Happy Easter everyone!  Hope everyone is having an enjoyable day and is able to spend some time with family. 

I am just sitting here working on Assignment #3 thinking to myself that I don't know what happened to the last week.  I can't believe that Spring Break is already over.  I had such good intentions to get so many things done.  From one perspective we got A LOT done on the basement (which is good seeing that carpet is being installed Wednesday), on the other hand besides the basement work, I got nothing accomplished.  The week just flew by.  The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy too!  We have quite a few detail items to finish in the basement, work has been crazy lately, and we have guests coming from Duluth the next 2 out of 3 weekends, which includes my parents who have not been here since Thanksgiving so we want to have the basement completely done by the time they come down.  Lots of pressure!

Just wanted to drop a quick line...see you in class Tuesday!

Mara :)

So...took the midterm yesterday.  It was okay..  There were a couple of questions that my mind just went blank on.  I don't think I did horrible, but I am not necessarily excited to see my results.  On some positive weekend notes;  We FINALLY finished tiling (well not me...but my husband!).  The first tile went up New Year's Day and it has been a non stop process since then (I am betting that Kris wished he wouldn't have build such a big shower and bathroom!).  But it is done and it is all really starting to come together.  As soon as our shower door comes in we will have a fully functioning 2nd bathroom.  

And better yet...my niece and nephew were in town.  The family is moving back to the Waukesha area after spending the last five or so years in Chicago so Mom and Dad were out house shopping and we hung out with the kids.  I just can't believe how quickly they are growing up!  I don't even want to imagine what it will be like when I have my own kids!  I must say that a weekend can't get much better than that (minus the whole Midterm thing)!

Nothing really exciting to update on...still working on the basement and have even more white paint in my hair after this weekend!  I went to my hairdresser last weekend and she started working on my hair and promptly asked me if I had been painting recently.  I said yes.  She aid "I can tell...you have white paint in your hair!"  Oh well! 

Completed assignment #2 the other day.  Seemed to go quite well.  I am sure that there was a more efficient way to complete my coding, but all in all everything worked and I was very pleased! 

Interested to see what the midterm brings.  Spent some time this weekend at the library going through the chapters again and reviewing the lectures and my notes.  I am a little scared after having taken Dr. Haines' pretest at the beginning of the semester, but we'll just have to see!  I was excited to read that there are some opportunities for bonus points as I will take advantage of whatever I can get!  Have been doing some thinking about what I am going to do for my project and have some ideas.  I just want it to be something that is useful so hopefully something great will develop from there. 

Anyways...see you all in class tonight!

Good luck to all on the midterm! 

Happy Valentine's Day All!

A huge thank you to Dan who spent a few hours after class Tuesday night walking me through the entire download process for Visual Studio!  Now I am able to get to VB without a drive to campus! 

THANK YOU!

I don't think that I am meant to have VB on my computer!  Thank you to Dan who helped me resolve my downloading problems.  I was able to successfully burn the information to the 2 CD-ROMs and have also downloaded IsoBuster to my computer and everything seems to be in place.  The extracts have run...I can access the files on my computer, but wouldn't you know it, when I try to run the setup I get this an error saying that I have reached my install limit!  Go figure!  It then goes on to state that it may be possible that none of the installs were succesful, but either way I have reached my limit!  Yes, I have attempted multiple times, but nothing has seemed to work!  Looks like it is time to either break down and buy the CDs or plan on spending a lot of time on campus in the labs!  I typically have not thought of myself as being ignorant when it comes to computers, but after this weekend I am beginning to doubt myself!  Other than spending about 5 hours over the course of the weekend unsuccessfully trying to install VB I had a rather productive weekend.  I spent most of the hours this weekend painting (if you look close on Tuesday I will probably still have paint in my hair and on my hands!  Oil paint just does not come off!)  My husband and I are in the process of finishing off our basement (have been for almost a year now) and we are finally getting to a point where we are seeing an end in sight, we even talked about going and purchasing carpet sometime soon! 

Before...

Today...

So, I have been trying to download this VB software since getting home from class tonight and I am getting no where.  I found the correct version, put the two cds into my cart, sign into my account, and can then click on the download button and get the option to either run or save the software.  Either way I attempt I am getting nowhere.  What am I missing? 

I thought that I would use this first blog to introduce myself (a bit more than we did in class on our first night!).  My name is Mara Daiker, which I am still getting used to.  I just recently lost my identity of 25 years of Mara Anderson when I was married this past April .  I grew up in Duluth, MN which for those of you that are unfamiliar with the city is about 400 miles North of here, right on the tip of Lake Superior.  If you think it is cold here, it is REALLY cold there!  Winters here are mild in comparison.  Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a little, but it typically is always 10-15 degrees warmer here than it is there and the "good" seasons last about 2 weeks longer on each end then they do there.  I stayed in my home town for college attending the College of St. Scholastica.  St. Scholastica is a small Catholic college of about 1600 students and the entire school consists of 2 building plus residence halls (when I attended there were only about 1200), so beginning at UWM is a whole new experience for me!  I received my bachelor's degree in health information management and also minored in computer information sciences.  Shortly after graduation I moved to Milwaukee having accepted a job offer at Froedtert Hospital as an Operations Manager in the Health Information Management department.  So basically I uprooted my life of 21 years to move to Milwaukee, a city I had never been to before and where I knew no one!  However, it all worked out for the good!  I quickly made a few good friends down here and became active in some league sports (volleyball and kickball).  From these activities I met even more wonderful people, including my husband.  I quickly established myself here and now call Milwaukee home (even though I jump at every opportunity to head back up North!).  Two weeks after getting married this past Spring I "politely" conversed with my husband and informed him I was quitting my job.  Two weeks into marriage and I think my husband thought I was crazy!  I was just really ready to try something new.  I had a great group of people that I worked with at Froedtert and there are definitely things I miss, but I needed change.  I quickly found another job as an application analyst Columbia-St. Mary's and after a few more weeks at Froedtert and a couple of weeks to myself, I started in a completely different role than what I had previously had.  Work at CSM has been great.  The people I work with is great and the challenges that we face day to day on our project really keeps work interesting.  We are currently in Phase II (out of a yet to be determined numberr!) of our EHR implementation planning to "go-live" this coming Fall.  I have gotten a crash course in Nursing (working on a team of 6 with 4 of the members being RNs) and have been introduced to a completely different mindset of what is important in healthcare.  Work as been a whirlwind and everyday I learn something new.  To start school again at this point will be a little chaotic, but I really felt that I needed to do this so that I don't get to closed minded about what I am working on day in and day out at CSM.  Learning the ins and outs of one particular product is great, but at the same time I wanted a little more variety in what I am learning.  So here I am!  Looking forward to a great semester.

Here are a couple of pics of my favorite things...

My niece and nephew...Charlotte and Cameron...twins born less than a month after our wedding (now 8 1/2 months old)...and their Mom was in the wedding...she was a trooper!

My favorite person and the best day of my life!