12/31/2020:

Athena and I visited Mom today, to pick up Christmas presents. I'm more and more convinced Athena is an alpha. I tried to keep my eye on her the whole time we were there, but she still peed on Bo's bed in the kitchen and may have peed on the upstairs landing. She wanted to play with Bo today, but he's obviously afraid of her. He hid upstairs for most of the visit. 

Mom and I talked about all sorts of things. It's disconcerting the way she decides we've talked about me enough and abruptly changes the subject to something she's doing. I get the distinct impression she really doesn't want to talk about what I'm doing. Not that I need to focus the conversation on myself, but I like to at least feel part of the conversation. She gave me an awesome pair of purple Converse slippers, though.

 

Joyce sent jam. I guess it's all natural or something. Interesting flavor combinations, but I don't know when I'll use it. I've got a large jar of strawberry that's been in cupboard for at least 6 months, and apricot that's been in the fridge even longer. I did buy flour tortillas and peanut butter last time I was at the store, so maybe I will make sandwiches. 

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I've been avoiding schoolwork for the last 2 weeks. I finally logged on today to make sure my unit test homework was complete, and found out there is an Assessment module too. I had the impression everything he gave us over the break was for review, but now I'm not so sure.  

I ran the unit tests through the IDE's code coverage tool, updating them to complete coverage, but didn't come back after walking with Athena to get started on the Assessment. 

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Stephan's check finally arrived today, so I pinged Jackie and wrote him to let him know. I'm not cashing it until I hear from him it's ok, because Jackie said he'd been trying to stop payment on it. I'm glad I was able to tell him I won't need to move into Jeff's house. He mentioned in his letter it was a bad idea, which is what I'd told him when I brought it up in the first place. I'm less and less inclined to even speak with Jeff these days, so not being dependent on him is a very good thing. 

The prize from the Happy Hour Trivia Contest also arrived today. 

I figure it will last about 2 seconds with Athena, and there's really no other use for it. It did make me smile when I opened it though. 

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One of the students posted a link to Plex TV, which gives me even more content to watch. It looks like a mix between YoutTube and Twitch TV, streaming old movies along with personal content. 

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I'm not walking much these days. I can't avoid it entirely because Athena needs to walk, but the cold and grey and snow covered sidewalks are getting me down, I'm still eating all the things, too. I weighed myself and have gained back 5 lbs. Not surprising when my cupboard is full of cookies and crackers and crap. I also baked a cake today, with only myself to eat it. I need to start halving recipes like that. 

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Accomplishments:

Vacuum 1st floor

2K+ steps

Stretch

Wash car blanket

Watch Jeff Dunham comedy shows

12/30/2020:

I've been trying to find a way to get Athena to walk in the rain. Today was the first time we had a chance to try out her new raincoat. I was concerned it was too large, but now think it's just the right size. It hangs down over her tail and legs, keeping them dry, and the hood comes down far enough over her eyes it doesn't appear to bother her. Being completely covered didn't stop her from resisting the walk though. We started behind the garages again for that reason. I was able to get her down to the corner house, then beyond our yard to a few houses up the street. We walked up someone's driveway and she didn't resist when I turned away from our house to continue further. I'm not certain if that was a success though, considering it wasn't really raining at that point.  

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I thought getting to work on code would be easier when I finished watching The Mentalist, but that was not the case. I started watching Jeff Dunham and Gabriel Iglesius. I'm now involved in Mr. Igelsius, which is not half bad for a sitcom. 

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Nick sent this, which made me smile:

It's nice to hear from him most days, even if I don't always respond. I hear more from him than anyone else. Wonder if that will continue when he finally leaves Facebook, which he keeps saying he will do at the end of January. 

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Accomplishments:

Dishes

9K+ steps

Clean utility room

Rewash and dry laundry from when the dryer broke

12/29/2020:

I've been trying to get Brian to tell me what his schedule is this week. He doesn't seem to want to do that, and for the first time has not paid me a week or so early. 

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I finally finished the last of The Mentalist, then watched the premier of The Masked Dancer. It's disappointing. So far only one or two people can actually dance, and Paula Abdul is annoying. I don't even know who the other judges are, but they are also annoying. I'll probably watch the whole season just to see if anyone else can dance or if anyone improves. If the judges and host don't annoy me too much. 

What I should be doing is coding. I want to get the deck of cards problem done before we're back in session on Monday, and also wanted to get more done on my Random Character Generator.

I've also been avoiding housework for the last two weeks. I should get back to that, too.

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The dryer will cost me $400, which sucks. I hope the unemployment office gets the stimulus package into thier system quickly, because I'm running out of room on my credit card. I've been putting groceries, gas, and all other purchases on the card for the past few months. It's going to take me forever to pay it all back, even once I'm working again. 

I thought about purchasing a used dryer from Craigslist or something, but it wouldn't be the same size and I wouldn't have it by tomorrow, which is when the guy said he'd have the motor to fix the dryer I have. 

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Still thinking about Jeff whenever money stress comes up. I find I'm still thinking about him on a daily basis, but it's usually not until the end of the day when I'm getting ready for bed. At this point I'm all about the nope train. Yes, a part of me is still sad things didn't work out, but I can't imagine him changing enough for it to work between us. We really are incompatible because we have different definitions for the most important words, because he can't communicate what he's thinking and feeling, and because he blamed me for his own shortcomings. Even the cat thing was a bunch of hookum. He is willing to hurt a dog who jumps up on him, but I'm not allowed to make a mistake with his cat's medication. 

Yeah. Still angry with how that all went down. The blame. The lack of communication. I see romantic relationships on television now and I can't help but be disappointed. I communicated with him. He didn't communicate with me. 

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Athena and I finally got back up to 10K steps, this by trudging through 6 inches of snow. Trudging through snow takes a whole different set of muscles. I bought boots at Costco but they're too large, which also makes things difficult. 

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Accomplishments:

10K+ steps

Dishes

Clean stove

Watch The Masked Dancer

12/28/2020:

I had to actually go in to Thistledown to get my 2018 win-Loss statement. The woman there tells me "all you had to do was come in." Then they made me wait for a security guard to walk me out. I wouldn't have been there if they had responded to my request by phone! MGM was able to get me their statement overnight, by email. So disappointing. 

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I chatted with Amy a bit, and am a bit concerned. She didn't remember if Craig was still living here. then again, I didn't remember I'd already talked to her about the cardiologist, so I guess that's fair. Time runs together these days and there's nothing to hang a memory on.

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Accomplishments:
9K+ steps

Grocery shoppping

Bacon

Cookies

12/27/2020:

I talked to Mom about getting together for xmas. Also, to get her appliance guy's name. My dryer motor humms and I can turn the drum manually, but the motor isn't cranking the drum. I tried to look up on YouTube how to fix it, but it's not an easy replace a part fix. The motor itself isn't turning. 

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It appears President Trump finally signed the stimulus package, which means I should start getting unemployment again soon. My rent is paid through January and I can call to push my car payment back one more month. It looks like I can either make full payments for the debt renegotiation, or have enough money to pay for taxes in April. I'm already $250 behind on the final payment of the debt renegotiation agreements. I don't know if making partial payments will put me further behind. Not that I can do anything about it if it does, except make up the difference once I'm working again. I have until November to make up that difference. 

I may also be able to get assistance with my rent. I haven't heard from CHN and am not sure how the rental assistance funds from the stimulus package will be distributed, but I do intend to look into that as well. 

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Accomplishments:

Dishes
4K+ steps

Balance Accounts

Shovel front walk

12/26/2020:

This month's Bark Box had a dud. The bone had hard plastic around the outer edge and soft plastic inside. I'm not sure if the hard outer ring breaking or the spikey-ness of the inner part made Athena bleed. It didn't matter. I threw the whole thing out as soon as I saw this:

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Michelle next door gave Athena an Xmas gift. I have a longer video of her shredding the fur, but it's too large a file to post here. Regardless, she's having fun with it. 

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Jackie asked me for my address today. Apparently Stephen thinks he messed it up when sending me money, because Jackie and Kat already have thiers. This is a big difference from the last time I was communicating with him, when he was begging me for money. Not that I want his money, but I can't turn anything away right now. 

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Accomplishments:
4K+ Steps

12/25/2020:

It's going to be another low step day.

This tuckered me. It's up above my boot-tops.

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I spent yet another day watching The Minimalist. I really need to start working on code.

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My dryer has died. The motor buzzes but the drum doesn't turn. I need to check YouTube and see if I can figure out what's wrong with it, then see if I can fix it myself. 

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Chris is talking about visiting early February, as if the virus will be controlled by then. I pinged both him and Craig, wishing them a happy holiday. 

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Accomplishments:
2K+ Steps

12/24/2020:

Athena and I have been staying up late watching The Minimalist, then sleeping in late. We didn't get out until 10am this morning. I didn't want her to go too long without breakfast, so we only walked around the block. It didn't help I didn't dress well enough for the weather. It was supposed to be about 50 degrees, but the wind made it feel much colder. 

We're in the middle of another winter storm. It started snowing this afternoon and is expected to continue all day tomorrow. I didn't even try to make Athena walk. I took the shovel out, cleared the front walk, and started on the back. Athena doesn't like to do her business in the yard, so after about an hour I took her walking behind the garages. She won't walk the sidewalks in weather like this, but apparently knows we won't be out long if we go along the back wall. 

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I heard from Tax Protection Plus about my 2018 taxes. I'm not happy with the response they plan to send to the IRS. I'm concerned the notice from the IRS added several things I had already accounted for in my taxes, then calculated tax on just that amount. I'd also like to try getting the Jack win-loss statement again. It never showed up in the mail so I'm going to go in person and stand on someone's desktop until they give it to me. 

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Accomplishments:

6K+ Steps 

12/22/2020:

I recieved the full $3101.00 from unemployment, which means I can pay rent. Mr. Umberto knocked while I was cleaning Athena from our walk. I thought his knocking was her tail thumping against the shelving unit in the utility room. At least until I came upstairs and saw him in the driveway. I didn't go out to see him, and he apparently didn't see me walking around getting Athena's breakfast. I did call his number after getting her fed though, to let him know rent was on the way. I ended up talking to his wife, who was very sweet. She reassured me they understood my situation and asked about Athena. 

Mrs. Montoni also said the water bill was too high, which annoys me a bit considering I'm paying $100 for water and sewer when it costs $25/month in Euclid. Especially since I'm not showering but every 3rd day these days. I hid the grass pad in the basement in case that sets him off for too much water, but even that shouldn't offset the showering thing. The only thing I can really think of is cleaning the carpets. I used a lot of water to go over the basement twice, both wash and rinse, then did the living room carpet the same way. I still wouldn't have thought that would raise the water bill above a daily shower regime though. 

I balanced my checking account and rearranged bills. I don't plan to pay utilities until I know if I'm getting the stimulus unemployment. Amy seems convinced I'll get them. I'm extremely hopeful.  

I also was able to request another extension on my car payments through chat, which was nice. 

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Athena's Bark Box arrived today. I'm sad it so often has chew toys and so not often it has puzzle toys. The yellow and red ball is a squeak toy, at least. She's got too many chews and not enough to actually keep her engaged. I'm going to start pulling some of the toys she has, switch them out whenever she gets new ones or bored with the ones she has. The puzzles will only come out when I have something to put in them. I'll leave the few she actually plays with somewhat regularly. 

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The two houses above are extremely well lit, and directly across from each other. The whole street is bright because of them. Talk about keeping up with the Joneses. 

This is the most brightly lit house I've seen, even above and beyond the one set to music. 

I do love the traditional ones. 

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Accomplishments:

17K+ steps

12/23/2020:

Spent yet another day watching The Minimalist. Still getting annoyed at some of the stories. Why would a man pull a gun on his daughter when there was supposed to be a cop in the house for witness protection. Also, the cops don't get a girl all the way to juvenile lockdown without a paperwork trail that would be horribly difficult to undo. That's not where the decision to not charge the girl happens. 

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I have been looking for more than one or two houses in a row lit up. I keep hoping for an entire neighborhood, even knowing it won't happen in this day and age. 

This is the prettiest tree wrap I think I've seen. 

The Force is strong this holiday season. So marketing took over not only dragons and unicorns, but also Star Wars. I wonder when this started. 

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Accomplishments:
11K+ Steps

12/21/2020:

Unemployment finally processed my claim. There is currently a benefit payment in my Correspondence Inbox, that I am unable to open. I'm hopeful it's for the $3K remaining on my extended benefits. There is also a determination of benefits, which disallows my claim as of the end of the benefit year. I'm a little concerned that means there's only one week in the payment, but I won't be able to see that until tomorrow.  

I don't know what all this means for the stimulus bill Congress is voting on today, which includes more extended unemployment benefits + $300 a week. I believe I'll still be eligible, given the news I've read about previous stimulus during previous recessions. Those extended benefits lasted 18 to 72 months. These new extended benefits are supposed to last until mid-March, which is pretty much exactly when the bootcamp ends. 

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I spent the day watching the Mentalist and eating everything in sight. I'm very stressed about my financials. I no longer think I'll have to move in with Jeff, but I don't know how I'm going to make it through until I graduate bootcamp. I have some hope Michelle Rose can find some financial help. I really don't expect CHN Housing to respond to my application, though I believe they'll have more funds available with the bill Congress passed yesterday. There's no telling when those funds will actually become available though. There's no telling when unemployment will get their system updated. 

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Accomplishments:
10K+ Steps

Bake oatmeal bread

Watch The Mentalist

Wash sheets

Dry whites

Fold clothes

12/20/2020:

I made my favorite chocolate peanut butter no bake cookies. Two batches, actually. I forgot to add the vanilla, but they're still yummy. I don't know what I was thinking, knowing I'll be the one eating them all, and knowing I'll be eating them far more quickly than I should. 

Because I didn't want Athena to eat them off the freezer while they cooled, I gave her the bacon pan. She got several of her own cookies, too. 

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I also made oatmeal bread, but I'm not happy with it. This particular recipe includes molasses, which I thought would be yummy but it turns out I was wrong. I'm going to try again, without the molasses. 

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She's so darn cute!

I'm not feeling walking, and am still a bit concerned about Athena. She seems much better today, but yelped when moving on the couch this afternoon. This contributed to my shortening our walk tonight, meaning we didn't get to 10K steps. 

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Accomplishments:
8K+ Steps

Change bedsheets

Dust 2nd floor

Wash whites

Dry clothes

Watch The Mentalist

12/19/2020:

 

I made Athena biscuits with oatmeal, pork neck bone, and green beans. It's essentially the same as what I put in her dog food, but baked for like an hour in cookie form. There are a ton of them!  

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I wan't happy to find the $130 Amazon Prime charge on my account earlier this week, but decided I didn't really want to cancel the Prime account. I keep my pictures in Prime, I'm enjoying the benefits of Twitch Prime, I watch Prime video on occassion, and I still order a hell of a lot to be delivered within the next day or so. I did some retail therapy today, buying Athena's winter jacket and some rabbit ear chews, among other things. That's what led me to explore the Essentials list, which is what led me to discover I hadn't recieved the jar gripper openers I'd ordered. I had to call customer service, since it wasn't an entire package missing. That was a relatively painless process, and they will refund the purchase since it's from a 3rd party seller. 

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Athena hasn't been feeling well since last night. she didn't come to bed, staying on the couch. I woke around 1 and ended up carrying her upstairs. She seems to be favoring the foot/leg that has the long scar on the inside. We went for long walks both Wednesday and Thursday evening, so I wonder if she is stiff or having joint pain. 

She did get down from the bed on her own this morning, but didn't come downstairs until I came and got her, even after getting her leash et al from the closet. normally she'll run downstairs at that point. I gave her an aspirin and we went for a normal length walk. She seemed to feel better by the time we were done. I kept looking and couldn't be 100% sure but I think she was limping a little on that leg. 

I'm thinking the aspirin is what helped her feel better, because later in the afternoon she was again acting unlike herself. 

I had the worst time getting her to go pee on our evening walk, because she refused to walk. It was raining very lightly, but she didn't even want to go off the porch. I finally walked her up and down and up and down the driveway, then across the back yards. She wouldn't go past the house in the front but was willing to walk to the back. She wouldn't walk past the garage on the yard side, but would walk down the sidewalk where the garbage cans go. Eventually she was willing to walk into the yard behind the garage next door, and one more before she finally peed. I gave her all the praise and we went straight in. Hopefully she'll figure this out, that all she has to do is pee and she gets to come back in when it's raining. 

I also ordered her a raincoat with a clear hood that should cover at least some of her face. I'm not super hopeful, but I really don't know what else to do. 

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I did actually hit 10K steps, even without our evening walk. The only way I can think of is by walking around Walmart. I've decided to stop shopping there, by the way. I'm tired of standing in line for a half an hour or more, because they don't have enough cashiers for the number of customers. It's crazy the self checkout line goes past the entire freezer section. Marcs and Aldi's are right around the corner, so I'll start using them. 

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Since when did fantasy and Christmas cross paths? I've seen the dragon skeletons for halloween. Dragons can be scarey so that made some sense. This makes no sense! Not that I'm complaining. I like dragons and unicorns. It just seems odd. 

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Not surprisingly, Jackie came back to say she can't help me financially. Not that I wanted her to  help me, but she was so very insistent the other day. 

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Accomplishments:

10K+ Steps

Watch Critical Role

Make Pork Green Bean Oatmeal cookies for Athena 

Clean Kitchen counters and stove

Dishes

Grocery Shopping

12/18/2020

I called unemployment this afternoon and spoke to a woman who seemed to agree that 7 weeks is too long to wait for my claim to be procesesd. She said she put me on an escalation sheet with her supervisor, which is according to her the best place I can be. I asked, and she said they will be processing claims through Thursday next week, so hopefully this means they will now get to mine. 

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Today was a review day in class. We are off for the next two weeks for the holidays, so the instructor gave us a few sites we can use to find practice problems, and he gave us the deck of cards problem to work on over the break. I also plan to work on my Random Character Generator, because I want to have that finished in my GitHub account by the end of bootcamp, along with the java projects. 

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Amy discovered a few weeks ago, while randomly reviewing medical test results, she's apparently had a heart attack at some point. She has a cardiologist appointment scheduled for Monday, but it was in my head as Wednesday so I pinged her to ask about it. I'll have to remember to ask again Monday night or Tuesday.

Pinging her resulted in a conversation about how the dogs like the weather. Athena is so funny in the snow, dipping her nose down in it and plowing along an entire yard's length that way. Apparently Gunner just doesn't want to come in the house, he's enjoying it so much. He's a shepherd with a thick coat, so that's no surprising. 

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I kind of blew off the rest of the day, after class. At some point Athena started feeling under the weather. I didn't even notice when she snuck under the desk, but she was obviously low energy and sad by the time I resurfaced from catching up on the news. She was shaking when I finally convinced her to come out. I'm concerned her leg is giving her arthritis pain. I assume that's a surgery scar down the whole inside of the thigh, but I don't know what happened to necessitate the surgery. We went for a relatively short walk, barely making 10K steps.

We haven't walked this way in a while. We would have walked a bit longer yet, but we encountered another dog out on a walk, and he was another barker. Athena was better behaved than he was!

I spent the rest of the evening on the couch so she could snuggle. She's eating just fine so I'm not worried she's ill, but she's not her happy little self. 

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Accomplishments:
10K+ Steps

12/17/2020:

I'm starting to freak out about my financial situation, especially after talking to Jackie last night. She said Stephen sent me money because he doesn't want me moving back to Jeff's, which of course got me thinking about where I stand and how or when I would communicate with Jeff if I had to. I don't expect he would be willing to let me live there even on deferred rent, but then again he might get an ego boost out of it. I will get $125 a week for attending the bootcamp, so I could probably pay for my utilities. That way I wouldn't actively cost him anything. THAT would be too much like borrowing, which is NOT going to happen. 

I thought about living there all through our walk tonight. I imagined taking Athena in and out the front door, to avoid the cat situation at the back door. How would I respond if he wanted to walk with us? Part of me says "No thank you" and part of me says yes, but then says "It's not your job to tell me how to walk" if I scuff my foot and he says "pick them up" like he used to. I would have to be on my guard and stand up for myself if he got snarky or egotistical. He doesn't get the right to be an ass just because he's helping me out with deferred rent. That rent will help him out, in the end. 

Would being there send me back into a deep depression? I would avoid him as much as possible, staying on the 3rd floor so we didn't disturb him moving around much. I would turn down invitations to dinner, or to have him upstairs. Or would I? Sigh. Part of me still loves him, or still wants the blissful ignorance I had before he broke up with me. I keep reminding myself of his narcissism, but I also remember he was actively in the throes of his addiction at the time, too. I can't be angry at him for not accepting my behavior was different while addicted, if I don't accept his was as well. 

I hope it doesn't come to this, because I don't think it would be a good situation. I'm starting to wonder, though, if unemployment will ever process my claim. I can't apply for any federal extended benefits if they don't. I'm sure I have enough food for us to survive the next few months, but I'm not sure if it's enough to survive long enough. I also don't know what to do about car and credit card payments. 

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Athena is definitely getting better about the way she responds to other dogs. We walked by a house tonight with a guy and his dog in the front yard. The dog was barking non-stop and pulling on the leash. Watched him intently even after we passed, but she did not lunge. I texted Jen and Julie, I was so pleased. Jen imagined her rolling her eyes and saying "What is your PROBLEM??!" but I saw it more as her doing the two finger thing, back and forth from her eyes to him, saying "I've got my eyes on you!"

It snowed quite a bit while we were out. Athena doesn't seem to mind the big fluffy flakes, just the small pelty ones. 

I don't know that either of these houses was all that exciting, but I found them pretty when viewed together. 

This is the second day in a row we've gotten out a little late in the morning, only walking for half an hour or so, thus having to walk long at night to make up steps. Both times I probably overdid the evening walk, since we ended up at 17K and 15K, respectively. 

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Accomplishments:

15K+ Steps

Watch The Masked Singer finale

12/16/2020:

I noticed this on our walk this morning. I don't know how many times I've walked past this fully blown up at night and not realized what I was seeing. I have to pay attention now, to see if his pants are pulled up when he's fully inflated. THIS IS SO NOT RIGHT!

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I called Legal Aid today about my unemployment claim. It's now been 6.5 weeks since I submitted my application, and a week and a half since I called and they told me it had been approved just not processed. I tried to go in and apply for the Pandemic Unemployment program, on the off chance I hadn't already and in anticipation of the bill Congress is talking about passing this week. I can't apply for it because my benefit year ended, which is the application sitting in the system gathering dust now. 

Legal Aid's voicemail says they will call back within 24 hours, but I'm pretty sure the website said 2 days. Either way I have to turn Do Not Disturb off on my phone until I speak with them, which does not make me happy considering how many calls I get these days. Nothing I can do about it though. I have to talk to someone who can do something.

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I completed my homework during the lecture again this morning. We're working with abstract classes, which cannot be instantiated. This way one cannot create a generic animal, but must create a dog or cat or fish that inherits from the animal class. We also went over abstract methods, which are declared in the parent class but have no body and must be defined in the child class. 

I spent the better part of the morning banging my head on the above discrepancy. The com.techelevtator.Triangle gobble-de-gook should have printed as Wallie Wall (12x25) wall. I didn't remember it was the whole print statement though, and kept thinking it was just the name printing wrong. Gregor looked at it after class, and saw immediately I'd capitalized the toString() method name so it wasn't being called. 

I did find the above error in their example code, though. Well, the error I found was on the rectangle. I made the same error in triangle, which is what I took screenshots of at the time. They specifically said to put the constructor length and height parameters in one order in the instructions, the test expected them to be in that order, but the code defined them in transposed order. Since both were int values the compiler couldn't tell they were in the wrong order. I annoyed both the instructor and his aides at the end of class with that one, insisting the test was wrong. 

I ended up apologizing in Slack for being persnickety, which a couple people responded to favorably - including the instructor. 

I also finally got caught up on my reading outlining, getting the unit testing chapter outlined before we get into that tomorrow. 

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Jackie called today. I haven't picked up the last several times she's called, but did so today. I think finding the error in the example code and having people be ok with my persnickety-ness helped ease my self consciousness enough so a phone conversation didn't feel overwhelming. She wanted me to check if Stephen's letter had arrived, as he's apparently sending me $200. It hasn't arrived yet. We spent about 45 minutes talking about dogs, money, and health conditions. She wants to send me money as well. I'm not comfortable with that, especially after she told me she's working at Burger King and Mike is working two jobs just to make ends meet. She kept texting me about it until I stopped responding after going to bed. Just like Stephen, she will do what she will do. I'm not asking for help, but I will accept whatever comes my way. 

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Accomplishments:

17K+ step

Stretch

12/15/2020:

The woman working with Tech Elevator on supportive services emailed me today, asking for my monthly bills. She said no promises but she might be able to find me other help while I wait for CHN Housing to respond to my application. I don't really expect CHN Housing to respond, now they're out of pandemic funds, but who knows. Since I'm no longer receiving unemployment, my income is now zero so they might. 

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I'm still a day behind on outlining my homework reading, but I was able to complete both that and my homework problems during lecture again today. We're working on Polymorphism, which is connected to inheritance in that you can connect to either a parent or child class method, depending on how you cast the object accessing the method.

So say you have a clock Class, with subclasses of grandfatherClock and cuckooClock. Say you then have a shopkeeper Class, who is in charge of setting the time for all the clocks. You don't want to have separate methods to set the time for each clock type. Since grandfatherClock IS A clock, and cuckooClock IS A clock, you can create a single method in the shopkeeper Class that sets the time for a clock object. GrandfatherClock and cuckooClock, as subclasses of clock, have access to the setTime() method in clock. 

Polymorphism is also where we learned about Interfaces, because you can cast an object to be referred to as having implemented the interface. An alarmClock and a phone both have alarms, but are not the same type of object. A phone is not derived from alarm clock, and neither is an alarm clock derived from a phone. With an Alarmable interface, you can cast either as Alarmable so shopkeeper can access the setAlarm() method they both have implemented as part of the Alarmable contract.

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Accomplishments:

13K+ Steps

Finish drying, folding, and putting away clothes

Clean 2nd floor bathroom

Watch The Voice finale

12/14/2020:

I completed outlining the Inheritance reading during today's lecture, which puts me a day behind on outlining class reading. I should have done this over the weekend, as I want to have read and outlined everything prior to the class teaching that subject. 

I was also about to complete the inheritance coding homework (Bank Account classes) and homework challenge during the lecture. The challenge involved accepting a BigDecimal data type instead of int for account balances. After, I reverse engineered the homework tests and updated them to test the challenge code. This way I was able to verify the code worked as expected even after I made additional changes like allowing the user to input the amount as double, string, or BigDecimal. I asked Gregor (the instructor) to review the challenge code when he has time, and let me know if there was a better way to complete the project. 

I am determined to learn the best way to code things, so no one can pray on my insecurities the way Jason did. No one will ever rewrite my code without explaining to me what was wrong with it, again. I won't fall for "I can't explain, it was just wrong" again, either. 

I spent pretty much the rest of the day helping John, Randsom (with Justin in the room), and Katrina with the homework. I want to help them understand what we're doing, instead of just telling them what to write. To do that, I ask questions, trying to point them in the right direction. This can be very frustrating. I don't know if it was me forcing them to think about it, their fatigue, or what. John and Katrina kept trying to put code in the parenthesis where the conditional statement goes, and I had to point them at the reading a few times to remind them how to manage things like looping through an array or how to write a for each loop. Part of the problem I know is me asking the wrong questions, or not explaining what I'm looking for well enough. Ransom seemed to have a better grasp of coding in general, but I was challenging even for him. His main problem turned out to be where he created his classes. That took a while to figure out!

This week's pathway picture challenge was of our fur babies:

Best selfie I think I've ever taken. I have to remember to smile with my mouth closed more often. 

Athena is almost always on the bed behind me while I'm in the office. When she's not, she's under the desk at my feet. I put a blanket down there because the plastic mat gets cold these days!

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I find I don't drink while I'm at the computer, and it's becoming a problem. I really do need at least 2 quarts of water, preferably three. Otherwise I start eating sugary and salty foods instead of drinking, and I get constipated. Constipated can get extremely painful, and I'd really like to avoid that if I can. Also, I'm pretty sure that's part of why I ended up with a UTI.

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Accomplishments:

14K+ steps
Dishes

Stretch

12/13/2020:

 

Athena and I took that long walk this morning. Luckily it was only misting when we left the house. It snowed for almost an hour while we were out. You can barely see it in the picture, but it looked like the inside of a snow globe. It was dripping off my hair into my face, and my shirt was damp underneath my jacket by the time we got home. 

Athena is so much better about cats these days, enough so we can use the back door again, which is a good thing considering cream-colored living room carpet and the amount of mud she gets on her feet and legs these days. We come in the back door, I take my shoes off, and we head straight down to the basement shower. I've given her a full shower downstairs in the past, so she doesn't yet understand I'm just cleaning her legs and feet. She's so happy when I let her out without a full dousing! She jumps and dances around, and I chase her with the towel. I shouldn't chase her, but I love to see her so smiling and happy. 

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I set up the ipad to have Kanbanflow up and easily accessible. I really want to get a Chromepad, but I don't have the funds and won't most likely until I'm working again. 

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My completed elevator pitch:

Not the best lighting. The microphone on my school laptop didn't work in the camera app for some reason. I did a bit of troubleshooting but didn't want to be up all night with this, so just used the laptop I keep in the living room. 

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Turns out I didn't get the full gingerbread house effect until tonight:

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I completed my homework on Encapsulation, and now understand the quiz questions I got wrong yesterday. I will know from now on to complete the homework before attempting the quiz. I'm still a little fuzzy on why we need to encapsulate attributes that are only used internally. If they're private, they can't be accessed from outside the Class anyway, right? I've seen posts both for and against doing this, but I have to follow what my instructor wants. 

I didn't get the chapter for tomorrow outlined, and I won't before going to bed tonight. Extra work for tomorrow, getting caught up, but it is what it is. I'm already tired, and without a schedule or alarm over the past year I've learned I need at least 9 hours in bed to get enough sleep. Some days I actually sleep 9 to 10 hours, depending on activity level and the amount of sleep I've been getting. I used to only give myself 6 or 7 hours to sleep, which would explain why I was always tired and probably contributed to my failures.  

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Accomplishments:

22K+ Steps

Water plants