Crocheting, Studying and Beading

Well, today, I will turn in the last of 5 papers for this class. yahoooo! I will now be focusing on studying for the objective exam. I passed the pretest by 1 point. It was designed to help you pinpoint your week areas so you can focus your studying. I hope to be ready by August 1, or maybe sooner. I must say that I am really enjoying the program. I am wondering why I did not do this a long time ago.

Anyway, since i finished my paper a tad early, I was able to get in some beading and crochet. Check it out:






I got the pattern for the slippers from epatterns. This was an easy project and I finished them in about a week. They were a huge hit at the party. The ladies at the party told me I should sell them! I actually am doing a holiday craft sale in October, so I will be whipping up a few more of these to put in the sale.


On the feet of the recipient:



She loved them!



Well, I have a tiny bit of time on my hands, so While I am doing laundry, I better get some crocheting done. Or, maybe a little sunday afternoon snooze instead?!

WWKIPD and Jewelry Creations and Grad School

This year, my guild got together to celebrate Worldwide Knit in Public Day. We divided ourselves between 3 locations. One of my great friends and I went to Del Amo Mall to knit with the ladies. Would you believe, that we got "broken up by the mall security!?! One of the girls in the group had contacted the mall last month to make sure that it would be okay for us to meet. Well, the guy in charge never returned any of her 3 phone calls. Apparently there was some paperwork that we needed to complete prior to meeting there. But, since he never called her back, we were not able to do that. But all was not lost. We simply had to sit on the mall benches and refrain from using our own chairs, and take down all of our little signs. So, even though we had to spread out, we still had fun. And we even had a few people stop and ask questions and knit a bit with us. We all brought extra needles in yard just for that purpose. We passed out some info re our guild so I think overall, we did our part in raising knitting awareness in southern CA!

Check us out:





I have been knitting and crocheting. No pictures though because I have not had a lot of progress. I have, however, been making lots of jewelry! Check out my handmade bling!







The first necklace is a reworking of one pictured here before. That one was one of my first efforts and I did not crimp it well, so it broke. I like the reincarnated version better.

Grad school is going well. I have been studying hard and getting good grades. Its exciting because I have not been in school in a while so I was not sure if my brain was going to get into the swing of things. But things are going so well that my academic adviser thinks I might want to think about accelerating my pace. Its a self-paced program so you can go as fast or as slowly as you choose. But I am still going to take my time so that I can really learn the info. I am enjoying though.


Its almost time to start the adoption process again. Please pray for my family. We are so nervous about putting ourselves out there again, but we are moving ahead and trusting God to take care of us through this process.

In other news, my dh received his formal offer on his new position as Assistant principal! We are super excited!

Grad School and Update on me

Well, grad school is going well. I turned in my first assignment: A 3 page paper on situational leadership. I was stressing because I have not been in school in 20 YEARS! And even when I was in college, my major was fairly technical and so I might have written one paper in 4 years. I was going crazy and then my husband helped me. He gave me some great advice and I was able to finish my assignment and turn it in on time. And guess what? I passed!!!!!!!!! I am so excited. On a scale of 1-4 I received a 3.27. So, on to the next assigment: a 5-7 page paper on the Path-Goal theory of situational leadership. If I did not mention it before, you can probably guess from the subjects I am studying that I am pursuing an MBA. I was worried at first. But its been interesting so far. My biggest challenge I think will be the accounting class. That one worries me a bit. But overall, I think I will enjoy the whole thing. I also realize that now is the right time for this. I used to beat myself up about not doing this a long time ago. But I realize now that school is more interesting because of my real world experience. I think I will be a much better student this time around.

Also, I had a little health scare recently. I have been undergoing tons of testing over the last several months due to an overactive parathyroid gland. In the process of all that testing, they found nodules on my thyroid. So, I had to have a biopsy. I had it last thursday and heard from the doctor today that I am fine and that the nodules are benign! Very very relieved!!!!!

Today was a day full of good news!

Adoption update: We will be jumping back in at the end of June so keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Hopefully we will be parents by the end of the summer!!!!!

Oh, more great news. I don't know if I had mentioned that my husband is a teacher. He has been pursuing his masters in administration and will finish that this year. Well, guess what? He will be the assistant principle in the fall!!!!!!! I am so proud of him and happy that he is advancing in his career.

I have been crocheting and beading. I need to take some pics and post them next time.

Talk back soon! GOTTA STUDY!

Another Post So Soon!

Hi,

I have finished my orientation for my MBA program. They give you 2 weeks to get it done, but most people get it done quickly so that they can get started with the actual classes. Tomorrow, I speak with my mentor and schedule all of my classes. I feel so supported already. I am a little nervous though. I read one of the message boards and two of the current students are having a hard time passing one of the exams! I am trying not focus on that though. Just gonna take it one day at a time.

Anyway, my real studying will start after tomorrow night. So today, I finished making this:







It turned out okay. Now, I am going to make some matching earrings.

I got the big beads from a bead fair last weekend. They had so many beautiful things. I was on a budget so I just picked up a few beads that I have not seen elsewhere, like the yellow ones in this piece. I also bought a gorgeous fused glass pendant that I am planning to make a necklace for.


Still working on the granny square throw for my sister in law. Hopefully I can get it done in between my study times.

School Started Today!

I started today. The first course is just an orientation to the program. Its really cool so far. But the hard stuff has not started. I think I am going to like the online education thing. Its cool because you have mentor who will be with you until graduation. And, you have your fellow students that you interact with online. I have my first phonecall scheduled with my mentor tomorrow. I think that I am going to feel more supported in this program than I ever felt while pursuing my undergraduate degree at a traditional brick and mortar school, back in the dark ages! : ) Just kidding. I will keep you guys posted on this program. If its as good as I think it will be, I would definately recommend anyone who is interested!

TTFN!

Crochet Progress

Hi! Long time no blog!

Thanks to all who have stopped by and left encouraging comments. I really really appreciate each one of you. My husband stopped by my blog and told me I needed to update it. I did not realize that I had not blogged in a month. All kinds of things have been happening.

I got sick at the beginning of April with a horrible cold so that knocked me out for about a week. As for adoption, we will jump back on that road at the end of June. I am scared to try again, but we will move ahead in faith. What else can we do? We know for sure we want a child so I have to find the courage to try again.

In the mean time, I am still doing needlework, reading with my book club and hanging with friends.

My book club has been together for more than a year! I have been in two previous book clubs and none of them stayed together this long. I think we have read about 15 books together. I did did not read the last book because we were caught up in the adoption madness. This month we decided to read a classic: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Its good so far. I am half reading and half listening to it on audio. It should be a great discussion in a few weeks.

Here is my latest work in progress:



and a close up of one of the squares:



Its an afghan, for my sister-in-law. I am making it as a Christmas gift. Each strip is made up of 6 squares. I have to make one more strip and then connect them and border them in black yarn. Should be pretty. I love the colors. I am participating in a Gift Along here:

Gift Along

Once I finish this I will have met the 2nd quarterly challenge and will be entered into a drawing for some fab prizes! I hope I win!!!!

I am planning to finish this soon because my time will be limited as of May 1. After thinking long and hard about it and speaking to my hubby about it, I applied to grad school!!!! And I start May 1. I have always intended to go to Grad school. I graduated from Northwestern University 20 YEARS AGO!!!! I cannot believe it has been that long! I took some graduate level coursed when I first got out of college, however, life got busy and my priorities got a little muddled and basically, life happened. Fast forward to 2002. I got married and pretty much immediately started trying to get pregnant. Since that resulted in no baby, we moved on toward adoption. And so far no baby. Every time I have thought about trying to go back to school in the past few years, I decided to put it on the back burner because I was either trying to get pregnant or going through the adoption process. With this last failed placement, I got really down and felt like I had been trying to accomplish something and have nothing really to show for it. I kept thinking that I could have had 2 master's degrees by now if I had just started. So now, I am starting. I found an online program that is fairly flexible. And, if I need to slow it down or stop it once we get our child, thats what I will do. For now, I am going back to school!!!! I am excited and nervous. Northwestern was not easy. I must admit, I barely graduated, but I did it! Even so, when I started, I defined myself by my intelligence. By the time I graduated, I did not know who I was. Simply put, I was BEAT DOWN after I got out of school! So, I am a little nervous about being a student again. I am hoping that when they say older students make better students, that they are speaking truth. We shall see!

I do plan to continue crocheting and knitting and sewing, just not as much. Gotta have some fun, right?

Anyway, I will be blogging in the future about how my almost 43 year old brain is progressing in school. Pray for me!

And keep praying for us re the adoption.

Pulling Myself Together

Hi All,

Thanks so much for all the prayers and well wishes. I can feel all of your support, believe me. My husband and I are fighting our way back from the challenges of the failed adoption. We have put our quest on hold until June. Then we will get back into the pursuit of a family of our own.

In the meantime, my needle work is helping me a lot. I am making to focus on my WIPs for the month of April. I am working on a cape, a shall for a friend, an afghan for my friend's daughter, a dress for my other friend's baby girl, a pair of socks and a baby bunting, amd a doggie sweater. Thats a bit much, so I am going to focus on one thing at a time until they are all done. Wish me luck!

Thanks again everyone and be on the lookout for FO pix!