A lot going on

I've totally been remiss in blogging lately, haven't I?  Somehow the evenings and weekends are never long enough to get everything done.

Right now, work has settled down a tiny bit.  We have another session with out consultant next Saturday to start putting into place some of the recommendations he has made and that we have tinkered with.  This past week, I discharged 4 of my clients with whom I've been working very heavily (with them or with their families).  All four of them had become very dear to me.  One in particular - a sweet Mexican man who came in the same week that I started at TLC.  Even having to do therapy with him and his wife through a translator, I had a really strong connection with him. He cried and hugged me before he left and told me he'd never had a doctor who worked so hard for him before.  It's patients like these four who remind me exactly why I love my work so very much.  Of course, now that these four are gone, I'll be getting a new crop next week. 

We're settled into the house now.  Finally, finally, finally, we have all the furniture that we have purchased so far.  We just got our bed on Tuesday evening and Rebecca's bed on Friday.  Her room is really shaping up; Ramy painted it last weekend, and I got her new bedding.  It will probably be the first room to be completely decorated the way that I want.  So far, there is still nothing on any of the walls.  That will be changing over the next few weeks, I hope.  I really love the house, especially my kitchen.  I love having so much counter space and storage space!  I'm looking for a set of antique-looking white canisters that are in the Provencal or French Country look.  I haven't fully decided on bedding for our room yet.  There is a Pottery Barn set that I like, but Ramy isn't as much of a fan.  If it were up to him, we would have bare white walls, plain white sheets, plain white blanket, and a bed in a bag comforter that could grace any dorm room.  Not exactly the look I'm going for!

I am scheduled to take the EPPP on August 28.  I've been trying to study in the evenings and on weekends, but by the time I get home from work and have dinner and spend time with my family, there isn't a lot of mental energy left.  So I'm glad that I registered for the intensive seminar.  Cramming is a skill that has served me well throughout my academic career, so I figure there's no need to do anything at a logical, reasonable pace at this point.  It's quite amazing to me how little the material on this exam has to do with the actual practice of psychology.  What the hell is the Zeigarnik effect?  (It's the concept that we remember unfinished tasks better than finished ones).  So I'm heading to Las Vegas to take that seminar in a couple of weeks, and I'm bringing my mom and Rebecca along with me.  They can have fun at the pool and seeing the sights while I'm frantically learning all the things that I never learned in graduate school.

Rebecca is her usual delightful self.  She has been singing new songs a lot this week.  When we ask her about them, she said, "Oh it's a God song I learned at school."  So far, it has been pretty chilly on her splash days at school, and she does not like to get wet and cold.  We're supposed to get a heat wave this next week though, so that could change.  She loves her new Kanani doll!  Every night though, she sleeps with her menagerie of stuffed dogs.  One morning she told me that she woke up and couldn't breathe because all her puppies were in her face but she didn't want to move them.

Please pray for my good friend Lucy's sister Connie, who was in a terrible car accident on Monday evening.  She suffered multiple traumas - brain injury, open fractures in her leg, several broken vertebrae, essentially a crushed ribcage, etc. etc.  She is making a good initial recovery and has done well with all the surgeries she has already endured, which is certainly the best predictor of a good outcome from trauma, but it will definitely be a long recovery.  Fortunately, it seems that her brain injury is relatively minor from what I have heard, so I don't think she'll be in the kind of shape most of my patients are in.  But please pray that her recovery continues at this pace as well as for her whole family.

Girl Loves Dog (And Vice Versa)

Our sweet Sydney girl has had a rough go of it lately.  We've noticed for awhile that she wasn't moving as fast as she used to.  Then we'd noticed periodic episodes where she would tremble all over with no explanation (e.g., not cold, clearly not scared of anything).  Just after we moved into the new house, Sydney jumped up to go to Ramy one morning and her leg gave way with her as she ran.  She just also seemed more lethargic and just not herself.  So a few weeks ago, I took her to the vet and they did some tests on her and determined that she has arthritis, as well as hypothyroidism.  (Sydney hasn't lost her personality though - even when the pet nurse brought her back to me after she drew her blood, the nurse exclaimed, "What a funny dog!  She looked up and grinned at us!").  The thyroid issue isn't something they want to treat right now, but our Sydney girl is on doggie Celebrex now.  Fortunately, it appears to be helping her, so we're glad about that.  Now if we could just keep Paddington from climbing on her back...

No one has been more concerned about Sydney than Rebecca.  In Rebecca's eyes, Sydney is blameless for anything.  That dog can do no wrong.  And our Sydney, the one who used to walk out the back door into the yard when I came back from being gone for a week or two?  The one who would make her body go rigid when we first got her and would pick her up to love on her?  That black dog adores Rebecca too. 

Rebecca has taken it upon herself to be the administrator of Sydney's medication every evening. She also likes to cradle Sydney's head in her lap, sing her lullabies, and cover her with blankets.  It's a beautiful thing.

 

Sweet girlfriends

Last weekend, we met up with the usual Chinese suspects in Pasadena for dinner at my favorite restaurant.  What could be better?  Maddy and Paul had an extra set of children with them - her nieces and nephew were visiting from New Jersey, so we had 5 adults and 6 kids.

Well, Rebecca couldn't have cared less about the fresh pasta.  For her, it was all about getting to spend time with her beloved Ashley (it is "Ash-LEE" now and not "Ash-NEE" anymore).  The girls sat together at the end of the table and created a crayon masterpiece on the tablecloth. 

After dinner, we walked through Old Town Pasadena a bit and stopped for gelato at an Italian gelateria. 

At the end of the night, Rebecca wanted me to take a pic of her with her buddy.  By the way, Ashley is 6.

Ten on Tuesday

1.  On Tuesday, I finally got my approval from the California Board of Psychology to take the EPPP!  I was able to get registered for the test, get my authorization to test letter, and registered to take the EPPP on August 28.

2.  In the process of this whole ordeal, the website didn't take the authorization code I was given.  So I called the Board of Psychology to see what the deal was.  The lady I spoke to told me that I didn't actually have the email from which I was reading to her.  She told me I couldn't have gotten the approval the day before, because they only sent them out on Wednesdays.  I read it to her again and she agreed it was their letter, but reiterated that I didn't really have the approval despite the title of said email being "EPPP Approval Letter."  I convinced her to look it up, which she did, and lo and behold, I had been approved!  The authorization code just had a typo in it.  After that exchange, I know why it took this many months for them to review my application for licensure.

3.  I took a practice test for the EPPP this weekend.  It was a wakeup call.  Let's just say that my fantasy of rocking the practice test with about a 90% and not needing to actually study for the EPPP were pretty much shattered.

4.  As a result, I registered for a crash course to get me prepared for it.  So I'm heading to Las Vegas in the middle of August to take that, because it is the closest place that has one before I have to take the exam. 

5.  In the meantime, I am brushing up on the areas of psychology that I have either forgotten or never really knew in the first place.  Apparently, I retained nothing from   Developmental Psychology, Research Design, or Multicultural Psychology.  I am also paying for the fact that I last took Social Psychology while I was at Vanderbilt and spending most of my time planning my wedding.  And the closest I came to Industrial/Organizational Psychology was going to a friend's master's thesis defense when I was at UAH.  Fortunately, my strong suits were in the topics of Ethics, Neuropsychology, and Psychopathology. I think my clients would be pleased with those things.

6.  Our living room and master bedroom furniture came in last week!  Unfortunately, they realized the rails on our bed were split and had to be re-ordered.  So we are still sleeping on a mattress on our floor.  But at least now it is a king sized mattress!

7.  Tomorrow is Splash Day for Rebecca at school.  She enjoyed it so much last week.  She decided that this week, she is okay with wearing her pretty pink bathing suit, even though it makes her look small.  It is okay because it is "very beautiful and I look like a fancy lady" in it. 

8.  Thursdays are Chapel Day for Rebecca at school.  I always enjoy hearing her paraphrase of what she learned at chapel.  Last week, when I asked her what they learned in chapel, she sighed loudly and said with disdain, "We watched a movie about some vegetables that were singing."  Clearly, she felt that this was not an acceptable chapel.

9.  Last night, I went to a presentation at our church about the new building project we are undertaking.  Wow, it's going to be amazing!  We're actually adding another campus.  An opportunity to purchase this property just fell into the lap of the church at a third of the price that it was going to cost us to just add an educational building at our current location.  This will allow us to have 40 additional educational spaces for religious education classes.  It will also have retreat facilities for our many retreats that different ministries and groups have each year.  Our priests will relocate to this property for the new rectory.  There will also be a chapel, a big commercial kitchen with banquet facilities, and a lot of indoor and outdoor meeting space and socialization areas.  It's really a blessing for our parish, as we are bursting at the seams.  I was amazed in reflecting last night on the way God has worked in our parish.  Twenty years ago, our parish served 200 children in religious education programs.  Last year, we served 2,800. 

10. My current favorite pen is this one from Bic.  Love it!  And good price.

4th of July

We had Ramy's side of the family over for an Independence Day cookout.  It was fun to entertain in our new house...even though we still didn't have most of our furniture in!

The kids all had such a good time playing together.  They were all upstairs running around, shrieking, and playing dressup.  Then they were running around in the back yard, blowing bubbles and shooting each other with water guns when the sprinklers came on.  It turned into a big water adventure!

After the girls got dried off and changed into some other clothes, Hannah and Rebecca wanted to perform their hula dances for us.  It was quite a little performance!  Here they are taking their bows.

Then they all gathered around the iPad to play a Wow Wow Wubbzy game.

We had the cookout on Sunday evening, which gave us all day on Monday to lounge around.  Rebecca enjoyed posing in her 4th of July fabulousness.

Ten on Tuesday

1.  We are still sleeping on mattresses on the floor.  Our bedroom furniture will be delivered on Thursday evening.  Rebecca has her toddler bed in her room, but she is sleeping on the floor because she wants to use that bed for her dolls and stuffed animals to sleep in.  Her bedroom furniture should be here next week.

2.  We are also now sitting on the floor or at the kitchen chairs.  This is because we gave away our couch this weekend.  Our living room furniture will be delivered on Thursday evening also.  We had thought about moving our old couch up to the loft/bonus room/family room, but the idea of trying to get that couch and huge chair up the stairs was really not worth it.  I envision that room someday filled with sleeping bags and giggling little girls watching movies and eating pizza and turning cartwheels.

3.  Ramy and I did indeed celebrate our 7th anniversary a few weeks ago.  However, it was also the weekend of the move, we had people in and out and doing projects for us for the two weeks surrounding it, plus there was Rebecca's recital, Jessica's graduation, Father's Day, and just general craziness doing on in the meantime.  So we skipped a getaway or even a date night.  We might have grabbed an In-and-Out burger alone together on the way to pick out floor rugs or something equally mundane.  But hey, that's real life. We passed fancy a long while back! I think that, seven years in, we can probably take a raincheck and go on a nice date sometime in September when we have time.  Maybe then we'll have a topic of conversation that won't focus on when Rebecca's bed is going to be delivered, how deep the cement should go in the backyard, and whether bright white or soft white is the better trim color.

4.  This weekend, I finally got a pedicure for the first time since my birthday.  People, this was a serious situation.  I also got my eyebrows waxed.  It's nice to feel like a girl again.

5.   There is one serious problem with the new house.  So far, it is the only thing I do not like.  The lighting the master bathroom has a major issue.  When looking in the mirror on my side of the vanity, the light reflects what looks like a few silver hairs.  The mirror at the old house DID NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM! 

6.  We were joking around in the car and Rebecca scolded us, "Hey!  Stop the monkey business!"

7. Our nightly routine is bath, prayers, stories, bed.  Usually I read anywhere between three and six books to Rebecca before it is time for sleep.  On Monday night, however, Rebecca said to me sternly, "ONE book.  ONLY one book tonight, Mama."  Apparently she knew she needed her sleep, because when I finished the one book and gave her a quick snuggle and kiss, she rolled over and was asleep by the time I was out the door.

8.  Today, I finally got my approval to take the EPPP - Examination for the Professional Practice of Psychology.  It only took three months to get that approval!  Woohoo! 

9.  So.  Now that I have that approval, I have to wait to get the Authorization to Test letter from the test administrator program, register on their site for the test, schedule the test, take the test, and wait for the results.  Assuming that I pass the exam (and please pray with me that I do pass it!), then I have to register for the CPSE - California Psychology Supplemental Exam, take it, and pass it.  THEN I'll finally have my license.

10. Tomorrow, Rebecca has Splash Day at school. Tonight, we had a discussion about which of her bathing suits she wanted to wear.  She loves her pink skirted bathing suit and said that it is very pretty but she wasn't sure she wanted to look cute at school and that it might make her look too small. So she settled on a black and white polka dot bathing suit instead, because it looks very grown up.  I can't believe that I had this kind of discussion with my 4-year old today.

Rebecca earns Kanani

A few months ago, Rebecca began to want the newest American Girl (the doll of the year), whose name is Kanani.  Kanani is a Hawaiian girl and has very long hair and wears a hula dress.  She will only be on sale for the year 2011.  Rebecca decided that she wanted to earn money to buy her Kanani doll.  Since we were in the process of getting ready to list the house, having the house on the market to be shown every day, and moving, Rebecca found plenty of ways she could earn some dough.  She helped make beds. She had a dedicated job of putting all shoes in the hall closet or upstairs where they belong.  Rebecca helped Grammy plant flowers.  She helped pack boxes, put away dishes, fold towels, and on and on.  There was even a trip to a Coinstar to cash out a jug of pennies. Rebecca was very proud of herself for the way her box of cash piled up, and she frequently took her money out of her "cash drawer" to count it.   Finally, Rebecca had plenty of money, and last weekend was chosen as the day she could buy her doll.  Rebecca transferred her stash of cash from her "cash drawer" into a purse (which Mama watched like a hawk the whole day!) and we were off in search of a doll!

The day was made even more special because we got to meet up with Addie and Miss Julie for lunch and fun, as well as a trip to the American Girl store. 

For the past several weeks before the trip, Rebecca had decided she wanted to buy Josephina instead of Kanani.  We told her it was her money and her choice, but I always knew that when she got to the store and saw Kanani again, she would want her.  And mama was right.  As soon as we saw Kanani in the store window, she changed her mind.  Rebecca paid for her doll herself, and mommy and Grammy both treated Rebecca to another outfit for her dolls.  It was a fun day, and Rebecca LOVES Kanani.  The other dolls haven't been neglected, however.  They were moved over in the bed to make room for their new sister.

Favorite pics of favorite girls

In the midst of the moving craziness, we had the chance last Saturday to meet up with half of the Woltil family for a girls' day at the Grove at the Farmers Market. Rebecca and Adelaide were delighted to see each other again. I don't think one could ever tire of seeing these two little friends together. They are so precious! (Julie and I like each other alright too!).

I think these are some of my favorite pictures I've taken of Addie and Rebecca together.