4th of July Adventures or Lack There Of...

I have never seen a yellow lily. I saw one at the good old PDX temple and had to get a pic.

So here it is 4th of July weekend. A day where the pharmacy is closed. A day where I could enjoy a 3 day weekend. And even better is that July 2 I only had one patient. So I only worked until noon Thursday. In my old life it would have been the most wonderful and beautiful thing to happen. I would have been able to be off to whatever adventure I had planned. Well this year, I talked to Dan about this weekend. I said I was going to the coast and asked if he wanted to come along. He said yes lets go camping though. So I thought that was a wonderful idea. Since I am new to the area and am pretty clueless about how life goes here in the Northwest, I asked Dan if we needed to reserve a camping spot or something when we planned this 6 weeks ago. He said no we would just find a spot on the beach and camp there. So I was looking forward to this weekend. I planned meals, I planned clothes...I do not have a plethora of beach wear having never lived near a beach. So imagine my sadness when Dan gets his work schedule and he is scheduled 1:30 pm to 9:30 pm every day Wed-Sun. He did not get it off work. Now I do not want to play the blame game so I am choosing to believe that he thought he had the time off but it did not happen. Whatever the reason whatever the cause-my husband is working all weekend. I am quite sad about it. I know it is my responsibility to have my own fun. I am not going camping. I am not going anywhere. I feel so sad I want to get some good ice cream and potato chips and sit on my couch with movies. Well here I am....who knows if I will have fun or not or if I will just go mow the lawn. . . . . . . .

PS..Rob Thomas newest CD does not disappoint. I know you were all worried about it;) So the cover is scary what is Rob thinking? I am not sure but I listen to it without looking at him...plus I downloaded the cd and so I dont have the orig cd and album cover.

ME :)

A couple weeks ago my dental office took pictures for our website. Here are the two of me I liked and then just for fun the one for the office. We have not made the final decision so if you like one better than the other let me know.

I hope that everyone had a great Fathers Day. I was able to call my dad and talk to him for 8 minutes. Which is a marathon for my father. It was good. I miss him so much. Well hope your week is good.

Best News Ever!!

Once again Rob Thomas has captured my heart and soul.....new cd to be out June 30. You can listen to the cd here....How does he do it? How does he rip my heart out? How can lyrics rip through my chest and touch my soul?

The World

The World is parked in Portland. It is a very large cruise ship. Personally I am surprised it made it up the river. Who knew the Willamette River was so deep; and that the bridges could raise high enough for this mammoth to get through.

It is 6 stories above the walk. As you can see from this picture it extends far below the sidewalk.

There was an employee who was talking to a man on the sidewalk about the inhabitants of this cruise ship. Apparently there are 137 people on board right now. These lucky few get to live on the ship. It cruises around the world (hence the name...The World). What an adventurous life! It would be so wonderful to be able to visit places all over the world and experience different cultures.

This week all I have experienced in some Vietnamese food. Kym the dental assistant at my office took me to this restaurant with the worst service in the world but it had the BEST Salt & Pepper Squid. It was amazing! There were big chunks like calamari and then there were little squiggly ones which were the legs of little squids. They were so crunch and delicious. I dreamt about them all night. I am such a fan! It was wonderful. I also had Lemongrass pork chops with vermicelli noodles and some Pho soup--it is thin slices of beef put in raw in this boiling water. The water is so hot it cooks the thin layers of meat. There are vermicelli (rice) noodles, basil, sprouts, and other amazing flavors and spices! It was so delicious. I am such a fan of this food. It just might by my favorite. So while I am not cruising the world on a super sweet ship I can enjoy some really good food here in good old PDX!

PABA Strikes Again!

I was working at Albertsons Pharmacy the other day and it was slow. So I decided to take advantage of the time by reading a CE article and then taking the quiz to get a CE credit--which I need for my license. I choose one on skin and sun care. I am reading along and they start talking about PABA. For those of you who do not know what PABA is here is a link for a quick run down.

As I read the article I had flashbacks to hygiene school and Dr Soderberg teaching us Dental Meds and going on and on about PABA and how it interferes with the metabolization of some local anesthetics...or something. I cannot quite remember. So I laughed. My girls in school and I would laugh about PABA and how it kept popping up our readings and study questions. So years later I am still haunted by PABA. How is that for ironic?!

So here I am cleaning teeth like I do and This man had not had a cleaning for several years but is a daily flosser. So his lingual calc had cuts in it separating the interproximal it cracked me up. anyway he had his third molars. #1 and #16 to be specific. I am cleaning #1 and I can barely see what I am feeling. I take a look and I see that there is a lot of buccal recession and so I start very gently with the Cavitron and bam off comes the Great Wall of China! This is the largest chunk of calculus--aka tarter I have ever removed from a mouth whole! I had to take a picture! This pic is of the buccal.

This pic is of the inside-part touching the tooth. You can see the black ring there. It was so awesome! My dr laughed at me taking this picture and the dental assistant was giving me tips to help me get a clear picture, she also offered to bag it and sterilize it-not sure how it would have survived the Statim. We are such dental nerds!

And I did throw it away....

A rose by any other name...

Well, I live in Portland, the Rose City (view from Rose Garden). The past week has been the Rose Festival. Last night Dan and I went to the Starlight Parade. It started at 8:30 pm. While I was working at Albertson's Pharmacy a patient came in at 9:30 am and said she was on her way downtown to save the spot for the parade. I was so glad I had done a little research and learned that the parade route went right by my office. So I asked my dr if Dan and I could come after hours and watch the parade from the 7th floor office windows. He was cool with it. So we did. It was quite fun!

There was a run just before the parade. Here are a group of bees. There was everything from Pac Man, ghosts and the white balls Pac Man eats. It was so funny. There were ballerinas, spiderman, wonderwoman, ninja turtles, Nixon, Showers (like from Karate Kid) . It was quite entertaining.

Then there was the parade. Everything was full of lights and color. Here is a picture from the John Deere float. I posted this in honor of my nephew Ty.

There was tons of marching bands, the whole storm tropper, darth vader and star wars crew, great floats etc. It was quite fun.

Dan peeking out the window...

Today Dan took me to the Rose Garden. There is a whole garden of different varieties of roses. Here is a mini rose. See how tiny it is.

Then there is this huge one.

Great pink ones

Lovely lavender ones

And fun striped ones. It was very beautiful and full of aroma. I loved it.

So for my good news this week....I have a CT scan scheduled for Friday for my abdomen. AND I got released as nursery worker in my ward!!! I am so excited. I now am RS chorister and on the Enrichment committee. I love it. I love RS! I could not be happier with this! I do not have any experience with leading music so it will be a learning experience!

A Good Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day everyone! As many of you know today is my favorite day of the year. It is truly my favorite holiday. You may also remember that I have started the tradition of going to Yellowstone with my siblings and going to Malad Cemetery. Well I was not able to do that this year and my heart aches for it. But today ended pretty good.

It started off with me trying to sleep in. I made it until 7:44 am. I got up and started my day. Dan was still sleeping. He is a good sleeper in. But to my surprise he got up shortly after me. I had assumed he would sleep for several more hours and made me a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Dan who is lactose intolerant does not prefer cereal. Since it is Memorial Day and he is a veteran I made him whatever he wanted. I made Danish pancakes (ball pancakes) for added specialness I put a little strawberry jam in the middle of each ball. He loved them.

Then Dan proceeded to work on a paper for one of his classes. I did the dishes, wrote in my journal, read my scriptures, watched Family Fued and then Dan asks me if I was going to get around to mowing the lawn. I flipped out. I was so mad. So I go out there and mow the lawn and rake up all the grass. My feet were in flip flops and now they are green. So I was upset because today is my favorite day of the year and I was not having fun. So I decided I am responsible for my own happiness. I then washed my feet and told Dan goodbye and left. (Note Mt Hood in the distance of this picture--it is 5,000 feet above sea level which is impressive since Portland is about 300 feet above sea level).

I ended up going to a mall. I got some lipgloss and some new shirts. By now it has been about 2 hours and I am not mad anymore. I text Dan and ask him if I can take him to lunch. We go to lunch and then come home and take a nap. It was lovely.

Then Dan went to work. I went on the hunt for Reef flip flops and a cemetery to honor the military men and women. I found the Willamette National Cemetery. It had tons of soldiers from each war buried here. There was a lot of traffic which was touching to me. I am glad people came to honor their loved ones. I just walked around until I was done. I took tons of pics. Here are a few. There are flags and more flags and then some more flags. It was beautiful. I am so honored to have a husband who serves our country with such honor and pride. I am proud of my brother Dave and am so thankful for his service. I am glad for all men and women who sacrifice their lives for my freedoms. I am thankful for one pharmacy technician who left with his unit of the National Guard just last week for a tour in Afghanistan--I got his job. It is an honor to have served our country.

While I was taking pictures Dan called and the A/C is broken at work. So I ran and got slushies from DQ for him and the girls he was working with. Then I attempted to go home. The freeway going into the city was packed with trucks, boats, campers, 4 wheelers. Everyone is returning home from this wonderful weekend. It has truly been a wonderful weekend. I am so glad I made it a memorial Memorial Day.

Just to let you know Portland is having the Rose Festival for the next 2 weeks and 3 weekends. There are tons of events planned. Friday was the opening night and Dan and I went downtown to see the fireworks which were some of the best I have ever seen. It was wonderful. There is a little waterfront village set up with carnival rides and corn dogs etc. It was free for Military and their families-just to get in not the rides and food etc. So we enjoyed ourselves. Then we attempted to ride the Max (light rail) home. Everyone was doing the same thing. It took 5 trains before we got smooshed onto one. It was amazing I felt like a Japanese commuter where they have workers with white gloves shoving people in tighter and tighter. We were very smooshed into the train. We were full body contact with everyone. It was quite the adventure for me. Dan was laughing at me and my uncomfortableness. Luckily he tried to be the only one pressing up against me. I have such a good hearted husband.

I also spoke in church on Sunday. It was a fairly good talk if I do say so myself. I had the hardest time writing it. So at 6 am Sunday morning I am at the computer and I get 3 pages single spaced. I think that is enough for 15 min. I did not time it. Well I did the whole thing in 8 minutes. I started rambling to fill up the time since there was only one other speaker. I make it to 15 by rambling on about teeth. The topic was how we can fortify our lives--so I nerded out about how to fortify our teeth. Pretty lame but I think it worked. I was laughing at myself at a pulpit talking about teeth.

I also watched a movie called 'Lost in Austen' it is a different version of Pride and Prejudice. It was hilarious. If you get a chance to rent it do it. It is a delightful rendition of the beloved Collin Firth classic!! Anyway, it has been a wonderful weekend and I hope you all enjoyed this loveliest of holidays.