Renovate Renovate Dance With A Paint Brush

 

 It's been a busy, hot, WET, spring here.

 The hubbins built a NEW arbor and I stained it. I missed the other one.

 We are working on a exterior paint job. When it's hot and humid you can only paint early and late or your paint will slide off it seems that way because I am a puddle too. It took me a long time to chose colors. This is in progress and not finished yet. When I am finished there won't be ANY white. I think it's going to look really good and since it's my house, I am all about pleasing me.

 The color of the doors, siding hasn't been painted yet it looks really blue next to the grey.

 Repainting the light fixtures.

 New shutters and I would like Jimmy to re trim the front door and stain it to match, well see he is hemmin and hawin about it.

 He built a table and we stained it.

 The colors in the carport ceiling.

IT'S STARTING TO COME TOGETHER.

I want to stain the concrete in the front and the back. The carport won't be screened in but it will look more like a patio and be calm, cool looking in appearance, and inviting. When I'm done y'all come over.

Rough Riding.

Just once it would amaze me if my life went smoothly. It never does. If you keep up with my FB blab then you know that since I discovered that cowboy boots keep my feet and tendons in one piece, I have been actively looking for work.  I found an advertisement for an LPN instructor on the Internet with Antonelli College right here in Jackson. I was really excited about it. I had the requirements for the job and I really LOVE to TEACH.

After a very POSITIVE, as in one of the most Affirming interviews I ever had, I did a mock teach and was offered the job.

 RED FLAG #1 they didn't offer me the job they advertised for. They said the LPN program wasn't ready yet would I teach anatomy and physiology until it is ready. I would be offered a full time faculty job when that happened. To tell you the truth I was a bit stunned. No one said anything about anatomy until they said they wanted to hire me. BECAUSE I really want to teach nursing I thought it would be OK. I did alright in my science classes. I didn't get A's but a B in those courses is good. They also told me that the level I would be teaching was not nearly as difficult it would be for medical assistants, and massage therapy students. They also promised a lot of help and support.

RED FLAG #2 YOu start on Monday. Where is my book? We don't have one. Where is my teacher guide? Zip nada. Where is the answer key? Zip.....OMG what a set up for failure.
NEXT!!!

 RED FLAG #3 remember 3 strikes your out?

Their corporate head quarters has decided to make Anatomy 2 into 2 courses. Their are only 7 chapters for that section. In a 2 or 4 year college Anatomy is covered in one semester. This school is dragging it out into 3 terms of 8 weeks. For the Anatomy 3 class we are to spend 3 hours twice a week on 20 pages of material. There is no lab. There is a lab book for Physiology with a DVD but it has not been connected by IT. They change their passwords almost daily so no one can use anything on their personal computer. There is no way to actually teach this portion of the class but it is on the syllabus and the students want to know why they had to pay for this! OF COurSE they do!!!!! DUH!!!!!  Next RED flag #4..... corporate those people whose job it is to screw up the working peoples jobs have changed the book. They have changed the picture of the book on the syllabus but not the actual syllabus. The syllabus which dictates everything done in the class does not match the book in any way shape or form. The DVD with the power point also does not match. I went through the syllabus and the book and wrote in the right chapter numbers and pages and made some suggestions for additional chapters to cover.....BECAUSE WE WERE TO DO 3 CHAPTERS IN 8 WEEKS.
I KNOW I just said that. Do you like to hear things repeated? How about if you are paying good money to go to school and show up to class for the second session and HEAR the same lecture again?
TOTAL MUTINY! Some of the kids packed up and left. Some asked why I was treating them like retards. They LOOKED at the syllabus and saw that next week was the same chapter another 2 times and went and had a hissy fit to the president of this college. Who is a rattle snake in disguise.  OK This is where we take a breath.....
Today was the first day that went well. I actually learned how to use the grade keeper, the test generator, and enter attendance in the computer. My Anatomy 1 students really liked me. That they gave me TWO different areas of Anatomy to teach with no notice or preparation or MATERIALS was not lost on me. AFTER the mutiny I lost it. I mean I really lost it. I let my assessment of this disaster be known on no uncertain terms. AS in, "this is a total set up for failure and I have lost all credibility with these students because of this total lack of organization!!!" If you know me in real life you know I am a passionate person. I have a strong sense of justice. I can be incredibly vocal about injustice. To me it is obvious that these students are being exploited to make the college money. They are producing a lousy product. This entire fiasco was not my fault. I was doing good to come back. After the first day with no book and getting thrown under the bus I wanted to run.
I WENT BACK because I really want to teach nursing. I want to inspire nurses to care to do the right thing not the easy thing. To be their patients advocate and solve problems not just let it slide and do nothing. To lift the covers and really check their patients out and not just use their stethoscope in 3 spots feel a pulse and call it DONE. I want to teach nurses to SEE.
The good part to the story is..... I made a friend. The dean just loved me. He has been a principal of elementary school children. He loved how I told him about teaching my granddaughter to write in a cookie sheet of pudding, because she was so hyper she wouldn't hold a pencil. He loved how I think out of the box and problem solve. He wants to stay in touch. I have never been let down nicer. I think it really broke his heart that she wanted to terminate me in my first week after not even giving me a fair chance to succeed. She had the audacity to ask me to come back for the LPN program, which I said I was absolutely NOT interested in. RU FREAKIN insane?  SERIOUSLY???????
So here I am a little bruised for the wear but not defeated. The dean was so kind. He told me, "YOU HAVE GOT THIS YoU ARE A NATURAL BORN TEACHER DON'T QUIT!"

Which made me thank God and tear up because I hung in there when I didn't want too and just when I thought I could do it she cut me. Even when someone is nice it hurts. I was willing to hang in there.  I was willing to work on my own time to prepare for two classes without any notice, to get to where I wanted to go.
It's their loss. I'm embarrassed for posting it to the whole world,  I never dreamed it would be like this.
This is real life though isn't it? I went in to work this morning thinking this verse, "Faith is the evidence of things hoped for but not yet seen." My Jesus loves me and HE has something better. Some time in the near future something will happen and this will all click. We will look back and see why I had this little trial by fire, AND God will turn it into something good.

Mama Please Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

Last month we went to Texas for two weeks up in the hill country to visit my brother.

I probably have enough blog material from that trip for 6 posts if I'd get busy and write them. We saw a rattlesnake show, really, and cowboys---the gen-u-ine deal.....

 

 

 Sorry ladies he is taken. I happen to be old enough to tell him that he was gorgeous and I wanted to take his picture so that women in other parts of the country could look at him and weep.
Of course he thought I was nuts, in true cowboy fashion he just tipped his hat and smiled.

 and rode.

 I caught this picture when the mares and foals were being rounded up. We were invited to Wagon Wheel Gist ranch to watch the yearly round up of mare with foals, mares ready to breed, and the sorting of everybody. Later this mare would get separated from her foal and me..the city girl would figure it out!!! HA! I don't care what species you are, all mama's freak the same way when they lose their kids in public. This little foal was born in the morning and running in the round up in the afternoon. AMAZING.

 Reunited after a brief separation. Once the cowboys realized what was going on they stopped and found her baby and put them back together. We were told that other mares will kidnap newborns and it's important to get them back to their mama's. Right? The kidnappers have no milk and the little fellas die. BOO

 This pair just slayed me. I also was getting some of the best pictures of my life, some are grainy but oh well, shooting fast is HARD! Everybody is running!

 A kiss between mama and baby so sweet. These guys are not posing they were MOVING
as in OMG what a lucky shot!!!

 Another stunning pair, black magnificance.

 and another isn't she beautiful? Look at her mane and her sweet expression these are some seriously awesome horses and I don't know nuthin bout birthin horses Ms Scarlett!

 so adorable I so wanted to touch, but these babies are not tame and their mama's aren't either.

 

 At times I just didn't know what to look at or what to take pictures of, seriously what would you do?

 My baby with Rusty Rodgers the ranch foreman and an awesome guy, we just loved him and his wife Juanita she is a HOOT!

 That cowboy is a Marlboro man if ever I saw one. Hope he doesn't smoke, he does sizzle.

 They just grow them right in Texas, go ahead ladies get out yer hankies and cry...

 Nice horse, ya think?

 How about those clouds?  Thinking maybe about the long day ahead, or maybe. by now he jes might be posin....bwahaha.

 This guy is one of the STALLIONS, the mares for him will be herded into a large area fenced off just for him and he knew it! He was huge. They had three seperate pens for different stallions and different mares. After looking at the mares and foals for a few hours he looked enormous and powerful.

 Whew baby he was seriously excited and pacing, ready to make some foals the old fashioned way.
The cowboys call it horsey po#n

 Look at the little ones running in the pack you can see how small the tiny one is. Seeing this in real life is so different, it was intoxicating really, too much beauty for one day.
But the day wasn't over because we left this ranch to go back to another one. My brother and my SIL live on a ranch and also have horses, three to be exact.

 This is the brand on my brothers horse, can you guess which state it is?

 Back at their ranch getting nibbled by Julie's ranch horse, number one in the pack of three.He did not want to be ignored.

 It was my brother's horse Red Cloud that took a shine to me and it was thrilling. I never had a horse kiss me before.

 He was nuzzling,

 and kissing and those big old horsey lips really tickle,

 awh schucks Red yer a FLIRT

which only encouraged him!

We had the time of our lives, two weeks out in God's country and I have more stories to tell so....I'll be back!

ART for Africa day

 My friend Elysa who lives down at We Will Go invited me to come down to her house and paint some pictures. She is auctioning them off to help her son raise funds to go this summer to Swaziland!!It will be his first mission trip. They live as missionaries in downtown Jackson.
I haven't made any art myself in years.  It sounded like so much fun though!

 Elysa is painting a background on a board to dry for later. Carolyn is one of the neighbors and I love her. She has made some really cool paintings!!

 This is my picture. What do you think? I had Jimmy cut me a piece of wood and then he made a frame for me. I inked in a lot of the wood grain lines and then used them to make the water. The thought behind it is,  "We will be like a tree planted by the waters, our leaf will not wither and whatsoever we do will prosper."

 Carolyn painted this the other day. I love her sense of color and design. It's a powerful piece.

 This piece is available for auction now. A man named Chris with a life changing testimony and a South African missionary worked on this one. Personally I love this. I placed a bid and have already been out bid. I may place another bid on it.  http://elysasmusingsfromgraceland.blogspot.com/2013/03/overwhelmed-by-love.html

 A painting by one of Elysa's kids also up for auction at some point. All these pieces will be available through her blog. Musings from Graceland.

 I painted this big cross. You can't really see it though.

 Laura and Carolyn discussing something we are having fun!

 Elysa's masterpieces, personally I love the little African hut.

 Carolyn and I and the piece she made today.

 Don't make us look fat! There that's better....maybe....

 Well OK, any way I am fat but I'm happy too so that's OK for now.

 I feel like I'm in kindergarten and having a bunch of fun.

 Just because I haven't posted in awhile I'll show you my rehab plan. I am USING it!
It's helping me a lot too.

Signing off with a bit of sugar, the man and the dogie.

So tell me do I have any potential as an artist? I've already quit my day job so you can be frank. HA!
If you want to bid on anything got to Elysa's blog and let her know!!
See you soon.

Crossroads Hypothetically Speaking

I have piles of old shirts and fabrics. What I need is some enthusiasm about living life and get some creative juices from out of my head and into action. I was looking on line today at recycling old shirts and clothes and redyeing them into something special.

It's an interesting idea, redyeing something. I'd like to try it. Instead of looking for pretty fabrics I could look for anything in the fiber wanted and then make it into something pretty.

I'm still thinking about what to do to earn some money. Thinking doesn't accomplish much, doing does. But what to do? That is the question.

I think sometimes when there are too many options and too many distractions that it becomes hard to focus on one path and just start walking it. Cross roads are like that. There are a lot of paths facing me. Would I like to go back to school and be a nurse practitioner? Yes, but the funds is an issue and so is the work. There are a huge questions around that whole issue.

What about writing? Well I do my writing for free. My spelling, typing, grammar, punctuation is atrocious. People have said I should write a book but I don't have an idea for a book. There are a lot of questions about that too, like marketing.

The path of an artist. I have always been attracted to this. I am artistic but can I do something people will want to buy? What about the economy? Is anyone out there not on rice and beans like we are?
Truthful questions. I see the Etsy shops, but do items sell? What sells? That is the question all of America is asking right now, not just me.

Today I am thinking about the recycled aprons. How appealing are they? Hypothetically would you buy one if you saw it on Etsy? What would you pay for one?  I made so many at Christmas and didn't take pictures which is a bummer,  but you get the idea. So I ask you what does the survey say?