So with the new year just around the corner, I've begun to brood on my resolutions. Last year, I did "mini-resolutions" where I made a new resolution each month in an effort to get more accomplished and stave off the doldrums that are early February and onward by changing it up too frequently to lose momentum. All went well until school kicked in (and kicked my butt) and so I got probably only eight or nine months of solid resolutions in.

The thing is, I didn't stick to them very well after the month was done. What's the point of a resolution that you accomplish and then abandon later? It's made me feel both as though I can accomplish just about anything I put my mind to and as though I'm just wanting to check things off of a list to prove to myself I could do it. Which is pretty worthless in the long run.

I still need to decide if I'm going to go back to the mini-resolutions format or try to just live my life and improve it as best I can. There are definitely things I want to accomplish in life (running again, photography, volunteering, etc) but not much is exactly feasible during vet school. So we'll see.

Happy Boxing Day!

I had a great holiday with my family and Danny. I took charge of Christmas Eve dinner (my dad did help with the turkey), and we had my sister, aunt and uncle over for dinner and some gift exchange. They stayed late and I was too tired to wrap Danny's Christmas present - whoops. Fortunately, he was off to church with my mom the next morning, so instead of sleeping in, I got up and wrapped his gift (Caps tickets) and helped my dad get breakfast together. When they got home from church, Danny made french toast and my sister and her boyfriend (and my dog-niece) came over for breakfast. We carried our mimosas over to the family room and went through all of the presents. Even though we'd decided on a specific budget for gifts, there were tons of them. My sister and I were given the task of completing a gingerbread house that my aunt had brought over the night before - some friend had given it to her, and she didn't want to decorate it, so she gave it to us. Well the friend asked my aunt to send her a picture - eek! So my sister and I got it done and it looks great ;) It took a bit longer than we'd planned, though, and Danny and I had to scramble to get ready to head out to dinner at the place he stays with their family. We got a couple of gifts from them (and ate some of the best reindeer-shaped cookies ever) and headed home where we busted out my season 1 DVD of Vikings. It was a great day :)

Another beautiful Christmas behind me, another new year to look forward to. Usually the time between Christmas and New Year's feels sad and lonely to me: my mom and Danny go back to work (no rest for the weary!) and even though we keep the tree and mantle lit up, it's just not the same. This year, though, I'm determined to enjoy every ounce of my winter break and I think keeping busy will help me not feel like these days just go by in a boring blur. Even if that means I start working on my rotations schedule for next year!

Today, I went to visit my supervisor from work who's in the hospital with a nasty post-op infection. She is like a favorite aunt to me and was one of the people who kept pushing me toward my goal of vet med even when I had lost confidence in myself. While we were chatting today, she told me that because she never had kids, she considered the students that came through work (like me) to be like her kids, and she wants us all to succeed so badly, especially because she thought she wasn't smart enough to be a vet. She told me how proud she was of me (overcoming my measly 2.97 GPA to get in to vet school and now doing really well); she introduced me to all of her doctors and nurses that stopped by as "her friend, Dr. [mylastname]." And yeah, I'm not a doctor yet (and I didn't pretend to be), but I knew she called me that out of pride; I can't even describe how that makes me feel.

I'm so lucky to have such amazing people in my life. My husband never complains about me being 1200 miles away, in another country, for four years while he saves money to buy us a house. My family takes me even every school break and puts up with my worldly possessions in their basement. My friends and co-workers invite me to spend time with them as soon as I'm home, and are always so happy to see me. I hate that I'm still in school, so far away, which makes me the selfish friend. But I am so, so fortunate to have such great people around me and I hope I never take them for granted.

At long last: winter break!

I spent (probably too much) of Wednesday cleaning the house and packing up my stuff. My last final was Thursday morning and I left for home immediately after I finished. I made good time to Portland, Maine, had a delicious dinner of Chipotle and watched Duck Dynasty and Thursday Night Football before going to bed. I made it home the next day (Friday) around 5pm and was reunited with my amazing husband and wonderful family.

Since then, I've still managed to be busy somehow! Saturday night Danny and I made an appearance and two parties (one of which netted me a crocheted scarf hand-made by my friend - awesome). Sunday we slept in late and ran some errands. On Monday, my parents, my sister and I met up at a pottery shop and did our annual Christmas ornament painting followed by lunch. Then my sister and I went out and did girly stuff like get a pedicure (which I almost never do!) and I got to see her new apartment and my dog-niece, Trudy. Every time I spend any amount of time with a dog, it makes me miss Ella but I know that I'm not really at a good time in my life for another dog right now. Danny says whenever I start residency we'll get one, so that's something to look forward to I think.

We went out ice-skating with friends last night and I did a bit of wrapping today - just little things here and there that I'm getting done. I have a bit more "serious" stuff to do (rotations and such) but I think I'm going to wait until after Christmas when I really have nothing else to do. I'd like our grades to be posted - I think I would have managed straight As except for my optho/neuro class, but we'll just have to wait and see.

My last final of the semester is tomorrow. Afterwards, I'm getting into my car and heading home! I always stop in Portland, Maine overnight to break up the drive (and also because there is a Chipotle there for dinner...) but it'll still be nice to be back in the States :) I still have quite a bit to do today - mainly cleaning up the house but also running a couple errands in town and, of course, studying for this last one.

I'll try to post a few times while I'm home, but I usually end up really busy with visiting friends/co-workers, doing my Christmas shopping, hanging out with my family and Danny and just unplugging my brain for a while. Can't wait!

Switched up the template of my blog because it no longer looks remotely summery outside. We got hit with probably 4-6" of snow all day yesterday - it was like a blizzard out where I am, could barely even see the road (~20yd from the house) from my window! There was a final exam for a class that I dropped, but school was closed and exams were re-scheduled.

Even though I spend a good deal of time at home on weekends normally, I was definitely feeling the cabin fever by last night and was glad to get out of the house this morning for my food animal medicine exam. After the exam I sat around with some friends for an hour and at 11:30 we went over the campus chaplaincy center and got free lunch! They had chili, pasta, rolls, hot dogs and baked potato - delicious. Full on free food, I came home and have been doing pretty much nothing ever since. Oops.

I have four finals left to take and in exactly one week, I will be headed home. I need to clean the house desperately (do I say that every post? I think I do...) and get some "administrative" odds and ends done, as well as continue to study. Fortunately, the hardest exams are done with so let's hope I don't lose my motivation.

Since last posting, I've taken three of my eight finals (five of ten if you count exotics and radiology that we finished earlier in the semester). This morning was my most difficult one (neurology), and probably one of the most difficult exams I've had to study for in the history of my academic career. I enjoy the material, and it makes sense if you apply all of the right principles. But there is so much to memorize and understand and no two animals are identical. It's tough to determine if something is normal or abnormal many times because of normal variation...but knowing normal versus abnormal is critical to localizing where the heck the problem is! Blech.

So with the most difficult exam over and my next one not until Thursday morning, I'm giving myself the day to "relax" (read: not study). I have a handful of other things to accomplish (like cleaning the house - it's ridiculous how messy it is right now) and I figured what better time than now when I don't want to cram anything else into my brain for at least a little while but still need to be productive. I'm also going to submit transcript requests for the rotations I'm applying to and maybe do some rotation planning. Or I might lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling for hours on end, who knows ;)