I met with a counselor at school last week to make sure I would be ready to transfer to Poly in the fall. After the slight mishap of calling the Lompoc campus and making an appointment there, then showing up in Santa Maria and insisting I had an appointment at 10am even though, for some mysterious reason, I was no where to be found on their schedule, I begged my way into the counselors office to finish my SEP (Student Education Plan). He liked my grades, approved of my 36 unit year, and said it should be pretty easy to get into Journalism if I can keep it up. Then.... Then he said, "Wait... you haven't tested for math". Dang it. My goal was to skip math and science completely. I don't like math and science. Because of this dislike, I have successfully avoided both since my junior year of high school. To transfer I'll only need one math class, but it has to be college level, which means that I have to test into college level math, because I don't have time to take Pre Cal, Alg, or Trig again. I've decided that I don't approve of the whole testing process. I could make it through a college level math class; I could more than just make it though seeing as how I consider a B or even a B+ as the equivalent to an F, I would force myself to get an A. But I don't know if I can test into a college level math class. I say enough with the standardized testing! Enough of forcing everyone into the mold! Give people the chance to reach for what they think they can do!

On that note, are there any math geniuses out there who look exactly like me and can go take a 2 hour placement test for me?

Philip officially got his brace of yesterday, the bone is completely healed! The doctor said he expects a 100% recovery, praise the Lord! Phil will start physical therapy and be learning how to use his muscles again. His brain has forgotten how to fire off his quad because of the extended time of immobility, so they will work on waking that muscle up and then strengthening it. He has a lot of work to do, but it was such a blessing to hear that he should be as good as before once th rehab is complete. Thanks so much for all your prayers and encouragement!

Today was our seven mile run. We run three 3mi runs a week and then do longer runs on the weekends. Last weekend was 6 miles, that run was amazingly easy. I felt great, ran fast (relatively speaking), and was excited to evntually make it all the way to 26 miles. Today, I felt like an ironman. No no, not the kind that do those amazing feats of athleticism but literally, as if I were made of iron. The first two miles were hard and the last four got progressively worse. I came home and stayed precisely where I crumpled on the floor for over an hour. Laying there, I rejoiced in my head that I ran for one hour and eleven minutes today even though I felt like I was in a fat suit... an iron filled fat suit with the sun beaming holes into my head. The thing is, running is hugely mental. I ran for one hour and one minute last Saturday, therefore it is only logical that I could survive for an additional ten minutes. My problem this morning was that I didn't feel like I could make it. I was complaining in my head with every step, and dragging my feet like I was bring forced to walk the plank (well, I drug my feet for the first mile but then I almost fell right in the middle of the village on a busy weekend and chose to pick them up so as to avoid humiliation). All this to say that I defeated myself in my mind before I ran my first step. I'm an incredibly logically practical person, overly so if you ask my husband. I knew, by mere logistics, that this run was completely feasible, yet I was convinced it would be terrible and hard so it was. It was my most difficult run to date. How often do we do that in life? How many times have I decided that a situation will be dreadful, only to produce a terrible situation because of my thoughts or attitude toward it. Overt optimism tends to annoy me, I'm much to realistic to act like everything will unfold perfectly. However, if I hold to strict realism, there is also no room for hypothetically producing the worst in a situation. I believe that a bit of thought control would have served me well this morning. I've learned for the future to remember that in light of all the Lord has blessed us with, all situations can be pleasantly overcome with the proper attitude.

As many of you know, and many probably don't, I got accepted to AAU last winter. It's one of the best photography schools in CA. It's also a private school, which means that tuition is outrageous. Seriously outrageous. It's over 600 dollars a unit. Not per class, per unit! Each class is 3-5 units and I take 4 or 5 classes a quarter. Which is 12-15 classes a year, which equals roughly $28,000 a year. They generously gave me an $6000 scholarship for my obsessive 4.0 GPA, and fafsa kicked in another couple thousand. Unfortunately that still leaves a $20,000 a year bill for three years. Is photography school really worth sixty thousand dollars? As much as I love school, and yes, I genuinely love school (insert mutterings of "nerd alert" here), I have to say that is way to much money just for classes. Books, supplies, and equipment are all additional. I find it sad that education, for many, is out of reach because of financial impossibility. Many of my friends have incurred a large sum of debt for the purpose of higher education, which is simply the only choice if they want to continue on their largely completed path.
All this to say, I plan on finishing at Hancock this year and moving on to the Journalism program at Cal Poly. I would love to go to AAU, but don't see how that will ever be possible. Instead I plan to shamelessly beg every photographer I know to let me tag along with them, while completing my degree in journalism with the goal of writing articles for magazines and being able to take the pictures to accompany it myself.
The one hitch in my plan is this: in order to transfer to Poly next fall I need to take 17 units for the fall and spring semesters, along with 6 units over the 3 week winter session. I have no doubts that this can be accomplished. Just this afternoon I signed up for my fall 17. I'm taking Nutrition, English, Anthropology, Speech, and Italian. Does anyone know Italian? The Spanish class was full and I needed 5 more units. Please help.

For anyone who is new to reading blogs: to see larger versions of the pictures, click on them and they will open to the full size, to leave a comment (ie: "stop rambling", "you're crazy", "we have seen enough pictures of your dog!")click on the "comment" button located below the post or picture you want to comment on. It's between the "permalink", and the "show comments" button. To read other peoples comments, click on the "show comments" button. The number on the right side of that is the number of comments that have been left. I'd tell you what the permalink button is for, but I have no idea so I can't help with that one.

My garden, for whatever reason, tends to be prolific when it comes to zucchini. No matter how many other squash plants I put it, it is always the zucchini that takes over. I don't know why. But last year my sister and I created zucchini everything. After about 500 different zucchini bread recipes, I can confidently tell you, this one is the best. I've tried them all. Trust me. This recipe is also great because it's easily modified to a healthy version. I prefer the healthy version because modifying recipes satisfies something inside me, but I included both ways. The zucchini have already made their appearance, so I brought this recipe out again.

Zucchini Bread Adapted from several sources

Yield: 2 loaves or approximately 24 muffins

2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup oil, OR 1 cup ground flax
1 1/2 cups sugar, OR 3/4 sugar +1C applesauce, OR Honey to taste plus 1c applesauce
2 cups grated zucchini
1/3 cup boiling water
2 1/4 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 tsp all spice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Mix all wet ingredients and all dry separate. Combine. Bake at 350 until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Approx 20 min for large muffins, or 50 for bread.

Perhaps it seems contradictory to post a shot of a captured, killed gopher along with the word "intelligent" in the title. However, you would've had to have an interaction with the gopher, pre death of course, to realize the depth of his skills. Because, let me tell you, he had skills. It all began on a hot summer day last month. I've been in an all out war with plant eating creatures since I planted my garden. Finally we got a gopher trap to capture the worst species of the plant eaters. Two were conquered in the first week rather easily. I just dug out the hole, set the trap, and the next morning found a dead gopher in it. That was before I met this one. This one was smart. I saw him pushing dirt out of his hole on the hill by the grass. They love to get under the grass and leave holes and dirt all over the lawn. I set the trap right away and went inside. Fifteen minutes later, because I'm impatient and impulsive, I went back out and checked the trap, it was sprung and covered in dirt! I yanked it out of the hole and... nothing. He filled the trap with dirt. I dug out the hole again and this time the tunnel came from a different direction, he had tunneled around the trap! I went and picked a strawberry to tempt him back and reset the trap. Later that night I checked back on it, sprung again with no gopher and no strawberry. Tricksy little rodent, now there were three tunnels leading up to the surface. I picked one of them and reset it with a strawberry right in front of the trap. This time I left it till morning. I'm sure you can guess what I found. Two days, 4 different tunnels, and my entire row of strawberries later, we finally caught him. See that fat belly? It's full of every ripe strawberry I grew this year. Stinkin smart rodent.