A Personal Mission Statement

Well I just finished up my second full week of school and I love it!  I'm thinking seriously about going full time or at least 3/4 time after this semester.  One of my classes for the first 7.5 weeks is called FYE or First Year Experience.  It is a great class and the lectures are awesome.  One of the topics this week was writing a personal mission statement.  There were two videos that we could watch.  One was just a random one of young girl writing her personal statement.  The other was the scene from Jerry Maquire where he writes a 25 page personal mission statement.  After reading the text and watching one of the videos, and i didn't watch Tom Cruise, I started thinking about my personal mission statement. 

Writing a personal mission statement is actually a daily tool to be used to keep you focused and on tract to obtain your short and long term goals, as well as keeping what is important in your life, and knowing who and what you want to be.  Using past life experiences and what you see yourself doing in the future are part of writing a mission statement.  So after all week long thinking about what was important, the reason I was doing what I was doing, and who I want to be and where I want to be in the next 1 to 4 years, I wrote a first draft of my personal mission statement.  It is in no way finished or close to where I want it to be, but it did get some of the preliminary things on paper. 

I have been a dreamer all my life, and I guess that is why I like to write.  Writing and dreaming gives me the opportunity to be someone I'm not.  Some of my goals have changed over the years but one thing that has never changed is my goal to be a published writer.  Some of you might wonder than why I'm not going after a degree in journalism or media.  Well writers don't really make that much money to start out with, especially if you don't make it on the best sellers list.  I have to be practical and I can still be a dreamer.  The practical side of me knows that I need to work for us to be able to survive, unless of course we win the lottery.  The dreamer side of me can still strive to be that published writer. 

As a person, I want to be someone that people trust, that is honest, that cares and that wants to help people, but also have family and friends in their life.  My husband and my child are the utmost of importance to me.  God is first in my life, but they come in second, then family, then work.  These are all things we need to consider.  I guess the bottom line here is this, writing this personal mission statement will help me to define short term, long term goals, and the map on how to achieve those. 

What are your long term and short term goals?  ARe you only living day to day with no thought of where you want to be in one, two or four years from now?  I'm 48 years old about to be 49, this has become majorily important to me, to achieve, accomplish and complete this before I'm too old to reap the benefits.

Have a blessed day!

Progress in Life

School started on March 2nd, and to say I was a little fearful would be right on the money.  However, I am on the third week of school and am much calmer and not fearful any longer.  I'm ahead in my math course by two chapters and plan to be finished with the next two by the end of this week.  Now when things are going good, the devil likes to make life interesting.  So last Thursday after suffering with a toothache for three days I went to the dentist.  They cut the tooth out on Monday and I was not able to do any school work.  I became very anxious, but I had planned ahead and had already printed off my lectures and assignments for the week.  So on Tuesday morning and off and on all day, I worked on school work for my FYE class.  First Year Experience in case you wondered.  So because of the tooth extraction, I missed work on Tuesday as well and was a little worried, but God always provides and the devil will run when you evoke Jesus name.  It turns out that I will be working everyday next week because Chio, the regular custodian, has had a death in the family.  My prayers go out to him and his family. 

I guess what I'm getting at is that it is turning out to be a positive experience, and I think I'm going to try to bump up my classes.  I know that this is the right thing to do because God is making it happen one step at a time.  So if you are thinking about going back to school and how you are going to manage, God will provide the way and make sure you have what you need.  Your faith in God will see you through.  May you all have a blessed Day!

Love,
L

School

Okay so school started on March 2nd, at Noon EST.  Was I nervous?  Was it what I expected?  Did I panic?  Yes. No. and No.  There are the answers in order of the questions.  Online school is totally awesome and it is not hard to reach your teachers, or your advisors or other students.  It is totally awesome and I'm loving it!  I've been doing math most of the day.  I'm trying to do as much as possible on the two days a week that I don't work so that I can just do an hour or so on the days that I do work.  We have to have all assignments turned in my Midnight EST on Saturday, sometimes Friday.  We can get all the work for the week on Sunday.  It is amazing to see how this works!  I've taken a few or attempted a couple of online courses before but this is way different and I totally recommend this school. 

Bryant Stratton actually has campuses all over New York, Ohio, Wisconsin (I think) and of course online and probably other places.  If you are thinking about going back to school this is definitely something or a school to look in to. 

I will update with progress as we go through... Love, L

Vow Renewal Ceremony

Okay so we had to make some changes in regards to renewing our vows.  The ceremony has been changed to November 12th, 2011.  That will be six years since our first date, or close.  We went out on our first, first time we met in person, on November 13th, 2005.  We met online through Match.com, and really it should never have happened, because his email bypassed not only Match.com's security, but earthlink's at the time. 
So we know that it was meant to be for us to meet and fall in love and get married.  If you are on Facebook, and are part of the family, you got an invitation.  Written invitations will go out in October.  We figure this will give us enough time to do it the way we want it!  The reason for the change?  I have to have a computer for school, and right now, I have one on loan from my church.  Thanks Ronnie!

Just Some General Things and Updates

Okay so its Friday and it has been a very busy week, so I'm glad the work week is over.  Norman has two jobs going right now so he has been busy as well.  This is the first week in a while that he has actually worked five days in a row.  Both of us are still fighting allergies or something so that one or both of us has sinus issues everyday. 

School starts on Wednesday, March 2nd, at noon EST.  I have to keep reminding myself that school is on EST and not CST for the purposes of completing assignments and turning in work.  I'm excited and scared.  Now I just want to get started and to see if I can actually handle school.  We have to get a new computer.  Mine, that is now Norman's is not going to cut it for the 2nd half of the first semester, but they said it would get me through the first half (7.5 weeks).  So we are starting to look.  The best we have found so far is about $550.00 not counting shipping.  So I'm hoping that between the two jobs, we will be able to purchase me a new computer and take the other desktop in and have to cleaned up.  He got a virus, and although we have cleaned it, we are not sure all is working properly.

We have cancelled Renewing our vows until later in the year.  We can't afford to do the ceremony the way I want to do it, and buy the computer.  That's okay too!  I know God is working tremendously in our lives right now and we are slowly seeing some light at the end of the tunnel... (and it's not a train). 

I guess that catches us up to where our lives are currently heading.  I know that this is what is suppose to happen with school and all because a very close friend of the family told me that if it was meant to be, God would make sure it all happened, or there would be obstacles to big to overcome.  She was right!  God bless you Ashley Lenore! 

May you all have a God Filled and Blessed day! 
L

Returning to School at 48

So once again it snowed here on Friday, February 4th.  I had to wear rubber boots in order to walk over to the church to work because the snow was too deep for my tennis shoes.  Anyway, I worked for a little over three hours on Friday, and came home to work on completing registration for online school.  I was not able to get a pell grant but I was approved for student financial aid.  The semester starts on March 2, 2011 and I heard from my admin today and he said he would have my schedule for me in the next couple days.  While I am very excited because God worked it out for me to go to school, I'm also a little scared that I won't be able to handle it. 

However, I know it will all be okay.  I truly am excited about getting my accounting degree!  This is the beginning to a new life where financially after school we will be much better off.  We are still looking at selling my car since I will be attending online.  There could be some issues with us not having a second vehicle but for the short run, it would truly be better. 

While being a dog trainer is something I still want to do, I'm going to use most of my time for the accounting degree and trying to get it finished as quickly and monetarily possible.  I'm reading up and watching some dog training videos and plan to practice on my dogs. 

That's the plan for now any ways!  Everyone have a blessed day and week!

L