Hi.

[King Monkey]

Hey Chrissy the photos you posted are great! A very cute and happy baby! I hope all is well for you.

[pips]

What. A week...MAN! School started the 16th. Before all of that, I had to handle all of that school stuff, find a day care for Kayleigh, and sign up for a program to help me pay for daycare. It was one of those, in order to give any info., I had to know info. from something else that I didn't know yet. Like I needed my non-existing school schedule to get Link (daycare help). I needed Link to start daycare. Stuff like that. I ended up rushing around to get all of that taken care of the day classes started.

For registration, I had all these classes I wanted written down from a paper the school gave everyone. At registration, I found out that that paper wasn't up-to-date and that I had to go online to find the available classes, which sucked. Barely any were available in the morning like I wanted.

The day before classes started, I walked into work to find out that my boss didn't like my schedule and wanted it changed, or he couldn't put me to work, which I couldn't understand, because I talked to my store manager about it, and she thought it was wonderful. Instead of getting ready for school and Kayleigh's daycare, I spent most of the night trying to find classes to add and drop in order to satisfy my boss. When I finally found something that could work, once again, my school's info. wasn't up-to-date, and I couldn't add/drop my classes by telephone or computer because of it. Instead I had to wait in line at school the next day (1st day of classes) along with getting a schedule faxed to Link, along with a bunch of other things that I don't remember that stressed the crap outta me.

Geez. The day of school, I was so stressed out about getting Kayleigh to daycare and getting to school early to do all my crap before classes, my mom started yelling at me like I wasn't paying attention to Kayleigh or something, and I started crying. After I calmed down, I felt sick the rest of the morning. It turns out that everything went fine....eventually. When I was in the line for adding and dropping classes, I found out I had to get an approval from some lady to get the class I wanted, so I waited in line for nothing and had to wait until classes were over to see this lady and get back in line.

The next morning I actually threw up. I felt better through class and into work. Once I got back home I felt sick again. Took a nausea pill and went to bed.

Thursday. I finally had time to go get my books. I got all the books I needed and at check out, found out that they stopped doing the financial aid credit the day before. Once again, uninformed about anything important going on in my school. I had to pay from my pocket. Luckily-ish, I just deposited my 160 dollar check that morning, so I had enough money to buy barely half of my books. I don't get a check from work til the beginning of Feb. Broke. Still no child support for some reason. Mom is helping me out. I should be getting any of the financial aid money I didn't use in the mail someday. Why the heck would they stop giving financial aid credit the first week of school? Geez.

Kayleigh got sick Thursday night. My sister and I ended up taking her to the hospital with a 104 temp. at 4:30 in the morning. We didn't get out til 8 or 8:30. Julie was late for work. I was just in time to get ready and leave. No nap. I had no sleep at all that night and had to go to school then work. Yippie. Luckily, my godmother was home to watch Kayleigh, since she's not supposed to go to daycare sick.

Now Kayleigh is so sick. I feel so bad. I am sick now. Blah. I talked to Kayleigh's dad. Luckily, he's gonna send me some money to help me out. He claims child support has been taking his money out of his pay, but I haven't gotten any info. yet. ???

Oh yea. Random things I forgot to mention.

I almost got rammed off the side of the road because of some dumbass impatient truck driver. All the trucks infront of him were slowing down to go in the weigh station. For some reason, he wasn't going there and dodged the back of the truck infront of him instead of slowing down and waiting for it to get out of his way all while I was about to pass him. I slammed on my brakes. Everything went flying. Luckily, no one was behind me to rear-end me. I hate idiots that can't drive. There are two reasons I swear...idiots on the road and video games. Yeah.

What else...

I have pictures from Christmas, but I'm too tired and busy to upload them yet.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Goodbye.

EDIT: Oh yeah. I overdosed on children's allergy medicine last night. I misread mL for mg on the dose cup. I was supposed to take 50 mg, but I took 50 mL. I was so dizzy and irritable and felt like I was gonna pass out. I went crazy on Kayleigh. I started yelling at her, because I was so tired, and she wouldn't sleep. Then I took her juice and threw it across the room. My sister came in to see what happened. I didn't even know I did it. I thought I was asleep. But yeah. Crazy week.

[pips]

I'm officially school-less again. I don't want to be, but I really had no choice.

I was going to drop two classes, but I wouldn't have gotten any refund, so I figured I might as well drop out and get some money back. I only had to pay for whatever classes I've been to so far (9% of my total cost). I am going to see if I can take one class in the summer and then 2 in the fall.

Link pays daycare fees for single mothers to work too, so I'm keeping Kayleigh in daycare so that I can work more. Maybe I can save up for worlds! Yeah right. I always find a way to be broke.

I want to start talking about footbag.

[Moxie]

I'm sorry to hear that you had to drop your classes. Keep trying to find time to play, it'll happen soon.

[pips]

There's still something wrong with me. I get nausous (sp) almost every morning...especially when I know I'm going out somewhere (work, store...). Then I am aware of it and worry about it every morning I wake up and end up feeling sick anyways. No. I am not pregnant. No way. It's like I am having some kind of panic attack. I'm scared to eat, cuz I don't want to throw up. I usually feel better later on in the day and eat something then. I thought all of this would end when I quit school. Something other than school must be bothering me. Or maybe now I am mad that I had to quit school. I dunno.

[pips]

Kayleigh Jan and Feb:















This video camera is so much easier than developing pics and then scanning them and all that junk.

I'm still trying to figure out how to edit videos.

Enjoy.

[pips]

I went to see Michael W. Smith with my mom last Saturday. It was pretty cool. I used to listen to him alllllllllllllllllllll the time when I was little. He played my favorite song, "Friends" for the encore. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I heard it. He had these guest musicians with him...Christa Black and Michael Olson. They were pretty cool. The girl was awesome. She had an awesome voice and could play the violin while singing. EDIT: Oh yeah! Michael Olson was playing this box along with Michael W. Smith. It was like drums...but a box. It sounded like this awesome thunder when he hit the middle of it and like hitting a box hitting the outsides. It was nifty.

Here are some more pics...me included!




















I was playing with the remote to the camera.

Kayleigh is hard to get a good pic with. Hehe. And she pulled my hair in the process!

[pips]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYA-BUxfIK8

That is a video of Kayleigh eating Honeycombs off of the floor like some animal. Just a short test-out video. I can't edit anything, because the playback is horrible. I just made the video hoping that it would play better finalized. It did.

Why won't my editing playback work right? Is it possible to have a cheap ($20) firewire card...stupid editing program? I need some editing help.

I played some footbag today. Got footage of the first like 5 minutes or so. I thought I had an hour of battery power, but I mistook the footage available picture for the power available.

I will put the video up soon. Don't expect much. It was the first time playing in a long time, and I just got home from working.

It wasn't the best session, but I played. I'm happy I found time to do so. I missed it.

[pips]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3WNu-3J8U0

There's 2 or so minutes of me. I'm not real excited about it since I've been out of practice, but whatever. Go ahead and critique me if you want.

I want to just start all over.

Get a super-good foundation.

Be able to have long strings. Longer than 3 to 5 tricks.

I HATE being so inconsistent. I think that that's my worst flaw as a footbagger. I can't keep to fricken bag up long enough. AHHHHHHHHHHH.

Hehe.

Bye.

[Iron Clad Ben]

Don't beat yourself up so much. You were hitting all those moves both sides, they looked pretty good. As you do more you'll be able to simplify the motions so you don't have to exert so hard on each trick, that will make it easier to increase string length.

A lot of people think they're inconsistent. Heck I was reading Clavens' blog the other day and he thought he was inconsistent. You don't have to start over, but there's no harm in drilling the heck out of the basics. Yesterday I did legover > mirage > rpt for like a jillion contacts just to solidify my game.

You are rusty, that's OK. I'm not sure what your schedule is like but if you're at the point now where you can play a few times a week you'll be able to shake some of the rust off. The main thing is to keep a positive attitude. Just get out there and play. You're not trying to win any world championships or get sponsored by Nike or anything. You're just out there to play and have fun Progression will happen when you play regularly. There's no need to force it. Get out there and keep at it. I know a couple guys who stopped playing for a couple years and after a few months of starting over they could do everything they used to be able to do plus more. Hang in there.

[Moxie]

Hey. I'm glad to see that you were able to get in some kick time and make a short video. Keep it up, you know it's hard coming back after a while, so try to remember to be happy with yourself for playing at all.

[pips]

Thanks Ben and Emily. I actually did realize somewhere during my session that I was finally playing and better enjoy it. I actually even thought that maybe I'd just kick around for fun, but I ended up getting bored of that and tried more strings.

I am rusty, but I don't think I am as bad as I am. I was playing with my Mosher bag for the second time. I think it needs a lot of breaking in to do, cuz it was bouncing everywhere.

I hope to find more time again soon.

[pips]

We went to go see the Mothman in Point Pleasant, WV on Sunday. It was a pretty fun day.










Oh. I bought a bunch of videos from Freedom Footbags. I got the 8 VHS deal and BOTS. Yay. My first footbag collection.

[dp]

It that mothman?

That's a big tree stump.

[Pyroman924]

Your expressions in the 4th picture down are priceless! Nice pictures.

I enjoyed the video. I tjust looks like you need to practice a bit more and drill. You'll be back to where you were in no time. I love the bothsidedness too.
I have a lot of respect for somebody who can balance your time as you seem to do. With your daughter, footbag, work, and everything else that's probably going on in your life it's probably hard to fit everything in.

[Just call me hagesy]

Hello there chrissy

You should try and do your alternating clippers the same way you would do alternating butterflies. Watch any one good when they do alt butterflies and rewatch your video when you are doing alternating clippers and you will know what i mean.

When you do your toe delays you are sort of raking them towards yourself. you want to keep your upper leg (above the knee) and lower leg (below the knee) at right angles. So you have a straight set and are able to do good toe set tricks in future.

hope this helps.

[pips]

Danny: Yep. That's Mothman. I live 40 minutes from where he used to dwell. I have a bunch of Mothman pictures if you want to see them. They are posted on myspace and facebook if you have either of those.

Alan: Hehe. It was a very sunny day. And thanks. It is tough trying to find time for everything, and everytime I think I got it down, something changes. Blah. I'll figure it out someday.

Anthony: Thanks. I'll keep that in mind the next time I get a chance to play. I've been waiting forever to get a video camera so that I could post videos and get advice from them. I bet a lot of my technique is messed up from being such a solo player. Once I start playing more often for good, I'll set up a challenges topic for me.

[pips]

I just had an awesome session. Well technically. It would have been even better if I could have played more, but I had to quit. I wasn't feeling right. I don't know if it is from not being used to playing in direct sunlight or if it was my body still being messed up from last night. I had another panic attack last night and was a little uneasy all day so far. But anyways...I am capturing some video now (20 minutes) and will post it when I can. I feel like this will be a lot better than my first video. Better shred. More tricks and strings. I even pulled a ducking trick outta nowhere on my first attempt for the day.

[pips]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA3XB7qCXmE

I finally got this edited. I kept getting dismotivated to finish editing because of my playback quality. It sucked, but when I finished the video, it wasn't half as bad. So there ya go. I left some drops in to see if maybe I was doing something wrong and you guys could help me. Oh. I also put some toe stalls in to see if I was doing them like Anthony said to. Ha...and I also accidently left a wedgy pick in there.

[Not-so-ripped Warrior]

Nice video!

In my opinion, your toe stalls should be done closer to your body. Your upper body should stay over the bag more. You don't want to be leaning back with your feet way out in front.

Sort of along those same lines, after each toe stall you don't need to swing your leg forward to set the bag back up. Try to think about going straight down and straight back up sometimes.

This being said, your mirages are really consistent as is, so you can take my advice with a grain of salt if you'd like.

Oh, and nice looking clippers! Keep it up!