Examination Eligibility

I'm confused...I previously applied to the AANP to sit for the exam. My impression was that they wouldn't fully process my application until they had a copy of my final official transcripts showing the last course was completed and I could send my official official transcript with the degree conferred date after I sat for the exam.

Yesterday, I received a pdf file of a letter that is also being sent to me in the mail telling me that I am eligible for the test and that I'll be receiving a letter from the testing center within 5-7 business days. When I get the letter, I'm supposed to call and pick a date to test. What happened to waiting till I completed the course? Maybe I can book the test while I'm still completing the course but can't actually take the exam till the course is done?

I guess I'll wait and see if there is more information with the letter....

Home Stretch

Dudes! I have one class left! I gave my left in class presentation and turned in a final paper on Tuesday night. I took an exam for my online class yesterday. The remaining hoops include:

• Completing remainder of pediatric and OB hours (will finish the week of May 10)
• Take final exam for online class
• Create poster
• Order said poster
• Present poster on 5/13 for Research Day

Can you believe that? I want to pinch myself...freedom is so near and I can't grasp it! Life without school looming over me!!! Is this for real??

More Home Reno...

Ok, here were the color choices for the office....we decided on the red.

Here is M working on it....

This last pic shows the color pretty well...we took the tape off yesterday so I'll post an updated pic later this week along with a before. Unfortunately, we don't have the new hardwood floors yet...see post about our lethargic contractor.

Weekend of Homework

Well, it wasn't the most exciting of weekends...well I guess in some ways it was. I worked for about 6 hours on Saturday on a paper and presentation that is due on Tuesday. Why is this exciting you might be asking? Because, it's the last true paper that I have to do before being bestowed with my MSN. I do still have to finalize an abstract, make it into a poster, and present the poster but that is the last and final hoop to jump through. That paper has been completed for awhile now. The upside was that it was nice on Saturday, so I did most of it outside on the deck.

Boigie was meowing at the patio door constantly, so I tried again to bring him outside. It sort of worked, he was more calm than last summer when we tried this and he enjoyed laying in the sun but something startled him and he kind of leaped forward and the collar came completely off. While I'm certainly for collars that don't strangle my pets, I am thinking there is limited usability with this one....what good is it if it's just going to unlatch? Luckily, he wasn't skittish of me and I could grab him and toss him back in the house. Unfortunately, his taste for the outdoors couldn't be tamed, now that he had a taste of it he wanted more. For the rest of the weekend, as soon as he heard the door unlock he would come running and want to be back out there. We'll have to think of a better solution....

In home improvement news, we are STILL waiting on the contractor for that quote! I'm thinking it might be time to move on. We are not off to a good start and we haven't even started anything! He cancelled our first appointment as he was supposed to be showing up and M had left work early to meet him. Now it's taken him over 2 weeks to get us the quote when he said it would take 1. If it's taking him this long to just write some words and numbers on paper, how long is it going to take him to nail boards to the floor? Yeesh...

M finished painting the office which is actually what made me realize that we are much further behind than I thought we would be at this point. When we were first looking at colors for the baby's room and the office, I thought his plans of finishing both rooms before the flooring was laid was a pipe dream...and yet here we are. Anyway, the color is lovely. I'm glad M had a penchant for the red instead of boring blue. We decided on the Ben Moore Sante Fe Pottery and it's a soft red/pink/orange color. The room looks nice and fresh with the white trim and the white in between the chair rails where the wall paper used to be. I have pics, I promise I'll upload tonight.

I realize I haven't written much about knitting even though this blog is technically a knitting blog, or started that way and then other parts of life took over. Rest assured, dear reader, I'm 80% done with a sweater for Little Y and I also couldn't resist the Anniversary Sale at Webs so I'm working on a sweater for myself. How could a knitter resist Cascade 200 for about $4 a skein, that's almost halfprice! I'm making a Paton Cabled Yoke sweater, it's one of the first sweaters I ever made but I made it with cheap yarn that didn't breath and the sweater was so warm it was unbearable. I have learned much since then, so it's a take two.

It Must Be Happening.....

There is outside evidence that I really am graduating in a few short weeks. Before I get into Exhibit A, I would like to take this chance on Marathon Monday to compare my grad school program to a marathon. At first, I was going along just fine, not really realizing what I had gotten myself into but knowing that I just had to keep going. I don't quit something once I've started it.

It was ok in the beginning, not overly time consuming and just required some slight finagling with regular life. This was the situation until halfway through the program when clinical's started. At that point, the intensity cranked up. I like to think of this part as the Heartbreak Hill of grad school. At this point, your mentally tapped because you are seeing patient's for the first time pretending you know what you are doing. In addition to the clinical hours, there is time spent in the classroom and in lab. There are now two days that I had to finagle my schedule at work.

Then, I hit last semester...2 full days of clinical in addition to about 6 hours of class each week (3 in person and 3 online). Presentations galore. Major rescheduling at work. During this semester, there was an upheavel at my clinical site and I had to find random people to precept me until I could find something more permanent. Semester ended, I didn't die but I really thought I was not going to make it to the end of the semester. Even though I had only one semester left, it felt so far away and that I was really far from graduating.

Fast forward to this semester, same schedule as last semester. Minor upheavel a few weeks ago with my clinical site because I wasn't seeing enough pediatric patients but I got moved to a far less stressful environment. The assignments were roughly the same as last semester with the addition of finishing up a major project. Class schedules were the same as last time. I began to think that there really was a light at the end of the tunnel....I had hit the runner's high. Formal count downs of classes began, talk of taking the boards began, letters about graduation fees were sent to my home. I wasn't being delusional, the finish line was near! Other people were noticing this!

This brings me to today, I'm on autopilot and I'm in the last three miles of the finish line. After you've done 23 miles, what's a few more! I can do this, and I did do it for the past three years! Since January 2007! I'm now starting to think of myself as a superstar, it's so close I feel like I'm starting to glimpse life without school. I listen to other people talk about their grad school programs and it's very different than mine. I was not paid a stipend to be a student, I did not get the luxury of making my own schedule and could not afford time away from clinicals and studying to become someone's research assistant or TA. This program was grueling and not for the weak! This is why I feel like a superstar....I did it and lived to tell!

As promised, the evidence that I really am graduating!

• Letter from Citibank telling me my previous loan is coming out of deferment with a 'seperation from school' date of 5/21/10.
• Letter from the government telling me about grad school student loans pay back options
• Letter from AANP confirming that they have recieved my transcripts and are just waiting for my final transcripts which will trigger them to send me a testing date window
• Graduation gift from my inlaws! Pregnancy massage(s) here I come.

The proof is in the pudding...hopefully my running shoes last till the end!

School Minutae

Here's the latest:

• I finished my second of three presentations. I haven't even started the assignment for the third presentation, but it's not due till 4/27.
• I have one more test and one final for the online class
• The instructor for the in person class is going to see about cancelling the last class which would mean 4/27 is the end. I'm not holding my breath, I could not really see my advisor (the one who has to ok this) being good with that. Even if we don't get to cancel it, we have only 3 more classes!
• I have an almost finalized version of the paper about project I did last semester
• Once that's finalized I have to create an abstract and then refine that into a poster for presentation on 5/14
• I learned that there is a slim chance I could take the boards before I give birth. I have heard you can sit for the exam with your final official transcript without the degree conferred date listed on it, they just won't pass your scores on to the state until you send them a copy with your degree conferred date
• Next week is school vacation week so I have no peds clinical so I'm squeezing in some extra hours at OB. I should be able to finish both the week of May 10, worst case would be the week of May 17.

Spring is...springing

I know it's Spring because our seasonlly non-denominational welcome mat has made it's appearance! Gone is the snowman and the autumn leaves. I do look forward to their appearance every year, but come February, I yearn to see this one! Talk to me in July, I'll be looking forward to the autumn leaves again.















Sign of Spring #2...nearly budding tulips that my ever so thoughtful husband bought me last year, potted, and kept in the basement until it was safe for them to make an appearance

To Do List

This weekend I accomplished a lot on my abstract/final paper. I have to get the abstract ok'd before I can design the poster for my presentation on research day at school so I had to make it a priority, the end is nigh after all! I spent more time on that than I thought I would need to but my advisor kept emailing back with further suggestions. As a result, my to do list is growing...

Non School Related List
I need to:
1. Pick up the bridesmaids dress from David's Bridal
2. Take my car in for th 60k tune up
3. Find time to go to Ikea with M to pick up baby furniture

School Related List
1. Finish Abstract
2. Begin layout for poster and complete by 5/7
3. Do Symptom Analysis paper
4. One test
5. One final
6. Talk to registrar about releasing transcripts ASAP
7. Continuing studying for boards

The Office...

Here's a pic of the office with the cute little wallpaper border gonzo...luckily it was easy to remove for the most part. You can see where they painted blue partially into the chair rail section, that's where the wallpaper stuck to it but where it's white, it peeled right off.

Here were the colors we were entertaining. I told M that he could choose the color, initially he was thinking blue but then thought that would be boring because the room was already blue and in our last apt we painted the bedroom blue. He thought the red would be more daring and that we could get away with a darker bolder color because we are painting the space between the chair rails white and the floor is going to be oak with a natural finish. I think it'll look nice. At first, I was concerned it was a tad on the pink side but I think it will look nice and cozy.

The Contractor Visit

On Saturday, the contractor (who built the house) came over to meet with us about getting hardwood flooring and a few other small things we would like done. Turns out that we have red oaks with a natural stain in the entry way and dining room so we're going to go with the same upstairs, although we want to use a larger plank size. We initially thought about doing engineered hardwood but the downside is that you really are limited with being able to refinish it. It's basically plywood topped with hardwood so they layer of hardwood is very thing. You're lucky if you can refinish it 1-2 times before you would need to replace it all. We feel that solid hardwood is going to be worth the money. We're also going to avoid using glues and have him nail down the boards; we also are having him price out the prefinished hardwood rather than putting it in sanding and staining. We experienced this process in our last apt when the landlords decided to refinish the floors before the new neighbors moved in. Even being in the apt upstairs, everything was filled with sawdust and the smell permeated our house for weeks.

He's going to give us a quote this week. I will be really excited to see the samples of the flooring and get going on this, the upstairs is a complete nightmare right now and our room is busting at the seams while it serves as a storage locker for everything that normally goes in the other two rooms.

In painting news, we decided to go with Sante Fe Pottery instead of a blue. Initally M wanted blue but then randomly started talking about reds so we sampled that one and liked it. We felt like blue was kind of boring and we had painted a previous bedroom a similar blue and wanted something different. We felt that we could choose a darker bolder color because we plan to paint the area between the chair rails (where the wallpaper border was) white and use the same red color above and below. Between the white stripe and the light wood floor, it should feel nice and cozy.

Par for the Course

M called the contractor about replacing the carpeting with hardwood. We also have a laundry list of small things, we're not sure if he would want to tackle those or not but since he built the house, maybe he'll take care of them since he most likely did them in the first place. We were surprised because the contractor called M back only ten minutes after he left the message and we scheduled him to come over yesterday late afternoon because that was a day that M could sneak out a little early from work. Unfortunately, he called M around the time he was due to show up and said that he was pouring foundation at another house and couldn't leave so the new plan is for him to come over on Saturday....we have heard this is how it would go.

Our list includes:

Hardwood placement in upstairs hallway, baby's room, and office
Basement and patio door have some water leaking around frames
Pipe downstairs with some leaking
Replace pipe junction near furnace (occasionally we smell natural gas although National Grid couldn't detect it)
I would like to have him realign our bedroom door and the office door, but M thinks it's due to the house shifting. Basically our bedroom door only truly closes in the summer/early fall, the office door is never aligned properly, you have to lift the door for it to catch in the frame.

We think we've chosen a color for the office, it's called Sante Fe Pottery and it's a warm light red color. Blue was kind of boring and we felt like we could kick it up a notch because we are planning to paint the area between the chair rails white, we also decided to skip a second color on top of the white stripe.

2nd Anniversary? Already??

Seriously, where did the time go. I guess it's good that it feels like the time flew by rather than feeling like an eternity but I really can't get over that 2 years ago come April 12, M and I tied the knot. We've accomplished so much in the 2 years, got married, bought a house, baby on the way, finishing grad school...

I am so so so so lucky that M is mine and all mine. Here are some of my favorite things about him:

He tells me I don't annoy him! I asked him the other day if we were to go on the Marriage Ref, what would be his issue with me that he would bring up? He claims he couldn't think of one, or at least none that is so egregious that it would bother him enough to apply for a tv show. Good answer, hubbleson.

He is a workhorse and doesn't compain. Especially now, he's doing so much around the house and there's not a lot I can do to help. He is painting, ripping up carpet, removing baseboards, moving heavy things to and fro and never once complained or threw it back at me that he was doing all of the work.

He rearranged band practice (which was scheduled on our anniversary) to another night even though we are celebrating our anniversary by going out this Friday to the locale of our first date.

He is always thinking of me. Just little things, bought me Uno when he was out shopping with a friend, bought me tulips at the end of last season and planted them in pots so we could be greeted bright and early this Spring with them.

Notices and thanks me for doing things like wiping off the table or vacuuming.

Hasn't complained once about having to clean the litter box for 9 months straight.

He's never snippy at me, I can't say the same for myself.

He's become my food czar during this pregnancy.

These are just a drop in the bucket of the wonderousness of Hubs!