Feeling the black and white love

I haven't updated in forever! I finished up the semester with all A's thank you very much! During the break between Spring and Summer I practiced a lot with my camera and photography/photoshop skills. I was able to get a lot done and learn a few editing things and also really solidify my knowledge of manual settings. I started summer school last week and its awesome! I decided to not take any nursing classes as I couldn't hack Anatomy and Physiology in an intense setting such as Summer I provides. So I chose a photography class!!!

Its a black and white 35mm film class. So far we have learned how to develop film and make prints. Our first assignment were these photograms which were awesome. We go into the dark room with light sensitive paper and use a machine called a "developer" to make prints of anything we put onto the light sensitive paper. I experimented with sea shells and some "texas sand" from a well known theme park's dinosaur excavation play station. The park will remain unnamed! I don't want to get in trouble for thieving it!! My kids filled up a water bottle of this stuff. I had no clue until we got home! So I am playing hookie from the nursing department curriculum and taking this film class. I am also taking the intermediate one next month! [insert evil laugh here].

In just two weeks I have learned how to use a developer in the darkroom, make cool pics on light sensitive paper, unroll and wind up a roll of 35mm black and white, non c41 process film onto a reel in complete darkness, wash it with chemicals and water to process it, dry the film, cut them for the negative sleeves and then make contact sheets from the negatives. We also are doing tons and tons of "test strips" to see what duration of light we need to expose our items at. Today I spent almost 6 hours in the dark room making prints from my film. It was awesome.

Other things, we now are a family of 2 adults, 2 kids, 3 cats, 1 hamster and 3 chickens. Yes, I said chickens. Rosie, Henrietta, and Sally. Meet "The Ladies" as dh calls them:

Rosie



Henrietta

Sally (the Black)

The kids are enjoying the 100 degree weather, we are spending a lot of time indoors or outside in the water. Saturday we went to the local splash park and the kids had a blast. They have this zero depth playground with colorful structures that spit and spray water while the kids run through it.

I decided that by the end of this summer I wanted #1 to have a good handle on reading... so we are making great efforts to encourage this. Even #2 wants to know how to spell and offers to tell us how to spell things. So precious. I think #1 might be a math girl, she loves numbers and loves to count, more so than read.

The garden that the kids and hubby planted is doing well, we have spouts on some of the plants. I will need to update more when I know exactly what is going on out there. This class I am taking really takes up alot of my time, its from 3:30-6pm but then you can stay late to work in the lab which I have been doing for the last few nights. As a result I get nothing done during the day t home and have no idea what is going on outside with the garden! I need to ask hubby.

I need some sleep

So I've been dealing with horrendous insomnia for almost 2-3 years now.. although it didn't really affect me until just the last 18 months. Its gotten increasingly worse and now I am a leetle afraid of what is going on with me. I have a doc appointment next week with a doc who does saliva tests and tests for adrenal fatigue which I what I think is going on, along with some other "issues". I guess we all have "issues" but mine are pretty ongoing. Anyway, I need to be in bed but I find myself blogging! I went to bed last night around midnight (which is super early for me) and I don't think I got but maybe 2 hours of sleep total? I kept waking up everytime my brain would shut off and drift off into sleep. It was terrible. I fear the same for tonight. The fear of not being able to sleep I find is worse than not getting any sleep... because it produces anxiety that I can't get rid of. *sigh* Anyway, I do have a test tomorrow so I do need to *try* to get to bed. Buenas Noches.

Just rereading my last post made me tear up. I just have no words for it all. I am still sad.

I just wrapped up a week of Spring Break... more like Flu break. Hubby and the kids were sick the moment I got back from my retreat last week. It was awful horrible stuff. Dh and Number 2 are still coughing. Then I got it last Tuesday... oh man it was horrible. I am finally feeling better enough today to DO something, although I did have to go to my psych class. :-( The thought of the class makes me want to scream but when I am there I actually really like the class. Go figure.

Number 1 had her 2nd ice skating lesson today with her group. She is doing AWESOME! I saw her do her bent knee glide and a backward swizzle! You go baby girl! I think we are going to enter into the US Figure Skating comp on May 3th. (Tracee we will see you then!) And then the May 4th ice show at the rink. We picked up Number 1's new white Riedell skates today albeit poorly sharpened but she was so happy. The poor sharpening won't effect her ability to skate but if they were my skates or an advanced level skaters' I would have been a leetle more irritated. Of course the director was trying to squirm her way out of any admission of guilt. WTF ever lady. Me and this lady go "back". We go back to the days when I used to bust my ass for that place---err I mean teach figure skating at this particular rink. She was just a coach then. One by one everyone left and the only one still there was this "lady" so she ended up director. whatevah! I reallllllllllllllly don't ever want to coach there again, but A, one of the the other coaches was trying to get me to come back. uh no thanks. I wont' forget the "lady's" racist comment one day, and that sealed the deal for me. Then Number 1 skated by herself around the rink twice, she was sooooooooo darn cute!

After that we tried to go car seat shopping but Sucks R Us didn't have what we wanted. The insurance company is agreeing to replace the seats. Um why you might ask is an "insurance company" involved in our car seat purchased. Oh silly me, I forgot to tell you all. yeah that leetle detail... my brand new mini van, You know the one I lusted after, the one I cried about, the one I saw and said that WILL be mine and then when all hope was lost the dealer called us and caved and said okkkkkkkkkk you can have it at the price you went, yeah that one??? Dh decided to "lightly kiss the bumper" of some dumb-ass last Friday when she decided to slam on her brakes. She slammed on her brakes because the fucknut in front of her stalled out. My babyblue sweet princess sparkly new Toyota Sienna Minivan, 2008, was disshelved. Completed disshevled. Front crumpled into a neat and tidy mess with the scars and tears in her front bumper to explain why. 500.00 deductible later and she is all better... but still. The total cost of the repairs was $3000.00. So we felt it warranted new seats, to be on the safe side.

So we came home, I ordered them online and then instituted a boot camp clean up. We cleaned up for about 4 hours until we couldn't any longer. the house was *disgusting*. Six weeks of no mommy doing anything really took its toll. You don't even want to knwo what was growing on in the toilets. Shutter.

off to bed. We are going to an archaeology site tomorrow to take pictures. Oh joy. MY dh is hiring me but not even paying me... yeah not even paying me I said!?!

Uncle Bobby

My Uncle Bobby was a kind, gentle man, cranky and ornery at times but nonetheless loving and happy when around his sister Madeline and her daughter and her grandchildren. No children of his own, Uncle Bobby led a good life with lots of friends and lots of entertainment.

Sadly, a falling out in 2005 led to his estrangement from his sister. . . no more chocolate chip cookies, no more dinners, no more lazy-boy-chairs, tvs or Tivos . . . no more cleaning apartments . . . all of this ended when they decided to not speak to each other out of stubbornness and anger. One year passes... bypass surgery, leukemia... from an email April 20, 2007:

"

Hi Jenn,

Saw a specialist today. Seems like I do have a form lukiemia. Th started me on chemotherrapy

Sorrry to give you the bad news, but isince you guys are about the only famiilly , I have I thought I You might be intersted in tjiis.

take care, Luv, uncle Bobby"


May 2, 2007

"Hi jenn,

Hope aall ia welll there. Thingx ok here Im' just very weak and haave lost a lot of weight, but IIm sure

all will be ok soon. Say Hi to every one for me.

Love uncle Bobby"

June 6, 2007

"Jenn,

Bad news,

Your grand motheer has lung cancer.

Uncle Bobby"

Those were the last words I saw from Uncle Bobby ---he died 3 weeks ago on January 31, 2008. Soon after the June 6th email I called him, & we spoke. It was hard to understand him. I asked him to email me. He never did. I emailed him, & I got a returned email from his server. . . I should have known something was wrong . . . but I failed to call him... its my own guilt I will have to live with . . . its my own doing . . . I had control . . . I could have called him, but I chose not to. I don't know why.

February 26, 2008
A letter arrives in my mailbox, its from Uncle Bobby's sister Madeline, my grandmother. . . . sharing the news of his death. I called my grandmother. We spoke for 40 minutes. That was both the happiest and saddest time in my life. I was estranged from my grandmother for 2.5 years. . . so her wanting to talk to me was actually wonderful and glorious despite the conversation topic. We talked, we cried, we came to an understanding, we will talk again and that brings me peace. I am very saddened by Uncle Bobby's death but if he knew that this brought me back to my grandmother then he would be ok with that. I don't think he would have chosen to give his life up so that I could have a relationship with her but I know that he maybe relieved to know that we talked.

I miss you Uncle Bobby, I am so sorry that you didn't get to say goodbye to "Madge." That hurts my heart knowing how sad you were last summer when you told me you missed your sister so much and cried to me. I am sorry. . . so sorry that you did not speak to her again. I am heartbroken over that. . . and I am so sorry Uncle Bobby that you died with no family around you. No one should have to go that way. I wish you would have called me, I wish you would have had your social worker call your sister or me . . . I wish. . . I wish . . . I wish things had gone differently for you, I wish you could have had a different life and a different way of leaving this life . . . I am heartbroken for you that you and your sister no longer talked to one another. . . now I am heartbroken for her that she lost her brother and was not able to see you and say goodbye.

That is the hardest part Uncle Bobby; knowing that this could have all been prevented had the stubbornness and anger of stupid family politics been put aside. I miss you Uncle Bobby, I miss your emails... I won't forget you... I am so glad to have gotten to know you this late in the game... please look down on me and my family and take care of us . . . protect us and guide us and help us to keep our family together. I don't know what else to say, except I love you. And I hope you are finally pain-free and at peace. Tell G-d he better have the Tivo and Tv up there for you or I am going to be really pissed off when I get there.

Taking a break...

Taking a break from everything! I am going on a retreat this weekend for scrapbookers! I am SO excited. I am counting down the days.

My semester is going by so very fast. It was a tough course load with 13 credits. I had A's in two classes, my clinical nutrition class and my cultural stereotyping class as I lovingly refer to it. . . as for Chemistry and Developmental Psych, well, I still had to take the first tests on those. Last week I got the results back for my first chemistry test and it was not so good. Being constantly stressed out, considering leaving the program altogether I got a reality check one day and called up the local tech college to see what chem class was equivalent to the chem 102 I was taking... and low and behold they had a class... and it was being offered soon, in the summer and at night too!! The heavens opened and chem 105 rained down on me... it was glorious news. I began screaming, yelling jumping for joy with the reality that I can take chem 105 in the summer all by itself at the tech college for 1/3 the cost than at my current university! HALLELUJAH! I was so giddy with excitement and relief that I nearly fell over running to my computer to drop the current chem class. Clickity-clickity-clack went the buttons on the keyboard... log in screen, type password, click academics, click course schedule, pick an action, . . . DROP. . . are you sure you want to drop this course from your schedule? Oh HELL yes, I am DAMN sure. click! Chem 102 will be dropped from your coursework, a grade of "W" will be recorded. " WAHOO!!! I was free! free from the evils of my egotistical professor Dr. Daniel. Free from atoms and molecules and electrons and acid base conjugate pairs. . . at least until the summer.

Having three courses is MUCH MUCH easier on me and my family than the 4... that was insane... everyone was telling me around me that my course load was insane... I finally agreed with them.

I took my first test on Psych last Saturday... WOWIE WOW WOW. . . all essay test, covering 6 chapters, about 40 word definitions and 8 essays on every type of psychological theorist ever known--- plus the entire prenatal development stages, cognitive development, psychological methodologies, psychological dichotomies. . . etc. Very hard to study for...Note to self ---don't wait til the week before to study! I am still awaiting the results of that test.

So that is the school update on me, I've been pretty self consumed by school, I guess that is a good thing. Its kept me on a somewhat reasonable sleeping schedule although its 2:30 right now and I am still awake. But I am heading to bed soon.

A new semester and a new journey

Its been a while since I posted, and a lot of fun stuff has transpired, we had Hanukkah and then my parents visited for a while for my birthday... they do Christmas so there were many presents given to my kids this year.

Next week I start my first semester as a grad student in the Doctorate of Nursing Practice Program. I am nervous but excited. It should be a fun 15 weeks. I am taking chemistry (eek), a developmental psych class, and two nursing classes.

I've been knitting up a storm though and my projects, I finally got them into my Ravelry. Ravelry is the most AWESOMEST place for a knitter or crocheter... its like my space for us, LOL. We can log our patterns there, our completed projects, ones we are working on or want to start, we can record our yarn, our needles, and then of course chat about knitting or crocheting or browse the thousand of patterns and projects. its really awesome.

My parents ended up getting the kids two Webkinz. Holy hell. IIIIIIII am obsessed with them! I love the virtual pet thing and LOVE the site! I now have my own account, LOL. Its all my mom's fault. Its terrible but I get so excited playing the games. LOL its fun.

well that's its for now, I need some coffee.

Hey Its Hanukkah!

Well it was Hanukkah... the last night was Tuesday night, December 11. 8 nights of fried foods, candles and fire, singing and children begging to open more presents. I think I gained 30 pounds eating the sufganiot and latkes my dh cooked all week. He also made some fried pastie things with meat and cheese inside. I wasn't too excited about them, but I was so hungry I ate them and YUM, they were so good. They tasted like a gooey, doughy cheesesteak. YUM I miss cheesesteaks. One of the gifts we got for the kids was a paintable menorah and I think they loved that present the most. The sad, ironic thing about that menorah is that I found it at Hellmart! *ick* I went there to see if they had a chess set, they didn't, but I found some Hanukkah items on clearance, woo hoo! I almost never shop there... maybe once or twice a year at most. I really hate going there... but that is for another day.

So anyway, the paintable menorah, my dd loved it. She loves anything artistic in nature. She is always drawing or painting or coloring. *always*. For the first time this year we also attended the menorah lighting ceremony at the State House. Lots of important men and dignitaries were there. We met up with some friends that we hadn't seen in a while so that was nice to see them.

We also spent the week shuffling Number 1 from technical rehearsal, to dress rehearsal, to performance after performance after performance. She was in the Nutcracker again this year, this time she was not just any old mouse but a *cartwheel* mouse...upgraded from the rollover mouse she was 2 years ago. She made the audition and was cast as a cartwheel mouse last year but... well we wont' talk about last year. Mommy screwed up majorly and we didn't do the Nutcracker. It is kinda strange to be talking about the Nutcrack in a Hanukkah post isn't it? *sigh* that is life in the South.

I've also been trying to finish up the sweater I am knitting for Number 2 and I also recently started and just finished tonight this lovely hat pattern. Its called the Hudson Hat, and my friend Lindsay is a genius. Its a gorgeous easy to knit hat, and I can't wait to give it to my son.
Here is my version:


I just love the colors in the hat and the cute tassels on the ends. I used the following yarns:
darker blue colorway is from The Royal Ewe, and its a type of merino, super soft. The next colorway is Mosaic Moon's Lollipop colorway in their Full Belly Farm Yarn. (Its the same yarn I am using for Number 2s sweater). And the third colorway is a pretty green and blue dyed colorway from my irl friend Lesley. I don't know what kind of yarn it was, some type of merino I think.