Day: February 1, 2010

Monday Stuff

Worth Mentioning …

Karen

Monday Mentions is an easy way to share any and all of the fun things you’ve discovered recently, online or otherwise. For more information read this post by the mastermind behind this whole thing, Jen @ Daily Mish Mash. Here’s what I’ve discovered this week…

1. So the Amazon book store thing is going well …

I’ve sold eight books so far – not bad for only being “in business” a little over a week.

Though I don’t have any illusions of getting rich off this book store, it IS nice to be able to sell my books to people who actually want them. This whole book store thing is still an experiment, but if I continue selling books, then I’m definitely going to start getting pro-active about adding more books to my inventory. And if that means hitting yard sales, and of COURSE the bi-annual library book sales, then I will do it.

It’s all for a good cause, after all. 🙂

2. I just had the weirdest thing happen.

Well, weird and creepy.

Dude’s ’99 Cavalier is parked in our backyard. We want to build a garage but right now, we don’t have the funds to build that garage. So, there she sits all by her lonesome.

And here I sit, writing to you all, waiting to go pick up the boys from school, when the doorbell rings.

I ignore it. I always ignore the doorbell, one, because if you didn’t call first? All bets are off as far as me stopping what I’m doing and talking to you. And two, I’m by myself and HELLO creepy person confronting a woman, by herself, at home.

I’m pretty dense, but even I know that can be a stupid move.

After some time passed, I went to the door, expecting to see a delivery. Because most of the time, that’s who is ringing our doorbell – the UPS/FedEx guy.

I open the door – no package. But there is a sticky note stuck to my front door. The guy wrote something about if we wanted to sell the Cavalier, regardless of whether it was working or not, to give him a call.

Um … no. That’s our son’s car and it’s not going anywhere. But I can understand why he might have thought we wanted to sell it – it’s parked in our backyard and DOES look like we’re trying to sell it.

But here’s the really creepy part. I get up from my desk and I see the back door ALSO has a sticky note on it. Same message, same guy. But um … the back door. Which means he had to walk all the way around our house and stick it there. Front door. Okay. Back door? Dude, you’re trespassing. And the part that irritates/embarrasses me? He HAD to have seen me sitting at my desk because I’m right there, in plain sight.

He must have thought I was so rude.

Well, I AM rude. But still … awkward!

3. I was updating school websites this morning … because that’s my day job, and I was trying to locate a graphic for a pair of jeans (don’t ask), when I stumbled onto this picture.

I’d post it here, but honestly? It offends me so much that I can’t bring myself to actually do it.

And here I go, back on my soapbox again …

Look. Ladies. I get pretty sick and tired of listening to ya’ll bitch and moan about how men need to stop oogling and staring and treating you like a sex object when you CLEARLY want that to happen.

Why would I say that? Why would anyone wear something like this and think it WON’T happen??

If you want to be taken seriously, if you want men to respect you and stop looking at you like a sex object, then for the love of God, don’t wear slutty clothes like this.

Sheesh. Am I the only one who understands this concept? Because I’m beginning to think so!

4. My laptop crashed, which meant my iTunes library went *POOF*, and disappeared. I don’t know about you? But AARGGH!! This is like twice this has happened to me. The first time, I spent an entire day putting all of my CD’s back into my iTunes library AND dummy me, I didn’t keep a backup of the songs I purchased through Apple, so in essence, I lost those songs. (I could have contacted Apple about that, and I’m sure they would have allowed me to get copies of those songs, but Ugh. There were only a few and quiet honestly? I didn’t feel like jumping through hoops, which you sometimes have to do when you deal with big, controlling corporations like that).

But this time, THIS TIME, I got smart. I have nearly 1,100 songs on my iPod and OMG, I did not relish the thought of having to put all of those songs back on, so I started doing a little research.

If you have anything BUT an iPod Touch or Phone, you can plug your iPod into your computer and it will recognize it as a hard drive. You can then manually copy folders onto your computer, and then import them back into iTunes and SNAP, your songs are back into your iTunes. But this is only if you’re comfortable with file management. And if you’re not, or, like me, you have an iTouch or an iPhone, you can use programs like Copy Trans. (If you want to know more about the file management option, this is a good place to start reading about it).

Copy Trans will take the songs off your iPod, put them on your computer, and then turn around and import them into your iTunes with one click of a button. They offer a free download, so you can try it, but it’s only good up to 100 songs. If you want to import any more than that, you have to pay $20 for a full license.

So, I thought I’d give them a shot. I mean, time is money and it’s worth it to me not to have to blow a whole day just to put my music back on … so, I tried it.

I downloaded the program, installed it, plugged in my iPod and it recognized my Touch immediately. All I had to do was click one button and it did it’s job.

Seamless and incredibly easy. The whole process took about 25 minutes. Which beats the HOURS I would have spent doing the same thing manually.

You can also customize what you want transferred and there are various other functions available, but I since that’s all I wanted from the program, that’s all it gave me.

I recommend using the program. You won’t find an option to transfer your music FROM your iPod TO your computer from Apple, you’ll have to use a third party. And if you’re needing something like that done, I recommend Copy Trans.

(Remember. I don’t do sponsored posts – I was not compensated to talk about Copy Trans in any way).

5. Snuggies for Geeks.

Seriously. Click on the link. You will laugh. Then come back here and tell me which one you liked the most.

6. If you dropped it on the floor, should you eat it?

Here’s a flow chart to help you decide.

7. This photo made me laugh.

We’re totally doing this the next time we’re on a beach.

In about five years. 😀

Life

The Boys Take Their Future By the Tails

Karen

Scheduling

The boys and I spent a good three hours working on their school schedules for next year yesterday …

Oh wait, that was last year. This year, it took us all of thirty minutes.

The counselors had a meeting with the kids this past week and discussed their schedules with them. They took them in groups, so even though the boys sort of knew what to do, they didn’t have one-on-one instruction.

Which worked out fine, because judging by their selections? They did just fine on their own.

Dude and I really struggled with his schedule last year. And it was mainly because he simply didn’t want to schedule himself for the classes that he HAD to take, let alone any extras. And the extras he wanted to take? Well, there weren’t any. He wanted to take classes that didn’t require any brain thought, at all. He just wanted to show up, maybe turn in a paper or two that AT MOST took him five minutes to complete and call it a day.

So, to say we went round and round on his classes would be putting it mildly. He wasn’t interested, he didn’t care and he kept asking me what I thought, which I refused to tell him because I was simply there to guide him, I wasn’t there to tell him what direction to take his future.

He would have to eventually figure that out on his own.

It was a struggle and neither one of us enjoyed the experience. By the time we had “agreed” on a schedule, we were both pretty raw and on edge.

But this year? Totally and completely different.

Dude already had his schedule done by the time he brought it home to show me for approval.

I didn’t change one class. I thought he did a really nice job of rounding out his choices between practical, required and desired courses.

Here’s what he ended up taking his senior year:

P.E. (which is really a weight-lifting class)
English IV
Lit of the Bible
Integrated Algebra II
Environmental Chemistry
Earth/Space Science
Astronomy
The Holocaust
Economics
Accounting I
Web Design

His two backup classes? (In case his primary choice is not available)

Meteorology
Physics I

The only class he was required to take was English IV. Everything else? Icing on the cake. And he picked all of these classes – I simply approved his choices. I was going to comment that I was specially pleased by the Lit of the Bible course, but quite honestly? I’m pleased with all of his selections. I think it’s a well-rounded choice of interesting subjects and they obviously interest Dude since he picked them.

I did question him about the Integrated Algebra II selection for you see, he’s done with math. He has met all of his requirements. But he chose that class because the Algebra II class he had this past semester, well, he didn’t do very well in it. And I think he’s a bit disappointed with himself, if you want the truth. He said he wanted to try again, only take a slightly easier class, perform better, get a better grade and hopefully sort of negate the grade he got for Algebra II. He said he didn’t feel like he learned a lot about the subject and he knew that would eventually hurt him when he went to college.

I can’t tell you how proud I was to hear him say that. Granted, he might have been saying all of that stuff because he felt like it was something we WANTED to hear, but it really doesn’t matter what his motives are, the fact that he thought them through and was willing to put himself through yet another grueling math class (math has always been so hard for him) was a true sign of maturity and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

So. Dude is set for his senior year. I keep telling him that next year will be HIS year. I just really want his senior year to be special, fun and something he looks back on with fond memories.

Jazz’s schedule was a bit more challenging. And again, he had already filled it out before he showed it to me so there wasn’t a lot to do. I did have to take off the Accounting course and put on a Science course (the Science course is required, the Accounting class is an elective and he can always take that later), but overall, again, I didn’t have to do much.

Since Jazz wants to schedule for Advanced Marching Band, Advanced Band and Jazz Band his remaining three high school years, it’s sort of a challenge to find room for all of the other courses he has to take and for the ones he wants to take. After thinking it through, it looks like he’ll end up taking Driver’s Ed this summer. Which works out better anyway since it’s an easy class and he’ll get it over with quickly.

I was also impressed with Jazz’s forethought. He is thinking he might like to go to college and major in accounting (like his father), so he’s already leaning more toward business classes. He wants to take Business Math his junior year and of course, the accounting class at some point.

I know Kevin will be tickled by his choices.

So, Jazz’s schedule for next year looks like this:

Advanced Marching Band
Advanced Band
Jazz Band
P.E.
English II
Integrated Algebra II
General Biology
World History
Foods / Nutrition

And his two backups:
Digital Communications
Business Principles / Management

Again, I did not pick these classes out. I simply read them the descriptions of the classes to ensure that they sounded like something the boys wanted to do.

The boys brought their transcripts home along with their scheduling paperwork and I must confess, okay, I must brag on them, they look pretty good. Dude does have that one, erhm, undesirable grade that is sort of a blemish on an otherwise nice transcript, but I think if he ends up taking this other math class and gets a decent grade in it, that will show anyone taking a look at his transcript that he didn’t give up, he rolled his sleeves back up and tried again.

I don’t know what I’ve done to be so blessed with such awesome children, but THANK YOU GOD. I just pray we continue on this path for the remaining high school years.