Precious Cargo

One of the reasons that Niall and I decided that now was the time for me to get a new car was this:

That right there is a BABY BUMP.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? ME NEITHER.

Baby Clover (nickname) is due October 16. And if I know anything about babies and due dates, I’m sure that baby Clover will arrive PRECISELY on that date. Har har.

So that makes me 20 weeks pregnant right now. This ish is getting real.

I’ve known I was pregnant since the first moment it was possible to know. I took a couple of those discount peestick tests from Amazon a solid 6 days before my period was due and got the faintest shadow line possible.

Do you see it?

So then I drove to Target and got an actual pregnancy test with, like, a plastic holder part and everything and the tiny line appeared.

How about now? Do you see it?

And it kept appearing and getting darker all week! Niall may have gotten a little weary of me waving peesticks in his face LOOK AT THIS DO YOU SEE A LINE I THINK I SEE A LINE.

HOW ABOUT NOW?

Anyway. We’ve been to the doctor, I’ve had blood tests and ultrasounds and whatnot and it looks like there’s a real actual BABY in there.
And we just found out last week that it's a baby BOY.

Baby Clover

I get to have a baby.
I get to have a baby with somebody who loves me and wants a baby, too. I got married last year and now I’m having a baby.
How on EARTH did I get this lucky?

Pour one out for Jamboree

I got a new car. But before we get too excited, let’s take a minute to appreciate my old car. I feel like I need to pay her the respect she deserves.

Here she is, fresh from the car wash.

The car I’ve had for the past 13+ years was a 1997 black Honda CR-V. We (*my parents) bought it gently used when I was a senior in college.

I named the car Jamboree. She served me well all these years. I’ve driven up and down and up and down and up and down and up the length of California. I’ve driven to Tahoe and Big Bear and Mammoth in the snow. I’ve packed it full of all my stuff on multiple occasions and moved.

LA to SF move, 2008

I taught one of my nieces to drive in it. I’ve gotten into several accidents (both at fault and non at fault) and walked away uninjured each time. I could fit into tiny parking spaces but also fit large pieces of furniture in the back.

And, as Jamboree and I both got older, I could park obnoxiously close to douchebags who felt entitled to take up more than their fair share of the parking lot with their douchebag fancy cars. I didn’t care if my door got dinged or whatever, Oh? You’re going to park IN THE MIDDLE OF two clearly marked parking spaces, here’s my shitty old car RIGHT UP IN YOUR BIDNESS. YOU DON’T GET TO PARK LIKE AN ASSHOLE ON MY WATCH.

Over time, Jamboree gained a lot of, ah, shall we say, character. One by one, all of the “creature comforts,” as my mother calls them, started failing. The clicker stopped opening the back hatch and then it stopped locking or unlocking the car. The passenger side mirror was shattered. The windshield was cracked. If it rained outside, it also rained on the passenger side floor. The air conditioner would only work if I was on the highway. The CD player would get stuck and refuse to play either the CD or the radio until I jammed an old hotel key card into it to jiggle things loose. I decided to embrace the quirkiness and covered Jamboree with USC bumper stickers and got a vanity license plate.

Fight On!

When Niall and I moved in together, we moved into a nice apartment in a nice area, or so we thought. We did not realize that the “nice” area was actually right on the cusp of a not so nice area. Which is fine, whatever. Except that we have two cars. Both of us need cars for work (I could go on a long tangent here about public transportation in SF and why the two of us specifically need our cars, but can you just take my word for it?). Our new apartment had a 1 car garage, which was GREAT. Niall tried to pull his car into it and ended up scraping the passenger side mirror and the driver’s side door because the garage is NARROW. So I started parking my car in there.

And then… Niall’s car got broken into 3 times over the course of 2 months. So we swapped. Niall learned how to squeeze his wider-than-the-garage-door car into the garage, presumably by some wizardry, and I started parking my car on the street. I decided to just leave the doors unlocked, but then I got to my car one morning to find it full of garbage and reeking of cigarette smoke, so okay fine I’ll lock it. And then it was broken into twice.

And a good morning to you as well.

And then the battery was stolen once. And THEN, one fateful November morning, I walked up to the spot where I had parked my car and it was just… gone.

Uhhh.

Huh.

Dude, where’s my car?

I called Niall on the off chance that he had moved my car in the middle of the night for some reason. Nope. I walked up and down the little street to make sure I hadn’t left it in a different spot and forgotten. Nope. I called the city to make sure it hadn’t been towed. Nope. ALL SIGNS POINTED TO STOLEN. Somebody stole my 1997 Honda with 255,000 miles on it.

I took a Lyft to the police station and reported the car as stolen. And then I went home and found us a new apartment on Craigslist.

I reported the thievery to my insurance company and picked up a rental car. And then I was stuck in limbo for some unidentified amount of time until the insurance company would declare my car a “Total Loss.”

After three or four days I was CERTAIN my car was in pieces spread far and wide, but I kept waiting. AND THEN. One morning I was on my way to work when my friend Daniel called me. I figured it was a butt dial, but no! HE FOUND MY CAR. He was cycling to work and noticed a junky old Hondy CR-V plastered with USC stickers. HE FOUND MY CAR.

JUST SITTING THERE

The car was totally fine! It was still in San Francisco, parked in a neighborhood, WITH A FULL TANK OF GAS. I looked like somebody was using my car like it was THEIR car. I don’t know what they were using to start the car, but apparently you can start an old Honda with, like, a screwdriver. ANYWAY, I called the police and told them I had found the car. They sent a cop over and released the car back into my custody. I gotta say, I wasn’t too impressed with the SFPD. I had reported my car as stolen and it turned up still in San Francisco. They obviously weren’t looking very HARD for it. And the cop basically glanced at my car and gave me a piece of paper. Call me naïve, but I thought he might go knocking on some nearby doors or dust the car for fingerprints or… ANYTHING AT ALL.

(Here is the part in my story where people like to point out that car theft is SO common that the police just don’t even have the time or resources to deal with it and I reject this because, come on. I feel like doing NOTHING AT ALL to isn’t going to stop many car thieves. But whatever [sarcastic jazz hands].)

Anyhow, I had my Jamboree back! It had a few new bumps and bruises, but nothing too serious.

I got a club.

WHAT NOW MOTHER FUCKERS.

For a few months everything was great!

And then Jamboree started making a sound like an old fashioned automobile. Chugga chugga chugga AWOOGA. I took it into my regular car place and they told me it was the muffler, but that I should take it to a muffler shop since they could only replace the whole [something] that would cost a lot more than just replacing whatever part of the muffler was malfunctioning. So I took Jamboree to the muffler shop where the mechanic seemed to take personal offense at the suggestion that it might be the muffler, “Who told you that? Did they actually DRIVE the car and hear the noise? Did they just ASSUME it was the muffler? Where’s their evidence.” After a few minutes of deer-in-the-headlights stammering, I sweetly offered to give Mr. Muffler the phone number for Mr. Auto Shop so they could hash things out, but muffler man declined. After a thorough exam, he concluded that he didn’t know where the sound was coming from but it was Definitely Not the Muffler.

Okay, fine.

So I just ignored it. And it went away!

Only to be replaced with THIS noise:

I promise you, I was not transporting a sea lion.

So Niall and I discussed it and we decided that it was time for me to get a new car. While Niall would have been happy to see Jamboree sold for parts, I was wringing my hands and having an emotional crisis. My carrrrrr. My Jamboreeeeee. She had been such a good carrrrrrr. I loved that car and nobody would appreciate it like me, would they?

As you may or may not know, I have a slew of nieces and nephews, several of whom are teenagers right now. I decided to give Jamboree to my next niece in line who is turning 16. She is pretty thrilled.

And fortunately, my dad seems to have the same sentimental streak as I do (or is it the other way around?). He took the car to his mechanic where they fixed, wait for it, the BRAKES AND STEERING. When I asked what I owed him, my dad said “Nothing! We have to keep Jamboree in the family!” So, to recap, I have a new car, my niece has a new old car, and my dad is the most generous man in the world.

Goodbye Jamboree, you've been an excellent car. Be good to my niece.

Engaged

So.

I’m engaged!

I’m getting married!

Can you believe it? It happened in September and I sort of still can’t.

Niall and I had gone on a couple of fancyish vacation-type trips, but he picked a regular old go-to-LA-and-watch-a-USC-football-game weekend to propose. It was perfect.

It was also a complete surprise.
I wondered why he was acting so weird and kind of hurrying me along in the bookstore when he KNEW I wanted to try on a tee shirt. I didn't clue in when he asked me what my favorite spot on campus was (I answered “Right here in the center, where everything is going on!” So then he asked me where my favorite place on campus was that I hadn’t shown him before-- I thought he was interested in learning my favorite haunts, but apparently he was trying to subtly get me to lead him to a less crowded area. (It worked.)). We wandered over to the alumni house and apparently while I reveled in the thought of standing in the very room where the first USC students lived and learned, Niall was gathering the courage to ask me a Very Important Question.
We walked outside to admire the statue of Joseph Widney and his dapper pocket watch, and Niall turned to me and told me that he loves me and he wants to spend his life with me. "Will you marry me?" He asked.
And then I gaped at him and said "Really?" for about two solid minutes before I came to my senses and said YES.
We’re getting married in June, which, I have learned, is not six months away.

 

New Year

I think it’s pretty universal that people don’t tend to like blog posts about why someone hasn’t been blogging. But, whatever. This is my blog, and if a gal can’t be insufferable on her blog, then what? There's just nowhere left to be insufferable? Unacceptable. And actually now that I’m about to write it out it doesn’t seem like the long, obnoxious explanation I had in my head: Basically I could never figure out where to start so I just stopped starting. So here I am today because I’ve got to start somewhere with unclogging this bottleneck of words.

I’ve had this New Year’s survey in my drafts folder for… awhile. I just kept half assing answers and skipping ahead and then closing the computer in defeat. I guess I’m feeling more free-form this year.

Last year I felt totally cynical and just plain sad because 2012 had turned out so epically craptastic. So I spent a fair amount of New Year's Eve weeping and then picked myself up, had some champagne, and did my New Year’s Dip with my nieces and nephews to wash away 2012 and I was all set and ready to make a fresh start. Annnnd then I got BUTT MRSA. So I was like, what the hell, Universe? Why would you do this to me? But then I figured it out. You see, the Universe actually wants me to be on the LUNAR calendar. So New Year’s Eve was more of a formality for me, my ACTUAL year began on Feb 10, the year of the SNAKE. I’m listening, Universe. I’m picking up what you’re throwing down.

So. January 31 is coming up, which means I and my Lunar brethren will be turning the corner and welcoming in the Year of the Horse. (I already did my New Year’s Dip, because that’s a family tradition and I’m not going to mess with that timeline.)

Okay, so are we on the same page here? I'm finally going to post my survey, but it's actually not late because I'm on the Lunar calendar.

I’m just gonna cut out the ones I've been skipping over because BOTTLENECK.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
I started suffering from insomnia, mostly related to horrifying nightmares. And as a result I started taking sleeping medication.
Possibly related to this I started liking coffee- caramel mocha frappuccinos to be exact. No, I will never be able to spell that correctly.

I took my niece and nephew on a trip all by me onesie. We visited my other sis and her kids in SoCal and then went to a USC football game. So much fun. And so much spoiling of my nieces and nephews.

I went to South Carolina to visit Sunny and got to do all sorts of fun southern activities and eat delicious things that were either fried or cheese, or fried and cheese. I did get stuck on a grounded plane for 6 hours while flying out there. Not the most fun day of my life.
Speaking of transportation woes, I also took a day-long bus ride from Oregon back to SF. My flight was cancelled because of the plane crash and, strangely, flights to and from tiny towns in Southern Oregon weren’t high on the priority list of getting rescheduled. I rented a car and drove part way, and then I took an 8 hour long bus ride back to SF. Well, actually. I got off the bus to use the bathroom in Oakland and it left without me, so ALMOST to SF.

I went on vacation with my entire family. All 18 of us.

I got MRSA and a needlestick. Thanks, healthcare profession. But I did also get my own office in our new building and got everything squared away for my prescribing license. So it evens out.

I joined Facebook. 

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 1- when I was so so SO happy that 2012 was FINALLY OVER.

February 10- Lunar New Year, when I realized that the Universe actually wants me on the lunar calendar, because that’s when things started to turn around.
February 13- Galentine’s Day, which I have decided to start celebrating.

July 19- the day my clinic moved and also the day I was SUPPOSED to go on another trip to Central America with 0peration Rainb0w, with my dad AND my sister who is also a nurse. I asked for the time off MONTHS in advance, but I ended up not being able to go because my clinic moved. So that week was extremely busy and also infuriating.
July 26- my birthday, which I didn’t get off from work because of the aforementioned clinic move. This has inspired me to ALWAYS take my birthday off from work. Because nobody cares it’s your birthday except you! It was actually not SO bad because it was a Friday and my mom took me to lunch and my boyfriend (BOYFRIEND) sent me flowers. July 26 is ALSO the day when boyfriend and I became, like, official and whatnot.
[This sentence is just a filler so there is something between the previous item and the next one. These two dates are too close together for my liking.]

The weekend after my birthday weekend- will forever be remembered as my rapeiversary. August 5 to be exact, but for some reason the weekend, not just that day, gave me a lot of anxiety.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finishing trauma counseling. I can't believe how difficult and amazing it turned out to be.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? 

Wendy Davis

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Jerky dudes. Jerky dude politicians.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, student loans, car repairs, my cat's extensive dental surgery.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 
Vacations. Football season. Christmas.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: 
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter
c) richer or poorer? Richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Exercise.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Angst and obsess.

21. Did you fall in love in 2013?
Um. Amazingly, yes. Who saw that coming? NOT ME.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Parks and Rec, Chopped, Dance Moms, Sister Wives, Monk, House Hunters. Yikes, that’s a lot of reality TV.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
 No.

24. What was the best book you read?
The Rook, Divergent

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
There was this one morning when I got up and plugged in my speakers and discovered that my computer had been playing Thrift Shop on a loop for 24 hours.
That's 885 plays.
I have since adopted it as a unit of time. 885 macklemores = 1 day. So there are 37 macklemores in an hour. Okay? Good. Glad you're coming with me on this.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Now You See Me, Catching Fire, Pitch Perfect, Frozen

32. What kept you sane?
Vacations, medication, treats, caramel mocha fraps, texting, reading, hot baths, my friends, doing good deeds, twittah, shopping, my job, going out, staying in, bad reality TV, liquor, inappropriate jokes, my family, trauma counseling, going out of my way for other people.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Jennifer Lawrence.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Marriage equality. Women's rights. Human rights.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. 
Staying in is a perfectly reasonable and lovely thing to do.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Let it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of dawn

El Salvador, part 2- Patients

Seeing the patients in El Salvador was an intense experience.

There was the three day old baby with a dislocated shoulder.
There was the young man with some kind of growth problem whose radius bone stuck out an inch or so past his humerus in his elbow and his left knee bent the wrong direction.
There was a girl with bone tumors, a girl with bowed legs from Rickets, a baby with club feet, a man with shattered bones in both his legs. These people we could help.
But for every surgery performed I'm sure there were dozens more who needed help. It was completely overwhelming at times.
There were people who needed prosthetic hips or knees, which we didn't have.
There were children who would need surgery in a year or two years instead of right now because their bones needed to grow more.
There was the young girl with little turned in feet who couldn't get an operation because the skin on her feet was too fragile and the risk of infection too great.

We had our big clinic day on Sunday but throughout the week as word spread more people would come and knock on the OR doors or wait in the preop waiting area just for the possibility of being seen. Our schedule was completely booked but the surgeons still managed to find time to see the extra patients. When a worried mother shows up at the OR doors and begs you to look at her child's feet you look at her child's feet, even if you're completely booked and pulling 18 hour days. You just do it.


There was one young girl, about 15 years old, who had surgery on both her legs (for bone tumors). She was in pain and she was also very anxious the first day after surgery so we gave her some Valium and Tylenol with Codeine. The next day she felt better so the PT decided to get her up to walk. She started feeling dizzy so I asked her (with the help of a translator, of course) if she had been drinking water. She said she hadn't. I gestured to her three quarters empty water bottle and encouraged her to drink it. She said okay she would but still looked... doubtful or something. The translator pulled me aside and said "I just realized something-- I think the patients have to pay for their water. She probably doesn't have any more so she's conserving it."
OH MY GOD it it stuff like this that just makes me want to lie down on the ground and weep or start handing out money or SOMETHING I don't know. It was 95 degrees and the patient rooms were 6 to 8 beds with people lying drenched in sweat, fanning their faces and swatting the flies away.
We went downstairs and brought the girl four icy cold bottles of water from our stash in the OR area.


There was a little girl who came to our clinic day wearing a party dress. Her hip joint was frozen. It might look in this photo like she is standing up straight but I can assure you she is not.

Do me a favor, would you? Stand up and bend one hip joint 90 degrees. Now try to walk. It was a little different for this girl because she was a child so her locked bent leg didn't have as far to reach as a full adult leg, but basically she walked with her rear end sticking out and her spine all curved. And a very determined look on her sweet little face. This little girl and her mother had been brought to our clinic by an El Salvadorian missionary who was working to bring people from "very far away" so they could get medical care. I never learned exactly how far they had come, but the little girl had been born on an island somewhere so I suspect it was far.

After the surgery the little girl was put in a cast that went up her whole leg all the way to her waist (a Spica cast, it is called, but I couldn't find a good link). She was discharged from the hospital two days later (after her pain was under control and to make sure she didn't have any surgery complications) and her mother had a lot of questions. I told the mother I would go get the surgeon and he would come talk to her. When I returned with the surgeon, the little girl was wearing another party dress.

Her mother had gotten her dressed up to see the doctor.


There was a little girl who had suffered from Rickets and had bowed femur bones as a result. The surgeons straightened her bones out and put her in casts. When I saw her up in the post op pediatric ward she had tears streaming down her face, she was in so much pain.

It might look like she's smiling in this pic, but she definitely had tears in her eyes.

We found out from the nurses that she had received only Ibuprofen the night before so I gave her a dose of my new best friend, Tylenol with Codeine, then and came back throughout the day for subsequent doses. "Of course she's in pain," my dad told me when I updated him about this patient. "She had major surgery on both femurs. Imagine having a toothache in both your legs."
Oh, I see. MISERY.
Because she was in so much pain, the surgeons came to her room and split her cast (sawed up both sides of her legs and wrapped the casts with bandages so they weren't so tight) and then when she was still in severe pain they took her back to the OR and recasted her. She felt MUCH better after the recasting.

Sitting up and smiling and ready to go home.


We couldn't help everyone but we helped those we could.

That little footsie? Belongs to the girl in the photo below:

She couldn't walk before. And now she will.

El Salvador, part 1

I'm back! I'm exhausted. I tried to write this post the other day but I came down with a weird post-traveling illness (?) of flu-like symptoms and dizziness which forced me to listlessly lay around my apartment and wish for waffles.
But I'm better now. Just tired, still.

And I have much to tell!
The trip was amazing and wonderful overall and also of course parts of it were rather sad and thought provoking.

But perhaps I should start at the beginning.

I've told you a bit about my dad, but have I mentioned that he is a bone surgeon by trade? He is. And he's really good.

He's also really good. As in, he uses his vacation time to fly to places like Tanzania and Nicaragua and perform surgeries for free there. He signed up for a trip to El Salvador with this organization, Operati0n Rainb0w (you can find them, I just don't want people googling them and getting this blog), and invited me to go with him and work as a nurse. And of course I said yes.

So off we went!

We met up with our group at the airport on Friday night at about 9:30 pm. We all had our various carry on bags and we had to check in as a group since our checked luggage was giant duffel bags loaded with medical supplies-- surgical instruments, medications, bandages, drills, saws, etc. Our flight left at midnight and arrived in San Salvador only two hours after its scheduled arrival because one of the passengers got sick and we had to emergency land in Mexico City and then take off again. Because, of course.
But! We arrived in San Salvador! We had made it!
Except apparently it is very difficult to enter a country with 30 duffel bags full of knives and drugs and we were missing one of the documents we needed. Operati0n Rainb0w is very experienced and organized-- they had been working with the El Salvadorian government for months, but apparently a new rule had just been enacted so we needed some extra document, which we didn't have. Which meant we couldn't leave. So we hung out at the airport for a couple hours.

We finally made it through, had a quick lunch at a nearby hotel (and picked up a couple more members of our team), and then took a two hour bus ride to San Miguel. I was very, very happy to arrive in San Miguel.

We had a late dinner that night and got to know each other a little bit. The team included 26 people. There were 6 surgeons, plus anesthesiologists, operating room nurses, recovery room nurses, a physical therapist, several translators, and a few volunteers without a specific job who were eager to learn (me). Everyone on the trip was incredibly nice, as you might imagine, given that they were all using their vacation time and spending their own money to journey to a foreign land and work for free.

This was the first mission in 5 years to El Salvador (apparently the government wouldn't let Operati0n Rainb0w go there until now because it was too dangerous) and the team planned to spend the week as follows:
Sunday- Clinic. See all the potential patients and decide which ones they could help with surgery and what the rest of the week's schedule would be.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday- Surgeries
Friday- Rounds. Visit all the patients and discuss with the local doctors the plan of care for all of them after we left (when to take the casts off, etc).

Sounds relatively simple, right? WRONG.
Before we arrived we had basically no information about the types of patients they would be seeing, which meant that the people that packed had to pretty much make educated guesses regarding what kind of equipment to bring. They brought a variety of stuff-- saws, drills, wires, screws, pins, plates-- but it was all in a limited amount, of course. Throughout the week I kept hearing stories about how the surgeons had to MacGyver together their equipment in creative ways to make it work. ALSO, we had six surgeons and 3 operating rooms, but there were certain things (like the drill and the saw) that could only be used in one room at a time. This meant that all of the surgeries of the day had to be scheduled so that the room that needed the drill had the drill and the other two rooms didn't need it. It was all sort of a logistical nightmare.

We were up bright and early on Sunday morning to hold our clinic day. This meant that the doctors saw hundreds of patients and had to assess them and decide which ones they could help with surgery and which ones didn't need surgery, or needed some other kind of surgery that they couldn't perform that week, or needed surgery but it would be too dangerous because of potential for infection.
Then, the doctors had a big discussion with the information from all of the potential surgery patients and came up with a schedule for the week.

This took a very long time and of course there were changes to it throughout the week.

Patients came from far and wide to see our team. There were children with bone deformities and club feet, people with growth problems, little old ladies with crippling arthritis, people in home made wheelchairs or hobbling in on the sides of their feet with their joints sticking out this way and that.
People traveled for hours and waited patiently, quietly, all day long just to see if their children might be able to have surgery.

Monday was our first surgery day. This was probably the day I felt most uncomfortable because I really didn't have a role yet. I put on my scrubs but then I just had to kind of wait around a lot of the morning while nurses ran around fetching supplies and the doctors prepped for surgery. I did a couple little paperworkey tasks and then in the afternoon I was able to help out (a little) and observe (mostly) in the OR.

Check out the X Rays above us-- those were the feetsies that were about to be operated on.

Tuesday I was asked to go on rounds with the doctors in the morning (to see the patients they had operated on the previous day) and to try and keep all the patients organized. I ended up mostly doing this for the rest of the week because there was actually a lot that needed to happen-- patients needed to know their care plans, some were in severe pain and needed stronger meds than the hospital had, the PT had to go see some of them and teach them range of motion exercises or how to use crutches, we needed blood tests or X rays for some patients, we needed traction for one, we needed a bed for another and on and on and on. I felt like I was kind of inventing my role at times and I wondered if I was being helpful but it really seemed like it should be somebody's job to coordinate all of these things and keeping all the post op patient care organized, especially since most of our team was in the OR all day. So I had my own little mini-team and we would go on a series of rounds all day long, checking on the (42 total) post op patients and tying up the various ends that came loose. It felt very nurse practitioney and I loved it.

Do you see those beautiful smiles? Totally worth the trip.

Part 2 forthcoming.

Warm Fuzzies

In case you were wondering, I'm feeling much better about the school situation. I was totaaaaalllllyyyyyy dreading going to class this week and seeing the gals in my program as well as my advisor who, BONUS, is also my professor. I guess in my head I was imagining that all my classmates were going to think I didn't pass the Giant Paper Thing because I'm stupid. But! Surprise! Nobody thought that. Or at least nobody gave me any indication that they thought that. Everyone was just really nice and supportive and sympathetic. Like one girl said to me "It really could have been any one of us." I dunno. It just made me realize Ohhhhhh. I'm not an idiot. THIS PROGRAM IS JUST HARD.
Lightbulb!
I've also heard a lot of stories from friends, family, members, acquaintances, etc about how they tried to do something and it didn't work out. "I graduated late from dental school." "I failed the Network Administrator exam the first time I took it." "My advisor failed me for some research units in grad school." "I walked in my college graduation ceremony in June but took classes over the summer to finish my degree." And on and on and on and on.... Every single one of these stories makes me feel better, so if you have shared one with me then I thank you.

Also, a friend of mine told me today that IN OUR PROGRAM she knows several other people who have to turn in their Giant Paper Things this summer. Maybe we'll start a club.

Something else that made me feel better?
Receiving this in the mail!

BROWNIES from Rachel, AKA Doing My Best. What a sweetheart, she saw me whimpering on Twitter and offered to send me a little pick-me-up. She sent TWO flavors-- chocolate and chocolate with butterscotch chips. They were nummy, in case you wondered.
She also included these:

A bag of mini Snickerses "for extra padding to protect the brownies." Oh, Rachel, I like the way you think.
And a Crappy Day Present! I opened it pretty much right away (which is why there is no photo of it still wrapped) and it was a little bookmark with a happy quote. I also like the fact that the bookmark is (perhaps unintentionally) shaped like a wee snowboard.



Other good things, now that I'm on a roll:

I've treated myself to lots of comfort food and a new pair of jeans (partly because of all the comfort food).

My parents said they would like to give me an early graduation present-- a new stethoscope! Well. I'm excited about that.

KC told me he ordered me a graduation present.

And then today at Costco, after many many months of not having them in stock.... BEHOLD.

BOOYAH. That's a rap word.

Important Things Basket

This is one of those things that I'm going to have to file under the category of: Think of That Sooner, Why Didn't I?

Allow me to explain.

My mom asked me if I needed a basket and I told her I didn't think so. But then she showed me the basket and told me how useful baskets could be and offered to keep it for me just IN CASE I ever felt like I needed it. So then I put Bowie in the basket and carried him around for awhile and attempted to scare my parents' cat with the cat/basket combination. And I decided that maybe I did need the basket.

I put the basket in the front region of my car, between the two seats, wedged in so it wouldn't fall over.

And then I put my CD cases in the basket. And a box of tissues. And my emergency-boredom book. And my two audiobooks from the library. And my phone charger. And my sunscreen.

And then I wondered: HOW HAD I BEEN LIVING MY LIFE WITHOUT THIS BASKET? Actually, I'll tell you how. I was living my life without this basket by doing a lot of fumbling around and reaching under seats and into seat pockets and under floor mats. And it just hadn't occurred to me that there was some other way to live. I figured I was supposed to use my car's provided storage space the way it was intended and keep my CDs smushed betwixt the emergency brake and my seat and the phone charger under the mat on the passenger's side. How wrong I was, indeed. No more fumbling and feeling around under things. No sir. I need a new disc of my audiobook? Important Things Basket! I forgot to put on sunscreen before I left the house? Important Things Basket! I need to rap someone firmly on the hand for being ungentlemanly? Important Things Basket!

Important Things Basket! Win.

Flea Market Finds

Approximately six months ago I ended up at a flea market by accident. We had meant to go to the farmer's market but went to the site on the wrong day. I've always liked thrift stores and consignment shops and yard sales and random little antiquey junk shops but I hadn't really ever been to a flea market (as my dad would say "who would want to buy fleas?"). So it was on this particular Sunday that I discovered THE THING THAT HAD BEEN MISSING FROM MY LIFE. Because! Flea markets! OMG.

You would THINK that flea markets embody many of the things I dislike-- being watched while I'm shopping, being spoken to by salespersons, and HAGGLING. This is true. But those factors are counteracted by the numerous things I DO like about it. Namely:
- shopping
- rifling through other people's stuff
- acquiring unique, often antique things
- buying items used and cheap
- TOUCHING THINGS, particularly smally trinkety objects

I bought a set of four of these trays on that first day.

The woman who sold them to me was something of a self-haggler. By that I mean that I asked her how much she wanted for the trays and she said "Hm... uh, eight dollars?" I think I must have looked surprised at the price (I was expecting it to be around $20) because then she said "Five dollars?" And I handed her five dollars. I kind of felt like I had to stop her before she went even lower. But I LOVE the trays and I use them all the time.

I bought this little ceramic watering can because I have plants and therefore I NEEDED a watering can. LOGIC.

This is kind of a sheisty picture of the little jar set and lazy susan I picked up at the Alameda Antique's Faire. Trust me when I say it is adorable. I think it is supposed to be used for condiments but I'm using it to store buttons and clothespins and other things of that nature.

Quilted dog (?) couch pillow thing! LOVE. I thought it was a steal at $2.

A touch of class for my apartment. Even though I've moved on to glass bottle Cokes, I'm still a Pepsi (or Pezbi as I tend to pronounce it) gal at heart.

Okay. This is my herd of Breyer horses. I started buying them a few months ago because they cost quite a pretty penny to buy new and I have several nieces who very much like them. So I would pick up a horse here or there when I saw it and I planned to give one to each of my nieces for Christmas. They ended up being a big hit!

Unfortunately this photo was taken yesterday and it represents my post-Christmas stock of Breyer horses. I'm not sure how long I can continue to use my nieces as an excuse for buying them.

Anyhow.

Cups!

I seem to have a thing for cups.

And do you spy the wee baby Breyer horse?

Something that happens as the flea market is coming to an end is that some of the booths drastically lower their prices. The owners will start yelling "ONE DOLLAR ITEMS HERE!" and people will flock over, frantically searching for something to buy. It's not unlike last call at a bar when everyone's got their beer goggles firmly in place, scouring the crowd in desperation for someone to take home.
Last Sunday I was looking at this little box just moments before they announced that items on the table were one dollar. Score.

But my FAVORITE thing I got last Sunday? OMG.

I had been keeping my eye out for a rotary dial phone ever since I decided that I WANTED one. I'm surprised I found one so clean and pretty and bright blue and cheap. Go ahead and dial that number-- it isn't mine.

One of the things that I learned from my MAGIC BOOK (One Year to an Organized Life, by Regina Leeds) is that it is okay to spend time and money on things for your home. Your home, she explains, is where you spend the majority of your time-- it should be a sanctuary, a place where you feel comfortable and happy. The objects you choose to have around you should reflect your personality and your taste. Looking back over these photos it appears that my taste is not unlike that of a 7 year old girl. The book has a lot of explanation about how not to have CLUTTER AND CHAOS in your home but on the other hand it is okay to have THINGS as long as they are serve a purpose. I'm interpreting that to mean that something doesn't have to serve a functioney purpose (like this is a plate and I'm eating off it) but it can be decorative or collecty and still increase my ZEN. Erm. I think.

For the Tots!

I've always told myself that when I had kids I would take them to the toy store every year and they would pick out things to donate to Christmas drives. I haven't done it yet because, well, no kids yet. But then yesterday I read this post by the Bloggess which made me want to get up off my arse and DO SOMETHING. So I went to the Toys for Tots web site and found out that San Francisco county isn't covered for some reason....? But then I looked at Santa Cruz County and saw THIS:

A huge shortfall? Not enough toys? For the tots? Break my heart whydontcha.

So today I went to Walgreens. They were having this buy-one-get-one toy sale. So I bought... many:

I'll drop them off this weekend. For now, they'll hang out under my tree, making the House of Jules much more festive. I've been DYING to put things under the tree but I don't have wrapping paper and for some reason unwrapped TOYS-under-the-tree feels different and more acceptable than unwrapped phonytails-under-the-tree. This exercise also satisfied the GNAWING URGE I had to buy! toys! I wanted to get my nieces and nephews gifties that weren't toys since they already have so very many toys, so I ended up getting them all art supplies so we can do projects together. The real gift = time spent with their coolest auntie. Obvs. But the tots? They need toys.

I've also decided to get my dad a donated hive of bees for Christmas. Or however you're supposed to write that. To clarify, my dad will get a card that says the money for the bees was donated in his name; the people in Uganda or El Salvador will get the actual BEES. He'll love it.