Life

Well I only have two weeks left before summer quarter at school is done. I find that keeping up on my blog is just one of those things that I continue to bump down on the totem pole of priorities while I am in school. Well it could be that, or the fact that when I am on the computer, I get sucked into to the world of facebook and can't get out. I suspect that many of you have that same problem.

I am not sure how long I will feel like writing today, so I will try to cover tons of stuff briefly (in no apparent order). School is going well. I have a 4.0. How I am doing that, I cannot tell you. No really, I have no idea. Ok, I take that back. There is no way that I could be doing as well as I am without the help of Heavenly Father. There, that is how I am doing it! Let's just hope that all the testing that will go on in the next 6 days of school will go as well as the rest of the quarter. I will be picking up the pace next quarter. I am going to try going full time. Classes will be from 8-3p M-Th. I will be taking 2 accounting classes and a 'microcomputers' class. As I understand it, it will cover Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. Hopefully when I walk away from that class, I will be an expert in all of these areas. I will also be tutoring 2 days a week while at school in between classes. School has proven to be challenging, but in a good way. It keeps me busy and I am learning a ton. Even if I never end up going back to work, the things I have learned so far have been very helpful in my life. I am starting to gain a SMALL understanding of our finances and the way certian things work. I have a long way to go, but am grateful that I decided to go back and would encourage anyone who has been thinking about starting back to school themselves to go for it. Even though I have quite a ways to go, the 1st two quarters have flown by. If it all keeps going this fast, I will be done before I know it.

Mady has been back in school now for almost a month. She is working very hard. She is taking AP World History, AP Psychology, Advanced Math, French I, Chemistry, and Liturature II. She really felt like she bit off more than she could chew after the first day, but seems to be balancing it all ok. She recently has been called as the President of the Mia Maids (14-15 year old girls) at church. That's a pretty big deal if you ask me. I know she will do a wonderful job.

We recently purchased a 10 year old jetski. I have only taken the opportunity to go out on it once (too busy to play), but Mady and Nate have gone many times and Nate's brother John is visiting and they have made great use of it. If I wasn't so lazy, I would upload some pictures, but alas..... (ok, I changed my mind about the pictures) Anyway, it isn't all that pretty, but it is alot of fun. I have found that it can be somewhat dangerous as well. Mady was driving with John on the back being pulled on a tube, and this is what happened..... I choose not to be pulled behind the jetski! I think I will be safer that way!


Fun is something that my family could use. We have had an excessive amount of stress in our lives of late. We sold our house in St. Louis about two years ago under a seller financing contract and now the lady has quit paying AND won't leave. The house is back in our name, but St. Louis has these rediculous laws that say that she can stay in the house for up to nine months while not paying and sucking up all our money in attorney fees trying to get her out. Her mortgage payments are our main source of income at the moment, so you can see why we might be stressed. Fortunately, we have savings and very little debt, and I have been storing food like a good little mormon girl, so that does bring some peace.

Speaking of storing food, I had the chance to learn how to do some canning recently. One of the sisters that I visit teach spent an afternoon with me teaching me how to can peaches. It was lots of work, but I sure love looking at the jars. They turned out very pretty.

My new calling is ...... well, I'm not sure what to say just yet. It requires countless hours of work, and unfortunately, I have learned that no matter how prayerful the Relief Society President and I are about the assignments we make, people are still going to complain. Sadly many don't do their visiting teaching which just makes me ..... well, sad. Was that redundant? Sorry. The more I go out and visit with sisters, I am finding that many of them (me included) have trials in their life and just need a friend. Someone to listen to them and love them. I just wish that our sisters could see that is what visiting teaching is all about. Anyway, I just keep plugging along and doing the best I can. I am pleased to see that the numbers have come up in the last few months. I hope that trend continues.

Well speaking of callings, I just wanted to say how grateful I am for the way this church works. Callings can be very overwhelming and frightening and timeconsuming to say the least, but they give me great opportunites for personal growth. With all I have going on in my life right now, I was a little stressed about being asked to teach a card class last Saturday at church. That being said, it worked out ok and it gave the opportunity practice my craft that I would not have done otherwise because of my crazy schedule. I love my craft and get great satisfaction for sharing it with others, so a special thanks to Abby for asking me. I am glad I did it. I will post a few of the cards I made in preperation for the class. I don't know if I will post them all because it just takes so long for pictures to download. I just get impatient!
Ok, that took long enough, so 3 pictures is all you get for now. Thanks for listening (reading) to me blabber on and on. Who knows when I will get the chance again. Hopefully soon. Until then......