Winner, Winner, Chili Dinner

I won a chili contest!!!! You cannot believe how excited I am to have won. I very rarely win anything. I think the last time I won was in 1992. I was the right caller into a radio station to win a Phantom of the Opera CD and  T-shirt. Seriously.

I’ve been reading PreventionRD for the last year or so. The recipes look very interesting, but I really enjoy reading about the life of an RD. It sort of gives me a glimpse of what I’m getting myself into and hope that I will be able to balance everything. I haven’t figured how to balance everything yet, but I have hope it will happen.

MMXVI

Happy new year! I hope your new year is better than the last.

I had YarnKettle over for New Years and was reminded that I haven’t updated in a while. It was nice to have people over for New Years. I’ve been a bit of a hermit during the semester. Every second of free time was spent either with the Husband and OP or doing homework. I did see my college besties a couple times, which was awesome, but I missed my non-school friends more than I realized. I need all my friends to stay sane. Or sane-ish.

At least I’m finished with my first semester of the internship. Wait, let me rephrase. I survived my first semester of the internship. Yay! It was tough, but so amazing. It confirmed that I am following the right path for me. I loved each rotation. I may not have enjoyed every location or every task, but I absolutely loved what I did each day. Next semester is 10 weeks at a hospital. I’m a bit scared, but it will be good.

Wow, I sound way too sappy, but I’ll take it. I’d rather be sappy than crying my eyes out.

Yarn Festival!

I went to a local yarn festival with the Husband, OP, and our cousin Teach! Like me, Teach was there for the yarn and to spend time together. The Husband and OP were there for the cider donuts (and spend time together). Well, OP was there for the yarn, too. She LOVES touching the yarn and finding the beautiful colors. I can only imagine how awesome each year will be as she gets older. Assuming she still enjoys yarn.

Originally, I was not going to buy yarn. I’m not knitting so there really is no point, but OP wanted an infinity scarf. I thought rather than have her go through my stash, I’ll have her pick new yarn. My hope is this will prevent her from stealing the scarf I’m finishing up. I know it won’t, but I hope it will. I also want to get back into sweaters so I decided I’d be on the lookout for good sweater yarn for both the Husband and I.

I bought yarn for two scarves for the child. She picked the two Periwinkle Sheep skeins (pink and dark pink) which will look lovely for her scarf. This selection shocked me because she was ogling the sparkly yarns at every booth and I thought for sure I’d be knitting a sparkling scarf. Then, because I felt bad she didn’t go with sparkly yarn, I decided to buy purple and black sparkly yarn from Mother Frogging Yarns. I mean, I loved the yarn (it feels so soft!) and wanted to try a new brand. It wasn’t just a weird guilt. I mean it was weird guilt, just not only weird guilt. She was happy without the sparkly yarn, but I apparently wasn’t. I have issues. The other yarn is from Ensign Brook Farm. It’s a Merino-Romney yarn to be used in a sweater for the Husband. Hopefully, I have enough.

I didn’t find any sweater yarn that spoke to me, but that’s okay. I’ll pick something up at a local yarn store in a few months. In the meantime, I should probably try to start OP’s scarf so she has something for the winter which is fast approaching. But first, back to homework. *sigh*
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I am so tired…maybe

I’m three weeks into my internship. Where the heck did time go? I am tired and frustrated by this experience, but I’m not as tired as I like to think and am really enjoying it. How’s that for contradictions?

I’m tired because I get up at 5am so I can get in a short 20 minute workout, eat, get myself together, get the child together, and sometimes drop her off at day care before I leave. (No, I don’t leave her at home on the other days. The Husband drops her off). All that to get to my rotation at 7:30. I spend most of the day on my feet, running around like a mad woman and not eating. Yeah, I lost 3 pounds in the first 2 weeks because I couldn’t figure out when to eat during the day. That’s getting better, thankfully. I come home, make and eat dinner, get the child to bed, do homework for about 30 minutes, watch 5 minutes of TV with the Husband, and then go to bed between 8:30-9:00.

It sucks.

I have to go to bed early so I can get up early, but then I don’t seem to get homework done. Thankfully, I had the brilliant idea to keep getting up at 5am on the weekends. This means I don’t have a screwy schedule and I get used to these hours AND I have 2-3 hours on the weekends guaranteed to get work done. That and my in-laws have taken the child a bit. Although, right now I feel overwhelmed. As soon as I get something done and feel accomplished, I turn around and have 5 more things due. *sigh*

Oh my goodness, my life is dull. BUT I just have to get through 10 months and all the schedules will be different. In theory. Oh please, don’t have a rotation where I have to get up at 3am.

In the meantime, I haven’t gotten much non-school things done, but this is okay. I did knit a few items over the summer and I used up 4 skeins! I went from 70 to 66 and have more stash-busting ideas! Is it bad that all my projects right now are chosen for their stash-busting properties? I don’t think so, because I do like the projects I have selected on top of stash busting. Of course, there may be a yarn festival coming up soon which could potentially mean more yarn. No, I will be strong.

What else? I’m currently making oatmeal bars, muffins, and egg things to act as quick, on-the-go breakfast items to streamline my mornings. That, or I’m procrastinating by baking. Still, I do need to do it, which is what I’m telling the Husband. Don’t tell him it’s really procrastinating.

The Great Unknown

My orientation is complete and my first internship day is Monday. First and foremost, I’m scared. It’s a new experience and I am often worried about what I don’t know. It was worse before the orientation. I now have a list of my tasks and I now know what I can expect going in. So, I’m scared, but I’m more excited now.

I also question if I’m making a terrible mistake. I admit, I felt this way after quitting my job and going back to school. And I continued to feel that way until I made a few friends and got the rhythm of the program (so, about a week into the first semester). Once I got the hang of school again, I fell in love with nutrition and knew this was for me. I can only hope that after the first week of internship, I feel the same way. Of course, it’s food management, and the DPD classes for food management make me less inclined to work in that area. But, I’m keeping an open mind. I may find that actually doing the work is what I love, not learning about it. Maybe I’ll want to run a kitchen. Or maybe not.

I worry that I will fail miserably and let down the people who accepted me into this program. I’ve worked at a few jobs in my time and I know, logically, that I can do it, but I’m still worried that I will fail. I also fear that I will ask too many questions and annoy the preceptors. I do ask a lot of questions because I want to make sure I understand the issue. I suspect this is from programming since I needed to make sure I understood my client’s needs before I spent 20 hours on the wrong thought process.

I have a tendency to focus on one thing at a time–work or family or self. I can’t, during the semester, focus on more than one. Work always wins, followed by family, and I ignore self. Which may be why I gained 10 pounds during the last year of classes–I only had time for food, not exercise or meditation. I really want to use my time better to maintain balance rather than go for the A. I mean, I need to get that A, but an A- is okay. Of course, I do tell myself this at the beginning of every semester and fail miserably. This time I will get it figured out.

Right now, I’m ready to get started and just want to get the waiting over. That’s really the hard part.