Monday, November 19, 2007

Getting Rid of the Clutter

I have a new roommate. Last weekend was spent clearing out the room that he is now occupying, which was my old childhood room turned into an office turned into the i don't know what to do with this so I'm putting in here room.

A lot was thrown away, but there was a lot of stuff that I just didn't know what to do with. I moved the office furniture into my room so the setup might actually be cool... but I wouldn't know that yet. I can't even see the floor at this point because everything I wanted to keep from the other room is now in my room.

I'm guessing a lot of it is go in the closet stuff, but my bedroom closet is already full. I don't even use my closet anymore because I've managed to pile things in there to the point of avalanche when the closet doors are opened.

So I braced myself and started cleaning my closet. Yikes.

I'm trying to just throw things out. OUT OUT OUT.

But I've got quite the large pile of stuffed animals. Mostly little bunnies from Easter baskets. They're too cute to be thrown out and a part of me still thinks they are alive. I don't think that they get up and have a party when I'm here or anything, I just can't bring myself to put them in a black trash bag and send them off to the stinky dump where no one will ever love them again and birds will peck out their eyes and they will die a horrible, smelly death. ITS SAD AND DISRESPECTFUL.

So not only am I googling all sorts of organizations that accept stuffed animal donations, I am also putting off any further cleaning for the next, say, half hour. Yes!

I think I'll make some dinner and do laundry and... trim the dogs nails. By putting off one giant task, I manage to do about 20 other things that need to be done. It totally makes up for it, right?

Friday, November 16, 2007

Venipuncture and the "death grip"

It's been at my job for a month now, and I still love it. Normally, a month is plenty of time for that first bit of optimism to fade away. But not with this job.

Today I placed my first IV catheter. I think it was my 4th or 5th attempt to do so. Usually when I can't get it the first time, I give up. I don't like the idea of poking and digging around a dog's leg in order to find a vein when I am so inexperienced. So for the rest of the day, I was giddy. Earlier that morning, after an unsuccessful try, I had an "ugggh I'll never be able to do this!!!" moment. So yay me, i'm on my way to more experience.



I also killed a dog today. But then he came back to life. I'll explain.
It was a tiny pomeranian that needed to have some blood drawn, so I was holding him still so that we could get the blood from him. Squirming is not really something you want a dog to do when you're poking his jugular vein. Anyway, we finished pulling the blood and I was just loosely holding him when I said, "that's my death grip!" in reference to the way I kept this squirrelly little dog so very still. All of a sudden, he goes limp. He stops breathing, his eyes roll back and he's out! The tiny and very old little dog freaking died. I pass him over to someone else to check for a heartbeat and in the meantime i'm getting the crash cart ready and then the little guys decides to come back.
Good Lord. I can't even imagine having to explain that to the owners, who only brought him in for a checkup and blood work.

No more references to my death grip.

Monday, November 12, 2007

One Year Together

Mark and I celebrated our self proclaimed anniversary on November 9th. Our actual anniversary is a bit hard to determine... since he was living in Utah, our relationship began online and over the phone, and after a few months of this we were officially "together", even though we still hadn't met in person... which still isn't true because I knew him from middle school and we saw each other in high school, but we hadn't really been friends or talked for 7 years... so it was a bit confusing. November 9th, 2006 was the day that I finally flew up there after months of late-night (and all-night) phone conversations and endless emails.

Mark flew into Long Beach airport Friday afternoon, all dressed up and looking mighty fine. I picked him up wearing my best little black dress and the tallest heels I could find. We drove into Orange county and had dinner at a gorgeous restaurant perched on the side of a hill overlooking the city of Orange. The view was absolutely amazing and our server was really nice.

We waited until we were at our table to exchange gifts. Mark had a funny grin on his face up until this point, and I was unsure as to why.... until I opened his gift. I carefully removed the wrapping paper, in the middle of the fancy restaurant, candles flickering... and this is what I saw:And for the rest of the evening, I did my best to conceal the naked people from our server and everyone that walked by.
My gift to Mark was a monogrammed flask. Now he's one of the cool kids.

We spent the weekend together and it was wonderful. And even though it was just a short visit, it was so nice to be with my love and make an event of our milestone together. And it's also nice that the goodbye at the airport wasn't sad -- he'll be back for thanksgiving.

I just love my hunny.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Miso Hungry

Eating healthy seems to be really expensive. I feel like I spent less when I ate Jack in the Box for lunch and could only afford ramen noodles and cans of soup for dinner.

Now that I'm working, I've been a health food junkie. Veggies and deliciousness, oh my! Tonight I gorged myself on homemade Miso soup with a little too much seaweed thrown in. I've been snacking on fruit to hold me over at work, and have been eating chicken/veggie lunches.

I keep finding myself at WalMart on my days off to restock. And I end up spending what I feel is an obscene amount of money each time. Then again, I'm cheap when it comes to grocery shopping. But still... it would be cheaper to just buy junk.

I'm just determined to eat well and feel good. In all of my past jobs, I was usually just sitting all day. Now, with all the running around and lifting and crouching, It has become pretty apparent that I need to be in better shape in order to get through the day.

So we'll see how long this kick lasts. :)