Another term down............

Cheers to everyone and your papers. Great Job!! I will miss this class and my classmates, but there is always next term. Barb, yes this was fun. Never did I think writing a paper would be fun, it was in its own way. There was a lot of hard work put into this paper, I know I still need work to improve. I am so very thankful for all the support and advice I received from everyone. My advice to someone knew to having to write a paper is to start early. I can not stress that enough. Starting early gave me time to decide which way I wanted my paper to be written.
Wishing the best of luck to everyone!! Have a fun and eventful future!!
Charlene

Rafting trip

Finally we went rafting yesterday. Oh what fun my son had and I did too. I was so excited for him and was so tickled to watch him having so much fun. He was a little nervous at first but when he got splashed by the first wave of water the yahooing was on. He even sat on the very front of the raft and rode out a very good rapids. There were a couple of times he disappeared in the waves, but he was still there when it calmed down. We even did a little cliff jumping. I even actually jumped off the cliff into the river. Not sure if being in the sun affected me or I thought I was young again, but it sure was fun. And, I wasn't even scared to jump off into the river which totally amazes me. Must have been the sun, because I sure am feeling old today.
Looking forward to having a week off from school. Sure will miss this class and my classmates. I will miss you to Barb. You are a great prof. and mentor. To all my classmates I wish you all the best on your papers and your future. Sure am looking forward to seeing all of you next term who are in my classes and hopefully the rest of you in future classes.
Have a great week........

Happy Birthday America!!

Was suppose to go white water rafting on Saturday, but it was raining and chilly out. As the day progressed, it turned out nice and warm. My son and I went to my sister's for a BBQ. As always I ate to much, but it sure was good. The other group that was suppose to go with us rafting, they actually went. They said it was cold and the water was freezing, but they had a good time. So many people are being careless on the Yellowstone river they are having to be rescued. We rafting on the Stillwater river with guides. It helps to have someone tell you when to paddle and not to paddle. The guides are very well trained in all aspects of safety.
The 4th turned out to a very nice day. The weather was nice and I got a lot done around the house that has been put off because of school. So now I actually have a nice clean home for a little while I hope. Later the night I had a friend over and my son, her, and myself had a bonfire and watched the fireworks everyone around us were firing off. It is such a hassle to go the actual firework displays and trying to get back home again. I am not a very patient person.
I did not get to hear from oldest but I hope he is safe and well. I am sure he is. I pray for him all the time.
I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!

Peer review........

Peer review is great for me. We are all in the same boat looking for ways to improve as writers. Having peer review isn't so intimating for me. Being on the same level with everyone, peer review is more like asking a friend to proof read your paper and tell you what could be improved. After you read your paper over and over again you get use to seeing it, then you miss mistakes that are so simple and right in front of your face. When I read other people's papers, I can see misspelled words and incomplete sentences, but I miss them in my own paper.
Also I know when my classmates are telling me where I made a mistake, I know they are only trying to help me improve my paper. They aren't criticizing me or trying to make me feel stupid for misspelling a word. Typing mistakes are easy to make when your fingers can't keep up with your mind so it is nice to have these mistakes pointed out to me or it could just be me having a fibro fog day.
I have got to say that doing this paper has enlightened me about fibromyalgia. I have had it for 7 years now and I get so use to the symptoms and the pains. After I started my research and started reviewing what this disease entails, I found out how much in life I am missing out on because I am unable to do a lot of activities. I know people with fibro have a very high risk of being depressed and for the most part I don't get depressed very often, because I know what I am able to do and know not to push myself. I try to keep in mind that " I do mind and fibro doesn't matter ". I do my best not to let it control my life but for me to control the disease.

What a weekend.......

This weekend was so full of entertainment. It was a 10 year all class reunion for all classes that graduated from my school. It is not a very big school, but there were a lot of people that went to that small town little school. In my class when I graduated there were three of us, me and two boys named Brian. A few years later, our school only one graduating senior this senior was invited to be on the Jay Leno show for the small class to graduate. It was nice to see people I haven't seen in a very long time. Not only was it reunion weekend, but the Roy rodeo was this weekend as well. My family are teamropers and have been involved in the rodeo every since I can remember. My brother and his son won the team roping event which was great. My nephew is pretty good and my brother has well. At one point in time, my brother was consider the best in the state. So neither of his boys or him have trouble finding partners to rope with. They also had an event where one person had to rope a steer and the other person had to get a ribbon that was tied to steers tail off and run back to the finish line. It was so funny because the arena was wet and clumpy pretty hard to run in so some of them ended up crawling to the finish line. The catch was you had to be at the finish line in 30 seconds. My brother and his partner almost won that too until one of my friends ended up crawling back to the finish line and won it. He said they won about $190 bucks no bad for not having to pay anything.
While I was in Roy playing, we had a tornado in Billings. It did not hit my place, but it sure was close. It hit a place called the Metra park arena which is the biggest place in town. It is where all the concerts, PBR, football, monster trucks, and events like that are held. There isn't much left of the building and it hit other buildings as well. So far I haven't heard if anyone was hurt so that is a good thing. It was scarying coming home wondering if my home would still be there or not. In January of 2008, my sons and I lived through a tornado that hit a building right next to our home. It was the scarest thing ever and everything happened so fast. Here it is the season for them. It is strange because you can see them but they normal don't touch down. Some how someone caught it on video and it is on youtube. So if any of you want to see it check it out and see how wicked one of those things are. That was my weekend in a nut shell for the most part, now back to the grind of catching up on homework and getting for a new week of school and work. From what little I have seen, a lot of people had an exciting weekend. Happy Fathers day to any of you who are fathers or who have had to play the part.

How School has affected my life.......

Since starting school my schedule has changed significantly. My first term I took three classes, which was alot of work. One of my classes was only worth one or two credits and I had more homework in that class then my other two put together. I was drowning in school work. Having so much homework, I would get up at 3:30 in the morning and stay up til around 10:00 just so I could get my work done. My poor son was being negected. Boy did I feel bad. I knew if I got up early and stayed up later while he slept I could get more work done. But then it was take on toll on my body, since having fibromyalgia I need my rest and sleep. I was making myself sick, but school is important to me and I knew if I could make it through the first term I would make through the whole program. My first term I did make the dean's list and I was so proud of myself. Studying and being hard on myself to get my work done on time paid off. I lived and breathed school. Most nights I would wake up all stressed out over school work that needed to be done and couldn't go back to sleep so I would just get up and do it. I am not even real sure how I did it but I did and it paid off.
Now that I have gotten use to having school work plus working full time and being a full time single mother it isn't so bad. Yes there are weeks that a more demanding because of more school work. Also I give myself more social time now let's say working with my flowers and playing with my son. For the most part I don't have a social life but I do occasionaly get to a football game and go fishing now that it is nice outside.
There is a commercial on TV advertiseing Kaplan and there is a scene when the mother is saying to your child something of the effect about getting an education and having a career and how she gets to the spend the rest of her life with him being sucessful. I tell my son see that that is how we will be. I will have a job that maybe my mind will be tired when I come home and not my body hurting so bad I can't move.
Going back to school has changed my life in a good way. It is still hard but in the end it will all be worth it. It also helps my son too, because he knows some of the home work from health class so we can study together. That in its self is worth it. He is a very smart boy and some day he has mentioned that maybe he will do sports medicine for injuried sport players. My going back to school has shown him how important good grades mean and how it can be fun. Maybe I have a doctor on my hands and he can support his mom when he gets older??? Who knows but right now I love him for just the way he is and college is still a ways off, but the time will go by fast enough.

Nice Weekend.........

Friday didn't start out so great. Called in sick was not feeling well at all and on top of that I could barely move. It was definitely a bad fibro day. It was also last day of school so my son came walking home singing " Schools out forever!" It was cute I told him for him it should be summer and not forever. He is excited this year for summer. He doesn't have to go spent it in Indiana with his dad. We have plans so do some horse back riding in the mountains, take in a rodeo or two, and of course a lot of fishing. Yesterday we went fishing. It was a beautiful day a little over cast, but it was nice not to hot or to chilly. On the first cast out, he caught a huge tree on the top limb. That was the catch of the day, because on the third cast (after re-rigging his pole) he caught the same tree on the same limb. lol Poor thing was getting upset with his catches. So finally after I got my pole set up to fish, we moved where there were no trees near by. The boats were having fun and making the water muddy so the fishing was great. It was nice though to get out of town and away from house work and school work.
Saturday night my sister and her husband had us over for baby back ribs. mmmummmmm.... Man were they good. She had got a new gazebo with curtains. It was just beautiful so we ate under that and with very full bellies sat around telling stories.
Now it is Monday again and I am scared of what is waiting for me at work. Mondays are a rat race and since I wasn't there friday and the boss was gone in the afternoon so I am sure every thing is a total disaster. At least this morning my fibro isn't doing to bad since I rested this weekend, so I can run around like a chicken with my head cut off. Isn't it to bad that we have to work to have money for fun and not the other way around?