The Martha in Me

For all you ladies out there who are crafty and stuff..... here are some cool tips on making the gift-wrapping eco friendly and eye catching.

   Gift Ribbon Storage
                   Homemade Ribbon Organizer
Take any shoebox and, using a regular hole puncher or a box cutter, make an opening for each ribbon to slide through. Behind the spools, there's room for scissors, tape, and gift tags....

   Link:  Ribbon Organizer

How to Wrap Anything
Tips to perfectly tie up any present, including:
The Right Gift-Wrapping Materials
Easy Gift Bag Ideas
Creative Wrapping Ideas
Creative Wrapping for Books
Tips for Tricky Wrapping Jobs

A Christmas Gift for the musically inclined

My first gift to all is that of a great artist, Sufjan Stevens, and a nice 4 volume collection of holliday music. His record album Asthmatic Kitty is streaming it for free, and he's pretty talented. Kind of a folk/electronica genre if you're into that, and if not....well he's got a nice voice for opening your Christmas Presents to.

PS- if you like how he sounds, try and find a copy of "Chicago" by him. It's what got me interested.

Amazing, But Sad

The amazing Lyre Bird with is superb sounds imitations. There has been no video editing--it is very real, and truly amazing. Sadly, this bird is singing of its own looming death: it lives in a forest that is being cut down, and has thus learned how to imitate/mimic the sounds of a camera, a car alarm, and even chainsaws.

Alabama Prescription Laws

Good to know:

According to a lecture we recently had,

"In Alabama, you do not have to have a printed prescription pad. You can write a legal prescription on a paper sack as long as you draw 2 signature lines on it (which makes it perfectly legal)."

 

The Breakfast Photo Project: You Are What You Eat

How bizarre. Jon Huck's Breakfast series focuses on one of the most important meals of the day, and his compositions match people to what they are for breakfast.

This guy with the bean burritto cracked me up. Give the gallery a quick 1 minute glance.....

Jon Huck’s Breakfast Portraits

Yabba Dabba Doo!

Screw Big Wheels. If I were a toddler, I'd wanna be yabba dabba dooin' my way around the 'hood in these awesome Flinstones wheels.
I want to make stuff like this!

Pumpkins 2007

 

 

Free 411: Help "On The Go"

Google and Microsoft both launched their free directory assistance services this week. Google's GOOG-411 (1-800/466-4411; or 1-800-GOOG-411) came out of beta on Sunday. The next day Microsoft announced its own free directory assistance service, Live Search 411 (800/225-5411; that's 1-800-CALL-411). Each offers an attractive alternative to paying the nearly $2 that most mobile carries charge for the service.

Both services use voice recognition and menu prompts to guide you to the state, city, business, and the phone number you're looking for. (GOOG-411 also repeats what you say, which is why it took longer than Live Search 411.) They also both give you the option to have a text message of the street address and phone number sent to your cell phone; if you're using a smart phone equipped with a compatible Web browser, you can click a link to a map that helps you pinpoint the business's location.

What My Dogs Have Taught Me

I love my dogs.

I love the way they live their lives, and I try to emulate them. I admire their happiness in the simplest of things. Like the way they approach each meal with endless appreciation and joy. While I struggle to decide what to eat from full cupboards and complain about what we don't have, they sit at the kitchen entrance, excitedly anticipating the very same meal (a pile of dry food combined with one can of gooey dogfood) over and over again. That's not even to mention how excited they get when offered just a small sample of my "Human Food."



I love how they live in the present. As my day fills with stress, looming tests, and upcoming deadlines, I try to be relaxed (or "chill") like Ceazer.

I love how they treat everyone the same, despite race, creed or appearance. They never pre-judge (well, Jinx does if she sees someone at night, but that's a lesson everyone should learn). Before Jinx and Ceazer, I didn't attempt to know anyone in the apartment complex or talk to people passing by. Now that we have our dogs, I say Hello to more people and enjoy meeting them, even if they are just stopping to see the dogs. Often, us humans are invisible behind their great personalities.

I love their loyalty and enthusiasm. Every time I come home I'm showered with Ceazer hugs and Jinx kisses. Those moments make it feel so good to be home and to be loved.

Because of the puppies, whenever Heather comes home I jump up and run over to greet her too, just like I learned from my dogs.

Blog Action Day - Replace your thermostat

As a proud participant in today's mass blogging event, Blog Action Day, here's a special post about Blog Action Day's topic: the environment.

Last March I went to Wal-Mart and bought a $20 electronic thermostat. The old one in our apartment was typical of most houses and worked just fine- but I just knew there had to be a better version of a thermostat by now. Turns out there is! After a quick 20 minute install (I still have the old thermostat stored in a closet to install before we move out to avoid a damage charge), the new thermostat was up and running. Being electronic (runs off of two AA batteries- use Rechargable batteries and you'll help the environment even more!), it's very accurate when recording the room's temperature. An impressive feature is that it allows you to set different temperatures for whatever times during the day that you want.

Going to work? You don't need it to be a perfect 72 degress inside while you're gone all day!
Like to sleep with it chilly so you can cuddle up next to someone special? Set the thermostat to cool down to 71 degrees from 9pm-7:17am.

What's the benefit here besides protecting the environment?
Well if my calculations from power bills are correct, in the 7 months that we've had the new thermostat, we have saved about $60 a month.
That's a savings of $420 from just a twenty dollar investment.

Go out tomorrow, buy an electronic thermostat, install it, and enjoy the fact that you're helping both the environment AND your wallet!

"Ceazer's In Trouble?"

So there are two little kids in the apartment neighborhood who are really nice (there are also two little kids above us who are quite the opposite of that, but I'll talk about them in another post I'm sure).
The two kids are brother and sister, and their family is from Mexico. The older sister is pretty good at speaking English, but her 5 year old brother still struggles sometimes.

Yesterday I was out walking the dogs and Ceazer decided he would run away into the hills to cause trouble. After 10 minutes of yelling for him to come down (an all-too-common sound for the neighbors to hear these days, I'm afraid) I caught his collar and quickly hooked his leash on. He knew he was in trouble and we started walking back as he held his head low and his tail tucked between his legs.

As we were crossing the parking lot, the two kids came running over to play with the puppies (one of their favorite things to do each day!).
"Sorry guys," I said. "Ceazer's in trouble. We're going home," I said as I pulled my reluctant furry friend home.

The little boy looked up at me, wide-eyed and with complete seriousness, as he asked in worried disbelief:

"Are you going to KILL him???"

His older sister laughed, popped him in the head for even thinking such a thing, and I reassured him that Ceazer was only losing his play time. Not his life.

I laughed the rest of the walk home.

Ceazer, Almost MD

We decided to have an impromptu White Coat Ceremony for Ceazer the other day.
He's growing up so fast!

Happy 24th Birthday, Heather!

I love birthdays. What a great thing to celebrate- someone's entrance into the world. I like all the bright colors that come to mind when I think "birthday," and all of the traditions that I'm so glad my family passed down. I'm having fun introducing Heather to some of those traditions, as well as putting our own twist or style on something in order to make it more "our own."
I've never been big into buying lots of stuff, but this year Heather needed some things that she's been so patiently doing without.

She's had a bright blue office chair since her Freshman year at Auburn. What little padding that thing might have once had is long gone, and you might as well be sitting on a swiveling wooden board with wheels.








So now she has a fancy-pants leather chair that will cushion her butt for hours while she writes paper after never-ending paper.

Also, back in May her digital camera decided to drink some water while we were at the beach, thus leaving her cameraless to take pictures of the puppies and the fat husband! I got her opinion on lots of different cameras, letting her think I was just curious about a possible camera for Christmas. I really threw her off when I went to Toys R Us and told her that her presents were all in the really big bag (I didn't lie, because the small BestBuy bag was inside the gigantic Toys R Us bag).

So, now she can point and shoot to her heart's content!

We're winding down now, but the party decorations are still up & the balloons are shouting "Happy Birthday" with all of their Mylar magnificance.

24's a nice number. See you there in six months!

Drug Particles Found in Air

From August 1,2007 "American Family Physician" journal:

Is it love that's in the air? No, it's cocaine, marijuana, caffeine, and nicotine. Researchers sampled the air in areas of Rome and Taranto, Italy, and Algeria, and found particles of caffeine and nicotine suspended in the air of each city, as well as cocaine and marijuana in Rome. The highest concentration of cocaine (i.e., 0.1ng per m3) was found in Rome during the winter. The reseachers note that these results indicate how widespread the consumption of these substances is and how they remain in the atmosphere. Although the amount of drugs found in the air was minimal, even small concentrations of pollutants in the air can cause serious health problems.

Japanese Fun

Japanese One-Click Award!

You're in for a treat.....

Blazers in for quite a season

"The Blazers start out with an extremely difficult back-to-back at Michigan State and Florida State, and then play three straight conference games against Houston, Southern Miss., and East Carolina. It could result in an 0-5 start, which would doom the Blazers.

UAB, from their coach to their players, simply do not appear to have enough experience to compete in the C-USA this season."

Photo Roundup

This week in pictures....

March of Dimes

This time I came along with Heather on her Charitable Walk to support March of Dimes (named because America was told to "mail your dimes to the White House" to support finding a cure for Polio back in 1938) which now supports prenatal care.

It was a daunting 5 miles, but was actually a nice walk through 5 Points South and through some scenic parks and 100-year old houses.

Maybe next year we'll bring the puppies.

Smokin’ Study Break

Another week of tests done with, and another reason to keep studying.

Tonight, though, I'm taking a break to watch some TV and a movie [Smokin' Aces] with Heather.

What are you doing this weekend?

 

R.I.P. Clippy

I was sitting here studying Renal Physiology, just wishing someone could give me all the answers, when I realized that our friend Clippy might help! I rushed to the new Microsoft Word in hopes that Clippy would pop up and ask me how he could be of service. "It appears you would like the answers to Monday's Test…is this correct?"

Now, granted I usually hate that animated piece of metal and can only think of maybe 2 times I've ever used him ever on a computer. (those two times he poped up unwanted…) But now that I need him, Clippy isn't there.

Microsoft axed our bouncy nusance of a friend, along with the others in the gang of Animated Helpers. (Maybe you were fond of the dog? Perhaps Einstein?)

Microsoft said that they have been slowly killing the characters (a few years ago they began releasing Office with the Assistants turned off; you had to actively turn on the characters yourself) and now they have delivered the final blow.

So, goodbye Clippy. Here's to memories of you popping up when I never needed you, and to you leaving me hanging without the answers to Monday's test.

New Office, Same Blog

So this new version of Microsoft Office is pretty swanky. It's got a lot of nice features, and for the first time it seems that Microsoft is actually caring about making their products look good as well. Macs always look really nice and sleek, but they are outrageously expensive. The new Word has a feature for publishing directly to your blog, and since I'm always trying to update more frequently, maybe this will give me the boost I need.

School: We're covering the physiology of the Kidney this week, and had the physiology of the Respiratory system last week. Could they have crammed two more dense/difficult topics into one test? Probably so. And it will probably happen next semester during the dreaded 2^nd year that is famous infamous for being the toughest course load during all of medical school. I'm staying home today from school to hang out with Jinx and get caught up on how the complicated Kidney does its magical job of filtering everything in the body.

Life: Heather keeps me going, as always. She is really busy with school and is always going somewhere and doing something to help out. She has a magical maternal instinct with Jinx it seems, in that she can almost always tell what it is that Jinx is thinking or needing. I try to interpret, but it usually just ends up with poop on the floor (Jinx's….not mine). Mom is still having a hard time finding a job, but we all have confidence in her. She's a great people-person and will undoubtedly land a job after a few interviews. It's kind of scary thinking about how competitive the job market is—many people I know are having a hard time finding a decent job.

Catching up

Pseudostratified columnar cells look a lot like carrots.
New classes this block:
Medical Physiology
Medical Cell and Tissue Biology (a combination of Cell Bio and Histology)

Physiology is great, because the material actually seems relevant and medical. Trying to distinguish fibroblasts in the microscope for Histology, however, does seem annoying right now.

Heather was recently elected Vice President of another organization in the school of Public Health. Between school and our new puppy Jinx, things are busy (but fun). Hopefully after my next test block we can take another trip to Oak Mountain State Park so Jinx and parents can run around outside without interstates and traffic to worry about.