So….I WILL graduate on May 2.  I plan on walking, have already ordered my cap & gown.  Have all my announcements addressed and ready to mail.  Just need stamps.  The girls have the most adorable USF hair bows to wear.  Ronin has his USF football shirt.  They’ll be stylin’. 

I’ve also been busy trying to find a job for the 2009-2010 school year.  I’ve had a promising interview, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

On the exercise/weight loss front, I am down 66 pounds!!  And countless inches.  I feel great.  I work out 10 hours per week MINIMUM.  Basically 2 hours per day M-F and then I try to do something active with the fam on the weekend.  I love it.  I feel great.  And I’m looking pretty good too.  Still a long way to go, but 1/2 way is nothing to sneeze at.

That’s it!

Nearly 3, 4, 5 and 6

Things are going great!!  This week is the third week of my LAST semester and things are going fantastically!  I’ve earned one 100% so far (that’s the only thing that’s been graded).   I’m nearly 1/4 of the semester through.  It’s going by very quickly.  I will walk on May 2nd!  I can’t wait for the children to see their mama on stage, hear my name called, and get that diploma!  They’ve been through this entire journey with me (I went back to school when Ronin was 10mo, Ella was 22mo, and Haley was 40mo old.)  

 I’ve been doing WONDERFUL with the gym.  I go 5 days a week MINIMUM, usually M-F, but if I’m feeling stressed on a Saturday or Sunday and we’re just sitting at home bored, then I go up to the gym and burn off some stress.  Jim has been so supportive!  I have lost nearly all of my muffin top!  The upper part of belly is FLAT!  Now, if I could just figure out how to get rid of the spare tire!!   I work out a minimum of 90 minutes per day.  I’m really striving for 2 hours, but often my butt goes numb on the bike, and if I’ve already done my 60 minute aerobic class, then I feel okay with only 30 minutes on the bike.  I’m also keeping track of EVERYTHING that goes in my mouth.  Since I joined the gym, I’ve lost 18 pounds, but 10 of those pounds have come in the last 2 weeks when I’ve really been monitoring what I’ve been eating.  In the beginning I just wanted to get used to the routine of the gym, and once I got that under control, then I figured I’d work on the diet.   The hardest part for me has been adding breakfast.  I have to take my thyroid medicine on an empty stomach and then wait at least an hour before eating.  Usually by the time that hour is up, we’re on our way out the door for the gym.  So what I’ve done is bought some fat-free yogurt.  Now I eat a yogurt on the way to the gym.  It fills up my belly with protein and gives me some extra energy and I’m not starving by the time I leave the gym!

Jim is on week 3 of his new job at Moffitt Cancer Center.  He LOVES it and frankly, so do I.  He’s been much happier, much less stress and wow what AWESOME benefits.  So far my favorite benefit (and one I hope we never have to use, but I like that it’s there) is back-up care when the primary caregiver for the children is sick.  That’s ME.  So, lets say that I get sick on a day that Jim has to work.  We call this special number and they send out a NURSE/Childcare provider to take care of me and to take care of the children, so that Jim can go to work!  How cool is that??  We can use the service 20 times per calendar year.  It can only be used on times when Jim would normally have to work, so not like we could use it on a Saturday night to go out on a date. 

My 2 aunts are in Florida visiting this week.  On Monday we met at the beach for a picnic and my mom also brought along my 2 nieces.  Afterwards we went to the viewing center at TECO in Apollo Beach to see the manatees.  It was a really nice day!  My trio got WET playing in the cold bay water, and being the good mama that I am, I had a spare change of clothing for them in my truck.  Ya, it was summer clothing, so they were a bit cold, but it was better than being cold AND wet!  Ronin LOVED this baby  manatee sculpture.  He kept kissing it.  Adorable.

Here are some pics!

Wait Haley!!

MANATEES

Ronin kissing

Haley and her cake!

Haley happy to be 5!!

Blowing out her candle!

Thanks Aunt Liz! I love the shirt!

Thanks Aunt Lori! I love art!

A Disney Princess Leapster 2 from Mom & Dad. Ella wants one too now....

Yummy cake!

Haley is now 5!  We celebrated VERY low-key.  We had orginally planned a trip to Disney, but the trio did something that warranted a BIG behavior modification, so we cancelled that trip and instead just stayed home.  We did go fishing for her birthday, and to the beach, but nothing “big.” 

Though I think Jim feels a little bad about having to cancel Disney, or perhaps he’s forgiven them.  He called today and asked me to buy tickets for the Ringling Circus.  So we’re going on Saturday.  We got GREAT seats.  So that will be my next posting…pics of the circus!

This weekend the trio and I made salt ornaments! What a fun project We made them on Saturday, let them cool overnight, and then on Sunday, Haley and I painted a lot of them while Ella and Ronin were napping (it’s so much easier to paint with just one or two of them!!) and then today Ella and Ronin painted while Haley was at school!

We still have to make them sparkley with glitter and monogram them, and then I’ll make them nice and shiny. It’s been a fun project!

Yesterday we went and got our Krismas tree.  We have always had a live tree, but this year we went with a precut.  The live trees were just too prickly and I got a prickly in my finger and I knew that with the trio old enough to enjoy a tree and help decorate, etc., this year, that they too would likely end up with a prickly in their fingers and the mood would be ruined!  So we went with a precut Douglas Fir, about 6 foot tall.  What fun!  We went to a Krismas tree farm, so we kept the money local and they had a petting farm with goats, lambs and pigs and the trio LOVED chasing the pigs around.  Ella actually managed to catch one, but it was too heavy for her to pick up.  She nearly sat on it to try to keep it still, but I called her off just in time!  

After we picked out our tree and loaded it INTO the car….yes folks, INTO the car….my Excursion is big enough to put a Krismas tree INSIDE (haha…I find that so funny) and we drove home with the car smelling lovely, Jim pulled out the stand, we got the tree put up and headed out to WalMart for some last minute decorations (lights and candycanes).  By the time we got home, it was nearly 9pm, so much too late for the children to stay up and decorate so we put them to bed and decided to hold off on decorating until this morning.  They LOVED decorating the tree.  And they were laughing, Haley was singing up Krismas songs, and it was just a fun morning! 

Here is a picture of the tree at the farm:

And this sign I took at the farm. I just thought it was neat.

And the trio decorating the tree:

Finished product!!

 He called me at 12:45pm and wanted to meet the children and I out for a celebratory lunch, so we met at Chili’s where we discussed what we could do to further celebrate.  We didn’t really have much of a Thanksgiving because Ella was sick and Jim was studying so hard, so we decided spur of the moment to head to Busch Gardens.  We got there at 3pm, and they closed at 6pm.  We just looked at a few of the animals and then took the trio to see Santa and on a few kiddie rides in Timbuktu and then we left.  It was a perfect ending to a very long, sometimes stressful, few weeks   Here are some pics of our trip today.

www.jhodges.com/jennifer

For our last module, I chose to create a Podcast. I read a 30 second Thanksgiving poem and then added in some background music. The background music I chose is a song from my childhood that always puts me in a good mood. It’s called Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione.

Of all the projects we did this semester, this is the project that I knew absolutely nothing about and had to learn every bit along the way. I can also say that it was the project that was the most fun for me!

I began this project by selecting a Thanksgiving poem to read and brought that to class with me. In class I downloaded a software program that would allow me to create a voice recording. Once I worked through all the bugs on figuring out how to actually record, it only took one reading and I nailed it! It took a more than a few tries to actually sync the music to my voice, and then learn how to “fade out.” But I am so pleased with the final outcome!

I also had some issues uploading the MP3 to my personal website. I had a heck of a time finding the code to install the media player and had to play around with a few different codes as some worked only on IE, others only on Firefox, etc…I only recently figured out a code that will show on all browsers! This was the only part of the assignment that I found frustrating.

Overall, I enjoyed this assignment and can totally see how using PodCasts in the media center would be beneficial for the school community at large.

For Module 4, I chose to post my class reflections on my Blog. I had originally created my Blog in July 2006, after the birth of my third child. The purpose of creating the blog was to keep my family and friends updated on our life since we live a few hours away from my immediate family, and several states away from extended family.

When I chose to create the Blog, I asked friends for their input. I asked what Blog services they used, if they were free, ease of use, space available, and then once I gathered all that information I did my own research to find which service would best suit my needs. I narrowed my search down to two websites: www.wordpress.com and www.blogspot.com. Both were similar, but I preferred some of the features available on wordpress, so that is the site that I went with.

It took some trial and errors to determine the best layout, the best fonts, how to embed/import photos, allow people to view comments, and set permissions for users. Ultimately, I decided to make the blog public, though I do have to approve comments from certain viewers. I did set permissions for some people to be able to post comments without my approval.

I thought that creating a blog would be a lot more difficult than it was. What has been difficult is keeping it updated. I try my best, but having three young children, and full time graduate school keeps be very busy.

In addition to my blog, I also have an account on Facebook. Facebook has been an amazing way for me to reconnect with friends from elementary, middle, and high school, as well as college.

I find Facebook to be quite different than a Blog. My Facebook account is more for fun, and it’s easier for me to update my Facebook page, and to quickly see what is going on with my friends with a simple click of the mouse.

I enjoy both my blog and my Facebook account. Both are fun, and I wouldn’t change anything about either of them.

I am SO HAPPY that Florida went BLUE in the 2008 Presidential Election!! I only wish that Amendment 2 had NOT PASSED.