AUG 30th marks the 1 year anniversary of two imortant things in my life:

 

1.) I started my job at Northcrest Retirement Community!

 

2.) Mom received her diagnosis of Lymphoma. She has put on one great year of fighting this horrible disease!

 Keep it up Mom! We are all here fighting with you!

Yesterday afternoon I had my first class for PSY121 (Developmental Psych).
I have this class at the NEW Ames Hunziker DMACC Campus.
I was excited to see the new building.
Man, was I disappointed?!?!
It is very stark. It is gray everywhere. There is a huge wall of windows on
the front of the building but in the classrooms you feel like you are in a
jail cell. Very small, oddly placed windows.
The other color in the building is DMACC blue.
During class there was often a very loud whooosh noise... turned out to be
the new hand dryers in the bathrooms down the hall. Not cool. Must be super
powered or something to be so loud!
The building is modern, stark... the feeling of institutional coldness.
The technology was tops though.
Hopefully that will change over time. Perhaps some strategically placed
plants and photos, posters or something... warm the place up!

The class itself was good though.

I go to work in the morning, get off at 2:30pm, have to be in class at
3:00pm and it goes until 5:50pm every Tuesday until Dec. 5th. Works out pretty good. Takes as
long to get across Ames as it does to get to Ames from Boone!

There are 21 people in my class.. mostly youngsters (early 20's) so I felt
pretty old. LOL! The teacher seemed very nice. She has a daughter who is 9
years old. She said that she has a life outside this classroom and expects
that everyone else does too or they need to go to counceling. She's pretty cool!

We watched a video about the real "wild child"(children) Victor and Jeanie. She
also mentioned that wild child that was found recently in the news (here in
Iowa). So it was pretty timely.

She gave a us a book we have to read titled "Night" about the hollocaust.
Then we have to attend one of two viewings of movies she has listed. "Hotel
Rwanda" or "The Pianist"...Or if we can find the videos we can do it that
way. Anyone have these videos?
She also wants us to go see the BUSeum 2 that will be at the Boone campus on
Oct. 27th about German American Civilian Internment and a lecture by Peggy
Harris about Genocide in Darfur Africa... which will be announced later in
the semester when that will be on the Boone campus. Then after all these, we
have to write a paper. Seems like a lot of work for a two page paper! LOL! ;)

Our assignement for next week is to make a timeline of our life. Then fill
the timeline in about everything we can remember about our life. Birth to
today. Everything we can remember.. our memories, who was president, what
was going on in the world that affected our generation... she said alot of
people say that they can't remember much, but she said as we go along and
fill this timeline in, we will be surprised at what we can remember and how
we feel about it. Should be an interesting assignment. Especially since I
can remember the Challenger explosion live on tv and the rest of the class
says... you mean the Columbia, don't you? (age thing... lol!)

Oh and a 5 pt. assignment we have is to fill out a worksheet she gave us
that has questions about ourselves. Why am I taking this class? What do I
hope to gain from it? List top priorities in life right now? What do I do
when not studying or working? Things like that...

 

Here is a good quote I picked up today:

 

Well, I wasted as much of your time as you can probably handle...

G

I don't want to do several different blogs by subject, so today I am just going to combine everything.

 

Where to begin? Oh yeah...

 

Work - Work is going good. When I came in on Tuesday morning there was an envelope awaiting me.

A bit nervous, I opened it with caution. I don't often get notes left for me. It was a Thank you card with a note on the inside that said:

 

 

That was really special and meant so much to me! It also included a Target giftcard.

 

Jason - Just working away... busy guy! Regained the Trans Am. Long, unimportant story.

 

John - Officially a high schooler! Freshman! Frosh! LOL! He's looking forward to a fun year. They all get their own lockers this year because of the 7th and 8th graders going to the new Middle School. He was excited about that after having such a crammed locker last year. His locker is located down what used to be the 7th grade hallway. He has no interest in playing sports this year. Just hanging out with friends.

 

Elainie - Starting at the new Middle School as an 8th grader, she was so excited to be able to attend the new school! She's also excited that it is so close to home and she can walk everyday. She is going to play volleyball along with Fall softball. She will be marching with the Middle School Band in Marshalltown on Sept. 23rd. She will be one busy girl!

 

Alexis - Excited to be the top dog at school this year, this 3rd grader has two teachers, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. How lucky can one be? She can't wait to go to school, which starts for her on Monday. This summer she kept busy playing with David, Taylor, Lizzy and a new friend across the street, Alison.

 

Me - Above was a neat thing I got at work... I've already mentioned the new van in a previous blog... oh! I added splash guards, a cargo mat, and a "nose guard" to the van this week. It looks pretty hot to me! Well, as hot as a minivan can get... perhaps "sporty" is a better word for it. I got my report card for my PSY101 (General Psychology) class I took this summer. I got an "A" in that class! Yahoo! I am registered to take PSY121 (Developmental Psychology) this fall. this class starts this Tues. and runs til Dec. 5th. I wanted to take Anatomy where I would've got to disect a cat, but the class filled up too fast... guess I'll have to wait another semester to tell you all about cat guts! I bet you can't wait! Work is going well. They are wanting me to work more shift in the HWH (dementia Unit) because I am so good with certain residents back there, but it is such a physically and mentally demanding area... we deserve an extra something special to work that area... like $1. extra per hour or something. After working that area, I come home and just zonk! I feel like I've spent a lot of money this last couple of weeks between registering the kids for school, lunch accounts, softball uniform for Labor day tourney, the van stuff, school clothes, my class, regular bills.... $$$$$$$... gone! (I'm just so glad I have no credit cards. Cash - best method of payment! Hey kids! credit cards are the root of all evil - never get one!) LOL! But that happens with life. Takes money to live and have fun!

 

This is all for now. More later... aren't you excited?!?!?

 

 

 

 

It was brought to my attention that I have a photo album of the Boone ASA softball team playing in a tournament in Ames, but I don't have any other information about this team... so here it is:

 

This wonderful group of gals played at a tournament Jul 7 - 8th in Ames. They got 4th place. This is where the photos in the album were taken.

This team also played in the Iowa games in July. They did a fabulous job! Way to go girls!

 

Pictured are team mates:

 

Chelsea Riordan

Alison Brooks

Lindzey Tjernagel

MaKenna Slight

Corinne Frei*

Elainie Stensland*

Jessica Brown

Jess Kelley

McKenzie Anderson

Karli Pfremmer

Abby Ward

 

Team Colors: Red, Black, & White

 

Great job Boone!

 

This team will also be playing in Grinnell on Labor Day weekend!

(*=denotes those playing for the Stormers Labor Day Weekend!)

 

GRINNELL:

Boone Stormers (Green & White) Elainie will play on this team for this
tournament:

Sat. Sept. 2, 8:00am - vs. Waverly-Shellrock Softball Club (IA)
Sat. Sept. 2, 9:30am - vs. Muscatine Maniacs (IA)
Sat. Sept 2, 12:30pm - vs. Minnesota Sting 93(MN)

Boone Bombers (Red & Black):
Sat. Sept 2, 9:30am - vs. South Des Moines Rails Maroon (IA)
Sat. Sept 2, 11:00am - vs. North Iowa Crush
Sat. Sept. 2, 6:30pm - vs. Minnesota Sting 92 (MN)

Teams also playing 14U In Two other Pools:

Carlisle Wildcats
Marshalltown Explosion
NW Iowa Web Gems
Cedar Rapids Blue Devils White Marq.
CR Blue Devils Royal Fleck
South DM Rails Gold
Sumner/Fredricksburg Cougars
North Iowa Magic

 

Go get them girls! Let's all go and have some FUN!!!

 

 

 

Vanna is a thing of the past!

She is gone... no more FORD's at this house hold!

Yahoo!

 

 

 

Good Luck Boone Stormers at the Mid America Youth Sports 7th Annual Fall Softball Classic at Ahrens Park in  Grinnell Sept. 2 - 4, 2006!

 

Ellie Bryant

Emma Denning 

Dani Ellsworth

Hannah Evans

Jorden Foster

Corrine Frei

Mollie Moore

Taylor Nelson

Jordan Overland

Elainie Stensland

 

Courtney Foster (Emergency Player/plays on one of Boone's 12U teams)

 

Coaches:

Daryl Angaran

Tim Foster

 

Team Helpers:

Hal Johnson

Jason Stensland

 

Team Mom:

Kris Angaran

Team Colors: Green and White

 

Practicing every Mon., Wed, & Fri. through August!!!

 

BEST OF LUCK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go Boone Stormers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

UPDATED 8/14/06 to add additional players.

UPDATED 8/22/06 to remove one player.

That's pronounced "See - see"..............

 

I've finally done it! I am the proud new owner of a Honda Odyssey!

I have wanted one of these vans for as long as I can remember.

They are so unique looking! And unlike Fords, will run FOREVER!!!

 

This one has every feature I could ever want... except moon roof and really? why would I need a moon roof? I can't think of a reason why. But it has leather, heated seats, dual power side doors, power everything, CD player, and I could go on and on but I don't want to bore you. I'm just so excited!

 

I plan to get it a nose guard (when I was in high school these were called "bras"), and splash guards sometime down the road. Give it a little more sporty look.

 

Yesterday after work I used the heated seat feature to calm my lower back muscles from such a strenuous day on the job! I won't be doing that often, just tried it out! LOL!

 

Vanna is for sale. (Yes, Call me a wierdo, I name my cars.)

 

Here are pics of Sey - Sey: