a very small update on my life.

I haven't blogged about anything interesting for awhile. Don't get your hopes up.. this might not be very interesting either ;)


I just thought I would update you all on my life (mostly because I want to blog and have nothing better to talk about). I can't even really tell you about the life of a farm girl because I haven't really been working on the weekends, which is very strange. I kind of miss working. My cousin has been working for my dad so me and Liz have been out of work for the past few weekend... Anyway..

I just got out of my business 401 class where I found out that our group is responsible for creating a business plan for a real company. If you remember way back to last semester, I also had to do a business plan for my own business, and I am so NOT looking forward to doing another one, although this time I will have the help of 10 other people. Which is awesome! Maybe I won't want to beat my head against the wall or tear my hair out this time. (I'm not even kidding when I say that.. I thought of it many times.) I'm also the only one who has ever done a business plan so hopefully they won't be coming to me for all the answers because I really don't have any. I did learn a few things that could be helpful, but again, I am just not looking forward to it. I guess I just have to keep telling myself that I am helping out a business that does a lot for their community and will help them become more successful.


I also learned today that my job as a note-taker has ended before it even really started. I got an e-mail saying that they made a mistake and hired someone else to take notes. Oh well. It was only $6.55 an hour for 2.7 hours a week lol.. but it would have been nice to be getting some money since I don't have a job anymore. I haven't missed it once. The only thing I have missed is the money because I seem to be running out of it very quickly.


I also received an e-mail from a "Mrs. Maria Foreman" telling me that she was going to give me $500 million dollars or maybe just $5 million from her husbands trust. Yeah right, I could never BE that lucky. I hope no one falls for that.


Anyway.. that's about all I wanted to vent/blog about.. but I thought I would end this with posting a pic from last weekend just as the snow started to fall. The first is the original picture, then I decided to edit them on Picnik (it's a stress relieving activity for me) ;) If you look closely at the last one you can see the snow falling.

well, hello snow.

I woke up this morning hoping that all classes would be cancelled. I didn't find that to be the case, but all classes until noon were cancelled, meaning I got to skip out on 2 of my classes. This meant that I could go back to bed, which I was super happy about.. only I couldn't go back to sleep (mostly because of the pure excitment of cancelled classes) Then I took a shower, ate some lunch and went to help my roomie-cousin Chelsie try to get her car out for work. When we got out there we knew she wasn't going anywhere. I mean NOWHERE. There were 2 paths in the whole parking lot and no tracks from anyone trying to get out. We did see one person almost get stuck trying to get out, but he was close to the plowed section so he at least had a chance. I had no chance, and neither did she. Not that I was going anywhere anyway.

Since I had class at 2, I couldn't partake in the fun snow day activity of taking pictures and roaming around campus freezing, so I am going to steal some of Chelsie's pics. (Oh, and I FORGOT my camera at home and I am really upset about it :( )

So here is the parking lot (I guess when she took the picture a few people were able to get out, although I wouldn't have wanted to try!)

And here are a few random shots that I thought were pretty cool.

I hope you all got to stay inside today and/or had a safe trip wherever you were going.. if you could get out lol..

"un-interesting"

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging very often it's not that I'm really all that busy, I just haven't been able to think of anything interesting to write about.

This semester has been fairly easy so far. I'm just waiting for things to start happening. I know it's going to be crazy in a few weeks, so I'm trying to enjoy my downtime.

I really haven't had much homework. The only thing I've really had to turn in was a resume/cover letter for my capstone course. My online class just got started last week. I have four quizzes to take before Feb. 8th and I haven't taken the first one, which isn't good because we are supposed to do one a week, so since I am being a slacker I'm going to have to do 2 this week. I am going to knuckle down tomorrow and just do it. I have one class, and it's supposed to be nasty out so I should have no excuses.

As far as working out/eating right goes I did really really well my first week and lost 2-3 pounds. However, last week and both weekends did not go well. I am going to try to get back into the right mindset because really that first week wasn't so bad. I drank nothing but water all week, and ate within my point range. And to tell you the truth, I could already see an improvement. My skin looked much better (because of all the water) and I just felt better.. kind of cleansed. I don't know why I stopped.. it's just really hard for me to do it at home, but yet I've been doing bad here again.. not near as bad as I was before break though..

I've also went to Zumba twice. (Tonight being my second night.) It was a lot more difficult tonight, but I think it went well. I'm just proud of myself for making it through it. I also joined the gym last week (on Thursday) and did the eliptical for 35 min. I am going to go tomorrow if I'm not completely sore from Zumba.

I really do like the Zumba class. I'm sure I look like a complete idiot trying to "dance". I have never been good at it.. I don't really care though. I enjoy trying to follow different dance moves though. The only songs that I knew that we danced to were "Save a horse ride a cowboy" and "Hips Don't Lie". If you ever have the chance to do Zumba, you should try it. It's fun and you don't even realize that you're exercising. The class I go to is free for students, and it's an hour long. It doesn't feel like an hour at all, even though it's a lot of hard work. I'm going to try to go every week.. it should get easier for me as long as I keep working out.

Now that I've rambled on about random stuff.. I think I'll go to bed so I can get up to work out or at least start on some homework. My room is also a disaster, so that will have to be added to the list.

<3

grades, boredom, and afghan disasters

I haven't blogged in awhile, so I thought I would update you all on what's going on. I got done with my 7th semester of school on Thursday. My presentation and finals all went pretty well. I just go my grades today, and I'm happy to say that this has probably been my best semester grade wise. I always seem to get a C in at least one class. To be completely honest I have no idea how I did this well. I got an A in my insurance, human resources, and small business/entrepreneurship class, a B+ in my marketing class and a B in my organizational structure class which is where I had to do the business plan. It ended up that all of my last minute, hard work got me an A on the plan. I couldn't believe it actually. I was so ashamed of it when I turned it in, but it must have been alright. Anyway, enough about school, except for the fact that I only have ONE semester of college left. I'm scared but excited at the same time!

Enough about school, it's winter break! and so far it hasn't been too exciting. I got home last Thursday afternoon. My sister and I helped dad feed the animals and apparently we cut his feeding time from 35-40 minutes down to 15! Feeding is an every night thing, so it's good that we don't have to stay out in the cold forever. He's been feeding 13 buckets of corn a day. We have three different lots of cattle and they all need different amounts, so that's fun.

I can't even remember what we did over the weekend, nothing really. I guess Friday we loaded the semi (400 squares) It really wasn't that bad. I was freezing throughout the whole thing which is a huge difference from wanting to die from heat exhaustion.. anyway.. we haven't done much this week so far because its been so cold, which I like, but it gets boring sitting around the house all day. I really don't feel like cleaning my room either. I might after I get done with this..

I also made a pie today, for no reason. Not like we need a pie, I was in a bad mood and my sister and I got into a fight and after I cooled off from that I just started making a pie, it must be a stress reliever for me or something. Now I'm making some coffee and getting ready to watch Maury and work on my afghan (maybe I'll clean my room later ha)

Oh! About my afghan. I was trying to crochet, and I'm not very good at it anyway, but I thought it was looking really good. I had been working on it for a month or so. It wasn't even 1/4 of the way done, but it took me a really long time to get what I had done. Then I noticed that I had been adding a stich after every row, creating a huge triangle on each side. It looked so ugly and when I noticed it, it almost made me physically sick .. lol.. so I took it all out and started over, and now I'm doing a very simple one.. oh well.. Mom helped me take it out and wrap the yarn back up and the ball of yarn is the size of a basketball. I kid you not..

roomies

We (meaning my roomies, my sister and 7 other girls) went to Olive Garden last night. It was really fun. I thought I would post a pic of me and my lovely, awesome roomies! They are so much fun!

From left to right: Tonchka (Toni) , Chelsie, Me, Sarah



I also didn't know if I mentioned that one of my roomies is my (2nd?) cousin. On my mom's side. Her grandpa is my grandma's brother. So here is a pic of the cousins. I'm so glad I got to meet and spend time with her this year!

my roomies love me so much that they wanted me to stay in my room forever! ;) Don't worry I will get them back!

the bookstore, why I hate it, and other random facts

Let's start off on a good note. I went to my final at 10am which I was dreading because I hadn't studied very much only to find out that I had an A in the class and didn't have to take the final! SUPER excited!

And then I went to turn in my books, and that's where my day got a little worse.

I paid $80 for my insurance book they were going to give me $25. Nope, sorry. I'm selling it on Amazon.

I paid $130 for my marketing book, they were going to give me $5!!!, Amazon.

I paid $100 for my human resource book and got $83 back in cash because I'm smart and learned something about taking books back. Always, always, always take the used sticker off, that way they will think you bought it new and give you half back for the cost of the new book instead of half back for a used book. Score on that one!

Then I paid $30 for my small business book and they wanted to give me $3. No, amazon.

One of my other books was customized for my class, and they aren't even taking it back. I'm sure he will use the same one next semester. Oh well, I don't even remember what I paid for that one, I think it was around $70.

So I just put three books on amazon and hope that I can get a little more out of them that way. Another trick on that (since I know everyone who is reading this really cares ;) ) is to go a few dollars lower than other books in the same condition as yours because people will pick them everytime because they are a few dollars cheaper. Worked for me last semester, hopefully it does for this one.

Anyway, I'm still really excited about not having my final. My roommates, and my sister and I are all going to Olive Garden tonight, so that should be fun. Then I have to work from 10pm-2am, then tomorrow is my LAST day of work :( Kind of sad, but super excited.

Then I only have my presentation on Thursday and then I am going HOME for Christmas Break! I have never been more ready. I can't believe I've almost made it through 7 semesters, and I only have one more week of finals, ever! Yay!

I hope everyone has a fantastic day! I'm going to relax until lunch then probably take a nap before girls night! :D

the end.

Well... I can't believe the end of the semester is finally here. I have one class tomorrow (a presentation), and a group meeting on Thursday in place of class. My other two were cancelled. After that, it's the weekend and I'm going Christmas shopping! :)

THEN! Wonderful finals begin. Monday I have two, one in the morning in Human Resource Management, but it will be a piece of cake (upside down) then one for my night class. This one might be a little more difficult 50 multiple choice. I am HORRIBLE at multiple choice. Tuesday I have one in Insurance, which is cumulative, but I've done well on past exams so I should be okay.. besides he's probably just going to take questions from the other three exams. No finals Wednesday, then a presentation Thursday morning. This will be one of the easier finals weeks that I've had since I've been here.

I don't know if I'm more sad, scared, or excited about only having one semester left. I think I will just combine those emotions.

Next week will also be my last week of work. I am actually kind of sad about leaving. I like the people there, but I know that I will be less stressed and I want to have fun during my last semester. I've also decided that I'm going to use my "free" time to work out and better myself. I think I just need to use the time to reflect on everything and make sure I am making the right decisions. After all, I have the rest of my life to work, I might as well have a little fun my last semester of college right?

I feel like I have learned so much over the past three (and almost a half) years. It's crazy. I have learned some through my classes, but most of all, I've learned how to be more independent and realize what I need to do with my life. If I just went out on my own right after high school, I don't think I would have been as "prepared". I am glad that I've had the experience and the chance to go to college, because I know a lot of people aren't able to. I'm also VERY thankful that I will make it out of here without student loans. It's unbelievable really, I don't know how we did it, but we did, and it's a great feeling. I have so much to be thankful for. I'm sorry I complain about my life because really, I am a lucky girl.

souveniers

This is probably my last blog until after Thanksgiving, because I have 3 projects to work on this weekend. Two that are due on Monday and Tuesday, and one that is due as soon as I get back from break.

So you are thinking, why am I writing a blog if I have so much to do? Well I think I had something interesting to say for once, and I didn't want to forget it.

Last night was the library holiday party. It was ok, not really exciting, and actually kind of boring, but it was nice to visit with everyone. It was also sad because I can tell how much the people there actually like me and I am feeling kind of guilty about not working next semester, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Anyway, there is a girl from Korea that works there, she is a grad student, and I believe that this is the first time she's ever been here. She brought a friend with her to the party that she met her (I'm assuming anyway) because I think she was from Taiwan. Anyway.. we had sloppy joes, and they asked me if it was beef, so I am pretty sure that they had never had them before. Wouldn't that be wierd? Sloppy joes seem so normal to me, but if you didn't know what they were they might not look very good, but they seemed to really like them. They kept going on about how good they were, lol..

Then they were asking me about Black Friday, what it was and why it was called Black Friday. Then she asked me a really hard question: "If you were going to get a souvenier from here what would you get?" They wanted to bring something home with them from here that showed what America is all about.

That really stumped me. I didn't know. So my question to you is... What would you tell her to buy? I just think it's wierd because how would I know what is cool and what isn't. I assume that if I went to a foreign country I would just get something that seems different or unique, but I just couldn't think of something..

Anyway.. I have to get to work on all of this. I'm really excited about being almost done with my SEVENTH! semester of college. Whew! Graduation is going to be the best day of my life.

. it's starting .

I'm already starting to get stressed.

It's only the second week of classes, they aren't as easy as I thought they would be. I have a project in every one of my classes, difficult projects at that, as well as TONS of reading and weekly quizzes in a few of them. My dad was so wrong when he said Senior year was a breeze..

Only 248 days until graduation (Ha!)

Could it be.... duh duh duh.....Senioritis?

this is where I want to go...

HOME!....

in case you were wondering, this is home. Of course it's a really old picture but that's basically it :)

Yes, I've only been at school for 10 days, but I'm such a homebody.. I love being home. Don't get me wrong, I like getting away and having time to do whatever I want and be on my own, but I'm just drawn to it.. it's in my blood. I think I'm going to be a farm girl forever.. sigh...





On the other hand, it would be nice to go back here!! I wouldn't mind that at all!






















Anyway.. the main reason I wanted to write was because I put a counter on my blog, and it doesn't seem like very many visitors, 28, but seriously, I wonder who all reads this. Let your presence be known haha.. I guess I'm just curious. I know I'm not that interesting, and mostly I just blog because I like to write, and speak my mind since I rarely do it in person (unless of course you're family or really close friends, then I'm more than willing to talk your ear off ;) )

This is turning out to be a really random post. My tv sleep timer just went off, which means its time for me to think about going to sleep since I have to get up early in the a.m. but I want to finish this! I am doing a business plan in one of my classes this semester. If you know me, I have always dreamed of owning my own business, so I am really excited about this. We are supposed to come up with a business idea, it's even better if you're really interested in it. I have a few ideas. One is a bed and breakfast. I have always thought it would be a fun thing to do! So I was doing some research online seeing if I could actually find anything, and I couldn't really.. then I decided to look for an old house in the area, well I ended up finding a house in a nearby city that is already a bed and breakfast. They wanted to sell it because it had been their mother's dream to own a bed and breakfast and they didn't have time to run it the way that their mother would have wanted them to. Anyway, it was $500,000. Yeah, like I have that kind of money. It was beautiful though! I mean really really pretty. I just think it would be awesome to do.

My other idea is a catering business. I think this is what I'm going to go with for my project. I really want to do it with country style food, like what I make for parties and stuff. I think that would be really fun too. I don't know how this would work or where I would find people, but I was thinking about having ideas for themed parties like superbowl, birthdays, anniversaries, things like that, and have a book or something of ideas that customers could look through. I was also thinking it would be fun to decorate and stuff too.. anyway.. I guess I'm writing all of this to see what you (my many readers, ha!) think! What do you think would be the better idea?

For the sake of the project, I think it would be a lot easier to do catering because I am sure there is a lot of information on it and it may be less expensive to start than a bed and breakfast, but I doubt it. Our business plan has to be REALLY detailed and it will probably end up being 50 pages long, all of the financial, marketing, operating aspects of it have to be gone through and researched, so I am really excited about it, and more excited to see if my plan would actually have a chance of working :)

Anyway.. off to bed.. The sooner I go to bed, the sooner I'll be on my way home (after working from 8a-11:30a, of course :P)

aries

I'm not usually one to believe horoscopes, but the last day or two mine has been pretty relevant.. I added a horoscope application on facebook because I just like to read them to see if there is any way they could be true ;) Take yesterday for example, it said something like this: "It's hard to get back into the swing of things, you can't seem to shake that tired feeling."

That seemed completely true to me at the time because I hadn't got very much sleep and school just started and I'm having trouble getting used to the "college life" so that was kind of funny that it said that..

Then today, this is what it says: "Don't give up hope yet. Something you thought wasn't going to work out still has a chance. ."

Let me just say that I hope this is true.. I mean I'm not going to go into details, but if it's talking about what I think it's talking about.. it would be a good thing :)

So I guess my question to you is, what do you think about horoscopes?

I was also looking around on Facebook (because it so MUCH more fun than homework) and I saw the compare people thing. Here are my ratings. I think most of them describe me pretty well.

#7 most helpful

#16 best public speaker
(This one seriously makes me laugh.. I get SO nervous when I have to talk in front of people!)

#21 best listener

#22 kindest

#24 best mother (potential)

#25 most loyal

#25 best scientist
(as does this one.. I am HORRIBLE at science..)

#26 prettiest
(okay so i know that ;) )

#29 hardest worker

#38 most reliable

please pass the tweezers

I was just in class where all I saw was this:

Scary huh? Yeah.. my professor has one of these. I'm not kidding, it is seriously the worst unibrow I've ever seen. I've been fighting off a unibrow my entire life.. but I take care of it..

Someone please get me some tweezers, I can't concentrate!

NOTE: obviously this isn't my professor.. I googled unibrow and this is what I found.. the problem is, his eyebrows would look really nice if he would just tweeze in the middle..

itsy bitsy, teeny weeny....

yellow polka dot bikini.. oh wait.. I'm talking about my dorm room. I took pictures, but of course I went off and forgot my cord at home.. I won't be getting that until Labor Day weekend. I'm living in a "suite". There are 4 rooms (3 singles, and 1 double) which means I have four roommates. There is a little living room area, and a very tiny bathroom. If I get my camera cord I will update this or create a new blog with the pictures. I think my room turned out pretty cute. I have a single room, so I don't really have to worry about roommates. So far everyone seems pretty cool. There is one girl that I haven't met, she seems kind of anti-social, but that's okay I guess. I think 3 of them are freshmen and one is a sophmore, so I can understand a freshman being a little weary. The others are quite outgoing and seem to be pretty fun. I think it's going to be a good last year!

Anywho.. I'm a SENIOR now!! I can't believe it. It doesn't seem like I've been in college for three years. I'm glad it's almost over. Classes start tomorrow, so does work. I'm not really looking forward to going back to work (at the library). I'm just expecting it to get on my nerves. I decided that if I don't like it I'll just go look for something different, and give my 2 weeks notice.

I think it just bothers me because people don't do their job, and that only makes it harder for me to do my job... ugh. Maybe it will be better than I think.

I know I haven't blogged in a long time, but I have been super busy. The past two days have been pretty rough work wise. Yesterday we (dad and I) delivered 300 bales, and since there were only two of us, we had to touch every bale. Great fun let me tell you. Then after that I went home to wait on my brother to get off the bus and pick up our neighbor to go help load more hay. By the time I got back to the field with him, dad had about 3 more rounds of bailing, so I finished that up, then waited for what seemed like an eternity... then helped load the semi (300 bales). Then we took everything home and finally got home around 8:15pm or so.. fun fun..

On another note, I'm kind of worried about my parents, and my little brother. They are without us both for the first time in who knows how long. My little brother almost made me cry this morning. I took him down to the bus stop and while we were waiting, I told him that I was going to college today. He looked at me and started to tear up a little, then he put is face in his hands and started crying :( :( It made me so sad. I think he thinks one or the other of us should be at college, not both of us at the same time. It's going to be a big change for him. Me and my sister do a lot for him and it's just going to be hard for him to adjust. Admittedly, it's going to be hard for me to adjust, like always... I miss everyone already, and I've only been here since 1:00...

Well.. I'm going to go.. my sister is coming over to watch re-runs of The Office with me at 10, so I'm going to try to do something productive until then- or not.. I'll probably relax for once since everything is going to be crazy soon...
UPDATE: Finally remembered my camera cord, check out the photos!