thursdayschild.ca » Updates

My New Years Cliché

Kimberley — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 04:17:08 +0000

So its that time of year again to make the resolutions that I wholeheartedly intend to keep, but don’t have the will power to adhere to.

Please don’t moan, but this year is really different though… now that I’ve graduated and I’m only working part time in the first quarter of the year, I have time to spend working to implement my resolutions.

So what are these lofty goals?…

Getting Fit –> No excuses for not exercising! I’m not aiming for a supermodel physique. I just want to be healthier
Picking up my Sh*t! –> My room is far too small to stay messy. To keep sane I must keep clean
Work on my own projects –> I’m tired of fretting over custom work. It doesn’t pay and I hate doing it. I need to get into my stash and make the things that make me happy & if they sell that’s awesome.
Reading for Fun –> I’ve read enough in the last 5 – 6 years to make the average person’s head explode. Now its time to read for the fun of it… I may even read a trashy romance novel (which honestly I have never done).
Learn to Cook –> If I’m going to be a true domestic diva someday I need to acquire this skill. So far I can sew, I can style hair & do makeup, I can rock the heels and I can swing a hammer, but seriously kitchens freak the living crap out of me. I’ve picked up a copy of some 30 minute meals thingy by Rachel Rae and I bought a couple of new pots so I’m totally psyched to start this one. The first recipe I’ve picked is Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon… now I just need to find a wicked apron & my Grandma’s pearls.

I think that’s it for now. I don’t think I can manage any more quite frankly. I think Mum & others in the fold would like to see me add dating to that list, but lets be realistic… it’s me we’re talking about here!

Zen Mastery 101!

Kimberley — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:13:09 +0000

You’d think that in the last 6 terms of university and umpteen years of being an adult that I would have learned to dot my ‘i’s and cross my ‘t’s… uh, nope! This morning I figured that it would be a good excercise to go back and make sure that I had all of my degree requirements in order before starting classes tomorrow. What I discovered was that I was 0.5 History credits short of graduation… one more class!

Previously I had checked my prerequisites and they were all satisfied, but having satisfied my prereqs I still had a bit of room in my course schedule that was unaccounted for.

My natural compulsion in situations like this would be to pitch a fit, have an ugly cry and have someone else fix the whole mess for me.

What makes me very proud is that I kept it together, breathed a bit, found my centre and solved the problem totally sans tantrum!

I checked the History courses available, found which ones required the least messing around with my schedule, checked the bookstore to see which one had the cheapest textbook and made the nescessary swaps and adds. I moved my French classes to Tuesday and Thursday Mornings from 8:30 to 10:00 with an Oral component on Wednesday at 10:30 and added Mennonite History on Monday nights from 6:00 to 9:00. I’m not too happy about the gaps this leaves in my schedule, but at least I graduate by Christmas. I also managed to not add any additional classes on Thursday afternoons or Friday so I’m still home for long relaxing weekends.

This all being said, I’m carrying 5 University courses, a professional development course with the OMA, a Museum Job and possibly a TA position… am I absolutely mad? YES, SIREE BOB!

So I’m starting my countdown to Christmas (and sleep) today! 15 Weeks and counting! or more specifically 3 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days!

Oh My Goodness… Where to Start?!?

Kimberley — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:08:12 +0000

Sorry, I’ve been so quiet… it’s been quite the summer – an emotional roller coaster from start to finish. Now I’m in the home stretch and I feel I can start blogging about it without getting myself trouble. In the last four months I’ve started a new professional development course, re-kindled a love of my local museum, broken my arm, sewn nothing, cleaned my room and taken more than one vacation in my mind… all of which need to be well documented.

I’ve also polished off a few books that I have yet to review, but before that happens I have one more co-op report to finish (hopefully by the end of the week).

The last bit of big news is that I am about to enter my last term of Undergraduate Studies! W00t! This has been a 12 year project (with a 8-ish year break in the middle) and I’m glad to have it under my belt before my 31st Birthday… that’ll be one of lifes big goals off of the list. I have four more courses – Stats, French, American History Before 1877 and Intro to Archaeology. I’m a little scared, but very excited. Expect to hear a lot about that in the upcomming weeks. Also throughout the next term I will be working on my next PD course with the Ontario Museum Association.

Video Clip: Real Life

Kimberley — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:22:07 +0000

I’ve just added a new video clip to the site. It is part of my crafting page and pertains to one of my purse projects entitled Swimming with the Fishes. The page is not yet complete, but the media has been added. The clip is of my appearance on Real Life (a CTS program) with Sharon Caddy. I participated in this crafting segment as promotion for the Fall 2007 CreativFestival (formerly the Creative Needlework and Sewing Festival).

The Next Step

Kimberley — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:08:43 +0000

So, as I have mentioned before, I’m in school until December when I expect to complete my BA. After that I’m at a bit of a loss what to do, because money is short and a Masters seems so far away. What I’ve been thinking of is completing a Certificate in Museum Studies with the Ontario Museum Association… cheaper than a Masters and the courses are shorter and can be fit around a work schedule. I will do a Masters at some point in time… I like school too much not to, but I can’t sit still waiting for that to happen.

The first course I’m thinking of taking is on Collections Management and it runs from April to May. This is ideal because my classes end April 4th (or somewhere thereabouts) and my next co-op term begins May 4th or 5th… perfect timing! I do have 2 exams, Humanities and Accounting, but apart from that I have nothing for the month of April… and sitting home twiddling my thumbs is a completely unbearable thought.

Minor Victory for the Techno Trog!

Kimberley — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:17:51 +0000

Once upon a time, in a Kingdom not so far away, I used to know what I was doing when it came to putting together a website. Over the past 12 years I’ve probably had at least 10 websites on various topics including Winnie the Pooh, Doug Gilmour, Thieves Crossing (an indy band no-one has heard of), RENT, and other such randomness. I started coding in raw HTML… sorta old school, and a pain to modify styles after the fact, but it worked. For a time I thought frames were hot, then not so much. Then I was all about itty bitty sites squished into i-frames… what was I thinking? And then came CSS. This is where my life as web savvy began to wane. I can still read code… just enough to know where the ugly things I do are messing up, but not enough to actually do anything about it.

Today I scored a major victory for web dummies such as myself. I acutally FOUND a photo gallery plug-in that WORKS with the theme (pretty layout) that I picked for this site. I had tried a few over the last days & they didn’t quite fit… the pictures and text were sitting outside of the nice off white text area… dOH! Now… they’re where they are supposed to be… waHOO!!!

Do I seem disproportionately happy? Trust me… this was one of the main reasons that I abandonned my last Content Management System (CMS). In Drupal there were a lot of great scripts and the CMS could do anything so long as you were at least part rocket scientist, but the downfall was the documentation… it was created by people who know what they’re talking about, but cannot concieve of the idea that perhaps a basic user might not get it… sorta like working from an Italian woman’s personal cookbook… the secret ingredient is always missing & its the one that works the magic.

Anyhoo, I’m happy… 3ish days & I’m not pulling my hair out… this may be a first.

A Week Without School

Kimberley — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:53:30 +0000

The title of this post may be a bit of wishful thinking. At 5pm today I start my reading week… or rather reading 10 days. I’ve got so much planned, though so very little of it revolves around recreation. History, Accounting and Humanities will be the order of the week in a very big way. I’m praying that with some hard work I can actually get ahead over the break so the rest of the term might go a little smoother. I’m also hoping to finally finish off my Yoga bags so that I might post them here and on my Etsy site and get a little commerce goin’.

However, the biggest goal of the week is to get back into a regular sleep pattern. Since the beginning of the term I’ve gotten about 3 hours off, which isn’t so bad since my classes all start after 1 pm, but next term will be a rude awakening when I get back to working in the real word… oh, the life of a student! It sure is a godd thing that I graduate before Christmas.

Starting Over!

Kimberley — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:46:10 +0000

It seems that I’m making it a yearly event… scrapping this whole site and starting over. I never really meant to start this trend, but it seems I’ve had a few false starts in the past few years. Last time I started using a Content Management System (Drupal), which was waaaaay too smart for me. Now I’m working with WordPress which I’m told is more user friendly. The one catch to getting the site off the ground this time will be that I currently don’t have Photoshop. I reformatted my computer over Christmas and went Linux… which isn’t working so well… my poor little laptop is still painfully slow. So we’ll see how this all comes together. So far I’m happy.