Deja Vu

Well I got to see the garage door man again today. Awesome. The one thing I can say about this guy is that he always shows up 30 minutes earlier than he's scheduled, calls 15 minutes ahead of time to give you a warning, and doesn't leave until he gets the job done. He's not terribly expensive either. It's nice to find a non-scary non-price gouging service man. So if your garage door ever breaks, just let me know and I'll get you his number.

Still no luck on the Woodrow front. We're planning on maybe/probably getting a puppy/dog Friday when Kris gets back from his little trip. He's leaving town today to go see a UFC fight in Nashville with his bestie. I don't think he's that interested in the fight, but is interested in a fun trip. I can't blame him. He won't be back until Thursday. What will I do with 3 days in the house all to myself? Hopefully I'll get some work done!!!

I felt the major pangs of guilt for not studying every hour of every day yesterday when sitting behind one of my classmates. During the lecture she pulled out her First Aid (the STEP book) to take notes in it. Not only did it have nifty little tabs all up and down the sides but as she flipped through it I saw highlighting in several different colors and tons of her own notes in the margins - on nearly every page. That book is about 500-600 pages long. how many pages have I glanced at? Not sure, probably around 30. Yikes. There's now less than 60 days before the test. It's time to get on the ball. The only problem is we have another week and a half of class left and I really don't want to just completely bomb this last round of tests in order to study for STEP. Not to mention I can't really afford to bomb these tests. Whatever though. I guess I just need to get organized and I'm hoping to make some progress on that front over the next week. It's looking a little doubtful though since before midnight tomorrow night I must accomplish all of the following:

* finish 4 transcriptions
* attend the PIG roast (this is a charity event for Blair E. Batson at Old Venice :))
* play in a tennis match (and hopefully win)

Thursday night I also have a transcription due and another tennis match. Maybe it will rain and one of them will get moved/cancelled.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot - either on Thursday or Friday I have to complete my first witnessed (by my preceptor) history and physical. It's a little nerve wracking since we've done lots of pieces of a physical exam but hardly a whole thing. I am really comfortable looking in ears now and can almost always find the ear drum - except when there's so much wax it just completely blocks everything. That happens about 1/2 the time. It's pretty gross.

Must get back to class now, but thought I'd rant for a second. I'm sorry my posts are always so sporadic, but for those who know me well you know that's just how my brain works. I don't know any other way!

I Is Lazy.

Maybe I'm not lazy, but I sure feel that way when I do everything but study. Here's what I've done the last few days.

Thursday
got ready for school and preceptor meeting - which means I have to dress up and manage to get my white coat and bookbag and purse into the car without spilling coffee on anything. This usually involves me making 2 trips to put things in my car. Needless to say, I was running late. That's normal. What's not normal is the fact that I didn't quite shut the door all the way. Woodrow came and pushed on it to follow me outside and he got out. He ran over to the neighbor's yard and greeted both my neighbor and another gentleman. I said hi and told them how late I was running and that I needed to get him inside. So what does neighbor's friend do? Strikes up a conversation of course!

Neighbor's Friend: "Oh, didn't you meet my wife the other day at the bank?"
Me: "Uh, yeah. Come here Woodrow! Come on! I'm LATE LATE LATE!!!"
Neighbor's Friend: "Yeah, what's your name, Alicia?"
Me: "It's Allison. You're close. Come on Woodrow!!!"

Keep in mind the entire time Woodrow is just hanging out with neighbor and neighbor's friend - literally at their feet. Do the men make any attempt to help the poor distressed neighbor girl? Nope. At this point I was super late and Kris was up and about to leave for work so I told him to get Woodrow inside. At this point Woodrow has moved on and is running around other neighbor's yards sniffing around. Kris called him, got him back in the garage, had him by the collar, pushed the button to shut the garage door, and then Woodrow slipped out of his collar. He wouldn't come back so Kris just shut the garage door and went to work.

Since I had to meet with my preceptor that day I didn't get home until around 5:00 and Kris didn't get home until after that. Woodrow tried to dig in to the backyard under the fence and there were muddy paw prints on our front door. We haven't seen him since. We've walked around the neighborhood calling him, left food in the garage for him, looked around all the surrounding neighborhoods and apartment complexes, called all the vets and pounds, and put up fliers. I don't think he's coming back though. Kris is pretty sure someone took him. If he's right I hope they're not being abusive to him. He's kind of a handful but we were just getting the hang of it with the kitchen gate and all.

Friday
So Thursday pretty much sucked. Friday I was thinking he'd show up. I had class from 9-12. Came home - no Woodrow. I've been needing to work on organizing my built-in bookshelves in my living room so I finally got that done. I'll have to post some pics when I get them perfected. I'm covering the books in plain white paper and then writing the author and title on pretty tags that I made from some scrapbook paper. The tags are glued to a ribbon that I just stuck in the middle of each book. It just makes everything look so much cleaner and organized. Most of them are Kris's Stephen King novels so the book jackets aren't the prettiest. Mostly black and red - not really in fitting with my decor. ha.

After that I was exhausted and took a "short" nap. I slept 3.5 hrs. I knew I had to get a run in yesterday so I immediately jumped up to go run. Bad idea. I only did 2 miles. Apparently the 1st mile was one of my fastest though. I think it was around 7 minutes. Tiger Woods came on my iPod and told me. I love Nike+. My best runs come in the mid-afternoon after I've had time to digest my lunch and about an hour after I have some sort of caffeine. It just gives that extra boost. So running immediately after waking up and not having eaten in about 6 hrs - not a good idea. After that I worked some more on the shelves while watching the Sex and the City movie. I LOVE that movie. Then I got ready for bed and went to shut the garage door. I shut it alright - right on the trunk of my car... It didn't hurt my car, but it made the garage door non-functional. Did I mention I got this garage door fixed WEDNESDAY??? As in 4 days ago Wednesday. Yeah. I'm that good. So pretty much Friday sucked too.

Saturday
Today has been better so far. No major catastrophes. Made a Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby run this morning, then had a bridal shower to attend this afternoon, then joined my brother and sister in law for drinks at Papito's and hibachi at Nagoya. Yum! That was unplanned and very fun. The bartender at Nagoya was so funny. She gave us a leftover drink she had made called "Wedding Cake" which was pretty yummy. Then when we ordered a Kamikaze shot for sis-in-law she accidentally made 3, so she gave us the other 2 and said "Drink those fast, before they see you and make me charge you for them." Ha. I don't think I've ever had a free drink before. Pretty funny I got it from a girl instead of a guy. I feel incredibly guilty for not having studied in the last 2 days, but I'm about to do a transcription, so maybe that counts?

For tomorrow:
*Must not break any major household appliances
*Must study
*Must run

Wish me luck!

It's Over Already?!?!?

How in the heck is Spring Break over already? I was just starting to hit my stride. It was nice to have time to tend to my house and garden. Today was another super productive day in that arena. After a glamorous Sunday morning breakfast at Waffle House with K I made my 3rd or 4th Wal-Mart trip of the week. I got more paint for the living room. This is the 4th color I've bought. I FINALLY got it right though. I managed to come home, put in a new dryer vent, do some laundry, paint the living room, do some more laundry, then plant a bunch of plants. I love it. I had a feeling there was a problem with my dryer when I had to let my clothes dry for 5 hours before they were dry. I was worried a new vent wouldn't fix it, but it did. Hooray! I consider all the housework I did this week Step study. If I hadn't gone ahead and gotten it done I wouldn't have been able to think about studying. As for ACTUAL Step study - I got 1 hour in. Nice. Half of that was doing 20 questions. Just enough to make me realize I don't remember crap but everything looks familiar. I'm kind of glad I didn't study a lot this week because now I'm not dreading it at all. It's so funny how you can get used to things. At the beginning of last year I had no clue how to study and definitely didn't have the ability to study for an entire day or an entire night. I'd never done it before. Now it's the norm. Anyway, on to more interesting things...

Kris and I went to a new place the other night - the 930 Blues Cafe. It's near State and Congress St., so it's not for the faint of heart. I had my pepper spray and 2 men with me. The music was amazing though and I really liked the atmosphere. I like going to bars/clubs where you can sit down - you know - RELAX. Some people got up and danced a little, so that was entertaining too. The table in front of us was reserved for the Sweet Potato Queens, but they never showed. This is not the really interesting part though. Kris and I had been out and about the whole day doing other things and Woodrow had been a good boy all day. We just assumed he'd be good the rest of the night.

WRONG.

He DESTROYED Kris's captain's chair AKA the recliner. It already had the tiniest little rip in the seat. That was all Woodrow needed. He completely ripped the fabric the rest of the way off the seat. Then he ripped up all the stuffing that was on the inside. It is a mess. So the next day I went off in search of a crate. Ha ha. I ended up going with Julia's method of a gate instead. Crates are freakin' expensive. We have gated him in the kitchen both times that we've left the house today and it's worked really well! We put his bed, food, water, and a toy in there and so far he's been great. We came home tonight to find him hanging out on his pillow. Nothing was torn up. It was wonderful.

Tomorrow we find out our tentative rotation schedule for next year. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Uber Productive Day

Thank goodness for Spring Break. I think we should get one at least once every month or two. So far today I have:

1. made a Wal-Mart trip
2. made a healthy lunch
3. planted new plants in front yard
4. weeded most of the front yard
5. mulched(pine strawed?) most of the front yard
6. dozed off in the recliner with Woodrow while watching Jon & Kate (bliss!)
7. cooked dinner - not so healthy: baked pork chops, homemade mac & cheese, green beans, & crescent rolls
8. hung a curtain rod in the living room
9. balanced our joint checking account
10. balance my checking account (I was 4 months behind on both)
11. put some boots I never wear on eBay
12. cleared out my inboxes

Amazing, huh? I even got all dressed up and went to the hospital this morning to meet with my preceptor but he didn't answer his phone. After 45 minutes of chit-chat with my partner we decided to head out.

I swear - if I wasn't studying or thinking about studying or procrastinating studying 99% of my whole life I could really get some things accomplished!

Today in a Nutshell

It's only 2:30 and already I:

*was up before the sun was (not cool)

*panicked over 1 test, then another

*realized I hadn't seen Meery Bob (the cat) since last night

*took a test requiring a calculator at 9:00 (very rare)

*had some yummy lunch with some fun ladies (hooray!)

*took another test at 1:00

*picked up my taxes - (let's just say it's like I won the lottery. SCORE!!!)

*let Woodrow find the cat (she was outside under our deck, very shellshocked. She ran inside to her favorite chair and started grooming herself)


On an ideal day at 2:30 I would just be making breakfast. This is why I don't like test week. Now it's off to pharm study land. 3 tests down, 3 to go.

The End of an Era

for Woodrow. I took him in this morning to be neutered. He was so excited to be at the vet and loved the whole car ride over. I felt pretty bad for him, but it was time. He had begun "marking" certain parts of the house. That's just a no-no.

Sometimes he's so good and other times he's so bad. Yesterday I was quite impressed with his behavior though. I took him for a walk and as we walked past the houses with dogs, they barked or whined. He did not. He generally ignored those dogs. He is not a "yappy dog" as my mama calls them. We may go a week without hearing him bark sometimes. When he does bark - watch out. He has what is called a "baying bark." Apparently that's what most hound or hunting dogs have. It starts as a bark and turns into a little bit of a howl in the middle.

He also ignored all the cats we walked past. The only things he doesn't ignore are scents. He'll catch a deer scent and want to follow it into the woods. For just 28 lbs. he is so strong. He nearly jerked my arm out of socket a few times!

Anyway, I'm hoping this surgery will calm him down just a little. He's just a tad bit too energetic for our tastes most of the time. One of our neighbors remarked that he looked like he was on speed as she saw him running laps around our house.

I guess we'll see how it all turns out. I know he'll get some pampering this afternoon - the "good" dog food that comes in a can and lots of petting. We bought him a new bed last week and hopefully he'll get some use out of it for the next few days.