Catching Up on Homework...

Okay. So, this is not going to be a SLOW semester by any means. I'm cleaning up my homework for the week. Here's the scoop:

Poetry (for Monday):
1. I've got two more days of journals to write.
2. I've got four poems to write "In the Manner of" poems.
3. I found a good Web site that has paintings. Okay, so it's a site that you can purchase reproductions of paintings. I'm using the site to find good paintings to use for a few portrait poems. The site is: www.overstockart.com.

Starting tomorrow, we'll start workshopping our poems (in other words, making them better from a peer review type format).

Technical Writing (for Tuesday):
1. Continue reading my subscription to the Wall Street Journal and pick a story from the front page, read it, and write a one-paragraph ditty about the story.
2. Read the description of wool that was given to us last Tuesday. Write up a 1 to 2 page paper, keeping in mind my audience and keeping as much of the technical information in as possible, based on my audience.

Oops. It's Sunday at 7:30 pm. What was I thinking? But, Rob ended up being off Friday and Saturday. To try to keep my life-school balance, I feel bad if I've got so much homework that Rob's got to do stuff on his own. Luckily, Marie is in town (sorry Vegas Princess), I get her time OFTEN. She has been spending the weekend with Cassi at Pa's. Plus, Mom and Dad took off Monday. I'll spend the day at the college. This will help Rob get some sleep (yep, he got to work this evening). I'll pick up Cassi after class tomorrow.

Friday, Rob napped before going to work. We ate early and he left. Not a half hour later, he was calling me. For some ungodly reason, there weren't enough patients on the floor he works. Because he is "low man" on the seniority latter, he was called not to come to work. The main problem I have with this is, he won't get paid. Yes, for those wondering, he does have vacation time with this full-time job. But, at the beginning of the year, 64 hours of his paid-time off time were taken to pay for benefits. Every year, he has the opportunity to "cash in" 80 hours of vacation/holiday time to pay for benefits. So, this means he is currently in a negative balance for his time. This also means because he is negative he won't get paid. To make up for this, he is trying to work his PRN (as needed) job to pick up some hours to make up for this issue. I guess they don't care that their employees have mortgages and stuff.

So, Friday night, after having my small fit, we went out. We needed to get some new pillows for the bed. Plus, Cassi has been growing AND GROWING. She skinny and TALL. I figured we would check the resale shops for jeans for her. She has one pair I picked up at a garage sale for $1.00. Who can beat getting jeans like this. But, not a good go of it. We came home and went to bed late.

Saturday morning, we started our day by going to a second-hand shop called Second Generation Kids. The last time I was in this shop, they didn't have anything good. So, I knew we would go to a few shops for clothes. Luck was on our side. We were able to pick up 4 pairs of jeans, 2 dresses with shirts (overall-type dresses) and 1 poncho for $40. You can't beat those prices! Plus, a bonus, we only had to go to 1 store.

From there, it was all over the county, looking at Home Depot's, carpeting stores, etc. We expect a large return from taxes. With my going to school and not working, it becomes a bonus, along with we have ourselves taxed to death during the year to be able to get a good return. We have major projects that need to be done on the house. As much as we need new windows on the house, they are going to have to wait. The bathroom needs a major re-do. We've been in the house almost two years now. In the beginning, we realized the bathroom is the original bathroom - shower, walls, exhaust fan, etc. So, we purchased samples to see what we need to do to gut the bathroom, and redo EVERYTHING. Plus, because this won't be a weekend project, we are looking at adding a shower stall into the basement. We'll use that until the main bathroom is finished. In the basement, we've currently got a half bath. With a shower stall, it would turn the bath into a 3/4 bathroom (no tub). After crunching numbers (hmm, seems like I do that a lot), we're looking at approximately 2K for supplies and stuff for the main bathroom. Our old neighbor, who does construction work, came over and looked at the bathroom. He's not sure what should be done. Today, we had my girlfriend Patty and hubby Kevin come over. This was Kevin's first time over, so got to give him the nickel tour. Rob wants to put tile in the bathroom, for which I picked out a good layout. Patty and Kevin suggest a surround and new tub. Of course, the original tub still sits in the bathroom, which happens to be cast iron. Shew, what a major issue to get that thing out. Tomorrow, my newest friend, Dan, will be coming over after work with his daughter. He's our treasurer for the PTO. He has been doing this type of work. I want his opinion and see if he can help out.

So, I'll keep everyone updated, along with pictures when we make our final decisions on the bathroom stuff. I'm thinking Kevin will probably come over and help get our bathroom in the basement fixed up. It won't be perfect because it can't be closed off and have a finished look, but I think it will be usable.

With that, I'll close for now.

Love to all,
Cathy
8^ )