Done, done, done!

Took my last tests of the semester yesterday and boy do I feel good. I don't have to do anything with cadavers ever again!

Thought I'd just drop in to share my joy with you all. I'm hoping to update over break. I'm working all weekend and hopeful not throwing drinks on costumers that are rude. Then Timm and I are headed to Arkansas to have christmas with my parents, brother and grandma. Here are some pictures from the last week. Timm and I are going to an ugly Xmas sweater party tomorrow so look for even more awesome photos soon.

The end is in sight (I hope)

Sorry for the immediate lack of updates.

The test I took on Tuesday that didn't go so well, really didn't go so well the average ended up being 60% after apparently they added 3 points. I got a 51% which I can't say I was too upset about considering the average. Some of my classmates went to look at their tests with their notes in hand. One of them asked the professor about a specific question which the suggested textbook answered one way and the professor had told us the opposite. The professor informed her that the book was wrong and he taught physiology the 'right way.'

Finding this out on Wednesday before knit night, I enjoyed a nice glass of wine with my pizza at Whole Foods. I've turned the heel on my bird sock, but I haven't gotten much further while I've been studying.

Some of our lectures this week have been really amusing. Our 80 year old professor was doing the pelvis demo and telling us about kegal's. I mentioned that Michelle Duggar needed kegal's. Apparently he had never heard of her. I explained that they had 19 kids and despite complications with the last one they said they'd take more if God blessed them that way. His response was 'well God didn't put that sperm in her vagina!'

I ran some errands this morning trying to get stuff done for Xmas while I'm not completely cramming for finals. I didn't find an ugly xmas sweater for parties after tests are over but I did find an awesome sesame street sheet that will eventually be an awesome article of clothing (I hope).

After class today I went ice skating again, still didn't fall! Starting to work on skating backwards which makes a whole different set of muscles sore. I made a date with a couple of my fellow tortured souls to go again.

Time to get back to studying!

last day of NaBloPoMo

I can't believe I successful posted every day in November. I feel so accomplished. Which only half way makes up for how unaccomplished I was on the physiology exam today. Apparently sometime in the last few weeks our physiology class changed it's name to BioChem. The test was horrible. It focused on tiny, tiny details that even the PA students don't care about and the PTs really don't care too much about the endocrine system as a whole. There were hardly any questions on the reproductive systems (which made up about 1/3 of our notes and was what I actually understood) and there was a page and a half of questions about the thyroid which we only spent one day of lecture on. It was ridiculous. According to some of my classmates there were multiple questions that had more than one correct answer (I was unaware that any of them were right). I don't think I've ever guessed so much on a test in my life.

After the test we had two hours of anatomy lecture. The first of which most people dazed off through. The second one our 80 year old professor explained sex to us, which was hilarious. He told us that there's a center in the brain that elicits orgasm and if he put an electrode on it and gave us a button to control it we would all push the button until we died. "You wouldn't eat, you wouldn't sleep, it would just be orgasm 24/7."

After that we got out of class an hour earlier than usual, just in time for the first day of the ice rink being open! A group of the PT students decided that it was the perfect solution to our craptastic day so we bundled up and headed out. After all getting the correct skates and wristbands we hit the ice for about 45 mins. I have a feeling my legs will be feeling it tomorrow. I do have to report that despite betting that I would be the first to fall down, I didn't fall down at all! I bought a season skate rental pass so I will hopefully be going many more times between now and spring break.

not much to say tonight

I'm cramming for my physiology test tomorrow. I'm really excited to get it over with. I'm devouting tomorrow to cleaning and reorganizing before I start in on all the last round of test material. Only 17 days (not counting today) left in the semester!!! We got our grades for the test before break back today. The class average for the short answer portion was a 66% :-o. Needless to say it's my worst test grade in that class and I hope to make up for it with the final.

The only other thing of note today is that I came home and my roommate had sat a magazine on my desk. I was on the phone to my mother and said "What did your mother do?!" Apparently, she got me a subscription to Ladies Home Journal (cause you know I magically turned 40 over night). I now have "84 ideas for the happiest holiday ever." I bet that they don't include drop out of school so you can have your time, money, life and sanity back. It also informs me how to stash more for retirement (I think not having 100k in student loans would be the first thing they'd advise). Well I better go study more so all this debt isn't in vain.

Pot-pies are like pizza

Katie sent home a bunch of leftover turkey with me and I really didn't know what to do with it all. Talking to my mom the idea for a potpie was brought up. So, I give you turkey potpie!

I grabbed a couple frozen pie shells, a can of potatoes, a bag of frozen corn and another one of broccoli, and a can of cream of broccoli soup.

It turned out a little runny. I don't think I needed to water down the soup at all broccoli in there. Still taste delicious though. Which brings me to the thought that potpies are like pizzas, the possibilities are endless. Since I barely made a dent in the leftover turkey I see another one of these in the near future (maybe with lima beans or onion or carrots!)

In case you haven't had enough of pictures from my glorious days up in Iowa, here's Timm being a dork wanting his beard to look super long.

Do you see what I see?

exhusted

I drove home this afternoon in my freshly tuned up car. Then I sat at home for an hour petting Voodoo apologizing for leaving him. But then I had to go to work at the mall on Black Friday :-0 It was awful. It took over an hour for us to get all our losing stuff done tonight. I only worked 6 hours roughly but I feel like I worked at least 12. I think I'm gonna munch a little and read over a few physiology notes before I pass out.

Turkey turkey turkey

Finished my cinnamon rolls this morning. They look way better this time than last time because they actually rose.

Here's Timm devouring one.

Then this afternoon, we ate thanksgiving dinner!

Doesn't it look delicious? It was!!

Here's a pic of how much progress I've made on my socks since last night after starting over on size 1s.

a little r & r

Got up this morning to go to work with Timm and this is what we saw.

Pure ice on the window :-(

Sitting around at Timm's shop all day I made ample progress on my new project, the Nightingale socks! (rav link:http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/nightingale-2)

I'm really excited about them and the yarn that I picked out for them, but they are coming out too big. I'm going to have to start over with size 1 needles instead and hope that it doesn't make them too small :-( The pattern calls for 1 1/2 which I didn't know existed.

After giving up on the sock until I get back to Timm's where my needles are, we went to get some BBQ.

Nom nom nom sweet potato fries :-)

And heres Timm with his "Johnny Dog"

We're head home soon to some yummy pork roast and hopefully a fire. Then if I won't be in Katie's way too much, I'm gonna make pumpkin pie cinnamon rolls.

Hope everyone's turkey day is full of yummy food, family and relaxation.

Alive and cozy

Sitting in Timm's living room starting my new knitting project :-) My test didn't go super well today (or at least I don't feel like it did).

Meg and I had fun at the yarn store and I found some discount sock yarn :-o and of course amazing yarn for my new project. Hopefully, I'll have photos and more details tomorrow when I have better internets.

Did you know . . .

That for four weeks in utero our intestines leave our abdomen because the liver is hogging all the space and they need room to grow too. In the process the intestines will rotate 270 degrees. Eventually, there will be about 22 feet of intestines attached to about a 7 inch long base of mesentary. I think that's pretty crazy.

As you can tell, I'm still studying away. We had our practical (with living anatomy) today. I think the practical went fairly well after getting a general consensus from other students afterwards on some of the answers. I was really excited because they announced at the beginning that one of our living stations was being thrown out because the equipment wasn't working properly (yay for not identifying heart sounds and breath sounds!). However, I may have gotten a better score on living if we had the heart and breath sounds. I apparently don't know my right from my left and need to be faster at finding landmarks. We'll see how many points I lost for those stupid mistakes.

Gonna be a late night, still got plenty of studying to do and packing to head to Timm's after the test tomorrow (yay for skipping physiology on Wed!)

Study, study, study

one day closer

Not much interesting today. I worked for 8 hours this morning. Then, I came home and had dinner before I started studying. I worked trough most of my thorax notes and some x-rays. Still need to do the abdomen notes. I took a break and watched the Glee episode from last week. It was awesome. I'm definitely hoping that Gwyneth Paltrow will show up on more episodes in the future.

The Cranberry Buckle turned out pretty good. I think it could use a tad more sugar.

I'm still debating on what colours I want to do my upcoming project in. Gotta decide before Tuesday when I go to the yarn store.

Off to study more!

'tis the season

to eat cranberries! Last week when I was at Trader Joe's overwhelmed with wonderfulness, I grabbed a bag of fresh cranberries. As someone who love cranberries in all other forms, I'd never had fresh cranberries or used them to make anything. I thought it was high time to change that, but wasn't sure what to make with them.

I remembered a recipe I'd made this summer when I had bought blueberries. It turned out awesome and I polished it off probably faster than I should have. This recipe was for Blueberry Buckle from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook (the red and white checked one that it seems like everyone has, got mine from an estate sale a couple of summers ago). I decided to give it a whirl with the cranberries. I figured I might need to add a little more sugar to account for the tartness of the cranberries.

It just came out of the oven, so I can't report on the taste yet but it smells and looks delicious.

Other than that, it's been a pretty uneventful day. I had class at 1 and then lab. Class was physiology and right now we're on the endocrine system (hormones). Today we started the male reproductive system and I'm so glad to finally be on something that I understand and have a good background in. All the pituitary hormones were stressing me out a bit because they're so confusing and for the most part I haven't learned about them much before now. Lab was a review day and then we had a practice lab practical set up for us. I had to hurry through the practice practical so I could go to work, but it went fairly well. I definitely have an idea what I need to study more as far as the practical aspect is concerned. I'm pretty sure I need to study everything more for the written exam, but at least I have an extra day for that.

the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone

and all your intestines are connected and shoved in a tiny tiny little space.

Tonight my living anatomy partner came over to practice for our test on Monday. Because of the lack of movements to test and bones to feel in the abdomen and thorax, a lot of our living anatomy this unit was drawing out where everything is inside the body cavity. First we drew the "planes" of the abdomen that help you locate everything else.

Then we drew all the intestines and major organs of the peritoneal sac. Look I got my gallbladder back!



Then we washed off and drew the organs and vessels on the posterior body wall.


There was lots of funny comments and giggling that occurred (especially because Meghan is ticklish and doesn't like me finding her transtubercular plane). I also keep accusing Meghan of cheating because she can use my scars as landmarks for the different planes and organs but I have nothing to go on.

I got the ends on the hat for Operation Christmas Child wove in last night. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Good thing I gave it away today or I might have grown attached.




Thanksgiving is getting so close I can almost taste the turkey and pumpkin pie (and by that I mean freedom and blissful days of no school). Until then, more studying!

just another day

Today has lasted forever. Wednesday has been our long day at school all semester, but with it getting dark so late it seems that much longer. I got a fair amount of studying done during my break at school. And after school I ran errands on my way to knit night. We're doing Operation Christmas Child at school and I knit a hat for our kid (pictures tomorrow after the ends are woven in?), but I also volunteered to get toiletries for the box so I headed to Dollar Tree.

Eventually, I made it to Whole Foods for knit night. Meg showed me her awesome shirt. She found this shirt as an XXL at Goodwill but couldn't pass it up because of the colours. So what did she do? Sewed zippers in the back of it! Love it! It's surprising that Whole Foods doesn't explode with all the genius-ness of knit night people in the same spot. I finally wove in the ends on my socks so we could ring the cowbell and show them off. I stood on a chair with my foot on the table (Captain Morgan-esque). We took a picture, but it was blurry. Instead you'll have to live with these pics. I'm gonna make Timm take better ones next week when I'm up there.


Pattern: Arch-Shaped Stockings by Meg Swansen


I got it from the Vogue Knitting: Ultimate Sock Book.

Yarn: Caron Fashion Right Sport Weight (Brown and Peacock Blue)
I got it from my parents' neighbor lady, Wanda, who had been interested in knitting once and bought yarn, lots of yarn. She then decided she didn't want to knit and stuck it all in trash bags in her storage shed. She gave me a bunch of yarn a few years ago. Then she passed away and now her husband keeps finding more and taking it to my parents.

Needles: Size 3 DPNs

I really enjoyed the first sock. It knit up really fast for socks because it was sport weight yarn and size 3 needles. The shaping makes it interesting, but the colour pattern is simple enough to memorize and be able to see where you're going. I was, however, frustrated by the vagueness of the pattern. I realize that I make up my own patterns semi-frequently and modify patterns even more frequently, but sometimes I just want to be told what to do. Especially with colourwork, because I'm a little less confident than I am with other techniques. There weren't a lot of details on what you should do with the colourwork when you got to different areas of the sock (such as the heel) and the toe shaping instructions were awful. I found myself looking at other people's project pages and pictures on Ravelry often to have an idea what it should look like. The first toe I got was ugly and square (see pics from earlier posts). I didn't like it and I didn't think it would fit in shoes well. I decided to do my typical toe decreases and see how it looked. I decreased every other row for half the toe and then every row for the second half. It turned out nicely, there was a little weirdness because of previous shaping, but I think I'm the only one that will notice it and it made a nice rounded toe. I ripped back to make the first one match and feel much better about them now. They really do have an arch-shape that makes them fit snugly. The only other issue I have is with the side of the heel flaps where I picked up stitches is very loose and a little holey. I picked them up the same way I always do, so I think it might just be the looser gauge?

I have a very exciting project up next in my queue, but I'm not buying yarn until I'm done with my test on Tuesday. You should be excited though, I am!

Don't tell me you're sorry cuz you're not

Today was a better day. I haven't been as productive on the studying front as I would have liked, but I've still got a few hours. I was a "patient" for the PT2's practical this morning, which will hopefully help me know what to expect next year. Then an hour of physiology lecture and two and a half of lab. Today was our last structured lab of this unit the only other lab we have between now and thanksgiving is a review lab and then the practical. I headed home and grabbed my laundry after school then went to the laundromat. After I threw my clothes in the washer I headed over to grab dinner at California Taco. I got a delicious chimichangas (which I totally got a pic of before I could devour it but I can't get it uploaded right now I'll try to add it tomorrow). Then I went to get cat food and gloves for lab. Figured out what Voodoo is getting for x-Mas while I was at petsmart. Studying the heart for the rest of the night. Hope your's is more exciting.

i turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn

My Pandora station has been doing an excellent job of serenading me tonight. It's actually my Moxie Fruvous station but it's been spitting out a lot of a capella music and recently a Beatles song and now a Wallflower's song. While One Headlight is probably the song a lot of people associate with the mid-90's Wallflowers (led by none other than Bob Dylan's son, Jakob), it was just the beginning of my love affair with one of my favourite bands. And on a day like today, when I seem to be struggling to keep it together, it is a nice reminder of how far I've come and how much further I can go.

I've been more productive tonight than I would have expected considering my state of mind after school. But still so much more to do. Timm and I have been talking a lot lately about the future and kids and where to live and all that kind of stuff which is giving me stuff to look forward to but also making it harder to be in the here and now and have so much not fun stuff to do. I'll leave it at that tonight before I just come off whiny and annoying.

nothing interesting to share today

Was at the mall for 10 hours today, only 2 of which I wasn't on the clock. It wasn't quite as busy as yesterday, which is good, considering how low our stock was running. I ran down to Old Navy while I was waiting for the staff meeting. I was hoping to find khaki corduroys on sale but no luck. I did however find a few cute shirts at least one of which will be good for clinicals. I'm feeling super stressed out right now because my next anatomy exam is a week from tomorrow and I feel like I know next to none of the material. I also don't want to completely slack on physiology and neuro and have to play catch-up later. The physiology exam is right after Thanksgiving and since I have to work Black Friday and all weekend I know I won't get a whole lot done. Hopefully, I'll be in a better mood and have more positive things to say tomorrow.

it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

at the mall that is. I worked for 8.5 hours today and it was disgustingly busy. See our hourly report - four $250 hours in a row. I feel like my legs might fall off or at the very least have been run over by a bus. I really hope the company gets their act together and hires some extra people soon. When it finally slowed down for a minute I ran downstairs to grab dinner. As I approached the top of the escalators I could smell the delicious brown sugar coated nuts. I thought I was going crazy or maybe one of the bath and body stores had a new scent out, but as I got closer to the food court I saw a "Roasted Nut" seller. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I have no pictures for you (mostly because I consumed the two "snack packs" before I even left work). This may be very dangerous for me through the rest of the holiday season.

This morning, I managed to get myself out of bed with the promise of Mulligatawny for my belly later. I started chopping onions. I kept chopping onions. I chopped a little bit of my thumb nail and then chopped still more onions. Lots of onions, but I love onions, so it's all good. They were sauteed and got all golden brown. Then I added all the spices, at which point, the whole apartment smelled delicious. I think garam masala might be the best spice ever and I don't know how I hadn't discovered it until yesterday. Then add red lentils and chicken broth and let simmer. Then comes the real interesting part. After the lentils have gotten tender, the soup is still chunky. So what do you do? You blend it! So I got out the blender that was an X-mas gift last year and opened the box. It's super nice wish I'd gotten it out sooner but haven't really had much to blend I guess. You can kinda see the chunkiness in the picture before the blender got turned on. When I took the first batch from the blender and poured it into a bowl, I got so excited - it looked almost exactly like what I get at restaurants. I got it all blended added the chicken. Then cooked a little rice up and poured myself a bowl for lunch. It is sooooo delicious. It's a little different than the one from Mother India and I didn't have any cilantro to throw on top. I think I'll stop at the store tomorrow for cilantro and see if I can place my finger on what else is missing. I definitely think I'll be making this again though.


Sorry still no pattern review for my socks. I'm behind in studying and physically exhausted. I work 6 hours tomorrow and then have to be at work 2 hours after I get off for a staff meeting, so I really need to get some studying done before I crash tonight.

tgif

I'm soooo glad it's Friday. It has been such a long week and even though I won't get too much of a break this weekend it still means I'm one step closer to Thanksgiving.

This morning I took my test for Foundations of PT. It went pretty well, there were a few that I wasn't 100% on but I should still be fine. I studied embryo during my two hour break, then had two hours of lecture before lab. In lab, we de-fatted kidneys and dug out vessels and nerves. Our group left a little early as we were all ready to be done for the week.

When I left lab it had gotten gross and rainy out. I was still determined to go to Trader Joe's, so Meghan and I headed that way. I expected it to be busy for the grand opening but it was chaos. It was still really awesome and I'll definitely be returning soon when it is less chaotic. Due to the crowds, I only got a few pics. I bought some stuff to make Mulligatawny, but it was too late when I got home tonight so that's on the agenda for tomorrow.


When I got into the check-out line at Trader Joe's, I looked out the window and wanted to cry. It was snowing giant, wet flakes in a rather steady and rapid pace. I carried my groceries through the quickly accumulating mush to my car. I had to stop at Whole Foods to grab a few things I didn't find at Trader Joe's (this may have been due to the crowds, not the lack of them carrying it). In the time it took me to grab 5 things at Whole Foods my car got a nice coat of snow on it. The check-out girl told me I looked like I was prepared for this weather with my sweater, gloves, and ear warmer. I told her I was a knitter so I was always physically prepared for it but never mentally. I drove home (slowly and carefully) through a ton of snowy mush. I think no one expected it to snow so the roads hadn't been salted at all and no one was prepared to drive in it.



When I got home, I was completely unmotivated to do all the studying I had planned earlier in the day (which I'm blaming entirely on the snow and my feelings towards it). The package my mom mailed me the other day had arrived bearing not only the allergy pills that I needed, but also movies! I decided that watching How to Train Your Dragon was a much better way to spend a snowy evening. A friend had recommended it to me because she thought Toothless, the main dragon, looked just like VooDoo. I'll let you decide


I know I promised last night to do a pattern review for the socks, but I think this is enough for one night. Gotta save something for tomorrow. Hope that wherever you are it's not snowing (or if it is that you appreciate it more than me).