Hi all! And, sort of goodbye but not really. I'm moving to Blogger. Here is the address: http://camerachic.blogspot.com/

If you please, and if you would care to, to note the change in your links and bookmarks, I'd appreciate it.

It has just been too much of a hassle since they switched everything around, and even before that. I've played with Blogger before, and I really like the options and the service. I've never had a problem with it (knock on wood) so I'm hoping it continues. Plus it is a lot more user friendly.

Not too much else has been going on, which is why I haven't really posted. My class continues to go well. Great, really. I'm taking pictures of 2 of my friends' kids tomorrow, which will be fun! Now that I think about it, I should make sure I have a clean memory card.

Hmm, well that's all. I'm going to go finish the exciting job of cleaning my room!

Hellooooo! 

Enrichment!! That's the word! Thanks Afton!

And AD the first pic is of a red panda. It was such a fun trip. I like the zoo .

***

It seems like this week has been both the longest and shortest ever. Monday we had tornado-like weather and a confirmed touch-down a couple counties away from us. It was really crazy bad weather though... there was cloud rotation and a couple funnels spotted near my area, but nothing touched down. We were hiding in the bathroom at work though, just in case. Craziness.

Oh yeah, and work is a bit of a mess. They're having to replace the carpet from the flood, so we have half the library in storage at the moment.

Lets see... more storms on Wednesday, not tornado producing, however. Thursday... heh. Thursday I was walking down the wood floor hallway, caught my foot on my long pj pants, and stopped my fall with my face. It is turning into an ugly black eye at the moment. It looks wonderful, especially since I have to photograph a wedding tomorrow. Uggh. Somehow I bruised my right finger, and only my right finger, as well. I guess my right finger felt it necessary to step up to the plate when all my other body parts abandoned the cause. I have lots of concealer. I think it's ironic- my viewfinder eye, and my shutter finger BOTH get injured two days before this wedding.

So yeah... it is supposed to be beautiful this weekend, so I'm super excited to take lots of biking trips and garden a lot Sunday and Monday. Yay for having the weekend and holidays off!!!

I'm tired, so.... that is all. Me and my black eye are going to climb into bed with a cup of hot chocolate.

later...

Well, my workplace got flooded last Saturday. As a result, I've been working in a different location this week, which is all right. I mean, I'm glad to work. It's just a very different work atmosphere. The day certainly doesn't fly by as it does at my smaller branch. Oh well, two more days.

I wish it would stop raining already. My garden is a dirtpile of weeds. I haven't been able to do too much to it because the entire backyard has been underwater. Friday is supposed to be nice, at least.

Last Friday I went to the zoo. I'm not a zoo hater like some vegans I know. Were it not for the zoos and the work that they do, some animals would be extinct, or very near it. However, I do believe in that the quality of the zoo and the care and... and... darn I forgot the word. The entertainment they give the animals... the... mental things... Darn it. Totally can't think of the word. Anyway, I think that's really important, and you can tell when animals are bored out of their minds at some places, or where they're lively and engaged and healthy with plenty of room and things to keep them engaged.

That was long. Anyway, here are some pics:













The giraffe was amazing. I've never been that close to one.

Uggh, Marlon is doing everything in his power to get in my way. He feels neglected because people pay attention to the dog. I do feel bad for him though, and I spend as much time with my kitty as I can. He still gets very jealous when I play with the dog and will attack poor Sasha when I'm not looking. It's kind of... I don't know, funny. A little kid way to react to something stealing mom's attention. Poor kitty.

My class starts in a couple weeks. I'm writing my 50 page research paper on the role of women in the American West mining towns in the mid-to-late 1800s. I still need to narrow it down further, but because of the library flood I had requested a bunch of books to be delivered there, and they are closed and not receiving any books, so I expect when we open again on Monday and the delivery guy brings us 40 totes, about three of them will be books for me.

I don't get this bravenet comment thing. I thought I had it set to screen comments and mark spam. Sometimes I get an email that I got a comment, sometimes not. Sometimes it will say that there is a pending comment. Sometimes not. Sometimes I'll go into the the manage spam setting, and there will be comments there, so I'll mark the ones that are spam. But then if I go look at the entry, the comments are still there. Shouldn't they be deleted if I marked them spam? I'm so confused. The battle with the spammers continues.

Well I'm tired so I'm gonna make a kava kava drink and crawl into bed.

Later!

I love Tuesday because it's kind of my hump day... Tuesday I work at the busy library, and other than the last hour when there are four of us there, the time FLIES by. I get to do the delivery, which I love to do, and takes up tons of time. And then Wednesday is a slower day, I dub it "Project Day", and there's a bunch of stuff to do to get ready for summer reading. I love summer reading! Even though I don't *do* summer reading anymore, I just have such happy memories of spending hours in the tree in the backyard, reading. And staying up late with a flashlight, reading. And reading in the car. That's what kids these days should do, instead of watching movies in the car. Read. We always did. We'd all pile into the station wagon with about 15 books between the five of us kids- my sister liked joke books and fantasies, my other sister liked old-fashioned romances and all that girl-drama stuff, my brother was into non-fiction about wars and cars and making trebuchets, and my other brother was still in picture books. Now that I think about it, by the time my youngest brother was into chapter books, I was driving. Hmm. Interesting to think back. Anyway, I was into mysteries, and every summer I read as many books as I could because the person who read the most in summer reading got a prize. I'm sure I still have old reading records somewhere... I think my personal best was 261, which was about 3 books a day, everyday. I read a lot, lol. And I won the prize for most books every summer. I know, I'm a dork.

Oh wow, that went on a tangent.

Anyway, yeah. I like Tuesdays.

I rode to work on my bike yesterday. It was so awesome! I'm going to do it any day that it's not raining. It was a 20 minute ride there, and then 30 minutes back, just because I was tired after my ride on Sunday. I went a little too far on Sunday, 23 miles, and I only realized it once I was like 5 miles away from my house. It was like, "Yeah, that was my point. And now I have to do five more." It was really fun though, it was such a lovely day, and no one was out driving so it was good.

A lady at work asked me yesterday what I did for my mom on mother's day, and it was awkward. I hate that, making it awkward. There are two people who work at the library who knew my mom, and knew she passed away. I guess I assumed that they mentioned it to the others, so I was a little surprised when she asked me. Usually I can handle answering that question and not making people too uncomfortable, but I'd had a really really rough weekend, so it ended up being really uncomfortable.

I did sign up for one class this summer. I'm kind of looking forward to it, although I know it's going to be a LOT of work. It will be good, though, to get it out of the way now, and not have to worry about it. So then, 12 credits in the fall, 12 in the spring, and maybe 1 or 2 classes in the summer if I need a couple more requirements met, and then I'm done!! I can't wait. Whew. Lol.

All right, I'm hungry so I better go get some breakfast, and then get ready for work. Later!!

Yesterday was the only day in about two weeks that it didn't rain, practically. It's raining again (for the third time today) right now. Farmers haven't been able to plant, there's knee-high grass everywhere and standing water... sigh. There's supposed to be rain for a couple more days, and then it's supposed to be nicer. Finally! I was hoping to get the lawn mowed before my dad got back from visiting my bro in Louisiana. We'll see.

The grades for my classes have been posted, and I am happy with them. I was debating for a while whether I wanted to take a class this summer, but I think I will. It's an intense class (another one ) but they decided to revamp the classes in the fall, and they split this class into two sections. The first half of the class is now a 200-level class, so it won't apply towards the upper class residency requirement, and may push me back a bit. So I think I'm just going to take it this summer.

The good news is all the library levies passed, so I still have a job. Yay! The bad news is that the budget was cut slightly, and I won't know if I still have a job the next fiscal year until July. I think I'm taking a leave from the retail job in the meantime. All the college kids who go to school during the year do it while they're away, then they come back and work the summer. I'm just doing the reverse. Plus I'm trying to get into one of the local history museums as a docent, and that would be weekends. Plus I'm trying to get my photography thing going, and the retail job is holding me back. Plus last weekend some rude lady pushed me, because she was being rude and instead of saying "Excuse me" to indicate she was going to walk behind me, she pushed me with her shoulder. Even though there were plenty of other places for her to walk, and if I had realized she was going behind me I would have moved. I don't get paid enough for that.

I went BIKING today! For the first time in a while because it's been, well, 40 degrees and raining. 10 miles in 42 minutes, which averages out to 14 miles an hour. And I went along the road with a few hills, just for the challenge. It was fun. And about the only time it didn't rain today, lol.

I got all the stuff for the bike trip I'm taking this summer. SO looking forward to it! All I have to do now is get a tent . There's this totally cool little outdoor supply store about a half hour away, and I stopped in there to look at tents a couple months ago and the salesguy was SO super helpful, so I'm going back there to get my tent. They were really awesome. I need an outdoorsy boyfriend, I think, once I finally get around to getting one of those. Lol.

Okay, that is all. I'm going to sew a little more and then go to bed.

Later!

The last week has been crazy, bit I finished all my papers and now I'm waiting for my grades. I figured out that I wrote well over 16,000 words this semester- actually, the equivalent of a 51 page paper, so WHEW! I think it's much harder to write 12 small papers than it is to write one big one, though. Especially since the smaller ones require research, outlining, citing, revising... for every single one!

So we'll see. On to the next semester. I swear I'm getting my degree if it kills me.

Actually, I have no new news. That's all I've been doing for the last week.

I told my sister WEEKS ago to take her dog in and get some anti-flea and tick stuff, but of course do you think she listened? No. She took the dog in... and got her nails trimmed. Yeah. So now the dog has had two ticks on her, and my sister is finally taking her in to get the stuff. Some people.

So yeah. My to-do list for the next month includes riding my bike, going to see the new elephant home at the zoo, taking lots of pictures, gardening if it ever stops raining, planning out the patio I'm thinking about putting on the back of my dad's house, and deciding if I want to take classes this summer. You know what, I'm thinking not. I think I just decided that. Summer classes are much shorter than full-semester ones, and it's hard enough over the internet. Yay, one thing off my to-do list!

Okay, I'm going to go clean my sadly neglected room and then make some waffles. Later!