Blog, revisited...

Went to comment on a blog tonight, and realized that once upon a time, I had a blogger account...Turns out I still do. The last two years have been a wild ride...and have gone by absurdly fast. Hard to believe I've been done with school for a year, married for 12, and found my pharmacy home. Overall, not much has changed...House still needs work, kids are still awesome...Now the hubster is in school, I'm finding my hobbies again, and it's that time of year where WNY weather is simply beautiful. I imagine that the next few weeks might bring blogs on work, travel, family, weather, half marathons, village parks, and other randoms. Then again, like the last two years, I might just take a backseat to the blogosphere and hang out. Either way, hugs, smiles, and enjoy the summer months :)

Camera found AND computer fixed!

Well, I should be getting some SERIOUS homework done, I'm giving a presentation Weds and I have, um, the title slide finished...but, earlier a lil bird told me about this AWESOME blog hop idea, and I was like, Oh, blog! It's been a while! So, in a nutshell, the last few weeks...camera found, then computer crashed, best friend had baby FAR away, a couple presentations, a few exams, more teeth for the babe, volunteer work, work work, and plotting a secret (from the kiddo) road trip!

Phew. Well, working on the getting pictures up annnnd maybe thinking of joining the latest hop by Megandvd@BeautyintheAttempt :)

O camera, where art thou?

So, I took pics of the things I accomplished while out with "appendajerk" and I can't find my camera. I also can't find my energy to look for it, and it's a really long boring post without pictures, but I feel like I need to blog, so I'm going to share with you something VERY exciting that my husband just sent to me...

Preface: I get to pick out whatever vehicle I want when I'm done with school. Unfortunately I'm a car girl and have a list a mile long of what I'd love. Keeping my focus on something "new" I've narrowed it down to 2 main players, that is, until now....

OH MY GOODNESS! Now, my quest for a Vdub bus was squashed for a while. Husby, a mechanic, refuses to touch the things, but a little bit ago I found that a friend of a friend fixes them up for fun. They also have a track record of things like, oh, ya know, bursting into flames and breaking down, making it a little unappealing since I need to be on time every once and a while, at least for the foreseeable future (Boo). But then, Husby sends me this link! FINALLY! I mean they remade the bug HOW long ago now? And, 186.4 on a single battery charge? Holy dang. Yes, Yes, I DO realize that it is just a concept at the Geneva Auto Show, but fingers crossed, it will be mine. I could fit more than 4 people in it tooo, ya know, just in case...

In the meantime...My two top picks of things to get new are...

The mini countryman!

We picked up a mini clubman for my mom last year to settle our debt with my parents from the $ they helped us with to buy the house and make things happen with me in school. Love that car. Was thinking, it's be AWESOME if it had all wheel drive and heated seats, two of my fav features in my 1997 subaru princess wagon. And there ya go, they made it. It's ADORABLE. The last time we had to take the mini in for some warranty work, I was like...what is THAT?! The only downside I can think of is that it's, well, small. It's got 4 bucket seats, cool for road trip, but uncool if we have 5 people that want to go somewhere. Or 5 people in the family (maybe? someday?). Although, we always seem to have something else to drive...

My other top pick is the subaru legacy GT. It's like the grownup version of Husby's WRX, and mighty good looking. I'm so-so-sooooo sold on subarus. Just last week we had a foot of snow fall by the time I got in from school, and I had no probs getting in the driveway. Plus side: Husby will work on subarus, gladly. It also looks really harmless, won't draw attention. Downside, not as good on gas as the mini, not electric. More pricey than the mini too, even if I design my own mini. Waiting for suby to get on the hybrid bandwagon. If they jump on the bandwagon before VW decides to move the van to production...Well, we'll see!

Well, I hope you enjoy my car post in lieu of pictures of the results of my unexpected low key days off :)

Adios Appendix!

Well, it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks around here, to say the least...I survived round two of exams and presentation nonsense...well, almost...Let's start with Valentines day. Have I mentioned how much I hate Valentines day? It wasn't bad tho. Husby suggested takeout BBQ dinner at home via candelight (with the Munchkins too, of course) which was probably the best idea yet. Since I have school by our fave BBQ joint I offered to grab it on the way home. Yum! He had his usual pile of ribs, and I tried something new, these crab cakes coated in pulled pork...Seriously. I kid you not. Now, I have been phasing meat and meat products out of my diet gradually, so I expected the tummy ache that ensued Monday evening. And I kind of expected it to linger into Tuesday, I mean, deep friend and pulled pork, I earned it. But come Wednesday it was like I was being stabbed in the gut over and over again, and I only made it 2 hours into my 11 hour day at work when the boss started calling the local urgent care offices to see who had what imaging equipment to figure out what meanness was attacking my insides.
Using Colleen and Lisa's differential diagnosis, we narrowed my RLQ pain down to ovarian cysts, appendicitis, or diverticulitis, I just needed someone to take pictures of my guts and tell me which one it was. No luck finding Urgent care though, so I had to suck up the copay and visit the local ER.
It was interesting. I sat there for a few hours being poked and prodded (OW) and then drank some contrast dye mixed with crystal lite that I was told would give me diarrhea. Yay. CT scan was inconclusive (and boy is that gonna cost me) and by the time the surgeon got there Jon had arrived. We opted to take the diagnosis of possible cysts since my WBC wasn't elevated and although I had about no appetite I wasn't nauseas or vomiting. They offered to keep me for observation, or take out the lil guy for kicks, but I had a big test on Thursday (covering intraabdominal infections, mind you, Irony!) and a presentation to give on Friday that I hadn't quite finished yet. My super nice awesome nurse was busy when it was time for me to go, so this other nurse tossed a bunch of papers at me including a prescription for half the NSAIDs I currently take, confused the hell out of me, and lead me to tears of frustration. Supernicenurse came back and apoligized, and I just hoped that I would never have to see any of them again.
Well, I was up a couple times during the night with the stabbing pain, which was worse despite my pile-o-pain pills (not the 400mg Ibu the ER doc offered me though, something about duplicate therapy he didn't seem to understand...)and driving to school Thursday AM was not a pleasant time. Not to mention the after effects of all that crap they made me drink for the imaging, I was a peach, for sure. I spent a good chunk of time on the phone trying to get a hold of my PCP at the VA to get in for an ultrasound to confirm the cyst hypothesis, or obtain some sort of referral to not have to pay thousands if I had to go back to the ER....To find out my PCP was leaving the clinic and they could get me in in MAY. MAY. MAY! I requested to leave a message for a nurse or ANYONE but since they didn't have me reassigned they didn't have anyone to direct my message to. Lovely. They ended up finding a cancellation in someone's day for next Wednesday, so I took that for the time being, and hoped the pain would go away.
I made it through my test. Not excited to see the grades on that one, a two hour exam and I left in about 40 minutes because I was pretty sure my guts were going to grace the classroom walls one way or another. Texted husby to meet me at home and take me back to the hospital. Once I was back in the ER with not-so-nice nurse taking care of me (luckily I felt to crappy to care) they did bloodwork and my WBC was elevated. They opted to inspect my appendix situation laproscopically, and told me they'd take it out either way, and got me ready for surgery.
So here it is, Saturday night, and I'm working on this recovery nonsense. It went really well, and although I'm super sore I no longer have this stabbing pain in my RLQ.
I just caught up on emailing all my professors to make up my work from Friday and for Monday and Tuesday, so that I could take it easy a couple days. Since my back is already in bad shape, this whole having my stomach muscles cut into thing isn't the best ever. I'll tell you what is the best ever though, my husby for attempting to take care of me, my folks for bringing me flowers, my friends for entertaining me and making us all dinner, and all the people sending warm get better fuzzies my way. Who knows, maybe I can get some lazy projects done the next couple days? Maybe?
:)

Time out Tuesday...

So, I was getting some things done before classes yesterday, and I found out that the class I had an exam in today was NOT a pass/fail class. Ooops. I suppose that was likely indicated on the syllabus, but...I guess I missed that. Yesterday was jam packed, by 10am I had already spent quality time at the gym, got the kids up and dressed, finished my homework for the afternoon, and killed some time...After school was filled up too, volunteering with my oldest at Noogieland back in the city till 8...Meaning I had to go in and out of the city twice before I could finally wind down. Monday was manic indeed, but enjoyable, despite taking a small amount of anxiety to bed with me since studying for this exam clearly was out of range...

That being said, I rocked it. For sure. Granted, it was all on that common sense stuff, that (frighteningly) other pharmacy students sometimes have a LOT of trouble with. I had an advantage I guess in that I have kids that I had to feed and take care of and it was a self care exam...But for all the times having a family doesn't make the pharm student life easier, I think I had one freebie coming my way :)

Anyways. I was about to start working on my umpteen school things for the week, osteomyelitis case, fundraiser flyers, journal club, presentation....And I thought I'd take a time out. I busted out my camera and took the before shots for my projects-in-progress...

So...Here (hopefully) you can see the blue cord that will be a new bag, on top of the canvas where Auburn and I have sketched out our drawing (a big leafy tree and tons of flowers) an old magazine, an olive container I rescued from the recycletruckmonster after the last fridge clean (some label still attached...) and my bff modgepodge.

With both kids entertained, and husby soldering in the hallway, I figured I'd take my time out one step further and have some craft time. I decided that I wanted my pencil holder, formerly known as olive jar, to be coated in various shades of wine since it will be in my dining room, with a burgundy ceiling and purple walls, and wine in general makes me smile...So I selected my ratty-est wine-o mag and went to town cutting out slices of pinot and merlot. Before grabbing my scissors, I soaked the jar in a bucket of hot water with a lil Mrs. Meyers (goo gone scares me a little, and to be honest, it requires too much one-on-one) so the label and residual sticky would slip right off. Chopped out the shades of wine, and rescued my jar, ready to go! I was so impressed with it's shiny-ness, I took a picture of that too...

Ok. So the glare from my camera, and the photo quality don't do this shiny piece of rescued glass justice, I'm going for the *thought* that counts. I was super pleased. I promptly coated it with shades of wine and heaps of modgepodge, and once it dries and I find some snappy ribbon for the top, I'll post a pic of that too :)

Well, I suppose this case study isn't going to do itself, and considering I took another time out to blog this today (apparently my blog doesn't write itself either...) I'd better get to it.

Happy Tuesday all :)