Road Closed

I haven't updated in a while but I thought I should record the construction outside my house. They are putting a huge water pipe that will run from Spanish Fork Canyon to Provo.
Lucky us, it runs right down 400 E which means the construction will effect us for quite a while. They seem to be mostly done in front of the entrance to our trailer park but who knows.
The construction has five different crews working on different things all at the same time so I won't believe they are done in front of our entrance until it is paved and the curb is put in.
To get anywhere we have to go on a huge detour, but what can you do.

Sorry

If you don't want to read me complaining stop right now and wait for another post.. . . . . .


For those of you still reading sorry to post a downer but sometimes I just need to vent. I reached the end of my rope today and it has seemed like every little thing has been huge. First off I went out to my garden yesterday only to find it mostly destroyed. Some of the plants were dug up, some looked trampled, others were missing their leaves and to top it off there was a huge cat turd in the middle of it all. So apparently I now have a serious cat problem Apparently the 10+ stray cats that wander here have decided my garden looks like a great place to rompous (?) at night and do their duty. This morning I found two turds but not too much new damage. I think I am going to get some hardier starts and try again but not until I figure out a way to deter the cats.
Second off I hate medical insurance it seems like such a rip off. I don't feel like it really pays for much and where is my monthly premium actually going. It did help us a little last year but even with that we are still paying on 3 different medical bills. So needless to say we are scraping by pay check to pay check once again. I am trying to find a different insurance company because right now I have to pay for every blood test and most of a doctor visit until our deductible is met. So today was mostly spent reading different insurance policies. BLAH. Why can't they word it easier and why does it have to cost so much to have a child (no I am not pregnant, but looking at the cost I don't know if I ever will be able to). Hopefully the insurance I found will lower our premium and make it so preventive care doesn't cost an arm and a leg (literally). Right now I find myself not wanting to ever get medical care unless it is truly a life or death situation and even then. . .. . .
Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that money rules our world. I don't think it should but unfortunately you have to have money to eat, have a home, to make money and to do almost anything recreational. I know this is slightly an exaggeration, but sometimes it really seems that way. I want to teach clogging but I have to rent a place, if I rent a place I will need to buy transportable floor so that is an investment and right now I don't know that I could do that; maybe I should find a way to make income so I can. Oh wait that was what started this whole thing.
So tonight Lin and I are spending family night trying to come up with some way to change our budget and make it manageable. Unfortunately it doesn't look great right now but maybe we can find someway to make it better.
I HATE CONSTRUCTION!!!! I feel like I have been fairly tolerant of the construction on 400 E. It is, has been, and will continue to be a pain for a long while. Today I left for work and there was a huge backhoe in front of the only entrance to the trailer park. There was a small gap behind it but I figured to make it easier for the workers and myself I would go out the back, temporary road they constructed a while back. I drove through the park only to find it chained and blocked off. So I turned around and went all the way back to the entrance going 10mph, squoze through the space and headed to work. When I left the ballpark (I was filming baseball) I had to wait for numerous kids, people, etc then I almost got hit by a lady speeding through the parking lot. Thank goodness for brakes. On my way home I almost hit a lady because she across the intersection from me (2 way) in the left hand turn lane with out a directional talking on her cell phone. I went to turn left (thinking she would do the same) when there was a break in the traffic. Instead of turning she went straight. UGH! Remind me never to leave my house EVER again between the construction and the traffic I can't take it.
The last complaint I have is that I have been having people (with good intentions) trying to help me all day. Unfortunately I have snapped at them because they have either been telling me something I already knew and thought through or they just happened to talk to me at a very inconvenient time and I felt they were making everything worse. If you are one of those people I am sorry.
Well if anyone is still reading this I am once again sorry it was so negative. Thanks for listening (reading); I just needed to get this out.

Garden

So I have been actually making great progress on my list (summer to do list from a few blogs ago). So far I have:

• Emailed a course concept sheet to ALA, and just waiting to hear if they will add my class to their curriculum.
• Finished 3 discs (a little over 6 hrs) of home videos
• Planted my garden

I am very excited about my garden. I planted a lot of stuff this year and a lot of new things I haven't grown before. My peas have come up and some are almost an inch tall; my carrots have also come up but are not tall enough to thin yet; I just planted a bunch of starts from my mom including: tomatoes, peppers, basil, onions and leeks; then I planted zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, pumpkins and butternut squash. The last list will eventually only be one plant each just because my garden plot is kinda small.
I am excited to see how the butternut and the pumpkins turn out I have never attempted them before.

Cross your fingers!

So my other great news of the day (read the next post down to hear the first news:) ) I heard back from the lady I contacted at American Leadership Academy. I had sent her an email asking her if ALA would be interested in starting a World Dance Geography class. It is an idea I have had for awhile and I finally feel like I actually have the knowledge to do it. I got an email back from her today saying that if I send her a explanation of the class asap she will present it to the Fine Arts Chairman and see if we can get it into the curriculum. So I have written my paper and had it proofread by my brother and my sister. Now to wait and see how it turns out. I really want it to work and start this coming Fall, but I would be willing to return next year if for some reason they wanted to wait until I graduate. I will be honest It scares me alot to think about having my own class, where I am in charge, I plan what we do, make sure it is done, etc; it also excites me though. I seriously think about this class all the time. I wanted to plan lessons instead of do homework last semester. It was hard to be productive when I wanted to create choreographys, study about other countries, but instead I had to do the work to get grades :( I enjoyed all of my classes last semester for the most part, but I just wanted to learn what I felt was important to my future plans.
Well keep your fingers crossed that this will work out.

Great Find

So I had a great find today at DI. I went there looking for some 80's neon attire I can wear for my clogging team. We are dancing to Celebration "Celebrate good times . . . C'mon!" I wasn't finding anything too good in the women's section so I went to the girls section. If I really want to I can usually fit in the biggest girl sizes especially if it is only for a short period of time and if it is something stretchy. I looked and looked and then I saw two pairs of neon green leggings. Luckily one size was extra large. I also grabbed a short jean skirt and a baggy white t-shirt. I went and tried them on in the dressing room. They looked great and I was excited. They were literally fluorescent. I wanted to see if there was a different color skirt so I went back to looking around through all the clothes racks. As a I passed one of the ladies suit racks I saw this crazy one piece suit; it was a mauve color and kinda baggy. I would have tried it but the torso was so long that the crotch was at my knees but the end of the legs was only at mid-calf length. I decided to look on that same rack and see if by chance they happened to have any other one piece items. As I was sliding clothes along the rack I saw it. . . . sticking out from the bottom of all the other clothes. . . . purple foot straps. I hurriedly pushed the other clothes aside and saw the most hideous, hilarious, perfect, wonderful, shiny, purple unitard hanging on the rack. I snatched it up (not that anyone else was going to take it but. . . . . ) I rushed to the dressing room trying not too look too excited and trying not to laugh out loud. When I tried it on I knew it was the one.




More pictures to come of the finished costume!

Finished!

So finals are completely over (finally). Ironically my hardest final was my last final and it was scheduled. I don't know if it was the hardest solely because of the class or because it was my last final, the last day of finals week and I was very ready to be done. I felt like it went okay. It was a fill-in-the blank/essay test. I kind of like essay tests because you can explain yourself and the fill-in questions were definitely the hardest. I am so glad to be done for the semester.
I have a lot of plans for the summer break (some I am sure won't happen but at least I have plans)
I want to:
Plant a garden
Bottle and dry fruits, sauces, etc
Deep clean my house (cause it needs it)
See if I can get a teaching job at one of the charter schools
Start teaching clogging
READ for FUN
Go camping
learn how to sew some type of clothes (I can only really sew curtains, blankets, anything with a straight edge)
Finish putting the home videos onto DVD
Relax

I think that is most of them

Hurray for summer break!

Finals

So I am half way done with finals (and taking a little break from studying). I took three finals on Saturday. One was scheduled and the other two I chose to take then. I actually did quite well and felt fine cramming that many tests into one day. I did very well on my nutrition final which made me extremely happy. That was the last one I took and all the while I was studying I just wanted to take it so finally I broke down even though I wasn't sure I had studied everything. I ended up getting a 92% my best score of the semester in that class.
The funniest and awkward part of the day was during my clogging final. It had two parts, our own duet choreography and our teachers choreography. We did our teacher's dance first. I had practiced and felt good about it. We tested in groups of three. My duet partner, me and another girl went together. The sequence for the dance went A A B C D. C is a breather step; it is made up of simpler steps so that you can catch your breath before the end. We got through B alright but then for some reason all three of us blanked out on part C. I have never blanked out during a dance before. I really had no clue what step I was supposed to be doing. I kept dancing, but was just doing basic kick steps over and over because I didn't know what to do. The only step I could think of was the pull-back step which starts part D. Anyway we all kinda stood there not really doing the steps for about 16 counts (which felt like eternity) then on part D we came back in and finished the dance. I didn't really care because I was just taking the class for fun and it was my second time taking the class. I hadn't struggled before then so I didn't really care what my score was I was more just a little embarrassed because that 16 counts was very awkward.
Just thought you might want to hear that funny story, especially for those of you that have ever just lost your place in a performance of any kind.

Clogging Final

For my advanced clogging final we had to choreograph and perform a duet. Brooklyn and I did ours to Aaron Carter's "Aaron's Party". The quality is not the best because I haven't totally figured out how to work video and blogger. Enjoy!

Easter Egg Hunt

So Lin and I dyed eggs and then hid them for each other; we even had big Easter baskets to put them in. We took a ton of cheesy pictures. . .



Lin's Turn. . . .

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Easter Surprise

So I woke up this morning, looked out the window and saw. . . . .




Yes snow on Easter. I didn't know that they had predicted snow so it was surprising to wake up to 2-3 inches when we were bbq-ing last night.
Gotta love Utah weather!