A Plethora of Pictures

First of all, I just learned how to spell the word "plethora".

Uh...so according to my camera's memory card (and the blog post pertaining to the meeting that happened 2 weeks ago), I failed to upload any pictures the last time I posted. Whattttt?

So, here we go. (Also, I acknowledge that my captions could probably be done without; however, since I am the author of this post, I get to decide what commentary goes into it, which means you're a little bit out of luck.)

Kat happily knitting away on these very long socks. Did these get finished? I have zero idea.

Um..über precious.

Happy Mary. This is lovely.

The most happy. LOVING the bow tie. So classy.

Madeline. Probably surprised by some wonderfully thought provoking comment I just made. Probably. And the reason she's not looking at me is because she's verifying the awe factor of my statement with the other members. I'm so sure.

A good pictorial indication of my mental state last week. For those of you who need a refresher, see last week's blog.

And now on to last week's pictures! I realize I failed to gain information about everyone's respective projects, so information is rather sparse here. At this point I shall again cue my own comments to make up for the lack of useful tidbits. (Speaking of tidbit, I had a waitress at Bob Evan's named Tidbit. Real life.)

Mother and daughter happily knitting up a storm. But clearly a very content storm.

Dat face. I feel like this is a little sassy. I can't remember what I did to deserve a sassy look, but here it is. Must have been good, though.

All of the concentration. Working on her Halloween costume I believe. A flapper. With leaves on her hips, if I recall, which is what she is currently beading.

Close-up of the beading. By that I mean I was playing with the zoom on my camera and needed a subject.

I don't remember Madeline wearing that shirt. But clearly she was sitting right in front of me. My eyes must have been turned off that night. If I had noticed this shirt at last week's meeting, I would have informed her that I am a fan of it.

I believe Lauren was trying to finish up an assignment so that she could spend some time knitting. Although, I regrettably had to dart away before I could see the knitting portion of her evening. Also, that is the face I give most of my technology related items.

Small update on my life: I am exponentially less stressed out than last week. And by that I'm not sure if I mean I'm just not letting myself get stressed over the mess that is my life or if I've actually got a handle on things. Sadly, it is probably not the latter..

2 more days this week and then break! Just in time, too. My sanity tank is running on E. (Sanity tank: a small portion of one's brain where one retains sanity, must be refueled regularly to avoid breakdowns, anxiety attacks, insanity, etc.) But I'm going to make it!

That being said, I should get back to studying for my accounting test tomorrow. I'm currently trying to teach myself two chapters worth of material. "Rough" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Anyway, ta ta for now!

Such is my life

Okay. So I might have been MIA for the past two weeks. I don't have much to say for that, except do note that I am making last week's blog post before this week's meeting. I think that means I'm not late yet. As for the blog from the week prior to last...well, yes. That one's just not going to be in existence.

I had been a little worried that my blog posts were going to center too much around my life instead of the happenings at the actual meeting because of how crazy my schedule has been and how little time I've been able to spend at Stitch 'n' Bitch. However, at last week's meeting the two of those became the same thing, so...there's that.

A big realization I had at last week's meeting: There are really simple solutions to my problems. Problems that, mind you, are causing me a rather unhealthy amount of stress.

The first problem I managed to acknowledge, not without a little struggle, was my texting issue. My name is Jordan and I'm addicted to texting. I check my phone so often it looks like I have a nervous tick. I so wish I was kidding about that. I've always known that it significantly decreases my ability to be productive and I've tried to have a strict no texting policy while I do homework. But that doesn't work because I feel detached from the world.

Stitch 'n' Bitch Solution: the Do Not Disturb mode on the iPhone. It's this nifty feature that silences all your notifications while it's engaged. You can set it to allow calls from certain people and such. But the idea was that I'd work for 50 minutes, with the mode engaged, not checking my phone, and then I get a 10 minute break to do whatever I want, which could potentially (and usually does) include texting. I worked on this a bit last week, but I am going to start using it more religiously because it helped a whole lot.

I complained about a few of my classes. And by "a few" I mean "all". Our professor friend Mary's (I just called her by her first name. I feel weird about this. But that's allowed, right? Right?!) advice here was to use my time better. If I'm not getting anything out of a particular class, then use it to sleep if I need to. Just...brilliant.

My dad has also told me to concentrate my biggest efforts on a few classes and just get by in the others. That's hard for the perfectionist in me, but that's a thought. And one of my friends called me up the other night (I think it was last night...) and just said "You're trying to do too much. You can't do everything." I get defiant when things like that are said, but he's right. I can't expect to be 100% invested in everything. I mean, by definition, that's impossible--there's only 1 of me. I have to split myself up. I don't know that there is anything I can (or would tolerate) giving up right now, but I can at least be more realistic of my own expectations for myself.

Also, I am going to go utilize the counseling services here and figure out ways to deal with my stress better. Otherwise I literally won't make it through the semester after another morning like this one. I had an anxiety attack in the middle of one of my classes. I was unbelievably restless, in a dead panic, and felt like I was going to burst into tears if anyone so much as touched me. Not again. Can't handle it.

And I'm going to start concentrating more on me. This girl is single (for the first time ever in college, mind you) and, by golly, everything is going to be about me for once. I don't have to think about anyone but me and I'm going to fully embrace that from here on out. Woo! So ready!

So I've got a plan of action for my assignments this week and hopefully I can make it to break without another bout of anxiety. Just 3 more days this week and 3 next week.

LET'S DO THIS!