2008 in Review

Hummm what happened in 2008?? I got my Canon rebel XTi which has brought me lots of joy and happiness. I completed my 2nd and 3rd semesters of pharmacy school and got initiated into Kappa Psi and got my silly nickname. We had a leap day, had a nice snowfall in Memphis, W FINALLY got a new cell phone, my dad turned 50 and I drove from Memphis to Sedalia for the first time, I changed my blog name and had my 100th post, me and W celebrated our first wedding anniversary, I turned 24, and W graduated from UT with his BSN degree. Some not so fun things happened as well, my car broke down completely, W's truck was hit in a hit and run, and we went through our first rough spot during our marriage. I'm excited to see what 2009 brings us.

Someone? Anyone??

I need blog help, how do I extend the width of the text area of my blog? NONE of my pics ever have enough room to show up, I want the whole screen width!!!!! help!!!!!!

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008 for me was wonderful, so wonderful in fact I do believe it may be the best Christmas I've had in years. I left Dec. 22 by myself to drive the 3.5 hours to Clarksville to be with my immediate family consisting of Mom, Dad, Kelly, and Janice. Along with W, these are my favorite people in the world. I did very well on the drive and turned onto Northwood Terrace around 1:00 pm. I was thrilled to see Precious and Willie Bo (the dogs) and got a little sad thinking about how Lacey aka LuLu would not be spending this Christmas here with us on earth. Me, dad, Kelly and Janice ate Chinese then went to target and kohl's. Kelly is working at Kohl's for the holidays. Kelly spent the night at mom and dad's with me and the next day we slept in and then drove to Sears to look for a sweater dress for Kelly, we found a really cute one. We ate Mexican then dropped off some food for my mom at here work. Then me and Kelly went to a holiday party thrown by Kandi. Kandi was a good friend of mine back in Clarksville and I'm SO HAPPY I was able to attend the party, I saw alot of dear people I haven't seen in awhile and everyone seemed genuinely happy to see me. The next morning (Christmas Eve) I got quite a surprise when W knocked on my parents door at around 10:00 am, I was sooooooooo happy because he wasn't supposed to get there until that evening around 8pm. So we got to spend the whole day together. Christmas was great as well and I got a lot of nice gifts for which I am ingredibly grateful. It was a wonderful Christmas.

The lovely Christmas tree

Me and Kelly wrapping gifts

Me and W on Christmas Eve

Before Midnight Mass

Will got his Cardiac Stethoscope



Me and Sweet Janice on Christmas

Me and W on Christmas

Me, My mom and Kelly on Christmas day

New Photo blog

I created a photo blog to showcase my photography. Check it out.

Oh how I LOVE....

getting Christmas cards. I don't know why, but everyday I've been anxiously awaiting the mailman so I can look for Christmas cards. I prefer the kind with pictures the most! I love seeing how people's families have changed, especially the kids! Here are some pics I took of my poor reluctant cats. Enjoy.

He's not really mad at me, just about to fall asleep.

Madison says Merry Christmas!!

My Christmas tree is dying!!

So it's still a few days till Christmas and our Christmas tree is wilting and losing pine needles by the dozens!! Poor thing. I did some research and realized we were supposed to cute about 1 inch of the bottom of the trunk off so that it would have a clean fresh area from which to absorb water, well we didn't do that and the water in the tree holder has been full for several days now, so obviously the poor tree was not able to get any water. So I got creative and enlisted the help of my reluctant husband who while I held up the tree(ornaments, lights and all) he sawed off some of the trunk so that hopefully our poor tree will be able to get some water and perk up a little bit. It wasn't pretty to say the least though, ornaments were falling off and TONS of pine needles were shed, BUT I was able to put back the ornaments and it almost looks as good as it did before. Next year I know to cut some off the bottom of the trunk before we put it in water.

Flurries

There were actually snow flurries today for a short while, it beats the rain that's been falling non stop for over 24 hours straight......

Oh Tanenbaum Oh Tanenbaum

One of my absolute favoritest things about Christmas is putting up and decorating the Christmas tree. I LOVE real trees because that is what I grew up with, there is just something special about picking out the perfect tree and decorating it and giving it water everyday and smelling that fresh pine smell. We got a smallish one, about 6 feet, it is a Frasier Fir, and I love that little thing. If it was up to W, we'd have no tree, but I would be sooooo disapointed if we didn't have one. I can't wait for evening time so I can turn on the lights. I was extremely blessed to get a ton of Hallmark keepsake ornaments from W's mom and those plus the meager amount we had from last year, our little tree is looking pretty nice. I did all the decorating while W took photos of me, well he did trim the tree and put it in the tree stand. Enjoy the photos!

A graduation to remember

So W finally graduated with his Bachelor's in Nursing. We were treated to 2 ceremonies yesterday. The first was his convocation which was just for the university's nursing students and the students were hooded and given their pins, there were a few speeches and awards given as well. We were blessed to have W's parents, his aunt, his Granny, and Lynn with us for the ceremony and my dad and sister joined us for the graduation. The actual graduation was a University wide event which included Medicine, Dental, allied health, pharmacy, and social work as well as nursing students, and it was more of a traditional ceremony with presentation of diplomas. Both ceremonies were amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed them both. I was lucky enough to be excused from both my classes yesterday to attend the ceremonies. Afterward, Me, W and his parent's and Aunt went a local Italian restaurant and had frozen custard for dessert, it was quite a wonderful day. Here are some photos.

Thanksgiving cookies!!

So for some reason I've decided to start making cookies for all occasions. But they must be cookies made from cookie cutters so I can have fun decorating them. I made some for the first time today and they turned out pretty good. I'd like to get better at the decorating part, but maybe I just need practice. I couldn't find Thanksgiving themed cookie cutters for the life of me, so I had to make cutout myself and just traced around them with a knife. I made a turkey, a maple leaf, a pilgrim hat, an acorn, and a pumpkin. They were a lot of work and W doesn't even like sugar cookies!! lol Well here they are.

Nashville Zoo

Me and W went to the Nashville Zoo on Saturday to meet up with our friends the Hughes for a fun day of animal watching and picture taking. We got a semi-behind-the-scenes tour as well since one of our friends knew the aquarium keeper. I got some good pics and it was a beautiful day, but just a tad chilly. We ate lunch at the zoofari cafe and it was surprisingly yummy for zoo food. The highlight of the day for me was the lorikeet exhibit where you can interact with the lories and feed them nectar. Enjoy the photos!

Stephanie and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Ugh. Woke up to a grumpy husband trying to fix our kitchen sink that has been clogged with pumpkin seeds. Blah. So all I hear is him taking deep angry sighs and cursing every so often until he decides to call a plumber. He's also mad because I didn't change the cat litter boxes yesterday or do any house cleaning. So I get to school pretty early to begin my last minute cramming for a kinetics exam I have today which I virtually did NO studying for. Why you ask would I not study for an exam? I don't know. This happens every semester. I go through periods of burn out where I literally CAN'T make myself study. I was doing SO WELL too, I mean all As and Bs. I'll be glad if I got 5 answers right on this exam, and it's all my fault. *sigh* I did make it to the gym to relieve some frustration, but when I came out I had gotten a ticket. I was pretty mad about it since I've parked there for over a year and never knew I couldn't. It's only 10 dollars, but still. I've also been really irritable and wanting to eat everything I lay eyes on. PMS at it's best. BLah. I am attempting to do some last minute cleaning and do the cat litter boxes before W gets home at 11:30.

Halloween 2008

I had a good Halloween this year. Me and W carved pumpkins and they turned out super cute. I carved a kitty cat face and a ghost and W's was just a face he made up, but it was really cute. I had to work on Halloween, but got off around 9:00 pm and ran home to change into my costume and grab a bite to eat. I was a witch. I LOVE to dress up for Halloween :) My costume was a little shorter then I anticipated ( I ordered it online) But it was super cute so I just wore some shorts under it. I then spent a few hours at the Kappa Psi/PDC halloween party. W had to work and didn't get off until 11pm and was too tired to go out, so I just went and met up with some friends. We had a blast. I got home around 1am and had to be to work the next morning at 9:30am, but I got up with no problems thank goodness. I made some delicious pumpkin muffins today and we had meatloaf, sauteed veggies, and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. Here are some pics.

17 month old baby boy with DS READING!

Pumpkin patch

Me and W FINALLY made it to the pumpkin patch. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I liked it. It was pretty much just a pumpkin patch and some other field with beans that sorta looked like peanuts and a corn maze and a little stand with fruits and vegetables. It was neat though and me and W had lots of fun looking at all the green pumpkins LOL. I don't know why but I found them hilarious. We picked up some acorn squash, cherry tomatoes, and homegrown apples and of course pumpkins. I plan on making some dutch apple pie with a struesel topping here in the next few days. We ate at a crazy buffet that had Chinese AND southern food. It was OK. LOL but I don't think we'll be going back. OT: Janice went to the doctor and apparently she DOES NOT have high blood pressure. It was taken twice and was about 100/80. We're not sure why it was so high when I took it, maybe because the cuff was a little too small and maybe because she was excited. I'm just really glad she's healthy. Well here are some pics.

Oh me oh my.

That's what's going through my head right now LOL. I got off work only 1.5 hours ago and I have to go to bed VERY SOON because I have to be to work at 9:30 am tomorrow. I wanted to share about me and Will's day. He woke me up very sweetly this morning and asked me if I wanted to go to the pumpkin patch. I had wanted to go on Thursday but sadly it rained ALL DAY. I was surprised that he offered since he didn't seem really excited about it. Well we got directions through google maps, but something went wrong and we never found it! So sadly no pumpkin patch today, but he promises me we'll do it before halloween. We did eat at Bhan Thai which is a really good Thai food place that Will had never got to try before. He loved it. I have begun the process of putting away all my warm weather clothes and pulling out all my fall sweaters. I hate doing it but love after I'm done. I will also be getting rid of quite of few clothes that are too big for me. That's right, I weigh around 118-119lbs now which is below my goal of 120. Not sure how that happened really. But people have noticed and that feels really awesome. My parents are in Tunica again so I'm going to see them tomorrow after work. I thought I would stay the night, but I may not now since I want me and Will to go to church on Sunday. We'll see. Well gotta go to sleep.

Got a new jacket today....Woot woot!

I got an email from Victoria's Secret today that today and today only they'd be offering select coats 20% off. I have one nice coat I got from my mom last year, but I've really been wanting a longer one as well so this is the one I chose. Isn't it cute? Now I can't wait for it to get cold. lol.

God doesn't make mistakes.

A little update...Fall break!

So I'm officially on fall break until Monday which is sooooooo nice. I do have to work Friday, Saturday AND Sunday though, but that's ok I'll earn a little cash. I got to see my dad and Janice last Saturday and I very much enjoyed it. I took both of their blood pressures and I'm very sad and concerned to say Janice's was 172/104. That's really high, stage II hypertension. I expressed my concerns with my dad about her health and my parents are getting her an appointment to see the doctor. I think she needs a full physical AND a complete blood test to access her lipids, i.e. cholesterol. I don't believe her cholesterol is high, I just think the hypertension is probably caused by her being overweight. My dad has started her on a diet, which is good, but sad at the same time because she doesn't truly understand why she has to be on a diet and she still wants snacks. Thankfully she loves fruit, so my dad has been giving her lots of fruit, which is really good. So her blood pressure is bad, BUT I think with some lifestyle changes and a trip to the doctor for some prescription meds, she'll be at her goal blood pressure in no time which for her should probably be <130-80. I will get to see my parents and Janice again this weekend which is cool.
Will is doing well in school still, he graduates on December 5, then has to take his NCLEX aka board exams to be a certified RN. He wants to work in the ICU at a local hospital here called Methodist North, his been doing his internship there and really enjoys it. I can't wait for him to graduate, I'm so proud of him.
I have also recently decided to start attending church again regularly. I am Catholic for those who don't know, so me not having attended for awhile leaves me in a state of mortal sin. I have to fix this by going to confession, then I will be able to take communion again. I'm SCARED!! I haven't been to confession in quite some time, but I HAVE to do it. Hopefully before Sunday so I can take communion this Sunday. I found a church very near our home, and Will has even said he'd start coming with me (he's not Catholic, though I'd LOVE him to be some day).
My nephew Colby's birthday is October 18, he'll be six years old, I simply can't believe it. I remember the first time I laid eyes on him when he was about 3 months old. He was such a beautiful baby. I'll have to send his card out tomorrow along with my VERY FIRST car payment LOL.
Lastly, I got pulled over today *sigh*. And.....got a ticket, my first one ever!!!! That really sucks because I've been saving all my pay checks to pay my car payments so this is going to be a set back because I'm assuming this ticket will be over $100. :( I guess that's what I get for speeding.

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And find a really cool blog at the same time? I read Renee's blog called life with my special K's EVERYDAY, sometimes more than once a day. She has 4 beautiful kiddos, and she's married to a military man who is currently deployed. Her youngest daughter just happens to have Down Syndrome AND has fought and WON a battle with AML (Acute Myologenous Leukemia). She lives in my hometown of Clarksville, TN. Since I have a sister with DS AND I grew up in a military family, AND I work at St. Jude so I'm an advocate of pediatric cancer awareness, I love her blog for many reasons, but even if I had nothing in common with her, I would still love her blog because she is an amazing writer. So go visit her blog and enter for a chance to win a prize commemerating her 1 year blogoversary!!

Tomorrow I'm hitting the gym

So I'm almost over my illness, the only thing I'm left with is a deep painful cough that winds up deep from within my core and probably keeps the neighbors awake! LOL I haven't been able to work out since I've been sick which for me has been quite distressing. I'm sort of obsessed with working out now and I just know everyday I'm unable to do so I've undone the work that I worked so hard to do. I think tomorrow will be the day when I start back up, maybe not full force, but something anyway. Getting a good cardio workout always elevates my mood and just makes me feel good. On Thursday morning I am giving flu shots at a local Kroger and I'm sort of nervous about it. I'm certified to give immunizations, but what if I get someone who is REALLY afriad of needles and they freak out, or what would be really bad would be if I stuck myself with a used needle! I'll just have to be careful and go slow and hopefully it will go well. Send me positive thoughts on Thursday morning from 9:30-11:30! Keep W in your prayers he's been a handful lately *sigh* he just always seems mad. I'll update on my Thursday goes.

WHAT?! No medicine cup?

So on the way home from eating at Chili's, we stopped at Walgreens to get me some Delsym aka dextromethorphan (cough medicine) for my cough. I was shocked and appalled when I got home and realized it didn't come with a medicine cup, and yet the directions stated to take 2 teaspoons. Ok so maybe I'm being picky but the average household teaspoon can measure anywhere from 2.5-15 mLs!!! My point being they aren't really that accurate and this is how people accidently give their children too much medicine! A teaspoon should measure 5 mLs, but if your teaspoon that came with your silverware happens to measure 15 mLs, you'd be getting around 30mLs instead of the 10 mLs that you should have been getting or 3 times too much!! Avoid this problem and the next time you are getting liquid medicine for yourself or your child, stop by the pharmacy and ask for an oral syringe so you can make sure you're getting the correct amount. Thanks and have a great day :)

Late night blogging

I've been banished to the couch because my coughing is keeping W awake. I've been sick for 3 days now. It's just a nasty cold virus so nothing much I can do except wait it out and self medicate. But now that I'm on the couch, I'm close to the computer so it's very tempting to get on here. Anyway my childhood best friend Amy is going through an extremely difficult time. Her boyfriend died suddenly on September 19 and they aren't really sure what killed him. Please pray for Amy to find peace and strength through this horrible time. Her boyfriend's name was Josh. On a positive note, me and W went to Chili's on Thursday and I colored a pepper and bought the create-a-pepper t-shirt. I made the pepper for Kennedy the cancer warrior! Here it is:

And here is a picture of just ONE of the walls with Peppers people have already done.

Don't forget to eat at Chili's on Monday September 29th because Chili's will be donating 100% of their profits from this day to St. Jude. I think this is just phenomenal. I have my second kinetics test on Tuesday and since I slept about 16 hours of the day on Saturday and Sunday, I haven't gotten a whole lot of studying accomplished so I'll have to really study hard tomorrow. Being sick just sucks. Plain and simple. I thank God I'm rarely sick. Well that's it for now.

Tomorrow is W's birthday.

W's birthday is tomorrow and I'm getting ready to go birthday shopping for him. His birthday is always sort of a dreaded day for me considering he is EXTREMELY hard to shop for. This time he made it a little easier for me by making a birthday wish list which consisted of nothing but DVDs and CDs. I may throw in a shirt or two as well. :) If it weren't for me, the man would wear t-shirts and cargo shorts everyday. By the way he will be 28 years young. Wow, when I met W he was only 24. I'm a little bit bummed though since he's working on his birthday and we won't be able to go out anywhere. Then I work Friday and he's going out of town this weekend, so I guess we really won't get to go out. Oh well, when I get a chance I'm going to make his favorite dish, liver and onions. I'm not joking, he LOVES liver and onions and begs me to make it all the time. And for desert, he favorite: chocolate chip muffins. Well I still haven't gotten any test grades back and the suspense is killing me! Well I'm off to Target and/or Best Buy.

1 down, 1 to go.

I had my first therapeutics exam today, and I'm not sure how it went just yet. I have to say it was easier then I imagined it would be, but I don't want to predict what I made because I'm usually always wrong. I'm just glad it's over with. I was so brain tired after the exam I went straight home and skipped my management class. I feel a bit guilty about it, but I'll get over that soon enough. I rested at home a bit then went and did my Zumba class. I LOVE Zumba!! For those that don't know it's an aerobic class that's based on Latin dancing and it REALLY works your core, it's pretty awesome, then I did yoga for about 45 minutes and came home. This day has really flown by. Tomorrow I have to have an emissions test done on my new car so I can get it registered in Shelby county, and we have to somehow get my broken down car back to our house so my dad can pick it up on Saturday. He knows a lot about cars and wants to put a new engine in it. Nothing else really interesting happening this week that I know of. That's it for now.

New car and other positive things.

I guess I should start off by letting everyone know my car started making a rattling sound and the check oil light kept going on and off, even though the car had oil in it, so we took it to our mechanic who told us that something in the engine was cracked and making the rattling sound and we'd have to replace the engine(again) to fix it. Some of you may remember that the engine has already been replaced once and we it hadn't even been in the car for 6 months yet. *sigh* After me and W discussed this situation, we agreed it would be better just to get a different vehicle for me instead of replacing the engine a second time and risking something else happening to the car. This car has been quite a nightmare for me. This is what has happened to it:
1.) Keyless entry mysteriously became "unprogrammed" while car was still under warranty, so we had it fixed.
2.) Keyless entry unprogrammed itself AGAIN conveniently right after the warranty ran out, so I've been w/o keyless entry for the past 4 years......
3.) Air conditioner had to be repaired while under warranty
4.) Brakes had to be COMPLETELY replaced when car was only 2 years old (Not under warranty)
5.) Motor went out in one of the power windows conveniently when the window was down. Had to drive car with trash bag over window until it could be fixed.
6.) Blew a head gasket last year, had to have several hundred dollars worth of repairs.
7.) Broken hose in coolant system (Note: ever since the blown head gasket, coolant system never worked right again, we were having to put coolant in car every week)
8.) At same time the head gasket blew, engine completely failed and had to be replaced...over 2000 dollars worth of parts/labor.

As you can see it's been a wild (and expensive) ride with this car. By the way it's only a 2002 vehicle, but ran like it was from the 1980s! Anyway we went to carmax today and purchased a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt, it's red and really cute and perfect for me. We also made sure to get the extended warranty considering our luck with cars. It was a long tedious process, but now I have a reliable, cute car!! Now if I can just make the monthly payments. :)

Cute Huh??

So I wanted to thank anyone who sent me positive thoughts regarding the state of my marriage. I'm happy to report we had a really good day today and I'm feeling very positive. We are going to take advantage of free counseling sessions offered to students through our school. I also have my first therapeutics exam on Monday and I'm pretty nervous, it's going to be difficult.


Lastly, everyone eat at Chili's on September 29 because they will be donating 100% of profits from that day to St. Jude!! I can't imagine a better cause then this...ok maybe I'm a little biased since I work there. Do you realize St. Jude is one of a kind? It's the only place I know of where money is literally not an object when it comes to treating these kids. I've prepared drugs that were $2500 for a small vial! But this drug may be the patient's LAST HOPE, and it may SAVE THEIR LIFE!!! Some may not know that while St. Jude's main patient population are pediatric cancer patients, we also treat children with HIV/AIDS and other catastrophic diseases such as hemophilia, sickle cell anemia as well as a variety of other hematologic and endocrine disorders. The HIV drugs are ESPECIALLY expensive, but give HIV + patients a quality of life that they'd otherwise not have. Also patient's families NEVER had to pay for any treatments not covered by their health insurance and if they have no insurance, well then they don't have to pay! How awesome is that?? St. Jude also provides money for food and basic necessity items such as toiletry items as well as housing. Outpatients stay in either the Memphis Grizzlies house, the Ronald McDonald house, or the target house. Patients also come from all over the world for treatment, just the other day I made some chemo for a young boy from Nigeria with relapsed cancer. Well I'm sure most of you know how special St. Jude is, so eat at Chili's on the 29th and also create a pepper in honor of a a child fighting or a survivor like Kennedy!!