It’s redundant to say I’ve been busy. Everyone is busy. Life is busy. I am taking 8 credit hours this semester and it’s been a lot of work. But I am LOVING every minute of it! Even the homework. It’s safe to admit I’m becoming a nerd. I’m among nerd loving friends, right?

I’m taking my first online class and am enjoying the experience. It’s a required Office 2010 class and since I have a Mac at home, I have been frequenting the school’s computer lab on weekends. Luckily, the assignments are pretty manageable. I’ve learned I do much better at the hands on tests than the multiple choice or true/false tests. Very surprising discovery since I used to memorize flash cards and could write my way out of a room with no doors during my undergrad studies in Journalism and English.

My other class is Web Design 1 and it has been so much fun! I like using Dreamweaver, but also really like coding using HTML. There are certain things that are much easier with Dreamweaver. I’m working on finishing up a project that’s due at the end of the semester in a few weeks. We have to create an original web site. It has to be at least 11 pages of content and also has to fulfill certain criteria that we’ve learned in class.

I decided to do a resume/portfolio site for myself with the intention of posting it to my own domain. Here’s where I give a special thanks to Matt for hosting kevandmon.com and now *drumroll please*: monicahackney.com.

Next semester I’m going to be taking 9 credit hours. It’s only 1 more credit hour than I’m taking now, but it’s 3 classes instead of 2: Web Graphic Concepts (uses PhotoShop), Web Design 2 (more HTML and Dreamweaver, but more advanced) and Web Animation (uses Flash). I am really looking forward to learning more!

In the meantime, I just finished another project for my digital photography class. The assignment was to use 3 to 5 original photos and combine them into 1 PhotoShop document. The idea was to be creative and make some kind of an illusion with the photos, something that is believable when you look at the outcome, but wouldn’t happen naturally.

I used these photos that I took at the zoo last weekend:

And I made this:

Next up, the time I spent 3 months on crutches less than 2 years ago when I missed a step and crash landed at the bottom of the stairs on my foot, badly spraining my ankle. That one is still causing me problems and likely will for a long time.

Then there was the time a few months ago when I jammed my hand on the knob of the exercise bike because I was turning it the wrong way.

The most recent idiotic injury happened yesterday. I went outside after lunch to get some fresh air. When I came back in, I put my sunglasses back in their case and before I thought about closing it my right hand bumped the lid and it clamped down hard on the tip of my left pinky finger. It hurt like a b*tch. I couldn’t bend it at the top joint at all. I also couldn’t type because every time the tip of my finger hit a key it sent a shooting pain up my finger. After icing it for awhile it was pretty numb. I felt around and could feel something moving around. Then it  felt like something popped back into place. I’m pretty sure what I felt was the bone and it popped back into place. After that it felt better, so I think the top part of my pinky was dislocated. Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Today it’s just a little sore where the case closed on it. I bruise slowly and am waiting for it to start turning purple. Let’s hope I can make it awhile before another silly injury.

I have a lot of photos of myself with various family members and friends in a photo album, but most of the older photos I’d prefer to use are at my parents’ house in a box. 2 and a half hours away. I did have one old photo of my mom. This is what I’ve decided to use for the project:

You can see my own writing from the back showing through it next to her head plus some scratches. These are all things I’ll be working on removing. I’ll be sure to share the finished corpse!

I graduated 10 years ago with a major in Journalism with a Public Relations emphasis and minors in English and French. I really enjoyed the curriculum and assumed I’d be wearing power suits by now and kicking corporate ass. What I didn’t realize is that after being removed from school for a few years and living in the real world, that’s not what I wanted to do at all. You guys know me, I wear t-shirts, jeans and sandals. I’m not the power suit, claw your way to the top kind of person.

When I started at CMU 15 years ago, the internet was so new. I remember being captivated by what it meant for the future. I started my first website in 1996. Everything had to be coded in html and every photo had to be scanned in before posting. And you couldn’t just post a photo like you can now, you had to upload it and enter the code in to link to it. There weren’t classes you could take for a career in anything web related at the time. But, it was something I’ve always enjoyed. Even the coding…it brings out my inner geek.

I came to the realization that if I’m going to go back to school, it’s either now or never. I checked some books out of the library on web design to be sure it was something I wanted to pursue. One book had tutorials that you could do along with reading and it was so much FUN!

And so, here I am a month into working toward a Multimedia Communication Certificate to eventually work as a web designer. The only class I could get into once my admissions paperwork went through is Beginning Digital Photography. We’re using PhotoShop CS4 and I’m learning so many cool tools for photo editing. I’ll never look at a digital photo the same way again. Which also means I’m probably going to edit every single one I get printed from here on out.

I just finished my first school project in a decade. The assignment was to take photos of anything at all and narrow it down to 36 to review with the instructor. He helped us narrow it down to the 4 best for editing. And I want to share my work because it was fun, rewarding and I’m proud of how they turned out. Below you’ll see the before photos on the left and the final edited photos on the right.

My class goes until the first week of August and I can register for fall classes in July. I’m currently spending 5 hours in class for 12 weeks. It’ll be 4 hours a night for each class for 15 weeks in the fall. I’m hoping to get into the Dreamweaver class and take a basic required computer class online. If all goes well, I’ll be done before the end of next year!

This isn’t the first time we’ve had a photo posted on PITNB. I submitted another one after our last trip to Colorado. You can read my blog post about it here, or you can go here instead to see it on PITNB.

It was a team effort. I put on the green frosting and Kev did the white dots and face. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it turned out way better than I imagined!

Now I need some ideas for my Cinco de Mayo birthday cupcake. Maybe a sombrero? Something else Mexican inspired? Post your ideas!

There are a couple spots in our basement that have been bothering me, one of which was a corner housing our camping gear. This corner isn’t one I see often because it’s on the opposite side of the stairs from where our basement living room is set up. But I knew the pile was there.

We made a trip to IKEA yesterday and picked out a shelving unit to better organize and store our camping gear. If you’ve ever purchased furniture at IKEA, you know it comes flat packed in boxes with picture directions. After a few hours of putting it together, realizing it wasn’t quite right, taking it apart and putting it back together again, Kev successfully transformed the pile into this:

That sound you heard was my sigh of relief.

We have an exercise bike in our basement. I’m shorter than Kev, so every time I use the bike after him I have to lower the seat, and vice versa. There have been a couple times where the knob to lower it is too tight and I have to ask him to come down and loosen it for me.

Today was one of those days, but Kev wasn’t home. Rather than give up right away, I tried everything I could think of to get some kind of a grip on the knob to turn it: my fleece jacket, a blanket, a gardening glove…you get the idea. After 10 minutes you’d think I would’ve given up, but no. I had worked up a sweat just trying to loosen it and I thought of one more thing to try. I grasped a 2 pound weight covered in rubber and lodged it in one of the grooves. You can see where this is going, right? The knob didn’t budge, but the weight and my hand went flying. One of my knuckles took the brunt of it and it started throbbing immediately.

After that I came upstairs and ate dinner. An hour later, I have a big red bump on my knuckle and it hurts to touch it or bend my finger. Kev is home now and lowered the seat for me in case I decide to try again tonight. Moral of the story is to be careful with exercise equipment. It can be more dangerous than the actual work out.

Update: I discovered I was turning the knob the WRONG WAY. Must remind myself to chant righty tighty, lefty loosey from now on.

Yesterday was my appointment with that doctor and I finally have some answers as to what’s going on. He agreed with my other doctor on what was showing up on the MRI. He also said that it doesn’t look bad enough for surgery at this point because scar tissue is going to continue to grow. It shouldn’t be causing me all the pain, swelling, limping and locking up that I’m experiencing.

After examining both my feet and having me stand up, he determined that the problems are caused because I stand/walk pronate. Meaning rather than my feet pointing straight forward like they should, mine point out a little bit. It’s never been an issue, but all that extra weight that gets put on the outside of my foot is what’s causing the problems on an already unstable ankle.

He gave me a cortisone shot and told me to get orthotics to put in my shoes that don’t already have arch support. I have very high arches and hopefully the orthotics will help to distribute the weight more evenly when I walk. He said to give it 6 weeks and if I’m still having problems to come back. Then we’ll consider other options or surgery as a last resort.

I feel so much better now that someone could tell me why I’m still having these issues and that I have a plan!