critters

most people that know me pretty well know that i love critters. i have had many, many pets and... critters over the span of my (nearly) 23 years. i have had... 6 dogs (in chronological order: samson, pepper, toto, tiggy, punkin, and rufie). tons of fish. a couple salamanders. several lizards. multiple hamsters (including the infamous big mama and her litters of babies. err.. the one litter that survived her blood thirst :( ) frogs. an ant farm. lightning bugs (can i count those?). aaaaand that MAY be all... (susan and i kept two baby squirrels alive once for a few days. but they had fallen from their tree and had too much internal bleeding to survive. but i remember we scared a lot of women at church when they asked us what was in our bowl covered with a towel. we HAD to bring them to church because we fed them cat's milk formula from a bottle every few hours. i think almost all of the ladies we showed screamed, actually. they were ugly, bald little things. ha. and we changed their names every few hours. romeo and juliet. chip and dale. you name it. and it was probably one of their names at some point.)

well... the actual point of all this was to prove that i love me some animals! critters, even! unfortunately, i have had to draw the line somewhere. and this line was drawn just the other day. i was in our bathroom getting ready for school when i heard a somewhat disturbing sound. *shuffleshuffleshuffle* i stopped. i listened. and i KNEW. only one thing makes that sound. and it sounds like it's coming from underneath our vanity. for SOME reason... i got -really- brave. and slowly opened the door to the cabinet. and there he was. looking straight at me. he said "hiii!" and then scurried down his little hole. i said "hmm." and closed the door behind him.

i got even more brave later to look at the damage. he pooed on our toilet paper! i am a nutrition major and we talk about things like health safety! and we can't go about using toilet paper already used by a mouse! they carry diseases and microbs. so i tossed out the damaged toilet paper. removed all my sponges and tampons. and hairdryer. (ew yuck). and am pretending like our little mousie friend never saw those things.

i told charlie punkin had invited some friends to come live with us and to please, take care of them quickly.

and yesterday.
we caught 3 of them.
in less than 8 hours.
are there statistics on this??
that means we must have like 1000 living under our dear little trailer.

ew. i must draw the line somewhere.

oh. and we have fireants, too!!! coming in through our kitchen window. about 4 times a day charlie sucks them up with our vacuum. but they always come back. no matter how clean our kitchen is!

i have to draw the line somewhere. sorry mousies. sorry ants. you didn't make the cut.

prankster

so maybe this is not the appropriate place to tell this story, but it's the middle of the day and everyone i know is at work. or class.
and besides. susan talked about this in her blog once. so. there.

i decided that i was pregnant. this morning i decided that. i mean. i have slight reasons. but no substantial evidence. i felt a little nauseous. i'm waiting for the "proof". so i decided to take one of the pregnancy tests given to me by my lovelies at my bachelorette shower. and since i've never taken a pregnancy test before, i was kind of excited about it.

so i got it out. looked at the instructions. and told charlie i was going to take it. he glared at me and told me not to "waste" one when i KNEW i'm not pregnant.

but i ignored him and peed on it anyway. i set it down on the counter and waited. i'm pretty sure it took less than the 60 second minimum to show perfectly clear that i was NOT pregnant, but i decided to wait the whole 3 minutes.

nope. still nothin. then i thought to myself about how i could be a trickster. so i ran over to my jar of pens and sharpies to look for the most appropriately colored sharpie. found it. i took it to my pregnancy test and colored on the + for positively pregnant.

then i yelled "hey char! come see! i can't tell." he looked at the test. then at the paper. at the test. then at the paper. then at the test. then at the paper. and finally said "i think it says right here "test is invalid if you draw on the +"."

i actually thought i tricked him all the way until we got to school and he revealed that he was just trying to come up with something to say. but i still choose to believe that pregnancy test was NOT wasted. you should have seen the look on his face :)

hey september!

this fall is a busy season. lots of birthdays and showers and showers and weddings and babies and school and homework and commuting and work.

i've made a couple of friends at school going through the same plight i am. we're all non-traditional students with degrees trying to simply get the requirements to be registered dietitians. and we're all quite frustrated. i came up with a plan according to all of our needed coursework following the strict prerequisites and semester offerings. i thought i could -maybe- finish in 2 years if i took two 19-hour semesters and did a little summer-work as well. this 2 years would get me ready for a year-long internship which would get me ready for the boards. i wasn't very happy about this, but it sounded do-able.

well.. i talked to my friend this morning who looked over my plan again... and she thinks it will take 3 years. with like 5-15 hour semesters. and THEN the internship. and THEN the boards. 3 years. because of how they have the program set up. i just don't see myself staying in this program that long wasting time on 5 hour semesters.

especially when i could get a grad degree AND get my internship AND be ready for the board exam in 2 years. TWO. masters degree. internship. all in one. it seems stupid to put in 4 years for nothing but a license, when i could actually get something else out of it in less time.

so i am presently on a voyage to determining my future. charlie has been (of course) very supportive and agreed that moving may be what we need to do if i can find the right program.

it's very disparaging to finally know what it is you want to do and be faced by obstacle after obstacle and discouragement and discouragement. it's like an opposition that i just can't seem to get past... yet KNOW i have to. but it's also scary to me thinking about the GRE and grad school and trying to keep up with everything. i'm so easily overwhelmed.

but i would shrivel up and die if i had to work on the rehab unit for the rest of my life. DIE.

God, i need wisdom. wisdom and direction.