Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Photoshoot


So even though the photog asked me not to share too many of theses as they are not touched up - I cant help but share because this one looks sooo cool. It was taken with an infared camera

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Its official...


We are on the rental market - along with a what feels like a gazillion other people in burlington. Im keeping my fingers crossed we get it rented by the time we leave. The house is spotless and besides that, there is not much I can do about it now. I love our place. Its not perfect, but hopefully someone else will like it too...

Friday, June 25, 2010

Who has two thumbs and is an Orthopaedic Certified Therapist? This girl!

I PASSED!!!! I am utterly amazed. (I just realized what a strange word 'utterly' is) My time spent studying for this exam was wrought with stress. I had several big things going on that were completely distracting me during my study process. I was going to write a blog about my studying, but I didn't have the time, or the energy to do so. I remember telling Evan that I didn't think I would pass and maybe I should not take it this year. He, being the amazing hubby he is, told me to take it anyway and that at least I would get the expensive experience of sitting for the test, even if I didn't pass.

Well...The first part of the exam was EASY. I breezed through it without a problem. Oh I forgot to mention I was horribly sick and had laryngitis during the test as well. The SECOND half was a different story. It completely rocked my world, and I was convinced I bombed it horribly.

Fast forward a few months and I get my letter yesterday. As I was opening the letter I was already grumbling to myself 'sorry loser-try again next year' BUT then I read "Congratulations!..." I could not believe it! I'm Still in shock! This is a BIG accomplishment for me! Its a big accomplishment for anyone, but considering I was under so much self inflicted stress, and horribly sick, I am super duper happy!

For anyone who might read this blog wondering how I studied, (It is independent study for this exam) I took 3 classes of level one NAIOMT basic, upper extremity, and lower extremity. I also bought, read, and studied current concepts in orthopaedic physical therapy offered through the APTA. If I did have to repeat this test I would study the same way, except I would study some more in-depth material on statistical testing, and knowing how to set up my own study, stats and all. In light of my results, I would have also added in additional reading in surgical repairs.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Three!!

Whoohoo I have THREE followers now! (I guess four total since I know my hubby reads too) You four are amazing!

Monday, June 14, 2010

So today my big accomplishment was cleaning the carpets. Before we show the house to prospective renters I want it to sparkle and smell purty! It felt like it took me forever! But Im so happy with the way it turned out. My house finally no longer smells like wet dog. Happy sigh

I went shopping for some parting gifts for my co-workers in downtown Mt. Vernon. I kept the ladies there working at wrapping each individual gift and made them late leaving work! they seemed slightly annoyed, but it was only 5 minutes and I was spening money right? I also got some beautiful blown glass wine stoppers for me and Evan. They will remind me of the northwest whenever we use them.

Next was crossfit - I had trouble with motivation today but once I got there I did good. 5 rounds of 12 pullups, 200m run, 15 wallball (I wimped out with a 10lb ball), and 9 burpees. Great workout!

I cooked a new meal today. I tried making faux - rice with cauliflower. It turned out ok. I couldn't get all the chicken broth to steam out - but thats what slotted spoons are for in my opinion! Next time - less broth! Then I topped it with chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes and a ginger sauce - yum yum!!!

Reading through my above post makes me sound very boring! Thats ok because I am very boring ;)

Sunday, June 13, 2010

The next stage

Okay so I guess we have officially entered stage 2 of our move. Basically Evan is on the east coast going to a one month school before Japan, and I am not working, but prepping the house and myself to move. Evan did alot with his month of prep; so now its my turn at the helm for a while. He will come back in mid July and we will then have two weeks to finalize everything and get out of dodge!

Right now we have our plane tickets set. The flight is a night flight so theoretically we would sleep through most of the flight. Evan is taking the pup with him on his flight and I will follow with sweetpea on my flight a couple days later. We could not fly all three pets on one flight so we had to split into two flights. I am so happy Ev is taking Oliver with him; because I would be a neurotic mess worrying about him the entire flight. I wont be as worried about sweetpea.

I drove Evan to the airport this morning and I was hit with so much nostalgia for W state. I am so sad to leave. Im sure I will love Japan too but... Today I saw Mt Rainier with clear skys, tons of yellow wildflowers, mists and rain clouds hovering over the tips of mountains, and two new baby buffalo that were born right around the corner from my house. I'll be impressed if I ever live in another place as beautiful as the northwest.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Rosetta Stone

I just finished my first lesson with rosetta stone to get my japanese prepped. I must say I am quite horrible! Especially at pronunciation. There are questions that have you repeat simple pronunciations. If you get the pronunciation "close enough" you get a satisfying "BLING" and move onto the next question. If not you get a "boink" noise. If you had been listening into my lesson, it went something like this:

Roseatta: Something unitelligible in Japanese
Me: konechi oin FU**!
Rosetta: BOINK
Me: I know!
Roseatta: BOINK
Me: (huge sigh) Koneeechi oun...
Rosetta: BOINK
ME: FU**!
Rosetta: BOINK
ME: I KNOW DAMMIT!
Rosetta: BOINK
ME: (sigh)
Rosetta: BOINK
ME: Koneechi unou...
Rosetta: BOINK

and so on and so forth until 5 minutes later I get a BLING!!! for only getting part of it right...its like it finally felt sorry for me or tired of saying "BOINK"

Done with work!

Hello my amazing two followers!
Tomorrow will be my final day at work. It is totally bittersweet. I will completely miss my crazy, funny, wonderful, smart and flawed co-workers! I will NOT miss the tons of paperwork! Im so happy that I will now have the time to work out everyday and to continue planning our move. I have alot of home organization to do, visits from family and my own trip to Rhode Island. Evan and I are now trying to decide what to keep, see, store, ship early, ship late etc. I met a patient who lived there in the early nineties and the only advice he had to give was "be ready for EXTREME culture shock" Really? He just made me so nervous about it. What is EXTREME? Do people try to gnaw my arm off without warning? He was not helpful at all. Good thing work is ending because Im starting to get nervous and nostalgic for washingotn state already. One cool thing is that Evan and I have been clothes shopping lately, since people have told us its hard to shop in our own sizes. I LOVE clothes shopping when Im not hunting for something specific!
More later!!!