So, upon receipt of our cable bill this month, I proceeded to turn red in the face and sputter in anger.  $100 for cable internet and 70 channels!  HIGHWAY ROBBERY!  Josh and I immediately started thinking about changing our service to another company, perhaps satellite TV and DSL.  Upon inspection, each of those plans would also cost us $100 or more all together, so I muttered and glared at Charter's website to find a cheaper alternative.

There it was... a shining beacon of happiness and value:  Digital Cable (260 channels) on the main TV, plus better, faster, stronger internet for a measly $70/month.  One tier of our choice is included, such as the Movie tier.  (Too bad they don't have a "You're addicted to the History and National Geographic Channels, so here are 20 more like them" tier.)  Not only that, but unlike the satellite TV where we would have to pay an additional fee for each additional TV, we can still have extended cable service on the other TVs for no additional charge.  I called Charter to ask them if we were eligible and what the rate after the introductory period would be.  The angel on the line informed me that, yes, indeed, we are eligible and after the first six months, it will be $72/month.  Josh and I were quite confused as to how this incredibly better package would cost us less per month.  The operator calmly informed me that it was not, in fact, a miracle sent from Heaven, but it was "the reward you get for doing your homework."  Apparently, they frequently have good deals listed on their website which they will also give you if you call them, but they just won't tell you.  You have to ask for it. 

So, on Friday a lovely person will come and install the digital cable box and make me smile.  I love the taste of a better deal in the afternoon.

So yesterday in my READ class (you know, the one I super hate!) our professor "reminded" us that our final exam is not next Tuesday like it says on the schedule, but in fact this Thursday.  THIS Thursday.  I hyperventilated briefly, then remembered that I've only lost about 10 points the entire semester.  I was comforted even more when Dr. Alfred told us what would be on the exam.  According to the syllabus, by this point, we should have covered chapters 6-8 and 13 in one text and chapters 3-6 or something like that in another text.  That's a lot to study on short notice.  It won't be so bad, though, since we've only covered chapter 5 since the midterm.  Yeah, that's right.  Half of a semester = 1 chapter.

Don't worry - the baby is still cute.

I hate that incompetent people can use groupwork to succeed in school and go on to get jobs, be incompetent, and get promotions based on other people's work.  For once, it's not my group that's making me cranky, but Josh's school work.

I am really looking forward to the end of the semester.  As you may know, there is only one more week of classes, then a week of exams, and the semester is done.  Josh and I will visit his family, see his brother graduate and visit with his dad and stepmom.  Then Josh shall skip off to Colorado to have fun and games and leave me with the baby for a week.  I want Josh to have lots of fun, but I have to say that I'm not too pleased with having the baby on my own for a week.  So, I shall spirit myself off to Hendersonville to stay with my parents for a few days.  Hopefully Jeana and Randy will let us keep Zeus at their house for a little while, but if not, we'll have to find a vet to board him at.  (Our old vet displeases us.  We want a new one that won't make my cat smell like smoke and look like he played in ashes.)

I am very excited about the summer.  It will be nice to play with the baby more frequently.  There are some days where I feel like I hardly see him at all, so I'm looking forward to spending more time with him.  Josh will be working all summer, which means I'll have the baby all the time on week days, which is also a little bit of a bad thing.  and unfortunately, I'll have no excuse to continue putting off cleaning the house.  Alas.

As I mentioned, I got a poor grade on half of the presentation, because the professor was talking to other students and not listening to us talk.  (This is the same professor who walked out of the room and came back 2 or 3 minutes later during someone else's presentation.)  She told me that if I wanted to improve my grade, I could write a paper with the other girl in my group who got a poor grade.  I told her I'd love to do a paper on my own, but if I had to work with her again, could I just keep my 80?

So I wrote the paper on my own, turned it in last week, and expected maybe 5 additional points.  I got the paper back yesterday.  My presentation grade is now a 100.  (Yeah, that'd be higher than my groupmates who didn't have to write a paper.)  Needless to say, I am quite please.

In case you were curious, yes, Daniel's still cute.

Once again, the husband is out late working on his Thermal Design project.  I vaguely remember what he looks like.

The project for the education class isn't terrible.  The assignment is to make a small number of a variety of test questions, which is exactly what we've been doing all semester in another of my classes.  In fact, it took less than 10 minutes to finish my portion of the task.  It's not the work that I mind; I just hate group projects. 

I'm a little bit of a control freak, and I like things to be done a certain way.  When it comes to my education class, I will, however, settle for any way that is competent and correct.  Unfortunately, I believe that might be asking too much.  I HATE relying on other people for part of my grade.  Because Joe-Shmo happens to be lazy and care little for his grade, my grade can suffer?  Not cool.  (Or should I say it's not money?  I'm told that's what the kids say these days...)  The group work has to be done in the same group as the last project.  Now, I don't dislike all of them, but even with the ones I like, we have very different work ethics and styles.  Did I mention that I loathe group work?

On a happy note, the baby is still cute.

Today in the education class that causes me so much irritation, the professor assigned yet another group project.  With only 1 1/2 weeks left, she assigned a group project worth TWO LETTER GRADES.  Needless to say, I am quite displeased.

In other news, the baby is still cute.

Josh and I are attempting to kill the dandelions.  I don't think we're winning.  We'll let you know.  Josh insisted that we get flowers to plant in our front flowerbed.  Now, I agree that they'd be lovely, but let's be honest.  Do I seem like the outdoorsy, yard work-loving, yay-I-like-dirt-under-my-fingernails type?  No me gusta.

For those of you who are blind or silly, our baby is the most beautiful thing in the world.  Of course, you probably read at Josh's that Daniel can pull himself to standing now.  It's the most amazing thing.  Our little boy went from a helpless little thing that did little more than lie about like a pooping sack of flour to a wide-eyed, bright little boy.  I read a blog that another woman writes, which is mainly about her son.  Today she talked about how easy it is to mention all the bad things the baby does, such vomit everywhere, poop on everything, cry unceasingly, etc, but it somehow manages to slip your mind to mention all the wonderful things about him, like his smile, his laugh, his wide eyes when he sees something new, or the surprise on his face when he feels grass under his toes.  Despite my lamentations, I love that little boy, and I would not trade him for anything in the world.

On a less serious note, I've been told that I'm too neurotic because I make people wash their hands before touching the baby.  Now, I don't think it's a bad idea at all, but lest you think that I am too neurotic, know this: I let the baby play in the grass not even just once, but twice now!  He was so fascinated!  I drew the line at letting him eat the grass, though.  Plenty of time for that and mud pies later.

And now for school.  Let me begin by saying that I have had some phenomenal teachers.  I also know some education students who are intelligent, dedicated people whom I believe will one day make wonderful teachers.  And then there are the rest of them.  So many people at Tech choose education as a major because it's easy.  They can't succeed at engineering? They go to education.  Business classes too hard?  Switch to education.  Math major too difficult?  Teach math instead.  It's disheartening.  It doesn't help that in my group for one of my education classes, there is a girl who fits the ditzy sorority girl education major stereotype to a T.  Now, I am by no means a genius at grammar, but I can recognize the parts of speech.  So why is it that this girl, let's call her Katie, can't tell the difference between an adverb and an adjective?  That's not so bad, you say.  Well, it might not be if she weren't planning to teach high school English classes.  Even better, she was wearing a t-shirt with her sorority's Greek letters on it, and when questioned about the meaning of "Kappa," she did not know that it was a letter of the Greek alphabet!  If you're going to join an organization and plaster their name across your clothing, shouldn't you have some idea what the name of the organization stands for? 

Today, in the aforementioned education class, we were having presentations, done in groups based on our majors.  (I'm in a group with English teachers, because English and French are "close enough.")  A History group presented on the Civil War, gave us a list of important names and locations, and asked us to make a "creative" graphic organizer.  The terms were things like "President Lincoln," "President Jefferson Davis," "Confederacy," "Union," "General U.S. Grant," and "General Robert E. Lee," so they weren't very hard terms.  I was grudgingly drawing away when "Katie" asked the other girl in our group whose side Lincoln was on.  As if that were not bad enough, the response she received was, "I think he was somewhere in the middle."  It was not isolated.  So many people were asking which side was which and which president went with which side.  As with grammar, I'm no history genius, but I do have a basic grasp of it, thanks to the American History requirement in both high school AND college.  The only people who don't have to take American History are engineers, so this bunch has no excuse.  It just strikes me as very ignorant.  Even if you don't know who Jefferson Davis is, if there are only two presidents, I think you can safely surmise that Lincoln was on the winning side, given the penny and his monument.  Some people's kids...

I love spring.  I love the sunny days.  I love the flowers blooming.  I love the warm weather.  But it's not all pretty flowers and sunshine.  With the breaking of spring also comes a most dreadful and horrible thing... the miniskirt.

Now, personally, I don't like miniskirts, but I understand that some girls believe that since their legs are beautiful, they should show them.  That does not, however, explain why girls that are, shall we say, not properly built for mini-skirts insist upon wearing them.  Do they own mirrors?  If so, what do they see when they look in them?  Because it most certainly is NOT what I see.

Some people will say that these girls are simply comfortable in their own skins and that's why they dress this way.  Well, that would be more believable if miniskirts weren't ridiculously uncomfortable.  Now, it may just be me, but I like being able to walk up stairs or sit down without worrying about having an underwear revelation.  Besides, simply because you're comfortable with your body doesn't mean that you need to show it off.  There are parts of my body that I really like, but that doesn't mean that I dress those parts up in hussy gear.

One of the worst parts is that some of these girls are really very pretty and have several good attributes.  Unfortunately, the wide expanse of not-as-attractive leg distracts from their beatiful face or their nice arms and shoulders.  Why do they choose to accent parts of themselves that aren't so nice, and thus distract the eye from the lovely parts of themselves they should be accenting?

Perhaps someone out there can shed some light on this for me.  As for me, I'm off to start an anti-miniskirt picket line. 

I finished the paper.  Randy, you were right.  All I had to do was go back and elaborate on things I'd already mentioned.  Strategic re-wording, if you will.  :) 

Now I just have to do the "Chapter Objectives."  There are 5-7 questions per chapter for 13 chapters.  The answers must be 1-2 paragraphs.  This is going to take quite a while as well.  (Yet it will still take less time than Josh's horrible Thermal Design project!)

9 1/4 pages down.

A mind-bogglingly difficult 3/4 of a page to go.

I really hate it when you get close to the end of a paper and can think of NOTHING to say.  (I know... you're shocked at the idea that I would ever run out of things to say.)

I know many of you had heard that my grandmother fell down and broke her hip.  At first, they thought they were going to have to do surgery, which is a very bad thing, since my grandmother is in very bad health, and the outlook was grim.

Since then, however, they've seen the surgeon that is supposedly "The Best" who has told them that surgery is not necessary at this point.  While she will eventually need a hip replacement, it would be best to wait until the bones have healed since the broken bones are the ones that will be replaced.

The last I heard, the plan was to move Grandmommy to a nursing home today for rehabilitation.  Hopefully, all went well with that.  I will let you all know more when I do.

I was jealous.  You know, back in the day, I had a Pitas site.  It was good and happy.  But all my friends has LJ, so I moved on.  Unfortunately, LJ won't let you post photos unless you pay them money.  Capitalist pigs.  No me gusta.  So now I have a new toy.

Those of you who know me must surely realize that the only funny stories I have are about baby poop, so I don't promise any exciting reads, but have at it.  As the baby does poop daily, I almost always have something to write about.

For those of you who have not heard, Daniel has two teeth now.  Two!  Count 'em!  And boy, are those suckers sharp!  He can also sit unsupported and get himself into a sitting position from his stomach.  How cute is that?  (And by cute, I mean.. sweet heavens, he's getting old so fast, where did the time go?)  And, get this.. he said "Dada!"  Now, obviously, he loves his father more than he loves me, my heart is broken, I feel unloved, etc.  But still, it's so cute!  He doesn't know who he's calling dada (he keeps saying it to his feet, his diaper, his Exersaucer..) but in time, it will be used discriminately.  I'm so proud.

Oh!  And he can feed himself!  It's the darnedest thing.. You can hand him a sippy cup, and he'll happily eat away.  He's says that he's an independent man of the 2000's, but I think he's overestimating his own abilities at this point.