Work, Week 1

Since my last post, I spent most of my time in Milwaukee, WI. I was there for training. It was training. Nothing too exciting. I met a lot of really great people & I am glad for the experience. I did manage to see the Cardinals play the Brewers. Other than that, I did not get to experience much of Milwaukee.

I just completed my 3rd full day at my new job. All I have been doing is OJT. I am still getting used to the schedule. The boys are finally a little used to it, and I am getting used to it. I will save my job duties for another day, but let me tell you about a man I met today.

Right now, I just go & meet with potential students of my co-workers. I had my first observation today & I don't' know a lot about this man, but he came in today to fill out his financial aid paperwork. I was warned about the people that come in (to a University known for online classes) that can't type or really manage around a computer. Well, 1st student that I get to meet was THAT student. He didn't even know his own email address. Talk about hunt & peck. My co worker Paige jinxed me on that one (thank goodness he ONLY has to fill out paperwork, turn in homework & check email on a computer). Then when we got to the financial aid eligibility questions, one of the questions says something about the fact that you have not be convicted of possession of drugs or a drug conviction while receiving financial aid. The guy pauses, and says "not possession, but selling". My co worker, just repeated the question stressing WHILE RECEIVING FINANCIAL AID. Then he was like, oh no. Whew, details, details, details. This student will be attending class at the campus - I'm guessing he is going to need face to face instruction. I get to meet with him again tomorrow because he came to fill out financial aid but didn't bring his taxes.

Matt mentioned that he would be interested to hear some of my student stories, but mine are probably going to be a bit different since my target students are working, adult students.

Movie Review

So I have seen a lot of movies lately. I'll give you a quick run down on the ones that I have seen. I probably will not remember them all nor will I give you a review on all of them. I will just review the most memorable ones.

G- Force - Ok - I liked it. I thought it had more of a story that I expected and was not a hookie as I thought it would be. I also saw Harry Potter, which hello, it was good. I feel as though I saw another kids movie but don't remember it too well.

The Hangover - Pretty funny. Kind of a guy flick. But I found it to be very funny. Just as funny as everyone said it was. I'm pretty sure most guys LOVE this
movie and it is probably funnier to them to us "chicks".

The Proposal - Hilarious. This is not really just a chick flick, but
seriously it was SO FUNNY. MAYBE "chicks" will think this is just as funny as The Hangover or funnier, but all people can relate to this movie I think. It is predictable story line, but it is the stuff in between that is so funny. My friends saw it multiple times in the theater already.

Funny People - LONG movie. It takes a long time for people to

be funny I guess. But seriously, it was funny. The storyline was
nothing of what I expected. There was a long serious part in the movie
it seemed like it drug on for awhile. But all in all a decent movie. Just too
long in my opinion.

The Time Traveler's Wife - Ok, I was super excited about this
movie. A little disappointed. I am usually not that critical of
movies. I am easy to please when it comes to story lines. But
this one needed to be better and had better potential. The movie

was not that consistent and the storyline didn't make 100% sense.
I understood the movie & followed but without giving it away,
when he travels through time there were times where there were
2 of him & times when there weren't & unless he was traveling to the future, there should have always been 2 of him. So maybe I just need someone to explain it to me better.

Julie & Julia - the whole reason I'm writing this blog. I really liked this movie.

I could relate to the blogging part. So Julie decides to cook her way through
Julia Child's cookbook and then blog about it. And YUMMY looking food. The
movie totally made me hungry. The only probably I found with doing something like this, not only are some of the recipes ridiculously time consuming, there is no way that I would like every recipe in a cook book. So not only would I spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time, I would not even eat every recipe. So not a realistic idea for me personally.

The only movie of the summer that I did not see that I actually wanted to see
was My Sister's Keeper. EVERYONE that I talked to said that they cried their
eyes out during this movie. Well I kind of expected that, but one person said that
people were leaving because they were crying so hard. Well, I'm not too fond of
doing that in a theater full of people. So, this is totally a rental.

My Life

So, for the past 3 years I worked for New York Life as an independent Financial Services Rep. I have worked from home for the past 4 1/2 years. I have really enjoyed it, but I have to say it is hard. Especially with kids and summer break. When I first started working from home, I had set things that I had to do. I had set files to work on. I only worked 20 hours a week. So, I got my work done and I still had plenty of time to volunteer, play with kids, shop and help with family. Then I started working "full time" and it seemed like I never worked 20 or more hours. I did not have set things to do and so I filled my time with all these other things. AND to top it all off I had a really good month in May and basically I did not work all summer. That might seem fun and nice for some of you but for me I felt lost. I felt like I was wasting my life away and doing nothing. I felt like I needed more direction. I felt like I needed more purpose and routine. So I started looking for a "real" job. I am happy to announce that I found one. I will be working for the University of Phoenix as an Enrollment Counselor.
I have to admit that I am pretty nervous about it all. Working full time and all. But I am excited about the job and excited to be working with people. And I'm excited about benefits and a regular schedule.

I have to go to training for 2 weeks in Milwaukee, WI. I'm ok with that. Thank goodness my mom is here to watch the boys. Otherwise, I don't know how that was supposed to work out. But I don't start until Sept 8, so I guess I have a couple more weeks of my vacation- like I need it.

Julia Story

When we are traveling I take pictures like this: Scenic pictures. Pictures of building/skylines/things. I also have them in my scrapbooks. Well we were looking at them the other day and Donna (Aunt Ev's sister) thought it was funny that I took these pictures & comment that I was taking pictures of the "road". Which I was not. HOWEVER, Julia did take pictures of our roads. Just the road. In Germany they don't have long straight roads like we do (highways). She said their "long roads" are curvy so you can't even tell how long they are. But she was shocked by our long straight roads & how many of them that we have.

And the worse thing that I heard about Germany was that scrapbooking is not really done there!! If it is, she has never heard of it or seen it!

It is fun to hear about the differences in other countries even in the 21 Century.

What a week

Whew what a crazy busy week. Let's start with last weekend. Friday, I headed to OKC, with a stop in Tulsa to eat lunch with my old youth group friends. Especially Angela & Giovanni visiting from Italy.Left Tulsa to meet up with Katie at Matt's new job to see him and to hang out with her a little. We had a little quality cousin time.

Saturday, Ashley came to OKC to see us. So had some more cousin time and then headed to two parties. A BDay party & Matt's 3rd of July Party that was held late due to scheduling issues this year.

Sunday I picked up some of my 3rd cousins Elliott & Oliver to spend the week with us while their mom & sister hang out with their Grandma. My great Aunt Ev that has pancreatic cancer. Monday, I took the opportunity to go work out, look for a new job and go on an interview for a job (it was ok-had a 2nd interview on Friday-I'm not sure how I feel about the job). Then Tuesday all the "kids" and I headed to Silver Dollar City - minus Cody - he had band practice.

Wednesday the boys got to hang out with more of Aunt Ev's grandsons Phillip, Michael and Anthony(Anthony is only 6 months old). SOOOOOOOOOO cute though.

Wednesday got some pool time in during the day.


Then Dixie Stampede that night. This is Julia (silent J). She is from Germany and she is staying with the Spillers this year. She loved Dixie Stampede. She really like horses & they have mostly formal horse shoes. And nothing that you could eat a meal & watch a horse show!!!

Thursday, the boys hung out with their mom & I went to volunteer at the hospital then I just took the two girls to Ripley's Believe it or Not. We couldn't believe it...

Friday was another relaxing day of hanging out & then that night we went to a Springfield Cardinals game. The Cards won. They played the Drillers. I was going for the Drillers. Julia wanted to make sure that she was supposed to be going for the Cardinals & she wondered if I was like the only one going for Drillers. I assured her that I was the odd one! Then they had fireworks at the end. She really enjoyed that. They aren't as free with fireworks in Germany as we are here in the states.

Crazy week but lots of good fun!! Happy to have this time to spend with this family. They go home today. Now Bray's birthday Sunday!!!

Winn Reunion 2009

This was our group this year at our family reunion in Branson, MO. Let's see, did anything exciting happen this year?

Ummmm, for 2 weeks Aunt Ev & Uncle Phil have been in St. Louis due to her health.

Wednesday before reunion, Mom called me to tell me that Marvin was in ER. He had cut himself & was getting stitches. I guess he was already almost done by the time mom called me but I decided I better go up there anyway.

When I got to ER, my parents' neighbor & friend was sitting there too. She had brought Marvin's dad up right after Marvin had come to ER. Good thing I went up there. I got 2 for the trip of 1. Luckily he only had a UTI. So, mom was coming home from STL to go to Grandma I's stress test. So we met her at McD so she could see the guys, then went to Gma's.

Friday reunion starts. Oh, Grandma I decided we were having a boring week. She ended up having a low blood count. The found it due to some lab work they had done. So she ended up spending the night in the hospital too.

But somehow, Saturday things came together nicely. Grandma came home and Lisa & Uncle Phil were able to come home for the weekend from St Louis. It was a good turn out and it was nice to see the family that was able to make it.

I have to admit, I was a little wired & stressed up. I drank a lot of coffee too so I was a little high strung, but I made it & I think with little casualties.

Sleep Over

Neviah (my 2nd cousin) came over to spend the night with us the other night. We had fun. We didn't do a whole lot but she found my shoes. She kept putting my flip flops on and saying that she could fit. I told her if she liked those then she needed to come check out my closet.















We found lots for her to put on & the "fit" her. She also did really good at posing for all the photos. She would put one pair on & then tell me to take a picture.