Online Schooling…

Published October 2, 2014 by Angela

…is definitely a big improvement for me than last year when I was setting all of the lesson plans, schedules, checking all of the homework, and then helping her with all of it. Now I just have to help her with all of it. And remind her to stay on task. And answer questions she should probably know the answers to. And remind her to stay on task. And explain to her why it is important to at least move her books from the exact location they were in that morning, so it at least looks like she opened them. And remind her to stay on task. And sit with her through her entire Algebra lessons to help her understand. And remind her to stay on task.

Okay, I think you got my point. I am liking this online environment for Erin (I am working on my 3rd college degree online, so it is definitely familiar territory). The one thing I do not like is the assessments are 4 or 5 questions. If she even gets one wrong, her grade drops by a large amount.

We are still working through the bugs, but she is improving from where she was the first week. Hopefully she is finding her rhythm, and we can keep her caught up. She has one huge writing project that gets shared with the social studies assignments as well, and it does get a bit confusing as to what is due when, and which class they want it submitted to.

I am still hoping she will be ready for public high school next year; she is working towards that goal as much as I am. If she is not, I will definitely go this route next year as well.

We made it past Hump Day, on to the weekend!

Enough Of That Fiasco!

Published September 30, 2014 by Angela

I (hopefully) moved all of my blog information back to wordpress.com, and am hoping for a fairly quick reply from Bluehost to refund me my money from my 3 year hosting plan that I paid, minus of course the 5 days of stress when I attempted, unsuccessfully, to use it.
For those of you that have managed to migrate your blog to a self-hosted website, I am beyond impressed. This experience was so stressful to me that I do not know that I would ever attempt it again. And that is really too bad because my control over my blog is again limited.
If you have self-hosted and found an amazing hosting site that did not find it necessary to charge $19.99 just to talk you through the process of moving your domain name, let me know. And no, I did not pay them anything to help me; it did not appear very user friendly right from the get-go.
So, after today, hopefully I can get back on track with my daily blogs, and I apologize for all the errors and non-existent webpages you were likely directed do.
Have a Happy Tuesday!

When You Reach Your Frustration Limits…

Published September 30, 2014 by Angela

…because of a blog. Make that 3 blogs. I am having a very difficult time learning how to navigate bluehost. I cannot update any of my blogs, and I lost all of my followers.

So this is really just a test to see where this blog post goes, because I have it pointing to bluehost, but cannot access this blog anymore.

This could get real interesting, real fast…

An update On The Not So Easy Blog Transfers…

Published September 26, 2014 by Angela

I really did not think this whole “host-your-own-blogs” thing out before I proceeded to give BlueHost a large chuck of money to move my WordPress blogs there. Not that I did not want to do this, but the timing was really, REALLY bad on my part.

  1. Last night was my last day of being a 3rd shift Supervisor. I am starting a new position with my company on Monday, and need to get used to working 1st shift again. I was on 3rd shift for 2 ½ years.
  2. Starting Monday, I will be training in above mentioned position, which I had prior to Supervising, and much has changed since then.
  3. I took a 2-3 hour “nap” this morning after I got home from work, knowing I had to be at a football game tonight and could not make it that late without some sleep.
  4. I get physically ill when I do stuff like this to my body. So I am at this moment tired, frustrated, and having pains that I only get when I pull these kinds of stunts.
  5. My Leadership class for my MBA started yesterday, and this professor seems to be especially detail-oriented. I mean more so than all of the other Professors I have had who have their Doctorate degrees.
  6. I need to get my 8th grader’s homeschooling stuff straightened out; we seem to have a disconnect between her online school database and our computer.

So, with all of this stuff going on at once, I have no idea what possessed me to just go ahead and begin switching my blogs.

On a positive note, after 2 days, I finally got the nameserver on my Books and Opinions blog to send it to BlueHost. My other 2 blogs? Not-so-well.

I am stalling on doing my discussion questions for my class which are due tomorrow. When I feel overwhelmed like this with numerous things going on at once, I tend to shut down and not take care of any of them. The smart me would do one thing at a time, then move on to the next.

I am not being smart today.

Smooth Moves and Switching Over

Published September 25, 2014 by Angela

I Hope This Goes Better Than I Am Expecting! Probably not what you expected either, from the title!

I am moving my blogs to a self-hosted website, so I can have more control over how my pages look, as well as what add-ins are displayed. I am hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. So, I will be absolutely devastated if my followers don’t get redirected to my new website as it states it will do.

I know several of you are following two of my blogs, and one of you is following all 3 ( J ). I do not know how long this transition may take, but I will definitely keep them open where they are at until I know I can export everything over.

So, if I disappear for a while, I apologize, I will just be sitting in front of my laptop, crying because I messed something up!

2013’s To Do List – Update

Published September 24, 2014 by Angela

I have been giving an update about every three months for how I am doing with my little to-do list I made for myself of things I wanted to work on in 2014.

1)      Go to church more – was doing very well, but my summer attendance is never good. That will likely be a focus for me next year; figure out why I have such a hard time getting to church in the summer months

2)      Tithing – all good here

3)      Swearing – swearing has become pretty much non-existent for me; except when I am really, REALLY angry about something. I am at the point of when I hear others swearing, the worse the word is, the more I cringe

4)      Yelling – much better here as well, except, again, when I am REALLY angry

5)      Me Time – yeah, it seems I have been doing everything possible to make sure my schedule is as full as possible, at all times. Me, Myself, and I need to have a little chat about this

6)      Patience – much better, except when? Yep. When I am REALLY angry

7)      Exercise – I have been on exercise equipment a couple times in the last month. It certainly is not enough, but it is definitely better than what I was doing. Which was nothing

8)      Read the Bible – I did get this done. I read the entire Bible, front to back. Even the confusing parts in the Old Testament that I would normally skip over. Now I re-read different parts usually on a daily basis

9)      Improve my photography skills – Well I have definitely been taking more pictures, and getting some good results that I am looking for. I certainly am not utilizing the full capabilities of my camera yet

10)   Be Happy – I have been much happier for this past year than I likely ever was in the previous 20 years. I still get down, and upset, and all that other stuff that happens on occasion. But I have truly allowed myself to be happy. To not question if I should be/deserve to be/earned the right to be truly happy

Next years list is what I need to start thinking about now 🙂

Questioning Life Changes, Does it Never End?

Published September 21, 2014 by Angela

I always seem to have a difficult time making very important decisions; never being able to stop asking myself, “but what if I did …”. The past year has been full of life changes for me. All for the positive, but never without stress and worry. I will be the first to admit that I overthink everything. Every single thing. At 42 years old, with a great career, family life, and good health, I still stress over making decisions.

Sometimes I wish I could be a kid again, when someone else would make the decisions for me. Then I wouldn’t be the one responsible when it didn’t work out. I have made some bad decisions; some real whoppers! But I do always own up to them, hopefully apologizing when necessary, and definitely learning from my bad choices.

I watch my girls go through the very same thing. Struggling to make decisions. I can see the look on their face when they are hoping I can and will give them the answer. But I can’t. There are some decisions that they have to make for themselves, to learn and grow from. Even when I know that there will be crying later. Broken hearts. Anger. I have to let them own that. They have to take that road that they choose and decide for themselves if they made the right decision.

My outlook as of late has been to take a positive from a negative, and focus on that. Now if I could just teach that to my girls 🙂

Does Anyone Ever Like Algebra? Do You Ever Use It?

Published September 18, 2014 by Angela

These are two of the many questions Erin is asking me as we are going through her algebra every day. I have to laugh, because I used to absolutely hate math. But I have had to take so many progressively difficult math classes in college that I actually now enjoy the challenge of working out a math problem.

But no, I did not tell her that she may never use algebra outside of school 🙂

It will all make sense at some point, I am just not sure yet what that point is for her.