High Five For Friday

It's link up time again with Lauren at From My Grey Desk for High Five For Friday!  School has been keeping me really busy, and I feel like it's all I do, so my High Fives may start getting really creative!  Here's what has been up this week:

1.  We got to visit with our friend, Charlie, from Auburn Sunday.  Charlie used to be on the worship team with Jesse at The City Church, but now he is the worship leader at another church in Auburn.  Turns out they have a branch near Birmingham and he was filling in this week! Thankfully he let us know he was coming and we got to worship with him.  I forgot how much I miss hearing his soulful voice on Sundays!

2.  Jesse learned how to cook Mac-n-cheese this week!  I'm really just poking fun - he can cook quite well once you convince him to get in the kitchen.  He did give us a good laugh with boxed mac-n-cheese this week, though.  From the kitchen I heard, "This cheese sure is clumping."  He had already trashed the box and forgot to add milk. :)  Since I've started school my afternoons have been filled with studying and he has cooked and cleaned the kitchen almost every night for the past two weeks with little complaint.  He's a pretty great husband!

3.  We had our first Physiology of the Eye lab this week, which was also our first hands on experience with each other.  We tested our tear film: how much tears we each produced per minute and how much time it takes for our tear film to break apart before we had to blink.

4.  I found baker's twine today!  I've been wanting to snag some for random crafts but have never found any turquoise expect online, and shipping always costs twice as much as the twine itself.  So, thank you Martha and TJ Maxx for making me happy today.  (This is probably sad that this made my day... oh well.)

5. A few things I've learned this week include:  light refraction through a prism, how your tears drain, all the bones of the orbit, and the vascular system of the eye! It's only the beginning...

I hope you all have a great long weekend!  We'll be seeing some of you on Labor Day!

High Five For Friday

Hello again, world!  Time to link up with Lauren @ FromMyGreyDesk for High Five For Friday!  It has been quite an eventful week around here (see #2)!

(lunch rock)

1. This past Saturday, Jesse and I went hiking in Oak Mountain State Park, just outside of Birmingham.  It was deemed our "day of fun" before I started back to school.  It was a beautiful day to be outside and we enjoyed almost every moment! Oak Mountain is HUGE.  We started out on one trail, crossed over to another, then decided we (read: I) were not going to make it all the way to the waterfall and back. So, we hiked back to the car, drove near the fall, then hiked to it.  I think Maggie enjoyed being outside just as much as we did.  While we were there, we did some Geocaching, which is where random people all over the world hide random containers (geocaches) with things inside (at least a log to sign once you find it).  The containers can vary in size from pill bottles to buckets.  If you find a container with items inside, you can trade something.  We didn't find anything super spectacular in the few containers we found, but it was a lot of fun searching for them!  For more about geocaching, click here.  You can hunt for geocaches all over (not just while hiking) - you'd be surprised where they are hidden.

2. This week kicked off my career as an optometry school student! (Whoop, whoop!)  It's still a little surreal that I'm here and starting this.  It's what I've worked hard for and where I've wanted to be for so long, and it's finally here!  I'm ecstatic, thankful, honored, anxious, and happy.  (Someone may need to remind me of these current emotions in the near future when I'm overwhelmed!)

3. My Friday afternoon was spent at the Dept. of Revenue getting my tag renewed.  This doesn't sound like something worth highlighting, but I had driven all over, stressed out, and got rejected once I got there last week.  SO, I returned this week with all proper documents, waited in line for 2 hours, was absolutely thrilled when I made it to the front of the line, and left with a brand new tag with literally no time to spare on the meter (no ticket...hallelujah)!  (The photo of the line above was taken on my way out. It was even longer when I came in. And even longer last week when I was there... madness.)

4. Our friend Chase stayed with us last night, and he and Jesse spent today doing more hiking and geocaching, and they caught up last night on some long-overdue gaming. I'm sure Jesse was glad to have a some "guy time."

5. Tonight, we had dinner at The Fish Market downtown with two of my favorite "optometry people" from the office I grew up in.  Thanks to continued education courses for them, we were able to catch up with each other (...talk about long overdue)! I loved our visit, and the food was delicious! I think we'll put The Fish Market on the return-to-list.

High Five For Friday

It's already Friday again?   Times flies by so quickly... maybe because I actually had something to do this week. Ha!

1.  I've spent most of this week at orientation for Optometry School!  I met all my new classmates and got lots of information, including this "all access pass."  Well, not really, but that makes it sound a little more special. ;)

2.  Yesterday (as part of orientation) I became CPR certified. Now, even though that means I could possibly save your life one day, I hope I never, ever have to do that!

3.  So whenever we go to Sam's one of our favorite parts (besides the samples) is wandering through what we refer to as the "money wasting section." - aka the middle with all the fun seasonal items, books, and such.  We were kind of doing our on thing when I realized we had two completely different interests and had a good laugh.  (Weirdo and nerd alert!)





4.  Jesse has worked hard on his aquarium, building it back up from the move.  We've gone through several batches of fish not acclimating well (read: dead fish), so he (we) decided on guppies and gobies.  Those names probably don't mean too much to you, but the news worth highlighting here is that both of the types of fish have reproduced!  There are tiny little guppies swimming around (mostly hiding right now) and the gobies recently laid eggs!  We will have to wait to see if they hatch before they are gobbled up by another fish, but hopefully they will survive.  It's really fun to watch this cycle of "fish life."

5.  We enjoyed a Friday lunch date today at Saigon Noodle House on 280.  We've tried to do this regularly during the summer.  I'll definitely miss these lunch times when school starts.

An Olympic Review

While I'm typing this the Closing Ceremony is on tv and I'm a little sad (even though what I'm seeing is a little bizarre....octopus dj??).  We have spent a lot of time watching them this year and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's always fascinating to watch the world's greatest of the great compete - whether to see those live up to the hype that's followed them to the games or to see the unexpected unfold.  Here are some of our favorite moments from the London Olympics:

(source)

It was not a light moment when Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings won their third Olympic Gold Medal this year.  They nearly got away with total beach volleyball dominance.  They won every match they played, loosing just 1 set out of a total 43! So it goes without saying (but I'm gonna say it anyway) that these two ladies are awesome. To run around that much in the sand and still knock out all the competition... yep, they are awesome.

(source)

This is not the photo I wanted to share as my favorite moment from the USA Women's Gymnastics Team Final win.  I searched and searched for Aly Raisman's expression as she made her last landing on her floor routine - the final round of the night.  As soon as her toes hit the mat she knew she had put forth her best performance and locked in the USA for the gold.  Before she made her final pose she was already overcome with emotion.  I just loved that moment.  They are all so focused (and nervous) during this event because the team's score hangs by each movement of every member of the team.  You could just feel her joy and relief in that moment I wanted to share with you (remind you of), but apparently no one in the world snapped a photo at that very moment. Nonetheless, they brought home the gold!

(source)

If you saw this man (Oscar Pistorius) run, you already know he touched the hearts of many people this year. His story was so inspiring.  In case you didn't know, he is the first double-leg amputee to compete in the Olympics.  Through the years as he trained and competed in other races his prosthetics caused controversy as some believed they gave him an advantage.  He went through rigorous testing to prove otherwise, not just for himself, but to help open the field for other amputees to have a part in these races.  My favorite part of his story was this quote from his mother when he was a child:

"She said, 'Carl, you put on your shoes and Oscar you put on your prosthetics, and that's the last I want to hear about it.' I didn't grow up thinking I had a disability. I grew up thinking I had different shoes.''

Obviously this has a lot to do in forming his belief within himself that he had no limitations on what he could do, even if he had no legs.  And he proved that to the world this year!

(source)

This moment was not one of the greatest to happen during the Olympics, but it did.  During the men's BMX race the guy in 2nd place ran into the guy in 3rd place, which caused a huge crash - literally everyone behind them went down!  The guy in first place had no idea this had happened until he looked back after he had made it a bit further down the track.  Horrible crash, funny story.

This was only a few of the many incredible moments throughout this year's games.  Now we are ready for the Winter Olympics!

High Five For Friday

Hello again!  It's time for High Five For Friday, but I'm gonna be honest and let you know that I'm gonna have to search deep for these 5 this week. I seriously thought about posting a Low Five For Friday this week, but that's kind of depressing.  Plus I'm only a few weeks into this series... it cannot be going downhill that quickly.  The past few days have been a little crazy around here.  Jesse has been sick and it only got worse last night. (Hence the 9:00pm post.)  Long story short, he's now medicated, hydrated, resting and on the road to kicking this thing in the butt!  The dog also decided to be sick on the same night.

Now for positivity:

1.  This past weekend I helped one of my favorite people move into her [awesome] place in Birmingham.  We became friends at Auburn, and I'm SO glad she's now at UAB too!  (I like to think I had a little something to do with that. ;))

2.  Possibly the biggest highlight of the week was that my dear friend (and old coworker) Heather came to visit me!!!  Well, she had a meeting in B'ham to attend to first.  (But I like to think I had a little something to do with that, too!)  It was wonderful to catch up with her! I guess we were too busy talking to think about taking a picture, even though we talked about blogging.... oops.  I've only been gone from the office for a few months, but it seems like forever, and so much has been happening since I left.  I definitely miss knowing what's going on in their everyday lives.  I mean, you never know when someone is going to.... decide to raise goats or something! ;)

3.  I went thrift store shopping this week.  Which also means I finally found a great thrift store around here.  I love ones with lots of booths from different sellers.  Provides a lot of variety.  I scored an awesome deal on a scrapbook/crafting organizer that retails for over 100 bucks (who pays 100 bucks for a scrapbooking organizer?)  It's something I had been on the lookout for for a while now as my crafting has grown over the summer and a rather unorganized pile had accumulated in the guest room.  It's huge and has tons of pockets and storage.  I was able to fit [nearly] everything inside.   Oh, the picture:  this golden armadillo was nearly a foot long.  The same booth also had another smaller armadillo figurine.  I laughed out loud when I saw them. You never know what you'll come across while thrifting!

...digging deeper now...

4.  More organization occurred this week.  In preparation for starting school, I decided that my study place needed to be a happy place.  So my cork board got a makeover with cute fabric, decorative tacks, and a little paint around the edges.  A calendar was installed.  And some [anticipated] much needed inspiration hung.  Also, pens, pencils, and markers were tested and organized.  And that strange wooden leaf-carved thing to the left of the lamp is a Glade Diffuser that I got for 98cents (after $5off coupon) this week.  It smells like pineapple.... my little tropical paradise. Okay, that's enough of that. :)

5.  I'm just thankful that I am not sick and have the energy to take care of my husband.  We rarely catch anything around here, especially Jesse.  It stinks feeling bad, and I think it's worse when you're not used to feeling that way.  Hopefully I won't be round two for this thing.  For now, I'll just be grateful for my health and glad that we have each other!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

High Five For Friday

I whole week has gone by since I posted last, so it's time for another High Five For Friday!  (Again, linking up with Lauren @ FromMyGreyDesk.)

1.  My cousin Carissa came to visit from Virginia, which gave us an excuse to go see all of the Walker family.  You never leave their house without lots of laughter.

2.  I found the most perfect piece of home decor at HomeGoods this week!  It took all of 2 seconds to make it into my buggy.

3.  I did some organizing this week.  Organizing makes me happy.

4.  We took an afternoon to browse around UAB's campus which made me super excited about starting optometry school (in 17 days!!!), but also made me miss the Auburn campus charm. :)

5.  One of everyone's highlights of the week is the Olympics!  I love the Olympics, especially watching the gymnasts.  I have no idea how they control their bodies while flying through the air like they do.  It's just amazing! And our ladies from USA are obviously the bomb.

High Five For Friday

It's Friday, y'all!  Everyone's favorite day of the week, right?  I have decided to start linking up with Lauren @ MyGreyDesk on Fridays for a series called "High Five For Fridays."  This should be a great way to share my top five things of the week with you guys, which I think is an awesome idea because some things are not worthy of a whole blog post by themselves.  This will also help me search through my week and realize that there are indeed (at least) 5 awesome things in my life - celebrating even the smallest moments that make me smile.

So, the top five highlights for this week look something like this:

1. Some Luvernians came to Bham last Saturday to watch The Dark Knight Rises in Imax, so we met them there.  This was the first movie we've seen on the Big Screen since... Up!  Yep, we're just cheap like that. :)  The movie was great, and we were thrilled to see some old friends. Afterwards we went to this little burger joint where we had a Nutella and Burnt Marshmallow Milkshake. (Say what?!)

2.  All summer I have wanted to make a map to mark the places we've been.  I wanted this to involve a cork board and map pins, but I could not find a map anywhere that was the size of my cork board.  Then, through the handy-dandy world of Pinterest, I found an even better idea than just using a map.  It took a great deal of patience to complete, but it was so worth it.

3.  I registered for Optometry School classes!  Which makes it finally seem real!  My classes include Ocular Anatomy, Geometric and Clinal Optics, and Physiology of the Eye, among others.  It's gonna be really awesome!  28 whole credit hours of awesome... I better fasten my seatbelt!

4.  Our new friends Mike and Kelsey introduced us to a fabulous place called Steel City Pops. Their slogan: "gourmet popsicles that will make your tastebuds sing."  Believe it.  We will definitely be returning (or trying not to return too often). By the time it was all over, the four of us had had strawberry fig, raspberry lemon, blueberry, green apple, chocolate, and avocado (surprisingly good).

5.  There is not a photo for this last one, but the biggest news of this week is that I became a recipient of a 4-year scholarship for optometry school!  We are super excited about this, because anything that helps reduce the amount of loans I will take out, we are welcoming with open arms!