I'll miss you Anthony...

So Thursday night I thought about an old friend of mine from my freshman year of college. I've been adding old friends on facebook lately and he was next in line. I signed on friday morning hoping he had accepted my friend request...I found an email from his old roommate, also a friend of mine-thanks to Anthony. It said "I just wanted to let you know that Anthony Dunn got shot in the stomach last night. He didn't make it".

Wow, my heart sank. I never got the chance to reconnect with him. I can't post anything on his wall because we weren't able to become facebook friends. I visit his profile numerous times a day to see the new pics and all the great things people have to say about him. I needed somewhere to share my memories.

I met Anthony through my old roommate's boyfriend. They went to school together, I believe. We kind of did a double date thing and went to the rec and watched the guys shoot some hoops. and we got mcDonalds. I had fun so I continued to hang out with Anthony. He lived in Carter hall (which I pass every day getting the girls from school/dropping them off. Talk about sad) and he'd sneak me in all the time so I didn't have to go through the front and deal with all that signing in stuff.

Anthony was such a silly guy. He always had me laughing and smiling. He insisted that I call him "daddy Dunn" and I never would, I always had to call him Anthony. We got back in touch when I came back to UT (I went to Tri-C for a year) and I went over to his apt a couple times. He introduced me to his roommate and always called him John Benjamin. He had this huge old air mattress. That was one of the last times I saw him. Then I started hanging with his roommate and we lost contact.

He's since had two children. Anthony was a great person and I've found it hard dealing with this. His killer has not been caught and no explanation has been given for his death. so sad. I hope whoever did this pays for what they've done to this man.

I've learned that it's never a bad time to tell someone you still care about them. Anthony, I care about you and I hope you can read this where you are. I need you to know I will miss you here on Earth and I thank you for your friendship and all the fun times we had. It seems you've touched many lives. You'll be greatly missed by everyone who ever knew you. Maybe we will catch up when we meet again. RIP Anthony Dunn Jr.

10 months!

Sooo what can my 10 month old do as of her 10 month birthday, you ask? I'll tell you!

She signs "all done" and says "ahdah" while she does it occasionally
waves hi and bye
shakes her head no
mimics our words and sounds
cruises
stands on her own for about 3-5 seconds
gets up on one knee and one foot and tries to stand without holding anything
she loves to dance and always has bounced around when she heard music


She has her two bottom teeth. At her 9 mo appt she was 19lbs 4 oz and 27 3/4" long.

My big girl!

That's it!

My bows are officially at the consignment store. I hope they sell well so I can get a decent return on them. Naturally the store is taking a cut. They just opened about 20 days ago. Supposedly they are also going to promote my bows on their website. Fantastic. Hopefully things go well with that.

On the 9th I get my results from my licensure exam. I'm nervous. Why? Well the UT program has a 100% pass rate....no pressure right?? I don't want to be the one to break that record. Not that I'd want to fail it if they didn't have a 100% pass rate. You get the picture. then I have to send a small fortune along with some paperwork to the Ohio Dept of Education to get my actual license. But the good news is then I can interview. I hope there's something open around the Cleveland area....I think. I loved moving out of Medina when I was 17 and fresh out of high school. But I was a different person then. I wouldn't mind Medina or somewhere like it. But at the same time there's so much I'll be leaving behind.

Speaking of leaving things behind...We may have to bid farewell to Apple Tree (the girls' school) after this semester. 4 years almost at that school. It's just so expensive. But I love that place a ton. Sigh....

The other day Vic came home and I said "dada's home" to Kamaya and she started doing her speed crawl (is there a baby olympics???) and said "Dada" clear as day. And she's standing up unassisted for about 3-5 seconds at a time. That child will be walking soon. Scary.

Kyliana is doing well at her dance class. She really gets excited for tapping and using pom poms. Cheerleading in her future maybe? Her class at school has a talent show coming up on the 17th. I told her she should do one of her recital dances. She'll probably get shy and freeze up. That's so typical of her. Her recital is June 13th. That will be so cute.

Now we're having issues with this party date. There's 9 kids in her class born in March, so we're planning around all of those birthday parties too. Sucks. I was thinking April 3rd, but that's the day before Easter, so probably the week after that. Blah. We're definitely doing one for family and friends at my mom's on the 27th of March. Be there ;)

Always forget

I always forget to write in here. I figure nobody reads it anyhow....but I suppose I can look back on it one day and reminisce.

I didn't have much success with the free bow giveaway I did for Korksiepoo. That stinks. I was hoping people would want to win a free bow and all they had to do was advertise for one day. Craigslist, facebook, tell their friends and family, whatever. My website has a thing that tells how many visitors I get per day. The ONE person that entered had 7 visitors. My highest is 41. I had a good turnout one day when my friend from Iowa posted my link on her facebook status. That was a record day for a couple weeks. I can even see where people are coming from by their IP address. I bet if I had more friends willing to do the facebook status or hand out business cards, or even take 30 seconds and post a craigslist ad. But I guess if you're not getting profit out of it, why bother helping out a friend. Can you tell I'm discouraged haha.

I'm supposed to sell my bows at a consignment store. This guy emailed me and asked if I would be interested. He found me on craigslist. I met with him Tuesday and he said he was interested and would call me back later that day. Well that didn't happen. Is he still interested? I don't know, we'll see. They were taking a lot for profit so I'd have to bump up the price of the bows. And I'd only do it short term to try to get my name out.

Thus far I've had 3 orders for bows and 2 for diaper creations.

Sigh, enough about the bow business. I'm busy planning the girls joint birthday party. Our issue right now is finding a location. We just want to rent a small hall and have the party there. Hopefully we've found one. The theme is rockstar. Not Hannah montana, but Rockstar, plain and simple.
I can't believe I'm planning Kamaya's 1st birthday-not to mention Ky's 4th-already. So surreal how fast time goes. It goes faster with 2 kids, honestly.

Time for bed!

Oh yeah

I had to go back and check the last time I posted haha.

Thanksgiving was good too. Vic ended up taking Kami to Lima to meet his dad's side of the family, who live down south. I insisted on spending it with my mom as it was her first Thanksgiving without my stepdad. So Vic brought Kamaya to my mom's later that night. We went Black Friday shopping at 5 am which was a first for both of us (my mom and I). I normally had to work, so it was nice not having to. We got Vic and I's Christmas present which was a new TV :) :)

Also I graduated Dec 19th. I was so glad to walk across that stage. It's such a great feeling. I have a Master's degree! yaaaay :) I was sad that so many people couldn't come and share my excitement, but grateful for the ones that could! Now on the 9th I have my licensure exam, and should be a licensed school counselor in a couple months (gotta get th paperwork-not to mention the $$$ first).


Right now I'm looking for a job to tide me over til I can get a counseling job. That could be as soon as next school year, which I hope. BUT I don't want to stay in Toledo. I'm looking at jobs closer to Medina. I still haven't figured out the pros and cons completely and which would work out best for our family. Who knows at this point, but that is an option I will keep in mind. We might end up in that area, or a suburb here. I know I don't want to LIVE in Toledo, but I could live in a burb and still work in Toledo.

OK that's all!

WOW!

It's been forever and a day since I posted.

First thing I want to say, I've started a business. http://korksiepoo.webs.com
I make korker hair bows and diaper cakes. Love doing it and now want to share the love ;)
I've made flyers, business cards, a google search result, a yellowpages ad, a website, and a blog. You should follow my blog, even if you don't buy from me. www.korksiepoo.blogspot.com

So Christmas. It was fantastic. Kamaya had a great first christmas. Both girls were way too spoiled. I didn't make out too badly either. No new car or anything like that haha. We went to Kalahari, the indoor waterpark, Christmas day. Ky loved it, Kamaya didn't mind it. Vic and I hardly went in the waterpark. We're planning on going back just us soon. We spent a ton of time in the game room and a bit in the bar. We won the girls each a prize

New Year's was good. We decided to spend it with my mom. Normally she'd go out, but that was because my stepdad took her. So this year it was a fun time at home. Her friend came over and Ky stayed up this year. She loved the confetti poppers and horns.

I finally got my tattoos. I got the girls names on me in their zodiac shapes. Ky's was supposed to be different, but pisces is a fish too, so we went with that. I went to the guy who tats my brother. He's really good.

I really don't have a ton to talk about haha.

Ky can read and write every letter of the alphabet...which is fantastic, she's not even 4 yet :) Such a smart little cookie. Kamaya has her 2 bottom teeth, and they came in within a week of each other. She can crawl and pull up on things. She's starting to take a step or two while standing up and holding on to something. She's blabbing a ton, but not saying any word consistently and in context. She did say "gosh"...or what sounded like it right after vic said it. It was funny.

I love my girls

Sigh...

I cannot wait for December 19th. I am so ready to be done with this stress and move on to some new stress...Haha! I know the stress is inevitable. It's a super long confusing story, but I found an internship placement. For the licensure board, I have to have a licensed school counselor as my supervisor who fills out my paperwork. The elementary school I'm at has a licensed social worker in the counselors position. BUT a 5th grade teacher there has her counseling license and agreed to fill out my paperwork. What was odd to me was that after asking several times, she'd never answer me about the name of the counselor or if I should speak with her. We met up and she told me she was going to leave the counselor out....again, odd. Well, the counselor found this out and got upset (overly if you ask anybody else besides her). So after thinking I secured an internship, I was faced with the fear that it wouldn't work out. But it did and I'll start with her on Wednesday! I've got 65 direct hours to go (face-to-face contact with students or parents) and 140 indirect (anything else related). The direct are the big ones. I've got about 5 weeks to get em done. Included in that is 3 days off for Thanksgiving break and 2 days off for parent teacher conferences. I can do it though!! Nothing is going to stop me from graduating in December. Then I'll try to plan to take my Praxis II (licensure exam) in January I think. I can take it January 9th or March 13th. I'm shooting for the Jan one. It costs me $130 to take it, so I'll have to hope for Christmas or graduation money to fund this. When I took the GRE (the test you have to take prior to getting into graduate school) I was able to get a fee waiver because I'm poor...but they assume grad students have money. That's the only explanation for charging us more tuition, don't you think? Ha.

I just found out on saturday that we will no longer be receiving childcare assistance. Sad. Very sad. Fortunately we have to pay only $25/week per kid. However, I have no income so I can't afford to pay anything! Ugh. Vic said "well, we need to find you a job". I cannot put off finishing internship when I'm thisclose to being done with it. That and how in the hell will I find any non-retail job willing to work with my internship hours, daycare hours and Vic's work hours. Not.gonna.happen. Duh.

Anyhow, The girls are doing great. Kyliana has been on good behavior in school. For a while she was laughing at and ignoring her teacher when she was asked to do something. Now she'll get computer time for good behavior. This child is computer obsessed. NOT a good thing! But she can type her name very well. I didn't use computers in school until I was in 9th grade! Now they have computers in every classroom in pre-k! Nuts. Makes me feel even older. I dread the day Kyliana has to show me how to do something!

Kamaya is a scooting machine. It's weird to see how different my kids are/were. Kyliana couldn't even sit up on her own until about this age. Kamaya has been doing it since 5 months old. Kyliana got around by rolling and rolling and rolling. Kamaya is scooting. You can tell Kami wants so badly to be mobile. I think she'll be the one who works on mobility before her verbal skills. Ky was the other way around. That child could have a 5 minute conversation with you at 18 months old. She was also making a lot more clear word sounds at Kami's age. Kamaya hardly makes any. I predict that Kamaya will be the social, outgoing, into all sports kind of girl and Kyliana the shy, introverted, girly sports (if any). I could be way off with the sports thing, but I can almost promise you Kyliana will continue to be the shy girl and Kamaya will turn into the outgoing one. Ky is so much like me and Kam so much like Vic. He's the happy, talkative, social guy and I'm the depressed, shy, stay at home girl.
I'm in NO rush to find out how these girls will turn out though. I wish time would slow down.