I’ve had very bad luck with rhododendrons. Two attempts to grow the pretty little evergreen ended in failure at our last house. We planted a larger bush here at the new house last summer hoping that it would have a better start. Before fall, the leaves had turned crunchy yellow and brown. This spring, it looked no better, and I was sure it was a goner.

A week ago today, our high temperature here in Michigan reached 82 degrees. To my surprise, Rhoda had flowers bursting open all over the place. She even had tiny little green leaves springing out from behind the yellow and brown crunchy ones.

On Saturday, it snowed. Snow snowed. Like several inches covering the ground for two and a half days snow. When the sun finally appeared again yesterday, I found Rhoda in a state of shock.

Yes, those are fallen petals on the ground.

It just goes on and on, my friends.

For those of you keeping track of this disorganized filming thing, I left off telling you we were hoping to finish filming on April 7th. Well, we did film on the 7th, but less than an hour into filming I had a sneaking suspicion that this film was doomed to be forever unfinished. First off, “Sarah” (aka the girl who is always late and always has to leave early) had to… leave early. No big surprise there, really. We got very little done before everyone wanted to order pizza. This group always wants to order pizza, it seems. It wouldn’t be bad, except that we take nearly 2 hours out of filming for pizza.

Soon after pizza, “Sarah” left us. She stayed just long enough to eat, basically. Shortly after that, my director’s camera had an accident. I still don’t exactly how it happened, but somehow it fell from a cart and hit the very hard floor. At that point, we called it a night since the camera no longer worked. When everyone else had left, my director asked me if I would be angry if she decided to give up on the project altogether. I told her we were all getting frustrated with the whole thing, and that I’d be disappointed, but not angry. I’m an understanding girl.

I was certain that the film had seen its last days. Imagine my surprise when my director called me on Friday to ask if I could film on Sunday. I rearranged my plans for the day to drive 60+ miles to school to film at 6:30. At 7:10 we started. “Sarah” had to leave at 8:00, so my director rewrote her scenes to kill her off early. We filmed “Sarah’s” scenes, the “professor’s” scenes, a chase scene (since our ghost finally decided to join us for this filming) and… that’s it. At 10:30 my director decided to call it a night. I rearranged my schedule, drove 60+ miles (one way), and sat for 4 hours for nothing. The best part? We’re STILL NOT FINISHED. I get to go back on Wednesday and film something else. Do I think we’ll finish on Wednesday? Uh, no.

Did I mention that our final exams start on Wednesday? No? Well, they do. After that, we have a week before spring semester starts and then all of our schedules will be completely different. I’m an understanding girl, but this is getting to be too much.

Because pigs will be flying!

Several weeks ago, I spoke with an academic advisor to make sure I had all of my general education requirements fulfilled to graduate in December. She told me there were two problems with my transcripts.

The first problem was easily resolved. I needed to obtain my high school transcripts to show that I’d taken a chemistry class in high school. With that information, my earth science credits would count toward my degree.

The second problem was a bit stickier. I had taken a math class for elementary teachers while I was in the education program. I could count the class now that I’m once again an art major if I had declared elementary education as my major at that time. I change my major so often, that I didn’t bother to change it to elementary ed that semester.

I dropped off my high school transcripts on Tuesday, and was, coincidentally, assigned to speak with the very same advisor that needed to approve my math credits. Without any hesitation, he went into his computer and changed my major to elementary education for the semester I had the math class. I’m registered for ceramics in the spring, ceramics in the summer, and two art history classes plus an advanced drawing class in the fall.

It will be difficult to take the two art history classes concurrently, but I know other students who have done it successfully. And I’m more than a little nervous about the drawing class since I’ve been working exclusively with three-dimensional art since 1993. But if I can make it through the fall, I WILL GRADUATE IN DECEMBER!

When I purchased my new car last month, I opted for the manual transmission over the automatic transmission. It was a bit impractical considering that Rob doesn’t know how to drive a stick. I quickly realized another way the 5-speed was an impractical choice. That being, it’s difficult to use a cell phone while driving my new car in the city. It’s not like I’m on my cell phone all the time, but for those times I am, it’s difficult.

So I decided to invest in a good headset for my phone. I tried some of those cheaper versions, but they never lived up to my expectations. They either hurt my ear, or the sound quality was so poor that it made phone conversation too much work. It was time to look into something better. I don’t really hear very well on a phone anyway, so I felt it was important to get a headset with excellent sound quality.

I was very excited when my new headset arrived yesterday. I picked it up on the way to get the boys from school. While I waited in the parent pickup line, I plugged in my new headset and fiddled with the settings on my phone. Even though I was only hearing beeps and clicks at this point, I could tell that the sound quality was very good. I called Rob right away to find out if it sounded as good to him as it did to me.

When the phone first connected, I heard this loud buzzing sound. Rob answered his phone and heard it right away too. I tried to find out what was causing the noise. I wiggled the cord. I moved the phone further from the headset. Nothing seemed to fix the problem. Rob and I both agreed that the sound quality was supurb except for that annoying little buzz.

I called the customer support number and was surprised when a real live person answered. I thought I’d have a little time to work through an automated menu before talking to a person, so it took me a moment to figure out what to say. The woman I spoke with thought it might be a technical issue, so she transferred me to another person who answered promptly. He (Josh) told me the sound was definitely not right, and he would ship another one today. I’m still sort of shocked by their efficiency and politeness because it was just that good. I do find it a little sad that this kind of customer service, which should be common, is so rare nowadays.

I left feedback on their site about how impressed I was with their customer service. A moment later when Josh emailed me with a return authorization number, I replied to compliment him on his customer service skills. I also cc’ed the email to the address that was supposedly the company’s president. Within two hours, I received emails from both Josh and the president/CEO of the company to thank me for my kind words. Later that night I got a phone call from the customer service manager to thank me again for the feedback I left.

For anyone looking to purchase a headset, I’d recommend headsets.com for their customer service alone.

Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea of returning to my volunteer job. It’s that same old selfish voice inside my head telling me that I shouldn’t have let one creepy little jerk run me away from something I enjoyed. I’ve been gathering information on my stalker over these past few weeks, and one little tidbit of information has led me to feel a tad bid safer than I did before. Ironically, it’s the fact that he has a criminal record of hacking. I already knew his history of hacking and harassing other volunteers at my job in the past, but he also apparently has a record of credit card fraud from a few years ago. All of his attacks against me have been directly related to my old volunteer job. I’ve always felt that anything unrelated to my job was safe from his intrusion, and now I’m even more confident that he won’t go after those things. I think he knows that these little things he does will annoy me to no end, but he also knows that no one with any authority really cares about something so trivial as harassment. I’m sure he also knows that if he used any of my personal information illegally, the law may not be as kind to him as they were when he was a minor.

A big part of the reason I resigned still remains, however. Partly, I was concerned that he would cause damage to the organization through my accounts. He had done so already. But mostly I was concerned about my reputation within the organization. I was afraid he would gain access to my accounts again and try to impersonate me or destroy some of the projects I had created. I still care a great deal about the organization and many of the people there. And some of the projects I created were very important to me. Seeing those things destroyed would hurt me. On the other hand, every time he tampers with my accounts, he risks being caught. And since stopping him has become my new hobby, I’m tempted to let him take the risk.

When I first started blogging last June, I happened to stumble across a very cool blog by a guy named Dan who was blogging about his efforts to open an independent movie theatre in Springfield, Missouri. The progess has been FAST! In less than a year, he and his wife Nicole found investors, secured loans, renovated a building, and turned their dream into a reality. Springfield will soon be welcoming its newest resident, The Moxie. Recently however, there has been a slight snag in their plans. The renovation has eaten into the budget for the concession stand (which is cleverly named the Cinebar.)

So Dan and Nicole did what any other young-couple-who-risked-everything-for-their-dream would do. They decided to auction the right to name their Cinebar for one year! It’s a cool, quirky idea that, I think, is a perfect fit for The Moxie.

The bid is over $700 already, but you can still help Dan and Nicole by choosing to watch it by clicking the link in the upper right corner. I’m told that if the auction gets enough watchers, it will go on a list of popular auctions. And that can only be a good thing for them!

If you haven’t already, check out The Moxie blog and the auction on eBay. And if you’re a resident of the Springfield area, be sure to check out the The Moxie soon!

THE FILM
My director expected we would finish filming last Thursday or Friday. Two of the girls in the film told us they’d be two hours late on Thursday, but then decided not to show up at all. Four hours after we started, we went home having done next to nothing. We filmed very late on Friday, but they messed up our schedule and we didn’t finish. We’re hoping to finish filiming on the 7th. I’m not optimistic we’ll finish though.

TELEVISION
The Style Network has this funny game show called Craft Corner Deathmatch. Have you seen it? On the show, two amateur crafters compete against each other for a chance to compete against the Craft Lady of Steel. The stage is set up to look like a fight club or something equally as brutal, and I think that’s half the appeal. Not that I don’t like craft shows, but the fact that they make fun of themselves makes it that much more entertaining.

BUH BYE TEXTILES
I’ve been trying to withdraw from my textiles class this week. Unfortunately, the deadline for single class withdrawls was in March. My options are to audit the class (with permission), get an incomplete in the class (with permission), or fail the class since I’ve decided not to finish up the semester. I took the class for fun, but I’m all “funned” out. First, I have a two and a half hour wait between my morning class and my textiles class. Second, I don’t get home before the boys’ bus drops them off, so I need to rely on someone else to pick them up everyday after school. Third, I’ve gained just about all I can possibly gain from the class. It won’t count toward my major, since I already have more electives than I can possibly need. So what’s the point in finishing? Basically, I would be working just to maintain my GPA, and I just don’t care enough about it at this point. I CAN GRADUATE IN DECEMBER! Now if I could just convince my professor to grant me an audit.

FREE MONEY
My mom invited me to go with her to the casino this past weekend. She’s been hesitant to invite me because she’s afraid I’ll get addicted to gambling, but my dad hasn’t been feeling well enough to go with her, so she gave in and asked me instead. My dad gave me $100 to play blackjack. I managed to repay him the $100 and still come home with $280. Not bad for a beginner, huh? As fun as it was, I can definitely say I’m not addicted. The crowds, the smoke, the noise… it was like being in a club. And anyone who knows me knows I only tolerate going to a club to see my favorite band.

GREEN!
My lawn service started the first application today. It’s official. Spring is here!