Daylight savings time should begin on April Fool's Day because that's all it is, a load of crap.

I just cut and paste since I'm in a hurry. Sorry for the other person's mistakes, if any.

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.

One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota. All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.

"Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.

"The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the WhiteHouse official and whispers, "$2,700."

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys!

How did you come up with such a high figure?"The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.

""Done!" replies the government official.

Top White House Official: "Mr. President, you need to start promoting how the U.S. is financially in decent shape. The stock market is continually showing that you're scaring the bejeesus out of the American public."

Obama: "Hmmm...Good point. Why didn't I see that? I guess I'll talk about how the FDA is sorely out of date and the American people need me to revise it so that they don't all die. I know! I'll get Marge Hamburg to be in charge! With her expertise in bioterrorism, the American public will be reassured that our food is safe!" *beams proudly*

TWHO: "Sir, isn't that going a bit extreme? If you mention bioterrorism to the public, they're going to think terrorists are attacking our nation's food."

Obama: "Nonsense! The people know I'm here to give them hope! After all, look how much money I've given out in spending bills! See how that's already turning the economy around? Yes, publicizing that Marge is a bioterrorism expert looking into the way America's food is handled will reassure everyone! They won't naturally think our food is being poisoned by our enemies!"

TWHO: *facepalm*

And so it begins.

I went,
I taught,
I conquered.

I just realized that the only thing I've had to eat today was a Krispy Kreme donut around 8:00. It's now 4:00. Maybe I should fix my supper, huh?

I'm remembering why I hate a certain other journal site.

Anyway, here's the update on my and my fabulous life. :)

Class today was fine. I have trouble taking it seriously since not many others do. It really bugs me that people just don't show up, then we're expected to work around that the following week. "Oh, did I miss the critique for my story? Gee, I'm sorry." Yeah, effing great cause now we have to take time out this week to do it. I say screw them if they don't show up. No valid excuse? No critique!

Somehow it looks as if I may be teaching an English Comp. class next week or the week after. Yeah, really. Don't ask me how. All I know is that a guy in class, Craig, said he wants to teach English on a college level. He's thinking Ivy Tech. Val, our instructor, was trying to think of how many hours he would need before he could do that, and I told Craig I felt the same way. I have no desire to teach to high school kids or younger, but I'd be ok with college.

Val was all for it. She said I could teach next week's creative writing class or one of the English Comps. I said I would like to sit in on one of her classes. I know she's having issues because most of her classes don't respond to her. She had mentioned wanting to sit in on Sean's class before, and I suggested she do so. I think he's good to learn from.

But she's all for me teaching one of her classes next week. Wednesday to be exact. Now I'm not sure if she meant it (though I think she did) and what I should be teaching. I know what chapters they're working on, and I still have the same book they're using. It would be a good experience for me so I could get an idea if I do like it or not.

I need to email her, I guess.

Meanwhile, I have a ton of homework to do in there. I thought our creative fiction pieces weren't due until next week. Everyone else thought the same except one person. Come to find out, she was the only one who was right. Oops. So now we have to have them done and emailed to everyone by Saturday night or no grade. Eep!

Plus we need to be working on poems. Yay. Not my most favorite thing by far.

As for other things, Conner and I worked out while Jake had gymnastics. I mostly worked on the weight machines today. I really need to work on my triceps. They suck. I've never had decent arm strength.

Gym crush was there. He usually is on Wednesday evenings. Last week he showed Conner various weight exercises and how to do them properly. He spent like an hour with him. I thought it was really nice of him to do that, but I didn't get a chance to say thank you. However, I did thank him this week. I even talked to the guy quite a bit.

He's nice, friendly. I thought he was a cop, but I was wrong. He went to college to be a trainer, so that explains why he knows all of this stuff and is in such good shape. I told him that I was desperately needing to work on my triceps, and that the gymnastics instructor had given me an exercise to try. He agreed that it would be really good for me to do.

That's about it really. He talked a lot about working out. He's definitely into it which is good since he's a trainer. Or was a trainer. I have no idea if he does that sort of work now or not. He said Conner was free to come ask him for help at any time. He'd rather see Conner do the exercises properly than not. I'm all for that because I worry Conner will hurt himself.

I totally lost my cool over Obama's infomercial. Honestly, WTF was that all about? I didn't watch it. I think the whole idea was stupid as hell. I'd be saying the same if McCain did it, and I'm hoping he doesn't plan to. Infomercials are all about selling you crap you don't need. So what does Obama do? He makes an infomercial. Tell me how I can't think he's selling crap to Americans. Again, it would be the same with McCain. I still say Obama will win, and that doesn't thrill me. I wouldn't be thrilled with McCain either though, so I'm just not going to be happy no matter what this election day.

Oh, and I get to set the clocks back an hour this weekend. Yippy skippy. Fucking Mitch Daniels. I swear if he gets re-elected, I'll really be pissed off! I cannot see how he could be, but it's looking like he will.

Anyway, thanks to Obama, I couldn't watch TV for awhile, and now I've lost all interest in it. Plus I'm tired and chilly. I'm still in shorts from the gym though. Which means I'm tired, chilly, and smelly. I think I'll go hit the tub.

Isn't it amazing how 65 degrees in the spring can feel wonderful, and yet 65 degrees in the fall is chilly? That's where the house temperature is right now. 65 degrees. I'm shivering, so I turned the heat up. *sigh* And the threat of snow flurries outside does not amuse me.

Cold, wet, windy, rainy fall Saturdays just scream for baked goods. And I won't be able to today. Sigh.

Conner told me this afternoon that his student teacher's last day is tomorrow. Yep, I knew that. Then he said, "I'm really going to miss her." This would be the same person he's given a hard time the past few months.

I suggested he make her a card, but he said they did in school. I suggested writing her a letter, and he didn't like that idea. So I said maybe I could make a hat or scarf to give to her. He wanted both, and I said there's no way that was going to happen. Too much cleaning was being done and there wouldn't be enough time for both. So a scarf it was.

I have some brown Homespun in my stash. Barley, I think it is. For brown, I like it. Instead he saw Regency and said she'd probably like that color better. So that's what I made it in. It's nothing fancy, but it's soft and warm and pretty. Hopefully she'll like it.

Also, Red Heart came out with a new variegated called Peruvian Print. I'm not sure if I'm going to like it or not, but I was excited to see a new RH color. They'll probably have it in TLC as well. It's a bunch of 'nature' colors, if nature intensified them anyway. I have two skeins of it and will probably make a hat and scarf combo to donate. Today I saw that the Red Cross is begging for coats, hats, scarves, etc... I'm going to call tomorrow and see if they'll accept handmade scarves and hats. If they will, I'll donate some of what I have made. I've already taken a bunch to Helping Hands in Fairmount.

I'm going to take a quick bath and head to bed. I think I'm having allergy issues but it has felt all day like I have a cold coming on. Corey was like this yesterday as a matter of fact. Stupid allergies and the fall season anyway.

Forgot to mention this and meant to. Last night I saw the Peppermint Mocha Coffee Mate! I bought some. The picture on the front is different, but it tastes the same. I know you like it too, so I wanted to be sure you knew.

Well, you must be a genius!

Hyra is acting more like a normal cat now. Much more so than I've ever seen her act since we got her. She must have had anemia from the fleas. But tonight she jumped into my lap several times and wouldn't let me crochet. If that doesn't sound like a healthy cat, nothing does! ;)


She keeps drinking my iced tea though. I share my tea with no one! She was out of water, so I got her some. Maybe that will keep her out of my tea!

Scenario:

Me. Headache. Tired from the sinus meds I took last night. Trying to fall back to sleep even though it's way late in the morning. (10:00)

Jacob. Happily playing my DS right next to me.

Braden. Naked. Bouncing around me on the bed as I'm trying to sleep. Making lots of noise both verbally and with a toy. More than once he pulls my hair with his bouncing or lands on my head.

Me. Not amused with either child.

Conner. Knocking at my door. "Can I come in?"

Me. "Yes."

Conner. "Braden locked the door."

Me. Swearing under breath. "Braden, unlock the door!"

Braden. Screaming. Mad.

Phone. Starts ringing.

Door. Finally unlocked.

Conner. Hands me a piece of paper. Hands me ringing phone.

Corey. Walks in behind him for no apparent reason.

Braden. Noisy. Bouncing.

Jake. Playing DS with sound up.

Me. Bleary eyed. Can't see worth a damn. Bark an unfriendly, "Hello?" into the phone. Realize paper I'm holding is a religious tract. Anger gone. Fury arrives.

Phone. "Kelli? This is your mom."

Me. Ready to explode now. Headache, bouncing child, noisy children, religious tract, and my mom.

Mom. "That sweathshirt you picked out for Conner? Did it have birds on it?"

Me. WTF? Birds? "What? Birds?" Pleased I didn't say WTF. Ready to kill religious people.

Conner. Looks scared. He knows me well.

Me. Some sort of conversation with Mom. Anger. Trying to get clothes on. Plotting death of religion peddlers. How dare they push their religion on my child?

Phone. Hung up.

Me. Screaming. "Get out of my room!"

Braden. Fleeing.

Jacob. Fleeing.

Me. Dressed. "Conner! What were they driving?" I'm on a mission.

Conner. "A mini van."

Me. Pointing. "That one?"

Conner. "Yeah!"

Me. Marching across neighbor's lawn. Still bleary eyed and mad because of it.

Woman. Heading towards mini van.

Me. "Excuse me!"

Woman. Polite. "Yes?"

Me. Damn. She's black. That tells me she's from Marion and will scream racism if I go off on her. Figures. Move cleverly played by religious group.

Woman. Seems friendly. Kind.

Me. That's how they play it. Send out the nicer ones so they don't get yelled at. Still offended religiously. Still have headache and annoying children, mother. Will stand strong.

Me. Get right up to the woman. Shove religious tract back at her. "We're Pagan and happily so! Do not come to our house again please!" Can tell I'm using voice that makes people scared of me. The one that people know I'm pissed and will take them down if I need to.

Woman. Looks taken aback. "I'll take note of it." Meekly.

Me. Not believing it. Turn around. Stomp off. Call to the neighbor's cat. "Come on, Tiger. Let's go." Realize woman probably thinks I'm a witch and cat is my familiar. Evil smirk on my face.



Helluva way to start my day.

Let's see, what else? I think just about everything else is random.

Taking the van to the mechanic tonight so he can fix it tomorrow. The passenger window is stuck in the down position, which means that driving to Muncie sucked yesterday. I had plastic up, but it didn't last as well as I had hoped. OK, it actually did better than I thought it would. Plus the van is getting winterized.

Mom is going to bring me back home after I drop the van off. I called her yesterday to make sure she could. Here's the conversation:

Me: Can you bring me home tomorrow night after I drop the van off?

Mom: What time do you want to drop it off?

Me: I don't care. Just whenever you get off of work.

Mom: Well, let me know what time so I can adjust my hours. (goes into long spiel about how what she has to do to adjust hours. I heard it all before and tuned it out.)

Me: Your normal time will be fine. It's not like they'll be there anyway, and I don't have anything going on.

Mom: It may not be until 6:30.

Me: That's fine. You could just call when you leave work and I'll meet you there.

Mom: OK. Now, are they going to fix the window?

Me: Yes.

Mom: Did he (He being Trent, the mechanic) say they have the part?

Me: (sensing danger) Well, no, but their parts guy is local, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Mom: But I don't want to have to go back, pick up the van, and then drop it off again later when the part comes in.

Me: Myron (the other mechanic) had told me that if I'd drop the van off first thing, that should give them plenty of time to get the part in and get it fixed. He doesn't want to take it all apart, look at it, put it back together, only to have to tear it apart again either. This van is American made, so the parts should be easy to get. (All of this I quoted from what Myron had told me when I first got the van.)

Mom: But what I'm saying is that I don't want to have to drop the van off a second time. Did he say they have the part?

Me: (thinking, "I just answered this.") No, but the part should be easy to get.

Mom: But he didn't say they have it?

Me: (wishing I had never called) No.

Mom: Well, I don't want to have to drop it off a second time once they get the part in.

Me: We won't have to. They'll do it all at once, Myron has no desire to tear apart the door twice.

Mom: He's sure he can get the part?

Me: (praying this is not a lie) Yes, he's sure.

Mom: (unsure) Well, ok...

Me: I need to go. Class is about to start.

Mom: Oh, ok, well, I'll talk to you later.

Me: Bye! (click)



Conversations like this happen a lot. It drives me insane.

***

I'm worried about Hyra, Jacob's cat. She's not very active at times. I thought maybe it was fleas and I didn't have money for flea medicine. I did have some stuff I could spray on her then rinse off, so I did that. She did amazingly well, but she still wasn't as active as I had hoped. Today I got flea stuff for all three cats, so hopefully that will help. I took the flea comb to them last night. Hyra wasn't too bad, and Perch was even better. Grace was infested though. Stupid fleas.

***

I have to remember to get tomatoes out of the garden for Mom before I leave. /random

***

Conner seems to be doing better. He has his moments, but he's trying and I'm glad.

***

I think that's about it. I'm crocheting again after not feeling the urge for a long while. OK, maybe it was just a couple of weeks, but that's a long time for me. I need to catch up with crafty stuff. I have people asking for things now since Christmas is coming up, and today Corey said his best friend saw a hat I gave to our neighbor's kid and he wants one just like it. I bought the yarn for it today and may get it done tonight. Corey said Clayton's mom would pay for it, but I'm not going to let her. They've had Corey over plenty of times and he's eaten at their house a lot. The least I can do is give him a hat, you know?

I guess I'm off to pick tomatoes now before I forget again. I'll hear all about it if I do. Never mind that she's coming back to my house.

Well, let's see. Do I make one long post or several posts with various topics? I guess I'll just go with the flow.

First of all, school is ok. The class is still not the greatest, but I'm liking it better. I really need to write my short story this weekend and be done with it. I keep changing my mind about ideas, putting things off. I have no idea what my grade is in that class because she's not graded most of our stuff. *sigh* That bothers me to no end. I understand she has a lot of papers to grade and they take time, but I'm anal about my grades.

I think the girl who sits next to me dropped out. She's not been there for two weeks and the teacher hasn't heard anything so far. I guess some guy in the back row is missing too, but I can't think of who it is.

I have a crush on one of the guys in the class. He's too young for me, but he's got the cute geek thing going on.

The girl who sits two seats down from me, Ashley, is annoying as hell. I don't like her. She's the one who does the romance thing, but it's stereotypical romance. She can't write anything without some guy with sculpted features kissing some girl with flowing hair. We had to write a mini short story yesterday in class, and she wrote about a couple getting stranded in their car in Alaska. Granted part of what she wrote may be due to immaturity, but there were so many inconsistencies that I wanted to laugh. They would look out the windows at one point, see nothing but falling snow. Then she'd write that the windows were entirely covered with snow and fogged up from their breath. Then she'd have them looking out the windows again. She repeated this throughout. Never mind they couldn't use their windshield wipers. Never mind they never got out to clear off the windows.

It was stuff like that throughout the story. And I'm sure most of it is due to immaturity.

But here's what's bothering me. I can't decide if she's a good writer or not. She might have the potential if she'd break out of the stereotypical nonsense. Plus I kind of wonder if she's not taking bits of books or stories she's read and changing them just enough. One story we heard sounded vaguely familiar except for the ending.

It's more than just her writing though. She has no personality, and it shows. How can you write with no personality? She thinks she's gorgeous, and she wears short skirts or short shorts all of the time. Even yesterday when it was downright chilly, she was wearing short shorts. When she sits down, little is left to the imagination. The geek that sits behind her is ready to marry her, I think. I've noticed the guy who sits next to her doesn't even talk to her. He's a nice guy, friendly, intelligent, and I think he's seen through her. Hell, I've noticed a lot of people don't talk to her. All in all, it's a friendly bunch, but no one says hi to her when she walks in the door.

So that's college at this point.

I think I'll move on to a new post.

http://www.theindychannel.com/slideshow/family/17500344/detail.html

You'll want to see this. It's about a fat cat named Titanic. He's a gorgeous cat, but rather large. Still, I think my aunt's cat is larger.

So today was my teaching presentation for my creative writing class, as I've mentioned a dozen times. ;) And apparently I really do rock out loud because I got a lot of compliments from the class and teacher. It didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked, but I'm not surprised either. And thank goodness I had sketch notes to refer to!

Only two people in the class claimed to read the short story I had to present on. Well, a third guy did too, but I would have let him go since he's been gone for the past two weeks due to his job. He, however, read it before the class even started, so kudos to him.

I was given free reign by the teacher, which meant I was allowed to go over my ten minutes. That's good because I think I talked for half an hour. I warned her that my problem isn't fear of public speaking, it's getting me to shut up. :D But she said I could talk the entire three hours if I wanted, so it was all good.

Getting people to respond was like pulling teeth, but I told them that I'm persistent and would get my answers anyway. Sure enough, I did. :D And it was good because I was given some perspectives I didn't think of. The instructor also chimed in with her viewpoints on the story, but without acting like she was the instructor. More like she was the student and she was just answering my questions. I liked that.

I did have some funny bits to add in during the presentation, so that helped. They were putty in my hands. ;)

But yeah, the teacher said I did exactly as she wanted and did a good job of it. Now everyone in the class is griping because they have to live up to the standards I set. I just smiled and said that's why I like to go first. It just makes life so much easier.

While I don't think the person who manages the web site should have done this, here is the piece I'm doing my teaching stint on.

OK, it's September. I should not be walking around with cold feet. Heck, I've even had to wear pajama pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and *gasp!* house socks to bed a couple of nights! (It's always on those nights that I mutter, "Global warming, my ass!")

So yeah, my feet are freezing this morning. I'm going to have to put on house socks again. I shouldn't have to do this until November, dammit. It might help if I closed the windows...but it's September, dammit. It shouldn't be this cold.

We are so in for a long winter. :(

Today I teach for about ten minutes in my writing class. I'm not overly worried about it. At worst I'll just have to BS my way through. I'm good at that sort of thing. I still need to write up notes though.

I also need to get soap for the dishwasher. I should go get it before I go to class, but I don't want to waste the gas. And I'm lazy. That's a big part of it right there.

I've not been sleeping well, for awhile now. The doctor has me on something for anxiety, and it's supposed to help me sleep too. I've been on these meds for a year, and they always did help. However, I think I'm more stressed out than I was before (how is that possible?), and now the medicine isn't quite strong enough. I even took a sleeping pill on top of the other pill, and normally that knocks me right out. Not anymore. Tonight I'll resort to alcohol in hot chocolate. That usually works as well.

This morning I'm cold, sneezing from allergies, have an allergy headache, and am tired as hell. And I have my boring creative writing class to attend. Oh goody.

I don't like my creative writing class. It's not the teacher, and it's not the students. Even the book is decent for a college book. It's just too easy and I've not been challenged as of yet. I emailed the guy in charge of the English department, and he said I won't find that class nearly as challenging because I do write so much. He said he likes to tell people to turn it around and challenge ourselves to writing something we don't normally write. I've done that before in the past, so that doesn't feel like much of a challenge either. But I can see his point and should really give it a try.

The students, well, they're ok. Mostly it's a bunch of nerds in that class. Not long out of high school type nerds, mostly men. I'm pretty sure one guy will never get laid in this lifetime because he takes nerd to the extreme, but he's a nice enough guy. He'd make a great character in a story actually.

My biggest problem is that so many of the students in there are young, and it's harder to write quality stories at that age. I used to hate when people would say that, but I find it true now. I've noticed a lot of the guys tend to write science fiction, and that didn't surprise me in the least. Not only do they immerse themselves in it, that's probably about all they know. Well, that and video games, science fiction and video games just seem to naturally go together, don't they?

There are very few women in our class, and most are my age or older. Two are young, and one has fit the stereo-typical wannabe female writer mode. What's worse, I think she's trying to live the part.

First, she dresses like a skank. The second day of class, she worse a jean skirt that was way too short, and she was forever pulling it down during class. She sits two people over from me, and it was rather obvious what she was doing. She looked uncomfortable about it, and I thought maybe she'd learned a lesson from it. However, last week she wore semi-short shorts, and a blouse that needed to be buttoned a couple more times.

You can tell from the way she carries herself that she thinks she's attractive. Her hair and make-up are just so, she tries to sit like the heroine from a romance novel. The problem is there are only nerds to impress in our class, and I'm not so sure any of them are impressed. Maybe they already know her, but I've only seen one guy talking to her. It's the guy I'm thinking may die a virgin, and even he wasn't flirting with her.

I've only seen her actual writing once, and it was a short romantic piece. Not that there's anything wrong with romance per se, but it really didn't surprise me with her. And the heroine was tragic, of course. With "long, cascading curls flowing down her back." There wasn't anything original about it. I wanted to tell her that romance has been done so much that she needs to make sure her work stands out from the rest.

So yeah, that's the only person who really bothers me in that class, and it's more that I have a grudge with her young naiveness than anything. Talking to her isn't horrible, but it's a shallow conversation because she doesn't seem to have a lot of brain power. At least she doesn't go around flirting with the guys in the class or anything. That's a plus.

The subject matter at hand is rather boring. Most of it is common sense stuff when it comes to writing. The instructor, who is nice but a bit odd, is taking us from the standpoint that you have to build the character and scene first, then you write. That has never worked for me. I get the general idea about both, then I start writing. As I progress, both become more real for me and the missing pieces fill in. Any parts that need fluffed out get done in the revision.

The instructor wanted us to write a character sketch for the short story we're supposed to write, and it was hard for me to do. I don't know my character very well yet because I've not started the story. If I was writing it, the assignment would have been a lot easier. I've not said that to her yet, but I think I might. I know some people live off of filling out character sheets and creating them first, but I just can't. I've had other teachers try to force it on me, and my muse just doesn't work that way. It's the same reason why I can't do an outline of my story before I write it. I might be able to give a rough idea of some areas, but mostly I need to write then do the outline. Maybe I'm in the minority on this.

I need to go make some brief notes from my teaching stint today and then start getting ready, I guess. I'm not worried about the teaching part, and I think it could be fun if the instructor lets me do it my way (and go over 10 minutes). But the idea of just sitting there in class, bored, listening to ways on how to build up our characters and settings, how people we see in the real world could someday influence a character...it's just dull. It's good if you've not been writing for very long, but it's something I've already learned over the years just from experience.

Sadly, this is the only creative writing class. I was hoping there would be another one that was more challenging. There should be.

My nose isn't nearly as stuffed up today, but now I'm coughing on all of this crud. It sucks. Plus my voice sounds like hell.

I think I'll go back to bed. I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night.