New Beginnings...

Much seems to have changed in the past few weeks.
* New house. (Very nice townhouse.)
* New city. (Beautiful green city.)
* New province.
* No friends nearby. (Kind of isolated.)
* New school. (And new graduate program there-in. Hopefully new friends might be found here.)
* New kitten. (As a playmate for the older cat and as my personal cuddler until the friends start to be made. Not that I'll be doing much cuddling with the friends--I'll keep that up with my husband and kitties--the kitten helps to fill the social hole in the gap between lacking and making friends.)
* Ran ten minutes today. (I've been able to walk for several hours, but had yet to make the transition to running. The first attempt, 10 minutes of running segmented into about a 50 minute walk, was deemed successful.)
* Appointment to get tenant insurance tomorrow.
* Lower on $$$ than we've been for a while. I suspect we'll have to dip into our savings (which we have plenty of to carry us through for a few weeks) until funding from the university comes through late September.
* Starting to work on research/MA thesis and attempting to develop a half-decent work ethic. (Who am I kidding? I've pretty much always had a fairly decent work ethic.)
* Taking lots of naps in an effort to rest up for the start of the semester. (And because I'm lazy and find it very sleep-inducing to have a furry body purring on me while I read.)

That's pretty much how life goes at the moment. I'm enjoying it.

New layout...

I changed my layout. I had issues with finding a whole template or layout to copy, so I just modified a header I found. I like it. A huge thank-you to Carolyn for her help.

As for packing up for the big move... I'm not a big fan of living in boxes--and half packed boxes at that. There's so much we still need over the next two weeks that can't be packed yet. And I would very much just like to pack everything RIGHT NOW and have it done with.

And now I'm off to eat some delicious cubed potatoes and eggs for lunch, as we are attempting to eat up the majority of the food in our fridge and pantry. Yummm...

Let/k-Lesh

My name in baby speak.

There is something amazing about watching a little tiny child grow. My 17-month old nephew is just such a child. He attempts to repeat every word you say to him, no matter how crazy the word might be. (His parents are avoiding all curses and prophanities in their own language for just this reason.) Sometimes his attempts get pretty close to the real thing. Sometimes they're pretty far off. But he tries them anyways. Always. How would life be different if WE, as adults, weren't ever afraid to try a new word or two?

Freon

The past few weeks have been very very nice. I have been rested, well entertained (thanks to both Sims3 and Harvest Moon), and feeling financially secure about the whole moving to another province thing. Then the fridge breaks (with assistance from my husband) and our damage deposit disappears into our landlord's checkbook (and a very snazy new fridge), never to be seen by us again. Two options: 1. Be pissed off and upset about the whole thing. 2. Be thankful my family is safe and move on.

I chose the latter. Because exactly how is being pissed off really going to help? It took a little longer for my husband to come around to this idea (seeing as he was a little more involved in this minor disaster), but he's finally rejoined me in life is good land.

Because shit happens. That's life. Or, as my cousin (who was seven at the time) enjoyed telling me: Life sucks, but God is good.

Life lesson #2.

S and I spent the morning picking out baby names... for the baby we will be waiting about a year to conceive. I had a blast.

I read in Alive Magazine that insomnia causes accelerated aging. This morning I seem to be getting very old very fast. Oh sleep, where art thou?

They say that dreams are born in the heart, and only there can they die...

I've been getting a lot of slack for switching my path from medicine to psychology. People are telling me that I'm giving up on my dreams. That I am so intelligent it would be a waste not to be a doctor. That I'll never be happy unless I do what I set out to do. This is driving me insane. I have spent months agonizing over whether I was making the right decision in choosing clinical psychology over medschool.

I AM.

My dream has always been to be a HEALER. I (and many people around me) had assumed that being a healer meant being a doctor. But I think healing the mind is as fitting to my dream as healing the body. Since both paths lead to my dream, I am free to choose either route.

I am (and have always been) far more interested in mental than physical health. There are more opportunities to combine research and working with patients in clinical pscyhology. And I am no longer willing to make the necessary familial and emotional sacrifices I would find myself making to become and then to be a doctor. I don't do well without sleep (on-call would be hell for me). Although I will make less money as a psychologist (and have much less prestige), I will be far happier and more fulfilled with this path in more areas of my life.

I'm going to be a (child) clinical psychologist. Not a doctor. Deal with it.