As an xray tech, your markers are your lifeblood.

We cannot perform our jobs without markers.  How would we know if we xrayed the right or the left hand?

It would be chaos!

Today I did the unthinkable…I lost my Right marker.  I left it on a patient when I sent her back up to her room.

Gone.  Forever!

I was devastated.

When I told a fellow student about my unfortunate luck, she produced another R. “Here,” she told me, “I have an extra one.”

a matching set

Day 25 – tools of the trade

The heavens opened, the angels sung and she handed me her extra R.

Such a simple act of kindness absolutely made my day.

I’ve already blogged about how fun socks make me happy, so today’s entry won’t be a surprise.

I was wandering around the mall after work, waiting for Phil to pick me up, when I stepped into a store.  A store which can only be described as…Heaven.

Heaven with an entire wall of fun socks!

And they were $2/pair!!

Needless to say, I stocked (socked?) up.

nerd socks

Day 24 – New Sock Day

Awhile ago at work, a fellow student asked me if I ever wear “normal” socks, today I am 5 pairs closer to making sure that answer is always “Heck no!”.  Why be normal when you can wear NERD socks?

Pancake Tuesday is probably my favourite holiday.

It has many happy memories of me and my mom sprinkling sugar onto the pancakes as they come out of the pan and eating them with our hands.

So, all day, as I still tried to shake off my bad day yesterday, the only thing that kept me going was pancakes.

And then there was a delay on the bus getting home so I got off to walk.

And then I took a wrong turn and had to backtrack a couple of blocks.

And then I really had to pee so I stopped at a coffee shop.

And before I knew it I was over half an hour late getting home.

The whole walk home, I was imagining Phil getting frustrated that I was late (we had a food event to get to) and was having an imaginary fight with him about how he had no right to be mad at me because it wasn’t my fault.

So by the time I walked in, I was all worked and expecting the worst.

And what I got was exactly the opposite.

Phil was waiting for me, alright, and as soon as I got in the door, he hopped up and started making me pancakes.

I was so relieved that I made him turn away from the stove to hug me as I cried.

Day 23 – Pancakes for dinner!

A hug from my husband, a cathartic cry and pancakes for dinner. That is my recipe for a happy night.

Today was the kind of day where everything I touched turned to shit. If I could mess something up, that is exactly what I did.

And, of course, today was the first day working with my new clinical educator. So that was a great first impression.

“Here I am, your local, loveable idiot!”

After a day like that, what else is there to do but sit in front of the fire, crack a bottle of wine and eat cookies?

Day 22 – Letting go of a crappy day

I won’t wallow in the mistakes I made today. I’ll drink my wine and eat my cookies and then I’ll probably fall asleep in front of the fire.

And tomorrow, I’ll wake up and I’ll try to be just as loveable but, hopefully, not quite as idiotic.

My cat is old and kind of sickly. At his best, he’s diabetic and asthmatic, but the last few months have been more than that.

It started with some vomiting, then a pretty significant weight loss, then some more vomiting and an increase in asthma attacks.

We took him to the vet, who took all kinds of tests (and $400!) and couldn’t find what was wrong. Now we have to do a urinalysis to check his kidneys because he pees a lot. And he pees a lot because he drinks A LOT.

While I am quite concerned about his health, I am also concerned for our mental health. Because Maverick’s insatiable need for water is driving me crazy!

You see, even though we give him fresh water in his dish at least once a day, our cat is a diva and demands moving water.

So he sits in the bathtub and cries and whines for us to turn on the tap so that his sickly body can get the water it needs.

He does this the minute we wake up, the instant we get home, in the middle of The Walking Dead and about 3 hours into our REM cycle.

Even though he has a full bowl of water.

So, to preserve our sanity, we got our demanding, little diva a fountain for him to drink out of.

And he actually likes it!

Day 21 – a new gadget for my cat that he actually uses

Initially, he was hesitant – he tried drinking from one side of the dish first, then the other, before going straight for the spout.

And, though he still follows us to the bathroom when he thinks there might a chance the tap will get turned on, the fact that he has flowing water any time he wants it has has calmed his manic outbursts.

And a less manic household certainly makes me happy.

If I’m left to my own devices, I would sit at home, usually in front of the TV and not do much else.

Thankfully, I have a husband who wants more out of life than that.

And because of him, I get involved in so many new and exciting experiences.

Day 20 – This man gets me into some pretty cool situations

Today, we were judging burgers on a TV show. Seriously, how cool is that?

Being a food blogger, Phil gets a lot of opportunities to visit new restaurants, attend neat events, and be the area “expert” when food shows roll into town.

And, somehow, he always makes sure that I am involved as well.

This man makes my life so much happier than it would ever be without him.

It is stupid cold outside.

Like, horrendously, irrationally, absurdly cold.

Stupid winter.

As I was standing outside for many long, cold minutes, waiting for my bus I cursed the cold.  I was stomping my feet in my boots to keep my toes my warm, and I pulled my scarf farther up over my face to protect myself from the wind and I muttered curses upon Mother Nature.

But then I realized that as horrendously, irrationally, absurdly cold that it was, at least it was bearable.  And that is thanks to my warm, winter clothes.

wooly warmth

Day 19 – The necessities to keep warm on freezing cold days

As cold as I was, all bundled up in my winter wear, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like standing outside without it.