for you, kk

The next couple of pics are for my mother-in-law, Karen. {You gotta remember that Nick's family are BIG baseball fans.} She loooooooooved this ball & bat flag that was up inside the ESPN Zone in Baltimore when we were all there a few years back.

Then Nick spotted this one inside Red Robin after lunch on Saturday and I just had to take the picture to show her. {There was a table full of people right below the flag whom I'm sure thought that I was taking a picture of them.} Karen and I just ate at this same Red Robin the week before and didn't see this.... So, which one's your favorite, Mother-in-law?

It's over!

Last Friday was my LAST DAY OF ROTATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!! My momma offered to take pictures of me when I got home so I can remember just how dorky I always look at work. Yay!



Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to get to wear my many pairs of scrubs to work at CVS.

(I'm seriously sad about this...)

I never had to think about what I was going to wear, just made sure they were clean! I never ironed them, I wore the same comfy tennis shoes, and usually the same jewelry. IT WAS SO EASY!!!!!

But the elastic waistband did let me get a little tooooo comfy and welcome any food that was put in front of me. By the weekend, when I got into my real clothes, they were just a tad tight.

When God closes a door, he opens a window. Back to having to think about what I wear to work, and hopefully, back to a smaller waistline.




P.S. After some consideration, I decided not to go to work for CVS till after graduation, May 18th, so I have some free time for a couple of weeks!.. and I really need to study for the boards during that time. BOO.

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I'm getting really tired of naming posts lately, can you tell?

******************

This past Saturday, Nick and I got a chance to head back to the antique store from this post to see the sights and to check out the painting.


Do you remember my dogs I found last time? This time I looked for dogs that might look similar to my sister's real life pups. (She has two malamutes, brother and sister, that look almost identical.) I found these two that were actually attached... they looked pretty similar to hers... except her pups aren't brown. I thought I might find one dog to look like her two dogs, but how ironic to find two that look like hers and come as a set?!? Crazy luck.

{Even stranger, I didn't actually buy them. Nick convinced me that they didn't look like hers because they're brown. But the more I look at them and think about how strange it was that they were a set of two, I think it was meant to be. I'm not worried, I'm sure they'll still be there. I'll come rescue them and take them to their new home soon =) }

How sweet would these stretched canvases be in a nursery or kids' room? I think my favorite is the mother goose. Very nice.


THE painting was still there and I still love it... though they had marked up the price. Up?!? *Butt-heads.*

We didn't even try to talk them down since they don't seem to be going in that direction.

It was ugly anyway. ;)






For now, I've also given up on looking for prints online. I found many I like, but with the size of the wall, they were never large enough and I couldn't find a set of 3 that I liked together.

So here are our blank canvases hanging on the wall. I wanted to get them placed to see how they looked together before I attempted to paint our own art. We'll see how it goes... we may be back in stores checking out the retail art verrrry soon.

Even though we didn't take home any goodies from the lovely antique store, we did still take home some other goodies:

A few lilac branches came home in the cup-holder of the 4-runner, which were beautiful to look at, wonderful to smell, and made me learn quickly that I'm just a bit allergic to them and still paying for being in their presence for 2 hours with a sore throat. Don't worry though, I've been medicating with popsicles.

And we both medicate with a couple of blizzards on the way home as well. HEY, it's been HOT!

Who am I kidding? I was driving to DQ for blizzards when there was snow on the ground this past winter. I should definitely look into buying stock with the Dairy Queen. {Which people will probably start calling me soon, as I slowly expand from the blizzards and other junk food.}

yap yap yap

Good Monday mornin' to ya! Nick and I went to our "vacation home" in Lexington this weekend and brought back a few pictures to show you.

{Vacation home because we seem to only be there on the weekends when we're not working. Even though we're still working very hard to put everything in it's place at the house, we're so happy and relaxed when we're there that it doesn't feel so much like work. Therefore, it's our vacation home, for now.}

I love our lilac bushes that are in full bloom right now - since we aren't there to enjoy them day in, day out, I took plenty of pictures, made one my wallpaper on the computer, and cut a few branches to bring back to my parents. Aren't they lovely?

Hendrix finds his new space very relaxing as well.

This is the same darned dog that woke me up every five minutes starting at 7 am this morning on my first week-day off from rotations. Somehow, I still love him.

I try to keep up a spirit of sharing every little detail of my life here in blogworld, and the pool hall is the only room that is finished enough that I could post pictures and share as of right now.

We still have a dartboard to hang up on the empty wall to the right, not pictured, and Karen is painting some stools for this room so our friendly pool shooters will have a place to sit their rear-ends while politely waiting their turn.

Even without those little nuances, I do believe you'll still get the big picture.

A photo of the previously mentioned dart-board... I found this little gem upstairs in my parents' garage. It was still in the box. When I asked my pack-rat dad if I could have it, his reply:

"Do you know what you're asking? I've been storing this for 12 years! It's brand new!"

Yeah, he let me take it. Maybe he'll actually get to play on his precious dart-board when he visits us now. I'm still waiting for him to find the very special fancy darts he bought to go with the board 12 years ago... they are somewhere in this garage:

It's not your average garage. My parents bought our house, with no attached garage, when I was born. There were the normal storage issues with a family of four, add in a dad who collects pop bottles, old electric power meters, stuff that other people threw away, and they soon found the need to build a barn-sized two story garage with a "garage door". The type of door that most people use as a gateway to drive an automobile through.... laughable because this garage has never stored a car because it has been stuffed with other knick-knacks since my little brain can remember.

I do love that my parents have found the room to store lots of my stuff in this building until Nick and I had a place big enough to keep it all. Now that we have accomplished acquiring such a place, I have been asked to rummage through this building and remove anything of mine that I would like to keep in my life. Or else it will be seen as something I no longer need/want and be yard-saled at a later date.

My parents would strangle me if I showed you a picture of the inside, but believe me, it's pretty s-t-u-f-f-e-d. I don't know if I have the courage or energy to rummage, I may just volunteer that it all be put up for yard-sale. Should anyone actually want to pay something for my junk, my parents can keep the 50 cents for putting me and my junk up for the last 25 years. Sounds like quite the deal.

Did ya'll care for my off subject rant about some dumb old garage? I knew you would...

AND did this guy care that I had the pool table staged beautifully for my little photo shoot?! Nope. I'm not sure where he got the crazy idea, but for some reason he thinks you're supposed to play on this piece of furniture.

Silly guy.

from white coat to cap and gown

Where did the time go? It seems like just yesterday we were at my school's white coat ceremony - the "initiation" to any school in the medical profession. I was a sooooo excited to be starting school, extremely nervous I wouldn't make it through, I had no idea what was ahead of me, what to expect and an emotional wreck to be 4 hours away from the love of my life in Georgetown.

Now, 3 years later, looking back shows an unbelievable journey I could never have imagined would all come to fruition in such a short period of time.

It is unreal that we managed to finish a 4 year PharmD in only 3 years. No summers off, many of the breaks were only mini-mental breakdowns on my own time, the panic, the staying up all night studying and sleeping during the day. Then, of course we were off, later, going wild with our friends, just trying toforget about the professors at school and whatever they were planning to pull on us the next week to kill our hearts and souls.

We had fun together, we had high school-esque drama, we had some professional moments and manymanymany unprofessional moments... there were promises made, some promises kept and that saying "what happens in pharmacy school, stays in pharmacy school" was a great slogan but not always the case. Some of us will take our secrets to the grave though =)

As if those 3 years weren't jam-packed challenging enough, I got to keep up with my old faithful friends when I was driving back and forth from VA to Lexington/Georgetown to see every possible baseball game of Nick's that I could make it to, I got to make new lifelong friends through school, got engaged, planned a big ol' wedding, actually got married (!), lived in 2 different apartments and now bought a house to live in with my husband.

That same guy that I started the 3 years of pharmacy school with as my "boyfriend", became my "fiancee" in my second year, and my "husband" in the third year. To me, this man and our relationship has been the real ride with everything else, only the obstacles. We have come so far.

Tomorrow, I will be going to my LAST DAY OF ROTATIONS EVER. That's it. My last year is over. I could laugh/cry/scream but instead, I'm going to keep looking onto this big bright future my husband and I have set before us. It's quite the climb to get to where we want to go and I am pumped to have him by my side for the journey. We have been so lucky, so blessed, so many prayers have been answered... we will continue to Praise Him for His guidance and strive to live the life He brings us to.

In the next few weeks, I'll get to start my job at CVS (actually pulling in a paycheck for the hours, that's a new one!), return to school for a review for the boards and a graduation luau thrown in our honor, and then, on May 16th, we will graduate. I can't wait to spend these last sweet moments with myfriends before we all spread out, drug-dealing, all across these United States=)

Bittersweet has been the star reoccuring emotion of late in my little life. It is one that catches my breath, chokes me up and ends with me smiling through tears. It seems to be one that rears its little head right as I'm taking another step into adulthood and turn back to reminisce in my childhood that I never wanted to leave.

It is painful and exciting.

It's life and I'm loving it.

Finders Keepers

This weekend, while Nick was at a baseball game, I made a little stop for myself at an antique store I had passed dozens of times, never having the time to browse. What a precious little jewel of a place! Only 5 minutes from the house, I can't wait to revisit and see what new old things they have for my viewing enjoyment.

Inside the store was a huge display cabinet full of dog figurines from the 1940's - 50's. There were literally hundreds to look through, but I took the time to hunt and look who I found:

My dogs! Casey, the mini-Collie {aka Shetland Sheepdog} on the left, and Hendrix, the designer mutt {aka pomapoo} on the right. I love these little doggies. They couldn't look more like the real girl and guy if Ihad designed them myself.

I also found a mega huge art piece that would look straight-up fabulous behind our sofa. (See my last post for a photo of our large empty wall...)

Sorry about the picture quality. I had to resort to using my iPhone so I could show Nick and beg him to go back with me and buy the painting... that freakin' phone is the most ingenious electronic device I've ever owned, but wouldn't you think they could get a little "flash" action for the camera?!

The painting had been hanging in a restaurant in Louisville for a few decades. {Derby painting, Louisville restaraunt, you understand, right?} It's painted on a type of press board, not canvas, and had been hanging on the wall by screws - no frame. So it has a few holes in the top and bottom. And honestly, if we did buy it, we'd probably hang it right back up by those holes until we could afford to frame it - I'm guessing that it's at least 6 feet in width!

You can't tell from the photo, but the colors *POP* and would great with the new wall color. Plus, who doesn't want a little piece of history hanging on their wall?!

We'll be back in Lexington this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to get Nick to stop in with me, the painting will still be there, Nick will love it as much as I do and we'll convince the owner to knock off a few hundred and viola, our empty wall will be empty no more.

{Perhaps I can justify the purchase as a graduation gift for yours truly from the best hubby in the world. Ya know, cause the new house, TVs, rugs, and furniture were... for my birthday? Or better yet... they were for Nick's birthday! So I'm due, right?}

But if not... I'll just go back to browsing 1000's of art prints on the net till I find the perfect set.

Que sera, sera.

Crystal blue persuasion

If it weren't for the dog having a 2 hour nap in the car on the way back tonight, this post probably wouldn't be up until tomorrow. But since he's still up, I'm still up, and pictures are going up!

I only hesitate to show you these since I know I will only have to post more later when it's really really finished, i.e. art pieces on the wall behind the couch, mirror and decor found for the fireplace mantle, and shelves painted and hung on the walls either side of the fireplace.

You've been warned that you'll have to see these AGAIN on another date with the additions, so make your choice now whether you still want to scroll down =)

It took even longer to finish the job up on Friday than I had estimated. I cannot believe I ever thought I could do this by myself! I told my mother-in-law and Nick several times that had I started it by myself, I would have ended up crying in the middle of the floor and consequently, hiring painters.


The color is e-x-a-c-t-l-y what I wanted! I love the feeling it gives me when I'm in this room. Karen and Nick picked up the couch and moved it in. {I was at a law review for the boards at UK on Saturday morning during all the furniture moving - great excuse to not help, huh?}

You never know how it will all piece together when you buy something here, order another on the internet, and pick a paint color from a paint chip in the most unnatural light inside of Lowe's, but I am beyond excited how it all turned out.

I love these cute pillows that tie in perfectly with the room and actually found another one, not pictured here, that matches perfectly with these two. My MIL, Karen, and I spent a lot of time at Hobby Lobby one day this week and ended up with quite a few lovely things. One of them is this framed canvas below. It's gorgeous! And would you believe that at the check-out, we decided to mention a few scratches on the frame, expecting we may possibly get 15% off or so, and instead got 50%!!! Too awesome!

Even better than the 50%, Karen gave it to me as a gift, so I actually got 100% off ;) I couldn't have made it through this week without her help, she is a house painting pro!

Much luck to you all for a not-so-manic Monday tomorrow!

No news

...is good news. Kinda sorta.

Here's an update for you: we are not finished painting this ONE room yet.

Ludicrous.

2 people have already put in, what I have calculated to be, about 34 hours or MORE of nothing but straight painting and we still have about 8 to go.

The room is large, the moldings are many (5 windows, 3 doors, 2 archways, crown molding and a fireplace that is completely wood moldings), as well as some tall ceilings , that may I add, are breaking my back getting up and down the darned ladder. I am reeeeeallllllllllly growing to hate that ladder immensely.

Side note: how W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L is my mother-in-law???!?!??!?

The good news is that the color is beautiful, or at least Karen and I think so, and we shouldn't have to paint over for another 100 years. {An exaggeration, but at least if we change the wall color again, the wood moldings should not have to be repainted... it's just that the previous owners had the nastiest beige-almost-tan color on them. Very dingy looking.}

So perhaps some photos another time.

Shippin' out

Karen and I are heading out to my (and Nick's) home this morning. We're going to try our best to get as much painting done as possible, so that when Nick arrives on Friday evening, we can move in the new furniture without fear of a little splash of "Blue Twilight" hitting the very pale "Linen" color of the sectional.

Can you say, disaster?

{Also, 2nd disaster - the added stress on our marriage - Nick and I moving furniture together... he gets frustrated that I'm not stronger, I get frustrated that the darn furniture weighs so much, there's a whole lot of yelling and then usually someone ends up hurt. Hurt by the furniture, that is. All is back to happy when it's finished, though =) }

With that said, enjoy the above picture of my parents 'purty' red tulips. The picture below is from later that day, one unsupervised crazy poof-ball puppy dog tulip eater later. See if you can count how many flower heads are no longer with us. I can hardly believe it, but he actually ATE them, right down to the nubby stems. I caught him red handed (or is that red tuliped?) in the act.

The cable/internet guys will be making a visit to the house to set everything up on Thursday, so hopefully, if things go well, {both with the internet AND the painting}, I'll have some words and images to share by Thursday evening!

Blessings!

Just say NO!

It's happened... I played with fire and I got burned.

This happens to a lot of pharmacists, I've heard. I mean, you're around these drugs a.l.l. d.a.y. l.o.n.g. You just can't help but help yourself, and before you know it, you've become a label. An addict.


Of course I'm talking about pop... or soda, coke, whatever you crazy kids are calling it these days. It started with my K-mart pharmacy rotation and carried over into my Food City rotation. I can see it through the window we have in our little pharmacy world, peering out into lots of caffienated goodness.
Diet Dr. Pepper has quickly become my favorite. But, as per the usual antics of an addict, anything will do... as long as it's DIET and NOT decaffeinated. These two things are important to me, but if I had to give up one, it would be the diet. GIVE ME THAT CAFFEINE, BABY!!!!

It's 2 months into this addiction and the costs of such are already rearing their ugly head. The obvious: MONEY! And the not so obvious for those whose vanity has not reached the sky rocketing heights of mine: yellowing teeth.

Yuck. I'd like to keep my money in my pocket and my white teeth in my ever-lovin' head. For now, I see nothing in the near future of kicking the habit. It sucks. My parents taught me waaaaaaaaa-a-a-aaa-ay better than this.

And please don't tell me that pop is a "gateway drug".

I can't handle much more of this down-hill living.

Saturday Before Easter

Too tired for words! Except for these: we had a great weekend, here's a few pictures from the festivities on Saturday, and I FORGOT to take pictures in our Easter outfits on Sunday(!!!)

You must know by now how much it pains me to forget to document an occasion.

{I actually asked everyone to get back in their outfits after completely changing out of them... they laughed me off.}

Lots of love!