it was after 3pm and I continued my search for the cd's that came with my desktop computer so I can reinstall windows & microsoft office -and I found them in my file cabinet filed under "computer"...I had looked for TWO days for those things. HAHA. Then I learned Michael Jackson was rushed to the hospital (why do they always say "rushed"....isn't it implied that when you have to go to the hospital, you pretty much always "rush"...you don't just meander around and finally make it there after seeing the sights!) so of course I had to watch CNN thinking it was destiny since I had already had it on that channel while I was procrastinating...until about 7ish.

So then I figured, oh well, I'd better start my stuff. So I completed my powerpoint. Then around 8:30pm I remembered I hadn't paid my renters insurance yet, so I took a trip to the post office and drove around a bit looking at the fair (norman county fair this weekend, folks! woo hoo.). Then I came back...and made a pot of coffee. Then I made my powerpoint prettier with slide #'s and a footer. Then i thought, geez. I can't do this right now and I opened MSN games and played like 10 games of Mahjong. I won one of them. Then I talked on the phone for a bit.

And now I've been writing this blog. :-) I'm waiting until the "witching hour" when I think more clearly and just zone out into "writing/thinking" mode...usually around 11:30-2am. Boy am I lucky I don't have to leave here until about 12:30 tomorrow!!! Sleeping in will be nice. But being done with my ed specialist degree will be nicer.

Wednesdays Aren't So Bad...

Today I did a lot of stuff. Well, not too much, but I was busy and that's good. I went to the dentist to get my occlusal guard fitted that was redone (after months of office visits to get it just right). I need it for TMJ in my jaw and for the fact that I had been grinding my teeth a crazy lot at night. I don't have near the amount of headaches I used to and my overall health feels very good. I contribute a lot of that to that guard. In fact, I've learned recently that baseball players are being fitted with these things for them to wear during games, workouts, etc to combat stress and its physiological effects. I think it's a miracle device! Dr. Joy's Dental Clinic in Halstad is awesome!!! I'll have to think long and hard about whether I want to keep coming back to this area for my dental stuff. She's a bit on the high price side and isn't in my insurance network so I pay full price for everything, but I tell you, the service and the smarts of the lady really make up for it. Joy is awesome and I would recommend her office to ANYONE -plus, she's a super nice lady and I enjoy my visits there. From the front desk staff to the hygienists, everyone's been wonderful.

I also tanned cuz I'm white as a ghost and then went to JCP to find some jeans and a few tops, since I've grown out of most everything I have. I found some stuff on clearance and that was awesome. I also picked up a quilt/comforter that I bought online for my new bed when I move.

Then I went to the Redhawks game with my parents and my sister Amelia. It was a very good game and a nice time visiting with them all. It was also the perfect night for baseball. I was very wary earlier in the day because it was cloudy and looked a lot like rain, but by 6:00 it had started clearing up and was sunny as hell. I think a good time was had by all!!

Before all of that, at home, I did some calls to various places to change my address and stuff like that -the little things that have to be done when you are moving. Ick. Sure beats packing though!!! Oh yea, and my sister offered to pick up my bedroom set I bought at Furniture Outlets in West Fargo next Tuesday and bring it all the way to Grand Rapids for me (my brother Albert is borrowing us his truck). That will be sooooooo cool!! :-) I'm going there Tuesday and Wednesday next week to get stuff delivered (washer/dryer from Sears and some furniture from Slumberland) and am happy to have all the bedroom ensemble there as I spend my first night in my new place. I sure hope the place isn't haunted! :-) My parents will be coming up one of those days as well with a couch I bought from Albert and mom is going to help me spruce up the flower beds I have in the front of the house....or rather, she'll help me bring them back from disrepair! Then dad can wander all around and tell me everything that's wrong with the place and meet all my neighbors. He's really good at that.

Tomorrow I have the entire day off and the most important thing I have to do is to prepare for my Education Specialist Orals on Friday. I have to defend my field study I conducted this year and if I can do that successfully, I'll be "awarded" my degree. Then I will be Angela K. Doll, Ed.S. Not quite a doctorate, but VERY close. Then I'm DONE with school for a while!! Maybe some day I'll find something that interests me enough to do a doctorate about it...but until then, I'm going to enjoy the hell out of living! :-)

By the way, thanks to all who are clicking the ads on this page. KEEP IT UP!!!! Click click click away!! :-)

I Hate Moving.

I hate moving. Everything about it. I'm packing today (finally) and have no idea what the heck I'm going to do...need more boxes, that's for sure (more than I thought before I think too). I guess it's good then, that I've got some time yet before I have to actually move. I've got about 6 weeks before I have to be out of the apartment here...so I guess it's manageable! It is just a HUGE pain in the butt right now. I really honestly hate it.

Otherwise, there's nothing much else to report. I'm going to Grand Forks tomorrow morning to meet up with some ASEC coworkers for coffee, so that will be fun. Then I have a huge list of stuff to do in Fargo before my doc appt at 4. Hopefully I can locate some boxes somewhere as well. I'm gonna need them!!

Cleaning is a Miracle

Well...I have finally gone through all of my papers.....I THINK. I found many things. I found two savings bonds from my Grandma Rotta...I did not even know they were "missing". I think I'm still missing one from 2004 though....so the search still continues for that.

I also found LOTS of stuff I should have shredded long ago. All I have to say is that it's a good thing I'm moving....I've obviously become quite complacent here! Geez. Note to self: do not save so much stuff that is stupid and shred, shred, shred!!!!!

On another note, it's finally raining! wooo hoooo!!!!

too much paper

Today it's been almost raining all day. It would be nice if it just rains!!! My apartment is a MESS. Even more so than usual. I've mainly been shredding stuff today and sorting through paperwork I thought I had to save. Thank God most stuff can be electronic now-a-days! I think the best thing I've done to reduce clutter and garbage has been to go paperless for most if not all of my accounts. It sure helps not getting a useless statement every month when I can just look online and print out a copy if I should need it. What a complete waste of paper and space that stuff has been! I can't believe how much shredded paper I've got now -it'll be a good packing material! :-)

Keep Clickin, Peoples!!

About a month ago, I added AdSense to my blog. That's why you see ads each time you log on to read about my fabulously exciting life (ahem...sarcasm here...). I encourage you to keep clicking on any ads you see, if only to just generate a few bucks for me to fund my move this summer. It really does work. Thanks to all who have been visiting this blog and clicking away already! :-)

Have you ever played Apples to Apples? It's a fun game and super easy...anyone can play it and it doesn't take too much strategy. That is, unless you are playing with friends and/or family who can be somewhat predictable. It can be as tame as you want, as complicated as you want, or as raunchy as you want. It just depends on which way the group goes. Anyway you play it, it is hilarious and a good time for almost everyone on the planet.

I was over at a friend's house tonight playing it for a couple hours. Good times! We almost got through the entire box of cards before we got too tired and had to call it a night (we are getting old). In the olden days I'd just be getting started at this time of the night (midnight). I'm still quite a night owl, but prefer to stay up all night in the comfort of my own home "just in case" I get tired and want to go to sleep.

For the past couple weeks I've been off of school and have been keeping very strange hours. It's not unusual right now to find me still up at 5am and then up again at 9 or 10am after sleeping a little. I think it has to do with being between jobs and not having to go to work each day...I can stay up as long as I want without any repercussions. Usually I'm watching TV, reading, or surfing online (lately it's been playing tons of MSN games). I've also had some late "think" nights when I was actively trying to get my study written up and finished. I think much better late at night for things like that. I think there are just too many distractions during the day for me.

This week is the beginning of the "big pack". I took a car load to Grand Rapids on Friday and I've decided to just spend two weeks packing and then making maybe another trip. I've got to decide when to do the actual move for real and then get stuff set up (internet, cell phone -i have to switch to Verizon- etc).

Good times! :-)

I AM Done!

Tonight I finished all my revisions/proofing of my field study. 77 pages and it's finished well enough. Now I only have to print 4 copies and drop them off at the department tomorrow. Of course, I have to work on my presentation now. My oral defense is on June 26th (at 2pm...on a FRIDAY! Who the heck scheduled THAT!??) and I'm assuming I'll have to prepare a powerpoint presentation. I will definitely have to study my material VERY well in anticipation of questions the review committee will have. So, for the next two weeks, I'll be preparing to be grilled and raked over the coals for an hour...on a Friday afternoon in the summer. Yikes!!

I'm glad this isn't a doctorate dissertation...but I think that's completely manageable now that I've done this. In fact, I think it would be a little bit easier because I think I'd have more guidance and more deliberate coursework if this were a doctorate and not just a specialist degree. Tri-College sure could improve their support and programming for those of us choosing the specialist field study route...and they need to stablize their program better. In 2 years I've had three advisors -and my academic record still says my first advisor...who retired 2 years ago! Oh well!! I'm done with this grad school crap for a while now!!! Time to get "real world" experience!! I know I'll be busy enough this year and it will be nice to not have so many other balls up in the air along with work challenges. That's how normal people live, right? With just one job/career?? When they go home from work at night they do regular stuff...like live, right?? :-)

I'm really looking forward to starting my new job in August!! I'm going to a training to be a CPI trainer (crisis prevention intervention) since I'll be doing trainings for the co-op I'll be working in. I've always wanted to do that, so I'm pretty excited (I am a nerd). The cool thing is, it's in Bloomington and it's for an entire week (well, Tuesday through Friday), so I'm going to be able to catch a Twins game and maybe some other stuff!!!

So.....I should go to bed, but I don't really have to, so I'm going to stay up a bit longer until I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open. I'm getting there! oh crap-I have to run my electricity bill up to drop off tonight so it's not late tomorrow. Well, I guess I'll just have to go for a drive -at 1am! :-)

I think I'm Done!!

Tonight I sent off the last draft to my advisor. I said "forget it" to my elaborate plans for charts and graphs and just decided to get it done "good enough". It still communicates what I want it to as it is, and I think charts and stuff would detract, not enhance the thing. Maybe for my presentation I'll make some stuff like that, but for the paper as a whole? No. not at all.

Now, my advisor can come back to me this week and say, "hold the phone little girl, you need some fancy stuff in here!" or "you call yourself a graduate student? It looks like my 4 year old niece wrote this crap".

So....who knows. For now, it's done besides simple proofing and checking references/citations. Thursday I'm printing it up....so whatever's not done before then will just have to be let go!!

Now I can start packing. :-)

New Digs Part Three

Ok, hopefully this is the last one. Here's more inside the house, particularly the living room stuff I fell in love with right away, hands down.

From top to bottom: View from breezeway entry (in dining room looking into living room and down hall to bedrooms & bathrooms), view from dining room window to lake & back yard, view of living room when coming in the front door, in the entry way (which is quite large, but I forgot to get a picture of it)-AWESOME view,
close up view of fireplace and built in shelving in living room (big picture window would be on the left of the picture).






I did take pictures of the bedrooms (kinda) and the garage, but they are boring ordinary rooms/garage.

Woo hooo!!! Now you can see why I wanted this place so much -the view alone is worth a million bucks!! What a therapeutic and awesome change from my Ada apt, although I do have a great view of the creek and blank grassy lot in Ada having the end apartment on the northeast edge of town....not to mention the man-made dike and "flood barometer" i.e. how high the creek is getting!

My New Digs Part Two

Ok, as promised, here are some inside pictures. Hopefully I can fit them all on here. If not, I'll post again!

From Top to Bottom: Kitchen entrance right inside from breezeway entry, kitchen view from dining room, view straight in from breezeway entry (looking from dining room into kitchen), looking into the living room towards the window from dining room.

Here You Are, Folks...part one

I went to Grand Rapids today, leaving Ada at about 5:45am. I met with the current sped coordinator at 9am until after lunch. Wonderful person, she is. I have big shoes to fill I think. Then, I ran around town checking out the Sears, Verizon store, and some furniture store, finding a bed on a super sale at Slumberland and buying it. Yay!! Now I have a new bed and no excuse for other people to visit a few days!!! Well...except that that's probably all the furniture I'll have for a bit!

Here are pictures. I forgot to take a picture of the bathroom, and will actually take more later on when I've got more time and am by myself (Holly, the landlord-wife was with me and I felt rude taking bunches and bunches of pictures when she and I were going through the place and signing the lease).

The first couple are in this order (top to bottom): in the breezeway at my breezeway/garage door (entrance), view of front deck from the front yard towards the garage, my front door with flower beds waiting to be planted, outside of house from driveway, view out the back breezeway door to my back deck.







Stay tuned for the inside!!