Friday, September 02, 2022

FRIDAY!!!

It did not rain today!  

Michael and Alex went out for their lunch study. Michael stirred the peanut butter - which we GREATLY appreciate. 

Insert imaginary photo of friend and I at the back table of our little cafe. 

I left for a bowl of amazing mushroom soup with a friend while the girls were discussing a run. They made it out. 

Before run - 📷by Allie 

After run - 📷by Allie 

There is snow on the tip top of our mountains - again. It first hit early in August and has been coming and going with the rain. I suspect we're going to have less rain and the snow is going to stick, soon. The fireweed is all dead. 

More and more leaves are turning yellow and I'm ready to concede to the season change.  I'm NOT ready to put up the fall tree. Last year it was up from Sept/Oct - May.  I'll wait until it's dark enough that I MUST have the lights on the tree. 

While the guys were out, the girls finished school and GG napped, I spent a few hours working on paperwork stuff for women's ministry. I worked on a newsletter and a brochure for next week's fall launch. 

Dad does a thing.  He ALWAYS asks for seconds or thirds. Always. It doesn't matter if we put four pieces of pizza on his plate, he will ask for more. This holds true with any food. I have told the family to resist giving him double to begin with as he will ask for seconds. I forgot to start him with a single serve this evening....and sure enough, after eating a plateful of pizza he stated, "I'll have one more." 

Michael surprised us all by bringing him back a sticky note with "1" on it. Dad WAS laughing before I got the camera. LOL 

After dinner I found this note on the fridge. It could have been from Michael, Allie or Stacia...I tracked it down. It was from Allie. 
Another 1bites the dust ::snort::

It's a race to see if any of the pumpkins will mature in time. I guess I need to start them earlier next year. Yes, I KNOW there is a 2000+ pound pumpkin at the fair...and mine could be too if I heated a greenhouse,  slept with it, played classical music for it and gave it a daily milk bath. ::snort::  It's not been a good year for our squash. We should be OVERRUN with squash - several varieties. We are eating lots, but certainly not overrun. 

I planted Scarlet Nantes and these New Kuroda carrots this year. We've been eating the Scarlet Nantes and they are good...tonight I picked a couple of the New Kuroda to see how they are doing. They are much darker in color and have a sweeter taste. We'll continue to let them grow until we've eaten all the Scarlet Nantes...and maybe we'll have some to freeze.  I'm debating starting more in the greenhouse and seeing if they will winter over and come up early spring next year.  I plan to start some greens in the greenhouse now and stretch out the season with baby greens. 

It IS a great year for mushrooms! 

Michael and I joked about the girls. They finished their respective school for the week and spent the afternoon in a writing competition.  They continued on after dinner. Michael and I went out and started a fire. The girls came out. This left GG alone and he makes poor choices when alone. Michael went back up and started a James Garner movie for him. That worked for a bit of time. 

We fought off midges, watched flames, talked, and made smores.

Yes, we ARE burning a broken pallet and the end piece of the old compost bin,,,I'm told that does not make us rednecks. I went in when the view from the window showed it was time to go back to GG. 
We love these girls and their individuality! 

I did warn the girls not to tip over the playset. The grands would not be happy with them if they did. 

We ended the night with an episode of Monk. We headed to bed and a few minutes later there was a tap on our door. The girls were having a spa night and invited me down. It was so very tempting, but I opted to crawl into bed instead this time. LOL 

Allie sent me this video clip. Seriously, it may be safer if they keep up the writing competition. ::snort:: 

It's FRIDAY and we have a long weekend ahead of us. We have no plans...except to jump outside for various projects in between the rain. We don't have a great push to visit the fair this year. Maybe, maybe not. 

And That's a Wrap


Allie has finished her second week of college. No, I don't plan weekly updates at all. HOWEVER, maybe this once....

The new work schedule works well with her added classes. She enjoys being able to volunteer with youth as well as attend life group. She is still working 27 hours a week.  She has 4 days "off" each week for school, life and family. 

I don't know that we blogged about Allie's college changes. It turned out the program the University of Northern Colorado ACCEPTED her into (ASLEI) is only available if you ENTER with 30 liberal arts credits. Through no fault of Allie's, the college's admissions department had put her into an upper program and listed her as a residential student. She began calling this to their attention in April.  To further complicate matters the UNC doesn't offer liberal arts credits online. This is beyond odd as we have discovered those are the FIRST credits most universities offer online.  Allie had to switch gears in June and figure out how she wanted to get 2 years of liberal arts credits and more college level ASL before applying once again to their ASLEI program. Options were presented, discussed and discarded...local college, residential in Colorado, online....we offered up the three online programs often used by military members....Wayland Baptist, University of Maryland and Liberty University...because we knew they are accredited and accepted in the educational community. We also knew all 3 online programs have been around for decades and have their programs and best practices in place.  In June she made SURE she was switched at UNC from residential to online student, and planned to take only ASL with them, and re-apply as a transfer student after she has the 30 liberal arts credits. I was part of these zoom meetings and KNOW Allie told them repeatedly about this issue starting in April when we realized the mistake had been made.  We did not know about the requirement for 30 liberal arts credits until July, because they had ACCEPTED her into the program.

Allie explored her options. She chose Liberty University. Liberty was amazing....their process is streamlined. They knew exactly what she needed to do. They had the financial aid and entire application process finished within 3 days. 

Allie planned to take an ASL class at UNC as she'd already tested into the class. She is taking 12 liberal arts credits from Liberty University. 

Fast forward to THIS WEEK when Allie received another notice from her advisor at UNC that she was listed as a residential student, and SHE needed to take care of this before she was charged residential rates? WHAT???? I saw the paperwork, I was on the zoom with this individual and two others when Allie told them all she had withdrawn from residential, was going online at Liberty and would take one ASL class from UNC.  She did all they told her to do, THEY SAID IT WAS TAKEN CARE OF....but here we were in August STILL dealing with the issue we began bringing to their attention in April.  She called registration and was told the very lady sending the email needed to fill out a specific form to switch Allie. There was nothing Allie needed to do. She called the advisor back and let her know she needed to turn in her form before Allie could be switched. 

Meanwhile there were some concerns with the online ASL class Allie had started. This combined with continued inefficiency and drama at UNC led Allie to drop the ASL class at UNC. They finally apologized for the crazy mix ups and said they welcome her applying again in a couple of years. 

Allie will continue her ASL studies locally and when she reapplies for the ASLEI program she will be able to test for placement again. No loss, she'll test even higher, I'm sure.  They will have 2 years to work out the kinks of their hybrid program. One kink was that the link to register as an online student funneled you to a residential program. LOL  It all escalated from there.  

How has the first two weeks gone for Allie as a Liberty student? She made 100% on her first assignment - a screen writing class.  She has made 98 - 100% on all assignments and quizzes. She's loving the class material. She is thriving in the discussion boards required for the classes.  She is home more often and continuing to work 27 hours.... it's all coming together. 

AND - she was awarded a $1500 scholarship from the National ASL society to be used towards college. I think this means her second semester is covered....and saving has begun for the summer semester. 

Run, baby girl, run!