Test Results!

What a RELIEF! The test is over and I made 817 out of 900! 630 is the lowest passing grade... so I'm really excited to get in the 800's =))

Of course, I'd be happy with just passing the test, period, but I was secretly hoping to get 800+, just a little.

So... in about 3 or 4 weeks, all my stuff will be sent off to the licensing board and I'll wait for them to send me my license! squeeeeeeee!

I've been celebrating all day, now. I already took myself out for a giant German Pancake and crispy bacon at my favorite "serving breakfast all day" place, Old South Pancake House. Tonight I'll be out on another 'date night' at a newly favorite Tex-Mex place that has a burn your face off good green sauce. I'll also be trying their margaritas =) YEAH BABY!

I think I'll go knit a little while watching a movie. TTFN peeps!

Saturday's the Day

I take my test on Saturday at 12:00pm. I'm so excited and nervous! eeeeek So.... I can use some positive vibes and such if you can spare a few =)

I'll post my pass/fail results when I get home.

Internship is going SO well, I really enjoy what I'm doing, and feel ever more confident that it's a very good career choice. I have 20 hours of 52 done so far in the clinic - That's in 1 1/2 weeks, so I'm a tiny bit ahead of right on track, since I hope to do at least 10 massages per week for 5 weeks. Some hours can be office and laundry duty and the like as well, so that cuts down on actual massage hours if you need to count them. I've already had 2 repeat clients and promises of 2 more. So yaay again. I'm really going to love this work.

Well, be thinking about me a bit Saturday, and I'll update y'all ASAP.

Blast and Wretch

"Don't say 'Blast and wretch', OH BLAST AND WRETCH!" -- Amy, Little Women

It may not be a perfectly accurate quote, but when I think about it, it always makes me laugh. I needed something to laugh at when I realized that my started over project had major hiccups in two of the four raglan increases. They are at least one stitch off, and I don't know why I didn't see it until today. Probably because I've been doing the semi-conscious knitting thing, and mostly at night.

So, instead of looking like this:


They look like this:


and this:


BLAST AND WRETCH!

My other project is trucking along rather nicely, in spite of the yarn being a bit... temperamental.


I'm still not used to using yarn with elastic in it, so it sorta bunches up unless I watch myself and let go of the yarn every two or three stitches. And, as you see, it separates very easily. I'm doing both knee wrap barrier things at the same time on one insanely long bamboo circular needle. (my favorite kind) So at least they look decent.


In school news, my internship is off to a great start, I really enjoy it and am past all my nervousness. I've completed 14 of my 52 hours. PLUS I take the MBLEx on Saturday, so stay tuned for the results of that. I'll probably post it immediately after getting home. I'm really excited to get it done.

Now I'm off to give my sister a well deserved massage - treat yourself to one too! =)

Meet Lizzy

Remember I said we had a new pet? Here she is:




We know she's a girl b/c the males usually have blue streaks on their bellies, and the females have that nice mauve color down their sides and the pretty stripy thing going down their legs. (Thank you Internet)

She's a pretty girl, for a Texas Spiny Lizard, or Fence Lizard, or Back Yard Lizard. My daughter found her out in the freezing cold one day in my sister's yard, and brought her inside to warm her up. She begged me to keep her and named her Lizzy, as in Lizzy the Lizard (which I thought was clever). Now she has a full first, middle and our last name. Elizabeth Kate etc. (no etc. is not our last name, but I'm funny about last names and the internet)

My sister, a few weeks later, found a gecko on our sidewalk one very cold day and put him in with Lizzy. They didn't seem to mind each other at all, and sometimes slept near each other. My oldest son named him Nicko. He was less cute and rather hated being in the terrarium and consequently, escaped. He is a Mediterranean Gecko. He didn't look much like the regular geckos we have here, but he was interesting while he was with us. I only got a couple of pictures of him and they show off the intensity of his stare. Anyway, he's somewhere roaming around our house looking for a way out.


I hope we have a few little bugs to keep him alive until he makes a break for it. I think there are only tiny cobweb spiders though, so he may be out of luck in the food department.

So far Lizzy has been the easiest pet ever. We get a box of crickets here and there and let a few out in her terrarium every few days and she eats when she wants. It doesn't take long to clean her environment and she makes very little noise. The crickets make most of the mess and sometimes the alpha cricket won't stop chirping. That really only happened once, and I took care of him/her and some other quieter cricket took it's place. (I don't know if there is such a thing as an alpha cricket, but only one seems to chirp at a time, so I figured, maybe it's a seniority thing, lol) Lizzy prefers to be left alone most of the time, but every so often she'll let me pick her up and stroke her little jaw line. She really likes that and closes her little eyes and chills out completely. On the whole, it's been a pretty cool little pet project for the family. My daughter was asking me the other day if we should set her free, and I'm leaving that up to her. We did decide to wait until it has completely stopped being cold, to give her a better chance.

As for knitting news, not much going on. I'll probably knit some tonight, just to take the stress down a notch. My internship is going pretty well, so far all my clients seem to like my treatments and some have even booked repeat sessions. So that's cool. I think I soaked up one of my client's tension though and I need to go run around barefooted in the grass - lol - drain all that back into the earth where it can disperse. (one theory anyway)

Until next time, take care of yourselves! Go get a massage =)

Out Like a Lamb

We almost had the March/Lion weather, it was down to freezing over the weekend, but it's nice and pretty today. Of course, with one day left, things can always change. btw - I did good on my two big finals 90 and 88 and my average for the whole class is 91! whew! Am I glad this mod is over, it really kicked my caboose - I know it doesn't look that way from those grades, but my quiz average was 74, it was just worth less percentage-wise than the final tests, so the grade came up.

Thanks to Janine I now know the name of the these flowers:

They are Clematis

The blooms last and last, and they close every night, sorta neat. I also caught some late bloomers on the Red Bud tree, trunk blooms, I guess they come later than the branch blooms =)




There are tons of buds on the rose bushes, how many do I have? I think it's 4. 2 miniature and 2 regular sized ones. I replanted one bush, you know how it goes when you first plan your flower garden and you plant something too far back without realizing it. Anyway, it's happy in it's new spot. I didn't photo that one, because I didn't know I was going to talk about it. Here are a couple of the normal sized roses, in the lavender color. They seem to get a little more pink each year, not sure why.



Ah yes, and I can't forget the peas. One certain young boy in my house loves to plant peas, so we/he planted some in January and they are coming along quite nicely. We planted them too late last year and they got baked. It's so interesting how fast flowers change, see how green this is? I looked at it a couple hours later and it was mostly white.

In knitting news, here is the sweater before it got frogged.

It was painful, but I think it's for the best. I'm not sure why I am making a Winter garment just as it's getting warm. Of course it never was that cold this Winter and it'll probably snow in April. That's usually how the weird warm Winters go, they get cold in the Spring

And here is how it looks now, I'm going with just the pink and brown

The other pink was sorta too variegated for my eyes. And now, I'm off to veg out, watch TV and NOT clean my scary house while I knit a knee brace barrier so one of my classmates can wrap her knees when she needs to. She's allergic to latex and can't use an Ace bandage without some sort of barrier. I'm thinking bamboo - I have lots - but I'll dig through my assorted sock yarns too before I totally decide.

I'm starting my internship this week, that should be interesting. I'm a little nervous. I have to do 50 massages in 5 weeks. Hopefully I can get them all in. I'll keep y'all updated. SO glad Clinical is over so so glad!

March of the Flowers

Spring has sprung and been springing for several weeks around here. There have been lots of blossoms and it looks like the bees are making a comeback. We hardly saw any last year, but they were pollinating the holly bushes again this year and it was nice to see so many honey bees. Have I mentioned that I'd like to keep bees someday? I don't think I have enough room here, but it's fun to think about.

In knitting news, I may be ripping back the whole body of the sweater, because it just seems sorta lumpy and frumpy. I think I will and then I'll go ahead and do the shaping I was planning in the first place. Not this weekend though.

I have one last BIG final for this mod and it's worth 40% of the grade. I was super nervous about the one we had today worth 20%, but I managed to make a 90! yaay! It's been a HARD mod this time. I have my MBLEX scheduled for the 11th of April. I start the internship on April 1st (that's a lot of 1's and April, eh?) The final on Monday is a practice MBLEX and she says it's more difficult than the actual test. YIKES - SO... I'll be studying and finishing a load of homework that's also due Monday.

Enough talk, here are the flowers

Red Bud Buds
Red Bud Blooms

Flowering Crab Apple Buds
there's someone at the window, I didn't notice that till just now

Flowering Crab Apple Blooms

Bradford Pear Blooms


Bee in the Holly Bush


I don't remember the name of this vine,
but this is the 3rd year it's been in the ground
and the first year it's grown significantly and first year it's bloomed

The First to Open

It was really worth waiting for

Sometimes You Just Gotta Knit

No matter what is going on, school, grades dropping, should be studying and getting ready for the MBLEX, sometimes you just gotta throw it all to the side and knit something. I went back to my LYS that is selling everything at now 40% off (waiting for the 50 and 60%) and got more of the same type of yarn and started a simple, knit by the seat of my pants project. (my favorite, no rules)

I love the yarn, love the colors, but rolling these bad boys (can I call skeins of yarn boys?) was NOT fun, especially with lots of these:

and these:

I understand these things happen, but when I KEEP finding them all through one skein it starts to get very old and tedious.

It was fun however to discover that some of the yarn I bought was almost the exact color of my dog, what a good sport to pose so perfect for me, eh?

no wonder I liked it =)

So here is the drawing of the thing I am "designing" it's sorta too simple to call it a design. I just cast on quite a few stitches, added a couple to make it a better number and started knitting. I have a weird non measuring savant thing going on that works pretty good for casting on and hanging pictures. Not the most amazing talent, I know, but it comes in handy every so often =)

and one showing the yarn with the drawing

Of course in the actual garment, the stripes go horizontal across the front and then up over the shoulders, as raglans do, which is cool with me. I would so much rather never seam anything, and I love love love knitting in the round (or in the square as the case may be and in fact is) It's a tiny bit bigger on me than my little drawing, too, but that's cool, since I usually like to layer under my sweaters, just in case it gets hot or the wind is cutting through my clothes that particular day. Usually the former instead of the latter. =)


My next set of stripes will be much smaller and then I'll go bigger again and maybe a little random just to mix it up.

That's all for today folks, I've noticed that going this long without blogging usually leaves me with way too much to talk about. So... instead of doing what I did last time, namely covering a million subjects in one post, I'll spread it out over a few posts instead. I have some Spring blossoms to share and a couple of garden projects. Some sky pictures (as always) and something else I already forgot. (Maybe I'll leave that one out) Oh yeah, we have a couple of new pets, which are easier to take care of than fish, so guess what they are? Until next time take care peeps and see y'all later.