I realize that I should probably make a "weekend" tag because I tend to lump "fun stuff" and "summer" together when I'm writing about my weekends (because invariably my weekends are more exciting than work days!)

This weekend was no exception, either. Saturday morning, my family participated in our community yard sale. My mom was so desperate to get rid of stuff that she sold almost everything for $1 (books for free, a couple of things went for a bit more) and I made about $20 off of my own stuff. Saturday evening, Danny and I took my parents, my sister and her boyfriend to dinner at the Melting Pot, which is a fantastic four course fondue restaurant that is both delicious and fun. It was our way of thanking them for helping us with everything wedding. (Speaking of which, we finished our thank you notes!)

Sunday morning was rainy and delightful. Danny and I got more bird seed and some tomato cages at Home Depot. Later in the afternoon (after the rain abated), we went over to his friend's house - Danny to help work on his car, me to trim the dog's nails. We had finished up and were chatting before I headed off when two kittens come running out of the bushes! So I called up a friend of mine from the small animal clinic I've worked at who does abandoned/wild/otherwise independently-living kitten rescue. (Danny called about five minutes after I got home dropping them off to tell me that they had found a third. So I made the trip again. I think the universe knows I'm a vet student...)

This week at work has been pretty normal, but today I got to hold an American alligator! (It was only 3-4 years old, so only about two feet long, but still - an ALLIGATOR.) Have I mentioned how much I love lab animal medicine?!

What a crazy few days its been!

Saturday was yard work day. I mowed the lawn, learned how to use the edger (much harder than it looks!), filled the bird feeder, planted some flowers and planted the remaining tomato plants and parsley. Danny did a ton of tree trimming and we loaded up the branches just in time to realize the dump was already closed for the evening. So we went out to get frozen yogurt and see Man of Steel (the new Superman movie). Even though I'm a fan of action movies, I didn't like it. I'm already so tired of Hollywood beating the superhero horse to death, so perhaps I went in a little biased, but it just wasn't as well done as I thought it could have been and the action scenes seemed purely "because I can blow shit up!" instead of well-thought out. Danny liked it. Go figure.

Sunday, Danny went off to basketball and I started food prep for our Mother's Day/Father's Day cookout. When Danny got back, we took two loads of tree branches to the dump and had some lunch. Then we headed back to the house and got started with the cooking. We ended up having swordfish, lamb/onion/red pepper kabobs (kebabs? I don't know), rice and black bean/corn/tomato salad. I had planned to have sweet potato fries, too, but completely forgot to make them. Oops. I gave my dad a new vegetable steamer and my mom two sets of weights for her morning exercise DVDs, so they were happy. All in all a nice weekend!

The work front is also busy. Yesterday I had my first PI meeting! He was actually one of my reproduction professors in undergrad, but I don't think he remembered me; either way, he was still really nice and I think it was a good foot to start off on. I have meetings scheduled tomorrow morning and Thursday afternoon, too. Today I did prep work for those two meetings BUT I got to put away the new batch of ferrets (six total) that came in this afternoon. It's nice to sneak in some animal time when I can :) Every day just seems to confirm more and more that this is what I want to do. Exciting stuff!

I have survived/successfully completed my first week of work; since I'm only contracted for 32hrs per week, tomorrow is my day off :)

And I'm glad I have a long weekend ahead of me - I have a lot to get done over the next few days. The big thing is our Mother's Day/Father's Day cook-out on Sunday evening. But wait, you're thinking, Mother's Day was back in May! And you'd be correct. My family has an interesting habit of "rescheduling" things like birthdays and smaller holidays (never Thanksgiving or Christmas, though) to more convenient times. Mother's Day was right before my wedding and we were all stressed out the wazoo with planning and coordinating, so my mom asked that we just lump Mother's Day in with Father's Day. So it will a parental celebration extravaganza. Since my sister had her birthday/graduation cook-out last weekend, I offered to be the cook for the MD/FD thing so that my parents can have a bit of a break. Don't know what's going to be on the menu, but I'm thinking swordfish steaks, black bean/corn/tomato salad thing and other stuff that is yet to be determined. Need to hit the grocery store for that (and food for next week's lunches) so I'd better figure out what I want to make.

Then I just have a bunch of odds and ends to finish up - mailing my wedding thank you notes, planting the second batch of tomatoes (all of the rain lately has been good for the first batch - there are a handful of blossoms that will turn into tomatoes barring gluttonous critters!), packing away a bunch of my stuff from school (blankets/linens, mostly) and starting to clean up my crap from around the house. Danny is going to be out trimming back a bunch of tree branches (which thankfully survived the epic storm that came through today - my neighbors lost some branches out front) so all in all, I expect a productive weekend.

I started my new summer job yesterday. As I've probably mentioned, I'm back at the lab animal facility that I worked at for three years as an undergraduate. It's a small core group of people and they've always been like family to me, which makes it all the more awesome to be working with them again. I am so lucky they have stuff for me to do and that they're paying me!

My role there is a lot different than it was before, though. As an undergrad, my main responsibilities was animal husbandry - everything from cleaning cages to providing veterinary care. I got my assistant laboratory animal technician certification (ALAT) with those hours and at one point considered ditching the whole vet school dream and just working as a lab animal tech. Everyone around me encouraged me to keep going and supported me and here I am today.

Now, my duties revolve around putting together a gigantic packet of information for the AAALAC (association for assessment and accreditation of lab care) accreditation site visit occurring next year. Yesterday was spent familiarizing myself with the application and compiling a list of questions to ask  investigators that run their own labs. Today I got access to the huge database containing all of the university's protocols and have started to read through the ones pertaining to the investigators who run their own labs and have aquatics. Eventually I'll move on to other protocols.

It's a lot of staring at a computer screen all day and a lot of dense reading but I'm enjoying it. I really feel like this experience is letting me see the other side of lab animal vet work - the administrative side - and I think it's going to be a great learning experience.

Temperatures like we've experienced this week should be what summer is. None of the unbearable heat and humidity that is par for the course for east coast summers. Instead: sunny, warm, a slight breeze coming through with a couple of thunderstormy afternoons (like we're having today) for good measure. I think I would just move into a tent in the yard at that point.

I spent this morning in the stunning (I'm running out of adjectives...) weather - slightly overcast, warm enough to break a sweat - planting my mom's tomato plants.

You have to understand something about my mother: she has all of the best intentions in everything she does. She loves to buy flowers, garden and set up sweet accommodations for the resident wildlife (which consists of birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and one portly woodchuck. But mostly squirrels.) The problem is, she is such a busy lady. She gets up before 5am every weekday, hops around to her exercise video for a while, sits in a crapload of traffic to get to and from work and isn't home until usually 7pm. At which point she's exhausted and just wants to eat dinner and go to bed. So her weekends get jammed up with stuff that she doesn't have time to do on the weekdays. She always goes to visit her mother on the weekend and almost always has a nap, and by the time she turns around the weekend is over.

Every year she buys tomato plants. Every year, she doesn't get tomatoes, mostly because of pests (cough woodchuck cough) but also because she never waters anything. Once she tried that weird hanging basket thing but squirrels just busted into the basket and made a nest. So when she told me she was going to get her tomatoes this past weekend, I decided that I would take over the tomato scene.

Danny constructed her a pen with metal stakes that hold up a coated chicken wire, about two feet high. Around the base are railroad ties sunk into the ground (pre-existing for my dad's fence) and we figure/hope/pray that it should be critter-proof. This morning I went out and churned up the dirt soil, shoved some composted cow poop manure into each of the four holes and planted those darn plants (which had already begun their death march after being neglected on the patio table for a week. Sigh.) I gave them a good soak (and it should be raining this afternoon) and came back in. Tomorrow I'm going to give them some MiracleGro stuff specially suited for tomato plants. And then I will water them consistently and hope for the best.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks. I have a feeling this won't be as easy as it seems!

Welcome to my 100th(!) blog post. Sit down, have a drink, admire the scenery. I remember writing about wanting to be more consistent in my blogging; I'd say 100 posts is a great milestone. Pat on the back, self.

But wait! There are more things to pat myself on the back for, namely: I got a job offer from the lab animal facility I worked at for three years as an undergrad! Not only did I get a great offer doing lab animal-related stuff like I wanted to be doing, I'm going to get paid a decent amount more than I've ever been paid before! Pat on the back #2.

Pat on the back #3 is that I went for a jog yesterday in the breathtakingly beautiful weather and it was lovely and have been doing well with eating reasonable amounts of good-for-you food. Good first efforts on my June resolution.

Today will consist of going with my sister to shop for decorations for her birthday/graduation party that will be held on Sunday (at the same park that my rehearsal dinner was at, actually), getting some lunch, other small miscellaneous errands and probably more thank you notes. The TY notes are almost done though - you may now pronounce me most organized bride in the history of the world.

I think that's enough gloating for one day ;)

Finally decided to change the template for the blog. I really love the other one but this one feels more springy which is in accordance with the absolutely gorgeous weather we're having today. Sunny, cool, slight breeze coming through...literally a perfect day.

I told myself last night that today needed to be more productive than yesterday because I did not get all that much accomplished. I don't feel quite so bad with the possibility of summer employment becoming more and more likely (but shh, we aren't going to jinx it!) but I still don't want to sit around like a slug all day doing nothing. So I went grocery shopping (food is so cheap compared to PEI - it's glorious!) and used my new "Just For U" account with Safeway. If you haven't signed up for this already, DO IT NOW. They offer you extra savings on top of the in-store sale prices and it isn't just for weird shit that nobody buys, either. I think I literally had a coupon/special offer for everything that I bought today. Woohoo! Then I went to Chipotle because it was in the same shopping center and dammit if I don't deserve Chipotle whenever I damn well please after going months on end without it. The good news is I'm stuffed and don't have the munchies like I did yesterday. Add that onto the healthy food/snacks I got at the store and I'm feeling more optimistic for my June goal.

To maintain today's level of productivity, I'm going to continue making the move to the basement. I want to get everything settled down there before I actually "move in" officially, but my goal is to be down there by this weekend. I'm also going to write some more wedding thank you notes and perhaps water my mom's garden. I also need to order my sister's birthday present and touch base with a friend I might be seeing this weekend. Plenty to keep my occupied, I'd say.

This past weekend was my first full weekend home after the wedding. It was also the first weekend home from school when I didn't have any wedding stuff to accomplish. With these qualifications you would expect it to be a relaxing weekend but it was crazy busy!

Friday night we drove a friend over to "Danny's area" and hung out with said friend and another friend, just hanging out and relaxing. So far so good.

Saturday morning was Danny's flag football playoff game. I went to cheer him on (and make sure he didn't have to get stitches again...) and got to chat with another player's girlfriend that I had met a few weeks before. It was a darn good thing I brought/slathered myself with sunscreen because it was hot and full sun - blegh. I managed not to get burned, though, which was awesome. The less awesome part was that they lost the game, but I think they were kind of happy about it because if they had won, they would have had to play another playoff game later in the day and then a last game (championship). I think everyone was glad to get out of the sun and into the AC - I know I was and I wasn't even running around!

After that, we headed back to "my area" (about an hour away from "Danny's area"). We spent the afternoon running errands and came home for a family barbecue with my sister and parents. The food was excellent and it was fun to play with my sister's Boston Terrier, Trudy. That dog always has something hilarious up her sleeve.

Sunday I thought I'd get to sleep in, but after Danny left for basketball with friends I couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up and helped my mom with her crossword puzzle (I'm so bad at them!) before Danny called saying basketball was canceled. He came home and we went for a run, then headed back to his area for another cookout. We stayed there longer than we had intended (although in good company, to be fair) and then had to drop a weed whacker off at another friend's place before heading home. Well, traffic was awful, mostly because it was raining, so we didn't get home until after 9pm yesterday. At which point we showered, talked and went straight to sleep, haha.

So it wasn't quite the peaceful weekend I was suspecting, but it was still nice to see everyone and eat a lot of barbecue food.

Food reminds me that I have decided on a June resolution (albeit with some hesitation): be healthier. I know, I know! I turned my nose up at such talk when I first unveiled my mini-resolution concept. But I feel like it's something I need to do to appreciate myself and lately I haven't really been appreciating myself much.

Game plan:
Exercise more - run or walk at least 4x/week
Decrease my junk food intake - fruits/veggies for snacks, no ice cream/cupcakes/dessert food
Get back to eating less meat - in one meal per day or less.
Do my very best to get soda out of my life for good - NO MORE than one can per day, then e.o.d.

I'd like to make it a graduated scale where each week I move more and more away from my current habits and closer toward a more healthy ideal but I don't need to type that all out for you.

So I have a busy month ahead of me, and not just because of this resolution. I have a lot of ducks to get lined up and it all starts with making a Master To Do List. In which I will list everything I can think of that needs to be done. Don't think there's much relaxation for me in the future...