Learning New Things

So far this has been a year of learning new things for me. Most of them have been computer related, since I am a digital immigrant. First, Erin taught me how to do all kinds of cool stuff on publisher, so I can make neat things now for school assignments, and my youth classes, and other things. Then, for a school assignment, I had to make some shapes and lines for a genogram project, and of course I did not know how to do that, so I asked the resident digital native (Erin), and 15 minutes later I was making boxes and circles, inserting text boxes, changing the shading and fill of these text boxes, drawing lines, it was sweet. Then, after I got the project back, my professor told me that I had done one of the best genogram projects she had seen in all her years of teaching. YAY!!!!

We are also changing our website to combine our current news site, and regular website into one. This past week there has been a lot of adding pictures and content, so naturally when I needed to figure out how to add a page, or a picture, or a next generation gallery, it was time to learn again. I have a lot of notes, but I am starting to remember things. Hopefully all the English content will be done by early next week, then it needs to be translated into Spanish and we can launch it. Hopefully it will be up SOON!!. I can tell you, it is pretty cool.

I have also learned school stuff. About stressors, and step families, and violence in families. Lots of stuff about family systems. This class ends Monday, and then Tuesday starts the next class called Family Decision.

Since I like to read, and I feel like I have been neglecting The Essential Man's Library, I started to read Don Quixote last night. All 902 pages of very small print of the unedited one. Any guesses on how long that will take me?

Well I am off to work on a web page about the Christmas distribution stuff. Have a fantastic week.

Here's to a New Year

Happy New Year to everyone. Well, 2010 is now in the books, and it had it's high points (Mediterranean Cruise, starting school), and it's low points (recent health issues), but instead of dwelling on the negatives of the past, my resolution is to try and look at the glass being half full this year. This has not always been a quality I possess, and it is in my nature to be pessimistic, probably so I am not disappointed, but working on being more positive can only help right?

To give you a brief look into the health things that came up, I went in for a cough that would not go away, and we found out my blood pressure was high (runs in the family), so we started some medication for that. The doc also ordered some blood work, where we saw my cholesterol was a tad bit high (172, supposed to be 100), started some meds for that, and the clincher was when the doc told me I had type II diabetes. I am only at 8%, and I should be under 7%, so it is not crazy bad, but it is still diabetes. I had to go in for an eye thing to check them for diabetes, and then an abdominal ultra sound for other stuff, and I just feel like I have been to the doctor A LOT the last few weeks. Currently I am having to take diabetes classed, and have two more left, and then maybe no more doc stuff for a few weeks. I hope. Anyway, I would appreciate your prayers that I am able to do the things I need to for my health.

The year ended with some snow while working in Anapra with a group from Mayer MN building three houses, and as I said, I am trying to be more positive about things and not get upset so easy. I think I am doing ok, but it is hard to judge myself. Lot's of things to do in the office and all of our winter friends and their RV's are arriving so we will have a lot of activity and people here at the mission.

School stuff started back up this week, and I am almost done with the third class of my cohort, and have 3 more before summer break. I plan to do some CLEP testing this summer to get some more of the elective and general education credits I need so I can be on target with finishing in December of 2012, wow that is next year, and walk in the graduation ceremony in May of 2013. I really like how this cohort flows, and LOVE the fact I do not have any tests, just a bunch of papers to write, some of which I hope to finish this weekend.

Still teaching youth class at San Pablo, and am hoping to get more involvement and attendance up. I really want to get a whole youth group started, but it is slow going. Miguel and I are planning on taking our classes to Incredible Pizza, and maybe this can be a launching point. I am searching for new material for class, and hopefully have found a couple good things I can use for a few weeks at least.

I guess that is enough rambling for now, I am waiting on the leader from Mayer to send me a dvd of pics and I can share some of those in another blog soon. If you want to get an idea of that week, check out Erin's blog.

Happy New Year.