Bored

Here I was looking forward to the semester to be over and to have a break and I am bored. With the rain I can't hang outside, my husband is working in New York and my job hasn't started yet. I don't feel like reading right now, it is to hot to crochet and I can't go walking, so here I sit bored.

Tomorrow I can look forward to laundary, cleaning house and weather permitting I am going for a nice long leisurely walk. I am going to enjoy the sunshine. I probably should have taken one class this summer. There really isn't anything on TV worth watching, it is a bunch of brain numbing nonsense. I should be able to plant my herbs and vacuum the pool. None of this sounds all that fun, but at least I will have some things to keep me busy. Maybe I will choose a writing prompt and write a story, that is not something that I usually do. Who knows it could be the start of a book or a short story.

Tough Times

It still seems to be the season for tough times. Our government, well that is a whole other blog. But our economy is still down, so much so my husband has had to travel to another state to work, he has been gone for a week already and I am so bored I can hardly stand it, usually when he is gone I have much to do and I enjoy my time alone, not so much this time. I will be glad when things in our country turn around so that families won't have to struggle the way they are now. I hope when my husband returns that he will have plenty of work and won't have to go elsewhere to work. I am thankful for my trip coming up this week-end because then I will be busy and with several people from school. Well that is all have have to say on this subject tonight, it is time to go to sleep.

Rain

Rain, Rain go away come back another day. I do believe that we have had enough rain, our pool is about to over flow, I may have to go backwash it in the rain. I am so ready for some sunshine and really warm weather and oh, some blue sky would be wonderful. Our back yard is full of water, our puppies don't want to go outside to do their business, so it is a wee wee pad day.

I love the rain and I know that it is good for our garden, we have already gotten spinach out of, but I wish some of the rain would wait until it is starting to get dry this summer. I do love the smell after the rain, everything smells so fresh and clean. The grass is greenier, our trees and flowers look awesome. Even with the rain as I sit here on the couch and look out the livingroom window the front yard is beautiful, our Weeping Willow is full and lush, our Dogwood is blooming and our Japenese Maples are full, you can't even see through the leaves, the color is such a deep dark redish burgundy.

The colors in the rainbows are awesome, plus the rainbow reminds us of the covenant that God gave to us of never flooding the world again and of course that promise holds so much more. I hope to see one today. I hope the rain moves out soon. I guess this is one way to get my car washed, but I really would love to be able to sit outside and journal, drink a glass of iced tea and just ponder my future.

Rain is a good thing, but I think that we have had enough for now, come on sunshine!!!!!

Chicago

Next week Shay and I leave for Chicago for 4 days for the National Restaurant Association Show, there is going to be so much to see, so much information to gather, people to meet, I am really looking forward to going. We are also going with a group of people from school so we will have a great time. A few of us are leaving early and going to the Arch and the casino before continuing our journey.

After the NRA Shay and I are going to do a little site seeing while we are there. We are going to google and see exactly what we want to see and maybe do a little shopping. I know that we will get to eat some really good food which I am looking forward to.

Next year the NRA event is in Las Vegas so we are already planning on going, hopefully our husbands will be able to go with us, it could be a great little get away.

Hopefully when I come back from Chicago I will have alot to blog about. I hope we are able to find vendors that we want to work with and get a chance to look at equipment that we could possibly put into our business.

Hopes and Dreams

Most of us have hopes and dreams. I know that I do. I am going to school in order to pursue one of my hopes, one of my dreams. I just finished my first year of culinary arts. I still have at least 3 semesters to go, already I have learned alot and in the process have learned that I have much more to learn. I love to cook and have always wanted to experiment more than I have, but sometimes the budget dictates what you can do. This summer I plan on practicing on my family and friends, so that I am more prepared for next semester. I have purchased a couple of books that I plan on reading this summer, especially when I am out by the pool.

In the midst of all of my hopes and dreams is a little bit of fear but I plan on doing it afraid. My daughter and I want to open a particular type of deli, we already have most of the menu planned, the decor, the employee manual and a few other things, so we are getting ourselves ready. What happens if we can't open our own place because of the economy or other reasons, then we have a great skill to use in other places. With this type of training we can live anywhere.

I really do want to see out place become a success and fill a niche that no one else around here is filling. There are foods from the east coast that I miss and that I would really like to share with this area. I hope to see things change in the future so that our economy is better so that our dream can become a reality.

Finals

I think whoever came up with the idea that students needed to take finals and to have more stress added to their lives must of had a hole in their head. What do finals really accomplish??? It really isn't an accurate view of what the students have learned through the semester. Why do I say that well because most students are memorizing the information, going to go regurgitate it up onto the final and walk away and not remember half of what they just wrote on the final. However if you take that same student and put things in a more practical sense you would find that they have learned alot throughout the semester.

For example I am having to memorize a sauce chart half of the names which I can't even pronounce, have no idea how to make them and yet it is part of my final, now I ask you what sense does that make, what is that really contributing to my education, now if you wanted me to demonstrate what I have learned in class I could do that I could write a paper about what I have learned. Oh, I will study and do my best on the finals, but they still make absolutely no sense to me. I am watching my daughter trying to juggle work, school, studying for finals, take care of her husband and daughter and then trying to find 5 minutes a day just for herself and she needs to memorize information that she is not going to remember like we all need another hole in the head. Sometimes I do wonder what the hell people were thinking when they put all of this together.

It is true not all instructors are teachers. Here I am paying to learn so that I can change my life and I have instructors that aren't concerned about what I have learned but they are concerned with the next test that I am to take, there really is something wrong with this picture, with this system. I think the system needs to be more concerned with making sure I learned that false testing and a GPA. I take the testing seriously, I have already taken one final and I aced it and because of that instructor he tested us over things that we actually learned. I have to take a math final on wednesday and I have been given so many different formulas sometimes 2 or 3 a week over the last 15 weeks and I am suppose to remember all of them, plus how to change my calculator back and forth, it saddens me to say that when that test is over half of what I am cramming for will be lost, it is a damn good thing that I have a great accountant.

Well I guess this is enough of this, can you tell I have spent most of my day studying and wondering just exactly how this is helping me. What will you find me doing tomorrow on Mother's day, well after I cook lunch for my mom and mother-in-law I will be spending the rest of the day studying, for you see I have not 1 but 3 finals on Monday, yeah for me. God help me!!!

I honestly don't see the purpose in the way they have things set up because it is not a true compass for what we really know. This is my opinion and I stand by it.

Reflection

This has been a good experience for me. I have enjoyed using writing prompts, they have helped when I just felt devoid of anything to write about. Because of my schedule I couldn't write at the same time everyday, but my best time of all were in the mornings, I wish I could work on my computer outside because I seem to reflect best when I am outside. I am learning to write about things from different perspectives. This experience has caused me to draw from different areas of myself. I don't blog well when I am sick, which happened to me this last week-end.

I intend to keep blogging and improving my writing skills. I will also continue to use writing prompts to challenge myself. I think this would have been a better experience for me if I didn't have so many other classes and could have had more time to blog. I do have my journals that I am writing in as well and they have changed. Now I have my blog, my prayer journal and my personal journal which will be for my husband and my family to share when I have left this earth.

I am thankful for this experience I know that it will continue to benefit me throughout the rest of my life.