Jayla's Credo

I strive daily to be the best I can be, regardless of the circumstance or situation. I desire to help as many people as possible every single day. I am tender-hearted towards people with disabilities of special needs. I am committed to my family, and they are my top priority. I am devoted to my husband, and the gift of marriage. I am committed to my children. I am my children’s advocate. I am devoted to my Christianity. I will let my voice be heard in everything. I will not be silent. I am committed to having fun and being carefree.

2/8/15: Free-writing Post #5

I packed up as much stuff as I could to take to David’s apartment, and was on my way. I was officially a “free girl” and didn’t have to obey to anyone’s rules. I was so excited to not be a dog on a leash anymore. It was amazing. I could do what I wanted whenever I wanted. I had never had that complete freedom before.

I got settled in at the apartment, and was good to go. David’s brother used to live in that apartment with him, and would be leaving to go to college soon, so I would be able to have more room in the apartment. We helped his brother pack up and move his things and get them to where he was going to be staying. A few days later, his brother was officially moved out. It was just David and I in the apartment. When his brother moved out, he left a few things that he didn’t need on campus, which then became mine. He didn’t need his twin sized bed or dressers, and those items really helped me out. I didn’t or couldn’t bring those things with me when I left my parents’ house.

We got the apartment organized and situated how we liked it, and it felt awesome. David had one bed in the bedroom, and I had another. I was able to put my clothes and things in the dresser and closet, and everything was put away. This living arrangement worked well for us, and everything was great. My parents knew that I was living with David, but David’s family did not. We told them that we were living together, and that this was how it was going to be. They didn’t really like it at first, but they didn’t have any say in what we were going to do.

Our living situation worked out great. David and I both worked, but we each had our own vehicles, so we could each come and go as we wanted. Our schedules were pretty similar. We both worked mornings and early afternoons, and would both be home in the evenings. I liked being able to go to work and then come home and spend time with him. We had lots of fun. His apartment had a pool, so we got to go swimming a lot. We did lots of fun things together, and enjoyed our time together.

Eventually I told David that I wanted to get an animal for the apartment. He didn’t really like the idea, but he let me pursue getting one. We decided to go the Humane Society and see what they had available. We didn’t really want a kitten, so we looked at the puppies instead. We were both fixated on one cage there. The cage had two puppies in it; they were from the same litter. We asked if we could see them, and he picked up the white one, and I picked up the black one. We liked both of them, but knew that we could only get one. I really liked the black one, and so we decided to see what he was like. They had a little area where we could take him for a walk and make our decision.

We walked the dog around for a while, and he loved spending time with us. I told David that I really wanted this dog, and he agreed with me getting him. The person who had dropped him off at shelter had named him Duke, and we liked the name. We decided to keep him named Duke, and took him home with us. 

Word Count: 606 words

Know Your Audience Analysis

The Know Your Audience assignment in our previous lesson was great since we don’t see our classmates face to face. We got to know each other better, and ask fun questions at the same time. There were a lot of questions posted on the Discussion Board, with a wide variety of answers. I liked all of the questions, but a few of them stuck out to me.

My favorite question was by Michelle Robinson. It was interesting to see how many people were from Missouri or born elsewhere. The results were close to half and half. I was a little surprised by the results. I figured that there would be a lot more Missouri natives instead of the numbers being close together.

Another question I liked was posted by Misty Peak. As a parent, I like to know other parents. Even though I will never know most of the people in this class, I still like to know other parents. The numbers were more spread apart on this question. In our class, it appears that 15 of us are parents, and 9 of us are not. I calculated our average number of children, and thought the result would be higher. Our average number of children is 2. As a class, we have a total of 35 kids.

I am always a fan of cat versus dog questions, and was happy to see that this question was posted on our blog (Marcella Parks). Dogs were quite a bit more popular than cats in our class. 21 students like dogs, and 7 students like cats. This question also had some neither/undecided answers. Neither/undecided had 6 student votes, which was very close to the cat total. Ever since I can remember, I have been an animal lover, so to see neither responses was interesting.

The question that seemed to have the most variety of answers, was Ms. Anthony’s question about our color of attitude. I was surprised to see so many colors listed. I figured that basic colors would be the main choices, and that a lot of our answers would be the same. Instead, we had 12 different color options, and the top choice was a combination of colors. The top single color choice was a tie between gray and blue.

For this assignment, multiple people asked the same or similar questions regarding moving to another place or traveling. It seems like everyone wants to move somewhere else or travel a lot, if we had the time to do so. A lot of people might also be thinking what it would be like to not be in school or burdened with everyday life.

Overall, it seems that our class has a variety of opinions and are very diverse. Some of our answers were similar though. I think that we have a good combination of diverse and similar in our class. I love that we are more diverse, however. It will make our discussions much more interesting and involved.

Word Count: 496 words

2/7/15: Free-writing Post # 4

Yesterday, I left off on my blog with meeting my husband for the first time. We did stay in touch and got to know each other, and eventually we got married. After our initial date, we began to talk on the phone and text regularly. We talked about anything and everything, and we talked a lot. I liked him and wanted to get to know him more and more. It was hard for us to get together places though. My parents were very protective of me and wouldn't let me go many places. I had a driver’s license and my own car, but they still wouldn't let me go. I began to make up excuses of where I was going, and would have him meet me there so we could talk for a while. I would often go to the library to work on school work and would have him meet me there a lot. Once I started meeting him there, I never worked on school work at the library, and just spent time with him. My parents didn't know that I wasn't doing school work and hanging out with him, so it worked great. I still got all of my assignments done on time.

Eventually I let my mom know that we were going to hang out regardless of what they said, and that they should just let me spend time with him anyway. My mom didn’t like the idea very much, but she talked to my dad, and they began to loosen some restrictions. I was able to hang out with him certain days and times, and at first that was fine with me. I began though to get very annoyed with not being able to make my own decisions and do what I wanted with my time, so I told my parents I was going to move out. I told them that I was going to stay with his sister for a few days and get away from all of their rules. I had truly planned to stay with his sister, but I didn’t like the place she was staying at, so I told David (my future husband) that I couldn’t stay there. He told me that I could stay at his place and sleep in the bedroom and that he would sleep on the couch.

I liked that idea even better, and stayed there for a few days. After I had been there for a few days, my mom called me and asked if I would come home and give my parents another chance. I didn’t really want to, but I told them I would. When I got back home though, my dad was still being really strict and I didn’t want anything to do with that. I told them that I would stay a few days with David and then stay one night with them and keep doing that pattern. I began to try that, but I still didn’t like having absolute freedom at David’s, and then rules at my parents’ house. I told my parents that I just couldn’t stay at their house anymore but that I would still stay in touch with them quite frequently.

Will continue again on tomorrow’s post. 

Word Count: 538 words

2/6/15: Free-writing Post #3

For this blog, I think I will tell you about how I met my husband. The other piece to my happiness. Family, my children, and my husband make me very happy. I have been married to my husband for 7 years now. When I met him, I was a junior in high school. I had never seen or heard of him before. I had got to know the girl I sat by in my computer class, and one day she told me that she wanted me to meet someone. I didn’t really want to meet anyone, but I agreed that I would. I could always just meet the person, and then leave them alone after that if I didn’t like them.

After agreeing to meet this person, I began to ask her more questions about this person. How old were they, what did they look like, etc.? I should have asked these questions before agreeing to meet the person, but I didn’t. She let me know that she had never met him either, but her boyfriend was good friends with him and they both thought that he and I should be together.

We decided on a date and location and then the wait was on. We decided that we would do a double date at Lighthouse Lanes Bowling Alley.  I can’t remember how long it was from the initial conversation until we had the double date, but I think it might have been the same week. The night before we were to meet, I decided that I might look better if I was a little darker skinned. I am a pretty pale skinned girl, and I didn’t think that was attractive. Unfortunately, I don’t tan very often, so I didn’t know how much time to tell the worker at the tanning salon. I guessed a number, and off I went to get darker skin. When the timer went off, I was nice and toasty warm, and was ready to go home and take a nap.

Once I awoke from my nap, I went to the bathroom and noticed my skin in the bathroom. It was a little red on my cheeks, and quite a bit brighter on my shoulders and legs. I had turned into a human lobster! I wanted to just add a bit of color to my skin, but not turn bright red. That wasn’t going to be good for my date. I kept putting Aloe-Vera lotion on my skin to try to take the red out faster, but it wasn’t working very well. That night when I was trying to sleep, it was virtually impossible since I was so red and so burnt. My whole body hurt and if anything touched it, it hurt like hell.

The day finally came for my date, and the time went by pretty slowly. I stayed at home and didn’t do anything, and then finally got ready to go. I was still pretty red, but I didn’t want to back out of the date, so off I went. I got to Lighthouse Lanes and waited for the others to arrive. I saw my friend arrive, and we waited for the boys to show up. My friend said that they would be there any minute, so I began to scan the parking lot like crazy to try to get a glimpse of who the guy might be. I finally saw two guys walking together, and my friend told me which one I was going to meet.

I met him and we began to talk, bowl, and have fun. We all had a great time. We agreed that we would stay in touch and get to know each other better and see what happened from there. To see what else happens after we left our date that night, you will have to stay tuned for another blog.

 Word Count: 644 words

2/5/15: Free-writing Post #2

Well my first blog post went alright. At first even with a prompt, my mind was blank. I couldn't get anything out. My first post took about an hour and a half to complete. Today I think I will write about becoming a parent.

I love my children to pieces. Becoming a mother was one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me. I first became a mother to my son Joseph. I remember thinking that I might have been pregnant with him, but no pregnancy test would turn positive. I was actually pregnant at that time though. My pregnancy wasn’t that bad, and Joseph was born on April 14, 2009. I never thought that we would ever have any more children. I grew up as an only child, but my husband grew up with 3 other siblings. I never wanted to have a lot of kids, but 2 sounded like a good number to me.  Finances were so tight though, it wasn’t possible to even try for another child. However, when my son was 4, I decided enough was enough. Money wasn’t going to get any better, and we would deal with the struggle and make it through somehow. We got lucky and I became pregnant fairly quickly after deciding to have another child.

I hoped and hoped for a girl. I didn’t want to have more than two children, and I desperately wanted to have one of each. It was the longest wait to get to 18.5 weeks when I would have the ultrasound to determine what our baby’s gender was. I wanted to know as soon as I found out that I was indeed pregnant with our second child. I wanted to know if I was carrying a girl. I wanted to be able to go buy the pink frilly clothes you see at the store, and the pretty dresses.

The day finally came that we got to have our ultrasound, and lo and behold, we were having a girl. Elizabeth Joy was born June 30, 2015. Joseph was so excited to be a big brother, and he does so well with her. 

Word Count: 358 words

2/4/15: Free-writing Post #1

This is my first blog for this assignment, and we will see how it goes. I looked up a writing prompt on one of the website’s that was on Ms. A’s website to help get me going. The prompt is to make a list of 10 things that make you feel any one certain emotion and to then write about one or several things on the list. Here goes….

My emotion I am choosing to write about: Angry

10 things that make me angry:

1. People driving like idiots on the roads

2. People being rude

3. People being disrespectful

4. People taking advantage of others

5. Being treated terribly

6. Not being appreciated

7. People not listening

8. People making fun of others

9. Having to do everything on my own

10. People smoking close to entrances of buildings

Explanations:

1. I absolutely hate people driving like idiots on the roads. I drive safely, but not so super safe that it causes more trouble than good. I am cautious on the roads. When I drive, I don’t want to speed around like a crazy person, or weave between lanes, passing people over and over. I just drive safe and want to get to the final destination safely. I also want my kids to be safe when I am driving.

2.  I hate when people are rude to others. It is so much easier to be nice to other people regardless of the situation. Treat others how you want to be treated. It is that easy. Why don’t more people understand that?

3. Pretty much the same explanation as number 2.

4. If someone is going to do something to help you, that is great. However, don’t take advantage of others. Don’t keep using them for the same thing over and over because you know they will do it. Also, don’t do certain things in a workplace towards someone because you know they will do whatever you do.

5. Along the same lines as number 2 also.

6. I am the type of person that if someone does something for you, you show them how appreciative you are and let them know. Don’t have someone keep doing things for you and not be appreciative. It will make others want to not keep doing things for you.

7.  I hate it when people don’t listen to you. If you need to tell someone something or talk to someone, they have to listen to you. If they don’t listen they won’t have any clue what was said or what to do. There is also the people who pretend that they are listening to you, but didn’t really. They will just occasionally nod their head or say yes.

8. I don’t like it when people make fun of others. For the last 4 years, I have worked with special needs patients or patients that have disorders. Most of those patients get made fun of constantly because they don’t act like everyone else. The only problem though is that most of them can’t control how they act. It is just who they are and they deserve to be treated like everyone else.

9. I get angry when I have to do things on my own. Sometimes at home, I have to do all the cleaning, cooking, taking care of the kids, etc. and wish that my husband was available to help also. It overwhelms me to have to do everything on my own. After working all day long and then having to do that, it is hard.

10. This one is probably the worst for me. I absolutely hate people smoking in front of entrances. We choose not to smoke because we think it is disgusting. I would prefer other people not to smoke, but I can’t make their decisions for them. However, if they choose to smoke, I don’t want to have to be involved in it. I don’t like having to walk through cigarette smoke to get inside Wal-Mart or something similar. If you want to smoke and ruin your lungs, go for it. But don’t make me be exposed to second hand smoke because you choose to smoke. Another factor in this that makes me angry is that my son has asthma. When we try to go to the store as a family, it makes it very difficult. If people are smoking by the doors, or have just recently quit, the smoke is terrible. It makes all of us cough to walk through it, but it is worse for my son. It makes his asthma act up, and I hate that for him. It is bad enough that he has asthma, but I get so mad that someone else’s smoke is hurting my son’s lungs. 

Word Count: 794