Another great update for 20 Zdenek's 20 states

The same guy that responded before has responded again. I responded to the email he had sent me from before, giving him a link to my blog page.
This is a little of what he wrote to me:

I just thought I'd let you know that based on your blog we probably have more in common than just our name. I'm guessing from your postings your a single parent (I am too) who is also working on getting a degree. I have been trying to juggle working full time during the day, raising my daughter and taking part time classes in the evening to get a degree too. A little less than a year ago I realized I needed to spend more time helping her with school work at night and I starting feeling guilty about being away when I was in class. So I decided to take a break from school. Since then, I have really missed learning and the feeling that goes along with knowing I was on my way toward earning something that would build a better future for us, and that no one could take away from me. I have thought about going back, maybe through an online program if I could find one that I thought was reputable enough.

Anyway, I just thought I would tell you that because based on what you wrote, I think you have a really great outlook on life and I think its great that you are raising two children and working hard to finish your education at the same time. It is inspiring to me maybe it will be the final push I need to get started again myself. I can definitely understand and respect the fact that neither of these tasks is easy and together it can be really hard at times, but I truly hope you succeed with this project and all your other work and I am happy to have been even a small part of it.

I sure am happy you could be a part of it too Andrew. And I sure do hope you decide to go back to school, I know it would be worth it!
And in the wise words of Nike I say 'just do it'!

I thought everyone would think this is very nice, hope you all enjoyed this wonderful response I have gotten.

My Final Project, ... for this class

When I started thinking about this project I wanted to do something to do with harmony. I started out thinking how can I show harmony as I see it. So I made a rose on the ground with a little bumble bee on it out of clay. I thought, this symbolizes harmony for me. The bee needs the flowers pollen, and the flower needs the bee to take the pollen. The circle of life, I was going to paint it and have it fired but it didn't make it. This is what it looked like before it fell apart.

So, after the tragedy of my rose and bee breaking. I crushed it up, added water, and began again.

This time I was thinking, how can I really show harmony from my point of view. I knew I wanted to use clay to do this project because I love working with clay. But what could I do to show harmony? Well the most harmonious thing around my house is my white shepard dog Sugar and my orange cat Garfield. They give each other kisses, play together, and sleep next to each other often.

This is them sitting together. Aren't they so cute? Heres a couple more just for fun.

Aww, they are so cute. It is funny how well they get along though. Garfield was born here, so this has always been his home. When we got Sugar though, Garfield wasn't very happy at all. Sugar was huge even when she was a puppy. Garfield thought for sure we had brought a kitty eating machine home. He had a real hard time coming out from the back of the house for more than two weeks. He would sneak out leaning against the walls the whole way, then scurrying out quickly just to go to the litter box and to get food. He hated this big thing we brought home, I think he hated us for bringing Sugar home for a while. Sugar always got excited when she saw Garfield even though he hated her. We think she always knew that they would be great friends someday. She was right! Now Garfield loves her so much that they hang out together all the time.
Enough about all that, this is what I made to symbolize harmony in my household.

This is the best story I have to describe not judging a book by it's cover. Our cat was judging our new puppy by it's very large cover, but he couldn't have been more wrong about her. And now they live happy in harmony together. Once enemies now friends forever.