Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 16

How could I not be joyous on this day? It is my last day of work until January 2nd, 2012! I am so thankful to work for CMU and get a full to weeks off of work and be paid for it.

I have lots of things planned for the break, mostly getting things done at the house. Hopefully those things won't take too long and I will have some time to relax and enjoy having a break. The best part is going to be spending more time with Ashley and actually be around during the day.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 15

Today I am being charged with joy by ignorance. Well, I'm not really sure what to call it, but I will use ignorance even though I don't think it's the right word. What I mean is that I am choosing to ignore a problem, therefore being joyful. :) Probably not a real solid decision.

My car needs some work done, basically at least two new tires and a couple other parts. It might not be the safest idea to ignore this problem, but I just don't have the money to pay for it right now. Hopefully it will be fine for a few weeks. Since I won't be driving my car much at all for like two weeks, I think I will be okay.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 12-14

Wow, I am really bad at this. Not only the writing regularly part, but the content of what I am writing about is tough. But let me list some situations in the past few days that really tested me.

First, I have had the privilege the past couple days of cleaning out the room that will be our nursery. :) It was all my old junk in there, most of which was brought over by my parents while we were in Jamaica. (Thanks Mom and Dad. :) ) I tried to be positive about it and throw a ton of stuff away, and I was successful. Almost two full big garbage bags were taken out. Two boxes of random things to sell at a garage sale, leaving me with a tub of memories things (like old pictures and keepsakes), and a box of things I want to keep but need to sort and put away. Not too shabby. Now we can seriously start thinking about decorating and getting things ready for our baby girl.

Next, I found out yesterday that an exam I took 10 days ago for my online class never got submitted. I know I did it, and I know I completed it on time, but there is no record of me even attempting it. It took a lot for me to not get really upset, but there is still a chance that it can be fixed. I have been in contact with my professor and IT people at the University, and they both seem to believe me, but there has been nothing decide yet as to how to handle it. I don't care if I have to retake the exam, as long as I can do so without penalty. I have a B+ in the class right now, and even if I got a 10 of 15 on the exam (which would be really bad), I would get an A. getting an A in that class would mean I will have earned a 4.0 for my first semester as a graduate student. So of course, I am really hoping that this can be resolved.

Lastly, my back has been pretty solid lately. Not too sore the past few days. Went to the chiropractor today for the last time of the year, and he hurt my back. Trying to trust that he knew what he was doing. Maybe he put it in place so the muscles are just sore now trying to adjust the position change. Time will tell. Worse case scenario, I go back. The only reason I don't plan on going back until January is that CMU will be closed for two weeks and I probably won't come to Mount Pleasant very often, if at all.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 8-11

Man, this is harder than I thought. Hard to think of something to write everyday, and hard to remember to write everyday! I don't think I can go day by day and make up the past few days, so I will roll them all into one.

The Fall Semester has come to a close, the first semester for me taking graduate level courses. Honestly, I don't really see a big difference between graduate and undergraduate level. Not yet at least. I guess the classes are shorter, which is nice. :) Finishing up two online classes this past week was difficult. I had two projects that I basically waited until the last minute to do. I tried to not let it stress me out too bad. And I knew I still needed my sleep. I'm a big believer that sleep is more important than staying up too long to study or do homework or whatever. The quality of work would be awful if I was to stay up all night.

So anyways, I got the projects done, trying to keep a positive attitude throughout the process, which was difficult because I wasn't very confident in what I doing. But I checked my grades this weekend, and I got a perfect score on both of them! I couldn't believe it! But of course, I was thrilled and I'm not asking any questions about it. :)

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 7

I chose joy today by having a positive attitude about a meeting that I didn't particularly want to go to at work. It's a meeting for a group of people from various departments around campus that use the Imaging system we have at CMU. It's a system that our office has had for a long time and many other offices are just now finally coming on board. Long story short...Kristin and I go to these meetings basically for no reason. Every other office talks about their problems, and I.T. just says, "Yup, we'll work on that." Waste of an hour.

Believe me, I didn't want to go, but I had a positive attitude about it anyways, because I knew I should go, because maybe one day the meeting will benefit our office a little bit.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 6

Today was the big shopping day for Ashley and I. We went to Great Lakes Crossing Mall in Auburn Hills. We decided to go there, because Ashley wanted to go to Joe's Crab Shack for her birthday dinner.

So we had our lists, and went at it!...but not so fast. We got there between 12 and 12:30, so we had to eat lunch first. Then Ashley did some shopping with birthday money she received. And we went to a couple other stores. I think it was about 3 by the time we bought our first Christmas present! :) And we already had a locker to hold everything we bought! But then we got right into it and crossed people off our list one-by-one.

But anyways, I chose joy this day instead of complaining about my back being in pain, and my feet hurting, and whatever else was wrong that I normally complain about when shopping. I just enjoyed the day with Ashley, away from work, away from school. I may have mentioned my back hurting and things like that, but I never whined. Did I do okay, Ashley? :)

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 5

Today we can finally start burning wood in the wood stove that has been in the works for a couple months now. Comes at a good time too. The propane tank was getting kind of low, and we just can't afford to get that thing filled right now. So from here on out it is goi to take a lot more work to keep the house warm (hhhoootttt), but I will try to choose joy when walking into the freezing cold weather to load up the stove.