VAMC OMG!

i started my training at the veterans hospital today. i am going to be working as a social worker in the mental health unit. for the next two days i am just training (which thus far equates to filling out 50 pages of forms and taking online modules about computer security and diversity).

for a rural area, the hospital does a lot and actually serves a lot of people in "VISN region 19". we learned a lot about the (negative) history of the VA and how the whole system changed for the better in 1996.

everyone in my social work program is required to do a field practicum placement, 16 hours per week, usually unpaid. i landed this sweet gig for my internship and i am getting paid! wohoo!

my one fear? that my vocabulary is going to be taken over by acronyms (see title).

the front is the original building--with an floor added on and a labyrinth of new wings extending out. still a cool building to look at though!

practicing the holiday

last week was brutal (see post below), but i realized that i have to shake off the badness and see the good. after all, thanksgiving is just around the corner. shouldn't i get into the practice of being grateful before the turkey is on the table?

1) thanks to my mom for helping us with our car towing fee. you are the best!

2) thanks to my friend sadie for baking brandon and i a gluten-free peanut butter pie. delish and totally out of the blue. brandon even said, "now, why did she bake us a pie?" just because she is awesome!

3) thanks to the shirleys for inviting us to be part of their family for thanksgiving. this will be the first thanksgiving holiday we won't be with our clan, so thinking about just the two of us was strange. now we get to see that beautiful scarlett girl and spend the day with wonderful people.

4) i only have one weekend of class left! a lot of assignments and projects, but still, only two more days of sitting in the classroom.

5) i start at the VA hospital on monday, an opportunity i am so excited for. i know it is going to change and challenge me.

6) we are being better dog owners and harvey is, in turn, being a better dog.

this list is mostly for me, a way to chronicle the blessings in my life and remind me that there is a lot of good around me.

my regular view

too bad this isn't a photo of harvey, but pretty dang close!

i'm not even superstitious

what a week this has been...

1) my flight back from oregon was delayed by nearly four hours. i missed my connecting flight to denver, my bags didn't make it on the plane i was switched to, and i got an earful about how teen mothers are turning this country into a socialist nation by my neighbor on the plane. oh yeah, and the shuttle company i coordinated two months prior to drive me from DIA to home had no record of my confirmation number or name. a miserable travel day to say the least.

2) i spent this afternoon writing a paper. through a strange and convoluted chain of events the way i saved the paper was as a temporary internet file. i spent hours trying to find the finished copy and eventually called campus IT, only to be told that this was one of the ways to royal mess up on a PC and that there was no way to recover my paper. so i rewrote it. all six pages.

3) we went to a geology party tonight. when we arrived there was 8" of snow on the ground and i had to ride in the back (again, through a convoluted chain of events), so when we arrived i didn't get out on the passenger side in order to notice that we parked in front of an unplowed driveway. two hours later when we went to our car to drive home, our car wasn't there. a couple of people from the party said they saw a police officer out their earlier and a tow truck just took it away 10 minutes before. so we walked 15 blocks home with the crock pot of soup we took to the party, in 8" of snow. and we can't get the car until 9 tomorrow morning, at the earliest.

4) we got home from our unanticipated walk to find that harvey had jumped up onto the kitchen counter, retrieved a full loaf of my gluten-free bread and ate half of it on the living room floor.

i am not even superstitious, but i really hate friday the 13th.

the scariest thing we know...

a dog!

halloween unknowns

i had grand visions of wearing a super-cute flapper costume of sara's for halloween. trouble was it required a slip of some sort underneath and all roads coming and going from laramie have been closed for days. of course laramie had nothing helpful to offer so i was at a loss for a costume, with a geology department halloween party only days away.

brandon was asking me one night this week what i thought he could be with all the hair he currently has (i classify his current style as "hippy mullet"). all the shaggy hair made me realize he would be a perfect jermaine from flight of the conchords (one of our favorite shows, thanks to logan & alyssa). this didn't solve my costume dilemma, but at least he was set.

when we went to the salvation army to find some sort of jermaine-style coat, we came across a PERFECT denim shirt. after a bit of photo research, we are pretty certain that jermaine actually wears the same shirt in various episodes. a few hangers down from the levi-dream-shirt, we found the ultimate bret animal sweatshirt. it was settled, brandon was jermaine and i was going to be bret.

once brandon had the shirt and glasses, all that remained was the sideburns and he was a spitting image of the kiwi.

granted i could have gone as mel, the new zealand band's only fan, but that outfit was too frumpy and not as funny. besides, the sweatshirt was too good to pass up...

i struggled with what to do with my hair, so i opted for the headband after this photo:

all-in-all, brandon's outfit was perfect and he resembled jermaine in an uncanny way. i wasn't quite as perfect at bret, but despite the obvious factors working against me (long hair, being a woman, etc.) we pulled off the duo pretty well.

sadly, we were about 3 for 20 in terms of people knowing who we were. i think we might be a little ahead of the times here in laramie, but next halloween there are going to brets and jermaines on every corner, vying to be as cool as us.

winter time, and the living is easy

harvey and i had a date with a friend and her dog tonight.. harvey decided to lap up her glass of red wine however so i am waiting for the hiccups to commence, dumbo style. he managed to indulge in a few sips without spilling a drop if you can believe it!

after we left the house we quickly realized that winter has set in on us. oh boy. not sure i am ready for the snow just yet. harvey doesn't care, provided that the frisbee is still in action.

brandon is gone yet again this week, therefore a few tests of my single-hood have ensued. first obstacle being a low bike tire. i went to fix it and whoa, ripped the metal end off. i searched through the leaves (prior to the snow falling), but couldn't find it. guess i am gonna need a new tube. luckily logan took it upon himself a number of years ago to train me how to change a tube. i am gonna have to put those skills to the test tomorrow, although with all the snow maybe riding my bike isn't the best idea.

at this point, i think i have substantial evidence to correlate brandon leaving with snow falling. it just always happens that way. must be his warm personality keeping the cold at bay!

the debate rests (maybe)

since we got harvey (almost a year ago!) we have speculated about his "other half". we knew mom was australian shepherd, but dad, he could have been anything. so we have googled various mixes of australian shepherd and not really been sure of anything. at first we all thought blue heeler, but then his legs got too long. lots of people have suggested lab, but i haven't thought that could be because he is the WORST (i mean this in terms of all the dogs of history kind of worst) swimmer. he just claws at the water hoping for it to harden and mimicks drowning. this makes me think no lab blood possible.

anyhow, the other night through a random internet bunny trail i came across the wikipedia site about australian kelpies. i let out a little gasp, because i felt like i finally cracked the code! the pictures showed the exact same body type, tail, head shape, and coat. the coloring didn't match up perfectly, but we know he got the blue merle color from his shepherd blood so we could account for that.

then i went on a quest for photos of australian shepherd-kelpie mixes. and tonight i uncovered the golden photo:

no more harvey, the ambiguous breed! we have got him pegged!

this one totally looks like him in action:

and lastly, if only we could teach him to do this! i am sure if there were enough sheep around, he would do it just to be a nuisance.

shrub like rasta

last friday it was 32 degrees and sunny; in brandon's mind, this equates to the perfect day for mountain biking. he got back in bed after checking the weather and as soon as i cracked my eyes open he began negotiating about what it would take for me to be willing to go riding. it sounded somewhat miserable, but he was obviously desperate for time outside on his bike. i gave in and we were off into the cold, crisp air.

when we got to the trailhead there were cows grazing everywhere, a species harvey had not yet been introduced to. the hair on his back immediately stood on end and he let out a few scary, big dog barks. the cows were unfazed by this little "hank the cow dog" look-a-like and went back to their food. occasionally on our ride we would come across a lone cow and harvey would dutifully protect us until we were at a safe distance (i.e., make a total jerk of himself barking up a storm while the cow took no notice of either harvey or us).

i had an intense fear brewing that i would come around the corner at full-speed and plow into one of the cows. what an obituary that would be: death by cow! therefore, i rode a little tentatively until the last segment when i let my fears go and plowed on ahead through the aspens.

harvey and i were racing through the single-track and came around the corner to another deadly scenario: an ice-covered bridge. i slammed on my breaks before i hit it and slid off the trail into the bushes. these are the reasons you ride tentatively when it is freezing outside!

it turned out to be a great ride and left all three of us with the wonderful feeling of proper exhaustion for the remainder of the day. probably the last ride before the snow hits hard, as it is supposed to do this week.

we noticed this little plant growing in the back a couple of days ago. ever since, all i can think about when i see it is rasta! so i revised the buffalo soldier lyrics to say, "shrub like rasta" and i find that song is stuck in my head all the time. silly song for a silly plant, i suppose.

good answer

last night i made a dinner i had been thinking about for a couple of weeks. i was imagining a sort of mushroom stroganoff and thought the night of our "big storm" would be a great time to make this winter meal.

sadly, the meal turned out more like mushroom and onion gravy over pasta. blech! i reverted back to my childhood ways and spent more time picking out the onions that didn't get fully sautéed than i did eating.

i was so disappointed that it didn't turn out well. i have been on a good role with cooking lately, creating things from scratch that have turned out surprisingly well; therefore, it was due time to have a total flop. never-the-less, i still felt like a kitchen failure.

brandon ate his meal and when i apologized half-way through for how repulsive it was, he said, "it's okay. thanks for trying something new."

i was floored by how spot on his response was. it was just what i needed to hear! i knew the food was gross so i didn't need to hear the words from his mouth and feel worse. his answer made me feel so validated and appreciated that i was okay with my failure.

good answer there brandon!