This has been the week from Hell.   Starting last Thursday, I’d just as soon have skipped straight to next month some time.   By then, the suspense about whether I’m going to get to go to school, and whether or not Chris has a job should be over….

Kaplan was a complete bust.  While on the phone with their financial department, it became apparent that you don’t go there unless you’re willing to pay monthly payments out of pocket, no matter what any loans you might qualify for cover.   NOT happening….especially since while I was on the phone with the financial department discovering this,   I get a text from Chris informing me he’s had an accident with a forklift.   This is not good.  His job has a policy that mandates drug testing after any accident; he texted me from the local clinic.  Physically, Chris was fine.  Psychically, not so much….. Mad as hell, and now worried about keeping his job, since a forklift accident, unless deemed “unavoidable” by the powers-that-be at his job, is grounds for being disciplined.  Well, due to being put on an impossible job at the beginning of his return to second shift, he’s at a stage in the disciplinary process that one more write up and he’s fired.   That alone would put any sort of ongoing monthly payments for ANYTHING out of the question, but now we’re in limbo about his employment status as well.  Great.

As for Kaplan; once it was decided that there’s no way I could go there, I had to call them back and cancel all the paperwork I’d done all day Thursday.  *sigh*.   Once the shock and upset wore off, though, I decided to hunt for another school that has more traditional financing options… like federal student loans and grants.  I did find ONE that offers the degree I want in Medical Office Management. Herzing College, of Madison, Wisconsin.  So I called them, and talked to both an admissions advisor and someone in financial aid on Friday.  It being the last day before a holiday weekend, and Chris being at work, I had to then put everything on hold until I could talk to him and until everything reopened for business, today.   Chris gave the ok, after doing some online research and not turning up much.   So, today I called them back, and got started.  This school’s a little more stringent in their admissions policies than Kaplan.   I had to take an academic assessment online,  write a “Motivation and Personal Commitment Statement”, and on Thursday, I have to go to the library and take a proctored placement exam.  Then I get to deal with financial aid all over again and see if I can get enough in federal loan money to go at least half time. 

As for Chris and his job:  As of this writing, which is taking place right after his lunch break on the Tuesday following Labor Day,  he has heard absolutely nothing.  He was assigned his monthly job rotation and got a new scanner,  and is planning on working overtime, just as normal.  I have no idea if it’s just they enjoy keeping him in limbo, or whether they are trying to sweep it under the rug in order to avoid getting rid of a valued employee, or what.  But it’s driving me crazy.   Chris does have at least one other job option,  plus I guess in an emergency,  the ability to go to Manpower and get on with Rayovac.  Both would entail a significant pay cut, but so would any job change right now, unless he managed to find something in the computer field that was willing to bet on his finishing his degree and would work with him on that basis.   That sort of thing isn’t exactly knocking down our door at the moment, so…. limbo it is. 

Yes, you read it right.  Photoshop.  And me, the militant Photoshop hater. 

Well, the more things change…and all that.  Before I go any further with this,  let me state that I am not on the verge of giving up my beloved and trusty Paint Shop Pro.  What I’m doing, I hope, is enhancing it.  I still don’t exactly enjoy Photoshop. But it lets me do a couple of things that I can’t do in Paint Shop Pro, and do them fairly easily, so, for now, I’m bouncing back and forth between the two programs.  A task made much simpler by the fact that I now have dual (that’s right, two) monitors hooked up.  Makes things a lot easier when I’ve got four or five things going at once, which I usually do. 

Anyway. What started this, is I got hooked on glitter.  Not the animated bling that is all over myspace,  but the subtle stuff that Flergs uses all the time.  I love that woman’s glitters, she is the absolute master of glitter.  (Ok, I know, she’s a female, but “she’s the absolute mistress”  sounds wrong…*laugh*).   All of her kits have a set of glitter you can buy to enhance them, both in .png format, and a .asl file that will put them into Photoshop for you in the styles palette.  (If anyone reading this is hopelessly lost by this point, just skip the rest of the post. If I try writing photoshop tutorials, they’ll come after me with tar and pitchforks….).   I wanted to know how to do it myself; and I also wanted to know how to recolor it to get the dark colors like she does.   The most I’ve ever been able to do in PSP is get pastels….but I finally found a Photoshop tutorial that uses variations to get the dark, dark, colors.   So, working on a plain greyscale glitter fill I found online,  I’ve made a TON of dark glitters…and I’m loving it! 

Then there was the string.  I have driven everyone who knows me bonkers over the last week, hunting ONE string, or barring that, the means to make my own.  The stationeries that have been being sent through my groups from WildChildz Dezinez lately are nothing short of fabulous.   Ok, so I could have done without the one with full frontal boobies, but the frame around it is great scrap work!  She tends to use a lot of the same elements over and over, so I went looking.  She uses one string wrap that is absolutely AWESOME, and I had to have it.  Or be able to make it.  (Does anyone else think it’s odd that I might not know who the artwork IN the frame is by, but I can recognize who did the bits and pieces of the frame itself??).  Do you know how frustrating it is to try to look through dozens of digital scrapbooking shops for ONE element???  When that one element is probably buried in a kit and might not even show up in the preview?  Well, if you’ve talked to me this last week you do, because I’ve been a total grouch while doing it.  In the process, I discovered string styles for Photoshop, and I can now make some awesome string of my own, but there’s a slight drawback to that… I can’t draw!  Not with a pencil and paper, and assuredly not with a trackball!!  So anyway, yesterday, while going through the umpteenth scrap store with the keywords “string bow” typed into the search parameters, I found it.  In a place I wasn’t even sure I should be looking.   I also found  a few of the rest of the elements she uses over and over, so that makes me happy.   But my Kaboodle is full to bursting again, and the sales for Digital Scrapbooking Day aren’t until November….

No, I didn’t fall off the planet.  It’s just been one of those periods where you just wanna drift… the late summer lazies, I guess.  Although to judge by our recent weather, you’d never know it was August in the Midwest.  Last year we were dying with well over 90 degree temps and high humidity.  This year, it’s been so mild, we’ve barely even needed the one window a/c unit that we have in the office. 

The financial crunch is all but over.  We finally got Chris’s tuition taken care of, and he’s registering for classes this session as I type this.  I say, “We” did it, but really he did it on his own, he’s been working massive amounts of overtime, and that alone took care of it.  I don’t know what we’d have done if this hadn’t been a really busy summer for his job.  He normally has *some* overtime, but this year it’s been a lot of overtime.  However, now that this is taken care of, we go back to working on getting Chris’s driver’s license back.  It really never ends.

Assuming all goes well with the conversation I’m going to have with the financial aid office at Kaplan University this week, Chris won’t be the only student in the household.  I’m looking at an Associates of Applied Sciences degree in Medical Office Management.   I want to do *something* besides cashier the rest of my life, and even though jobs in Medical Office Management are usually full time days,  the money should make it worth it.  Not to mention that at least some of the time I’d be off my feet.  Besides, how can you beat an office job where you can wear scrubs?  I’m being facetious on that last, there were a lot better reasons than that for choosing this degree program.  I have this idiot savant thing of being able to spot a misspelled word a mile away, and I can spell anything you throw at me, even without having seen the word before.  I type fast and accurately,  and I actually like office work, filing, phones, and people.  I found a free Medical Terminology “class” online, and aced through it like there was nothing to it.  Which at least proved to me that I do have some aptitude for the medical field.  I’ve never wanted to be a nurse, but I do think that this should fit me pretty well.

My creative mojo is still with me, I’ve been making Incredimail stationeries and tags again.  I combined my love and stash of digital scrap supplies with my tagging and stat making skills and have come up with some pretty decent stuff.  I doubt I’ll ever be one of the “big names” like Vanilla or Wildchildz Dezinez, but I never wanted to be anyway.  There are still too many copyright pitfalls; I tag for only one closed group of friends that I’ve known them all for years.  Evidently Wildchildz has the same problem, I get a few of her stationeries through groups, but when you ask where to get them directly, the only answer is a uniform, “you can’t”.  She puts dates on her stats, so I know she is still creating, but evidently she wants no more people in whatever group she’s in than she already has.  I can’t really blame her, but it is frustrating, because I do love her stuff. 

Work, home, sleep, eat, work again….

I think the obvious question here in most people’s minds will be:  “What took you so long?”

I’m a reader. Anyone who has known me for more than five minutes knows that.  I love the written word.  I read cereal boxes, cleaning solution containers, and anything else I run across.  Mysteries are my passion and my pleasure.  I also love a good smattering of sci-fi, thriller, and paranormal type books, but the idea is, I’ll read anything.

I’m also a computer geek.  And never the twain shall meet?  I’ve been resisting the idea of ebooks for ages.  Or at least ebook *readers*.   I have half a ton of “ebooks” or at least “books in .doc, .txt, .lit, and .pdf format” on my computer, that I’ve picked up here and there.  And I have some things in that collection that I’ve been wanting to read forever…but don’t necessarily want to sit in my office chair upright to do it.  (Laying down on a comfy couch or bed to read is one of my not so guilty pleasures that doesn’t cost anyone anything, so I indulge it….quite often!).  

Yep, I knew about Sony Reader and the rest.  I saw the ad for Amazon’s Kindle when it first came out and thought, “ehhh, ok”.   Then I realized that, “hey, this could be the answer to all those ebooks on my computer, and the answer to all the space constraints for bookcases in a small house, and the high price of hardback books….”  and looked again.  So, surprise, surprise.. I want a Kindle!!  I’m already an Amazon junkie.  My wishlist there goes on for pages and pages (or screens and screens….).  Originally, Chris and I thought buying a new laptop for the ebooks, among other things, of course, might be the answer.  You *can* use a laptop on a couch or on a bed…but if you go to sleep and drop it…. OUCH.  That gets expensive.  A Kindle is a lot lighter, and hopefully a bit sturdier.  It’s also more portable, it’ll fit in my purse.  It’s wireless, so you can use it anywhere, even on planes with the wireless connection turned off.  The idea of being able to carry my library with me appeals greatly.  Especially since I had to leave 99% of my books in Texas when I moved up here.  Never again with a Kindle!  They take SD memory cards, so your capacity is limitless. 

Kindles, as I  mentioned, have a wireless connection.  They run on the same network as cell phones.  This means you can shop, purchase, and take delivery of a book all within minutes, with a few touches of the Kindle keyboard.  New releases run $9.99 - have you priced new hardbacks lately?  Anywhere from $25.00 to over $30.00.  I’m not saying this is going to replace paper books entirely for me, but it sure enhances my buying power for new books!   As it is, the collection I have will keep me busy enough I won’t have to buy new books until I can’t stand not having whatever the latest new release is…ie: the new Vicky Bliss!!

There is one “con” with a Kindle.  The Amazon format, .azw, is proprietary.  I can’t buy something and convert it to .doc and share it with someone else, like I would do with a paper book.  However, the .doc files I already have on my computer I can load to the SD card and read on the Kindle, so that’s cool.  I won’t be starting from scratch by any  means. 

Chris doesn’t really understand why I think $360.00 for a device that does one thing is worth it.  But between the space, portability, and money saving issues, I’m really liking the idea.  I just signed on for three more hours a week at work.  He said, “It’s you working the extra hours to save up for it, it’s your decision.”   I wish he understood my reasoning, but it’s enough that he accepts it.  I think once I get it, and show him, he’ll fall in love with it too, if he ever has time to read anything but textbooks again, anyway…

Seems like a match made in Heaven for a computer geek and a book lover…. and again, I’m sure y’all are wondering, “What took you so long?”

I feel like I’ve been transported back to the dark ages.  Dark ages in this case being 2000, when I hung out in a Yahoo chatroom devoted to the Windows Operating System.   Which, at that time, was anything from ‘95, to ‘98, to NT and 2000.  There were what we called OS wars, where everyone had a reason to prefer whatever their choice was, and derided everyone else’s reasons and choices.   Finally, it all boiled down to us all saying, “Look, it’s all about personal preference.  I like things one way, you like things another.  It’s my computer, you don’t have to use it, you have your own, so you do things your way and I’ll do things my way and neither is better or worse.”

I thought all that stuff was done with years ago.   Nope, it’s only gotten worse.  I haven’t been in that chatroom for several  years, but the OS wars (and now it includes Linux and Mac), have only gotten worse, and invaded rec.arts.mystery.  Now, though, the buzzword is “security”.   I was told that I was living dangerously for turning off what I termed the “nanny” security in Vista.   Well, maybe so.  But it’s my choice.  I’m not going to be calling this person to fix my machine if I screw it up, so why is it their business in the first place?   I got jumped on for my preference for an email program that has full HTML capabilities.  ”Email needs stationery like a fish needs a bicycle”  I was told.  Well, maybe the fish doesn’t need a bicycle, but what if he wants one?  Are you going to tell him he can’t have it?  Because it’s for his own good?  I’m not a child.  I’m not an idiot.   And I don’t go around pushing my preferences on anyone else, being a “live and let live” kind of person.   I don’t send email with stationery to those with webmail addresses or dialup.  I don’t use it in professional correspondence.  But I do enjoy making email stationery and tags, and see no reason why my hobby is any more or less valid than anyone elses.    Rant over….

…and THAT is what I get for changing home pages!  My usual start page has been, since I moved here, the Chicago Tribune online.   However, they did something funky to their site and it was taking much much too long to even recognize links…so I changed my start page.

I went with iGoogle.  Customized the wazoo out of it, and in that process, added a widget that tells me about the new releases in mystery books.  Well, for the past week, I’ve kind of been ignoring that little widget, after checking the top three and not being interested.   Tonight, I finally, finally, read the whole list, only to find out that I’m in big trouble.  A bunch of “my” authors are releasing new books before Christmas.  I already informed Chris that what I want for Christmas is a big, fat, Amazon gift certificate!

That’s how I found out about the new Dresden book, coming out in October.  And the new Madelyn Alt Bewitching mystery. And not one, but two new Rita Mae Brown mysteries.  But…the biggest news of all, which I seem to be months behind on?  A new Vicky Bliss book by Elizabeth Peters!!  For those of you who don’t know it already (or have chosen to forget, *grin*),  I am an absolute blithering idiot about anything written by Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Mertz.  If the woman’s name was on the cover of the phone book, I’d probably read it from cover to cover.  She is my all time favorite author.  However, as with all good things….she’s 81 years old.  This could very well be her last book in ANY series.  I can’t tell you how sad that thought makes me. 

On a slightly brighter note, though… I’ve just added many, many titles to my Kaboodle book list.  I’m thinking a new bookcase to go with the Amazon gift certificate might be a really good idea……ohhh honeyyyyy……..

…like everything else!  The “it” in this case being my mojo.   I’m sure y’all remember how I’ve been complaining (ad nauseum) about it abandoning me?  Well, it’s baaaaack. 

Last week I actually managed to make some tags.  Yeah, it’s been that long.  Then I got the idea of making a CD scrap album for my mother in law.  At the rate I’m going, it might be Christmas before she gets it…I  might make one for Chris’s grandmother, too.   And I’ve finally gone back to looking and reading at DST…I was avoiding the place for awhile because of my spending freeze. But I got RAK’d by a couple of great ladies, and that kind of motivated me to keep current on what’s new and hot…which if you look at my Kaboodle, is quite a bit.  Nitwits has new stuff,  Weeds and Wildflowers has new stuff….and I found other things, of course, to add to the ever-growing wishlist.

I’m still doing a ton of reading too.  Just started “Dragon Wytch” by Yasmine Galenorn.   Love, love, love that series.   And I’ve gotten into Goodreads too (www.goodreads.com )  so now everyone else knows what I’m reading too.  Kimber has a widget on her blog, I need to go hunt that down when I update the right sidebar.

I’m still short on time, patience, and general motivation.  But a good chunk of my disposition got improved when the price of gas eased down to below four bucks a gallon, milk and eggs have both gone down too.  Could the bubble be bursting?  We could all use some relief, for sure.

Don’t even ask what started it, cause I don’t know.  Actually, I’m blaming it on the Muzak system at work.   They start playing MMMBop by Hanson and I remember that and a whole bunch of stuff I don’t have anymore.  Which leads to remembering a whole bunch MORE stuff I used to like…and for most of it, still do.  Take Barry Manilow (I know, y’all are saying, “PLEASE take him!!), but I was a huge fan.  And for an older guy, he was damned sexy, too!  Work is responsible for that one, too, he happens to be on the cover of some tabloid this week, they’re claiming he’s dying because he’s so thin.  Well, he’s always been pretty thin,  and let’s face it,  he’s not getting any younger, either.  But I STILL like his music, though the older stuff more than the jazz and remakes of seventies he’s come out with semi-recently.   In Texas, I had the boxed set…and there are some songs on that I can’t replace. 

Backstreet Boys are another band I loved.  Still do, but again, I like the older stuff better.  (Poor Chris is going to read this and wonder if I’m the same woman he married).  I try to keep my less mainstream likes under my hat, so to speak. 

And speaking of music, there’s new stuff too. There was a thread on Digishoptalk today about new songs you like, most accompanied by YouTube links.  I found a few new things - and am amazed at how many 30’s and 40’s caucasian mothers like rap.  Sorry, I’m not in that number, though.  About as close as I get is Jordin Sparks with whoever it is, and Natasha Bedingfield with Sean King for that one. Oh, and the Drumline soundtrack, *laugh*. 

I usually stay away from issues that are hot potatoes, like politics, religion, and general oppression.  Ok, maybe I don’t stay away from general oppression all that well, but I do try.  However, even I have my own “hot-buttons”.   School bullying and the amount of homework are a few of them.  Don’t even get me started on the bullying issues, but the homework, well, evidently at least a few people finally picked up on what I’ve been thinking:

Today in the Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-080720-parenting-homework,0,2564244.story   there’s a series of stories about parenting issues.  All the way from biting in toddlers to the amount of homework.  I’ve been saying for years, since Melora was in elementary, that there is way too much homework assigned for kids these days.  The above link suggests that if you think the homework load is causing problems at home, as of lack of sleep, stress, family fights, etc. - to talk to the teacher about it.  They must be living in an alternate reality.  Every teacher I had, and every teacher either of my kids has had has gone into the beginning of the year basically telling us, “This is the amount of homework I’m assigning and you either do it or you fail.”  No middle ground, no room for negotiation.  I understand that teachers, all teachers, work very hard to educate our children, and that the amount of knowledge they must drill into a classroom full of kids’ heads every year increases, and also that the state and federal testing guidelines don’t leave much room for improvisation.  But still…work with us here!   Especially if your child is in any extracurricular activities whatsoever, the amount of time they have for relaxing and “down time”  is at a premium.  This translates into the above problems of lack of sleep (not just for the child affected by the homework but for the whole family), and stress.  When we’re stressing out a 2nd grader because of too much homework, it’s time to take a few steps back and redo some things.

Considering my lack of mojo for graphics lately, maybe I’ll end up doing some more writing.  Of course, taking into consideration that our current heat levels are affecting my disposition (and not in a positive sense), they may all be rants….but at least I’ll be venting, right?

….very little! 

Ok, to give you some background here.  Mine and Chris’s birthdays are five days apart.  So we usually try to do something together for US one of the weekends flanking our birthdays.  This year, since we’re short on budget, Chris decided for our joint birthday thing we’d go out to eat at a local restaurant.  Now, he knows I’m crazy about Salamandra, our local downtown Mexican place.  But, I know that Chris isn’t necessarily crazy about Mexican food, and since he’d already spoiled me rotten for my birthday twice now and I didn’t really get him anything; when he finally told me the plan (he’s been keeping it a surprise and driving me nuts), I told him we’d go somewhere else, where I knew he’d enjoy the food too. Problem was, neither of us are really current on what restaurants are where around here.  Finally, we decided to just park downtown and walk around til we found something.  That “something” was Touch of Thai.   Now of course I knew the place was there, I’d just never been there before, and all I knew about Thai food was that it has nuts in it a lot of the time and it’s all spicy.   Goes to show you what I know. 

Chris is picky about his oriental food.  It has to be fresh, not what he considers “mall chinese”  which is to say everything comes frozen in a bag.  Since neither of us had been to Touch of Thai before, we really didn’t know what to expect. 

We ordered Pad Lar for Chris, which was basically broccoli, fat noodles, and chicken in a brown sauce.  With beef instead of chicken it’d have been similar to beef and broccoli but with noodles added.  I got something called ….erm, well I can’t remember what it was called, but it was REALLY good.  It was what they called “glass” noodles, which turned out to be something a lot lighter than angelhair pasta, with chicken, carrots, bean sprouts, baby corn and green onions in it.  YUM!  Nice fresh veggies, crunchy, and the sauces were light, which was just the ticket today, because it’s warm outside.  We will definitely be going back.  

I have no way of knowing how authentic this place is, but I’ve definitely got a much better idea of Thai food now, and if this is a good example, I’m sold!