Moving, moving, moving...

Well... just my blog that is!

http://kaceysmulligan.wordpress.com/

Same old nonsense, same old name, just a lil' change up above. wordpress.com instead of blogspot.com

Once I figure out how to update the email stuff, you 'regulars' will be back on the list. Until then, you'll have to make the effort to visit me at my new home. :)

Midterms...blech... at least it's halfway over!

Procrastinating as we speak/write/read. Midterm. Due. Tomorrow at noon. This is for the class where I have forgotten to submit 2 previous assignments due at noon on Mondays. I now realize that this is quite a difficult concept for me to grasp... the noon deadline. Most online classes are perfect for procrastinators who like to wait until midnight to turn in their assignments on a late sunday evening. It's perfect in giving you the whole weekend to work with, yet turning it in at the last minute before the work week beings. Well this class is messing with my mind and busy, busy life (ha, yeah right). When it says due Monday, I think "oooh... a whole extra day I can waste." Then the world falls apart when I get home at 5pm and realize, oopsies, missed another deadline.

Obviously I've got the hang of it now. I have until noon tomorrow to get this midterm typed up. I'm working pretty hard at it. Here are my 10 cancel that, 8 steps of procrastination and successful avoidance, starting with this morning:

1. Go to church. Takes up a considerable amount of time, but provides the opportunity for reflection which is necessary for some good paper writing.

2. Went to a movie. This gave me the opportunity to relax and giggle a little bit before I buckled down to start the above mentioned writing.

3. Went to Paradise Bakery to do the homework. I was starving as usual. They provide free wifi, yummy salads and cookies, mmm. I wrote about a paragraph. That was a good start though.

4. Thought that since I was headed in the right direction with that one paragraph, I would continue brainstorming, take a break and hit up Trader Joe's on the way home since I'm completely out of groceries.

5. Roomie had rented some new movies. Of course I must watch one. Giggling is always good for the soul... and brainstorming, of course.

6. Realized that the toe/fingernails needed a lil' lovin'. I had previously purchased my new FAVORITE nail polish in 'Cherry Red'. This brand is the bomb. Better than any of the stuff we used at the salon I used to work at. Fantastic!

7. I could have posted the before and after, but I think the results are good enough. Which leads me to the fact that, YES, I have purchased a new camera. I had found one at Target on clearance the other day, in my quite affordable price range. I stood at the counter forever looking at the selection. I pretended like I knew what I was looking for, testing them out on random strangers. I hemmed and hawwed, finally deciding to go with the one on clearance, of course. It's on clearnance. Duh. I sheepishly asked the camera counter lady for assistance and I was told they were out of the one I wanted. hmmph. I must have looked so depressed that they offered the other one I had been looking at for the same price. So yay! New lil' camera! It kinda matches my toes! Get excited about lots of random photos headed your direction by way of my blog.

8. I guess #7 was just an actual act of procrastination. Lets make this one count. Blogging. Look at how much I can type when it doesn't actually matter. Why can't I just make this my paper. Oh yeah, my blog doesn't have anything to do with Religious Issues. Duh. My paper is supposed to be on the family unit. I'm going to be addressing the fact that it has changed and adapted with society and our culture. I'd rather just talk about my new, sexy, red nail polish and camera. Why can't I just write that families can consist of many different options and that everyone should be able to have cute lil' babies regardless of their family situation. Married, single, gay/kinda married, should all be able to have cute lil' asian adopted babies. We all deserve happy homes. There's my paper in a nutshell. Now I just need 5 more pages to back that up.

Wish me luck.

Someday...

Lately I have been able to distract myself from the idea of owning a Mini Cooper, but then the weather here in Arizona became PERFECT and the boss then drove us to lunch in his cutesy pie yellow, adorable Mini and this is how I felt the entire way... WHEEEEEE!!!!

I do realize that was a fantastically long sentence above, but how else could I capture my love and excitement for my future car. I can't wait for the day I get to drive around this gorgeous state with perfect fall 80 degree weather in a cute lil' Mini Cooper. Patience.

PATIENCE.

I had quite the experience with cat trapping this week. My roommate has been feeding the neighborhood kittens and decided that they needed to be caught and spayed/neutered. This is quite the concept for me to grasp... catching stray animals to pay for their surgeries. Especially when all I think of is lil' great grandma telling stories about throwing the strays in a sack with a few rocks before tossing them into the canal! I can just imagine her rolling her eyes as I sat in the dark parking lot, begging those darn cats to go in their cages. ha ha ha.

What an adventure we had trying to catch these lil' critters. The first 3 were caught pretty easily. We lured them into their cages with tuna, fresh out of a can. The momma cat and the oldest kitty were stubborn lil' buggers. The roomie had to wait until the next night to catch those two. I opted out of round two though. She had to brave it on her own. Thankfully it was a success. I can't imagine enduring a third night. blech.

It is nice to see our lil' friends now that they've recovered from surgery and are out hanging around their home/shed waiting for dinner. Many people from the complex have fallen in love with this kitty family. They're a welcome sight after a long day at work/school. Such cutesy pies. They'd probably be perfect co-captains for a lil' convertible Mini Cooper with the top down, wind in the hair. Well until we hit a speedbump and they fly out the back!

Ohhhh... the weather outside is frightful.

Ok, ok, not really. It is getting there. Waking up to 60 degree mornings is pretty cold for this sunshine girl. I have to wear my jacket unless I'm standing in direct sunlight now that the high temperature only reaches 85. I'm not complaining though. I love it! It makes me want to do all sorts of fall shopping with my imaginary money. Like this lil' gem... oh so cute.

This might be justifiable after surviving another long, hot Arizona summer. I figure since I get to buy my own birthday gifts this year, I'm going all out. Well, maybe once it goes on sale and then I'll wear it next year. ;)

In other news, I'm still surviving the semester. It's been somewhat calm. That's always a bit scary. Like the calm before the storm. Lets all pray for continued calm weather, at least until the semester is over. Then we can celebrate with plenty of rain, thunder and lightening.

I'm still waiting for my pet owl to arrive. I really appreciate whoever (mom?) ordered it for me. I guess I'll just be really, REALLY sad if none of my family/friends took the initiative to order it. I'm talking big alligators tears... MOM!

I have found my perfect pet!

Look at this lil' adorable thing. This is totally my kind of pet. No food, water or attention is required. Just a bit of sunshine during the day. It's like we're soulmates. We could possibly even lay out by the pool together. Me snoozing, my lil' owl nodding her head back and forth in the sunlight. I love solar power. Fantastic. So anyone out there who loves me... a mere $30 will buy your way straight to my heart. Plus I'll let you off the hook for my birthday. You better act fast, because this is a sale item!

Now all I need is a name for this lil' girl.

I love red tape.

Especially the red kind that heals all taillight wounds. About a month ago I noticed that the taillight on my car was a lil' bit broken. I figured I could get away with it for awhile. Well that ended on Sunday morning. As I was driving home, the cutest highway patrol guy EVER pulled me over. I was pretty tired and that usually leads to some 'duh!' moments, so you can imagine how much fun I was.

First of all, he walked up to my car and I had to open the door, because the window doesn't roll down. Classy, I know. He said he pulled me over for the light and then looked at my cracked windshield and said 'that too', as he pointed. hmm. ok. He asked for my insurance and license, which is 2 addresses old. oopsies. He had to show me on the back of my license that I have 10 days to update. Well I explained that I was busy... too busy to care or put on my to do list.

He heads back to his car, I assume to see what kinda nutcase I really am. That magic computer must have prompted important information, such as crazy, recently divorced lady, who works two jobs and goes to school full-time. When he got back to my car he asked what had happened to my light. Like I knew, I had just noticed that it was even like that a few weeks ago. He then asked why I didn't file a report. Well gee whiz. Who has the time to file a report for a slightly broken red light cover? I have plenty of other stuff to worry about. I stumped him there. He was speechless for a few minutes. So then he asked where it happened. I lied and guessed, Walmart? He seemed disappointed to realize that was private property. I think he was wanting to be nice and friendly and offer to file the report right then and there. Of course I screwed that up.

Oh.. and he asked if I lived out of my car! I swear it isn't that messy. I only had one big Target bag in the backseat and maybe a bunch of school books/papers. hmm... a lil' bit messy.

After at least 45 minutes of discussing important topics, such as where I live, work, do I get tuition benefits, are they hiring part time... I got a WARNING!! woot woot! He then suggested that I go to the lil' auto store and buy some red tape, or if possible a new light cover. pfft. I went with red tape, of course. I gotta keep up the appearance of the crazy, homeless lady living in the backseat.

So, that was my Labor Day weekend. Hope yours was equally exciting.

Embarrassed again.

These first two weeks of school have been tough. Not so much in the amount of work due, because it's mostly been reading assignments. I have had trouble with the little things. I already mentioned the due date and time issue I had on Monday. Well in that same class I had to write an introduction about myself in the online discussion board. Easy peasy. I did a quick note about me and submitted. I decided to scroll back and read some others. That's when I realized that I had already introduced myself last week when the assignment became available!

This is what happens when I try to be proactive. I forget that I had done the assignment and when the due date rolls around I fall back into the 'rush, rush' procrastinator mode and hurry to submit. The whole Google calendar idea is a great tool, but only if used correctly. I have learned my lesson. Now is not the time to change learning behaviors. I will save that for grad school. I am going back to survival/procrastinator mode where I know I can be successful.

It wouldn't be so bad if I spread all my oopsies into different classes. Oh no, I choose to make all my 'duh!' moments happen in one class, Religion and Moral Issues. I'm sure my professor is going to start to wonder about my obvious issues. 15 more weeks to go. As if I'm counting. pfft.

I thought the night couldn't get any worse.

I always start the beginning of a semester with high hopes of not procrastinating, paying attention to deadlines, basically being an allstar student. That typically lasts a few weeks. Hah. I beat that 2 week record this time around. I was aware of the due date for my first assignment, but was so distracted by the rest of the syllabus I failed to notice the time. Noon. I won't even get into how ridiculous that is. Just know that it is RIDICULOUS!

So once I realized assignment 1 was a lost cause I decided that I might as well take advantage of the home waxing kit that was sitting in my cupboard. I know, I know, what was I thinking? You would think the lightening and thunder would have been warning enough. Oh no, now I remember why I miss working at the salon so much. Those ladies really knew how to take care of me. Waxing must be a work of art, that is passed down through some form of wizard training. I do NOT have the correct training. I did one strip and fell to the floor. Honest to goodness dropped to my knees in pain and tears. BIG ALLIGATOR TEARS. Don't worry, the wax kit will not beat me. I will be triumphant tomorrow night after I've recovered and created a game plan. My game plan will most likely include brownies and ice cream as my reward for a job well done.

This means I have to wake up in time to do my hair and makeup...blech.

The nature of library work has changed for me this past week. As in, I have had to work in the actual library. This is quite a change, since normally I am in a cold, square, boring building. I can't hate on the cold building since it has some obvious perks, but it has been pretty nice talking to people lately.

I only have to work in the library two days a week and I spend the rest of my time in the cold building. My first day was spent at a 'welcome table' helping direct lost students in the right direction. Since I don't know where anything is on campus, I was useless. I am only ever in the cold building or at Target. How would I know where classes are? hmm. Thanks to the excessive use of DaytimeTheraflu I was pretty talkative and friendly, so I at least made lots of friends even if they never figured out where they were going. I did hand out lots of free pens though. I feel like that was a job well done.

My second day was spent at the circulation desk. Another place I prove to be completely useless. It's always impressive when people come up to ask a question and I just provide 'uhhhh, what?' in response. I'm working on keeping that initial response to myself and at least coming up with something a lil' more appropriate. We'll see how I improve for next week. At least I'll be able to add this experience to my list of neverending adventures.

For those who don't know who the boys are...

Here ya go Stacey...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Brothers

The adventures are starting to pile up over here.

The main thing that initiated this week of adventure was that I will be working in an actual library, not just a boring, locked building when school starts next week. It will only be a few hours a week and I will still return to the boring, locked building near the end of the day. This could be exciting. I will be exposed to the public and it's always questionable how they will react to my charming personality. Fingers crossed that I will maintain good behavior.

In preparation for the weekly 10 hours of excitement that starts next week I had to undergo 3 days of intense Circulation training at the 'main' library. Very important training is done over there. I learned how to use a computer, keyboard, mouse, scangun, the precise location of where the barcode should be placed, how to deal with crazy people (this one is pretty easy for me... me and the crazy people tend to get along just fine), I observed the strange love that men have for William Shatner and the equally important Zombie topic. Oh my gosh, zombies and male library employees. I don't know what it is, but I have never been in as many zombie discussions in relation to real life scenarios as I have working for the library. My mind gets so frazzled that eventually I tune out and sadly I didn't absorb any of my zombie training. Sorry.

The exciting part of the training was the three student workers who were training with me. They looked like the Jonas Brothers, in all ways possible. It was pretty creepy and it made me feel very old. I'm glad to be done with them for good.

In celebration of the end of summer/fall semester starting and the sad farewell of our summer helpers we went to lunch at Chino Bandido. This place is something special. I have included the link so you can see what fantastic dining options this establishment provides. I would recommend you start planning any orders you might be making for future visits to Arizona. Well worth the trip. It's not everyday you get to combine quality chinese and mexican flavors and they do it well. WARNING: the options can be quite overwhelming.

Ok, so there weren't really that many adventures this week, but school starts monday and I'm sure that'll throw a few my way. Fingers crossed this will really be the last semester as an undergrad. If not, well then I quit. I will continue to work in this boring, locked building forever or at least until all library employees turn into zombies.

I had no idea about your Canadian 'issues'

I'm not going to name who this crazy person may be, but they're racist against Canadians. This kinda blows my mind, since I can't think of any reason to be anti-Canadian. When I think of Canada, nothing in particular comes to mind. Just that 'eh' thing everyone refers to. Even Mike Meyers said, "Canada is the essence of not being. Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavour - we're more like celery as a flavour." So what's there to hate?

I found this list of comedians from Canada that includes Dan Aykroyd, Tom Green, Mike Myers, Norm Macdonald, Jim Carrey, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, John Candy, Howie Mandel, Martin Short and Leslie Nielsen. I think this crazy person also dislikes all of these comedians. It might be coincidence, or did the crazy know where they came from and hate them because of that.

I just don't know about this situation and I'm not convinced to join the 'hate Canadians' bandwagon just yet. Unless the crazy person can prove otherwise.

Potential roadkill

The ex-sister in law and her 2 year old wanted to go on a bike ride last night. I was up for it, especially since I would be riding the cutesy retro style bicycle. Off we ride into the sunset, the weather having cooled down to at least 95 at 7:30pm. We quickly became bored with going around circles in the neighborhood and went off-roading. We found a dirt road that we knew would meet with the main road eventually. Well... of course we got lost. I thought we could sneak through another subdivision. OF COURSE NOT. I swear subdivisions are designed with segregation in mind. You wouldn't want to get too close to the neighbors from over there... bah.

By the time we find the main road the sun had completely gone down. This road is quite busy and still in need of a few upgrades, like sidewalks. We were trying to muster all our teenage bike riding skills of the past as we rode through gravel and dirt in the dark, while avoiding traffic. Don't forget... we did have a baby with us! Smart lil' girls we are. We finally found sidewalk, whew and as we get closer to the 'home' subdivision the sidewalk ends again. In an effort to beautify the development they had decorated with 'southwest' colored gravel. Come on. How are people supposed to navigate this type of terrain. We were a mess trying to pedal through what felt like beach sand in the dark.

This story has gone on long enough. We were blessed to make it home safe and sound and will not make the same mistake next time. From now on, we're biking like hamsters on a wheel... circles only.

Time to update the 'About Me' section.

Well, I'm a Bailey girl again. My divorce was finalized yesterday, which turned out to be more quick and painless than I anticipated. I only cried a little before it started and the baliff is entirely to blame. He was just way too nice, telling me that "it'll be alright, ya know". Hmmm. I knew that, but he didn't need to be nice. I was starting to worry that a hug would be coming next. The judge was super nice too and just asked me a few yes/no questions before she changed my name back and I was good to go. All in all, it's just a relief to have it over with.

My good friend Ms. Kimmy is taking a cake decorating class and this is what she brought home last night in celebration. Don't you just feel the love. She even used her daughters '4' candle from her last birthday to sing me "Happy Divorce Day To You"! If I end up with copies of the pictures, they'll definitely make an appearance here. I don't recommend eating such an extravagant cake around 10pm, due to the resulting sugar rush. I still don't remember sleeping last night. My arms and legs just couldn't stop jittering. No worries... it was totally worth it.

Proof that I might be losing my mind.

I have a Snickers bar that's been sitting in my pen cup, on my desk for about 2 weeks. It's had an eventful life while in my care. The Snickers bar spent it's first few days in the cup, completely ignored. Once I remembered it was there, I tossed it in my purse for later consumption. Well... it fell out in the back of my car and promptly melted in the 8 million degree temperatures of an Arizona car. Of course I was overwhelmed with sadness at this point and placed the melted mess in the freezer. Last week, I took it out to defrost and set it back on my desk.

REPEAT.

Yep, I've done this twice now. Poor lil' Snickers is at my desk again, all defrosted and ready to go. Weird part is that I no longer crave Snickers candy bars and I only bought it out of habit. Crazy. At any other point in my life I would have eaten that goodness in any form... fresh, melted, frozen or defrosted. Anyone who wants to drop by my work for a visit can enjoy this piece of work!

Another reason to upgrade the phone.

There's nothing like driving around a bunch of crazy people on a Friday night. On the upside, I did brush up on my two step with the country folk. I found that as long as my partner knew what he was doing, then I only seemed slightly spastic. This Wednesday might lead to some free swing dance lessons... I'm pretty excited about that. The problem with all this is that I need pictures. I've been slacking off big time. I blame my phone. Obviously it means I need a new phone with a fancy camera, so I can immediately send the pictures to my computer. It's officially on the To Do List.

Our independence proved to be a distraction.

Summer has definitely started. The heat takes my breath away as soon as I walk outside. blech. My car has only overheated once... so far. Keeping my fingers crossed and the car filled with coolant. Hopefully she'll be a good lil' girl and keep chuggin' away through the rest of the year.

Summer school is complete. There was definitely an oopsie daisy, that I'm totally blaming on the 4th of July. Kinda forgot the date for the last test... don't worry, I remembered 30 min. too late. Luckily I still received a B overall. Good enough!

Those cookies pictured above were the distraction. We threw quite the shebang at work in celebration of the recent holiday. We cooked up some hamburgers and hotdogs, microwaved a tub of Country Crock mac n'cheese even ate a few grapes. The grand finale was the cookie decorating. Look at those works of art. It took a lot of thought and mad skills.

Other than that... I've still been pretty busy lounging by the pool.

It's been a purple week!

I got this obnoxious piece of work on lunch today for $6. I have turned into a clearance shopping addict. I partially blame an employee of sorts... a special sort. he he. As I was paying for this bag, I noticed that I had purple polish on my fingernails and toenails. I have also been drawn to everything purple and even the lil' miss shopping partner in crime purchased a shirt of the same shade. I think my favorite color from elementary school is making a comeback. This could be scary.

I researched the color a lil' bit and here's what I found:

Purple is the color of good judgment. It is the color of people seeking spiritual fulfillment. It is said if you surround yourself with purple you will have peace of mind. Purple is a good color to use in meditation.

Violet is a combination of blue and red. Red is a focusing, dynamic and active energy while blue is cooling, calming and expansive. Violet brings a new dynamic to the expansion of blue and the activity of red. Red brings practicality to the undirected expansiveness of the blue, and allows more creative energy to emerge. For this reason, violet is associated with imagination and inspiration.

Put some violet in your life when you want to use your imagination to its fullest, to re-balance your life and to remove obstacles.

hmmm... interesting.

Gotta get back to working on the farm.

My version

The shag carpet dashboard accessory is my favorite part of the Nissan Cube, which I may have mentioned in the past. I figured I could make it just a lil' bit better and represent the family business at the same time!

It's now sod with CURBING!! Now I feel like I'm a contributing part of the family again. Instead of having to work in the sun all day, I can just drive around and hand out cutesy business cards. Think I could write the car off somehow on my taxes? I think it's a legitimate business expense. Right?

I'm overwhelmed with farm requests!

I don't think I'm meant to be a Facebook Farmer. I barely have enough food to feed my lonely horse. He actually looks like a fly or mosquito over there. I think the little yellow blob is supposed to be me.

Lets see how a true Facebook Farmer represents....
Wow Mom, look at you go! It's an entire community. I think Dad's hiding in the barn. I'm probably taking a nap under that canopy thing. We've probably banished Mom to the opposite corner of the property. There's animals and crops galore. I think this could be a possible profession my lil' ol' Mommy dearest.
If one were to compare our farms, we may find that we're not actually even related. I can't believe I had to figure that out from Facebook.