Hello September!
Gearing up for my last-ditch effort to get into nursing school by raising my C grade in Algebra--I'm hopeful, not only am I highly motivated to really do my best but I already KNOW that passing this class is possible. If the worst happens and I still do not get in this year....well, the next step is probably reevaluating my options in some other programs. Maybe. Or maybe yet again chip away by retaking even more B classes to get A grades. From what the Nursing adviser said over the phone, however, this math grade has been my biggest stumbling block & raising it would significantly improve my chances. Lots of friends have piped up to volunteer tutoring services & this time around I'm taking it in an actual classroom with a real instructor and a textbook--last time it was grainy quicktime videos that could not easily be paused or backtracked to replay anything without restarting the whole thing from the beginning & no textbook whatsoever. Circumstances will be much more in my favor now.
Whenever anybody says anything about it "just" being community college it is hard to keep my eyes from rolling right out of my head, this has been the hardest academic uphill battle of my entire life.
In other life news, Leo had his 2nd birthday last Thursday! It's hard to get my head around how quickly he is developing...I think some of the untreated medical stuff had really slowed him down, we seemed to get a much longer period of babyhood than most other parents of little people we know, but things are pretty much under control now & over the past 6 months he has just zoomed ahead, we now have a completely typical 2 year old who wants to do everything himself, loves to dance & jump & run around everywhere, and who picks up new words every day. Some of the most recent ones (courtesy of an awesome space shuttle & docking platform toy from Auntie Sarah) include: spaceman, helmet, blastoff, rocket ship. He knows his colors, can identify a couple specific plants, birds & bugs, helps me water the plants around the house & garden and likes to help sweep with the child-size push broom we bought him for his birthday. He still gets his calories from these banana puree/heavy cream/whole milk/flax oil/instant breakfast "milkshakes" and does not eat much in the way of solid foods, but in the past few days he's had some blueberries, 1/2 a grape, 2 cherry tomatoes, spaghetti noodles and a pinto bean, all of which would normally trigger him freaking out or throwing up. This oral aversion stuff is no joke & I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but can't help hoping that maybe we could be turning a corner here. At any rate, the banana shakes are doing their job, he's back on the growth chart at 6% and has gained two pounds since the last time the doctor saw him.
The main part of the garden is winding down--altogether we probably grew at *least* 20 lbs of sweet onions this year (just pulled out 16 lbs, but have eaten and given away a whole lot already), bagfuls of red & fingerling potatoes, lots of spinach, summer squash, some winter squashes, snap beans, salad greens, beets, sweet corn, cauliflower & broccoli. Still going strong as fall & winter crops we have bok choy, daikon radish (well..more bolting than going strong, going to replant here soon, that heatwave we had a couple weeks ago freaked them out), mizuna, chard, rapini, napa cabbage, bunching onions, little Japanese turnips, carrots & a Provencal salad mix. Lots of Asian veggies, many of them are quick growing and well suited for fall and spring. Hoping to use a lot of this stuff in the lovely donabe pots I got for my birthday this year--when our friends made nabe for us early this Spring, Leo was fascinated and actually nibbled some of the veggies & udon noodles, so we are hoping that his interest will be piqued not only by the preparation but also by these being "his" vegetables.
Whenever anybody says anything about it "just" being community college it is hard to keep my eyes from rolling right out of my head, this has been the hardest academic uphill battle of my entire life.
In other life news, Leo had his 2nd birthday last Thursday! It's hard to get my head around how quickly he is developing...I think some of the untreated medical stuff had really slowed him down, we seemed to get a much longer period of babyhood than most other parents of little people we know, but things are pretty much under control now & over the past 6 months he has just zoomed ahead, we now have a completely typical 2 year old who wants to do everything himself, loves to dance & jump & run around everywhere, and who picks up new words every day. Some of the most recent ones (courtesy of an awesome space shuttle & docking platform toy from Auntie Sarah) include: spaceman, helmet, blastoff, rocket ship. He knows his colors, can identify a couple specific plants, birds & bugs, helps me water the plants around the house & garden and likes to help sweep with the child-size push broom we bought him for his birthday. He still gets his calories from these banana puree/heavy cream/whole milk/flax oil/instant breakfast "milkshakes" and does not eat much in the way of solid foods, but in the past few days he's had some blueberries, 1/2 a grape, 2 cherry tomatoes, spaghetti noodles and a pinto bean, all of which would normally trigger him freaking out or throwing up. This oral aversion stuff is no joke & I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but can't help hoping that maybe we could be turning a corner here. At any rate, the banana shakes are doing their job, he's back on the growth chart at 6% and has gained two pounds since the last time the doctor saw him.
The main part of the garden is winding down--altogether we probably grew at *least* 20 lbs of sweet onions this year (just pulled out 16 lbs, but have eaten and given away a whole lot already), bagfuls of red & fingerling potatoes, lots of spinach, summer squash, some winter squashes, snap beans, salad greens, beets, sweet corn, cauliflower & broccoli. Still going strong as fall & winter crops we have bok choy, daikon radish (well..more bolting than going strong, going to replant here soon, that heatwave we had a couple weeks ago freaked them out), mizuna, chard, rapini, napa cabbage, bunching onions, little Japanese turnips, carrots & a Provencal salad mix. Lots of Asian veggies, many of them are quick growing and well suited for fall and spring. Hoping to use a lot of this stuff in the lovely donabe pots I got for my birthday this year--when our friends made nabe for us early this Spring, Leo was fascinated and actually nibbled some of the veggies & udon noodles, so we are hoping that his interest will be piqued not only by the preparation but also by these being "his" vegetables.