Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Brandon's Worms

Yep, my husband keeps worms...for fishing that is. Gross, right? He goes out after it rains and him and Cove hunt for worms to fill up our old coffee containers. They stay in our basement until the next trip to the lake where his family keeps a whole worm farm.
Brandon was carrying his worm containers up from the basement tonight to catch his latest worm victims, when he saw something he thought was a large spider move in the sack. He made such a loud sound he woke up poor Cove who started barking. Luckily, it wasn't a spider. I would not be able to sleep tonight thinking about large spiders crawling around our house.
Instead, it was this little harmless frog (right next to the hole in the bottom of the sack). Or maybe he is a toad? I really don't know the difference between the two. He was small and cute. Brandon said they make good bait. Don't worry- I told him he better not, or there will be consequences...

Monday, April 27, 2009

Our Favorite Cup of Tea

I love tea. I love hot tea. I love iced tea. I love flavored tea. I love tea made in the sunshine.
You get the picture : ) I thought I would share with you guys what kind of tea we have brewing at our house on a regular basis.

If we are craving hot tea, we usually make Chinese Oolong tea. This happens about once to twice a weekend during the winter. We love our tea pot and our sweet retro, push-button stove that gets the pot whistling in a jiffy.
We also keep tea in our pitcher at all times. For cold tea, we love the traditional Lipton tea bags. We go through a whole pitcher of tea close to about every other day. That's a lot of tea!
Now that the sun's coming out again, we are looking for a sun tea jar. Mmmm mmmmm....
How about you? What is your favorite kind of tea? Do you prefer hot or cold tea? If you don't like tea, what is your beverage of choice?

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Birthday Celebration

Yesterday was Brandon's mom's birthday. We ate dinner at Applebee's and then celebrated back at the Leslie's with cake and ice cream. Jacque is such a sweet heart with her grandkids. She let them blow out her birthday candles twice. No kidding, we lit the candles twice for the kids to blow them out... too fun.
I just love my niece Emarea's curly hair. This picture didn't quite come out right, but she was scared cause Brandon was pounding underneath the stairs making the boys think there were aliens (those crazy boys!).
She didn't stay scared for long though. Once she figured out it was Brandon she wanted to help him scare the boys- what a cutie! Gotta love family get togethers...
Happy Birthday Jacque

Friday, April 24, 2009

Rotations, Rotations, Rotations

It may have been a month later than we were expecting, but StLCoP class of 2010 finally got our rotations this week. Here is my line-up:

May 18-Jun 19 MDS-Hospital St. Luke's East (home)
Jun 22-July 24 Acute Care VA (stay at Kimmie's in St. Louis)
July 27-Aug 28 Ambulatory Care VA (stay at "the girl's" house in St. Louis)
Aug 31-Sept 7 FALL BREAK
Sept 8-Oct 8 Selective VA (stay with the Stokes in Columbia)
Oct 12-Nov 13 Research Elective KCUMB (home)
Nov 16-Dec 18 MDS-Comm Red Cross Pharmacy (home)
Dec 21- Jan 5 WINTER BREAK
Jan 4-Feb 5 Comm Care 50+ Pharmacy (home)
Feb 8-Mar 12 Cancer Elective KC Cancer Inst (home)
Mar 15-May 15 Study for boards

I am pretty excited to begin the final journey to becoming a "real" pharmacist. I am hoping that I remember at least a little bit about the hundreds of drugs we have been studying, so I don't look like a complete idiot in front of my preceptors. Also, since I lucked out with getting my last rotation off, I should have plenty of time to prepare for boards...wahoo! (I am saying this in a slightly sarcastic voice)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Where's Cove?

Is she soaking up loving from Grandma Leslie?
Keeping her momma from studying?
Army crawling under the bed in the guest bedroom?

Sneaking in a nap on our bed after playing with ducky?

Or watching pappa play baseball on his iTouch?

No matter where Cove is, she sure is adorable!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

On the Chair Hunt

Do I really need chairs right now...No. Do I have money to buy chairs right now...No. Am I spending lots of time picking out the perfect chairs to sit next to our soon-to-be television stand/dresser...Yes! I can't help it. I love hunting down the perfect pieces to add to our new home. Of course I check Craig's List updates regularly for the perfect steal, especially since about $10/chair is really my current budget. I couldn't help but look at all the new options too though. I discovered that dining room chairs are usually about a third of the price of living room chairs. I fell in love with this dining room chair. It is a Sydney Parsons Chair in Mocha from Target. They cost $109/chair. Even with the free shipping and $15% off for ordering over $125 I would be over $160 over my budget...darn the luck!
Oh well, I still love them. I think I would also like them with white legs and little white throw thrown over the back. If I don't find a Craig's List steal, I can always save up and hope these go on sale right!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Good Ol'Craig's List

Here is a picture of my latest Craig's List find. It's an old dresser. I have plans for it! See, Joi shared her fabulous find on her blog, Nuestra Vida Dulce. I instantly fell in love with her idea and started watching Craig's List for the perfect dresser to use as a TV stand in our living room. I also got Brandon in on the action- good thing too because he is the one that actually saw potential in this dresser. I was mostly just watching for a 9 drawer dresser like Joi's, because I like the design with the electronics organized in the middle and the drawers on the outside.

Ours will actually have the electronics organized across the top section. I took the drawers out in this picture, so you can see the idea. I also want to find 2 lovely used chairs (they can be new for the right price) to put on either side of the dresser/entertainment center...the ones in the picture are our dining room chairs. Using a dresser in place of a typical television stand works great for us because we need space underneath for air to travel back to our return air duct that sits right behind it. Also, we have a large puppy that would love to stick her nose into anything sitting too low to the ground; the height of the dresser prevents her from doing this...perfect!


You may not exactly be able to tell from the picture, but the color of dresser doesn't exactly jive with the color of our hardwood floors. We want to stain it a darker color to match some of the darker hues in the flooring. Thus, Brandon got to work striping the old top coat and stain off of it.


The stuff he was using smelled like oranges-mmmm! He put it on and then scrapped it off several times. I told him I would do the work, but he doesn't seem to have too much confidence in my furniture refinishing skills...trust me, I don't mind at all ; )

We may or may not switch up the hardware. I can't decide if I like the old hardware or not...decisions, decisions. Any opinions on this?
I will be sure to post the final results when we get it completed. I can't wait!


Sunday, April 19, 2009

One Crazy Yard

That's right...our yard is one crazy mess. Notice these random plants on the corner; there really is no rhyme or reason to the previous owners attempts at landscaping. There are random plants growing out from everywhere! And of course there are copious amounts of weeds to go right along with them. Luckily, Brandon got right to work this weekend. He spent Saturday digging up all the random plants, relocating some along the fence line and soaking the rest in a water-filled bucket for his Grandma. He was a muddy mess by the end of the day.
He also surprised me with this little bit of landscaping around our little dogwood tree in the front yard. I love it!

I am looking forward to planting lots of flowers in the front of our house, even though it may be over a year away before I have time to do it... Oh well, I can always dream about my future when studying is not consuming so much of my time : )

Friday, April 17, 2009

Need to Laugh?

Sometime I really enjoy funny email forawrds. Thanks mom for sharing these with me. I thought the rest of you would like to see some of them that made me laugh...enjoy!









Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter

The Easter season seamed to pass me by so quickly this year. I meant to get on here and post a Happy Easter message earlier in the day, but didn't quite find the time. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter celebration with family and friends. My sister called Brandon and I last night around 8:30 and said they had decided to color eggs. Of course, we had to join in on the fun. Here is a pic of some of the eggs we colored. I drew my regular turtle and Brandon made a Ford sign...we are pretty predictable!
And because Easter is a time to remember Christ's love and sacrifice for us, I thought I would share a scripture with everyone. I often get into a rut with my faith, and start feeling numb in my desire toworship the Lord, hence the reason for liking this scripture.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Psalm 51:12
May we all feel joy in the salvation we have been given...

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Confessions

Confession 1: I gave into the trend and purchased a flat wallet off eBay. Don't worry I justified my purchase since 1-I got a new purse as a birthday gift from my friends and my old wallet doesn't match it (the blue one in this post), 2-my old Wal-mart wallet is starting to look pretty worn in the corners, and 3-I don't need to use my checkbook anymore since I only have one more rent payment left to make! I bought this off-white one, which matches the off-white in the pattern of my new purse. I think it is one of the bigger versions of the flat wallet, but I am down-sizing from a full size checkbook wallet. Sometimes you need to take baby steps...

Confession 2: I forgot to pack underwear and socks this week for my 3 days in St. Louis. This is the first time I have ever done this. I was not happy about it. I didn't discover it until I got out of the shower Monday morning only to find I didn't have any in my suitcase. I was able to make a trip to Walgreens and buy socks, but the only underwear they had was granny-panties 3x too big for me ) : I am not proud of it, but I wore the same underwear 4 days in a row. I will never forget to pack underwear again!
Confession 3: I love reading FML's. They get me laughing every time!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Mud and Poo

The joys of having a puppy are never ending. Cove provides us with constant attention and affection. We decided to take her on a walk around the Bass Pro shops walking trails over the weekend while the primer Brandon had sprayed on our basement ceiling was drying. Cove loves a new adventure, so she was as happy as could be in the new terrain. We spent sometime throwing a stick in the lake and having her fetch it. I have a feeling she is going to be a great lake dog after we master the word "come," so she can play safely off the leash. While we were down by the lake I was being extra careful not to step in the squishy mud. I was doing an excellent job keeping my shoes clean too, right until Cove stepped right on top of my foot with her muddy paw...she would! Oh well, I knew it was too good to be true....
After her play time in the water we set off on a walk/hike through the woods. I snapped a picture of Brandon with our little lady. He had just pulled a treat out of his pocket. We also took this picture of me and Cove on a big rock. Too bad I was wearing black and she blended right in with my jacket!
We hiked through the woods for quite a long time before making our way back to the paved trail. After we got back on the paved trail Cove kept wanting to cross over in front of me and go over to the grass. Since we are trying to train her to walk properly on the leash, I kept moving her right back to the middle of the paved path. I did this several times when Brandon stopped to look at some animal foot prints in the dirt. I stopped to look at what he was looking and seconds later there was a nice, warm pile of poo siting right in the middle of the path...gross! Poor Cove probably thought she better just let it out on the concrete, since I wouldn't let her get to the grass. Almost at the same exact time our friend Marcie's mom came up the trail with their dog. Perfect time to run into someone you know! Oh well, it was good seeing her even if we had to remind her not to step on the poo we hadn't had the chance to move yet ; )

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

A Small Victory

I will never be able to claim that I am a "good speller." I think the spelling part of my brain only got half turned on or something. There are some words that mispell repeatedly for really no reason at all. One of these words, paid, has really been causing me trouble this semester in HSM Econ. Everything seems to be paid from this and paid from that in this class. For some reason my hands type payed instead of paid and that little red spell check line pops up.

Well, it only took half the semester, but I have typed paid correctly every time I typed it today in lecture! Thought I would share my small victory ; )

PS- this is no April Fools joke....if you want to see one that made me laugh head over here.