My Vacuum REALLY sucks

My old vacuum didn't suck....in fact it didn't pick up much of anything. I bought a Eureka Pet Pal Bagless Vacuum today for around $80 at Walmart and am so pleased. We have a small inside dog so I thought it might help to invest in a new vacuum since the older vacuum was better suited as a doorstop. While vacuuming our 2 Bedroom Apt. I emptied the canister(which is fairly large) twice. This model also comes with a Self-Cleaning Duster, Crevice Tool & Extension Wand, Dusting Brush and Power Paw Stair Hose. Product, Price & Performance---all Great.

Summertime

My sis, Becca and my niece & nephew visited me this past week. We had a great time. Was so great to see them. The kids enjoyed going to Heritage Park and playing and swimming in the pool at the hotel. It's very hard to find swimwear at a store when temps are this high. Kmart had a wonderful selection so I bought Brittany two :-)
Last week was also some kind of Bizzaro Death week. MJ, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon. There was also a death in our extended family. My cousin's ex whom he has several children with passed away. She was only 51.
Mom is going to need surgery on her right arm/shoulder if it's to get any better. She's really dreading it because she's wondering how she will accomplish anything while recovering.
I've been wanting to totally redo Brittany's bedroom so that it is more up to date with her age group as well as trendy. She doesn't want a dresser & mirror and is opting for new bed, chest of drawers and nightstand. I'm also going to totally redo what is now her Entertainment Center. I'd like to get her a new TV(flatscreen) and a DVD recorder that also plays CDs. She still has my old 5 disc changer CD player but it might be hard getting her to part with that. Will probably have to sit down and talk that over with her ;-)

Don't spend major time with minor people. People in your life that continually disappoint you, break promises, stomp on your dreams, have different values along with a lack of respect for your values... are not friends.

Eva has arrived :-)

We brought Eva home yesterday. She's still settling in but seems to love it here. She is still a bit nervous and I think might miss the other dogs some though she is loving the attention she gets from being the only one here. Will post more pics later.

Change of Plans

The puppy has found another home as we decided that with it being a mix it had a good chance of stirring up our allergies. We are hoping to adopt this sweet white chihuahua named Eva from the FairyDogMother Rescue. She was surrendered by her owners(an older couple) when they could no longer care for her. We payed a visit to the facility today to meet Eva. She is so very adorable. I'll post pics as soon as I can. I sure hope we will be able to bring her home soon.

A puppy

One of our neighbor's has a chihuahua that had puppies and he'd asked if we wanted one of them. I picked one out last weekend and so around the first week in July I should be hard at work training it. It's white with a brown patch around its eye and right now is abt the size of a large hamster. Brittany is excited about it and I've told both her and Jim that I would need their help esp. during training for reinforcement.

What a Wonderful Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day. Went to see the new Star Trek Movie with my hubby, Jim. It was awesome. Brittany gave me a dozen roses too...she's the best.

Finding Time

It has been so hard to get everything done that I wanted to accomplish each day. School has started back and my first on campus classes are on Thursday. I've already started the online portions of the classes and have 3 projects dues a week from tomorrow so looks like I won't have much free time until I can get ahead in my work on a few of them.

The Holidays

Well we are half way through the holidays. We have had our tree up since the week before Thanksgiving at Brittany's insistence. I have to admit, I've really enjoyed the tree this yr. I have gotten "inspired" looking at it and made about half a dozen ornaments for it in between studying for finals and finishing up projects.

We had a great Thanksgiving even though I didn't get to go home and see my parents this year. I baked a turkey(12 lb) and made dressing. A pretty full day. Ate here...then ate at Brit's Grandparents. My Titan's won too(always a plus).

I've got Finals this week. Much of today will be devoted to studying for my Algebra Final. I still have one more Visual Basic class although I've finished my last project and submitted it. We are working on an inclass project and I'm not sure that we have the class time to finish it but I guess we shall see.

I've still got to shop for Jim and Brit and also need to make an appointment at the hairstylist ASAP(It's way past my needed cut and color time). Brit finished her Project on the Colonies(she picked NC) and turned it in on Friday. I would imagine that it will be graded some time this week. Anxious to see how she did. She worked really hard on it.

Tribond

Got out the board games Friday night and Brittany and I had a great time playing Tribond. I'd not played it in forever and she'd never played it before. She seemed to like the game too especially since she won.

Back to class

Well it's after Labor Day and Brittany and I both are back in classes. She's been back more than me. I was out all this past week because the Evacuees that were running from Gustav were housed at Wallace. My Wednesday and Thur. classes were all canceled. I'll be glad to get back to those this next Wednesday. We've got projects due in them though I'm almost certain the due dates will be extended...still I want to be on track. Going to the local library this weekend. I use the online feature more than actually going to the library but Brittany really likes to check out books and videos so that's on the agenda for this weekend. Football started back up last night. There should be some good games on Sunday. I am pulling for the Titans.

School starts in a month(for me) & 3 weeks(for Brit)

Classes will be starting back up for me in a month. Early online registration is a week from today. I'll only be taking 3 classes this semester(my normal load is 4 or 5) so will feel light although it is still full time status. Brittany and I are going shopping for her some clothes and her school supplies tomorrow.(wish us luck on that).

It's hard to believe that she will be in the 5th grade. Time flies. I've spent a good portion of my summer working on Jim's family history. I'll write more on that in my genealogy blog.

Brittany got two awards at the Awards presentation held on the last day of school(see pic above). I'm so proud of her. It's hard to believe she will be in 5th grade this fall.

Forty and Finals aren't fatal

Just finished up Finals this week for the Spring Semester. Semester grades should be posted by the end of next week. I did well on all the finals and didn't stress myself out surprisingly. I'm taking the summer off and will go back in the Fall semester.

I turned 40 almost two weeks ago. I had thought that would be a rough birthday but I took it pretty well. It's not fatal after all.

We've got rain so "Day in the Park" which I believe was supposed to be today probably won't be happening for us.

Brittany's Spring Haircut

We went to the beautyshop yesterday. Brittany picked out how she wanted her hair cut & styled. I think the cut looks sooo cute on her.

Seasons 1-3 of Battlestar Galactica in 8 min 17 seconds

Covers of Rihanna's "Umbrella"

I finally had the opportunity to hear Mandy Moore's version of the Rihanna hit "Umbrella" after hearing Marie Digby's version on a Coverville podcast. I really love both of them better than the original.

Cover Song Combo

I've been meaning to post about this for awhile now. Anyone that knows me well, knows how much I like odd covers of songs. Naturally I'm a big fan of Coverville--a podcast by Brian Ibbott which is like candy to me. Today I decided to catch up on some of the podcasts that I missed. Coverville 296 The Nirvana Cover Story was one that I missed. On that podcast there is a cover that Brian plays that is in a warped way a cover of two songs. Well it's Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" sung to the music of Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me" by Beau Hall. You can listen to the cover at the Coverville site and below is a link to Beau Hall's site.

Picking a new hairstyle

I've been trying to decide how to get my hair cut for the warmer weather. I've finally decided on a style which is about 2 inches shorter than what I have now and is a bob haircut. Also I need to get my hair colored and will be going for more blonde with a few lowlights. It should look something like the pic below with more blonde and my face

Laptop, School, etc

My new laptop arrived today. I absolutely love it!!! Will make it so much easier to get notes both genealogy and CS at library. I've installed OpenOffice on it and will see how I like that. It took about 5 min. to set up the Laptop and connect it to my network. Downloaded AVG software and installed and got all the updates. School is going pretty well. I am really enjoying the computer science program. More later