Long night...

First off... returning to work this week was rough. I really enjoyed vacation and now I am feeling overwhelmed by work and homework. It's a lot each week. I survived the first half of my degree and am praying that I can do so for the last half also. I am praying my headaches don't return, that I can find the time to read everything, understand my assignments well and formulate my thoughts well enough to remember what it is I am doing as a Masters degree student. As my current professors says, "You are masters of your education. Prove it!". And I must do all of this while working with all my kids at school... planning and preparing for them so that they too can be successful at what they are attempting. It's overwhelming, but I'll get there... :)

So last night after I began one of my assignments and had a pretty good grasp on things, we decided to watch a movie before going to sleep. It was after 1 by the time the movie was over. I let the dog out one last time, shut off lights, and was crawling into bed when I hear a knock or tap 3 times on one of our windows... it freaked me out. Shadow barked his vicious bark and it stopped. Nate was already buried in pillows and said he thought it was just the dog making noises, but I know it was a knock on a window near us and obviously Shadow knew it was something more than himself making noises. Then... not 2 minutes later we hear a bbgun or a paintball gun sound about 4 times hitting our fence or our neighbors fence and then all the dogs outside begin barking... and many of them rarely bark! We get up, hear more 'gun' shots and decide it could actually be a gun from pretty far away and not just some kids paintballing random stuff in our neighborhood, which has never happened to us. We've never had anything like this happen in our neighborhood. I decide to call the police just to get someone to patrol. We hear more shots, all of our neighbors are now awake and turning their lights on too. The cops wandered around our houses for like 20 minutes and we didn't hear or see anything more and then we finally go to bed at around 2:30... it was weird. This morning... no evidence of anything. No footprints in the snow near our windows, no paintball splatters or bullet holes (thank goodness!) and it doesn't seem like our neighbors had anything happen either. It made for a disturbing night and if it was just some stupid people messing around then oh well, but it would have been fun to watch the cops chase them or something... :) I always try to find the positive side to everything. And as Nate says, don't worry. You know how to use a gun too if it ever came down to it. I pray nothing ever happens where I would have to use a gun to defend myself!

So that was our long night... maybe I overreacted by calling the cops (which Nate thinks I did) but i don't care. If someone is going to harrass me and my neighbors like that, I want them to know I don't mess around and I use my tax money by calling the authorities. That's what they are there for.

Alright... enough recall of events. Must get back to my paper of the ADDIE model of instructional design. I know... so much more interesting huh? I love homework...