Wow! The week sure got away from me.  I am so busy that time really flies!

Not too much has been going on other than fieldwork and home, with a heavy emphasis on fieldwork.

I have been following the news about the freighter ship captain kidnapped by the pirates very closely.  Though I did not know them directly, those folks live very near here. My heart goes out to the captain and his family in hopes of a safe return.

I am learning a ton at fieldwork.  Working with the elderly is very rewarding and very challenging.  At this point, it is a mix of both.  We have patients we are working with that are making steady gains and will be going home soon.  And we have patients who likely won't be going home as they can't be independent anymore or they are in such a cognitive decline that they will need to be in long-term care. 

Working with folks in various early stages of dementia has been a really educational experience for me. 

We have a big project to do for each fieldwork experience.  For this site, I am making up a binder of group therapy activities.  They do lots of group therapy (and many of the patients really enjoy it!) and sometimes get in a rut as to what to do.  I am going to piece together a binder of activities so that they can try some new things.  I have come up with the following categories for my binder; exercise, cognition, cardio, kitchen, and something else, I just forget at the moment.  I need to get really working on the binder!

Speaking of fieldwork.  I just finished week 4.  I have 4 weeks left! I can hardly believe it!  And I know these four weeks will just fly by!!!

It also means that it is just 5 weeks until graduation. Squee!

I have spent over four hours doing homework today.  I got a pretty big assignment for the weekend (obviously!) and I waited until this afternoon to start it.  I took a break to whip up some meat loaf and toss it in the oven, but I really have another hour or so of work to do!  Oh well...Guess I shouldn't have procrastinated, I could have started it yesterday. 

Yesterday, I did marathon chores to try to get us back on track.  The sad thing is that the house was so far gone that I merely made a dent in the mess.  However, I would not be embarrassed if someone dropped by, so it is better than it was.  We do definitely have the "lived in" look going on though!

So...I am starting to get excited.  I have five weeks left of fieldwork! It's not graduation that I am so excited about, it's that I had the realization that in five weeks I will get my life back!!!  I will be able to do things on my terms in my time.  Even when I get a job, I am only planning on working part-time so that I can still take care of my family and myself.  I am sooo looking forward to not being bound by school!

I know I've missed a lot of blogging lately.  I honestly don't have much exciting to say. Every couple of days though, I do go through and catch up with the blogs I read.

Well...I ought to get to that homework.  I'd like to have it done sooner than later!

Remember my great weekly Meal Plan idea? Yeah....I almost forgot about it too...

Today, I got home from work and started to prep supper.  I wanted salad and so in the process of making salad for tonight, I packed up three lunch salads.  Now I am all set through Thursday and it will ease some of the busy-ness of my evenings.  I had been eating a Sunbutter (sunflower seed butter) sandwich and a yogurt and fruit for lunch every day, but I gotta tell ya...I am sick of Sunbutter sandwiches.  The salads will be a nice break.  I'll still have my yogurt and fruit and I ought to find some protein to add to the mix...We'll see what I can come up with.

I have to say that fieldwork just exhausts me.  It is so busy and there is always so much going on....Between the physical exhaustion and mental overload, I am just whipped when I get home in the evening!

This week is a bit busier too as I am getting a small caseload (3 patients) and I am also getting to do lots of co-treating.  I totally enjoy it.  I guess it just keeps me sleeping well at night!

The new car is still good. I totally enjoy driving it. 

Oh! So, I have been having a classmate tape Knitty Gritty for me.  She gave me 7 episodes at class on Friday.  I have been rationing them and watching one a night.  I enjoy the show a lot.  It is pretty laid back and low key and it is just fun to see the knitting and projects.  Nature Boy enjoys watching it too, so I have some good company while I watch.

Every Sunday it is a bit of a struggle to go to UU.  Everyone is tired, and not very motivated and just wants to stay home.  I totally agree with the feelings and sentiment.  Sometimes, we do stay home.  But every time we go, I find something that inspires me.

So, I am glad we went today because I felt spiritually uplifted by the music and the service.  Not only that, but after going for a few months (even at the sporadic rate we've been attending) we are starting to make some connections with folks there. 

I will have to remind myself of the greater benefits of attending UU when I am lounging around the house on Sunday mornings!

All in all, it has been a pleasant weekend.  We have been pretty busy around the house.  The weekend is our laundry time and depending on how the week has gone, it means about five loads of laundry.  I start first thing Saturday morning so I can get the first 2-3 loads hung and dried on Saturday.  Then I do the rest on Sunday morning.  This weekend, we needed to wash some sheets and other linens, so it was a hefty laundry weekend. Luckily, it is all caught up now! <phew>

The same thing seems to happen with the dishes.  We are always about a load behind by the weekend.  It's okay....it certainly could be worse....But I do feel a bit disorganized when the kitchen is untidy.  We are almost caught up on dishes now.  After dinner tonight, I will load the dishwasher and catch the few stray dishes on the counter and then the dishes will be caught up.

The rest of the house is in a state of busy cluttered-ness.  I did make significant headway in the living room.  Because we traded in dh's car, everything that had been in his car (emergency blankets, a pool noodle, a gazillion little plastic  boxes, Wet Ones, etc., etc.) got dumped on the floor in the living room sometime midweek.  We basically have been steering around it all for three or four days with no one having time to deal with it.  Finally,  that pile is gone and actually, the living room is passable in terms of cleanliness.

The litter box is freshly scooped and the trash and recycling have been taken out too.

Now, we start the whole process over again!

I'm thinking that this week will go a lot smoother.  Spending the past two weeks at fieldwork and wrangling car shopping, the sick cat, parent-teacher conferences, class in NH......well....It's no wonder we haven't had time to be on top of things lately!  Now that life is settled down, I expect a calmer week.

All I have left to do today (other than that last load of dishes!) is a bit of homework for tomorrow.  It shouldn't take me too long....Which is a good thing since I have procrastinated all weekend and haven't started it yet!

BTW, it really does appear that we are having an early spring!  We have no snow here and the crocuses have even popped up!  I can't believe our luck, but we got about a month's head start on spring this year!!!  Now, I won't be surprised if we get some more snow, but at this point anything we get won't be sticking around for long.  Once we get past about mid-April, we are pretty much full-on into spring.

Okay, okay!  I am sorry for keeping you all in suspense.  And to those of you who have been giving me flak about it .......Here's the official announcement:

We got the car.  I've waited to blog about it because I wanted to show you a picture of it in my driveway! (Which means I just ran out there to take pictures of it to share with you!)

So, it's a 2007 Pontiac Vibe with 42,000 miles.  It is an automatic with cruise control, and power everything (locks, windows, etc.) It has a power sunroof and a really nice 7 speaker sound system...the car has a sub-woofer in it! And you can feel it!!  It is clean and in really good shape. And I love it!

This is our first car with a remote locker thingy.  And I think I have finally figured out how to use it (i.e. click it once to unlock the front door, twice for all the doors).

Features I really like about the car:

The back hatch window pops open.

The seats fold flat for storing stuff.

The power sunroof.

The awesome trim on the bottom.

(I don't know why, but I just loooove that trim!)

And I have a place for my mascot, Pikachu, and to place an affirmation card.

Yesterday, I took the car to school and back.  It was nice to drive.  And lemme tell ya, using cruise control was pretty convenient! 

Oh, and I should mention that the radio actually works in this car.  You may (or may not!) recall that my radio in my old car died the first week of school.  I have been listening to cds and podcasts via a cassette adaptor.  It is a treat to actually get to hear radio. 

And we got it all for a price we could afford.  If the car hadn't been a bit high in mileage, I don't think we could have afforded it at all....Well, and if I hadn't really pushed with the dickering.....But all said and done, we are happy with this car and plan on having it a good long time!

Oh yeah, and I named her Scout.

Hmmmm.....Imagine that.....The car dealer called and I stopped by after work to see what they wanted (okay, okay, truth be told I was gonna go by anyway!) and guess what?  They dropped the price of the car again! I am such a good player at this game!!!

So.....I am thinking that we have pretty much got the price where we want it. And I even drove the car home tonight for one last test drive. Or as the salesman called it "the puppy closure" i.e. "It followed me home, can I keep it?"   Mind you they've been trying to get us to take it overnight repeatedly and I have steadfastly resisted....It was the first day we saw the car that they encouraged us to take it home and called it the puppy closure, but I refused.  It's all part of the car dealer dance.

At this point, I am 95% sure we will get this car.

It's a good thing too because dh's car (which I have been driving for the past two weeks) has a new rattle to it.  It just started today and all I could think was that the car just needs to live long enough to be traded in!!!

And did I mention it has a power sunroof?  Squee!!!!

Hmm....time to think about names. You all do name your cars too, don't you?

Oh my goodness.  My feet are so tired!  Being on my feet for basically 8 hours a day in the nursing home is absolutely exhausting!!!!  Seriously, I could have got right to sleep when I got home this afternoon!

I have to say, I am really getting into the groove of the population at the nursing home.  I never ever in a million years thought of myself as a "geriatric person."  I always thought of myself as a "kid person".  But after last summer's stint in the nursing home, I learned a new appreciation for the elderly.   This second stint in the nursing home....Well, I am feeling like I am really liking working with the older generations. Who woulda thunk?

My supervisor is supportive and I think I will get to learn and do lots.  I am already getting much more time doing hands-on patient care and I expect next week I'll pretty much be off and running.

You know what I want to do?  I want to get a new battery for my pedometer and see how far I walk each day.  Up and down and up and down those halls all day long....I betchya I clock in a gazillion steps each day!  As I mentioned before, my feet are telling me I am doing some real work! I remember sore feet when I started up last summer too....It just take a couple of weeks for me to build up a bit of tolerance. I expect next week I'll be good too.

Now, in car news.....I don't quite know what is going on with that red car.  I talked the dealer down a bit more but the car is still a bit more than what I wanted to pay.....But not extraordinarily so.....And there are some perks with the car, like it still has 3 years and 60,000 miles left on the factory warranty....It could be worth an extra few hundred dollars.

And did I mention the power sunroof?

I need to decide tomorrow if I want this car or not.  We can afford it and it really won't push us too far in terms of payments, it is just the higher end of what I wanted to pay.  But we have talked them down to a good price (I base this on comparing other used Vibes plus the fact that our mechanic said it was a good price....). I guess I just feel commitment anxiety.  But we do really need to replace dh's car........

Shall I flip a coin?

Oh...and it's not that I don't like the car...I love the car.  I just want to be sure we are making the best economic choice

To buy or not to buy.  That is the question.

My poor neglected blog!  Cheer up lonely little blog!!!

I did a baaad thing yesterday. I decided to pursue the whole car thing a little more.  You may recall the plan of the mechanic hand picking my car. It's a good plan.  Only, I got to thinking about what I wanted for a car.  I wanted a Toyota Matrix.  However, the Pontiac Vibe is basically the same car (Toyota engine and transmission in it) but as a general rule costs less.  I guess you really do pay extra for the Toyota name.

So, just so that I had a good sense of the two cars, we went and looked at a Vibe yesterday.  And I ran into this difficulty: I love the car. No really, I am so in like with this car it is not funny.  I love the way it looks, the way it handles and rides.....And if that weren't all enough....It has a power sunroof.  It's like icing on the cake. Mind you, I don't need a power sunroof and it wouldn't be a make-or-break feature on a car...But as a nice little bonus, I wouldn't complain about it.

Anyway, the car is an '07.  It's a bit high in miles (which is why we can almost afford it) but is in pretty nice looking shape.

I tell you.....it's all about the red and the trim.  The color is Salsa and that gray trim along the bottom....I love it!

Well, we'll see. In an amazing feat of car swapping gymnastics, dh is going to pick up the Vibe on the way home tomorrow to take to our mechanic for the used-car-once-over (ummm....This assumes my mechanic can even see it.....Hopefully, he'll have time.) If all goes well with that, I have a bit more price dickering to do to bring it down to what I want to pay for it.  Dh will take the car to NB's karate class, I'll meet them there after I get out of work, trade cars and I'll take the Vibe back to the dealer for a bit more price haggling.

I will say, that even if I love the car, I won't buy it for more than we can afford.  If I have too, I will leave it there.

Other than that not much exciting is going on.  We did get some snow last night....So annoying!!!  We've been coasting so nicely on this super early spring weather....I was really getting used to it! I'd say we got about 3" overnight and into this morning.  At least some of it does seem to be melting right away. <phew>

Well, I am going to maybe go take a nap.  I woke up with a bit of a scratchy throat this morning and I have felt really tired.  I think a nice nap will do me some good.

I'll try not to dream too much about having fun in that shiny salsa red Vibe!

Squee!!! The kitty is home!!!!

After hearing from the vet last night that Meg would need to stay at the vet until tomorrow....We were pleasantly surprised to get a call today saying she was ready to go home!

I picked her up on my way home from work.  

We were all very happy to see her and I know she was happy to be home because she went straight to snuggling on Nature Boy's lap.

Also within ten minutes of being home, she went into the bathroom and puked on the floor.  Ah...life is back to normal.  (I'm guessing she was a bit car sick!)

So, we are all just hanging out with the cat tonight.  Life is good.

Okay, I'll admit, I pretty much disappeared there for a couple of days....

It's a good news, bad news kinda thing.  What do you want first?

Okay...Good news it is.

The good news is that I started my new fieldwork placement at a nursing home on Monday and I am very happy there.  I like the OT I am working with and the whole rehab department has made me feel welcome....Heck, I even have had people from "up front" ask me how I am doing when they have been down visiting on our unit.  The work is pretty much what I was expecting.  These first couple of days, I have been shadowing but tomorrow I can start to do stuff.  And the hours are nice and regular and consistent. 

So, really fieldwork is all good! <big sigh of relief>

And now for the bad news......

In an unfortunate bout of timing, my cat, Meg, has gotten very, very sick.  It started on Sunday and got worse over the course of the day.  She was vomiting, had diarrhea and was peeing everywhere. Lemme tell ya, it was not pleasant and it did not take me too long to sequester her to the bathroom. Ugh!  She was sick all night too...It took me a half and hour Monday morning to clean the bathroom so we could shower (Not exactly how I wanted to start the first day of my new fieldwork!).  I was really worried that she was so sick that we were going to have to euthanize her.

Dh stayed home Monday (Of course, when it rains it pours and Nature Boy was sick too on Monday morning!) and besides taking care of NB (who did rally and is actually pretty much his old self today) dh took Meg to the vet.  It turns out she has a very severe UTI.  As a matter of fact, it is so bad that Meg is in the kitty hospital!   This will be her second night there.  Luckily, her UTI is very fixable, but with the renal failure and the fact that we can't medicate her orally and the severity of her infection, she really had to stay at the vet for IV fluids and antibiotics. 

It has been very stressful for me to have her so sick.  I have had that cat longer than I have had dh! She is Nature Boy's special buddy and a very significant part of our family.  I have been very worried about her and I miss her dearly!  I am not ready to put her to sleep so I am glad that she had a medical issue that we could resolve.

And also, please don't think of me as heartless, but it has been also stressful because hospitalizing a sick cat is a bit of a financial burden.  I don't like having to put a value on the life of a pet.  

So...the sick cat has put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm this week.  I can't wait to get her back home where she belongs!!!!!