my life today..and the past few days

i feel totally horrible today with a really bad cough so i'm hoping that the cure is a good dose of the internet.
this past weekend we went to louisville to visit our friend Omar. AJ and Omar were in the Navy together which is how i got the pleasure of knowing him...he was AJ's best man in our wedding and we haven't seen him since then, he lived in florida for a while and now hawaii...rough life. Anyways, he previously lived in louisville and was visiting there for the weekend, which was pretty close for us to meet him for a visit!
the drive down was pretty easy except for the fact that i got pulled over after pulling out of a gas station without my lights on..duh beth. omar got us the hotel as our wedding gift and it was really nice with the exception of the cheerleading competition that was going on lol. we went out for a few hours friday night and then stayed up till 4am chatting and catching up and looking at old hilarious pictures and ordering pizza at 4am..yeah there's a place there that delivers that late!! :)
the next day we did some shopping and i got to visit with abby weaver (such a cute house!!) before going out to dinner and then to THE most amazing concert - Sondre Lerche and Brandi Carlile with the Louisville orchestra. they each sang their respective sets with the orchestra backing them up--it was soo awesome. We were really pumped for sondre but brandi carlile was totally amazing - if you haven't heard her i recommend looking her up, she has an absolutely amazing voice and sounded so great with the orchestra.
somewhere along the weekend i picked up a terrible lung rattling cough, but it was overall a really fun time :)

(not) skiing

So I want to write about last weekend before it's this weekend. :)
The plan was to go to Davis, West Virginia for cross country skiing with mom and dad, ellen and joe, mary k, jen, kennedy and liam. jen and kennedy are joe's sister and brother in law and liam is their adorable son. Joe booked an amazing cabin with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and best of all an outdoor hottub, which was really the main reason I was excited to go. Even though it took 5+ hours to get there on a Friday after work, when we finally got there I immediately opened a beer, got changed and got in the hottub. It was fabulous.
It was a really great weekend - so relaxing and so much fun with family. Jen is pregnant with her second little boy, so it was great to see he with her big belly :) I love big bellies :)
Saturday morning AJ and I made breakfast eggs and sausage...then we were off to cross country ski. Even though there was no snow anywhere around the cabin we were told that the resort makes their own snow and was kind of up in the mountains, so we would be fine. But when we got there....snow was still scarce. Liam was able to find small patches that they packed that were good enough for him but the rest of us decided to just hike and rent snow shoes in case we came across any snow. The hiking was up hills that people would normally ski down....meaning SO steep! We definitely got a workout. Snow shoeing was actually really fun, it was my first time - it's a great way to have your hiking not be interupted by the snow, there's small grippers on the bottom so you can just keep trucking. We ended up hiking up to the point where we were as high as other ski mountaintops!
Saturday night the boys cooked us an amazing valentines day dinner, almost burned down the porch with the grill, and another night in the hottub!
Sunday we did a small hike before heading home by way of Pittsburgh to suprise Shayna :)
It was so great seeing the Shaws, I miss them a lot and I can't believe how big Raminator is!!!
Home sweet home Sunday evening and off to another week at work
I'm really enjoying work a lot, it's fun to be able to say I like my job. It definitely has it's challenges, but it's fun :)

Happy 25th Aimee!!

Happy Birthday to my dear friend and neighbor Aimee - we hosted our first suprise dinner party last night to celebrate aim's b-day. Favorite moments? When we had all the lights off, aim walks in "hello...why are the lights off?" click, click, click, Nathan can't figure out how to turn the light on so we can say suprise! HAHA. So suspenseful! Also, new party game - playing facebook's 25 random things in person around in a circle. So much fun - I love you guys!



...still to come, pics from (not) skiing

dodgeball

I had a fabulous weekend (not) skiing with the fam...more on that later - but as is appropriate I wanted to point out that at dodgeball on Thursday I got not one but TWO people out. Apparently all I needed to do was post on my blog my goals and they will come true :)
I think that the girl I got out maybe was a little sad at how excited I was as I was cheering when I hit her, but she doesn't understand how fabulous it is to finally hit someone with the dang ball!!! Granted, she tried to catch it and missed, but still, I got her! The next out I caught another girls ball. Take that team Dirty Laundry :)

thursday

Things are good in life :) We had an inservice at work today and it got everyone energized to try new things and get excited about patients we couldn't figure out how to help previously. It's so empowering to be able to put ideas and things I've learned over the past 6 years into actions and put my name on it!

Dodgeball game tonight...yeah, I'm on a dodgeball team. I think our record is 2-3, but I'm sensing a turn-around...we did win last week after all! It's pretty hilarious and I am absolutely awful...In 5 games I haven't gotten one person out. Everytime I throw the ball someone catches it. It is my goal by the end of the season to get someone out (Other than noticing that they crossed midline and yelling "YOU WENT OVER THE LINE! YOU'RE OUT!!")

Tonight MaryK is coming home and me her and aj, mom and dad, ellen and joe, and joe's sister jen and her husband kennedy and their son Liam are all going skiing for the weekend in West Virginia. I am so excited to do a fun romantic Valentines day weekend. Really I can't wait for the hot tub, my aching muscles have been thinking about it all week. I'll post pics next week (of the skiing, not the hot tub) :-)

Happiness

I don't have much to say, just a long day at work...I was there from 8am to 6pm...but I realized driving home that I'm happy to do it. I like the people I work with, I'm doing work that I love...It is hard work and there are hard patients and there is going to be a lot to get used to...but I am happy there. Which is a great feeling :)

Clean house :)

What a fun weekend I have had!
Friday Ellen and Joe graced us with their presence on the way to Cleveland so we got to spend the evening with most of the family, minus Mary:( , and Aimee and Erin too. It was a fun way to wind down after my first week of work. Everything is still good on that front - there will be a lot to learn but everyone seems very nice and it's so amazing to finally be doing what I've been meant to do for so long. It's also great to be able to do things on my own and have help if I want it, but ultimately it's my choice what I do!

Saturday AJ and I went to Wooster to celebrate Patty's birthday and have a dinner party in her new kitchen! It was great seeing the Gortners and Fishleighs and Sheena and catching up. We played Cranium which is kind of an interactive board game with charades and pictionary and trivia all rolled into one -- so much fun!! I definitely recommend the game! It is so nice to be so close to lots of good friends and family again and to be able to do these kinds of things without much notice.

I've spent all day today cleaning and FINALLY unpacking some of the remaining boxes from the move. I'm about 3/4 of the way done, but I needed a break! It feels more like home to finally have pictures out and hanging and to not have boxes laying around. Well I guess there is still a toilet in my living room...haha but hopefully that will get moved to the bathroom this week! The bathroom is looking GREAT, Brian is doing a great job - the shower wall tile is just about done and so is the floor tile. I can't wait to see it all finished!

RIP flashcards

Last night our fabulous neighbors Aimee and Erin came over for dinner and a movie and a little celebration where we burned my hundreds of board study flashcards :) Oh what a fire... :)

Today at work I got to sign my name Elizabeth Jones, DPT -- hooray! And got a few of my own patients...there is soooooo much to learn about insurance stuff, but I'm hoping eventually it will all come to me.

Happy Happy Birthday Shayna!! Wish I could celebrate with you like last year!! Can't wait for our visit that has to happen eventually!

day 2 - still good :)

Day 2 I spent in Fairlawn at a different ProStep facility to meet my 'mentor' and learn about the paperwork and such. I wasn't sure how it was going to go because when I called him to see what time I should come he was like "who are you again?". However - he was really nice and a very good PT. I feel much more prepared to do the paperwork side of my job now and got lots of new ideas for my patients. I know my job is going to be really challenging, but that's why I started all of this so I'm pretty excited.

Happy Birthday to Patty today, I'm remembering many past birthday celebrations and missing college. Life will never be as carefree as it was in college, but I still feel really good about where my life is right now. Give it another week or so and I'll get into a good routine and I'll be like a real adult!

First day of work

Today I started work as my first day as a physical therapist - what a great feeling to be able to say that. It was great too that I didn't have to go in until 9:30 - a nice ease into work. I don't know if it is good luck or bad luck to have my employment anniversary on groundhogs day. I hope that doesn't mean I have to relive today over and over. Ha- not that it was bad in any way, just lots of paperwork. Also it sucked because I can't treat patients until I get my TB test read on Wednesday. So tomorrow I go to the Fairlawn clinic to meet my mentor and do some shadowing and learn paperwork and such. Anyways - on the other hand - everyone was very nice and excited to meet me and have me which was nice. Our friend Daniel works there and he was gracious to teach me as much as possible and I gobbled it all up. It's silly to think that just because I've been studying like crazy and been in school that I know it all about that facility -- so there's definitely a lot left to learn.

In other news - go steelers ! what a fun superbowl and it was fun to be with friends and family and neighbors for quite a comeback game. It made me miss Pittsburgh - although it is probably quite obnoxious there today. Although I think that I must have been bad luck for the team because they won the superbowl the year before I moved there and the year after I left! I'm sure they're glad to lose me. Don't get me wrong - if the Browns play the Steelers I'm for the brownies every time. I just like to see a good team win and there's really no way you could live in Pittsburgh and not catch on to the contagious energy that is the steelers.

Although it will be a while before my first paycheck it is such a relief to know that although I didn't do much today, at least I made some money and I will soon be able to put to work everything I've worked for for so long!! Does anyone know if the groundhog saw his shadow?