I'm tired. I had this brilliant idea of not driving home between morning church and evening thing at church (not a regular evening service; we don't have that at my church). I'm not sure how much gas I'll save, because I've planned to drive elsewhere, somewhere I haven't been. But I'm pretty sure that it is closer than home. Whether it AND the library AND wherever else I drive will all add up to less than driving home, I do not know.

My ONE! college class is going well. I'm learning new and interesting things! Currently, I've been learning about the larynx. And the cricoid cartilage and the hyoid bone and lots of neat things like that.

Work is going pretty well.

The weather is gloomy.

I'm happy.

Have a good week!

picking pictures

Trying to choose a few pictures from when I was in Puerto Rico to make a display... Choose only a few pictures to show what defies words.

It is interesting to look back. Now that I've worked in a child care center, some things make more sense. Like the quiet corner that we would call the cozy corner at my current job. What preschool room is complete without one? And of course some of what we did with the preschool kids looked alot like playing. Playing is an excellent way for preschoolers to learn. I suppose I've grown more used to the technical explaination of what is being learned in comfortable everyday life. Taking a break looking at books on the floor in the quiet corner - that was building for literacy (in fact, a teacher can get a higher rating on one scale in a one-year-old classroom if the teacher does this with a child). Playing outside - gross motor (I thought it was a break, but now I would put it under learning/development as well) (also important for a better rating). "Free play" - decision making, social-emotional development, and tell me what they freely are playing and we can probably put it into even more educational categories.

I think I have 18 pictures chosen now. Possibly too many. Possibly not as many pictures of older students as I want. But a start.

school and weekend

At this point, I have (re?)memorized my student ID number for Utah State University. I have taken three quizes (one more than technically assigned for this week) (and I think I had taken all three before Wednesday). But I still have text book studying to do. And the kind of studying I should do to make sure I will still know what I knew the hours of the lectures and quizes when the hour of the test arrives. But thus far, the class is going well. I learned about kinds of cartilage, among other things. One kind is "elastic". The others escape me. Reassurance that I should study (except that depending on how the test is made, I might only need to recognize the correct words out of a group of words for kinds of cartilage, not come up with them out of thin air, in which case I still might be okay, though I'm not sure). Enough about my dear speech anatomy class.

I'm excited for the weekend. I have high hopes of things I could do, but I expect time will be an issue, especially since I don't want to be rushed. I want a nice relaxing Friday evening-Saturday. I have cleaning, and a movie to watch in Spanish (it is also in English, but the goal is to improve my Spanish), and more.

Tomorrow, Lord willing, I'll start my class from Utah State University (online). I'm pretty excited. I think my text book is at the post office waiting to be picked up.

This past week, I was out 3 evenings for college group related activities; two of those nights, there was black ice. But we haven't gotten much snow. The snow outside should be measured in inches, not feet.

On New Year's Eve Day, my family and I went snow-shoeing on a near-bye mountain. It was neat to do an activity-outing with so many of us together (8 people!). It was beautiful, too, but the lighting turned out not right on a number of pictures... I think something was wrong with how it automatically decided to expose. Oh, great, I just looked and my camera is set to take pictures in its "Tv" mode, whatever that means. I think that was the problem.

Please know that these snow pictures from snow-shoeing were not taken at my house! :) We went onto a mountain with more snow.

The lighting turned out pretty good on this one! (I think it was probably taken while the camera was still on a more normal setting)

And lighting represented wrong again (picture probably taken after the setting was changed away from a normal setting). I think this was my first time snow-shoeing. I liked it pretty well, especially running (jogging) for short bits. I liked feeling more in control and safer than with skiing, (I think if I was better at cross-country skiing, maybe the control thing wouldn't be such an issue.)

Pictures from Christmas. I think I was talking or about to talk or just talked in this picture... We wore home-made "elf" hats on Christmas and helped at and enjoyed a community dinner in a nearby community (ranks as a one-stop-light-intersection town).

Thanks to a brother for taking the sisters-in-elf-hats photos.

A highlight from New Year's Eve day... twice hearing what was presumably the neighbor's cannon going off and the resulting conversations. So Mary Poppins is not quite as unrealistic as one might think... :)