Winter Storm Nemo and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

So, so ends another fun and exciting week at school. By 'fun and exciting,' I mean it was school. My plans were to go home this weekend but Winter Storm Nemo had other plans. So instead of going home to see my family, my cats, and go to work I'm stuck at school.  Although I sometimes feel like I am going to go stark raving mad if I don't get to go home soon this weekend so far has been kind of fun.

This morning I went to the year round farmers market. I love farmer's market because you find such high quality food and other items. Today I got honey and a loaf of bread. Last week I got 3 different kinds of specialty peanut butter. They all are delicious so I consider it money well spent. :)

Late this afternoon, my friend and classmate came over and we watched 'The Ugly Truth' on USA. It's kind of a weird and crude movie but it's funny. It was fun to watch the movie with another person to talk to the TV with you and cringe at the awkward parts. ;) It was a lot of fun.

School this week is not even worth reporting about with the exception that we started fieldwork. It should be an interesting experience. I won't bore you with the rest of what went on.

To end this post, I invite you to watch 'The Lizzie Bennet Diaries,' if you are not already. 'The Lizzie Bennet Diaries' are a modern day adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The story is told in Vlog format and a new video comes out every Monday and Thursday. They are excellent and watching them is a great way to procrastinate, just ask my best friend from home whom now, thanks to me, is addicted. ;)

Here is the first episode for your entertainment.

A Woman You Probably Shouldn't Mess With

We are taking a break from my oh-so-exciting life this week to share with you something I have learned from listening to music. :)

In life you have choices to make. These choices often affect other people. If you are, in general, a nice person you go through life trying not to hurt other people whenever possible. If you are prone to stabbing people in the back or neglecting people there is one woman you probably shouldn't mess with.

And the winner is:

Carrie Underwood
Let's face it, you mess with her, it will not end well.

If you are an alcoholic father, who is passed out on the couch when a tornado comes, she won't bother to wake you up.


If you are a cheating boyfriend, she'll ruin your car.


If you are a cheating husband, she, and your mistress, will get rid of you.

You know your an OT student when...

You know you are an OT student when you are washing your hair and when you close your eyes you think to yourself, "Boy it would suck to be blind and have a problem with your vestibulocochlear nerve."
For those of you who don't know, your vestibulocochlear nerve is a nerve that helps with balance. If it stops functioning properly you will have trouble balancing with your eyes closed because you now rely heavily on your sight to keep your balance. In other words, if you were blind and you had vestibulocochlear dysfunction, keeping balance would be hard.

You randomly think to yourself while watching people move what muscles they are using for those movements.
Nerdy, I know. :P

When you fidget you now focus on joints that you either didn't know existed or had never thought about before. 
I am a fidgeter (is that a word?), always have been. Now when I fidget I fidget by moving my sternoclavicular joint (the joint between your breast and collar bones) and my carpometacarpal joints (the joints between your bones of the wrist and the bones of the palm of your hand. :P

In the circle is your sternoclavicular joint. You can feel it move by putting
your fingers on that spot and moving your shoulder forwards and backwards.
Source:
 http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/533/flashcards/1013533/png/sternoclavicular_joint1351469769017.png

The circles represent the carpometacarpal joints. You don't palpate the joints
so much as make the metacarpal move ( the long skinny bones in the picture).
 Joints 2 and 3 don't have much movement at all but you can get 1, 2, and 5 to move. Try it sometime ;)
Source: http://www.mananatomy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/carpometacarpal_joints.jpg

Now that you know just how weird I am let's proceed to a recap of my week.

First week of classes are over, hooray, although, I will be a lot more excited after next week when I have survived a full week of classes.

The first week back is always an adjustment and next week will be even more of one, having a complete week of classes. Second semester always seems harder than first semester, I think it's because some of the novelty of being in school has began to wear off. Nevertheless, I will make it through. I always do. :P

Have a great one!
-Veronica

Final Days of Break

Can I just say that keeping my new years resolution of writing at least once a week on my blog is a lot harder than you would think. :P I mean you would think it would be easy but for someone like me, who tends to over think things it can be quite daunting. What's interesting enough in my life to share via my blog? What's too personal? What's so trivial that it's just ridiculous to talk about?

Alright, enough about that. :P As to my other new years resolution, about not procrastinating, it's a work in progress. Some days I manage to be productive but most days I fall into my old patterns of being highly unproductive.

This break has certainly been interesting. The holidays were very different without my little sister, Constance, but they were much better than I ever could have anticipated they would be, given the circumstances. It's weird feeling that way, that you can be happy when you have so much to be sad about but I guess that's what moving on is like. You can't forget the past but you can't live in it either.

I am nervous but excited to begin my new semester. I love learning, and in spite of all the work involved do enjoy school. I am also excited to see my classmates again and continue my journey towards becoming an occupational therapist.

Well, that's all I can come up with for the time being. Perhaps I will have more interesting news to report next week, after classes have began.

Blessings,
Veronica

I Love To Read

If you didn't already know, I'm kind of an introvert. I love hanging out and working with people but my favorite thing to do is to curl up with a good book.

My favorite thing to read is romance. Not just any romance though. I love to read inspirational romance. Also known as Christian fiction. Specifically I like to read Harlequin's Love Inspired Books. 

Though I like other forms of romance, there are several reasons I like inspirational romance better:

1. The focus on characters attributes are not on physical attractiveness or sex appeal. 

-I don't know about you but I do not focus on a person's physical attributes when I interact with them. I love people for who they are on the inside, as cliche as that may sound, and I expect nothing less from the books I read. Unfortuanately, more often then not, general romance focus's on attractiveness and you are left with appealing but shallow characters. 

2. Love or hate the book, I usually learn something.

-This is not to say that inspirational romance is preachy. Some of the books I have read have been preachy but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule. If you are not Christian or have a problem with people talking about God consistently you will probably feel that all the books are preachy but I don't usually feel they are. 

Most of the Christian teachings that can be found in the book relate directly to scripture and can be applied to most denominations of Christianity. These are teachings about things like strength and resiliency. 

3. I love how inexpensive the books are. 

-These books only run about $5.50 a piece new.
I am a poor college student and have not bought a new inspirational romance book in years but the inexpensive starting price makes for an even more inexpensive retail price. On Ebay you can often purchase the books in lots and it comes down to paying only about $0.50-$2.00 a book depending on the seller. 

4. The quality of the writing. 

-Despite the books inexpensive price, the books are quite good. There are some authors who can write better than others and there are some authors whom I cannot stand their writing style but overall the writing is high quality. 

5. Happy Endings.

-Okay, so all romances tend to have happy endings but that is one of the draws of reading these books. You aren't left crying at the end because of all the bad things that the characters never resolved. In my opinion that  makes for good reading.

I'll be done gushing for now about how much I love these books but I'm sure I will come back to it sometime in the future. 

Blessings,

Veronica 

Welcome to 2013

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to 2013. The year we weren't sure was going to come (Mayan Calendar Anyone?) but at last it's here. Adios 2012, I am so glad you are gone.

Last year I made a resolution to take more control of my life instead of just letting things happen to me. I am happy to report that although I do still struggle with this I am much better at it then I was.

For this year's resolution, I have decided to reduce my procrastination. I was really bad at this last year. I have always been a really bad procrastinator. I know that there is no way I can completely eliminate this but I would really like to reduce the amount that I procrastinate, especially when it comes to school work.

This semester I will not be able to come home as often as I did last semester. Since it's really only my family and friends who read my blog, my other resolution is to blog at least once a week. I'm not sure if this will work but we'll give it a try. :)

Happy New Year Everyone! Good luck with your own new year resolutions!

Peace Out.
-Veronica

My Little Sister

I was only the baby of our family until I was 2 years old and my brother Sam was born. I have been an older sister ever since and ultimately ended up being the second oldest of six children.


Ben, Constance, and Aaron (driving
me crazy of course)

I love my siblings. They drive me crazy sometimes most of the time but they are my siblings and I am pretty sure annoying my siblings is written somewhere in the job description of being a good sibling.





On March 26, 2012 my younger sister, Constance, passed away and my family has shrunk in a way I never imagined it would.

Constance's senior photo.

It is amazing how your life can change in such a dramatic way but still stay so much the same. I still had classes, homework, and tests. I still have work. I still have to worry about all the little things. You would expect littler things not to bother you anymore after a loss but they do, I just sometimes wonder why I care.

Sometimes my loss doesn't seem real. Sometimes it seems like I never had a younger sister and that this weight on my heart has magically appeared. When all is said and done, I miss her and I wish she was here with me even though I know that she is in a better place.