Jan 19: Taking Care of Business

Kate Bosworth and JewelMint by bunni711 featuring clutch handbags

This is my entry for the Kate Bosworth/JewelMint contest on Polyvore.  The top five sets get a year's subscription to JewelMint.  I would love to win!

So, I'm close to finishing Wicked today, but may not be able to finish until tomorrow.  I'm ready to move on!  I just haven't been reading that much lately.  Now I'm going to be pretty busy with homework, too.  The upside is that it's only this week that is going to be ridonkulously busy, and the rest of the semester should be relatively relaxed as far as work goes.  I mean the frequency, not necessarily the difficulty.

I got my grade for the letter of intro and got a 90.  The teacher left comments, but I'm not sure why she took off so much.  I'm debating e-mailing her about it.  I think if I do the workshopping, it will help my grade.  James and I are also thinking of dropping the class (before the Ws of course!), but I think we should probably just take it.  It will save me in loans and I think I can do better with workshopping and with the help of the books - we didn't have them for the first assignment, after all.

I spent most of my day working on the networking homework.  The labs turned out to be pretty easy and maybe a little fun.  Or, at least not boring.  The quiz wasn't hard either, so I'm only worried about how much homework I have to get done before Sunday.  I have to do 4 chapters worth of labs and quizzes (ch 1 got knocked out today), plus a summary paper on one of many videos about Windows Server 2008.

Jamie and I got some sandwiches in town today because his mom was making Kielbasi, which neither of us are particularly fond of.  We also got some chocolate and I ate too much glorious, glorious chocolate.  Mmmm...  See, this is why I'm having trouble!

We watched some Warehouse 13, which is becoming a favorite show, and we watched the new 30 Rock and The Office.  I have yet to start the new Face Off season, and by now there is another episode online.  Eep!  Ah well, life is swell.  : )  (Curse my quickly changing moods!  And sometimes bless them, I spose...  They do make life interesting, at the very least.)

I haven't crocheted in what feels like forever.  I'm going to have to find some time soon to finish up old projects and get back into my hobby.  Unfortunately, it's going to be work, work, work for me for the next few days.  I also have to work through ch. 1 of Javascript and make a graphic on Microsoft Expressions.  Those shouldn't be hard, but I hardly have time it seems.  I shall get it done, though, as always.

Love,
Christen

Jan 17 & 18: Losing Track of Time

Birdies in a Tree by bunni711 on polyvore.com

I made this one a few days ago.  I'm pretty excited because it got a like on Polyvore.  Pretty much I've been entering all the contests I can on Polyvore lately.  There are quite a few going on right now.  I've already entered 4 and there is one more going on that I have yet to make a set for.

Sorry about not posting yesterday, it got away from me!  Not much went on; we went to my house to pick up my prescription and my wallet.  We visited and loved on Teddy bear.  James and I played some cards and we watched our Tuesday shows:  New Girl and Raising Hope.  I wasn't in that great of a mood most of the day, but I think it's mostly anxiety for the new semester and stuff.  We had one of Jamie's favorites for dinner:  chili cheese dogs.  They were pretty delicious.

So, today I haven't really been feeling that great.  I was having trouble breathing earlier for some reason; I think it may have been a stuffy nose and congestion.  I feel fine now though.  I spent a lot of time on Polyvore today making sets for their contests.  I've been making almost exclusively fashion sets lately.  Well, I will get creative again with them soon.  I noticed today how much time I spend on there.  The time completely passes me by.  I was on for a little bit (less than an hour) and noticed it was 9:30.  Then, I looked again and it was suddenly 10:30!  I had no idea I had been on that long!

I watched this week's episode of The Bachelor.  It was pretty interesting, but some of the stuff really does seem planned.  One girl goes home and another girl shows up out of the blue?  I don't know...  Jamie and I started season 2 of Warehouse 13.  I really like that show.  They always have cool artifacts popping up and such.

Ah, not much else to talk about.  I've been reading more and am getting towards the end of Wicked.  I'm also losing the lead I had on my book reading.  : (  I'll hopefully catch up, though.  Two of my books came in, finally.  Actually, one of them got here on the 12th, but it was being held at the UPS place because Jamie has all of his packages held there.  But I got my online access code and we got our book for networking, so we can do that homework we had missed.  I'm not quite in school mode yet.  It's very strange taking all online courses, but I kind of like it.  It makes me want to get an at-home job.  I'm not sure if I'm ready for freelance web design, though.  It would be fun, but I think I would have trouble networking to get clients and such.  Also, I really want to have a steady income; that's very important to me.

Welp, I'll leave you there.  I've had a strange day.  I have been very tired and, for some reason, very sensitive to sounds.  Well, I'm feeling alright now, so hopefully there won't be any more silliness tomorrow.  I will have to start on that networking homework.  Oh, and it seems like Javascript is going to be more like Visual Basic, eep!  I think it'll be alright though; I really hope so!  I'm not much for programming languages...  I liked html, though, so hopefully making websites will distract me from the fact that I'm programming.

Love,
Christen

Jan 13: Friday the Thirteenth!

Frame Bookshelves by bunni711 featuring black pearl jewelry

Well, I stayed up pretty late last night making that french travel journal (see previous day's post), and I was still full of ideas and inspiration when I went to bed.  I made five more pieces of art on Polyvore today, which sounds nuts even to me.  I don't know why, but I find it a lot of fun and I'm getting a lot of ideas.  I think they all look really cool, and since I made so many today, there will be new ones coming out on the blog each day for a while!

I also found out that there are competitions on the site, so I think I'm going to submit something for it.  The theme is what you would wear to an American Idol audition.  I don't watch the show, but I used to watch the tryouts a few years ago.  They can be pretty funny. I think I should try to get to bed at a better time tonight, though, and it's already getting late.  I'll tackle that tomorrow, I guess.

So, apparently our other book for the networking class won't be here in time to do our homework this week.  I'm going to have to write to my teacher again about it.  We're going to be a bit behind and I'm just hoping that she will understand and let us take the quizzes late, too.

The cell company never called me back, so I'm going to have to call them, AGAIN.  It's getting so ridiculously old.

I'm about halfway through Wicked.  I like it so far.  I think it's really cool that the author included political turmoil in his land of Oz.  He shows the story in a different light, but I think it will end up in the same vein as the original story.

Teddy is feeling much better and is now jumping on and off the furniture whenever we turn our backs.  It's so frustrating because as soon as he feels better, he starts again.  I just really don't want him to hurt himself again.  We are working on ideas for stairs and I already have a plan on how to teach him to use them.  It involves looots of treats.  You know, that gives me an idea for another Polyvore artwork, hehe.

Other than that, I finished the first season of that Face Off show.  I wish there had been more than four episodes online, but I enjoyed what there was.  I'm probably going to watch the first episode of the new season tomorrow.  And, I should probably get that networking homework (what little I can do!) out of the way.

Well, I'm super tired.  I'm gonna read and then hit the sack.  Hope you have a wonderful day!

Love,
Christen

Jan 10: Having Fun with Fashion

Colorful Accessories with Neutral Clothes by bunni711 featuring antique jewelry

This is a fun little fashion board I did on a new site I found called Polyvore.  I think I spent way too much time on it, but at least it was fun and relaxing!

I've had an interesting day today.  *sigh*  I found out that one of my books was cancelled because the site was out of stock.  I can't imagine why they wouldn't tell me that BEFORE I ordered it and paid for it.  I'm worried that I won't get the refund back, order a new book, and get it shipped out before my homework is due for that class on the 15th.  I e-mailed my prof about it, though, so hopefully it will work out and she'll let me turn it in late.

I woke up in a bad mood today.  I'm having a lot of trouble getting my sleep schedule right and I'm just tired all the time.  Ugh.  Other than that, I called my cell company again and was able to get my minutes.  I awkwardly mentioned the "compensation" I was promised but the lady (a dif one from yesterday) said she didn't know anything about it and couldn't do anything.  At least I tried, though.

I'm almost done with Persuasion - last chapter.  I'm going to read Wicked next.  I know it's been very popular in recent years, especially the play (or musical?), so I am excited to check it out.  I think after that I will read 1Q84 - hopefully it will still be at my library!

I spent ridiculous amounts of time today on Etsy, pinning stuff onto my Pinterest boards.  It was a lot of fun, though.  I hardly ever let myself actually relax, so I think all the weird messing around online was actually good for me.  Nothing much else happened except that Jamie's parents brought back pizza, which was a really nice surprise for a weekday.  Now I should really get on that homework calendar, but I think I'll go finish my book first : )

Love,
Christen

Jan 8 and 9: A Long Time Waiting

First of all, I'm going to add one thing that happened last Friday which I forgot to add in my last post.  James and I were going to make chocolate chip pancakes for lunch.  I switched on the burner and we started getting stuff out to make them when we started smelling something burning.  Well, I had switched on the wrong burner and James had happened to set the pan on it while we were making the batter.  The whole burner caught on fire, which is very weird because it is an electric stove.  The fire went out when we switched off the burner, too, and there wasn't any residue left behind.  It was very strange and I like to think it is a problem with the stove and not my silliness that caused it.  We ended up buying sandwiches at the market, though.  Mmmm...

Jan 8: Not much happened today, just trying to enjoy my last day of vacation and not get too stressed about the new semester.  James and I watched some Warehouse 13 on Netflix and hung out.  He played God of War III until it went kaput on him for no good reason.  The disc looks fine but it keeps freezing up at this one part, which is actually pretty late in the game, I think.  He's in the Labyrinth part with Pandora.  I spent most of the day online - blogging, surfing, and playing around with this new site, Pinterest, which my friend Amber introduced me to. You pretty much pin up pictures of anything and everything you find online to some virtual bulletin boards of your choosing, and you can look at what other people have pinned up and add it to your collection, too.  It's pretty fun and addicting.

I am still working on Persuasion, but I'm getting near the end.  I'm really liking it and I just read a very interesting part, so I'm happy on that front.  The only thing really worth noting about the day was that I had to call customer service for my cell phone because the code for my prepay minutes wasn't working.  I was on hold for pretty much ever.  I think they may be based in India, just from their accents.  They aren't too hard to understand, but the connection seemed bad.  : P  The first guy almost immediately transferred me to his supervisor and I was on hold again for a while.  The next lady I think I have spoken to before, actually.  I think I actually recognized her voice.  Well, they were having all kinds of trouble with it and couldn't get it to work.  I was on hold a lot and waiting around while she worked on the computer with it.  They finally ended up telling me that they would be working on it and to call them back in 24 hours if I still didn't receive any minutes.  I was promised "compensation" for my trouble.  All in all, I spent about an hour on the phone.  It wasn't fun, needless to say.

Jan 9: Even though classes officially started today, I didn't have anything to do for them.  I need to get all of my assignments written down on my big calendar, but my first assignment isn't due until Thursday.  I have to write a letter of introduction for my technical writing class, which, from what I can tell, is a really basic-level writing class.  I mean, we are going to do resumes and that kind of stuff, which I learned long ago in high school and have no need of relearning, except that the class is required for this degree.  Ugh!

I ordered my books today and was pleasantly surprised to have saved money on two of my books and didn't have a bad deal on the third.  James is buying the books for the classes we share; he's such a great guy!  <3  I looked up coupons for them, too, and actually found one that saved me $5!  I know it's not a lot, but you can really get some good deals if you just look up coupons online.  I saved 30% on my HP laptop (which I am happily typing away on right now!).  If you're curious, I blogged about it before.  Oh, one note for those earlier posts, though:  the Design Destination blog has been discontinued, so the links to it will not work.  Anyway, I hope my books are here in enough time.  I do have some homework due on Sunday for which I will need my books.

It's been a pretty good day, overall.  Since Jamie's game broke yesterday, I got to spend a lot more time with him today than usual.  We cuddled a bunch on the couch and watched some Pawn Stars.  It was quite an enjoyable evening.  : )  Well, that's all for now, I think.  I guess I should try not to be afraid of saying more about how I felt throughout the day or what I thought of rather than just events - I always used to do that whenever I kept a diary.  This is a double post though, so I wanted to keep it shorter.

Other than that, I'm feeling excited about my new website classes; hopefully they will teach me a lot about web design and will be lots of fun.  I have the same teacher for my two web design classes and she seems really nice.  I tried to pick good teachers this semester, but I do have a word of caution:  do not use ratemyprofessors.com!  That site has tried to give me viruses several times before.  It's very useful, but there are many other sites to find info about profs, which are much safer!  Just google prof ratings or something, and you should be able to find some good ones.  I installed a little thing on Chrome which shows safety ratings for every link I come across on the Internet -  it's called WOT and it is very useful.  If you have Chrome, you should give WOT a try.

I almost forgot!  I never did get my minutes for my phone, so I have to call customer service once again.  I was supposed to do it today, but got caught up doing other things.  I will update you further tomorrow!

I think I shall leave my faithful readers for now.  Adieu, adieu!  (I am really reading too much period literature right now!)

Love,
Christen

Blogging 2012

First of all, obviously I have not been blogging about losing weight!  Honestly, I think I've scrapped the idea.  My weight has been the same for a few months now, so I think maybe I'm plateauing, which hopefully means I'll be on the way back down soon as long as I actually try not to overeat.  It's a challenge sometimes, because god I just love food, but I also like feeling good about myself.  It's not that I need to feel skinny to feel good, because honestly I don't buy into that nonsense (well, more on that later, I suppose!  There's really too much on the subject that irks me to go into it now...)  Anywho, it would be really good for me to build up some more self control in my eating habits, plus it just feels good to eat better.

So, my plan here is to try and make a post for every day of the year.  I would ideally like to post every day, but I will have to do it at least once a week, more likely a few times a week, especially after the semester starts and I get busy.  I did not come up with this idea, however; I owe it to my good friend Amber, who has a blog called Photo a Day 2012.  I think it will be good for me to do it with her, though, so she can stay accountable.  Plus, I really need to be writing more.  I'm working on a book right now, so I really need to be practicing every day (like all good writers should), but of course I'm lazy about it.  Maybe not so much lazy as flaky with my hobbies.  I'm a swinger when it comes to hobbies.

There have been a few changes since I last posted on this blog, namely that I started my associates degree.  I've already finished the first semester and numero dos actually starts tomorrow.  The degree is in computer technology and my concentration is Internet/multimedia which pretty much means web design!  I already posted a few months ago (yikes!) about my reasons for starting the degree, so I won't go into it again.

Let's see about what's happened so far this year.  New Years:  Jamie (that would be my boyfriend of 6 years) stayed over at my house because we have better food for New Years (i.e. there was sauerkraut at his house : P)  Now don't be offended if you like the stuff; I've actually never tried it but I can tell you, it smells pretty gross.  We had a hard time sleeping at my house because it was hot and my dachshund Teddy insisted on taking up the entire bottom half of the bed.  I normally stay over at his house (about half my time is spent there) and we have no trouble sleeping (usually).  Anyway, he won't want to stay the night again any time soon, I can guarantee it.

Jan 1-4 (Sun-Wed):  I stayed at home for a few days and mostly hung out with Teddy and watched tv and played the Sims 3.  I started a new game which is like The Bachelor.  I got the idea off of one of those forum thingies (I'm not much into those but James uses them all the time).  Pretty much I made a dude Sim and a bunch of lady Sims (6 of 'em) and put them all in the same house.  I set all their relationships with him to zero and then tried to get them into socializing situations like the hot tub and dinner, going to the movies and touring the movie studio, etc.  Whoever has the highest relationship with him after the "group dates" gets a one-on-one.  Well, I haven't gotten to the first one-on-one yet, but I'll let you know how it goes.

I worked some more on trying to knit (I started to learn on Christmas because I asked for needles), but I'm having a lot of trouble with it.  Whenever I drop stitches, I have a lot of trouble picking them back up - it's a lot easier with crochet!  I think I'll get better, but I don't think I'll knit as much as I crochet.

Jan 4-Jan 7 (Wed-Sat):  Jamie picked me up and we spent a few hours at my house, but he wasn't feeling well so we went back to his house earlier than usual.  I like to stay for dinner at my house, which is usually kinda late, because my mom works until 8:30.  I finished this book:

The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


View all my reviews



And I started this book:

Persuasion by Jane Austen


View all my reviews





Which I am liking so far.  I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen books lately and have a newfound respect for them.  For example, the first time I read Pride & Prejudice, I rated it 2/5 stars ("it was ok" on Goodreads).  I had just seen the 2005 version of the movie, which I absolutely loved and which is still my favorite movie.  Anyway, there were several scenes from the movie that I really liked which were not in the book at all, so I was quite disappointed in the book overall.  When I read it again, though, I hadn't seen the movie in a while and I could enjoy the story for what it was.  I ended up rating it 5/5 stars this time around:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my reviews




Oh, in related news (but I really am getting off topic by now; please bear with me), I reached my reading goal for last year of 31 books (one of the books I read was actually a novella, so I added one for good measure).

Back to the subject!  I really haven't been doing much of anything this week.  I start classes tomorrow, so I've been trying to just relax and enjoy my vacation.  I've been oversleeping a lot, which pretty much blows the rest of the day, so now I'm trying to wake up earlier so I can actually function.  I started watching The Bachelor - it was pretty interesting to say the least.  I'd like to see where the whole "lady lovers" thing goes.  I may actually have to start thinking these shows are scripted.  I've also been watching James play the God of War games (all 3), which are really cool and very good-looking in my opinion.  I can overlook the (often minor) discrepancies from the myths (I took a class 2 semesters ago on Greek mythology).  He's also been playing the Uncharted games, though not nearly as much.  He just got a PS3; he's an XBOX guy.

Other than that, we went up to Mentor yesterday, which was a change.  I usually sit at home and am happy about it, but it's nice to go out once in a while.  We went up to Sears so his mom could buy some new work shoes.  They had soo many clothes I wanted to buy and some very cute boots.  *sigh*  If only I had some money!  Then we went to the Home Town Buffet, which I haven't been to in a while.  It was pretty good, but Jamie's nephew gets antsy when he has to go on long car rides and sit still at restaurants.

Alright, well I will post later about today because this post is already really long.  If you made it this far, congratulations.  You get a prize!  Not really, but if you did actually read the whole thing, please comment and let me know and I will honor you as a very diligent blog reader.

Love,
Christen