Doing the Charleston :)

Actually, I do know how to do the Charleston (I think). This is a very late post about my trip to Charleston. I went there for a 'business' trip with my boss and co-worker. I feel so grown-up saying I went on a business trip. It was really an expanded functions course conference. I learned how to place sealants and pack cord and fun things like that. I got a couple of pictures of our hotel room. It looked a lot like the Marriott I stayed at in DC, only not as pretty. I didn't really get pictures of the city as it was only about 17*F outside and we always stayed inside the Marriott (home sweet hotel of mine :) or we were hanging out at the 3 story mall right across the street from the Marriott. Which was fun. :)
I did get a picture of this building while we were walking back from dinner. I am not sure if it is a temple or a mosque. It was very pretty though. It started snowing and it looked so beautiful I took a picture of it. Unfortunately the picture doesn't do the building justice. Oh well. Hopefully you have some idea of what it looks like.
I did not particularly like Charleston. We found that the people were not really friendly. There were a few very nice people that we came into contact with, but for the most part we found a lot of people to be very aloof and even rude. Bummer.

It was not a bad trip. The classes I took were interesting for the most part. We enjoyed shopping around and going out for dinner together. The hotel had a really nice restaurant with healthy food. It's nice to have some healthy options because it seems hard to find nutritious foods to eat when you are staying away from home. People usually go to restaurants and everything is greasy or really bready or something. Or at least that has been my experience.

We also stopped at the outlet mall (which was teeny tiny) to stretch our legs a little bit and to go inside the Fiesta Ware store. Apparently Fiesta Ware is based in WV and they do have beautiful dishes. They are really expensive too! The store we visited had a 'Seconds' room where there were lots of dishes with minor defects (unnoticeable ones actually) for really cheap prices. So if you ever want to buy some Fiesta Ware dishes take the road the goes to nowhere and stop at the itty bitty outlets. It's as easy as anything.

As far as capitals go, my favorites are Austin, Texas and DC. In that order. Is that a little weird? I've been to Raleigh too, but can't remember it it was so long ago. Sorry Charleston, but you don't quite make it onto my favorites list. Thanks for letting me come visit for a short while though!

breaks

It's Friday. I'm at work on my break. And it's a lovely day. Today I have the office basically to myself. It is rainy outside. Normally I don't enjoy rainy days like this. I'm a sunshine-loving girl. But every once in awhile I enjoy a rainy day. I also (surprisingly?) enjoy working on Fridays. And I enjoy the opportunity to be alone for a little while with no sounds except my own breathing and the 'drip drip' of the rain outside and the 'tick tock' of the clock on the wall and the clicking of my keys on the keyboard as I wait for 3 oclock to roll around so I can head home and enjoy the rest of my day. I have to run to the grocery store to pick up a few things for the baby shower tomorrow and then I think I will wrap my shower gifts. Oh, and Matt and Tasha are coming down from Ohio and I'm looking forward to seeing them. :)

Inhale, exhale; drip, drop; click, clack; tick tock...two and a half more hours until my lovely weekend begins!

Happy weekend. I hope it's lovely for everyone!

oodelally hoodelally, golly what a week!

It's been one of those weeks. Stress levels are running high. Our hygienist put in her notice at work. My boss is really stressed out and I feel like it's affecting the office. I found out my plans for school have been changed. 10 more people are coming to the baby shower this weekend so Becca and I met up last minute to change our plans for games, which was nice and I am pleased with the alternative games we chose.

Sigh. I am so ready for this week...no...more than that...this time to be over. I can't stand not knowing what is going to happen to me. I can't stand waiting and waiting to find out what my future is tentatively going to look like. I'm so frustrated and I feel so alone. And I feel scared too. I hate feeling this way.

This past year has had its share of highs and lows. I've struggled with a lot of things this past year that have caused me to be kind of down. But when I am very stressed out or struggling with something, somehow God provides encouragement for me. Sometimes it is through a conversation with my mom or sister or a friend. Other times it is in unexpected places. I was browsing through blogs (so what else is new?) and on one of the blogs I was looking at the author posted part of Psalm 37. And it was exactly what I needed to hear (or read). I'm going to post pieces of the Psalm here, but you can view the whole Psalm by clicking on this link.

Psalm 37:3-8, 18-19, 23-24

³ Trust in the Lord and do good.
Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.
⁴ Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you your heart’s desires.

⁵ Commit everything you do to the Lord.
Trust him, and he will help you.
⁶ He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn,
and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.

⁷ Be still in the presence of the Lord,
and wait patiently for him to act. (so hard to do!)
Don’t worry about evil people who prosper
or fret about their wicked schemes.

⁸ Stop being angry!
Turn from your rage!
Do not lose your temper—
it only leads to harm.

¹⁸ Day by day the Lord takes care of the innocent,
and they will receive an inheritance that lasts forever.
¹⁹ They will not be disgraced in hard times;
even in famine they will have more than enough.

²³ The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
He delights in every detail of their lives.
²⁴ Though they stumble, they will never fall,
for the Lord holds them by the hand.

Oh my, those last verses are the part that I really NEEDED to hear! I get so anxious about making decisions and facing unknown situations. Knowing God is holding my hand and directing my steps and delighting in every detail of me life is such a comfort. And even if I stumble, Jesus won't let me fall. What a beautiful promise!

just stuff:

That's what this post is about: stuff. Things that are on my mind lately.

1. This past Friday the ladies at Cornerstone threw a *surprise* baby shower for Jacqueline. It was very nice and Jacqueline got tons of stuff for the new baby (due in just 4 weeks!).
2. We are throwing a shower for Jacqueline this Saturday at our house and it seems like we have about 33 people coming (including us). Quite a few people. I am doing a lot of baking for the shower. I think it should be fun. Hopefully not overwhelming since I have to work on Friday and pick up some last minute things. Becca and I are doing the games for the shower and I've found quite a few fun ideas online.
3. This baby (my niece) has my sewing mojo going like crazy! I've got so many ideas for projects I want to work on. It's nice. :) I'll have to post pictures of the items I've made. I'm pretty pleased actually. I make this stuff and I stop and think to myself, I just can't wait to get married and have kids. I have tons of things I'd like to make for my home and family someday. But then, what if I never get married? I sure don't have any prospects right now, and there isn't any point in making baby stuff for myself until I'm at least married. Or engaged. So I'll just make everything I can think of for my niece. I can't wait to meet her in a few short weeks!
4. Speaking of babies, Brandy's puppies are HUGE! We only have the three (we lost 2) but those three are enormous. At three weeks I would say the largest male measures about 12 inches from head to tail. They are walking around and barking and playing with each other. We've started to supplement their diets with goat milk. Pictures should be coming soon, but my camera battery died and I didn't really have any good pictures of them (they're so dark it's hard to see them) so when I get my battery charged and find the time to get some good pictures I'll be posting them.
5. I went to yoga tonight. I really enjoy yoga. There are aspects to it that I don't agree with, the whole yoga lifestyle and all. Parts of it are fine like the emphasis on well-being and healthiness. I don't like how some of the philosophy seems to be a bit...well...apathetic. They say you should try to be the best you can be, but at the same time you are supposed to be very accepting of yourself, flaws and all. Like, whatever you are feeling is alright, but what if you are thinking something really bad? I mean, what if you are thinking really bad thoughts about someone, or plotting revenge for something, or just feeling sorry for yourself? Also, it seems like you look to yourself to be 'good' and basically, in so many ways, it's all about you. I'm not saying you shouldn't care about yourself at all, but the whole philosophy neglects Jesus and his grace and his commands to strive to be holy like he is. And I guess that is my problem with yoga. It is religious to an extent but does not acknowledge Jesus Christ and is therefore empty. I still think it would be cool to become an instructor and just leave out most of the philosophy stuff. The workouts are really good. You can get a wonderful workout and you don't need any tools or machines. Just a yoga mat.
6. My yoga class is held in the dance room in one of the local high schools. The dance room is located under the gym, so whenever there is a basketball game it sounds like the ceiling is going to cave in. Not cool. You want to know something else that isn't cool? One of the girls in my class found a plastic bag with weed in it near one of the bars. We don't know if a student from the previous class accidentally lost it or if it was from one of the high school students. Awkward, huh? I kind of wanted to see it since I've never seen weed (sheltered homeschool grad and all). I probably wouldn't know how to identify it if I saw it, although I guess I would know pretty much to be suspicious of anything that looked 'weedy' contained in a plastic bag.
7. I got my hours cut at work...again. :( Boo! I spoke to my doctor and told her I would appreciate having 12-15 hours per week (I got cut to about 8. That's not going to work). She didn't say, "absolutely, you've got it." She said she needed to draw up a schedule with everyone's hours so we would all know our hours. If she doesn't give me the hours I need then I'm going to have to talk to her again and probably look for a new job. Blah! I hate that!
8. That same day that I talked to my boss we only worked half a day because she had a dr's appointment to go to. I stayed to clean up and do some extra work and she called me and told me she had been in a car accident and totaled her car, could I please come pick her up? Of course I could! Poor thing was pretty shaken up. But on the bright side, she gets to pick out a new car! When we worked together at the other office a patient (who really annoyed her because he whined and complained about EVERYTHING and also had a pretty bad gag reflex which made him hard to work on) came in for his fillings and he asked my doctor, "so how long have you had that pink Mercedes that's parked out front?" My boss answered that she didn't have a pink Mercedes she drove a Honda Civic and it definitely wasn't pink. He kept on going on about how he knew that was her car and she could definitely afford it since she was a doctor and blah blah blah...so I want to tell her that now is her chance to get a pink Mercedes and watch to see if she cringes. ha ha!
9. I had chemistry lecture and lab today. I am fairly enjoying that class. It's not too bad. Surprisingly, I like science classes. They are interesting and I find that the teachers are pretty good. My teacher is a hoot. He jokes all the time, which can get annoying actually, but he is obnoxious in a slightly Groucho Marx kind of way and it cracks me up so much. Today in lab we had to split into groups of three and each team picked a test tube with an unknown substance and then we ran tests on our unknown substance to figure out what it was. As he was letting teams pick their test tube he got to one table and the girl there said, "they picked the test tube I wanted!" But she said it with a slight whine. My teacher looked at her and said in a really high pitched whine, "they picked the one I wanted." The whole class, including the girl, laughed. It's just so not what you would expect your teacher to say. Our group's unknown substance was table salt, which was pretty much nonreactive with everything we tested it with. Pretty boring. But I stayed after to clean up my work table while my classmate was figuring out her lab homework and our professor ended up giving us a demonstration on precipitates with some different chemicals which was very pretty! The base he added to the mixture of chemicals (which was clear, it looked like water) turned the fluid in the test tube a fuschia color, and then when he added an acid it became clear again. So cool!
Like I said, the science teachers are good. This isn't the first time I've had a professor stay after class to explain a concept that I'm not really understanding. When I was taking dental assisting at school my biology professor gave me a mini lecture on the 12 cranial nerves, which I couldn't keep straight to save my life. In case you need a good memory device to remember them by, this is the one she gave me to remember their order:
O n
O ccasion
O ur
T rusty
T ruck (this was the one I really needed to remember, #5: the trigeminal nerve)
A cts
F unny
V ery
G ood
V ehicle
A ny
H ow.
Then she told me one of the other professors taught the 12 cranial nerves to his class with this memory device:
Oh Oh Oh, To Touch And Feel Very Good Very AH.
Crazy science professors!
10. I want to make yo-yos. Not the kind you play with, the kind you sew. I think they would be cute on some onsies that I was going to refashion for my niece. I'm also working on some flannel spit-up rags for my sister. These are cute. They are printed flannel, which I understand is supposed to be easier to keep unstained than cloth diapers.
11. Winter is back. It was only about 27 degrees today. I miss that 75 degree weather we had a couple of weeks ago.
12. I think, nay, know I eat too much sugar. This madness must cease, or at least decrease.
13. On the subject of school, I bumped into Susan at Walmart today and she was telling me about the Trinity College of Natural Health. It seems like an interesting school. I have pretty much given up on my Global College course, unfortunately. I was not pleased with it and when I bought it I wasn't expecting to go back to school. So time got away from me and the mediocrity of the course got to me and long story short, it was a waste of money. So I'm not eager to try another distance learning course in the near future. I'm a letter away from being accepted at WVU (hopefully) and I'm going to major in Nutrition there. Maybe afterwards I will consider getting additional training from a more holistic viewpoint from someplace like Trinity. I think the coolest thing about Trinity College is that they are a Christian school. Most natural health schools are secular and border on being new age-y. It's refreshing to know there is an alternative. Susan was telling me her Naturopath is a graduate of Trinity college and is recommending it to Susan's daughter, my dear friend and sewing buddy, Becca cause Becca wants to be a Naturopath. I'm curious and excited to see if Becca chooses Trinity and if she likes it.
14. It is just past midnight and I am tired. I need to go shower and go to sleep.

I'm glad I got this off my chest and out of my head. Now I can think of something different. :)

Good night~

Fear of the Unknown

The past couple of days I've been really stressed out over work and school situations. I hate not knowing what my future hold. For the past couple of days I've been especially anxious concerning my job. I wonder if I should just try to find a new job altogether as my current one doesn't seem very stable and it also causes me considerable stress. Now more than ever I feel motivated to get a job in something I am really interested in and want to do. But the idea of looking for a new job and possibly moving out this fall to go to college worries me too and I find myself thinking endless 'what if' questions and it's not like I have any answers to my questions. My eye is twitching again...it hasn't done that in a long time and it only happens when I'm really stressed. I think I need to take a breath and just chill. Unfortunately this isn't something I am really good at.

This verse is comforting though.

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

In these uncertain times this verse is certainly encouraging. I hope it encourages you too.

3

We only have 3 puppies now. Last Friday we lost that second little male. It was sad because he was a sweet puppy. The other three are fat and sassy (as I've heard it put before) and doing very well. I'll have to get some pictures of them now that they are almost two weeks old!

Oh my goodness!

I have 10 minutes to get to class, but I wanted to record that it is 74 degrees outside! I *love* it! I think we are supposed to get snow on Saturday. Isn't that weird? Oh well, I've enjoyed my warm day today. I can't wait for spring!

Walk'n'Roll

It's been pretty cold lately. I am not a winter person. I like warmer weather and I usually complain all winter long about how cold it is and how snowy it is. But the nice thing about our winters is that we get these little breaks from the cold every now and then. We will have a weekend where the weather is in the 50's or something like that and then everyone ends up outside. I mean, how could you stay indoors on a beautiful day when you know it's going to get cold again?Holly got a new pair of rollerblades and she and I went down to the park to try them out. I walked, she rolled. Here she is rolling away from me.

I am so grateful for these little breaks from the cold. They make winter go by much quicker and they make me more tolerable towards the cold. Still, I'm waiting eagerly for spring!

Good Natured

A new (or new to me anyway) little store just a couple of blocks away from my school! It is like a 'green' general store. It is really cool inside. They have everything from books to clothes to fabric (I have my eye on some fabric from that store that I can't wait to buy!) to groceries...you name it! It is also a little cafe. You can order coffee or tea and sandwhiches and soups or salads, etc. Becca and I stopped in there the other day and I really liked it. I am anticipating visiting there again. Once I can afford it. :)

Aren't these a little creepy?

I've seen some disturbing things in the dental office (things like bad extractions, nerves from root canals and kids throwing up and parents passing out, etc), but I have to say that somehow I found these more disturbing than those things (except for having a kid throw up in front of me. That was nasty.). We were throwing away a bunch of extra stuff we don't use and a few stacks of these were in the 'throw away' pile. I grabbed a couple to photograph first. I think they're so ugly, and they look so ridiculous when a person is wearing them!

Scenes from Winter 2009

More puppy trouble

We have a second puppy who is in trouble. Our veterinarian gave her a vitamin shot and wouldn't remove his dew-claws because this little one is too weak right now. Instead she gave us a feeding tube and a syringe and taught my dad to feed her through a tube. He and Mom fed it once, and it died on them, but they revived it. Mom thumped it's chest and rubbed it and lo and behold it came back to life. I think that's pretty impressive. Anyway, I've got it now and am holding it in my lap and keeping it warm and I'm glad to report he is breathing and every once in awhile he lifts up his head and moves around. His fur is already kind of thick. He's very soft. I hope he makes it.

Puppy count currently stands at:

4. We lost the littlest male last night. I think we knew from the beginning that he was in trouble and might not make it. We bought him a little bottle and some puppy formula from PetCo (where the pets go!) and brought him upstairs and tried to warm him up and get him some food, but he just wouldn't or maybe couldn't suck from the bottle. So we tried to feed him one drop at a time, but he still wasn't really eating. The other puppies were moving around a lot, being very vocal and nursing a lot, but this one wasn't able to move very much and was very quiet and obviously wasn't able to nurse.

I feel kind of bad. It's very common to lose a puppy or two in any litter, especially when you didn't even know your dog was pregnant to begin with! We're still getting over the surprise. We've been breeding puppies for years now and I've made it my new policy not to get worked up over the puppies and to not get attached. But we did try to help this puppy and it makes me happy to know that at least we tried.

The good news is that Brandy is an excellent mother and the other 4 are doing very well. They're fat and happy. I can't wait till their 2 and half to 5 weeks old. That's the fun age. They're so cute then and fluffy. I'm sure I'll have pictures to show soon.