This and That

I'm sitting in the recliner with my feet up as I type this. When I mowed a couple of weeks ago, I took great pains not to run over a bush in the backyard, thinking Gram would kill me if I did. Little did I know that it was actually a thistle weed, trying to spread its seeds all over the neighborhood. Gram said the neighbors would kill us if it spread so she wanted me to dig it up. It was supposed to be in the mid-90's yesterday and I didn't want to work outside but it wasn't horribly hot in the morning. Thistle weeds have an extraordinary amount of defense: thorns growing up and down the branches, ready to prick anything that comes close. Even my gardening gloves were no match. I had to saw off the main "trunks" to get to the roots. The roots were easier to get out than I had imagined and they were huge!

The root on the left in the picture was just from a small patch of weeds next to the bush. The root on the right in the picture was from the actual bush. I certainly don't want these weeds to spread. It's bad enough having to keep pulling weeds out of the driveway. This might upset some of my friends, but I'm ready just to pour large quantities of weed killer all over the driveway. The natural weed killer my stepdad gave us isn't doing a whole lot to help me. After getting the bush and roots dug up, I cleared another patch of weeds out of the driveway until my hands became useless. At that point my back wasn't feeling bad yet but I also had other things to do like dishes, homework, and laundry. I checked out some movies from the library and halfway through the first one, it got too painful to sit in the chair. Then I tried laying flat on the floor and that didn't work either. Since Gram is at her sister's for a couple of days, I thought it would help if I slept in her uber-soft, massaging bed last night. Unfortunately, it didn't help and I slept horribly. Now my back hurts more than ever and I'm running on little sleep. Usually it's nice to sit around the living room watching movies since I can't do it very often but I'll have to force myself to do more laundry. What fun!

I turned in the first essay for my lit. class. Now I'm waiting to get some of my classmates' essays to peer edit. But I don't think I've written about my new courses in previous blogs. There is a company called Coursera that offers free online courses through different colleges and universities. I have signed up for four courses so far: the lit class which began last week, statistics, organic chemistry and human physiology. I love my first class so far and it's exciting to actually have something to do. Coursera even sends you a certificate when you finish some of their courses. Plus, I can put it on my resume to show potential employers that I'm willing to learn. I read somewhere that Coursera is even willing to provide third-parties with actual grades for some courses that don't offer certificates.

My birthday haircut. That's all natural curl :-) 

Until next time,

~Staci~