30 May 2008

Hitting people….ahahaahahaha

Last thing I forgot to mention. I was chilling out with my favorite completely inappropriate resident at the AL facility, after dancing up a storm. Someone had their baby great grandchild there and the little girl had just learned to do high-fives…she was toddling around high-fiving everyone. My resident said “oh look, she’s learned how to hit people!”…..AHAHAHAHAHAHAAH

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

30 May 2008

Just words flowing out my distal PIP joints….or sumtin'

I'm sitting here dazed…it always takes me a while to wake up. I was checking up on blogs and saw there was an update by one of my favorites – a woman who lost one of her 6-year old triplets to cancer a few years ago that I have been following since before the little boy died. This woman is so kind and sweet and loves her children, and she posted a little thing about the death of Maria, a 5-year old little girl and daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman. I read a little bit about her and my heart is feeling extra heavy this morning. Some days it feels like there is just too much emotion in the world and my heart can't take it all! I'm used to children dying unfortunately, after so many years at two local pediatric hospitals, but some days it catches up to me and it just hurts. I might stop by one of the hospitals today and hold some babies to take away a little of the sting of this morning!

I had lots of odd dreams last night as I tossed and turned with a wet rag on my face – it felt like one of my eyeballs was going to fall out, it was an odd headache. One of them involved family therapy at a Venezuelan restaurant for a little deaf girl…one of them involved tracking cookies all over my house…one of them involved OT classmate Allison getting hurt at her job but was fine….some really weird dreams. I'm staring at 1.5 years of filing to do, in piles all over my living room…paycheck stubs, receipts, cards….I get a lot of cards. I am blessed to have wonderful friends and family. It's easy to get bogged down in complaints some times….but I have, overall, so much joy in my life these days…

I'm thinking this morning I'm going to put on some music and try to finish up the INCREDIBLE amount of filing – I throw away almost nothing so it's truly a Herculean task…something I've put off ever since I started graduate school. Then this afternoon I'll go hold babies and get some errands done I guess…like filling up my car, writing some postcards, crap like that. PLUS, I desperately need to finish a paper on diversity that I'm doing in collaboration with another student…and send off for my new car tags…and pay some bills….augh.

This next month will be OT-lite…I just don't have a lot to share in the OT realm overall…but June 30th it starts back again with fieldwork, so hang tight. I do have about a hundred mails to go through and so sometime very soon – possibly tonight – I'll have a blog blitz and post all the OT-related things I haven't gotten around to yet from old mail. This includes responding to comments/emails from OT people…sorry I'm so behind, I do respond to all OT e-mails after a while, I promise. 🙂

I had a great time with the Norwegians in Memphis…and enjoyed seeing everyone at our little class party…but the slideshow Kerri and Brent and I made, had carefully chosen Beatles music, and the sound wasn't working…oh well. I'll end up putting it online soon.

Yesterday was a really really fun day…..OT classmate Kerri reminded me it was 60s day at the local assisted living facility…so I showed up for the dance….she had already been there a while and danced up a storm…I joined in and danced with a ton of residents from both the assisted living part and the adult day care center…tons of strangers…a little old man with Down's syndrome…a woman with a hat who kept kissing my neck and hands…lots of sweet Tai Chi study residents…one of the residents had on a GIANT black Afro and he looked absolutely amazing. It was SO much fun and I wish I had brought my camera. I'm a bad dancer…I love dancing but have nothing to show when I go out with my friends…so dancing with a bunch of old people or kids is perfect for me…because I can just kind of bop in place and that's all I'm good for anyway!  it was neat seeing the smiles on everyone's face….holding the hands of strangers and just dancing to the music…

Then I babysat…which was also nice…the kids are adorable and the entire family is great…unfortunately the kids were obsessed with beating a scorpion in the Legend of Zelda so they spent a lot of time on the phone with OT classmate Kerri, lol, who is good at video games.

I ended up spending the rest of the evening w/ Kerri & Brent who live near by the kids…we laughed a lot and just had fun…I got home late. I talked to my friend Suzanne on the phone who has been chillin' with the Norwegians in Nashville, and she told me my host mother told her that she and my host father think of me as their “baby” (I was 15 when I lived there for a year…their kids were in their late 20s) and that kind of made me cry! It was so sweet!

My real dad's birthday was yesterday but apparently he is in jury duty. I need to call him today…and call my mom too, just to chat. This is such a random post. Just everything flowing out my fingers.

My online job stopped last week or so because the game closed down after 3 years…I was there from Day 1…it's weird to not worry about being online for work for the first time in three years…and to have that extra time…I'm usually very busy and this is the first time in a LONG time I have nothing planned for the day except what I feel like doing…nothing set in stone. I'm babysitting Saturday night and Monday and Tuesday during the day…then I head out for 20 days of pure out of town vacation…woot woot.

Anyway…I'll stop now….turn on my iTunes and do some heavy duty filing…
by the way….I'm pretty sure I saw a monkey in a pickup truck on the freeway yesterday…….also, one time, like a few years ago, I was in a bar with my friend Doug, and a woman walked in carrying a little monkey wearing a diaper…it was really cute.

The End.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

28 May 2008

I'm still alive

Remember the whole “I'm going to clean and do stuff”? post? Yeah, not happening just yet. Kerri and Brent and I just finished making the slideshow for tomorrow's OT party and I've been involved with the Norwegians so um…maybe tomorrow?!!! I dunno?!!! From now until June 30th things will be tough….I need to clean out my large email box to find some stuff to post. La la la.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

24 May 2008

the norwegians are coming, the norwegians are coming….

Lots going on! Blog neglectment to a maximumality! Preparing for the imminent arrival of THE NORWEGIANS for the weekend!!!!!!!!! Go check out some of the awesome OT blogs on my sidebar while I be a big giant OT slacker….time to go find breakfast and start cleaning/prepping for Norwegian liveliness…probably will catch up within next few days….SOOOOOOOOO behind on e-mail. Oh lordie.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

22 May 2008

Research + classes ending = margaritas

Today we had research presentations…had margaritas at El Mezcal with Kerri, Kerri's mom, Brooke, Talli, and um, me……watched hours of Desperate Housewives…ate dinner with landlords…took a 930pm walk with Kerri & Brent and am spending the night…we had a pseudo-belly-dancing session..and now I'm sitting on the couch with Brent listening to Kerri play piano and sing….a diverse medly of songs from Once, it isn't easy being green, and soon classical music. lol.

Research today was pretty interesting…everyone did a great job overall…and technology issues were minimized..how many of you have done poster sessions cross-state!!

I have been slacking on the blog lately…life has been somewhat intense for so long and now things are calming down some…I've been having lots of fun with my friends, OT and non-OT…the next few days are going to be on and off busy but the first week of June should be quiet so I can catch up on e-mail and stuff like that…I feel like a bad person but I'm going to put that out of my brain for now!!

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

21 May 2008

OT Quote of the Day

My friend Suzy in IMs: “sounds like senator kennedy could use a good ot workup”

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20 May 2008

nothing to see, nothing to see

This is one of those posts that is made for ME so that in the future I can look back to know what I was up to. It's utterly boring, you'e been warned. Move on, nothing to see here. Oh by the way I have a ton of e-mails and comments to respond to…email is full again and it always takes me a while to catch up!!

I should be watching an OT work with vent babies right now, but I'm home. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling really yucky and after being up a while then, I can barely keep my eyes open! I need to make some final touches to some research stuff and then I'm going back to sleep. I don't think I have a virus or anything though…just need some extra rest.

It's been an insanely busy few days, but really fun too! I don't remember where I left off, but I'll start with Sunday. Meg, Emily, and I, met up at 8am to drive to Millington for Allison's tri-athlon. It was really cool to see! Allison finished with no trouble and was happy! We were really proud of her. I have tons of pictures to put online once I am more awake. Around 1:30 we headed back to Memphis. I went straight to my landlord's birthday celebration and had some cake. Then I went straight to go “babysit” with the parents still home, so that the kids and I could get acquainted. I ended up staying for dinner. The mom was like, I'm going to throw together a salad. Then she like roasted almonds, cut up celery and chivey things, pulled out mandarin oranges….I was like dang, if I were to say I'm throwing together a salad, it would probably mean lettuce. LOL. It was fun spending time with them as I love spending time with families! And I convinced the kids I had magical powers, by the way…which is always a helpful skill. LOL

After that I have no idea what I ended up doing, lol. Oh yeah, Allison came over and we worked on PDEs together until midnightish.

Monday – yesterday – I worked on finishing PDEs in the morning, then met Julie at Ave Maria to do a few more assessments. Then I ended up on a whim stopping by the car inspection site – yay. My car has like a shower chair, a mat, towels, my makeup, coupons, foam swords, and some other completely random stuff in it right now. Then it was time for my PDE – it went well. My paraphrased understanding of their feedback was that the faculty is concerned because I seem so stressed and “abrupt” and stuff this semester compared to last semester. This kind of made me feel bad. I told my PDE advisor to go back to the faculty with a few pieces of explanation.

1. A lot of the issue is fatigue due to medication changes this semester – but I'm fatigued the same amount regardless of what I do, so I stay busy for the most part – but that makes me appear a lot more stressed than I really am, since it's just a struggle to stay active.
2. I am trying to be cool to my peers! And cool means not spending a lot of time hanging out with faculty!
3. The faculty has also been stressed out and busy this semester, so I'm not going to like hang out when their body language clearly shows they are stressed/busy. So nyah.

Anyway, it was good overall, I just wish the faculty wasn't concerned…then I went straight to babysit again while the mom went to a class. The kids were pretty good, I brought my foam swords…but oddly enough both kids were in bed before 8pm by their own choosing, it kinda freaked me out! LOL.

Today as I said at first my plans changed…I need to work on the research poster and rest a lot more, and clean the house, and work out, and a bunch of other stuff….hhhmmm.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 1

18 May 2008

A very packed yet not OT-y Saturday

A very non-OT day that I will pay for on Sunday night and/or Monday morning, pre PDEs. 🙂

Got up and primped for Sarah's high school graduation. Met up with her parents at 10:15. Graduation was 11 to 12:30pmish. Reception at Sarah's. Hung out. Hung out. Rested. Got ten thousand phone calls/texts. Went to Chinese and ice cream with Sarah's family. Got a text right as I left inviting me to come over to Kerri's (and husband Brent) who live near by. Went by and played Super Mario Kart on the Wii with them for about an hour. Stopped at Christa's house on way home to see her new puppy. Stopped at Paul & Angela's house, also on way home, around 10:40pm, to watch them play Grand Theft Auto 4. Then they let me hijack some cars and punch some random people. And then I went home.

Tomorrow is another long day so I'm going home! Sarah's graduation/party/dinner, plus last-minutely seeing all my friends, was awesome. A very fun day. 🙂

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

17 May 2008

And one final completely random thought for the night.

PS: Don’t you think instead of Narcissistics Anonymous, it should be Narcissistics Non-anonymous?
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none

17 May 2008

Tai Chi Cha Cha Cha

Today Julie and I got a whole bunch of Tai Chi assessments done at the Assisted Living Facility. We got some help from a new research assistant so we got to go a little faster with the extra pair of hands. There were two we could have done today but both participants felt ornery and decided to wait. Since it's voluntary I could not force them or argue, so I only smiled and nodded, but I wanted to be like, “By you picking an alternate date, you're costing me another $4 in gas, an hour of driving time, and 20 minutes of set-up, set-down time, on top of the time needed to actually do the assessment. Thanks. I appreciate that extra few hours of time and extra money. Especially while most of my classmates are sitting by the pool. HAVE A NICE DAY!” LOL. Especially to the lady who promised three different times today she'd come, and fell through each time. We'll call on Monday before coming back to verify they will in fact do the assessments.

It's fine though overall…especially since almost everyone is so nice and caring. My favorite answer today was when Julie asked a lady if she had osteoporosis and she said “I don't know, do I?”…I loved it. LOL.

This afternoon I also stopped by the mechanics to question a warranty claim since I just found out that federal emission standards through EPA make like warranties that say things like catalytic converters that go out before 8 years/80,000 miles are covered. Or something like that, it's confusing. Then I went to school to pick up some things/print a thing or two. Then I read an entire fictional book about a religious cult. Then I slept. Then my friends Kerri and Brent came over and brought me a Sonic Reeses Blast because they are the most awesome people in the world…they texted and said they were bored and could they come over while I worked. I said sure!! I was thrilled, because I was somewhat expecting Allison and her fiancee to come over tonight and that didn't end up working out (it will work out some other day this weekend). Right after that I got another text about hanging out but had to turn it down. Woot. By the way, Kerri and Brent brought THEIR KITTY WITH THEM! I love their kitty Oxford sooo much it hurts. It was the first time a kitty has been in the house since I had my beloved Nikki put down about a year and a half ago. 🙁 Oxford sniffed around a while and by midnight, Kerri and Kitty were asleep on my giant foambag, while Brent helped me set up a fingerprint sensor on my laptop! And reset up my graphics tablet! And crap like that, he is awesome! I am blessed to have such nice friends. They just left around 12:45am.

Tomorrow morning I get up early to prepare and then go to Sarah's high school graduation + reception + who knows…

Sunday I watch Allison's triathlon, go to a birthday lunch for my landlord, volunteer at a alzheimer's picnic, and babysit, and possibly have friends over…

Monday I have to go back to the Assisted Living facility…::screams:: and then my PDE is at 4pm.

I better finish my PDE soon…lol.

Research poster revisions, PDE finishing (About half-way there), plus the collaborative diversity paper…then I can focus on my own non-OT writing plus work on my special blog project…

I think I'm going to go to bed to read until I fall asleep. Which, will probably be, around 3am or later, based on my current crazy sleep schedule. In the morning when it's time to get ready for graduation I'll be like “I'm going to get up early to flat iron my hair and put on nice make up….wait let me snooze ten more mins…who cares if I don't flat iron….ok snooze ten more minutes…who cares if I don't do my hair at all….snooze…who cares if I wear nice makeup…snooze…and so on.” lol . Funny how priorities change when tired…

I've gotten some really kind and inspiring comments lately..please keep them up as they mean a lot to me…I am 78 mails behind on e-mail as is the daily story of my life, so bear with me if you don't have a response to something yet.

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none