Midterms

So I started blogging fairly regularly. Even though I had many blogs in mind for the last week, I unfortunately spent the days stuck in my vet school world preparing for midterms and only surfaced for a few hours to celebrate Easter with Mom, Gene, Abbey and Zach. Easter was an amazing celebration of faith, love and family.

Midterm prep however has not been as much fun. Within the last 7 days I have spent somewhere close to 80 hours studying (while still attending 21 hours of class). I wish I could say that this weekend is going to be a nice relaxing time to recuperate however there is another midterm on Monday. Recently I saw a facebook post comparing being a solider to being a student. It said something to the effect of one of these is truly stressful the other is sitting in a library enjoying a $12 coffee drink. Now while I don't think that being a student is more stressful than fighting wars, I do think that the comparison was unfair for many reasons. While I am not worried about surviving, I am however totally stressed out most of the school year. I spend more than 30 hours a week in class then a minimum of 4 hours a day studying. The maximum hours I have spent studying on a day that I also had class is 7 and the maximum on a weekend is 12. School for me is set up so that every 4 weeks I either have midterms or finals each covering approximately 120 hours worth of class material. This has managed to stress me out for the last few years. I also believe that being a solider and being a professional school student are important for very different reasons. While protecting U.S. citizens is really important, without doctors, veterinarians, lawyers and a plethora of other educated people there would be no more society left to protect. Finally I have so much money in student loans that I can guarantee that you will never find me drinking a $12 beverage.
Now don't get me wrong, I am so excited to become a veterinarian and cannot wait for my future career. I do feel that people need to realize that all jobs in society are crucial to its function. Making comparisons like the one I saw on facebook are not only unfair but also making assumptions about something that you yourself have never experienced. With this note I will return to submerging myself in my vet school world. Wahooo Organ Systems Pathology :)

The Family

I mentioned in the blurb about me that my husband and I have two furry children (and a fish!). When I was young my parents apparently played a game of who was smarter their new baby (me) or the basset hound (Darwin) that we had. It might have taken me a while but eventually I became smarter than Darwin :) Recently, I was telling Chris about my intelligence being determined by comparing me to the dog. It sparked a conversation about our dogs and their intelligence levels. When I graduated from college and moved into our new house I lived in Illinois by myself and wanted a dog for company. Chris pick out and surprised me with Elsie as a graduation present. She is a German Shepard mix (she potentially has some greyhound or whippet in her as well). She is by far one of the smartest dogs I have ever met. We call her Houdini. She first figured out how to escape from her cage while we were gone. It took us a while but we finally figured out how to keep her in her cage (turns out the best thing was when we adopted our other dog...apparently Elsie was bored by herself!). Last month Elsie figure out how to jump onto the 2x4 cross beam of our gate and balance (while barking at all the people passing by). Once she mastered that hoping down on the other side of the gate and chasing random people was quite the game!



In October Chris and I adopted Ally who is a pit bull lab mix (??? maybe???) from the animal shelter. She is the sweetest dog. She may not be as intelligent (ok she is nowhere close to being as intelligent) but she makes up for it in enthusiasm. She is always so excited to see us. Every night she starts of sleeping on the floor and every morning she ends up laying with her head on my chest looking at me, just hoping that it is time for breakfast.



We aren't completely sure what Ally's life was like before coming to live with us but when she first came home she was really skittish with Chris and cowered if she got in trouble. We have been working with her a lot and she no longer is skittish around men. While she still manages to get into trouble she no longer cowers on the floor.


This is what an average day in our house looks like...

Another thing about me is that I run on Mt. Dew. I think this is fitting :) Thanks for the idea!!!!

KEEP CALM And CRAFT ON

As previously mentioned I decided that I loved the variations of the KEEP CALM and CARRY ON signs. This version seems fitting for my newest hobby---CRAFTING!

I fell in love with the carry yarn version. I think it is hilarious. It will probably be up year round. I also decided that I needed a seasonal one (that way visitors have to keep coming back to see more :) ).
Thought this was perfect for the season!




They were pretty easy to make. It also was fun to search for creative ideas and create my own.

Vet School Update

The first quarter of this year was rather tough for me. My 94 year old Grandfather was ill after breaking his hip. I spent a lot of time going to nursing homes getting him to eat and not enough quality time with my notes. At the end of the semester I had to take a test, the MILESTONE (it was pretty intimidating so I thought caps would help portray that) over all the material from the first year and a half of vet school. I recently got the results from the test and scored above average with a score higher than this years passing boards rate. I was super excited considering I didn't really have time to study with all of the family complications.

This semester has been much more conducive to studying. I decided I would be more productive if I stayed and did all of my studying at the school since there are less distractions. So far it has been very successful.

Today I found out that I have a summer job! I was offered a position working for the Poison Control Center located in Urbana (only a few blocks from the house!). The Poison Control Center receives calls from all over the country from pet owners and veterinarians about the ingestion of poisonous substances. They provide information about clinical signs of toxicity and what treatment protocol to follow. I am super excited about this opportunity to gain a better understanding of toxic compounds and handling emergency situations.

I also fell in love with KEEP CALM and CARRY ON signs. Next time you visit I am sure they will be throughout the house:) Here is one for the blog!!!

Fitness Goals

About 6 months ago Chris and I decided we needed to begin eating healthier. We both began paying more attention to the food choices we made. This worked out really well. Turns out you don't eat as much junk food when it has more calories in it than you ate for an entire meal. This weight loss plan worked for a while until we both hit a weight loss plateau. After spending a few weeks trying to find a way to use healthy food to loose more weight, we finally realized if we really wanted to continue on our healthy pathway we needed to start exercising regularly. So we devised a plan- 4 hour long walks with the dogs a week, 5 early morning runs (really short ones as we get started but hopefully in a few months they will be longer) and a lot of abs. We are now on week 2 and feeling much healthier. It also is a good way for us to spend time together and talk (only on the walks-while running there is only panting...no talking :) ). The other thing that I have been working on (that comes easier to Chris ) is drinking more water than diet soda. I have been trying to drink 2 18 oz. water bottles a day to counteract the 4 (ish) diet dews a day.

So hopefully in a few weeks I can post again to say that we are 1 month in and going strong.


Since I love having pictures so much here is one of our Magnolia tree blooming for the first time!

Crafting Craze

I recently decided that I needed a new hobby. Thus far my life seems to consist of school, study, home for (a late) dinner and sleep. The problem is that I keep dreaming of whatever I studied that day. Last quarter it was viruses and now it is giant red blood cells. I decided that I needed a new hobby to spend an hour or so doing between dinner and bed so that I can have normal, don't wake up freaked out about RBCs eating me dreams. Then I discovered pintrest...problem solved :) I have been having so much fun being crafty. I love making new wreaths and decorating the house with things I have made. I started small with magnets and they were a blast but didn't keep me occupied for very long!
After the magnets I decided to try something a little harder. I found a wreath that I absolutely loved that didn't seem that difficult. I was right about how hard it would be to make the wreath-it was the flowers that had to be made for the wreath that I was incorrect about! Below is a picture of a finished flower made from cotton cloth. This is one of the best ones I made. I threw out my first 5 lol!

Once I got the flowers figured out the rest of the wreath came together really easily. I love the finished product!



My next art project was decorations for the house (or in this case for a friends place). I found this idea on pintrest and thought it looked so neat. This project wasn't too hard and turned out really great!

When Chris' family came to visit it was March Madness all the way. I however wanted something to craft while totally paying attention to basketball. I found a holiday frame that you can leave up year round and change the ribbon and decorations depending on the season. I had so much fun shopping around to find decorations for Easter (and St. Patrick's Day....and Fourth of July:) ). Ginny and I had a lot much fun crafting together! This is the final product. I love it!!!
At some point the stress from school reach an all time high so Jenna and I decided on a crafting night! I'm not sure the boys enjoyed it but it worked to help Jenna and I destress. I made another wreath while she worked on using yarn to make Easter decorations. The wreath is very bright and I decided it would be the perfect wreath for Easter. I also made the bird artwork since it seemed very spring and Easter-y. It was nice to change up the decorations on the fireplace. While I love the ones that are usually there, now every time I come home I notice that it is different where as before I never paid attention since it was always the same.

Now I am making another wreath (I already told Chris we are probably going to have a large collection of them and he should just accept that our front door will always have a wreath on it!). This one is more of a summer wreath with fun bright colors.

I love crafting (especially wreaths) and am very happy that the crazy vet school related dreams seem to have stopped!

WOW! After graduation my world started spinning way too fast! I'm still not entirely sure what happened to June and July. With everything a blur in my memory, one thing stands out...August 7th-17th.
It was amazing to spend time in the sun with our friends and family on the beach! On August 13th Chris and I stood together in front of all these important people and shared our love for each other. Although I freaked out most of the day about the weather, we had a beautiful sunny afternoon wedding with a rainbow (which almost makes up for the fact that the power went off while I was getting my hair done!) Following that was our honeymoon in Florida. It was amazing!
The day we got back from Florida was a busy one...I started vet school orientation! Since then it has been a whirlwind of animals, crazy professors and way too many terms that I couldn't define and sure as hell couldn't spell! I love the time spent with animals, the professors keep getting crazier and I am slowly learning the terms (although I have given up on spelling them!).