Finished Zentangle!

This is my zentangle that I finished. I call it, "Garden of Life." I began working on it about 3 weeks ago, and finished the last of my flower just a bit ago. It's on 8 1/2X11 inch sketchbook paper. And I really like it. When doing it, I had a lot of compliments on it, how neat it looked. I'm just proud I finished it. :) Anyway, I wanted to share it with you.

Remembering…

April 17th, 2008- I remember this date, because it was the day that my professor told me that I did not pass a very important test that I needed. I cried that day, not knowing my future.

April 18th, 2008- We had a minor earthquake that morning. I found out that afternoon that I did pass that test. My professor was just given the wrong results.

April 20th, 2008- That was the day of my friend, L’s bridal shower. It was a good day for her. It was also the day that my Grandfather went into the hospital for the last time with his last bout of Pneumonia.

 

 

 

I don’t really have much more to add tonight. Just that my heart is hurting, sad, scared, worried. I got my hair done tonight, something I have had set up for awhile. It’s amazing that something like that can always soothe me.

Whew!

Tonight was the last class for one of my classes. The other class ends tomorrow night. As most of you know, I have grown irritated with my professor, because it seems that every time I have emailed her on questions dealing with assignments and she hasn’t emailed back, and then her not grading everything I have turned in- it was bugging me.
I turned in 2 assignments and a blog yesterday, bringing what I had remaining to turn in to 2 assignments, 2 blogs. The last 2 assignments are pretty much complete, I just wanted to look over them to see what else I could add. Before I turn one of the assignments in, I need to do the blog specifically on that assignment. As of yesterday evening, nothing had been graded- save for 1 assignment.
I logged in tonight before class, and everything I have turned in has been graded. I got the full points on everything so far. I was stunned, but not really sure how else to feel about them at the moment. I did work hard on those assignments, but I don’t know how she graded them. She is just giving us all the full points for one of the blogs, so now I just have 1 left to do. I need to do that, turn in my last 2 assignments, and do 2-1 page course evaluations.
I’ll work more on everything else tomorrow night. I was going to go full-force tonight, but I lost my motivation once class ended. Plus, I’m still not feeling the best. I have had another cold the last few days- yuck.
Have a great week, all!

-Courtney-

A new feature…

So I discovered this new feature on my laptop. Or rather, it’s been there since I bought it in August, but am just now playing with it. First off, let me say that I love my new laptop. I purchased my first one in 2007, and it was kind of slow. I didn’t bog it down with unnecessary things. It just wasn’t like the one I have now. By last June, I knew I was going to have to replace it. I’d look at laptops, see what I wanted, and then I’d weigh the options. I did that all Summer.

In early August, I was working on my laptop one morning and the screen went black. No warning or anything. So there I was, on my iPod, messaging C’s best friend, to see if he could help me. He told me that I should be able to hook an external monitor up to it. There was a key I had to push and he listed a couple of different keys to try. I finally figured it out, and had it set up. In the meantime, I had already ordered a new laptop via my iPod. I like my iPod, but not to be used as a laptop.

So, it arrived, and I was so excited to set it up. I’ve honestly never had any problems with this one (although, it updates just about every day, which took some getting used to for me). I like how fast it is, I like how organized it is (I’m an organizational person), I like the features on it. I got a built-in web-cam with it, so that C and I could Skype.

That was a huge difference! Before, I used an external web-cam, which was kind of annoying. It’d fall off the laptop screen. The quality wasn’t the greatest. Skype in general would have a lot of problems, such as not letting me on, kicking me off when we were in the middle of talking, etc. When I tried Skype on the new laptop- wow! I was amazed that it actually worked, the camera was great, and there were no problems on my end.

Okay, so I just rambled my story. I always tell C that I take a round-about way to get to the point of my story. Anyways, one of the features on my new laptop is being able to blog straight from the computer- not logging onto another website. I knew the feature existed on my laptop, as I’ve seen it before. But I never thought much of it. Until I scrolled over it by accident this morning. I clicked on it, thinking it wanted me to create a new page. One of the features of that program is that I could just type in my webpage that you all see, my password, and username, and it would do the rest. So here I am, blogging straight from my computer and didn’t have to log into Blogger to do it.

I like it! I can still add pictures, Hyperlinks, vids (if I chose to upload a video), and even edit my font type from here as well. I just learned something new today! Aren’t you so proud of me?  

 

Until next time,

-Courtney-

I Miss It

I miss being in Japan, with C.

But mostly, I just miss him.

He's doing alright, still knows nothing at the moment. He said he should know something in the next few days. I can only hope that things are still on track for him coming home, but nothing is certain right now.

I Stand Corrected

Alright, so the other night, I wrote that I was a 4th generation German-American. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that. I discovered the error after I asked my mom if her grandparents had an accent. She asked why would they, since they were born here. It was my great-great-great grandparents that came over here. So that makes me a 6th generation German-American.

Still pretty unique, though.

Who Are You?

Tomorrow marks 150 years since the Civil War started. There was an article about it in the newspaper today, saying that 2 out of 3 Americans had an ancestor who fought in the Civil War. On ancestry.com this week, they are letting people search Civil War documents- for free, I believe. My dad said I have ancestors that came from Virginia. I've found confederate money that was my Grandmother's, as well as money from the Virginia Treasury. So that in turn led me to find my geneology books that I have.

On my dad's paternal side, my only direct ancestory who would have fought paid someone else $15 to be his substitute. I'm not sure about his maternal side yet, as I don't have any geneology records on them just yet. My mom's paternal side did not come here until about 1900. What I found most interesting in that geneology book is that my great-grandparents were first generation Americans when they came over here. So that means that I am a 4th generation American on that side of the family. We hail from Germany. The village where they come from looks beautiful. I actually want to go there someday, because I don't know a lot about that side of the family.

So now, I have a quest. To learn more, discover as much as I can about my ancestry. I want to know where they came from, what they may have done in their lives.

And I pose a question to you. Who are you and where do you come from?

Goals

I recently read a blog of a friend of mine, someone I met a couple of years ago. She is an amazing woman, and I always admire her for how she lives her life. With poise, grace, strength, and courage. She is a fellow baker like myself, but she does so much more with it when she bakes. I always enjoy reading what she bakes or cooks when I see it on Facebook. We have a lot of similarities, and I have known for a couple of years now that we would be good frineds.

(In case you were wondering, I still am good about not getting on there right now. :) )

When I read her blog the other day, I read a post that was from a couple of months ago, where she had goals for herself she wants to accomplish this year. And it got me thinking of what I want to do for the remainder of this year, and the coming years.

While I don't have my list formulated yet, I do have two goals in mind for sometime in the future. One hopefully in the near future, and one just in the future. The first one would be taking a baking class with her. We've talked about doing a cupcake bake thing (those are popular now, and it interests both of us). Hopefully that happens in the next few months.

The other has to do with zentangles. I do a little zentangling each night now. It's after everything else in my days are completed. Last night, since it was Friday night, I did about 2-3 hours worth, I think. I can't remember because I lost track of time. You all have heard me talk before about zentangles. I cannot sing the praises  enough of whoever came up with this wonderful art media. I really enjoy it. Sometimes, I don't even do it because I'm stressed out. One of the things I like about it is that anyone-at any age- can do this. I have had middle school students come to me, and say they were amazed that I could draw that good. And then I tell them, "The awesome thing is- you can, too!" See, a lot of us have this ingrained notion that because we can't draw people or objects, then we can't draw good at all. That is the most common thing I hear a lot of. I don't claim to be the most amazing artist when it comes to drawing. I have learned through the art classes that I have taken that I can draw, even though it's not the most amazing drawing ever.

That's not being negative, I'm really okay with where I am when it comes to drawing people or objects. I know it's not my strong point- but it doesn't mean that I can't do other drawings. Like zentangles. I can do that kind of drawing. I've picked up a few books from Amazon.com, because I did want to know more about it. I've looked at images via Google,  because I wanted to see what others have created. It's mesmorizing to me. And it's also a beautiful thing. If you are still in the dark about zentangles, I recommend googling it, and clicking on images. Or http://www.zentangle.com/. That is the official website.

I always read about people becoming CZT's (Certified Zentangle Teachers). I want to become one. I want to attend a 4 day seminar on zentangles, become certified, and take what I have been taught and bring it back here so others can enjoy it (because it ties into another goal of mine in the future). That is a goal of mine. It's expensive, but worth it. However, it's just going to have to wait until I have a job again. I know I'll eventually be able to go to a seminar and become certified. In the meantime, I will share with you all my work as I finish them.

Enjoy your weekend! When not working on a couple of huge projects, I know I'll zentangle some more!

My Oh My

The past 6 days have seemed to fly by! I welcomed April with open arms and am so thankful that it's finally April. I'm going to give you a re-cap over the past few days.

Friday- Went with my Grandma to her appointment/procedure. Ironically, the power was out by 7:50 that morning (being that it was April Fool's Day), and so all the appointments that were scheduled at the hospital were backed up. We spent more time waiting for her to be called than in the actual room, which was okay. We went to breakfast afterwards. She sounded confident that the Dr. wouldn't call her until after she had another test later this month. I'll get to that in a moment.

Saturday- It was windy out, but I got to hang out with my adorable nephews. Then my brother and his family came home for the afternoon/evening, so it was nice to hang out with them as well.

Sunday- Went to a museum with my aunt and uncle, my cousins and their daughter, my parents, my sister and her family. It was a lot of fun, but we were all pretty exhausted. I took so many pictures. We left at 4, and just as we were leaving, I got hit with another "mega" headache. Which caughnt me off guard. I've normally only gotten them at a certain time of the month. Or so I thought. I didn't get one at all last month, which made this one strange. I got home around 6, took an ibuprofen at 7:30, and by 8:30, it did not kick in. I finally went to sleep and woke up at 10:30- almost all traces of the headache gone. Unfortunately, I could not fall back asleep for a couple of hours. Although, I did get up and check my email (habit in the middle of the night when I wake up, anyway, just in case C is able to email). Luckily for me, C did email me. He sounded a lot better, which made me somewhat relieved. We still do not know anything at all. But I'm getting more and more anxious as time goes by. I keep waiting for an email that says yay or nay.

Yesterday and today, I have worked on some homework, among other things. I registered for classes, and by the end of this summer, I will have only 3 classes left to take. I am taking 5 this Summer during the two Summer sessions. Unfortunately, at the moment, only one of the classes I need after this Summer is offered in the Fall. I'm irritated with my professor, as she has not graded 4 or 5 of the assignments I have turned in. Since January. She has graded 1, which I turned in almost a month ago. I have emailed her quite a few times, but she hasn't responded. Ironically she responded to my email about everything else today.

On to my Grandma- My mom tells me that her Dr. called her to come in immediately this morning. So unfortunately, no one was able to go with her. See, she had been having pains in her stomach and they thought it was her Gallbladder. They now see she has a small kidney stone, damage to her esophagus (did I spell that correctly?) which is due to acid reflux, and found 3 nodules around her heart. No one knows what the latter means, and she won't know until her appointment with the other Dr. next week. Maybe it's nothing, I don't know.

A friend of mine has told me not to worry unless I really have to, on anything in life. So that's what I'm going to do. I just need to remember that when it comes to everything with C right now. :)

Well, friends. I am headed to bed. Soon, anyway. I'm exhausted. But I hope that you are having a great week! Tomorrow, we are halfway through the week!