just stuff:

That's what this post is about: stuff. Things that are on my mind lately.

1. This past Friday the ladies at Cornerstone threw a *surprise* baby shower for Jacqueline. It was very nice and Jacqueline got tons of stuff for the new baby (due in just 4 weeks!).
2. We are throwing a shower for Jacqueline this Saturday at our house and it seems like we have about 33 people coming (including us). Quite a few people. I am doing a lot of baking for the shower. I think it should be fun. Hopefully not overwhelming since I have to work on Friday and pick up some last minute things. Becca and I are doing the games for the shower and I've found quite a few fun ideas online.
3. This baby (my niece) has my sewing mojo going like crazy! I've got so many ideas for projects I want to work on. It's nice. :) I'll have to post pictures of the items I've made. I'm pretty pleased actually. I make this stuff and I stop and think to myself, I just can't wait to get married and have kids. I have tons of things I'd like to make for my home and family someday. But then, what if I never get married? I sure don't have any prospects right now, and there isn't any point in making baby stuff for myself until I'm at least married. Or engaged. So I'll just make everything I can think of for my niece. I can't wait to meet her in a few short weeks!
4. Speaking of babies, Brandy's puppies are HUGE! We only have the three (we lost 2) but those three are enormous. At three weeks I would say the largest male measures about 12 inches from head to tail. They are walking around and barking and playing with each other. We've started to supplement their diets with goat milk. Pictures should be coming soon, but my camera battery died and I didn't really have any good pictures of them (they're so dark it's hard to see them) so when I get my battery charged and find the time to get some good pictures I'll be posting them.
5. I went to yoga tonight. I really enjoy yoga. There are aspects to it that I don't agree with, the whole yoga lifestyle and all. Parts of it are fine like the emphasis on well-being and healthiness. I don't like how some of the philosophy seems to be a bit...well...apathetic. They say you should try to be the best you can be, but at the same time you are supposed to be very accepting of yourself, flaws and all. Like, whatever you are feeling is alright, but what if you are thinking something really bad? I mean, what if you are thinking really bad thoughts about someone, or plotting revenge for something, or just feeling sorry for yourself? Also, it seems like you look to yourself to be 'good' and basically, in so many ways, it's all about you. I'm not saying you shouldn't care about yourself at all, but the whole philosophy neglects Jesus and his grace and his commands to strive to be holy like he is. And I guess that is my problem with yoga. It is religious to an extent but does not acknowledge Jesus Christ and is therefore empty. I still think it would be cool to become an instructor and just leave out most of the philosophy stuff. The workouts are really good. You can get a wonderful workout and you don't need any tools or machines. Just a yoga mat.
6. My yoga class is held in the dance room in one of the local high schools. The dance room is located under the gym, so whenever there is a basketball game it sounds like the ceiling is going to cave in. Not cool. You want to know something else that isn't cool? One of the girls in my class found a plastic bag with weed in it near one of the bars. We don't know if a student from the previous class accidentally lost it or if it was from one of the high school students. Awkward, huh? I kind of wanted to see it since I've never seen weed (sheltered homeschool grad and all). I probably wouldn't know how to identify it if I saw it, although I guess I would know pretty much to be suspicious of anything that looked 'weedy' contained in a plastic bag.
7. I got my hours cut at work...again. :( Boo! I spoke to my doctor and told her I would appreciate having 12-15 hours per week (I got cut to about 8. That's not going to work). She didn't say, "absolutely, you've got it." She said she needed to draw up a schedule with everyone's hours so we would all know our hours. If she doesn't give me the hours I need then I'm going to have to talk to her again and probably look for a new job. Blah! I hate that!
8. That same day that I talked to my boss we only worked half a day because she had a dr's appointment to go to. I stayed to clean up and do some extra work and she called me and told me she had been in a car accident and totaled her car, could I please come pick her up? Of course I could! Poor thing was pretty shaken up. But on the bright side, she gets to pick out a new car! When we worked together at the other office a patient (who really annoyed her because he whined and complained about EVERYTHING and also had a pretty bad gag reflex which made him hard to work on) came in for his fillings and he asked my doctor, "so how long have you had that pink Mercedes that's parked out front?" My boss answered that she didn't have a pink Mercedes she drove a Honda Civic and it definitely wasn't pink. He kept on going on about how he knew that was her car and she could definitely afford it since she was a doctor and blah blah blah...so I want to tell her that now is her chance to get a pink Mercedes and watch to see if she cringes. ha ha!
9. I had chemistry lecture and lab today. I am fairly enjoying that class. It's not too bad. Surprisingly, I like science classes. They are interesting and I find that the teachers are pretty good. My teacher is a hoot. He jokes all the time, which can get annoying actually, but he is obnoxious in a slightly Groucho Marx kind of way and it cracks me up so much. Today in lab we had to split into groups of three and each team picked a test tube with an unknown substance and then we ran tests on our unknown substance to figure out what it was. As he was letting teams pick their test tube he got to one table and the girl there said, "they picked the test tube I wanted!" But she said it with a slight whine. My teacher looked at her and said in a really high pitched whine, "they picked the one I wanted." The whole class, including the girl, laughed. It's just so not what you would expect your teacher to say. Our group's unknown substance was table salt, which was pretty much nonreactive with everything we tested it with. Pretty boring. But I stayed after to clean up my work table while my classmate was figuring out her lab homework and our professor ended up giving us a demonstration on precipitates with some different chemicals which was very pretty! The base he added to the mixture of chemicals (which was clear, it looked like water) turned the fluid in the test tube a fuschia color, and then when he added an acid it became clear again. So cool!
Like I said, the science teachers are good. This isn't the first time I've had a professor stay after class to explain a concept that I'm not really understanding. When I was taking dental assisting at school my biology professor gave me a mini lecture on the 12 cranial nerves, which I couldn't keep straight to save my life. In case you need a good memory device to remember them by, this is the one she gave me to remember their order:
O n
O ccasion
O ur
T rusty
T ruck (this was the one I really needed to remember, #5: the trigeminal nerve)
A cts
F unny
V ery
G ood
V ehicle
A ny
H ow.
Then she told me one of the other professors taught the 12 cranial nerves to his class with this memory device:
Oh Oh Oh, To Touch And Feel Very Good Very AH.
Crazy science professors!
10. I want to make yo-yos. Not the kind you play with, the kind you sew. I think they would be cute on some onsies that I was going to refashion for my niece. I'm also working on some flannel spit-up rags for my sister. These are cute. They are printed flannel, which I understand is supposed to be easier to keep unstained than cloth diapers.
11. Winter is back. It was only about 27 degrees today. I miss that 75 degree weather we had a couple of weeks ago.
12. I think, nay, know I eat too much sugar. This madness must cease, or at least decrease.
13. On the subject of school, I bumped into Susan at Walmart today and she was telling me about the Trinity College of Natural Health. It seems like an interesting school. I have pretty much given up on my Global College course, unfortunately. I was not pleased with it and when I bought it I wasn't expecting to go back to school. So time got away from me and the mediocrity of the course got to me and long story short, it was a waste of money. So I'm not eager to try another distance learning course in the near future. I'm a letter away from being accepted at WVU (hopefully) and I'm going to major in Nutrition there. Maybe afterwards I will consider getting additional training from a more holistic viewpoint from someplace like Trinity. I think the coolest thing about Trinity College is that they are a Christian school. Most natural health schools are secular and border on being new age-y. It's refreshing to know there is an alternative. Susan was telling me her Naturopath is a graduate of Trinity college and is recommending it to Susan's daughter, my dear friend and sewing buddy, Becca cause Becca wants to be a Naturopath. I'm curious and excited to see if Becca chooses Trinity and if she likes it.
14. It is just past midnight and I am tired. I need to go shower and go to sleep.

I'm glad I got this off my chest and out of my head. Now I can think of something different. :)

Good night~