oh hell.

my classes are just dropping like flies. tonight i decided it would be best if i dropped my nursing research class. "why would you do that," you may ask. i'll tell ya! it involves a ton of reading. i'm already highly devoted to passing my math class (i received another email saying how i failed the first quiz... which i didn't even know was a quiz, so that's great). i have to take a&p in order to take other nursing classes, plus holly is in my lab and lecture, which means i have a built-in study buddy to brave this academic shitshow with. those two classes along are consuming my evenings. i have a sociology class that is "u-paced," meaning i can do it when i want, but i haven't been able to start it yet. i just got my textbook in the mail last night. and while my biology of women class isn't needed for nursing, i just really wanted to take it. you need at least one fun class to keep you going, right?

i'm constantly tired. even when i'm sleeping i'm still exhausted. i've been staying up past midnight since classes began. i wake up at 630 every morning to go to work. we're looking at less than 6 hours of sleep each night. i really wanted to power-through this degree and get out into the real world, but i just can't. maybe if i didn't have bills and rent, or a full-time job, i could manage. but i'm not 21 anymore. i can't devote my entire existence to college, studying, and having fun like i did then... but i have thought about it. giving my 60 day notice to my leasing company and moving back home, quitting my job (which is another thing!), taking out more student loans, and just devote myself to school for the next two years. surely i could finish in two years if i didn't have to worry about working. 

AND WORK. fuck that place. i'm so annoyed with everything there. my bosses have been trying to save money (my main boss more than the other), so we're getting these janky products to replace our food service provider products. example: powdered sugar. my boss bought 200 pounds of powdered sugar from the depot. i made five butter creams with said powdered sugar (not all 200 pounds). i didn't taste the butter creams until i made the last one and licked some frosting off my arm after i put it away. it tasted GRITTY. i tried to fix it yesterday with some suggestions my boss made. it didn't work. today i was trying to go half and half with the old powsug and the new powsug, still awful. even using 4 pounds in a 12 pound batch of something tastes bad. so the quality is shitty and so is our product. AND my other boss was getting on my ass today about how i decorate. her decorating is awful and everyone knows it, but is afraid to tell her. oh. and a coworker is pregnant, but it's a little annoying right now with all her huffing, puffing, sighs, and "i'm so useless" comments. yeah, you are. so fucking do something and work for your paycheck like the rest of us. i'm also annoyed that i haven't gotten a raise in over six months. i'm quickly approaching my three year anniversary at MCC and my one year anniversary of working alone. i deserve a raise.

enough bitching. it's past midnight and i still need to get myself ready for bed. sweet dreams are made of grand ideas. 

on math. and how i hate it.

oh man. in true lizzie school fashion, i enrolled in more classes than i can handle. i've dropped health care policy and health care documentation. i still have five classes and i'm still full time. someone help me!

i've never been very successful at math. i remember being in 1st or 2nd grade and crying in class because i couldn't understand whatever concept we were learning (it was probably 1st grade, and it was probably subtraction). i've always known that math was a bitch for me. i'm taking a math class now. i took a pre-assessment. out of 100 things i should have known, i knew 33. my professor emailed me and said that math 95 might be too advanced for me, as i'm struggling with concepts and much more behind than my classmates. she also noted that i will have to spend more time studying and working on problems than suggested in the syllabus, that she will be contacting me every week, and that i should meet with a tutor.

i've spent ALL weekend working on math. if i wasn't eating or sleeping, i was most likely doing math problems. danny has been helping me. since saturday night i've gone from 33/100 to 99/100 (currently waiting for danny to help me with the very last section). i have to take another pre-assessment tonight before midnight. and i'm not allowed to use a calculator. might i add my multiplication is a little awful, as well.

but i'll be damned if i don't prove that i can catch up. part of me feels like i'm only this far behind because i haven't had a real math class in over five years. the last time i took "real" math was when i was a sophomore in college. that would have been 2007.

anyway. i'm going to do as well as i can. i'll be happy with a B-. i'll be a little upset with a C+. i'll be devastated with anything below a C.

draining finances and overwhelming panics.

my spring semester started yesterday. i dragged danny along with me to get my books. i ended up buying just two and it cost me close to $400. i tried to register my online code for my math class and the website told me that my instructor's page doesn't accept the code sequence i have. ughhh. i emailed her and she sent me a temporary code so i don't fall behind, but i will be extremely upset if i spent $100 on a code i cannot use and cannot return.

in the spirit of draining my bank account some more, today i went to the bank to get my rent check (see ya, $600!). i also did some price checking and it is cheaper to rent two of my books, so i also put in an order for that (another $130). i'll have to stop by the bookstore tomorrow to purchase the last two books i need. i would rent them, but it's questionable if i need the online access codes and i'd rather just be safe than sorry.

i went to my first anatomy and physiology class. my friend holly is in the class, so she saved me a seat. our professor seems eccentric in a good way. i do not like feeling rushed when i leave work. i get worried that i won't find a parking spot within four blocks of campus and make it to class on time. today i was also worrying about where the building was located. but everything worked out. i was able to leave work on time, i found a spot three blocks away, i found holly in our ginormous lecture pit, and i was able to get back to work by 130.

i spent tonight feeling tremendously overwhelmed though. i registered for my math class and did the assessment. i also did the first (and stupid) assignment for my biology of women class (a D2L scavenger hunt). and everything else is causing me to just scream and cry on the inside while keeping a perpetual "what have i done" look on my face.

with seven classes to try to keep straight, i think i might need to invest in a giant white board to keep my assignments all straight. or, you know, i could just learn how to use "the cloud" and put everything in my ical on my laptop or iPad.

it's almost 10pm. my apartment is nice and warm. i've had my oven on for about three hours trying to help heat up my apartment. but i have realized that i forgot to do laundry. it's too late now. i'll just have to wear real jeans tomorrow instead of leggings... maybe.

on school and the weekend trip to chicago.

my winterim class is officially over. all of my assignment grades have been posted except my final grade. i can do the math though and i earned myself an A-. i'll take that.

spring semester starts tomorrow. i paid my tuition earlier this evening (why must it cost so much?!). i don't have any classes on campus tomorrow, but i do have a few online classes that i should get cracking' at right away. i'm taking 7 classes for 15 credits. one class does not count for any credits (it's an extremely low math level course). i'll be on campus essentially all day on mondays. my schedule is as follows:

• health care systems, mondays, 8-10am.
• anatomy&physiology lectures, mondays/wednesdays/fridays, 12-1pm.
• anatomy&physiology lab, mondays, 2-5pm.
• nursing research, thursdays, 5-7pm.
• biology of women, online.
• health documentation, online.
• essentials of algebra, online.
• sociology, online.

tomorrow i need to head to campus after work to buy all my textbooks (why must those cost so much as well?!).

and as for chicago... it was nice. i wasn't able to leave work early, so danny and i left milwaukee later than we had hoped to. we got caught in the crappy weather of snow/rain mix on the way down. we checked into our hotel, dropped our bags, and caught the el to the chicago diner. we had to wait about 20 minutes, but the food was worth it as always. the kale and white bean soup was amazing. after that we decided to head back to the hotel. we strolled in a little before midnight and stayed up for a few hours just watching tv.

in the morning, we woke up to this:

we got ready for the day and walked down the street to yolk. the food was good and the waiter was eyeing danny up. we decided to stay an extra day after breakfast, so we went back to the hotel to reserve the room for another night. our 11th floor room wasn't available, but a 6th floor room was. we took it without thinking about the noise... ugh. the noise. 

we went to the shedd afterwards. danny has never ever been there. at first he thought that maybe he has, but once we walked in nothing seemed to trigger his memory. we watched the beluga whales swim for a while (i love them) and the sea otters (danny couldn't pull himself away). it was crowded and children are annoying.

we went down to michigan avenue after to walk around. i forgot what we were looking for at first. we found a spot tucked away and headed towards the action. eventually we grew tired of all the bustle, so we went to giordano's for some deep dish. because you have to wait so long for the pizza to cook (45 minutes) i wasn't very hungry by the time we got it. when we left, we went back to the hotel room and i crawled into bed immediately. danny wasn't very thrilled that i was exhausted by 730 because he was still full of energy. we just watched some tv and eventually fell asleep around 1030 or 11. all night you could hear the busses' engines and cars honking. ugh. and then the room got too hot for danny to sleep. he was complaining and tossing so much that i told him to just open the window. after that, he slept pretty well. i, on the other hand, kept waking up to pull the blankets up and over me. 

we woke up this morning and walked around the corner to get a donut and coffee for breakfast. we walked around for ten minutes after deciding what we were going to do for the rest of the day. neither of us seemed too enthusiastic about the cloudy day. we went back to our room, both sort of cranky and fussy, gathered our stuff, and checked out. we were going to look for a record store, but couldn't find any parking so we gave up and went back to michigan avenue to get some popcorn for danny's mom. we went to crate and barrel and walked around for a bit and then headed over to clark street. there were two record stores on clark that i found on google. plus molly's cupcakes is over there. our first stop was dave's records. we weren't there long. maybe 15 minutes. danny couldn't find anything he wanted to spend money on, but i walked in there knowing exactly what bands i was looking for. i left with a copy of braid's "movie music vol. 1" and ryan adam's "gold." we went to molly's next. i promised a coworker that i would get her a cupcake. i got her a peach cobbler and a blueberry cheesecake. i bought myself three of their chocolate peanut butter ones and one eclair cupcake. we put my new treasures in the car and walked up the street to the second record shop. i can't remember the name of it, but it only really had house music. we walked out in less than five minutes. on our walk back to the car we decided to just go back to milwaukee, beat the traffic.

i was a little bummed we didn't get to go to the science and industry museum, but at the same time we had already spent so much money on parking in the city and it was already noon when we finally got a move on. it just didn't make sense to spend however much money for only a couple of hours.

i didn't feel well on the way home, so i was grouchy. i was also tired. i was sort of dozing off and then we passed the last toll, stopped at the lake park oasis, and then we were at the mars cheese castle. we stopped there as well and i bought a turtle kringle to split with my mom and a 7up for my stomach. i slept most of the way back home. we dropped off some popcorn at danny's mom's house and headed back to the east side. he dropped me off and i've been laying in bed basically ever since 6pm. the cats are happy that i'm home; they haven't left my side since i walked in the door.

(as a side note: marla and jasper are really good at not scarfing down their food. i'm able to leave a bowl of food out for them and it lasts two days. their water is the same (mostly. winter is sometimes sketchy with the dry air and all). i'm really glad they're able to control themselves otherwise i'd never be able to leave for two days without having someone check in on them. i gave them treats when i came home too.)

it was a good weekend, mostly. i'm glad i was able to go down to chicago before my spring semester starts and takes over my life. tomorrow i'll be frantic trying to get everything in order for my classes and irritated that i have to stand in line with a bunch of books totaling close to $1000. plus i need to swing by my bank to cash my paycheck and get a cashier's check for my rent. i hope i can leave work early.

anyway, off to bed! 

on winterim and chicago daycation.

my winterim class is almost over. almost. all of the exams and quizzes are done online and each component opens at a certain time. tonight is my last exam and i'm ready to take it. except it doesn't open up for another 35 minutes. this class was supposed to be 12 days long for three hours each day. magically we had two freezing-no-class-days and have gotten out of class early for the past few nights. i am starting to think that all college classes should be offered this way (well, maybe do it in three weeks and skip the fridays). can you imagine how much more quickly you would be able to get out of school? i will always take winter and summer classes. 

danny and i are heading down to chicago tomorrow once i am done with work. we're staying at the congress plaza. we've stayed their before when we headed down there for my old co-worker's wedding, but i had no idea that it was HAUNTED back then. i'm so excited. danny is already making fun of me, saying that i'm going to be walking around with a flashlight to find all the ghosts (seriously. i'll have a headlamp. you have to keep your hands free!). in all reality, we'll probably check in at 6, drop our bags, and scurry off to the el. i've got a date with a milkshake at the chicago diner. i'm also demanding cupcakes from molly's. we probably won't make our way back to our room until midnight and i'll want to get up early so we can eat at yolk right down the street (red velvet french toast, anyone?). danny thinks we'll have time to see the science&industry museum AND the shedd aquarium. i'm not an idiot. both of those places deserve a full day dedicated to each. i think i'd rather spend my day at the shedd though. science and industry is cool and all, but i've been there a few times and nothing really changes. the shedd though? fish move and that's good enough for me. 

anyway. marla is demanding attention from me. who am i to deny her sweet kitty cuddles?

on moving and living.

when i moved into my studio, my rent was $525 and included everything except for a parking spot and cable/internet. i paid $55 to the city for night parking. i pay $25ish a month for internet. in september my rent increased to $599. that's quite the hike.

with my employment status always seeming questionable based on my boss' attitude with the amount of time i spend working, sometimes i worry.

a while ago my brother talked about moving to milwaukee with his family from madison. currently he works down here, but jess and the kids are up there. it's been really rough on him. they were worried that they wouldn't be able to afford a place here while trying to sell their house in madison. i offered to move in with them to help take care of ava and liam and pay rent if they found a three or four bedroom place. recently, they have decided to stay in madison until summer. then they will reassess. so that plan fell through.

ava+liam a couple of days ago.

recently my mom offered the idea of moving back home with her. the thing about that is that i'm 27. do i really want to move back home now?

the pros:

• no rent. no internet bill. saving money. 
• washer and dryer whenever i want for free.
• saving money for possible trips to far away lands.
• if i am let go from my job, it's not nearly as awful.
• nea and i would be reunited. 

the cons:

• i'm 27.
• i work and go to school downtown... so i'll have to buy a new car sooner.
• rush hour in the morning and evening. longer commutes. 
• i'd be living with someone again. this time it's my mom and she'll still question me on where i'm going and when i'll be home.
• yard work. snow removal.
• having to put my furniture and other things into storage. (how much does that cost a month?!)
• my mom is allergic to cats. so having three cats in the house would just be awful for her unless i found a way to keep the kittens on the second floor. 
• west allis has no awesome bike trails. 

i just don't know. it'd be super awesome to have an extra $600 a month to pay off my debt and student loans, to save for possible trips (if i ever get the time away to do so), to not have to worry about paying rent. but do i want to exchange that for my downtown studio and ability to come and go as i please?

my other option is to stick it out here until i find a suitable and affordable one-bedroom apartment (you never realize how much you miss having a real bedroom until you don't anymore. doors!). i'm not really down with having roommates again. john and sam were, without a doubt, the best roommates i've ever had. mark and blake were quite possibly the worst (and more recent). danny mentioned renting a two bedroom apartment, but given our state of confusion i'm not sure i realllllyyy want to commit to a year long lease with him.

if you are reading this, advise me. i'm so lost and torn.

on work and school.

i wanted to post a picture for you guys (the ones that don't exist yet), but nothing seems to spark my interest.

my apartment is 80 degrees by way of my space heater. i'm enjoying the warmth and my cats seem to be okay with it as well. it's so welcoming to be wrapped in warmth the minute i walk through my doorway. work is cold. outside is cold. class is cold. apartment is warm. cozy.

i'm irritated with my job situation right now. it's january and we're really slow. when it's really slow all of our hours get cut. but here's the thing: i am the ONLY baker my job has. one boss runs the counter and does all the emailing and crap like that. my other boss comes in early to bake the cupcakes every day and gets the cupcakes ready to be baked the next day. what do i do? i come in and decorate all the cupcakes, make batters and butter creams, make or cut the garnishes, replenish the cupcakes throughout the day. i used to have two co-workers in the kitchen with me. one was let go at the start of 2013. the other left in february of 2013. i've essentially been doing the work of three people for almost a whole year. can you believe that? so it's frustrating because there is no one else and i can't really leave at 2pm because the counter will most likely need something at 3. here's another thing. the last time i took a day off was in september of 2012- i took a saturday off so i could fly to austin for the weekend.

on top of working full-time, i also go to school full-time. right now i'm in a condensed clinical nutrition class where we meet three hours a day for 12 days. my mind is spinning with facts. i actually have two quizzes to do online tonight before 1130. aside from this short class, i try to schedule my classes for evenings, mondays, or online. the bakery is closed on mondays which is really nice. it's hard to schedule classes around work though. i do the best i can, but that means i can't take really awesome classes like sexually transmitted diseases because they're offered twice a week mid-morning. i can only take the classes essential to my degree. and maybe you're thinking that there's no need to take silly classes on STDs if they aren't essential... but i'll let you in on a secret... i want to work in an abortion clinic! or at least for planned parenthood. so STD classes would be completely relevant to the line of work i'd ideally love to do. but yes. school. i wish i would have had my mind straight the first time i went to college instead of wasting five years getting a degree i can't use (environmental studies). live and learn. support your kids no matter what, though.

anyway. i'm off to make some toast and dive into those quizzes! keep warm. :)

hello.

hi there.

i'm lizzie. i'm on my way to make some changes in my life. here's the basics of who i am and what makes up me right now, today.

• i'm 27 years old. i'm not really big on birthdays and mine is not much fun because it's usually pretty cold out. (12.23.86)
• i was born in west allis, wisconsin. i currently live in downtown milwaukee, which is only about ten miles away from west allis.
• my favorite color is yellow. my favorite number is 3.  
• i graduated from the university of wisconsin- oshkosh in 2010 with a degree in environmental studies and social justice. 
• i'm back in school at the university of wisconsin- milwaukee for a second degree in nursing. ideally, i would like to deal with "family planning" services. 
• i live in a 400 square foot studio with two cats- marla and jasper. the space is small and they are sassy!
• i have a third cat, but she lives at my mom's house. her name is nea. she's a grumpy old lady.
• i work at a cupcake bakery in milwaukee as their head baker and decorator.
• i'm currently looking for a new place to live and a new job. 
• my favorite books are: the giver, the bell jar, and lord of the flies. 
• i have a niece (ava, 7 years) and a nephew (liam, 8 weeks). i adore them both. 

and that's the gist. i'm a grumpy, grouchy, sassy, homebody kinda girl. sometimes i ride my bike or walk down by the lake. i like good food. i hate wearing socks and i like wearing moccasins. i enjoy naps and have many daydreams. i plan to share these things with you as well. 

xoxo