I have decided to make this week awesome...

Last week, I began my last semester at American River College.  I have been here way too long, and am ready to move on to Sac State.
I started off extremely excited, but that excitement died rather quickly.  To say that my speech instructor is insane, would be an understatement.  I don't want to go into much detail, but the things he said were inappropriate and unbelievable.  On top of that, I was unable to get into the class that would replace this one, and there was in issue with my financial aid.  Then, the counselor I spoke with regarding the situation was rude about the whole thing.   My first week of school was bad.

The bad mood I was in seemed to carry into the weekend, along with disappointment after disappointment.  Monday finally came along, and I decided it was time to change my bad attitude.  I decided to make this week awesome.

To start, I had a great morning of classes.  My debate class is great.  We were able to come up with various topics for our first debate.  We voted to see which 4 topics would be discussed.  I suggested Human Trafficking, and it was the most popular subject.  I was also lucky enough to be on the affirmative group for this topic.  I could not have been given a subject closer to my heart.  I cannot wait to research further.

After school, by some miracle, I was able to secure an appointment with an academic counselor so that I could appeal for my financial aid.  The meeting went very quickly, and my counselor seems to be sure that it will all work out.  Finally, because we finished the financial aid portion so quickly, I was able to ask about petitioning for graduation.  I was able to fill out the paperwork right then!  I petitioned to graduate with two degrees:  Commercial Music Business and Liberal Arts.  This May, I will be graduating!  I am so excited!  In just a few months, I can cross this off my list. :]]

To end the evening, I decided to give the speech class another chance.  It actually went pretty well.  It was much better than my first experience. Given how class went today, I am unsure of what to do.  I will go to the other speech class tomorrow to see if anyone dropped, and if not, I guess I can stick it out through the semester...as long as things don't get crazy... :/  Either way, I am looking forward to what God has in store.

Other updates:
On Saturday, I went to a Christian Music Workshop, where I learned a lot more about the guitar.  There is a lot to practice!  This is going to be one of my harder goals to get through, I think.  It will take a lot of practice and dedication, but I will get there.

I have not been working on the puzzle much, but it is getting there.  It is still alive, so that says a lot.

We've moved onto a new step for potty training the cats: we punched out the first hole.  It definitely set Belle back a bit, but Megatron picked it up right away - no surprise there.

In other news: "Your mind spends about 70% of it's time replaying memories and creating scenarios of perfect moments."
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-jennilea

Putting the Pieces Back Together

There is not much this week for my goals, but I finally began working on my puzzle again. I thought I was missing a few border pieces (after my Cat's killed my puzzle), so I searched the box for more pieces, and were unable to find them.  I began counting, to ensure that we had all 1000 pieces and reworked the border to see if I had done anything wrong. It turns out I had put a few pieces together incorrectly.  Problem solved.  This puzzle is much more difficult than the last ones I did.  A lot of the colors are very similar.

After about a month off, I am finally running again.  The first time, I was on a treadmill and only did two miles.  It is so much more difficult on a treadmill!  Wednesday, I headed outside and did 4.6 miles!  It felt great!  I would have gone further, but needed to lift weights too, so there was not enough time to go further.  Next run, I hope to hit seven miles (or more).  I can't believe how close I am to the half marathon.

My dad's birthday was on Friday, so I decided to take him skydiving!  He had no idea what we were going to do, so it was pretty exciting.  On Saturday, I had him meet me at my office, and we headed over.  As we got off the freeway, we could see the skydiving signs.  The look on his face when he realized what we were doing - his smile - priceless.  I love seeing my dad happy! Jessica was also with us, and this was her first time skydiving too!  It turns out it was -10 degrees F at 14,000 feet.  Absolutely freezing!  They gave us gloves and put us in cool little suits to help keep us warm.  My dad was the first one to jump.  It was weird watching him fall out.  I knew he would enjoy it.  My turn came up shortly after.  Not before Batman (my skydiving instructor), told a few awesome jokes:  What is the hardest part of skydiving - the ground.  Dyyying. By now, you should all know I am a fan of bad jokes.  Finally, we got to the door, and headed out!  The moment is always weird falling out, because you have to get used to breathing with all of that wind.  At 120 miles per hour, we were free falling for one minute, the shoot opened, and we glided (for four minutes) back to the ground.  I was able to steer, which was fun, but a little insane, because I was loosing the feeling in my fingertips from the cold.  By the time we made it down, I could hardly feel them.  It was another great trip!  If you ever choose to go skydiving, the Parachute Center is awesome.  I highly recommend Batman or Dan from New Zealand as your skydiving instructor. If you are going for the first time, request Cory Hall for your video or photos. He did mine and my dad's photos and video.  Both of them turned out amazing!

This weekend, I had a lesson in listening to God.  It was actually pretty amazing.  At The Open Door, a youth program that  I assist with, my friend, Aly (YouthQuake AD), shared of a time when she was feeling sad, and God told her to smile at the next person she sees.  She was not feeling like it, but did it anyway.  The man she smiled at turned around and asked if she knew Jesus.  He said he could see God all over her.  Absolutely amazing.  During this show, I had felt that God was telling me to mend a broken relationship by walking over to someone, hugging, and just giving love.  After much debate with God, I finally did it.  A relationship was repaired that night with love.  It felt great.  <3

I am prepping for our college group this week, and the focus is about tradition.  We often let our traditions get in the way of an actual relationship, and can sometimes keep us from really following what God says.  Sometimes, we may not even notice it.  It is interesting that this is the focus, because I had just been thinking about this subject in regard to prayer after I prayed over our dinner tonight.  I am used to praying over dinner, but am I really talking to God, or am I just doing it because I am used to it?  I really feel like 2013 is going to be a year of development.  

Finally, I want to feature Bucket List Publications.  This is a site I stumbled upon through Instagram.  This is an online magazine that is a lifetime worth of experiences.  This couple has devoted their lives to adventure and experiencing new things.  Check it out.  They are doing some amazing things.

In other news:  "All the pandas in the world come from China. When a baby panda is born, by agreement, it is sent back to China via FedEx."
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-jennilea

We Made Ice Cream

Happy New Year (a wee bit late)!

This year has already been full of all kinds of awesome.

This weekend, I was able to knock two more things off my list.  Spontaneous road trip, and spend a night in a hotel for no reason.
We decided to go to South Lake Tahoe. It was snowing, so that was pretty cool.  We even got to make a little snowman friend.  This was the first, legit, snowman I have ever made.  I love the snow. :]  We also had a snowball fight, which was awesome!  While we were playing, I saw the most perfect, amazing snowflake land on my jacket.  I know snowflakes are supposed to look really neat, but I have never seen an actual snowflake more than just a tiny dot.  I tried to snap a photo, but it melted too fast. It was really beautiful though.
We also did a little bit of gambling!  I turned $20 into $70, then lost it all.  It was a magnificent failure.
Overall, the this trip was absolutely amazing!

Other items we were able to do, from my list:  I made ice cream in a bag! The recipe was simple:  milk, ice, sugar, salt, and vanilla.  We thought it would be fun to make mint ice cream, instead of vanilla, so we used mint and added chocolate chips.  Our ice cream turned out ridiculously minty - what else would I have expected.  It was insane though.  Good, in small amounts. I could not even finish the photo you see above.  I would like to try this out again, but with vanilla.  Or maybe vanilla and a small amount of mint.

I have completed 58 goals!  More than half way there! 

I started my new puzzle, cats already destroyed it.  Nothing new there!  Hopefully, my new setup will prevent that from happening in the future. I am doing the puzzle on a piece of cardboard which I cover with more cardboard and set in my closet.  I am sure they will figure something out to mess with it though...

Nikki found this photo to describe my life...

Nailed it.
Last Friday, I joined the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District Biologists in the annual Christmas Bird count! Rawge and I got started on an early and frosty morning!


Speaking of early and frosty, he and I also decided we would make a bet!  On Instagram, he posts these amazing photos of wildlife, but hardly gets any "likes" at all, while I can post a photo of my cat on the toilet and get dozens of "likes."  I told him it was because he was not adding in the right hashtags to get his photos the attention they deserve.  We both decided to take a photo, in the frosty morning and see who could get the most "likes."  Needless to say, with all my hastags, I won.   This was actually one of the nicest photos I have ever taken.  I am proud!

Now, back to the bird count!  I had a lot of fun seeing all kinds of birds I had never seen before, as well as a few of my favorites, including Killdeer!  I did not get to take any photos of them, but Killdeer are perhaps on of my most favorite birds.  Not because they are absolutely gorgeous or anything, but because of their personality.  If a predator is going after it's nest, Killdeer will fake a broken wing, flop around on the ground, and make a sound of distress in order to get the attention of the predator.  If that won't get it's attention, they will come closer to the predator and make a louder noise to draw attention.  The predator will see the bird, and think it is an easier target because it is injured.  Once it has lured the predator away, Killdeer will suddenly "heal" and fly away.  They are just so neat!

The major sight of the day was a Bald Eagle!  They had never had an adult Bald Eagle ever make an appearance in the area, so it was really exciting.  Hard to photograph though, because we were so far from it.  Luckily, we had a scope, so I was able to, carefully, take a photo through the scope with my phone!  He was a neat little guy.  I had never seen one before (apparently they are rare to see - as they were close to extinction), so it was pretty spectacular.  Fun times!

Upcoming goals:
I have decided I need to start classes, to get scuba certified, in the next few weeks.  I realized, I need to be scuba certified in order to swim with sharks.

Finally, we are planning a wee trip to New York at the end of the year for New Years Eve!

I have an exciting year planned out!

In other news:
"In 2002, the average user spent 46 minutes on the Internet a day - In 2012, the average user spent 4 hours on the Internet everyday"
(Follow UberFacts on Twitter)

-jennilea