List of things that make me feel good!

I started this list back around 2002, added on ever since, and thought I'd share it with you. Maybe you'll find some favorites as well!

1. The feeling you get when you know Autumn/Football season is near (probably relates back to my days in marching band!)

2. When people agree with you on things you feel strongly about/being accepted

3. Being told you are pretty

4. After taking your socks off, getting under cool sheets (I guess I wrote this one in the summer!)

5. A Michael Jackson song

6. Laughing with friends

7. Laughing so hard you cry

8. Knowing what your dog is thinking

9. Hugging

10. Being in love so much it makes you want to cry

11. Having a crush that's single (before the days of Phil!)

12. Being satisfied with a good book

13. Having such a close friend that you know what eachother is thinking

14. Saying "I love you"

15. Road trips!

16. Traditions

17. Late night conversations with a friend

18. Darkness with hundreds of lightning bugs

19. Feeling something silky against your skin

20. Audrey Hepburn movies

21. Paying for lunch for a guy that is used to paying for me (again, before the days of Phil! haha)

22. Banana margaritas (yum! wish I had one of these right now!)

23. The Arizona night sky

24. A cool breeze on a summer night when you have no electricity (at the time of my first apt when we didn't know you had to sign up for electricity! haha)

25. Chicken Soup for the Soul books

26. Loving your family

27. Having a retired Cuban doctor offer for me to travel with him (kinda creepy, but also funny! LOL)

28. The taste of pineapples

29. Being told "I love you"

30. ICEEs or slurpees

31. Sharing memories

32. Sunsets

33. My pup

34. Eating sushi with friends

35. Watching Marshall football (especially when they win!)

36. Driving around on a pretty day with the windows down and talking to a friend

37. Ghost stories

38. Josh Groban's music/voice

39. A good dream

40. Watching someone open a gift you got for them

41. Excited anticipation

42. Key West

43. The name - October Joe

44. Being crafty

45. Orchids

46. Fortune cookie fortunes

47. Fall clothes

48. Driving around at night while the windows are down in perfect 77 degree weather

49. Being adored

50. Ice cream

51. Being confided in

52. Moonlight

53. Being in a comfortable, unconditional loving relationship

54. The feeling I get after exercising (too bad this doesn't keep me motivated to do it!)

55. Sleeping until noon

56. The silence that snow brings

Merry Christmas!

I am up way to late on Christmas Eve/Morning but I cannot sleep! I am like a little kid who knows Santa is coming! I feel so relieved since I took my boards this past Monday that I am starting to become myself again. Now the waiting begins...

But while waiting, I am going to enjoy my Christmas and my break and share some of my favorite Christmas ornaments with you, and other Christmas favorites besides ornaments. This post is inspired by my friend Amanda, who made a similar post, who was inspired by one of her friends.

First, I'll start off with a picture of my family's tree. Our tree looks pretty much the same every year and has sentimental ornaments and assorted bulbs which are placed differently each year:

This is my first ornament:

I always loved putting this ornament on the tree with Sunshine:

When I was little, I used to play with these ornaments, which is probably why Santa doesn't have a beard and Mrs. Clause's hair is a little frazzled:

Here is my favorite Christmas Candy I made the other day, recipe courtesy of Kathy Burch:

I made this sometime when I was little, it's not really an ornament but always ends up on the tree. My parents laugh about it every year, wonder why:

This is my little tree that stays up pretty much all year at my place:

My newest ornament:

Here are a couple of my faves from this tree:

This is Phil's grandmother's tree. I love it! It has hundreds of red bows and red bulbs on it with red and white lights. I hope she keeps it like this when she takes it down each year cause I would hate to tie all those bows on every year!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

My Story (of the last couple years) Condensed - Part 2

Going to school again after being out for 2 ½ years was scary. That first year was all about remembering how to study, going through the anxiety of getting good grades (cause I didn’t know what to do if I didn’t do good at this!), making friends with people who already knew each other, and feeling OLD compared to the other girls in my class. Fortunately I was living with my newlywed friends to keep me sane! The summer after this year, I cleaned teeth on my first patients. This confirmed that I actually enjoyed what I was doing although it is stressful being graded on it.

Junior year was hard. We had a lot of classes with a lot of finals and a lot of activities to do in between. I became closer to some of the friends I had made in my class, found out a couple were a little closer to my age (they still call me grandma though!), and realized it was hard to have class with the same 21 girls everyday. I got engaged in February to Phil, who I’ve been dating now for just over 4 years. During the summer we had our rural rotation where we worked with a dentist in the state for 6 weeks. This reconfirmed that I wanted to be a dental hygienist.

So that leads me to the present. Boards in less than 4 days! I packed up today, cleaned, and tomorrow I am driving home and hopefully I will not unpack my computer until my boards are over because everything online is too tempting! I am spending the night in Charleston on Sunday with Rachel who is taking the boards there with me. I am not studying at all Sunday and going try not to get stressed out!

Okay, better go! Have a great weekend everyone!

My Story (of the past couple years) Condensed - Part 1

I am a born-again student when it comes to going to college. I first attended Marshall University in August of 2000 and graduated in December of 2004 with a degree in biology. I had all intentions of going to vet school, but [fortunately] the vet school gods did not accept me 2 years in a row. During that time, I worked for the local Animal ER which deterred me from trying the third time. I am glad I found out I didn’t want to do something before I had to pay for it. My only problem was figuring out what I did want to do since I had wanted to be a veterinarian since kindergarten and didn‘t have a back-up plan.

I knew I liked working with my hands. I knew I didn’t want to be the person in-charge. I knew I would like to work by myself, but also be able to help people. And I knew I did not want to work in a hospital. I had to think of things that interested me, preferably something in the medical-related field. I kept having the thought of going to see my Papa in Wayne after getting my teeth cleaned and him whistling and saying “I can’t see those teeth are so bright!”. Then I thought of how I would always trick my mom after coming home from a dentist’s appointment (something I still do to this day!) by telling her I had a cavity, which in reality I’ve never had one, but she still had the same astonished reaction every time. I always loved going to the dentist most likely for these reasons. This led me to going to dental hygiene school.

It was all a whirlwind after that decision. I remember deciding whether I wanted to go into an associate’s program for 2 years or get another baccalaureate’s degree and go for only 3 years. I still can’t remember what made me stay in West Virginia, probably in-state tuition and the fact I love WV, but I applied to WVU pretty much right at the deadline. I also remember having to do some extra stuff cause I turned in all my paperwork so late. I got excepted as an outstanding sophomore in the fall of 2007.

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TODAY: Had my last final of the semester! Missed 22 out of 150 and still got a 96%. Please tell me how that happens, but I'm really not complaining! I went to Black Bear to eat with Rachel and Kristen for lunch. I have to study for boards tonight. I really want ice cream badly. And tell me how my nail polish always chips a couple hours after I paint my nails?

100%

Hi. I am starting this blog because today I had an overwhelming feeling that there was a lack of creativity in my life. I have been stuck in Morganhole, I mean, Morgantown, WV for the past 2 ½ years. If you grew up in Huntington, were born and raised a Thundering Herd Fan, and were then forced to walk (or drive) up and down, elbow to elbow (or bumper to bumper) with the somewhat rude students in the unending hills that Morgantown offers, then you know what it feels like to be me.

SENIOR YEAR: Half-way over now, but still in the middle of a stressful process. At this point, I am 6 days away from taking my National Boards so I am able to actually become a RDH upon graduating in May. You may call it procrastinating, but I call it relieving pressure and taking some time to myself. Okay, maybe I call it procrastinating too but Facebook and Twitter help me out with that most of the time. I thought this semester was going to be a breeze, but once we got here in August the higher authorities broke the news to us that we had to take our boards in December instead of April like in past years. Panic sets in. We have board review class we took over an entire weekend at the school. We also find out our research projects we have to present are due in November. Luckily we got this changed to January, but we still had parts of it due throughout the semester.

My last final is tomorrow. Yes, we had to take 5 finals this week. Breathe. I have to keep telling myself positive affirmations to keep my chin up and to stop freaking out. My mom told me when I was home over Thanksgiving break that I would get a 100% on the boards (laughable), so I keep telling myself that and it makes me happier. Eating has become constant too, especially in the last week. My roommate, Katie who is also in my class, says she woke up from sleeping last night around 12:30am and was starving, so she had a snack. Things like this crack me up cause I can just envision the person doing it, but my imagination sort of makes everyone cartoon characters of themselves.

So, onto this blog. I need to be creative. I miss writing poetry, taking pictures, being out in nature. I am hoping that I will keep up with this cause I have the tendency to get tired of online journal sort of things after a while. When I get home, as in Huntington, for my winter break and after I am finished taking my boards on December 21st, I am planning on putting on here my list of “Things I want to do before I’m 35”. I don’t know why 35 but it sounded like a good number at the time. I wrote this list like 7 years ago and have been crossing off some items since, but also would like to add to it.

I know I’m not witty, I’m actually pretty cheesy (runs in the family along with dropping food on your shirt while you’re eating, but that’s beside the point). I don’t spell the best or write the best, but like I said: I need a creative outlet. I’ve already written 3 pages double-spaced, which would bore you now if I put it all up at once, so I will only partially post until next time…