Just Simply Holly

OK, so lets talk about weather, shall we. Last week, as you know, we received two significant snow storms where I live. In one we ended up with basically 9 inches of snow, and in the second one we received an additional 4-5 inches of snow, giving us a grand total of over a foot of snow in a matter of a couple of days. I don’t mind snow, I’d much rather have it than ice, and last weeks snow was beautiful, as you seen from the photos I shared!

Saturday through Monday we had much warmer than normal temperatures and by Monday afternoon all of our snow was completely gone. Monday afternoon it started raining and between the melted snow and the rains, we were at risk for some fairly significant flooding! Late Monday evening our decent temperatures plummeted and we ended up with cold temps and ice by Tuesday, but it wasn’t bad enough to delay/close schools OR keep voters away from the polls, which is a VERY good thing!

But by 3:00 yesterday afternoon it was raining pretty good again, but it was a rain/sleet mixture that was making the roads slick and slushy. When my husband got out of work at 4:00 he told me that the drive home would be very slow going, which was a total understatement. A drive that normally takes about 45 minutes ended up taking him more than two hours. By this time it was no longer raining, what was coming from the sky was straight ice!

With all of the events that were being cancelled for last night, I went to bed feeling sure that schools would at least be delayed today, if not closed. I woke up this morning around 6:00 AM to the phone ringing, it was an automated message from my daughters school letting us know that her school was closed for today. Closed at 6:00, NOT delayed, just closed! The roads were horrible and many counties in the area were under snow advisories, with two of the advisories actually being level 3, meaning you were not allowed on the roads at all!

By 8:00 AM not a single school in the area was open today. Now, I actually do not mind snow days, the kids and I generally have a pretty good time when they are off school and try to find fun ways to occupy our time. But this morning, these kids already have me at my wits end! They’re arguing and fighting with each other and when they’re not doing that, they’re getting the dogs all worked up to the point that the dogs are running around and jumping and making stuff fall off the tables and shelves. I swear that when I see another saying Branson homes for sale, I’m going to click on it and find myself somehwere FAR FAR away from here to live if these kids don’t STOP SOON!

It’s no secret to those that know me that my favorite class this semester is my Marketing class. The instructor is just fantastic and makes the class very interesting!

In class Thursday the instructor was talking about our big project for the semester. After we get through the next section of the book he will give us our choices for the project. What we will have to do after we choose is do a thorough market research into the product and then make a presentation trying to sell our product.

The instructor will choose one of the different types of personalities (Dominant, expressive, amiable and passive) and act out that personality while we give him our presentation. We’ll then have to figure out how we are going to deal with this personality first before we give our presentation. It’s a major project because it accounts for 25% of our final grade for the semester.

I like this type of thing though, so I’m honestly looking forward to it! The majority of the jobs that I have held in my life have been ones where I have to deal with customers face to face. I’ve learned over the years how to read a customer and how to appease to their mood while meeting their needs!

Although I did miss my Thursday classes, I didn’t miss my Friday night Algebra class.  I have to say that the instructor that I have this semester ROCKS!  He definitely looks the part of a college instructor, meaning that he dresses like one and carries around the black briefcase that is totally organized.  But he has this way of teaching Algebra that makes it completely understandable!  Maybe part of it has to do with the fact that yes I did just take this same course a few months ago, but I was struggling with it a little then too.  But the instructor that I have now breaks things down in a way that makes it very easy to understand AND do Algebra!  He also has shown us a few “shortcuts” that have made solving the problems MUCH easier!

But, before I continue to go on and on, I wanted to share with you that I got my first quiz back this past Friday and scored a 95% on it!!!  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

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!

As you may or may not know, we got a pretty good snow/ice storm over the weekend, specifically Saturday night into Sunday.   We ended up with an average of about 8 inches of snow in the area.  But the worst part is that there is ice under the snow.  My husband drives major expressways to work, he just called saying all of the main roads are still in horrible condition.  The local news is also all over the area stressing how bad the roads are, how there is a layer of ice under the snow and even some areas with black ice.

By dinner time last night a huge amount of schools had already delayed for today, some of them had even closed.  My daughters school was one that had delayed early last night, but my sons school hadn’t.  In all honesty I was sure my sons school would at least delay today, but amazingly they are the ONLY school in the area that never did this morning.  The worst part of it is the fact that a huge chunk of the students are walkers, meaning that they walk to and from school, and the residents in town are infamous for not clearing their side walks.  With as bad as these roads are and as crappy as the weather is right now, I made the executive decision that my son is not going to school today.  I am not going to put him on a school bus that has NO reason to be on the roads!  The roads are not even close to being cleared, and ODOT representative said they are “hoping” to have the roads cleaned by the rush our drive home TONIGHT!  I’ll never understand his school, not in a heart beat!

Saturday I had my 2nd Algebra test.  I didn’t feel as confident about this one, but it wasn’t because of the Algebra problems, it was because it also included many Geometry problems, which I honestly didn’t even understand.  Which brings up my first question.  If this is an elementary Algebra class, why is Geometry being thrown in in the first place?

Anyway, WHen I got the instructors email, I had my first clue that it probably wasn’t the best exam because the title of his email was “Here’s the damage”.  I ended up getting a C on the exam, which dropped my over all grade in the class from an A- to a B.  Yes, I know a B is still a good grade, but it just irritates me because I know the reason my grade was as low as it was is because of the Geometry problems.  If it wouldn’t have been for those, I’m fairly certain I’d have gotten a much better grade!

I felt horrible for my husband though.  He felt much better about this exam and was certain that he got a better grade than he did on the last exam, but he was wrong, he ended up with an F on this one dropping his over all grade to a D-.  You have to pass this class with a C, anything below that and you have to repeat it.  I don’t know what else I can do to help him pass this class.  We’re almost at the half way point, if he can’t bring up his grade soon he won’t pass it.

So, that’s the Algebra update.  I’m already working on picking my classes for next semester, and I can start registering for them on October 3rd.  Wish me luck!

As you may or may not know, I am in my second semester of college, but my first semester at the college I am currently attending. When I decided that I was ready to go back to school, I contacted several local colleges to get as much information as I could, before making my final decision as to which school to enroll in. I consider myself an intelligent person and I also feel that I’m a pretty good judge of whether or not other people are being truthful to me, that’s why what I’m about to tell you bothers me so much!

After going over the information I had received and each schools website, I ultimately decided to enroll in a local school called Stautzenberger College. The reason(s) for my choice included the fact that it was close to home, they presented themselves as a more “personal” school, meaning that they explained to me that when or if I needed help that the help would be available to me. They also convinced me that since I could “muddle” my way around graphic design that it might be better for me to learn web design first, that way I could do web design then go back to school and “tune up” my graphic design abilities after getting my Web Design degree. The enrollment “specialist” I was working with knew from the get go that my intention was to get my Associates Degree, then move on to a 4 year college and get my Bachelors Degree, he assured me that this was possible. I wasn’t too sure they were right about the web design though, graphic design had been my passion for many years, and I wasn’t completely sure I wanted to learn web design. But in the end I listened to them and enrolled. Read more…

It’s funny, I have had my office up here to myself since I started going to school last year. Other than to pop in and say hello or talk, I’ve been alone up here for the most part. Now that my hubby is going to school as well, I keep finding him up here more and more. He says he likes it because it’s a quiet place to study and get his work done. So now I’m thinking a need a different type and size of desk that we both could sit at together. Thankfully Century furniture has one that I not only love; it will allow the two of us plenty of room to study together!

Remember back to high school and think about that Algebra assignment that made your eyes cross.  Now, remember that cute boy in your Algebra class that you’d have given your left arm just for him to look at you?  Imagine sitting across a table studying Algebra with him!  That’s what I’m going to be doing today.  And no, I’m not cheating on my hubby….LOL!

We both have the same Algebra class this semester, although we have it on different days with different instructors.  But we use the same book and basically have the same assignments.  So in a little while we’re going to be studying and doing our Algebra homework together.  As a matter of fact, there he is, so I’d better get going!