Family Business

If you've been following the blog comments on this new endeavor of mine, you may remember that my father suggested I go into accounting because he thought I might be good at it. After all he's a retired CPA. I joked with him saying that I doubted accounting is genetic. Relating this story to my sister, Karma, (currently a CPA) revealed that my sister, Sheri, had also considered going into accounting, but didn't due to various reasons. Okay. So there is an interesting trend, but it couldn't possibly mean much. At least, that's what I thought before we had dinner at my dad's house and I brought the topic up. Here I discovered that another of my sisters, Sandy, had also considered accounting. While Dad had tried to talk Karma out of it and failed, he had succeeded in talking Sandy out of it which is why she is a physical therapist instead. So that's 4 out of 5 girls and 4 out of 6 kids in one family that have a confirmed interest in accounting. Maybe there's something to this "family business" concept that's lasted throughout the years.

My University Daruma

Here it is for you to see. I'll also be printing it out for personal display.

Thank you TSOTE for the image link :)

One down...

... Thirteen to go!

Weeks that is. I'm not sure why I was so nervous. The classes themselves, while not easy, don't seem like they will be overly difficult either. Then again I've only attended one week so we'll have to see. I've decided that I cannot afford to purchase a daruma doll so I'll be downloading a picture and posting it here sometime soon. (If you're confused read alittle more about it here.)

I spoke with an Academic Advisor today and we figured out that if I stick with my two classes a term schedule and go every term between now and graduation I should be done after the Fall term of 2011. Of course, I can always accelerate that, but at least I have a finish line up now :).

Well. I'm off, but I thought I'd give you all an update (not that there's much to say).

First Day!

I am so nervous. Yesterday, in church, I was asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. A few minutes before I was supposed to speak I started getting really fluttery in my stomach. It actually made me think of the scene in The Cutting Edge when Doug says he's nervous, but he should be fine about 10 minutes after getting onto the ice and Kate stares at him saying the program was only 2 minutes long. I didn't actually throw up though. Yeah.... It's a feeling I haven't had since being on stage in high school. Well.... one day later and it's fluttering again. Class doesn't start for another 10 1/2 hours! I have to wonder if I'm making this out to be more than it will be. Of course, the class isn't the only thing I'm nervous about. My dad, who will normally be watching the kids, is out of town until tomorrow afternoon so I've asked a friend to watch the kids. I'm not worried about Gabriel, but Valerie has a tendency to take it personally when I disappear and leave her with people she sort of knows. And it's going to be for 3 1/2 to 4 hours! I just hope she doesn't freak out too bad. She's been doing much better in Nursery on Sundays. And the friend who is watching them has a son in her Nursery class so maybe she'll think it's like Nursery.... One can hope.

The Adventure Begins

After the comments and help you all gave me, as well as talking to people in the field, I finally came to the decision to work on an Accounting degree. I'm going to start out at CNM since I attended it's previous incarnation (TVI) several years ago and my credits are still good. They only offer an AAS Degree, but it's transferable should I want to continue on to get a BS. I'm admitted, and registered. The classes actually started this past Monday (12th), but registration was available until the 20th and the next semester wouldn't start until May so I jumped on it. I decided to heed my friend's warning and take two classes. One of them is on-campus and the other one is via distance learning. The advantage is that the distance learning is a "blended" course in which most of it is online, but there is an on-campus session that goes along with it. Now I just need to pay for the classes and figure out what books I need. It's so weird being back in school. I used to know this stuff backwards when I was just out of high school and now I have no clue. Wish me luck :P

Education is a Good Thing.... Right?

Then why is it so hard to figure out the right school!

Okay, let me back up and start at the beginning. I've received an offer that I simply will not refuse. My father has offered to pay for schooling in any educational path I want (provided it can help me find some way to suppliment our income and possibly even take top spot should Dan's health require it of me). Knowing my time and resources in regards to child care, something that I can study at home and eventually turn into a career from home is best. A couple of ideas include medical billing and transcription work, accounting/bookkeeping, and computer or web related fields. Yes, I know there are others, but the reason I'm looking at these have to do with my interests and abilities (I'd love to learn culinary arts and possibly go into catering, but I'm not so good in the kitchen right now and it's definately not something I could study at home on my own :P).

So where do I start? Do I start by picking a career field and then a school? or do I pick a school first? Obviously not all schools have all career fields available which would suggest that career field would be the first choice, but just browsing through some of the education assistance sites (the ones that list all the different online and local schools (University of Pheonix, American Intercontinental University, etc)), it appears that they all offer similar study programs. Then there are the truly local schools CNM (Central New Mexico Community College) offers many courses via "distance learning" but the highest degree available is associate. This isn't a really bad thing and UNM (University of New Mexico) will transfer some degrees into their bachelor programs. I just don't know if I want to go for certificates, associate's, or bachelor's degrees. There are so many choices that I think my brain is going to explode!

So this is what I need to do (and any advice/help would be wonderful) in no particular order.

1. Decide on a career path.
- Computers
- Business
- Health services
2. Determine a course of study.
- Computers: Web design, networking, data entry
- Business: Accounting, bookkeeping, management
- Health services: Medical billing, coding, transcriptioning, assistance, nursing
3. Determine level of education.
- Certificate
- Associate Degree
- Bachelor Degree
4. Decide on a school.
- Accredidation
- Career placement help
- Distance learning available
- Tuition (taken care of, but I want to minimize costs to my father where possible)
- Length of program

Is that everything? I don't know! HELP!

Mama you roll. Dada you rock.

We had a fun Christmas this year. While it was tempered by the constant rushing of seeing family at various locations and Valerie teething (got a new one in on the bottom), we enjoyed ourselves. I even managed to surprise Dan (not an easy feat since he is typically around when I get him something or I have to ask his advice on this or that). I bought him a couple pair of jeans and wrapped them up as from Santa then hid them until Christmas Eve when we took out all the presents and put them under the tree.

It all started Christmas Eve when the Warrens (my sister Sheri, her husband Randy and four of her six kids) came by Sandy's (my other sister who lives here in Albuquerque) house to prepare some items for the Christmas Eve Danish celebration planned at my Dad's house later that evening. I gathered up the kids and drove down to help. After a while Sheri and I got dropped off at Sandy's work to join her for her hair appointment. Sandy had asked her hair-dresser to add us to her appointment (which ended up being 3 hours long). Sheri closed her family cafe earlier this year and since she no longer had to have her hair long enough to pull back she was ready to chop it off. She looks really cute now! Sandy needed to have her color touched up and her hair trimmed. I hadn't had a trim of any kind for about two years and with my hair at waist level was finding it somewhat inconvenient to work with. I thought I'd go ahead and take it to shoulder level and donate the rest. Prescilla informed me that I needed at least 10 inches to donate it which put it right at shoulder level. Then she styled it to be somewhat shorter. It just brushes my shoulders now and I'm loving it. I just wish I could straighten it, but I don't have the knowledge and income needed to get myself a good flat iron. It's still long enough to pull back, but short enough to leave down without irritating me and getting in my way.

I mentioned that the appointment ran WAY long and that put us behind schedule as far as getting me back home so that I could get ready and drive us out to my Dad's house. We were originally supposed to meet there at about 4:45 and start dinner at 5. We ultimately didn't get there until 5:30 and we didn't eat until closer to 6. The rushing meant that I left a lot of things at home that I wanted (address and directions to my sister-in-law Sarah's house being among them) and Valerie wasn't letting me out of her sight (not uncommon when she feels that I've deserted her with strangers... which is kinda what I did when I went to the hair appointment). By 7:30 she was ready for bed and we hadn't finished with the Danish Christmas celebration yet. I have to admit that my temper was frazzled by the time we got home. We had originally planned to drop by Sarah's but we couldn't get ahold of anyone to remedy my forgetfulness. It's probably for the best since Valerie fell asleep in the car and went straight to bed as soon as we walked in the door. Our original plan to open a present each Christmas Eve was barely saved by Gabriel insisting that he didn't want to go to bed without having unwrapped something. After he was in bed, we finished our preparations (we ended up only wrapping the kids gifts since we were more interested in watching the opening than participating) and dropped into bed ourselves.

Christmas morning got a late start since Gabriel refused to change his pull-ups (I don't understand why he does this) and we wouldn't let him open gifts until he changed. When everyone was ready we sat the kids down and went to town. Our traditions say that Santa brings one gift per person along with a small stocking stuffer. The rest of the presents are from family or friends. The kids didn't seem to care where they came from as long as there was paper to rip. We had scheduled Dad, Lucynthia (my step-mom), and Sandy to join us for breakfast and they showed up starting about mid-way through the opening. Dad and Lucynthia found it quite fun to watch the kids having fun. After breakfast burritos and sour dough waffles (mmmm....) the guests left and we put the kids down for a rest anticipating the rest of the day to be crazy. We were right.

Around 2 or so, we drove to my mother-in-law's house for the gifts from them as well as to caravan to Bill and Prescilla's (different Prescilla and they are Cory's (Dan's step-father) parents). On the way there we dropped by a friend's house to pick up a gift they had (I figured it would be easier for us since we were in the neighborhood rather than having them drive all the way across the river). It's a family from our previous ward with a son the same age as Gabriel and he wanted to join me inside to say hi. They had gotten a Wii and were playing it. Gabriel unfortunately wanted to join them even though we were in a hurry and leaving was a tramatic experience for our son. Things got better when we got where we were going as there was food, family, and... presents. Despite the nap, Valerie still wasn't feeling tip-top and we ended up leaving a little earlier than originally planned. Once again, bed was the order of the day for the kids as soon as we got home. Our plans were different. Dan had received some video games for Christmas and was anxious to try them out.

What does all this have to do with the quote from my son that titles this blog entry? You see, while my mother-in-law just wanted to see us on Christmas day, her husband, Cory, had an alterior motive. He got an XBox 360 for Christmas along with several games (Guitar Hero, Burnout, Nascar, etc) and wanted Dan to help him set it up. And while my mother-in-law was buying games for her husband, she decided to get one for us so for Christmas Dan and I got Guitar Hero 3 (bundled with a wireless guitar controller) and a second guitar. The day after Christmas we decided to try it out. I'm not very good, but just yesterday Gabriel told us, "Mama you roll. Dada you rock." It's nice to know our children don't think we're uncool ;)