Brazzle Frain

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Kim

Or properly translated, frazzle brain. Exactly how I feel during the final week of school before finals.

The tools of a math student.

I have finished all of my homework for Adobe Flash and submitted my final project. I have nearly finished all of my work for Adobe Dreamweaver. Just making some revisions. I have submitted my final English essay. Only the class critique (in essay format) left to do. All is good in those 3 classes.

And then there is math. Math 142 is college math for non-math majors. It deals with real world math – finances, statistics, probability (yeah, cause I use that in everyday life,) volume and area. The terrifying part is the final. During the semester all of our homework was completed through an online program, in which we were allowed to work until we got 100%. You could repeat a homework problem 100 times if that’s what it took to get it right. There were these awesome helpers that would walk you through the problem step-by-step. Every test was online, open book, with the option to retake it once for a better grade. The highest grade would be recorded.

The final, however, is in class. No books, no notes. Just a calculator. It’s asking a lot of my ancient brain to remember all the steps necessary even with a calculator! Today I’ve reviewed the first two chapters using an online practice test. Tomorrow I’ll start on the third chapter which will likely take two days because it contained so much information. The last chapter should be fairly easy since we just completed it.

Anyone wanna take a math final for me? Never mind. The teacher knows me.

Honestly, this whole going back to school thing has been both challenging and extremely rewarding. Math never was my strongest subject, but I’ve figured out that with hard work and determination, even I can pass a math class (well, I think I can. I’ll update you after the final!) You can teach an old dog new tricks.

And the brazzle frain? Well, I’ll be back to simply frazzled about a week from now.

Dog Hugs

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Administrator

I’m a dog lover. After all, this blog was born when we brought home our two Border Collie pups more than 7 years ago. So for me this isn’t a surprising statistic.

Embrace This: Most People Hug Their Dogs More Than They Hug Other People | Dogster.

I have a dog, Snoopy, who truly does want to hug. He will come to my desk when he’s feeling neglected, nudge his way into my lap, and climb with his paws until he has one paw on either side of my neck. Then he pulls until we are chest to chest hugging. He grips and hugs! I’ve never had a dog before that did this, so Snoopy is unique to me. But he is living proof that dogs like that close connection.

Not all dogs. Joe is not a hugger. He will tolerate being held closely for about 5 seconds. It’s not that he doesn’t want human contact, he is perfectly content to lay next to me or beg for butt scratching, but he does not want to be embraced tightly like Snoopy does.

The fact that Snoopy has clean, shiny teeth and fresh breath now (after a good dental cleaning and lots of mom & dad’s $$$) makes him even more huggable. Not that I would have refused before!

Dreamweaver, just cause

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Administrator

One of my assignments for Dreamweaver this week is to create a blog and a blog post. Well, I already have a blog, so why not utilize what I have, rather than clog up cyberspace with another! This is my assignment this week which asks me to:

Create a blog to document my experience so far in this class
Write a few paragraphs on the blog about what I have learned so far with Dreamweaver
Include two websites that are helpful for web designers

Here we go…….

Having come from two semesters in HTML/CSS, Dreamweaver has its good and bad points. I like the ease of working in the design mode to change elements, tags and classes. In HTML and CSS, you essentially need to know where to put tags, how to label each element, and the structure necessary. Dreamweaver allows you to create a webpage without knowing any of that. The trick for Dreamweaver is understanding the workspace and how to get around it. As with any Adobe design product, there are so many features, it can be rather cumbersome to learn them all. Plus, you can spend an inordinate amount of time going through each item on the toolbar or panel to figure what you’re looking for. But once you’ve succeeded in navigating the program, creating a web page is a much simpler task.

I’ve learned that menu bars can actually be fun to create. In Dreamweaver, the Spry menu bar is far easier than the HTML or CSS way of creating a menu bar. It is really important to get your file structure right from the start, as references can be created incorrectly without proper file structure. The property inspector has everything neatly contained to modify an element on the page with either HTML tags or CSS classes. It is very easy to link from the property inspector as well. Dreamweaver also has point and click capabilities for linking to outside websites or to internal links. Adding images is simple, as is modifying them.

Halfway through the semester, I would say that given time, and a better understanding, I think Dreamweaver can be an essential asset in the web design arsenal. Creating multipage websites could be a dream when using Dreamweaver.

Two of my favorite websites for web designers are:

Web Pages that Suck An incredibly humorous but serious discussion about web design. The design mistakes page is a checklist for what not to do – even though it’s nearly impossible to avoid all the pitfalls.
Webdesigner Depot What isn’t there to like about this site. It has so much information for web designers, from comics to lighten your day to fonts to enhance your site. The many different articles contain information that can help you learn new skills or fine tune those you already have. It’s a great resource.

2013….

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Administrator

Seriously, when did the calendar roll over to a new year? I mean, January is nearly gone and this is my FIRST post. Ouch. Alas, again, I have abandoned my blog.

My first trip to NYC, the night before New Year’s Eve.

My New Year’s Eve Eve (AKA the night before New Year’s Eve) my hub and I were in New York City. Seeing how crowded it was 24 hours prior to the big night made me wonder how anyone moves on the big night. It was packed! I had never been to NYC so it was fun to see, even if we only had a short time to be there. I definitely want to return. Soon.

Buffalo Wild Wings birthday cookie. Thankfully only one candle.

Along with the new year came another birthday. I don’t really know how I feel about birthdays anymore. They will come and go regardless of whether I acknowledge them. And I am always good for a celebration, sugar laden food, and presents. Therefore I will continue to celebrate them. But the closer to 50 I become, the harder it is for me to believe I’m that old.

School was out for a month, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Now I’m trying to get back into the swing of studying. I am taking English 101, freshman comp, for the second time in my life. As an English major 30 years ago, I was far more successful. My writing style now is choppy, concise and very poor grammatically. Which, I might note, was included in my professor’s review of my first rough draft. Oh well……

Also on the schedule this semester is Math 142, or college mathematics. I last took a math class when I was 21 years old. The mere fact that I tested into this level class simply amazes me. So far we are working on things that were probably taught to me in the 4th grade. Anyone wanna venture a guess as to how many years ago that was? It’s going to be a very long semester.

Adobe Dreamweaver and Flash round out the schedule, both required and fun classes. These 4 classes will leave me with 4 to go for my associates degree. YAY!!!!

Driving on I-10 through Palm Springs we hit the strangest fogbank.

Spent the weekend driving to and from Claremont, California to visit family. Was a nice visit. Wet, but I enjoyed the scenery and the smells and the familiarity of my home state. Husband saved a doggie that was trapped (long story, happy ending.) I ate calamari and swedish pancakes and drank my share of wine. All was good.

Awesome calamari at Union on Yale, Claremont

That wraps up the first 28 days of 2013 for me. Perhaps I’ll try not to be such a stranger this year.

Once in a lifetime

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Administrator

There are images and memories that stick with us forever. While having dinner with friends one night, my husband asked what was the first indelible historical memory you had in your life. For several of us it was the moon walk. I was only 4 at the time, but I remember like it was yesterday sitting in a dark leather booth at Chuck’s Steakhouse on Beverly Blvd in LA with my mom and dad (still married) when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and uttered those famous words. I don’t remember a lot of other things about my childhood, but that one night does stick out.

Today I watched another event that I am sure I will never forget. An exceedingly brave man named Felix Baumgartner stepped out of a small balloon capsule at over 125,000 ft/alt wearing only a pressure suit. In the name of science and exploring our boundaries, he fell from the stratosphere. Back in 1960 another very brave man named Joe Kittenger made a jump from an altitude not much lower. Today, Kittenger was the man in mission control who communicated with Felix. What a wonderful way to link their two stories.

Felix prepares to leave the capsule

In 1960 when Kittenger made his jump, we didn’t have the benefit of the technology available to mission control today. From start to finish today we could watch the internet feed with all the gauges and measurements. We could watch on television as ground cameras and cameras mounted both inside and outside the space pod relayed images back to us. We were right there as Felix took that amazing step off the platform into space. We watched as he fell, spinning, for a terrifying minute before he finally righted everything and stabilized his fall. We saw him deploy his parachute and fall to his knees upon landing. We were witnesses to something absolutely incredible and amazing. It is an indelible memory. I feel lucky to have witnessed this moment in history.

Out of the mom, into the future

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Administrator

And I have officially moved out of the “mom” phase of my life. Yesterday my sweet hubby surprised me with a new red Beetle. I’ve been talking about moving out of the mom car (my Honda Pilot) into something smaller and zippier and easier to park, for a while now. We talked about various cars I liked (he didn’t like any of them) and various cars he liked(I liked the bug.)

Once the husband gets his mind set on something, it’s pretty much a done deal. He was tired of trying to lug his 53 year old body in and out of a sports car (350Z) and I was tired of the gas mileage I got in my SUV. He traded in his little red sports car to get me a little red sports car. Okay, well the Beetle isn’t exactly a sports car, but it is a turbo and it is red, little and a car.

I cleaned everything out of my Pilot (sniff sniff) and handed the keys over to my aging hubby who is looking forward to having an automatic hatchback, heated seats, satellite radio and auto everything. In trade I got manual seats, manual a/c, manual hatch, but I do get to keep the heated seats and satellite radio. It’s going to be a transition for both of us.

It is a very strange feeling when you realize that you’ll no longer be hauling around an SUV full of kids and hockey bags, making long road trips to hockey tournaments, piling in a month’s worth of groceries that will last a week with teenage boys about. That part of my life has passed now. Instead I have a college student who drives himself everywhere, orders his own pizza, and calls once a day to say hi and tell his mom he loves her.

It’s a tough transition.

But the little red Bug will make me smile every time I climb into it and remind me that I had my mom time and now it’s me time. No complaints, no regrets (well, not many anyway.) This is what life is about. Changing and moving forward. With joy.

30 years….

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Administrator

My 30th high school reunion is coming up next weekend. I will not be in attendance, as my current school schedule is killing me and I can’t take the time to travel back to Los Angeles for a weekend. Sadly, very few of my best friends from high school will be there either. Some live on the east coast, some just hate those kinds of things and don’t want to go.

Facebook has changed things. Those people we would only see again at things like reunions, we now converse with daily. They see our pictures and we see theirs. There are no secrets about us. Nothing to be revealed at a reunion. No burning reason to attend a party to see those people that you are dying to know about. We are witness to everyone’s everyday lives. The world has gotten smaller.

We recently lost one of our beloved high school teachers. John Ingle was the only drama teacher I ever had in school. (as a side note, there is a fabulous tribute page to John Ingle on Facebook.) Before I went to Beverly, I was at a private school where drama was an afterthought. At Beverly I was submerged into what could have compared to the Fame version of high school. The drama department had its own wing of the school. We had our lockers there. We had a “hangout” in Room 181 where we were always welcome. Our lives revolved around 181, the auditorium, the green rooms, the stage design workshop, the Little Theater, the choir rooms, and the hallways that connected them. Our teachers had their offices adjacent to 181 and their doors were nearly always open to us.

John Ingle, Andy Grenier and Joel Pressman offered us a safe haven where we were encouraged to pursue what we loved. They encouraged and critiqued. They taught us to work hard and love what we did. From the Little Theater to the auditorium we put on amazing productions with outstanding casts and crews. Many of our classmates went on to pursue successful careers in theater, film and television. Many of us went on to pursue more mundane careers, but we carried with us the lessons we were taught in that distant wing of our high school.

It’s hard for me to believe 30+ years have passed since I put on my white gown and walked across the front lawn of my high school to receive my diploma. But the friendships I made, and have recently rekindled, the teachers who touched my life, and the memories of those crazy/scary/hormonal years will never fade. Especially with Facebook to remind me.

Is it over yet?

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Administrator

Sorry. I know I’ve been visibly absent for months (for those of you who have actually noticed.) Summer school came along and sucked the life out of me, and when I had a month off between semesters, I simply couldn’t bring myself to really even think cohesively. Plus the weather has been uncooperative regarding turning on the oven. And now I think maybe summer itself has sucked the life out of me.

Excuses excuses.

The title is in regards to this lovely election season we are all experiencing. Really. I don’t really care what side anyone is on anymore, I just want it to end. I wish I could understand how this country became so divided and antagonistic. This post from Ramble Ramble said it so succinctly and clearly and spoke for so many of us. It seems the simplest small fact about our country sets off an argument that won’t quit. I have “hidden” longtime friends on Facebook because I simply can’t take the rhetoric anymore.

But I will say this, it dragged my butt out of my textbooks and back to my blog, and maybe that’s a good thing.

To those of you I’ve hidden, I love you, really I do. I just don’t love how you’re using Facebook as your soapbox. Do you truly believe that what you post is going to change a lifetime’s worth of experiences that have formed my opinions? Instantly! Magic! Boom! Suddenly I’m gonna stop believing and switch my POV. Sorry, it’s just not gonna happen. But it doesn’t mean I don’t love you and care about what’s going on in your world, it’s just that I am on Facebook to know what’s going on in your world. Not in Washington DC.

My hope is that November will be over and we can all go back to posting our dinners and our stupid dog tricks and venting about something other than the political landscape.

Until then…. I leave you with my recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. They will cure whatever is making you sad.

Best bedwarmer ever!

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Administrator

Every morning I wake curled tightly next to a warm, sleeping body. My dear hubby? No. Most mornings by the time I wake Ron has long since departed to his morning coffee.

Snoopy.

For as long as I can remember, now, at some point every night that dog crawls into bed with me, curls his body tightly against mine, puts his head on my pillow, and sleeps soundly, until I’m ready to get up. Should I make the grave mistake of rolling over, he gets up, walks around me and repositions himself back against my front. Snoopy will not be denied his spooning.

So for me to hear that sleeping with your dogs is unhealthy, I have to shake my head and pooh-pooh. I am allergic to dogs. Yes, I have to take several drugs to keep my sinuses unplugged, and yes my allergy doctor has strongly recommended keeping my dogs out of my bedroom (not to mention off my pillows,) but I can’t. There is something very comforting about having that warm, fuzzy friend sharing my space. I can’t imagine the morning I won’t wake to his wet nose. It will be a sad day, for sure.

Phooey

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Administrator

While this article may be 100% true, it makes me sad. I love my Splenda. Though I will admit, I am trying to use Truvia at home. Truvia is a natural sweetener while Splenda is nothing but chemicals.

Four ways artificial sweeteners cause weight… | Chatelaine.com

I find it really hard to believe, but study after study is proving that these artificial sweeteners are bad news for all of us. Almost makes me want to try to go back to real sugar and see what happens. Oh wait, I get plenty of real sugar – scones, brownies, ice cream…….

My Current Chaos

a blog about life as a domestic goddess