The Office

A couple weeks ago we painted the office. We did a terrible job around the wood trim, but most of that should be covered up by furniture. After some bad luck while desk shopping, we finally ordered a nice corner desk from Office Max online...only to find that the top was cracked and the part was on backorder. So the office is still incomplete. I'm not posting pictures till it is actually done!



This is the desk we bought. It was on sale on the web, and not in stores (free shipping too!), so I guess we got a deal. I liked it because it had a lot of storage and workspace, but it didn't take up the whole room.

Sara and I are going up to Minneapolis for the Vikings game this weekend, so a trip to IKEA may be in order. I want to get some wall shelving and cute storage stuff. I also want a Favre jersey, some black boots, and new jeans.

No more rain....in the bathroom

Last Thursday and Friday it rained...a lot. The last couple times we've had a lot of rain it came through the exhaust fan in the main bath. It was never a lot of water, just enough to be annoying...till Thursday night...

Chance and I went to the Olive Garden for dinner and came home to soaked bathroom rugs and a stream of water coming through the exhaust fan. We put a garbage pail down to catch most of the water and cleaned the floor. Chance called a contractor who said he would come Friday morning.

The contractor didn't actually come until Friday at 4:00PM. Luckily, it had stopped raining by then. He went on the roof and found that our vent fan had likely leaked several times before. He said the previous owners kept putting shingles over top of the vent and lots of glue. However, when done correctly, shingles are supposed to be under the vent to protect from water leakage. We had him fix it right. He put a new vent on the roof and some new shingles under the vent. $300 later, the bathroom is dry :)

Tulips and Daffodils

Finally, some nice weather this weekend (at least on Sunday)! I was able to get outside, and with the help of Ma and Pa McWorthy, planted all of the tulip and daffodil bulbs. The daffodils are on the empty side of the house, and the tulips are in our front planter and along the front of the house. Can't wait until May to see them!

No more purple!

Remember the office project I started a month ago? Well, we finally returned to the project. We took most of the stuff out of the room, spackled and primed over the purple. The room is very bright, stinks like paint, but overall looks roomier. The bright purple made the room look so small. We are hoping to paint the blue next week. The blue is this sort of shade:

Ok, it might actually not be quite that bright. UPDATE: OK, its not even close. But it's a light blue/gray. I'll post pictures when it is done. We are also planning on getting a large corner desk and some wall shelves for current books. I'm considering putting a TV in there too. Many times when I am home I bring my work down to the living room so I can watch my shows during the day or at least have them on in the background.

I can't put up any of the weather station data yet until the office is done, because the computer is in there. I also need to buy a ladder to get on the roof. I went to Menards to look for a ladder and I couldn't believe how expensive they are!!

Next weekend's projects: Paint office, plant tulips/daffodils.

Day 10 Update

10 days, acid-free, AND chocolate free! Went to the grocery store and bought all the junk I could find that I could eat. I've been doing fine, and I still feel good!



Went to the doctor with an ear infection on Tuesday. Not a big deal, just wanted to catch it before it was out of control. The only reason I mention it was because last night I was laying in bed and Neville, who has NEVER licked any part of my body, began licking my infected ear. Of course, I believe he could sense this was my infected ear. Does anyone else think cats can sense this? Chance thinks it was probably a random incident.



In other news, I submitted the paper to the conference tonight. It feels great to have it done, and I actually feel good about it. Once I stopped worrying about research rules and just wrote what I did, it actually wasn't that bad, and kind of fun.

Dad sent me a surprise gift on Tuesday: A weather station. Now I have to set it up on the roof and somehow figure out how to get the wiring into the house and into the computer. The eventual plan is to have Rooftop Weather-West and have instant updates on the web for the current wind, temp, humidity, and rainfall conditions in Springville, IA.

Diet: Day 6 Update

To my surprise, I have stuck to my diet. I haven't had anything fatty or chocolate for 6 days! I did eat fried chicken one night, but that is the worst I have done. The best part? NO reflux! My stomach has felt GREAT! The most improvement I've noticed is at night and in the morning. I'm actually hungry when I go to bed and wake up in the morning. Previously, in the mornings I would wake up with a lot of pressure between my ribs below my sternum. I haven't had that at all this week!



The hardest part is all the good stuff I still have sitting around the house. I have 3 types of chocolate ice cream bars in the freezer, oreos and fudge stripe cookies in the pantry, hostess cupcakes in the fridge, and brownie mix in the cupboard. Yesterday we went to a gathering and I had to pass up chocolate chip brownies and scotcheroos! Tomorrow I will go to the grocery store and find some alternatives.



I've also had water for every meal, except today I had a little bit of lemonade with lunch.



I'm going to try for another 8 days. Then I'll have given it 2 weeks and add back in one acidic item at a time. The key is truly moderation. I know I can eat SOME acidic foods as long as I conform to the not eating late and not eating too much.



In other news, the Vikes won a GREAT game today. I didn't actually get to see it, but I was following it online. So glad we have Favre.

The Low Acid Diet: Day 1

As anyone who reads this knows, I really like to eat. You also probably know that my choices of what I like to eat are many times not the healthy choice. I eat fast, I eat a lot, and I eat mostly junk. My diet can be somewhat compared to the Gilmore's diet. I was blessed with the Honchar High Metabolism, so I don't easily gain weight. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

In the meantime, most of you also know I developed acid reflux when I was in high school. No shock there, when you look at my eating habits. I take medicine to keep it under control, but lately it hasn't really been under control. I had an endoscopy done, and the doc didn't find anything too concerning, which is good news. Regardless, I still get reflux at least 3 times per week even with treatment. The doctor gave me a diet to follow, but I sort of ignored it.

Basically the low-acid diet means avoiding tomato-based products, caffeine, carbonated beverages, anything with citric acid, alcohol, and ....chocolate. Also, you are supposed to eat several smaller meals per day, and not eat within 3 hours of bedtime. I already don't drink pop, alcohol, or caffeine, so that's not a problem. I'm most concerned about the chocolate part. A few months ago I announced to everyone in my office I was giving up chocolate. I made it ONE day.

Yesterday I finally decided I was going to take on the low-acid diet challenge. Today I ate a yogurt for breakfast (this was the first time I've eaten breakfast in a long time), rice and vegetables for lunch, and pasta, bread, and an apple for dinner. I know its not quite the daily servings for fruits and vegetables, but its certainly better. Alas, no reflux tonight! So I would call Day 1 a success.

Why did I blog about this? Because I thought if I announced to the world I was going to try the low-acid diet for 2 week, I might actually see it through. I've tried this before, and only made it about a week before just giving in.

Neville's Foot

A couple months ago I was carrying some clothes and dropped them on the floor. All of the sudden, I hear painful cries coming from Neville. He stopped, cried, and limped around like he was in so much pain. The next morning, he was fine.

About a month later, I dropped some sheets on the floor. Same thing happened again. He was totally fine the next morning, but that night, you would have thought he broke his foot.

Since then, every now and then he develops a limp. Once he tried to jump in the window when it wasn't open, and then limped around for a little bit before going over and playing again.

Thursday night we found the ironing board on the floor in the basement, and a limping cat. He looked to be in pretty bad shape. I asked him if he wanted a "treat", and magically his foot was cured and he walked just fine. After the treat, he limped for awhile again before playing with his toys really hard for a good 10 minutes.

Tonight again, he started limping again. Yet if I mention the prospect of food, he is suddenly just fine again. If I throw his toy, he can run with no problem to go get it.

So I'm totally perplexed by this behavior. Is this a real or phantom pain? When he was young, did someone make a loud noise and he somehow hurt his foot, so now when something startles him he thinks his foot hurts? He was declawed, so his foot might actually hurt him. He usually sits and licks it obsessively when he's limping. Part of me thinks I should take him to the vet, but I think if something was really wrong with him he would be limping in all situations.


In the meantime, a fire truck just went by. This is a big deal in a town of 1000. I went outside and found all of the neighbors also standing outside trying to find out where the fire truck went. Everyone was yelling across porches. I found it quite humorous.

I also decided I am going to finish the paper. Yea!

Till next time.

Catch-Up Time/Frustrations

This weekend we FINALLY had a weekend at home with nothing planned. This was huge for us. We were only home 4 weekends this whole summer, and I think only 2 of those we had no plans.

This weekend was a great time for R&R, and also some catch up. Friday night we went to HuHot, which is quickly becoming my favorite restaurant. Seriously, all you can eat stir fry, customized by you? It's really awesome. Saturday we cleaned the house and got groceries. That night we had Panera and rented Adventureland. It wasn't a very good movie. I had a Blockbuster gift card from a few years ago, so I used the last of it on the movie. I then decided that $4.99 to keep a movie for 2 days is a waste of money and finally signed up for Netflix.

Today was my catch up day for work stuff. On Tuesday of this past week, I finally taught the "Improving Online Communication" session. I had a breakthrough before Labor Day and decided to use our online course evals as data. I analyzed them for comments related to "Communication" and then placed in specific categories. From there I made several suggestions for improving communication within those categories, both from research and just things I've picked up from my job. It was very prelimary, but gave me something to work with. I was so pumped that I thought, maybe I should apply for a doctoral program in education. I realized I actually really enjoy studying communication in online courses, and I think there is a lot of potential for other areas of research. Most importantly, I did this all myself. I had the motivation to work on this myself, and I didn't have an advisor or mentor to help. That told me that maybe I really could do this EdD/PhD thing...

Today, I attempted to sit down and actually write up the paper that I will submit to Central States. Ugh. Now I remember why I DIDN'T go on to UWM last year. I really hate writing research papers! The lit review went ok, but I feel like there is so much research I haven't found yet, that it could take me another year before I could find it all. My method section was a train wreck. I know what I did, and its a loose form of Content Analysis, but its not really an official "published" method. I wasn't even sure how to phrase my method. For those readers not familiar with the academic world, most critiques of research come from methods. I could just imagine presenting my paper at a conference and everyone laughing at me about how my method was so flawed. That's what we did in grad school classes - critiqued methods.

Granted, this is a much more qualitative piece, and my background is in Quantitative methods. So naturally, I'm trying to write it as if its a quant. piece. Perhaps I'm way overthinking this, and maybe I can just organize it as an inductive piece. But then, since I know nothing about how to actually do qualitative methods, all the qualitative people will laugh at me. Or, my paper will just be rejected all together. The parts of my study that REALLY matter is the results and discussion anyway. That part I already have outlined, and those are the communication tips and tricks for online instructors. Overall, I just got a bit overwhelmed and just quit working on it. I'm not exactly even sure if its worth picking up again. I have no incentive for finishing it or presenting it, this was completely my thing. If it's going to cause stress and frustration, is it really worth it?

Then I thought that maybe the doctoral degree wasn't for me after all...the same conclusion I came to in April 2008 when we decided to move to Iowa instead of Milwaukee. I don't like how research has so many rules. I would rather read and do stuff like I did on Tuesday for fun, without having to conform to specific rules so I can present at a conference or be published.

So now I'm going to put the paper on hold for another week and continue doing stuff I LOVE to do...building and developing my online computer and communication courses. I'm so close to being done with computers. Everytime I think I'm done, I think of something else cool that I can do. Strangely enough though, I never get bored or frustrated with it.

So this entry contained a lot of frustration vents, and most of you probably have no idea what I'm talking about and think I'm crazy. If you are still reading, you deserve a cookie. Go get one now...

Back to working on the office next weekend. We are going to paint it blue and the plan is to add a bunch of shelving on the walls.

We did buy some stuff for the dining room from Yankee. They had a whole section of holders and accessories devoted to wine. We bought a plate and two tea light holders. I would like to show pics, but the Yankee Candle website doesn't have them. Must be store only.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Back to School!

The fall semester started on Monday. My first week went very well. This is the first time I have taught 5 days a week, and also multiple classes in a semester. I was afraid of feeling a bit overwhelmed after the first week, but I surprising don't - instead I'm highly motivated and pumped up. A couple notes of new things that worked this week:

• Spent a good 30 minutes discussing email etiquette in Intro to Computers. This was an excellent idea.


• Minimizing lecture on the basics and having a full out discussion. Wrapping class up with a mini 10 minute lecture. I liked this format, and the students seemed more engaged.


• Make email policy clear on the first day: I will not answer emails after 10:00 on weeknights, and rarely on weekends. This makes teaching a day and weekday job, not a 24/7 job.


• Clearly describe the objectives and how we will meet them each semester.


• Establish classroom norms.

In other news, to celebrate a good first week, I bought some new pants. I LOVE the Express editor pants, but they are just too expensive. I went to Express yesterday, tried on probably around 30 pairs of pants, and then decided on the wide waistband in gray and a light pinstripe. I liked the regular editors, but they just didn't want to fit quite right - either they were too short, too long, too tight, or too loose. They needed 1/2 sizes in pants I think.

I did finish taking off the wallpaper in the office. I haven't done anything since. I'm decided if I want to paint the bottom half blue and leave the top half white while adding some sort of wood divider, or all blue. I appreciate any reader suggestions. The room is a huge mess right now because everything is piled in the center of the room.

I'm currently working on researching computer mediated communication in relation to online courses. I've compiled several articles and books. The reading part is fun. This week I'm moving into the more unfun part: organizing information into presentational and paper form. I'm presenting this as a training session on September 8, and hope to submit to Central States to present in April also.

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to blog about next week.

School's Eve

The Fall semester starts tomorrow. Coming in to the weekend, I felt completely unorganized and unprepared, but after spending some time looking over materials, I realized I'm in much better shape than I thought. This semester I'm teaching Public Speaking M,W,& F, and KTS Intro to Computers on T & Th. I have 70 students registered for computers. I also have a late start online computers course that will start in October. One good thing is that I taught both of these classes this summer, so everything is fresh on my mind.

This afternoon I decided to start the next big house project: The office. It is painted white and purple, with a pink and purple flower border in the middle:

I started by removing the wallpaper. I actually finished about half before breaking for dinner. I'm not sure if I'll finish it all tonight or not. Next step will be spackling and then priming over the purple. I have some nice light blue paint we bought for the stairway and decided not to use that I will use for the office. Then, I can start putting my cat and viking decorations up on the wall.

I came downstairs and found Neville playing with a big black & blue wasp. Luckily, I don't think it stung him. Chance fought with the wasp for awhile, but the wasp really didn't want to die. Eventually, we got him. Now the window is dirty full of wasp spray.

UPDATE: 9:00PM. I finished removing the wallpaper on all but a portion of one wall - the one over the computer I'm typing on now. I found the easiest way is to peel off the top layer and then use the spray. It's going a lot quicker than expected. Photos to come...

Before and After

We have a Honchar gathering this coming weekend, so I wanted to take some pics of the house to show all the relatives. While going through the pics I took today and some of the older pics, I can't believe the progress we've made in 4 months. Two areas to highlight: The basement and the backyard. The first yard photo was beginning of April 2009. The other photo was taken today (Sorry the pics aren't aligned. I coded the HTML but I've been having some bad luck with that lately...)

Now take a look at the basement. The first one was taken April 5, 2009. The second one was taken today:

2.5 months later...

I haven't posted for 2 1/2 months, but there is a reason....I haven't done any house projects to post about and I've been super busy. My summer's been crazy with my job, teaching 2 classes, and developing 2 classes. We've been travelling almost every weekend, mostly back to Illinois for different events. We did take a short weekend trip to the Mall of America for our anniversary.

Chance has done a lot of work on his sports bar basement. He put some shelving along the edge of the wall and is currently painting them Cubs blue. I'll post pictures when he is done.

Lindsay came and redecorated the living room and bathroom. She made a country bath theme and the living room is European. The living room is still a work in progress. We need to get her out here for about 2 weeks and use her interior decorating skills.

The lawn is finally looking like a lawn. We hired Tru-Green to come out because we weren't home enough this summer to work at the lawn. Finally, the weeds are gone and the dead patches are filled in. We did fill the sandbox area in with soil and planted some grass seed. Grass is starting to grow there too.

The paper wasps are gone too. I never found the nest...

Paper Wasps and a first attempt at landscaping

I meant to create an entry just dedicated to paper wasps, but now I have more to talk about besides just insects. I also mulched and planted a few flowers. I have lots of pictures this time.

First, the wasps:

I did some research on the internet and found the wasps that chill on our deck are Paper Wasps, and they are eating parts of our deck to make nests. For Sara, these ARE the wasps with the hangy-legs.

But that's not the only place I've found them...The other day I went to fill the car with gas, opened up the door to the tank, and there was a wasp. I about shut the tank door and drove off, but it was raining out so I knew he would be helpless. I beat the area around the tank with the windshield cleaner thing so somehow I must have drowned it. I never did find him, but he doesn't appear to be on the gas tank anymore.

Anyway, so how do we get rid of these beasts? Well, everything that I've found has said you have to get rid of the nest. We have yet to find a nest anywhere around the house, so I have no idea where they are coming from. I'm hoping after we power wash and seal the deck, the wasps won't be able to eat it anymore so they will go away. The other remedy that I read about was using peppermint oil. I'll have to try that, too.

Next, landscaping:

For Mother's Day weekend, we both went home and spent the day with our respective mothers. Mom and I went out to several stores, and got some flowers and mulch. I helped mom plant a couple geraniums, daisies, and a lily. We also put down the red mulch around the house.

Mom bought me some mulch (I chose cypress, but it took a really long time for me to decide), an orange lily, a day lily, and a pot of white geraniums. I put the pot out front and planted the lilies. I did have to rip up some of the landscape lining to get to the soil out front. I put the mulch down in the front planter outside the window, and it blended very nicely. I started to put it down in front of the porch, and it realized it was much lighter than what was already down. I put down the 3 bags, and when I stepped back, I couldn't believe how much it brightened the front of the house. Take a look at some pictures: The first shows the planter with the lily, the second is in front of the porch. Notice the Day Lily planted in the left-hand corner.

A blog entry wouldn't be complete without a Neville story. Neville was by himself for the first time this weekend. When we returned, he had thrown up in the living room and ate very little all weekend. He didn't leave my side the whole night. When we went to bed, he came up, but around 1:30 he decided to meow and wanted playtime. Well, in the past we would just kick him out when he gets playful at night, so last night wasn't any different. Usually, he comes downstairs and we don't see him until morning...but not last night. After we kicked him out, he stood outside our door, howled, and pawed on the door. Because I didn't want to give in, I let him cry, but after an hour of it I knew neither of us would get any sleep if we let him continue. So at 2:30AM, I crawled into my old twin bed in the guest bedroom, played with Neville, and let him cuddle with me. He did eventually fall back asleep, and left on his own at 5:00AM. I usually get up at 6:00, so I had an hour to sleep. He was back outside the door at 6:00 looking for food.

So the bottom line of the Neville story: He still has separation anxiety. He acted like he was attached to me when we first brought him home, but then he got over it and started to become more independent. I guess when we left for the weekend, he thought we (when I say "we" I really mean "I" because he doesn't really care whether Chance is here or not) were never coming home. Not sure if in the future we will be able to leave him or have someone come in on Saturday to feed him and give him some attention. I hope this separation anxiety doesn't last too long!

Mulch

Yesterday I went to go get mulch from Walmart and paid for regular brown mulch. Who knew there were so many different kinds of mulch to choose from? When I went to pick it up outside, they were actually sold out of brown and all they had left was black and red. I went ahead and got the red because I didn't really think it made much of a difference.

Now I'm having second thoughts...

I'm afraid the red mulch will really stand out. The house is tan and brown in color, so the brown mulch the previous owner had out front blended in well. I know ma uses red mulch because I've helped her mulch the front and side before, but my parents have part brick on their house so the red matches a bit better.

The picture below shows the front of the house (before we moved in obviously, notice the Packer sign in the front yard). You can hardly see the brown mulch because it blended in so well. I'm talking about the part behind the birdbath in the photo, right in front of the porch (I know its hard to see, but that's my point exactly).



I'll probably stew about this for a couple of more days and then eventually decide just to go for the red mulch or return it to walmart and find brown mulch at Menards. Suggestions anyone??

Finally...a nice weekend!

Both Saturday and Sunday were sunny with highs in the upper 60s...so it was beautiful weather - for starting yardwork!

Saturday I sat out on the deck for a few minutes, but found that the hangy-leg wasps also enjoy the deck wood. I would kill one, and another one would fly in. That made me uncomfortable knowing they were around, so my outside sun time was short-lived. I know we need to wash and seal the deck, but I doubt that will stop the wasps. I thought maybe we could seal with wasp-spray too.

The rest of Saturday was spent catching up on grading. I am now caught up so I can cross that part off of the list...for now! Zach was visiting us from DeKalb so we went to the Kernals vs. Peoria Chiefs baseball game Saturday night. I actually enjoyed myself. It was nice to be outside and eat ballpark food.

Sunday we took down the swingset that the seller's left us. Now it will be much easier to mow the backyard. We also had the tire-sandbox, so I cleaned all of the sand out from inside the tire and we moved the tire into the shed. Now we just have a pile of sand in the middle of the backyard. What do we do with that?

I also start raking out the leaves and pulling weeds from the front yard area. I really should have taken more before-pictures. This is the area in front of the front porch. There was some old mulch down, but mostly it was all covered in leaves and sticks. I raked out the whole front and the side. I filled 5 bags full of leaves and sticks. Next, I'll need to get some new mulch to put down. Then I'll move to the rest of the front and side yard, which has more weeds than grass.

Neville was naughty tonight and tried to jump up the dining room table as soon as I put dinner down. I was standing right next to the table- and he knows he isn't supposed to go up there. I picked him and put him down, yelled, and used the water sprayer. He ran into the living room and sat on the floor facing the opposite direction from us for the next half hour. He would not respond to his name. He's been on my lap for the past 3 hours so I think he's over it. I thought it was funny he responded to punishment like a child.

We are heading back to IL next weekend for Mother's Day. We will need to leave Neville here by himself (though I'm not opposed to bringing him back and living in my room with me for the weekend). I'm a bit nervous about leaving him by himself since this is all still new for him and he is so hungry for attention. I don't really want to ask anyone to come look in on him because anyone who I would trust to give a key to the house would have to make a 10 mile + trip out here.

This week will be spent finishing up end of semester activities, and more prep for summer. House projects for the week include mulching and hopefully getting some hanging baskets for the front porch.

I like it like this

It's been a few days since my last post. I didn't think anyone actually read this, but Mom said she follows my blog, so I will continue to update! This time of year is busy for anyone in education, as it is the end of one semester and a month away from the beginning of the next one. This post will accomplish two things: Sum up what I have accomplished recently and the projects I am currently working on.

First a Neville update: Neville was declawed last Monday, and is now doing much better. He was spoiled with attention this weekend from his Grandma Sue and Grandpa Tony, but even then he was sleepy and whiny. He finally started feeling better Sunday and the last couple days he has been running around, playing with his toys, and getting into things he's not supposed to. He's still licking excessively, especially around his paws. He's on my lap now and has just gone to sleep. He had been licking since around 8:00, and its 10:00 now. I'm sure its because of the surgery and maybe that will get better when he gets his stitches out next weekend.

Part I: What I have accomplished in the past week

-With the help of Mama Sue and Papa Tony, we painted the stairway the same off-white that is in the living room. No more green!
-Mama Sue planted grass seed in the back. Chance mowed the lawn for the first time tonight.
-Survived a tornado that came within 15 miles of Springville (we didn't even get a drop of rain during that particular storm, but its still worth mentioning).
-Papa Tony put a motion light on the front porch.
-I acquired a new class: Intro to Computers online. This was a class that was about 1/3 of the way through, but I picked it up after the current instructor was no longer able to teach it. This is my first full online course! It's one thing to help everyone else build their courses, another to teach it yourself. Looking forward to the challenges ahead!
-Moved everything out of the apartment..except the fish tank. Anyone want some goldfish?
-Cleaned the apartment. It's spotless.

Part II: Current To-Do list (most of this needs to be done this week)

-Laundry. Chance has no black socks left
-Address forwarding with the Post Office
-Grading, grading, grading. I have several assignments to catch up on with the new class, plus my Fundamentals students are doing persuasive speeches!
-Writing the Fundamentals final exam
-Prep for summer courses. Intro to Computers materials are needed by May 11th. That's not that far away!! I'm about 95% done with the July Fundamentals course, and have a syllabus and outline for Public Speaking.
-Get the fish out of the apartment. Apparently the kids who came into our apartment last week did steal something: fish food.
-Turn in apartment keys. We need to be out by April 30th.
-Rake leaves in the backyard by the shed.
-Make the front yard look nice.
-Buy a new car.
-Send our Qwest modem back (where's the UPS store?)

So I'm keeping plenty busy, but to quote Sue, "I like it like this"

Plumbing, Painting, and The Dish

It's been an eventful weekend! To summarize:

First the Dish. After the internet was installed, Dish network came and installed our TV. When it came time for him to activate our service, Dish Network had no record of me or my address...odd since the installer was sitting in my living room at the time. So I went ahead and set up the account once again. He said it would take up to 30 minutes for the channels to show up, which was fine with me because I had to take Neville to the vet anyway (btw...we have a healthy kitty!). I stopped back home and saw that we still had no channels. I called the installer back who told me to call Dish Network. So I called Dish and......

They had no record of me or my address. AGAIN!


I had to go teach an ANGEL training session, so I called Chance and told him to deal with it. Of course, when he turned on the TV, he still seemed to have all of the channels minus local channels. So he called Dish Network and they were able to match our service with the registration number on the receiver. Apparently our service was registered to an Emily McCarthy in Vera Beach, FL. No wonder we didn't have any local channels! After some headache, they worked it out. Chance actually talked to the top account supervisor who apologized many times for the confusion. We now have 200 channels, many in HD and 2 DVRs. Pretty cool!

Next, the painting. Saturday we painted the living room and Dining Room. We chose an off-white. The original was a bright white that looked dirty. We also are going to paint the wall behind the steps that was originally bright green. We primed over it yesterday, but haven't painted over the primer yet. Here's before and after pics:









And finally...The plumbing. Mama McWorthy started some laundry and when she went downstairs to put it in the dryer she discovered water all over the basement. It appeared that a drain in the basement had backed up when the washing machine drained. We had to call a plumber and luckily we found one that works 24/7. Even luckier, it they happened to have a "plumbing special" this weekend where the visit was discounted from $175 to $60. Wow lucky us! Originally the plumber thought it was just the drain that needed to be cleaned out but it was actually the main line into the house. Yep, we have tree roots. We've cleaned it out for now and he said we should be ok for about 2 years, but eventually we will have to replace the pipeline into the house. Today's adventure cost us 500 dollars that we weren't expecting to spend in the first week of home ownership. He treated the line for roots and it takes 8 hours to go all the way through. So that means no water tonight. We should be able to shower in the morning, but no toilets, sinks, or anything till around 2AM tomorrow morning.

In other news, Neville gets declawed tomorrow. He's been through so much trauma the past couple of days after being contained upstairs on Thursday and then downstairs on Saturday while we painted and upstairs again while the plumber was here today, and then he goes in for surgery tomorrow! He's a little less itchy since the vet gave him a cortisone shot for allergies so he's getting better. His whiskers are starting to grow in too. He's also starting to do stuff on his own now!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Neville

Thanks to everyone who voted in my poll! However, we didn't even choose one of those names. After we brought him home and got to know him a bit, none of those names seemed to fit. Chance chose the name "Neville" because in HP, Neville is Harry's loyal friend. Kitty is very loyal too. In fact, he's quite clingy...

Neville can't leave my side. He is at my feet 24/7, and if he leaves the room or I leave the room and he can't see me, he wails. It gets kind of annoying, but I'm working on training. I try not to pay attention to him when he cries, and give him treats when he is quiet. He has been excellent about not jumping up on tables, counters etc...and he doesn't scratch or destroy furniture.

I'm not sure what he does when we leave, but I can guess he probably cries for awhile, and then sleeps during the day. He won't eat unless we are there, and he doesn't like to go upstairs unless we are up there with him. He also doesn't sleep with us...he sleeps on the couch pillows downstairs. I try to escape while he's sleeping to come upstairs. Chance is just getting used to the idea of having a cat in the house, and isn't ready for a 3rd bedmate yet.

Besides being clingy, he really is very well behaved. I've only had to use the water sprayer a couple of times.

He does lick himself a lot...and violently. He bites his fur and is constantly licking. He also scratches a lot and has little bumps all over his little body. When I talked to the vet he thought it was probably flea bites and Neville was allergic. Some of Neville's whiskers are also cut off and he had ear mites. Poor little guy...who knows where he came from.

This weekend Chance's parents are returning to help us paint the living room. This could get interesting since they aren't really cat people. Neville will have to live down the basement for the weekend, and I anticipate a lot of crying...











In other news, we are having a dish installed today for tv and we now have internet. And then the Lumina leaked gas. And then Rick found that the brakes were rusted, among other parts of the car. So, at 187,000 miles, we will not see the Lumina again. Great time to have to buy a new car, right? Thank you Obama, for the first time homebuyer tax credit, or we would be in a lot of trouble right now!

New house and Kitty

We closed on Monday and since then, have been hard at work. The sellers left some interesting items behind, and we've had to do a lot of cleaning up after them. Here's some highlights:

-A ziploc bag full of hair (child's first haircut, perhaps)
-Bins full of dog poo
-A bathtub hidden behind the shed
-Beer cans/bottles scattered throughout the backyard
-Curtains completely caked with dust
-At least 100 dead ladybugs in each room
-Pots and Pans
-An old gatorade bottle
-Dog Bones and many dog toys

Since Monday, we have cleaned out everything, washed the carpets, dusted, and started on the backyard.

Here's a picture of the Kitchen. Yes, that countertop is spongepainted blue and red. We will be taking care of that.



More pics/updates to come. In the meantime, please give your 2 cents and vote on kitty's name. He won't come home until Saturday, and I would like to give him a name sooner rather than later. The picture below is not actually kitty, but this one looks more like kitty, except our kitty has a tail.

Final Walkthrough

In the midst of an April sleet storm, Mom and I did the final walkthrough of the house tonight. I hadn't been in the house since February, so it was hard to even remember what the house looked like.

The previous owners left the house filthy! There's dog poo all over the backyard, and the backyard grass is dead from the dog digging it up, and garbage on the front porch... these things are easily fixed though. The inside is full of dirt, the bathrooms are dirty, the kitchen stove is a mess, the living room walls all will need to be repainted etc... Everything will look fine with some hardcore cleaning, that's why Sue is here!

We were surprised to find that the sellers left us with a heating corner fireplace and entertainment center. Not so excited about the swingset. We don't have kids and probably won't for a couple of years, so we don't need the swingset. There is also a tire sandbox in the back yard that is highly unnecessary. We've requested that the seller remove these items.

In other news, Mom and I went to Earl May garden center today because sometimes they have rescue cats and found a cat whose cuteness comes close to Sierra's. Its a tiger/tortie so it has the bulls-eye tummy and has the cutest little face...he is little also. He seems like he has a lot of energy and is soo loveable. We put a 24 hour hold on him. Its a bit impulsive, but I'll take Chance to meet him tomorrow. He kinda looks like this one:

Greetings From St. Louis - Friday's Sessions

Before I jump into Friday, one thing I didn't reflect much on in Thursday's entry was Second Life. Several communication scholars (several at NIU!) are starting to research communication within virtual worlds like Second Life. At Kirkwood, we have created our own island and have started to look into the educational uses, but what I realized from the SL session I attended was that we haven't even scratched the surface. I thought with my knowledge of SL and involvement with the Kirkwood SL group, I would at least be able to put in my 2 cents, but what I had to say was basic information compared to what these scholars were studying. However, we are just looking into how we can use it for education and to help Kirkwood students, not so much the communication dynamics of virtual worlds....one discussion that Andrea and I had that I thought would be an interesting study is exmaining scripts and social norms within second life...if they mimic real life or not.

Ok, on to Friday. Here's my thoughts:

1. I attended the early morning session on getting published. It made me happy that I'm at a community college and so I only have to public if I want to publish. There are so many rules and politics that go with publishing, and so many schools have specific expectations for their professors to reach tenure. I don't think I would do well with the pressure, and especially not the rejection...but I didn't attend graduate school to research, I attended to teach and/or find a job in education thats supported student learning. I enjoy the process of research, but I would rather do it for myself or present it than worry about it having to get published in a time frame.

2. The next session was on ancillary materials, but really got into a discussion on textbooks and textbook prices, etc...it was really interesting. One of the things that my colleagues and I have discussed is that many basic course texts are designed for traditional students at 4 year colleges. When your students are nontraditional and diverse like our students, these texts do not fulfill their needs. I like to challenge my students with theory and application, but this only works if they are willing to read the textbook to see the explanations and practical aspects...they go hand in hand. Students are not likely to read the textbooks, so they are not getting out of the classes what they need to get out of the classes...some because the text is just too hard to understand or is written cheesy. I want/need a straightforward text that does focus on theory, application, and practice but is concise and easy to understand.

This panel also returned to the digital divide discussion and the use of the ancillary materials. Is it worth getting students to purchase these items, when likely (see previous post), they won't use them? Another interesting idea, if an instructor only requires half of the book, the students will feel like they didn't get their monies worth. We discussed that digital natives like material in "chunks" instead of all at once. My solution: Open source texts like Flat World Knowledge. These books are free online, but students can pay to download chapters or any ancillary materials they want themselves. I take some issue with these books, because they are online so there are distractions, and also that if they aren't using these materials when they are free, I certianly can't believe they will pay to download them. However, students can download individual chapters, flash cards, etc...so they take what they need. If they don't want to pay for any of it, they don't have to, but they still have access to the texts. Sengage is starting to respond in creating something similar, but they still will be more expensive than open source ebooks. As of now, there aren't any open source texts that fit our basic course, but sites such as Flat World are growing.

3. I attended a panel on integrating the community in a public speaking course. While many of the suggestions were focused on rhetoric so I didn't necessarily understand all of the ideas, I did take a couple of ideas from it and realized that I actually do some of this in my course. First, for my group project, I have my students choose an issue involving Kirkwood students and have them create an informative presentation. This semester, one group gave a phenomenal presentation about Study Abroad, and specifically, opportunities at Kirkwood. I was thinking that I wished I could have students perform this presentation outside the classroom, because it was really informative. They could even just create a poster session to showcase their work...its something I want to look into because I think, what's the use of tackling these relevant issues if they aren't shared with the campus community? The other idea in the session that I liked is to make students choose a local controversial issue for their persuasive speech. CR probably has plenty, like the local option sales tax and flood recovery. Great and well researched speeches could be presented to local groups and maybe students could actually make a difference.

4. The last session I attended today was Jacki's panel discussion about being a feminist professor...what example do we set for our students. I grew up in a household where my dad was dominant and I never really took women's study courses, so I have never really been exposed to this domain. I took a feminist rhetoric class examining female speakers and I actually did some feminist rhetorical criticism work on Noami Wolf and body image, but that was really the extent of it, so its not really something I think of on a daily basis, especially when I am teaching. The discussion was highly focused on inclusive language, which I really stress in my course, but hate discussing because I hate the debates that come out of it. I think create more focus on inclusive language and doing more activities would be helpful for my students to look at their own biases and try to overcome them. Activities such as women are (fill in the blank) men are (fill in the blank), and then we can open it up for discussion.

What's been great about the conference experience has been that even when we aren't in panels or sessions, the conversations continue. I have had some great conversations that have helped me to reflect on what I am doing in the classroom and perhaps what I should be doing in the classroom.

Greetings from St. Louis - Thursday's Sessions

Since, Wednesday, I have been in St. Louis for the Central States Communication Association conference. I've had a great time so far and wanted to share some highlights of panels that I have attended, mainly for my own benefit so I remember everything.

1. Referring back to a previous blog about the use of technology in the classroom and the community college has led to many interesting discussions. I attended a session yesterday morning about instructors that were requiring technology in their courses...but at their institution everyone had a laptop so everyone had easy access to a computer. Unfortuately at an institution like Kirkwood, many students do not have access to a computer at home, let alone internet. Sure, there are computer labs on campus, but will students take the effort to use them? Probably not. This semester, I have gone paperless and have used multiple forms of technology in my fundamentals course. I've found that the students who are using it are doing better than students who are not, but that is irrelevant because a vast majority of students aren't using it. I suppose the extra effort it takes for a student to login to ANGEL, find the handout, download the handout, and print the handout themselves, is 3 extra steps of effort for them. To get back to our session discussion (there were 2 attendees including myself and the presenters, so it was a nice, intimate discussion), we also discussed the students who lacked motivation simply because they lacked knowledge about using the technology - the notion of the "digital divide." We assume since many of my students this semester are 18-19 and text during class, that they come with the knowledge necessary navigate an LMS, and I don't think that is an accurate representation. However, we don't have the class time necessary for "tech 101." That brought me to my first idea: Integrate ANGEL into College 101. Not sure if it is currently a part, but I really think it should be.

Another issue I brought up in the session was the fact that, if you require technology, and a student has technology trouble, is the instructor responsible to troubleshoot? Sure, we have a helpdesk and an elearning helpdesk at Kirkwood that should be able to help students with any technological issues, but if the technology is course specific (such as video editing, blogging, etc...) the helpdesk isn't going to be as helpful. One idea that an instructor had was to create a "virtual helpdesk" discussion forum in the LMS where students could help each other instead of the instructor being responsible for help.

Interesting stat: Only 58.9% of students in a study by EduCause liked using an LMS. Not sure if that includes online students or only ftf students, but I actually found that to be a very low number, considering 60-some percent wanted instructors to use technology in the classroom.

2. The second session I went to focused on connecting with the "digital natives", so basically, another tech session. The most interesting study here was a study done at Oakland University regarding Second Life and Public Speaking. Students were brought into SL to perform a speech in front of a "dummy" (no human behind the avatar, tho they didn't know it) avatar audience. They measure CA as well as qualitative analysis of general reactions. I was somewhat interested in the CA, but more the findings that students actually preferred giving the speech face to face than in second life, because of the live audience feedback.

3. The online course. I will be developing Fundamentals online this summer, and piloting next spring. I went to one panel about teaching online, but found it a bit dry and didn't get the info I was really looking for (like how to adapt speeches). Some of the ideas that came from this session (and others) are A) Creating a ning page specifically for your course, and uploading speeches for critique here. B) Utilizing programs such as Elluminate or WIMBA to enhance online communication...I'll be pushing for this in DL this week.

The challenge for developing this course is the speech adaptation. Some institutions use a hybrid format where students are required to come to campus a few times over the semester for speeches, others only require that the student finds their own audience of at least 8 adults (doesn't matter who it is). I, and I know my KCC colleagues agree, take issue with students giving their speech in their living room in front of their parents and 6 of their friends. One professor argued that it really didn't matter who was in their audience, and actually family and friends were MORE intimidating than a formal student audience because they cannot empathize with the speaker. I suppose this makes sense, I'm still not sure that I buy it, however. I did find it interesting to hear that many students sign up for online speech courses because they think it will be less anxiety provoking, when in fact many students actually drop because it is more anxiety provoking because the student audience is not their to empathize. Just think, 8 of your silly drunk college friends watching you speak, while they are laughing, trying to make you mess up, heckling, etc...My idea from this is to give students two options for giving speeches: Either come to campus on a designated speech day or give your speech to a formal audience of your choice such as Toastmasters and upload the video to YouTube, or ANGEL or Ning.

So those were my thoughts and ideas that spawned from Thursday's sessions. I focused on the tech sessions, and even helped someone with an ANGEL problem. The one thing I did learn about myself is that I didn't have much interest in attending any interpersonal or group panels, which is my designated "specialty." I think the communication ed and technology is really where I see myself and I can't wait to do some more research of my own and I even created some panel and paper ideas that I could easily submit to next year's conference.

Final Approval

Someone was watching over us....today we FINALLY got our final approval! Here's how it went down:

The lender and the realtors sent the comparables (some from other towns) to the underwriter. Turns out, that underwriter just happened to be on vacation today. This substitute underwriter looked over our file saw no problems and signed off right away. What are the odds??

So we can finally relax. We were told around 1:00 this afternoon that we would probably need a miracle for this deal to work out. Well, we got it. Close date April 6th. I don't think anything else can really go wrong at this point...

House on Hold...

Well, we heard back from the underwriter. They decided that we were overpaying for the house based on comparables (even though the house appraised at purchase price) by almost about $8,000. The thing about comparables...there are very few. Because we purchased in a small town (pop. 1000), only a handful of houses sell per year in the whole town, and the price on the home can range from $40,000-$800,000. Soooo, finding one similar to ours is difficult...maybe 1 per year. So based on what the underwriter did have, they had to deny the loan.

So here's the next step: Our realtor, the seller's realtor, and the bank have been working to find other comparables that justify our purchase price. The underwriter has agreed to look at comparables from other area small towns since Springville is quite limited. They are supposed to make another decision by Friday.

If that doesn't work, the only other option is to renegotiate the purchase price, which is highly unlikely. The seller's are already in some financial trouble, and really could not afford to accept less than the current purchase price. It is more likely that they will put the home back on the market and wait until someone comes around that is paying cash or has a conventional loan. It's just this FHA thing that is so picky for us.

So that's where we stand. We've kind of discussed our backup plans, which include renewing our lease month to month and picking up the pieces and starting the house search again right away, or waiting 6 months and buying a car instead. Luckily we haven't given notice to vacate here yet!

Not sure if anyone is actually reading this or keeping up, but I will continue to post updates here when we get them!

Appraisal!

Great News! The house appraised at purchase price! FHA also did not find anything that needed to be fixed. So now its starting to actually feel like we are going to have a house soon! At the end of this week and this weekend we can start shopping for house-things. Here's some things we are going to need:

1. Lawnmower
2. 2 Barstools
3. Laz-E-Boy Recliner
4. Twin Mattress
5. Bookshelf
6. Weed Whacker

The next step is the underwriter. Our file is getting overnighted and we should hear back in 5-7 days. We've made it through the hardest part, though!

Changing things up...

I really wanted to keep this a professional blog, but as you can see, 4 months later, its not working for me. It's not that I don't have great insights to share, I just don't seem to have the discipline to keep up a professional blog. So I think I'll talk about other things like...

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

It's been kind of a long process. We were pre-qualified back in January, and started the home search right away. The first house we looked at, we really liked. However, it was in the city and would require me to drive on the 380 death trap everyday. The upper level of the house was the master bedroom, and we weren't sure if that was really conducive for raising babies someday. Otherwise, the house was great and had everything we wanted in a first home. I just had this gut feeling that it wasn't the right house. It's the same feeling I had when I was offered a great full time job that paid well but I turned it down. The next day, I was hired at Kirkwood. So, I had a feeling there was something better for us. Plus, who really buys the first house they look at?

So we went house-shopping two more times, looking around Marion. We really didn't find anything that wouldn't require thousands of dollars of work. The last night, we went out to Springville, a small town outside of Marion with a pop. of 1000. There, we found a house we LOVED. It was totally redone on the inside, had 3 bedrooms on the same level, a finished basement with a sports bar, all appliances included, a fenced in backyard, and an oversized garage with a workstation. Its certainly no mansion, and its an older home, but its the perfect size for us, AND its in a small town. I'll be much more comfortable outside of CR.

We discussed our options, and after a roller coaster ride of "to buy or not to buy," we finally decided to put in an offer. Unfortunately, so did someone else. We had to put in a near full price offer, and after some negotiations about possession and concessions, we FINALLY signed a purchase contract.

The next step was inspections. Overall, the inspections showed the house was in great condition. There are a few electrical issues, which are being fixed by the seller. There was also elevated levels of Radon in the basement, but a mitigation system has been put in.

Now we are waiting on appraisal. Because our offer was high, the house could easily not appraise...then its back to start. We should find out by Friday.

I know I've made it sound like this was a painless process so far, but that wasn't really the case. The seller's realtor hasn't been the easiest to work with, and there was some issues with the seller at first. I guess they are selling the house to avoid foreclosure, so they don't have much money right now. They are taking out loans just to sell the home. That's why we're a bit nervous that if the house doesn't appraise, they won't be willing to renegotiate, especially after the work they've just put in with the electrical.

Close date is April 6th. We haven't started packing or given our notice yet just in case. I'll post pics as soon as I can!