new blog. No longer using this one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It's 2010! A new decade! My third, actually...whoa that's weird to think I'll be 30 in 2016... Anyway, getting ready to start back up in school. This is my last week of working for real full time (40 hours) versus minimum-full-time-where-I-still-get-benefits (30 hours), which I'll start next week. I have classes on Tuesday and Thursday, so I'll work MWF. So to get 30 hours, that means I'll be working 10 hour shifts...yuck. But hey, my car doesn't pay for itself. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Strangely, I'm excited to get back into classes. What can I say, I'm a stickler for learning. And I really love anatomy. The other class I'm taking is a doozie. Just an Intro to Computers that's required for a degree. Pretty lame actually. I've grown up on computers, PC and mac, taken tons of classes in high school, and know how to work pretty much every program. But alas, these are the things we do to get degrees. I guess it wouldn't really bother me if it weren't for the fact that I'm paying for it....so to pay $450 learning how to do things I already know how to do is a little absurd.

Hmm what else. Oh, I created a tumblr account to use as my photography blog! I hope to put some more work into it soon. Right now most of my pics are on my PC, and I just haven't had the time to get them transferred to my mac. There are a few things up now though. You can check it out here. I really like tumblr because it has a lot of functionality...I just wish you could add little boxes/widgets like with blogger, so I could have a "contact me" section, etc. Still trying to figure that out...

M JONES

Holiday Updates

Yo peeps! Just wanted to post again, before I let another 5 months slip by! It's been nice having a break from school for the holidays. I've enjoyed being able to relax, not study, and spend time with family.

On Christmas eve we gathered at my mom's parents' house to celebrate and exchange gifts. 6 children + 9 grandchildren + 4 great-grandchildren make for a big family!! We also ate lunch there on Christmas, followed by supper at my dad's parents' with his family, which is quite smaller, but just as enjoyable.

Some notable gifts this year were some much needed clothes, a camera case to protect Nick, gift cards (hello iTunes!), and an "iGraduated Mercer" shirt which is incredibly cool and also kinda makes me sad thinking about the good times I had there.

I don't have any plans yet for New Year's Eve, but I'll likely go to my cousin's house for her birthday/new year's celebration (it's a yearly tradition). It's always a fun night with lots of finger foods, chatting, and games.

I swear it's getting better...that's my philosophy.

M JONES

STOP THE NAKEDNESS!

This is an AWESOME organization that does some really good stuff...they design cool clothing and when you buy it they send another shirt to someone in need across the world. In fact the name of the country it goes to is printed on the tag of the shirt you receive. PLUS you get an additional shirt to give to someone you know that's in need. How awesome is this? And it creates perfect ministry opps for when people ask, "what does that mean on your shirt?" Love it love it love it.

Check them out at their website, or watch the video below.

www.stopthenakedness.com

Been kinda sick for about a week. Guess what you'd call the "common cold." Meh. I don't like being common, and I don't like having a cold. Luckily though it hasn't progressed into anything worse....glad I got my flu shot! Whatever I have, I probably got it from all those sickly, germy kids at the pharmacy. I tell ya, we should have a face mask bouncer at the door before people are allowed in.

Anyway, not too much besides being sick this past week. Christmas is coming up and I'm trying to get everybody's gifts. Since last post, I managed to go to the mall again on a Wednesday, and the results were much better. In fact, all I have left to buy for are my mom and my brother-in-law.

This weekend I'm off work, but we're having a Christmas party at a co-worker's house. We're all bringing hors d'oeuvres and we'll be playing dirty Santa...you know where you swap gifts and then you can steal them from each other. Get your mind out of the gutter. Before that though I want to try (again) to exercise Nick...my neglected camera. We'll see.

Good night you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.

M. JONES

Rain Rain Go Away

So, my big plans for the day were to go out taking pictures with my awesome camera Nick the Nikon (I know, very original). Well, that changes when I woke up and noticed is was raining...not just rain, but really really cold rain. It's different.

What were my alternate plans? Being lazy. But then I realized I have 0/10 Christmas gifts I have to buy, so decided to go to the mall and try to knock some of those out. Bad idea.

At about a 1 mile radius from the mall, the traffic was at a standstill. 10 minutes later, I finally made it to the mall parking lot, and it took another 10 mins to find a spot. Once inside, just walking around was a nightmare. Couldn't even move without touching somebody. The concept of personal space does not exist in the box monsters during the holidays. I needed some Xanax! Needless to say, I couldn't handle it and left about 30 minutes later. The day wasn't completely wasted though, I did get one gift and also ran into my cousin-in-law, so that was nice.

Tonight for supper we had grits, eggs, bacon, and rolls. Get excited. You know you love breakfast for supper. Just having it any other time besides the A.M. makes it exponentially better. Now to top it all off I'm about to watch X-Men: Origins while sippin' on some coffee. Yum.

The roof. The roof. The roof is on fire.

M. Jones

Changes

Um, yeah...so it's been like 5 months since I last updated! Ha, guess I'm not much of a blogger. I'll try to fix that...

To be honest, I kinda felt like my blog had no purpose, no direction, no set path. Just a bunch of rambling. But then I realized, hey that's the title! So I guess it's ok. Maybe.

So what have I been doing the last half-year? Good question. It seems my life has been nothing but a lot of changes lately. (As I'm sure anyone would also say for oneself) I'm still working full time, but on top of that I'm also taking classes at ABAC half-time. After working hard in undergrad, taking pre-med classes, studying my butt off, taking the MCAT, spending tons of money on said test and applications, interviewing at a couple schools and being waitlisted only to find out I didn't get into med school...I kinda got burned out. Then I decided, hey let's do nursing. So that's where I am, and to be honest, I feel really good about it, at peace.

Anyway, before I can start the actual nursing program I have to do a few prereqs I didn't take at undergrad. So this semester I've had Anatomy and Physiology and Nursing Pharmacology. In fact I'm in the middle of finals now. So far I've already taken the A&P lab final and pharm final, and I have A's in both of those. All that's left is A&P lecture, which is on Wednesday.

Next Spring I'll take A&P II and a random intro to computers class. And then I can start the nursing program in the Fall! It takes 4 semesters, so I should graduate Spring '12. Whoa that looks weird...makes me think of 1912 haha.

Speaking of history, on this day in 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." -Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto That you did Iso, that you did...