I’m sorry I didn’t blog last night – I was going to but for some strange reason Blogger wouldn’t load for me. I think it was just my internet connection being slow because parts of the update page wouldn’t load. I didn’t want to invest the time and effort into a blog with the chance that it’d be eaten by the 56k Gods of Malice, Misery, and Woe. But now it’s loading just fine and I’m confident in my abilities to avoid the terrible trio tonight. 🙂
I woke up this morning not knowing what to do with the day, but was immediately met by a project. I started talking to my friend Lindsay during my usual morning routine of checking email. She asked me if I knew of any correspondence courses that she could take instead of staying in high school. I was confused why she wasn’t going with the home schooling option she was so fond of before. Turns out some people told her that her mother had to have a teaching certificate in order to start home schooling. I knew some states used to require that, but I certainly didn’t think her state was one of them. I did some research, found the information on her state’s website, and sure enough, all her Mom needs is a high school diploma. That taken care of, Lindsay was excited but didn’t know what to do next. I tried to explain how to organize a curriculum but I wasn’t doing too well at explaining it, so she and I just spent all day working on creating one. I would ask her questions about what she wanted to study, then I went to Amazon, found the books, and organized it into topics. It turned out really well, I think. We had to work by guidelines given by the state, so I had fifteen subjects to fill. (Although, ironically, most of the required subjects on their list aren’t even taught in public school. Go figure.) Her literature section is classic, starting with Dante Alighieri and going through other staples in the literary diet such as Jane Austen, Shakespeare, George Eliot, Mark Twain, and Alexandre Dumas, just to name a few.
But my favorite is the history section. I was rather worried when I started looking for those textbooks, since the one I was going to use isn’t available anymore. (Which kind of makes me feel old.) But, I found two books that – although not meant to go together – will give her a great and in-depth look at the development of the colonies in the Americas. Not just the original British colonies, but also those made by other nationalities up north in modern-day Canada. One book focuses on the relations between various colonies, and then their effects on intermingling and subsequent problems with Native Americans. That, combined with the basic US History textbook will give her a greater understanding of the big picture, I think.
So that’s how I spent my day, sifting through textbooks online. I really hope it’s approved by the state, that would just be awesome. I don’t see how it could possibly be rejected, it’s far too complete and well-rounded.
I still need to write a proposal for this project that I’m working on that Sujit’s going to take to a meeting where he works to help pitch it for me. I need to get it going, but I have huge creative block right now. It’s the big double whammie; writers *and* designer’s block. That really bugs me because I’ve been trying really hard to come up with a redesign for my blog and my personal site because I’m getting tired of them.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on HeatherLawver.com and just how crappy that looks. For the first time I looked at it on my regular monitor rather than my laptop. Those colors were hideous! It looked fantastic on my laptop, it really honestly and truly did. But now I can’t believe how pukey the whole thing looked. I don’t want to go back through and tweak things because I think it’s beyond tweaking. It just needs to be trashed and redone. But I have no clue what to do with. I want to do something dramatically different from my other websites, something really new and fresh. I tried making something soft and cute but with a dramatic flair. Didn’t work. I’m not a “cutesy” person, I just can’t do it. I can do cutesy in other designs – for instance, I have the love assignment of redesigning the guest room and my Mom wants me to base the design on a rather flowery china pattern. I can handle that, I think it’ll turn out great. But I can’t do it digitally for myself. I’m not cutesy, I don’t want my page to be cutesy. Know what I mean?
I need something different. Yeah. Pretty, but different. Sigh.
I think I need to go get another massage. I’m all wound up in knots again and it rather hurts. I also just realized that I’m very hungry, so I might go get something to eat. I just couldn’t stand the idea of eating all day until around 5. Just something about the thought of risking another stomach ache was blocking the thought of food from my mind. Now I think I’m going to risk it again cause I’m *seriously* hungry. Maybe I’ll try some cereal, that should be safe.