Christmas at last!

So, I've spent the last week cleaning like a fiend, I think I lost some weight...just kidding, but possibly. I also finally got around to getting the Christmas decorations down out of our garage attic. The hot summer months didn't bode well for my candles, as you'll see in one of the pictures below, but rest assured, I came down into my kitchen this morning to see my father in law placing them in boiling water with a mischeivious grin upon his face as if he were twelve again. They've all been erected to their original states thank in part to needle nose pliers. Also, I decorated with red and white roses. Poinsettas would have been nice, but I'm not at all certain my dogs wouldn't figure out how to eat some without my knowing until it was too late. Dead poochies are not on my christmas list. You'll see an adorable picture of them at the end too.

Hope you enjoyed these clips! I can't wait to leave for my parents' house on Wednesday!!! Coming up quickly! I'll have to get on top of packing for it here shortly:)

My kitchen nightmare...

It's always disheartening when you've finishing cooking and the dogs think you've left them a feast on the cupboards.....

First of December

It's still Autumn here. I can't believe I haven't posted since September! That's such a long long long time ago it seems, and yet it flew by so quickly. Tomorrow Zach and I leave for Costa Rica to vacation with my sisters and brother in law! Very excited, a bit nervous, but mostly just trying to concentrate on the moment to be sure it doesn't end up being like a bad dream where you never seem to get to the place you're dying to go to.

I have to tell a story. It actually kind of follows up from my last post...you know how I was talking about my savvyness  with candles? Well, this is me putting my foot in my mouth. I can actually do that I believe, but let's get to how I burnt a black hole in my living room carpet shall we? Well, that's the story really, I'd thought it a splendid idea to sit on the ground, instead of my couch, to meditate and pray this morning, so why not bring an entourage of candles with me to the floor. Set the mood you know, so I can shift consciousness and really make it worth my while. I'm not sure Zach is going to let me burn candles in the house after this. He mentioned something about possibly winning the Darwin award someday, but that he hoped he wasn't around to be the guy that happened to die too. Well, the end point, there was one pillar candle, an older one, nearly done with its life that I used. I should have listened when instinct told me it would melt and make a mess of things, but that wouldn't happen to me. So, there I am meditating along, when I hear Max, my dog with much better instincts than I, hides behind the couch. I open my eyes to see a black pool of plastic and wax forming where the base of the candle once was just fifteen minutes prior. It was like a cartoon probably, because I believe I jumped to my feet, eyes wide, mouth open from letting go a small gasp-scream (which caused Max to run upstairs and promptly hide under the bed), hands stretched wide in front of me while I was ready to fight or flight my way to safety. Now, it was only the size of the bottom of this pillar candle, but I could have sworn it was getting bigger fast, and though this all seemed to take forever, I do believe it happened rather quickly. I looked up onto the couch where my other dog, Lana, was lying luxuriously, just watching me unaware of the dire situation, my mind racing as to with what I would put out this small fire before it spread. I grabbed my handy dandy cotton pharmacy throw blanket and suffocated the flame right out of that fire I tell you. As I looked at what I had done, I half expected a flame to spontaneously reappear, so I placed a glass over the spot to ease my mind of that. I guess I need an area rug in there after all, as long as I don't burn a hole in that too. I will say, this is the first time I've actually done damage like this, so given all the candles I'm accustomed to burning, I'd say it was my due time to pay my respects to the great Fire lord. Anyway, it staaaank. Yuck. What a sad black hole it is.

Well, there's my story, it was a pretty big deal. It really messed up my calm meditative mood.

Today in a nutshell

A new framed print I got today, I think it's lovely and matches the color of the walls perfectly.

Got to love candles! It's probably a bit much, but I promise they're all blown out now, I won't burn the house down!

Now, this configuration did end in disaster. Somehow all the pillars on the right fused and melted into a large pool on the mantle--good thing it's marble!

The western sun through my living room window.

Okay, so I was bored...more pictures of me. I have some of my dogs from today, and another video, want to see those? :)

So, so tired

Today I went in at 9am and got home at 10pm. I had been home for a long lunch, thankfully, so I was able to let the dogs out then. In the morning I worked on some spreadsheet analysis and data entry. At lunch I came home, had some leftovers and worked on my homework. I was dismayed to find out I had lost the nine page document I wrote yesterday afternoon, I must be losing my mind, but my advisor is understanding and told me to turn it in within the next few days or so. It's just so aggravating and irksome to me. Hopefully, it will be easier to write it being the second time around. I went to the pharmacy buyout at 2pm and learned how to fill out 222 forms for C-II medications, took inventory of the medications, packed them up and brought them to the new pharmacy. Then for the last four hours or so I've worked on putting up all the medications on the shelves where they belong. I'm not sure I got them exactly in the right section, but at least I know they're in there alphabetically. There are usually multiple sections separating fast movers, general, reconstitutions, liquids, and unit of use. When all else fails, but it in alpha (general). One of the techs went and got us some dinner around 8:30 or so at Sonic, which was really nice of him. I was starved! I'd had a Sprite since lunch. Nothing else, not even water. I guess that's what happens when you're busy working! When we left, the other intern, Lance, drove me around the building to my car, since I had parked in the back and we weren't at the nicest of stores in the safest of areas. I managed to find my way home on the highways, which I consider a major feat. I actually remembered how to get home combining my previous journeys to different locations that had landed me on a particular location. It's a first in a very long while for me. I think I got somewhat out of practice living in smaller towns the last five or more years of life, never having to deal with more than one highway, let alone three of four crossing ones. Now, I'm home and I believe I am going to go enjoy a nice glass of wine and unwind reading a book. Then it's time for bed! Luckily, I got the day off tomorrow since I stayed so long tonight, so I won't have to get up early, and I'll have plenty of time to work on my paper. Me time!! Max just sighed a loud sigh, that's exactly how I feel. To sore knees and achy backs!! Goodnight.

Lazy Sundays

This weekend, I've done quite a bit--I went to the Scottish Festival, the Greek Festival, and the Shalom Festival. It's been a great weekend for it. Next weekend we'll go to the Harvest Beer Festival, and the weekend after that to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Here is a video from the Scottish Festival that I took of the bagpipers there:

It was pretty neat. There were many groups of pipers roaming around the event.

I also learned how to toss a log...I'm sore today, who would have thought?

I also found out that my little bit (13%-25%?) of Scottish is from the Graham clan! They have a tartan similar to that in the video above, it just has a streak of white in it with the deep blue and green.

There was a real live wolf (according to its owner--it did have orange eyes):

If he really is a wolf, he looks an awful lot like my Max man, so now I call him Max Little Wolf, or Little Wolf Max with his side kick Lady Lana. Here is a clip of Max I got, it may just be me, but there were a lot of similarities. It's hard to tell since I didn't get a great picture of the wolf, but hopefully you'll be able to see it:



Anyway, today's weather has been strange. It rained and thundered with the sun shining.



Look at the bubbles the rain makes on the surface of the pool!




That's all for now folks!





A little glimpse of today--

Summer like I remember it.

These last few days have been cool, clear, and absolutely wonderful. Yesterday, I just sat on the balcony and read a book for hours. Today, I was able to take the laptop out there and work from there. It was just so refreshing to be outside and have the windows open. Tonight, Zach and I went on a long walk through our neighborhood with the dogs as the sun set and mosquitoes emerged. We're suppose to have a whole week of this weather too. I am looking forward to it.

Yesterday, when I was sitting on the balcony with Zach and the dogs, I couldn't help but remember the tree fort my sisters and I had on Mount View Drive. It occurred to me how cool it would have been as a kid to have that balcony and imagine the tree top fortress we could imagine existed there on rope bridges between the trees. I remembered singing every song we knew to the American flag, as part of our club and ship game. I remembered the long summer days, resting in the seveties and low eighties, just perfect. The smells were almost the same too. There was a fresh sort of earthy smell the world emits when it can finally rest.

Finally, refuge from the heat. To most Oklahomans, it's fall, to me it's the last long cool summer days I've missed all summer long. I haven't seen more beautiful days in what seems like forever.

Check off, one down, eight more to go!

Today was the last day of my very first rotation. It's been a long journey, but at the same time, I'm surprised it's already over. I am also surprised at how easy it was. It was hard emotionally in many ways, but with so much going on, one just needs to learn how to deal with it. For example, two days ago, I deep cleaned and rearranged the office. It's going to be great for studying, reading, and hanging out in now. It feels so nice to take control of some part of your life again, especially when there are aspects you have to accept to be out of control...like people being sick and dying on you all month long.

This month will be very different, I will be following around a pharmacy district manager all month. It's going to be quite an adventure I do think. Already the plans for day one have changed three times in two weeks. Seeing that I start tomorrow, I don't believe it will change again. My advisor has been trying to pin me down to have our September meeting, without much luck so far. I think the most stressful part will be not knowing what my schedule will be like. I'm hoping it will have some semblance of normalcy. We shall see.

So, on another topic, Max, my larger younger dog, has been doing wonderfully this week at being free in the house when we're not there! He loves it by the way, he's a completely different dog. I think he has a whole new level of respect for us since we have given him the respect of our trust in him that he will behave and not become master and destroyer while we're gone. I've only lost two high lighters so far. I told him I was disappointed in him while holding them and he just hung his head, put his ears back, and walked towards me slowly. It was so cute. So, I got him a plastic bone with an inlay of edible goodness and he chewed the end off of it today. It worked splendidly. He's my constant buddy now too, no more hiding under the bed. Lana does not seem thrilled. She's been rather grouchy today, after three days of not being able to escape her own kennel. She carries this massive bone I got for Max around that is as long as she is and she growls up a storm at both Max and me, but she knows better than to do that to me, so I grab her anyway.

Tonight I'm going out with a couple girls from my rotation to celebrate the end of the first with margaritas. It will be fun, I'm looking forward to it here shortly.

Anyway, this weekend we're having a Labor Day pool party on Sunday, so I'm excited to get the house ready and have all our friends over for the fun. I want to paint our other bathroom, but I may not have time to finish that project and clean house, so I will have to see about that, maybe next week. I need to get more small rollers anyway. I think that is what I will continue doing until I'm sick of it though...repainting the things unpainted so far. It's so stress relieving, and I look forward to the transformation!

Talking about painting, I'm trying to come up with a vertical two canvas idea for the wall space behind my television. I have the blank canvases hanging on the wall to help inspire me, but I'm not sure yet. Not to mention there's this huge hurdle of getting a space ready to oil paint in that I would have to figure out. It'd be great to do it outside if I could keep it clean and keep the bugs out of the oil paint on the canvas. It's such a messy ordeal...and complicated when it comes to waste materials.

I think starting tomorrow morning, I may start running in the mornings since I have some extra time  now with the new rotation an all. I need to, and I'm tired of waiting for it to cool off out there. Soon, soon, it will be cooler. This may be one of the last pool weekends this summer. It will probably be open until October, but I'm not sure how long we'll be swimming, hopefully awhile.

Well, that will be all for today, I need to go get ready for margaritas!

A New Paint Job

What do you do with some old paint and a drab bathroom? Paint it. Zach went to Montana Monday, so I decided it was about time I changed things up around here. It was a lot of work, but I treated myself to icecream and a hot candlelit bath. Our bedroom ceiling will be next, but here are the pictures of where I started, the progress, and the finished product.

Here, I had to take the photo with flash, because it was so overbearing and dark.

Being home alone and a bit down, I decided there needed to be some therapeutic house painting done.

It took my dark mood and started brightening it right up!!

Blurry, but you get the idea.

Almost done! Now, if only the trim would start looking like brand new (and this of course requires a new coat of paint).

The finished product!

Everything was scrubbed down and sparkling :)

Ahhh, between lightening things up, and working myself to the bone, I'd say this was a very successful mood elevating exercise!

It's so great, I love it. I'm letting the colors sink in, they're just so different from what was in there before, so it makes it hard to take it all in. It just makes me happy to be in there now! I really think my bedroom ceiling should be next, but that just seems like a project for another time and another day in the long away future. Maybe the next time Zach goes out of town? I think something is coming up in September, so we shall see. As for the rest of my week, Zach comes home tomorrow, and I don't have my rotation tomorrow, so I have the day off. I think I should get moving on getting the house ready for company this weekend though. We're having some friends over to swim in the pool, which looks absolutely crystal clear and wonderful.

I am hopefully going to keep blogging more regularly now, sorry for such a long hiatus. I'm changing my background pictures to some I took in Washington when we were there in July too, just so you know.

The Best Fourth of July

It all started with an idea, and then months later we were all enjoying beautiful sunny days on the shores of Lake Michigan. The place: Door County; the people: my family. All eight of us were there, and it didn't matter what we did, we were having a good time.

We went hiking in sandals and shorts...

Got out of hand, or just had a lot of fun--ask my Mom :)

 Ephraim was a dry town, so we made sure to have plenty before we went out for dinner, you can tell by our smiles we were only drinking the good stuff!

Silhouettes against the sunset...

The crew...

Yes, we are color coordinated...it just happened. Kristen started it! Fun times, at Door County, Wisconsin.

On the fourth, we sat outside and drank beer and wine until dusk when we walked down the street to the harbor. There were Adirondack chairs on a small boat dock out in the middle of the water. My sisters and I sat with our legs hanging over the side down towards the water, with our Momma right beside us (a little nervous), and the guys sprawled in the chairs. Then we watched private firework shows happening all across the shoreline. It was the best fourth of July I've ever had, a treasure for time.