Just Simply Holly

Beth over at The Sassy Southerner tagged me the other day, and since I’m REALLY bad at paying attention, I’m only just now noticing. SORRY Beth!

Here are the rules for this meme:

1) Go back through your archives and post links to five favorite blog posts that you’ve written. But there is a catch:
a) Link 1 must be about family.
b) Link 2 must be about friends.
c) Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are… what you’re all about.
d) Link 4 must be about something you love.
e) Link 5 can be about anything you choose.

2) Post your five links, and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better.

Here are my posts.

1. I LOVE this post because it contains the first family pictures we had taken in many years. They were taken by my sister at our Christmas get together in 2006
2. In THIS post you’ll see just how much the honesty I get from my best friend means to me!
3. I had a difficult time choosing a post that describes what I am about, but finally chose THIS one
4. It was even more difficult to decide on one thing that I loved, but I chose THIS post
5. And for my final choice, which can be about ANYTHING I choose, I choose THIS post because it was my very first post here at JustSimplyHolly.

I don’t know who to pass this Meme on to, so just whoever wants to do it, let me know you did so I can read your posts!

Well, today was my first day of classes this semester and all in all, I’m pretty happy. I had 2 classes today, the first was an 8:00 AM Marketing class. It amazes me how empty early morning classes are, it did last semester as well! There are only eight people in this class and the instructor ROCKS! I have no doubt this is going to be one of my favorite classes!

I then had a one hour and 45 minute break between classes, so I wandered around campus a little, filled out a form at the bursars office to have my direct deposits stopped since I had to close that bank account and grabbed a quick snack before going to my 11:00 AM class.

My second class today was a business class called business professionalism. Now, since I had just registered for my classes and gotten my text books late yesterday afternoon, I hadn’t really had much time to check into exactly what my classes were supposed to be about or skim through my text books. So I was kind of thrown off guard when the instructor asked each of us to tell what we thought the class would be about and what we hoped to learn from the class. From the answers that were given before it was my turn, it was obvious the instructor wasn’t thrilled. So I decided honesty was the best approach and simply said that I hadn’t registered for my classes until the day before and honestly hadn’t had the time to form the opinion he was asking for.

The class itself meets once a week for 2 hours for 8 weeks, so it’s a short class. My initial impression of the instructor is that he doesn’t like teaching this class….LOL! But to sum it up, the class is basically an 8 week course that will tech me how to write a resume. Hey, it’s a required class for my major, and I honestly do not know how to write a good resume, so I’m not going to complain. At least the class seems to go by quickly!

Tomorrow (Friday) I have one class at night, which is my Algebra class…..YUCK! That is also a one day a week class, which means I have to sit through a four hour class on Friday nights. UGH, what could I possibly have been thinking? LOL

I’m normally not a procrastinator, if any thing, I’m the type of person that tries to get things done ahead of time if I can!  But I dreaded going out to school to get the mess that I created last semester straightened out so that I could go back to classes this semester.

Flash back, if you will, to October, if you need to, go into my archives….LOL!  I had been sick since the last week of September when we “discovered” what had been making me sick.  There was black mold in the ceiling in our bedroom, one of the walls and also in the crawl space of the house we were living in.  When we confronted the land lord about the problem, his response was “I don’t have the money to put into something like that right now, you’ll have to fix it on your own”, or something like that.  We had no choice, for our health we HAD to move and we had to do it quickly!  I had missed almost 3 weeks of school by then and with the prospect of having to clean this house, pack the other house, move everything here and unpack, and still being very sick, I knew that there wasn’t much of a chance of me being able to make my classes for at least another two weeks.  What I should have done when I came to that realization was go to campus and file a withdrawl for the semester, but I didn’t, I was embarrassed.  The result was even more embarrassing, I failed all of my classes and was put on academic and financial aid probation.

So, that’s why I dreaded going out to campus to fix the mess I was in.  I just knew that I would either be yelled at or told that I had messed up so badly that it wouldn’t be possible for me to go back to school this semester.  I couldn’t have been further from the truth!  Not only did I not completely mess things up, I was also treated SOOOOOOOOOO awesomely!  The only “down side” was that since classes start tomorrow, the lines for EVERYTHING I had to do today were VERY long!  I spent more time standing in line than I did actually talking to people to fix things…..LOL!

So, everything is fixed. I have my first class tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM and I even managed to successfully change my major!  I have an awesome schedule this semester that actually only takes me out to campus 2 days and one evening.  I take one of my classes locally at my son’s high school and I opted to take one of my classes as an online e-course.  I have a total of 5 classes for a total of 14 credit hours.

HOORAY!  I’m in college again!

I wish I knew what it was that is so deeply on my mind that is keeping me from sleeping lately! I don’t feel stressed, I’m not in a bad mood, nothing is going on with the hubby or the kids. I’ve even had a couple of really nice phone calls with my mom lately, although she’s in a heck of a spot right now, thanks to my darling sister!

If you read my post(s) about the party for my mother and step father that was held a month ago, you know that my sister got all crappy with me because I couldn’t pitch in on an expensive gift that all of the kids wanted to get for them as a combination 70th birthday/Christmas gift. Although I was apprehensive about even going to the party, in the end I had a very good time and was glad that I did go! At the end of the evening everyone was giving/writing checks to my sister, which were everyone’s portion of the gift. While talking with my mom last night I found out that my sister cashed everyone’s checks and rather than paying off the charge for the TV, which was put on MOM’S credit card, she spent the money. So now mom has this HUJASS credit card bill and my sis called her to find out what the absolute minimum payment on it was because she’s broke right now. Can you say WTF?!?!?!? She had the balls to be a HUGE “B” to me over the fact that I couldn’t pitch in when the money that was paid didn’t even go on the damn bill? I want to call my sister on this SOOOOOOOOOO bad because this is so wrong in more ways than one!

OMG, I have to tell you what happened tonight at dinner! We all were sitting around the table eating and talking. I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and had used a different sauce than I normally do. We were talking about the sauce and what we liked and didn’t like about it when I mentioned that the only thing I didn’t like about it were the chunks of tomato. Granted, the chunks of tomato in this sauce were smaller than many other spaghetti sauces that I’ve used, but I personally just don’t like chunks of tomato in my spaghetti sauce. I don’t know why, because I do like tomatoes! Anyway, my son made the comment that many things are made from tomatoes, to which I said, “Yeah, like onions”, which got us all laughing. He started talking about the things that are REALLY made from tomatoes when my daughter said something about cherry tomatoes. He looked at her and said something about cherry tomatoes are exactly how they’re grown and aren’t really used for much. I looked at him and said “No, they’re not exactly how they’re grown. Cherry tomatoes are made from big tomatoes. They just take this scooper thing and make a scoop then take a piece of the skin from the big tomato and stretch it around the scoop of tomato so it fits just right”. My son, who is without a doubt one of the smartest people I have EVER known looked at me and said “Really”, like he really believed me! At that point my daughters mouth full of milk came flying out of her mouth and nose all over my husband and myself! Hubby wasn’t too happy about it, but I was busting a gut laughing. Not because of her spitting the milk, but because of the fact that my son remotely believed what I was saying, even if it was only for a split second!

Oh my goodness!  I have never been more glad for a Monday than I am this morning!  The weather over the weekend was pretty decent, but for some reasons the attitudes around here this weekend were WAY out of control!  If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn my family was suffering from PMS this weekend…LOL!

The weather today is supposed to be awesome!  The current record high temp for today is 61 degrees and it was set in 1907.  The weather men are talking that we’re going to easily hit that temp and probably go higher.  The weird thing about that is that I live in NW Ohio.  Sixty degrees during the first week of January around here just isn’t heard of.  Thus the reason the record of 61 degrees is 101 years old…LOL!

I totally plan on having some windows open today!  You can bet your toosh I’m going to take advantage of this weather!

I’m telling you, my “un” lucky streak is STILL going!!! As you read in THIS post, all four of the football teams I rooted for last weekend LOST! In that post I also very clearly stated that I was going to root for the Steelers this week. Guess what? THEY LOST! I also really wanted the Redskins to move in and play next weekend, but forgot about the fact that I was supposed to be rooting for the team that I wanted to lose, so they ended up losing too, which STINKS!

So, you need to tell me which team it is you want to lose, because I can almost assure you that if I root for them, they WILL lose! At this point though, there is one team that I cannot root for if I want to keep one of my jobs. So don’t worry Keith, I WON’T be rooting for the Pats, I promise! So, talk to me people! Tell me what NFL team you DON’T want to see move one step closer to the Super Bowl. If you get in here before tomorrow’s games, your choices are the Titans, the Chargers, the Giants and the Buccaneers. Talk to me!!

It’s only January 5th and there has already been story after story about various celebrities and athletes being arrested or hauled off by ambulance because of alcohol or drug usage problems. I’m sure you’ve all read about Britiney Spears being hauled off in an ambulance the other night after refusing to turn her kids over to K-Fed after her visitation. It was originally reported that she appeared to be under the control of some sort of substance, but they’ve retracted that statement and are now saying they were mistaken.

Then there is the infamous Lindsay Lohan who “briefly” fell off the wagon on New Years Eve only a few weeks after being treated at an alcohol and drug addiction treatment center. The article I read said this:

“After being handed a champagne bottle while on a dance floor in Italy on New Year’s Eve and drinking from it, the good news is that Lindsay immediately stopped, called her sponsor, and got herself back on track,”

SURE!! And if you believe that, I have some Ocean front property in Ohio to sell you! What’s sad is that these young people do not realize the impact that their behavior has on young people who looked up to them! For years my daughter LOVED Lindsay and watched many of her movies! But with how dramatically Lindsay’s life changed for the worse, my daughter quickly realized she wasn’t a good person to look up to!

Most young boys tend to look up to athletes as role models. But with recent stories of wide spread drug and steroid use among athletes, you can’t help but wonder what type of effect it is going to have on young people. Who does this give them to look up to as positive role models any more? Celebrities are going more and more into areas that parents teach their children not to go into, as are athletes! Gone are the days of truly natural athletes who strive to be the best that they can be in their sport by actually working for it. Instead they use drugs and steroids that will improve their performance and make them “super athletes”, then they whine and cry because the fans refuse to acknowledge their accomplishments! Just like Barry Bonds! I don’t view his home run record as the true record, because I know he didn’t break the long standing record set by Babe Ruth the way it was meant to be broken. In my eyes, he is not a true athlete and I support the record breaking baseball having an asterisk on it 100%!

It’s no secret to those that know me that I LOVE to cook and bake!  One of my all time favorite stores, besides the grocery store, is Bed, Bath and Beyond!  As a matter of fact, I was just at their website today pricing a few things that I absolutely NEED, like a French rolling pin, a new cutting board (that I plan on using as a pastry board), and I REALLY want this pasta machine!  My dream used to be to own my own restaurant or bakery because of how much I love cooking and baking!  And it really makes me feel good to know that I’m giving my family or friends something that I cooked or baked myself!  Lately, I’ve been on a noodle kick, making noodles from scratch……LOL!

So imagine how thrilled I was to see that Kat over at My Single Mom Life is giving away a $25 gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond!   So if you love this store as much as I do, head on over and visit Kat for your chance to win!

I tell you, at first the thought of using the wood burner scared the CRAP out of me!  I guess after living next door to and working for a fire fighter for almost 3 years, and listening to the horror stories of some of the fires, purposely making a fire inside my home terrified me!  But after this morning, I totally LOVE it!  It was REALLY REALLY cold this morning, like the coldest it’s been this winter!  When I first got up the temp on the news was reading 1 degree, but I think that might have been a mistake because a few minutes later the weather lady said it was like 6 or 7 degrees.  But either way, THAT’S COLD!  And even with the furnace running and a couple of small space heaters to help out, the house was FREEZING!

So my hubby started a fire in the wood burner that I’ve kept going all day…LOL!  It’s not a roaring fire now, just some good hot coals!  And with the fan on the wood burner on, it REALLY helps keep the house feeling decent!  We don’t mind the chilly nights, but when it’s day time and it’s STILL chilly, no thank you!  And I’d rather burn a few pieces of wood than kick up the thermostat!  The price of bulk LP is through the roof and with the minimum amount for a delivery, it’s just not something we can do right now.  So we keep the thermostat set at 64 and supplement!

My son went back to school today.  Amazingly, he was up and had eaten before I woke up…LOL!  I guess he must have been excited about the thought of going back to school?  SCARY!  I’m trying to get some housework finished up around here so that I can go tomorrow and get the bills paid and do the shopping I need to do.  I also want to take my daughter out to lunch before she goes back to school on Monday!  So I’d better stop typing and get busy!  TTFN!

Whew, it’s 10:30 and I REALLY need to be sleeping because one of my children goes back to school tomorrow morning!  But I’m so adrenalin filled right now and had/have a few things I needed to do before I shut down for the night, including this post.

I did manage to get a few minor things done around here today but I left the house around 1:45 to head to my friends house.  I offered to be her “photographer” for an important political event today.  I quoted photographer because I’d give myself a barely passing grade for how my photos turned out, but I’m sure of the nearly 170 photos I took she’ll be able to find some that she can use!  I had the privilege of meeting some really great people today and felt honored to see history in the making!

I was able to watch a part of Toledo, Ohio history today by being present at the swearing in ceremonies for 3 new city council members.  I also watched in shock as the three new members and 9 “seasoned” members took a vote for the city council president and, with a tie breaking vote being case by our mayor, ultimately “de-throned” the man who had been president the past few months.  It was an amazing turn of events that took me completely by surprise!

But, as I said at the beginning of this post, I have one child that goes back to school tomorrow which means I have to be up at 5:00 AM, so I need to shut this thing down.  More tomorrow!