Currently My son is in 8th grade. When we first moved to our current home, we had 2 choices on the middle school we could send him too. One which is in our district and a second which is outside of our district. We choose the out of district school, due to it basically being a better school. They provide school bus transportation and all has been well for the past 2 years.

Next year he’ll be in high school, and due too limited space we we’re unable to get him into the high school of the same district. So I began looking for alternatives, as the district we live in (well just happen to fall just shy of the wrong side of the district border), isn’t the greatest school. What I discovered was the Insight School of Washington. It’s online public high school, and there is no tuition for us to pay. They also provide each student with a laptop and printer. The school has a HUGE course catalogue, and allow my husband and I to be very involved in his education, something I really like. He’ll have a learning team which consists of His teachers, counselor and an imentor. An imentor is a person that both parents and student can go to with questions, suggestions and basically works with the entire family. He will attend classroom sessions online but he’ll also have other assignments which he’ll do on his own time. The school set’s up field trips and gatherings for the students and they also have student clubs, as well as dances (so yes there is a prom), and a graduation ceremony. Students are still eligible for extra-curricular activities in the home school district, so my boy can still do football and wrestling.

I think the biggest question most people have about an online school is “what about the social aspect of going to school??” well in my opinion, traditional school is great for younger children. Younger children definitely need to experience the kind of environment that traditional school provides socially. My Son has plenty of friends with whom he already doesn’t go to the same school with. Some he met here in our apartment complex, others he’s met in places like the mall, or skating rink(a favorite Friday night hangout). I believe at this point in his life it would be a good time to begin focusing on teaching him some self-reliance and self-motivating skills. He is 15, and next year he’ll be old enough to get a job, I’m sure he’ll make more friends that way as well. But as I said there are plenty of ways for him to be social with his schoolmates they provide Lot’s of opportunity for student interaction.

He’s very excited about attending his new high school, heck I’m excited for him. I wish they would have had this kind of program when I was in school, chances are if they had I would have graduated.

If anyone is interested you can see an overview of how the classes work, by going HERE

A raging darkness creeping up on me, Pushing back I can barely fight, grasping upwards pulling at the light. The movement I can feel, is it my imagination or is it just not real. Take away this anger make it a small part me, take away the pain I feel let me not be blinded by what it is.
The deafening sound of silence blasting in at me, unable to express the pain that bleeds forth. I want to feel the grass between my toes the sunshine on my face, and feel the warmth of your laughter in it’s grace.
Dancing in the grove the light’s sparkle shimmering from the sky. The stars in the sky the moon in it’s wonder lends a certain solace to the night air. This is where my happiness in all it’s wonder lies. Does this place exist or is it something that only is a fleeting image in my mind.
I want to dance in the moonlight to feel the innocence that it is. Why can’t that simplicity be mine?

One the hardest things about graves disease is the emotional aspect of it. It’s hard not only on me but on my family as well who have to be asked to deal with mood swings, a quick temper, and tears. Since coming off my meds I’ve been suffering with bouts of anxiety & rage (also known as graves rage). I try very very hard not direct this at my family members but it can be difficult as sometimes the smallest things seem to set me off. Bless them for trying so hard. It can sometimes be very hard to calm down but I do find that frankincense tends to help. But I’m also open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas On how to help with my anxiety and mood swings.

Not feeling satisfied with my current line of treatment from my doctor, I have spent countless hours of reading and research about My Graves disease. I have been very unsatisfied with my current line of treatment, and my endocrinologists insistence that the only way to fix my thyroid dysfunction was to have radioactive iodine treatment. This particular line of treatment would basically kill my thyroid, leaving me on medication for the rest of my life and instead of being hyperthyroid I would then be hypothyroid, with no chance of remission. As it stands right now most modern medical doctors insist on only treating one symptom of Graves disease(read thyroid), instead of treating the disease itself.

After all the research and reading I’ve come to the conclusion that something in my own lifestyle has caused this graves disease. I wasn’t taught the healthiest of eating & lifestyle habits growing up and I’m sure that it’s a combination of a few bad habits I’ve acquired over the years (smoking, terrible mountain dew addiction, high salt diet..to name a few).

So I decided to look into alternative treatments to my disease. I found a nearby Naturopathic doctor, who is covered under my current insurance, and treats thyroid disease & dysfunction. I called them up and made an appointment for the 5th of June, also I decided to take myself off my current dosage of Methimazole(Thyroid Medication), while continuing to take my Metoprolol(Heart Medication). In the meantime I have cut salt out at the table. I still cook with it, but I don’t add anything extra. Also I’ve begun eating better and have switched from drinking loads of Mountain Dew to drinking more juices and more water.

Well It’s been four days since I’ve taken any Methimazole and so far I feel fine . Please note That I made this decision after doing much reading and research on graves disease., and this approach is a personal decision I have made for me though it may not be right for everyone, as everyone’s body reacts differently to different situations. I’ll keep updated on how I’m feeling and post back regularly.

Have you ever had one of those? Where just wanna smack yourself upside the head? Well tonight was mine. I went to bed, then I woke up because my foot & back were hurting me and then I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I decided to get up and mess around the computer for a bit. I get in here and I have no sound?!?!?!? So I turned to google, and tried a few different fixes I found, but nothing seemed to work. I still had no sound. Finally after about a few hours I decided to just download a copy of 9.04 and try a fresh install, I already had everything backed up from the upgrade. So I slip the disc in and go through the normal routine. But when the computer starts I still have no sound! At this point I’m completely stumped. So then I finally decide to re-install 8.10 I get the disc out, drop it in the computer and go through the whole routine once again. The computer reboots, and now I have no sound on Intrepid either?!?!?! I sat here for a few moments, completely stumped not sure what to do. Well at this point I dropped a pen on the floor and as I bend over to pick it up I notice (drumroll please) that the headphones are plugged into the headphone jack roflmao…. seems my son had borrowed them and when he brought them back to my computer instead of pluggin the microphone into the microphone jack he plugged the head phones in to the head phone jack . I didn’t know whether to strangle him, or smack myself in the head. So at this point with a vanilla 8.10 on the computer I said what the hell and just decided to install 9.04 nothing to lose at this point.

So that’s my Falce Palm Moment of the Day…..lol.

Well The upgrade seems to have went fine, I’m really digging the new notifications, they are so much nicer looking than the old ones…I guess I tell the hubby to back up his stuff and try to upgrade his system as well. Response times are nice.

I did have to upgrade my xfire plugin for pidgin it was causing pidgin to crash, as well as re-installing banshee which the upgrade saw fit to remove. Everything else seems peachy

Guess this means I’ll have to re-gimp my forum signature…

Can’t wait for the disc any longer (I know I’m so impatient) so I’m attempting an upgrade, files are downloading as I type. I already did my backups, and I have a separate /home so I figure if any goes sour I can always re-install 8.10.

Wish me luck! I’ll let you know how it goes….

So one Painful MRI, and several Doctors visits later, I Now I know exactly what I already assumed the issue with my back to be. Money in the pockets of the doctors all so they can tell me what I already Knew(insert frustrated sigh here).

Well for those who don’t know I suffer with grave’s disease, it’s an auto immune disorder, which I’ve been fighting for a couple of years now, This particular disorder runs in my family my mother has it, and my grandmother had it as well. I have had it for a little over a year and didn’t know it because we had no insurance, so I My condition rapidly deteriorated due to lack of treatment. As of right now I can’t walk very well due to pain in my back, caused by a combination of severe muscle deterioration and The weight which I too rapidly gained once they began treating my condition. The Orthopedic doctor told me today I have what’s called Lumbar strain, and swelling in and around my lower spine. So Thursday I’m to go in and get epidural steroid shots then I’m to start Physical therapy.

I don’t intend on being overweight forever, and before this disease I wasn’t. I’m far too young at 33 to feel like this and damn it I want to be able to run and walk again. So I’ve set up some goals for myself

1. Quit Smoking (This is the hardest to be sure because to be honest I don’t want to quit I really enjoy smoking but I know I need to quit so I’m going to)
2. Start & Continue with Physical Therapy
3. A complete re-hash of my diet, learning to eat better is just a good idea all the way around

Not many goals at the moment but that’s ok you have to start small in my opinion.

First the bank is retarded….

On the 21’st I logged on to my bank account only to discover that we mis-calculated about an automatic payment, and were overdrawn. So My husband, went down to the bank and deposited $100.00, he verified with the teller that this amount covered both the charge and the overdraft fee. The teller told him it did and in fact the deposit put the account $44.00 To the positive.

Well the next day I log on the account only be horrified to find that we had two more Overdraft charges. So My Husband (whose very very good at not taking crap from people) gets on the phone to the branch and tries to figure out what happened. The lady he’s speaking with tells him that there we’re two charges which went through One for Xbox Live $7.99 (the overdraft fee was $32.00) and another from Taco Bell For $6.93 (The Fee was $37.00), He said yes but how did I get charged overdraft fee’s for these items when I had money in the account to cover it? This girl didn’t know so she asked him to hold while she got the manager. A Few minutes later she comes back on and takes our number and says the manager is in a meeting she’ll call you back. So he gives her the phone number and we wait 45 minutes still no phone call, so My husband calls back. Finally he gets the Manager on the phone.

The Manager Says the charges where on the account the day he made the deposit, and teller could see this and would have told him this, and then she

informs him there are two more charges coming through that we’ll be charged fees for as well. He said Well the teller never informed me of that I have her name right here and she only told me that I the $100.00 I deposited covered the charges, and that I was $44.00 to the positive. She said “So we should pay for your mistake?” He said “Your Damn Right, when your teller is telling me one thing but the truth is something else”. She said “Sir there is no need to cuss if you continue to talk to me like this Then this conversation is over”. He said “I didn’t cuss at you besides Lady you have heard cussing yet”. She said well I can reverse one of the charges but not both. This went on a few more minutes with her using every excuse in the book and trying to blame him for their mistake. Then she said “We give courtesy calls to let you know your account is going over” he said “really because We never got one, the only reason we found out was because my wife logged on to the website”. Well then she basically called him a liar. This was the last straw, he hung up on her.

I got a 1-800 Number from the website and we proceeded to call them. My husband explained the situation to the lady on the other end who in turn put her supervisor on the phone because she didn’t have the authority to make reversals. The supervisor, refunded both overdraft fees and informed my husband that after doing so it only put our account at $10.00. So he said “So If I go put $90.00 in the account right now that will cover the pending charges as well and we’ll be good no more fees?” twice he asked her this and twice she said yes. So my husband went and made the deposit and that covered us finally our account was in good standing again.

The bank we use is Key Bank, and that was the worst customer service I had ever had. I mean it’s not like we were disputing the original charge we new we screwed up and we’re trying to fix it but that manager made us feel like we we’re criminals. This was our first overdraft charge since opening that account, we had been in good standing since the beginning prior to this incident, wouldn’t you want to keep a customer like that? Apparently this lady didn’t care.

Well that was just the beginning of my bad day….

Guild Wars which Mark & I play all the time, is celebrating it’s 4 year anniversary, as part of the celebration, they are giving a free storage pane to all players. Well the way you have to get the storage is to log on to the NCsoft website and enter a coupon code for it. Well I can’t remember my password but the website is soo overloaded with traffic I can’t use the forgot password feature because it keeps telling me the security image has expired by the time the page loads. So I’ve written them asking for help getting my account info hopefully I’ll here back before the promotion ends on the 31st.

Next up Being dissed on your own website…

A Website I run has been experiencing some issues and needs severely upgraded. From the old version of joomla to the new version. The problem is I can’t upgrade it without risking some form of data loss. To that end I have been completely honest with the websites members, actually I’ve always been honest with them. Well because of these issues I opened a ning community for them to use while I figure things out. It was supposed to be a gradual transition, from one website to the other. While I worked up an alternative to our website in the background. Today I discovered that some of the members had decided to start up and new forum, than began copying and pasting threads from one place to the other leaving links in my websites forum to the new forum.

I don’t mind them wanting to create their own forums It doesn’t bother me in the least what bothers me is that the way it was went about left me feeling like it was sort of an “Screw You and Your Stuff Move” If they didn’t like the alternative ning setup they could have let me know I would have worked with them on making things better. I’m not a communist dictator at my websites I like a community effort. But this all had the feeling of well being completely shirked. I don’t know maybe I’m being whiny, but I guess I just thought I had a better relationship with these people then I do.

In the end it left me feeling glad to to have The UN I love the feeling this community has going for it. It feels more like a community than any other project I’ve worked on. So thanks guys for helping make The UN feel so great.

For some reason I had a hell of a time getting comfortable and falling asleep last night. It sucked. I ended up getting up for a bit a posting On the Ubuntu forums for a while, just sort of sifting through some of the endless posts on there. I’m supposed to be going to the doctors today, but wouldn’t you know it they called and apparently the doctor is in an unscheduled surgery and has had to reschedule all his appointments for today, so now I won’t be seeing him until the 4th of may. Anyway I’m still trying to wake up (Yawn)…hope everyone else is having a great day!