I'm in Love...

....with the Command Center at my local Target store!

I tell ya, those Command hooks and picture hanging tools are amazing. They come in great handy living in an apartment because honestly, the less holes you can put in the walls the better as far as I'm concerend.

We've bought and used the hooks for several things around the apartment. I'm not a huge fan of how they look so they've come in handy in closets and behind doors. We've used them to hang our reusable grocery bags and other bags/purses that I wanted to get off the floor.

We've also used the picture hanging tools. Basically two pieces of velcro stuck together and stuck to the wall and the picture/whatever you are hanging. We've used them to hang a corkboard on the door (again you don't really want to put holes in the door to hang something) and to also hang other pictures on the walls.

Also, earlier this year we hung a set of hooks on the wall by screwing them into the wall. Of course we didn't hit studs and I use those hooks to hold heavy bookbags, purses, umbrellas and rain jackets so needless to say it starting to pull out of the wall. Command to the rescue!!!! All I need to do is go to the store and get them.

They're great little tools. The picture hanging set comes with 3 sets and each set can hold 3 lbs. That means that if you used 3 sets of them to hold something up it can hold up to 9 lbs. So those little pieces are strongs!

They've even got an entire website detailing their products and they've got coupons. You should check it out. We love them!

True Confession Thursday (again on a Friday :))

My feet HURT and... gulp... I have officially worn support hose (eek)!!!!

I've been at this new internship at a local hospital for just two weeks now and my feet are killing me!! My clinical instructor told me to wear comfortable shoes but this is just crazy. I thought I could get by on wearing my tennis shoes which really aren't that old or worn out...um WRONG!

So of course I told my mom and we just HAD to go shoe shopping to get something more suitable for my toesies (especially my little toe on the left foot). We went to a scrubs/uniform store where we had recently bought new super cool (if there is such a thing) scrubs. I ended up picking out a pair of black "nurse" shoes that came highly recommended by the sales lady and a pair of support hose since my calves have been killing me recently.

My new kicks ;)

And on Monday I put on my gear complete with the new shoes and the support hose and made my trek into work. I don't know why I thought I could wear a brand new pair of shoes for 9 hours straight with no break at all because now my feet hurt even more and have blisters! Literally today everytime I was alone with a co-worker (not as creepy as I just made that sound) all I could think about is how they can stand for 9 hours with their feet not hurting, they must have super feet or something.

Anyway I'm jealous of my co-worker's feet and the fact that they don't have to wear support hose. I'm glad it's the weakend so I can let my feet relax and we'll try this again on Monday.

On a completely differenct note, Stephen's brother is coming into town from Germany tomorrow. I haven't seen him in two years since he allowed Stephen and I to stay with him and his partner for 3 weeks while we were touring Europe. He's staying for 3 weeks and it should be a good time. We're all excited!

Randy (Stephen's big bro), Me and Stephen in Trier in the summer of 2008.

Everyone enjoy the weekend!

Back to School Shopping

Well, this year at this back to school time, it feels weird that my "back to school" lists don't contain the essentials I've needed to survive graduate school for the past 2 years including: 3 inch binders, highlighters, post-its, pens, pencils, etc...

Instead, my back to school list included the following:

• New scrubs for rehab and acute care internships
• Unattractive but comfortable shoes also for above internships and potentially the job I get next year
• New lunch box

I'm liking theis from Target

Also...TGIF!!!!!

Here we go Again! Rants and Raves

Rave:
1 day down

Rant:
39 to go

Is it bad that I'm already counting down the days to the end of my second clinical internship when I've only had orientation and haven't even met my clinical instructor yet?

I think NOT!

Rave:
I am, however, excited about this experience. It is in the acute care field at a local hospital and I've heard from several good friends that they actually enjoyed the acute care setting more than they ever thought they would. I'm still anxious to meet my clinical instructor and to see what it really is like to be a physical therapist in the hospitals in acute care.

Rave:
Apparently several of my classmates are potentially in the same building as I am for this rotation, I do know for a fact, that one of my good friends, Nikki (check out her cute blog here), is there because we spent today in orientation together! It makes the day go by much better when you've got a good friend with you.

Nikki and Me

Rant:
Parking at a busy hospital...enough said.

All in all I'm excited to get this one going!

True Confession Thursday

I miss my friends...

My two best friends in the whole wide world are hundreds of miles away. My friend Katie is living it up in Pennsylvania doing God knows what ;) and my friend Katybeth if off digging up rocks in Montana or Wyoming, some amazingly beautiful northwestern state. All of this adds up to...I miss my friends.

I'm sure everyone can relate to missing those people that have been with you for sooooo long, those people that you have inside jokes going all the way back to 7th grade or those people that you always feel comfortable with. Luckily though, Katie is supposidly coming back around mid-August so I'll get to see here soon but unfortunately, Katybeth is probably not coming back til October.

So what will I do in the mean-time (aside from hanging out with some awesome people that are still in Louisville, working 40 hours a week without pay and trying to find time for myself)? well...I guess I could crack open a book and study for the boards :/

Caution! Wild Animals!

Beware of the boxed wild Amanda! On Tuesday, Stephen and I took advantage of the cloudy, cool day and headed out to the zoo. I couldn't resist climbing into this crate and pretending to be an animal, I just couldn't stop laughing long enough to actually imitate an animal!

We had a great time roaming the grounds and observing all the great animals and the construction going on. There was one disappointment though...I thought the polar bear exhibit would be up and ready...it wasn't :( So I guess I have to wait a little bit longer to see my lovely polar bears.

Anyway we had a great time watching all the other animals...

The hippo!

The monkey/orangutan/ape/some kind of primate!

The penguins!

A sculpture by Bob Lockhart!

The elephants!

The Stephen!

All in all, Stephen and I had a great time at the zoo observing all the animals. We just don't get out there enough! Hope everyone else is enjoying the week so far.

3-D...Are you with me?

Yesterday Stephen and I went and saw Despicable Me in 3-D. Stephen and I are suckers for animated films these days (love how they have subject matter that is above kid's heads so it makes it entertaining for adults as well, but they also always have a great story). Anyway, while this was not our first animated film in theaters as adults, it was our first experience with the mainstream theater 3-D film.

-Image courtesy of Google search "Despicable Me"-

Since the 3-D option became available I've always been hesitant. But I must say that our first experience was a great one. I really enjoyed the film and the 3-D element, I think, added to it. There was one scene in particular that was especially interesting with the 3-D; this was one with a roller coaster and it really felt like you were riding a coaster.

The 3-D coaster ride got me excited and thinking about the upcoming Kentucky State Fair! It's funny but up until I met Stephen I really hadn't been to the fair in literally years. But Stephen's family loves the fair and they've helped me to find a new love of the fair. Thinking about the fair got me thinking about yummy fair food. These are the foods I'm looking forward to (and thank goodness their only available once a year otherwise I'd be spending a lot more time in the gym :)):

• Corn dogs

• German roasted nuts

• Grater Taters

-Images courtesy of Google Images searched under the names of the foods- 

Yummy! My mouth is salivating just thinking about it. Anyone have some favorite fair foods?!?

Impossible!

"Impossible...for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage!"

For some reason for the past several weeks I've had these lyrics to my favorite song from Roger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella featuring Brandy, Whitney Houston and Whoopi. I've been singing it so much that Stephen will sometimes randomly shout out, "Impossible!" and I finish with the rest of the line. I must say it's become quite amusing and it's even funnier when Stephen says, "Hey babe, what's 'impossible'?" and I don't get the reference and pause for a bit until it hits me, then of course I finish the lyrics.

So anyway Stephen netflixed it a we got a copy. I was super-pumped to watch it and have Stephen finally see it. Well, lets just say it wasn't what I remember and I have to say that's become a common thing recently. You know, where you have a favorite childhood movie that you have all these great memories from and you somehow manage to get your hands on them again and after watching it, realize, that um, yeah, there's a reason why they're "children's" movies.

I've had this let down with several films including:

The Adventures of Scamper

The Care Bears Movie

Scooby Doo and the Boo Brothers

So I think I may hold off on watching them until I have children and then hopefully I can share the wonder of the movies with the preferred audience! Anybody have the same experience?

-All images courtesy of Google Images searched under the title of the movie; view the original sources by clicking on the link of the title of the movie-

What setting do you think you want to work in?

These words have haunted me since the beginning of physical therapy school. As soon as people find out that I'm in school to become a physical therapist the very next question is almost always, "What setting do you think you want to work in?" For the longest time I had no idea. At this point in my PT school career I've successfully completed 3 internships. Two of those were in the outpatient orthopedic setting and the most recent one I've completed was in a skilled nursing facility. Now I can honestly say that I think I may have an idea about where I want to practice and that is in the skilled nursing setting (a.k.a. SNF).

I thought I'd use this time to list all of the different settings that I'm aware of that physical therapists can work. I think my readers may be surprised to see that physical therapists really are EVERYWHERE in the healthcare setting!

• Acute care settings in hosptials
• Outpatient clinics
• Subacute rehab facilities
• Schools
• Nursing homes
• Assisted living facilities
• Pediatric settings
• Health and wellness centers

Whew, now can't you see why I didn't really have it narrowed down? In addition to these listed there are several areas where PT's can be found.

Now I'd like to share why I enjoyed the SNF environment as much as I did:

• More one on one time with the patient
• Smaller caseload
• Intimate relationships are formed with other therapeutic disciplines like occupational and speech therapy that helps you to better treat the "whole" patient
• Working with the geriatric population is enlightening and entertaining
• You can really see success with the patients in terms of gaining their functional mobility back

So as of right now, I'm leaning towards the SNF setting for where I would like to start my PT career at the beginning of the upcoming year. Now all I have to do is get some studying done and pass the boards...gulp

True Confession Thursday

...but it's Friday!

I know it's Friday but I'm a sucker for some good alliteration so I'm gonna stick with it. "True Confession Thursday" will be a place for me to reveal something about myself that my readers may not know.

This first confession was inspired by my last blog posting here. So here goes...

Literally up until I was in college I had a fear of the dark and had difficulty going to sleep at night. Therefore, in order to combat that fear, I would watch movies with the sleep timer on so that there would be noise in the background and it wouldn't be so dark. The following were my top choices for "happy, sleepy time movies"

Grease 2

Shrek

A Very Brady Sequel

Crossroads

I know, I know they are all (with the exception of Shrek) very BAD movies, but they were lighthearted and funny so they fulfilled the purpose of keeping away the boogie man. Anyone else have favorite movies they turned to consistently?

We're Gonna Scooooooorrrrrreee Tonight!

So did anyone see Grease 2? If not then the title of this post may seem a little more, ahem, suggestive than I meant. Anyway, they sing this song when they are bowling and I had these words in my head allll night on Saturday.



Stephen and I had two other couples over on Saturday for a potluck dinner then we all went bowling. We had a great time with everyone and it was fun catching up with our friends that went to Guatemala with us Mandy and Zack and their significant others.

Here is the menu we enjoyed!

• 3 cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce, italian sausage and Stephen's special marinated chicken
• a yummy salad brought by Mandy and Brad
• Fazolli's breadsticks (extra YUM and totally awesome) brought by Zack and Kathleen
• and for dessert.... Cupcakes!!!

Dinner was a success...bowling, not so much! I stunk it up pretty bad, although I've never really been any good at the sport but I had a blast nontheless. We're looking forward to getting together again!

Word to the Wise...

Make sure you look at the amounts of an ingredient you need BEFORE you go shopping, or at least take the recipe with you.
 

Since Stephen got his new apartment we've been doing some baking and more than once I've found myself buying the larger size of an ingredient at the store because I had no idea how much the recipe called for. No telling how much money I've wasted.

Just thought I would pass that along, it's some good advice.