i'm fine

So, as I was watching The Italian Job at Melanie's house tonight, one of the quotes in the movie struck me as true/funny in regards to this past week: "I'm fine. What does fine really stand for?"
F: freaked out
I: insecure
N: neurotic
E: emotional

Love it.

I made it through week one....

I am officially a Vanderbilt grad student. My back hurts, my eyes are tired, I've eaten at SATCo, and I walk about 15 minutes one way from the parking garage to class.
So far, so good, (minus a breakdown on the phone with Mike on Wednesday night) just overwhelmed at the amount of work and tests I will have between now and Dec. 17th.
So very thankful for Melanie, letting me borrow her otoscope/opthamoscope, books, bedroom, house, letting me practice my reflexes on her and picking her and Anna Brown's brains for the best way to be successful this year.
Today we had to do physical assessments on one another in front of the faculty. It was a bit nerve-racking, but we could use notes, so that was helpful. I feel like in undergrad, they taught us all these different types of assessment skills, but you don't use every single one of them in real life, so I had to try to remember how do to certain parts of assessment that I haven't had to use in over 5 years. It will come. At the end of October, though, we have to perform a full physical exam on a child infront of faculty without notes, so I'll be a little stressed out when that comes around.
So, if you have children and you are my friend, I might need to assess your child so that I can remember all these little things I have to know how to do. :)
And, if you see me with otoscope in hand, please let me look in your ear :)

stupid honking

I feel that this is the calm before the storm. I have this feeling that once I get back from school next week, there's gonna be so much that I need to do/study/learn and so I've been trying to enjoy these next 4 days off.
So, today, I decided that I would sleep until I woke up, which I did. I had my quiet time, cleaned two bathrooms, did laundry, took a shower and then was going to Ikea and Seconds and Surplus to pick out kitchen cabinet hardware.
So, on the way to Ikea, I was hungry and decided to stop at Wendy's. The drive-thru line was way too long, so I went inside and got my food, went back to my car,then turned the car battery on to eat quickly. Once I was finished, I couldn't get my car to start. When I could kinda get it to work, the horn/alarm system went off uncontrollably and I was "that person" in the parking lot whose car alarm wouldn't stop. Talk about humiliating.
I frantically called Mike, who didn't have his cell phone on him. I kept hitting the unlock button, which would silence the alarm, but then the car wouldn't start. So, I called Alison to see if she could pick me up. While she was on her way, I called the Toyota dealership and described the symptoms and they thought my battery was dead. Lovely.
Then, my car started freaking out again with the horn going, but it was a really weak horn- it was pitiful- and I couldn't stop it. Finally, after about a minute, it stopped.
Thankfully, Ali arrived and we went and ran some errands and she brought me back home.
Mike had been planning for over a week to take me out on a date, and tonight was the night. So, he came home from work, picked me up, took me to Wendy's to jump-start the car, only we couldn't find the jumper cables. So, off to Auto-Zone where we bought the cables. Back to Wendy's to jump-start the car, then we go back to Auto-Zone where they hooked up the battery, and it was indeed low.
The great thing about Auto Zone is that they guarantee their batteries. We had actually bought the battery a year and a half ago, and their warranty is good for 2 years, so we got a free new battery! Mike did a great job of quickly changing out the battery in the parking lot (with the added safety feature of the car horn honking obnoxiously whenever you try to disconnect the battery- scared the life of out of me!) I'm sure the Auto Zone people were laughing at me as I was trying to turn off the honking by using the key fob like a magic wand or something. Greatness.

With a little help from my friends...

Thanks to Mike, Sergei and Mike Sr, our kitchen now has walls!!! Mucho progress! So, the next steps are to tape and bed the areas that will not be covered with cabinets, paint, fix and paint the ceiling and then install the cabinets!!!

A Terrible Prayer

One of my favorite books of all time is Ragamuffin Prayers. I picked it up again last week and wanted to share one of the poems with you.

I have always been terrible at praying.

I forget.

My mind wanders.

I fall asleep.

I don't pray enough.

I don't understand what prayer is

Or what prayer does.

If prayer were school...

I would flunk praying.

But prayer isn't school.

It is mystery.

Maybe the mystery is...

Jesus loves terrible prayers.

Maybe...

When I can't think of anything to say, He says what I can't say.

When I talk too much, He cherishes my too-many words.

When I fall asleep, He holds me in His lap and caresses my weary soul.

When I am overwhelmed with guilt at my inconsistent, inadequate praying

He whispers, "Your name is always on My lips."

I am filled with gratitude, my soul overflows with thankfulness and I...

I... find myself saying over and over again, "Thank You."

Praying the mystery.

I feel like I can so relate to this poem- so many times I feel like I don't pray enough, get mad at myself for my wandering mind or falling asleep while I'm praying....

I find comfort in our God who knows that we are human and not perfect and loves us despite our inadequacies.

useful information

In case you were wondering how much caffeine you could ingest before it would kill you in one day, check this out:

http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine

According to the website, I could have 93 tall Starbucks lattes before I died in one day.

Good information to know for my upcoming semester! :)

working from home...

Poor Mike. He's sickly. Woke up this morning, thinking that he was just constipated, but possible constipation/abdominal pain turned into a nice GI bug (and all that it implies), followed by fever. He bought himself a ticket to stay home tomorrow. And, so I will be working from home! :) Poor guy- he looks miserable. But, so far, he's kept down applesauce and some jello...

the heat

I just can't take it anymore. I'm so tired of the TX heat. I'm SO ready for it to be cold. It shouldn't be over 100 degrees. Anywhere. Mike asked me if I would ever move to Houston. I said "only if you could change the weather."
I looked at the Nashville temp averages yesterday and the average highs are in the high 80s, low 90's for August. As much as I'm anxious about starting school, I'm SO ready to be where it's at least a little cooler for a week or so!

school days

"I would give you a bouquet of freshly-sharpened pencils"- quote from my favorite movie, You've Got Mail.

So, as I'm gearing up to start school in about 3 weeks, I went to Target (pronounced, "Tarjay", makes it sound more French and exotic) and bought some school supplies. This trip secretly made me very happy because I love organization (although from the looks of my house at its present state, you couldn't tell) and I love the fall. I love new binders, new spirals, new planners, new pens...

And, I found some new pens that are AWESOME! Sharpie makes a very fine-line pen that is permanent, but doesn't bleed through your paper nor can you get high off the fumes! AMAZING! AND, they won't explode on an airplane- even more important!

jackhammers in the morning

For about a year, we've wondered if our pool had a leak. We (mainly Mike) have had to keep adding water, more than we thought we should. So, we had a pool leak guy come last week and it was determined that we did, in fact, have a leak in our pool.
So, about 9:30am, we had two guys come and jackhammer our deck, scoop out the mud and plaster and fix our pool leak.
And now, no more leaks. :) Yay!