So, I have had a pretty amazing day. After sleeping poorly for most of the night, Evelynn and I gave up and got out of bed at 6:30 this morning. I then had to dig out my coffee pot to make coffee, which led to me washing the dishes. This is actually not a part of my day that I enjoyed, because only half of my sink is usable because my garbage disposal is broken and not draining on that side very well and my landlord's plumber has yet to call me after waiting over a week. Anyways, I did the dishes and made coffee. Then, we got dressed for the gym and daycare. This was Evelynn's first time at the daycare and she was so good! I was so relieved when the woman in charge said she was great, because my little spawn has quite the temper. She immediately started playing with all of the kids and toys. The first thing she did was hug a baby, which scared the baby a little I think because it started kind of whining, then she patted his back and asked if he was okay. It was adorable! Then I got my exercise on with my mommy-in-law and came back home to catch up on homework while Evelynn caught up on her beauty sleep. Later that day, we went back to the community center with Bobby and his little brother Benji. Me and Evelynn swam in the pool while the guys climbed the rock wall. Actually, before going to the center, we played outside for a while and I got pretty tired out, which led to even further exhaustion at the pool. I'm pretty pooped right now, but I had such a great day!

Well, I was supposed to go to the gym today, but I slept in. I feel awful! Bobby's mom, Kim, wanted to go with me really badly! I didn't mean to sleep in and I wanted to go. We used to go together when we lived in Mansfield and it was so much fun! The community center here in Ozark is so much better than Mansfield's too. All Mansfield had was a reception-type room, a basketball court, and small gym. Ozark's has a court, a pool with lazy river and splash-pad, rock climbing, a track, all sorts of classes for kids and adults, daycare, and I'm sure even more. If we used to have fun at in Mansfield, just think of all the fun we could have here! She's one of my best friends. She's actually one of the only four adults that I know in Ozark, which also includes Bobby, his sister Brianna, and my neighbor Jacquie. I talked to Kim though, and I swore to get up early tomorrow morning and go with her. I'm so excited!

Oh my goodness! I don't know how, but my house is trashed. It looks like we had the party here instead of at Bobby's mom's. My dishes are piled up, my laundry is over-flowing, and I can't even find my dining-room table, kitchen counters, or living-room floor. I just don't understand. Cleaning is going to be fun. I have to go to Bobby's mom's to watch his little brother while she's at work until Bobby gets off of work and can watch. Then I have to go home and clean like a mad woman so that my house looks like a house by the time our friend Lacey gets there. She's coming over because she missed Evelynn's party yesterday and wants to give her a tri-cycle. She's bringing another little girl that is two and her boyfriend's baby. I love babies! Correction, I love babies that aren't mine and that I don't have to raise into the heathen toddler years and can just return to the parents when I don't want them anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love Evelynn and I love being her mom, but that doesn't mean I don't thoughtfully and carefully plan my escape at least once a week. That girl is a handful! She looks just like my mother. Red hair, same nose and eyes, same fat feet. You know that saying "paying for your raising?" Well, I am apparently paying for my mother's raising. To quote the woman herself, "That poor kid. She's raising me, and that's something I didn't wish on any of my children." I am not at all happy about this. It's just not fair. Ha ha!

I had so much fun at Evelynn's birthday party! Everyone agreed it was way better than last year, although I have to say that last year's was probably more memorable. Allow me to provide a little back-story- Evelynn was born the day before Bobby's birthday. Last year, I was working on Evelynn's birthday and so I had the party the next day on Bobby's birthday. Because it was his birthday, Bobby refused to help me with anything at all. I don't think he realized how bad I was stressing out, because I'm usually pretty good at hiding it. I don't want anyone to think I've bitten off more than I can chew, because I'm proud and stubborn to a fault. The party was at our house, which was way too small for the amount of people that came. Luckily, Bobby's grandparents lived next door, which meant more room for people to not be all together and celebrating the first year of the first great-grandchild for Bobby's grandparents/first grandchild for Bobby's parents/mine and Bobby's first child. I also tried to do a pot-luck type thing, but trying to organize that was awful and then all of the food also wasn't all in the same house either. I was trying to make a cake, make a lasagna, decorate my house, entertain guests, and take care of presents. Did I mention that I'm really bad at hostessing and planning parties? It was total mayhem all day long. This year was so much better. I made cake, bought chips and salsa, and ordered pizza. We didn't go over-board with the presents and we had the party at Bobby's mom's where there is a lot more room in the house, a humongous yard with lots of activities for everyone to do, and plenty more parking space. I think I learned from my mistakes. Ha! Maybe next year will be even better!

I have learned, by taking this class, that I am a slightly closed-minded person. I have been very pessimistic about most of our assignments in this class, but have ended up enjoying a lot of them. I forgot how much I like to write and I'm glad this class has reminded me. I really didn't want to do a blog post every day for the next few weeks, but I have found that I actually like doing them. It's a good way to clear my head out and then I can focus on doing my math better or reading my history book. I didn't want to do the workshop thing either, but I ended up enjoying a lot of what I read. Lastly, I didn't want to do the credo essay, because there is honestly not a whole lot I believe in and certainly not enough for me to write three to four pages about, but I came up with something and ended up writing a lot more than I thought I would! This class has put the fun back into writing for me. I don't know if I'm just taking it at the right time in life, or if the class set-up is really just that good, or if it's a combination of both, but I'm grateful! I feel challenged and the assignments aren't just straight-out-of-the-book kind of assignments. I'm not writing about something I've had to do a hundred times and it's making me more creative in my whole life. I am really loving it!

My mouse is dead and it makes me so sad! Here I was, sitting at my desk and trying to read some homework, and I noticed a smell. I thought to myself, "That's not the normal 'time to clean the mouse cage' smell. I looked over at his cage and he was dead underneath his squeaky wheel. I poked him to be sure and then I was so sad! I feel awful! I kept forgetting to feed him for the past couple of days, but I kept checking his water and it was fine. Plus, he had empty toilet paper rolls to munch on, so I thought he was fine. But, he wasn't fine. And now I'm sad.  I moved his cage into the kitchen, put his body in a baggie, put the body-baggie into a tupperware bowl and lidded it, then I cleaned and disinfected his cage and everything. I texted Bobby to tell him and I told him that we need to bury him. Mr. Mouse was part of the family. He added character to us as a whole and now he's gone. He deserves more than an off-brand, quart-sized baggie stuffed into some VERY cheap tupperware and then thrown into the garbage. So, when Bobby gets home and before we do anything else, we are going into the back yard and digging a hole to bury Mr. Mouse in. I might be over-reacting, but I really do feel so guilty. He was my responsibility and I over-estimated the durability of being a common field mouse.

Well, it's been pretty tough trying to get ahead on my homework this week. Mostly just because I hate doing it and it's really hard to make myself do things that aren't due when I could be doing different productive things that actually seem to make a difference in my life, such as cleaning. I have been cleaning a lot. On the plus side, though, I have almost my entire house immaculate for Sunday. I'm just nervous, because there will be a lot of people here that have never been here before. Last year on Evelynn's birthday party, I had all of the important rooms clean and I didn't care about the bedrooms. But, last year I worked and it was understandable why I wouldn't have my whole house squeaky. This year I am not working and I am home all day long. Yes, I do go to school, but that really doesn't take up as much of my time as I let people believe. It can, I just lucked out this semester with my classes and the teachers. I have plenty of work to do, but it doesn't take me near as long as it used to to do it. Probably because I'm not near as busy as I used to be. And I have now come full circle. Anyway, I need to clean out my garage SUPER badly. It is just crammed full of crap, and most of it was stuff that was just here when we moved in. Bobby and I have plans to spend a good deal of the day Saturday cleaning it out. I think we should just find out where the dump is, borrow somebody's truck, and take care of it that way. It would certainly be easier, but it's not the right way to do it. Oh well. Who knows, we could find some pretty great stuff!

It stormed for most of the day today. I love storms! I just wanted to cuddle on the couch all day with my little family and watch TV. Unfortunately, that didn't get to happen. Bobby had to go to work, Evelynn only likes to be cuddled when she's sleepy, and I had too many things to do today. I did watch more TV than usual, but I didn't have to spend as much time cleaning or doing homework because I got a jump-start on it last night. In fact, I would have posted this last night if I had had anything to write about. (Not that I'm writing about much right now.) Tomorrow I'm going to go through all of Evelynn's toys so that she has room for more on her birthday. I feel like I just went through them before we moved, but somehow it needs to be done again. I think I'm going to have to be more ruthless. I have a plan, though. Because it's so hard for me to do anything while she's awake, I'm going to move all of her toys out of her bedroom before she goes to sleep, then I can go through them while she naps. You know, I really feel sorry for anyone that has to read my posts. I know my life is boring and tedious to read about, but it's pretty interesting to me. I just can't write about the REALLY interesting stuff, because most of it would not be school appropriate. I realize we are at a college level, but most of the people in a COMP 1 class are fresh out of high school and still pretend to have "delicate ears/eyes." I personally don't really care if what I'm reading really has a filter at all or not.

I've spent a pretty good part of my day so far doing math. I mostly enjoy math and I am fairly decent at it. I am considerably worse at it now than I was in high school. Partly because I haven't taken a math class since my junior year of high school and partly because math is really hard for me to learn online. I'm doing a lot better than I expected, but not as well as I would in an actual classroom. I do  have to say that the teacher I got this semester is considerably better than the one I got in spring semester. This teacher actually seems to care if we learn or not and gives us every oppurtunity to learn it. She even invited me to bring my kid with me to her office at the school if I ever need extra help. That's a good teacher right there. All of my teachers would be willing to help at their office if I needed, but I highly doubt all of them would allow me to bring my toddler along. And she's the one that suggested it! It almost made me want to go meet her at her office just so that I can give her a hug and tell her "Hey! Thanks for understanding and being so kind!" You know who else I greatly appreciate right now? My daughter Evelynn, for being so good (for the most part) all day and letting me do homework. I don't even know how many pages of paper I used to do my math and then I had to type in the answers. My hands are cramping up pretty bad now, so I'm gonna get off of here!

I am so stressing out right now! My schoolwork calender is completely full. There is at least one assignment due every single day for the next 3 weeks. Most of those days have more though. Evelynn's birthday party is the 21st and she is turning two, so I have tons of party planning to do, which is something I'm really not very good at. Bobby's birthday is the next day, but thank God he's to anti-social to want a party for himself too. I tried that last year, throwing a party for him and Evelynn at the same time because I only had one day off from work. It was awful. I had no help, I had to cook for around 40 people, wrap TONS of presents, clean my house and yard, decorate, and then clean up after them. And do you want to know what I got out of it? A lot of complaints. "It's too hot for a birthday party." "Your house isn't big enough." "You didn't do a very good job of organizing." "You need to do this and you need to do that." Well, you know what? There was nothing to be done about the heat, because it's summer-time. My house wasn't big enough, but I didn't have to money to rent somewhere, so deal with it. And lastly, I had no idea what I was doing and all I could do was my best. If you want a better party, plan it yourself next time. I'm bad at it. This year, there won't be near as many people, it won't be on Bobby's birthday so he'll actually help, and we are ordering pizza. I'm just trying to figure out time-management as best I can, because I have one very busy week ahead of me.

Well, Evelynn is in her terrible twos. She has been near impossible to get to do anything for the past few days. When trying to put her to sleep a little bit ago, she screamed until she started dry-heaving and then screamed some more. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do and I don't understand why she is doing it. She was up until 12:30 last night. You know what time we lay her down in her bed? 7:30. That's four straight hours of her screaming and Bobby and I taking turns trying to get her to sleep or just straight up trying to ignore her. The problem with ignoring her altogether is that she starts purposefully hurting herself so that we will give her attention. And of course it works, because we can't just not make sure she's okay. So, I have to go check on her, because Bobby is too much of a sucker not to baby her. The only reason why I'm not such a sucker is because I have to deal with her all day, so I'm kind of used to it. But trust me when I say, there is no "getting used to" her new behavior. I declared last night that I don't want anymore children. Why on earth would I want to go through this again? I'm not even sure I'll make it through it this time. Why chance not making it the next time if I do?

Whew! I am so exhausted! I have had an incredibly busy couple of days. As I have already written in a previous post, I am working on being better at keeping my house clean and being productive throughout the day now that I no longer work. Well today I wasn't even home enough to clean. We got up this morning and immediately after snuggling on the couch for little bit with Evelynn (it's our post-wake-up routine) we started getting ready to go to a baby shower. Well of course things had to happen before and on our way there. Evelynn kept pooping, then she got her clothes dirty (from food, not poop), then I couldn't find things like my wallet and whatnot. Finally, we got out on the road and Bobby wants to stop at a gas station. Well, the first one didn't have what he wanted, so we had to go out of our way to stop at another one. Then we almost got lost on our way to the baby shower and had to turn around... twice. After we arrived, we had lots of fun hanging out with Bobby's co-workers and their significant others. We left there after a couple of hours, got lost on the way home, and then put Evelynn to sleep once we got home. Bobby then suggested that I go to Walmart while she was asleep so that I wouldn't have to deal with either of them while I tried to shop, which I felt was a wonderful idea. He usually wants to go with me, which means Evelynn will have to go, which means I'm pretty much just going to be chasing around two grumpy toddlers. Bobby hates being around strangers. I don't know why he always wants to go. Ha ha! Before going shopping, I hit up a few yard sales and found Bobby's birthday present! I'm so excited! It's perfect for him! I can't say what it is, because I don't trust him not to read this, but I know he's gonna love it! In fact, he just came up behind me and started reading. Anyways, Walmart was a mad house and I ended up forgetting most of the stuff I was supposed to get. After shopping, we went to a campground in Branson where Bobby's grandparents, mom, and little brother are staying. That place was awesome! We went swimming, played on some animal statues and jungle-gym, sang karaoke, and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Evelynn had the most fun of all I think. She was quite the little ham during karaoke when she was dancing and flirting with people. It was so stinking cute! Now, we are home, Evelynn is in bed, and I am just about finished with all of my homework for tonight. Time to go watch some "Orange is the New Black!"

I just got done writing my reading response discussion post. I'm pretty sure I didn't answer all of the questions that I was supposed to answer, but I didn't really feel like some of the questions applied to how I felt about the essay. There was nothing I disliked about the essay itself, but I did name something the essay made me think of (which answers a question, sort of) that I don't like. I don't know if that counts. I did my response over "Be Cool to the Pizza Delivery Dude." I should have included in my post how thankful I am that I have never been hired to deliver anything. I have applied for some, but I pretty much just hoped and prayed that I didn't get them. I am terrible at following maps and it usually takes me a really long time before I really know my way around anywhere. Needless to say, if I did get a delivery girl job, I would be fired pretty quickly, because everyone would get their food free for it being late. On another topic, I am getting better at housewife stuff. Today I not only washed and dried laundry, but I folded and put away a bunch of it. Plus, I cleaned the living-room, dining-room, kitchen, bathroom, and office in less than 2 hours. I'm kind of proud of myself. Bobby is very impressed, because he has came home to the house being mostly clean every day this week. That hasn't happened in a very long time. Ha ha! On the down-side, he's gonna be home all weekend, which means I'll be right back where I started on Monday. Oh well, at least now I'm getting better at it. Yay, me! ;)

Today was significantly better than yesterday. Evelynn hardly made a mess or cried at all today, I got my refund from the school, and then I went out for sushi with Bobby when he got home. I'm in such a good mood, it's not even irritating me that my mouse is squeaking very loudly on his wheel right next to me. It's actually really cute, too cute to get angry about. Ha ha! He needs a new cage REALLY badly. I broke one side of the glass in this one a few weeks ago while cleaning it. Then I just taped it a super lot and pretended it didn't happen. But, it does make it harder to clean now. We're gonna buy him a friend, so he really needs a bigger cage anyways. We got one from Bobby's mom, but the screen on the lid is broken, so we're a little concerned he might escape. Okay, I give up. We need to buy some WD-40 for that dang wheel before we lose our minds... Also, I need to clean my office. It's trashed. Just my desk is clean. Bobby's desk and the entire rest of the room is trashed. I'm really bad at being a housewife, I think. I know I'm doing better than I used to do when I didn't work, but it's only because I'm used to being so busy. When I did work and go to school and take care of my family all at the same time, it was a lot easier to make myself clean the house, because I didn't have time to do it another time. All of my other time was already spoken for, therefore I just had to do it. Now, I have almost nothing but free-time and I can't make myself be productive enough for my house to be as spotless as I know it should be for the life of me. I'm just too busy soaking up being lazy.

Yesterday was an awful day. Evelynn, my daughter, and I hardly got any sleep. She is getting her 2-year-old molars and it's really messing with her, which means it's messing with me too. Every time she wakes up, I have to get up too. If she has a terrible, frustrating day, so do I. So, yesterday was awful. I got close to 4 hours of sleep (maybe less), Evelynn did nothing but cry and scream, make it close to impossible for me to do math homework, and make messes all day long. At one point, we were outside and I was on the phone. I felt something kind of tickle my thigh (it's probably worth mentioning I was wearing long, bright yellow sweat pants). So, I just shook my leg a little bit thinking it was a fly or something. It was not. All of a sudden, I felt something bite the crap out of me on the back of my thigh, just under my butt. All I could think was, SPIDER!!! We're standing in my front yard, I'm yelling on the phone to hang on or I'll just call back in a minute, I'm freaking out and that makes Evelynn freak out, and I just yank my pants down right there. It was a gigantic bee. Then I had to limp into the house while trying to get my dog and daughter to follow me. I got the stinger out of my leg, doctored it with some baking soda concoction, and put a dress on. Then I continued to fight with Evelynn until that evening when her father came home. We all went outside after he got home and my dress was scrunched up. While I tugged it down, my husband (Bobby) says, "That dress is pretty short. I'll bet the neighbors liked that." To which I replied, "Don't worry, they got a lot more of a show earlier this afternoon!"