Tuesday, November 30, 2010
last day of NaBloPoMo
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.
Monday, November 29, 2010
not much to say tonight
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.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
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.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
exhusted
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Turkey turkey turkey
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.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
a little r & r
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.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Alive and cozy
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.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Did you know . . .
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!)
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
one day closer
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!
Friday, November 19, 2010
'tis the season
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.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone
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!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
just another day
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!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Don't tell me you're sorry cuz you're not
Monday, November 15, 2010
i turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn
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.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
nothing interesting to share today
Saturday, November 13, 2010
it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas
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.
Friday, November 12, 2010
tgif
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).
Thursday, November 11, 2010
not enough hours in the day
Today in lab, we saw a "surgery" on a lightly embalmed cadaver. It reaffirmed that I don't want anything to do with surgery and PT was a good career choice. Then we found the rest of the major blood supply to the GI tract, before removing the entire system from our cadaver. I'm pretty sure my hands will permanently smell like formaldehyde after the amount of time and depth that I had my hands in his abdomen. I also think that I'm starting to get a reaction from my gloves (or the embalming fluid seeping through the gloves) because my hands are really splotchy and not happy tonight.
The most exciting thing right now is that Trader Joe's opens tomorrow!!!! I'm so excited to go buy lots of yummy food.
Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have a more inspiring post about Trader Joe's and socks!