14 years ago
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Joe Proposed!!
I'm so proud of my biggest brother! Last night he took his girlfriend, Kristin, to dinner and got down on one knee!! I drove about an hour to the restaurant to gather with friends in the bar to help them celebrate...HOORAY! I posted pictures and added them as a slideshow to MySpace.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Family History
I went to visit my grandparents in Fresno this past weekend and snapped a couple photos. I've posted them in a new album titled "Family History" on MySpace. I have no idea how to add photos to my blogs, yet, so that will have to do!
My Mom's parents and my Dad's parents live next door to each other in the same retirement community (they are all in their early 80s now), so although I met my mom to visit with her parents, I got to see my Dad's parents as well!
I want to move into this place when I retire...hopefully it's still as nice...and hopefully they will have installed some high-speed wireless internet, because dial-up doesn't work for me!
My grandparents are truly inspirational people and I'm blessed to be part of their family. Here's a glimpse into just what I'm talking about:
A few weeks ago, my Grandma Johnnie and Grandpa Harley had invited an older couple to Sunday school since the older couple hadn't been to church in awhile. They agreed, but during Sunday school the man's pacemaker failed. Ignoring her replaced knees, my grandma ordered people to lay him on the floor and call 9-1-1 before she got down on the floor with him and began CPR (she was an RN before she retired). She was calm, deliberate, and was able to bring the man back! Then the next week at Sunday school, my Grandpa said "Don't you try any stunts today, Herb (name probably not right)...if you go down this time I'LL be the one giving you mouth-to-mouth 'recreation,' not Johnnie!"
They are the best!
My Mom's parents and my Dad's parents live next door to each other in the same retirement community (they are all in their early 80s now), so although I met my mom to visit with her parents, I got to see my Dad's parents as well!
I want to move into this place when I retire...hopefully it's still as nice...and hopefully they will have installed some high-speed wireless internet, because dial-up doesn't work for me!
My grandparents are truly inspirational people and I'm blessed to be part of their family. Here's a glimpse into just what I'm talking about:
A few weeks ago, my Grandma Johnnie and Grandpa Harley had invited an older couple to Sunday school since the older couple hadn't been to church in awhile. They agreed, but during Sunday school the man's pacemaker failed. Ignoring her replaced knees, my grandma ordered people to lay him on the floor and call 9-1-1 before she got down on the floor with him and began CPR (she was an RN before she retired). She was calm, deliberate, and was able to bring the man back! Then the next week at Sunday school, my Grandpa said "Don't you try any stunts today, Herb (name probably not right)...if you go down this time I'LL be the one giving you mouth-to-mouth 'recreation,' not Johnnie!"
They are the best!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Lottery
No, not the one where you can potentially win lots and lots of money. I'm talking about the lottery that happened at school yesterday during which all 223 (or so) students in my class chose our 3rd year rotation sites.
Is this a blog-worthy event? Probably not, but I'm tired of seeing the one about the robbery.
Because Dave and I are married, and because Dave lives in Bakersfield, I got a higher ranking. The top 5% GPA students as well as the people with spouses or dependents (if the spouse or dependent is living in the city where the rotation site is) got top priority and were assigned a random number for the lottery. I was pick #30! There were about 50 people in the top priority category, so to speak. The other 170+ people were also randomly assigned numbers. My friend Carolyn was #168...ouch! A lot of sites were full by the time she got to pick.
There are 20 possible sites, some of which allow 15 students, and some of which only accept 2-8. Some of the ones that only accept a few students are Portland, Hawaii, Redding, Chico, Loma Linda, Santa Rosa, Merced, and Monterey. The full sites include San Francisco, Stockton, Fresno, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, San Jose, Long Beach, Palo Alto, Travis, and LA/Orange County. This year, the Bakersfield site was expanded and now accepts 20 people!
Once your name/number was called, you had 2 minutes to make your selection. I was the 3rd person to choose Bakersfield, and the site was full before the lottery was finished! Santa Barbara didn't even fill up. Does that make any sense to anyone?? Who would pick Bakersfield over Santa Barbara? Besides me, of course :) Most people didn't need the two minutes, but once a lot of the sites had filled up there was some drama. One of my classmates bought a house with her fiancee in Elk Grove (up here near Sacramento), but Sacramento was full by the time she got to choose! So she was on the phone frantically trying to decide where to go in 2 minutes. She chose Bakersfield :)
I wasn't exactly worried about being able to get Bakersfield, because the chances weren't very good that 20 people in front of me would choose it, but it's really nice to know FOR SURE that I get to go HOME in August! I think I'll slowly start sending things back to Bakersfield with Dave when he comes to visit...or my mom...not that I have THAT much stuff up here with me. Maybe I'll make a trip home after midterms later this month.
YAY for being almost half way through 5th semester! Only 1.5 semesters left to go! Then 6 6-week rotations starting in Bakersfield in August and I'll graduate in May 2009. Once I graduate I just have to take (and pass) the State Board Exam to get licensed. There's a light at the end of the tunnel!
I'm really looking forward to rotations to find out what I really want to do as a pharmacist. 4 of the 6-week rotations are mandatory (hospital inpatient, community pharmacy(AKA retail, like at Longs), ambulatory care, and internal medicine). 2 of the 6-week rotations are electives, meaning we get to choose what else we want to do. One of the electives offered in Bakersfield that sounds REALLY interesting is physiatry (not a spelling error--I'd never heard of it either!) which deals with rehabilitation from brain and spinal cord injuries. I don't know what else I'll choose, yet.
Sorry if you read this whole thing and it wasn't til the end that you realized there was nothing interesting in it! Hopefully it helped you kill some time, anyway :)
Is this a blog-worthy event? Probably not, but I'm tired of seeing the one about the robbery.
Because Dave and I are married, and because Dave lives in Bakersfield, I got a higher ranking. The top 5% GPA students as well as the people with spouses or dependents (if the spouse or dependent is living in the city where the rotation site is) got top priority and were assigned a random number for the lottery. I was pick #30! There were about 50 people in the top priority category, so to speak. The other 170+ people were also randomly assigned numbers. My friend Carolyn was #168...ouch! A lot of sites were full by the time she got to pick.
There are 20 possible sites, some of which allow 15 students, and some of which only accept 2-8. Some of the ones that only accept a few students are Portland, Hawaii, Redding, Chico, Loma Linda, Santa Rosa, Merced, and Monterey. The full sites include San Francisco, Stockton, Fresno, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, San Jose, Long Beach, Palo Alto, Travis, and LA/Orange County. This year, the Bakersfield site was expanded and now accepts 20 people!
Once your name/number was called, you had 2 minutes to make your selection. I was the 3rd person to choose Bakersfield, and the site was full before the lottery was finished! Santa Barbara didn't even fill up. Does that make any sense to anyone?? Who would pick Bakersfield over Santa Barbara? Besides me, of course :) Most people didn't need the two minutes, but once a lot of the sites had filled up there was some drama. One of my classmates bought a house with her fiancee in Elk Grove (up here near Sacramento), but Sacramento was full by the time she got to choose! So she was on the phone frantically trying to decide where to go in 2 minutes. She chose Bakersfield :)
I wasn't exactly worried about being able to get Bakersfield, because the chances weren't very good that 20 people in front of me would choose it, but it's really nice to know FOR SURE that I get to go HOME in August! I think I'll slowly start sending things back to Bakersfield with Dave when he comes to visit...or my mom...not that I have THAT much stuff up here with me. Maybe I'll make a trip home after midterms later this month.
YAY for being almost half way through 5th semester! Only 1.5 semesters left to go! Then 6 6-week rotations starting in Bakersfield in August and I'll graduate in May 2009. Once I graduate I just have to take (and pass) the State Board Exam to get licensed. There's a light at the end of the tunnel!
I'm really looking forward to rotations to find out what I really want to do as a pharmacist. 4 of the 6-week rotations are mandatory (hospital inpatient, community pharmacy(AKA retail, like at Longs), ambulatory care, and internal medicine). 2 of the 6-week rotations are electives, meaning we get to choose what else we want to do. One of the electives offered in Bakersfield that sounds REALLY interesting is physiatry (not a spelling error--I'd never heard of it either!) which deals with rehabilitation from brain and spinal cord injuries. I don't know what else I'll choose, yet.
Sorry if you read this whole thing and it wasn't til the end that you realized there was nothing interesting in it! Hopefully it helped you kill some time, anyway :)
Friday, January 11, 2008
Burglars!
Last week (sometime between Thursday night at about 8:30 and Saturday night at about 7) our apartment in Bakersfield was broken into. Dave and I had left Bakersfield on Wednesday afternoon to move me back up to Stockton for the next semester, and my little brother (Aaron) was given the keys to feed our fish. Aaron went to our apartment Thursday night to feed the fish. When he went back Saturday night he discovered that we'd been robbed.
Dave and I had been having a pleasant dinner on Saturday night at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Stockton with Carolyn (a pharmacy school friend), my oldest brother (Joe), and his girlfriend Kristin. Joe and Kristin were driving from Sacramento to Newman to visit her family and decided to stop by Stockton to eat with us on the way.
Around 7pm Aaron called my cell. I answered "Hi, almost birthday boy!" since his birthday was coming up on the 7th, and he replied "Steph, your apartment was broken into." I think I made him repeat himself 4 or 5 times before I realized he wasn't kidding and my eyes started crying. My voice doesn't work when I'm crying so I shoved the phone at Dave without saying anything.
Dave and I decided to drive back down to Bakersfield that night so we could help identify what was missing. From what Aaron could tell, our new 50" plasma TV, Dave's PS3 (which I got him for Christmas), and Dave's laptop were missing, but he didn't know what else. We figured we wouldn't make it in time to see the cops or to help with the police report since it's a 3 and a half hour drive, but we needed to know what was gone.
Aaron called the police and our mother at about 7. Mom only lives about a mile away, so she got to the scene of the crime pretty quickly. We kept in contact via phone as we drove. They told us that every drawer and cabinet had been left wide open and had been rummaged through. As we were driving I asked Dave why the robbers would bother going through all the drawers and cabinets when they left big stuff like the TV in our bedroom, an old DVD player, and PS2? The moment Dave said "They were probably looking for jewelry or cash" both our hearts sank. I broke out into tears (again) because we both immediately realized that Dave's wedding ring was probably gone. He lost some weight since the wedding and the ring doesn't fit anymore, so instead of wearing it and risking losing it, he leaves it on his nightstand. We called Aaron and he confirmed it was gone.
We beat the police home and looked through the apartment, trying not to touch anything. We only noticed a few more things gone: Dave has a vase he tosses his change into at the end of the day that was emptied and left behind; and from our small collection of liquor on the kitchen counter, a box of Crown Royal was gone.
Dave collects swords (none of which were stolen) and one from the living room had been unsheathed in the living room and dropped in the bedroom, which leads us to believe the robbers came at night and planned to chop up whoever was sleeping in the bed. Luckily we were both in Stockton!
The most fishy thing about this all (besides the fact that our apartment is UPSTAIRS and nobody knows where we live or that we have nice stuff) was that we'd granted the maintenance man permission to enter to replace our garbage disposal. He did that Thursday afternoon and probably got a good look at all the cool stuff in the apartment. In his defense, he's been hired at our complex for over 12 years and they've never had any problems. Dave has had him come in before to work on things and was OK with granting permission to enter.
As the geniuses that WE are, we had not gotten around to purchasing renters insurance or putting rods in the window panes, so we knew the stuff was gone forever.
When the policeman finally arrived at 6:45 THE NEXT MORNING, he dusted for fingerprints and made up the police report, but we knew there wasn't much we could do. He gave us a case number and told us that a detective would be assigned to the case later in the week.
Ultimately, we're both glad that nobody was hurt and that they left so much behind. We spent the next day with my family celebrating Aaron's birthday and it was good to help keep our minds off the break in.
I wasn't gonna post anything since this is all so depressing, but last night Mom saw something on the news about the police catching a burglar with a stockpile of big screen TVs, PS3s, jewelry, etc., so it's looking like we might have been part of a string of robberies.
Even if this is unrelated to our case and we never get our stuff back, I'm just glad SOMEONE got caught and SOME PEOPLE will get their Christmas back! Obviously, we'd love to have our things back, too, especially since NONE of it is even CLOSE to being paid off, but it's WAY too soon to get our hopes up.
Now I should probably pay attention to the lecture about diarrhea that I've been ignoring. :)
Dave and I had been having a pleasant dinner on Saturday night at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Stockton with Carolyn (a pharmacy school friend), my oldest brother (Joe), and his girlfriend Kristin. Joe and Kristin were driving from Sacramento to Newman to visit her family and decided to stop by Stockton to eat with us on the way.
Around 7pm Aaron called my cell. I answered "Hi, almost birthday boy!" since his birthday was coming up on the 7th, and he replied "Steph, your apartment was broken into." I think I made him repeat himself 4 or 5 times before I realized he wasn't kidding and my eyes started crying. My voice doesn't work when I'm crying so I shoved the phone at Dave without saying anything.
Dave and I decided to drive back down to Bakersfield that night so we could help identify what was missing. From what Aaron could tell, our new 50" plasma TV, Dave's PS3 (which I got him for Christmas), and Dave's laptop were missing, but he didn't know what else. We figured we wouldn't make it in time to see the cops or to help with the police report since it's a 3 and a half hour drive, but we needed to know what was gone.
Aaron called the police and our mother at about 7. Mom only lives about a mile away, so she got to the scene of the crime pretty quickly. We kept in contact via phone as we drove. They told us that every drawer and cabinet had been left wide open and had been rummaged through. As we were driving I asked Dave why the robbers would bother going through all the drawers and cabinets when they left big stuff like the TV in our bedroom, an old DVD player, and PS2? The moment Dave said "They were probably looking for jewelry or cash" both our hearts sank. I broke out into tears (again) because we both immediately realized that Dave's wedding ring was probably gone. He lost some weight since the wedding and the ring doesn't fit anymore, so instead of wearing it and risking losing it, he leaves it on his nightstand. We called Aaron and he confirmed it was gone.
We beat the police home and looked through the apartment, trying not to touch anything. We only noticed a few more things gone: Dave has a vase he tosses his change into at the end of the day that was emptied and left behind; and from our small collection of liquor on the kitchen counter, a box of Crown Royal was gone.
Dave collects swords (none of which were stolen) and one from the living room had been unsheathed in the living room and dropped in the bedroom, which leads us to believe the robbers came at night and planned to chop up whoever was sleeping in the bed. Luckily we were both in Stockton!
The most fishy thing about this all (besides the fact that our apartment is UPSTAIRS and nobody knows where we live or that we have nice stuff) was that we'd granted the maintenance man permission to enter to replace our garbage disposal. He did that Thursday afternoon and probably got a good look at all the cool stuff in the apartment. In his defense, he's been hired at our complex for over 12 years and they've never had any problems. Dave has had him come in before to work on things and was OK with granting permission to enter.
As the geniuses that WE are, we had not gotten around to purchasing renters insurance or putting rods in the window panes, so we knew the stuff was gone forever.
When the policeman finally arrived at 6:45 THE NEXT MORNING, he dusted for fingerprints and made up the police report, but we knew there wasn't much we could do. He gave us a case number and told us that a detective would be assigned to the case later in the week.
Ultimately, we're both glad that nobody was hurt and that they left so much behind. We spent the next day with my family celebrating Aaron's birthday and it was good to help keep our minds off the break in.
I wasn't gonna post anything since this is all so depressing, but last night Mom saw something on the news about the police catching a burglar with a stockpile of big screen TVs, PS3s, jewelry, etc., so it's looking like we might have been part of a string of robberies.
Even if this is unrelated to our case and we never get our stuff back, I'm just glad SOMEONE got caught and SOME PEOPLE will get their Christmas back! Obviously, we'd love to have our things back, too, especially since NONE of it is even CLOSE to being paid off, but it's WAY too soon to get our hopes up.
Now I should probably pay attention to the lecture about diarrhea that I've been ignoring. :)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
He's Here!
Dave came in last night on Amtrak!! Carolyn and I went and picked him up and then celebrated at BJ's (which is new in Stockton, and VERY busy). I tried my first berry cider and pear cider. I thought they tasted kinda like those flavored water things, which I'm not a fan of, but they're DEFINITELY better than beer! And of course we had to finish with a Pizookie! Then I went home and studied for the two quizzes I have today...
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Dave's Coming!!
HOORAY!!! I can't wait to pick him up from the train station on Monday evening!! It'll be tricky to get any studying done while he's here, but he totally encourages, respects, and supports what I'm doing...probably because it was really his idea in the first place :)
He'll be here through Thanksgiving and the weekend after! I'll take him back to the train station Tuesday the 27th, I believe. We may go spend Thanksgiving with my Aunt Jill and her family in Folsom. My grandparents are gonna be there, too! It's only about an hour drive from here (it's east of Sacramento).
I have classes Monday and Tuesday, then I'm off school for a few days to study, work, and be with my honey!! I'm really looking forward to it, if that's not clear yet :)
OK...back to studying...yes, I know it's Saturday...this is my life...
He'll be here through Thanksgiving and the weekend after! I'll take him back to the train station Tuesday the 27th, I believe. We may go spend Thanksgiving with my Aunt Jill and her family in Folsom. My grandparents are gonna be there, too! It's only about an hour drive from here (it's east of Sacramento).
I have classes Monday and Tuesday, then I'm off school for a few days to study, work, and be with my honey!! I'm really looking forward to it, if that's not clear yet :)
OK...back to studying...yes, I know it's Saturday...this is my life...
Monday, November 12, 2007
Shingles
So last Friday as I was calling Dave between classes, like I do everyday, he convinced me that I should drive home for the weekend. This made some sense because he hadn't been feeling well since Wednesday and my mom was planning on letting me borrow her "old" car (a '97 Camry that's been well taken care of) since she just bought a new one (and the Camry gets WAY better gas mileage than the '88 Lincoln Towncar my grandparents were nice enough to GIVE Dave and me, which was also VERY WELL taken care of...I love it!) and I figured I could leave the Lincoln with Dave and drive the Camry back up to Stockton.
Have I lost you yet? Sorry...back to the story! When I got home Friday night I met Dave at the football game at Liberty in time to see the band perform the 1/2 time show and to say "hi" to the McGuires (can you guys believe Karlee is a sophomore?!?!). He was feeling pretty bad so we went home after 1/2 time. When Dave was changing for bed, I noticed a rash on his back. Using my expensive education :) I diagnosed him with shingles and told him to prepare for some excruciating pain (hahaha...he thought he already felt bad at that point!).
I had to leave my sick hubby and drive back to school EARLY Monday morning. Normally I'd leave on Sunday, but Dave talked me into staying one more night...he's VERY persuasive. I drove the Lincoln back to Stockton because Mom forgot she'd promised to let my brother, David, and his wife borrow the car this past weekend to drive to a marriage conference in Monterey (since neither of their cars is very reliable). It worked out, though, because she gave me gas $$ since I came down (partially :) to get her old car.
Anyway, when I talked to Dave on Monday afternoon he felt like he was dying. He doesn't have medical insurance because he's not a "real" teacher (thanks, KHSD), because he's relatively a healthy guy, and because we can't otherwise afford it (yet). I wouldn't have it either (yet) if school didn't require me to. But I called the Dr. he's seen before (who's my Dad's MD...that's the connection) on Monday afternoon and they were able to get him in early Tuesday morning.
The MD said "Oh, my God!" and ran to get his camera when Dave showed him his rash...when Dave does something, he goes BIG. He confirmed my diagnosis of shingles (which anyone who has had chicken pox can get...it's the same virus that lies dormant in your nerves and can flare up anytime after the chicken pox--called herpes zoster). The MD knows Dave doesn't have insurance, so he rounded up some antiviral medication "samples" and prescribed some painkillers.
Poor Dave! The painkillers did NOTHING to stop the pain for the first few days. And he's pretty likely to get postherpetic neuralgia (unexplained and usually untreatable nerve pain that follows a zoster infection) because he was infected for almost a week before he got the antiviral medication.
Now the pain is controlled with the pain meds and I actually heard him laugh over the phone yesterday. Please pray for him to continue healing and to hopefully avoid postherpetic neuralgia!
Have I lost you yet? Sorry...back to the story! When I got home Friday night I met Dave at the football game at Liberty in time to see the band perform the 1/2 time show and to say "hi" to the McGuires (can you guys believe Karlee is a sophomore?!?!). He was feeling pretty bad so we went home after 1/2 time. When Dave was changing for bed, I noticed a rash on his back. Using my expensive education :) I diagnosed him with shingles and told him to prepare for some excruciating pain (hahaha...he thought he already felt bad at that point!).
I had to leave my sick hubby and drive back to school EARLY Monday morning. Normally I'd leave on Sunday, but Dave talked me into staying one more night...he's VERY persuasive. I drove the Lincoln back to Stockton because Mom forgot she'd promised to let my brother, David, and his wife borrow the car this past weekend to drive to a marriage conference in Monterey (since neither of their cars is very reliable). It worked out, though, because she gave me gas $$ since I came down (partially :) to get her old car.
Anyway, when I talked to Dave on Monday afternoon he felt like he was dying. He doesn't have medical insurance because he's not a "real" teacher (thanks, KHSD), because he's relatively a healthy guy, and because we can't otherwise afford it (yet). I wouldn't have it either (yet) if school didn't require me to. But I called the Dr. he's seen before (who's my Dad's MD...that's the connection) on Monday afternoon and they were able to get him in early Tuesday morning.
The MD said "Oh, my God!" and ran to get his camera when Dave showed him his rash...when Dave does something, he goes BIG. He confirmed my diagnosis of shingles (which anyone who has had chicken pox can get...it's the same virus that lies dormant in your nerves and can flare up anytime after the chicken pox--called herpes zoster). The MD knows Dave doesn't have insurance, so he rounded up some antiviral medication "samples" and prescribed some painkillers.
Poor Dave! The painkillers did NOTHING to stop the pain for the first few days. And he's pretty likely to get postherpetic neuralgia (unexplained and usually untreatable nerve pain that follows a zoster infection) because he was infected for almost a week before he got the antiviral medication.
Now the pain is controlled with the pain meds and I actually heard him laugh over the phone yesterday. Please pray for him to continue healing and to hopefully avoid postherpetic neuralgia!
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