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.