Monday Madness #4 - Challenges and excitement

Here are my answers to this week's questions! No specific theme, so you get what you get... :)

1. What was your biggest challenge this past week? Probably trying to keep everything straight in terms of what was scheduled and needed for the girls' school stuff and activities. Just getting into the swing of the school year, really. I need to find a good way to track what needs to happen when and what I have to do for home, the kids and at work. I wish I could afford to get a PDA, but good old-fashioned paper should work just fine too.

2. What was your biggest accomplishment this past week? Managing to get through Tuesday and Saturday with no massive problems in terms of scheduling. Everyone made it to everything that they needed to and we really had no big issues or meltdowns. I know that isn't a lot of detail and probably makes no sense to most people, but I'm writing this mostly for myself and I know what I mean. (usually, anyway!)

3. What was the most exciting thing that happened in your life this past week? Watching Abby's soccer team win a game for the first time this season - and the first time Abby's been on a team that won a game, period. She was so thrilled! Watching the game in general was exciting - the teams were very evenly matched which it made it a lot of fun.

4. What one thing made you the happiest this past week? I'm always the happiest on the weekends when I get to spend the whole days with my kids. No matter whether they're bored, grumpy, frustrating, tired or having fun, thrilled and excited - I'm happy just to be with them. Period.

Monday Madness #3 - back to school

My kids are back at school - this is our first full week. It's also school picture day today, so I'm a bit apprehensive about how my kids are going to pose/smile for those - we don't have a great track record with school pictures so far. At some point I'll have to share Abby's kindergarten picture - let's just say that it's not my favorite picture of her and leave it at that for now, shall we!

1. Do you have children in school? Yes, Abby is in first grade this year and Hannah is in Young 5's, which is Michigan's version of a pre-kindergarten or developmental kindergarten for kids who are legally old enough for school but (for whatever reason) not quite ready for kindergarten yet. Hannah's birthday is November 29th, just two days before our school deadline of December 1st, so she's not even 5 yet. And although she scored high when evaluated and they recommended kindergarten, I felt that she's not ready and I don't want her to be the absolute youngest in her grade, especially when so many kids are being held back until they're 6 years old nowadays too.

2. Are YOU currently in school (any level)? Nope, although I've thought about it off and on. I did start working on a Masters degree in Computer Information Systems but that was almost 10 years ago - before marriage and kids. If I did go back to school, I'm not sure what I'd want to study, which is part of the reason that I haven't pursued it. I also would much rather see Ron go back (since he doesn't have a degree at all), but his work hours just don't allow it right now and he's not very motivated anyway.

3. Did you (or your children) attend a public or private school? I grew up going to public schools and my kids go to public school. I really like the school district that we live in (a big part of the reason why we bought the house that we did), and have been very happy with the school so far.

4. As far as formal education, what level have you completed? I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography, specializing in Urban and Regional Planning. My minor was Public History, although it would've been a second major if I'd finished one more class and another internship. I also started minors in French and Computer Science that I ended up not finishing either for various reasons.

5. Do you, or did you have loans out for your (or your children's) education? Oh yes, I have student loans. Please don't remind me! I was awesome about paying on them for 6 years and had all but a few thousand dollars paid off. Then came marriage and kids and they've been on deferment or forbearance ever since. Yes, I know - they've been hanging over my head for several years now and I've love to get them paid off. When we get back on our feet financially. Eventually.

And don't even go into Ron's student loans - did I mention that he never finished his degree?? He owes more than twice what I do... At this rate I joke that we'll still be paying off our loans when our kids start college. It's a bad joke. Really, it is. It's so not funny. I think I mentioned at some point that we both had made financial mistakes before we met? Student loans were a big one of Ron's. Although other than our house and one car payment, the student loans are our only current debt, so hopefully we can start working paying them down soon.

6. What are your thoughts on the cost of tuition for colleges and universities? I think tuition costs have become outrageous. The rate at which it's gone up since I was in school is just incredible. The colleges and universities here in Michigan are really struggling though and are victims of the economy here, just like so many other organizations. I really hope the girls will be able to earn some scholarships when the time comes. That really helped my brother out - he graduated from a much more expensive school than I did but ended up owing a lot less in loans because of several small scholarships he'd gotten that really helped when all added together.

I seriously thought about moving to Kalamazoo when the Kalamazoo Promise was announced. If you haven't heard of it, basically a scholarship fund was set up for every student who graduates from Kalamazoo Public Schools (about an hour south of us) to completely pay for their college educations if they attend a public college or university in Michigan.

Yes, you read that right. It's all funded by private (anonymous) donations and at least one college in the area has also offered free room and board for Kalamazoo Promise students as well if they go there. KPS was a struggling school district (like pretty much all of the urban districts are) but in just a couple of years the Promise has really helped grow the school district, the local economy and the whole area - it's been very positive so far. Other communities in Michigan are talking about trying to replicate the program, but without the private donors, they're looking at public funding options, like grants and tax increases. Which is a lot more difficult and controversial.

Moving to Kalamazoo, at least in our case, isn't really practical or feasible - no matter what the eventual benefit. I did live in Kalamazoo for years and went to college there so I know and like the area. But selling our house in the current market would be next to impossible and we've done the two house, two mortgage thing once and that was a big cause of our financial mess to begin with. Plus, Ron's family is all within the Grand Rapids area - he grew up here and has absolutely no desire to live anywhere else. One of the big reasons we made the move here to begin with was to be closer to family, so moving back away from them wouldn't make sense. Plus we do really like where we live.

Sorry, that was a long answer to that question - I didn't mean to drag it out so much!

Monday Madness #2 - all about the weather

In Michigan, the saying is, "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes". And oh, is this true many times. We get the usual mid-western assortment of sun, rain, sleet, snow, freezing rain, tornadoes, and combinations of all of the above. We also have Lake Michigan that tends to scramble anything coming out of Wisconsin and Illinois, giving our meteorologists nightmares, I'm sure.

1. Where you live, what kind of weather (or weather-related tragedy) do you fear the most? I think one of every mid-westerner's fears has to be of tornadoes. I know I fear them. They are unpredictable and hard to track so you generally have little if any warning. And getting to shelter (if you can find or have one) doesn't always mean that you'll be safe. We don't get as many here as in other mid-western states, but we generally have several tornado watches and/or warnings every year. When I lived in Kalamazoo, people still talked about the tornado that had hit there in 1980 with a tone of hushed awe in their voices.

2. What kind of weather do you MOST enjoy? I love sunny to partly-cloudy days where it's about 70 degrees with little humidity and a light breeze. I also like a good thunderstorm every so often though! And those cool, crisp fall days with an overcast sky that makes the colorful trees really stand out...

3. What kind of weather do you LEAST like to drive in? Snow, hands down. Especially those whiteout conditions where the view in front of you looks eerily like when the Millenium Falcon jumped into hyperspace in Star Wars and you can't see the lines on the road or the cars in front of you. I've driven in this type of snow many times and it's the most white-knuckled, praying to stay on the road kind of weather I've ever driven in.

4. What is the scariest weather-related experience you've had in your lifetime? Pretty much any of the times related to #3. I've been lucky to not have been involved in any major weather-related issues (so far). I've been scared during tornado warnings too, but there's something about being in a car and not being able to see where you're going that's absolutely terrifying.

5. Share a "weather picture" with us!

I don't know if this is specifically 'weather' related but it's the closest I could find right now:

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Monday Madness #1 - fun with computers

Ok, I'll start this one off by saying that Ron is a genuine, 100% computer geek. And yes, I knew this when I married him, LOL. Actually, at the time I was more 'geeky' than I am now since I was working on a graduate degree in computers myself (no, I never finished the degree). When we got married, we had one main computer - mine. Plus a laptop that I'd bought for school. Somehow Ron ended up in charge of our computer issues and all I can say is thank goodness he's got his own 'computer room' in this house. It's not as bad as it used to be - I finally made him get rid of every piece of equipment that did not work - as much as he thought he could maybe fix things if he had time (the time issue being key here since I have this little pet peeve about him actually spending time with me and the kids instead of holed up downstairs in the computer room). So the piles of 'junk' are much smaller down there than they used to be.

To get to today's questions...

1. How many desktop computers in your home? That work? Two. Both are downstairs in the computer room. Our main PC, which is basically the 'hub' for our home network - it's one that Ron built. And an old Mac that Ron used when he was working in graphic design. Oh and there's the one sitting in the garage that he got from friends, put a new hard drive in and we need to get sold (we're splitting the money with them). I think he may have a spare tower case or two left downstairs, not to mention all of the assorted drives of various sorts, memory and other components that people have given to Ron and are floating around in that computer room. I tend to avoid going in there if at all possible. Ron badly wants to upgrade our main PC, but it's just not in the budget right now. He also wants to set up a PC for the girls to use, but every time he gets one that would work, he finds someone who needs a new computer and sells it to them.

2. How many laptops? Two, kind of. The Dell that we bought a few years ago is now mine to use. We also have my dad's old one that he gave Ron - the screen doesn't work so Ron's got it hooked up to a monitor. He's not really using it for anything right now that I know of - he's been hoping he can fix (replace?) the screen so it can be used as an actual laptop again.

3. What kind of internet service do you have? (i.e. phone modem, dsl, etc.) We have cable internet through Comcast. And I'll say this - even though Ron does installations for them (he doesn't work directly for Comcast) - the actual internet service is great but Comcast's customer service STINKS! We switched our tv over to them almost a year ago and they still have never gotten our bill right. We would've switched to DSL when we moved here but they didn't quite reach far enough. I'm pretty tempted to see if AT&T finally has DSL in our area though.

4. Do you tend to use more than one email account regularly? Yes. I have my gmail account that I use with family and friends. And a Comcast account that I use to sign up for things over the internet. And the Comcast account for my blog. And my account at work.

5. Do you use email as a main source for communicating to your family and friends? Only some of them. My mom doesn't have a computer. My dad has one but pretty much only checks his e-mail when my brother or I are there to show him how to do it (which we've both done many, many times). My friend Mary doesn't currently have internet access (her husband keeps turning it off and on depending on his moods, apparently). And my friend Kristi and I see each other enough that we usually just catch up in person or by phone. We've been e-mailing more lately though since we're both busier. I do have several people that I communicate with mostly by e-mail - my brother, my friend Cheryl, and our friends Chris and Jean.

6. What kind of computer monitor do you own (flatscreen, or other)? We don't have any flatscreen monitors - although Ron would love it if we did. I generally use only the laptop so it doesn't matter to me. I don't even have a flatscreen at work, although since I work in an IT department, I suppose I need to go do some scrounging. The programmers all have them and many even have dual monitors. *drool, drool*

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